...without heavy lift. Jon Goff lays out a potential lunar architecture. I don't think that a lunar orbit is practical for the depot, though, if you want to have any-time access from the lunar surface. I think that, even with the time and velocity penalty, EML1 is a better location.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:26 AMFirst, over at the Gray Lady, he has an editorial on NASA's cost-overrun culture:
...the Mars Science Laboratory is only the latest symptom of a NASA culture that has lost control of spending. The cost of the James Webb Space Telescope, successor to the storied Hubble, has increased from initial estimates near $1 billion to almost $5 billion. NASA's next two weather satellites, built for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have now inflated to over $3.5 billion each! The list goes on: N.P.P., S.D.O., LISA Pathfinder, Constellation and more. You don't have to know what the abbreviations and acronyms mean to get it: Our space program is running inefficiently, and without sufficient regard to cost performance. In NASA's science directorate alone, an internal accounting in 2007 found over $5 billion in increases since 2003.
As Allen Thompson points out in comments over at Space Politics, one could simply substitute names and nyms of (black) programs here, and write exactly the same piece about NRO. But I'm not sure that I'd agree with Dr. Stern's characterization that it is a NASA culture that has "lost control of spending." Was there ever any golden age in which the NASA culture had control of spending? After all, the agency was born in the panic of the Cold War, and developed a cost-(plus)-is-no-object mentality from its very beginning. The operative saying during Apollo was "waste anything but time." Sure, there have been occasional instances of programs coming in under schedule and within budget, but as Dr. Stern points out, the managers of those programs are often punished by having their programs slashed to cover overruns.
No, there is not now, and never has been a cost-conscious culture at NASA, for all the reasons that he describes. And this is the biggest one:
Congress should turn from the self-serving protection of local NASA jobs to an ethic of responsible government that delivers results.
Yes, it should. Well said. And with all the hope and change in the air, I'm sure that this will be the year that it finally happens.
OK, you can all stop laughing now. My sides hurt, too.
Unfortunately, that is not going to happen until space accomplishments become much more nationally important than they currently are, from a political standpoint. For most on the Hill, the NASA budget is first and foremost a jobs program for their states or districts. We can't even control this kind of pork barrelery on the Defense budget (including NRO), which is actually a real federal responsibility, with lives at stake if we fail. Why should we think that we can fix it for civil space? Only when we are no longer reliant on federal budgets will we start to make serious progress, and get more efficiency in the program.
Speaking of which, Dr. Stern also has a piece in The Space Review on how NASA can make itself more relevant to the populace and its representatives in DC:
The coming new year presents an opportunity to reemphasize the immediate societal and economic returns NASA generates, so that no one asks, "How do space efforts make a tangible difference in my life?"
The new administration could accomplish this by combining NASA's space exploration portfolio with new and innovative initiatives that address hazards to society, make new applications of space, and foster new industries.Such new initiatives should include dramatically amplifying our capability to monitor the changing Earth in every form, from climate change to land use to the mitigation of natural disasters. Such an effort should also accelerate much needed innovation in aircraft and airspace system technologies that would save fuel, save travelers time, and regain American leadership in the commercial aerospace sector. And it should take greater responsibility for mitigating the potential hazards associated with solar storms and asteroid impacts.
So, too, a more relevant NASA should be charged to ignite the entrepreneurial human suborbital and orbital spaceflight industry. This nascent commercial enterprise promises to revolutionize how humans use spaceflight and how spaceflight benefits the private sector economy as fundamentally as the advent of satellites affected the communications industry.
As he notes, this needn't mean a larger NASA budget--just a better-spent one. I particularly like the last graf above, obviously. I don't agree, though, that it is NASA's job to monitor the earth. It's an important job, but it's not really in NASA's existing charter, and I fear that if it takes on this responsibility, it will further dilute the efforts on where its focus should be, which is looking outward, not down. It should be left to the agency that is actually responsible for such things (or at least part of them, and expanding its purview wouldn't be as much of a stretch)--NOAA. If, for administrative reasons, NOAA is viewed as incapable of developing earth-sensing birds (though they couldn't do much worse than NASA and NRO have recently), NASA could still manage this activity as a "contractor," but it shouldn't come out of their budget--it should be funded by Commerce.
Anyway, I think that we could do a lot worse than Dr. Stern as the next NASA administrator. We certainly done a lot worse.
[Early afternoon update]
The NYT piece is being discussed at NASAWatch, where John Mankins has a useful comment.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:30 AMMark Whittington continues (embarrassingly) to do self-therapy on line about his imaginary "Internet Rocketeers Club."
I guess it's cheaper than a real therapist. Though it doesn't seem to be working, as the uncited delusions about this non-existent and nebulous organization persist.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:05 PMTalk at NASA about "human rating" an Ares V?
The decision to undertake the study reverses a major decision NASA took after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and subsequent accident investigation, that crew and cargo would be launched on separate vehicles. The Ares I, with its solid rocket booster first-stage and the new upper stage powered by the J-2X engine, was selected to orbit the Orion crew exploration vehicle.
That decision never made as much sense as everyone thought it did. It was one of the false lessons "learned" from Shuttle. And, as always, it raises the issue of what "human rating" really means. Generally, given the way the requirements often end up getting waived for NASA's own vehicles, but not for other players, like the "Visiting Vehicle" rules for ISS, it's simply an arbitrary barrier to entry for commercial providers.
[Monday morning update]
I should clarify that this discussion is about launch only. For in-space operations, it does make sense to separate passengers from cargo, and it probably makes sense to have robotic freighters as well, due to the long trip times and lack of need to handle emergencies with crew.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:33 AMAs Clark notes, this isn't directly related to space transportation regulation, but you can see it coming:
The proposed regulation, titled the Large Aircraft Security Program, would require owners of those aircraft to obtain permission from TSA to operate their own personal aircraft every time they carry passengers. Additionally, all flight crews would be required to undergo fingerprinting and a background check, all passengers would have to be vetted against the government's terrorist watch lists, and numerous security requirements would be imposed on airports serving these "large" aircraft. EAA adamantly opposes this regulation and urges all members to respond to TSA...
"...We thank the TSA for agreeing with the many industry group and EAA members' requests for an extension, providing an additional two months to study and react to the proposal," said Doug Macnair, EAA vice president of government relations. "This proposal would be an unprecedented restriction on the freedom of movement for private U.S. citizens. It would also, for the first time, require governmental review and authority before a person could operate his/her own personal transportation conveyance.
First they came after the private aircraft pilots, and I said nothing, because I wasn't a private aircraft pilot.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:13 AMIrene Klotz has an interview with the (hopefully) outgoing NASA administrator:
I would be willing to continue on as administrator under the right circumstances. The circumstances include a recognition of the fact that two successive Congresses -- one Republician and one Democrat -- have strongly endorsed, hugely endorsed, the path NASA is on: Finish the station, retire the shuttle, return to the moon, establish a base on the moon, look outward to the near-Earth asteroids and on to Mars. That's the path we're on. I think it's the right path.
I think for 35 years since the Nixon administration we've been on the wrong path. It took the loss of Columbia and Admiral Gehman's (Columbia Accident Investigation Board) report highlighting the strategic issues to get us on the right path. We're there. I personally will not be party to taking us off that path. Someone else may wish to, but I do not.
What Dr. Griffin doesn't understand is that, in his disastrous architecture choices, and decision to waste money developing a new unneeded launch system, it is he himself who has taken us off that path.
I also have to say that I think that this particular criticism by Keith Cowing is (as is often the case) over the top and ridiculous. It's perfectly clear what he meant--that with all of the other problems facing the country right now, Shuttle retirement per se isn't going to be a top priority. But it is an issue that will no doubt be dealt with by the transition team.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:02 AMRob Coppinger says that they are in fact, a fantasy (though he doesn't explain why they require "unobtainium").
Clark Lindsey ably responds. I think that there are several problems with Rob's thesis, but don't have the time to get into it right now. I will agree with him that there is no current market for them. I hope, though, that (by the same standard) he would agree that there was no market for launch vehicles in 1956. So I fail to see the point.
[Late morning update]
Jon Goff dissects Rob's piece more thoroughly.
As for Jon's question about when he started thinking about depots, it may have been at Space Access in (I think) 2005, when I gave an impromptu talk on the subject, as a result of my work with Dallas and Boeing on CE&R (work that was completely ignored/rejected when Mike Griffin came in and canned Craig Steidle).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:58 AMFrom Henry Spencer:
In its early years, the only form of manned space exploration it favoured was an (international) Mars expedition. All other ideas that involved humans in space were counterproductive and undesirable, to hear the Planetary Society tell it.
This obsession with Mars was a bad idea then, and it's a bad idea now. However, some of the reasons advanced against it strike me as poor - sufficiently poor that they weaken attempts to argue for a more systematic and balanced space effort.An exclusive focus on Mars does have one thing going for it. If you believe that any resumption of manned space exploration will inevitably end the way Apollo did, with follow-on programmes cancelled and flight-ready hardware consigned to museums as soon as the programme's first objective is met, then choosing the most interesting single destination makes sense.
However . . . haven't we learned anything from doing that once? To me, it makes far more sense to try to build a programme that won't crash and burn as soon as it scores its first goal. That means systematically building capabilities and infrastructure, and doing first things first even if they aren't the most exciting parts.
Unfortunately, we don't seem to have the societal patience necessary to do the unexciting parts, at least if the government is paying for it. Which is why we have to get private industry going ASAP.
[Early afternoon update]
I mentioned yesterday that Paul Spudis wasn't impressed with Lou Friedman's thoughts. He's similarly unimpressed with The Planetary Society's new roadmap.
[Another update a few minutes later]
Jeff Plescia has been leaving this message in comments at various places (I've seen it at NASA Watch and Space Politics]
As a participant in the workshop sponsored by the Planetary Society at Stanford University in February, 2008, I feel obliged to make some comments with respect to what is said in portions of the Planetary Society document "Beyond the Moon A New Roadmap for Human Space Exploration."
Page 5 contains the statement:
"Among the conclusions of this group is that 'the purpose of sustained human exploration is to go to Mars and beyond,' and that a series of intermediate destinations, each with its own intrinsic value, should be established as steps toward that goal. The consensus statements and viewpoints expressed by this group of experts form the basis for the principles and recommendations contained in this document."This statement is a blatant and intentionally dishonest misrepresentation of the recommendations and sentiments of the group.
We had extensive discussions about what the conclusion of the workshop might be. While the conclusion reported in the Roadmap was clearly the predisposition of several members of the group, particularly the organizers, it was definitively and clearly not the consensus of the group as a whole. In fact, when these words (or words to the same effect) were suggested, the group clearly indicated to the organizers that they should not be used because they were inaccurate. However, the organizers chose to ignore the group's wishes at the end of the workshop, at the International Astronautical Congress and in the Roadmap in portraying the results of the workshop. This has occurred despite the fact that members of the group pointed out after the workshop press release that such statements were inappropriate and incorrect.
For what it's worth. Thanks, Lou.
Maybe it's like the climate change "consensus," from which many scientists are now running.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:36 AMOne of the astronauts lost a toolbag during EVA servicing:
Piper noticed that one of the two grease guns in her bag had exploded, spreading the dark, dry grease all over her camera and gloves. The grease, called Braycote, is a durable, non-flamable lubricant tough enough to handle the extreme temperatures and vacuum of space. It is needed to lubricate the cranky joint which has been grinding for more than a year.
In the midst of trying to clean up the mess, the bag of tools floated away from her. Views from a camera mounted on her helmet show it drifting slowly off towards the back of the station, some 200 miles above the earth."Oh, great," she exclaimed in frustration.
I assume that by "exploded" they just mean "escaped under pressure," and not literally a supersonic combustion.
A truly spacefaring nation would have a routine means of going and retrieving something like this. Instead, it becomes one more piece of space junk to track until it eventually enters the atmosphere, probably months or years from now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:24 PM...to be the public's representative for space exploration?
As Paul Spudis (who I recently discovered has a blog or two) notes in comments over there, it's a deadly combination of insufferable arrogance and unsurpassed ignorance. Though I think he gives Lou too much credit when he calls it an accomplishment. It comes naturally to him.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:58 AMIs that really the loss-of-crew probability for an ISS trip with Ares/Orion?
I could buy that number for a lunar mission, but if that's just for a crew changeout, they seem to be managing to spend billions on a new launch vehicle that is less safe than Shuttle.
How could it be? As one of the commenters speculates over there, they may have pulled a lot of redundancy out to save weight when they ran out of margin on both the launcher and the capsule. Also, as I think I've mentioned before, it may be that they've figured out that the Launch Abort System actually adds more risk than it removes, given the dozens of hazards it introduces, over half of which can happen on an otherwise nominal mission.
Anyway, if true, it's just one more reason to abort this monstrosity now, before it wastes any more time or money.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:44 AMRob Coppinger has some suggestions to the Obama administration for NASA policy. I agree that Ares I should be mercy killed ASAP, but I disagree that we need an Ares anything else. We need to stop focusing on heavy lift and start developing the capability to store propellant on orbit, which will allow us to launch escape missions of arbitrarily large mass.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:51 AMWhich in fact I'll probably be offering in the next days and weeks, since I actually know several of them quite well.
If you want to know how to get the VSE back on track, you could do a lot worse than to simply go back and reread the Aldridge Commission Report. Mike Griffin doesn't seem to have done so, or if he did, he largely ignored its recommendations, with the one exception being developing a heavy lifter (which was the one main thing that the commission got wrong).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:58 AMJack Schmitt has resigned from The Planetary Society over their destinational dispute. As I noted the other day, to argue about destinations at all is to miss the point.
I agree with most of his points, other than the need for heavy lift. And I absolutely agree that making it an international venture would be the kiss of death, at least in terms of meeting schedules or making it affordable, other than setting up propellant depots that can take deliveries from a wide range of sources, including international and commercial. But the Mars hardware and expeditions should be national in nature. We need competition, not "cooperation."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:36 AMAlan Boyle has a good roundup of the current state of play, with lots of links. As I've noted before, people who merely argue about destinations are missing the point.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:47 AMI was thinking about driving up to watch it (who knows how many night launches are remaining?) but couldn't work up the gumption for it. Patricia was up in Orlando yesterday, and could have stayed later, but I would have had to drive up and meet her somewhere, and then we'd have come back separately, and gotten in late. But I did see it from the house (first time I've ever done that). Now I know where the trajectory is, and where to look the next time, if it's clear. But I doubt if I'd see anything past SRB burnout in the daytime. Even at night, the main engines were pretty dim from 150 miles away. Though, of course, it was also heading northeast, away from us.
Jonathan Gewirtz took a shot of it from downtown Miami (which is actually a couple hundred miles away, being fifty miles or so south of me). The Hubble flight should be a better view, since it will launch due east.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:04 AM"...I know how to fail. Just pick the wrong people, and you are doomed."
Yes, at this point, I'd say you're a poster boy for that bit of acquired wisdom.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:55 AM...but...the Moon is to Mars as the Canary Islands were to the Americas.
Discuss.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:29 PMNot for me, but for Jon Goff (though John Hare has been picking up the slack with a lot of out-of-the-box technical posts). Two words: shock diamonds.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:21 PMWith a new administration coming in, there's a lot of speculation about potential shifts in civil space policy, ranging from whether or not Mike Griffin will stay on as administrator, and if so, who will replace him, to whether or not we have the right architecture to achieve the outgoing president's Vision for Space Exploration, or even whether the VSE itself is still valid. Yesterday, the Planetary Society seemed to convert itself to the Mars Society, with its statement that we should bypass the moon, so now we can't even decide what the goal is.
I'm having a sense of deja vu, because we're rerunning the debate we have every few years over space policy, and as always, we are arguing from a set of assumptions that are assumed to be shared, but in many cases are not. I find that the longer I blog, the harder it is for me to come up with new things to say, particularly about space policy. Almost five years ago (jeez, how the time flies--was it really that long ago that we celebrated the Wright Centenary?), I wrote a piece in frustration on this subject. Sadly, nothing has really changed. A vision isn't a destination. I'll replay the golden oldie, because I think that it might be useful to guide the current debate, assuming anyone of consequence reads it.
Jason Bates has an article on the current state of space policy development. As usual, it shows a space policy establishment mired in old Cold-War myths, blinkered in its view of the possibilities.NASA needs a vision that includes a specific destination. That much a panel of space advocates who gathered in Washington today to celebrate the 100th anniversary of powered flight could agree on. There is less consensus about what that destination should be.Well, if I'd been on that panel, the agreement would have been less than unanimous. I agree that NASA needs a vision, but I think that the focus on destination is distracting us from developing one, if for no other reason than it's probably not going to be possible to get agreement on it.
As the article clearly shows, some, like Paul Spudis, think we should go back to the moon, and others, like Bub Zubrin, will settle for no less than Mars, and consider our sister orb a useless distraction from the true (in his mind) goal. We are never going to resolve this fundamental, irreconciliable difference, as long as the argument is about destinations.
In addition, we need to change the language in which we discuss such things. Dr. Spudis is quoted as saying:
"For the first time in the agency's history there is no new human spaceflight mission in the pipeline. There is nothing beyond" the international space station."Fred Singer of NOAA says:
The effort will prepare humans for more ambitious missions in the future, Singer said. "We need an overarching goal," he said. "We need something with unique science content, not a publicity stunt."Gary Martin, NASA's space architect declares:
NASA's new strategy would use Mars, for example, as the first step to future missions rather than as a destination in itself, Martin said. Robotic explorers will be trailblazers that can lay the groundwork for deeper space exploration, he said."...human spaceflight mission..."
"...unique science..."
"...space exploration..."
This is the language of yesteryear. This debate could have occurred, and in fact did occur, in the early 1970s, as Apollo wound down. There's nothing new here, and no reason to think that the output from it will result in affordable or sustainable space activities.
They say that we need a vision with a destination, but it's clear from this window into the process that, to them, the destination is the vision. It's not about why are we doing it (that's taken as a given--for "science" and "exploration"), nor is it about how we're doing it (e.g., giving NASA multi-gigabucks for a "mission" versus putting incentives into place for other agencies or private entities to do whatever "it" is)--it's all seemingly about the narrow topic of where we'll send NASA next with our billions of taxpayer dollars, as the scientists gather data while we sit at home and watch on teevee.
On the other hand, unlike the people quoted in the article, the science writer Timothy Ferris is starting to get it, as is Sir Martin Rees, the British Astronomer Royal, though both individuals are motivated foremost by space science.
At first glance, the Ferris op-ed seems just another plea for a return to the moon, but it goes beyond "missions" and science, and discusses the possibility of practical returns from such a venture. Moreover, this little paragraph indicates a little more "vision," than the one from the usual suspects above:
As such sugarplum visions of potential profits suggest, the long-term success of a lunar habitation will depend on the involvement of private enterprise, or what Harrison H. Schmitt, an Apollo astronaut, calls "a business-and-investor-based approach to a return to the Moon to stay." The important thing about involving entrepreneurs and oil-rig-grade roughnecks is that they can take personal and financial risks that are unacceptable, as a matter of national pride, when all the explorers are astronauts wearing national flags on their sleeves.
One reason aviation progressed so rapidly, going from the Wright brothers to supersonic jets in only 44 years, is that individuals got involved ? it wasn't just governments. Charles A. Lindbergh didn't risk his neck in 1927 purely for personal gratification: he was after the $25,000 Orteig Prize, offered by Raymond Orteig, a New York hotelier, for the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris. Had Lindbergh failed, his demise, though tragic, would have been viewed as a daredevil's acknowledged jeopardy, not a national catastrophe. Settling the Moon or Mars may at times mean taking greater risks than the 2 percent fatality rate that shuttle astronauts now face.Sir Martin's comments are similar:
The American public's reaction to the shuttle's safety record - two disasters in 113 flights - suggests that it is unacceptable for tax-funded projects to expose civilians even to a 2% risk. The first explorers venturing towards Mars would confront, and would surely willingly accept, far higher risks than this. But they will never get the chance to go until costs come down to the level when the enterprise could be bankrolled by private consortia.
Future expeditions to the moon and beyond will only be politically and financially feasible if they are cut-price ventures, spearheaded by individuals who accept that they may never return. The Columbia disaster should motivate Nasa to set new goals for manned space flight - to collaborate with private groups to develop a more cost-effective and inspiring programme than we've had for the past 30 years.Yes, somehow we've got to break out of this national mentality that the loss of astronauts is always unacceptable, or we'll never make any progress in space. The handwringing and inappropriate mourning of the Columbia astronauts, almost eleven months ago, showed that the nation hasn't yet grown up when it comes to space. Had we taken such an attitude with aviation, or seafaring, we wouldn't have an aviation industry today, and in fact, we'd not even have settled the Americas. To venture is to risk, and the first step of a new vision for our nation is the acceptance of that fact. But I think that Mr. Ferris is right--it won't be possible as long as we continue to send national astronauts on a voyeuristic program of "exploration"--it will have to await the emergence of the private sector, and I don't see anything in the "vision" discussions that either recognizes this, or is developing policy to help enable and implement it.
There's really only one way to resolve this disparity of visions, and that's to come up with a vision that can encompass all of them, and more, because the people who are interested in uses of space beside and beyond "science," and "exploration," and "missions," are apparently still being forced to sit on the sidelines, at least to judge by the Space.com article.
Here's my vision.
I have a vision of hundreds of flights of privately-operated vehicles going to and from low earth orbit every year, reducing the costs of doing so to tens of dollars per pound. Much of their cargo is people who are visiting orbital resorts, or even cruise ships around the moon, but the important things is that it will be people paying to deliver cargo, or themselves, to space, for their own purposes, regardless of what NASA's "vision" is.
At that price, the Mars Society can raise the money (perhaps jointly with the National Geographic Society and the Planetary Society) to send their own expedition off to Mars. Dr. Spudis and others of like mind can raise the funds to establish lunar bases, or even hotels, and start to learn how to operate there and start tapping its resources. Still others may decide to go off and visit an asteroid, perhaps even take a contract from the government to divert its path, should it be a dangerous one for earthly inhabitants.
My vision for space is a vast array of people doing things there, for a variety of reasons far beyond science and "exploration." The barrier to this is the cost of access, and the barrier to bringing down the cost of access is not, despite pronouncements to the contrary by government officials, a lack of technology. It's a lack of activity. When we come up with a space policy that addresses that, I'll consider it visionary. Until then, it's just more of the same myopia that got us into the current mess, and sending a few astronauts off to the Moon, or Mars, for billions of dollars, isn't going to get us out of it any more than does three astronauts circling the earth in a multi-decabillion space station.
There's no lack of destinations. What we continue to lack is true vision.
All that is old is new again.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:09 PMThat's the recommendation of the Planetary Society.
I don't necessarily have a problem with deferring the Moon, since NASA seems determined to go to the moon in the most cost-ineffective and unsustainable manner possible. What chaps my drawers is deferring the development of critical infrastructure essential to affordable access to LEO and beyond.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:34 PMGeorge Abbey as NASA administrator? If that were to happen, it would be one of the worst effects of the Obama win, at least for those who care about our future in space.
[Update early afternoon]
Here was my take on the Abbey/Lane paper at the time it was first published, over three years ago:
I'm reading the space policy paper by (former JSC Director George) Abbey and (former Clinton Science Advisor Neal) Lane.It gets off on the wrong foot, in my opinion, right in the preface:
Space exploration on the scale envisioned in the president's plan is by necessity a cooperative international venture.I know that this is an article of faith with many, but simply stating it doesn't make it an incontrovertible fact. In reality, this is a political decision. If it became important to the nation to become spacefaring, and seriously move out into space, there's no reason that we couldn't afford to do it ourselves. The amount of money that we spend on space is a trivially small part of the discretionary budget, and even smaller part of the total federal budget, and a drop in the bucket when looking at the GDP. Even ignoring the fact that we could be getting much more for our money if relieved of political constraints, we could easily double the current budget.
The statement also ignores the fact that international cooperation in fact tends to increase costs, and there's little good evidence that it even saves money. It's something that we tend to do simply for the sake of international cooperation, and we actually pay a price for it.
Neither the president's plan nor the prevailing thrust of existing U.S. space policies encourages the type of international partnerships that are needed. Indeed there is much about U.S. space policy and plans--particularly those pertaining to the possible deployment of weapons in space--that even our closest allies find objectionable.While I don't favor doing things just because other countries find them objectionable (with the exception of France), this issue should not be driving our space policy, as I pointed out almost exactly three years ago. What the authors think is a bug, I consider a feature.
In the introduction itself, I found this an interesting misdiagnosis:
In January 2004, President George W. Bush announced a plan to return humans to the Moon by 2020, suggesting that this time U.S. astronauts would make the journey as a part of an international partnership. However, the recent history of the U.S. space program--the tragic Columbia accident, a squeezing of the NASA budget over many years, the cancellation of the Hubble Space Telescope upgrade mission, a go-it-alone approach to space activities, the near demise of the U.S. satellite industry due to U.S. policy on export controls, and international concern about U.S. intentions regarding the military use of space--points to serious obstacles that stand in the way of moving forward.Again, they state this as though it was obviously true (and perhaps it is, to them). But they don't actually explain how any of these things present obstacles to returning to the moon. The loss of Columbia was actually, despite the tragedy to the friends and families of the lost astronauts, a blessing, to the degree that it forced the nation to take a realistic reassessment of the Shuttle program. We aren't going to use Shuttle to go back to the moon, so how can they argue that its loss is an obstacle to that goal?
Similarly, how does squeezing of past NASA budgets prevent future intelligent spending in furtherance of the president's goal? While lamentable if it doesn't occur, repairing Hubble was not going to make any contribution to the Vision for Space Exploration. And while the state of the satellite industry is troubling, again, there's no direct connection between this and human exploration. I've already dealt with the spuriousness of the complaints about international cooperation. In short, this statement is simply a lot of unsubstantiated air, but it probably sounds good to policy makers who haven't given it much thought.
They sum it up here:
U.S. policy makers must confront four looming barriers that threaten continued U.S. leadership in space: export regulations that stifle the growth of the commercial space industry, the projected shortfall in the U.S. science and engineering workforce, inadequate planning for robust scientific advancement in NASA, and an erosion of international cooperation in space.There are some barriers to carrying out the president's vision, but so far, with the exception of the export-control issue, these aren't them, and they don't seem to have identified any of the other actual ones.
From there, they go on to give a brief history of the space program, with its supposed benefits to the nation. They then go on to laud the international nature of it. When I got to this sentence, I was struck by the irony:
The International Space Station best portrays the international character of space today.If that's true, it should be taken as a loud and clear warning that we should be running as far, and and as fast, from "international cooperation" as we possibly can.
The largest cooperative scientific and technological program in history, the space station draws on the resources and technical capabilities of nations around the world. It has brought the two Cold War adversaries together to work for a common cause, and arguably has done more to further understanding and cooperation between the two nations than many comparable programs.What they don't note is that it is years behind schedule, billions over budget, and still accomplishes little of value to actually advancing us in space, other than continuing to keep many people employed at Mr. Abbey's former center, and other places. But, hey...it promotes international cooperation, so that's all right. Right?
The piece goes on to describe the four "barriers," of which only one (export control) really is. While it's troubling that not as many native-born are getting advanced science and engineering degrees as there used to be, there will be no shortage of engineers, since the foreign born will more than pick up the slack. It's perhaps a relevant public policy issue, but it's not a "barrier" to our sending people back to the moon.
The most tendentious "barrier" is what the authors claim is inadequate planning and budgets for the vision:
President George W. Bush's NASA Plan, which echoed that of President George H. W. Bush over a decade before, is bold by any measure. It is also incomplete and unrealistic. It is incomplete, in part, because it raises serious questions about the future commitment of the United States to astronomy and to planetary, earth, and space science. It is unrealistic from the perspectives of cost, timetable, and technological capability. It raises expectations that are not matched by the Administration's commitments. Indeed, pursuit of the NASA Plan, as formulated, is likely to result in substantial harm to the U.S. space program.Even if one buys their premise--that expectations don't match commitments, that all depends on what means by the "U.S. space program," doesn't it? They seem (like many space policy analysts) to be hung up on science, as though that's the raison d'ĂȘtre of the program. Leaving that aside, they (disingenuously, in my opinion) attempt to back up this statement:
The first part of the NASA Plan, as proposed, was to be funded by adding $1 billion to the NASA budget over five years, and reallocating $11 billion from within the NASA budget during the same time frame. These amounts were within the annual 5 percent increase the current Administration planned to add to the NASA base budget (approximately $15 billion) starting in fiscal year 2005. This budget, however, was very small in comparison to the cost of going to the Moon with the Apollo program. The cost of the Apollo program was approximately $25 billion in 1960 dollars or $125 billion in 2004 dollars, and the objectives of the NASA Plan are, in many ways, no less challenging.This is a very misleading comparison, for two reasons.
First, as the president himself said, this is not a race, but a vision. Apollo was a race. Money was essentially no object, as long as we beat the Soviets to the moon. The vision will be budget constrained. NASA's (and Mike Griffin's) challenge is to accomplish those few milestones that were laid out in the president's plan within those constraints. It will cost that much, and no more, by definition.
Second, simply stating that the goals of the plan are no less challenging than Apollo doesn't make it so. While the goal of establishing a permanent lunar presence is more of a challenge, it's not that much more of one, and we know much more about the moon now than we did in 1961, and we have much more technology in hand, and experience in development than we did then. In short, any comparison between what Apollo cost and what the vision will cost is utterly spurious. The only way to get an estimate for the latter is to define how it will be done, and then do parametric costing, using 21st-century cost-estimating relationships, on the systems so defined (a process which is occurring, and is one not informed in any way by Apollo budgets).
The U.S. Congress has made clear with its NASA appropriation for fiscal year 2005 that it has serious questions about the NASA Plan.No surprise there. But that's merely a reflection of specific items (i.e., pork for their districts) that were cut, and says nothing in particular about the overall ability of NASA to achieve the plan with the budget. In fact, an annual appropriation is just that--it provides no insight whatsoever into what Congress might think is required in the out years, when the real budgetary issues would emerge, if they do at all.
Overall, this section strikes me as less a serious policy discussion than a political slap at the administration, by one of the first high-level NASA officials to be canned by it, and by a disgruntled physicist (and science advisor from the previous administration) unhappy that science is not the be-all of the program.
I've glanced through the rest of the thing, but I think I've covered the major flaws in it already. What's actually most notable to me is that they completely ignore the potential for private passenger flight, and commercial space in general (other than bemoaning the impact to the satellite industry of export restrictions). Given how badly they've misdiagnosed the problems, their prescriptions have little value. In terms of providing a basis for administration policy, my own recommendation is that it be simply filed away--in a circular receptacle.
I see little reason to revise that review today. George Abbey shouldn't be allowed anywhere near space policy (though perhaps, at seventy six years of age, it's not something that he wants, or could handle at this point). It certainly wouldn't be change we can believe in. Or change at all.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:43 AMJeff Foust has some thoughts about issues facing the new administration. It may in fact be an opportunity to undo the damage in the 1990s when Congress arbitrarily put space hardware on the munitions list. Duncan Hunter won't be in a position to stop it now, being firmly in the minority.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:20 AMThe other day I pointed out a report on the general military acquisition problems. Today at The Space Review, Dwayne Day discusses the military space problem in particular. As he notes, Pentagon space makes NASA look like a model of efficiency. NASA at least has the excuse that what it does isn't really important. The same is not true of our defense systems, but the bureaucracy and porkmeisters act as though it is.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:09 AMSenator Nelson is urging Barack Obama to keep Mike Griffin on:
"He called Lori Garver and said that until they had a surefire choice, they should continue with Griffin. And he thinks Griffin is doing a good job," said Bryan Gulley, a Nelson spokesman. Gulley would not say who Nelson would support if or when Obama picks a new NASA administrator.
Well, obviously, you don't want to leave the post vacant, or put in a loser. But it should be a high priority to find a good replacement for him, not to mention come up with a new policy (the two will no doubt go together). The Ares/Orion debacle is entirely Mike Griffin's baby at this point. I know that if I were named the new administrator, I'd can Ares, ramp up COTS and COTS D, and get started on R&T, and then (not much later) RDT&E for a propellant depot, and let ULA, SpaceX and others worry about earth to orbit. With a prop depot, the weight margins on Orion and Altair become essentially unlimited, so I'd start designs over from there.
But for many reasons, I'm not going to be named administrator. I just hope that whoever is has their head screwed on right.
Oh, and I should also add (as I commented over at Bobby Block's site) that people who should know better (like Senators who have actually flown in space) seem to continue to ignore the reality that extending Shuttle doesn't give us independence from the Russians, because the Shuttle can't act as an ISS lifeboat. All it does is cost billions more while putting crew at high risk. Until they get Dragon or Orion, or something else, we are going to have to continue buying Soyuz if we want to continue to have US astronauts at ISS.
[Saturday morning update]
There's more discussion on this topic over at Space Politics.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:05 PMOne of my ongoing themes is that space is not politically important. Apparently the incoming administration agrees. It isn't mentioned anywhere at the transition web site. I poked around in "Technology," "Energy and the Environment," and couldn't find anything about civil space, or NASA. The only discussion of space that I could find was under "Defense":
Ensure Freedom of Space: An Obama-Biden administration will restore American leadership on space issues, seeking a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites. He will thoroughly assess possible threats to U.S. space assets and the best options, military and diplomatic, for countering them, establishing contingency plans to ensure that U.S. forces can maintain or duplicate access to information from space assets and accelerating programs to harden U.S. satellites against attack.
A "worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites" would be unenforceable--it's pie in the sky. And there's no way to "harden U.S. satellites against attack" unless we come up with much lower costs to orbit. Does the new administration consider Operationally Responsive Space to be part of the solution? And will they take it seriously?
In any event, space policy in general seems to be a tabula rasa, other than campaign promises, so maybe there's an opportunity to write some and get it added to the site.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:57 AMThat's what Jeff Foust says to do about Oberstar.
I agree with everything Jeff wrote, except for the part about his likely interest in this issue. I'm pretty sure that he hasn't forgotten it, even if he has given up on it for now on the Hill.
And as I noted in comments over there, I don't think that it's "panicking" to attempt to nip a problem in the bud. It's a lot easier to put the kibosh on it now than it would be after he was formally selected and announced. Clark Lindsey seems to share my view.
I would also note that I didn't mean to imply that I thought this meant anything at all about an Obama administration's general attitude toward commercial space. I doubt if whoever is considering Oberstar is even aware of the issue.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:17 AMAn interesting find over at Jon Goff's place.
I've been advocating space tugs for (depressingly) over a quarter of a century. I wrote an internal memo at Rockwell on the subject in 1982 that proposed one as a means to enhance payload on the Shuttle to station, and allow higher station altitudes (reducing reboost requirements and providing more power). NASA wasn't interested. I hope that Jon is right that their time is finally coming.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:16 PMMore space transition news. This could be a horrific disaster:
Potential Secretary of Transportation: James Oberstar, member of the House of Representatives since 1975.
Oberstar overseeing the FAA would mean safety regulation on the commercial spaceflight industry that would strangle it in the cradle. If they have any influence, Lori, George and Alan need to work as hard as they can to get a different candidate.
[Update early evening]
Clark Lindsey has more thoughts.
[Update a while later]
A commenter suggests that Bill Richardson, who has spent a lot of effort as governor on getting a commercial spaceport in his state, won't be happy about this (at least if he understands the implications). He could be a key leverage point with the incoming administration.
[Late evening update]
Alan Boyle is following up on the story.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:00 AMNormally, the selection of a NASA administrator is low priority in a presidential transition, because (as I point out often) space is not very important, politically. That may be different this year, though. The GAO has identified Shuttle retirement as an urgent transition issue.
Which brings up an interesting point. In addition to the snow princess, who are "Hefferen, Ladwig, Whitesides, and Monje"? I know that "Ladwig" is Alan and "Whitesides" is George, but I've never heard of the other two.
I will also say that I am somewhat reassured by the involvement of Lori, Alan and George in the transition, if they are, because they all understand the importance of commercial solutions. I would also add that if President-elect Obama wants to (at least for bipartisan appearance' sake) appoint some token Republicans, NASA would be a good ostensibly non-political place to do it. I wonder what Alan Stern's political affiliation is?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:45 AMI have never thought of Lori Garver as a snow princess.
Will she be the next administrator, though?
I also have to say that I found this comment disturbing:
Seems highly likely Orion will become ISS only for now.
Let's sincerely hope not. That would be a major blow to commercial services. Better to just end it, and ramp up COTS.
[Afternoon update]
She's married, with kids. Shouldn't she be the Snow Queen (not to be confused with the Ice Queen)?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:39 AMJeff Foust has a post on some key races, though he talks about how they will affect "space." I think we'll do fine in space, regardless of election outcomes. It's NASA, and NASA human spaceflight supporters who should be worried.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:48 AMJohn Hare has some thoughts on boxes, and thinking in or out of them.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:48 AMThere's a good article over at NASA Spaceflight on the lift-off drift problem of the Ares 1.
Safe, simple, soon. Scam.
[Update a couple minutes later]
More at the Orlando Sentinel, on the Congressional Budget Office finding that the vehicle can't hit its IOC date without billions more. And there will still be a gap.
Billions of dollars to develop a new vehicle we don't need, when we could have been flying something by 2010 or 2011 with Steidle's original plan.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:25 AMThey're developing a magnetic shield to protect space travelers from radiation. This is a critical technology for a spacefaring civilization.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:03 AMA commercial comsat is being retired after thirty-two years. The original design life was five. Space hardware tends to be overdesigned, but I wonder how they had enough propellant to go that long?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:59 AMThe Orion spacecraft program was reviewed with the wrong configuration. There's more here:
So an older, immature design of the Orion capsule is brought up for review and passes muster, when it fact it lacks many of the features a flight worthy capsule would have (e.g., a weight that would be liftable, a means of landing that won't kill the occupants) along with several that a real vehicle wouldn't have (e.g., extra amounts of hot water for BroomHilda's cauldron).
That's not the way the process is supposed to work.Unfortunately, the IG's office, not known for their brilliance or their ethics, took the ESMD Viceroy's non-concurrence with their findings and said, "ok, so sorry to have bothered you," and moved on.
Can't anyone here play this game? How much longer before this misbegotten program augers in?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:22 AMClark Lindsey points out the inherent problem:
I've certainly always believed that NASA can get anything to fly with enough time and billions of dollars. The issue is cost-effectiveness. This vehicle, which is obsolete for the 20th century much less the 21st, is simply not going to pay off in terms of making space exploration cheaper or safer.
Ignoring its gigantic price tag for the moment, if Ares I were just one of several competing commercial rocket vehicle projects funded in a COTS type of program, I have no doubt that NASA would have been canceled it long ago just on technical grounds and missed milestones. Unfortunately, when a large project is developed internally, it becomes virtually impossible to stop, especially in a case like this where the top management is so deeply invested in it. The next administration might take another look at Ares but unfortunately the battle for Florida votes has left both candidates committed to it as a jobs program. Such is how a promising vision for space exploration finds itself hung by a boondoggle.
While I agree, I have to say that the last sentence sounds painful. And at least psychically, it is.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:09 PMHenry Spencer has some useful thoughts (as always) on Armadillo's accomplishment, and failure.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:38 PMThe Space Review is up (a little late--it's usually available first thing Monday morning, but Jeff is probably recovering from his trip to New Mexico), and it has a couple interesting articles. The first one describes the benefits of amateur efforts toward space settlement. The second one is a relook at the economics of O"Neill's Island One space habitat. It's nonsensical, because the author doesn't understand much about the economics of space launch. Let's start with this:
O'Neill's expectations about launch costs (like those of other 1970s-era prophets of space development) proved to be highly optimistic, even given the disagreement about how these are to be calculated. A $10,000 a pound ($22,000 per kilogram) Earth-to-LEO price, almost twenty-five times the estimate O'Neill worked with, is considered the reasonable optimum now.
Considered so by whom? Not by ULA. Not by the Russians. Not by SpaceX. The only launch vehicle that has launch costs that high is the Shuttle, and that's because it flies so seldom that its per-flight cost is on the order of a billion dollars. In a due-east launch, it can get close to sixty thousand pounds to LEO, and if it cost six hundred million per flight (as it did before Columbia, when the flight rate was higher), that would be about ten thousand bucks a pound. But to call this "optimum" is lunacy. Other existing launchers are going for a couple thousand a pound (the Russians are less based on price, but its not clear what their costs are, and if they're making money). SpaceX is projecting its price for Falcon 9 to be about forty million, to deliver almost thirty thousand pounds to LEO, so that's a little over a thousand per pound. And that's without reusing any hardware.
But even these are hardly "optimum." The true price drops will come from high flight rates of fully-reusable space transports, and there's no physical reason that these couldn't deliver payload for on the order of a hundred dollars per pound or less.
Of course we aren't going to build HLVs for space colonies, as Gerry O'Neill proposed. If it happens, it will happen when the price does come down, as a result of other markets. But if the point is that Island One is unaffordable at current launch costs, it's a trivial one--most intelligent observers realize that. But it's ridiculous to think that lower launch costs can't be achieved, or even that his stated number has any basis in reality.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:22 PMClark Lindsey is back from New Mexico, and has a roundup of links about the Lunar Landing Challenge.
Jeff Foust also has a couple video interviews, with Ken Davidian and John Carmack.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:32 AMWell, here's the latest in the Perils of Ares I--it might sideswipe the gantry as it launches:
The issue is known as "liftoff drift." Ignition of the rocket's solid-fuel motor makes it "jump" sideways on the pad, and a southeast breeze stronger than 12.7 mph would be enough to push the 309-foot-tall ship into its launch tower.
Worst case, the impact would destroy the rocket. But even if that doesn't happen, flames from the rocket would scorch the tower, leading to huge repair costs."We were told by a person directly involved [in looking at the problem] that as they incorporate more variables into the liftoff-drift-curve model, the worse the curve becomes," said one NASA contractor, who asked not to be named because he wasn't authorized to discuss Ares.
"I get the impression that things are quickly going from bad to worse to unrecoverable."
But all is not lost:
NASA says it can solve -- or limit -- the problem by repositioning and redesigning the launchpad.
Sure. No problem. Just reposition and redesign the launch pad. Simple, safe, soon.
NASA officials are now looking at ways to speed up the development of Ares and are reluctant to discuss specific problems. But they insist none is insurmountable.
Of course they do.
"There are always issues that crop up when you are developing a new rocket and many opinions about how to deal with them," said Jeff Hanley, manager of the Constellation program, which includes Ares, the first new U.S. rocket in 35 years."We have a lot of data and understanding of what it's going to take to build this."
Yes, they have so much data and understanding that they don't find out about this until after their fake Preliminary Design Review. And (just a guess), I'm betting that if I look at the original budget and development schedule, "repositioning and redesigning the launch pad" isn't even in or on it.
Look, obviously, if you pick a lousy design, you can eventually make it fly, given enough time and money. But in the process, it may end up bearing little resemblance to the original concept, and if it's neither simple (which it won't be with all of the kludges that they'll have to put on it to make up for its deficiencies), safe (no one really knows what the probability of loss of crew is, since they still haven't finally even nailed down the launch abort system design) or soon, then the nation has been sold a pig in a poke. And there's no budget line item for the lipstick either, though NASA has been attempting to tart it up as best they can.
As Einstein once said, a clever man solves a problem--a wise man avoids it. Since Mike Griffin came in, NASA has been too clever by half. Given the budget environment we'll have next year, it's hard to see how this unsustainable schedule and budgetary atrocity survives in anything resembling its current form.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:57 AMArmadillo's attempt at Level Two (a million dollar purse) starts in a few minutes. Webcast is here.
[Update]
Well, there was a problem. There was a hard start, and the vehicle fell over on its side. Not clear how recoverable it is.
[Afternoon update]
That's it for this year. They aren't going to make another attempt today. Clark Lindsey has the story.
That leaves most of the money still on the table, but at least Armadillo didn't go home empty handed this time.
[Update an hour or so later]
Jeff Foust has a picture of the burned-through nozzle that resulted from the lean fuel mixture.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:14 AMFirst attempts start in an hour and a half. Clark Lindsey is heading out to the site at the Las Cruces Airport. Wish I were there.
Good luck to all the contestants.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Here's the webcast.
[Update about 10:30 AM EDT]
If you're watching the webcast (or even if not), it's about four to five minutes from Armadillo's first attempt.
[Update a few minutes later]
They had a successful first flight, except it ran short. They didn't make it to ninety seconds. The judges just gave permission for two more legs within this window, but they have only forty-five minutes left, which includes getting back to the departure point with the vehicle.
[Update a few minutes later]
They're about to make another attempt at the first successful leg. They're cleared for flight.
[Update a few minutes later]
They just had a first successful 90-second flight. They have fifteen minutes left before their FAA window closes (though they have longer to get back to the staging area). It's going to be a tight turnaround.
[Update at 11:30 AM EDT]
Too tight a window. They're detanking. Level One remains unwon. There are three or four windows left. TrueZero will make the next attempt later today.
[A little before 2 PM EDT]
TrueZero is about to make their attempt. This will be interesting--it's the first time they've ever flown the vehicle untethered...
[Update a few minutes later]
Well, it was interesting. Brief, but interesting. It ascended to altitude, but when it started its translation, it keeled over and dove to the ground, making a little smoking hole in the desert. There's a small fire, no one was hurt, and the vehicle is lying on its side and vented. Fire department on the way. Do they have other vehicles, or was that their shot?
This is why you do full flight tests. They had no experience with untethered flight. They just got some.
[Update at 4 PM EDT]
Armadillo is going to make their second attempt of the day in half an hour. If they don't make it, they'll have at least two more shots tomorrow. Barring a disaster, they should be able to go home with some prize money this year, but there will still be some on the table for next year.
[Update at quarter to five Eastern]
Well, this will be controversial. The judges have allowed them to just do the return flight, picking up where they left off this morning, because they weren't given the time earlier that the prize allowed, due to the unrelated FAA restriction. While one can understand the sentiment, technically they are not doing what the prize requires in terms of turnaround, and if they win today under the rule waiver, I fear that many will think it tainted.
[Update while listening to all the speechifying]
Clark has the story on what happened with TrueZer0. As noted they had one vehicle, and it was totaled.
[Update after the flight]
Well, they just had a successful flight. If they get back to the staging area in half an hour, they'll have one first place for Level One, $350K. Congratulations to the Amadillo team.
[Evening update
Clark Lindsey reports that tomorrow could be exciting for Armadillo and the crowd:
This will be the first time they have done the tip and translation with a full 3 minute fuel load on Pixel. Always a chance it will come crashing down like TrueZer0 but with 1500 lbs of propellants
Again, like last year, I can't understand why they haven't done a full dress rehearsal.
Over at Samizdata, Jonathan Pearce wonders if freedom seekers will be heading the other way after the election:
Occasionally, whenever one of us Samizdata scribes writes about events in the UK, such as loss of civil liberties, or the latest financial disasters perpetrated by the government, or crime, or whatnot, there is sometimes a comment from an expatriate writer, or US citizen in particular, suggesting that we moaners should pack our bags, cancel the mail and come on over to America. Like Brian Micklethwait of this parish, I occasionally find such comments a bit annoying; it is not as if the situation in Jefferson's Republic is particularly great just now, although a lot depends on where you live (Texas is very different from say, Vermont or for that matter, Colorado).
But considering what might happen if Obama wins the White House and the Dems increase or retain their hold on Congress, I also wonder whether we might encounter the example of enterprising Americans coming to Britain, not the other way round. The dollar is rising against the pound, so any assets that are transferred from the US to Britain go further. Taxes are likely to rise quite a bit if The One gets in, although they are likely to rise in the UK too to pay for the enormous increase in public debt, even if the Tories win the next election in 2010.
For a number of reasons stated over there, it seems unlikely, but this comment stood out:
I think the general message here should be that the whole western world is on the same trajectory, and shopping around for liberty is going to be ultimately futile. In a sense, we all need to be "liberty patriots" and do our best in our own countries to reverse the rot, because wherever you flee to, it's happening there too, if at a different pace or in in slightly different ways. The anti-liberty movement is operating in every nation, and trans and supra-nationally, and everywhere it is winning. There is nowhere to run.
Well, as I've long noted on this blog, that's what space programs are for.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:43 AMFrom the Chair Force Engineer.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:06 PMClark Lindsey has his first report up, on this morning's session on suborbital vehicles. Jeff Foust has a report on one of the talks as well, from Virgin Galactic.
[Thursday afternoon update]
Lots more over at Clark's place. Just keep scrolling. It's not a permalink, but I assume that he'll put together a page of links to the posts when he gets back next week.
(Bumped from yesterday)
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:26 PMI've attended this event the past two years, but couldn't make it this year, for lack of time, funds and justification. I also was demotivated by the cancellation of the Lunar Landing Challenge (which was recently reinstated), which was held in conjunction with it.
I'd actually like to go now, and I could afford it now, but I'm busy, and a last-minute ticket would have been pricy. But Clark Lindsey and Jeff Foust are attending, and will no doubt be providing updates over the next couple days.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:15 AMMike Griffin says that criticism of NASA hurts its morale:
Griffin said critics in the media and on anonymous Internet blogs can "chip away" at the agency by questioning the motives and ethics of engineers designing the new rockets.
Briefing charts used by NASA managers sometimes show up on Web sites without the proper context, he said, and opponents of the agency's plans to replace the space shuttle with two new rockets have wrongly accused NASA managers of incompetence and worse.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't think that I've ever questioned anyone's motives or ethics. I do question their engineering and political judgment, and fortunately (for now) we live in a country in which I am free to do so. Clark Lindsey has more thoughts:
...just thinking about the Ares monstrosities hurts MY morale...I can't think of anything more depressing than seeing a one chance in a generation opportunity to build a practical space transportation infrastructure squandered on a repeat of Apollo that consists of nothing but hyper-expensive throwaway systems.
Ditto. It's a tragedy.
[Update a few minutes later]
There's more over at NASAWatch:
"...it is incumbent upon us to be able to explain how a decision was reached, why a particular technical approach was chosen, or why a contract was awarded to one bidder instead of another."
It is indeed. You've never really done that with the Ares/ESAS decisions. You just send Steve Cook out to say "we've done the trade study--trust us."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:35 AMJohn Hare discusses a concept for dumping propellant from a launcher to a LEO depot in a single orbit.
As I note in comments there, I don't see any need for such a requirement. Once you're in orbit, there's not really that big a rush to come back. The depot has to be in a high enough orbit that it doesn't decay rapidly, so the only cost of staying longer is crew consumables (if there is a crew). Power would presumably come from the depot itself while mated.
But it's not only an unnecessary requirement, it's an impossible one, other than in equatorial orbits (unless you want to wait a very long time for opportunities). Any orbit with significant inclination has a narrow launch window (at least from a given launch site--an air-launched system would have more flexibility). The likelihood that, when you get into the right orbit plane, the station will be waiting for you precisely where it needs to be to rendezvous in a single orbit it exceedingly small. That's why it takes a couple days for Soyuz or Shuttle to rendezvous with ISS. They launch into the right orbit plane, but they have to spend several orbits catching up with it. And the faster they do it, the more propellant it costs.
As I note parenthetically above, though, you can get there directly if you have an air-launched system with significant range for the aircraft (e.g., Quickreach).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:40 AMIf this is true, don't expect to see White Knight II flights as soon as Sir Richard promises.
These delays come from his misguided belief that Burt was God.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:54 AMThe new littoral ship that Lockheed Martin is building for the Navy is four percent overweight:
The Navy and Lockheed already have a plan to remove nearly all the additional weight from the ship over a period of about six months once the new ship, which is named Freedom, gets to Norfolk, Virginia, in December, said the sources, who asked not to be identified.
As I said, margin, margin, margin. If you miss your weight target by that much on a launch system, it's bye-bye payload. In this case, it simply puts the ship at risk in combat.
As the emailer who sent this to me asks, "I wonder if Lockheed will remove excess weight from Orion at no additional cost."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:46 AMUnreasonable Rocket has dropped out of next week's competition. Congratulations for all of the progress and accomplishment, regardless. And the lesson here is one that NASA seems to have forgotten--the three rules of rocket design: margin, margin, margin.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:56 AMJohn Hare has an interesting post (if you're into launch vehicle design issues). The myth of the air breather persists but, as John notes, if air is free, why does the service station charge more for it than gas?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:45 AMThis, coming from Jim Abrahamson, is pretty disappointing:
James A. Abrahamson, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and the chairman of the NAC's Exploration Committee, praised the Constellation program to the Council at its quarterly meeting in Cocoa Beach, calling it the best program for the agency given its tight budget and schedule.
"The NAC is confident that the current plan is viable and represents a well-considered approach given the constraints on budget, schedule and achievable technology," he said.
I agree with this comment (and I have a pretty good guess as to who made it):
One Washington-based space policy consultant said: "The NAC's endorsement of Ares I reminds me of the so-called independent rating firms that kept saying that Lehman Brothers, Wachovia, and AIG were just fine."
Yeah, I don't think that the NAC is all that "independent." By its nature, it tends to consist of space industry insiders drinking their own bathwater. Looking over the Exploration Committee, it doesn't strike me that any of the members are space transportation experts (and no, you don't become one by being an astronaut, as proven by Horowitz...). But I thought that Abrahamson was smarter than that.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:27 AMPopular Mechanics has the top ten world changing technologies, with video, including the Mars Phoenix lander.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:47 AMJohn Jurist writes (or at least implies) that there's just too much competition in the suborbital market:
An approach I favor is forming a university consortium analogous to those that design, build, and operate large cooperative research assets, such as telescopes and particle colliders. That consortium could develop a suborbital RLV or even a nanosat launcher to be used by consortium members for academic projects. Since the consortium would design and develop the vehicles, participating universities would be more likely to use them for student research under some type of cost-sharing arrangement with federal granting agencies.Dr. Steve Harrington proposed something a bit different recently:
If you took all the money invested in alt.space projects in the last 20 years, and invested in one project, it could succeed. More underfunded projects are not what we need. The solution is for an investment and industry group to develop a business plan and get a consortium to build a vehicle. There is a lot of talent, and many people willing to work for reduced wages and invest some of their own company's capital. Whether it is a sounding rocket, suborbital tourist vehicle or an orbit capable rocket, the final concept and go/no go decision should be made by accountants, not engineers or dreamers (Ref. 8).I would concur with Dr. Harrington's final remark except I would expand the decision making group to include management and business experts nominated by the consortium members with whatever technical input they needed.
Yes, good idea. After all, we all know that it's a waste of resources to have (for example) two grocery stores within a few blocks of each other. They could dramatically reduce overhead and reduce costs and prices if they would just close one of the stores and combine forces. In order to assure continued premium customer service, they could just assemble a board of accountants, and finest management and business experts to ensure that the needs of the people are met.
In the case of the RLV development, the consortium could hire the best technical experts, and spend the appropriate amount of money up front, on trade studies and analyses, to make sure that they are designing just the right vehicle for the market, since it will be a significant investment, and the consortium will only have enough money to do one vehicle development. They will also have to make sure that it satisfies the requirements of all the users, since it will be the only available vehicle. This will further increase the up-front analysis and development costs, and it may possibly result in higher operational costs as well, but what can be done? It's too inefficient to have more than one competing system. As John's analysis points out, we simply can't afford it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:49 AMJeff Patterson conquers the solar system.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:50 PMI have heard rumors for months that Jim Benson had had a stroke. Apparently, it was a different problem, though whether a better or worse one is hard to say. In any event, he lost the battle, as will we all, ultimately.
I may have further thoughts later (de mortuis nil nisi bonum, and all that), but for now, my condolences to Susan and his children.
[Saturday morning update]
Clark Lindsey has several other links on the story.
Whatever else his legacy will be, he showed that a savvy businessman can start a successful commercial publicly traded space company from scratch (though admittedly, much of the growth was via acquisition).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:18 PMTom Jones, on the asteroid threat.
We really need to get moving on that spacefaring civilization thing. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen under current NASA management.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:46 PMI don't know, and haven't watched the video myself, but some Chinese bloggers think so:
Two seconds into the video from CCTV, bubble-like objects rose from the hatch as it sprung open. At 5 min 49 second, a bubble attached to the astronaut's helmet. At 6 min 42 seconds, bubbles swiftly came out of the cabin. On the left corner of the video, bubbles gushed out at an angle at 7 min 17 seconds into the video.
A blogger, who is a physicist, commented in a Chinese Epoch Times article that, assuming the operation was conducted in the water, the bubbles rose faster than they would have if the water was not propelled using a wave-blower. Wave blowers are commonly used in underwater space-training exercises to simulate the weightlessness of space.
It wouldn't shock me.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:03 AMThough not a new space blog. Occasional commenter John Hare is now rocket blogging over at Selenian Boondocks (which has a new URL and look).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:31 AMApparently not yet, but as far as my usage of it is concerned, it's on life support. As the article points out, it doesn't help that ISPs don't support it properly. I gave up on AT&T once I realized that they'd outsourced it, and basically didn't care whether it worked for their customers or not, and use GigaNews now.
Anyway, my biggest use of Usenet is sci.space.*, but I've cut way back on my participation there, because the signal/noise ratio has gotten so low, with many of the best long-time members of the newsgroups having gone to greener pastures (for example, Henry Spencer hasn't posted there in many moons, which is a little ironic, considering that whenever I used to point out that Usenet was dying, he would reply that people have been predicting the death of Usenet for decades). It's mostly loonytunes now, like Brad Guth and Ian Parker, and the Elifritz troll, with little substantive space policy discussion. I do think that the center of gravity of serious space discussion has shifted to the web, regardless of whatever else is still happening with NNTP.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:05 AMThomas James has some space-related thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:57 AMJeff Foust has a roundup.
And as I note over there in comments, the Kennedy myth persists:
"Not since John F. Kennedy, has a president truly understood the incalculable value of space..."
Not even then...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:11 AMWe're going to be hit by an asteroid tonight. The angle is such that it will just be a spectacular fireball. But it's nice that we're finally getting to a position from which we can predict these things. The next step is to be able to prevent them, if necessary. Too bad that almost nothing that NASA is doing is contributing to that, at least with the manned spaceflight program.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:21 PMOn p.38 of this presentation, there's a breakdown of the contributions to the cost of Space Solar Power (SSP). Not surprisingly, the installation is more than half of the cost and another 20% is manufacturing cost of the solar array.
If we extract out the solar generation from SSP and instead of an antenna, have a passive microwave reflector, we can potentially get the cost of the reflector down to less than $1 billion. Let's say it's a flat spinning <8 gram per square meter perforated mylar single-mission heavy payload to GEO straw man.
If we spend $1 billion on a ground-based microwave antenna and another $1 billion on a rectenna, we have a 1 GW system that can function as transmission for a 40-year straight-line cost of 1.5 cents/kwh which is about 30% of the cost of SSP per watt with the viable scale of capital needed much smaller. (If you need a VC return, the price must be closer to ten cents per kwh.) The reflector would not be at capacity so additional transmission can be achieved for 2/3 of that. 1 GW beaming for $3 billion would be a pretty satisfying proof of concept.
There's plenty of power on the ground to beam to space that's cheap so the proof of concept can be economically viable at this scale. At Hawaii's buy price of more than $0.30/kwh and New Mexico's sell price of less than $0.10/kwh it would pay for itself pretty fast.
Space power beaming would therefore be shown to be economically viable without the space generation and thus be valuable as a proof of concept for transmission alone.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 11:53 AMThere's going to be a press conference at 11:30 this morning to announce his return visit to ISS. Jeff Foust plans to live blog it.
[Afternoon update]
Here is the site for the live blogging. Unfortunately, he seems to be blogging it in lorem ipsum, and I've never learned to read that language. Maybe he'll have an English version up later.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:08 AMThe Obama campaign seems to have gotten way out front of the McCain campaign on space. The problem is that, like its domestic policy in general, McCain doesn't seem to have a coherent policy with regard to civil space. He's going to freeze discretionary, which includes NASA, and whether NASA will be exempt seems to depend on which campaign aide you ask. And regardless of how much money is spent, the campaign is equally vague on how it is spent, and what the near-term and long-term goals of the expenditure are. On top of that, the McCain campaign has lumped in the new Obama proposal to increase the NASA budget by two billion with a lot of so-called liberal spending proposals. As Jeff Foust notes, it's a little mind blowing, politically.
Obama, after having gotten off on the wrong foot with the initial idiotic proposal to delay Constellation to provide funds for education, seems to have actually gotten inside McCain's OODA loop on this issue. The McCain campaign really needs a smart political adviser in this area (as Obama apparently has now with Lori Garver, who seems to successfully jumped ship from Hillary's campaign), but there's no evidence that they've come up with one yet.
Of course, it's not an issue on which the election will hang, probably not even in Florida.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here's a little more at NASA Watch. It seems to be a disconnect between the McCain campaign and the RNC. Which, of course, doesn't make it any better, or excuse it.
[Another update a few minutes later]
Well, this would seem to clarify the McCain position:
Perhaps more important were McCain's remarks on Wednesday that only the Pentagon and veterans would see a budget increase in his administration because of the high price the proposed economic bail out. Everything else - including, presumably, NASA -- will be frozen or cut. Several space advocates in Florida and Washington DC expect the worst.
As I said, it isn't clear that space will be a key issue, even in Florida. But if the McCain campaign position is that the budget is going to be frozen, they should at least put forth a description of how they expect, and will require, NASA's priorities to change to accommodate it. So far, there's zero evidence that they've even given the matter any thought.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:38 AMAlan Boyle has come up with a new set of science-project-based monetary units to get our heads around the costs of the bailout.
This sort of thing provides support for the politically naive argument for more money for one's pet project, e.g., "we could do seven Apollos for the cost of one Iraq war--surely we can afford at least one." But federal budget dollars aren't fungible, and the political importance of various choices isn't necessarily consistent, either, due to the vagaries of how these decisions are made. Note also that, at the time, getting to the moon in a hurry was important for reasons having little or nothing do to with space. It's unreasonable to expect those particular political stars to align again.
Not to mention the fact that because we were in a hurry, we chose an architecture and path that was economically and politically unsustainable. Just as NASA's current path is, which is no surprise, considering that they chose to recapitulate Apollo, rather than building an incremental affordable infrastructure that would provide the basis for true spacefaring.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:28 AMWhile I mentioned it in my Pajamas piece on Wednesday, I neglected to mention yesterday that it was the 51st Sputnik anniversary. More currently, and relevantly, it was the fourth anniversary of the winning of the X-Prize. Jeff Foust has some thoughts on the seeming lack of progress since then.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:34 PMMy smart, funny (and only slightly crazy) buddy from engineering school, Lynne Wainfan, has decided to torment the world with a new blog. The current top post relates her adventures in wing walking. She also has an iPhone review. But read all.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:50 AMHeh.
[From Bruce Webster, via email]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:56 AMThe workshop is over, and I'm heading down to Boca. More thoughts on space solar power later.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:20 PMHere's where I'll be picking up from yesterday, and blogging today's session, as I get time.
The first speaker this morning is Jay Penn of Aerospace (again) talking about laser power beaming demonstrators. He's describing the same apps as yesterday for the military, but also talking about space-to-space beaming for other spacecraft. Reviewing yesterday's talk with concept that can put 2.5 MW into the grid per satellite. Two solar panels, two laser transmitter panels on a deployable backbone. Providing more of a description of the "halo" orbits than yesterday, but I still don't understand it from an orbital mechanics standpoint. I'll have to read the paper or talk to Jay later.
He's showing several charts that demonstrate how inserting technology into the laser system can dramatically increase the power available per EELV flight (not sure how relevant this is, other than as a benchmark, because it's very unlikely that an economically viable system is going to go up on EELVs). Also shows that you don't save much money by scaling down the system to smaller power levels--R&D dominates the costs. His bottom line is that we could do a 125kW demonstrator on an EELV, that could scale up to 200kW with technology insertion. Laser appears to be the only practical means to provide acceptable small spot beams from GEO. Laswers have 10,000 times smaller spot for the same range and aperture compared to microwaves. In response to a question, he notes that the individual lasers are not phased, and they don't need to be. There is a question about maintenance/repair. They hadn't looked in detail but a quick look suggested that degradation wasn't a major issue. he makes one other point--the system was self-lifting from LEO to GEO using ion propulsion, to save mass.
Now another talk by Jordin Kare, on laser diode power beaming. Talking about the NASA beamed power Centennial Challenge. While it's about elevator climbers, it is essentially a contest to build a beamed-power system. Prize has almost been won, but not quite, and is now at $500K. None of the teams are using lasers. Laser-Motive (his company) was formed to develop laser power beaming technology, but the current focus is on winning the prize. Their concept uses a fixed set of laser diodes and optics, with a steering mirror below the climber. Operating on a shoestring. They are estimating 10% efficiency, but actually getting more like 13%. They have eight kW of laser power to deliver a kilowatt to the climber. Got good price on "seconds" for the lasers (a little less than $10/watt so about $80K) Didn't care about beam profile, as long as they got the power on target. Didn't do custom optics--used float-glass and amateur telescope mirrors, with old HP stepper motors to drive them. Lasers share (more expensive) parabolic mirrors. Bought some 50% efficiency cells that can operate at ten suns, with help from Boeing. Unfortunately they had some final integration issues (smoking a power supply) that prevented them from winning, but no on else won either.
The 2008 contest is a kilometer climb up a rope hung from a helicopter (the faster the climb, the more the money)--lasers are the only option. DILAS is offering to build a custom system ($35,000 for 2.5kW), and will set a new radiance standard. Can go to much more range with bigger optics and more power. deliver tens of kilowatts at tens of kilometers with this technology.
Laser-Motive is ready to build these kinds of systems tomorrow. Could be used for ground to aircraft or ground vehicles of mirrors on aerostats, or air to ground to simulate space-to-ground. ISS to ground is also a possibility. Next steps: higher radiance, coherent systems (e.g., fiber lasers), lightweight low-cost optics, and then operational systems.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:17 AMOK, it's after lunch, and we're about to watch a video about what the Army hopes it will be doing in space in the year 2035. We're being told it's not classified in any way. Nor does it discuss cost or difficulty of what we're about to see...
It seems to be a CGI movie depicting rapid redeployments of advanced satellites (using something that looks a lot like QuickReach). It shows convoy routes planning a "virtual corrider." Mobile user ground stations are deflecting attempts at GPS jamming. A "near-space platform" geolocates a terrorist unit. Noncombatants are identified, the house is surrounded, and the perps captured. The space vehicles depicted are dirty and gritty like the tanks. Like Serenity, in fact. Showing overhead imaging for battle damage assessment. "Understand First." "Act First." In other words, get inside their OODA loop.
Pretty cool.
Anyway, Jay Penn is up now, describing five different powersat concepts that Aerospace has been working on. This was work done for Joe Howell at Marshall and John Mankins at NASA. It consisted of a lot of system/subsystem level trades for comparisons and as inputs to technology roadmaps.
Showing several different concepts, the most different of which is called a "Halo", which has a central transmitter surrounded by what seem to be mirrors for light concentration. But he's going too fast for me to follow. A flurry of charts showing trade analyses and relative costs.
Some of these concepts imply flight rates of 5000/year. Notes that 40% of the global economy is energy. The best costs they could get to for kW-hrs was about eight cents, which isn't bad. One of their concepts is a laser system that is very scalable (480 satellites for 1.2 GW). It uses a layered approach, with pump-laser diodes, microoptics, and a radiator on the back. Output beam is about a thousand nanometer wavelength. He thinks it the most promising architecture of those considered.
Now Paul Jaffe is reporting on a study on space-based power that was performed by the Navy Research Lab. In the beginning, they encountered a lot of skepticism within the lab. Their approach was to look at it in the context of providing Navy/Marine power needs. Study looked at military applications only. They supported the AFRL requirements workshop in July, and are working with NASA on the ISS demo.
They had three findings. First, the concepts are technically feasible, they seem relevant to military needs, and safe power beaming is restricted to large immobile sites. Wireless power transfer is necessary for SBSP, but it's a research area in its own right. No consensus among experts as to best concept. Economics and political priorities will be important, but this wasn't examined by NRL.
They also found that NRL has some key capabilities in many of the technologies (I'm shocked, shocked...).
The third was that different operational scenarios will require different technologies. Large-area applications can use microwave, but applications requiring higher power density will need lasers. Delivery of energy directly to individual end users, vehicles or small widely-scattered nodes isn't currently practical.
They recommended continued NRL funding, but got the impression when they briefed the director that he still considers other energy areas more promising until more of the risk is retired.
A question from the audience brings up the point that DoE seems to be missing in action, considering that they're supposed to be interesting in, you know...energy. There needs to be more of an outreach from other agencies to them to get them involved, particularly if DoE is supposed to be putting together new positions for an incoming administrations.
Another speaker from NRL, Michael Brown, follows with a talk on space structures issues. We have a long way to go from seventy meters (the current longest structure) to kilometeres in scale. Showing examples of ultralight space deployable beams.
Sorry, my eyes are glazing over (also a little sleepy after lunch). Structural analysis is not my bag. Showing concepts for trusses. Showing concepts for automated orbital assembly.
A break, a break, my kingdom for a break...
[Update after the break]
I'm not paying much attention to the current talk which is about wireless power in a deployed base in environment. The speaker said, perfectly deadpan (and he was probably quite serious), "we can't introduce anything into a war environment that is unsafe."
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room."
Jordin Kare (formerly of Livermore) is giving a talk on various space applications for lasers, some in space, some ground based with space relays. Optics are cheap, don't generate much heat, don't weigh much, none of which are the case for lasers, so keep lasers on the ground and put the optics in space.
Thinks that GEO is still the best place, for relay optics so that no tracking of moving satellites is necessary. Also less gravity gradient. But GEO implies big optics. He prefers diffractive optics, using thin sheets of materials with vacuum vapor deposition of metals to make a fresnel lens. It is insensitive to out-of-plane displacements, while mirrors are orders of magnitude more so. They can be lightweight, rolled up, folded. Shows a five-meter example made of panes of glass built at Livermore a few years ago. he thinks that a twenty-meter lens can fit on a Delta IV. Thinks that he could get by with six tons in GEO with relay system as opposed to thirty tons if the laser is place in orbit. Notes that NASA has looked at a similar system with a relay in L1 for powering a lunar surface base from the earth. Talking about using such systems to power electric propulsion vehicles, so they don't have to carry the mass of their power supply, both for earth orbit and earth escape missions. Agrees with Jay Penn on approach of using laser modules, if you really want the lasers themselves in orbit.
[Friday morning update]
I've continue here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:28 AMLive, from the space solar power conference in sunny Lake Buena Vista, FL, under the ever-watchful eye of Mickey.
I have power, I have wireless, I've had my proteinless continental breakfast, which seems to be riguer at these aerospace conferences, and I'm ready to blog. Session overview will start in a few minutes.
[A few minutes later]
Omar Mendoza of the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) is keynoting. He is head of a new energy and environment office. One of the things that they're working is biofuel from algae, but they see space-based power as a potential breakthrough technology for meeting military power requirements in an environmentally friendly way. Purpose of this conference is to identify technology gaps that must be filled to make it a reality.
Anticipate that early next year the incumbent president will be asking what the military is doing in the way of energy, and they want to have a roadmap ready to present to the new CinC, whoever it is.
Lt. Colonel Ed Tovar of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab now giving a history of the recent activities, including the space power studies performed last year by the National Space Security Office, and the interest that it seems to have aroused. Has gotten interest from environmental groups, energy companies, utilities, Congress, etc. Idea of tying energy to aerospace technology seems appealing. He tells people that this is something that justifies the exercise of due diligence to determine its potential. Talked about introducing John Mankins with a smart guy at NSSO, and had them get into a numbers battle over lift requirements, and that is the kind of activity that he wants to see continue. Two major thrusts: initiation/continuation of studies (much deeper and broader than NSSO report) and develop a roadmap for a demonstration strategy (space-space, LEO to ground, eventually from GEO). Terrestrial power beaming already happening as shown by the Hawaii test. Idea is to generate power in a permissive environment, and provide it in a "less permissive" environment. Wants to use structure and power available at ISS to do in-space demos, and has talked to people at NASA Ames and JSC about coming up with plans for a wireless power transmission demo at ISS.
Notes that Hawaii experiment didn't just demonstrate technology, but they flew aircraft through the beam to characterize it, determine environmental effects, density, efficiency, etc. See it as a form of "soft power" that can help avert conflicts in the twenty-first century. He wants to make this technology a "comma" in the national debate, when energy companies and presidential candidates talk about energy options. "wind, solar, biofuels,...energy from space."
Joe Howell of Marshall coming up next to talk about NASA's technology roadmap.
Oops. Nope. Neil Huber of Concurrent Technology Corporation (CTC) is giving a summary presentation of military requirements, based on a workshop in July. They gathed power requirements for military units at various levels (person, squad, deployed unit, base, etc.), and determining that 3-5 MW is a prevailing military need. Purpose of this workshop is to come up with a rough roadmap.
They also have intangible requirements (strengthen intel, protect critical bases of ops, etc.) Of eight of these, six of them could be satisfied by power from space.
SSP could support the joint force attributes required by strategy if energy can be provided to the force at relevant levels. Could be a game-changing capability. It would be nice not to have to carry batteries, or deploy diesel generators and their fuel.
Space-centric beamed power could provide stability of operations (no concern about having a fuel convoy intercepted and disrupt ops). Nice to be able to quickly redeploy power from one area to another. Could have been very useful after Katrina or Ike, or after the tsunami.
Services had an official requirement to reduce fossil fuel use, and this could play into that. Many DoD bases dependent on fragile and vulnerable commercial power infrastructure--this could make them more independent and robust. 2005 Energy Policy Act mandates that DoD installations transition to green technologies. needs vary from 3kW for a person to 9 MW for a brigade (varies among services). Giving a few examples. Watts for a soldier with his equipment, with heavy batteries, ranging up to 80 MW dedicated to propulsion for a destroyer. ONR testing 35 MW superconducting electric motor.
Air Force has more a better understanding of their requirements, but can't really keep up with the slides (this will be available later, probably on line). Notes that Marines have a very high AA battery requirement. Bottom line: could reduce deployment footprint and logistic footprint (reduced fuel convoying, which is also a dangerous activity). Could provide more stable, enhanced operations at all levels. 3-5 MW seems to be near-term critical number.
In Q&A, Colonel Paul Damphousse is relating experience from Iraq, where it was more dangerous to be on the road than in the air, and pointed out how nice it would have been to put down spot beams in remote areas rather than convoy fuel. In response to a question, Huber notes that fuel in the field can cost anywhere from $50 to $200 per gallon, after shipping it to the front (particularly by air). Makes this a much more attractive market for a high-cost (at least technology) like this.
OK, now Joe Howell is speaking about the NASA technology roadmap. His talk is based on work done in the last ten years (mostly from 1998-2002). Showing slide of classic reference SPS/Rectenna system from the 1970s DoE/NASA studies. Required huge launch capacity. Showing very complicated chart of complexity of all the factors that go into whether or not SPS makes sense. Topic seems to come up every fifteen years or so. Now showing potential requirement to get CO2 reduced--need 40 TW of carbon-neutral power generation to reduce and stabilize at twice pre-industrial levels. When "peak fossil fuels" will occur remains without consensus--how much energy R&D needed for insurance policy?
Now getting back to more recent studies. Still have rectenna farms and large structures in orbit, but much more thin-film concentrators, lighter structures. Showing X33/VentureStar as transportation paradigm of the era. Also showing hypersonic vehicles, two-stage reusables, smaller systems with high launch rates. Studies were based on $200/kg launch costs. Still couldn't close business model at that cost. Showing modular solar-electric concept to transport large space systems to GEO.
He has an eye chart of the technology areas that have to be advanced. Next chart focuses on state of near-term PV technologies--stretched-lens array, thin films, etc. Also showing solar concentrators that have actually flown in space (Deep Space 1). Need a much higher pointing accuracy for these types of systems, which makes the rest of the system more of a technical challenge.
Getting into microwave beam safety issues now (earlier had related the honeybee studies performed back in the seventies and eighties). Has the classic power density chart that shows it's not a problem, but people still don't believe it (just like the people who won't live near power lines). Showing roadmap of demos laid out to 2021, but funding dried up about 2003. Has a chart showing growth of spacecraft power requirements over last quarter century--steady increase up to tens of kilowatts. Needs doubling every five and a half years. Describing solar panel architecture trades.
Overall, this strikes me primarily as not a coherent story, or one put together for this meeting--just a lot of pre-existing charts with historical results from various periods. Probably useful for people unfamiliar with the field, though.
Future needs--sandwiched options, collect on the front, beam out the back, 50%+ conversion efficiency. 5 km transmitter 80%+ efficiency, ten GW system, installed cost $2/watt. Need self-assembly, higher strength/weight materials, higher-temp solid-state devices, need to look at lasers as well as microwaves, but as always, need much lower transportation costs.
In other words, nothing new.
Question: how do we map the NASA quick-look study to the military requirements we just heard? 3 MW isn't really practical for microwave systems because they don't work for the wavelength. SPS size wasn't drive by power requirements so much as aperture size. Wouldn't lasers be better, given recent advances in solid-state devices? Howell notes that a LEO demo could be scaled down considerably for microwaves, and that lasers have issues with clouds, etc. Trades still need to be done. He notes that all of the work presented was to address the need for baseload power, and hadn't considered these new military requirements. Bruce Pittman of Ames asking about potential applications for lunar bases. Could they beam from L1 to the lunar surface? Howell notes that Seth Potter (Boeing) will be talking about this later in the meeting. Competition for going into shadowed craters is nuclear. Jay Penn of Aerospace notes that he'll be going into the economics this afternoon, in response to Bruce's question about how close to closure they came.
Taking a ten-minute break now.
[A few minutes later]
Ron Clark of Lockheed Martin giving a talk now titled "Space-based Solar Power Gap Analysis--Solar Dynamic and Hybrid Launch Approach."
Key to SBPS: increase revenues and lower costs (duh...)
Has an alternate solution motivated by premium-priced power applications such as shale extraction, remote locations and forward basing. Whenever senior people are briefed, we can show progress, but they still say "it's still too tough," based on the technology gaps. Have to come up with compelling plan that closes gaps and changes perceptions. Have to raise revenue above the grid (need $0.20/kW-hr). Need launch costs of $500/kg, and need to reduce spacecraft manufacturing costs to $1000/kg.
Identified apps where current technology may be good enough: peak power, industrial power and forward deployment/nationbuilding.
Notes that emphasis to date has been on photovoltaic (I would note that Brayton cycles were considered in the seventies, but they weren't the reference baseline). He thinks it's time to take another look at solar dynamic. Thinks that cost of space hardware is coming down not only due to technology advance (mass/function drops by factor of two every eight years, which translates to reduced costs), but also from economies of scale, which would apply to a system like this. Iridium experience shows that cost can come down a lot, particularly when one works closely with suppliers and reduces supply chain friction. Cost/kg can drop from $100,000/kg for one-off, and a hundredth of that for thousands. Sees launch costs as coming down as well with growing use of reusability.
He's positing a "hybrid" launch system with reusable suborbital first and second stage, that meets with a medium earth orbit (MEO) electrodynamic tether as a skyhook. Reduces ETO delta V to 5.5 km/s. Identifying specific technology gaps associated with these systems. Looking at on-orbit assembly gaps. Not competitive with coal-fired power plants at current technology maturity level. Need system-level demos of specific technologies that would support SSPS assembly.
A lot of work has been done with a Closed Brayton Cycle (for topping, with Rankine for bottoming) that can have 50% net power conversion efficiency. Gaps here consist of long life, weightless operation, radiators, large inflatable collectors, and space-rated alternators. Thermal radiators are a particularly immature technology for this high-temperature application.
Also need efficient DC-RF conversion. Some new solid-state devices may offer very high (~90%?) efficiency. Need to consider orbits other than GEO. Trade and location will be driven by mission need. MEO might be the right answer for some applications. he sees highest technical risk in MEO tether and payload transfer, and on-orbit assembly cost reduction. Thinks that all risks are tractable, w
In questions, Keith Henson notes that shipping assembled satellites to GEO would be pretty hard on them, due to radiation and debris.
Now Mack Henderson from JSC (who I sat across from at dinner last night) is presenting a concept for a space-based solar power demo at ISS. Goal is to use existing hardware to do a demo in 2010. Have been coordinating with a number of organizations, at DoD (NSSO, AF Security Forces, AFRL, Army Research, NRL), DoE, academia, industry (Raytheon, L'Garde, Boeing,LMSSC/MDR/PWR and SAIC) and help from Futron. Still looking for a DoE liaison--they seem to be focused on terrestrial.
Goal is to provide measurable power from space to ground, have it safe, and show that it is scalable, within the budget and schedule. They want to validate efficiencies over several types of paths. Raytheon is working on a system with 6 K-Band traveling wave tube amps. They're expecting to receive power on the ground on the order of 20 milliwatts from 600 watts transmitted, using Goldstone for the receiver, though other options are being considered. Each beaming experiment will last about ten minutes with about a hundred seconds of maximum power. They're foreseeing a 27-month program for about $55M, hoping for a May 2010 demo.
Already a letter of intent from Gary Payton and Bill Gerstenmaier--NASA will do space segment, DoD will do ground, and help with money. Also provide TWTs, use of AFRL facilities and Tyndall, and help with roadmap. NASA fives a Shuttle ride, berth on ISS, money, use of DSN dish at Goldstone, and project engineering, with support from Raytheon and Texas A&M.
Benefits of concept are near-term launch capability, services available at ISS including humans present. Compared to doing a separate satellite on an EELV--would save hundeds of millions. Biggest risk is schedule. Asking for authority to proceed from NASA HQ next week.
Jay Penn is concerned about the low transmission efficiency of the proposed experiment, and suggests a laser for much better power transfer. It really is amazing that you can only get 20 milliwatts from 600 watts using that monster dish at Goldstone. It just shows how important aperture size is at that microwave frequency (2.45 MHz). It is being pointed out that there are already demos of low-power microwave power beaming from space--it's called comsats. It's determined to take this discussion off line.
Question: what will we learn from this demo and how will it help future designs and concepts? The answer wasn't clear.
Colonel Damphousse points out that there is DoD support for this, and he appreciates the comments. We shouldn't be focused on how many milliwatts or microwatts are being transmitted--beam characterization is important to allow us to scale up later demos. It has to be looked at as a first step, because we aren't going to get billions for a 10 MW demo right now.
Bruce Thieman of AFRL is talking now about spacelift costs, and the implications for space solar power. Currently at $4000/lb to LEO, are only going to get to $400/lb with what's currently funded. Current costs are high, vehicles are unreliable, with long call up. Goal is much faster turn around, much higher reliability and lower costs. Everything is currently horrendously expensive (a lot of dispute about his chart that has Shuttle costs at $450M--it's got to be closer to a billion per flight these days). Showing commercial launch systems--SpaceX, ULA, AirLaunch, Microcosm and others, including Kistler--old chart). Even COTS vehicles can't get costs below $1500/lb or so (Taurus 2 calculated to be $2000). EELV is in the $3400-4300 range.
Showing chart that says that reusable lower stage expendable upper stage hits a near-term sweet spot in cutting costs by about half. Still $300-$400/lb. Can't do better until fully reusable, and that needs launch rates of forty or more a year. The reusable first stage is designed for a 48-hour turnaround. Long-term goal for fully reuable systems is four hours. Want to eventually see a thousand flights per airframe.
Talking about suborbital now. Most important thing that they will do is drive up launch rate and learn about operations, and high turnaround rate. They are a very important community. Showing classic chart of that shows energy costs to orbit--translates into a ticket price to orbit of $76 (about 38 cents a pound). Question is how to bring launch rate up. If we can bring satellites down to $300/pound to build, we could build more and launch them more often, and refresh technology more often as opposed to GPS, which is a fifteen-year satellite, mostly driven by launch costs. Have to change the culture of the satellite community, which will require initial drops in launch costs.
Now Richard Fork (UA, Huntsville) is giving a paper called "Adaptive Network for Power and Information in Near-Earth Space."
His challenge was to come up with a way to use lasers for power, but not a weapon. Proposes a "quantum secure" laser-based network to support both power and information transfer from space. Looking into laser-based power and "intelligent cyber-secure adaptive networks." Have to figure out a way to keep people from "hacking" the lasers. Sees it as an enabler for space solar power.
OK, so he's talking about direct solar-laser conversion, and using lasers for launch (ablative). I don't see how it relates to his summary of the talk, though. Has a chart of bullet points, not particularly related to each other, including one on asteroid deflection with lasers, the last one of which is "Main need is for a well managed program.
All is lost.
Time for lunch.
[Update a couple minutes later]
OK, not quite. Now he's talking about quantum secure links again. Conclusions: need for both microwaves and lasers. Lasers alone offer highly directionsl efficent long-range power delivery. They alone offer a "quantum-secure" info network. And intelligent quantum secure power network can be designed an implemented within time frames of interest.
OK. Whatever.
[Update after lunch]
I've started a new post for the afternoon session.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:10 AMWell, actually, I'm going to a resort at Disney World to attend a workshop on Space Solar Power. It should be like old home week, though I haven't been involved in the field for fifteen years or so.
We'll see what the interweb situation is up there before I make any promises about blogging for the next couple days.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:38 PM...that geeks would do with $700B.
I can tell you that if I had that much money to play with, I can guarantee that, within two decades, asteroids wouldn't be a worry any more. And there would be a tourist resort on the moon.
[Via (where else?) Geek Press]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:50 AMI have some fiftieth birthday thoughts over at Pajamas Media.
[Early afternoon update]
Well, this is annoying. A screwed-up history from Time magazine:
NASA was actually founded in 1915 and at the time was known as the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics -- or NACA. Its job was to keep the nation abreast of the latest developments in the then-nascent technology of powered flight. NACA was established with good intentions but operated mostly as a bureaucratic backwater, a government body that couldn't hope to keep up with a rapidly evolving private industry. In 1957, however, all that changed. That was the year the U.S.S.R. launched Sputnik, the first Earth satellite -- and in the process, scared the daylights out of the U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower acted quickly, dusting off NACA and renaming it NASA -- for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. On October 1, 1958, the new agency officially went into business.
No, NASA was not NACA, or "founded in 1915." NACA was a completely different kind of animal. It had nothing to do with space, and it was not an operational organization. It was a basic research outfit, and viewed the aviation industry as its customer, providing data and resources that allowed them to build better airplanes.
Sadly, once it was absorbed into the borg of the new space and aeronautics agency fifty years ago, it lost that focus, and the new entity largely saw itself as the customer, and the space industry as its contractors. Many argue that we need to return to a NACA philosophy for space, but it's extremely misleading and confusing to state that NASA is NACA, and that its history goes back over ninety years. In fact, it is false.
He also doesn't really explain why JSC is in Houston. Yes, Johnson was happy to have the mission control center in Texas, but Texas is a big state, and there are no particular geographical requirements for mission control (unlike, e.g., a launch site). It could as easily have been in Dallas or elsewhere. It was established in Houston because Rice University donated a lot of land for it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:19 AMPlans to set up international efforts to deal with the asteroid threat continue.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:17 AMI just got an email indicating that the Hubble mission has been delayed until February. So they've got two orbiters sitting on the pad, neither of which is configured for an ISS mission. Will they be able to accelerate the next planned one, or does this mean more delays for ISS completion (and Shuttle retirement, assuming that they go ahead with it)?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:29 AMMany continue to disbelieve (with no obvious basis) that there really is a market for people who want to go into space; that it is "just a fad," and that after a while, folks will get bored and the demand will disappear. I of course think that's nonsense, and that word of mouth of the experience will only increase interest in it as more and more people hear about it, and want to try it themselves. Any astronaut will tell you that it was a, if not the peak experience of their lives.
Well, Space Adventures has announced today that Charles Simonyi, who flew with them previously, is going to spend millions do it again.
Man, that first time must have really sucked.
[Update mid morning]
Clark Lindsey has the press release.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:44 AMShubber Ali noticed an omission, that surprises neither of us.
As I continue to point out, space isn't important. Unless it somehow gets kids to study their math and science.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:52 AMJeff Foust has a piece on yesterday's successful launch of the Falcon 1, and contrasts it with the successful landing of the first Chinese EVA mission:
SpaceX is moving on to launching real satellites, starting with RazakSAT, a Malaysian remote sensing satellite scheduled for launch on a Falcon 1 early next year; the first Falcon 9 launch is now planned for the second quarter of 2009. "We look forward to doing a lot of Falcon 1 launches and a lot of Falcon 9 launches and continuously improving until the point where we're the world's leading provider of space launch," Musk said.
Sunday's launch was not the only space milestone in the last week. On Thursday China launched its third manned mission, Shenzhou 7, on a 68-hour mission that featured the first Chinese spacewalk. The launch, EVA, and landing all captured headlines around the world, and has generated far more attention than the SpaceX launch likely will.In the long run, though, it may be the SpaceX launch that is more influential. China is following the same path forged nearly five decades ago by the United States and the former Soviet Union: a government-run human spaceflight program that is as much for national prestige as for anything else. Several other countries, including India, Europe, and Japan, may follow in the next decade and beyond. It's a tried-and-true paradigm, but one that has done little to date to open space for new applications and new audiences.
SpaceX, and other NewSpace ventures like it, carry the promise of dramatically changing the space industry with low-cost orbital and suborbital launch options that open up new and potentially lucrative new markets. That promise, though, has remained just that--a promise, not a reality--since SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X Prize four years ago. Sunday's launch was perhaps the biggest milestone since then in demonstrating what NewSpace can offer.
Clark Lindsey has a lot of links to other commentary.
Apparently, the fourth time was the charm. More thoughts later.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:20 PMIn comments at the previous post on this subject, Karl Hallowell comments:
It's not government's job to suck up risk for a contractor. As I see it, if contractors really were giving their best cost estimates, then they're regularly overestimate prices not consistently underestimate them.
The other commenters who seem to think that designing a brand new UAV, or the first successful hit to kill missile (SRHIT/ERINT/PAC-3, not the dead end HOE), or an autonomous helicopter (all things I've been heavily involved with) is something that can and should be done on a fixed-price contract (after all, one bridge is like any other, right?) . . . it can maybe be done, but only if you're willing to let system development take a lot longer.I don't know who posted this, but it's unrealistic.
Let's give an example of how the real world works in salvaging ships on the high seas:
Salvage work has long been viewed as a form of legal piracy. The insurers of a disabled ship with valuable cargo will offer from 10 to 70 percent of the value of the ship and its cargo to anyone who can save it. If the salvage effort fails, they don't pay a dime. It's a risky business: As ships have gotten bigger and cargo more valuable, the expertise and resources required to mount a salvage effort have steadily increased. When a job went bad in 2004, Titan ended up with little more than the ship's bell as a souvenir. Around the company's headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, it's known as the $11.6 million bell.Exactly the scenario where it is claimed that fixed price contracts can't work. Huge risk, lots of uncertainty, time pressure. A similar example is oil well firefighters. As I see it, there's almost no circumstances when government needs to help the contractor with risk. The money, paid when the job is done right, does that. If it's not enough, then nobody takes the contract. Simple as that.
Yes. The reason that cost-plus contracts are preferred by government is that government, by its nature, has an aversion to profit. It's the same sort of economic ignorance that drives things like idiotic "anti-gouging" laws, and it results in the same false economy for the citizens and taxpayers.
The problem isn't that companies are unwilling to bid fixed price on high-tech ventures. The problem is that, in order to do so, they have to build enough profit into the bid to make it worth the risk. But the government views any profit over the standard one in cost-plus contracts (generally less than ten percent) as "obscene," and to allow a company to make more profit than that from a taxpayer-funded project is a "ripoff." So instead, they cap the profit, and reimburse costs, while also having to put into place an onerous oversight process, in terms of cost accounting and periodic customer reviews, that dramatically increases cost to the taxpayer, probably far beyond what they would be if they simply let it out fixed price and ignored the profit. I would argue that instead of the current model of cost-plus, lowest bidder, an acceptance of bid based on the technical merits of the proposal, history and quality of the bidding team, even if the bid cost is higher, will ultimately result in lower costs to the government (and taxpayer).
As I understand it, this is the battle that XCOR (hardly a risk-averse company, at least from a business standpoint) has been waging with NASA for years. XCOR wants to bid fixed price, and accept the risk (and the profits if they can hit their internal cost targets), while NASA wants them to be a cost-plus contractor, with all of the attendant increases in costs, and changes in corporate culture implied by that status.
This is the debate that will have to occur if John McCain wants to make any headway in his stated desire Friday night to get rid of cost-plus contracts. Unfortunately, he's not in a very good philosophical position to argue his case, because he's one of those economic simpletons in Washington who think that making money is ignoble, and that profits are evil, particularly when they're so high as to be "obscene."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:34 AMThere's another Falcon launch attempt scheduled tonight, 4-9 PM PDT. Here's hoping.
SpaceX will be webcasting, as usual. Spaceflight Now will be covering it as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:03 AMWho knows?
Judging by this, we can't rely on anything they tell us about their progress.
China's state news agency published a despatch from the country's three latest astronauts describing their first night in space before they had even left Earth.
Including a fauxtograph.
We didn't fake the moon landings, but given this, it wouldn't surprise me if the Chinese attempt it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:11 AMMike Griffin says that space exploration is crucial to the survival of humanity.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:20 PMI've never been there, but here are some spectacular pics.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:19 AMJudging by the comments here, the natives are growing ever more restless at NASA, over the sham PDR they just held:
Is NASA trying to put lipstick on a pig? This one, highly-visible decision on how to report status says more than enough. It is a political gimmick if ever we have seen one. And being an election year, I guess it is de rigeur. How terribly sad...
...I think NASA should get rid of the red category all together, because if anything gets put in that category, it doesn't look good. They might want to get rid of orange also, because that's too close to red. Here is how I think the categories should be arranged.GREEN
GREEN/GREEN
GREEN/LIGHT GREEN
GREEN/TEAL
GREEN/EMERALDNow, don't these colors make you feel good?
It kind of reminds me of Tom Ridge's terror alerts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:07 AMFrom Carolyn Porco.
No, we don't need "big" rockets. We need affordable rockets.
[Update a couple minutes later]
The perennial question: why do reporters (even science and technology reporters) think that scientists are a good source for technology policy advice?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:52 PMJust got an email from Elon:
The static fire took place on Saturday [20 Sep 2008, CA time], as expected, and no major issues came up. However, after a detailed analysis of data, we decided to replace a component in the 2nd stage engine LOX supply line. There is a good chance we would be ok flying as is, but we are being extremely cautious.
This adds a few extra days to the schedule, so the updated launch window estimate is now Sept 28th through Oct 1st [CA time].
So if they hold to that schedule, the fourth Falcon 1 launch attempt could be early next week.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:34 PMI just discovered, via the latest Carnival of Space, that Bruce Cordell and some other folks have started a web-site/blog devoted to space and space colonization, called Twenty-First Century Waves.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:56 PMThere's a new Falcon on the launch pad (not a permalink). Here's hoping for a successful flight this week.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:55 AMBen Bova has a piece in the Naples News that could have been written thirty years ago. In fact, it's exactly like stuff that he (and I) wrote thirty years ago. The only difference is that I have experienced the past thirty years, whereas he seems to be stuck in a seventies time warp, and I've gotten a lot more sober about the prospects for a lot of the orbital activities that were always just around the corner, and probably always will be:
An orbital habitat needn't be a retirement center, though. Space offers some interesting advantages for manufacturing metal alloys, pharmaceuticals, electronics components and other products. For example, in zero-gravity it's much easier to mix liquids.
Think of mixing a salad dressing. On Earth, no matter how hard you stir, the heavier elements sink to the bottom of the bowl. In zero G there are no heavier elements: they're all weightless. And you don't even need a bowl! Liquids form spherical shapes, whether they're droplets of water or industrial-sized balls of molten metals.Metallurgists have predicted that it should be possible in orbit to produce steel alloys that are much stronger, yet much lighter, than any alloys produced on Earth. This is because the molten elements can mix much more thoroughly, and gaseous impurities in the mix can percolate out and into space.
Imagine automobiles built of orbital steel. They'd be much stronger than ordinary cars, yet lighter and more fuel-efficient. There's a market to aim for.
Moreover, in space you get energy practically for free. Sunlight can be focused with mirrors to produce furnace-hot temperatures. Or electricity, from solarvoltaic cells. Without spending a penny for fuel.
The clean, "containerless" environment of orbital space could allow production of ultrapure pharmaceuticals and electronics components, among other things.
Orbital facilities, then, would probably consist of zero-G sections where manufacturing work is done, and low-G areas where people live.
There would also be a good deal of scientific research done in orbital facilities. For one thing, an orbiting habitat would be an ideal place to conduct long-term studies of how the human body reacts to prolonged living in low gravity. Industrial researchers will seek new ways to utilize the low gravity, clean environment and free energy to produce new products, preferably products that cannot be manufactured on Earth, with its heavy gravity, germ-laden environment and high energy costs.
Cars made of "orbital steel"?
Please.
But I guess there's always a fresh market for this kind of overhyped boosterism. I think that it actively hurts the cause of space activism, because people in the know know how unrealistic a lot of it is, and it just hurts the credibility of proponents like Ben Bova.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:29 AMIs the ISS itself causing the Soyuz entry failures?
...the Soyuz used to fly long duration missions to the space station flawlessly for years. So what changed in the last two flights? Some bad parts out of the same lot?
A unique confluence of circumstances being investigated appears to be at fault. The space station has grown in size considerably since those first early long duration flights that the Soyuz so flawlessly serviced. It is a bit larger now with all the new modules the Emperor has sent aloft for our friends. As such it makes quite a target for training gangly military officers on ground based radars around the world. It has also become quite a source of electromagnetic energy itself, with all the radios and such from all the international partners blasting their messages back to the homelands.Did you hear the recent news about cell phones in your pocket causing your little reproductive agents to slow down or become ineffective? The same thing may be at work when the cacophony of EMI on the space station envelops the Soyuz separation pyros and causes them to become inert.
If true, it raises some interesting issues. Is there something intrinsic in the Soyuz design, or pyro design, that causes this effect? Or is it a problem for pyros on any lifeboat that we put up there? Do they need to make it possible to change them out on orbit (if this capability isn't already there), and keep them in a shielded box until they have to go home? Of course, this would slow things down in an emergency, if they had to get away immediately.
The problem of a space station lifeboat is a much tougher one than people realize (which is why I've always opposed it, at least if such a thing is defined as a device that gets you all the way to earth if there's a problem on the station). You simply can't trust hardware that has been sitting dormant for months in the space environment to work reliably when you need it to (at least not at our current level of experience with space operations).
This is also the reason that we couldn't use an Orbiter for a lifeboat, even if we had enough of them that taking one out of the processing flow wouldn't have a severe impact on turnaround times. We can't know for sure if it can survive six months on orbit, even with power and support from the ISS, and have the reliability needed to safely come home.
That's why I've always advocated a robust space transportation infrastructure that is always being exercised (e.g., multiple co-orbiting facilities with different purposes, and space tugs/crew modules for transit from one to the other). It provides redundancy, and reliability, and obviates the need to abandon a single space station to take people all the way back to earth in the event of a problem.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:32 AMThe NASA OIG says that NASA hasn't provided a good basis of estimate for its costs for its Constellation budget requests.
I'm sure that this is nothing new, given what a perennial mess the agency's books are always in, with incompatible accounting systems, different and arcane ways of bookkeeping at different centers/directorates, etc.
But here's what's interesting to me. This story is about justifying the costs of building Ares/Orion et al so that they can get their requested budget from OMB and Congress. But that's not the only reason that we need to have a good basis of estimate.
Ever since Mike Griffin came in, he, Steve Cook and others have told us that they (meaning Doug Stanley) did a trade study, comparing EELVs and other options to developing Ares in order to accomplish the Vision for Space Exploration. A key, in fact crucial element of any such trade would have to include...estimated costs.
We have been told over and over again that they did the trade, but as far as I know, we've never been provided with the actual study--only its "results." We have no information on the basis of estimate, the assumptions that went into it, etc. If NASA can't come up with them now that's it's an ongoing program, why should we trust the results of the earlier study that determined the direction of that program when it was much less mature, with its implications for many billions of dollars in the future, and the effectiveness in carrying out the national goals? Why haven't we been allowed to see the numbers?
I think that the new resident of the White House, regardless of party, should set up an independent assessment of the situation, complete with a demand for the data.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:27 AMNASA Spaceflight has an interesting report on the status of the study.
It sounds about right to me. Retire Atlantis and make it a parts queen or a launch-on-need vehicle, and fly the other two vehicles once each per year. But at that low a flight rate, I wonder if the processing teams lose their "edge" and start to screw up? There's an optimal flight rate for both cost and safety. Too fast and you make mistakes because of the rush, but too slow, and you get out of practice. And of course each flight would cost over two billion bucks, assuming that it costs four billion a year to keep the program going.
And as noted numerous times in the past, this doesn't solve the problem of leaving US crew on the station. They still need a lifeboat of some sort. They discuss this as a "COTS-D Minus":
...several companies have noted the ability to make available a lifeboat vehicle from 2012 (names and details currently embargoed due to ongoing discussions).
Clearly, one of those companies has to be SpaceX.
But this idea seems to never die:
'There is some interest now in developing this (RCO) into a full mission capability, thus enabling unmanned shuttles to launch, dock to ISS, undock and land in 2011 and beyond.''While that's an interesting idea and would be a fun development project, we are working to understand the level of effort the program desires for this study.'
It's not an "interesting idea." It's a monumentally dumb idea. There is little point in flying Shuttle without crew. The ability to fly crew is its primary feature. It's far too expensive to operate to act as a cargo vehicle. If the point of the idea is to not risk crew, then we have no business in space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:41 AMFrequent commenter Mike Puckett is wondering (via email) how Mark Whittington is doing in Houston, because he hasn't posted in over four days (at the time of this posting, the link is Mark's most recent post).
I'm a little concerned as well, but for now I assume that he's just lost power and can't post. Fortunately, the storm was not as bad as feared, and we haven't heard of massive casualties.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:57 PMIt's not just between Mike Griffin and OMB (and the White House?). Now (not that it's anything new) there is a lot of infighting between JSC and Marshall over Orion and Ares:
Design issues for any new vehicle are to be expected, and correctly represented by the often-used comment of 'if there weren't problems, we wouldn't need engineers.' However, Orion's short life on the drawing board has been an unhappy childhood.
The vast majority of Orion's design changes have been driven by Ares I's shortcomings - via performance and mass issues - to ably inject the vehicle into orbit. The fact that the Ares I now has several thousand pounds of reserve mass properties negates the suffering it has brought on the vehicle it is designed to serve.Those penalties Orion had to endure could be seen at the very start of its design process, when the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) reduced in size by 0.5 meters in diameter, soon followed by Orion having its Service Module stripped down in size and mass by around 50 percent.
'Mass savings' would become one of the most repeated terms surrounding the Orion project.
One of the problems that the program had (like many) were caused by the intrinsic concept of the Shaft itself. If you're designing an all-new rocket, it is a "rubber" vehicle in that one can size stages to whatever is necessary to optimize it. But in their determination to use an SRB as a first stage, they put an artificial constraint on vehicle performance. When it was discovered that the four-segment motor wouldn't work, they went to a different upper stage engine. When this didn't work, they went to five segments (which meant that it was a whole new engine).
During Apollo, von Braun took requirements from the people designing the mission hardware, and then added a huge margin to it (fifty percent, IIRC), because he didn't believe them. As it turned out, they ended up needing almost all of the vehicle performance to get to the moon.
This program never had anything like that kind of margin, and now, at PDR 0.5, it's already almost gone. So now they're rolling the requirements back on to the Orion, demanding that the payload make up for performance loss by cutting weight, while also (probably, next year) requiring that it add systems to mitigate the fact that the vehicle is going to shake them like a Sherwin Williams machine. This will result in further loss of margin, redundancy and safety.
This is not a typical development path of a successful program. It is emblematic of one about to augur in.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:04 PMIs NASA fighting with OMB?
Lots of great comments here, including the fact that Mike Griffin's fear mongering about China is at odds with administration policy. Including this great comment from "red""
it would be a good idea for Griffin to consider what kind of response by NASA would be useful to the U.S. in countering the real military and economic space threats from China. It seems to me that ESAS doesn't help counter these real threats at all.The kinds of capabilities that NASA could encourage, invent, or improve to counter China's ASATs, launchers, and satellites are things like:
- operationally responsive space
- small satellites
- Earth observation satellites
- telecommunications satellites
- economical commercial launch vehicles
- commercial suborbital rockets
- improved education in space-related fields
- space infrastructure (e.g.: commercial space stations, tugs, refueling)It's possible that, if NASA were contributing more in areas like these (through incentives to U.S. commercial space, research, demos, etc), it would find the budget battles easier to win.
No kidding. Especially the last. And Apollo On Steroids makes no contributions to any of these things.
[Update a few minutes later]
Speaking of comments, "anonymous.space" has a description of what NASA's "pat on the back" PDR really means:
This past week, Constellation patted itself on the back for getting Ares I through its first preliminary design review (PDR) but glossed over the fact that Ares I still has to conduct a second PDR next summer to address the unresolved mitigation systems for the first stage thrust oscillation issue, with unknown consequences for the rest of the design. See the asterisk on the pre-board recommendation at the bottom of the last page of this presentation.
The Constellation press release and briefing also made no mention of the recent year-long slip in the Orion PDR to next summer. See NASA Watch, NASA Spaceflight, and Flight Global.So neither the Ares I nor the Orion preliminary design is complete, and one could argue that the Constellation program has been held back a year more than it's been allowed to pass to the next grade.
More worrisome than the PDR slips are the grades that Ares I received in this partial PDR. The pre-board used a green, yellow/green, yellow, yellow/red, and red grading scheme, which can also be depicted as the more familiar A (4.0), B (3.0), C (2.0), D (1.0), and F (0.0) grading scheme. The pre-board provided ten grades against ten different success criteria from NASA's program management handbook. The ten grades had the following distribution:
One "Green" (A, 4.0) grade
Two "Yellow/Green" (B, 3.0) grades
Four "Yellow" (C, 2.0) grades
Three "Yellow/Red" (D, 1.0) grades
No "Red" (F, 0.0) gradesSo seven of Ares I's ten grades were a C or a D. Ares I is NASA's planned primary means of crew launch over the next couple of decades and should define technical excellence. But instead, the project earned a grade point average of 2.1, barely a "gentleman's C" (or a "gentleman's yellow"). See the pre-board grades on pages 3-7 of this presentation.
And even more worrisome than the PDR slips and grades are the areas in which the project is earning its lowest grades. Among areas in which Ares I earned a yellow/red (or D) grade and the accompanying technical problems were:
The preliminary design meets the requirements at an acceptable level of risk:
- Induced environments are high and cause challenges, including pyro shock to avionics and acoustic environments on reaction and roll control systems.- No formal process for control of models and analysis.
- Areas of known failure still need to be worked, including liftoff clearances.
Definition of the technical interfaces is consistent with the overall level of technical maturity and provides an acceptable level of risk:
- Process for producing and resolving issues between Level 2 and Level 3 interface requirement documents and interface control documents is unclear, including the roles and responsibilities of managers and integrators and the approval process for identifying the baseline and making changes to it.
- Numerous known disconnects and "TBDs" in the interface requirement documents, including an eight inch difference between the first stage and ground system and assumption of extended nozzle performance not incorporated in actual first and ground system designs.
See the pre-board grades on pages 4-5 of this presentation.
So, in addition to the unknowns associated with the unresolved thrust oscillation system for Ares I:
- the vehicle's electronics can't survive the shocks induced during stage separation;
- the vehicle's control systems will be shaken apart and unable to keep the rocket flying straight;
- the vehicle is going to hit the ground support structure on liftoff;
- the project is assuming performance from advanced rocket nozzles that don't fit within the vehicle's dimensions;
- the project can't even get the height of the rocket and its ground support to match; and
- there's no good modeling, analytical, or requirements control necessary to resolve any of these issues.
And the real kicker from the press conference was the revelation that Constellation manager Jeff Hanley only has 2,000-3,000 pounds of performance reserve left at the program level and that Ares I manager Steve Cook has no margin left to contribute to unresolved future problems like thrust oscillation impacts to Orion. See, again, NASA Watch.
We know from prior presentations that Orion's mass margin is down to practically zero (286 kilograms or 572 pounds) for ISS missions and is negative (-859 kilograms or -1,718 pounds) for lunar missions. See p. 25, 33, and 37 in this presentation.
When added to Hanley's margins, that means that the entire Ares I/Orion system is down to ~2,500-3,500 pounds of mass margin for the ISS mission and ~300-1,300 pounds of mass margin for the lunar mission. That's between seven and less than one percent mass margin against Orion's 48,000 pound total mass. Typical mass margin at the PDR stage should be on the order of 20-25 percent, about triple the best-case assessment here. Ares I/Orion still has seven years of design and development to go and at best has only one-third of the mass margin it should have at this stage.
Even worse, those Orion mass margins don't account for the mass threats still to be allocated in next year's Orion PDR. In the presentation above, the 90th percentile mass threats for the ISS and lunar missions are separately about 900 kilograms or 2,000 pounds. That reduces the total Ares I/Orion mass margin to between -1,700 and 1,500 pounds. That's a negative (negative!) three percent mass margin on the lunar mission and only a positive three percent mass margin on the ISS mission, at least seven times less margin than what the program needs at this point in time.
Instead of worrying about $60 million Soyuz purchases and extending existing Shuttle jobs, Weldon and his staff need to be worrying about the $20 billion Ares I/Orion program and whether it can ever technically close and replace some of those Shuttle jobs.
Some have attempted to excuse this by saying, "well, every big space program has teething issues." True. Two responses.
First, many of them die from them (e.g., X-33).
Second, I don't know of any comparable program that had essentially zero margin at PDR (and I'm not aware of any that required multiple PDRs or "PDR do-overs") that survived them. Perhaps someone more familiar with history can enlighten me.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:00 AMThis screwed up:
After trying unsuccessfully for years to build its own radar satellite, the Pentagon is now turning to its allies for help and has been presented with a plan that would see it buy a clone of Canada's highly successful Radarsat-2 spacecraft.The U.S. Defence Department asked for and received information this week from a number of foreign satellite consortiums on how they could help the Pentagon meet its surveillance needs for the future.
Isn't there anybody here who knows how to play this game?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:30 PMI'm looking at reporting from what looks like the Sheraton in Clear Lake, and there are reports of furniture with NASA logos floating in the bay. Gotta think that some of the JSC facilities were flooded.
If space were important, we wouldn't have mission control in an area susceptible to floods and hurricanes. The Cape has some geographical reasons for its location, but the only reason that JSC is in Houston is because Johnson wanted it there, and the land was free.
[Update in the afternoon]
Here's more on NASA's fragile infrastructure. The agency's ground facilities are just as non-robust as its space transportation system.
Here is how it seems to work: a hurricane threatens JSC - so NASA shuts off email and other services to a large chunk of the agency. Why? Because NASA deliberately set the system up such that other NASA centers - some of which are thousands of miles away and poised to offer assistance and keep the rest of the agency operating - have their email and other services routed out of JSC - and only JSC (or so it would seem). A few critical users have some service, but everyone else is out of luck for at least 48 hours. Would any self-respecting, profitable, commercial communications company do something as silly as this? No. They'd never stay in business. Only NASA would come up with such a flawed and stupid plan.
That's too harsh. I can imagine the FAA, or DHS doing exactly the same thing.
It's just more of that wise, foresightful government thing.
[Update about 1:30 PM EDT]
Jeff Masters says that Galveston lucked out:
Although Ike caused heavy damage by flooding Galveston with a 12-foot storm surge, the city escaped destruction thanks to its 15.6-foot sea wall (the wall was built 17 feet high, but has since subsided about 2 feet). The surge was able to flow into Galveston Bay and flood the city from behind, but the wall prevented a head-on battering by the surge from the ocean side. Galveston was fortunate that Ike hit the city head-on, rather than just to the south. Ike's highest storm surge occurred about 50 miles to the northeast of Galveston, over a lightly-populated stretch of coast. Galveston was also lucky that Ike did not have another 12-24 hours over water. In the 12 hours prior to landfall, Ike's central pressure dropped 6 mb, and the storm began to rapidly organize and form a new eyewall. If Ike had had another 12-24 hours to complete this process, it would have been a Category 4 hurricane with 135-145 mph winds that likely would have destroyed Galveston. The GFDL model was consistently advertising this possibility, and it wasn't far off the mark. It was not clear to me until late last night that Ike would not destroy Galveston and kill thousands of people. Other hurricane scientists I conversed with yesterday were of the same opinion.
And of course, the lesson that the people who stayed behind will take is not that they were lucky and foolhardy, but that the weather forecasters overhyped the storm, and they'll be even less likely to evacuate the next time. And one of these times their luck will run out, as it did for their ancestors a few generations ago, when thousands were killed by a hurricane in Galveston.
[Update mid afternoon]
Sounds like things could have been a lot worse at NASA, too.
NASA had feared that a storm surge from Galveston Bay would flood some buildings on the 1,600-acre Space Center. Its southeast boundary is near Clear Lake, which is connected to Galveston Bay. However, the water did not rise that high.
Apparently the Guppy hangar at Ellington was destroyed, but it was never much of a hangar--more like a big tent.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:03 AMAn interview with Tom Jones on the subject, over at Popular Mechanics. Note that he doesn't point out that no one ordered Mike Griffin to develop Ares, which is the biggest reason that Orion is delayed and that NASA doesn't have enough funding. He also has too much faith in Orion flying before something else (particularly given the Ares problems). I'm sure we could put up a capsule on an Atlas long before 2014, whether Dragon or something else, if we made it a priority.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:11 AMAs I've noted in the past, we're going to have to decide how much ISS is worth to us. Chair Force Engineer thinks that we're going to bite the bullet and buy more Soyuzs from the Russians:
Besides the reliance on Soyuz, there are myriad other ways in which ISS cannot survive unless the US and Russia cooperate. The various modules are too interconnected, and neither country can operate their contributions to the station without the other country playing along. It's conceivable that Russia could afford to build Soyuz without American money, by selling the American slots to space tourists. But a Russian-led ISS would still require use of American space modules.
America and Russia are left in a situation where it's unlikely that either will abandon the ISS, even though both nations are mired in growing mistrust. If I had to make a bet, I would say that the US and Russia will learn to grin and bear it, operating ISS jointly until 2017. When Congress looks rationally at its options, it will realize that it will have to begrudgingly buy more Soyuz if it still wants to participate in ISS.
Sometimes, I think that expecting Congress to "look rationally at its options" is asking too much. Particularly when it's robbing money from the NASA budget to provide foreign aid to Ethiopia. Sure, why not? It's not like NASA's spending the money very usefully, anyway. It just proves my oft-made point that space isn't politically important.
Anyway, as I said in my Pajamas piece, this is a policy disaster long in the making, and the chickens are finally coming home to roost. It was naive in the extreme at the end of the Cold War to assume that we and Russia would be BFFs and enter into such an inextricable long-term relationship. Now it's like a very dysfunctional marriage that is being held together only out of concern for the children. Without ISS, the divorce would be swift, I suspect.
[Update a while later]
Speaking of apt metaphors, Clark Lindsey has one for the Ares program:
Yellow and red grades notwithstanding, it has always seemed extremely unlikely to me that Ares I would fail to fly when NASA has so many billions of dollars available to spend on it. However, since I believe the whole Ares I/V program to be a stupendous waste, if technical problems did arise that led to its cancellation, I'd consider it a boon for US space development. If the brakes fail and a huge truck starts to careen down a hill, it's a blessing if the thing blows a tire instead and flops over into a ditch with relatively little damage to people and property. Unfortunately, it appears that Ares will keep rolling no matter what.
Actually, I wouldn't necessarily bet on that. There may be "change" coming to NASA next year, regardless of who wins the election.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:06 AMCan they close the gap? It's possible (though it seems unlikely) that they could have a successful Falcon 9 launch before a successful Falcon 1 launch. They don't seem to be letting Falcon 1 problems slow down the Falcon 9 schedule.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:09 PMIt's not very often that I have a new thought about space, but when I do, I should post it here, rather than debuting it at Space Politics, as I did yesterday. Here's a repeat.
In response to a comment by Stephen Metschan that "According to Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson, 80% of the life cycle cost of space is in the spacecraft and mission not the launch system," I wrote:
"That's because we haven't been doing human exploration to the moon and Mars for the time period over which he gathered that data. The vast amount of payload delivered to orbit for a spacefaring civilization (at least initially, until we are getting it from extraterrestrial sources) is propellant, which costs almost nothing on earth, but is very expensive in space when it's put up on an expensive launch system. And propellant is almost infinitely divisible, and something that can go up on large vehicles, small vehicles, high-reliability vehicles and low-reliability vehicles. But the important thing about it is that it go up on low-cost vehicles.
I'm always amused by the absurd notion that the mistake we made in the past was mixing crew and cargo.
No.
The real mistake that we made was mixing cargo (which is high value, at least if it's space systems, as opposed to logistics, regardless of whether people are being delivered) and propellant. Once you stop doing that, the rationale for large vehicles goes away completely. It can be done with existing vehicles, or new lower-cost vehicles. But it doesn't need expensive new and large expendable vehicles. And in fact they are counterproductive."
I should expand on this sometime. I think that there's an interesting economic argument for "impedance matching" vehicle costs to payload costs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:00 AMI was going to have some comments about the administrator's leaked email, but haven't had the time. Fortunately, over in comments at Space politics, "anonymous.space" picks up my slack:
He didn't mean for it to be shown to the outside world, but the revisionism, hypocrisy, and self-adulation in Griffin's email is pretty shocking, even this late into the ESAS/Constellation debacle. It's either that, or he's been lying about his real positions for a long time. Griffin wrote:
"Exactly as I predicted, events have unfolded in a way that makes it clear how unwise it was for the US to adopt a policy of deliberate dependence on another power for access to the ISS."Griffin never predicted this. Instead, Griffin repeatedly stated that the VSE -- including its 2010 date for Shuttle retirement -- and the accompanying NASA Authorization Act of 2005 provide the nation with its best civil space policy in decades. In fact, Griffin said so as recently as January 2008 in an STA speech:
"I consider this to be the best civil space policy to be enunciated by a president, and the best Authorization Act to be approved by the Congress, since the 1960s."
See here.
In fact, just before becoming NASA Administrator, Griffin even _led_ a study that argued as one of its central conclusions/recommendations that the Space Shuttle could and should be retired after ISS assembly reached the stage of "U.S. Core Complete", certainly no later than 2010.
See here.
If Griffin was really so prescient as to predict the situation that NASA's human space flight programs are in now, then he should have spoken up years ago instead of repeatedly signing onto studies and policies that are flawed according to the argument in his email. In fact, it would have been wrong for him to have lobbied for the job of NASA Administrator to begin with if he really thought that the President's policy was so compromised.
Griffin should resign immediately and apologize if his email reflects what he's actually believed all these years. If not, and his email represents how Griffin has recently changed his views, then Griffin should admit that he was wrong to sign onto the policy, argue that the policy needs to be revised, and resign if it is not revised in a manner that he can support.
Griffin also wrote:
"In a rational world, we would have been allowed to pick a Shuttle retirement date to be consistent with Ares/Orion availability"
Griffin is confused about both chronology and causality in this statement. The Shuttle retirement date came first -- as a recommendation about Shuttle operability and certification in the CAIB report and then as policy in the VSE. The replacement for Shuttle (originally CEV in the VSE and then Ares/Orion in ESAS) came second and was supposed to have a schedule that was responsive to that Shuttle retirement date.
In a rational world, a rational NASA Administrator would have picked a rational Shuttle replacement that could be developed rapidly and fielded soon after the 2010 deadline for Shuttle retirement using the available budgetary and technical resources. Instead, Griffin chose an Ares/Orion system that is so technically compromised that it can't complete even its preliminary design review before the end of the Bush II Administration and is so costly that it can't be flown operationally within the available budget until 2015 (and even that date has only a limited chance of being met).
Gemini took less than four years to develop and fly. In the same amount of time, Ares I/Orion will not complete its preliminary design review. That is not rational.
Apollo took seven years to develop and fly (to the Moon). In the same amount of time, Ares I/Orion will still be (at least) three years from flying (to the ISS). That is not rational.
Griffin also wrote:
"We would have been asked to deploy Ares/Orion as early as possible (rather than "not later than 2014âł) and we would have been provided the necessary budget to make it so."
Griffin is just making up history with this statement. NASA was never asked to "deploy Ares/Orion" at all. Rather, the VSE directed NASA to develop a Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV, which eventually becameOrion), and provided a budget that supported CEV development. The VSE never directed NASA to develop a new launch vehicle that duplicated the nation's military and commercial capabilities with yet another medium- to intermediate-lift launcher (Ares), and the budget never supported such a development. Ares I needlessly busted the VSE budget box from day one, requiring the termination of billions of dollars of ISS research and exploration technology development just to start its design activities.
And why does anyone have to ask Griffin to deploy a Shuttle replacement as early as possible when the VSE gives him the flexibility to develop a replacement anytime before 2014? Is the NASA Administrator really so unambitious and lacking in initiative that, instead of being given a deadline (which he's blown by a year anyway), he also has to be told by the White House to execute a critical replacement program as rapidly as possible?
And then Griffin wrote:
"... for OSTP and OMB, retiring the Shuttle is a jihad rather than an engineering and program management decision."
First, for the head of any federal agency to use the term "jihad" in written reference to the White House offices that set policy for and fund their agency - especially when the same White House has been leading a seven-year war against Islamic extremism - demonstrates such extremely poor judgement that it brings into question whether that agency head is still fit to serve.
Second, the 2010 date for Shuttle retirement was effectively set by the CAIB's expert judgment about and extensive investigation into the vehicle's operational and certification issues. OSTP and OMB (and NASA under the prior Administrator) simply reiterated the 2010 date in the VSE. If Griffin wants to challenge the 2010 Shuttle retirement date, then he needs to challenge the engineering and program management analysis and expertise of the 13-member CAIB and its 32 staff, not OSTP and OMB. OSTP and OMB read and followed the CAIB report on this issue. Apparently Griffin did not and has not.
The only things OSTP and OMB are guilty of is not fulfilling all of the White House's funding commitments to the VSE and not stopping Ares I/Orion at the outset when those projects busted the budget, or later when they ran into insurmountable technical issues and schedule delays that made them programmatically and politically useless.
Griffin also wrote:
"Further, they [OSTP and OMB] actively do not want the ISS to be sustained, and have done everything possible to ensure that it would not be."
For the same NASA Administrator who wiped out billions of dollars of ISS research and who referred to the ISS as a "mistake" in the press to criticize White House offices about their lack of support for the ISS is the height of hypocrisy. See (add http://www):
.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2005-09-27-nasa-griffin-interview_x.htm):
Griffin needs to stop flailing in the political winds, make up his mind, and stick with a consistent position on the value (or lack thereof) of the ISS.
Finally, and this is a technical nit compared to the issues above, but towards the end, Griffin also wrote:
"The argument that we need to get Shuttle out of the way so that conversion of the VAB/MAF for Constellation can proceed is similarly specious."
This totally misses the point. The VAB and MAF are just really huge shells that NASA can build anything in. It's the launch and rocket test infrastructure (the pads, the mobile launcher platform, and test stands) that the Shuttle and Constellation system share, and which Constellation has to make modifications to, that will interminably slow Constellation development if Shuttle continues to make use of those facilities.
My kingdom for a rational NASA Administrator who reads and follows policy direction, develops programs within their allotted budgets, encourages and listens to independent technical advice, and has the capacity to admit when the current plan is fubar and adjust course in a timely manner.
Maybe in the next administration, regardless of who wins. But don't bet on it. The only area in which I disagree with these comments concerns the Shuttle retirement date. As I noted in a later comment over there:
"...why did they pick 2010? What is magic about that date (particularly when no one really knows what 'certification' means)?
I had always assumed that the CAIB thought that the Shuttle should be retired ASAP, and that if it wasn't, it would have to be 'recertified' for longer life (ignoring the issue that the term was undefined). But ASAP meant no sooner than ISS completion, which (I think even then) was scheduled for 2010 (at least after the Columbia loss and standown). Hence the date (it doesn't hurt that it's a round number).
The Shuttle doesn't suddenly become less safe to fly in 2011, or even 2012. If there is a degradation, it is a gradual one, not a binary condition, and there is no obvious 'knee in the curve.' The date was driven by non-Shuttle considerations, IMO. If someone on the CAIB (e.g., Dr. Day) knows otherwise, I'd be interested to know that."
And if Mike Griffin is now frustrated, and wants to know who to blame, he'll see him the next time he shaves.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:36 AMIrene Klotz is hosting the latest carnival of space, with a different theme.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:44 PM...with Mike Griffin.
Not a lot new here for people who have been following it. And I would have a lot bolder vision for a "perfect world" than simply enough money to fly Shuttle while developing the Paintshaker. And he seems to be ignoring the issue that they share facilities and that mods have to occur (unless he was asking for enough money for new facilities for the new launcher).
And this is a useful point:
Q: When I tell non space people about the gap, the response is almost universally "you're kidding." Why is that?
Griffin: The 'you're kidding' part and the lack of notice, for several years it was something fairly far off in the future. The actual circumstance doesn't even occur in the next president's administration unless that president gets two terms. It certainly wasn't occurring in this president's administration and it doesn't occur in any of the next couple of Congresses, right? Nobody around today was certain to be on scene when the actual consequence occurs. Moreover, I don't think anybody reading about it in the papers ... thought really that it was going to be allowed to come to pass.
A lot of people argue that we need governments to fund things like this because private industry is too short sighted.
Give me a break.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:52 PMIrene Klotz has been won over by Sarah Palin and Ayn Rand. And the former Democrat is going to be following the campaign from a space perspective. Not sure how much she's going to have to report. I doubt that it will be a big issue outside of Florida.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:44 PMI hadn't seen this before. Mike Griffin is claiming that extending Shuttle will dramatically reduce its reliability:
In April this year, he told a Senate panel: "If one were to do as some have suggested and fly the shuttle for an additional five years -- say, two missions a year -- the risk would be about one in 12 that we would lose another crew. That's a high risk ..... [one] I would not choose to accept on behalf of our astronauts."
So he's saying that each of those flights has a probability of success of 99.1% (about one in a hundred chance of losing the vehicle). That's the number that, when taken to the tenth power (the number of flights) comes out to a 92% probability of not losing a vehicle. 99% is slightly better than historical record, based on the two losses of Challenger and Columbia, but I would expect after all the money they spent on resolving foam and other issues that they should have a much safer vehicle now (probably the safest it's ever been). Is he assuming some kind of reduction in reliability as the system ages or we can't replace parts over that fiveyear period? I'm curious to know how they came up with it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:13 PMThere's an interesting discussion in comments between Clark Lindsey and Dwayne Day (and others, though those are less interesting) on how much progress we have made in achieving the goals of the new private space industry over at Space Transport News.
Clark tends to be a glass-half-full kind of guy. Dr. Day thinks there are a few drops in the bottom, and they're poisoned.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:57 PMDwayne Day has an interesting history comparing undersea exploration technology with space exploration technology.
One other point of coming convergence--the increasing use of underwater suit concepts for space suits (particularly for high-pressure suits that can eliminate the need to prebreathe). Historically, NASA has generally ignored the undersea folks, though there has been a lot of private interaction (Phil Nuytten of Can-Dive has been developing hard suit concepts for decades). It looked like that might be changing with the selection of Oceaneering for the new EMU program, until NASA cancelled the contract and reopened the competition. We'll see what the future holds, and if Hamilton Sunstrand retains their grip on the agency space-suit budget.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:48 AMThe Ares graveyard, that is. Mark Whittington once again proudly demonstrates his ignorance about space technology. Some would be embarrassed by it, but never Mark.
Now, I'm not adroit at deciphering the somewhat arcane language of NASA documents, though I've read my share of them. But the numbers that Jon quotes is under a column called "Current Analysis" which is to the right of a column called "TPM REQT." That suggests, just drawing on an ability to read the English language, that the numbers quoted are a snapshot in time and do not reflect where the folks working on Constellation expect to be when the Orion and Ares start flying. Therefore not quite as alarming as Rand, Jon, or the mysterious person who calls himself "Anonymous Space" would like to imply.
You're right. You are not adroit (though there's nothing "arcane" about this particular document). Of course it's a "current analysis." That's the only kind of analysis that one can do in the present. When it's redone in the future, that analysis will be the current analysis. And the current analysis says that the LOC/LOM are nowhere near what was originally promised for the vehicle (just as was the case for the Shuttle). There are no obvious ways to improve it--the hazards that lower it to those numbers are essentially intrinsic to the design, and probably not mitigatible within the mass budget. There is also no obvious way to "expect" something different in the future. This reality is almost certainly the reason that the Preliminary Design Review was delayed into next year.
It should also be noted that, despite the mythology about how "safe" the Saturn/CSM were, we were damned lucky to not lose a crew during Apollo. Had we flown a lot more missions, it's almost guaranteed that we would have. Had the oxygen tank that exploded in Apollo XIII occurred on the way back, we would have lost the crew, no matter how innovative and responsive ground control was, no matter how many times Gene Kranz declared that failure was not an option. Sometimes, failure happens. And one of the reasons that space costs so much, the way NASA does it, is that when failure isn't an option, success gets outrageously expensive.
But it gets better:
Putting it another way, it is so of like suggesting that the LOM probability for SpaceX's Falcon 1 will be %100 just because the first three test flights have all failed to achieve orbit.
No, that is not "putting it another way." That is saying something entirely different and utterly irrelevant. If he's attempting to do a Bayesian probability of future Falcon success based on its history, the next flight would have a 75% chance of failure, not a hundred percent. But there's a big difference between making an empirical estimate from past performance, and an analytical estimate based on a probabilistic risk analysis, the latter of which is where the Orion/Ares LOC/LOM numbers come from. Ares hasn't flown yet, so it's absurd to compare it to Falcon's actual record.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:56 AM...and not safe. Nice catch by Jon Goff that no one else seems to have picked up on:
Basically, unless this source is bogus, or I'm completely misreading things, it's saying that even NASA admits that their odds of losing a crew or a mission using the Constellation architecture are far worse then they had originally claimed. In fact, at least for ISS missions, we're talking almost an order of magnitude worse. For ISS, they're claiming a LOC (probability of losing the crew on any given flight) of 1 in 231, with a LOM (loss of mission) of 1 in 19! If I'm reading this right, that means they expect right now that about 5% of missions to the space station will end up not making it to the station. For lunar missions, the LOC number is 1 in 170, and the LOM number is 1 in 9! That means of every multi-billion dollar mission, they've got an almost 11% chance of it being a failure. While some of these numbers have been improving, others have been getting worse.
In other words, it appears that NASA is admitting that the Ares-1 is not going to be any safer than an EELV/EELV derived launcher would've been, and in fact may be less reliable.
I've never drunk the koolaid that Ares/Orion was going to be more safe than Shuttle (or any previous system). Part of the problem is that (particularly with all of the vibration issues) they're being forced to put systems in that introduce new failure modes. The other is that in their determination to have a crew escape system (as I've mentioned before), they are adding hazards on a nominal mission.
There is only one way to get a safe launch system. We have to build vehicles that we can fly repeatedly, develop operational experience, and wring the bugs out of, just as we've done with every other type of transportation to date. When every flight is a first flight that has to fully perform, you're always going to have a high risk of problems. Unfortunately, NASA decided to do Apollo again instead of solve the space transportation problem.
And along those lines, I should say that I fully agree with Jon:
Quite frankly, I'd almost rather see a gap than try filling it with a kludge like keeping the shuttle flying. The fundamental problem is that even though "commercial" companies like Boeing and LM and Orbital (and hopefully SpaceX if they can get their act together) have been providing the majority of US spacelift for the past two decades, there is no commercial supplier of manned orbital spaceflight in the US. That's the bigger problem, IMO than the fact that NASA can't access a space station that it really doesn't have much use for.
I'd rather see more focus on how NASA and DoD can help encourage and grow a strong and thriving commercial spaceflight (manned and unmanned) sector than how NASA can fix its broken internal spaceflight problems. Once the US actually gets to the point where it has a thriving manned orbital spaceflight sector, there won't be any gaps again in the future. A strong commercial spaceflight sector with a weak NASA is still a lot better than a strong NASA and a weak commercial spaceflight sector.
Unfortunately, absent a real crisis, the politics seem determined to not encourage that to happen. And the ISS crisis, if it is perceived as one, is likely to cause a panic that still won't cause it to happen, though it may still result in something better than ESAS (not that we could do much worse).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:11 AMJohn Tierney on lunar and martian property rights.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:57 PMMike Griffin has kicked off a study to consider Shuttle extension for five years.
The problem, not mentioned by the article, is that this doesn't close the gap, unless Ares is abandoned. Shuttle and Ares use the same launch infrastructure, and as long as Shuttle flies, pads and crawler cannot be modified for it. Nor does it allow us to permanently crew the station without Soyuz.
The only real solution (assuming that we want to pay the high costs of continuing Shuttle) is to put a capsule on something else (e.g., Atlas, or Falcon 9 if it ever flies), soon. Maybe Orion, maybe Dragon, maybe something else, but it looks like the Stick is on life support. In fact, as "anonymous.space" says over at Space Politics, it's already dead. It's just that Griffin and others have been doing CPR on the body to keep the coroner from getting to it.
What a fiasco.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:40 PMTraditionally, the veep has had responsibility for space policy, as something to do besides waiting for the president to die and break ties in the Senate.
When it comes to space, she's got no track record at all, but an Alaskan would bring an interesting perspective to free enterprise and entrepreneurship.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:55 AMWayne Hale explains why we should shut down the Shuttle.
Everything he says is true--much of the infrastructure and support contractors for the system are already gone. That's why it will be very expensive to resurrect them to the degree necessary to fly past 2010. That doesn't mean it's impossible, but as I wrote in my PJM piece, we have to decide how much ISS is worth to us. And if we want to keep the option open, and as least costly as possible, we need to stop terminating those suppliers and destroying tooling immediately. It's probably a prudent thing to do, until the next president can make a decision.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:52 AMBut it sounds like a business setback for XCOR:
If the demonstrations in Oshkosh and Burns Flat were meant as a fly-off, the Armadillo team - led by millionaire video-game programmer John Carmack - came away as the winner.
"The Armadillo engine is going to be the primary engine for the Rocket Racing League," Whitelaw told me. He said five more planes will be built using Armadillo's propulsion system, which is a spin-off from Carmack's years-long quest to win the $2 million, NASA-backed Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.
It sounds like the Armadillo engine has more thrust, though it's not clear how the T/W compares.
I wonder to what degree XCOR was constrained by a potential desire to maintain some legacy toward the Lynx engine? If they were building an engine purely for the RRL, would it have been a different design and fuel type?
Presumably, the business plan with which they raised their recent institutional investment considered this as a contingency. I'm sure they would have liked continuing business from RRL, though Whitelaw doesn't seem to rule it out for the future.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:54 PMIt just occurs to me that even if we continue to fly the Shuttle through "the gap" that doesn't really solve the problem of actually utilizing the station. We are currently planning on relying on dual Soyuzs (what's the plural of "Soyuz"?) for "lifeboat" capability to allow a six-person crew after completion. If the US is not purchasing Soyuz, we wouldn't be able to leave Americans on board permanently, unless we wanted to risk losing them in emergency. It seems unlikely that this would actually play out politically, but if there were only one Soyuz there while the Shuttle wasn't, it would be a Titanic situation, with only enough escape craft for half the crew. Would the Russians just say, "dos vedanya..."? The OSP was supposed to serve in that function, but it was cancelled when the VSE came along.
What a policy Charlie Foxtrot.
I'll bet that you could find volunteers in the astronaut office, though.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:04 PMIs ESA getting serious about reusable vehicles? Too bad NASA can't find a clue.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:54 AMRobin Snelson browbeat me into posting this documentary she made about Mojave. Despite that, it's pretty good.
OK, she didn't really browbeat me. She just pointed it out.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:53 PMJeff Finckenor responds to some of his critics in the comments section:
"He's a whiner who didn't get his way and went to the IG"
Not a terribly polite way to put things, but I suppose it is somewhat accurate. Of course "my way" which I was always advocating was a call to do a technical evaluation to determine what we really needed to do. You know, things like writing requirements, then making selections based on those requirements. Some people would call that good engineering. Some would call it federal law. It never happened. Had it happened then I wouldn't have had any arguments to make and would have been shut down a long time ago. Had it happened and there were real reasons for MSFC and Constellation making the decisions they did, then I could have supported them even if I was less then thrilled. You go to the IG to report waste, fraud and abuse. I was duty bound to report what I saw as both a taxpayer and a government employee. If there wasn't any meat to what I was saying, then the IG would have sent me away. They didn't. Those who want to do the search may also want to look up a letter from Senator Grassley to NASA. It was a very powerful letter and appears to have been soundly ignored. It takes a lot of chutzpah to blow off the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, but NASA got away with it.Those who argue with me will trot out an "evaluation" that was done in 2002, except that that evaluation was based on a CM tool ONLY (not CAD management), and it was fatally flawed in how it was performed. And yes, all you're getting here is an opinion, and again my information has been documented and given to the appropriate authorities.
Was I asked to "stop working against management"? I guess that's one way to put it, if I was willing to ignore reality, give up on the vision of what NASA needs to succeed, and toe the party line.
It was wrenching deciding 3 years ago that my job wasn't worth the mess that I was seeing. I had basically decided that a NASA that could make a decision so badly (which is not quite the same thing as a bad decision, though in this case I believe it is the same), and not be able to correct itself was not a good place to work. So I committed to supporting good engineering practice and federal law, knowing that I might be forced out. 3 years later, I have given up, which was again wrenching for me. The politics are too overwhelming, and it is indeed not a good place for me to work.
Go read the whole thing.
All of the comments have to be very disquieting to fans of business as usual at NASA. It's not about CAD. It's about whether this is an institution that, despite the many talented people working for it, is capable of getting us into space in any serious way.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:22 PMAs I noted in my recent PJM piece, if we are going to continue to fly the Shuttle, decisions must be made almost immediately to keep key infrastructure in place, that is due to be dismantled. Several legislators, including the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, have sent a letter to the White House urging just such an action. It will be interesting to see the administration response.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:18 PMThere's little new in this piece at the Economist to people who have been following the issue. Well, there is one thing: some signs that the people who have been destroying the industry with this foolish policy may be starting to pay attention.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:59 AM...and a depressing one, of the Vision for Space Exploration. There's a piece missing in the chronology, though. "Safe, Simple, Soon" was not part of the original vision. That was a sales slogan that ATK came up with to promote their particular means of implementing it. As noted, though, it seems to be failing on all three counts.
Note the comment that PDR has slipped into next year.
[Update mid morning PDT]
More on the PDR slip. It's all the way out to next spring.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:31 AM"...and what is the nature of it? An interesting post over at NASA Watch, but the comments are even more interesting. I have some thoughts, and they're related to my earlier thoughts on systems engineering, but I'm curious to see what commenters here think.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:23 PMJeff Foust reports on last week's anniversary get together.
When we finally start flying affordable space transports, future historians will look back in amazement that policy could have been so screwed up for so many decades, and so stubbornly unamenable to being fixed.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:40 PMI've got an update to yesterday's post, in which I discuss the flawed oil rig analogy. I should add that the submarine analogy is equivalently flawed. If we needed a giant and expensive machine to get an assembled submarine underwater, we might very well be tempted to do underwater assembly. But we don't.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:43 AMI've discussed this many times before, but Al Fansome has a useful comment over at Space Politics (scroll way down--it's in the forties):
Other than Bob Zubrin (e.g., the Mars Society), I don't know of any space advocacy organizations who have made super-heavy-lift a priority. The only reason that super-heavy-lift is a priority now is because Mike Griffin came in and made a command decision. He already knew the answer -- ESAS was a facade to justify the decision he had already made.Let me try to give you a serious response to your question.
Have you thought about how all the truly GREAT engineering projects on this planet have been built?
Let me list a few obvious ones.
- The Pyramids
- The Great Wall
- The Empire State Building
- The Hoover Dam (or pick your favorite dam)
- The Eiffel Tower
- The Kremlin
- The U.S. Capitol Building
- The Statue of Liberty
- The Golden Gate BridgeThey all have at least ONE thing in common. The pieces of each & every one of these great engineering projects were transported to the final site in pieces, and then assembled on site.
Great engineering in enabled by low-cost transportation and the ability to assemble the technology on site.
We are KILLING ourselves by not taking the same approach to space.
Next -- think about standard home construction.
1) There are estimated to be more than 100 million homes in America.
http://www.census.gov/prod/1/pop/p25-1129.pdf+Number+of+houses+in+United+States&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
Of that number, the estimated number of mobile homes is ~9 million
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/census_2000/001543.htmlIn other words, well over 90%, or over 90 million, of American "homes" (whether in single family dwelling, apartments, condos, etc.) are assembled by the same method that is used to assemble the great engineering projects. This choice is obviously driven by economics (nobody mandated this result.)
SUMMARY: The large majority of Western and Eastern civilization has been built using the approach of cheaply transporting the pieces of the construction project to the site, and then final assembly at that site.
So, why are we ignoring the dominant traditional approach that is used over the entire planet?
Why are we not assuming that the right way to build our space economy, and to develop the space frontier, is to develop & use reusable launch vehicles to transport things to space at very low costs, and then assemble the pieces on-site.
Mike Griffin gave a speech a couple years ago talking about constructing the great cathedrals in Europe. Well, those cathedrals were transported to the final site in millions of pieces, and then assembled.
We continue to treat space differently than earthly endeavors for contingent reasons of history, not rationality or technology. Thus we get the cargo-cult approach of ESAS, in which NASA attempts to replicate Apollo, except without either the associated urgency, or the budget.
[Update on Sunday afternoon]
Since some people seem to imagine that the oil rig is a useful analogy, let me expand on it. It actually is one, but not in a way advantageous to the heavy-lift fetishists.
Yes, it is assembled in port and then towed to its operational location. But this is in no way analogous to assembling on the ground and launching to orbit. This is because of the huge energy barrier between the two. It's no big deal to tow something from one place in the ocean to another--that's a very old technology, and an extensive transportation infrastructure exists with which to do so. Thus, it makes sense to assemble it essentially in the ocean, but near land, to take advantage of the local work force.
But note that what we don't do with oil rigs is assemble them in Colorado, and then build a humungous custom truck (and associated reinforced roads, with clearances) to move it to the shore and put it in the water. But that's essentially what people are proposing in saying that things should be fully assembled on earth, and then launched into space, on a giant rocket that flies just once in a while, at a very high cost (particularly after amortizing the development cost).
In space the oil rig scenario would be analogous to having an existing assembly facility in LEO (that had presumably been bootstrapped up), with a robust low-cost transportation infrastructure to get things to and from earth, and from point to point in space. The "oil rig" (or large telescope facility, or prop depot for use at L1) would be assembled there, and then a space tug would move it to its final destination.
This was in fact part of the original vision for the SSF in the eighties. The "dual truss" configuration was intended to act as an orbital assembly hangar. Unfortunately, we didn't have the transportation infrastructure to support it. But the fact remains that what we need is not heavy lift, but affordable, reliable and frequent lift. Once we get the latter, it will become clear how to best utilize it to accomplish our goals.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:27 PMA woman Down Under has a novel approach to asteroid management: wrapping it in foil.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:11 PMPaul Breed notes in comments that the decision to require permits or waivers for tethered testing didn't originate with AST (though I never claimed it did), but with the FAA chief counsel's office. To me, this is just one more argument for making the office independent of the FAA and report directly to the SecDot, as it did from its inception until the Clinton administration "streamlined" it into the FAA.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:48 AMNASA just lost two hypersonic test vehicles on an untested sounding rocket, built by ATK, the same company that is slated to build the paint shaker first stage for the Ares I. It's not clear whether it was destroyed by the range, or it if just blew up on its own.
Sigh...expendables, and particularly solid expendables. Gotta love the continuing notion of putting things into space on modified munitions.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:32 AMAlan's a great science and tech reporter, but I wish that he'd asked George Nield about this:
We have poured a pad for tethered hover testing at our new location, but there was a recent FAA re-interpretation of the law that absurdly states that testing under a tether, as we have been doing for over eight years, is now considered a suborbital launch, and requires a permit or waiver just as a free flight would. This is retarded and counterproductive in so many ways, and the entire industry is lashing back over it, but it is an issue we have to deal with in the next couple months.
Maybe I will.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:40 PMI hadn't realized that it's about the same age as NASA. I'd thought it went back further than that. For the occasions, Alan Boyle interviews the current head of the space side of the agency, George Nield.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:41 AMSome folks have been criticizing the recent Orion parachute test failure as just one more screwup at NASA that they've been covering up, and made a bigger deal of it than it is, but Henry Spencer has a more nuanced, and correct view:
Foul-ups in testing are not uncommon, especially when the test setup is being tried for the first time. One of the headaches of high-tech test programmes is having to debug the test arrangements before you can start debugging the things you're trying to test.
Sometimes a malfunctioning test setup actually gives the tested system a chance to show what it can do in an unrehearsed emergency. During a test of an Apollo escape-system in the 1960s, the escape system successfully got the capsule clear of a malfunctioning test rocket.But sometimes the test conditions are so unrealistically severe that there's no hope of correct functioning. Unpleasant though the result often looks, this isn't properly considered a failure of the tested system. That seems to have been what happened here.
As I've noted before, requirements verification is where the real cost of a development program comes from, particularly when the only useful verification method is test.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:52 PMNASASpaceFlight has technical details of yesterday's briefing. It still looks nuts to me.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:16 AMXCOR has attracted the funding of an institutional investor. It's not just angels any more.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:52 AMJim Oberg has the story on Iran's failed attempt to launch a satellite.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:38 PMYou know, the more I think about this, the more I think it should always have been a no brainer.
The first rule of wing walking is to not let go of the airplane with one hand until you have a firm new grip with the other. It's pretty simple: don't shut down the Shuttle until you have a replacement in place (and preferably redundantly).
The only reason we're undertaking such a dumb policy is because of the panic after the loss of Columbia causing a desire to end the program ASAP, and an unwillingness to pay what it cost to fund the new development at the same time we were continuing to spend billions annually on keeping the Shuttle going. The notion that we can take the savings from ending the Shuttle to develop the new systems seems appealing, but it essentially guarantees a "gap."
And it's all a result of the fact that space isn't important. Is there any other government activity where we arbitrarily assign a budget number to it, and then demand that its endeavors fit within that budget? But that's the way Congress has always viewed NASA--that there's a certain level of spending that's politically acceptable, and no more. If space were important, we'd do what we did in Apollo--establish a goal, and then provide the funding necessary to achieve it. But it's not, other than for pork and prestige. It's important that we have a space program, but it's not at all important that it accomplish anything of value. Until that attitude changes, we're unlikely to get sensible policy.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:35 AMKeith Cowing has a report on today's telecon to discuss the Ares 1 vibration issue. Apparently they've settled on a solution before they really understand the problem.
[Late afternoon update]
Bobby Block and Todd Halvorson have blog posts up as well. But I think that Halvorson's reporting is a little garbled here:
Gravitation forces on the astronauts will be reduced to 0.25 Gs from around 5 to 6 Gs, the latter of which is about double the force exerted on shuttle crews.
I think that he's confusing the steady-state acceleration resulting from thrust with the vibration acceleration ostensibly being mitigated by the springs and dampers. Also, it's not a "gravitation force." I'm assuming that NASA meant that they can reduce the oscillations on the crew couch from high gees to a quarter of a gee, but that's independent of the gees imposed by thrust. If they're only accelerating at a quarter of a gee, that would result in horrific gravity losses during ascent.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:39 AMWell, now we know what the "space experts" told John McCain yesterday up in Titusville.
As I noted in my piece at PJM, the options aren't very pretty. The lowest risk course is to continue Shuttle past 2010, but to keep this option open, they have to take some immediate actions to keep production open on consumables, such as ETs. As I've noted before, it's ironic that they're shutting the system down just as they've finally wrung most of the bugs out of it. It still remains horrifically expensive, of course, but no more so than Ares/Orion, and it has a lot more capability. I think that the "recertification" issue is a red herring. Just because the CAIB recommended it doesn't mean that it makes any sense, since no one knows what it really means. Nothing magical happens in 2010 that makes it suddenly unsafe to fly. That date was chosen as the earliest one that they could retire and still complete ISS, not on the basis that anything was worn or wearing out. They could just continue to fly, and do periodic inspections.
I found it interesting, but not surprising, that Lafitte recommended an acceleration of Ares. It would be more in his company's interest to just give up on it and use Atlas, but I suspect that would be too politically incorrect to say with reporters around. He has to live with Mike Griffin for at least another few months.
What would I do if I were king? I'd stop buying Soyuz, and keep the Shuttle flying, I'd abandon Ares/Orion, and provide huge incentives to the private sector by establishing prop depots and paying good money for prop delivery. That would require more money than people want to spend, but we'd get a lot more robust transportation infrastructure, ready to go to either the moon or Mars (or other destinations) at a lot lower mission cost than NASA's current plans. It's what we would do if space were really important. But of course, it's not, so we won't.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:06 AMI'd like to know who those "twenty hand-picked space experts" are. Unfortunately, I'll bet that one of them is Walt Cunningham. But at least he won't be the only one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:01 AMI have a piece up at Pajamas Media this morning on the potential effect of Russia's renewed belligerence on the US space program.
I should note that I may have been a little too sanguine about the situation for the current ISS crew. While the RSA astronauts in Expedition 17 weren't born in Russia, it's possible that they are Russians, and sympathetic to Russia, given the way that Russia had colonized the Ukraine and Turkmen Republic and moved populations of Russians in there. It's all really speculation. Only the crew really know what the atmosphere is up there.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:21 AMSpaceDev has announced Scaled Composites has selected them to develop a hybrid motor for SpaceShipTwo in a $15 million contract. The point that SpaceDev was selected (not down-selected) in SpaceShipOne development was 3.25 years before winning the Ansari X-Prize. This is consistent with the duration announced for the development contract for SpaceShipTwo's rocket motor of "through 2012" with work "primarily completed over the next two years". SpaceShipTwo will likely burn rubber getting to suborbital space.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 06:45 AM...and hope!
Well, not really. The Obama campaign has released its new space policy, and there's not much breaking with the status quo in it. It's basically sticking with the current plan, at least in civil space, but promising (as in all areas) to spend more money. While one suspects that Lori Garver must have played a major role in it, it also reads as though it was written by a committee, or different people wrote different sections, and then it was stitched together, like Frankenstein's monster.
For instance, in one section, it says:
Obama will stimulate efforts within the private sector to develop and demonstrate spaceflight capabilities. NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services is a good model of government/industry collaboration.
But later on, in a different section, it says:
Obama will evaluate whether the private sector can safely and effectively fulfill some of NASA's need for lower earth orbit cargo transport.
If COTS is a "good model," why is such an "evaluation" necessary? Isn't it already a given? I also like the notion that Obama himself would do the "evaluation." As if.
It's got the usual kumbaya about international cooperation, of course, which I think has been disastrous on the ISS. There are also implied digs at the Bush administration, about not "politicizing" science (as though Jim Hansen hasn't done that himself) and opposing "weapons" in space. It also discusses more cooperation between NASA and NRO, ignoring the recent rumblings about getting rid of the latter, and the problems with security that would arise in such "cooperation."
Also, interestingly, after Senator Obama called McCain's proposed automotive prize a "gimmick," the new policy now explicitly supports them. So are they no longer "gimmicks"? Or is it just that McCain's idea was (for some unexplained reasons) but Obama's are not?
Overall, my biggest concerns with it are more on the defense side than on the civil space side. This is utopian:
Barack Obama opposes the stationing of weapons in space and the development of anti-satellite weapons. He believes the United States must show leadership by engaging other nations in discussions of how best to stop the slow slide towards a new battlefield.
Sorry, but that horse is out of the barn, and there's no way to get it back in. No anti-satellite weapons treaty would be verifiable. It is good to note, though, that the policy recognizes ORS as a means to mitigate the problem. That's the real solution, not agreements and paper.
In any event, it's a big improvement over his previous space policy, which was not a policy at all, but rather an adjunct to his education policy. Now it's time for the McCain campaign to come up with one. I hope that he gets Newt to help him with it, and not Walt Cunningham.
[Mid-morning update]
One of the commenters over at NASA Watch picks up on something that I had missed:
Sen. Obama names COTS and several other programs by name, but not Ares or Constellation. He mentions "the Shuttle's successor systems" without specifying what they might be.
That does give him some options for real change. I also agree that a revival of the space council would be a good idea. I hope that the McCain campaign doesn't oppose this purely because the Obama campaign has picked it up.
[Afternoon update]
One other problem. While it talks about COTS, it has no mention of CATS (or CRATS, or CARATS, or whatever acronym they're using this week for cheap and reliable access to space). It hints at it with COTS and ORS, but it's not set out as an explicit goal. I hope that McCain's policy does.
[Update a few minutes later]
Bobby Block has a report at the Orlando Sentinel space blog.
This part struck me (and didn't surprise me):
Lori Garver, an Obama policy adviser, said last week during a space debate in Colorado that Obama and his staff first thought that the push to go to the moon was "a Bush program and didn't make a lot of sense." But after hearing from people in both the space and education communities, "they recognized the importance of space." Now, she said, Obama truly supports space exploration as an issue and not just as a tool to win votes in Florida.
I'm not sure that Lori helped the campaign here. What does that tell us about the quality and cynicism of policy making in the Obama camp? They opposed it before they were for it because it was George Bush's idea? And does that mean that space policy was just about votes in Florida before this new policy? I know that there are a lot of BDS sufferers who oppose VSE for this reason, and this reason alone, but it's a little disturbing that such (non)thinking was actually driving policy in a major presidential campaign.
George Bush greatly expanded federal involvement in education and expanded Medicare. Are they going to shrink them accordingly? I'd like to think so, but I suspect not.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:36 AMIt's hard to think of any sitting (or past, for that matter) member of Congress who has done more for commercial space efforts than Dana Rohrabacher. He's been representing his southern California district for many years, so I was a little surprised to hear that he's in a potentially tough reelection battle. But his opponent is currently out-fund-raising him, and it's going to be a generally tough year for Republicans, even those whose seats had previously been secure. So for those of you who want to keep him in Washington for his space efforts (or for other reasons), a fund has been set up to help make that happen.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:57 AMJeff Foust has a report on the debate in Boulder between Lori Garver and Walt Cunningham. As I note in comments, if Senator Obama is now interested in prizes, that would be a change of position from when he criticized Senator McCain's proposal for an automotive prize.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:19 AMIf you want to know why Constellation is such a godawful mess, here's one reason:
NASA JSC Center Director's Systems Engineering Forum Planned Aug. 21
There actually are people out in private industry (like me) who do this stuff for a living, or at least would, if NASA would give them a contract. But instead of putting out a SETA or some other support contract for systems engineering, as Steidle had planned to do, Dr. Griffin simply decided that NASA would do it. This is where it's gotten him. Had he hired a good SE contractor (and listened) the program would likely not be in the kind of trouble it is, either technically or politically. Of course, it would probably look much different, because a proper systems-engineering approach would never have resulted in the Shaft. That was the danger inherent in putting a rocket scientist in charge of the agency. He thought he was smarter than everyone else.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:03 PM...than you were three years ago?
The official IOC for an Ares I crew launch vehicle able to send a crew of six to the International Space Station (ISS) in the Orion crew exploration vehicle is March 2015.
And now that the Russians have shown themselves for what they are in Georgia, isn't it great to be dependent on them for crewed access?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:38 AMIt's that time of year again. They peak tonight (or rather, early tomorrow morning). Be sure to get out of town, though. You won't see any but the very brightest with city lights around.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:47 AMRobert Block is wondering if the Stick is dying. I liked this bit:
In the face of the latest reports of trouble, sources say that NASA leaders are looking at a possible replacement design, including one that would use the shuttle's two four-segment solid rocket boosters, and a liquid engine with four RS-68 engines and no upper stage. While it sounds similar to a rocket called the Jupiter 120 or the Direct 2.0 concept which is being proposed by moonlighting NASA engineers, the sources insist it is not the same.
Yes. I have a literary theory that the Iliad and the Odyssey weren't written by Homer, but by another blind poet with the same name.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:48 AMAlan Boyle interviews the first man to relieve his bladder on the moon, about the Moon, Mars and the Gap. And it's great to see him (and Lois) still going strong. And as he points out, there are a lot of fortieth and fiftieth anniversary news hooks coming up. I hope to take advantage of them as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:54 AMHenry Spencer got it right (no big surprise):
The gap between engine cut off and staging was 1.5 seconds - which was fine for the ablatively cooled engine on Flight 2. But on Flight 3, with the regeneratively cooled engine, there was some residual thrust after engine shut down and this caused the first stage to be pushed back toward the second stage after separation and there was a recontact between the stages.
One of the big mistakes that people make in writing requirements is not writing proper verification statements for them. One of my rules, that I came to late in life, is to not allow a requirement to be accepted unless it has an accompanying verification statement (i.e., how you verify that the requirement has been satisfied). If you can't write a verification statement for it, it's not a valid requirement. The other reason is that verification is where most of the cost of a program comes from. Test is very expensive. If you can come up with ways to verify early on that don't require it (inspection, demonstration, analysis), you can control and estimate costs much better.
One of the key elements of a proper verification statement is the environment. It's not enough to say, "Verify, by test, that engine thrust is less than TBD Nt TBD seconds after engine shutdown." It has to be "Verify, by test, in vacuum, that engine thrust is less than TBD Nt TBD seconds after engine shutdown."
AMROC had a similar problem on SET-1 back in 1989, because the propulsion system testing had all taken place in the desert at Edwards, and the actual launch occurred in the humid October weather of Vandenberg, at the coast. The LOX valve iced up. The vehicle ended up catching fire and fell over and burned on the pad. There was no explosion, but it was a launch failure.
This is why systems engineering processes were developed. I'd be curious to know what kind of SE processes SpaceX had in place. And what they'll have in place in the future...
[Late evening update]
Here's the official statement from Elon Musk:
Timing is EverythingPosted by Rand Simberg at 03:49 PM
On August 2nd, Falcon 1 executed a picture perfect first stage flight, ultimately reaching an altitude of 217 km, but encountered a problem just after stage separation that prevented the second stage from reaching orbit. At this point, we are certain as to the origin of the problem. Four methods of analysis - vehicle inertial measurement, chamber pressure, onboard video and a simple physics free body calculation - all give the same answer.The problem arose due to the longer thrust decay transient of our new Merlin 1C regeneratively cooled engine, as compared to the prior flight that used our old Merlin 1A ablatively cooled engine. Unlike the ablative engine, the regen engine had unburned fuel in the cooling channels and manifold that combined with a small amount of residual oxygen to produce a small thrust that was just enough to overcome the stage separation pusher impulse.
We were aware of and had allowed for a thrust transient, but did not expect it to last that long. As it turned out, a very small increase in the time between commanding main engine shutdown and stage separation would have been enough to save the mission.
The question then is why didn't we catch this issue? Unfortunately, the engine chamber pressure is so low for this transient thrust -- only about 10 psi -- that it barely registered on our ground test stand in Texas where ambient pressure is 14.5 psi. However, in vacuum that 10 psi chamber pressure produced enough thrust to cause the first stage to recontact the second stage.
It looks like we may have flight four on the launch pad as soon as next month. The long gap between flight two and three was mainly due to the Merlin 1C regen engine development, but there are no technology upgrades between flight three and four.
Good Things About This Flight
- Merlin 1C and overall first stage performance was excellent
- The stage separation system worked properly, in that all bolts fired and the pneumatic pushers delivered the correct impulse
- Second stage ignited and achieved nominal chamber pressure
- Fairing separated correctly
- We discovered this transient problem on Falcon 1 rather than Falcon 9
- Rocket stages were integrated, rolled out and launched in seven days
- Neither the near miss potential failures of flight two nor any new ones
were present
The only untested portion of flight is whether or not we have solved the main problem of flight two, where the control system coupled with the slosh modes of the liquid oxygen tank. Given the addition of slosh baffles and significant improvements to the control logic, I feel confident that this will not be an issue for the upcoming flight four.
Elon
If you pre-order at Amazon, you can get a copy of his latest
[Wednesday morning update]
Sorry, I misread the Amazon email. It's a savings of $8.48, not a price. Still a good deal, though.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:40 PM...for life on Mars. Actually, there are a lot of people who should hope that we don't find life on Mars, if we ever want to colonize it ourselves.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:14 PMAbout SpaceX:
If the problem is confirmed to be a simple and easily fixed design flaw, they may not launch again "tomorrow" but I wouldn't be too surprised if there was another flight within a couple of months.
...Lost in the hubbub over the flight failure was the fact that once again they were able to do a quick resumption of the launch procedure after a hot-fire abort. This sort of robustness in the launch operations and the use of small crews are crucial factors in lowering the cost of launch.And as noted, the new Merlin apparently performed well. Had it not, that would have been a real setback for both Falcon 1 and 9.
[Update after lunch, Pacific Time]
Henry Spencer has more thoughts, with some history.
It seems quite likely that it was caused by the new engine--that's the only thing that changed between the last flight and this one, and Henry points out a couple potential plausible scenarios for that.
That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the engine--it just means that the overall vehicle design and operations have to account for the new characteristics.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:52 AM
Ken Murphy has a bunch of reviews of solar fiction for kids.
Hook 'em while they're young.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:21 AMClark has a round up of links.
It was a little strange, and sad, descending into the LA basin yesterday. I had a left window seat, and I looked down at the old Rockwell/North American (and back during the war, Vultee) plant in Downey, which had been abandoned back in the nineties, and saw that Building 6 appeared to be no longer there. A lot of history in manned spaceflight took place there, but now there's almost no manned space activities left in southern California at all. Not in Downey, not in Huntington Beach, not in Seal Beach. It's all been moved to Houston, and Huntsville.
Except, except. A minute or two later, on final descent into LAX, I saw Hawthorne Airport just off the left wing, and quite prominent was the new SpaceX facility, which had previously been used to build jumbo jet wings.
So perhaps, despite the indifference of local and state politicians, the era of manned spaceflight in LA isn't quite yet over. And of course, Mojave remains ascendant.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:42 AMIt's looking like there was a second-stage problem, either separation, or ignition (or both, since one could cause the other).
As I said last night, this is obviously a disappointment to the SpaceX team. Particularly since they had previously had a flight where this wasn't a problem, so in a sense it was two steps forward, one step back. I think that at this point, almost anyone is going to be pretty leery of putting a payload on the vehicle until it's had at least one successful flight. Is it the end? Despite what Elon said a long time ago about three strikes, it's hard to see it now. He's fully invested now, both financially and (I would imagine) emotionally, and he's not going to come this far just to give up, particularly when tantalized by his previous almost-success on the second flight.
They'll go through the telemetry, figure out as best they can what happened, and try again, and hopefully soon. In a sense, as someone noted in comments in the earlier post, Falcon 1 is really a test program for the bigger vehicles, though they should get an operational small launcher out of it as well.
As always, this points up the problem with expendable vehicles. They are very expensive to flight test, so you can't afford to do very many, and every flight is a first flight, so you can't wring bugs out of a vehicle with incremental testing. And it's a lot harder to figure out what went wrong because you generally don't get much debris to analyze (the first flight that failed off the pad was a rare exception)--you have to dig through electronic entrails. And NASA, of course, in its cargo-cult determination to redo Apollo, is taking exactly the same expensive and unreliable approach.
And just checking now, I see that Clark is having similar thoughts to mine.
Once the problem that caused this failure is determined, I would suggest that SpaceX just bite the bullet and allocate 2 or 3 Falcon I vehicles for test flights and fly them within a relatively short period, say six months.
This would represent a $20M-$30M investment but until the Falcon I is flying reliably, SpaceX will find it very difficult to get any more commercial or government payload contracts and it won't have any chance of getting COTS D (ISS crew transport) funding. The Falcon 9 is a completely different vehicle but the Falcon I is what currently defines the company's ability, or inability, to deliver what it says it can.
Anyway, best of luck to them in the future, but they know that they need more than just luck.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I see that Elon has a statement, which confirms my suspicion above:
There should be absolutely zero question that SpaceX will prevail in reaching orbit and demonstrating reliable space transport. For my part, I will never give up and I mean never.
That's the kind of attitude you have to have, even if eventually, you do in fact have to give up. I hope he won't have to.
Also note Clark's comment at the end of the post, that SpaceX is following in the tradition of all expendable staged launch vehicles in its failure modes, though they do seem to be getting the avionics right.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:58 AMAnd the sad thing is that he thinks he's smarter than those of us in the business. Clark Lindsey has a rejoinder in his comments section. I will add that this doesn't inspire confidence in his analysis:
SpaceShipTwo actually will only barely scrape space, eking out a scant 68 vertical miles before succumbing to the gravitational dominance of Earth. The craft musters only about 1/16 the energy needed to reach even low orbit 100 miles up. The space station, reposing 200 miles from the earth's surface, is completely beyond reach.
Attaining such distances requires enormous energy...
No, it's not the distance that's the problem, it's the velocity.
Sigh.
And Jeff Foust has found another idiot who wants it to be made illegal on environmental grounds. And because it's "selfish."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:29 PMFalcon 1 goes up at 4 PM Pacific Time. That's 7 PM for me, and we already have tickets purchased for Dark Knight, so I guess we'll miss it, if it goes on schedule. I'll have to watch the replay.
[Update at 10:30 PM EDT]
Back from the movie, which was very good. Ledger can certainly expect a posthumous Oscar nomination.
There have been launch delays, but they're currently reloading fuel after having drained it (there was apparently concern that it was getting too cold during other delays) and are now expecting a launch at 11 PM EDT (8 PM Pacific), in almost exactly half an hour.
[Update a couple minutes later]
They must plan for an 8:05 liftoff, based on the count I just heard. T-32 and counting at 7:33. Weather is green, though there's some cloud cover.
[Update about ten till the hour]
There must be a delay or something on the web feed, because they're still saying it will be an 8 PM PDT launch, even though their count makes it come out three or four minutes after that. I wonder if there will be a transmission delay on the launch itself of a couple minutes? If so it won't quite be live, but it will be close enough.
[Update shortly after scheduled launch time]
They had a (literally) last-minute abort. The window closes in an hour, and I doubt they can turn it around that fast, since they still have to look at the data to figure out what happened. Better luck tomorrow.
[Update a couple minutes later]
That was fast. Now they're saying they think they may be able to recycle from T-10, so it still may be on tonight.
[10:30 EDT update]
Now they're at T-7 and counting again.
[Update shortly after launch]
Uh oh. Sounds like strike three. The picture was lost at about 35 km altitude and a thousand meters/sec. They announced an "anomaly." That doesn't sound good. The last update on the site was that it was about to enter inertial guidance (not clear what they were doing prior to that). Did something go wrong with an IMU, or some other part of the GN&C?
Fortunately, you're allowed more than three strikes in this game. It has to be a huge disappointment, though, unless the anomaly was merely a loss of signal, and the vehicle's doing all right. The webcast is over, though. I think that I'd assume that the news is bad.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:02 PMI have a new piece up on this week's non-discovery of water on Mars.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:15 AMThey did a full nine-engine static test of the Falcon 9 yesterday. No mention of burn duration, but I assume that it wasn't a simulation of a full ascent. I also assume that they have run individual engines at full duration. If they launch Falcon 1 this weekend or early next week, it will have been a pretty momentous week for New Space, with the WK2 rollout, the rocket racer debut, and the SpaceX achievements.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:18 AMClark Lindsey has the press release from Scaled about last summer's fatal accident. Short version, by my reading: we still don't know what happened and probably never will, so we're just going to be a lot more careful in the future.
I still think that they continue to overestimate the safety of hybrids, and that it wasn't a great choice for propulsion. I suspect that if Burt were starting from scratch now, he'd go with a liquid, but shifting to one at this stage would involve too large of a redesign of the airframe.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:11 AMJohn Glenn is arguing for an extension of the Shuttle program. I don't really give a rip what he thinks, but a lot of people on the Hill (particularly on the Democrat side) will take him seriously. The problem is that it's not just a matter of coming up with more money. NASA has to do pad modifications at 39 A and B to accommodate the new vehicles, and they can't do that if they continue to fly Shuttle. I suspect that it will also start to get pretty crowded in the VAB if they're doing Ares and Shuttle simultaneously.
Sometimes, I think that the best thing that could happen to American space policy would be a Cat 5 hurricane hitting the Cape, and scraping it clean.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here's more from Robert Block at the Orlando Sentinel. Note the comment about there being no appetite on the Hill for a Shuttle extension.
[Update a few more minutes later]
Mark Whittington once again demonstrates his legendary prowess at reading miscomprehension. I agree with Jon (though I'm not going to vote for Bob Barr). As I said, probably the most effective (and perhaps necessary) step toward a revitalization of NASA would be a Cat 5 at the Cape. I don't think that anything less can shake the space industrial complex up sufficiently to get any kind of new thinking or direction.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:50 AMColby Cosh thinks that the suborbital space market is overhyped. Clark Lindsey responds.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:29 AMAlan Boyle has another report from Oshkosh (some people get the best gigs).
Griffin downplayed media reports about vibration problems with the Ares 1 rocket, saying that there were "half a dozen means to mitigate that" and that two top strategies would be selected for further study next month. "Let me put it this way: I hope this is the worst problem we have in developing a new system," he said.
Of course he did. That doesn't mean they aren't true. I haven't seen any ways to mitigate it that don't involve a lot more weight and performance penalty on a vehicle that's already out of margins. I too hope that it's the worst problem they have, because if they have any that are worse, the program is in deep, deep kimchi.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:16 AMIs this really as big a deal as NASA is making of it?
Data from recent missions to Mars has been building toward a confirmation of the presence of water ice. However, "this would be the first time we held it in our hands, so to speak," says Bryan DeBates, a senior aerospace education specialist at the Space Foundation. Evidence from other locations in the solar system, including Earth's moon, Saturn's Enceladus moon and Jupiter's Europa moon, have strongly hinted at the presence of water--NASA confirmed a liquid lake on Saturn's Titan moon on Wednesday--but no direct observation of water has been made.
Haven't we been pretty certain for years that there was ice on Mars (and outer planet moons, and comets)? What's the big deal here? If there's a story at all, it seems to me that it's about the amount of water available, not the fact that we have "direct confirmation."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:43 AMOne of the nice things about having a blog is that you can self publish. This is the original piece that I submitted to Popular Mechanics, which inspired them to ask for a "revision" which they then edited to what was actually published. I thought that readers here might appreciate it.
Location, location, location.
Those are the proverbial three rules of real estate. They aren't restricted to terrestrial transactions--location matters a lot, sometimes a lot more, in space.
Recently, Michael Benson, a guest columnist at the Washington Post, proposed that the problem with the International Space Station is that it is in the wrong place. He proposes that it be refitted as an interplanetary spaceship.
It's a novel proposal, and he's in good company--a lot of people are thinking about what to do with the ISS after 2015, for which there is currently no official US policy. The foreign partners and other stakeholders recently met to discuss the issue, though if this particular option was discussed, there is no mention of it in the reporting, or the joint statement they provided after the meeting. There's probably a good reason for that.
Mr. Benson is clearly earnest, but the concept is not as well thought out as he seems to think. The ISS is designed for operations in low earth orbit (LEO), but that is a unique environment, and had trips beyond that been its intended use, both the requirements and the design would have looked very different.
What does NASA think?
I called Mike Curie, in the NASA Public Affairs Office for the ISS, to get the official agency response. It was predictable, concise, and (in my opinion) correct: "We welcome and share Mr. Benson's enthusiasm for the space station program, but the proposal is not feasible."
He suggested that I talk to Tom Jones, four-time Shuttle astronaut (and Pop Mechanics space consultant) for further elaboration, so I did.
The idea has several problems," he told me. "If you do it with chemical propellant, the structure won't be able to take those high thrust levels, particularly the fragile solar panels that were designed for zero gee. Also, the Station isn't designed to operate for long periods of time without resupply of things like food, water, and spare parts for maintenance. You'd have to develop a duplicate interplanetary system just to deliver the supplies and rotate the crew."
"Once out in deep space, the ISS doesn't have the radiation shielding it would need for either lunar operations, or even traversing through the Van Allen belts, particularly if you did it slowly with a low-thrust system, as he suggests."
"The Station is also overdesigned for an interplanetary mission in some ways. It's a laboratory facility designed to rely on frequent resupply and contact with Earth. This is not an operational space vehicle. It's more of a technology test bed, to learn how to do things in space, and take advantage of the near-Earth space environment. It's really better and more cost effective to keep it here and use it for what it was designed."
In fairness, Mr. Benson attempted to anticipate these objections:
It's easy to predict what skeptics both inside and outside NASA will say to this idea. They'll point out that the new Constellation program is already supposed to have at least the beginnings of interplanetary ability. They'll say that the ISS needs to be resupplied too frequently for long missions. They'll worry about the amount of propellant needed to push the ISS's 1,040,000 pounds anywhere -- not to mention bringing them all back.
There are good answers to all these objections.
Well, he has answers, but they don't seem to be very good ones. One wonders if he actually ran any numbers.
How much propellant would it take? Well, to leave LEO and go almost anywhere else, you need to have escape velocity. In orbit, that means adding about forty percent to your current speed of twenty-five thousand ft/sec, or about ten thousand ft/sec. The station weighs on the order of a million pounds. Assuming that you could provide the necessary thrust without snapping off the solar arrays, using liquid oxygen/hydrogen (the most efficient practical propellant combination we have today at a generous specific impulse (Isp) of 480 seconds (not far from theoretical), it would take almost as much propellant as the payload (over 900,000 lbs).
Now that's not necessarily a lot--it would be a couple dozen launches of, say, a Delta IV, which might cost a few billion dollars. But the problem is that all that does is get the ISS out of earth orbit. It doesn't have any way to park in orbit when it gets to the moon or Mars, or even an asteroid encounter. To do that it needs (in Mr. Benson's words) a "drive system and steerage module" (whatever that means) which he hand waves off as "technicalities."
You also need propellant. A lot of it.
That means that we not only have to accelerate the ISS itself out of LEO, but also all of the propellant that it will need at its destination as well, which would likely be many hundreds of thousands of more pounds. So we have to recalculate our escape, and now we need, say, a million pounds of propellant to send with the station to its destination, and another two million to blast the whole lot out of earth orbit. So now we're up to many billions of dollars for the propellant delivery to LEO, even ignoring the "technicalities."
Ah, you say, but he suggested using low-thrust high-Isp ion-propulsion systems, which will require much less propellant.
So he did, but he didn't consider the radiation problem, as Tom Jones noted. You'd fry the crew and the electronics, including solar panels, in short order, even if you're lucky enough not to be hit by a solar flare in all that time.
Considering all the other factors he explained, clearly, the ISS is built for LEO, and it should stay in LEO.
But that raises another question. Is it in the right LEO?
The ISS is in a 52-degree inclination orbit. This location was chosen in 1991, when it was decided to bring the Russians into the program, using some of their modules as the core of the station. At the time (and now) their primary launch site was Baikonur, and that was the lowest inclination to which they could launch from that location. The Shuttle pays a high payload penalty to reach that orbit (the original space station plan was to have it at 28.5 degrees, the same as the Cape's latitude, so they could get there with a due-east launch and maximum payload). In fact, every vehicle that goes to the ISS would deliver more payload if it were in a lower inclination. With Russian plans to start launching Soyuz out of the Arianespace launch site in Kourou, near the equator, they will have the capability to get to almost any inclination, so the old Baikonur constraint will be gone.
It might be worth doing a trade study to see if its inclination could be lowered, using ion propulsion, over a period of months or years, as I suggested several years ago. This would avoid the radiation problems of sending it out of LEO by this technique, because the whole trip would remain in LEO, and in fact the radiation reduces with the inclination. This would not only save money on resupply costs (or rather, provide more payload for the same amount of money, because the cost of the flights is fixed, while their payload can vary), but also perhaps put it in a more desirable location to serve as a way station to beyond LEO. It would also put it to use as the test bed that Tom Jones pointed out that it truly is, proving out long-duration ion thrusters that might allow future vehicles to operate more effectively.
So it might be time to consider a move to a better neighborhood--just not one quite as out of this world as Mr. Benson suggests.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:31 PMAlan Boyle has the story of yesterday's demo in Oshkosh.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:48 AMI have a new piece up over at Popular Mechanics on the future of the space station.
Also, it's the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Space Act, creating NASA.
[2 PM Update]
Here's another rollout story at PM, with a lot of pics. It's the current front page of the on-line version, along with my ISS story.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:23 AMMore on the "flight test" of Ares 1-X, which seems to be mostly for show. Though if it's as risky as indicated here, it may be a more spectacular performance than they count on.
Unfortunately, the same folks who think a flight dynamics test of a four segment SRB with a different propellant, old-style grain design, and inert (that is to say, non-sloshing and stiff) upper pieces is a good idea also thought they could grab a bunch of used equipment (Atlas avionics software, Peacekeeper hardware, etc.), chewing gum, and duct tape (perhaps FEMA is helping the minions) and use it to demonstrate how something "like" ARES-1X might get off the ground after "the gap" has widened to its furthest extent.
And, like all of the shortcuts the Emperor's minions have taken to date, this approach, too, is soon to come back and bite them. The list of critical components going into ARES-1X that are either beyond shelf life or being put to work in an environment for which they were not intended is astounding. And the risks that are being accepted, because of schedule and budget pressures, are equally marvelous.
Hey, it's OK. That's what waivers are for.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:38 AMJeff Foust talked to Burt Rutan at yesterday's rollout.
Rutan confirmed that the investigation was causing "a lot" of design changes for SS2. "We have not worked on SpaceShipTwo in a year," he said, "because there's a possibility that the propulsion system would be markedly different and we'd be building things that we would have to scrap."
So they've essentially lost a year due to the accident. I wonder if they'll finally switch over to a liquid system? It would save them quite a bit in ops costs, I'd think.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here's more on the subject from Rob Coppinger, who interviewed Burt.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:33 AMI agree that nukes aren't necessarily the best way to deal with asteroids, but the notion that NASA is promoting them in order to justify nuclear weapons in space is more than a little nutty.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:58 AMTomorrow, the first demonstration of the rocket racer, in Oshkosh. There's a picture of the taxi test on the front page of the site, but it's not likely to be there for long.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:42 AMWhite Knight Two will be rolled out for the general public today in Mojave. Scaled Employees had a private rollout yesterday.
[Late morning update]
Clark Lindsey has the Virgin press release.
I don't understand why they say that this is environmentally friendly. Compared to what? If they're still going with the hybrid, it presumably burns rubber, and has CO2 as a combustion by-product. What's so friendly about that, compared to, say, LOX/kerosene? Just marketing hype, I guess.
[Update mid afternoon]
Clark Lindsey has a lot more links.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:18 AMThis is the future of space exploration. Which is why we have to stop talking about "exploration" as a justification for humans in space.
[Update in the evening]
Commenter Paul Dietz recommends >Saturn's Children
Ares 1 marches (or staggers) on:
Thrust Oscillation is specifically named in relation to end of the first stage burn of Ares I-X, which requires mitigation - proposed to be in the form of high strength fasteners.
"Preliminary results show lower axial loads and higher lateral loads during thrust oscillation at the end of the FS (First Stage) burn (T+120sec). Proposed mitigation (high strength fasteners in impacted hardware) in work, needs to be presented at ERB (Engineering Review Board).
Afraid it will shake apart? Use bigger screws!
I love this, too.
While beefing up the structure is a mitigation for the hardware, Ares I-X's components are also in the TO firing line, with the most concerning element referencing the Flight Termination System (FTS) - which may require a range waiver due to the potential TO could exceed the components certification, and the threat of vibrating them out of action.
"Requirement - Range Safety: multiple waivers. Lack of dual S&A device. Lack of initiation of LSC at both ends. Lack of "CRD Self-test" capability. Minimum separation of FTS components," added the presentation.
We may massage the thing so hard that we won't be able to blow up the vehicle if something goes wrong (e.g., it starts blasting toward the VAB). Can we have a waiver, please?
NASA's unending ability to waive itself from its own requirements is one of the reasons that the notion of "human rating" is nonsensical.
[Early evening update]
Link to NASA Space Flight was bad before. It's fixed now. I'm kind of surprised that it took all day for someone to point it out. Just more evidence that most people don't follow the links, at least if I post significant excerpts and/or commentary on them.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Rob Coppinger has Ares 1, then and now. That upper stage has really grown. I also hadn't realized that it had a common bulkhead for the tanks. Well, at least it's not hypergolic.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:09 AMClark notes that tomorrow will be a time of remembrance in Mojave.
And one year later, they still don't seem to know for sure what happened. And we haven't heard what's going on with SpaceShipTwo propulsion development, though it won't fly before late next year (at least two years behind the original schedule, with some of that slippage no doubt due to last year's incident).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:00 AMThe "rocks have rights" crowd are worried again about vandalizing space:
Edward O Wilson has suggested that biophilia, our appreciation of Earth's biosphere, is a by-product of evolving in this environment. If he's right, we might find we don't care about other worlds in the same way. This raises the alarming prospect of rapacious lunar mining altering the view from Earth.
Maybe our biophilia will kick in here: after all, our view of the Moon is one of Earth's natural vistas. Surely we can agree that we don't want that changed? It is an awesome thing to look up and remember that human footprints once marked the Moon's surface. It's quite another to imagine the moon looking like an abandoned quarry.
No, we can't agree. Note that this was in the context of a discussion on "eco issues" on the moon.
Here's the "eco issue" on the moon (and in the rest of the universe, as far as we know right now). There is no "eco" there. There is also no "bio" for our "biophilia" to kick in about. Ecology and biology are about life, something that exists only on earth. It's one thing to want to preserve an ecosystem, but when one simply wants to preserve the entire universe in its current "pristine" state, there's something unsettling and misanthropic going on.
Why is it all right for a meteroid to slam into the lunar surface and leave a crater (which has happened billions of times throughout history, and continues today) which is how the moon got to look the way it is, but a pit for mining is verboten? Would he object to seeing the lights of a lunar city up there? Does he have any idea how far away it is and how much mining one would have to do to see it from earth, even with a telescope?
What is this worship of entropy? What is this loathing of humanity? What is this apparent loathing of life itself?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:47 AMOf course they can, despite this misreading of my exploration piece on Monday. History is replete with them, though there are far fewer of them than men (more now, with more opportunities for them). For instance, the "mountain men" who explored much of the west were, pretty much to a...man, men.
I recently received an email from someone who made an analogy between what I wrote and saying that a "white" boy could be an explorer as long as the school system didn't "blacken" him. I find the analogy completely spurious. Briefly, race is not gender.
This was my point, and one that will no doubt set off a crowd of angry blank slaters who think that gender is purely a social construct charging up the hill to my mansion with pitchforks and torches.
There are such things as masculine and feminine traits. All people have some of both--they are androgynous to one degree or another. We define the two by noting that most men are (by definition) more masculine, and most women are more feminine, and viva la difference. So things that most men do, and few women do, are called masculine, and vice versa for feminine (and of course there is a wide range of things that are neither). When men cook, garden, sew, etc., (as I do, though I don't sew much) they are indulging in their feminine side, and when women explore, go shooting, chainsaw trees, drive Indy cars (among other things) they are being sort of manly. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with either doing either. There's plenty of femininity to Danica Patrick, from what I can see.
There are a number of evolutionary psychological reasons to think that an urge for exploration is more of a male trait, and the Economist piece gives one more. If such an urge is an attention-deficit issue, it's indisputable that (at least as it's currently diagnosed) the preponderance of occurrence of it is in boys. At least, it is they who are being medicated the most for it in the schools. There may be some girls who are being similarly abused who would also be good explorers, but girls can be good explorers even when they act like girls in the classroom, because it's a lot easier for them to act like girls in the classroom (even if they have some male characteristics) because they are, well...girls. They still learn, but aren't having their exploratory urges browbeaten out of them. So to the degree that we are inhibiting budding explorers with a misguided educational system which defines good behavior as feminized behavior, the boys are taking the brunt of it. I could have, when referring to the future Neil Armstrong, said "her," instead of "him," but it would have seemed a little strained in political correctness, not because Neil was a man, but because not that many girls are being diagnosed ADHD and getting Ritalin.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:49 AMWell, actually there are multiple causes, but this is one of them. The launch escape system is very heavy. And it's heavier than it needs to be because of the inherent inefficiency of the engines resulting from the cant outward (necessary to avoid blasting the capsule with the exhaust). Note that each opposed pair are fighting each other with the horizontal components of their thrust, contributing nothing whatsoever to the mission. This is called a cosine loss because the effective amount of vertical thrust is the total thrust times the cosine of the angle they're canted at. Since the lost thrust is the sine of the angle, you need more thrust overall (and hence a heavier engine) to compensate, making a bad problem worse.
People have considered putting the escape motor underneath the capsule for this reason (I think that Mike Griffin even drew a napkin sketch of it--we looked at it in OSP as well), but that complicates jettisoning, since it goes between the capsule and the service module. That would mean that you'd have to carry it all the way to orbit on each mission, and then separate, jettison, and redock with the SM, which carries performance and safety risks in itself. Or if it goes under the service module, then the motor has to be a lot bigger, and then you have to do a CM/SM separation after motor burnout but before rotation for entry. So they stuck with the Apollo tractor configuration, in which the capsule is pulled away in an abort.
The other solution, which would give them a ton (actually, literally tons) of margin would be to get rid of the damned thing. It's only there as a backup in case something goes wrong with the launch vehicle, and then only if specific things go wrong (for instance, a loss of thrust wouldn't require it). The weight and design is driven by the extreme case in which the upper stage is exploding beneath you and you have to try to outrun the flying debris. This is an extremely unlikely failure mode, but politically, they have to have the system there, because no one wants to take the chance that they'll have to testify before Congress that they killed astronauts because they didn't have it. With it, the estimate is a one in five hundred chance of losing a crew. Without it, it's much higher (though there are no doubt many astronauts who would accept the risk regardless, since they're already doing so now on the Shuttle).
Also, as Jon Goff has pointed out in the past, they're putting a lot of effort into safety during ascent, when this is actually one of the lesser hazards of a total lunar mission.
But that's the way that politics drives a government space program, and why it is so horrifically expensive.
[Update a while later]
It just occurs to me that the other case where you need it is an on-pad, or shortly-after-liftoff abort, when there is insufficient altitude for safe chute deployment.
But the thing to keep in mind is that it made a lot more sense in Apollo, because in the early sixties, "our rockets always blew up." The technology is much more mature now, and the failure modes for which it would be needed are much less likely, even in an expendable.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:18 AMOver at Alan Boyle's place. I think that this is a very encouraging development.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:41 AMSorry for the short notice, but I'd forgotten myself. I and my partner in crime in our July 20th space ceremony will be on the radio in half an hour, at The Space Show.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:37 PM...at Keith's brief "review" of my exploration piece:
The author of this article makes some odd, borderline misogynist, and mostly unsupportable claims (mixed with some valid points) as he rambles along trying to explain why people do or not explore. "Empirically obvious"? - Where's the data to support this?
Where the support for the claim that it is "misogynist," "borderline" or otherwise? Is he claiming that Cristina Hoff Sommers is misogynist?
What is "odd" about my claims?
And as for the data to support my claim, I provided it in the piece. Things for which there is an "innate human urge" are done by most, if not all humans. Most people don't explore.
[Update a few minutes later]
One of the commenters over there gets it:
I didn't see anything misogynist in Simberg's piece - he's just pointing out a potential cost of browbeating and drugging boys into behaving more like girls in school.
Exactly. If my piece was (mis)interpreted to imply that women cannot or should not be explorers, that's absurd, and I would hope obviously so.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:54 PMHere's a nice piece on Mojave at Popular Mechanics.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:33 AMHenry Spencer (whose wisdom is finally becoming available on the web, apparently) explains:
An experienced designer with more freedom to act might have realised that there was just too much optimism in the Ares I concept, that a shuttle SRB was simply too small as a first stage for a rocket carrying the relatively heavy Orion spacecraft. There were several ways to handle the situation, but in my opinion the best was to just forget about Ares I entirely: build Ares V, or something like it, right away and use it for all the launches.
With a big launcher, there would be plenty of margin for weight overruns in development. Using the big launcher for Earth-orbit missions would obviously permit much heavier payloads there. Moreover, the lunar missions would get greater margins too, because they'd be done with two big launches rather than a big one and a little one, so they could weigh almost twice as much.There is also an important pragmatic issue: the biggest threat to NASA's return to the Moon is the possibility that Congress will delay or cancel development funding for Ares V. Doing Ares V right away, and using it for the Earth-orbit missions as well as the ones to the Moon, would have ensured that this crucial element of NASA's plans actually gets built.
Of course, better yet would have been a focus on in-space infrastructure, drawing on ISS assembly experience, to allow us to use existing launchers. That would have also freed up money for earlier development of injection stages and landers, and made lunar missions much more of a fait accompli by now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:48 AMThis (to me) amazing report on the status of the thrust-oscillation problem just has me shaking my head. If accurate, they don't even understand enough about it yet to know which weight-increasing kludge may mitigate it, and by how much. And the vaunted Ares 1-X "test" next year won't provide them with the information they need:
I see no discussion of the new failure modes that could be introduced by the addition of these systems, or their effects on first-stage reliability (which was supposedly the big feature of this approach). For example, if the active system has a failure (and I suspect that a failure of just one of the engines would be a failure, due to asymmetries), the vehicle will get shaken apart. It seems to be single point (unless they can still reach the oscillation-reduction goal with single engine out).
And now they're going to put shock absorbers into the couches to further isolate the crew, which implies that the Orion itself is going to sustain a lot more rockin' and rollin' than the current requirement stipulates. Which in turn implies a heavier vehicle to handle the accelerations and stress.
No one will consider the possibility, apparently, that this is an unclosable design, though such things happen in real life, once one gets outside of Powerpoint world.
With the July status of the engineering efforts showing the issue to be an across the board high "RED" risk to Ares I's development, the mitigation process is likely to continue until at least the end of the decade.
So months more, and billions more, without knowing whether or not the road they're on is a dead end.
[Update a few minutes later]
More depressing news (again, assuming accuracy) here.
[Another update]
The Chinese seem to be having problems, too:
China's English language state owned television channel CCTV9 has revealed the fact that on its past two manned missons the astronauts have experienced physical discomfort from the vibration of the rocket on its ascent
The tv news segment goes on to report that the rocket's chief designer says that changes to the "frequencies" of the engines and the "electrical circuits" have been made to try to eliminate this vibration problem.
Whatever that means. I wonder if it's POGO? And just how much "physical discomfort" was there? Not enough to end the missions, or the crews, apparently.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:32 AMI explore the proposition, over at The Space Review today. Also, editor Jeff Foust has a good writeup on a recent panel discussion on the prospects for government and private spaceflight.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:58 AMIn a follow-up to the original Orion worship post:
The Saturn V, the biggest thing we've ever launched (just go with me here) weighed in at 6,699,000 lbs, or 3,350 tons, and managed to put a measly 100,000 lbs (50 tons) into lunar orbit.So lets pretend we want to build a classic L5 space colony. How big does it have to be?
Sorry, but we're not going to "go with you there."
This is an inappropriate methodology, and the assumptions here are completely nonsensical. The problem has nothing to do with scaling Saturn Vs, and no one in their right mind ever thought that a "classic L5 space colony" would be built completely out of materials launched from the planet.
There is no good reason that we can't have launch costs of less than a hundred dollars a pound with chemical rockets, and give rides to millions of pounds of passengers and cargo. All that is needed is to make the investment into space transports, and set multiple teams of engineers loose on the problem, something that we have not done to date.
The cargo would be used to bootstrap production facilities for extraterrestrial resources, with high-value/pound payloads (i.e., electronics) coming up from earth. We do not need Orion to build space colonies. We need a lot of other things, but not that.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:48 PMAlan Boyle has a report from this weekend's conference on them. It's unfortunate that it conflicted with NewSpace 2008, in the other Washington. But there are only so many weekends in a year.
[Update a few minutes later]
Alan's report is great, but there sure is an appalling level of ignorance in the comments.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:30 AM...why can't we kick the fossil fuel habit? Well, we can, but not the way we put a man on the moon, and certainly not within a decade. On the thirty-ninth anniversary of the first landing, I explain.
[Afternoon update]
It's interesting to note that the original landing was on a Sunday as well. I don't know how many of the anniversaries have fallen on a Sunday, but I would guess five or so. It's not too late to plan to commemorate the event with a ceremony at dinner tonight, with friends and family. Also, a collection of remembrances here. If you're old enough to remember it yourself, you might want to add one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:38 AMRon Bailey has more from the end-of-the-world conference, on the risks of asteroids, comets, and gamma-ray bursters. As he notes, comets are the biggest problem, because we might not see them until it's too late. That's why we have to have an infrastructure in space that can rapidly respond.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:14 AMClark Lindsey is leaving the conference before the end, but he has a lot more summaries of the sessions, many of which looked quite interesting. As before, just keep scrolling. I assume that some time next week, he'll pull together the individual posts on a single page with permalinks.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:03 PMChris Bowers: on why "progressives" should support space programs. There's a lot of typical mythology in the comments section about NASA and the military, and spin-off. We would have had PCs without Apollo, honest. We needed microchips for the missiles, which was at least as big a driver.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:04 PM...on the high seas. Though he doesn't discuss it explicitly, Chris Borgen makes another case for why we need to get off the planet.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:35 AMOne of the more annoying things that I find in commentary on space policy is the assumption that there is One True Way to get off the planet, and that working on anything else (particularly chemical rockets) is a waste of time and money. Often it's space elevators, but here's another case in point: an Orion fan (the original Orion, not the current Apollo crew module on steroids):
Nuclear power is still the only thing that's going to allow us to get large amounts of mass into Earth orbit and beyond. Nothing else has enough specific impulse to do the job.
While nuclear-pulse propulsion may be an interesting technology for in-space transportation, where the radiation level is pretty high to start with, it was never going to be used for earth-to-orbit transportation. One does not have to be a luddite to believe this. I'm all in favor of getting access to orbit as low cost as possible, as soon as possible, but I think that the notion of using Orion for this is nuts (and not just for the radiation and atmospheric contamination issues--consider the EMP...). I highly respect Professor Dyson and Jerry Pournelle as well, but that doesn't mean that there aren't some major technical issues in getting such a system practical and operational. If such a system is ever built and tested, it will be built and tested in space, after we've come up with other ways of getting large amounts of mass into orbit, affordably. And I'm quite confident that if and when we do this, it will (at least initially) be with chemical rockets.
Part of the misunderstanding is revealed in the second sentence. The assumption is made that the reason costs of getting into space are high is due to performance, and particularly a specific performance parameter--specific impulse. For those unaware, this is basically a measure of a rocket's fuel economy. The higher the Isp, the less propellant is required to provide a given amount of thrust over a given time period.
But there is no equation in vehicle design or operations that correlates cost with Isp. If Isp were the problem, one would expect propellant costs to be a high percentage of launch costs. But they're not. Typically, propellant costs are on the order of a percent of the total launch costs. Yes, requiring fewer pounds of propellant means that the vehicle can be smaller, which reduces manufacturing and operations costs, but it still doesn't account for the high costs.
Chemical rockets are perfectly adequate for affordable launch--their specific impulse is not a problem. As an example of why there's a lot more to rocket science than Isp, consider that some of the more promising concepts (LOX/hydrocarbon) actually have lower specific impulse than so-called "high performance" propellants (LOX/LH2). Why? Because liquid hydrogen is so fluffy (the opposite of "dense") that the tank sizes get large, increasing vehicle dry mass and atmospheric drag. For instance, the Shuttle external tank carries six pounds of LOX for each pound of hydrogen, but the LOX is all carried in a little tank at the top, and most of the ET that you see contains liquid hydrogen.
As I've noted many times before, there are two key elements to affordable launch using chemical rockets. Fly a lot, and don't throw the vehicle away. Despite the mythology about the Shuttle, we've never actually done this in a program. It seems unlikely that NASA ever will, but fortunately, private enterprise is finally stepping up to the plate.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:01 AMIt looks like Clark Lindsey now has an internet connection, and he's got a lot of posts up with descriptions of the sessions yesterday and today. There are permalinks, but a bunch of them, so for now, just keep scrolling.
So far, I don't see a lot of news coming out of the conference, other than the CATS Coalition announcement.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:24 PM"I wasn't born in America - but I got here as fast as I could."
That's an American.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:24 PMClark Lindsey apparently had trouble getting an internet connection until now, but he's started blogging the conference. Which I could have attended.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:09 PMA submersible speedboat that can dive to twelve hundred feet. If there's a market for this, at a few million a pop, I'll bet that XCOR will be able so sell a few Lynx's to private owners.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:24 AMHere's the obit at the WaPo for Len Cormier.
As a staffer with the Academy in 1957, Mr. Cormier was in attendance at the International Geophysical Year proceedings when the Soviets surprised the world with the launch of Sputnik.
The event made a tremendous impression on him, his family said. He decided then to pursue better access to space through affordable, reusable space vehicles.
He was an early visionary. Others will have to pick up his torch now.
Fortunately, a lot of other people now recognize the need:
The National Coalition for CATS, working with leading figures across the space community, will collaborate over the next twelve weeks to develop a "National Declaration for Cheap and reliable Access to Space (CATS)." The CEOs of non-profit and for-profit companies will be invited to sign the Declaration, and will deliver this declaration to the next President of the U.S. after the November election.
Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend NewSpace, which starts tomorrow in Washington, and where this will be announced, due to financial constraints. It will be the first conference I've missed in a while.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:24 AMOn July 16th, 1969, the largest rocket ever built thundered off the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, delivering three men and the equipment and supplies they would need to land two of them on the moon and return the three of them safely to earth, fulfilling the national goal declared eight years earlier. The anniversary of the landing is this coming Sunday.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:32 AMCan anyone at the agency go on the record (with PAO permission) and tell me why they think that sending ISS to the moon is a bad idea? I'm working on a piece (I think it's a bad idea, myself, and have some better ones). Email me at the upper-left email.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:56 PMMike Griffin again disquisites on the Yellow Peril.
Well, actually he doesn't. Here's all he says (unless there's some elaboration to which the BBC is privy, but we are not):
Speaking to the BBC News website during a visit to London, Dr Griffin said: "Certainly it is possible that if China wants to put people on the Moon, and if it wishes to do so before the United States, it certainly can. As a matter of technical capability, it absolutely can."
What does that mean? If he means that if China made it as much of a priority as we did during Apollo, and if we continue on our own disastrous plans, that they could reverse engineer what we did and put some Taikonauts on the moon before NASA lands astronauts, sure.
But how likely is that? And even if it happened, what's the big deal? We were first on the moon, they were second. Big whoop. There's no way on their current technological trajectory to do it in any sustainable way, and even if they did, there's nothing they could realistically do there that would constitute a threat to us, either in terms of national security, or our own ability to do things there on our own pace.
My take?
It is extremely unlikely--the Chinese are not fools. They know how much it will cost to do a manned lunar mission, and it's not a high priority, particularly when their economy is potentially a house of cards (something not made better by the current energy prices, which will result in either a curtailing of their fuel subsidies, or a decline in economic growth, or both). If and when they are serious about going to the moon, it will be quite obvious, and we'll have plenty of time to do something about it if we think that it's actually a problem.
But Mike apparently thinks that he'll have a better chance of getting increased funding for Apollo on Steroids if he can frighten uninformed people about the Chinese taking over the moon.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:19 PMOrion, already overweight, just got heavier:
"Preliminary estimates show that if this 30-40% [turbulence] heating augmentation heating is applied to the aerothermodynamic database the heat shield mass may increase up to 20%," says an internal NASA report obtained by Flightglobal.
I wonder if, instead of using an ablator, a tile system would be lighter? It would be more maintenance intensive (particularly with water landings), but it wouldn't be as bad as the Shuttle, because many of the tiles would be symmetrical and more mass producible. We were never really allowed to do this trade in Phase B at Northrop Grumman--NASA just told us they were going to supply the TPS.
I'm actually quite surprised at this--I would have thought that they'd have modeling an ablative shield down to a science by now. Apollo was way overdesigned, because they didn't have any experience or good analytical tools to indicate how much shielding they needed. If you look at the heat shield on an Apollo capsule, you can see that it is just slightly charred, with most of it unburned; it could have done a couple more missions without refurbishment or replacement. But based on that experience, we should have been able to predict the optimal weight of an ablator designed to come back from the moon pretty well, and years ago. How did this come up just before PDR?
Anyway, now they have unexpected weight growth in the program at the same time that they have weight and performance problems with the Ares 1. And apparently there are budget problems at LM, as well, if this report is true:
The ORION contractor is overrunning. The minions are out of money. Where can 20-30% more funds be dredged up to cover this miscarriage? You guessed it...the little man.
The minions have let the contractor off the hook for meeting its small business obligations this year. The same obligations that were bid as part of the winning proposal, ostensibly offering a better package than the opposing team, are now null and void. As a result, some of those little companies will start disappearing, lacking jobs and income.
They seem to be achieving the trifecta--failing on performance, schedule and budget. It's a program manager's nightmare.
[Update a few minutes later]
Some further thoughts over at Gravity Loss:
What will the payload landed on the moon be? What propellants are used? What is the Altair's or Orion's mass? And work back from there to TLI mass and ultimately to launch from Earth, all with generous margins. And it has seemed that a certain cycle has formed. First a solution on Ares I is based on some logic linking it to Shuttle hardware, infrastructure or Ares V with common elements, which should save a lot of money and time and keep the workforce etc etc. Somewhat later, rumors about a severe performance shortfall on either launcher start circulating. Then after a while NASA announces a new configuration where the commonality is disrupted. And again forward we go.
Unfortunately, the concepts seemed to be driven more by politics than engineering. That was often the case in Apollo, too. The Manned Spaceflight Center could have remained at Langley, but there were political reasons to move it to Texas. Marshall didn't have to be in Huntsville--they could have moved the rocket team at Redstone to somewhere else (e.g., the Cape, whose location really was driven by geography and not politics). But there were two differences in Apollo. It had essentially unlimited budget, and its success was politically important. Neither applies to the VSE, yet NASA, by Mike Griffin's own admission when he announced the architecture, not only chose to do Apollo over again, but to do it "on steroids."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:28 PMJeff Foust wonders if new government energy initiatives will crowd out space budgets.
Maybe. His piece reminds me of an idea I've had for an essay on why energy independence isn't like landing a man on the moon.
In fact, I had a related comment over at Space Politics this morning, in response to a comment from someone named...Someone...that cost-plus contracts are a proven means of success in space:
I know alt.spacers see cost-plus as some sort of ultimate evil. But recognize its been successful in the past, from the Saturn V to the Pegasus. And the X-33 would likely have been finished and test flown if NASA had used its traditional cost-plus approach instead of the fixed price model they used. If NASA had funded the X-33/VentureStar under the same procurement model as the Shuttle it would be flying today.
To which I responded:
But recognize its been successful in the past, from the Saturn V to the Pegasus.
Only if by "successful," you mean it eventually results in very expensive working hardware. Not to mention that Pegasus was not developed on a cost-plus contract.And the X-33 would likely have been finished and test flown if NASA had used its traditional cost-plus approach instead of the fixed price model they used.
Perhaps. At a cost to the taxpayer of billions. And probably a radically different vehicle than the one originally proposed.
If NASA had funded the X-33/VentureStar under the same procurement model as the Shuttle it would be flying today.
Perhaps. And likely just as big an economic disaster (and perhaps safety one as well) as the Shuttle.
We don't like that form of procurement because historically, in terms of affordable access to space, it has repeatedly been proven not to work.
Anyway, I do need to write that essay. We're not going to get energy independence from government crash programs (though prizes may be useful).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:09 AMNext Sunday will be the thirty-ninth anniversary of the first human footsteps on another world. As I do every year, I'd like to remind my readers of a ceremony that I and some friends came up with to celebrate it. If you think that this was an important event, worthy of solemn commemoration, gather some friends to do so next Sunday night, and have a nice dinner after reading the ceremony.
Oh, and coincidentally, Friday was the twenty-ninth anniversary of the fall of Skylab. James Lileks has some thoughts. Next year, it will be the fortieth, and thirtieth anniversaries, respectively, of the two events. It was ironic that our first space station came plunging into the atmosphere almost exactly a decade after the height of our space triumphs in the sixties. The seventies really sucked.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:37 AMThat's what Ferris Valyn wants Barack Obama to do.
It's good advice for John McCain, too. I don't think that it will have any political effect on the election if he does it now, though. Space simply isn't a voting issue for very many people.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:31 PMClark Lindsey has some thoughts on NASA's latest attempt to justify Ares, including the usual red herring about "man rating" (a phrase that I would purge from the vocabulary, had I the power).
...the initial conditions are the real problem. Griffin insisted on absolutely minimizing in-space assembly and avoiding unproven technologies such as propellant depots, even when such technology is close at hand and would tremendously expand space access capabilities for less money. These requirements lead to big and heavy throwaway payloads for the lunar exploration architecture.
I don't know who the maligners of small vehicles are that she refers to in the article but I remember that there was a lot of bias within NASA towards a Shuttle replacement, i.e., a vehicle with similar crew and cargo capability. I've always thought the Shuttle was far too big for a first generation attempt at an RLV. Starting small, learning what works and doesn't work, and growing vehicles over time seems like the sensible development path.Of course, today I don't think NASA should develop vehicles at all. Instead it should do R&D on leading edge technology the way NACA did for aviation and DARPA does today for general aerospace technology. Let Lockheed-Martin, SpaceX, etc. battle to offer the cheapest space access services.
And he is correct, Shuttle was never man rated. Which is one of the reasons why it's disingenuous to claim that the Ares first stage is man rated because it was a Shuttle component (particularly since, with the additional segment, it's become a new motor completely).
I'm a little confused, though, by his citing me, when the link goes to Jon Goff. I think that I have in fact pointed to Mike Griffin's flip flop on the issue, but it's not in any of Clark's links in the piece.
[Update early afternoon]
This was the last time I commented on the man-rating canard, a couple months ago.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:45 AMI've been running my trap lines with my contacts, but I might as well see if any of my readers know of anything. The blog doesn't pay the bills, and I'm kind of at the end of my financial tether, so if anyone is aware of any jobs out there in the industry, I'd appreciate a tip. I can relocate, but my preference would be either the Denver area or southern California, due to existing housing.
[Update a while later]
For those interested, a brief version of my resume can be found at my personal web site. I'm looking for work in space systems engineering and management, preferably manned space. I could also do temp work, though that's kind of hard for the big companies under the FAR, unless I come in through a job shop, which skims a lot in overhead for no value added.
[Friday afternoon update]
For those suggesting that I try to make a living writing columns, I'm already doing that as much as I can. There's no way that it will pay my bills, even if I did it full time. It just doesn't pay that well. I have to be earning on the order of several tens of dollars an hour to keep ahead of them. The only place I can do that is in the space industry.
I do appreciate all the kind thoughts, though.
[Friday evening update]
Several have commented that I should put a tip jar up. I've had one up for years. Unfortunately, it's not Paypal but Amazon, but I think that you can use any form of payment with it. Is it not appearing in the upper left corner?
Not that I'm asking for handouts, but the thought is appreciated.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:08 PMFerris Valyn has some candidates. Most of them seem implausible to me. The only ones that I can imagine are at all realistic are Patti Grace Smith, Lori Garver and Pete Worden (the latter would certainly shake things up, which is one reason that he almost certainly won't get the job). Certainly Hansen has nothing in his resume that would qualify him--he's a scientist.
Of course, much depends on who the next president is. One likely name not on the list, assuming that McCain wins: Craig Steidle.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:51 AMThere's a piece over at the WaPo today by Marc Kaufman that lays out pretty well the problems that we face in civil space policy, though I think that the international competition aspects are overstated. The pace of all these other activities remains almost as glacial as our own, and until someone develops a transportation breakthrough (and by that I mean a high-flight-rate reusable system, not warp drive or space elevators) none of it presents a serious threat to us. But it points out that the policy apparatus, as I always says, doesn't view space as very important. The beginning of the article, and first two pages, are all about budget constraints, and I was wondering if he would ever get around to mentioning ITAR. Toward the end of the piece, finally, he did. In terms of our losing our dominance in commercial space, this is the number one reasons. It's really been a disaster, and a bi-partisan one.
It's a little out of date, since it mentions that Mike Griffin claims that additional funding could accelerate Constellation by two years, to 2013, because Griffin's own program manager now says that it probably wouldn't.
I disagree with Mike Griffin's comment here:
"We spent many tens of billions of dollars during the Apollo era to purchase a commanding lead in space over all nations on Earth," said NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin, who said his agency's budget is down by 20 percent in inflation-adjusted terms since 1992.
"We've been living off the fruit of that purchase for 40 years and have not . . . chosen to invest at a level that would preserve that commanding lead."
We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on human spaceflight over the past four decades, more than enough to have developed a robust transportation and in-space infrastructure that would have kept us well in the lead. The problem was not how much was spent, but in how it was spent. Jobs were more important than progress. That sadly remains the case today.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:05 AMClark Lindsey has some space-related thoughts in response to T. Boone Pickens' solar energy proposal:
...one major hurdle, among several, with the plan would be the need to build more long distance electric power transmission lines to reach the more populated and more industrialized areas. This will be difficult since people all along the routes will fight having the lines and towers in their backyards.
Occasionally in discussions of Space Based Solar Power, the topic of microwave relay satellites comes up as a way to move power around. For example, in this paper, Reinventing the Solar Power Satellite (2004) Geoffrey Landis talks about using relay sats for distributing power to different parts of the globe from a single Solarsat. So it should be similarly possible for relay satellites to move power from the Midwest to where it's needed.
Yes, this is one of the "tiers" that Peter Glaser proposed in the development of powersats when he first came up with the idea forty (geez, has it really been that long?) years ago. He envisioned that before energy was produced in space, it might be relayed from energy-rich areas that didn't have local demand (such as a large dam in Venezuela or Brazil). He envisioned such relays as passive microwave reflectors, which are currently a major structural challenge in terms of keeping the surface the right shape within a fraction of a wavelength. But at least at GEO, they wouldn't have to move much.
Rather than giant relay sats in GEO, it might be preferable to place a constellation of relatively small ones in LEO since this would allow the beams to be much more narrow. Perhaps the switching techniques developed for Iridium/Globalstar could be built upon. Smaller beams might also lessen NIMBY resistance to transmitter/receiving sites.
Perhaps, but now you have high slew rates on the reflectors, which makes for even more of a challenge. An active phased array system can be steered electronically as it switches from rectenna to rectenna as it orbits. A reflector has to rapidly move the entire structure while maintaining its shape. The higher the orbit the better in this regard, because it won't have to slew as fast. Also, it would make LEO pretty crowded. A medium orbit (a couple kilocklicks) would probably be better, both because it would require slower motion, and would allow more ground rectennas to be seen at a time, while not cluttering up LEO. The slewing problem could be ameliorated by going to an active system, but that means that the satellite must now not only receive and convert the power, but reconvert and rebeam it to the ground, with all the attendant efficiency issues.
Anyway, I suspect that, regardless of size, NIMBY resistance to rectennas will dwarf that of resistance to transmission lines and towers, given that it's a devil they don't know.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:07 AMFrom Jeff Hanley:
Hanley stated his belief that Orion 2's Initial Operational Capability (IOC) test flight to the ISS will "remain" on track for March, 2015 - although the ongoing PMR (Program Management Review) budget review shows the first ISS crew rotation (Orion 4) will take place one year later (March, 2016).
How in the world can someone believe that a program with as many uncertainties--technical, political, budgetary--as this one has can be "on track" for a date seven years out? Particularly considering this:
No specific references are made to ongoing problems that face the Constellation program, such as Thrust Oscillation, mass and performance concerns, etc. Noting only 'key technical challenges' - whilst citing the workforce's 'hard work and dedication' as key to a successful resolution.
OK, so they don't even know if there is a solution within the constraints of the program, let alone what it is, yet he thinks they're on track to a 2015 IOC? Sometimes "hard work" and "dedication" aren't enough. Unfortunately, when one manages cost-plus contracts, it's easy to fall into a Marxist "labor theory of value" mode of thinking.
This would be more credible if he would at least caveat it.
[Update a few minutes later]
Hanley says that more money won't close the gap. That's probably right, short of an Apollo-like crash program. You can't get a baby in a month by putting nine women on the job. Some things just take a certain amount of time.
People who complain about this program's schedule forget that Apollo had essentially an unlimited budget, in terms of hitting the schedule. More money could have been poured into it, but it probably would have been wasted, in terms of getting men on the moon any sooner. NASA is not in that position today--they are budget constrained, yet they're taking exactly the same economically unsustainable approach that got us to the moon the first time, and not developing affordable or routine spaceflight capabilities.
Which is something to consider in terms of looking for asteroids. It's not sufficient to find them--we have to find them soon enough to be able to do something about it:
Smaller rocks matter, too. Perhaps nowhere is that so evident as in central Siberia, where 100 years ago last week, something -- presumably a meteoroid, most experts say -- streaked across the sky and exploded at an estimated height of 28,000 feet with a force equivalent to 185 Hiroshima bombs, leveling some 800 square miles of forest. Simulations by the Sandia National Laboratories showed that object could have been just 90 feet across.
Which is why we have to develop the spacefaring capability now, and not wait until we spot something, at which point it may be too late to do so. And unfortunately, Constellation in its current planned form is not what we need for that job.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:17 AM...is that too many people will think that it's true.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:41 AMThat's the recursive bit of wisdom that Douglas Hofstadter came up with, that goes "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
Jeff Foust has a good example of it today, as he examines the state of the suborbital industry. It looks now like no one is likely to enter commercial service prior to 2010, unless Armadillo can make it. Which brings up a little problem.
When the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act (CSLAA) was passed in 2004, the industry got regulatory relief for eight years--until 2012--in which FAA-AST would not regulate the vehicles with respect to passenger safety, as long as there were no accidents involving passenger loss. This was in recognition of the fact that a) the agency didn't really know how to do that and b) if it attempted to do so, the industry might be still born as a result of a costly and time-consuming regulatory overburden. The eight-year period was provided to allow the companies time to develop and test vehicle design and operational concepts, with informed consent of the passengers, that would provide a basis for the development of such regulations as the industry matured (as occurred in the aviation industry in the twenties and thirties). In light of the SS1 flight in fall of that year, there was an expectation that there would be other vehicles flying in another two or three years (as Jeff notes--Virgin was predicting revenue service in 2007), which would have provided a five-year period for this purpose.
But if few, or none are flying until 2010, that leaves only two years before the FAA's regulatory power kicks in, which will be an insufficient amount of time to meet the intended objectives of the original maturing period.
Assuming that the logic still holds (and it certainly does for me, and I assume most of the industry and the Personal Spaceflight Federation) the most sensible thing to do would be to simply extend the period out to, say, 2018. Unfortunately (at least in regard to this issue), the most sensible thing is unlikely to happen.
In 2006, control of the Congress passed to the Democrats, which means that Jim Oberstar of Wisconsin took over as chairman of the relevant committee. He was opposed to the regulatory relief, railing against it as a "tombstone mentality" (whatever that means). He was unmoved by the argument that overregulating now would save passengers, but only at the cost of none of them ever getting to fly. Being in the minority at the time, he lost the battle, but now that he's in charge, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get an extension from him. In fact, even an attempt to do so might result in losing it altogether if the issue is revisited under his jurisdiction.
For those hoping for what would seem to require a miracle--Republicans regaining control of at least the House, this would be one more reason to wish for that, if they're fans of this nascent industry. Either that, or at least hope that Oberstar (and his partner in dumbness, Vic Fazio) moves to a different committee.
[Afternoon update]
Not that it affects the point in any way, but as a commenter points out, I goofed above. Oberstar is from Minnesota. I could have sworn he was a Badger.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:32 AMOne of the reasons that I don't get involved in arguing the relative merits of ESAS versus Direct (of any version) is that I agree with Clark Lindsey:
I'm no fan of NASA building any new expendable (or just mostly expendable) launcher.
But I also agree with this:
However, if they are going to do that anyway, I think building a single uneconomic new launcher is better than building two.
And I think that Clark is not only justified, but would be doing his readers a service, to delete GM's posts. I've never seen him make a positive contribution to any newsgroup or web site discussion.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:07 PMJust to hold you over in the blogging (sort of) hiatus, here are some gorgeous pictures of earth from orbit.
I can only shake my head at those who say there's no market for views like this, or that no one will want to go, or repeat the experience, once the novelty wears off. It's like saying that no one would ever take a repeat trip to the Grand Canyon or Yosemite. The ever-changing planet, with its weather patterns, clouds, light angles, is the ultimate kaleidoscope, and we've just barely begun, haven't even begun, to tap the market for the view.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:20 AMFrank J. has a plan to deal with the asteroids. Sort of.
Here's what we'll do: We'll paint Mars blue. The asteroids will see Mars, think it's us, and hit it instead. It's simple and it will work. So you're asking, "Why not paint Venus? It's the same size and should make a more convincing Earth." That's idiotic. For one thing, it's super-hot there, so how the hell do you plan on painting it? Also, it's further away from the asteroid belt than us, so the asteroids will see the real Earth before seeing the decoy Earth. Painting Venus is a truly idiotic plan. You're disgustingly stupid for even suggesting it. This is why I sometimes think of just giving up blogging because I just can't deal with people as stupid as you are.
I know how he feels. Sort of.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:31 AMThomas James notes some irony in Dwayne Day's piece:
...when one follows the Google search link he does provide, a good number of the results have to do with James Hansen calling for trials of oil executives and others who question the political orthodoxy of global warming...trials whose political nature and predetermined outcome would no doubt have pleased the arguably fascist Roland Freisler.
Not exactly the point that Dr. Day was trying to make, I suspect.
[Previous post here]
[Update a couple minutes later]
Speaking of fascists, Thomas also offers a preview of August in Denver:
...come on..."Students for a Democratic Society"? As if the hippie nostalgia of Recreate 68 wasn't bad enough, we now have someone reanimating that corpse? I thought it was the right that supposedly clung to the faded glories of a distant golden age.
OK, so I guess it won't be another Summer of Love.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:47 AMLike me, Chair Force Engineer isn't backing down, either.
[Update in the late afternoon]
What a pompous ego.
What "job" does Mark Whittington imagine that he has that he fantasizes is being made more difficult by his imaginary "Internet Rocketeers Club"?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:48 AMIt's been a hundred and fifty years since Darwin first presented his thesis. Charles Johnson has some thoughts. I may have some as well, later. Or not.
[A minute or so later]
Well, actually, I do now, in light of Lileks' comments this morning, in which he pointed out the simplistic, stilted views of many across the political spectrum. I'll repeat:
Really, if one wants to cling, bitterly, to the notion that a believe [sic] in lower taxes and strong foreign policy and greater individual freedom re: speech and property automatically translates to a crimpled, reductive, censorious view of pop culture, go right ahead.
Similarly, if one wants to cling, bitterly, to the notion that a concern about Islamism, and an inability to realize what an evil stupid fascist criminal George Bush is translates to a belief that the world was created by Jehovah six thousand some years ago, complete with dinosaur bones, go right ahead.
Before 911, Charles Johnson was a Democrat, and a jazz musician. Almost seven years ago, he got mugged by reality. That, combined with some scary things that were happening at a mosque near his home in Culver City resulted in a change in emphasis at his web site. Now many of the left wingnuts who read LGF stupidly assume that he's a "right" wingnut. Yet here he is, defending science from places like the Discovery Institute, on a semi-daily basis.
I get the same idiotic treatment, much of the time. I've often had discussions on Usenet whereupon, when I argue that maybe it wasn't necessarily a bad idea to remove Saddam Hussein's boot from the neck of the Iraqi people, and that I don't believe that George Bush personally planted the charges in the Twin Towers, I am told to go back to whatever holler I came from and play with my snakes, and am informed that my belief in a Christian God, and my lack of belief in evolution is just more evidence of my irredeemable stupidity, despite the fact neither religion or science had been on the discussion table.
I then take pleasure in informing them that I am an agnostic and for practical purposes an atheist, and that I am a firm believer in evolutionary theory, it being the best one available to explain the existing body of evidence. Whereupon, I am sometimes called a liar. Really. It's projection, I think.
Same thing often happens here, in fact. I tell people that I'm not a Republican, and have never been, nor am I a conservative, and I'm accused of lying about my true beliefs and political affiliation.
C'est la vie. There's no reasoning with some folks.
In any event, happy birthday to a controversial but powerful (as Dennett
[Late evening update]
Well, Iowahawk has the comment du jour:
I'm a dope-smoking atheist writer for a San Francisco lowbrow culture mag; I also enjoy seeing 7th century genocidal terrorist shitbags getting waterboarded. I really don't see the contradiction.Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:09 AM
Alan Boyle has a good round up.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:14 AMIt's been a hundred years since Tonguska, but we're still not taking the threat seriously.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:00 PMLike Steve Cooke, Dave King defends ESAS/Ares:
Direct 2.0, the concept in question in the June 23 Times article, falls significantly short of the lunar lander performance requirement for exploration missions as specifically outlined in Constellation Program ground rules. The concept also overshoots the requirements for early missions to the International Space Station in the coming decade. These shortcomings would necessitate rushed development of a more expensive launch system with too little capability in the long run, and would actually increase the gap between space shuttle retirement and development of a new vehicle. Even more importantly, the Ares approach offers a much greater margin of crew safety - paramount to every mission NASA puts into space.
To accomplish the nation's goals in space, we need more than a new rocket. We need a robust, multipurpose space fleet.
Again, this is all simply argument by assertion. Show us the numbers and the assumptions. The notion that Direct 2.0 falls short of the lunar lander performance requirement is pretty funny, considering that Ares 5 does as well. This makes one think that there may be a problem with the requirement. The second paragraph is semantically meaningless. Is he saying that Direct is "a rocket" but that Ares 1 and 5 are a "fleet"? Why is Direct not multi-purpose? In what way is Ares "robust" that Direct is not?
Not that I'm a big Direct fan, of course. A lot of these issues would be solved by simply coming up with an architecture and operating philosophy that allows the use of existing vehicles, something that was clearly never under consideration.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:17 AMDwayne Day is complaining today at The Space Review about my and others' use of the word fascism to describe NASA's human spaceflight program, though he doesn't call me out by name (interestingly, when you do the Google search he suggests, this post doesn't even come up in the top ten, though it's only a link away from some of them).
I'll make two points. First, if he actually read Jonah's "screed" (his word), it isn't obvious from this review. For example, he says that Jonah doesn't criticize conservatives for their own fascist tendencies in the book, but that's patently false. And he seems to fall back on the old leftist paradigm that the epitome, almost definition of fascism were the Nazis and Mussolini's Black Shirts:
Fascist governments do not allow other competitors to exist. The first thing they do when they gain power is to eliminate their opposition at the point of a gun. Usually they started with the primary threat, the communists, then the fascists turned their weapons on less organized and non-political groups, like the Jews and the gypsies. Fascist groups have also reveled in their militaristic attributes such as discipline and uniforms and strength and weaponry. The groups most identified with fascism--the Nazis and the Italian fascists--were paramilitary organizations that sought to enact their goals through force. It is impossible to separate fascist ideology from the methods used to implement it.
Take out the words "communists," "Jews," and "gypsies," and in what way does this not describe Stalin's USSR? Did they not eliminate their opposition at the point of a gun? Did they not have "discipline and uniforms and strength and weaponry" (recall all those May Day parades with the missiles and tanks rolling down the streets, and goose-stepping Soviet troops)? Did they not "enact their goals through force"? Is not the same true of North Korea? Or Cuba?
What Dr. Day is talking about is what fascists do when they actually gain power, but fascism is not just the use of force. It is a set of ideas, to be implemented by whatever means necessary.
My second point, as I wrote in the previous post, is that those ideas are described in Jonah's book, particularly in reference to Apollo.
From the first edition, pages 210-211 (my annotations are in square brackets, and red), "Even Kennedy's nondefense policies were sold as the moral analogue of war...His intimidation of the steel industry was a rip-off of Truman's similar effort during the Korean War, itself a maneuver from the playbooks of FDR and Wilson. Likewise, the Peace Corps and its various domestic equivalents were throwbacks to FDR's martial CCC. Even Kennedy's most ambitious idea, putting a man on the moon, was sold to the public as a response to the fact that the Soviet Union was overtaking America in science..."
He went on. Again, the red text is my annotation of his words.
"What made [Kennedy's administration] so popular? What made it so effective? What has given it its lasting appeal? On almost every front, the answers are those elements that fit the fascist playbook: the creation of crises [We're losing the race to the Soviets! We can't go to sleep by a Russian moon!], national appeals to unity [They are our astronauts! Our nation shall beat the Soviets to the moon!], the celebration of martial values [The astronauts were all military, the best of the best], the blurring of lines between public and private sectors [SETA contracts, anyone? Cost plus? Our version of Soviet design bureaus?], the utilization of the mass media to glamorize the state and its programs [The Life Magazine deal for chronicling a bowdlerized version of the astronauts' lives], invocation of a "post-partisan" spirit that places the important decisions in the hands of experts and intellectual supermen, and a cult of personality for the national leader [von Braun..."Rocket scientists"...not just Kennedy Space Center, but (briefly) Cape Kennedy]."
Obviously, this can go overboard, and Dr. Day has some legitimate complaints. While certainly leftists use the term (as Dr. Day describes) to simply insult anyone who disagrees with them and shut down discussion, and have done so for years, that is not the way that it is being used here, at least not by me. I don't think that it's an insult to call something fascist (though I've certainly been called that enough times myself when that was the clear intent). I am not merely being Seinfeldian when I always append the phrase "not that there's anything wrong with that" to my usage of the word. I really mean it. Hitler gave fascism a bad name. Not to imply, of course, that I think that these are good ideas. Just that they're not intrinsically evil, and many millions of people in this country apparently buy into them, as demonstrated by Obama's campaign success.
In any event, I do think that it is a useful prism through which to view the program for the purposes of analyzing it, and trying to develop a more useful space policy. If we can recognize it for what it is, we stand a much better chance of moving things in a more useful direction, and one more in keeping with traditional American values, and classical liberalism.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:42 AMJon Goff has another installment in his excellent series of tutorials on future space transport concepts. The interesting thing, as he points out, is that one can see a clear development and technological maturation path to these types of affordable systems via operational suborbital vehicles, both horizontal and vertical.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:26 AMA tuned mass vibration damper:
Due to both the immense size of Taipei 101 and the fact that it sits just over 600ft from a major fault line, engineers had no choice but to install one of this size at a cost of $4m. Too heavy to be lifted by crane, the damper was assembled on site and hangs through four floors of the skyscraper. It can reduce the building's movement by up to 40%.
And only 728 tons. Hey, the vehicle's already overweight. What's a little more?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:52 PMI'd sure like to know a lot more about this:
Recently, an attempt at a PDR by ATK was called up short by the minions. Not even a goatee could make you feel warm and fuzzy that day. Having failed in their quest to show some level of design maturity, ATK was not even allowed to finish their presentations and were sent back to the showers to try again. And, oh, by the way, none of the ARES 1 designs at PDR, including the upper stage, include any of the modifications that will be required to turn the bladder basher into a real human space transportation system. That will come later. Makes one wonder why the PDR was scheduled if the design is that immature and missing pieces, don't it?
If true (and there's little reason to think otherwise, despite the happy talk from Jeff Hanley), how long will this farce go on?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:17 AMI just got an email from Pat Kelley:
I received a call from Anne Greenglass to tell me that Len's ashes will be interred at Arlington cemetery with full military honors on September 17. Any of Len's friends and cohorts who are in the Washington area on that date are welcome to come to the service. As we get closer to the date if I have any more information I will pass it along.
He's referring to Len Cormier, who died of cancer a few days ago.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:54 PM...about space policy
The three say they don't know for certain why the White House has failed to provide the appropriate guidance and funding needed to implement the Vision, "though we suspect it can be explained by Bush not knowing all the facts about what the real impact of NASA's annual budgets has been since the loss of the Columbia in 2003."
I think the problem is less in the funding, and more in the lack of guidance. Once Griffin was hired, the White House apparently decided that it was mission accomplished, and refocused to much more pressing issues, despite the fact that NASA's implementation seems to fly in the face of the original vision and the recommendations of the Aldridge Commission.
And Clark Lindsey gives them a lecture of their own:
These Senators don't seem to know that NASA could have chosen to pursue an innovative low cost approach to space development and lunar exploration rather than choosing a very long and very expensive path to two new vehicles, both of which will be very costly to operate. These Senators apparently don't even know about COTS, the one modest effort taken by the agency towards lower costs for space hardware development and operations.
Well, what most Senators don't know, particularly about space, could fill a small library. Maybe even a large one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:18 AMSorry I didn't mention it yesterday so you could listen live, but hey, the ability to download and listen at your own convenience is one of the features of the Interweb. Last night I did a one-hour interview with Rick Moran on space stuff. Download it here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:47 AMAs usual, Doug Cooke defends ESAS:
The "direct" variation fails to meet NASA's needs on several grounds. It is vastly over-capacity and too costly to service the International Space Station, but worse, its lift capacity would not be enough for NASA to maintain a sustained presence on the moon.
Advocates for the "direct" variation are touting unrealistic development costs and schedules. A fundamental difference is that the Ares I and Orion probability of crew survival is at least two times better than all of the other concepts evaluated, including "direct"-like concepts.
Also as usual, he provides no evidence for his assertions. We are simply supposed to accept them because Doug Cooke says so. Have we ever seen the actual report that came out of the sixty-day study, with a description of methodology and assumptions? I haven't.
I'm not necessarily a big fan of "Direct," but his statement raises more issues than it answers. Why doesn't the "lift capacity allow a sustained presence on the moon" in a way that ESAS does? Why should it be assumed that NASA's new launch system will service space station? I thought that this was what COTS was for? What are the marginal costs of an additional Jupiter launch versus Ares 1?
Give us some numbers, and provide a basis for them, and we might take this seriously.
[Wednesday morning update]
More thoughts and comments at NASA Watch, and from Chair Force Engineer.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:02 PMAnd where is it going, in commercial space?
I have to say, I thought this was pretty funny:
Virgin Galactic has already been watching its back with the EADS suborbital space plane (pictured above), set to make its first flight by 2012. But now there's cash across the pond. "We have invested substantial money into this project," Auque said without citing exact figures. "The problem is that we need to create this market."
I doubt very much that Virgin Galactic is worried that EADS Astrium is going to raise a billion dollars to build a suborbital tourist vehicle. There's a reason that Auque didn't cite "exact" (or even approximate) figures. He expects to do it mostly with someone else's money, if he can find a sucker (like ESA?).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:40 AMA commercial space wiki. I'll have to add it to the blogroll (even though, technically speaking, it's not a blog. But I don't have a wikiroll...).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:52 AMI have a new piece up over at Pajamas Media on space transportation and the Interstate Highway System.
Hey, it was Mike Griffin who made the analogy, not me.
I should also note that while the title is mine, the subheadline is theirs.
[Late afternoon update]
Only Mark Whittington would have the native talent to so misread this piece as to think that I was "expressing astonishment." Of course, it's not the first time that he's fantasized about my views.
[Another update]
Now Mark is fantasizing that I actually want, or expect NASA to build the Interstate to space.
Well, it's totally in character for him.
I sure wish he'd learn to read for comprehension.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:02 AMKeith Cowing thinks that the Coalition for Space Exploration is asking the wrong questions.
If the Coalition for Space Exploration really wants to further the notion of a robust taxpayer-funded program of space exploration - one based on a solid footing of public support - then they need to start paying attention to what their polls actually say and stop trying to skew the results to say something that the numbers do not support. If, however, they want to support space exploration - regardless of how it comes about - then they need to re-examine their motives - and ask different questions.
People might not want to pay more taxes for space exploration, but they might be interested in buying a ticket.
Indeed.
As usual (and perhaps inevitably), an organization ostensibly set up for the purpose of supporting space exploration in general ends up being a NASA cheerleader. That's partly because a lot of the funding for it comes from the space industrial complex. In any event, these polls should always be taken with a grain, if not a whole shaker of salt. They're based on public ignorance, and once again demonstrate that support for the current plans are a mile wide and an inch deep.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:37 AMJon Goff has put up the fourth installment of his survey on space transport concepts. As he noted earlier, it could be the basis of a useful textbook on the subject, with a lot more work and analysis (and accompanying graphs and figures). When I was on The Space Show the other day, David got a chat from an aerospace engineering student about when he'd learn how to design low-cost launchers, because he hadn't seen anything about that in any of his course work. This would be the text for such a course.
As Jon notes, TPS is a common thread in making reusable entry vehicles practical and cost effective. The Shuttle tiles are too high maintenance, and risky (as we saw with Columbia). However, a lot of these issues go away if the vehicle "swallows the tank" (as Rockwell and others proposed in their X-33 concepts). No external tank dramatically reduces the risk to damaging the tiles, and containing a hydrogen (or even hydrocarbon, though to a lesser degree) fuel tank makes the vehicle much more "fluffy"* on entry, considerably reducing the heat load. Because of the ET, Shuttle had unique TPS issues that future vehicles are less likely to have to worry about. And also, as Jon notes, XCOR is in the process of building exactly the type of "X-vehicle" that will be useful to start to prove out both trajectory and TPS concepts, something that NASA should have done years ago, and probably would have had it still been NACA.
[Update late afternoon]
Notwithstanding the silly microkerfuffle in comments, I should add that when I came up with the term "fluffy," it didn't occur to me to apply it to a vehicle. I really intended it to apply to something that actually is fluffy (i.e., homogeneously undense, e.g., liquid hydrogen), rather than something that has low average density, but very high local density with vast volumes of low or zero density. We should probably come up with some other word to describe a large empty tank, to distinguish between the homogeneous and heterogeneous cases.
*A word I came up with years ago at Rockwell to mean the opposite of "dense." Others may have come up with it independently.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:18 AM...of the Lynx. Rob Coppinger is in Mojave, taking pictures.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:44 AMOver at Rockets and Such.
So, it goes from Ares 5 to Ares 6, and it still doesn't satisfy the mission requirement. And now it has outgrown the MLP.
There's a concept in the development of a space vehicle known as "chasing your tail," in which the need to add something to the vehicle (like adequate structural strength, with margin) results in more weight, which results in the need for bigger or more engines to push it, which results in the need for more propellant capacity to accelerate the added mass, which results in...
And the design won't close.
Now in fact, it is probably possible to get this design to close--bigger vehicles are easier in that regard than small ones. But regardless of the size of the vehicle, mission needs are always going to grow (and they still don't really have solid numbers on the EDS/Altair/cargo requirements). So it won't be able to get the mission concept (one and a half launch) to close, particularly as we move beyond the moon, even if it can be done for the moon.
The rationale for the heavy lifter has always been to avoid the complication of orbital assembly (apparently, the false lesson learned from our success with assembling ISS is that we should throw away all that experience, and take an entirely different approach for VSE). But it's already a "launch and half" mission, needing both Ares 1 and Ares 56, so they're not even avoiding it--they're only minimizing it. And even if the lunar mission doesn't outgrow the Ares 6, it won't be able to do a Mars mission in a single launch. So if we need to learn to do orbital assembly (and long-term propellant storage) anyway, why postpone it? Why not take the savings from not developing an unneeded heavy lifter (and new crew launch vehicle), and invest it in orbital infrastructure, tools and technology to provide a flexible system that can be serviced by a range of launch vehicles, without the single-point failure of Ares? These are the kinds of issues that a new administrator will have to consider next year.
And don't get me started on the Ares 1 problems:
The currently favored mitigation approaches - still undergoing a trade study - for thrust oscillation will add around 500 lbs to Orion for shock mounting on the crew seats and vital components.
So, because the geniuses behind this concept decided to put the crew on top of the world's biggest organ pipe, they'll add a quarter of a ton to an already-overweight vehicle with no margin, so that the astronauts will (might?) be able to survive watching the rest of the capsule being vibrated even more intensely around them.
There is a word for this. It starts with a "k" and ends with "ludge." And then there's this.
Thrust oscillation is now categorized as a 5x4 risk for the upper stage.
I'm not sure which axis is which in that formulation, but it either means that there is a very high likelihood of a catastrophic outcome, or that that it is probable that there will be a near-catastrophic outcome. And no mitigation has yet been found.
They really need to consider going from one and a half launches to (at least) two launches of a single medium-sized vehicle type. Two launches is two launches, it would save them a huge amount of development costs, provide much better economies of scale in operation and production, and get completely around the "stick" idea, which is proving to be a programmatic disaster waiting to happen, if it hasn't already. Let us finally end the cargo cult of Apollo, and develop real infrastructure.
[Late morning update]
Here's more discussion over at NASA Space Flight.
[Update a few minutes later]
In a post from a week ago, Chair Force Engineer has some related thoughts as well, on the wisdom of choosing solids at all:
The solid-liquid trade study is one that couldn't have been adequately analyzed during the 60 days of the ESAS study, and will likely end up as an interesting footnote in the Ares story. The question is whether the Ares story will fall into the genre of historical nonfiction, or fantasy and tragedy. If the latter is true, perhaps liquids were the answer after all. But the decision to not cap the weight of Ares V (even at the expense of payload) is one that taxpayers shouldn't forget if the massive rocket, and its shiny new infrastructure, ever get off the drawing board.
It seems pretty clear (as it did at the time) that the decision to build "the Stick" was pre-ordained, and that the sixty-day study was a rationalization, not a rationale, and that none of the CE&R recommendations were seriously considered. An Administrator Steidle would no doubt want to revisit it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 AMI just got the sad news from Pat Kelley:
Len took his final journey this morning, passing peacefully. His family is going to have his ashes interred at Arlington cemetery, but I have no schedule. For those who wish to express condolences, you can reach his life partner, Anne Greenglass via email, [email me for the address if you want to do so--rs].
I tried to address this notice to all the people on my list, but I'm sure there are others I may have missed, so please forward this to anyone else you feel would want to know. I do intend to continue trying to get backing for Len's last design (Space Van 2010) as a tribute.Len was a truly unique man, and a rare breed these days. Always the gentleman, honest to a fault, and always ready to give credit where it was due (and sometimes even allowing the unworthy to take credit for his work, for the sake of an important effort). He is unreplaceable, and will be sorely missed.
Ad astra, cum laetitia, Len.
[Previous post here]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:58 AMVery little in this essay is new to people who have been following the arguments in space policy circles for years, but it's useful to pull it all together into one place, and bring it up to date. I and many others have long advocated that we need to resurrect NACA (which was absorbed into NASA half a century ago) and start developing technology that can support private industry, as we did for aviation. With the new private space passenger vehicles now starting to be developed, the time is ripe for it, and Jeff Foust and Charles Miller have made a very powerful case. This should be must reading for both presidential campaigns.
[Update mid morning]
This piece I wrote a few years ago on the centennial of flight seems pertinent.
[Mid-afternoon update]
More commentary over at Jeff's site, Space Politics.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:10 AMJon Goff has an interesting post on a reusable two-stage vehicle concept.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:53 AMIn all of the reports I find on the award of the new suit contract to Oceaneering, I can't find any technical details on it (I suppose a lot of the info for both competitors is embargoed for proprietary reasons). But from the pictures, it looks like a hard suit. Does anyone know? If so, that would be the second revolution. The first, of course, is Ham Standard/Sunstrand finally losing their decades-long monopoly, going back to Apollo. It's nice to see David Clark back in the game as well, after all those decades. I wonder if they'll be using a glove concept based on Peter Homer's?
[Update in the afternoon]
Louise Riofrio has more thoughts. Apparently, though, this wasn't a design competition--it was a competition to see which contractor was more generally qualified to build suits. Process over product...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:46 AMJeff Krukin writes that Europe is leaving NewSpace to the US, out of (among other things) foolish class envy:
the views expressed by European Commission Vice President Guenter Verheugen speak volumes about the attitudes of the European political establishment toward entrepreneurial space activity (NewSpace). Referring to public remarks by Guenter, Astrium Chief Executive Francois Auque said, "I was even told that this project was morally blameworthy because it targets an audience of the rich people."
Well, that's why many of our ancestors left Europe.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:13 AMJeff Foust has a tale of two bills. As he notes, the language in the authorization bill is great:
It is further the sense of Congress that United States entrepreneurial space companies have the potential to develop and deliver innovative technology solutions at affordable costs. NASA is encouraged to use United States entrepreneurial space companies to conduct appropriate research and development activities. NASA is further encouraged to seek ways to ensure that firms that rely on fixed-price proposals are not disadvantaged when NASA seeks to procure technology development.
I wonder if the part about fixed-price contracts was in response to pressure from XCOR specifically, or perhaps from the Personal Spaceflight Federation?
Anyway, nice as it sounds, the only bill that really counts is the appropriations bill, which (again as he notes) cuts COTS funding.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:45 AMLouise Riofrio has an interesting idea, but I haven't given it enough thought to have much of an opinion.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:54 PMOr your grandfather's either. Fresh from ISDC, Glenn Reynolds has a piece on the state of the private space industry, over at The Atlantic.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:59 PMIt looks like Boeing had a successful Delta 2 launch (delayed by twenty minutes) today. I guess that since it doesn't need any specific orbit, as is needed for an ISS launch, there was no critical launch window. I went outside to watch, but as usual, saw nothing. The only launch I've ever seen from the house is a Atlas night launch.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:35 AMAlan Boyle has an interview with Paul Allen. This isn't right, though:
Adrian Hunt, the collection's executive director, told me that putting a pilot in the V-1 turned out to be a terrible idea.
"The theory is that you open the cockpit and you jump out just when you're getting close to the target," he said. "There's a slight design fault there. Once you open the cockpit, that's the intake for the rocket - and it tends to suck in things, including people.
"...intake for the rocket"?
It was a pulse jet.
Sorry for the short notice, but I forgot to mention that I'll be on Fast-Forward Radio tonight, in less than an hour. Fortunately (assuming you care) it will be available for download later.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:20 PMScott Lowther has a blog. Geez, they'll let anyone have one of those things.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:36 PMAs current blog readers know, I've been pretty much of an agnostic as to which candidate would be best for space policy (at least in terms of actually advancing us toward becoming a spacefaring society). But I just saw a very interesting rumor over at Space Politics. The post is about whether McCain likes Mars, and was influenced by reading The Martian Chronicles
But the rumor is in comments, from two separate commenters:
My understanding is that Craig Steidle is formally advising the McCain campaign, and may be determining McCain's NASA policy...
...Admiral Steidle has also adopted an EELV-based approach for Shuttle replacement, albeit with the Orbital Space Plane (OSP). I think it would be very easy for him to embrace an approach using a downsized Orion/CEV on top of an EELV.The Admiral had a very forward focused program that didn't play favorites with any of the NASA centers, particularly Marshall. This ticked off several of the congressional delegations. But I have a feeling that the Alabama contingent may not hold as much sway over the upcoming years.
It's interesting that you brought up the Admiral here. I've heard rumors from several sources that he would be the likely NASA Administrator if McCain is elected. Unlike the current Soviet-style Design Bureau Culture at NASA, Steidle is a believer and practitioner of good old American free enterprise and competition.
Steidle was in charge of the VSE before Mike Griffin came in (O'Keefe was much more hands-off as an administrator, particularly because he wasn't a rocket scientist, and didn't pretend he was). Mike Griffin essentially tore up everything that Steidle was doing by the roots, and instituted his own plan. So while Steidle is hardly perfect, he'll be a big improvement, and get the program back on track as it was when he left, with the loss of three years or so. If this rumor is true, for this reason alone, McCain now looks like a far preferable candidate to Obama, in terms of space. Of course, for me, and many others, space remains a lower-priority issue. But it does provide a reason to vote for McCain (as opposed to against Obama), which I've been having trouble coming up with.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:29 PMThe commentary continues over at Clark Lindsey's place about how long it will/should take to get low-cost access into space. I probably should respond to this one comment, though, since it seems to be advancing a lot of mythology about me and weightless flights.
Rand Simberg is a right wing nutjob, but, he is a true believer in space. He went with Weaver Aerospace to sell Zero-Grav flights to Ron Howard for the Apollo 13 movie. He had the proposal, he had the aircraft, he had a credible charter operator. NASA dove in and gave the flights away for free. Sadly, Simberg then went and did the same deal for "From the Earth to the Moon" and NASA did it to him again.
Well, to start off, of course (and nothing to do with space), but I'm neither "right wing" or a "nutjob." As far as I know.
But to deal with the more substantive statements, this is mostly wrong. I did put in a proposal to Ron Howard's production company for Apollo XIII, and I did have a charterable 727 lined up. Our plan was to palletize the movie set, and use the freight doors to load and unload between shoots, so the airplane could continue to be used for other things. We weren't going to get a special type certificate for it, as Zero-G did (at a cost of millions of dollars and many years), because it was going to be flown on an experimental certificate out of Vegas or Mojave. This was all greased with the local FAA FSDO, with whom we had worked to do T-39 flights for R&D, using Al Hansen's plane in Mojave (he's Burt's next-door neighbor).
But NASA didn't "dive in and and give the flights away for free." NASA originally sent Howard's people to me, and I had a meeting with them in Century City, when they asked me for a proposal. I submitted the proposal, and was told by the executive producer that they were looking it over, but before they were going to make a commitment, they wanted to try if in the K-bird first, to see if filming was practical in that environment. I was suspicious, but there wasn't much I could do. At the same time, they were telling NASA that we couldn't do the job, and that they had fulfilled their obligation to try to find a commercial provider, so now they had to use the KC-135. So they basically lied to both me and JSC. I don't think they got free flights--I believe that JSC was reimbursed some (probably arbitrary, since NASA never knew what the Comet really cost) amount per hour.
Somewhere I actually documented the history for NASA, and sent it to June Edwards (I don't know if she's still with the agency) at Code L (legal office) at HQ, when she had to do some fact finding at the behest of Dana Rohrabacher's office. Unfortunately, I lost it in a hard disk failure a few years ago.
Anyway, NASA was not the villain. We were both lied to by people in Hollywood (I'll give you a minute to express your shock at the very thought of such a thing).
Oh, and as for "From the Earth to the Moon," I never had any involvement in it whatsoever. It was basically a lot of the same people, given that it was a Tom Hanks production, and they just went back to NASA. I saw no point in wasting my time trying to put together another proposal that would be sure to be rejected.
And of course, when Lee Weaver was killed in an auto accident, a couple weeks before 911, that was pretty much the end of any interest I had in getting a weightless flight business going, after almost a decade of struggle, and a lot of debt, with which I'm still burdened.
Peter had money lined up for Zero-G, and I didn't see any way to break in, when it was uncertain how large the market would be. Also, if I'd known what he had to go through to get the special type certificate for the airplane from the FAA, I'd have probably not even attempted it. He might even feel the same way, for all I know, but he's through the tunnel now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:49 AMJon Goff has a truly excellent post on what will be required for space settlements, with useful historical analogies. I've always considered the LDS analogy quite apt, both in terms of types of technologies and infrastructure needed for the emigration, and the motivations. As he notes, unfortunately, the space community often uses unuseful historical analogies and/or fails to recognize where they break down.
But what he describes would be a true "Interstate Highway System" for space, as opposed to what Mike Griffin considers one (Ares/Orion).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:25 AMKen Murphy has the latest Carnival of Space up, with an emphasis on women in space, and a lot of ISDC links.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:08 AMIt's not bad enough that they are so deficient in creativity that they have to make flicks out of old television shows and comic books. Now they're reduced to remaking stupid schlock that should never have been made the first time. Behold, what the world has been awaiting--a new version of Capricorn One
On a cheerier note, there's apparently a much better (to put it mildly--I shouldn't even be discussing them in the same post) SF movie on the way.
...what I have is a story where businessmen and engineers are the heroes, the protestors are the bad guys, people accept risk willingly and some of them die for it, where they do amazing things and go to astonishing places on their own dime, where nuclear power is good and essential and the motivation is not money or power but freedom and a love of humanity, and where America and all she stands for is a beacon in a darkening world.
It's a crazy bizarro world of science fiction!
Hollywood would never make anything like that.
Good luck, Bill--we'll be looking forward to seeing it, and ignoring the other.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 AMRelated to yesterday's post, Dwayne Day weighs in at Clark's site over their bet, in the comments. And here's a link to the old Transterrestrial post that documents the wager. I agree with Dr. Day on at least one thing--sushi is preferable to Italian.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:52 AMSeveral years ago (more than I care to think about) we put up a new trellis, and planted a bougainvillea at the entrance to our back yard in southern California. The hope was that the plant would grow to fill in the trellis, providing a beautiful hedge for privacy. Though one of the features of an established bougainvillea is low watering needs, we at first watered it diligently to establish the roots and spur its growth. But it grew slowly, sending out a few tendrils that I attached strategically around the trellis in the hope that it would fill in smoothly and quickly. It took two or three years before it finally blocked the view through the fencing. Now, over a decade later, it grows so vigorously that it has to be trimmed regularly, lest it project thorny branches out into the path where people walk. Despite its slow start, it has a thick trunk, and massive root system, that provides structure and nourishment for now-rapid and unstoppable growth.
It's a truism in technological progress that we are always overoptimistic in the short term. The corollary is that we tend to be pessimistic in the longer term. Both of these effects are a result of the fact that we tend to think linearly, while life, and growth happen more exponentially--very slow at first, and then growing explosively as they climb the curve.
So Jon and Clark shouldn't be discouraged at the frustratingly slow progress so far in suborbital activities, and Clark should and will (barring some miracle out of Armadillo or someone this summer) buy Dwayne Day his Italian dinner with cheer and good grace, and make another bet. It's tragic, of course, that some of those on Jon's list will not live to see the fruit of their labors, who might have had we been able to make better progress. But we can't let that discourage us.
We have just finally, after delays caused much more by false perceptions than technological ability, gotten the plants in the ground, and the irrigation is on them, in the form of ongoing funding. Of course, they're experimental hybrid plants, so it's hard to know their growth rate ahead of time, or which of them will survive the soil or sun of their location. But over time, some will succeed, and grow, slowly at first, but eventually faster, until they are thriving at such a rate that we will marvel at all the people who said that the soil was barren, and that they would never flower, let alone fruit. And we will marvel from far above them, from the top of our garden that reaches up into the sky, and beyond.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:37 AMNote: I've bumped this post to the top, with an update. It will stay at the top for a couple days, so if you see it first, continue reading past--I'll still be posting new stuff.
For any of my Huntsville area readers who wish to pay their respects to Darren Spurlock, David Alan Smith of Boeing passes on the following information:
Kelly and her family is planning for a service this Tuesday and Wednesday as shown below:Tuesday, June 3
Berryhill Funeral Home
2035 Memorial Parkway North
Huntsville, AL
Visitation: 12:00 p.m.
Funeral: 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, June 4
Hermitage Memorial Gardens
535 Shute Lane
Old Hickory, TN
Graveside service and burial: 11:00 a.m.We talked further about those who knew him sharing some remembrances at his service. She and her ministers are very happy to have us do that. Since we don't have much time I offer the following approach. If you will be able to physically attend and want to say something, please tell me and give me an idea of how long you need. If you have something you would like to share at his service but can not come, I will be glad to act as your surrogate. If you have something you would just like Kelly, Ben (6) and James (3) to have I will compile them electronically. I need those items you would like shared Tuesday by COB Monday. As these boys grow older, it will help them know Darren as the man he was.
Kelly's public notice on Darren's death will include the following:
In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Mayfair Church of Christ:
1095 Carl T. Jones Dr.
Huntsville, AL 35802However, she very much appreciated our thought to honor Darren through supporting Ben and James education. So as a "work" friend, if you feel moved you can send her a check in her name with the reference to the "Darren Spurlock Education Fund". She can deposit these in Ben and James college savings accounts.
Kelly Spurlock
[Address deleted because I don't want to blast her home address on the Interweb, the world being the sad place that it is these days in that regard. Anyone interested can contact me at the email address in the upper left corner of the blog, and I'll relay it. Actually, I'd suggest that Kelly establish a trust with a PO Box, and a web page to take donations via Paypal--perhaps someone else can help her with this. --rs]
And finally, I can not stress how much a card, note and/or remembrance means to her. Darren touched many lives. Let us show that as a monument to his life with us. Your support, thoughts and prayers for Kelly and the boys are very much appreciated.
David Alan Smith
Advanced Programs, Exploration Launch Systems
Space Exploration, The Boeing Company
If anyone wants to get hold of David and doesn't have his contact info (which again, I didn't want to display), again, email me.
[Update, per my comment about not wanting to post Kelly's home address]
For those of all called to honor Darren's memory in a way that will positively affect his family's future, we have established the "Darren Spurlock Memorial Education Fund" for his two boys Ben and James via 529 college savings accounts. To contribute to this account you may: Make check payable to: College America.Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:49 AMIn memo field: Spurlock Education Fund.
Mail to:First Financial Group
400 Meridian Street, Ste.100
Huntsville, AL 35801
Any contribution you send will divided equally into an account for Ben and account for James. And thank you for honoring a beloved colleague and friend.
I didn't see Len Cormier at Space Access in March, though he has rarely missed one in the past. Now via an email from Pat Kelley, I learned why:
I'm sad to announce that Len Cormier is losing his battle with cancer. I spoke with him today, and he's in a hospice awaiting the end. I've had the privilege of his friendship and professional partnership for over ten years, and I hate to see this come to an end before my goal of at least giving him the satisfaction of seeing a project birthed from his incredible intellect at least get started.
Len is not terribly religious, but I know he would not be offended by good wishes, prayers, or whatever means you may choose to honor him. I will miss him.
I don't know how far from the end it is, and where there's life there's hope, so I won't talk about him in the past tense. But if he doesn't make it, it will be a damned shame. No one living has been talking about affordable access to space, and worked as hard at it as Len, having been an advocate for almost half a century. He was also one of the gentlest men, in the gentleman sense, that I've ever met, always gracious, even in the face of unreasonable criticism and often vituperation.
It's a tragedy that he is leaving us just as the funding dam is starting to break on the kinds of projects that he has been advocating for so long, and that he won't see the results. He should go knowing, though, that he played a significant role in laying the ground work for it, and inspired many who will carry on in his stead. Despite his failure to achieve his audacious goals, I think that he'll be far more than a footnote in the history of astronautics.
[Update a few minutes later]
Another email comment from Rick Jurmain:
Len's a man with dreams too grand for a single lifetime. That's as it should be.Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:41 AM
Or, to paraphrase Sunset Boulevard: He is big. It's the space program that got small.It's been an honor to work with Len. I'll remember him.
Alan Boyle has a review of what looks to be an interesting book on SpaceShipOne
Glenn Reynolds has a summary over at Popular Mechanics. Not much new here for people who followed all the blogging, though.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:59 PMPhil Bowermaster has some thoughts on what I think is actually quite a likely scenario for the first human on Mars. It won't be done by NASA, though, or likely any government space agency. They simply can't afford to take the risk when it's funded by taxpayers, as we've seen when the nation gets unreasonably hysterical over astronaut deaths. It will be a privately funded expedition, which will be able to do so without the intrusion of politics.
And of course, this will be more in the nature of such exploration. After all, the vast majority of polar exploration (e.g., Peary, Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton) was privately funded. Once we get the cost of access to orbit down, and establish an orbital fueling infrastructure, it will be quite feasible to raise the money for private adventures such as this.
Sadly, NASA is contributing almost nothing to those goals, instead spending billions developing expensive government-owned/operated launch vehicles and capsules that will likely become obsolete before they first fly.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:41 AMWe'd considered driving up, but I read at the Flame Trench that it was the biggest crowd since return to flight (probably because it was a beautiful day, and a Saturday), and we didn't want to fight the throngs and sit in the car all day. I've never been able to see a launch from here in Boca--maybe it's too low on the horizon with all the obstructions (the fact that they launch northerly probably doesn't help), so we watched on television. Looked flawless to me, other than a couple specks flying back along the tank.
I think that if they don't have any more problems for a while, there will be a lot of pressure to close the "gap" by extending the program, now that it looks like NASA has wrung the bugs out of it. Particularly given what a mess Ares/Orion seems to be.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:36 PMI just got some bad news. When I saw this story at NASA Watch, I recognized the name, but hoped that it wasn't the Darren Spurlock with whom I'd worked three years ago on the CE&R studies for NASA, back before Griffin came in and decided to implement his own ESAS architecture. That Darren was at least a decade younger than fifty, and he worked at Boeing. But it seemed unlikely to me that there would be two aerospace engineers in Huntsville with that name.
Sadly (though of course it would be tragedy regardless of which Darren Spurlock died) I just got off the phone with one of his Boeing former colleagues. The paper got the age wrong, and he had left Boeing to work for Marshall only three weeks ago. I never met his wife, but want to extend my condolences to her. I believe he left a young family. I'll be getting info about memorial services, and post them when I get them, for those interested in the Huntsville area.
I didn't know Darren that long--the CE&R study was my only work with him, but he was a good man, a good, smart hard-working engineer, and he worked very hard to come up with and document architectures that would be affordable and sustainable in getting us off the planet, in consonance with the president's Vision for Space Exploration. He was as frustrated as anyone when NASA basically ignored everything we'd done under Steidle to come up with the current...plan. But he moved on, obviously, and must have been looking forward to doing good things at the agency itself. Now, senselessly, a valuable career and valuable life have been cut short.
[Evening update]
This post now comes up numero uno in a search for "Darren Spurlock.
Who knoweth the ways of Google?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:48 PMJon Goff has some thoughts about outsourcing NASA employees to private industry.
It's an interesting concept, and not to discourage him from out-of-the-box thinking, but it has several flaws, more than one of which is almost certainly fatal.
Where would they work? Senator Shelby is not going to countenance a program that ships a Huntsville employee off to Mojave (and there are a lot of NASA employees who don't want to move to Mojave). It's not just the jobs that are important, but where they are. So it may necessitate moving the company to places like Huntsville to take advantage of it, even though it may be a terrible location from most other standpoints (e.g., flight test). In addition, a lot of the jobs that Congress wants to save aren't just NASA civil servants--more, probably many more of them are contractors. How does that work? Does Boeing send you an extern and get reimbursed by NASA? How do you work out proprietary issues (among others)? How do you ensure that they send you the best employees, and not the ones they were going to lay off?
Also, there will be a huge discontinuity with skill matches. The current Shuttle work force, for the most part, knows very little about vehicle development, and what they know about vehicle operations, from the standpoint of a low-cost launch provider, is mostly wrong. Also, while a lot of people work for NASA because they're excited about space, many there do so because they like the civil service protections and pensions. They don't necessarily want to work the long hours often demanded of a startup, and they come from an employment culture that may be quite incompatible with the fixed-price private sector. I won't say any more than that, but this is one of the reasons that the Aldridge Commission's recommendation to convert the NASA centers to FFRDCs went over like a lead blimp.
And how would one qualify to get these "government resources" and how many would you get? As many as you ask for? After all, if the product is free (and contra the paragraph above, desirable) surely demand will exceed supply. How will you allocate the supply. It won't happen on price, obviously, so some other solution will have to be developed. Would a company "bid" for an extern (and would they be able to bid on a specific person, or would they have to take pot luck?) by putting some kind of proposal to demonstrate how worthy their cause and their use of her will be? Who will be the equivalent of a source selection board for such a process? Can the current acquisition regulations even accommodate something like this? I know that this currently occurs for a few individuals, where it is mutually agreed, but I'm not sure that it would work for an entire work force.
Just a few thoughts, off the top of my head.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:13 PMThis post, linked by Glenn from the ISDC, reminds me of this post I wrote when this blog was only four months old. It's not that long, so I'll repeat. It was titled (as shown over in the left sidebar) "Why This Blog Bores People With Space Stuff":
As a follow up to today's rant over our "allies" in Europe, over at USS Clueless, Steven den Beste has an excellent disquisition on the fundamental differences between Europe and the U.S. They don't, and cannot, understand that the U.S. exists and thrives because it is the UnEurope, that it was built by people who left Europe (and other places) because they wanted freedom.Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:22 AM
I say this not to offer simply a pale imitation of Steven's disquisition (which is the best I could do, at least tonight), but to explain why I spend so much time talking about space policy here. It's not (just) because I'm a space nut, or because I used to do it for a living, and so have some knowledge to disseminate. It's because it's important to me, and it should be important to everyone who is concerned about dynamism and liberty.And the reason that it's important is because there may be a time in the future, perhaps not even the distant future, when the U.S. will no longer be a haven for those who seek sanctuary from oppressive government. The trends over the past several decades are not always encouraging, and as at least a social insurance policy, we may need a new frontier into which freedom can expand.
Half a millenium ago, Europe discovered a New World. Unfortunately for its inhabitants (who had discovered it previously), the Europeans had superior technology and social structures that allowed them to conquer it.
Now, in the last couple hundred years, we have discovered how vast our universe is, and in the last couple decades, we have discovered how rich in resources it is, given will and technology. As did the eastern seaboard of the present U.S. in the late eighteenth century, it offers mankind a fertile petri dish for new societal arrangements and experiments, and ultimately, an isolated frontier from which we will be able to escape from possible future terrestrial disasters, whether of natural or human origin.
If, as many unfortunately in this country seem to wish, freedom is constricted in the U.S., the last earthly abode of true libertarian principles, it may offer an ultimate safety valve for those of us who wish to continue the dream of the founders of this nation, sans slavery or native Americans--we can found it without the flawed circumstances of 1787.
That is why space, and particularly free-enterprise space, is important.
Thanks for discouraging live blogging of space (and other) conferences (not to mention anything else), Keith.
[Saturday morning update]
The lesson here is that you have to be careful to delineate your editorial comments from the reportage (I usually do this with parenths, I think, though I'd have to go back and look at some from the past to be sure--I might use square brackets) when transcribing, because it is easily confused otherwise. But as I said, we shouldn't let things like this discourage us from doing it. This is the first conference like this that I've missed in a while, and I really appreciate what Clark and others are doing. I've always wondered if what I was doing was worthwhile when I live blogged other conferences, and now I know that it definitely is. Well, at least when others do it...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:57 PMGlenn Reynolds has filed his first report from the ISDC, on the status of the Chinese space program. Or to be more accurate, the status of our knowledge of the Chinese space program.
I'm long on record as being concerned about the Chinese in space, when it comes to the military, and sanguine when it comes to them going to the moon. I remain that way. As Glenn notes, when it comes to manned space, they're simply recapitulating what we did in the sixties, except much more slowly.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:50 PMThis sounds like an interesting session. I hope that Glenn is taking good notes. I'd expect Jeff Foust to post something on Space Politics as well (in addition to an article in The Space Review on Monday).
It may be the first time that representatives from all three campaigns have been on a single dais for this subject. We'll see it they can pin the Obama guy down on how expects to fund education with the space program without throwing a wrench in the works with a delay (and how he addresses the dreaded "Gap"). And why he wants to wait until after the election to have a national dialogue on space.
I know Lori, but I've never heard of the other two.
[Update on Saturday at noon]
Here is Jeff Foust's report, with more to come on Monday. As I would have guessed, the only people up on the issues were the moderator and Lori. I think that it says something about Obama and his campaign that he doesn't have an adviser for this subject (or perhaps science and technology at all).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:51 PMOn entrepreneurial space, from Jeff Greason and Burton Lee.
And Clark has another news item, which is one of those have-to-laugh-so-you-don't-cry things:
After $10B+ in development costs, the Orion crews will land on the ground only by accident: NASA develops airbags for emergency on-shore CEV landings.
Sigh.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:47 PMWell, for guys, anyway.
OK, I recognize Michelle Murray (of FAA-AST) on the left, but who are the other two? Name tags are hidden. As Glenn notes, there are a lot more women (and attractive ones) at space conferences these days (compared to, say, the eighties). I think that has something to do with the excitement of the privatization activities, though the increase in the number of women engineers since then is probably a contributor as well. Not that there aren't roles for other professions in opening up the frontier.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:22 PMClark Lindsey doesn't usually editorialize, but he does in this report:
Cooke:- Powerpoint graphics showing Ares I/V, Orion, Altair
- Factors in selecting architecture include performance end-to-end, risk, development cost, life-cycle cost, schedule, lunar surface systems architecture.
- Implementation according to NASA institutional health and transition from Shuttle, competition in contracts, civil service contractor rules.
- Discusses the studies that justify the Constellation architecture that Griffin had decided on long before he came to NASA as director and long before the studies were done.
- Will get problems like thrust oscillation solved.
- NASA proposes to stay on course through a change in administrations. Surprise, surprise...
Emphasis mine. Are they actually openly admitting that Mike ignored all of the CE&R studies, and just did what he planned to do before he was administrator?
This was amusing:
The Coalition for Space Exploration shows a brand new NASA space exploration promotion video. Gawd. After the last panel I felt like killing myself. No problem. I can watch this video again and die of boredom...
He has some other pretty tart comments as well.
[Early afternoon update]
As Clark notes in comments, that reference to Griffin's plans were his words, not Steve Cooke's.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:19 AMWell, it's actually the latest Carnival of Space, over at the Lifeboat Foundation, but it's pretty Phoenix-centric.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:13 AMUnfortunately, the ISDC in Washington this week coincides with the space tourism conference in Arcachon, France, and space bloggers like Clark Lindsey and Jeff Foust (who both live in the DC area) can't cover both. But Rob Coppinger has a lot of posts from Arcachon, with some interesting concepts from European aerospace companies (though it's unclear what the funding prospects are for them). Just keep scrolling.
[Update an hour or so later]
Clark Lindsey has some of the permalinks.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:26 AMJeff Foust has some reporting on Will Whitehorn's talk at ISDC yesterday. In this post, he notes that White Knight 2 will roll out on July 28th, presumably in Mojave, and discusses other potential applications than just a first stage for SpaceShipTwo, including a satellite launcher. The lack of comment other than "we've learned some lessons" on the SS2 propulsion is interesting to me. It sounds like they're still not sure what they're going to do, which continues to put SS2 schedule (whatever it is) in jeopardy. I suspect that Sir Richard's hype remains ahead of the actual program.
In this post Whitehorn mildly disses the Lynx:
XCOR is a company I respect, but with respect to them, they're not building a spaceship. They're building basically a high-altitude MiG equivalent. They're building something that you can strap in and go up to 37 miles. You won't get your astronaut wings but you will see the curvature of the earth. That will be an exciting project, but the problem is that it's not a space project, and I think it's been a little bit wrong to call it that.
While technically that's true, it is a project that can easily evolve into a "space project," which is what the program intent is. I don't see this as a problem. In fact, I see it as a solution, because Virgin may have bitten off more than it could chew with SS2. In hindsight (and foresight for some of us) it might have been useful to develop more operational experience with a lower-performance vehicle before moving to a bigger one.
Really, the only thing lacking from the XCOR product is a lack of astronaut wings--it will certainly be a space experience, and a more personal one with a better view, sitting in the left seat. I think that the market for it will be bigger than Whitehorn claims to think.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:02 AMClark is blogging a panel on how the media cover space, to which it looks like Instapundit was a last-minute addition (he's not listed in the program).
[Evening update]
Clark has a new post up on the spaceport panel.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:22 PMClark Lindsey blogs a panel on interactions between private space and the government, that sounds interesting. Unfortunately, because there are so many parallel tracks at an ISDC, it's not possible for one person to cover everything, but he does his best with a report on the space-based solar power session and lunar regolith processing.
And Glenn Reynolds is there now, due to speak shortly, topic TBD. Wish I could have made it this year. I managed to have dinner and drinks with him last year in Dallas (first time I'd seen him in years).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:33 PMClark Lindsey is live blogging Will Whitehorn's and Elon Musk's presentations.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:53 AMClark Lindsey is live blogging, here and here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:34 AMIt's a pretty common occurrence for a little kid to be disappointed when he loses his grip on his balloon, but this is in a different class entirely:
The former paratrooper had hoped his "Big Jump" -- starting 40 kilometers (25 miles) above the Earth's surface -- would set new records for the highest jump, fastest and longest free fall and the highest altitude reached by a man in a balloon.
But those hopes drifted away over the plains of Saskatchewan in Canada when the balloon escaped.
I think he should give up on the balloon thing, and just wait for a rocket ride.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:46 AMFrequent commenter "Habitat Hermit," commenting on my Space Show appearance on Sunday, wrote:
There's still plenty of room for disagreements --I have some myself (perhaps even a big one when it comes to capsules although it depends on the details, I think they've still got lots of more or less unexplored potential...
I agree that there are lots of interesting concepts for capsules and their recovery modes. But that's beside the point. The reason that I don't like capsules, of any form, is quite simple. They imply that the only part of the vehicle (at least the upper stage of it) that returns is the capsule. Hence they imply at least a partially, if not fully expendable launch system. I don't believe that we are going to seriously open up space by continuing to throw hardware away.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:11 AMI have some thoughts on this weekend's successful arean invasion, over at PJ Media.
[Update at 7:40 AM EDT]
Some less lofty thoughts over at Althouse's place, particularly in comments.
[Mid-morning update]
Jeff Foust writes about a second chance for an underdog, over at The Space Review.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:16 AMCongrats to JPL on the successful (so far) landing of the Phoenix. Interestingly (though almost certainly coincidentally), it happens on the forty-seventh anniversary of Kennedy's speech announcing the plan to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
And (for what it's worth--not much, to me, and even more certainly coincidentally) it's the thirty-first anniversary of the initial release of Star Wars in theaters. I didn't see it that day, but I did see it within a couple weeks. I remember being unimpressed ("the Kessel run in twelve parsecs"...please), though the effects were pretty good. But then, I was a fan of actual science fiction.
[Update late evening]
It's worth noting that (I think) this was the first soft landing on Mars in over twenty years, since Viking. Surely someone will correct me (or nitpick me) if I'm wrong.
[Monday morning update]
OK, not exactly wrong (it has been over twenty years), but it's thirty years. I'm pretty good at math. Arithmetic, not so much.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:43 PMI had a post about this last week, but I forgot to remind people today, that I was on The Space Show this afternoon (I took a break from yardwork, where we're tearing out old hedges, and still finishing up guttering--on the radio, no one can hear you sweating). Here's a place to comment for anyone who happened to listen in.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:55 PMDennis Wingo remembers Ernst Stuhlinger.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:43 PMI find it amusing that these folks were clueless as to the purpose of the Google Lunar Prize when they signed up:
In my first blog, I wrote why Harold Rosen formed the Southern California Selene Group. In short, he and I registered our team to compete for the Google Lunar X PRIZE to demonstrate that a low-cost space mission to the moon could be accomplished and could lead to lowering the cost of some future robotic missions to planetary moons. Plus, we intended to have fun! Harold and I both are strong supporters of space science and robotic space exploration. (For one, I'm an astronomy and cosmology enthusiast.) We love the kind of work that JPL is doing, for example. But we most definitely are not in favor of human space missions. That is not our goal, nor do we support such a goal.
The Team Summit turned out to be a real wakeup call. In the Guidelines workshop that I attended just last Tuesday, the cumulative effect of hearing all day from Peter Diamandis, Bob Weiss and Gregg Maryniak that the "real purpose" of the Google Lunar X PRIZE was to promote the so-called commercialization of space (which I took to mean highly impractical stuff like mining the moon and beaming power to the earth, as shown in one of GLXP kickoff videos), humanity's future in space, etc. etc., took its toll. I couldn't help but think "what am I doing here?" When I spoke to Harold about it on the phone later, he agreed - no way did he want to be involved in promoting a goal he does not believe in.
So, what does this mean? It sounds to me like it's not just a goal they "don't believe in" (which is fine--they could not believe in it and still want to win the prize for their own purposes), but rather, a goal to which they are actively opposed, and don't think that anyone should be pursuing. I'm very curious to hear them elaborate their views, but it sounds like they're extreme Saganites. For those unfamiliar with the schools of thought, you have the von Braun model, in which vast government resources are expended to send a few government employees into space (this is Mike Griffin's approach), the Sagan model ("such a beautiful universe...don't touch it!), and the O'Neillian vision of humanity filling up the cosmos.
So when they say they don't support such a goal, does that mean they oppose it, and would take action to prevent it from happening if they could? Sure sounds like it. And they take it as a given that lunar mining is "impractical," but is that their only reason for opposing it, or do they think that it somehow violates the sanctity of the place, and disturbs what should be accessible only for pure and noble science? I'll bet that they'd prefer a lot fewer humans on earth, too.
[Via Clark Lindsey]
[Update late morning]
Commenter "Robert" says that I'm being unfair to Carl Sagan. Perhaps he's right--I was just using the formulation originally (I think) developed by Rick Tumlinson, though Sagan was definitely much more into the science and wonder of space than were von Braun or O'Neill... If anyone has a suggestion for a better representative of the "how pretty, don't touch" attitude, I'm open to suggestions.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:27 AMApparently, things are starting to get more serious over there, though the EADS/Astrium concept remains a bad joke. Rob Coppinger has a roundup from across the pond.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:24 AMThe comments (125 and counting) in this post over at Space Politics a few days ago have gotten progressively weirder and weirder.
Did you know that New Space is a baby boomer thing? And that it's a failed paradigm, while the standard procedures of NASA giving out cost-plus government contracts has been a total success, and will get us to the stars any year now?
Me, neither. What is "Someone" smoking? No surprise that he or she posts anonymously.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:54 AMAnyone out there know what they're using for comm these days? Do they have a TDRSS system as part of the ISS operations agreement? Or something else? Or both?
[Update about 1 PM EDT]
Via an email from Jim Oberg:
Mir used to have a TDRSS-like system called 'Luch', and a dish antenna capable of communicating with the GEO relay satellite is installed on the Service Module now linked to ISS.Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:18 AM
But it's never worked. The old system broke down and wasn't replaced in the 1990's. There are one or two payloads already built, at the Reshetnev plant in Krasnoyarsk, but they won't deliver them until the Russian Space Agency pays cash -- and by now, their components have probably exceed their warranties anyway.The Russians have a voice relay capability through the NASA TDRSS, but can't relay TV or telemetry, so they conduct how-criticality operations such as dockings or spacewalks only when passing over Russian ground sites. They don't even have ocean-going tracking ships any more -- all sold for scrap [one is in drydock as a museum].
The current state of play, according to Glenn Reynolds. There was a piece on the subject in Sunday's Boston Globe as well. I wish that Congress would do something about this. It would have a lot bigger effect in the long run than deciding how much to underfund a failed Constellation concept.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:54 AMIt looks like NASA's not going to abandon the ISS. That seems sensible to me.
I'd like to know where they get the 1/124 number for probability of having to evacuate. But it makes sense, given that they're already down at least one (and actually, more like two or three) level in the fault tree, that you can accept a lower reliability for the lifeboat. Lifeboats, after all, have traditionally been pretty iffy propositions. It's not reasonable to demand high reliability of them. That was one of the complaints that I used to have when working on CERV--that the requirements were overspecified for something that was only for use in an emergency.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:39 AMI'll be on The Space Show on Sunday afternoon at noon to 1:30 PM PDT, talking about space and politics, and whatever.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:46 AMWow.
NASA is actually considering abandoning ISS until they can resolve the safety issues surrounding the Soyuz currently docked there (and in general).
This whole fiasco reveals a fundamental design (in fact conceptual) flaw of the station from the beginning (one that was shared by the Shuttle)--a lack of redundancy and resiliency. NASA had the hubris to think that they could design and build a single vehicle type that could not only have the flexibility to satisfy all of the nation's (and much of the world's) needs for transport to and from space, but do so with confidence that it would never have cause to shut down (and remove our ability to access LEO). They learned the foolishness of this notion in 1986, with the Challenger loss.
Similarly, they decided to build a manned space station, that would be all things to all people--microgravity researchers, earth observations, transportation node, hotel--because they didn't think that they could afford more than one, and so they have no resiliency in their orbital facilities, either. If something goes wrong with the station, everyone has to abandon it, with nowhere to go except back to earth.
Having multiple stations co-orbiting, with an in-space crew transport vehicle (which could serve as a true lifeboat) was never considered, though the cost wouldn't necessarily have been that much higher had it been planned that way from the beginning (there would have been economies of scale by building multiple facilities from a single basic design). That would have been true orbital infrastructure.
Instead, we have a single fragile (and ridiculously expensive) space station supported by a single fragile (and ridiculously expensive) launch system, with only the Russian Soyuz as a backup. And because there is no place nearby to go, if there's a problem on the station, everyone has to come home, and the crew size is thus limited by the size of the "lifeboat," (which is a "lifeboat" only in the sense that it is relied on for life--in actuality, it's much more than that. It's as if the "lifeboats" of the Titanic had to be capable of delivering their passengers all the way to New York or Southampton).
And now we can't trust the backup, and we have no lifeboat at all.
Now that the ISS is almost complete, it is capable of supporting the Shuttle orbiter on orbit for much longer periods of time by providing power, so its orbital lifetime is no longer constrained by fuel cell capacity. But it's still not practical to leave an orbiter there full time, because a) with only three left, we don't have a big enough fleet to do so without impacting turnaround time for the others and b) we're not sure how long it's capable of staying safely without (say) freezing tires or causing other problems, because the vehicle wasn't designed for indefinite duration in space.
So as a result of flawed decisions made decades ago, NASA is in a real quandary. They can leave the crew up there, and cross their fingers that a) nothing goes wrong that requires an emergency return and b) that if the return is required, the Soyuz will work properly. Or they can abandon the station until they resolve the Soyuz issues (something over which they have absolutely no control, and will have to trust the Russians).
Sucks to be them.
[Update a few minutes later]
Not that it solves this immediate problem, but Flight Global has a conceptual rendering of a European crew transportation system (presumably based on the ATV) that could (in theory) be available within a decade.
[Another update]
Here's more on ATV evolution, over at today's issue of The Space Review.
[One more thought, at 11 AM EDT]
NASA doesn't seem to have learned the lesson of Shuttle and ISS, because Constellation has exactly the same problem--a single vehicle type for each phase of the mission. If Altair is grounded, we can't land on the moon. If the EDS has problems, we can't get into a trans-lunar orbit. If something goes wrong with Orion, or Ares, the program is grounded. Why aren't there Congressional hearings, or language in an authorization bill, about that?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:53 AMThere's a lot of good discussion (and some not-so-good discussion) of the NASA Authorization bill over at Space Politics, here, here and here. I haven't read the whole thing, and frankly, it's hard for me to get motivated to invest much time or thought in it, because it's just an authorization bill. Most of the time, they never even get passed, and even when they do, they're pretty meaningless, because the only one that really counts is the appropriations bill, where the money gets handed out. Authorization, when it exists at all, simply serves as a sense of the Congress (and more generally, just as a sense of the relevant Congressional committee). But to that degree, it does provide a useful insight into where appropriations might lead, and potential future policy, particularly in the next administration.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:53 PMThomas James writes that NASA is (with little fanfare) disposing of the tooling to build Shuttle Orbiters.
This doesn't make it impossible to build new ones--the blueprints probably remain available, and new tooling could be built in theory, but it dramatically raises the (already ridiculously high) costs of building any replacement vehicles. Even if we were to continue to fly the Shuttle, we will do so with a three-vehicle fleet, so we would never get a flight rate higher than the current one (which is the highest it's been this year since we lost Columbia). Until we lost another one, anyway.
This really is a point of no return.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:42 AM"We became our own customers."
I don't understand why he doesn't see that that's exactly the problem with ESAS.
[Update in the afternoon--sorry, I've been housepainting again, in a race against the approaching summer, when it will be too blasted hot in southern Florida for such things]
I recall that Max Hunter said something very similar, I would guess about twenty years ago at a small workshop on launch vehicle design issues that I attended. He said that the big difference between NACA and NASA was that the former saw industry as its customer, whereas NASA saw it as (at best) a supplier. This was a consequence of going from a pure R&D agency to one with an operational mission (put a man on the moon). It has never recovered.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:38 AMGregg Easterbrook thinks that NASA should be saving the planet from errant asteroids, instead of building a moon base. He can't avoid the usual straw man, of course, which makes much of the rest of his whining about moon bases suspect:
As anyone with an aerospace engineering background well knows, stopping at the moon, as Bush was suggesting, actually would be an impediment to Mars travel, because huge amounts of fuel would be wasted landing on the moon and then blasting off again.
Bush only "suggested" that to people who miss the point of the program. No one is proposing that every, or even any, mission to Mars touch base on the moon before going on to the Red Planet. The point was that the moon might be a useful resource for making Mars missions more cost effective, particularly if we can find water there, and deliver it as propellant to some staging point, such as L-1, which isn't particularly out of the way en route to Mars. In addition, learning how to build a base on the moon, only three days away, is valuable experience to wring the bugs out of a Martian base, which is months away, despite the different environments.
But ignoring that, the real problem is that he doesn't seem to understand NASA's role:
After the presentation, NASA's administrator, Michael Griffin, came into the room. I asked him why there had been no discussion of space rocks. He said, "We don't make up our goals. Congress has not instructed us to provide Earth defense. I administer the policy set by Congress and the White House, and that policy calls for a focus on return to the moon. Congress and the White House do not ask me what I think." I asked what NASA's priorities would be if he did set the goals. "The same. Our priorities are correct now," he answered. "We are on the right path. We need to go back to the moon. We don't need a near-Earth-objects program." In a public address about a month later, Griffin said that the moon-base plan was "the finest policy framework for United States civil space activities that I have seen in 40 years."
Actually, Congress has asked NASA to pay more attention to space rocks. In 2005, Congress instructed the agency to mount a sophisticated search of the proximate heavens for asteroids and comets, specifically requesting that NASA locate all near-Earth objects 140 meters or larger that are less than 1.3 astronomical units from the sun--roughly out to the orbit of Mars. Last year, NASA gave Congress its reply: an advanced search of the sort Congress was requesting would cost about $1 billion, and the agency had no intention of diverting funds from existing projects, especially the moon-base initiative.
Now, I disagree with Mike that we don't need an NEO program--I think we do. But unlike Gregg, I wouldn't put NASA in charge of it. And if Congress wants to fund NASA to look for space rocks, it's going to have to tell NASA not to do the other things that it wants to do, or fund it. Also, this was a little verbal gymnastics on Gregg's part. Mike said that Congress had not instructed NASA to defend the earth, which is true, and the fact that they asked NASA to look for hazardous objects doesn't change that fact in any way, despite his sleight-of-hand at the keyboard. Looking for objects is one thing--actually physically manipulating them is a different thing entirely. It's like the difference between the CIA and the military. The former provides intelligence, the latter acts on it.
The Space Act (almost fifty years old now) does not grant NASA the responsibility to protect the planet, even with subsequent amendments. It is simply not its job. Moreover, no federal agency has that job, and as Gregg points out, if the US military were to take it on, there would be widespread suspicion on the part of the rest of the planet, and it would open us up to tremendous liability if something went wrong (not that there would necessarily be any lawyers around to care).
And is it really the job of the military? Again, as Gregg points out, this is a natural problem, not an enemy. If ET, or Marvin the Martian presented a threat, it would make sense to get the Air Force (or if we had one, Space Force) involved, because that is a willful enemy to be engaged, which is what we have a military for.
But as I've written before (six years ago--geez, where does the time go?), the only historical analogue (at least in the US) we have for planetary defense is the management of flooding by the Army Corps of Engineers. This is a predictable (though not as predictable as an asteroid or comet strike) natural disaster, at least statistically, and one that can be managed by building dams, which is largely what they do.
Now, I'm not proposing that the ACE be put in charge of defending the planet, but that thought isn't much more frightening than putting NASA in charge of it. Yes, Gregg, we could lobby to get Congress to amend the Space Act to put it in the agency's portfolio, but do you really think that would be a good idea? NASA is fifty years old this year, and bureaucratically, it acts much older than that. You don't want to take an existing agency, with too much on its plate, and too little resources with which to do it (and yes, much of what it's doing it shouldn't be doing, but that's a different discussion) and give it such an important, even existential task. It worked fine in the sixties, because it was a young, new agency with a focus on a single goal (though it managed to accomplish a lot of other things along the way in terms of planetary exploration--Tom Paine once told me that there was so much going on during Apollo that NASA did a lot of great things that it didn't even know it was doing).
No.
I've often said that if the president really thought that the VSE was important, he would have taken a policy lead from the Strategic Missile Defense program in the eighties, in which an entirely new entity was established to carry it out (SDIO, now BMDO), because it would otherwise get bogged down in blue-suit politics in the Air Force.
I agree that we should be doing much more about this threat than we are, but just because NASA is ostensibly a space agency doesn't mean that they should be in charge of it. I would establish a planetary defense agency, which had that as its sole charter. It might ask for (and occasionally get) cooperation from NASA, but it would do the same with the Air Force, and it would put out contracts to the private sector, and it would coordinate with COPUOS and encourage other nations to establish such entities to enter into cooperative agreements. If you ask NASA to do it, it will just become one more boondoggle, or it will get buried in the agency's other priorities. Either way, if it's important, you don't want a sclerotic agency, long past its sell-by date, to be in charge.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:17 PMPhil Plait has a little rant about our (lack of) progress in human spaceflight. The usual pointless man-versus-robot debate ensues in comments. (I think that the post title should be "whither," though, not "whence"--whence, which is often misused with the redundant "from whence," means "from where," while "whither" means "to where".)
[Via Tom Hill]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:22 AMCongratulations to Alan Boyle for six years of Cosmic Log.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:02 AMJeff Foust has a report on the propellant depot panel at Space Access a few weeks ago, in which he asks whether their time has almost come. I hope so, because they are critical infrastructure for opening up space, in a way that HLVs are not.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:53 AMThe last two Soyuz flights (or to be more precise, landings) are worrying NASA.
Via email from Jim Oberg, who notes a quote of his that the reporter didn't use: "NASA would have a hard time developing any other human space transport system in the next 4-5 years as reliable as the soyuz. We now realize that the Soyuz backup systems were effective in insuring a reliable - if very rough - landing in these previous cases."
What a policy mess.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:05 AMRob Coppinger has some thoughts on SpaceShipOnePointFive.
I suspect that Alex, and perhaps Sir Richard, are now regretting their decision to not take advantage of the bird in the hand, holding out for the flock in the bush. They probably (in fact, almost certainly) didn't anticipate the development problems they'd have with the propulsion system, though they were warned. I suspect that they (like Burt) drank too much of the hybrid koolaid, and were lulled into complacency by the success and (apparent, though this was an illusion) safety of the SpaceShipOne engine.
As for the comment that a passenger wouldn't have paid the costs of the flights, I don't buy it. They could have charged much more than a couple hundred thousand for the first several, perhaps even few dozen, flights. But we'll never know.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:52 AMWhile this Orlando Sentinel columnist makes some valid points in his criticism of the space agency, he also takes some cheap, and unfair shots.
You know we are headed for a boondoggle when the agency's marketing division starts up a Web page called, "Why the Moon?"
And the first sentence is, "If you asked 100 people why we should return to the moon, you'd probably get 100 answers -- or more!"Translation: We can't come up with one good one.
I'd call that a mistranslation. It's like saying that we shouldn't have removed Saddam because we didn't find WMD. It really is possible for there to be more than one reason to do something (and in fact, most decisions are made on that basis--any one reason might not, per se, be sufficient, but a combination of them often are).
It may in fact be true that none of the reasons listed are good (I haven't bothered to check out the site to see), but one certainly can't logically infer that from the fact that there are more than one, or even a hundred. But this part is actually a misrepresentation of history:
NASA once took on the mission of providing cheap, routine access to space with the shuttle. Then it took on the mission of building and servicing a space station.Then came two shuttle disasters. And before the station was even half-built, agency officials began complaining they had no mission and needed to fly off into the solar system.
We still don't have safe and routine access to space. And now, we won't have our grandiose research platform up there either.
Which "agency officials" were making such complaints? Can he name names? In reality, much of NASA would have been content to continue to fly the Shuttle, complete the station, and finally hope to get some value out of it, even after Columbia. There are no doubt "agency officials" who, if asked over a beer, would say that would be the best course even now, given the problems with Ares 1 and Orion, and the fact that we have been getting a lot better at launching Shuttles. That was certainly the prevailing agency attitude in 1989, when President Bush's father announced the Space Exploration Initiative, and NASA sabotaged it both indirectly, by coming up with a ridiculously overpriced program, and directly by actively lobbying against it on the Hill (one of the reasons that Dick Truly was fired).
In general, it's unfair to blame NASA for what is really a failure of the entire federal space policy establishment. NASA doesn't establish goals, or make policy (though it will often play bureaucratic games to attempt to influence it).
The space station was the "next logical step" in proposed plans for space, going all the way back to the fifties, based on von Braun's vision. The problem was that the "logical step" before it was to establish affordable and routine access to orbit. The Shuttle was an attempt to do, but a failed one. Unfortunately, the policy establishment failed to realize this until long after space station plans had jelled into one dependent on the Shuttle (and later, the Russians, which is why it is at such a high inclination, increasing the cost of access).
Yes, NASA "took on the mission," but it failed at it. And with subsequent failures, such as X-34 and X-33, the nation has learned the wrong lesson--that if NASA can't reduce cost to orbit, it can't be done, and we should simply give up on the project, and go back to the way we did it in the sixties. But the failure wasn't due to the fact that it can't be done, but rather than it can't be done the way NASA does things: developing and operating its own systems, for its own uses. Government agencies, by their nature, are not well suited to either developing or running cost-effective transportation systems.
It is understandable and natural to want to maximize the value of something in which we have invested many tens of billions of dollars over the years, and it does seem like a waste to abandon the ISS just a few years after its completion, which took decades to accomplish. But there's a concept called "throwing good money after bad" in which too many people engage. The fact that we spent a hundred billion dollars on ISS doesn't make it worth a hundred billion dollars. It may, in fact have negative value, like the proverbial white elephant that costs too much to feed and care for.
The mistake of the Vision for Space Exploration was not in establishing a national goal of moving the nation (and humanity) beyond earth orbit. Such a bold and broad policy statement of our ultimate goals in space was in fact long overdue.
The mistake was in specifying in too much detail the means and schedule to do so, and in the failure to recognize that we never completed the job that was supposed to be performed by the Shuttle--developing affordable access to space. This is a capability without which attempts to open up the frontier will remain as unsustainable as they were during Apollo, and to repeat Apollo (albeit in slow motion), which is essentially NASA's current plan, is to repeat that mistake.
Yes, the Shuttle was a mistake, as was a space station based on the assumption that it had met its goals, but that doesn't make the goal of the Shuttle a mistake. Achieving that goal remains key to supremacy in space, for both civil and military purposes, and it has to be done before we can seriously contemplate human exploration and development of the solar system. But to blame NASA for these mistakes is wrong, not just because there's plenty of blame to go around, but because if we believe that NASA is the problem, we won't address the other very real sources of the problem, and we'll continue to make such policy mistakes.
[Monday morning update]
More commentary over at Clark's place.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:29 AMI see that the Orlando Sentinel has a space blog now, headed up by Robert Block, their space editor, though there are other bloggers there as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:08 PMIn his Senate testimony, Frederick Tarantino, head of USRA, made the following interesting recommendation:
I also want to bring to the subcommittee's attention an exciting new way in which university-led experiments with hands-on training could be boosted by NASA involvement. Within the next few years, suborbital commercial vehicles being developed by such companies as Virgin Galactic, XCOR Aerospace, Armadillo Aerospace, and Blue Origin, will provide a unique way to engage scientists and researchers. NASA has already taken the first step by issuing a request for information to help in the formulation of a Suborbital Scientist Participant Pilot Program.
By providing the opportunity for researchers and even undergraduate students to fly into space along with their experiments, not only can new experiments be conducted, but the opportunity can inspire students to engage in the math, science, and engineering. The participatory approach of the personal spaceflight industry means each suborbital launch can be experienced by thousands of people, with young people able to tune in and watch live video from space as their professors and fellow students conduct experiments in real time and experience weightlessness and the life-changing view of the earth from space. The hands-on experience will create a new generation of Principal Investigators who will be prepared to lead the flagship science and human exploration missions, later in their careers.These new vehicles will provide low-cost access to the space environment for scientific experiments and research. The market rate for these services has already been set by the space tourist market at $100,000-$200,000 per seat, a much lower cost than existing sounding rockets.
We believe the commercial potential here could be energized by the participation of our space agency. USRA requests the subcommittee authorize NASA to follow through on the request for information by establishing the Suborbital Scientist Participant Pilot Program and issuing a NASA Research Announcement soliciting investigations. This will create a university research payloads market for these emerging commercial operations, provide a new way for university researchers to conduct experiments with student involvement and hands-on-training, and bring the involvement of NASA, and its imprimatur, to an exciting new U.S. industry.
Let's hope that the staffers were paying attention.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:54 AMIf I thought that Gene Kranz knew what he was talking about, I'd be pretty dismayed about this comment:
"This is the best game plan that I have seen since the days of President Kennedy," Kranz said of ESAS, comparing it to the DC-3 and the B-52. "The system that Griffin's team is putting into place will be delivering for America 50 years later...
What an insane comparison. The DC-3 and B-52 have been operating for decades because they were mission effective and affordable (the latter because they were extensively reused, and not thrown away after, or during each flight).
If a century after the founding of NASA we are still sending people into space in little capsules on large expendable rockets, that will be a testimony to a tremendous failure of national will, and of private enterprise. If that's the best that we can do, I predict that we'll just give up on human spaceflight, and we should. So either way, this prediction is very unlikely.
Fortunately, he's just suffering from sixties nostalgia, and there's little basis for his belief.
[Update a few minutes later]
Apparently that was from his oral testimony, or an answer to a question. Here's the written testimony as submitted, which doesn't make the DC-3 comparison, or talk about fifty years in the future.
NASA Watch has the other witnesses' testimony as well.
[Update about 11 AM EDT]
One other point about the Kranz testimony from the Space Politics link:
Kranz stepped in and described the cost in money and schedule he experienced man-rating the Atlas and Titan for the Mercury and Gemini programs.
Comparing human rating an Atlas V to the original Atlas and Titan isn't a useful comparison. The latter were converted ballistic missiles, whereas Atlas V was designed from scratch to be a reliable launch system. All that's really required to human rate it is to add Failure On-Set Detection (FOSD), and ensure that its trajectory doesn't create any blackout zones for aborts (which it has plenty of power and performance to do).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:10 AMJim Oberg has the most extensive public report yet on last months Soyuz mishap, over at IEEE Spectrum.
It's a fascinating read, but it has to give us pause in relying on Soyuz when the Shuttle is retired.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:47 PMThere's an interesting discussion in comments over at Selenian Boondocks on the value of microgravity processing (that veers into other subjects, such as utility and value of propellant depots). I think that Jon gets the better part of the argument, and that "Googaw" is overreacting to overhype. Not to mention ignorant of orbital mechanics. As Jon says, I don't think that he's thought through the concept of a propellant depot in GTO.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:01 AM...or rather, for outer space. Dennis Wingo presents a backup plan for when ESAS collapses. It's much better than Plan 9
I was a big Shuttle-C fan twenty years ago. Or rather, I was a Shuttle-derived fan. Shuttle-C has the problem that Dennis admits--a lack of payload volume and (more importantly, from the standpoint of building really nice space stations) a lack of payload diameter, since it's constrained by current pad infrastructure, including the RSS (Rotating Service Structure), to fifteen feet. I preferred in-line concepts (such as Shuttle-Z) that put payload on top of the ET, which would allow twenty-two-foot-diameter, or larger, with a hammerhead configuration. Ah, good times, good times. At least in our dreams.
I've long thought that the time was past for such things. It doesn't address the fundamental problem, which is the high cost of launch, and corresponding low levels of activity, something that neither ESAS, Direct, or Plan 9B address. But if we insist on such a trivial goal of sending a few astronauts to the moon a couple times a year a decade or more from now, then this plan makes more sense than what NASA's doing. We'd probably only waste half as much money.
I'm not sure why we even need Orion, though, in this scenario. If it's a LEO-only vehicle, why waste money to build something that competes with the private sector? I thought that the idea was to get NASA out of LEO, and force them to focus on the "beyond."
* Admittedly, a low bar in both cases--it remains uncertain whether
or not ESAS is better than Plan 9. Actually, now that I think about it, there are similarities. ESAS is, after all, an attempt to conquer space by resurrecting Apollo from the dead.
[Update in the afternoon]
I "snear"? I didn't know I knew how to do that...whatever it is. In fact, I'd never even heard of the word before today. Who knew that Mark was so hip (even if he doesn't know how to read my posts)?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:08 AMRob Coppinger has dug up an interesting Chinese video. As he points out, we didn't do training in a water tank in the sixties, but the Chinese are standing on the shoulders of giants. But their program will continue to move at a snail's pace, and never be a serious threat, as long as they continue to emulate NASA and Russia.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:29 AM...why I am a libertarian, but not a Libertarian:
In a column in today's Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Billy Cox notes that Hoagland's presence stands in contrast to efforts by Libertarians to tone down UFO talk within their ranks. Joe Buchman, running for Congress in Utah as a Libertarian, told Cox that state LP officials are "fuming" over Buchman's push to declassify records that he believes would prove evidence of... well, something to do with alien life. "At least I won't be the biggest nut case at the convention now," Buchman said upon learning of Hoagland's talk.
The party does tend to attract a lot of nutballs. I can't take seriously a party that takes Richard Hoagland seriously enough to feature him at its convention.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:57 AMJeff Foust and Charles Miller talk about the real issue with space--the fact that we still can't afford to get there on any useful scale.
On a related note (though it's not obvious that they're related, other than the fact that both pieces appear in today's issue of The Space Review), Greg Zsidisin wonders whether we are going to repeat the Apollo debacle.
Well, that depends on what you think "the Apollo debacle" is.
If I read him correctly, Greg seems to think that it was abandoning the Apollo hardware and its capabilities and replacing it with the flawed concept of the Shuttle:
It's déjà vu all over again, of course. Shortly after Apollo 11, NASA triumphantly presented its funding list of "next logical steps". These included human Mars exploration, Moon bases, and a large space station in Earth orbit serviced by a reusable "space shuttle". At the time, the US was engaged in the costly, divisive Vietnam War, while the economy was beginning a big slide that would result in double-digit inflation in the early '70s.
With the race against the Russians having been won, and a decidedly anti-technology attitude settling in, Congress and President Nixon readily pulled the plug on everything but the shuttle, which nevertheless struggled for funding and support. The vehicle that emerged was a highly compromised version of what had been envisioned, and sure enough did not bring the vastly cheaper and more routine space access promised.The Apollo infrastructure, meanwhile, was almost entirely discarded. We lost the Saturn launch vehicles, their engines, most of their directly associated manufacturing and launch capability. This, despite the huge cost and effort it took to create them.
The problem is that "the next logical steps" weren't necessarily all that logical, but they did fulfill the von Braunian vision (which is what it was based on). In a sense, the Shuttle was the "next logical step," but only in the sense that it was an attempt to make space affordable--something that Saturn never would have done, had we continued it, as so many now nostalgic for that era would prefer. In fact, such misplaced nostalgia for large expendable rockets is at the heart of the cargo-cultish approach of ESAS--it is an attempt to return to the glory days, when we went to the moon, and the whole world watched.
The mistake of Shuttle was not in seeking CRATS (Cheap Reliable Access To Space, which is essential, as Foust and Miller point out). It was in the approach taken to do it. And in that, I don't mean a reusable system. It was in thinking that it was a task for a major government, Manhattan-Project-style initiative on the scale (or even on a smaller scale) of Apollo, in which the government would develop, build and operate a fleet of vehicles (of a single design) to handle all of the nation's (and hopefully, much of the world's) space transportation needs.
No, it was no mistake to set as a goal the dramatic reduction of costs, and increase in routine access to space, which was in fact the original goal of the Shuttle program, and why, despite its many successful flights with useful accomplishments, it was an utter failure programmatically. It should still be the goal, but we have to take a different approach, and not just technically, (again) as Foust and Miller point out:
Any new initiative to achieve CRATS must address the repeated national failures (Shuttle, NASP, X-33, X-34) to achieve CRATS. Instead of trying the same old thing over again, and expecting different results, a new initiative would address the core reasons for the failure, and provide some ideas on a new approach.
Unfortunately, the core reasons for the failure lie at heart in our overall approach to, and thinking about spaceflight. I've often noted that we got off on the wrong track half a century ago, when space technology (at least for human spaceflight) became an expression of technical ability in a race between two Cold Warriors, rather than a utilitarian development for commerce and national security. In so doing, it created a mindset on the subject from which it is difficult for most policy analysts, let alone the general public, to escape. It also created a politically potent iron triangle between NASA, the contractor community, and the Congress that makes it difficult to implement new or innovative policy solutions, because the success of those rent seekers is not contingent on actual progress in space. As long as the contracts continue, and the jobs remain in place, and the lobbyists make their political donations, it doesn't really matter that much whether or not the human space program is expanding humanity into space, or making us a spacefaring nation, because those goals are not nationally important.
The good news is that there is pressure from outside that system to force change. One, as is noted in the Foust/Miller piece, is the growing awareness in the military of the vulnerability of our space assets, and that the only real solution to this is responsive space, not just in terms of access, but also in terms of replacement systems. One of the several ways in which NASA has completely flouted the recommendations of the Aldridge Commission is to propose an architecture that contributes almost nothing to national security. Another way, equally if not more important, is that it contributes almost nothing to nurturing private space enterprise.
Even ignoring all of the technical problems with it, these two factors are probably what will doom it. When the budget crunch comes, unlike the Shuttle, NASA will be unable to call on the Pentagon to come to bat for it. And while private space companies will continue to support the Vision for Space Exploration in the abstract, none of them have any motivation to support ESAS itself. Particularly when there are much more lucrative, and less fickle markets, as they start to satisfy private desires to go, and ignore NASA's continued emphasis on a voyeuristic program that allows us to watch a few civil servants go to the moon while we foot the bill.
I have long said that NASA's approach is essentially socialist, but I realize now that I've been wrong in that assessment. Since reading Jonah Goldberg's book
Chair Force Engineer recently came to the same conclusion:
In order to justify the enormous expense of the space shuttle borne by the American taxpayers, and to get the flight rate up to levels which would make the vehicle economical, the shuttle was used to launch commercial payloads during its early years. The thought of a government-funded, government-operated vehicle launching commercial payloads should be anathema to freedom-loving Americans. But the shuttle served its need as "the moral equivalent of war." After all, the Russian efforts to duplicate the shuttle capabilities with Energia-Buran helped to bankrupt the Soviet Union. And the shuttle & space station continue to serve as symbols of national pride, promoting the religion of the state.
Exactly. We are supposed to contribute to the glorious State's Space Program, and be content to watch the chosen Representatives of the State, our Celestial Gladiators, go out into the cosmos for us. That is the von Braunian vision (hey, anyone remember where he got his start?), and Mike Griffin (who I'm pretty sure sees himself as von Braun's successor) is eager to continue it. And it doesn't help that neither he, nor any of his other OSC compadres--Tony Elias, Bill Claybaugh, Doug Stanley, et al--even believe that CRATS is achievable. It's a convenient belief, of course, if one wants to build big rockets at taxpayer expense. But we shouldn't fool ourselves that it has anything to do with classically liberal American values. Or becoming a truly spacefaring nation.
Fortunately, we are reaching a point at which we will no longer be able to afford such grand visions of "One NASA" (Ein NASA, Ein Volk, Ein Administrator), and will instead be focused on actual mission needs by the military, and commercial desires of people who actually want to do stuff in space, with their own money. At that point, perhaps, the Cold War will finally be over for the one agency that, like a few Japanese soldiers on remote islands, who hadn't gotten the word, even into the sixties, continued to fight on well past its end.
[Update about noon eastern]
OK, maybe Mike Griffin isn't von Braun's heir:
Werner Von Braun's body was found in China this week after making the trip from D.C. No, he wasn't exhumed, he just churned in his grave until he augured all the way through after an unidentified visitor paying respects whispered to him graveside about the latest hare-brained scheme to make ARES 1 lift off and fly right.
OK, so it's not simple or soon. But as noted at the link, if it never flies, at least it will be safe.
[Late Monday evening update]
Based on his comments, Mark Whittington apparently hasn't read Jonah's book, despite the fact that he attempted to review it.
From the first edition, pages 210-211 (my annotations are in square brackets, and red), "Even Kennedy's nondefense policies were sold as the moral analogue of war...His intimidation of the steel industry was a rip-off of Truman's similar effort during the Korean War, itself a maneuver from the playbooks of FDR and Wilson. Likewise, the Peace Corps and its various domestic equivalents were throwbacks to FDR's martial CCC. Even Kennedy's most ambitious idea, putting a man on the moon, was sold to the public as a response to the fact that the Soviet Union was overtaking America in science..."
"What made [Kennedy's administration] so popular? What made it so effective? What has given it its lasting appeal? On almost every front, the answers are those elements that fit the fascist playbook: the creation of crises [We're losing the race to the Soviets! We can't go to sleep by a Russian moon!], national appeals to unity [They are our astronauts! Our nation shall beat the Soviets to the moon!], the celebration of martial values [The astronauts were all military, the best of the best], the blurring of lines between public and private sectors [SETA contracts, anyone? Cost plus? Our version of Soviet design bureaus?], the utilization of the mass media to glamorize the state and its programs [No Life Magazine deal for chronicling a bowdlerized version of the astronauts' lives? Really?], invocation of a "post-partisan" spirit that places the important decisions in the hands of experts and intellectual supermen, and a cult of personality for the national leader [von Braun? "Rocket scientists"? Not just Kennedy Space Center, but (briefly) Cape Kennedy?]."
Bold type mine (in addition to red annotations).
Nope, no fascism here. Nothing to see here, folks.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:26 AMThomas James has more thoughts on the kludges.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:47 AMThere's a long piece on the the current state of space law over at the ABA Journal. I only have a couple issues with it. First, I don't know what they mean by this:
Even though the United States eventually outpaced the Soviet Union by putting men on the moon in 1969, the space race continued until the early 1990s.
No, the space race was essentially over by 1968 or so, once the Russians realized that they weren't going to beat us to the moon, and instead rewrote history to pretend that they'd never even been trying. There was no urgency or racing after that--had there been, NASA budgets would have been higher, and schedules faster. So I don't know what this sentence means, unless it just a vague reference to the fact that progress, such as it was, continue on both the US and Soviet side, until the fall of the Soviet Union.
On ITAR, I strongly disagree with Pam Meridith:
"I think the hysteria over ITARs is out of proportion," says Pamela L. Meredith, who co-chairs the space law practice group at Zuckert, Scoutt & RasenÂberger in Washington, D.C. "They've been around for a long time now, so people have had time to adjust."
No matter how much "time people have to adjust," it still adds time and cost to projects, and prevents many from happening altogether. And it has a disproportionate effect--like most regulations, big space businesses (who despite leftist mythology, are no fans of capitalism or free enterprise) don't necessarily dislike ITAR, because they can afford to meet the requirements, and they represent a barrier to entry to smaller businesses and newcomers, who generally can't. (Though there's also no question that it's cost Boeing a lot of satellite business.) And as a perfect case in point, consider Mike Gold at Bigelow (in a long, but quite interesting interview):
Res Communis: Can you comment on a company's cost of implementing ITAR?
Gold: Yes, absolutely. Paying so much for export control is a bit like being asked not just to dig your own grave, but to jump in it as well. Our best estimates are that we pay roughly $130.00 per hour, per person, for every hour that a government official monitors us or reviews our documentation during the day, plus overtime, which can add up on overseas trips. What amazes me is that when we travel to Russia for meetings, we sometimes travel with not one, but two government officials, monitoring every word we say. Then, across the table from us are the Russians, all great folks, who came out of a Communist system, and they have no explicit monitors. If we were to have brought someone down from Mars to attend our meetings, and asked them which of these two nations represented the free country, the Martian would point to the Russians. The U.S. holds itself out as the bastion of freedom. But when I am sitting there at those meetings I have to wonder: which is the free country? Now again, this is a problem of policy not personnel. The monitors we get are often good, smart people, who can even be quite helpful at times. However, what I want is for these monitors to be able to spend their limited time and resources focusing on military sensitive technologies that really matter rather than wasting their efforts on us. The Russians basically do this. They have the unique policy of protecting information that is actually sensitive. They don't care about metal coffee tables. It makes a lot more sense. And, in regard to the financial costs, you know, the KGB may have spied on you back in the Soviet days, but at least they had the courtesy to do it for free. It is unfathomable to me what we have to pay for export control review and monitoring.Res Communis: You do cover their travel expenses also?
Gold: Absolutely, including airfare and hotel. Specifically, in 2006, the year of the Genesis I campaign, we paid over $160,000 in monitoring fees alone. In 2007, when the Genesis II launch campaign took place, we paid the government nearly $150,000 for monitoring and reviews. Thanks to Mr. Bigelow's generosity and commitment, we're able to afford such fees, but there are a lot of small companies that can't. This is why the ITAR has stifled innovation and stunted development in the American aerospace sector. The ITAR should be re-named "The Full Employment for European and Foreign Aerospace Workers Act."
Res Communis: As between a new space company like Bigelow and the big aerospace corporations, is the ITAR burden disproportionate for the new companies?
Gold: Everyone has problems with it, but a large, well established company is better able to absorb the expenses and can pass the cost on to their customers relatively easily. Anecdotally, I have spoken to a number of friends and colleagues at small aerospace businesses and start-ups. They tell me that they don't even look at international collaboration because they know they can't afford to work through the export control problems without a hoard of attorneys. Frankly, it took a lot of work and diligence and a little bit of luck on our own part to have been able to survive the ITAR gauntlet with just myself, my deputy, and some limited support from outside counsel.
And because Bigelow is wealthy, and willing to foot the bill, he can afford it. Most startups aren't in this position. This is just one of the many ways that federal policy has been disastrous, and continues to help bind us to the planet.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:36 AMThere's certainly no reason to think that much has changed based on this latest call for it:
PV technology has improved considerably since this idea was developed adding to the argument that this source of energy should be revisited. In addition, the economics of the cost of energy have changed. According to Dr. Neville Marzwell and his colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Lab, an SSP system could generate energy at a cost including cost of construction of 60 to 80 cents per kilowatt-hour at the outset. He believes that "in 15 to 25 years we can lower that cost to 7 to 10 cents per kWh." The average cost of residential electricity was 9.86 cents per kWh in the U.S. in 2006.
The problem (as always) is that this doesn't account for the costs of competing energy sources dropping even more. And of course, the notion of building SPS with the existing space transportation infrastructure remains ludicrous. Get the costs of access down (a good idea for a lot of other reasons), and then see if it makes sense. Unfortunately, current space policy (or at least the vast amount of expenditures on space transportation) seems aimed at increasing the cost of access to space.
[Via Ken Silber]
[Early evening update]
Rand's approach is just clearly wrong. There are no market incentives to decrease the cost of space travel, outside the COTS competition.
Nope, none at all. How will we ever do it without the government?
Oh, wait! How about the millions of people who want to take a trip, and can afford to do so if the price comes down? Mark ignores that one, though, because it doesn't require NASA getting billions of dollars, or giving them out for a few flights via COTS, that will do very little to significantly reduce the cost of access.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:43 PMHenry Cate has the anniversary edition of the Carnival of Space, with an emphasis on space and television.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:49 AMThere's an interesting post over at New Scientist on the new eugenicists. What's even more interesting, though, are the numerous comments, which repeat many of the myths about population growth and control, and feasibility of mitigating it through space technology, including space (to use the politically incorrect word) colonization.
I don't really have time to critique in any detail, other than to note that anyone who makes feasibility arguments on the latter subject by referring to Shuttle costs is completely clueless. Sadly though, years ago, Carl Sagan did exactly that.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:35 AMOver at Keith Cowing's place. Interestingly, it looks much less like a blog now, what with the newspaper column layout.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:26 AMAn interesting comment from someone who claims to work on the program, over at Space Politics (it's the sixteenth one), in response to the usual idiocy that everything is fine with ESAS, and that we all have to get behind it, and there are no other choices:
Your interpretation of published Ares I status is overly optimistic to an extreme. For instance, the J-2X ignition tests to which you refer has been done at the igniter level, a far cry from an actual engine test. The J-2X exists only on paper, and still very much at the powerpoint level.
The Ares I-X is also merely a stunt and represents no true progress to an actual flight configuration. It's what we in the business refer to as an "Admiral's Test," looks impressive to the uninformed, but adds no value to the final product.You'll find that many of us Ares I naysayers actually work on or have involvement with the project. Ask the troops at MSFC and you'll get a completely different story than what you're getting through the NASA propaganda machine.
A lot of us are concerned with what kind of reputation we'll be left with when Griffin leaves and this whole Ares I/ESAS debacle is exposed.
That certainly rings true to me, based on other emails I get from program insiders.
Meanwhile, over at NASA Space Flight, there's a description of proposed solutions to the Ares vibration issue. The first one is the most interesting kludgesolution:
The anti-Thrust Oscillation RCS would be a totally new system, located on the aft skirt of the Ares I booster. Known as Active Pulse Thrusters (APT), documentation shows this system to hold the potential of reducing Thrust Oscillation by around 10 times that which is currently expected.
'Active Pulse Thrusters (RCS TO Damper): First Stage carries most of the design changes (Orion Service Module tanks change required),' noted associated documentation on this concept. 'Could provide 10X reduction in TO. Relatively mature thruster design. Self contained. Relatively mature control system.'However, it would - as with most of the mitigation options - hold a mass impact on the vehicle, something Ares I has been struggling with since its early design cycles.
'Performance and aft skirt design challenge: (around) 500 lbm (pounds mass) payload impact. Trade required for separation and booster deceleration. Add failure modes. Must survive aft skirt environments.'
The system consists of four pods, located around the aft skirt on the Ares I First Stage. Early graphics of a system - that are bound to mature if accepted as the way forward - show each pod will have a fuel tank, an oxidizer tank, a pressurant tank, and seven thrusters.
The downside of this concept - which is a completely separate system than the roll control system on the interstage - is the addition of failure modes, which would hit Ares I's LOC/M (Loss of Crew/Mission) numbers.
Also on the downside, the concept is a retro thrusting system (negative thrusting) - which would impact on Ares I's performance figures.
OK, if I understand this correctly, this is what I would call the "Bose headphone" approach. Apparently, the plan is to actually fire thrusters in a direction opposite to the main thrust, at a frequency and phase to actually cancel out the vibration of the SRM. The description of the downside of this solution is a little dry, to me. They are introducing a new, complicated, expensive-to-develop-and-test system into the vehicle, which will add weight and (probably weird) potential failure modes, and reduce the net thrust of the vehicle, thus reducing its payload performance, which already has essentially no margin.
Great.
Next? Isolation mounts:
'May reduce payload by 1000 lbm. Reduces lateral stiffness unless mitigated in the design. Adds failure modes. Changes system modes for loads and control.'
"...unless mitigated in the design." There is an implicit assumption in that statement that such a mitigation is possible, but it may not be. I suspect that it doesn't just reduce lateral stiffness, but may also reduce stiffness in bending, which means more potential problems as the upper stage wiggles back and forth on top of the SRB, adding to the joy of the ride for the crew, and further complicating the control system's job, in all three axes.
They're right--this one is unlikely to survive the trade study.
Even the third, favored option is a kludge, which "consists of rails and springs under the top plate of the parachute platform on the First Stage. The active system would require a control system and associated battery power supply - all located under the aeroshell that houses the drogue parachute."
"The passive system has a rail attachment on the forward skirt extension of the First Stage providing lateral support. Damping would be provided by springs attached through the ancillary ring."
Rube Goldberg, call your office.
I've probably used this Einstein quote already recently, but it continues to apply: a clever man solves a problem--a wise man avoids it. This is all the result of the strange decision to use a Shuttle SRB as a first stage. That was not a necessary choice, and a good trade study (as opposed to the sixty-day exercise) would have identified these problems up front, and considered them in the trade. Anyone want to bet that it did?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:03 AMA month ago, at the XCOR press conference, Mike Kelly told me about this possibility, but asked me to keep it confidential. But now Charles Lurio says that it's official. Mike is taking the position of Chief Engineer for FAA-AST, reporting directly to George Nield. I can't think of a better man for the spot, given his long history as chairman of the COMSTAC RLV working group, and long-standing support of reusable vehicles.
Congratulations. It's good news for Mike, and good news for the space industry. And since it's not (at least that I'm aware of) a political position, there's a good chance that he would survive a change of administration, even if George doesn't.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:20 PMAlan Boyle has a roundup of links on the latest Soyuz entry mishap. I think that this is going to have an effect on policy, but it's unclear what it will be, so far.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:16 AMIt's been a year since Henry Cate kicked off the Carnival of Space. He's asking for entries for the anniversary edition:
Fraser Cain, the current organizer of the Carnival of Space, has graciously asked me to host the anniversary edition of the Carnival of Space.Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:35 AMCould you:
1) Consider sending in an entry to the carnival? Send the link to a post about space to:
carnivalofspace@gmail.com. It is helpful if you include a brief summary of your post.2) Encourage your readers to also send in an entry?
You could direct them here.
People have been speculating about this sort of thing for years, but one of the nice things about having a decent-sized orbital facility is that we can actually prototype them, and figure out if any are interesting enough to think about building inflatable stadia for them.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:19 AMMark Whittington has a completely pointless post:
...not much remarked, is the implicit endorsement of NASA's Vision for Space Exploration by one of the leading new commercial space companies
Is this supposed to be news? Is Mark aware of any commercial space company that is opposed to the VSE, or sending humans to the moon and Mars? I'm not. So what's the big deal?
Or is he confusing ESAS with VSE again?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:28 PMWell, not all of it, but quite a bit. Rob Coppinger has some thoughts on the issue of ISS downmass requirements, which is something that doesn't get as much attention as the launch payload. Once Shuttle goes away, we lose an awful lot of downmass capability, at least in theory, though I don't think we've been returning all that much in it lately.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:23 AMJeff Foust has a brief report on the next steps for Spaceport America, now that the vote is out of the way.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:18 AMProcurement "irregularities" at Marshall Space Flight Center? On the Ares program?
Why, who could ever imagine such a thing? Particularly after it got off to such a completely non-corrupt start, with no conflicts of interest at all, via Scott "Revolving Door" Horowitz.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:14 AMOr should it be "wither VSE and ESAS"?
My analysis on what the presidential election could mean for NASA's current plans for human spaceflight, over at Popular Mechanics.
Bottom line: don't expect "steady as you go..."
[Update late evening]
Mark Whittington has his usual (i.e., idiotic) response:
The problem here is that without a lot of those billions being spent not only on technology development, but operational experience, it will be a long time before private business gets us to the Moon, if at all. And we they do get there, they may have to have visas signed by the Chinese who will have beaten everyone there.
Yes, [rolling eyes] having to have visas signed by the Chinese to land on the moon should be our biggest concern. Not the fact that NASA has chosen an architecture that is fundamentally incapable of establishing a fully-fledged lunar presence and is unlikely to survive politically (and ignoring the fact that the Chinese are on a track to get a human on the moon sometime in the next century, at their current rate...).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:21 AMI haven't had time to read it yet, but Dennis Wingo has a long essay on NASA's forty-year failure to close the deal with the American people. More thoughts when I have a chance to read, but some of the other folks here may be interested.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:01 AMApparently, the Soyuz entered hatch first, instead of leading with the heat shield, and burned off an antenna. I hate when that happens.
Yi said during a news conference at the Star City cosmonaut training center outside Moscow that she was frightened. "At first I was really scared because it looked really, really hot and I thought we could burn," she said.
I'll bet it was some serious pucker in that capsule for all three of them.
As the article notes, this is the second time in a row they've had a non-nominal entry, and the third time in five years. Is their quality, in manufacturing or launch processing, declining? Not good news if we're reliant on them for transportation after 2010. And no, I don't think the problem was too many women aboard (what an idiot).
Faster please, Elon.
[Update a few minutes later]
Jim Oberg shares my concerns about Russian quality problems. And he's in a lot better position to know.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:10 PMNo, not in Pennsylvania (though they're having an election there as well today, so I hear). In New Mexico. Will Spaceport America get funded?
[8 PM EDT update]
We should know in a couple hours whether or not it passed, unless it's very close, because polls close in less than an hour.
[9 PM EDT update]
The polls are closed now. This is probably the best place to track results. Folks in Las Cruces have a lot at stake in the vote. There are also a of related stories there.
[11 PM EDT update]
Looks like a big vote of confidence. Two to one for the tax (and the spaceport) is what I'm hearing. This is good news for Steve Landeen, who might have been out of a job had it gone the other way.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:12 AMLee Cary is concerned. I'm not, mostly because I don't think that Obama has a chance in hell of winning, but also because I don't believe that Ares/Orion is "the way forward," so it's hard for me to be very upset about either a delay, or cancellation.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:48 AMIn the comments section of a post public support for the space program over at Space Politics, a twenty something asks a damed good question:
Those who support the current lunar program often forget the opportunity costs. There are better ways to spend the same money on developing space. I'm 24 - with the current Constellation program plan, I'll be in my mid 30s by the time we get back to the moon. If we operate the system for a decade or two after that, as is likely, all I can expect in my career is to see 4 people land on the moon twice a year. That is not exciting - nor is it worth the money. Maybe by the time I retire we'll be looking at another "next generation system".
What's the point of any of this for someone my age?
Well, it's been more than a couple decades since I was twenty something, but it seems like there's even less point for someone my age. Why in the world does Mike Griffin think that anyone, other than those getting a paycheck from it, are going to be inspired by such a trivial goals?
Of course, as usual, we heard the typical chorus of "space is hard, and it will take a long time, and you're doing it for your grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, or great-great-great...grandchildren."
But it doesn't have to be this way. There was nothing inevitable about ESAS, and it isn't written in granite that government space programs must do the least possible with the greatest amount of money, and the money invested provide such a poor return in either output or future capability on which to build. It is likely that this will be the case, but it's not inevitable. As I've said many times, we won't have a sensible government space program until space (that is, actual progress in space, not jobs in certain districts) becomes politically important. The last time that occurred was in the 1960s, and even then, it wasn't politically important to have sustainable progress--only a specific space achievement (and that only because it had almost arbitrarily become a technological gladiatorial arena).
Anyway, Jon Goff followed up with a good comment, and then a blog post on the subject:
If our current approach to space development was actually putting in place the technology and infrastructure needed to make our civilization a spacefaring one, I'd be a lot more willing to support it. Wise investments in the future are a good thing, but NASA's current approach is not a wise investment in the future. It's aging hipsters trying to relive the glory days of their youth at my generation's expense.
Patience is only a virtue when you're headed in the right direction and doing the right thing. If Constellation was truly (as Marburger put it) making future operations cheaper, safer, and more capable, then I'd be all for patiently seeing it out.While Constellation might possibly put some people on the moon, it won't actually put us any closer to routine, affordable, and sustainable exploration and development. I have no problem with a long hard road, just so long as its the right one.
Unfortunately, it comes back to the fact that we never have had that serious national debate about space, and why we have a space program, that we so badly need (and despite his wishy-washy words now, I doubt that it will happen in an Obama administration, either). As the Chesire Cat said, if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:09 AMIf this report is true, it looks like NASA is not going to hit its milestone of the first test flight of the Potemkin RocketAres 1-X vehicle planned for a year from now:
Ares I-X now has little chance of making its April, 2009 launch date target, initially due to the delay of STS-125's flight to October.
The first Ares related test flight requires the freeing of High Bay 3 inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and Pad 39B - which will first host STS-125's Launch On Need (LON) rescue shuttle (Endeavour/LON-400) - being vacated for modifications ahead of Ares I-X.However, a new problem has now come to light with the MLP (Mobile Launch Platform) that will be handed over from Shuttle to Constellation for the test flight. This problem relates to the stability of Ares I-X during rollout to the Pad.
The modifications to the MLP initially called for Ares I-X to be placed on one set of the existing Shuttle's Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) hold down posts, with a tower to be erected on the other set of hold down posts - with support for the vehicle between the tower and the interstage level.
When NASA changed contractors for the MLP work associated with Ares I-X, the design changed, omitting the adjacent tower, instead relying on three steel cables - 120 degrees apart - to help hold the vehicle steady during rollout.
Given the projected weight of the vehicle at rollout - with a heavy dummy upper stage - additional stability is now being called for, leading to a redesign of the MLP support structure.
In combination with the projected delay to handing over Shuttle resources post STS-125, internal scheduling is showing 60 to 90 days worth of delay to Ares I-X's projected launch date.
Gee, it's always something. Guess that's what happens when you come up with a new vehicle concept with a ridiculously high aspect ratio, that makes a whip antenna look positively zaftig. Has anyone ever had to use guy wires on a rocket before, or is this another proud first for our nation's space agency?
Anyway, as it goes on to point out, this probably will waterfall down through the whole schedule, further increasing the dreaded "gap." Not that it will matter that much, once the budget gets whacked in the next administration, regardless of who is president. But then, maybe if they'd come up with an implementation that actually appeared to have some relevance to peoples' lives, instead of redoing people's grandfather's space program, they'd get more public support, instead of ever less.
It's hard to see how this ends well, at least for fans of Apollo on Steroids. But it's mostly irrelevant to those of us who want to see large-scale human expansion into space. That will have to await the private sector.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:22 AMNASA apparently plans its first Ares flight test a year from today.
The April 2009 flight will be the first of four test fights for the rocket's first stage, derived from the current space shuttle's solid-rocket boosters. In particular, NASA hopes the flight will validate measures it is now undertaking to quell an anticipated vibration issue in the booster system, which could pose problems down the line for the survivability of later variants of the rocket.
The flight will also demonstrate the abilities of the first-stage flight control systems to keep the "single stick" rocket on course, without the benefit of control fin surfaces.For the first test flight, NASA will use a four-segment booster, topped with an empty fifth segment. Replicas of an Ares 1 second stage, Orion space capsule and launch abort system rocket will ride up top. The dummy segments will feature correct exterior detailing for aerodynamics testing, and will weigh about the same as their real-life counterparts.
"It's made to look a lot like the Ares 1 vehicle, but it's a very different animal," said NASA lead ground operations engineer Tassos Abadiotakis. "We're also going to get some aerodynamics data, some thermal data -- just the basic rocketry laws to make sure what we're proposing to go fly for Ares 1 actually is going to perform as advertised."
OK, so, if it's "a very different animal," how is it going to validate the real animal? I thought that the concern with the vibration was the fact that they've never flown a five-segment booster, and don't know what its resonant modes will be. I don't see how flying an four-segment booster with an empty casing on top resolves those concerns in any way. Why can't they fly a five-segment booster? Presumably because it won't be far enough along in development to allow a test flight a year from now.
And will the upper stage be just a dummy mass, or will it be active? I thought that the Ares was supposed to get roll control from the upper stage, since it has no way of doing it with the booster (as the article points out, it has no fins, and even if it did, they'd be useless once it left the atmosphere). The first stage can control pitch and yaw through gimbaling, but absent some kind of control jets on the circumference, there's no way for it to control roll on its own.
So, just what is it that this test is supposed to accomplish? Other, of course, than getting something on the pad and flying it to maintain program momentum at a time that a new administration is coming in and considering what to do with it?
[Update on Thursday morning]
I've gotten more than one private email from program insiders that this is a political stunt, not a useful engineering test.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:44 PMIn Monday's part 1 of "VSE and the Retirement of Baby Boomers," Charles Miller and Jeff Foust port the conventional wisdom about budgeting to the space discussion. These are two of the most well-read, connected and smart people on space topics. I'd like to give folks addressing this issue some more texture to add some items that are not part of the conventional intergenerational budget debate which can be summarized perennially as "vote for me or things will all go to hell pretty soon if they aren't already there", but every year real personal income rises and real government spending minus interest payments rise; life expectancy goes up and almost all the Cassandras are proven wrong, but by then they've long since moved on to the next pending calamity. Here are the unconventional texture points:
Alan Boyle has more info on this morning's press announcement from the Rocket Racing League. It looks like they haven't necessarily dropped XCOR as a supplier (as I previously speculated--note that there is a comment in that post, ostensibly from someone from the RRL, saying it was good news for everyone), but are looking for more competition for propulsion, so now they'll have a kerosene engine from XCOR and an alcohol engine from Armadillo. If they can spread the wealth and expand the industrial base for these technologies, that's all to the good.
And this should gladden the hearts of LLC competitors:
Carmack recently said he would make rocket engines available to customers at a cost of $500,000 apiece. He declined to say exactly how much the racing league was paying Armadillo for the current project - but he said the project had a higher priority than Armadillo's renewed push to win the NASA-funded Lunar Lander Challenge.
That could conceivably mean that they won't even bother, and will leave the money on the table for someone else, but even if they compete this year, their chances of winning will be reduced if they're not focused on it, so it could represent an opportunity for Masten, Unreasonable Rocket, and others.
Anyway, I'm glad to see this industry finally (literally) getting off the ground. I wrote a paper at STAIF ten years ago that we needed a racing industry to push the technology, just as occurred in the auto (and air) racing business. A lot of people at the session in which I presented it were skeptical at the time, but it looks like my vision is finally coming to fruition.
[Mid-morning update]
Here's another pre-press-conference report from the New York Times.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Clark Lindsey live blogged the press conference via call-in. I don't see any mention of XCOR.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:18 AMUnlike the Chinese slow-motion space program, if the Russians are serious about this, it would put them well ahead of us in spacefaring capability, and in a much better position to do missions not just to the moon, but out into the solar system.
According to Perminova, Roskosmos proposed the establishment of a manned assembly complex in Earth orbit. The government Security Council on April 11, supported the idea. The complex can be built ships too heavy to take off from the ground.
What a concept.
But we won't have to worry about NASA getting involved in such a race as long as Mike Griffin and the giant-rocket fetishists are in charge.
[Update about 9:30 AM EDT]
This isn't directly related, but what are the Russians talking about here?
Perminov said Friday that Russia may stop selling seats on its spacecraft to "tourists" starting in 2010 because of the planned expansion of the international space station's crew.
He said the station's permanent crew is expected to grow from the current three to six or even nine in 2010. That will mean that Russia will have fewer extra seats available for tourists on its Soyuz spacecraft, which are used to ferry crews to the station and back to Earth.
This is the first I've heard of such an "expectation." While I have no doubt that a fully-constructed station could support that level of crew, what do they do about lifeboats? My understanding has always been that the limiting factor on how many crew the station can handle at once is a function of the ability to return them to earth in an emergency. I've never agreed with that philosophy, and always thought that a backup coorbiting facility was a much better solution than evacuating the entire crew back to earth, but what I thought has never mattered. Are they proposing to leave crew without a way home, or adding docking modules for additional Soyuz (you'd need three to evacuate nine)? It has to be one or the other, at least until we get Dragon, or Orion or other alternatives flying, and certainly the latter is unlikely by 2010.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:52 AMWell, he still doesn't have one, but there's nothing particularly objectionable about these comments, as far as they go:
Q: What do you plan to do with the space agency? Like right now they're currently underfunded, they, at first they didn't know if they were going to be able to operate Spirit rover. What do plan to do with it?
Obama: I think that, I, uh. I grew up with the space program. Most of you young people here were born during the shuttle era. I was the Apollo era. I remember, you know, watching, you know, the moon landing. I was living in Hawaii when I was growing up, so the astronauts would actually, you know, land in the Pacific and then get brought into Honolulu and it was incredible memories and incredibly inspiring. And by the way inspired a whole generation of people to get engaged in math and science in a way that we haven't - that we need to renew. So I'm a big supporter of the space program. I think it needs to be redefined, though.We've kind of lost a sense of mission in terms of what it is that NASA should be trying to achieve and I think that we've gotta make some big decisions about whether or not, are we going to try to send manned, you know, space launches, or are we better off in terms of what we're learning sending unmanned probes which oftentimes are cheaper and less dangerous, but yield more information.
And that's a major debate I'm going to want to convene when I'm president of the United States. What direction do we take the space program in? Once we have a sense of what's going to be most valuable for us in terms of gaining knowledge, then I think we'll able to adjust the budget so that we're going all out on what it is that we've decided to do."
I've long said that we need to have a national debate on what we want to do in space, and why--something that hasn't really happened since NASA was chartered, half a century ago, so I would certainly welcome such a debate in the unfortunate event of an Obama presidency.
My question is, though: why wait? Why not have the debate now, so we can decide who we want to vote for, at least for those of us for whom space is a voting issue (if not the only consideration). What would be the venue and framework for the debate? What does Senator Obama think that the potential options are? Will he be constrained by past thinking, of space as the province of NASA and astronauts, with billions of dollars flowing in its porcine manner to Houston, Huntsville and the Cape, or will he be open to both goals and means that are more innovative than we've seen from any previous administration, including the Bush administration? Will he be a candidate for "hope" and "change" for the high frontier?
Well, like all his other positions, he does offer "hope" and "change" for space with the above words, but not clue one as to what we should be hoping for, and what form the "change" will take. In other words, as on other issues, he continues to deal in platitudes, and is unwilling to take a stand, or even discuss potential options, for fear of alienating the voters, who he hopes will continue to view him as a political Rorschach test, and see in his space policy, as in all his policies, what they want to see.
So while I hope that if elected, we will have that national dialogue about space, I don't have any high expectations either that it will actually happen, or that anything useful will come out of it, because he offers me no substance now.
Of course, even if he told me that he's going to do all of the things that I'd like to see from a space policy standpoint, it wouldn't be sufficient to get me to vote for him because a) I couldn't be sure that he meant it, given his flip flopping on other issues, 2) his positions on other issues are too odious to allow me to be a single-issue voter on space and 3) even if sincere, there's no reason, given his complete lack of executive experience, that he will have any success whatsoever in implementing them.
Still, I'd sure like to see that national debate.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:14 AMIt's kind of late now if you didn't make plans, and I gave advance notice a few days ago, but tonight is Yuri's Night, as we are reminded by Phil Bowermaster.
And in response to a previous commenter that we shouldn't be celebrating a Soviet victory in the Cold War, we should be long past that. We won, and in fact, if Gagarin hadn't flown, we might not have gone to the moon. Of course, it's debatable whether or not that was a good thing for our expansion into space, in light of the history since.
In any event, it's an historical event, to celebrate the first time a human left the planet and went into space far enough to actually orbit, and almost half a century later, it transcends politics and a dead communist (and fascist) empire.
We aren't attending a party, both because we're not much on partying, if it means loud atrocious dance music, but also because the nearest (and only) one that anyone could muster up in Florida was up in Cocoa Beach. That nothing was organized in the metropolitan tri-counties of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade says something about the importance of space in our culture, but I'm not quite sure what.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:01 PMThomas James has a question that I've often wondered about as well:
I have to wonder, has every project I have ever worked on with LM (X-33, VentureStar, ET, CEV/Orion, among others) started from scratch with everything from numbering schemes to release processes to configuration management to data vaulting to drawing formats and standards to basic skill mix and team structures? You'd think that after so many decades that a lot of this stuff would have become routine by now -- revised periodically as new technology becomes available, of course, but not built anew every time.
A counter argument to this -- and one I used frequently when confronted with the All-Encompassing Michoud Excuse for Not Improving Processes: "That's the way ET does it" -- is that one ought to take advantage of the start of a new program to incorporate the lessons learned from other programs, thereby continuously improving the way business is done. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a middle ground between status quo and Year Zero when it comes to these things.
Every time we used to do a proposal at Rockwell/Boeing, and have to describe the systems engineering process, it seemed like we had to come with a new process flow description and graphic, as though we'd never done this before, instead of taking an existing one and tweaking it, and this applied all across the board--in risk mitigation and management, trade analyses, etc.
If I were running one of these multi-billion dollar corporations, I'd put someone in charge of boilerplate and legacy, so that there was a one-stop shop of best practices and material for use in both proposing and managing programs. Maybe they have one, and I was always unaware of it, but if that's the case, that's a big problem as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:55 AMApparently Aerojet is getting into the responsive reusable engine business (albeit with Air Force funding). I think that's great, but I have to wonder if the reporter has been paying attention to what has been going on in the industry:
The last US-designed and produced hydrocarbon engine was the Rocketdyne RS-27, based on 1960s technology and now out of production.
There may be some qualifying adjectives that would make that statement true (of thrust greater than X? Used in an orbital launch system?), but folks like XCOR and Armadillo, and Masten, and several contenders for the LLC would be surprised to learn that they haven't been designing and producing hydrocarbon engines for the past few years.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:15 AMThe Rocket Racing League is going to make a press announcement on Monday, but the release raises some questions:
Rocket Racing League Composites Corp. will announce the acquisition of a leading aircraft manufacturer and a partnership with a leading engine manufacturer...
...WHO:
Granger Whitelaw, CEO, Rocket Racing League
Peter Diamandis, Co-Founder, Rocket Racing League
Adam Smith, Vice President, EAA
Len Fox, Test Pilot, Rocket Racing Composites Corp.
Scott Baker, President, Velocity Aircraft
Neil Milburn, Armadillo Aerospace
John Carmack, Armadillo Aerospace
We have a missing player, and a new player. XCOR was building the initial racers, but they don't seem to be represented at the event. And this is the first time that I've heard Armadillo associated with the project. So apparently, for whatever reason, Armadillo is now providing propulsion for the racers, and they're apparently acquiring an aircraft manufacturer (Velocity?). I wonder why they have to acquire Velocity. Can't they just buy modified aircraft? Or maybe they're being imprecise in language, and it's also a partner?
This obviously raises many questions, none of which I know the answers to, but it would seem to be bad news (though of course by no means fatal) for XCOR. It certainly won't affect their work on the Lynx. It's also good news for Armadillo, and it means a new customer with apparent confidence in their hardware, even after the engine problems at the cup last October.
Perhaps the questions will be answered at the press conference, if asked.
[Update a few minutes later]
Actually, on reconsideration, it's not even obvious that it is bad news for XCOR (though clearly John Carmack must think that it's good for Armadillo, or he wouldn't have done the deal). It could be that, now that they're trying to focus on developing a true suborbital vehicle, the RRL work was proving to be a distraction for them that they've now gotten out from under. But it's speculation on my part, either way.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:07 PMATK is making noises about commercializing Ares 1. Unsurprisingly, it's full of bovine excrement right off the bat:
Ron Dittemore, president of ATK Launch Systems, said the human-rating that led NASA to build the Ares I first stage around the shuttle booster should also be attractive to other customers with "high-value" payloads, including the Defense Dept. and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
"Ares I can deliver humans, can deliver payload to low Earth orbit; it can deliver payload to geosynchronous Earth orbit and beyond - planetary missions - it's got that much capability," Dittemore said at the 24th National Space Symposium here. "And what's unique is that since we're designing this vehicle with human reliability, proven demonstrated systems, high-value payload customers may see a real attractiveness to putting either DOD or NRO payloads on this launch system."
First of all, the Shuttle booster is not "human rated." The Shuttle itself is not, and never has been, human-rated (I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I wish that we could expunge the phrase "human rating" from our vocabulary--very few phrases in the space business are as misunderstood and misused by so many as this one). What he means is that the fact that they have been willing to use the SRB for the Shuttle (despite the fact that in the case of Challenger, it destroyed the vehicle and killed the crew) led them to decide that it was reliable enough to use for Ares.
One of the things that people don't understand about "human rating" is that it is not (just) about reliability, which is the probability of mission success. Human rating is about safety, which is a different thing. It is about the ability to know when the mission is about to go sour, and the ability to safely get away from the vehicle before it does. So while reliability is nice, what's much more important is warning time and escapability, from the launch pad all the way to orbit (something that the Shuttle has never had, which is why it's not human rated).
But satellites aren't going to have a launch escape system, so they don't care about human rating. What they care about is reliability, and I have seen zero evidence that Ares is going to be more reliable than either Delta IV or Atlas V. Human rating the latter two vehicles will not involve making them more reliable--it will involve putting in the systems needed for adequate failure onset detection (FOSD) and ensuring that they have adequate performance to eliminate abort blackout zones throughout their trajectory (something much more difficult for the Delta than the Atlas, due to to its underpowered second stage). So from a mission assurance standpoint, Ares has nothing to offer to a satellite owner over the current commercial vehicles.
Moreover, there is no discussion of cost. Even if they can get away with not having to amortize development, because the government paid for it and it's sunk, how much of an army will a NASA-developed/operated vehicle require? History would indicate a pretty large one, particularly given the politics of the situation. So will a commercial launch have to pay its share of the annual fixed operating costs, or will ATK (unfairly) be able to subsidize and undercut the ULA by only paying marginal costs for the launch, and having NASA pay the freight for the rest? And it will have to use the VAB for processing, and the NASA pad for launch. Will NASA be reimbursed for the use of its facilities? How much?
This seems like a huge potential bucket of worms, and all because NASA decided that it had to develop its own launch vehicle.
Is ATK serious? I doubt it. I suspect that this is just a PR move to maintain political support for it among the rubes inside the Beltway who don't understand these issues, to show that it has applications beyond the NASA lunar (and ISS) missions. Unfortunately, it may work.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Oh, and how could I forget this? How thrilled will the satellite owners be to put their bird on the paint mixer that is the Ares 1, on top of that five-segment solid, when they can get a smooth ride on a Delta or Atlas?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:15 AMI mentioned yesterday that, in addition to hawking rockets, John Carmack had an assessment of the state of the industry and his competition. If you didn't read it, it's well worth a read, and I largely agree with it. Just a few quibbles:
Scaled / Virgin is the safest bet for success. Outside of the X-15, Space Ship One is the only example of a reusable, 100km class manned vehicle. Everyone else, us included, requires a lot more extrapolation for an investor to believe in, and the problem isn't nearly as trivial as some people like to make it out to be with the "There are no technical challenges, just give us the money!" lines. It is not true that any old team could have won the X-Prize if Paul Allen had given them $20 million.
On this last sentence, while I don't have any reason to think that John is aiming that comment at me in particular, I have made statements, both at Space Access a couple weeks ago and here, that some might mistakenly take to mean that I would dispute this. I have said that Burt's success lay not (just) in his engineering talents, but more importantly, in his reputation and ability to raise the money. When I said that the mystique of Burt has been broken, my point was that many people believed (and still may believe) that only Burt could have won the X-Prize, in terms of technical capability, and I don't believe that to be the case.
Clearly, only Burt was capable of raising the money (at least from Paul Allen) to win the X-Prize, and that this was the critical achievement. I do believe that there are others who, had they been adequately funded (i.e., on the same level as Burt) could have won as well. That does not mean that I believe that "any old team" could have done it--there were obviously many teams that couldn't engineer their way out of a wet kleenex. It takes a combination of engineering capability and funding. There was more engineering capability than funding available, at least at the time, and only Burt had both, so Burt won.
I also agree with John's assessment that Scaled's approach is low risk, but also high marginal cost and not particularly operable (and not as safe as advertised from the standpoint of propulsion--I've long been on record as saying that hybrids have been overhyped from a safety standpoint, and have suggested to Alex Tai that he should be soft peddling this aspect). They've chosen a hyperconservative design that will be safe, but they also risk getting undercut in price by more operable systems with lower marginal costs, and marginal costs are important when you get into a price war. Sir Richard has the funds to subsidize the system for a while to compete, but I doubt if he wants to do it forever. So they are smart to be a space line that will have access to other vehicles, because I suspect that they're going to decide that they need options other than WK2/SS2.
I also agree that Dreamchaser is not a promising concept (again, partly because hybrids have been overhyped). I thoroughly agree with his pithy assessment of EADS/Astrium's laughable proposal: "Oh, please."
I think that his assessment of his own efforts is valid. He has taken an approach of build a little, test a little, and expanded it to build a lot, fly a lot, and he does in fact probably have more test time than all the other folks put together (though as he notes, XCOR is likely to catch up quickly as they move forward with X-Racer and Lynx).
The great thing is that we don't have to bet on a single horse. There are a number of competing approaches, both in terms of how to develop vehicles, and what kind of experience to offer to the customers. You'll never get me in the fishbowl, both because I'd feel much too exposed, but also because I don't think that I'll ever trust engines alone to get me down safely. That doesn't mean that it won't be a successful concept in the market, though. Unlike many, I don't foolishly extrapolate my own interests to the rest of the marketplace. I think that there will be different strokes for different folks, and that only by trying a number of different approaches will we see how many of them will be successful, and which will be most successful, which is something that will never happen under a government space program (though we had at least a shot at it under Steidle's plan for a CEV fly-off, until Mike came along and canned him, and implemented the One True Concept).
We've been talking for a long time about a return to the early days of aviation, with a wide variety of approaches, and letting the market sort it out. It appears that we're finally on the verge of seeing that happen, and I find it very exciting, for all that it's belated.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:03 AMClark Lindsey has helpfully pulled together and organized a bunch of links on one page covering Space Access '08.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:00 AMA few weeks ago, I mentioned a new space blog, called Parabolic Arc, which had pretty good content. Unfortunately, the colors chosen for it (gray text on black background) made it almost literally unreadable. That problem has been fixed, so I'd urge folks to check it out again. (It's been in the blogroll for a while. I'm actually tempted to move it up higher in preference to some others that are being updated very infrequently).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:19 AMJohn Carmack mentioned this at the conference a week and a half ago, but I don't think I reported it, at least not in any detail. Armadillo is willing to sell vehicles to anyone who wants to fly them (presumably subject to ITAR restrictions):
The way to look at it is as a "rocket trainer", rather than a vehicle that can perform any kind of real lunar or suborbital mission. We don't pretend that the vehicles could actually land on the moon, but if you want to hack on a real, flying system, there is a lot of value to be had.
The price is $500k. The experience of the Lunar Lander Challenge shows quite clearly that you aren't likely to do it yourself for less, even if you spend a couple years at it. Several intelligent and competent people thought otherwise, and have been proven incorrect.You can have either a module or a quad, at your choice. The quad has more hover duration, but it is more of a hassle to operate. A module could be fulfilled right now, a quad would take about three months to build, since we are still planning on using Pixel for LLC this year and other tasks. The engine will be one of our new film cooled stainless chambers, and we will warrant it for ten flights. If it blows up or burns through in that time frame, we will replace it. We will not replace the vehicle if it crashes, but historically our engine problems have been visible at startup, and you should have an opportunity to abort the flight. Ground support equipment is included, except for the lox dewar(s), which would be specific to your local lox vendor. We will test the vehicle ourselves, then train your crew to operate it. You get copies of our experimental permit applications and information about the insurance policies we use for permitted flights. Details on modifications to the flight control software are negotiable.
If he got a big order, or multiple customers who wanted delivery ASAP, I wonder how he'd respond? Would he ramp up production (with the intrinsic risks to quality), or keep supply constant and crank up the price? As I've said for a long time, at some point this is going to have to transition from a hobby to a business for him, and it seems to me that this has the potential to force that decision, if he has a significant number of takers.
I also wonder how much new engines will cost, assuming that they're only good for ten flights (he doesn't say that, but it's all he's willing to warrant them for). Let's say that the engines are half the cost of the vehicle. That would mean a cost of $25K a flight to amortize the engines, which is a lot more than propellant costs. It seems to me that if he only thinks that he can get ten flights, engine life is where his emphasis needs to be for reducing operating costs. It's also hard to see how he can charge the same amount for a module as a quad, since the latter has four engines in it. I'd really like to understand more about this proposition.
He follows up the offer with his assessment of the industry (and his competition), but I'll save my thoughts on that for another post.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:38 AMJeff Foust reports on the administrator's testimony before the Senate:
"Do not confuse my desire for international collaboration for a willingness to rely on others for strategic capability," he said in open remarks at a subcommittee hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee last week. Dependence on Soyuz "is not an option we would choose, but it is where we are today. In fact, we must seek an exception to the Iran Syria North Korea Nonproliferation Act because we have no immediate replacement for the shuttle and no other recourse if we wish to sustain the ISS."
Given that statement, you would think that Griffin would be interested in accelerating domestic commercial options like COTS that would lessen or eliminate an reliance on the Russians. Yet, in his comments later in the hearing, he was not that interested in pursuing a crew option for COTS (also known as Capability D) on an accelerated schedule.
Yeah, you'd think. But I suspect that he fears that if COTS is seen to be making too-rapid progress, it will jeopardize funding for Ares/Orion, by making them seem superfluous. Of course, the traditional argument is that they are designed for the lunar mission, whereas a station crew transfer capability wouldn't have that additional capability. And Orion is supposedly not just for going back to the moon but for use in a Mars mission as well (though it is never explained what its role is in such a mission). I can't believe anyone seriously believes that a Mars mission would be performed in a glorified Apollo capsule--it's simply too small, and the crew would go nuts. If it's meant as the means to return them to earth upon return to earth orbit, well, OK, but it's pretty pathetic to think that, seventy years after the first lunar landing, we would still be returning people to the planet in a capsule on a chute (particularly if they end up with a water landing).
Of course, the real danger is that we'll get the worst of both worlds--a continuation of Ares/Orion, which are supposedly being built because they are necessary to go to the moon, but we drop the lunar mission from the policy, so they revert to simply replacing (or competing with) COTS crew capability. And unfortunately, as devoted Democrat Greg Zsidisin has discovered in a one on one, that seems to be exactly Obama's plan. The only saving grace of it is that, in delaying the development by five years, it really means that the program will die. But it betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of space policy, and space hardware and development, on the part of Obama and/or his advisors. You can't "delay" a program like this and have any hope that it won't end up costing much more over the long run, particularly because you'll lose many of the key personnel for it, who aren't going to sit around twiddling their thumbs at no pay for half a decade while Obama solves the education problem. It's really quite absurd. But then, most of his proposed policies are--one of the many reasons that he isn't going to be elected.
As an aside, Jim Muncy said during the wrap-up panel last week in Phoenix that NASA has a bigger problem with the Iran Non-Proliferation Act than buying Soyuzes to replace Shuttle. Because the facilities are in the Russian segment, the ISS astronauts won't even be able to use the potty if they don't get a waiver, which could get pretty interesting on a six-month tour. The notion brought up the obvious jokes: "You'll just have to hold it," and "You should have gone before you launched..."
[Tuesday morning update]
Jon Goff has further thoughts:
...if you were a congressman or senator with a limited amount of money available, and you have two risky ventures to pick from to try and reduce the gap, what would you do? Would you place all your money on the one option where your money is going to be a relative drop in the bucket, and that even then has little or no chance of actually reducing the gap? Or would you invest at least part of your money in a much smaller program where it has a much higher probability of actually hastening the day when the US once again has manned spaceflight capabilities--and better yet, commercial manned spaceflight capabilities?
You do the math.
Unfortunately, the only math that interests most congresspeople is the number of jobs in their district or state, with "the Gap" a distant second place. Mike knows that, which is why he can get away with this stuff, or at least why he has to date.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:12 PMJon Goff has a wrap up of the issues (mostly technical) that came up in the panel discussion last Friday in Phoenix.
As he notes, there was little discussion of what other markets we can find than DoD and NASA. The problem is that until the capability is demonstrated, it's going to be very hard to sell it to the conservative comsat industry. The nearest-term plausible private market that I can conceive of is Bigelow, if he still wants to do his lunar cruises. It would be interesting to put together a business model using Genesis modules swinging around the moon, and see if it's greater or less than projected NASA Constellation needs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 AMUntil Yuri's Night. It will also be the twenty-seventh anniversary of the first Shuttle launch.
Looking at the map, the only Florida party I see is up in Cocoa Beach. Between Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, you'd think that south Florida would be able to come up with something.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:35 AMIt's not the space programs that are a fantasy, Mark. The fantasy is the ludicrous wishful thinking on your part that either of them are racing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:47 AMJon Goff has the Powerpoints of Friday night's propellant depot panel, including mine.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:44 AMJeff Foust has a story today on the current real space race (as opposed to the fantasy one between the US and China)--the new race for customers in the suborbital market. It's basically a compilation of last week's XCOR press conference announcement and this past weekend's Space Access conference, both of which I attended. This to me is the key point:
"Quietly, this has turned into a horse race," said conference organizer Henry Vanderbilt during a wrap-up panel at the conclusion of the Space Access conference. "There are a lot of people who could be the first to fly a passenger to suborbit at this point. Two years ago I'm sure the money would have been on Virgin Galactic. It isn't necessarily so at this point."
"What struck me about the events of this week was that we have finally, with all due respect, broken the mystique of Burt [Rutan]," Rand Simberg, an aerospace engineer and blogger, said. "He has had setbacks"--referring to the engine test accident last July that killed three Scaled Composites employees--"and, this week, now he has a competitor." The growing awareness of companies other than Virgin "is going to be very good for the industry.""This perception of a horse race is probably a really, really good thing for investment," said Joe Pistritto, an angel investor. "Ninety-nine percent of the people who could invest in this industry don't know about this industry" but may start to learn about it as the find out about these competing companies.
If it is a horse race, who will win the ultimate prize: not just the first vehicle to enter the market, but the one that wins the market in the long run? The diversity of technical approaches, from the takeoff and landing techniques to the number of passengers, makes any predictions difficult. "If there's four different operators flying people into space, their offerings are going to be a little different," said Pistritto. "So you see an actual segmentation of the market around the experience you want, how much money you have, and where you are."
What I meant about the "mystique of Burt" was the notion that the winning of the X-Prize was some kind of fluke, enabled only because the most brilliant aeronautical engineer in the world applied his genius to it. Many have used this as an excuse to denigrate the efforts of others building suborbital vehicles, which hasn't made it any easier to raise money for such ventures.
Many seem to believe that it really takes the genius of a Rutan to build a suborbital vehicle. As evidence of this proposition, they point out that no other suborbital vehicles have been flown since 2004.
But in so doing, they display a fundamental ignorance of the nature of the technology and the requirements. There is no "one way" to skin that cat, and never was. Burt's design was clever, and perhaps intrinsically safer, but it was not necessary, and there are other, better ways to do the job that are safe enough. It's not at all clear that the SS1 approach is the best one for a commercial application, and if one includes in that the hybrid propulsion, it's already caused delays (though those are partly due to Scaled taking on a project outside their area of expertise--they're an aircraft manufacturer, not a propulsion house) in their development program, and it's certain to result in higher operational costs and increased turnaround time.
The real point is that if only Burt could win the X-Prize, it wasn't because he was the only guy smart enough to design a vehicle to do it. It was because he was the only guy with the reputation of being smart enough to be able to raise the money to do it. When it comes to space ventures, the hardest part is always raising the money. The technical challenges generally pale in comparison.
So, with schedule delays in SS2, now comes XCOR. XCOR has a reputation of its own, hard won over the past eight years, of underpromising and overdelivering. So when they have a (rare, almost unheard of) press conference announcing that they have the design and the cash to build a suborbital vehicle, with an endorsement from the Air Force Research Laboratory, the world listens, and suddenly it's a real race.
Evidence that the mystique has been broken is this CNBC story by Jane Wells from last week, after XCOR's announcement, with the hed "Branson And Northrop May Be Backing "Wrong" Rocket Man!"
Burt is no longer God, other companies are getting serious attention from both business journalists and investors, and it's been a very good week for the new space industry and space age.
I remember when I first started blogging, over six years ago, it was considered quite controversial to state that being hit by extraterrestrial objects was a legitimate concern, and one in which we should invest resources to prevent. But over the past few years, evidence continues to accumulate that there have been significant events within historical times that, had the occurred today, could cause millions of casualties. For example, some researchers are now quite confident that if God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, He did it with an asteroid.
On the other hand, a half-mile-wide object would make a hell of a bang that should be pretty obvious from orbit today, so one has to be a little skeptical. I'd like to see how they arrived at that diameter.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:55 AMVirgin
It occurs to me that with hundreds of millions being spent on crewing Virgin's air fleet that spending a few tens of millions to build and operate Space Ship Two might be justified on personnel policy grounds. Giving the Virgin airlines pilots a chance to go to an elite school to learn to be White Knight pilots or Space Ship Two pilots might make them happier, more productive workers who spread good cheer and promote good labor relations. The same could be true for customer and aircraft ground personnel. So the Virgin Galactic investment might make sense for labor morale and not just for marketing and to keep the owner happy.
XCOR
I like Lynx (see The Space Review this week). At $17 million, it needs operating profit of $4.25 million to achieve a 25% return for investors. I don't think XCOR has been seeking debt financing (contrary to the philosophy of take the smallest possible risk) so strategic investors can invest with their heart and be happy seeking a slightly lower monetary return. $4.25 million assuming 1/3 going to the space line and 1/3 going to cost would leave 1/3 to pay investors so XCOR would need to capture $12.75 million/year of the market. At $100,000/flight that's 128 flights or about 5% of their annual capacity assuming three vehicles and 50% up-time for each vehicle and 4 flights/day.
With some predicting a 15,000 seat market ($3 billion/year at $200,000 which is closest to EADS's estimate) and Futron at 500 seats growing to thousands of seats over a couple of decades ending at about $700 million/year in 2021, XCOR's required fraction of the market to achieve a 25% investor return is about 25% of seats or 14% of money given their initial price point in a 500-seat/year market 2% of the money in a $700 million/year market or 1% of a 15,000 seat market (0.5% of the money).
--
If either of these teams is to begin test flights in 2010 and service in 2011 or 2012, I'd look for announcements like "fully funded", regulatory hurdles met, various announcements about engineering hurdles, then an actual test flight program. It would be nice if they gave a public timeline of minimum time from each event to first paying participant flight. I don't think more secrecy than is necessary for mystery and buzz is beneficial with each team taking a different approach and offering a well-differentiated product that requires extensive disclosure to meet regulatory hurdles and attract customers.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 10:35 AMJoe Pistritto: We have a couple teams (Virgin and XCOR) that are planning to fly in a couple years, about the same time as the Shuttle is retired. At that point, the NewSpace industry will be the only way that Americans can get into space, and in that first year more people may fly into space on the new vehicles than have flown in space to date. At that point everyone in the country will have a better idea what this new industry does.
Henry Vanderbilt: Also, they'll see that there is a horse race. A year or two ago it was assumed that Virgin would be first to market. That's no longer the case.
Joe: There are going to be different types of experiences at different price points, and as the horse race becomes more clear, it will expose the business to a lot of potential investors who haven't been paying attention up to now. This is good not just for investment, but for creating a supply chain of suppliers that are needed. Still thinks that this is an individual investor market. Venture funds can't justify this investment in the current business environment. Can do it with their own money, but not someone else's. For someone with their own money, there's no industry that is more exciting than this one.
Henry: Not important who comes in first. Emphasis needs to be that there is competition and that we're in for exciting times.
Muncy: Difference between spaceflight participants (passengers) and Russ Blink strapping on an oxygen tank and flying out of the atmosphere on an Armadillo vehicle. Markets are wonderful magical things. We have no idea what the possibilities are (who knew that someone would program Doom eventually when Bill Gates said 640K would be plenty). Smart guys in the military might figure out what to do with these things once they're flying. NASA may want to replace the T-38s now that they're not flying the Shuttle any more (I think he means Gulfstream), or they might want to practice lunar simulations.
Challenge is to figure out how to get customers interested beyond the tourist flights. It will be different flying in the back of SpaceShipTwo than flying in the cockpit of the Lynx. We'll see what the market wants. Lord willing the market will want both, and other flavors. The good things about markets is that if you offer something out there of value, it will be rewarded. Thinking about package tours of all the vehicles: Grand Slam of rockets.
[Update]
At that point, I got pulled up to join the panel by Muncy, so I couldn't blog it.
Anyway, another conference is history. More thoughts later.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:35 PMJeff Foust has a report on an interesting talk by Charles Miller that I missed yesterday.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:45 PMSays that we have to engage SEDS, both because it's a good source of enthusiastic people who will work cheap, and more importantly because we aren't getting any younger, and we have to start nurturing young people.
He's here from Washington, and he's here to help.
Depressing to sit in meetings in Washington listening people talk about The Vision, and hearing the same things he heard about X-33, SEI, Space Station Freedom, etc. They don't even seem to learn any new lies.
It is silly season in Washington. Working on the budget. It's an election bill so they won't even finish the budget before the election. Wants the election to be over, and has wanted it to be over for months.
Does it matter? Probably not. He and Lori Garver did a "debate" (really an assessment of the candidates at the time) a month and a half ago. Hillary is probably the most supportive of space spending. Fairly pro defense for a New York Democrat. Has in tepid words endorsed the idea of the vision. Also said positive words about private companies and working with them. Has not specifically endorsed Ares.
McCain's experience with space has been primarily concerned with cost control and getting the job done right.
Obama is the most interesting, and unclear what he thinks. But there is potential for something different, because he says Shuttle is boring. Instincts are not to support current NASA approach. But worst thing would be to continue Ares I and Orion and delay lunar missions. Could create opportunities, or not. Crisis is coming, and crisis represents opportunities. NASA and Air Force are not monoliths.
"You should see the list of things that Orbital wants from Florida to get them to move ther e from Wallops." There are figures inside the establishment calling for different approaches. Senator Nelson is writing a bill that increases COTS by several hundred million dollars to augment SpaceX and bring in an additional provider for crew transport. He recognizes that this is the only way to have a chance of closing "the Gap." Senator Shuttle recognizes that he has to bring private space companies to Florida.
We've seen NASA put out an RFI for human suborbital science from the private sector. Things are changing. But don't assume that NASA and the Air Force have come around in general. Also don't assume that NASA or the Air Force are going to write you a check. Have to figure out what their real mission/requirements are.
We are the PC industry of space. It wasn't just the people running the computer centers and mainframes thinking that PCs were choice. The challenge was getting the people who used computers then to think through what they did, and how they did it, and imagine doing it differently, and how they could use these new small computers. There are half a dozen people like Ken inside of NASA, but that's not enough. We have to do their job (which is also our job) which is to figure out how to provide value to them
from their perspective. What he does for a living is help companies do that.
We have to figure out how we play a role in this future, and if an Obama becomes president, and we can't continue to fund space on an ICBM budget, and we want to continue to send people into space, we will have to come up with new ways.
ESAS is not the same as the Vision. The Aldridge Report is right. It's not perfect, but it's largely right. It's not a blueprint, which is why Griffin was upset with it, and wrote one of his own instead.
Work together, build alliances, come up with concepts to get to market sooner. As the dinosaurs die off, there will be some scraps for the mammals, and room to grow. We are coming to the attention of powerful people, which is a good thing. There are good times ahead, and people are figuring out that there is something wrong. The house of cards is going to fall. Can't say well, but it's going to fall.
Mike Griffin might be arrogant (and he has enough degrees to justify that) and he may be building the wrong rockets, but he has also been putting money into commercial activities while he builds das rocketz. We haven't proven ourselves. Elon still hasn't launched a payload to orbit. John Carmack still hasn't won his two million dollars. Only Burt has an accomplishment to date. We can't just be intellectually correct. We have to show the world that we can do it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:07 PMChuck Lauer starts by informing us that Kistler and Rocketplane have been split off into separate companies. Still want to resurrect Kistler--only two-stage reusable out there.
Bottom line was that markets didn't buy the value proposition that NASA could be a reliable anchor customer.
Drawing contrast between their max gees and Virgin's. Rocketplane is four, Virgin is six. Thinks it will be a significant difference. In terms of market research, early studies had to spend a lot of time educating the customer. Now there's a lot more awareness of various products (runway takeoff and landing single vehicle, versus air drop versus vertical) and it would be useful to update the market research.
Need public/private partnership unless you're a billionaire like Jeff Bezos. They are continuing to partner with Oklahoma, and the action is primarily between the companies and the states, not the federal government. Even Florida is waking up the fact that the entrepreneurial space community is the future.
Marketing strategy is to work with partners all over the world. Going after one third of the tourist market. Expect 80/20 tourism/other (microgravity science and microsatellite), but the latter may be a bigger market than they think. Looking at charter flight model with things like reality teevee shows, sponsorship of contests (currently have one going with Nestle--paying full price for two seats and giving them away). Can see the Kitkat promotion at nestle.fr. Another contest in India for a multi-media company with a four-episode show to pick the winner. Winner's sound bite: "I want to see what it's like to pee in space."
They can provide a blank canvas for corporate customers without having to compete with a brand (as they do with Virgin).
Lost a year plus of schedule in 2005/2006 as a result of the focus on COTS. Original plan was to build a couple four-place Learjet version, and then build a bigger version for more throughput. Since then have taken a step back and decided to go directly to the larger vehicle, built from scratch. New vehicle is pure cylinder fuselage, cabin the size of a large SUV 2+2+2 seating, with more revenue per flight but no increase in ops costs. Upgraded to an after-burning turbo jet with higher thrust, shorter takeoff roll, higher air-breathing altitude.
Frank Nuovo designed the interior of the aircraft (former head cellphone designer for Nokia). Everyone sees out the front (even in the rear seats), has their own window, and a personal video display. Will show tail camera view during ascent. Video screen will also be selectable for different angles. May use Google Earth overlay on monitor to know what you're looking at.
[Update at 11:30 AM MST]
I got pulled away from the rest of the Lauer talk, but Clark Lindsey has some good notes, as well as more from the Frontier Astronautics talk.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:18 AMJohn Carmack is starting off with a video of Lunar Landing Challenge, showing the failed attempt to win last fall.
Likes the new single-tank design compared to the old quad. It's easier to service, though a little harder to transport because it's much taller.
Seeing views that we hadn't seen at the time, from the three on-board cameras.
Now showing a burn of methane engine that they've been developing with NASA.
Now have four modules of the six that they plan to build their suborbital vehicle. Landing gear turns out to be one of the heavier items, as heavy as the tank. Sticking to dual tanks and single engine on each module. 800 psi pressure tank, with rubber landing pads. Thus tank is also landing gear.
Steps to commercial vehicle. Some debate whether differential throttling will work for control. Recent experience indicates that it is sluggish to respond, because throttling can't be done fast enough on a peroxide engine, but a bi-prop engine may be more manageable.
Definitely disappointment after losing the cup. Thought they'd done everything they needed to prepare for. They'd done many test flights, including five 180 second flights (long enough to go to space). Had three vehicles, any one of which could do the ninety-second challenge. But they had five starts with three wrecked engines. Still not sure what the problem was, but think that (sorry, going to fast to capture it all), but think it had something to do with cooling jacket capacity and start-up processes that resulted in fuel entering the chamber prematurely. BIggest difference was that they turned the vehicles faster at the cup than during normal tests, and there could have been slight differences in chamber pressures or fuel ratios at a given point in time that had catastrophic results. May have had an assembly error (leaving out an O-ring that resulted in a fuel leak), but can't be sure.
Disheartening, but compared to all the other hardware at the airshow with thousands of flights, they couldn't have the statistical confidence as those military aircraft. Learned a lot of lessons. Don't expect it to work the first time. Even with modern engineering practice, it won't happen. Not arrogant enough to think they've solved all the problems, or even know what they are. Expect to lose several of the modules in flight testing. But once they find the problems, they're confident they can solve them. On propulsion, engine now starts and stops like a light switch. Expecting high-speed aero problems.
On business scale issues, things are accelerating. Half a million in contract work, NASA and a commercial customer not to be disclosed. Starting to talk more like Jeff Greason now--transitioning from hobby to business. Won't sell components, because integration is critical. Will sell functional systems (such as propulsion). Currently at around 5000 lbf thrust, will sell for a couple hundred thousand bucks. Will sell complete vehicle for half a million. Talking to Lunar Google X-Prize teams. Won't warrant that it will land on the moon, but if they want to buy one for testing, he'll sell it. Has very little confidence in Google Lunar X-Prize--doesn't think anyone has what it takes. Talking to aerospace companies about sensor suite testing and lunar simulations. Still thinks highly of suborbital passenger market. Thinks there's a market, and has all the pieces: propulsion, control, insurance, etc. Not worried about schedules, because SS2 continues to slip.
Had hoped that he was past the point where he didn't have to invest any more, but did recently. However, more of a float issue, or loan, until some other things come in. "Perseverance and determination will get us there."
Problem with LLC: once a year demonstration is the worst thing for a technical challenge. Adds pressure for tough decisions that can distract from main commercial goals. Afraid to do boosted hops at higher altitudes because they don't want to risk if for the challenge. Have three vehicles, but last year's experience shows that's not enough for redundancy. Ready to do it now, but have to wait until end of year and keep hardware available for it.
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey has more on Armadillo, and a report on the previous talk on laser launch by Jordin Kare.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:46 PMClark Lindsey (who is now sitting next to me) has a summary up of the morning sessions that I missed.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:18 PMDan DeLong starts off by telling Paul Breed that they learned a long time ago at XCOR that green is bad, stop right now.
This talk is more than just Lynx, they'll be talking about the other things they're working on as well. Can't talk about the Rocket Racer, because Rocket Racing League controls information on that. The piston pump is working well on it, though, and it's the same pump that will be used on the Lynx, for both fuel and LOX.
There is no more Xerus. The concept has been changing, business model changing, aero changing, and they decided that they have a new stable configuration that they can give a name to. That is Lynx.
They're having trouble with the computer display. Making jokes about Microsoft, and saying that their flight software won't be windows. Dan talking about conversation he had night before with Russ Blink of Armadillo, with Russ saying that he'd rather fly a rocket controlled by a computer than one controlled by a human. Dan responded that while it made sense to do a vertical vehicle with computers, but it didn't seem that good to do it with software based on a package called "Doom."
Showing a flow chart of a meat hunt, with overanalysis. Their emphasis is analyze a little, and test a lot.
Showing various past projects--NRO thruster, DARPA LOX pump, methane engine.
Showing video of putting bomb inside of a methane engine to test combustion stability. Four bomb tests, all successful.
Talking about the valves that they've developed, because none were available that met their needs. Also doing own composites for the Lynx. They've come up with a glass-fibre and teflon resin, neither of which will react with oxygen.
Not talking about Lynx. Sunk cost so far $7m, with an estimate of $9M to complete. Showing a video of 50-lbf attitude control thruster, running nitrous/ethane, that will sit in the strakes. This video wasn't shown at the press conference.
Mark II will have hard points on outside. Will carry upper stage dorsally, that can put 10-20 kg payload into LEO. Purpose of the contract is not to help build vehicle. It's for analysis, demonstration and knowledge sharing of its responsive features. Air Force is looking for Operationally Responsive Space (ORS). Air Force has space they need the "OR." XCOR has the "OR" but not the "S." Everyone understand that you can't be cheap at nine times per year, but because XCOR is commercial, they have to make it cheap, which happens by flying often. So Air Force gets the benefit.
Lynx requirements:
Supersonic
Two people
Fly under FAA-AST rules
Goal was to build smallest vehicle that met those requirements.
Showing video of firewall test stand, successive engine runs with increasing pauses, with minimum off time of two seconds. About a half second to start up.
Showing video from press conference now.
Fuel is carried in wing strakes, LOX in fuselage. About two gees at burnout, heading straight up at Mach 1. Mark II will be three gees. Landing speed about 95 knots, takeoff about twice that.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:31 AMPaul Breed is an entrant in the Lunar Landing Challenge. He didn't make to last year's attempt, but expects to do so this year.
They are literally doing everything in their garage. Last year, they built an engine and ran it and it was perfect. They built four more, and it didn't work so well. Showing a film, taken on one Saturday..On the first burn, they saw a green flash, which meant a meltdown of the copper combustion chamber. It turned out that they used a different kind of solder. Then he showed a stability and control test vehicle that was neither controllable or stable. Then their four-quadrant vehicle turned out to be too complex, with too many valves.
This year, they've switched to a monoprop vehicle using peroxide, with sodium permanganate decomposition. New vehicle is spherical tank, using McMaster car parts. Will be tested next week. Doing testing of stability and control unit with a large RC helicopter, which they don't have to go out to the rocket test site (four hours away) to test. Vehicle will be aluminum. Expect to static fire full vehicle in two to four weeks, with first flight test in eight weeks.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:03 AM...and hopefully, to sleep. More conference blogging on the morrow.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:30 PMTim Bendel, of Frontier Astronautics, is giving a presentation on how to address the gap between the ability of garage-based startups and larger companies to raise money. Not very many angels with money who are interested in space who aren't already doing it.
Giving a history of the Zeppelin. After the count lost his first ship, he threw in the towel, because he's lost all his money, but a lot of Germans sent him money, and he ended up with more than he had started with. Are there space enthusiasts who could do the same thing?
Talking about Warren Buffett's stock, and its high value that he refuses to split. Independent holding companies evolved by purchasing a few shares of Berkshire stock, and then issuing new, lower-priced stock based on that asset.
His proposal is to gather small investors for the holding company, put their money into escrow, and fund start-up space companies off the interest. Different "flavors" or classes of stock would be issued, with different Class A escrow accounts, which could be associated with specific start ups.
Unfortunately, most of the info is on his charts, which I can't read because I'm all the way in the back (where the laptop power is), and too dense for me to quickly transcribe even if I could.
He claims that it avoids sunshine laws, according to SEC lawyers that they've talked to. The basic idea is to provide a means for small investors to invest in small companies, albeit indirectly.
Issues: Have to pay for licenses, need to be broker/dealer, etc., a lot of paperwork. Probably about a hundred thousand bucks to get started. Goal is to do it for profit, in addition to helping space industry. Makes money on trades, but could also use other investment tools, such as puts and calls.
Has a business process patent on it, needs about a quarter million to start up.
Hard for me to evaluate it, given my funky state of consciousness, and inability to look at the numbers. I'll talk to TIm about it later.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:07 PMClark Lindsey has his notes up from the first afternoon session of the conference.
[Update a few minutes later]
Henry Cate (who I'm sitting next to) has some posts up as well (no permalinks, just scroll).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:36 PMJess Sponable of AFRL is giving a talk with the post title.
Jess starts out by noting the upcoming fifteenth anniversary of DC-X flight tests.
Common vision between industry and government of reliable, routine, diverse and affordable space access. Confident that it is coming at us, though not sure when.
Discussing HAVE REGION program of the 1970s, which was to develop structural concepts for potential space planes. Subject to thermal and aero loads in test chambers on the ground. All airframes came in within three percent of estimates. Validated loads, with some articles tested to destruction, some deliberately, some otherwise. Best vehicle was Boeing RASV. Honeycomb structure, with very little metal. Highly classified at the time, but now all declassified. Came very close to SSTO weightwise, but concerns were about durability and operability.
Talking about NASP, now. We learned that it's really really hard to get an airbreather all the way to orbit. Have to spend too much time in the atmosphere to take advantage of the scramjet. Had high ISP, but horrible engine T/W--even worse than conventional aircraft engines, and hydrogen fuel was required, which required very large tanks because of its low density. It was a very complex vehicle in terms of shapes, and the heating problems of flying that low in the atmosphere at such higher velocities were very challenging. It would have been a very large vehicle.
Now going on into other SSTO projects. Points out that Mike Griffin actually started the DC-X program while at SDIO. DC-X/XA was the best program he ever worked on. It didn't have to work because it was a test vehicle. They had a 26-hour turnaround time. Pete Conrad was determined to demonstrate three flights a day. Very low infrastructure required (~$600K). First ever composite linerless oxygen tank, long before X-33 tank failed a few years later. NASA tried X-34 and X-33 which both failed.
A missed opportunity was not extending the DC-X program with a more integrated airframe and fly to Mach 8, for about $90M. Once you've flown something and developed that experience base, it's cheaper to extend it. Had they gone for Mach 8 from the beginning of DC-X, it would have been a billion dollar program.
Lesson learned was that two-stage, hydrocarbon fuels is a winner, despite the loss in Isp, because the vehicles are so much smaller. Isn't saying that SSTO isn't the right answer, and that you couldn't build a demonstrator, but it might not be operable.
The reason that the commercial sector is important is because we don't have any choice. We don't have the money to do it the way the government does. Build quick, reduce risk will be a quarter of the cost of government program business as usual.
The good news is that the entrepreneurs are starting to engage, and they're putting a lot more into it than either NASA or the Air Force are interested in. Talking about Bezos, Branson, Musk, Carmack. John Carmack has a great approach--just go build it.
As naval power was built on the back of maritime power (ocean commerce) the Air Force will have to engage with the private sector. AF is continuing to engage in technology push toward operability. Will trade performance gains for operability, which also pushes toward two-stage. Building a ground-based demonstrator tank (common bulkhead) that they want to evolve into a Mach 7 test vehicle. Technology will support wide range of applications.
Mach 12 vehicle will be about the size of an F-15. Not big vehicles with hydrocarbons--lots of room for growth.
Pure energy price to put a person into orbit is about $76. To actually approach that cost will require much higher flight rates than are required by the Air Force, which is why they have to partner with the private sector and private markets.
In giving XCOR the contract, they're not paying them to build a flight test vehicle--they're doing that with their own money. They're paying them for technology development, and it will be shared with the industry. "Build an industry, not just a government program."
Increase in the of knowledge doubling dramatically increasing. By 2020 knowledge will be doubling every 73 days. Time is on our side. AFRL will be continuing to push and mature technology that are beyond our horizon, but some of them will be helpful to us now.
Technologies are more complex than initial Wright work for airplanes, but we are getting to the point that we can do amazing things with small teams. Discussing technology exchange forum in Dayton where they will present their technologies to private developers to make them aware of what the Air Force has. Also a three-day workshop in New Mexico for the DC-X anniversary to discuss lessons learned for the future.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:19 PMThis is what I would have live blogged at yesterday's XCOR press conference if I'd had an Internet commercial.
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Doug Graham gives an introduction. Leads off by introducing Esther Dyson.
Took it for granted that she would be going to the moon, but space was like a priesthood, for NASA and big companies, not for ordinary folk. If you wanted to go into space you went into industry and lost your entrepreneurial initiative, or you wrote science fiction (Pournelle). PCs have made computing cheaper by orders of magnitude. The Internet was developed by the government, but its potential didn't explode until it was turned over to the commercial sector. In the software world, you can build a business by copying software, but you can steal XCOR's plans, and not be an XCOR and not build a Lynx. Not qualified to judge the technology. But she can judge the customers, and the people and their approach. She's investing in Jeff and the team that he surrounded himself with. Real-world company. Not making wild-eyed promises, but transparent and making promises they will be held accountable for.
Greason: Just notified that Air Force wants to continue to fund their SBIR, and the process would make parts of the vehicle public over time, so announcing now. Most people wouldn't be able to tell the last few versions apart. Also wanted to let potential travelers know what else was out there. Airframe designed from scratch to be optimized for the engines. Fly from the ground out into space, see stars, earth curvature, earth below, experience weightlessness. Looking at different ways to package people in vehicle, and shifted from Xerus to Lynx about three years ago. Referring to Metacomp Technologies CFD support. Started with engines in 1999, because it was clear that this was the critical technology at the time for building these kinds of vehicles. High flight rate is critically important. Allows a much smaller vehicle, with single passenger, and still fly as many people with a smaller vehicle that flies less often. Regulatory regime is unique in the world. By requiring developers to release safety records, there wil be competitive pressure for safer vehicles. High flight rate, low cost propulsion systems will be able to offer prices at roughly half the price of competitors. Smallest vehicle that they can build--if they could figure out a way to fly half a passenger they would do that. Not that last step--just one more step on a roadmap they laid out years ago: low suborbital, high suborbital, orbital. Thinks that this business is important, and that demonstrating a vehicle like this can make money will bring new capital into the market.
rt
Rick Searfoss: Was convinced would never fly into space again after leaving NASA. After working with XCOR, became convinced that it was possible, except this time can take wife (if she wants to go). Showing video of virtual vehicle being rolled out of hangar, checking out engines on runway, lighting it up, and on its way. Similar to high-performance fighter aircraft. Flight test and ops will take place same place (initially) as Yeager's first flight. All-liquid rocket propulsion technology. Using same approaches as X-15 and Shuttle--dead stick landing. Well proven and easy to do, except they have the ability for go-around, reducing risk. Absolutely enthralled with the prospect of flying Lynx through test phase to the point that they can safely fly the paying public. XCOR an impressive organization. Lots of people want to get into the game, but very few really have capability to make it happen--XCOR is one of those. Scalable, developable, vey amenable to flight-test regime. As a test pilot he loves it. Flight test isn't about taking risk--it's about mitigating and controlling them while expanding the performance envelope. Most impressive thing about space is the view (riding up front, next to piot). Weightless experience is more different than you can imagine, but still second place to the view. Excited about working with this technical team to make it a reality, and open up space to many people in the future.
LA Times: What is state of vehicle.
Vehicle is sufficiently designed that they can start to build.
Pressurized cockpit, suit?
Yes, pressurized cockpit with life support, but will have pressure suits for additional layer of safety. Searfoss: Developing suits with Orbital Outfitters, which will be lighter and more manageable to wear. Not pressurized, and can fly with faceplate open. Dyson: You get to wear a space suit, and keep it.
Will passengers need physicals?
Missed the response.
Can't address price point, because they are not the retailers. "our price to them is sufficiently low that the can charge about half the competition.
How large is the market. Jeff know one knows for sure, but a lot of research has been done. Dyson: a lot of people with more money than time. They can't do a safari in Africa, but can do this in a day.
some training needed for suit operations, but shouldn't take more than a few days and doesn't have to happen right next to the flight.
Is 200,000 feet high enough? "More than high enough to satisfy the people who haven't flown at all. By the time that market is worked off, will have higher vehicles. Direct competitor is Scaled/SSCompany. Very different concepts. Doesn't think that any one will be the way to go. Different vehicles for different experiences. They only have one passenger with a co-passenger experience. Theirs is direct from runway to space, with no mother ship.
Test flights first half of 2010.
Why not carried aloft, to shorten rocket burn, like SS2? Expect that there will be competition on cost, so rather than focus on how fast to get there, but how to design a system that's cost effective to operate, but be able to compete as well. That led to the engineering choice of doing it in a single vehicle. Trade off is to have more advanced rocket propulsion, which is why there started there.
Why suborbital when the problem is orbital. Esther: likes speciation--going after a real market niche in the short term, with real technology that will continue to involve over time. It's a good business case. Jeff looks forward to the day that he can announce an orbital system, and you'll be able to see the heritage from what we're doing today, and obvious that a step-wise approach is better than "hail Mary" to orbit.
Air Force contract more important psychologically than financially. Very validating to have them watching over shoulders and trusting them. Don't have all the money yet, but don't expect any problems based on current discussion with investors. Ride is about thirty minutes, with last twenty a glide home. Only difference between Lynx one and two (none external), but 2 will be full-performance version. Can fly one without waiting for ultimate perfect vehicle.
Is it high enough to be in space? Tee-shirt factor is an issue, but still a big market for early adopters. Not technically in space (50 miles, 100 km), and that will obviously be worth more, but they will get to that point. Price allows multiple flights. In terms of passenger sizing, Greason is the model (because he wants to fly, and because he's 95th percentile).
Total burn time is about three minutes, weightless about a minute and a half.
Start with taxi tests, then runway hops, then fly arounds, then subsonic (thirty or forty), then carefully through transition, then take it to the limit. Fifty to seventy to a hundred flight tests.
What infrastructure required? Franchise to other places in the world? Do you expect Mojave to be upgraded to New Mexico class?
No infrastructure required except runways and air space. Doesn't expect California taxpayers to build them new facilities. Expects to fly all over the world, because people want to operate from their own turf.
Do you need to be supersuper wealthy? Comparable to Everest operation. Had two teachers who bought flights on Zero Gee at 3500. Was it worth it? Absolutely, will share with students and remember forever. Greason: Of course price will come down. Aren't we glad that people bought plasma teevees and cell phones so that now we can all afford them? Never be dirt cheap, but could come down to the price of a cruise.
2700-3000 lb class engines for engines, with three of them. Weight of vehicle commensurate with that thrust. One of differences between Mark 1 and Mark 2 will be leading edges on nose for entry, but it's a lot easier than orbit. Peak temp about 1200. Will use commercial for of RP-2.
Not four flight a day per pilot, but perhaps two. Methane interested for upper stages, not for suborbital.
Nice to be first in the marketplace, but better to be right. Multiple parties will be entering this market, and that's great.
How far off is orbital flight? Can it scale up?
Orbital flight is where we want to go. selected this approach because it fits it a roadmap that leads there. That doesn't mean that the vehicle design itself will carry over. It's the systems concepts that will.
Does the vehicle require a sophisticated flight director? Jeff: A very sophisticated one, and he's standing right here (referring to Searfoss). Very simple flight profile required to military vehicle, but expect the vehicle to be flyable by a pilot without a lot of need for automated flight control. Just took a dig at Scaled: "not like we're going to just light off a hybrid rocket motor and we're off on Mr. Toad's Wild Right. "Digital throttle--on or off." Throttling adds complexity and failure modees, and isn't necessary.
How to reassure customers or investors that a cataclysmic failure by them or a competitor won't destroy the industry? ME-163 bad example, but understand that safety has to be high priority. Never find anything in advance, will test, and test, and test. Will have more flights on it than anyone has put on a rocket vehicle before they put passengers in it. In a lot of ways the traveling public are a lot more sophisticated than people judging from the outside. Esther: If it's inevitable, delay it as long as possible, set expectations properly, and realize that part of the appeal is that it is real. People die climbing Everest, often. Don't make light of it, but doesn't have to be a major blow to the industry.
Question to Esther: How important beyond military contracts and private travel, how much business beyond does she need. Not expecting asteroid mining or Mars colonization, but she expects them to develop this spacecraft and its descendants, but wouldn't be surprised to develop new generations of technology and become part of the establishment. Not a long-term prospect. They are disruptive because they're small and quick. Generating reasonable returns from the POV of a VC.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:00 PMThe trip was uneventful, except for an excruciatingly long and slow detour out in the desert in a long line of trucks and cars due to blocking off eastbound I-10 for and accident investigation about thirty miles west of Phoenix.
Obviously, I have an Intertube connection. I came in late due to the above, in the middle of a discussion of a tether system for earth-moon transport. I'm sitting next to Henry Cate, Jr. (who started the Carnival of Space series after last year's conference) and am staring at the backs of Clark Lindsey's and Jeff Foust's heads.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:46 PMDid I live blog it? Obviously not.
I couldn't see paying fifty bucks for a slow wireless connection, which was what was on offer. If I have the energy later, I may post what I would have live blogged, had I had an Intertube connection. Still kind of beat from recent travails for now, though. I need to get some dinner, pack, and take it easy tonight, so I can get up early to drive to Phoenix in the morning for a mid-afternoon conference start.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:45 PMWhile I slept, XCOR lifted the news embargo at midnight PDT (presumably to allow coverage in today's WSJ).
I'm still a little bleary (and of course still attending the press conference later this morning), but Clark Lindsey has a lot more. Just scroll down.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here's more, from east coaster Jeff Foust, here and here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:32 AMNo, not like the Elves. At least I hope not--though on the other hand, they do get to live forever.
But then I'd miss the press conference in Beverly Hills on Wednesday, and the Space Access meeting next weekend in Phoenix.
I'm not completely over my ailment, but I'm well enough to travel, I think, and I'll probably take it easy tomorrow when I get into LA.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:28 PMThis opinion piece by Republican Doug McKinnon has every false trope and misplaced assumption in the debate on display. As is often the case with opinion pieces, opinions are put forth with the certainty that should be reserved for actual, you know...facts. It starts off wrong in the very opening sentence:
Because of the 2008 presidential election, our nation's human spaceflight program is at a perilous crossroad.
The implicit assumption here is that our nation's "human spaceflight program" would be just fine if we weren't having a presidential election, but anyone who has been following it closely knows that it has many deep and fundamental problems that are entirely independent of who the next president will be, or even the fact that we will have a new president. NASA has bitten off an architecture that will not be financially sustainable, and may not even be developable, and for which it doesn't have sufficient budget. That would be true if the president suspended elections this year (as some moonbats still probably expect him to do).
Beyond that, by framing it this way, there is an implicit assumption that "our nation's human spaceflight program" is identically equal not only to NASA's plans for human spaceflight in general, but for the specific disastrous course that they've chosen. This false consciousness comes through clearly in the very next sentence:
While Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain all have made allusions to supporting the program, none has made it a priority.
Emphasis mine. I don't expect any better from Democrats--they are, after all, the party of big government, but just once in a while, I wish that I could hear something from a Republican (other than Newt Gingrich) on this subject that isn't brain dead.
Just once, I'd like to hear a Republican talk not about "the program," but rather, about the nation's human spaceflight industry, and how we implement new policies to make this nation into a true spacefaring one. The latter doesn't mean building large rockets to send a couple crew of civil servants up a couple times a year, at horrific cost per mission. It means creating the means by which large numbers of people can visit space, and go to the moon, and beyond, with their own funds for their own purposes. It means building an in-space infrastructure that allows us to affordably work in, and inhabit, cis-lunar space. It should be (as it should have been when the president first announced the new policy a little over four years ago) about how America goes into space, not about how NASA goes into space. But Mr. McKinnon is clearly stuck in a sixties mind set, as evidenced by the next graf, admonishing Senator Obama's apparent (at least to him, if not the rest of us) short sightedness.
Perhaps now would be a good time to remind Sen. Obama of the sage and relevant words spoken by a president with whom he has been compared on occasion. On Sept. 12, 1962, at Rice University, President John F. Kennedy addressed the importance of the United States having a vibrant and preeminent space program. "We mean to be part of it we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond. Our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to become the world's leading spacefaring nation."
Hey, I'm all in favor of us becoming (or remaining) the world's leading spacefaring nation. But I don't think that the word "spacefaring" means what he thinks it means. Clearly, he is stuck in the Apollo era (hardly surprising, when the NASA administrator himself describes his plans as "Apollo on steroids"). His myopia and Apollo nostagia is further displayed in the next paragraph.
No matter who is our next president, he or she is either going to have to buy in completely to the premise of that young president, or stand aside and watch as other nations lay claim to the promise of space. There is no middle ground. John F. Kennedy understood it then, and the People's Republic of China, with its ambitious manned space program run by its military, understands it now. Preeminence in space translates to economic, scientific, educational and national security advantages.
Sigh...
"There is no middle ground." What a perfect encapsulation of the sterile nature of space policy debate. Ignoring that sentence, and the nonsensical unsupported characterization of the Chinese "program" (there's that word again) as "ambitious," one can agree with every word in this paragraph and still think that the current plans are not going to result in, or maintain, "preeminence in space." And particularly, the notion that ESAS/Constellation provides anything with regard to national security advantages is ludicrous. This is one of the two key areas on which it has been most harshly and appropriately criticized as completely ignoring the Aldridge Commission report.
Sorry, I don't accept that "there is no middle ground." There are many potential policy initiatives that could be implemented that would be vastly more effective in giving us "preeminence in space," than the current one. It's not ESAS or nothing, despite the next paragraph. This is called the fallacy of the excluded middle. This is stealing a rhetorical base.
And what to make of this next?
With regard to the space shuttle, the International Space Station, Orion and Ares, the new president must make three words part of his or her space policy: "Stay the course." On Jan. 14, 2004, President George W. Bush announced a "new plan to explore space and extend a human presence across our solar system." With Orion and Ares as the centerpiece of this new direction, it is essential that that there be no delays caused by partisan politics.
What does this even mean? Is Mr. McKinnon unaware that the Shuttle is due to be retired in two years? Does he know that there are no plans for ISS beyond a decade from now? What "course" is he proposing that we "stay"?
And again with the false assertion that only Ares and Orion can allow us to "explore space and extend a human presence across our solar system." Not only is this not true, but there are many much better ways to do so, most of which were extensively analyzed by some of the best people in the space industry, but which were completely ignored when the new administrator came in to implement his own pet ideas. Those ideas remain out there, and will probably be reexamined under a new administration and a new administrator.
I do agree with this next statement, as far as it goes:
If a Democrat is our next president, he or she cannot look at the Orion and Ares programs as a "Bush" or "Republican" initiative to be scrapped.
Though not being a great fan of George Bush, I agree that to scrap a program simply because it is his would be stupid and partisan (not that this would keep it from happening, of course). But there are so many other, better reasons to scrap these plans, that the point is probably moot.
Should the next president decide to delay or cancel our next generation spacecraft and rockets for partisan reasons, he or she will be condemning the United States to second-class status in space for decades to come.
To this, I can only say "horse manure."
Delays or cancellations will cause a massive loss of capability as the work force with the knowledge and expertise to take us back to the moon and beyond will retire or move on to other careers.
Again, he seems to ignore the fact that delays (and potential cancellation) are already cooked into the dough of "the program." They will happen completely independently of who the next president is, because "the program" is fundamentally flawed.
And as for worrying about "the work force with the knowledge and expertise to take us back to the moon and beyond" retiring, this is sadly hilarious. That horse left the barn many years ago. There is almost no one remaining in industry who knows how to get us to the moon, let alone "beyond." Everyone who was involved with Apollo (the last flight of which occurred over thirty-five years ago) is dead, or retired. This is, in fact, one of the reasons that the program is floundering. Rather than sit down and take a fresh, twenty-first century approach to space exploration, and (much more importantly) space utilization, the kids who grew up with Apollo are simply trying to replicate what the Great Space Fathers did. They imagine that by building their own big, new rockets, they can somehow recreate the glory of their childhood. But they weren't involved--they were just observers. I've likened this attitude of redoing Apollo to cargo cult engineering. I think that remains a pretty accurate assessment.
The United States has committed itself to this new direction. The next president must ratify such a commitment.
Again, this false equating of ESAS with "this new direction," is nonsensical. And we aren't even committed as a nation to the Vision for Space Exploration itself. It would certainly be nice to see the next president continue the support of sending humans beyond earth orbit, but it would also be even nicer to see him (or, in the unlikely event, her) reexamine the specific implementation of such a plan, and to expand it far beyond NASA budgets, to encompass federal space policy in general, including military and commercial aspects, as the Aldridge Commission urged, and which NASA has utterly ignored, with the Bush administration's apparent acquiescence.
The piece cluelessly ends up with one more attempt at scaremongering the rubes who are not familiar with the nature of the Chinese space program:
Should our space program flounder, Chinese astronauts will establish the first bases on the moon, and the American people will be the poorer for our lack of leadership.
Even accepting the nonsense that the Chinese are going to establish bases on the moon at all, let alone the first ones, there is no support at all for why this will make the American people poorer. It's easily seen how it makes the Chinese people poorer, given that the Chinese, to the degree that they plan to go to the moon at all, are using a ridiculously high cost and very slow approach, but since NASA's approach is similar, it seems that continuing on this flawed path is what will make the American people poorer. And keep them earthbound.
As I said, this is a perfect example of the false assumptions and false choices that permeate what accounts for the moribund state of the space policy debate in this country. Until we start to discuss space intelligently (including a bedrock discussion of the actual goals, which should not be to do Apollo again), it's unlikely that we'll ever get sensible federal policy.
[Update a few minutes later]
Shorter Doug McKinnon: The president's space policy is not only wonderful, but it is our only chance to lead in space, and anyone who opposes it, for any reason, partisan or otherwise, is dooming Americans to toil in the Chinese rice paddies. So get with the program.
Is that succinct enough? It doesn't matter that it's complete nonsense. And completely unsupported by anything resembling actual policy analysis, and displays no evidence that he even understands the policy. Doug wrote it, and he's a Republican, so it must be so.
While I don't agree with their posts necessarily, (and the chances that I will be voting for a Democrat for president, regardless of what lies they tell me about their space policy, are nil), at least Bill White and Ferris Valyn have applied a little thought to the situation, unlike Doug. But then, they have the advantage of actually being interested in seeing us become a spacefaring nation. It's not at all clear what Doug's motivations are. Perhaps (as noted in comments) his being an aerospace industry lobbyist has something to do with it. I wouldn't normally indulge in such an ad hominem attack, but I can't find anything else in the piece that might explain his strange positions. That one makes the most sense, by Occam's Razor.
[Late evening update]
Mark Whittington (who loves the piece--more solid evidence, if not courtroom proof, of its cluelessness) once again demonstrates his inability to comprehend simple written English:
Apparently there isn't a single syllable of MacKinnon's piece that doesn't make Rand Simberg spitting mad.
In other words, in his hilariously stupid hyperbole, he didn't understand the meaning of this sentence, from above:
Though not being a great fan of George Bush, I agree that to scrap a program simply because it is his would be stupid and partisan (not that this would keep it from happening, of course).
While most of my readers don't need the clue, Mark clearly does. That's what's called "agreeing with a part of the piece." Which means that there were at least a few syllables that didn't make me "spitting mad" (not to imply, of course, that there were any syllables that made me that way, let alone every one).
And of course, as also usual, he can't spell, being unable to distinguish "complimentary" from "complementary." Not to mention "unweildy." But I guess he doesn't mind beclowning himself, as usual. Mark, get Firefox. It has spell check built in. It won't help with the homophones, but it would have caught the other one.
And that's the Mark that we all know and (OK, not so much...) love.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:05 AMLess than a week before the conference, Clark Lindsey has posted the final (or at least, as final as it can be at this date) program for next week's Space Access Conference. Hope to see you there.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:20 PMA press release:
A Press Conference will be held Wednesday, March 26th at 10 am PDT at:The Beverly Hilton
9876 Wilshire Boulevard
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Ph. 310 274 7777PRESS CONTACT:
Doug Graham
Media Relations
XCOR Aerospace
Office: 661-824-4714 ext. 138
Cell: 661-742-7514
dgraham@xcor.com
I'll be in LA next week, so I'll likely attend. I know what the announcement will be, but I'm under a non-disclosure. I think that people interested in alt space will find it a significant milestone. I'm sure that it will be discussed extensively at Space Access at the end of the week as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:21 PMI don't remember the first book I read by Arthur Clarke, or my age when I read it, but I would imagine that it was less than ten. But I do remember that, whatever book it was, it spurred me to go find more.
In the 1960s, Flint's auto industry was booming, and one of the founders of General Motors, Charles Stewart Mott, still lived there. He was worth a couple hundred million at the time (equivalent to a couple billion today), and he had established a foundation for education that had rendered the Flint public school system one of the premiere ones in the country at the time. Part and parcel of this was the public library system. I lived within walking distance (and a trivial bike ride) of the main branch. I would haunt its science fiction section daily, in hope of finding a new Clarke (or Heinlein, or Asimov) book that I hadn't read, and I recall the anticipation when I would discover an unread one that had just been returned by the previous borrower. I often wouldn't even wait to get home, instead sitting down in a chair to devour it in the library.
More than Heinlein, more than Asimov, both of whom were strong influences on me, Clarke taught me about the precision and beauty of science and engineering, and of the importance of making science fiction plausible. I liked all of his work (including the non-science fiction, such as Glide Path
But it wasn't just one side of Snow's two cultures--Clarke had his spiritual and artistic side as well, and he inspired one to think deeply about the meaning of existence. One of his best books is much less hard science than most: Childhood's End
He didn't just have interesting stories and themes--he was a beautiful, eloquent, emotive writer. As I mentioned in the previous Clarke post, we stole some of his words for the foreword of our space ceremony, of which he was one of the major influences that caused us to create it:
Five hundred million years ago, the moon summoned life out of its first home, the sea, and led it onto the empty land. For as it drew the tides across the barren continents of primeval earth, their daily rhythm exposed to sun and air the creatures of the shallows. Most perished -- but some adapted to the new and hostile environment. The conquest of the land had begun.
We shall never know when this happened, on the shores of what vanished sea. There were no eyes or cameras present to record so obscure, so inconspicuous an event. Now, the moon calls again -- and this time life responds with a roar that shakes earth and sky.When the Saturn V soars spaceward on nearly four thousand tons of thrust, it signifies more than a triumph of technology. It opens the next chapter of evolution.
No wonder that the drama of a launch engages our emotions so deeply. The rising rocket appeals to instincts older than reason; the gulf it bridges is not only that between world and world -- but the deeper chasm between heart and brain.
Rarely do I get tears in my eyes from reading, but one of the most moving short stories of his that I ever read won a Nebula Award1. And justly so. It has an ending poignant and tragic, not just for an alien civilization, but for a man's faith in his God.
I only met him once, though I suppose that still makes me fortunate, in that most never got to meet him at all. It was not long after I graduated from Michigan with two engineering degrees--the product of his influence (and that of others as well, most notably Gerard O'Neill). I was working at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California (near Los Angeles), and I had just written a paper on a concept that I'd come up with, called a "tidal web," that I presented to the Princeton Conference on Space Manufacturing in 1981. It was a geostationary structure consisting of a series of tethers in gravity gradient, connected together in a ring, to create a huge platform on which sensors and transponders could be placed. This would in theory eliminate the need for station-keeping satellites, and allow a much higher density of GEO usage, with it being limited only by spectrum and EMI interference issues, rather than physical concerns about collision. (Unfortunately for me, it later turned out, based on calculations performed by Dan Alderson for Larry Niven while researching Ringworld
Not long afterward, Clarke gave an evening lecture at TRW in Redondo Beach, not far from where I worked and lived. I attended it, and afterward, met him briefly and, knowing of his interest in geostationary structures
I'm sure that he was disappointed, as were many of his readers, that his 2001 vision didn't come true, even without the monolith. After all, in the 1940s and 1950s, he probably would have been astonished (or incredulous) if someone had told him that we'd have landed a man on the moon in 1969. When we appeared to be doing so (which was the case while the movie was being written and produced), it was seductively easy to extrapolate it to lunar bases in the 1970s and Mars missions in the 1980s, as the space station was being constructed in earth orbit. But he'd have been even more astonished, and appalled, to think that we would never go back after 1972, and spend the proceeding decades in low earth orbit, very expensively.
While he lived a long life, it's sad that he died just as interesting and different things are happening that may finally have the prospect of turning at least some of his space stories into reality. Clarke had three well-known laws about technology (though J. Porter Clark has a good related one of his own). But one of his lesser-known ones (at least I think it's his--I can't find a link with a quick search) is that we tend to be optimistic about technological progress in the short term, and pessimistic in the long term, due to the exponential nature of technological advance. I try to use this law to temper my expectations in both directions, and (at least) be optimistic about the long term, as long as it's not long-term enough that (in the famous words of Keynes) we're all dead. The long term was too long for Sir Arthur, but if and when we do have the lunar bases, and the nuclear cruisers to Jupiter, it will be in no small part due to the role that he played in challenging minds, young and not so young, and painting vivid and credible pictures of the future in their heads that motivated them to go out and attempt to create it.
So remember him, and go reread some of the classics
[Early evening update]
One other point about his prescience in the sixties (or at least, I hope so--it seems likely to me as a general point, if not the specific company). The clipper ship that went up to the space station in 2001 didn't have a NASA logo on it. It was Pan Am.
1. I just noticed in rereading it, a failure of imagination that wouldn't strike one reading it in the 1960s. It's interesting that, in the late fifties, he thought that a starship would be bringing data back to earth on magnetic tape and photographs. It just shows how hard it is to get the future right.
From John Derbyshire:
It is plain from his life and his work that Clarke was deeply in love with the idea of space. In 1956 he went to live in Sri Lanka so that he could spend his spare time scuba diving, the nearest he could get to the silence, weightlessness, and mystery of space. That profound imaginative connection with the great void is one of the things that separates science fiction writers and fans from the unimaginative plodding mass of humanity -- the Muggles. Clarke had it in spades. The other thing he dreamt of, and wrote about, constantly was alien civilizations: how incomprehensibly magical they will appear to us when we encounter them, and how they will deal with us.
He mentions Bradbury in his remembrance. Some thought of them as four: Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and Bradbury. I never did. I like Ray Bradbury, both as an author, and personally (I met him occasionally when I lived in LA), but I never considered his work science fiction, at least not hard science fiction. It was more in the realm of fantasy and poetry to me (and of course, Fahrenheit 451, which was a political dystopia).
[Late morning update]
Bruce Webster agrees:
I'm not sure I've ever met, talked to, or read of an engineer or scientist who was inspired to become such because of something Bradbury wrote. I'm not saying they're not out there -- I just think it's a very small number, especially when compared to Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein.
Yes. I enjoyed some (though not all) of Bradbury's work, but I was never inspired by it. It just seemed too far from an attainable reality to me.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Even Bradbury himself agrees:
First of all, I don't write science fiction. I've only done one science fiction book and that's Fahrenheit 451, based on reality. Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. So Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it's fantasy. It couldn't happen, you see? That's the reason it's going to be around a long time--because it's a Greek myth, and myths have staying power.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:09 AM
Mike Griffin is worried about losing a Shuttle crew if the program is extended:
"Given that our inherent risk assessment of flying any shuttle mission is about a 1-in-75 fatality risk, if you were to fly 10 more flights, you would have a very substantial risk of losing a crew. I don't want to do that."
If we accept his risk number, that translates into a 13% chance over ten flights. That doesn't seem "substantial" to me. There are a lot of good reasons to not extend the program, but risk of crew loss isn't one of them. I'm sure that most of the astronauts would be happy to take the risk, and the real loss wouldn't be astronauts (of whom we have a large oversupply), but the loss of another orbiter, which would almost certainly end the program, because they probably couldn't manage with only two left. If what they're doing is important enough to risk an orbiter, that is almost literally irreplaceable, it's surely important enough to risk crew, who are all volunteers, and fully informed of the risk.
When I was watching coverage of the cranewreck in Manhattan yesterday, they cited a statistic from the Bureau of Labor statistics that there were forty-three construction deaths last year (I think in New York alone). Can someone explain to me why is it acceptable to kill construction workers, but not astronauts?
On the other hand, here's one thing that I do agree with Mike on: the last thing we need is another space race.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:11 AMA paper on interstellar trade, three decades old. By Paul Krugman, back before he went nuts.
[Via occasional commenter Jane Bernstein]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:58 AMNot that he's ever been optimistic, but "Rocketman" thinks that the end of ESAS is in sight:
MSFC and contractor engineers are looking at all sorts of band aids for the vibration problem that ARES is most prone to. The leading candidate this week is a "D" strut system between the first and second stage to reduce the vibration that will literally shake the crew to pieces. The Emperor is putting all of his chips on the table betting on the strut. But the contractors are forlorn. They know the strut has issues...and they know ARES will go away with the Emperor in short order. Its hard to work on something you know is headed for the trash heap of history.
I haven't worked on the program for a year and a half, but I can imagine that a lot of people are eying their options to bail.
[Update in the afternoon]
Once again, Mark Whittington demonstrates his lack of comprehension of the English language.
exalt (g-zĂŽlt)
tr.v. exalted, exalting, exalts
1. To raise in rank, character, or status; elevate: exalted the shepherd to the rank of grand vizier.
2. To glorify, praise, or honor.
3. To increase the effect or intensity of; heighten: works of art that exalt the imagination.
No one familiar with written English could imagine that my above words do any of those three things, in any way.
If and when the program does die, I will not be rejoicing. I will be grieving over the lost years and lost billions. But my grief will be tempered by the hope (though, sadly, not expectation) that we will finally start doing something sensible.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:37 AMRob Coppinger writes that the Chinese are taking big risks rushing their human space program.
We'll see. They may be going too fast for safety, but at their current general sluggish pace, they're not going to beat us to the moon any time soon, despite Mike Griffin's cynical scare mongering.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:07 AMOr maybe not. Let's hope not. Anyway, Bigelow deserves our support in his valiant effort to make ITAR sane. Not sure off hand what we can do to help, though.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:59 PMLileks seems to be a co-religionist with me:
You know, every so often I run across comments on message boards from the "12 Monkeys" demographic, the people who wish people would just disappear and leave the earth alone. If the Aftermath show has any message, it's how useless the world would be without people. Without humans it's just hunting and rutting, birthing and dying, a clock with no chimes. It's always interesting how people romanticize Nature, and ascribe all manner of purpose and intelligence to it, lamenting the injuries people wreak on the innocent globe. I'd love to read an interview with Gaia in which she says that her goal all along was to come up with a species that could produce Beethoven and make rockets to send the music deep into space. Now that's something to make the other planets sit up and take notice. You think the point is merely to provide a home for thirty billion varieties of insect? I can't tell you how much they itch. Sorry about the earthquakes, but it's the only way I can scratch.
I do believe in a teleology, and this belief is not scientific at all.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:06 AMDon't know how many more night launches there will be for the Shuttle, I've never seen one up close, it's 90% go weather wise for the flight tonight, and everything else seems on track, so we're going to drive up and stay in Orlando tonight. Blogging may be light until the morrow, when I'll be coming back down (Patricia has business up there).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:08 PMPaul Eckart, of the Boeing Corporation, writes about the benefits of cooperation in entrepreneurial space. Paul has been dong a great job of bringing investors and entrepreneurs together for the past few years, and it's great that Boeing is supporting this activity.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:07 AMFrom Jon Goff (related to my previous post). I thought that this is a very key point, that demonstrates the absurdity of Mike's (or at least, people like Mark Whittington's) thinking:
There's been talk from NASA and some of their less discerning fanboys of a "Lunar COTS". Basically the idea is to waste $100-120B on using Constellation to setup a small ISS on the Moon, and then once its there start paying commercial entities to service said base. This creates an interesting situation. Since NASA won't have done anything for over a decade to help make it easier for commercial entities to actually service the moon, they'll either have to keep sustaining the base themselves while they spend the money to belatedly help develop that commercial capability. Or, if the commercial market has independently created that capability anyhow, that NASA base will likely be only a small niche market in the cislunar space.
Yes, there's a huge logical disconnect here. Either NASA will have developed technology that makes it easy for the commercial folks to access the moon (which they currently are not) or they are counting on the commercial folks to have done that on their own, in which case, that means that there's already a thriving lunar market, of which NASA will be a trivial part, because otherwise, it won't have happened commercially. NASA's current high-cost, low-activity plans really do have the effect of ensuring the worst of all worlds for them, and us.
With all the rain they've had in southern California this winter, I would expect the poppy season to be gorgeous up in Lancaster. This is a good harbinger of that:
Overlooking the first poppy at the reserve would have been easy. The stem was only a couple of inches high and wind gusts bent the young flower almost sideways. The flower was just off the exit road beyond the park's kiosk.
"I hope it's a sign of a good bloom that's coming," Scott said after she learned of the sighting.Elgin said she hopes to pass on poppy updates to enthusiasts who phone the information center.
"I figure in the next couple of days there will be five or six more poppies show up, and each day a few more until the full bloom," Elgin said.
"There's indications we'll have a decent season, but I can't really predict one that will be exceptionally good because Mother Nature can turn right around and prove me wrong."
Elgin said the only thing predictable about poppies at the reserve is that they're unpredictable.
I'm going to Space Access in about three weeks, in Phoenix. When I was looking for tickets, it turned out to make a lot more sense to fly into LA, for schedule and ticket price, and I have other business there anyway, so I'm going to fly out, drive to Phoenix and back, and then fly back to Florida. But I'll probably be going up to Mojave, so I think I'll take a still and videocam with me, and make the little side trip in Lancaster to the preserve. And hope that it's both sunny and not windy (an intersection of conditions that's unfortunately rare that time of year), because that's the only time that the flowers are really open and in full bloom.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:15 PMJohn Marburger, the president's science advisor, apparently gave an interesting speech the other day, which can be somewhat summarized by this statement:
"Exploration by a few is not the grandest achievement," he said. "Occupation by many is grander." (Although he added that by "occupation" he did not necessarily mean settlement but instead "routine access to resources".) His long-term vision for the future is "one in which exploration has long since ceased and our successors reap the benefits of the new territories."
As I noted in comments at Space Politics, this is the most visionary thing that I've ever known a president's science adviser to say, and the other notable thing is that he himself says explicitly (as well as implicitly in the above comment) that space isn't just about science. (As an aside, I've always thought that "Science Adviser" was too restrictive a title for that position--it's always been science and technology.)
As I also noted over there, it's unfortunate that NASA's current plans are so completely unattuned to that vision, being specifically designed for "exploration by a few" (and rarely) rather than "occupation by many." One wonders if he's ever complained to anyone about that.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:04 PMOver at Phil Plait's place, where he's hosting this week's Carnival of Space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:40 AMOne of the nice things about blogging is that, even for print journalists, it provides an outlet for information gathered that may be of interest, but for which there wasn't room in the publication. Here's a good example: interview notes from Rob Coppinger's discussion with Phil Sumrall on Ares V performance issues.
As noted, the vehicle has come a long way from the originally advertised "Shuttle-derived" system that was supposed to save us so much money and time, and utilize the existing Shuttle infrastructure (though the latter was always a politically-induced pork-driven bug, not a feature, if one wanted to actually lower launch costs). It (like Ares I) is now essentially a new vehicle, including components, though if Ares I ever comes to fruition, Ares V will probably be at least in part derived from it.
Of course, this part is what really has me grinding my teeth (and it's probably what I'll be talking about on Jon Goff's propellant depot panel at Space Access):
...once the EDS and Altair were in orbit there was a 95-day loiter in Earth orbit for the concept of operations. That was changed from 95-days when Griffin said it was not acceptable. Instead the new target date was four-days and this may also assume a launch of the Orion CEV prior to Ares V
Reasons for the four-day change are propellant boil off and electrical power requirements. For four-days fuel cells are sufficient and solar arrays not needed. Less than four-days and batteries could be used for EDS power. During Apollo they had 15% boil off over 3h so over several days Ares V would lose a lot of propellant. To stop boil off the choice is a passive system and "we have to eliminate heat leaks". The solution to boil off is seen as multi-layered insulation as they want to reduce the boil off losses to 1-2%, but MLI is very expensive in terms of money, not payload margin.
So, they're going to launch the Orion, with crew, on an Ares I, and hope that they can get a successful Ares V mission off within four days, because they can't afford the duration. They build this mondo grosso launch vehicle to avoid having to do multiple launches, and yet, they not only have dual launch, but it's one on a tight window. And if they can't get the launch off on time, the lunar mission is scrubbed, and the crew comes back home from LEO, having wasted the cost of an Ares I launch (and an Orion, if they end up not making it reusable).
This is an affordable, resilient, sustainable infrastructure?
All of these issues go away if you use orbital infrastructure. The propellants are brought up over a period of time, with a number of different vehicles, and vehicle types. The propellants are stored on orbit with a combination of passive and active thermal control systems, eliminating boil off completely. If MLI is expensive, that's OK, if you only have to manufacture/lift it once and then continually reuse it at the depot. If you have power at the depot, you don't have to worry about battery life at the vehicle (note: the next Shuttle mission will set a record for duration, because it doesn't have to rely on its fuel cells for power--it will draw power from the new solar arrays at the ISS while docked, allowing it to stay up for two weeks). And the same system will scale to a Mars mission (perhaps based in L1 instead), obviating the need to develop Ares XI.
Put the power/propellant/other-utilities infrastructure up once, and continually reuse it, instead of making each vehicle have to be a self-contained Winnebago, like the Shuttle. Even if the moon remains a wilderness, there is no longer any excuse for LEO to be so.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:16 AMWould a ban on space weaponry be verifiable? It seems intuitively obvious to me that the answer is "no."
I think that this is a key point:
The President's Space Policy highlights our national and, indeed the global, dependence on space. The Chinese interception only underscored the vulnerability of these critical assets. Calling for arms control measures can often appear to be a desirable approach to such problems. Unfortunately, "feel good" arms control that constrains our ability to seek real remedies to the vulnerabilities that we face has the net result of harming rather than enhancing U.S. and international security and well-being.
I always trust hardware over paper and good intentions.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:56 AM...private spaceflight doesn't need any enemies. Here's a proposal from the Prometheus Institute, a libertarian think tank in California. It's got a lot of problems.
China, already having put a human into space, further demonstrated its celestial capabilities by recently shooting down an orbiting satellite. To Washington's Sinophobic lobby already hopped-up about inflated currency and devious trade practices, the Chinaman's aerospace belligerence seemed to be cause for grave apprehension.
But America should not be afraid - far from it. Instead, we should be celebrating the advancement. Just like air travel in its infancy, space travel is a technology now finding its way from rich world governments and militaries to civilians around the world. And just like air travel, market competition should lead the progress.
Yes, let us celebrate the ability of the Chinese to obliterate our satellites. And maybe I missed all the "civilians" in China who are not traveling into space.
NASA, America's space program, currently enjoys a government-created-and-backed monopoly privilege and is, along with our military, the only American entity that legally ventures into space.
For all his appreciation of private enterprise, you'd think that this guy would know that all launches other than the Shuttle are private launches. And they're all performed legally, as licensed by the FAA.
The first space-tourist, American millionaire Dennis Tito, doled out $20 million from his own coffers to the Russian authorities for the ability to go to space with their Cosmonauts. Tito chose Russia only because NASA first rejected his proposal to fly with them on the grounds that he was not a trained astronaut. Thus, in an embarrassing bit of irony, America's refusal to fly Capitalism's Neil Armstrong means that the only "commercial" space carrier currently available in the world is in the former Soviet Union. (And as is true of all government-sanctioned monopolies, especially Russian ones, they charge a hefty price.) But the tide of private competition is finally turning.
None other than Virgin's Sir Richard Branson wants to be the first to offer sub-orbital flights to the general public. Currently, his White Knight Two and the Space Ship Two spacecrafts are scheduled to undergo a test flight program later this year and then finally launch commercial operations approximately a year later. Tickets start at $200,000, or 1% of the going Russian price. Now, if one competitor can reduce the cost of space travel this drastically, imagine the result when America's entrepreneurial craft is truly unleashed.
He's comparing apples to omelettes. Virgin is not going to reduce the cost of going to orbit by two orders of magnitude, as is implied here. The twenty million is for a trip to an orbital space station of several days. The two hundred kilobucks is for a few minutes in suborbit. So the fare is a lot less, yes, but so is the service. He even says himself that it is "sub-orbital." I don't know whether he's being clueless, or deliberately misleading here, but either way, it severely undermines his thesis in a way that will be sure to be justifiably attacked by the NASA fanboyz.
But wait! It gets better! Or worse, depending on your point of view:
America should facilitate the progress toward private space travel. First, Congress should dissolve America's space monopoly by transferring NASA from government to private ownership.
Sure. Just hand it over to private ownership. Why didn't we think of that?
I wonder who he thinks would take it over? Does he have any idea how much you'd have to pay anyone sane to take NASA off the government's hands? It not only has no market value--it has negative market value. The auction would be based on whoever was willing to take the least amount of ongoing taxpayer subsidy to keep the mess going.
Second, Congress should ensure efficient entry into the space travel market, levelling the competitive field for any investor or entrepreneur, thus ensuring that no one is granted privileges or exemptions that favor one over the other.
Here is the kind of simplistic proposal that was made for the phrase, "the devil's in the details."
He goes on:
The government should gradually auction off each project, to ensure an orderly transition to private control, and to also make sure they do not land into the hands of a few oligarchs at Abramovich, Khodorkovsky & Co. From the outset, this policy would provide for competition and a certain degree of specialization. Those NASA projects that truly fall under the umbrella of national security should be allocated to a branch of the U.S. military, which is where they originally belonged anyway.
As is the reality in every other industry, we should let the scientists, pioneers and entrepreneurs compete in the marketplace, instead of in the halls of Congress, and let the consumer decide to whom the share of the pie shall go. As recent experience has shown, competition in the marketplace lowers prices and increases consumer choice, and will continue to do so over time.
Where to start?
Most of the projects that are described here simply will not happen if the government doesn't fund them. The market is either non-existent, or too diffuse, for them to get private funding, given their cost. If one wants to argue that they're a poor use of federal dollars, that's an interesting discussion, but to assume that they'll simply go out and get funded in the private marketplace displays a naivety that could only be found in a libertarian "think" tank.
If this is the quality of "thinking" that goes on at Prometheus, if I were a donor, I'd demand my money back.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:11 AMIf you're going to the Space Access conference (a little over three weeks from now), you may not be able to get a room after Thursday. Clark has all the details.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:42 PMI ran across Parabolic Arc the other day, and added it to the blog roll. It's run by Doug Marsh, and he seems to post quite a bit.
Unfortunately, though, the color scheme (gray letters on black background) hurts the eyes to read it. I hope he'll change it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:17 AMClark Lindsey, in response to NASA's "rebuttal" of Ares criticism:
Still waiting for a sensible rebuttal to the rumor that the Ares I is a stupendously overpriced way to send people into space in the 21st Century.
[Update a few minutes later]
"Rocket Man" has some more thoughts:
"If we change the approach in architecture of Constellation...we simply won't ever get off the ground," King said. So instead of using either the Atlas V or Delta IV rockets, both of which are flying and building statistics, one of which is being man-rated commercially, King claims ARES involves less development risk (ahhhh, we think Atlas and Delta are already developed, Dave), would be about a fifth cheaper (ahhhh, buy Atlas and Delta in quantity and see what happens to the price, Dave), and twice as safe for the astronauts on board (ahhhh, paper is always safer than the real thing, Dave, you know that).
No, the reason for the dissension is not coming from the contractors who lost as the Emperor theorized and King echoed. The reason for the debate is that ARES is no longer heritage hardware being employed as designed and King's own folks can't see how to make it work. From the casings, to the fuel mix, to the addition of segments, to the control systems, ARES is brand new from the inside out. The upcoming ARES 1-x test flight is a hoax designed to generate momentum, not to test as-designed hardware. King's premonition scare tactics ("If we continue to argue over how to accomplish this mission, we run the risk of losing the opportunity to do the work.") will come to pass, not because of the arguments, but because no one stopped long enough to have the arguments in the first place.
Yup. If this program fails, it will be entirely on the heads of the people who chose this flawed architecture, not its critics.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:20 AMCharlie Stross sees it.
What I found interesting, though, is how quickly the discussion in comments transitioned to how slow the progress has been in space access, with NASA taking a beating.
There is no question that space technology, with high-powered (megawatts/gigawatts) devices is fundamentally different than things that switch bits and electrons around, and it's not reasonable to expect it to come close to Moore's Law. But there's also no question that, given different policies for the past half century, things could be much further along than they are. We may not (as Monte Davis noted in comments over there) have seen 2001: A Space Odyssey
But that has never been a societal goal, even when we were pouring four percent of the federal budget (and doesn't that make the NASA fanboys drool) into the problem during Apollo. We were just trying to beat the Russkies to the moon, and after we did that, we got preoccupied, and public-choice economics took over, as it always does when things aren't important any more. And that's the way it's been ever since. But because of false myths promulgated during that era, it's been tough to raise the money privately as well.
It won't happen as fast as we'd like it to, nor will it happen as slowly as those who continue to cheer for government spaceflight expect, either. And most importantly, it will have trouble keeping up with the electronics singularity (though a lot of those advances will eventually accelerate space technology as well, and it will happen much sooner than most expect).
But I think that we are seeing real, measurable progress now, and I expect it to continue, and to continue to confound those who continue to cheer NASA five- and ten-year plans.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:56 PMJeff Foust lays out the case, pro and con. As he points out, there is a lot of ignorance and misinterpretation in this area, on both sides. I don't think that we're in a race, and if and when we are, it will become clear long before it's "too late," in any sense. We will not be surprised by a Chinese lunar landing.
As noted previously, the real race is not between governments, but between plodding politicized bureaucracies and cash-starved private space enterprises.
And I found this bit amusing:
It is difficult, though, to get a handle on some information, such as exactly how much money China spends on its space program; estimates vary widely and even Chinese officials have said that their budgets are "very complicated..."
Does that distinguish them in any useful way from NASA's?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:48 AMTaylor Dinerman discusses potential new capsules under development. Orion is not involved.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:59 AMChair Force Engineer writes about it:
In a true competition for transporting astronauts to low earth orbit, NASA would be beaten hands-down by SpaceX at this stage in the game. SpaceX has a capsule with more astronauts (seven versus six,) a cheaper booster (Falcon 9 vs. Ares I,) and a faster schedule.
The only thing SpaceX doesn't have is thousands of jobs, and access to billions of dollars of taxpayer money.
[Update about 5 PM EST]
Mark Whittington continues to live in a fantasyland on this subject:
My sense is that under the scenario, COTS will be cancelled and the manned space program will consist of astronauts going in circles around the Earth forever and ever.
At least until the Chinese land men on the Moon. Then there will be a rather rude awakening.Like it or not, the only hope for near term commercial space flight in LEO is that NASA continues to explore beyond LEO.
COTS is helpful, but in no way essential for commercial human spaceflight.
SpaceX was developing the Falcon 1 and 9 before COTS, and it would continue to do so in the absence of COTS. OSC might not move forward without COTS, but Dragon development will continue, Falcon 9 development will continue, and Atlas V upgrades will continue. The real market is not COTS, which is a sideshow from a payload standpoint, but Bigelow's private space facilities, which were also moving forward before COTS, and would continue to do so in its absence.
I simply don't understand Mark's blindness to these realities that intrude so rudely on his theories, and his continuing obtuse insistence that commercial space is doomed without COTS, other than some sort of faith-based belief that it is not possible to put people into space without government funding.
And the notion that China is going to land a man on the moon any time within the next twenty years, at their current pace of development (far slower than Apollo was) remains laughable. So is the notion that they would suddenly do so out of the blue and that it would be a "rude awakening."
This isn't the Sputnik era, in which one can slip a satellite on a missile, in a world in which there was no space-based surveillance. There will be no surprise. If the development pace of the Chinese program picks up, it will be quite obvious, given the need for either a very large Saturn-class vehicle or (if they're smart) orbital infrastructure, long before it actually happens. We will have plenty of time to respond, from a policy perspective, should we decide to.
CFE has it right--the race is between NASA and the private sector, not between slow-paced, expensive and moribund government space programs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:30 PMRob Coppinger has the story.
I wonder what that propulsion system is? I hope it's not a hybrid. I also wonder what the lift capacity of White Knight Two is.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:03 AMThere's an old saying in marketing, that you don't sell the steak, you sell the sizzle. Which is why I'm always bemused by people who bemoan NASA's PR abilities. Not that I admire PAO, but I have to agree with Clark Lindsey:
Why anyone at NASA thinks that simply doing better PR will arouse great interest among young people in the agency's Apollo Do-Over is beyond me. I've not detected any great enthusiasm for it even among many lifelong space advocates who are well informed about it.
In fact, the more we learn, the less enthused many of us get.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:39 AMAbout five years ago, I did a "regret analysis" on whether or not we should remove Saddam Hussein:
From a "minimax" standpoint, the current course is the lowest-cost one.Of course, some would argue that this is too simplistic an analysis, because (among numerous other reasons) it doesn't take into acccount the probabilities of the various scenarios being true, which, if you had them, you could multiply them by the costs to get expected values.
Of course, the problem with that approach here is that, if the cost estimates are wild-ass guesses, the probabilities would be even more so. How much confidence could we have in the output of such an analysis?
What we're dealing with here is not risk, in which the probabilities can be reliably quantified, but uncertainty, in which they cannot.
As an example, a thirty percent chance of rain represents risk. "It might rain, or it might not, but we have no idea what the probability is" constitutes uncertainty. It's much easier to decide whether or not to take an umbrella in the first circumstance than the second.
For this reason, economists have come up with a more sophisticated technique for decision making in the absence of probabilities of outcomes. Rather than simply looking for the lowest cost, they instead try to minimize how bad you'll feel if you make the wrong decision--they minimize "regret."
It's based on the notion that when you make a decision, you shouldn't compare it to some unattainable ideal of zero cost--you should compare it to the best decision you could have possibly made.
Take a simple case--do you take an umbrella when it rains, or not?
Consider a generic cost matrix:
State 1 State 2 Max
3 4 4
1 5 5
It looks like we can minimize our maximum cost by choosing action 1, since four is less than five. But is that really the right decision?Let's derive a "regret" matrix from it. This is done by finding the minimum cost for any state, and subtracting each cell of that state from it. The minimum cost for state one is 1, so the column would be three minus one for the first row and one minus one (or zero) for the second row. That makes intuitive sense, since if you made the right decision for that state, you'll have no regrets. The regret matrix for the example cost matrix is shown below:
State 1 State 2 Max 2 0 2 0 1 1
Note now that if we want to minimize regret, we should actually choose action 2. Note also that this is independent of the relative probabilities of the two states.
NASA is confronted with exactly this kind of uncertainty with the vibration issue on the Ares 1. They don't know how big the problem is, and have no way of quantifying it with current knowledge. Thus, they're going to spend billions on getting to an initial flight test, and hope that they don't find out that they'll have to spend additional billions (not currently budgeted) to fix the problem, or give up completely and go to a new design (with more billions not currently budgeted), whereas if they knew now that it was intractable, they could stop wasting money on it and move directly (so to speak) on to a different concept.
Now, I don't have access to the program data to properly fill out the cost matrix, so the following numbers are pulled out of an orifice, but hopefully not the nether one--my WAGs are better than those of many with such things.
Let's keep it simple, with two courses of action, and three states.
One course is to abandon the concept now (noting that there are other reasons to do this than only the vibration problem--that's just the latest issue). The other is to continue forward with NASA's current plan.
The three states are:
This provides us with six cells in the matrices, which have three columns (corresponding to states of reality) and two rows (the potential courses of action).
First let's consider Row 1: NASA's current plan.
Option 1: There is no problem. That is the hope (but as military planners will tell you, hope is not a plan).
What is the cost? Nothing. Or rather, the cost is what they expect to spend on the program if it's nominal. Let's call it a billion, on the assumption that this is what it will cost to get us to the flight test (if anyone has a better number, let me know).
Option 2: There is a problem, but it involves major changes to the vehicle design to compensate for it.
Let's say (to be kind) that it costs a year in schedule (what's the value of that?) and an additional billion dollars in development costs. Let's be generous again, and say that the year delay (in terms of "gap") is only an additional couple of billion. So the cost is the billion it takes to get there, a billion to fix plus the two billion for the delay--a total of four billion.
Option 3: The problem is intractable. There is no way to build the vehicle in such a way that it can deliver the required payload into orbit without shaking itself and/or the payload apart.
Now the cost is the billion dollars to get to flight test, plus a new design, almost from scratch, and about three years lost. Let's say that the new vehicle is a two billion dollar program, relative to what NASA would have spent to complete Ares 1 post flight test. If the gap costs two billion a year, then we have a total of nine billion dollars cost in this worst case.
OK, now for Row 2--scrapping the concept now and getting a head start on a design that will work. The cost is the same in all three cases. It's the cost of developing the new vehicle relative to expected expenditures on the Ares from here forward, plus, say, a two-year addition to the gap. Call it seven billion.
So the cost matrix looks like this:
COST MATRIX
| No Problem | Fixable Problem | Insoluble Problem | Max |
| 1 | 4 | 9 | 9 |
| 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 |
So the minimax solution, based on the cost matrix alone, is to switch now. It all depends on what you think the likelihood is that the problem will be intractable. We don't know that that is, so let's look at the regret matrix.
REGRET MATRIX
| No Problem | Fixable Problem | Insoluble Problem | Max |
| 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 6 | 3 | 0 | 6 |
Now, the course of minimum regret is to move forward. Regret is zero if there is no problem or it's fixable, and a max of two billion if they have to start over, whereas they risk a six billion dollar regret by giving up now.
So, at least a cursory analysis would indicate that NASA's approach makes sense, but I could be way off on the numbers. In addition, I'm not counting all of the less tangible costs of having to switch gears after a flight-test failure. Any thoughts from anyone else? Am I missing something?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:52 AMWell, OK, not really. More like build a lot, test a little.
NASA apparently isn't going to know how serious the vibration problem on the Ares 1 is until they do a flight test.
Words fail.
[Via Shubber Ali, who does have some words]
[Update late afternoon]
No one who know him will be shocked to read that Mark Whittington thinks that this is a great idea.
But of course! How could it not be? NASA is doing it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:36 AMHope I'll see some of you at the Space Access conference in Phoenix next month.
[Update at 9:30 AM]
Attendees will get to hear John Carmack talk about cool vehicles like this one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:33 AMChris Lintot has the forty-second edition.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:22 AMGizmodo has a video and the story on the satellite hit.
Oh, and so much for the naysayers who said it wouldn't work. Wishful thinking, one suspects.
They've been poo-pooing this since the eighties, going back to Tsipis and Garwin in SciAm. A good example of Clarke's First Law, about elderly and distinguished scientists.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:23 AMJon Goff has some useful thoughts on in-space transportation elements. Dave Salt has a salty comment:
If you go back a couple of decades (circa 1985) you'll find NASA was developing your "tug" and calling it the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV), while what you term a "ferry" was being developed as the Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV) - astronautics.com has some nice pages describing each.Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:16 AMThey were (and still are) logical elements in any reusable LEO infrastructure that uses space stations/platforms/depots as transportation nodes to enable sustainable deep-space missions... which is probably why they don't feature in ESAS :-)
Apparently the shooting gallery was a success.
A defense official says a missile launched from a Navy ship in the Pacific hit the U.S. spy satellite it was targeting 130 miles above Earth's surface. Full details are not yet available.
Presumably, we'll find out just how successful it was in the coming days.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:38 PMThis post by Matthew Yglesias would be a lot more interesting if he explained why it was "advantage, Obama."
What is Yglesias' position?
It kicked off a lively discussion in the comments section, in which he doesn't participate (so we still don't really know what he thinks), but in which sometime commenter here, Bill White, and Ferris Valyn, do. Ferris has further thoughts, and links.
It also roused a spirited defense of government manned spaceflight programs (at least I assume that's what he's defending) by Chris Bowers. I find Bowers' argument a little (well, OK, a lot) incoherent:
...the space program is about as good an example of stretching and expanding our capabilities as a nation and as a species that one can name. Deciding to not test the limits of our engineering and intellectual potential, and to not explore our surroundings because we have more important things to do, strikes me as a profoundly dangerous path to follow. That is the path of stagnation, and even regression, as a people. Further, it is a terribly utilitarian approach to life, concluding that only bread matters, and that roses are worthless. Personally, I don't want to live that way, and I don't think many other people want to live that way, either. Everyone, no matter their financial situation, has aspects of their life that expand beyond mere bread and into roses: art, religion, family, travel, and scholarship are only a few examples of this. To think that we shouldn't have government funded roses in our lives is to posit a far more dreary nation than the one in which I want to live.
Well, I think that a nation in which one must count on the government to provide either bread or roses a dreary one. Last time I checked, there was plenty of bread, of all varieties, on the shelves of the local grocery, and I suspect that if the government weren't involved, it would be even cheaper. I also bought two dozen roses last Thursday at the same place--there was no shortage, and they didn't seem to have a stamp that said they were manufactured by the government. If he means rose gardens, there are plenty of those, too, both government and private. And I sure don't want the government involved in family or religion, so I guess I just don't see what his point is.
I do agree with this, though:
Space exploration is not an issue with clear partisan divisions. Some conservatives view it as a wasteful government expenditure that is better handled through private enterprise, while some progressives view it through a utilitarian lens in that it does not provide much direct benefit to humanity.
Unfortunately, this is quite true. In fact, it's one of the reasons that our space policy itself is so incoherent. The people who promote it don't generally do so from any kind of ideological base. It's either a bread-and-butter local issue to provide jobs, or it's a romantic urge that crosses ideological boundaries. And that's why the arguments (in both Bowers' and Yglesias' comments section) are never ending, and never resolved. Heinlein once wrote that man is not a rational animal; rather, he is a rationalizing animal. Most arguments for a government space program are actually rationalizations for something that the arguer wants to do for emotional reasons, which is why so many of them are so bad. I say this as a space enthusiast myself, but one who recognizes that it is fundamentally an emotional, even religious urge.
I'm not going to beat up on Obama over this (though I'm not going to vote for him, either). Here's what he reportedly said:
...the next president needs to have "a practical sense of what investments deliver the most scientific and technological spinoffs -- and not just assume that human space exploration, actually sending bodies into space, is always the best investment."
Contrary to what some reading-challenged people write (see the February 16th, 2:22 PM comment), this doesn't mean that he "hates manned spaceflight." Those words, as far as they go, are entirely reasonable, and Hillary was pandering for votes in Houston. The rub lies in how one makes the determination of what is "the best investment."
Unfortunately, in order to evaluate an investment, one must decide what is valuable. That's where all these discussions founder, because everyone comes to them with their own assumptions about goals, values, costs, etc. But these assumptions are never explicitly stated, or agreed on, so people tend to talk past each other. Until we have a top-down discussion of space, starting with goals, and then working down to means of implementing them, people will continue to argue about what the government should be doing, and how much they should be spending on it.
This is why getting a private space program, a dynamist
The folks at AGI have attempted to model the satellite break up. Unfortunately, they need more data to have much confidence in it. But even still, I doubt if my free version of Satellite Took Kit would be up to the job that they've done.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:35 PMThis seems like a pretty big exclusion area for the satellite shot on Thursday. Is it going to disrupt airlanes? I'd be pretty annoyed if my trans-Pacific flight was delayed for it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:05 AMAs Clark says, I don't know why anyone would think that space scientists or astronauts are experts on business. I don't really care what Kathy Sullivan thinks the prospects are for suborbital tourism, and if I thought that astronauts' opinions on the matter were of value, I can find many astronauts (including John Herrington, Rick Searfoss, etc.) who would disagree with her.
And who is this "Alvin" Aldrin of which they speak? Is that Andy's evil twin? When I do a search for "Alvin Aldrin" I only get one hit--this article.
A couple other questions for Alvin/Andy. What numbers was he using for the Raptor cost? Marginal, or average per-unit? It makes a big difference.
In addition, I always get annoyed when people use a military fighter as a cost analogue for a spaceship. A lot of that dollar-per-pound number for the plane comes from something in it that weighs nothing at all--software. The avionics for the weapons systems, and the defensive systems are non-trivial in cost as well. Designing a combat aircraft, designed to kill other things and avoid being actively killed by other things, is an entirely different problem than designing a vehicle that has to only contend with passive and predictable nature (and pretty benign nature, for the most part, at least for suborbital). I'd bet that Burt's own cost numbers for the SS2 already put the lie to Andy's chart.
[Late afternoon update]
Jeff Foust has a much more extensive writeup of the discussion, which he apparently attended. As I suspected, it was Andy, not Alvin, Aldrin.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:39 AMIs this the future of air travel?
Engineers created the A2 with the failures of its doomed supersonic predecessor, the Concorde, very much in mind. Reaction Engines's technical director, Richard Varvill, and his colleagues believe that the Concorde was phased out because of a couple major limitations. First, it couldn't fly far enough. "The range was inadequate to do trans-Pacific routes, which is where a lot of the potential market is thought to be for a supersonic transport," Varvill explains. Second, the Concorde's engines were efficient only at its Mach-2 cruising speed, which meant that when it was poking along overland at Mach 0.9 to avoid producing sonic booms, it got horrible gas mileage. "The [A2] engine has two modes because we're very conscious of the Concorde experience," he says.
Those two modes--a combination of turbojet and ramjet propulsion systems--would both make the A2 efficient at slower speeds and give it incredible speed capabilities. (Engineers didn't include windows in the design because only space-shuttle windows, which are too heavy for use in an airliner, can withstand the heat the A2 would encounter.) In the A2's first mode, its four Scimitar engines send incoming air through bypass ducts to turbines. These turbines produce thrust much like today's conventional jet engines--by using the turbine to compress incoming air and then mixing it with fuel to achieve combustion--and that's enough to get the jet in the air and up to Mach 2.5. Once it reaches Mach 2.5, the A2 switches into its second mode and does the job it was built for. Incoming air is rerouted directly to the engine's core. Now that the plane is traveling at supersonic speed, the air gets rammed through the engine with enough pressure to sustain combustion at speeds of up to Mach 5.
A combination turbofan/ramjet. Hokay.
If I understand this properly, the idea is to fly fast subsonic over land to avoid breaking windows, and then to go like a bat out of hell over the water. When I look at that design, I have to wonder how they can really get the range, with all of the drag that is implied from those huge delta wings, not to mention the wave drag at Mach 5. I also wonder where they put the hydrogen--that stuff is very fluffy, and needs large tanks. It's probably not wet wing (it would be very structurally inefficient), which is why the fuselage must be so huge, to provide enough volume in there for it.
Sorry, but I don't think that this will be economically viable. As is discussed in comments and the article, hydrogen is not an energy source--it's an energy storage method, and it's unclear how they'll generate it without a greenhouse footprint. Moreover, it's not as "green" as claimed, because dihydrogen monoxide itself is a greenhouse gas. I'll bet that this thing has to fly at sixty thousand feet or more to get itself sufficiently out of the atmosphere to mitigate the drag problem, and that's not a place where you want to be injecting a lot of water.
This concept doesn't learn the true lessons of Concorde: like Shuttle, a lot of people have learned lessons from Concorde, but the wrong ones. The correct lesson is that we need to get rid of shock waves and drag. Once we do that, we'll be able to cruise at reasonable speeds (say, Mach 2.5) everywhere, over both land and water, so we won't have to build the vehicle out of exotic materials and eliminate windows. We'll also be able to have fast transcontinental trips (two hours coast to coast) which is another huge market that this concept doesn't address at all. Finally, it has to do it with a reasonable lift/drag ratio, so that ticket prices will be affordable. And I think that the fuel issue is superfluous--Jet A will be just fine for the planet, as long as fuel consumption is reasonable, which makes the vehicle design much easier, with much more dense fuel.
Fortunately, I've been working for over a decade with a company that thinks it knows how to do this, and I'm hoping that we'll be able to start to move forward on it very soon.
[Via Clark Lindsey]
[Update in the late afternoon]
In response to the question in comments, there's not much publicly available on the web about shock-free supersonics, but here's a piece I wrote a few years ago on the subject.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:13 AMThere was a little bit of a buzz in the blogosphere a few days ago about Gizmodo's report that the Japanese plan to bombard the planet with frickin' laser beams from outer space. No word on whether or not they would be attached to the heads of sharks.
I thought it was a little strange, myself. While lasers have been proposed for space solar power, most of the concepts over the past four decades (ed-- wow, it's really been four decades since Peter Glaser came up with the idea? Yup) have been to transmit the power with microwave beams. Lasers (probably free-electron lasers with tuned frequencies) have the advantage of higher power density (and thus less need for large ground receivers). But they don't penetrate the atmosphere and clouds as well, and they are less efficient for power conversion. Also, they raise exactly the fear described in the Gizmodo piece--that higher power density is a double-edged sword. Microwaves are preferred because the energy conversion efficiency is very high, and the beam density is less than that of sunlight (it's better than sunlight despite this, because the beam is available 24/7 and the conversion efficiency is much better, at least with current solar cell technology). It's much more difficult to weaponize, by the nature of the technology.
Anyhoo, I'm assuming that what was actually being referred to was this:
On February 20, JAXA will take a step closer to the goal when they begin testing a microwave power transmission system designed to beam the power from the satellites to Earth. In a series of experiments to be conducted at the Taiki Multi-Purpose Aerospace Park in Hokkaido, the researchers will use a 2.4-meter-diameter transmission antenna to send a microwave beam over 50 meters to a rectenna (rectifying antenna) that converts the microwave energy into electricity and powers a household heater. The researchers expect these initial tests to provide valuable engineering data that will pave the way for JAXA to build larger, more powerful systems.
Microwaves, not lasers, as Gizmodo mistakenly claimed. The article does mention lasers as a potential means of getting the power down, but that's not what next Wednesday's test is about.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:31 AMAP is reporting that the Pentagon is planning to "shoot down" the errant NRO bird.
You can't "shoot down" a satellite. In order to do so, you have to remove its momentum, so it falls out of orbit. All you can really do (at least with something as crude as a missile) is break it up into smaller pieces. If that's what they plan to do, they certainly can.
Won't it make a mess? Yes, for a while. Some of the pieces will enter immediately, others will be given a higher apogee (but lower perigee, so they'll enter half an orbit later). The orbits of those that aren't given much of an energy change will continue to decay as the satellite's original orbit was, except at a higher rate, because they'll have a lower mass/drag ratio. So in theory, if they do this, all of the pieces will have entered within a month or so (i.e., none of them will survive longer than the satellite itself is expected to).
This just points up the fact, once again, how nice it would be to actually have a robust in-space infrastructure of tugs and servicing facilities that would allow us to take care of things like this in a more elegant fashion. In fact, it would allow us to even go get the thing and put it in the right orbit, so we wouldn't have to dispose of it, and replace it. Unfortunately, it's not a capability that either NASA or the Air Force evidence any interest in developing.
[Late afternoon update]
Daniel Fischer is live blogging the Pentagon briefing on NASA TV, here and here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:49 AMSorry, but there's nothing classified about the Space Shuttle, as this silly headline implies:
Former Boeing Engineer Charged with Economic Espionage in Theft of Space Shuttle Secrets for China
If one reads the article, what is really at issue is Rockwell (now Boeing) trade secrets--that is, proprietary information, presumably on things like materials and manufacturing techniques. Language like this simply reinforces the mistaken notion of many that NASA, and the Shuttle program, are military in nature. Not that that excuses the spy, of course--he should still be prosecuted, because in theory, it could help the Chinese advance their technology. Though in the case of the Shuttle, as Charles Lurio notes in an email, it will probably set them back ten years.
Of course, if we really wanted to set them back and keep them planet bound, we'd send them the current plans for Ares and Orion...
[Update a few minutes later]
Just in case anyone is wondering, while this guy presumably worked in Downey during the eighties, I never knew him, or even heard of him, until now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:55 AMThere's an interesting post on military aircraft procurement over at Winds of Change today (interesting if you're interested in such things, that is).
Norm Augustine, former head of Martin Marietta (now part of Lockheed Martin) wrote an amusing (and insightful) book back in the eighties called "Augustine's Laws" (it's now on its sixth edition
One point made in comments over there is that the reason these things cost so much per unit (I was shocked to read that the Raptor is a third of a billion dollars per unit) is because it includes amortization of the development and fixed production costs--if they had decided to purchase the originally planned seven hundred, the price per aircraft would be much lower. The problem is that, though we get more bang for the buck, we never want to spend that many bucks.
We did the same thing with the Shuttle. It was about a five-billion-dollar development program, in seventies dollars, but when the fleet size was cut from seven to five during Carter-Mondale (Mondale actually wanted to completely kill the program) as a cost saving, the price per orbiter went up a good bit. It would have probably only cost an additional billion or so to get the two extra vehicles, and we'd be in a lot better shape now (all other events since being equal) with a remaining fleet of five, instead of three. Having had two more might have made us more willing to continue to press forward even in the face of the losses, because even if the president hadn't decided to end the program next year, we'd probably have to do it anyway, particularly if we lost one more, and had only two left. In fact, one of the few smart moves made on the program in the eighties was to order "structural spares" (things like the titanium keel and spar) before the production was shut down and tooling dismantled. That allowed us to build Endeavor after Challenger, something that would not have been possible otherwise, and in the absence of that new vehicle, we'd have been down to two after the Columbia loss.
We're not just penny-wise pound-foolish in production. The Shuttle has a similar problem in ops. If we'd had more vehicles, and made the investment in facilities for them, we could have doubled the flight rate, without that much of an increase in annual fixed costs (perhaps a billion more a year). Which would have been a better deal: four flights a year for three billion a year (a typical number), resulting in a cost of three quarters of a billion per flight, or eight flights a year for four billion, with a cost of half a billion per flight?
Neither number is attractive, but the taxpayer would have gotten a lot more for the money if the purse strings had been loosened on the program. It might have made it a lot more sustainable.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:53 AMA post that I just put up today is now in the top ten (number eight, right now) of a Google search for "Mike Griffin NASA." And I didn't even get an Instalink on it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:56 PMWho's got it right, the Mike Griffin of today, or the Mike Griffin of five years ago?
In the 1950s and 1960s, the term "man rating" was coined to describe the process of converting the military Redstone, Atlas, and Titan II vehicles to the requirements of manned spaceflight. This involved a number of factors such as pogo suppression, structural stiffening, and other details not particularly germane to today's expendable vehicles. The concept of "man rating" in this sense is, I believe, no longer very relevant.
Does he still agree with this congressional testimony?
Now to be fair, he may not be saying that Atlas isn't safe enough--he expresses interest in using it for COTS. The problem, as Jon Goff points out at the Space Politics thread, is that he's chosen an architecture that replicates Apollo, which requires a large CM and SM on a single launch. If one is willing to break these up into separate launches, an EELV can handle it easily. But instead of spending his budget getting flight rate up and launch costs down, and doing the R&D necessary to learn how to truly become spacefaring (e.g., space assembly, docking/mating, propellant storage and transfer), he wants to relive the days of von Braun.
Looks like there were no tile problems yesterday, and the ECO sensors performed as advertised.
It's kind of ironic that they seem to have finally wrung some of the last bugs out of the system just before they're going to retire it.
You know, given what a technical and economic disaster ESAS is turning out to be, I could be persuaded to extend Shuttle past 2010 at this point, and just wait for the private sector to take over its duties, particularly if the money would go toward a propellant depot and the development of lunar injection and landing hardware. I don't know what it would take to resurrect the contracts and production lines that have been shut down, though.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:30 AMThere's an interesting article over at the New Scientist (via Clark Lindsey, and including a quote by Jon Goff) on human rating the Atlas for Bob Bigelow.
One comment I have:
One requirement is to make the rocket more robust against failures. The goal is to have enough redundancies that the rocket could survive two simultaneous failures of any of its parts. Another is to have an emergency detection system that could sense problems and abort a launch when required.
The second requirement is the most critical, and is what really lies at the heart of human rating (a subject that I have ranted about occasionally).
If the vehicle doesn't currently have enough redundancy to be reliable, then the satellite insurance companies should be asking Lockheed Martin why it doesn't--their clients' satellites aren't cheap, and they expect, for the price they're paying, them to end up in orbit and not at the bottom of the Atlantic. No, I think that the real issue is FOSD (Failure On-Set Detection), which doesn't currently exist on the EELVs other than for range-safety destruct purposes. Fortunately, the failure modes of a liquid-engined vehicle like the Atlas tend to be fairly benign, at least for propulsion, with ample warning if the right sensors are in place (much more so, in fact, than for the SRB which, while it has never had any in-flight failures, if it does, they're more likely to be unexpected and sudden).
Anyway, let's talk about The Gap, the one that Babs Mikulski and Kay Bailey Hutchison think is so critical to "national security" (at least Senator Hutchison, though she never explains exactly how) that NASA must get an extra couple billion dollars to close it.
What gap is that? The only gap will be that of NASA's inability to put up astronauts on their own new launch vehicle, based on a flawed concept, that's turning out to not be "safe," "simple," or "soon," as originally advertised. As far as I can tell, as Bigelow and Lockheed Martin's plans continue to move forward, either with a Dragon or Dreamchaser, (and possibly with the use of a Falcon 9, should Elon finally get it flying) there will be no gap. Americans will be able to fly into space, and probably even to the ISS (unless NASA refuses to certify the vehicles as meeting their Visiting Vehicle Requirements, which are similar to "human rating" as a means for NASA to arbitrarily exclude anyone it wants from its playground). They just won't do it on Ares or with Orion. So there will be no "gap."
And of course, I speculated at the time of the announcement that this has to be really pissing off supporters of Ares, Orion and the ESAS within NASA. It was confirmed to me a month or so later by someone fairly high in the Atlas program that this was indeed the case, and that there was even unhappiness within Lockmart about it, but that Orion and Atlas (and ULA) are two different organizations, and the latter has to find customers. This unhappiness came out publicly the other day, when Mike Griffin blamed Lockheed Martin for the recent criticism of his pet launcher.
It couldn't possibly be any technical deficiencies of the concept, no, it's just parochial carping by evil capitalists. As I replied to Mark Whittington in comments over at Space Politics, John Logsdon's comment that the criticism was about "ego and profits" is laughable, as though Mike Griffin and NASA officials have no egos, and as though ATK and Boeing are building the vehicle pro bono, and not taking any of the taxpayers' money.
In any event, it doesn't really matter in the long run. Ares will stumble on as long as this administrator is in place, and in a year or so when the new president is replacing him and reviewing space policy in general, it's likely that even further progress will have been made by Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, SpaceDev and Bigelow, and it will be increasingly clear that "The Gap" is an invention of people who simply want to be able to build NASA vehicles with the taxpayers' funds, and it will probably be the end of ESAS, and the beginning of a more rational policy.
[Update a few minutes later]
Based on further related discussion at Space Politics, John Logsdon apparently didn't even say what Mark claims he did. What a surprise.
[Early afternoon update]
Jon has more thoughts, as does Clark:
The fundamental problem is Griffin's insistence on building new launchers to fit his exploration architecture rather than fitting an architecture to existing launchers (and to soon-to-be-existing ones like Falcon 9). Yes, a robust lunar program might require development of some new technology slightly beyond what's currently on the shelf such as fuel depots and in-space refueling but that is what we should expect an R&D agency to do. The next time NASA astronauts go to the Moon, they should get there via a program that actually advances the state of the art of spaceflight rather than via a retro-architecture that "proves" to everyone yet again how impractical and unsustainable human spaceflight is.
Indeed. As I wrote over at Space Politics, to paraphrase Don Rumsfeld, with a limited budget, you go to the moon with the launch vehicles you have, not the launch vehicles you'd like to have.
[Early afternoon update]
One other point over at the Space Politics thread:
Griffin also needs some serious legal counsel with regard to his comments to the press. The agency has past and current COTS competitions, not to mention launch service competitions for robotic missions, in which Atlas V has been a proposed launcher. Unless Griffin wants those awards challenged and decisions revisited yet again, he needs to avoid potentially biased statements in the public about specific industry vehicles.
Well, he's an engineer, not a lawyer. Of course, it's part of the intrinsic conflict of interest when you have a government agency competing with the private sector. It's a hole that Mike has put himself into with his approach.
[Early evening update]
For anyone late to this particular party (though with surprisingly few comments), I have a follow-up post.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:10 AMApparently CalOSHA has issued their report, and it remains unclear what caused the explosion at Scaled last summer. Charles Lurio notes (as I've been saying for, well, forever, or at least since I heard about the proposal to go with a nitrous hybrid):
...largely because of its ability to self-detonate - nitrous oxide has every now and then created unhappy surprises whose causes are difficult or impossible to explain. This may turn out to have been the case at Mojave. If in the end no cause for that incident is identifiable, Scaled should perhaps consider an alternative oxidizer for its hybrid; liquid oxygen (LOX) may be less convenient to transport and manage but doesn't have nitrous' particular unpredictabilities.
It also performs much better, whether with hybrids or liquids. This is very bad news. If you don't know what caused an accident, it's very difficult to know how to prevent it from recurring. Even if it causes a delay in the schedule, I think that they will have to go to some other design, and I also think (as I've always thought) that they should subcontract it out to an established propulsion house, such as HMX or XCOR, who are right there on the field.
Maybe when Burt has recovered from his recent health problems, he'll be in better shape to grasp that nettle than he has been.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:54 AMThe launch seemed to go fine. We looked for it from the house, but I've given up on seeing it from here. I think that the roof line is just too high above the trajectory, when it's heading north up to the ISS. The only launch I've seen from here was an Atlas at night, and it was heading due east, so it wasn't moving away from us as fast. It reminds me, though, that there aren't going to be very many more opportunities to see it. I suspect that it's the largest launch vehicle that we're going to have for a long, long time.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:08 PMRon Bailey has some thoughts on top-down government-driven technology programs:
The motivation behind the Apollo moon shot program was largely geopolitical. The Soviets had launched the first artificial satellite in 1957 and orbited the first man around the planet in 1961. As a NASA history explains, "First, and probably most important, the Apollo program was successful in accomplishing the political goals for which it had been created. Kennedy had been dealing with a Cold War crisis in 1961 brought on by several separate factors--the Soviet orbiting of Yuri Gagarin and the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion only two of them--that Apollo was designed to combat." The Apollo program cost $25.4 billion (about $150 billion in current dollars) to land just 12 astronauts on the moon. It is curious that Shellenberger and Nordhaus cite the Apollo program as an example of transformative technologies since it was basically a technological dead end.
Yes, and one that NASA seems determined to repeat.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:04 PMIt's been rumored for several months that Burt Rutan has been under the weather. He certainly didn't look great when I talked to him briefly in the hallway in Long Beach in September.
Without getting into details, I now have it on very good authority that he underwent (or is undergoing) surgery this morning in California. My understanding is that, if successful, the prognosis will be good, and he'll be doing much better soon. If you're the praying type, and think it does him any good, then you might want to do that. But if you do, it might be best not to tell him. Me, I'll just hope for the best.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:33 AMWhen they made their announcement a couple weeks ago, I was interested to see that the interiors of the two fuselages of White Knight Two and SpaceShipTwo are identical. Virgin implied that they might be selling seats in WK2, either for passengers who just wanted a ride (with parabolas) or for future SS2 passengers. Which had me scratching my head. Had they considered the fact that WK2 is an airplane, not a spaceplane, and that it's in a different regulatory regime?
The US Federal Aviation Administration has informed Flight that it will require WK2 to be certified before it is used for anything other than as a launch platform for SS2.
If it's a launch platform, then it falls under the launch license process by FAA-AST, but if it is used for other purposes, such as crew training, it is in a different category, and has to be certified by FAA-AVR, the much larger part of the agency that deals with aviation.
I've long been on the war path to get people to use these terms properly, because they really do mean things.
Certifying an aircraft under (presumably) Part 121 (and perhaps even the more stringent Part 127) for commercial passenger transportation (think of it as the FAA equivalent of NASA's elusive "man rating") is a long and expensive process. It can increase the development cost of the vehicle by anywhere from one to two orders of magnitude. As an example, there was a small executive jet was prototyped by Scaled for a couple million a few years ago, but it was estimated that it would cost a couple hundred million to get it certified. Which is one of the reasons that you can't buy one today. It never happened.
Now Virgin Atlantic Airlines is obviously familiar with FAA processes and procedures, and has an operators certificate. But they've never been involved with the development of an aircraft in the way that Virgin Galactic is now. My question is: does their business model account for estimated WK2 certification costs?
Which raises a second question. For this kind of market (informed passenger/adventure travel) is the current FAA certification regime overkill? This is the issue that prevented Zero G from going into operation much sooner--they had a certified aircraft (a Boeing 727) but it wasn't certified for parabolic flight, and they had to spend years and a lot of money (I have no idea how much, but I imagine millions) to get a special type certification for this flight regime. So while we've made good progress in loosening the constraints for space flight, one wonders how much more progress we could have made (and how much less viable WK2 is from a business standpoint) because of our one-size-fits-all aviation regs?
It looks like, over a quarter of a century after Shuttle went into service, they've finally solved the ECO sensor problem. Now, of course, the problem is the weather. I'd bet they don't fly today, just looking at the motion of that front. I wish it would come down here--we need the rain.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:51 AMI'm actually suffering from a rare thing for me--writer's block. Primarily because there is so much to blog about on the space policy front that I can't even figure out where to start, and I have some personal issues (and no, not health, and not relationship--not that big a deal in the grand scheme--primarily financial and organizing my life) going on that are distracting. But until I can do so, here are some links.
Go read Shubber's latest at Space Cynics, then Jon Goff's semi-concurrence. Go read Jeff Foust's account of Mike Griffin's defense of his architecture choices (responding to that is a long blog post in itself). And then, what the hell, just go scroll through Space Politics, and Clark's place. If you haven't been doing that already (they're all on my space blogroll to the left), then there will be a lot of food for thought, even before I weigh in.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Oh, and while it's kind of last week's news, go check out Thomas James' interesting side-by-side comparison between his remembrances of Challenger and Columbia. More contrast than mine, because I was working in the industry during both, while (being younger than me) he went through a major life transition between the two.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:23 PMThe Indian space agency has signed a cooperative agreement with NASA.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:30 AMA podcast with me, Glenn Reynolds, and others, over at Popular Mechanics.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:58 PMMy Space-Review interview of Steven Weinberg has been translated into Bulgarian (with permission).
Quoth Weinberg: "I'd like to think I have put the Kibosh on the Bulgarian manned space flight program."
I'd like to think I sparked it enough to at least put the Kibosh on the Kibosh.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 05:45 PMIt's hard to believe, but it's been five years since Columbia was lost. I was up in San Bruno at the time, getting ready to drive home to LA. Here was what I blogged about it immediately upon hearing. I think that most of my initial speculation has held up pretty well. Also check though the February 2003 archives for a lot more space commentary from the time. I wrote three related pieces at Fox News (here and here) and National Review in the next few days.
Was this as traumatic and memorable as the Challenger disaster? No, for several reasons. We didn't watch it live on television, there was no teacher aboard to traumatize the kids, and we had already lost our national innocence about the Shuttle. Still, people might want to post remembrances here.
[Update mid morning]
I'd forgotten about these. Columbia haiku that I and my commenters came up with.
[Late afternoon update]
Clark Lindsey has more anniversary links.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:07 AMI have some thoughts about space anniversaries, over at Pajamas Media.
[Update a few minutes later]
Alan Boyle has a more detailed and humanized history of the Explorer 1 mission. Though I should add, as I say in my own piece, that the belts weren't "discovered" by the satellite--their theoretical existence had previously been proposed by Christofilos, so finding them was confirmation, rather than a complete surprise.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:39 AMI'll have a piece up on this myself later in the week (the anniversary is actually Thursday), but John Noble Wilford has some thoughts on the past fifty years since Explorer I.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:03 PMThoughts on space tourism, "shooting down" errant satellites, and gray goo, in a podcast with Instapundit.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:39 AMMany false lessons have been learned from the Shuttle program in general, and from the Challenger loss particularly. Chair Force Engineer explains:
NASA management's most enduring lesson from Challenger is the flawed mantra of "Crew must be kept separate from cargo." While such flawed logic is enough to trick Congress into funding the development of two very different launchers, it doesn't always hold true. If a launcher can be made safe enough for a human crew, there's no reason why it can't be trusted with carrying a reasonable amount of cargo at the same time.
Yes, that's one of the more illogical ones. He has more.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:59 AMStill no answer:
"I can tell you for certain that, when we do determine the cause, that it will be published so that it can't happen to others," Rutan said. "But we don't know yet what caused the detonation."
This seems to me a serious setback. If I were them, I'd be talking to XCOR and others, and doing a vehicle redesign to accommodate a different (liquid, not hybrid) engine. They have been overhyping the safety of hybrids for too long on this program, and the fact that they killed three men and wounded three more is going to have an effect on the perception of the engine's safety, even if it was not something that could rationally be expected in flight. As long as they don't know what happened, they can't move forward. They're sort of in the same position as NASA, dealing with an unknown risk, but betting on the come, and hoping that they'll have it figured out in a year or so, in time to start flight tests under rocket propulsion. But as I said, hope is not a plan.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:51 AMAv Week has a fairly detailed technical description of the thrust oscillation problem:
"Conservative" calculations of the potential frequency and amplitude of a thrust oscillation that could occur in the first stage as it nears burnout, and of the way that vibration links to the rest of the vehicle, suggest that it could set up a resonance that would damage critical components and harm the crew (AW&ST Dec. 10, 2007, p. 60).A thrust-oscillation "focus team," convened in November 2007, has since calculated that the problem may not be as severe as it appeared earlier in the fall. But the work continues under a looming March deadline, set so designers on both the launch vehicle and Orion can start work in earnest on mitigating the effect, if necessary, before preliminary design review (PDR) at the end of the summer.
"That gives us a good view of the problem with what we see as how big the risk is, [along with] what are the right mitigation strategies for any residual risk left, so that going into PDR we have a good handle on it and we're designing for it," says Garry Lyles, an experienced launch vehicle engineer at Marshall who heads the focus team. "You're not waiting downstream of the [PDR] to start designing your system to accommodate the oscillation."
Emphasis mine. If it "may not be," it also "may be." This goes beyond risk (which is quantifiable), into uncertainty, which by definition is not, and that's an unhappy place for an engineer to be. They continue with the "may not be" language.
...the focus team has since calculated that the problem may not be as severe as originally feared. Nominally the oscillation frequency of a five-segment booster is 12 Hz. (compared with 15 Hz. for the four-segment version). But after that it gets complicated. Translating RSRM ground-test data into accurate forcing function figures and the stack's response to that force is extremely difficult, particularly since the upper-stage and Orion designs remain immature and oscillation data are based on ground tests.
They can do flight tests on a Shuttle SRB, but that still won't tell them how a five-segment motor will behave (though it will give them better data with which to model it). But as it notes, there's no way to model the dynamic structural behavior of the stack, because they don't have enough fidelity in the design. They are risking going into a program, spending billions more, without certain knowledge that they'll have a viable system until they're well along in the development, at which point they might find out that they have to essentially start over from scratch.
...if the problem doesn't go away with more data and more refined calculations, or can't be fixed with propellant redesign, then isolation pads and other mechanical fixes probably will add weight to the overall vehicle. Making it work could eat into the weight margins held at various levels of the Ares I and Orion programs (AW&ST Dec. 10, 2007, p. 52).Although the problem isn't fully understood, none of the NASA engineers involved in solving it sees it as a show-stopper.
"I hope this is the worst we've got to deal with," says NASA Administrator Michael Griffin.
Well, apparently, they're not allowed to see it as a show stopper. People get fired for pointing out that the emperor is naked.
As Dr. Laura says, hope has no power, Mike. It is not a plan. And there are numerous other solutions.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:48 AMThis weekend, I met a young woman, now attending law school in Ann Arbor, who was in diapers when it happened. To her, it's ancient unremembered history, just as the Eisenhower administration is to me (though I at least study it, unlike most of my age cohorts). It made me feel old. We have a generation, though, about ten years older than her, now in their thirties, for whom it was probably the most traumatic event of their young lives. The comments are closed on my post from six years ago, but anyone who wants to post remembrances can do it here, with the caveat that I still haven't completely recovered from my recent MT upgrade (still hoping that someone who knows it will volunteer to help), so you can use them, but they will time out. Don't expect to get a response after submitting the comment. Just back up after a while, and refresh the page to see it.
I'm particularly interested in how the event changed your perception of the Shuttle, and the space program in general, if at all, per my previous thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:28 PMThis is a week of space anniversaries. Yesterday was forty-one years since the Apollo fire that killed three astronauts on the launch pad as horrified technicians watched during a ground test. Thursday will be the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of the first US satellite, Explorer I. Friday will be five years since the Columbia disintegrated over the otherwise quiet morning skies of Texas.
But today is the twenty-second anniversary of the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger, an event that traumatized the nation as millions of schoolchildren watched the first "teacher in space" go up in a fireball on live television. I'll never forget the date because it was then (as it remains) coincident with the anniversary of my birth.
It wasn't obvious to many at the time, but that event was the beginning of the end of the Space Shuttle program, then less than five years old, with its first flight having occurred on April 12th, 1981. Prior to that flight, there had still been plans (that some thought fantasies, due to budget restrictions and ongoing problems of turnaround time) of twenty-four flights a year (including a couple per year out of Vandenberg AFB in California). The catastrophe was a splash of cold water in the face of those who had held out hopes for the Shuttle in terms of meeting its original promises of routine, affordable, safe access to orbit. Those promises had caused people (like those in the L5 Society) to dream of space stations, and space manufacturing, and ultimately, space colonies.
After the disaster, many realized that if those dreams were to come true, they would have to be by some means other than the Shuttle (a realization that some later took one step further and decided that NASA itself was unlikely to be of much help in achieving the goals, particularly since it continued to flout the law, and had no interest in them whatsoever). But the program went on, because it was all NASA had for manned spaceflight, and it maintained jobs in the districts of politically powerful congressmen and senators. Though there had been disillusionment about the promise of the program, there was no political will to replace it. The few (misguided) attempts (NASP, X-33, SLI, OSP) to replace it all floundered or failed. The latter two morphed from one to the other. The program thus struggled along with four orbiters, and a low flight rate, with occasional fleet stand downs due to endemic problems, such as hydrogen leaks at the interface, or other concerns.
But the final blow was struck five years ago this coming Friday, with the loss of Columbia. The fleet was down to three birds, and unlike the case after the loss of Challenger, no structural spares had been procured with which to build a new one, and the tooling for them had long since been scrapped. So the decision was finally made, almost seventeen years after the loss of the first orbiter, to end the program.
Unfortunately, what is planned to replace it, Ares 1/Orion, will be little improvement, and in some ways a major step backwards. It will launch even fewer crew than Shuttle, and while the Shuttle was a heavy-lift vehicle capable of delivering twenty tons to the space station, the new system will deliver little payload other than crew. It will have minimal ability to return payloads and no ability to return the types of payloads that the Shuttle could. It will likely cost as much or more per launch, particularly when having to amortize the development costs, which had been long sunk for the Shuttle, and it's unlikely to launch much, if any, more often. We will go from a system that could deliver a few government employees (along with a couple dozen tons of paylad) into space a few times a year, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars per flight to a system that can deliver fewer government employees (with essentially no paylad) into space a few times a year, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars per flight. The only saving grace is that, in theory, it can also deliver people to the moon, and it may be somewhat safer.
But the Shuttle started out with a dream: of dozens of flights per year, of low costs per flight, of many flights for many purposes, some of which would be privately funded for private purposes. In canceling most launch vehicle technology development, and returning to a horrifically expensive concept from the 1960s, NASA has in essence officially declared that dream dead.
Fortunately, investors don't take NASA as seriously as they used to, and the dream now lives on in the form of new private companies, determined to open up the heavens to all of us, and not just a few civil servants. If we hadn't lost the Challenger over two decades ago, the Columbia loss might have been seen as an anomaly in an otherwise-successful program. As in 1986, it might have simply been replaced (albeit at great expense) with the structural spares that were earlier used to build Endeavor, and the program might still be lumbering on, keeping us trapped in low earth orbit, and continuing to crush the dreams of those who believe that we can do better. If that loss back then was a necessary catalyst to ultimately end the program and spur on efforts to do better privately, even if delayed, then perhaps the sacrifice of the Challenger crew will, in the long run of history, be viewed as not for naught.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:50 AMA solution?
They started with two common food preservatives--the same stuff, BHA and BHT, that keeps Wonder Bread fresh for weeks--as a means to carry away free radicals before they can cause harm.But for the food preservatives to become effective, the scientists needed a way to get them inside cells.
That's where carbon nanotubes, single layers of carbon atoms curved into tiny cylinders, came in handy. The research team attached the food preservatives to the nanotubes, which, because of their size, provided a perfect vehicle for traversing the body's arteries and entering cells.
Tour said he began his research with the goal of finding a drug to protect astronauts on long-duration space missions from the radiation to which they are exposed outside Earth's atmosphere.
But the test results in mice, which were given the drug 30 minutes before a blast of radiation, were so impressive that Tour thought the drug might have much broader potential.
I hope that the real promise is for deep space travel, not for a nuclear war. We need to do everything we can to avoid the latter, but if not, this will help as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:53 AMOf either party.
"I fully support the president's Vision for Space Exploration. I believe that we should expand our presence beyond low earth orbit, and establish a human civilization into the solar system, going to the moon, the asteroids, Mars and points beyond, which is what the vision was in its essence. However, I'm extremely disappointed in the implementation of it to date by NASA, and if elected, I pledge to revisit the Aldridge Report, which required that the vision be fully integrated with the commercial sector and that it support national security goals, and restructure it in order to do so."
One could obviously expand on it in detail, but that's what's missing from the debate, in my opinion.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:13 AMDale Amon has some thoughts, though as I note in comments, Mercury is an unlikely prospect for prospecting.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:27 AMThere's very little news in Virgin's announcement today, except for the pretty picture and the schedule. Many more questions are left unanswered than answered. There's a little more, but not much more info at the New York Times (registration required). The Times piece has an error, calling SpaceShipTwo SpaceShipOne.
Are they really claiming that they're going to start SS2 flights in June? Or just White Knight 2? And if SS2 flies in June, how many flights will there be with ballast for the propulsion system (i.e., simply drop tests) and at what point will it first fire the rocket motor? I ask because, despite Scaled's fine for not properly training its employees in the handling of nitrous oxide, there has been no announcement as to the cause of last July's accident. Do they know? If not, have they moved forward with engine development anyway? Or have they switched gears and gone to a different propulsion system? Seems like a pretty tight schedule, if so.
I think that they could learn a lot and start test flying the airframe this summer, assuming it's well enough along, and perhaps they're betting on the come when it comes to the powerplant to meet that schedule. Finally, I wonder what Burt thinks about the announcement?
Jeff Foust has more thoughts. The dual cabin design of WK2 is interesting. I wonder if that's for additional passenger revenue?
[Update a little later]
A lot of posts and links over at Clark Lindsey's place (not a permalink).
[Update at 5 PM EST]
Alan Boyle has more details, with some comments from Virgin. But none on propulsion. As I suspected, the initial flights for SS2 will be drop tests (naturally), which can go forward without engines.
And Alan has pretty mixed response from his commenters, some of whom sound like morons. At least I don't have to worry about that until I get my comments fixed, which is turning out to be a much bigger deal than I thought it would. Again, if there's an MT doctor in the house, email me at the address in the upper left corner.
[Evening update]
Clark Lindsey has more info. As I was guessing, the flight tests this summer will be WK2, not SS2, and Burt still says they don't know what happened or what they'll do about propulsion. That's not good if they want to be in operations in '09. He surely must have some options in mind. I'd recommend going with a liquid, from XCOR or someone else, and dumping the hybrid, which adds ops cost, and whose safety is overrated. But we'll see.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:58 AMOK, CalOSHA has fined Scaled Composites for not training its employees properly in the handling of nitrous oxide. But there's still no explanation of what caused the explosion, or really, how to prevent it in the future. At least, not in this story.
This can't be good news for the SS1 propulsion system.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:13 PMESMD has finally responded to Keith Cowing's questions to NASA PAO.
One bit of explanation is required, I think. When Keith refers to a "five-by-five" matrix, he's talking about the standard risk assessment tool that NASA (and ARES Corporation, for whom I casually consult, and others) use to track program risk.
Here's an example from the Mil Standard, but it's a five by four (five levels of probability, four levels of consequence). Anything that is in one corner (low likelihood, low consequence) can be ignored, and anything that is in the opposite corner (high for both) should be receiving the bulk of the program resources. Things that are in between are tracked, and measures are taken to move them down to the 1,1 corner of the matrix. Though I can't find an example of one at my fingertips, the five by five is a little more fine grained in consequence level.
It can be used either for safety issues (in which case, "catastrophic" corresponds to loss of mission or crew), or for programmatic issues, in which case "catastrophic" would probably be complete program failure. It's a little harder to evaluate in this case, though, because that depends on how "program failure" is defined. Does it mean that the program is cancelled? Or does it mean that the program is restructured beyond recognition? Ares 1 seems to me to be vulnerable to either one.
What exactly is the issue? The problem is that any structure has a resonant frequency at which it naturally vibrates. If you excite the structure at that frequency, you can develop a positive-feedback system that will literally shake it apart (the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is the classic example).
Solid rocket motors don't run particularly smoothly (compared to well-designed or even poorly designed liquids) and large solid motors provide a very rough ride. Everyone who has ever ridden the Shuttle to orbit has commented on how much smoother the ride gets after staging the SRBs.
Now, one way to mitigate this is to damp it out with a large mass. The Shuttle does this by its nature, because even though it has two of the things, they are not directly attached to the orbiter--they are attached to a large external tank with one and a half million pounds of liquid propellants in it, and it can absorb a lot of the vibration. Moreover, the large mass has a frequency that doesn't resonate with the vibration.
As I understand it (and I could be wrong, and I'm not working Ares, but this is based on discussions, many off the record and all on background with insiders on the program), there is a very real concern that the upper stage on top of the SRB in "the Stick" will be excited at a resonant frequency, but that even if not, the stage will be too small to damp the vibrations of the huge SRB below.
If this is the case, there is no simple solution. You can't arbitrarily change the mass of the upper stage--that is determined by the mission requirement. Any solution is going to involve damping systems independent of the basic structure that are sure to add weight to a launch vehicle that is already, according to most reports, underperforming. Or it will involve beefing up the structure of the upper stage and the Orion itself so that they can sustain the acoustic vibration loads. In the case of the latter, it is already overweight, with low margins.
So this constitutes a major program risk, that could result in either cancellation, or a complete redesign (that no longer represents the original concept, because the problem is fundamentally intrinsic to it).
Now, let's take apart the response a little:
Thrust oscillation is...a risk. It is being reviewed, and a mitigation plan is being developed. NASA is committed to resolve this issue prior to the Ares I Project's preliminary design review, currently scheduled for late 2008.
The problem is that NASA can "commit" to resolve it until the cows come home, but if it's not resolvable, it's not resolvable. They can't rescind the laws of physics, and we're approaching a couple of anniversaries of times when they attempted to do that, with tragic results.
Now this next part is (to put it mildly) annoying:
NASA has given careful consideration to many different launch concepts (shuttle-derived, evolved expendable launch vehicle, etc.) over several years. This activity culminated with release of the Exploration Systems Architecture Study in 2005. Since then, the baseline architecture has been improved to decrease life cycle costs significantly.NASA's analysis backs up the fact that the Ares family enables the safest, least expensive launch architecture to meet requirements for missions to the International Space Station, the moon and Mars. NASA is not contemplating alternatives to the current approach.
The problem is that NASA didn't give "careful consideration" to the previous analyses after Mike Griffin came in. As far as can be determined, all of the analysis performed under Admiral Steidle's multiple CE&R contracts, performed by major contractors, was ignored, and put on the shelf to collect dust while NASA decided to build what the new administrator, along with Scott Horowitz and Doug Stanley, were predisposed to build. I have never seen "NASA's analysis" that supports this statement. Steve Cook made a valiant attempt to justify it at the Space Access Meeting last March, and was given kudos, at least by me, for having the guts to come in and defend it to a hostile audience, but no one was convinced, or even saw convincing data. He simply stated the conclusions, but didn't show the numbers.
But the most troubling thing to me is the end:
Thrust oscillation is a new engineering challenge to the developers of Ares - but a challenge very similar to many NASA encountered during the Apollo Program and development of the space shuttle. Every time NASA faces an engineering challenge - and it faces many - agency engineers examine all the options for addressing the issue. NASA has an excellent track record of resolving technical challenges. NASA is confident it will solve this one as well.
The problem is that, in reality, despite its confidence (or at least its stated confidence) NASA's record on this score is, at best, mixed. For instance, think about (as just two examples) the X-33. Or the OMV (I did a Google on it, and couldn't come up with any good histories of it--one needs to be written). Or many of the original space station concepts, which required complete redesigns. Sometimes engineering challenges are just too great to overcome, and a new approach is required to overcome a flawed concept. I don't know whether that's the case with Ares 1 or not, but this response doesn't instill in me any confidence that it's not.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:02 PMJeff Manber writes that we should be inviting China to participate in the ISS program, and space in general.
I have a hard time getting worked up about it, either way. I don't consider either NASA or China relevant to the future of space at this point, though if they actually start flying this thing, I may start to take them more seriously.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:24 AMClark Lindsey talks some more about Steven Weinberg's space and science budget opinions in reply to my interview of him.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 12:34 PMI interviewed Steven Weinberg who has replaced James Van Allen as the most prestigious and eloquent direct critic of human spaceflight (unlike Barack Obama who may be the most effective passive-aggressive de-funder of space activities since Nixon).
I faced a fundamental media ethics issue. Weinberg's opinion on the likelihood of nuclear war with Russia in the next twenty years ("more likely than not") puts him in a tiny minority. By publicizing his view on this, it delegitimizes him as a spokesman against human spaceflight without discrediting directly his arguments against human spaceflight on the merits. I chose to carefully transcribe his words on this point, confirm that he stood by them, then released them.
What would you have done?
I certainly owe society a warning if he is correct. Twenty years ago, I would certainly have joined Weinberg in agreeing we are on a nuclear precipice and the facts certainly have not migrated all that much since then, just our interpretation of them. Like the national intelligence estimate of Iran; they are enriching uranium, but maybe they're not trying to build a bomb just today. We compartmentalize and convince ourselves that we're OK.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 07:51 AMFour years ago, President Bush announced a new direction for the nation in space, perhaps the biggest space policy change since the end of Apollo, in that it forthrightly declared that there was now a national goal to send people beyond low earth orbit, where they had been stuck since 1972, a situation that was cemented with the onset of the Shuttle era, because it was our only crewed space vehicle, and it could go nowhere else.
Unfortunately, four years later, the program is bogged down with an unnecessary new launch system that will do little to improve safety and nothing to reduce costs, and for this and other reasons, it seems unlikely to survive the next administration, almost regardless of who wins. My primary hope is that at least the goal remain in place, and perhaps some fresh thought will be given to how it will be best achieved, with a lot more emphasis on the commercial sector and tying it in to national security, as the Aldridge Report advised, and NASA has completely ignored. And no, COTS doesn't count, both because it's inadequately funded, and because it has nothing to do with VSE--it's simply a way to replace Shuttle logistics for ISS.
Jeff Foust has some thoughts over at The Space Review today. Here's what I wrote as I live blogged the speech at the time, from a motel in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:49 AMGlenn at Instapundit points to a UPI story that says JPL thinks the odds of a 4,000 km flyby for 2007 W(M)D5 or less is 99.7%. If it's not going to hit Mars, that increases the chances that it will slingshot around Mars toward Earth. Odds are likely in the 1 in a million range or less, but what if it did? I wouldn't say "probably", but let's have some transplanetary musings!
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 07:45 PMJesse Londin has a roundup. I'd like to go to the one in Arcachon, France.
She also has a year-end space linkfest that I'd missed.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 AMI hadn't said anything about this long but useful post by Jon Goff, primarily because I hadn't had the time to read it. I just glanced through it, and it's definitely worth a read for those interested in rocket theology.
One point that I didn't really see addressed is (to me) one of the biggest disadvantages of single stage--off-design performance. Because a single-stage vehicle will have a much larger dry mass/payload ratio on orbit, if one wants to take it to higher altitudes or inclinations, the payload penalty will be much more severe than that for an upper stage of a multiple-stage system. Altitudes can be dealt with by staging in space (i.e., a tug that meets the vehicle at low altitude and transfers the payload to a higher-altitude facility), but inclination hits can't be accommodated in this way.
But I remain a launch-vehicle agnostic. I'd like to see a lot of different concepts developed, and let the market sort out which is the best, rather than engineers arguing over napkin sketches, or with Powerpoint charts.
[Update a few minutes later]
I should note that the comments are worth reading too, including contributions from Antonio Elias, Gary Hudson, and Dan DeLong.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:21 AMClark Lindsey reports that Patti Grace Smith is leaving FAA-AST. With a tenure of thirteen years, she has led the office longer than all her predecessors combined. If it happens soon, it seems to me that it's going to be tough for the Bush administration to find a replacement, since whoever takes the job may perceive that they'll be replaced again with a new administration. Perhaps someone (e.g., George Nield?) will simply act for her for the next year.
In any event, as Clark notes, she has done good things overall for the space entrepreneurs, and good luck to her in future endeavors. Let's hope that her successor has the same attitude.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:16 AMA new space and SF blog, from Wired refugees.
[Via Alan Boyle]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:56 AMHolman Jenkins endorses space tourism, Bigelow and COTS in his Wall Street Journal Opinion column today as means to speed the time when humanity can survive a big rock hitting us on one of the planets where we live. (I write this from the Yucatan Peninsula which owes its formation to a big rock).
Unless you can avoid a newspaper in 2008, expect to be reading a lot about human extinction. In June arrives the hundredth anniversary of the Tunguska impact, which leveled 800 square miles of Siberia. By happenstance, a rock of similar size may smash into Mars on Jan. 30, affording scientists a close-up view of a planetary disaster....At times like these, thoughts naturally turn to escape.
Or...Honey, I shrunk the economy!
China's GDP is forty percent smaller than previously assumed. Walter Russell Meade considers the implications.
One that he doesn't point out is the hysteria by some (including the NASA administrator, except that in his case I suspect that it's just a cynical attempt to scare Congress into giving him more money for "Apollo on steroids") that they will beat us back to the moon is even less justified than it was at the higher number.
China not only has a much smaller economy than ours after the PPP recalculation, but it has a much smaller economy per capita, since their population is over four times ours (resulting in average per capita income of about an eighth of ours), with a much smaller middle class. That means that the Chinese peasants, the vast majority of whom are still in poverty by US standards, are likely to be even less happy about boondoggles to the moon than we are.
And as Meade points out, the government is not sufficiently stable to risk the popular uproar that might be engendered by large numbers of people who are unhappy to see their national wealth spent to send a few taikonauts off to Luna, while they continue to have no running water. I expect the Chinese program to continue at its current snail's pace, but to think that they will beat us back to the moon any time soon, or at all, remains a fantasy.
[Via Instapundit]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:43 AMBusiness Week reports on a nuclear electric battery (more like a reactor) that has 27 MW for 5 years worth of juice and it's "the size of a hot tub". It's patent pending (20040062340; search for "uranium hydride over at USPTO.gov). That's about 64 cubic feet. That's 1.2 terrawatt hours or 1.2 billion kwh. They say it's 70% cheaper than natural gas--maybe $30 million? If it's 54 cubic feet and pure uranium hydride (a high overestimate), it would weigh about 15 tons. Compare that with 15 tons of LOX and hydrogen with 66,000 kwh at 39 kwh per kg of hydrogen. Pretty good ISP. Thrust to weight not so good. Combine it with a reaction mass fill up on Mars?
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 03:18 PMSpeaking of The New Atlantis, in addition to the Zubrin excerpt, the fall 2007 issue has a lot of space essays to commemorate the half century since Sputnik. It has a classic essay from the early space age by Hannah Arendt on man's limitations (which I may get around to commenting on later), with several current-day responses, some retrospection from Jim Oberg and (at long last) my review of Michael Belfiore's Rocketeers
Are we nearing the end of COTS? Happy New Year.
It's probably not too late to do anything about it:
If you're even half as angry about this as I am, then it's time to let Congress know that you're mad as hell and not going to take it any longer. Even if it doesn't do any good, won't it just feel grand to let your Representative and Senator know how you feel!? And while you're at it, write a letter to your local newspaper editor.If you want to communicate with the Member of Congress who is sponsoring this destructive anti-COTS language, I recommend calling or writing to Senator Barbara Mikulski, who can be reached at:
Senator Barbara Mikulski
Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
PHONE: (202) 224-4654
Here's the Space News story from Brian Berger.
I guess I'd be more disappointed if I had had higher hopes for the program. But it was conceptually flawed to begin with, in many ways, and while the people executing it are good people, they had to battle a bureaucracy whose primary focus was on maintaining jobs and Constellation, many of whose cohorts (along with the porkmeisters on the Hill, such Senator Mikulski) no doubt viewed it as both a threat and a distraction.
I don't know whether or not this effort will save the program or not, but I'm not sure that it really matters. SpaceX always had a plan that didn't involve COTS, and will continue to move forward without it. Bigelow is continuing to offer his market incentives. The suborbital business will go on in the absence of COTS. As for how ISS is supported, that will continue to be a slow-motion train wreck into the next decade. I think that in the end, it will go off the tracks, as more and more people realize in Washington that the federal human space program is FUBAR, and likely to be replaced by a private one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:54 AMWe need to be worrying more about smaller ones than we have been:
Simulations show that the material of an incoming asteroid is compressed by the increasing resistance of Earths atmosphere. As it penetrates deeper, the more and more resistant atmospheric wall causes it to explode as an airburst that precipitates the downward flow of heated gas.Because of the additional energy transported toward the surface by the fireball, what scientists had thought to be an explosion between 10 and 20 megatons was more likely only three to five megatons. The physical size of the asteroid, says Boslough, depends upon its speed and whether it is porous or nonporous, icy or waterless, and other material characteristics.
Any strategy for defense or deflection should take into consideration this revised understanding of the mechanism of explosion, says Boslough.
We really need to become much more spacefaring to be in a position to do anything about this, and ESAS doesn't cut it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:31 AMWell, actually not brand new--the archives actually go back to September, but relatively new. It's called "Rockets and Such" and reads like it's written by an insider, either a NASA employee or a contractor (I'm guessing the former). Presumably, "the Emperor" (who also presumably has no clothes) is Mike Griffin. The references to pony tails are almost certainly about Doug Stanley.
There's been a lot of programmatic chaos going on in Constellation and ESAS that I haven't been commenting much on. The program remains in big trouble, both because it has weight/schedule and budget issues, and because the budget issues are getting tougher, with continuing resolutions and the like. These are all the result of bad initial choices made in the architecture, which focused on an unnecessary new launch system, instead of coming up with concepts for sustainable in-space infrastructure that could use existing commercial launchers, as recommended by some of the CE&R teams.
The latest problem is that the lander design apparently won't close, a problem exacerbated, as pointed out in comments, by its requirement to do part of the lunar orbit injection burn. This is a problem that would be greatly mitigated by an architecture employing a depot in lunar orbit or (more likely) L1, or even in LEO. The former would also enable reuse of the lander. And ultimately, after the collapse of ESAS, I hope that's the direction that the program will go, assuming it survives at all.
One other interesting point is that the J-2X engine development for Ares 1 will probably be delayed by the Shuttle ECO sensor problems, because they don't have enough test stands at Stennis. And in another bait and switch, it turns out that while based on the classic J-2, the engine is basically a completely new one, in terms of development costs and testing--very little of the original design can be used, due to escalating requirements. One more nail in the coffin for the program ultimately, I suspect.
Anyway, I'm adding it to the space blogroll--it looks like a good place to track this stuff, at least for now.
[Mid morning update]
Rob Coppinger has more on the lunar lander problems.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 AMSome thoughts from Vernor Vinge himself.
What's a real space program ... and what's not
- From 1957 to circa 1980 we humans did some proper pioneering in space. We (I mean brilliant engineers and scientists and brave explorers) established a number of near-Earth applications that are so useful that they can be commercially successful even at launch costs to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) of $5000 to $10000/kg. We also undertook a number of human and robotic missions that resolved our greatest uncertainties about the Solar System and travel in space.
- From 1980 till now? Well, launch to LEO still runs $5000 to $10000/kg. As far as I can tell, the new Vision for Space Exploration will maintain these costs. This approach made some sense in 1970, when we were just beginning and when initial surveys of the problems and applications were worth almost any expense. Now, in the early 21st century, these launch costs make talk of humans-in-space a doubly gold-plated sham:
- First, because of the pitiful limitations on delivered payloads, except at prices that are politically impossible (or are deniable promises about future plans).
- Second, because with these launch costs, the payloads must be enormously more reliable and compact than commercial off-the-shelf hardwareand therefore enormously expensive in their own right.
I believe most people have great sympathy and enthusiasm for humans-in-space. They really "get" the big picture. Unfortunately, their sympathy and enthusiasm has been abused.
Humankind's presence in space is essential to long-term human survival.
That is why I urge that we reject any major humans-in-space initiative that does not have the prerequisite goal of much cheaper (at least by a factor of ten) access to space.
He has identified the fundamental flaw in NASA's approach. Of course, it's nothing that many of us haven't been saying for years (that's what the Space Access Society is all about, after all), but it's nice to hear it from him as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:27 AMThey are if lunar land prices are really a leading indicator. If so, I wonder why?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:11 AMI read about this on Arocket last week, but Masten now has it up on their blog. They lost their test vehicle last week.
This is not a setback. It's a learning experience, and a demonstration of the virtues of cheap incremental testing.
[Afternoon update]
Dave Masten has a good point over at Arocket:
This morning I got a phone call from the landlords (Mojave Air and Space Port folks) asking about the "explosion, injuries, cats and dogs living together" and all other sorts of terrible calamities. OK, I exaggerate a bit, but I was specifically asked about an explosion. Seems Stu Witt is in D.C. visiting FAA/AST and he was asked about an explosion, so he called his staff here in Mojave and asked about it.Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:47 AMI would like to take this opportunity to point out that there is no physical law that says a launch vehicle must explode if something goes wrong. I know that if this were a Zenit, Delta, or STS there probably would be an explosion. But, we are not building that type of vehicle. In fact several of us on this list specifically design our vehicles and operations so that the risk of explosion is negligible. It is not difficult to do. Just starting with the assumption that safety margins are more important than payload margin takes one a very long way towards that goal. Add in a little thought about survivability of a vehicle takes one the rest of the way.
So, if I could beg a favor from those of you on this list who are with AST, please let your colleagues know that a crash of our vehicle does not imply an explosion or even a fireball.
Jeff Foust has a good roundup of current events over at The Space Review today.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:44 AMWhen I was digging through my December 2003 archives to see what I was writing about the Wright brothers anniversary, I ran across this space policy essay that I wrote a few days later. As long as I'm doing reruns today, it still holds up pretty well, I think, so here's an encore, from almost four years ago.
A Vision, Not A Destination (First published on December 22nd, 2003)
Jason Bates has an article on the current state of space policy development. As usual, it shows a space policy establishment mired in old Cold-War myths, blinkered in its view of the possibilities.
NASA needs a vision that includes a specific destination. That much a panel of space advocates who gathered in Washington today to celebrate the 100th anniversary of powered flight could agree on. There is less consensus about what that destination should be.
Well, if I'd been on that panel, the agreement would have been less than unanimous. I agree that NASA needs a vision, but I think that the focus on destination is distracting us from developing one, if for no other reason than it's probably not going to be possible to get agreement on it.
As the article clearly shows, some, like Paul Spudis, think we should go back to the moon, and others, like Bub Zubrin, will settle for no less than Mars, and consider our sister orb a useless distraction from the true (in his mind) goal. We are never going to resolve this fundamental, irreconciliable difference, as long as the argument is about destinations.
In addition, we need to change the language in which we discuss such things. Dr. Spudis is quoted as saying:
"...For the first time in the agency's history there is no new human spaceflight mission in the pipeline. There is nothing beyond" the international space station."
Fred Singer of NOAA says:
The effort will prepare humans for more ambitious missions in the future, Singer said. "We need an overarching goal," he said. "We need something with unique science content, not a publicity stunt."
Gary Martin, NASA's space architect declares:
NASA's new strategy would use Mars, for example, as the first step to future missions rather than as a destination in itself, Martin said. Robotic explorers will be trailblazers that can lay the groundwork for deeper space exploration, he said.
"...human spaceflight mission..."
"...unique science..."
"...space exploration..."
This is the language of yesteryear. This debate could have occurred, and in fact did occur, in the early 1970s, as Apollo wound down. There's nothing new here, and no reason to think that the output from it will result in affordable or sustainable space activities.
They say that we need a vision with a destination, but it's clear from this window into the process that, to them, the destination is the vision. It's not about why are we doing it (that's taken as a given--for "science" and "exploration"), nor is it about how we're doing it (e.g., giving NASA multi-gigabucks for a "mission" versus putting incentives into place for other agencies or private entities to do whatever "it" is)--it's all seemingly about the narrow topic of where we'll send NASA next with our billions of taxpayer dollars, as the scientists gather data while we sit at home and watch on teevee.
On the other hand, unlike the people quoted in the article, the science writer Timothy Ferris is starting to get it, as is Sir Martin Rees, the British Astronomer Royal, though both individuals are motivated foremost by space science.
At first glance, the Ferris op-ed seems just another plea for a return to the moon, but it goes beyond "missions" and science, and discusses the possibility of practical returns from such a venture. Moreover, this little paragraph indicates a little more "vision," than the one from the usual suspects above:
As such sugarplum visions of potential profits suggest, the long-term success of a lunar habitation will depend on the involvement of private enterprise, or what Harrison H. Schmitt, an Apollo astronaut, calls "a business-and-investor-based approach to a return to the Moon to stay." The important thing about involving entrepreneurs and oil-rig-grade roughnecks is that they can take personal and financial risks that are unacceptable, as a matter of national pride, when all the explorers are astronauts wearing national flags on their sleeves.One reason aviation progressed so rapidly, going from the Wright brothers to supersonic jets in only 44 years, is that individuals got involved--it wasn't just governments. Charles A. Lindbergh didn't risk his neck in 1927 purely for personal gratification: he was after the $25,000 Orteig Prize, offered by Raymond Orteig, a New York hotelier, for the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris. Had Lindbergh failed, his demise, though tragic, would have been viewed as a daredevil's acknowledged jeopardy, not a national catastrophe. Settling the Moon or Mars may at times mean taking greater risks than the 2 percent fatality rate that shuttle astronauts now face.
Sir Martin's comments are similar:
The American public's reaction to the shuttle's safety record - two disasters in 113 flights - suggests that it is unacceptable for tax-funded projects to expose civilians even to a 2% risk. The first explorers venturing towards Mars would confront, and would surely willingly accept, far higher risks than this. But they will never get the chance to go until costs come down to the level when the enterprise could be bankrolled by private consortia.Future expeditions to the moon and beyond will only be politically and financially feasible if they are cut-price ventures, spearheaded by individuals who accept that they may never return. The Columbia disaster should motivate Nasa to set new goals for manned space flight - to collaborate with private groups to develop a more cost-effective and inspiring programme than we've had for the past 30 years.
Yes, somehow we've got to break out of this national mentality that the loss of astronauts is always unacceptable, or we'll never make any progress in space. The handwringing and inappropriate mourning of the Columbia astronauts, almost eleven months ago, showed that the nation hasn't yet grown up when it comes to space. Had we taken such an attitude with aviation, or seafaring, we wouldn't have an aviation industry today, and in fact, we'd not even have settled the Americas. To venture is to risk, and the first step of a new vision for our nation is the acceptance of that fact. But I think that Mr. Ferris is right--it won't be possible as long as we continue to send national astronauts on a voyeuristic program of "exploration"--it will have to await the emergence of the private sector, and I don't see anything in the "vision" discussions that either recognizes this, or is developing policy to help enable and implement it.
There's really only one way to resolve this disparity of visions, and that's to come up with a vision that can encompass all of them, and more, because the people who are interested in uses of space beside and beyond "science," and "exploration," and "missions," are apparently still being forced to sit on the sidelines, at least to judge by the Space.com article.
Here's my vision.
I have a vision of hundreds of flights of privately-operated vehicles going to and from low earth orbit every year, reducing the costs of doing so to tens of dollars per pound. Much of their cargo is people who are visiting orbital resorts, or even cruise ships around the moon, but the important things is that it will be people paying to deliver cargo, or themselves, to space, for their own purposes, regardless of what NASA's "vision" is.
At that price, the Mars Society can raise the money (perhaps jointly with the National Geographic Society and the Planetary Society) to send their own expedition off to Mars. Dr. Spudis and others of like mind can raise the funds to establish lunar bases, or even hotels, and start to learn how to operate there and start tapping its resources. Still others may decide to go off and visit an asteroid, perhaps even take a contract from the government to divert its path, should it be a dangerous one for earthly inhabitants.
My vision for space is a vast array of people doing things there, for a variety of reasons far beyond science and "exploration." The barrier to this is the cost of access, and the barrier to bringing down the cost of access is not, despite pronouncements to the contrary by government officials, a lack of technology. It's a lack of activity. When we come up with a space policy that addresses that, I'll consider it visionary. Until then, it's just more of the same myopia that got us into the current mess, and sending a few astronauts off to the Moon, or Mars, for billions of dollars, isn't going to get us out of it any more than does three astronauts circling the earth in a multi-decabillion space station.
There's no lack of destinations. What we continue to lack is true vision.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:20 AMThat's how long it's been since the Wrights first launched their first airplane from the dunes of Kitty Hawk. That also means, now, that it's been four years since the X-Prize was won. We haven't made as much progress since then as many of us hope, but I think that things are moving along reasonably well. I in fact expect to see an acceleration of suborbital activity, in the near future, with John Carmack hoping to fly into space in the next two years. I think it was Arthur Clarke who pointed out that we tend to be overoptimistic in the short run, and overpessimistic in the long run, partly because we tend to think linearly.
Anyway, I'm going to reprint my thoughts from four years ago, including links to two other pieces that I wrote at National Review and TCSDaily (then TechCentralStation).
Daring (First published on December 17, 2003)
A hundred years ago, two airplane scientists took off, and landed a heavier-than-aircraft, inaugurating the past century of powered flight.
On that chilly December morning on the Atlantic dunes of North Carolina, looking at the fragile forty-foot box kite, with its noisy gasoline engine, a man lying gingerly on the lower wing, tugging at control wires, few if any of those present could have imagined where it would lead in the coming decades. The notion of a man flying solo far beyond the dunes, across the Atlantic less than a quarter of a century later, of aircraft releasing tons of bombs over European and Japanese cities, setting them ablaze in firestorms killing tens of thousands, of aircraft that split the air at speeds so fast that sound could not keep up, of jumbo airliners with wingspans longer than that first flight, carrying millions of people all over the world every year, or with cargo compartments carrying nothing but fresh-cut flowers--all of these would have seemed notions fantastical. Perhaps, had they had an inkling of the events they were setting in motion, and powers they were unleashing, the brothers Wright, devout sons of a midwest Bishop, would have hesitated themselves.
But probably not. Like all pioneers, successful or otherwise, they were risk takers. They would have had no fear of the future that they were ushering in--after all, they had no fear even of losing their own lives, at least not enough so to hinder their progress, though they knew that others had died in similar attempts, and even been inspired by them.
They had a competitor, though--one who was risk averse, and partly because of that, he failed. It should be no surprise that he was funded by the U.S. government.
Professor Samuel Pierpont Langley had successfully built small unmanned flyers. On the basis of this work, he was provided with a grant from the War Department of fifty-thousand dollars (which was matched by the Smithsonian Institution, of which he was the Secretary). There were many flaws in his approach, but a major one was his unwillingness to do flight test over land. Instead, he devoted a large amount of his budget to building a houseboat that could launch his craft over water via catapult.
Though his aircraft almost certainly wasn't capable of flying anyway, due to numerous design flaws arising from a lack of understanding of aerodynamics, the problem was compounded by the fact that it couldn't sustain the acceleration loads of the catapult. On both flight attempts, it underwent severe damage from the launcher, and on the second was nearly destroyed, plunging the remains into the Potomac River and almost drowning the pilot.
Of course, the real risk aversion, as always, was on the part of the government. On paper, Professor Langley looked like a good bet, compared to the Wrights. He seemed qualified--after all, he was a professor, while they had no college at all. He had built flying machines--they had only built bicycles. It was only natural that the government would lay their bet on what they perceived to be the best horse in the race--they had to safeguard the taxpayers' money, after all--they couldn't go gambling it on unknowns with dangerous and crazy notions.
But there's another, almost inevitable symptom of risk aversion that plagued Professor Langley's project, and many government-funded projects today.
In Greek mythology, it was said that Athena sprung fully formed, in full armor, from the head of Zeus.
Unfortunately, that often seems to be the goal of government agencies as well. A long, drawn-out program, with many incremental tests, offers many opportunities for test failures with their attendant bad publicity and potential for embarrassing congressional hearings. Moreover, the risk of such failures is increased if there is inadequate analysis before committing to hardware--hardware made all the more expensive by attempting to minimize the risk of failure, thus making any possible failure more expensive as well.
This leads to a vicious cycle of spending money to prevent failure which in turn increases the cost of the failure, which in turn results in further expenditures of funding for analysis and increased reliability, which in turn...
Professor Langley's Aerodrome was an example of this, in which he went directly (after analysis, though not good analysis, even given the paucity of aerodynamics knowledge of the times) from small-scale models to a full-scale powered manned vehicle, with no intermediate steps.
The Wrights, in contrast, slowly developed and understood each aspect of the problem, testing as they went, with many failures, but with lessons learned from each one. So, when they rolled out their powered version of their glider, in which they had many hours of flight experience, they could have some confidence that they were adding only one new element to the mix, and it worked.
Unfortunately, the same mindset prevails in modern government programs as well. The most notable example is the Space Shuttle.
While there was a lot of testing of individual elements of the system, at the end, the goal was to take a lot of pieces that each worked individually and integrate them into a system in which they all had to work together the first time, with crew on board. Because the goal was to jump immediately to an orbital vehicle, there was no way to do incremental testing of the system, because once a Shuttle leaves the launch pad, it has to go into orbit, or at least all the way across the Atlantic. But even if it had been designed to be capable of incremental testing, the costs of operating it were so high that a test program would have been unaffordable. Ironically, in their efforts to avoid risk, they've ended up with a program that is, on almost any measure by which it was originally advertised, a failure.
As the Wrights opened up the air, the people who open up space will take a methodical approach, testing, flying a little, expanding the envelope, until they become comfortable in the new environment of suborbital space, then slowly increase their speed and altitude until the trajectory simply drops the "sub" and becomes orbital. Perhaps the government will learn the lesson, but history and the very nature of governments show that the incentives for them to continue along the past failed path are still in place, and strong.
Fortunately, a hundred years after the first true airplane flight, spurred by new markets and prizes, and just fun, we're seeing new innovative people emulating those resourceful and daring brothers, with a potential to once again transform the world in ways at least as amazing as the Wrights did ten decades ago.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:04 AMI've been meaning to comment about this piece at TAP, which is a few weeks old, but I haven't had time to give it much thought. Among many other problems, though, one thing really jumps out at me; it has absolutely no mention of space, or who should handle it. That by itself makes it hard to take the rest seriously.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:28 AMElon Musk has a long update on progress on the new Merlin engine, the Falcon 9 and Dragon. Those are the first pictures I've seen of the Hawthorne facility. It sounds like they have a lot of room to grow.
I'm disappointed, but not surprised, that they've gone with hypergolics for reaction control. That's going to complicate turnaround.
But overall, (in contrast to Orion/Ares) progress seems to be good. Note that they're continuing to hire, and even offering bounties, if you know anyone to refer to them.
[Update a few minutes later]
SpaceX should look into this engine for RCS. Presumably, the hypergolics were chosen for reliability (no igniter required) and storability, but XCOR has pretty reliable engines, and they don't use such nasty propellants, and they have been working on well-insulated LOX tanks.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:41 AMEric Hedman has some ideas. I agree with Clark Lindsey--he is far too optimistic about the prospects for scramjets providing a solution to the problem:
Scramjet propulsion theoretically has the advantage of increasing a vehicles mass fraction for payload by reducing the oxidizer load it has to carry. The big question is, can this theoretical advantage be turned into a practical advantage with a solid, sustained research and development effort? I think its time we find out.
The answer to his big question is...probably not. While the military may have applications for scramjets, I still think that it would be a foolish priority for technologies to reduce launch costs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:34 PMDennis Wingo thinks so. So do I.
In over 30 years of reading space literature from NASA, congress, and the president, this is the first time that the presidential stamp has been placed on the development of extraterrestrial resources. This was not the only step in the development of this thought at the highest reaches of our government. In 2006 at the 44th Goddard Symposium the presidential theme was extended and amplified."As I see it, questions about the VSE boil down to whether we want to incorporate the Solar System in our economic sphere, or not. Our national policy, declared by President Bush and endorsed by Congress last December in the NASA authorization act, affirms that, "The fundamental goal of this vision is to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program." So at least for now the question has been decided in the affirmative."
These two speeches, one by President Bush, and another by his science advisor, the head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy laid the foundation and provided the ground rules, and gave very explicit policy direction to NASA regarding what we are to do in the return to the Moon and conduct exploration to Mars and beyond.
The problem is that NASA has not embraced this expansive goal for our national space program. Why is this? It seems to be just the kind of red meat goal that NASA has dreamed of forever. Even in the SEI era there was never this kind of clear cut, practical direction for a policy, as Marburger states, from the President and Congress. It boggles the mind that this has not been incorporated as a core value for the lunar exploration program--it is exactly this type of effort that has the potential to connect to the American people.
Just as was the case with SEI, VSE is being done in by NASA, though in a different way this time. In SEI, they did it by deliberately sabotaging the program with outrageous cost estimates, and actually lobbying against it in Congress. With VSE, it's more a case of negligent manslaughter, rather than premeditation. ESAS, and NASA's lack of vision, is killing the Vision. And the administration is too preoccupied with other things, and long in the tooth, to do anything about it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:35 AMI just got my fall issue of The New Atlantis--its focus is space, in keeping with the Sputnik anniversary in October. I just glanced at it, but it's got lots of good stuff in it, by Oberg, Mike Griffin, and others, including a long review of Rocketeers
No launch today, either. Maybe tomorrow, but I don't think I'll hang around for it--Patricia has to work.
Anyway, I'm guessing that they'll ultimately have to roll back, and launch in January. These sensors seem to be even more flaky than usual.
[Update about a minute after posting]
Yup. I just got a text message that they've decided to give up on it for the year.
[A couple minutes more]
Here's confirmation on the web site. January 2nd at the earliest.
[11:20 update]
Here's more info.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:08 AMThere have been a new development in the story about Mojave potentially losing its spaceport license.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:19 PMThomas James has found another way for NASA to get around the Congressional prohibition on human Mars exploration, as a result of the blinkered mentality of the people who wrote the language. As he says, though, it's unlikely that NASA would use it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:31 AMBased on what I'm reading here, this is extremely disappointing, given how supportive FAA-AST has been of this fledgling industry to date:
MOJAVE - The nation's first inland spaceport could lose that designation by the end of the year.The Federal Aviation Administration informed officials at the Mojave Air and Space Port of its intention to suspend or revoke the space launch site operator's license Dec. 31.
"I have no reason to be optimistic we're going to keep our spaceport license," said General Manager Stu Witt, reporting on the issue to the East Kern Airport District board of directors Tuesday. The district governs the Mojave Air and Space Port.
...Witt said the FAA has asked airport officials to dream up possible launch vehicle scenarios, imagining various types and amounts of propellants and devising safety plans for dealing with those chemicals.
"I'm not in the business of dealing in stories; I deal in fact," he said.
The airport does have safety and storage plans in effect for those propellents and other energetic materials in use at the site.
The facility's 2006 safety inspection found no compliance issues, Witt said. However, the safety inspection this year resulted in a notice that the facility had 90 days to come into compliance but failed to state what the problems were, he said.
One of the implications of this is that companies like XCOR and Masten Space Systems (not to mention the SpaceShip Company) are going to have to pull up stakes and move somewhere else, though it's not clear how any other US spaceport can meet what seem to be unreasonable FAA demands.
Look. One has to go back to the original intent and basis of the regulations. FAA-AST (and its predecessor, the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, which reported directly to the Secretary of Transportation, and was not part of the FAA) exists for one reason--to meet the obligations of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Our participation in that treaty means that the US government (unlike any other mode of transportation) is liable for any activity involving spaceflight that occurs from its boundaries or its citizens/corporations. (In fact, that means that suborbital flight within the confines of the US is not even relevant to the treaty, but that's a discussion for another time.)
But ground testing, and development that doesn't involve actual spaceflight is not covered in any way by that treaty. No part of FAA-AST should be involved in, or even interested in, vehicle development activities that do not involve vehicles that don't go into space, let alone ones that don't leave the ground at all. These were accidents in propulsion testing on test stands. If any federal agency should be involved (I would argue that none should) it would be OSHA. The FAA (and particularly FAA-AST) should only be involved when testing of actual flight vehicles occur. They have no business worrying about what kinds of propellants are used in vehicle development (let alone engine development), until operators and developers actually seek launch licenses for flight testing using those propellants.
I know, and have friends, at FAA-AST. I hope that one of them will (convincingly) explain to me why I'm wrong.
[Update late evening]
I don't actually hope they'll explain to me why I'm wrong, because if they can do that, it's bad news for the industry. What I really hope is that they'll realize that they're wrong, and not strangle this young industry in the cradle.
And Clark Lindsey is more succinct than I in describing the problem.
[Friday update]
Patti Grace Smith is denying the report:
Earlier I noted a report noted by Rand Simberg and several other space bloggers that the Mojave Space Port was in danger of closure by the FAA. I also emailed Patricia Smith, the FAA's Associate Adminstrator for Commercial Space Transportation. She responds: "The report is totally inaccurate."
That's good, and like Glenn, I appreciate the fast reply, but it would be nice to see a more expansive, and clarifying response. If the report is "totally inaccurate" (hard to believe that anything can be totally inaccurate) what is accurate? What, if anything, is going on?
And if Stu is crying wolf, that won't help him the next time he needs to deal with AST.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:05 PMI'm not planning to drive up to see the launch this afternoon--I'll try to see it from here (something I've never done, but the sky is quite clear). But it looks like they may have to scrub, anyway. Fuel sensors again.
By the way, The Flame Trench is probably the best place to go in general to stay on top of what's going on for launches from the Cape.
[Update at 10:20 EST]
Today's launch has been scrubbed. Another attempt tomorrow at 4:09 PM.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:39 AMWell, new to me, anyway. I discovered Amanda Bauer via the latest Carnival of Space, over at Robot Guy's place. Good stuff, but I hope that she uses the shift key when she writes her job applications and thesis.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:17 AM...until the next Space Investment Summit, this time in San Jose. If you're a potential space investor, or investee, this is a good opportunity to do some matchmaking.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:52 AMMike Snead has a very interesting piece on the need for developing infrastructure in space, in this case for the deployment of space-based solar power, but the system he describes would also make it much more cost effective for NASA to do planetary exploration, both manned and unmanned. And it's a goal toward which they're making, to first order, zero investment.
There's very little in the piece with which I would disagree, though there is a quibble:
I do not use the term reusable launch vehicle or RLV because the design and operations heritage of expendable launch vehicles is not the approach that will lead to the needed level of passenger safety and operability required for successful industrial operations in space. The better model is taken from aircraft. However, the use of the term aircraft-like, or aerospaceplane to name the reusable space access system, does not relate to the physical design of the systemsuch as an expectation for horizontal takeoff on a runway. Rather, it relates to the aircraft systems engineering principles and practices that will be used to design, develop, produce, test, operate, and maintain the new systems to achieve aircraft-like levels of safety and operability.
I prefer the phrase "space transport" (as suggested by Mitchell Burnside Clapp several years ago) but I agree with the dislike of the phrase RLV--it carries too many connotations of existing vehicles, with all their flaws.
I also agree with the point that reusability is needed not only for lower costs, but also for higher reliability. I don't believe that we will ever get better than a couple nines with large expendable vehicles:
The need for full reusability comes from the fact that the primary objective of flight system design is to achieve airworthiness. It is a characteristic that will be needed by aerospaceplanes (and spaceships for in-space transportation) to enable the level of spaceflight operations necessary to support space industrialization. Each and every production aircraft is demonstrated, through ground and flight acceptance testing, to be airworthy before it is placed into operation. Only fully-reusable flight systems can meet this standard because the airworthiness of each production expendable component cannot be demonstrated without using up its life. When one thinks about it, every terrestrial human transportation system meets this reusability acceptance test standard.
This was a point that I made in my original draft of my piece at The New Atlantis, that got left on the cutting-room floor.
One of my concerns with the Pentagon SBSP report was that it implied, though didn't explicitly say, that a two-stage reusable launch system needed to be developed, presumably by the government, and that we only needed one such system (i.e., another phrase that I hate--the so-called "Shuttle II). I'd like to see a more explicit recommendation that 1) a robust space logistics infrastructure will have multiple ways of getting to and from space (and around in space) and 2) that they should be privately developed and operated, though perhaps with some artificial market incentives from the government.
I complain in the comments section of this post over at Space Politics on the GAO report (lot of good comments over there, by the way) about all the false lessons learned from the Shuttle. Well one of the valid lessons that we should have learned is to not have NASA develop its own launch vehicle, particularly not to have it develop a single one, with no backup. But Ares indicates that they missed that most important lesson from the Shuttle, illogically concluding instead that the problem was reusability.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:35 AMIt's moon mania over at Out of the Cradle, and here is the 31st Carnival of Space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:39 AMI see that Mark Whittington is planning a new work of fiction:
I am also reminded that soon I must write an essay about the Internet Rocketeer Club, how does one spot a member, and how to avoid being a member.
I'll grant him this--he has a rich imagination.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:20 AMChair Force Engineer lists the technologies that need to be developed for us to become spacefaring, but are being largely ignored by NASA. I don't agree with his prescription for a scramjet first stage for cheap launch, though. That may be the answer, some day, but it's not obvious that it will be, and it certainly isn't necessary to get big improvements in the near term.
But instead of making progress in these crucial areas, NASA is spending billions to return to the sixties.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:16 AMLeonard David has a good piece this morning on the prospects for commercial space.
There was actually a mini debate between Elon Musk and Alex Tai at their press conference at the Personal Spaceflight Symposium last month, in which Alex expressed skepticism as to whether New Space can be comparable to the Dotcom industry, in terms of the potential for huge returns and wealth generation. Elon thought that there would be some sort of significant funding event that would open the investor floodgates, as happened with IT, and Alex thought that this was a more conventional industry, with more conventional rates of return. But he also expressed hope that he's wrong.
We may find out in the next couple years, given the list of potential events that could occur in that time frame that Leonard lays out.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:44 AMThe one that never happened. Retro artists' depictions from the early space age.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:21 AMJeff Foust has a transcript of an interview with him, on the subject of Blue Origin. It's good that he has a passion for the project, given his skepticism about the market.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:59 PMWell, we now have a second space policy statement from a Democrat candidate for president, this from Barack Obama, with further elaboration here.
As Jeff Foust notes, it doesn't seem to be very well thought out, and he may indeed not recognize just how radical a proposal it is.
I certainly don't support it, not because I would be broken hearted at a "delay" (which might effectively become a cancellation, once it becomes clear a few years down the road that private alternatives are going to beat it to orbit) of Constellation at this point, given what a pigs breakfast it seems to have become in the form of ESAS, but rather because I see little (and in fact negative) value in pouring another ten billion dollars into the rathole called federal education spending.
From a political standpoint, I don't think that it would affect his electoral prospects, other than in the swing state of Florida (and perhaps Ohio, with Glenn). As others comment there, I do find it a little disappointing that the Senator views NASA simply as cash source for social spending. NASA's money is not well spent, but I'd rather see a policy debate on how it could be spent to get better results in terms of NASA's charter, than whether or not they should have it. But such a debate (and associated analysis) is surely far beyond whoever is advising Obama on such things.
There's a lot of discussion in comments, and I agree with "anonymous" that had NASA stuck with the original Steidle plan, and had the CEV flyoff by now, the program would be a lot harder to kill in 2009. As it is, given all the technical issues and delays it's facing, and potential loss of momentum, the program is in danger of cancellation almost regardless of who the next president is.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Clark Lindsey has similar thoughts:
I would prefer that a President Obama offer a smarter manned program rather a minimized manned program.
Don't hold your breath on that, though, from Obama (or really, any other candidate, including the Republican ones, unless by some miracle Gingrich were to get into the race).
Also Democrat Ferris Valyn has further thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:09 AMThis looks like an interesting engine development, but just what is the "critical mission need"? What is the specific application for it?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:06 AMOver at Space Politics.
I have to confess that I don't envy Neil Woodward--I have no idea what should be done with COTS. It may well be that there is a fundamental impedance mismatch between available dollars and market, but we're in uncharted territory here. I do agree that the RpK protest is one of sheer desperation, and as is noted over there, if successful could essentially wipe out the Space Act, which has been able to provide NASA and other agencies with flexibility for procurement innovation. It also seems to me like a way to guarantee no reaward to them in the current bidding round. If I were them, I'd be more focused on Bigelow than COTS right now. It seems to me that's a more promising market with which to persuade investors to ante up than COTS is.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:15 AMThis week's edition is up over at Riding With Robots.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:56 AM"anonymous.space" has some questions over at Space Politics for the Senate to ask NASA:
1) Given the Space Shuttles demonstrated loss-of-vehicle/loss-of-crew rate, what is the likelihood that NASA will lose another Space Shuttle orbiter and crew before ISS assembly is complete? Is that risk acceptable or unacceptable? Why?2) How much does the Space Shuttle program cost the taxpayer per year and per month? What percentage of NASAs annual and monthly budgets do those amounts represent? If the current schedule holds, will all the major international elements of ISS that require Space Shuttle launch be deployed by April 2008? If so, why not terminate ISS assembly at that time, shut down the Space Shuttle program, forgo the additional risks, and redirect the unused 2008-2010 Space Shuttle budget to its replacement vehicles? What will NASA do if the current schedule does not hold and some ISS elements remain unassembled at the end of 2010? What is the impact to other NASA programs if the Space Shuttle program and budget are extended beyond 2010?
3) Part of NASAs Space Shuttle replacement strategy is the COTS program, where NASA shares costs with industry for the development of new launch and in-space vehicles to service the ISS. The USAF pursued a similar cost-sharing space vehicle development with industry in the recent past, the EELV program, where the USAF spent $1 billion for the development of two launch vehicle families, with commitments to purchase future vehicle flights, if successful. NASA, however, has allocated only $500 million to COTS with no commitments to future vehicle flights, but expects not only two new launch vehicles out of the effort, but also two new in-space vehicles. Given NASAs smaller contribution to much more aggressive technical goals in COTS, how much industry cost-sharing is required to complete these vehicles? Is it realistic for industry to raise this amount of funding, especially given NASAs lack of commitment to purchase flights on the resulting vehicles? Why? Are there any precedents? NASA recently had to terminate its development agreement with one of two COTS winners because that entity was unable to raise funding for its private cost-share. What is NASA doing to change COTS funding and/or content and/or future flight purchase commitmets to reduce the probability of another private fundraising failure?
4) The post-Space Shuttle U.S. human space flight gap has grown from three years (2010 to 2013) to five years (2010 to 2015) due to a combination of budgetary and technical issues. But despite the schedule delays, Ares I/Orion technical content is large enough that the budget only provides a 65 percent probability of fielding an operational Ares I/Orion system by 2015, meaning that there is approximately a 1-in-3 chance that the gap will grow even larger, absent any more budgetary or technical issues. Is a five-year gap acceptable? Why? Is the accompanying 1-in-3 risk of the gap growing even larger acceptable? Why? At the 65 percent probability of success, Ares I/Orion development costs through the 2015 operability date are estimated at approximately $20 billion. How much additional funding is necessary to boost that probability to the industry standard of 80 percent? After that, how much additional funding would be needed to accelerate Ares I/Orion operability by one month? Six months? One year? Two years? What is the earliest date that Ares I/Orion operability can be accelerated to, regardless of budget? If no budget increases are in the offing, how can ESAS requirements and Ares I/Orion technical content be reduced to increase the probability of achieving the 2015 operability date or accelerating the operability date? Assuming identical changes to ESAS requirements, are there less costly and more quickly fielded alternatives to Ares I/Orion for ISS resupply and LEO transport? What are the benefits and drawbacks of those alternatives to ISS resupply and LEO transport?
5) The decision to proceed with Ares I development was predicated on the high levels of reliability and safety that derived from its Space Shuttle heritage. But the current Ares I design is very different from the Space Shuttle systems it was originally based upon. The Shuttle SRB is a four-segment solid rocket, while Ares I uses a five-segment solid rocket. The Shuttle SRB stack has rigidity in flight because it attaches to the Space Shuttle stack, while the Ares I stack suffers from a lack of rigidity because it flies alone. The SRB is also recoverable, allowing critical engineering data trend analysis, while Ares I may have to be expendable, removing the ability to track trends that impact reliability and safety. Ares I also now employs a new J-2X upper-stage engine with limited Apollo, not Space Shuttle, heritage. What has been the quantitative impacts to Ares Is reliability and safety resulting these and other changes since ESAS? How do Ares Is current projected reliability and safety now compare to existing and alternative launch vehicles for ISS resupply and LEO transport?
6) To meet Ares I performance limits and ESAS requirements, the Orion project is currently considering a number of design changes to reduce the vehicles mass. Many of these proposed changes will reduce Orions reliability and safety, including: reductions from double- to single- or zero-fault tolerant systems; water landing limitations; and radiation shielding removal, among others. What are the quantitative impacts to Orions reliability and safety resulting from these changes? What changes could be made to ESAS requirements to reduce Orions mass without impacting Orions reliability and safety? Can Orion be made light enough to fly on existing or alternative launch vehicles other than Ares I without impacting Orions reliability and safety?
I had hopes (not high hopes, but hopes) that there would be a true space policy shakeup after the loss of Columbia. But it seems to be business as usual inside the Beltway and in Houston and Huntsville. The Aldridge Commission wrote a reasonable report, but NASA seems to have completely ignored it, and neither the Congress or the administration seem to give a damn.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:48 AMWalter Pincus informs us that the Pentagon has gotten a hundred million for the Falcon program (though I'm not sure why the headline calls it a "space defense program"):
The agency describes Falcon as a "a reusable Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV) capable of delivering 12,000 pounds of payload at a distance of 9,000 nautical miles from [the continental United States] in less than two hours."Hypersonic speed is far greater than the speed of sound. The reusable vehicle being contemplated would "provide the country with significant capability to conduct responsive missions with quick turn-around sortie rates while providing aircraft-like operability and mission-recall capability," according to DARPA.
The vehicle would be launched into space on a rocket, fly on its own to a target, deliver its payload and return to Earth. In the short term, a small launch rocket is being developed as part of Falcon. It eventually would be able to boost the hypersonic vehicle into space. But in the interim, it will be used to launch small satellites within 48 hours' notice at a cost of less than $5 million a shot.
Does this mean renewed Air Force interest in AirLaunch and QuickReach, or does all of the launcher money go to SpaceX? And how are the funds apportioned between launcher and hypersonic vehicle?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:14 AMJon Goff has an interesting post (if you're into rocket propulsion) on a technology that's been lying fallow for decades. But this post isn't about that concept per se, but a more general one:
I stumbled on this while trying to track down some old Aerojet papers about a sort of forced flow separation control technique that they researched back in the late 50s. I had noticed that most of the papers that cited the research talked about how Aerojet's had concluded that the approach didn't yield any net benefit, however the way they discussed it made me somewhat suspicious of their conclusion. You can sometimes get a sort of telephone effect with academic citations--where someone will read someone else's review of some obscure and hard to locate article, and instead of reading it themselves, they'll just summarize the summary, and before long who knows what the original article said. To make a long story short, I had good reason to be suspicious that there was something of that sort going on with this paper (especially since the two abstracts I was able to find online for their research seemed to directly contradict all the claims I've seen in citations of their work elsewhere).
Assuming that it was the case here, this happens more than you might think, and more than it should. This kind of thing, in fact, is the source of a lot of false mythology about space technology (e.g., highest vehicle performance is achieved with LOX/hydrogen, air breathers are the key to low launch cost, etc.). Many "rules of thumb" and conventional wisdom are based on a limited analysis, and used by people unfamiliar with their origin, or the underlying assumptions. I've written about an example of this before from my own early career:
Back when I worked at the Aerospace Corporation, a couple decades ago, I was fresh out of school, and sitting in a meeting with more senior people, discussing a conceptual design for a new military geostationary satellite. The subject was how to provide orientation. The two traditional choices were spin stabilization (many of the Hughes communications satellites used this technique) and active reaction control, which was more accurate, but limited the lifetime, due to depletion of propellant.I (or someone, but I think it was me) suggested using gravity gradient stabilization (that is, taking advantage of the fact that a non-spherical satellite will naturally orient itself in the local vertical position, due to differential tidal forces between the line of the orbit and the small distances of the appendages from that line). The response of one of the supposedly experienced engineers was, "There's no gravity gradient at geosynchronous altitude."
I was a little surprised. "Oh, you mean there's not enough to do the job?" (I was thinking that perhaps he'd already considered it, and run the numbers.)
"No, there is no gravity gradient effect that high--it only applies in LEO."
Note that he wasn't making a quantitative argument, he was making a qualitative one. Low orbits had gravity gradient, high ones did not.
...What happened? Sometimes even engineers don't always apply good scientific principles. In this case, I suspect that he was an airplane guy who'd migrated into the space business (as often was the case in the beginning decades in the space industry), and had never really learned the fundamentals of orbital mechanics, or the underlying principles. Instead, he'd probably taken a space systems design course, and been given a lot of engineering rules of thumb, one of which was, no doubt, that gravity gradient can be used in LEO, but not in GEO.
And that's not a bad rule of thumb, as long as you understand where it comes from. Gravity gradient is indeed much less at twenty thousand miles altitude than at two hundred miles, and for most satellites could be considered, for practical purposes, to be non-existent. But we weren't talking about most satellites--we were looking at a new concept, much larger than anything previously deployed in GEO, with long booms and appendages that might, in fact be used for G-G stabilization. But because he didn't understand the physics, he mistook a rule of thumb for natural law, even though the law of gravitation says that the earth's gravity extends out to infinity, though it drops off as the square of the distance.
Often someone will perform an analysis, and people in a hurry will simply look at the bottom line, while ignoring the assumptions that went into it, which, if altered, might completely change the conclusion. Worse yet, sometimes the author hides the assumptions, making it even more pernicious (this, to me, is one of the primary reasons that we make so little progress in advancing a useful space policy--there are too many hidden assumptions on the parts of debaters, and everyone assumes that they're shared, when they're often not).
This is why it's important to properly document a trade analysis--so that when the assumptions change, it's easy to go back and determine whether or not the trade conclusion has, or whether or not it has to be redone. This is also why it's important to perform sensitivity analyses in the course of the trade--to make it easy later to determine, perhaps at a glance, whether an assumption change is critical or not.
I don't know whether or not the augmented thrust technology that Jon unearthed will find its way into future vehicles, but I'll bet that the original authors of the study didn't consider all of the potential applications for it when they published it--they were probably working on an engine for a specific vehicle concept. XCOR has been doing a lot of this kind of archaelogy of the early space age, and (at least it's my understanding) have found it a rich ore of untried but promising concepts. When one considers how much money was spent on the development of space technology in the early days (and how chaotic and largely undirected the vehicle development process has been over the last few decades), it would be surprising to me if there aren't a lot of old tricks in there that can find applicability in the twenty-first century. But one has to read carefully, and hope that the papers were documented properly. And when documenting our own results now, we should think of those who may be reading them in the future.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:05 AMLooks like a lot of interesting stuff at The Space Review today. I've only gotten to this one, so far, by Mary Lynne Dittmar, on selling NASA to the general public. I was pretty familiar with most of this analysis, and it hasn't changed much since I was looking over public opinion data that we were doing at Rockwell in the early nineties, in terms of the public's ignorance of the size of the NASA budget. But she identifies the real problem at the end:
...the second category of responses that emerged when asked about how NASA could become more relevant was that NASA could do so by actually engaging in activities that are perceived to be of value [Gee, what a concept...--rs]. This response may be difficult to understand at first. It also may provoke a defensive reaction among those who already believe NASAs activities are of great value. But at its core lies a question of critical importance to NASAs survival: What is the nature of the value that NASA (and the VSE) creates and delivers to its customers?In the course of deciding whether to rethink value, NASA must identify who its customers really areincluding customers that it may not recognize as such. To begin, it must first understand that real value is created in the marketplace, not mandated by policy. It is customer-driven, not internally-focused. Even more fundamentally, however, the agency and the larger space community need to have a shared understanding of what is meant by the word value, and why it is so important to NASAs future and to the future of space exploration.
And a better question to ask might be, what is the value that ESAS, in implementing the VSE, brings to the customer? She doesn't say it, but when you're selling a flawed product, to a disinterested customer, all of the marketing in the world isn't going to help you.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:20 PMJon Goff has a must-read post on what we know and don't know about reusable launchers, based on some insightful commentary by Jorge Frank.
The real mistake of the space shuttle was not that of attempting a reusable vehicle, nor a winged vehicle, nor a parallel-staged vehicle. The real mistake is that we attempted to build an "operational" vehicle before we had any real idea of what "operability" means in a space vehicle. The alternative - the real "road not taken" - would have been to build small experimental vehicles, starting from suborbital and working our way up, that explore all the different "corners" of the design trade space resulting from this multi-variable problem, and learning, one painful step at a time, what works and what doesn't. Since these experimental vehicles would neither have carried payloads nor flown operational missions, there would be no attachment to them; they would have flown for a few years each and then retired and replaced with the next X-vehicle, just as happened with all the previous X-vehicles up to and including the X-15.That approach may or may not have resulted in a truly economical launch vehicle by 2007, but it would surely by now have given us a better picture of what works and what doesn't than the road we chose. By attempting an "operational" reusable vehicle that by definition would have to replace all the existing "operational" expendable vehicles, we locked ourselves into a path that was difficult to reverse and was expensive enough that we could not afford to replace it in parallel with flying it, necessitating another long and painful gap in our experience base.
And because that one vehicle represents the whole of our operational experience for the last generation, its failure has led many to overgeneralize. The space shuttle is a (partially) reusable, winged vehicle with parallel staging using a cryogenic propellant tank. And it failed to meet its cost, schedule, and reliability goals. Therefore, the reasoning goes, all reusable vehicles are bad, all winged vehicles are bad, all parallel-staged vehicles are bad, all cryogenically fueled vehicles are bad. This is nonsense. Were the emotionally charged names to be replaced with faceless variable names, any competent mathematics professor would reject this logic as faulty, and rightly so.
The latter is a point that I make often in response to the clueless and logic-challenged who think that Shuttle (or X-33) teach us that reusable vehicles aren't possible.
Jorge's comments are also a useful insight into what a kludgy compromise the Shuttle design was, and how many of the design choices were driven by other design choices, which were in turn driven by unrealistic requirements, both in terms of performance, and development budget.
As Clark Lindsey points out, we are going to be learning a lot of lessons from the suborbital business and rocket racing that will be directly applicable to orbital vehicles down the road. It's a tragedy that it's taken us so long to start this long process. But as long as the process might seem, at least we're now going in the right direction (that is, to try a lot of different directions, and finally find out what works, and what doesn't).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:23 AMWhen I hear about NASA adding a fifth segment to the SRB, somehow it reminds me of this:
Over the summer of 1930, the R101 lay in the Number 1 shed at Cardington undergoing extensive modifications, which were needed following on from her 1929 and early 1930 trial flights. It was already known that both the R100 and R101 were lacking in the disposable lift originally planned at the outset of the Imperial Airship Scheme in 1925. Those involved in the scheme had already learnt that the R100 and R101 would not be viable for full commercial operations to Canada and India, and these intentions were later to be passed on to the new ship, the R102 class. To achieve the additional lift, R101 had a new central bay and gas bag installed.It was expected that the new gas bag would give her another nine tons of disposable lift bringing her up to some 50 tons. The alterations were completed by Friday the 26th September and the R101 was gassed up and floated in the shed. The "new" ship, R101c, had disposable lift calculated at 49.36 tons, an improvement of 14.5 tons over the original configuration. Pressure was on for the ship to leave for Karachi on 26th September to carry the Air Minister, Lord Thompson of Cardington. Although the target date was on course to be met, wind was to keep the modified R101 in the shed until the morning of 1st October.
Not sure why, though.
Actually, I think that "Sliderule
I finally just got around to reading the report that Colonel "Coyote" Smith (that's Michael Valentine Smith--no kidding) and company came up with on Space Based Solar Power, and will be commenting on it, but I should note for now that the January issue of Popular Mechanics has this as its cover story. I haven't read it yet, but may post some thoughts after I do.
On a related note, while a ten buck per ton carbon tax on coal probably would be good for the nuclear industry, as Randall Parker notes, it wouldn't hurt SBSP, either.
[Update a few minutes later]
OK, not much to the Pop Mechanics piece. I think it's quite an overstatement to say that powersats are "all the rage" at either the Pentagon or in private industry. I would think that something that was "all the rage" would be getting significant funding, and so far the amount that's been appropriated to this recently is...zero. In fact, one of the significant things about the Pentagon report was that it was done with no DoD budget, entirely by volunteers, other than the Colonel's time. It might be a useful model for future such studies that have trouble otherwise finding government champions, but it hardly justifies the notion that this is now a major priority, either within the five-sided building, or in the government in general.
As for the article itself, my only quibble is to note that the seventies studies were jointly by DoE and NASA, not just DoE. It's been noted many times in the past (and Coyote's report notes as well) that one of the reasons that this concept has had trouble getting acceptance and ownership within the government is that it's had no natural home. DoE thinks it's a space program, and NASA thinks it's an energy program, and both agencies consider it to be outside their charters. I do like the idea of the establishment of a quango, perhaps using COMSAT as a model, to provide a government-blessed (and at least initially, funded) focus for this.
[Update a couple hours later]
I see from his comments that Monte Davis now has a blog, which I'll be adding to the sidebar.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:56 AMJesse Londin has a nice roundup of space links. She also notes the other legislative barrier to space entrepreneurs--not ITAR, but SOX. I'm working with a company that has been chased off shore by this.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:40 AMAlan Boyle has a story and link roundup about the the Rocket Racing League, X-Racer, and Xerus.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:20 AMTim Oren has a wrap up of the DARPA Urban Challenge, about which he's been reporting (go to the November archive page and scroll down to early in the month for earlier reports). Here's hoping that Red Whittaker can be as successful on the lunar prize.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:20 AMFrom Ferris Valyn, whose laptop I almost accidentally stole at the X-Prize Cup (I briefly mistook his rollaway case for mine). Fortunately, he pointed it out to me before I got far.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:14 AMThis post has been up at Space Politics for over a week now, and this is the first time I've linked to it, but there's a lot of interesting commentary from "anonymous" in the comments section. I think that the analysis of Griffin and the origins of (and continuing support of) ESAS is right on.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:51 AMFrom Clark Lindsey, and from John Carmack himself:
There isnt anything I can look back at and say we did obviously wrong. We had backups for everything, we had demonstrated the required flight performance many, many times, and we had made three free flights under experimental permit since the last XPC, all without incident. The problems we had at XPC last year were clearly solved our landings were accurate, and our landing gear didnt break. I am honestly very surprised that we didnt take any of the prizes. My final estimate before we made the first flight was 90% chance for level 1, and 60% for level 2. There were a lot of things that branched off of the if we win the LLC path that we arent going to be able to do now.
I wonder what those things are? Will this slow down their progress in getting into space, and (among other things) supporting space diving? Certainly this weekend's events have to be sobering for anyone who was considering riding an Armadillo vehicle out of the atmosphere. From a Bayesian standpoint, they're going to have to demonstrate a lot of successful flights now to overcome concerns.
And I don't know how to reconcile "demonstrated the required flight performance many, many times" with the earlier statement (to which Neil Milburn had alluded on Sunday morning) "...Our best guess for this hard start was that we were going significantly faster between flights than we usually do at our test site..."
To me, doing the required turnaround time is part of a "demonstration of the required flight performance," and it sounds like they had never done this prior to this past weekend. If true, I continue to be astounded.
In any event, here's hoping for a rapid recovery, and future success.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:22 AMAndrew Smith is worried about "plundering the moon."
It's a theme that I've discussed (and shot down) in the past. And read the comments section in his Guardian piece--it's chock full of anthrophobic moon battery.
Wretchard comments:
Today, for the first time in human history, man can look forward to spreading into truly virgin territory. To go where no man has ever gone before; and consequently where no man ever need be displaced from his abode. The words "we come in peace for all mankind" may have fallen unheard upon the lunar rocks. But the words still have meaning to a mankind trapped not only upon Earth but within his history. If Marxism was a project to bring History to an end in the near future, Environmentalism is an attempt to freeze History in the distant past. Not for the benefit of mankind, nor even when you come to think of it, for Nature -- unless man is excluded from the account -- but for the sake of having the power to end history on their terms.They will not succeed and man will go on. No less than the trees and stars we have a right to be here.
Speaking of Marx, here's an interesting theory on how he came up with such an inhuman philosophy:
Sam Shuster, professor of dermatology at the University of East Anglia, believes the revolutionary thinker had hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) in which the apocrine sweat glands -- found mainly in the armpits and groin -- become blocked and inflamed."In addition to reducing his ability to work, which contributed to his depressing poverty, hidradenitis greatly reduced his self-esteem," said Shuster, who published his findings in the British Journal of Dermatology.
"This explains his self-loathing and alienation, a response reflected by the alienation Marx developed in his writing."
Of course, it doesn't explain why so many less dermatologically challenged people bought (and continue to buy) into it.
[Via Thomas James, who has some additional thoughts]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:43 AMEADS repeated that it is hoping to close funding for a suborbital rocket in early 2008. I've decided I wasn't harsh enough with my last post. For $1.3 billion, one could probably buy at least seven of the following companies: Rocketplane, XCOR, The Space Ship Company, Armadillo Aerospace, Masten Space Systems, Benson, TGV and Blue Origin. That would leave enough money to send all their suborbital vehicle programs through test flights. One might even be able to use the left over money to also pick up Virgin Galactic, Incredible Adventures and Space Adventures. If you are funding the EADS suborbital rocket, consider putting out an RFP instead. Even if you are a government. You might get seven to ten local new space companies with more than one successfully entering a viable vehicle into commercial service for the price of one old-space program.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 03:29 PMSee previous post.
We're expecting a statement from Brett Alexander of the X-Prize Foundation shortly.
[A few minutes later]
Brett has arrived.
No injuries or fatalities, so safety was good. John Carmack: "Today was officially a bad day." John could have made a Level 2 attempt but chose not to. Couldn't do it tomorrow because no insurance--Cup over. Doesn't know what happened, other than explosion at ignition. Quite violent, not just a crack. Fire on the pad, cabling disconnected, called Level II Safety Emergency. Wanted fire trucks, etc., but were able to approach and safe vehicle. Went out on its own after LOX ran out, though still some ethanol in the vehicle. Doesn't know what their plans are other than to return to the hangar.
How close are other contenders? None of them have done an untethered flight, but he expects that next year there will be more than one team competing, and the two million still on the table will provide an incentive. Considers weekend a success. Two successful flight attempts, and a good long flight even with a cracked chamber. Demonstrated safety and abort ability. Static displays showed a lot of innovation, and hope for future. NASA hasn't put out any money yet, but has gotten many many times the two million in effort, and ultimately this will still provide technology for lunar landers. Had 6000 students here on Friday, and this is about education and inspiration. Preliminary number is 80,000 people here on the weekend. Expected only 60,000. Only had 15,000 last year for the Cup alone.
Doesn't know what will happen next year. LLC doesn't have to be at a show. Would be much cheaper to do it without public for safety reason. Northrop Grumman was only committed for two years, but are pleased with results to date, despite lack of win. No commitment yet. Wirefly having financial difficulties of their own, so doesn't think their pull out of sponsorship has anything to do with Cup.
Thinks that merging of aviation and space is "fantastic." Makes a good combination.
Can change rules next year, but has no plans to. Not sure how to do concurrent ops or schedule with more contenders. Only two slots are required--if there had been a competitor, they would have gotten the other two.
Vehicle not totally destroyed, still standing up, tanks looked intact. Has no particular insight.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:12 PMApparently the hard starts have only been occurring on the return leg. The current theory is that it's due to a change in the injector design. Jeff Foust has the details.
Phil Eaton and two other Armadillo staff are removing the engine from the spare Mod.
I think that they're looking over the injector they just pulled to check it out before installing it into the flight vehicle. Phil Eaton on the left, Matthew Ross in the middle, not sure who's on the right.
Here's a modified "Mod" ready to try again.
As I type this, I think they're heading back out to the launch site for another attempt in forty-five minutes or so. I'll be heading back out there shortly. Hopefully I'll be back with pics of a successful flight.
[Update about 2:30 PM MDT]
Well, you may have heard, but there will be no winner this year. All the money remains on the table. I think that's a good thing, actually, because there are a lot of competitors out here who look almost ready to compete, and in another year many of them should be able to.
The post briefing hasn't occurred yet. All I know was that when the ignition was supposed to occur, I only heard a bang, followed shortly after by an announcement of a declaration of emergency to put out a fire. Apparently it was yet another hard start, and it ended Armadillo's chances for a win this year.
Neil Milburn reportedly stated at an 11 AM briefing that prior to this weekend, they had never turned the vehicle around in the time necessary to win the prize, which kind of blows my mind. All this time I had been hearing that they were confident because they had flown the profile many times, but apparently that didn't mean that they had flown the full profile, which requires a return in a fixed time period.
Well, lessons learned. Good luck to them (and all the others) next year.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:42 AMI'm back at Holloman, almost half past eight in the morning. In theory, Armadillo should have headed out to the pad for another attempt about half an hour ago, and will try again at nine or so. I'm heading out there now to see if that's the case, and if so, I'll get some pictures.
[Update at 10 AM]
Scrubbed again. The first flight was successful, except it had another hard start. On the return attempt, it lit, lifted off for a few seconds, then aborted and sat back down. They performed some analysis for a few minutes, then announced that they weren't going to attempt to fly again until they returned the vehicle and did some work on it. The current word is that they had another hard start and some anomalous pops, and decided to abort. Alan Boyle has more.
I just talked to Ken Davidian, who is in charge of NASA's Centennial Challenges (where the prize money comes from), and he told me that it looked as though they were going to give Armadillo two more attempt windows today, one this afternoon (like yesterday) and one after the show ends at five or so.
I have to drive up to Albuquerque tonight for a flight back to Florida early in the morning, and was hoping to do it in daylight (because I've never done the route from Alamagordo), so I hope that they can nail it this afternoon.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:01 AM
I missed the first flight, but it was successful. The second one was beautiful right up until the end, when the burn seemed to end prematurely, and the vehicle reportedly fell over on landing. It was difficult to see, because it was obscured by all the dust kicked up from the long hover. More pics in a few minutes.
[A few minutes later]
The above is the long shot from which the top picture was digitally zoomed (I took it with an 18x optical lens, 504mm equivalent).
Below is a picture of all the dust being kicked up during the hover.
They flew beautifully for the whole flight, but got back above the landing pad early (the flight has to be at least ninety seconds long). They were hovering for what seemed like almost half a minute. The announcer stated that they were hovering close to the ground so that if anything went wrong at the end, it wouldn't have far to fall.
I've no idea what happened, so this is pure speculation. Perhaps they're not used to flying in the dirt, and didn't anticipate how much dust would be kicked up. If something in that cloud affected vehicle systems, it will be kind of ironic that in attempting to play it safe, they may have accidentally doomed the attempt at almost the last second.
In any event, John will have something to say shortly. All the money is still on the table. He gets two more tries tomorrow.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Wired (for whom a couple of stringers are sitting across from me) is covering it as well.
[Update at 3:45 MDT]
Clark has more, as does Jeff Foust, Alan Boyle and Leonard David.
[Update a little after four]
Alan Boyle told me that he talked to Neil Milburn, so this is second barstool down, but the prevailing theory seems to be that they had the same problem on the second flight as they did this morning--a restricted fuel line due to contamination. This morning it resulted in a failure to ignite. This afternoon, it resulted in a LOX-rich burn at a higher-than-normal temperature, which apparently cracked the combustion chamber a few seconds before the end of the flight. If so, so much for my "dust theory" above.
They have spare parts, so they can repair overnight and go for it again in the morning. I assume that part of the overnight maintenance will include a complete dismantling and cleansing of the propellant lines...
[Evening update]
You can probably find more details at other places, but my understanding is that they actually had a hard start (that's a rocket engineering euphemism for "had an explosion in the combustion chamber at ignition") on the return flight, and they were surprised that it lasted as long as it did, because it was apparently shedding parts through the whole flight. That would explain why they wanted to complete the trip so quickly and then just hover above the pad and hope that they could stay aloft for the full ninety seconds. They came pretty close.
Better luck on the morrow, with a rebuilt vehicle.
Off now to a Space Frontier Foundation reception at the Ramada in Las Cruces.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:35 PMArmadillo just started back out to the pad for their afternoon attempt. They reportedly had a contaminated line, that they cleaned. Someone was asking me this morning what their chances are, and I (and most others) thought pretty good, given that they've already done it, just not here. But things can happen in transport, and things can happen in different venues, and there are no guarantees. The money may still be on the table at the end of the weekend. We'll soon see, or at least we'll soon see if they have to wait until tomorrow for one last attempt.
My problems with the Internet are everyone's. The bandwidth is available in the press HQ, and it's plentiful. Unfortunately, that building is a ten to fifteen minute walk from the press tent on the flight line, which has no power, and no Internet. It does have a good view, and shade though.
Here are some pictures:
This is the backup to "Mod," the Level 1 vehicle that was hastily thrown together to replace "Texel, which died in a fire during a test a couple months ago. At the time this was taken, the primary version hadn't come back from the aborted attempt this morning.
The above is a view of the return of the vehicles after this morning's scrub. "Pixel" (shown below closeup, and the Level 2 vehicle) is in the front, with "Mod" behind.
But with problematic Internet connection (no Internet or power in the press tent). But Clark Lindsey is all over it. Just keep scrolling. The key story is that Armadillo made an attempt at Level 1 at 9 AM but scrubbed until this afternoon due to an ignition problem.
Orbital Outfitters had a press conference at 10 AM at which they premiered their suborbital space suit. It was modeled by its designer, and is aimed initially at the pilot market. A passenger version will be coming along later.
[Update about 1 PM MDT]
In answer to Louise's questions, it was a working prototype, and the suit was pressurized (not sure to what psi), but there was no comm system. The visor did seem to open pretty easily. I think that there may have been some pockets, but they could be easily added. One of the claimed features is the ability to customize and colorize.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:42 AMSpeaking of the Museum of Space History, as I said, Clark and I visited it. I hadn't been there since 1993 (when I was out here for one of the DC-X flights) and he had never been.
It's a beautiful building in a beautiful location, overlooking the valley with the white gypsum sands of the national monument and test range in the distance, with lots of interesting artifacts. But the exhibits seem quite out of date, and are often misleading (particularly the older ones). still Some of it seems frozen in the mid-eighties. If your only source for what was going on in space was this museum, you would think that Russia was flying Buran, and planning a fleet of four or five vehicles. You would think that Ariane IV was the most current version, and that there was no Delta new than Delta II, or Atlas built after the eighties version. Much of the text description is written in present tense, with no way for the reader to know that it is a couple decades out of date. (A more minor issue is that they have the date of the Apollo fire as January 26th, rather than the 27th, and this error has apparently adorned their walls for many years).
I know that it costs money to update and reprint displays, but you would think that with modern computer and printer technology it shouldn't be that hard. There would be no shortage of visitors, like me (and Clark) who could point out problems to them if there were some easy way to do so. They need an army of editors, and then some good volunteers (who they apparently have already) to implement the fixes.
On the positive side, the newer wing on commercial space, and New Mexico's role in it, is good (even if there is a little too much NM hucksterism and exaggeration in it). I recommend seeing it, but take some of the displays with a grain (or large bag) of salt, particularly the ones written in present and future tense.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:34 PMJust a few hours after the end of it, Alan Boyle (who was too burned out to have dinner with me, Jeff Foust, and Clark Lindsey this evening) has a good wrap up of the event.
Off to Holloman in the morning for a pre-Cup press activity.
[Update a little after 10 Mountain time]
Alan also has a report on the hurdles ahead for the Spaceport America.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:16 PMBob Bigelow (who is not in attendance at this Personal Spaceflight Symposium) is apparently offering three quarters of a billion dollars for a launch contract:
The contract or purchase agreement would be worth $760 million in total for eight launches. To show that Bigelow Aerospace is serious, it will deposit $100 million in an escrow bank account up front if the plan goes forward.The potential offer tops the $500 million NASA has budgeted for its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) programme, which is part of the agency's own effort to spur development of commercial orbital crew launch capabilities.
Sounds like he's finally starting to get serious about solving the launch problem.
[Update a few minutes later]
I find the timing of this announcement interesting. I doubt that it's a coincidence that he decided to do it the same week that NASA issued an announcement for a COTS recompetition.
If one believes that one of the reasons that RpK had trouble closing their financing was because people didn't believe that the NASA market could be counted upon, this provides a useful secondary (or even primary) market to help make the business case. Perhaps it was his intention to help the COTS competitors get their financing lined up.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:07 PMClark Lindsey has the first two Thursday morning sessions covered here and here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:21 AMLeonard David reports that, like last year, Armadillo will be the only competitor this year for the Lunar Lander Challenge.
While it would certainly have been more interesting, and I'm sure that the X-Prize Cup folks are disappointed, the important thing about prizes is that they're won, not how many competitors there are. Good luck to John and the team. But of course, as they saw last year, there are no guarantees, except that they won't have to break any ties. As Yoda would say, they will either do, or do not.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:45 PMI'm not in the room, but sitting out on the patio checking email, listening to the speakers on the...speakers. Listening to an astronaut (not sure which one) describing his flight experiences, and the awe and wonder of seeing an 800-mile-long aurora borealis from orbit. Listening to the whole panel (including Anousheh Ansari), I'm once again boggled at people who think that the spaceflight experience will be a "fad," or that once a few people have done it the interest will drop off, or that no one will want a repeat trip.
[Update late afternoon]
Clark Lindsey has much more extensive coverage of the space tourism sessions.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:38 PMThe wireless seems to be working all right, though it's a tad slow.
No big news this morning. There was a press conference with Elon Musk, Alex Tai, Clay Mowry (of Arianespace) and Peter Diamandis.
The most notable thing about the conference was the fact that there was someone there from Arianespace. The giggle factor continues to diminish.
In response to the first question, from me, Alex said that they are not in a position to make any announcements as to what happened in Mojave--that is for Scaled and Northrop-Grumman to announce when they have made a determination. He said that how they will respond will be at least partly a function of what caused the accident, but that they are in a reevaluation period with regard to propulsion, so that it's possible, but not definite that there will be changes (this is a paraphrase, not a quote). In response to a related question, he noted that propulsion has never been on the vehicle critical path, so the accident didn't necessarily set them back. It remains to be seen whether or not it will be a factor, and going to a new propulsion system could potentially slip the schedule, which remains internal (off-the-cuff comments from Richard Branson aside).
Perhaps more thoughts later.
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey is live blogging, and has some results of the morning sessions here and here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:02 PMMichael Belfiore has his Sputnik thoughts up at Financial Times.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:16 AMThe supposed derived engine from Apollo isn't going to be very derived after all:
"This one has to generate more than 290,000 pounds of thrust," said Mike Kynard, J-2X program manager. "Not only is the J-2X going to be more powerful, it's going to be different. Time has seen to that. This engine has its roots in Apollo, but we aren't just lifting their work. It's almost a new engine."
This notion that we were going to save money with all these new vehicles by "deriving" them from existing hardware and designs was always kind of a scam (and it's gotten more so as the designs have departed further from the original ESAS concepts). A five-segment SRB is also essentially a new motor relative to a four-segment one, in terms of understanding the structure and stresses, particularly when all of the loads (at least for The Stick) will be compressive, rather than some from the side as they are in the current Shuttle stack. The only thing really being preserved is the very costly, but politically essential "heritage workforce." It may be necessary for political preservation of the program in Congress, but it does nothing to reduce costs of access to space, or truly open up the frontier.
[Update a few minutes later]
Thomas James is similarly unsurprised.
[Update a few minutes later yet]
Thomas also has further thoughts on whether or not space is the new Australia (with some comments on the history of northern Michigan).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:25 AMI don't know how likely it is, but I thought that there was an interesting comment at this post about Giuliani's candidacy.
I find it interesting because, rightly or wrongly, the vice president has been traditionally in charge of space policy. And while there are a lot of things that I wouldn't want Sam Brownback in charge of, considering that his adviser on space was Pete Worden, we might be in for some very interesting space policy under him.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:57 AMClark Lindsey has some thoughts on the late Kistler concept, with which I largely agree:
I've never thought the K-1 design that they came up with was anywhere close to an ideal RLV. For example, it doesn't allow for incremental testing to find problems without losing the vehicle as Rutan could do with the SS1. However, it was a proof of principle that even a group of conservative NASA/Apollo/Saturn engineers could sit down and design a two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) fully reusable vehicle without breaking any laws of physics or requiring even an ounce of unobtainium. Other than the occasional anonymous commenter posting "the K-1 is crap" sort of criticism, I've never seen any credible person point to some particular part of the K-1 design and say this definitely is not going to work.Kistler got 75% of the hardware built for the first K-1 when their target LEO comsat constellation market disappeared and funding dried up. Kistler had at that point spent about $800M but raised only $600M. The company itself had remained relatively small and had farmed out most of the hardware to various mainstream aerospace companies. (SpaceX decided that building many of its major components in house could save lots of money over this outsourcing approach.) People who were involved with other entrepreneurial launch vehicle companies during that period occasionally express annoyance, to say the least, that Kistler Aerospace soaked up most of the private investment available for such ventures yet still didn't get anything into the air.
I always thought that it was a mistake to hire Apollo retreads for the job. George Mueller and company knew how to get the job done on an unlimited budget, but they didn't have one (though they had a lot more money than anyone else). There was never any reason to think that they could do things cost effectively. My understanding is that the investors demanded that "space experts" be brought in. Unfortunately, the "space experts" they brought in simply farmed the job out to cost-plus contractors, because that's all they knew how to do.
Whether they really "soaked up all the private money for such ventures" is hard to know, because the investors that were willing to put money into Kistler weren't necessarily willing to put money into a company that didn't have old Apollo hands running it. So perhaps that was their loss, not the industry's.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:37 AMAt least for now. As expected, NASA has pulled the plug on their COTS contract, as a result of their inability to hit their funding milestones. Clark Lindsey has a link roundup.
I expect to find a lot more about what's going on, and their prospects for getting back to focusing on the suborbital business, in New Mexico next week.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:59 AM...is up, over at Space for Commerce.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:00 AMIn a Corner piece today, Jonah Goldberg discusses the humanitarian benefits that would have accrued had we forced a regime change in Moscow in 1946. But he states one of what he considers the down sides:
While the space program would have suffered without the Space Race, it seems a sure bet that the net gain of liberated human genius would more than have compensated for that.
While I agree with his post overall, I don't agree that the "space program would have suffered." Oh, we certainly wouldn't have gotten to the moon as quickly, but as I argued at TCSDaily a week and a half ago, that wasn't necessarily a good thing.
I also think that, even absent the superpower adversary of the USSR, we still would have found surveillance and communications satellites quite useful. And of course, had we removed the Stalin regime, it's likely that we would have eventually picked up all of the German rocket team, and not just the ones that managed to escape with von Braun as the Soviets advanced. If you were a German who wanted to build rockets, given a choice between living in America, and Russia, even a free Russia, it's seems most likely that most of them would have wanted to come here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:56 AMJon Goff has an interesting flight safety analysis that might indicate that NASA is spending too much money on launch vehicle reliability for a lunar program.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:52 AMJesse Londin reminds us that today is the fortieth anniversary of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, for good or ill.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:20 PMNot much new here for people who have been following, but Discover magazine has an interview with Burt Rutan. I don't think that he's the "Granddaddy of space colonization," though. If anyone deserves that title, it's probably Gerry O'Neill.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:40 AMKen Murphy has a first-hand report from the recent Lunar Exploration and Analysis Group Conference in Houston.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:42 AMAlan Boyle has a link-rich roundup.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:37 AMSpace Politics has three posts, with a lot of commentary, here, here and /here.
Also, the Carnival of Space for the week is up.
[Update at 10 AM]
Keith Cowing notes that this is the most any presidential candidate has had to say about space policy in a long time (perhaps in memory). Whatever you think about what she said, that's probably right.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:10 AMCharles Krauthammer has some thoughts on the day after the anniversary (many of which were similar to mine, but some different), this morning. Also, check yesterday's post and scroll to the bottom for some late-night updates, if you didn't already.
[Update at 10 AM]
Here's a Sputnik link I missed yesterday, from Michael Belfiore. He notes another anniversary, that I thought about writing something about, but didn't get the time. Also, it's a little disappointing (though not entirely unexpected) that three years later, we haven't made more progress.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:21 AMNote: I'm going to keep this post at the top of the page all day, so you might want to scroll to see if I'm putting up other stuff.
Homer and I continue our week-long space policy debate over at the LA Times, this time with a discussion of the event that kicked off the space age, and its impact down the five decades since.
[Update at 8 AM EDT]
Jeff Foust is having a Sputnikpallooza over at The Space Review today. In particular, you should read his essay on the wonder and disappointment of the past half century, which reflects and expands on a lot of the themes that I've been debating with Homer Hickam all week.
[Update a few minutes later]
Did Sputnik create the Internet? Well, it's a stretch, but it was, at least indirectly, one of the pieces of the puzzle. Anyway, it has at least as good a claim as Al Gore...
[Update at quarter to nine]
Dwayne Day's prognostication about military space systems fifty years from now is worth a read--they will look a lot like todays. But he has one key caveat, that could make them quite wrong:
Weapons delivery from space has been possible for decades. What has changed is that it is now possible to precisely deliver conventional weapons onto an enemy. But the cost is prohibitive compared to other forms of weapon delivery such as cruise missiles or bombers, which have the benefit of reusability. Given the cost of putting something into orbit, the goal is to keep it there as long as possible rather than bring it down to hit something. That seems unlikely to change barring a radical decrease in launch costs.
Emphasis mine.
[9:15 Update]
Lileks has Sputnik beeps.
Alan K. Henderson is collecting Sputnik links today as well.
[10 AM update]
Alan Boyle has a roundup of space history links, and is collecting Sputnik memories in comments. People are welcome to leave some here as well, of course. As I noted to Homer (as does Alan) we were a little too young for it to leave an impression. And of course, for many of my readers, it's as far away an event for them as WW II was for me.
[Update at 10:25]
It's Sputnik, the movie!
Update at 4 PM EDT]
The satellite versus the supermarket. How did we really win the Cold War? I wonder if this LA Times editorial was influenced by the week's discussion between me and Homer?
[Update at 5 PM EDT]
Jim Oberg has further thoughts on Sputnik and the space age at fifty.
[Evening update]
My final thoughts for the anniversary on Sputnik, the past and the future, are up at TCSDaily.
[Update at 10 PM]
Tim Cavanaugh, at the LA Times, who masterminded my dust-up with Homer Hickam this week, has a piece on how space has been making us crazy for fifty years.
And our last dust-up edition is up, in which I talk about transhumans in space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:59 PMWell, Hillary's science policy has been released. No surprises here.
The "space policy" is motherhood (again, as expected):
Hillary will enhance American leadership in space, including:
- Pursuing an ambitious 21st century Space Exploration Program, by implementing a balanced strategy of robust human spaceflight, expanded robotic spaceflight, and enhanced space science activities.
- Developing a comprehensive space-based Earth Sciences agenda, including full funding for NASA's Earth Sciences program and a space-based Climate Change Initiative that will help us secure the scientific knowledge we need to combat global warming.
- Promoting American leadership in aeronautics by reversing funding cuts to NASA's and FAA's aeronautics R&D budget.
Leave aside the fact that aeronautics is not space (though it's part of NASA).
Who decides what is "balanced"? Absent details, there is nothing here to critique or comment on. If there is a real policy (goals, schedules, budgets) behind the platitude, there's no evidence of it.
And of course, it's all about "exploration," as usual. Same mindless pap we've seen in Congressional or presidential discussions of space for the past fifty years.
Oh, well, at least, unlike Kerry's, it doesn't mention George Bush.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:53 AMThat's the title of today's Dust-Up at the LA Times, between me and Homer Hickam, as we continue our Sputnik week debate.
[Late evening update]
Tomorrow's Dust-Up, on whether NASA has been helping or hindering private enterprise in space, is up today. Transterrestrial, your personal time machine!
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:01 PMHere's a good piece in the LA Times about Mojave, and the new rocket companies sprouting up there. My only quibble with it is the usual one--that it's in the "science" section of the paper, when it should instead be in the "business" section. Just another example of the power that the disastrous "space = science" meme has on peoples' minds.
[Update a few minutes later]
I just noticed that this is my 9800th post. Only two hundred more to hit five digits. Maybe I should have a party.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:35 AMThe LA Times has a feature on their editorial section called the "Dust-Up," which is sort of a daily two-sided debate on a given issue, with each week having a theme. This week, in recognition of the half century since Sputnik, they're hosting a dialogue between Homer Hickam and yours truly. Homer went first today, and I get the last word du jour. It will be the other way around tomorrow, when we talk about destinations.
And note, I did not lead off with "Homer, you ignorant slut."
[Update in the evening]
I see that Keith is whining again, that I'm not sufficiently obsequious to the space agency to which I'm giving the best technical advice that I can, for pay.
Well, Keith, here's the deal. I'm a (I like to think) competent space systems engineer, who can help NASA execute its goals, however misguided. I do that because I like to think that I have professional integrity, and (honestly) because doing such things is my job, and it's how I pay my bills. They don't (at least for now) pay me to tell them how to open the cosmos, so I don't do that for pay from them. I do it in other venues. I just help them do what they're trying to do, as mistaken as it is, as best I can.
I didn't realize (as you seem to think) that part of my job is to praise their programs publicly, even though I think them not in the best interests of the nation, or our goals of opening space. If NASA thinks that's part of my job, I guess I'll hear about it. If they want to pay me to do that, I'll consider it, but I doubt if I'd take the job.
But if they did, I think that would be a sad commentary on the federal space program, and NASA's belief in what it's doing. And I'm willing to stick my neck and mortgage out and continue to write what I think.
I'll do you the courtesy of thinking that you do the same.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:48 PMDwayne "Dr. Evil" Day (foolishly, but then, as he admits himself, no one has ever credibly accused him of being a genius) describes his plans for world domination.
Seriously, Frontier Astronautics has actually done this (purchased an old ICBM silo, that is, not dominated the world--at least not yet). It's actually a pretty neat example of swords to plowshares.
In other news (that's not really news), Taylor Dinerman writes that the Outer Space Treaty has outlived its usefulness, to the degree that it ever had any.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:49 AMApparently, he was killed in Needham, Massachusetts (near the college he was attending, and coincidentally, the current home of one of my former college roommates), and no other vehicles were involved. Sadly, he had a passenger with him on the bike. She died of her own injuries a day later. My deepest condolences to both families.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:17 AMMichael Belfiore reviews the EADS idea of building a suborbital business jet. At the $1.3 billion price tag and unit cost presumably in the high tens of millions, the business case is iffy. In particular, it would probably be a lot cheaper to spin out the Rocketplane XP project out of Rocketplane Kistler and end up with a product that could fly a few years sooner and more seats for the same money.
The Futron study Jeff implicitly cited saying 15,000 customers for suborbital space travel in 2015. If we get 4 providers, it's hard to see how prices stay much above the marginal cost of the fourth provider. RpK and XCOR might have revised their cost estimates since they were estimated as south of $50,000 back when Space Adventures were selling suborbital seats for $100k each. But let's be generous and say that EADS rivals are going to push the price down to $100k by 2015. This is lower than the implicit Futron estimate of $140k if flight starts in 2009, spends 3 years at $200k then works it's way down to $50k in 2021.
At $100k, they could get perhaps $50k in debt payments per seat. They would need 6,500 customers per year to pay 25% interest and 9,400 customers per year to pay back the loan in 9 years. But they are unlikely to get 2/3 of the market if they are fourth to market with a higher price structure. If EADS is indeed the high cost provider, the estimate of how much each flight will contribute to debt repayment is $0. The capacity required to fly 9,400 customers per year at two flights per week per craft with four seats is 23 craft which would add another billion in debt if they are $45 million each.
Mark Steyn has some thoughts on Katie Couric's less-than-royal "we." And yes, I didn't make a mistake in the categorization. It is a space post, though it's also a politics post.
No, they weren't an "airborne UN". They were an airborne America. For a start, if there was such a thing as a UN rocket, the Israeli guy wouldn't get anywhere near it, except on a one-way ticket to establish the viability of Ahmadinejad's new designated homeland for the Jews on Planet Zongo. I doubt even an EU space shuttle would be eager to admit any astronauts from the Zionist Entity. As for the "Indian woman", Kalpana Chawla was the American Dream writ large upon the stars: she emigrated to the US in the Eighties and was an astronaut within a decade. There's no other country on earth where you can do that. And I'll bet she had no qualms about using the dread "we" word.Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:18 PM
Matt Bowes was a young space enthusiast, who had a blog called Space Liberates Us. I met him at a conference (I think in July, in DC, though it may have been at the ISDC in Dallas, in May).
He was far too young to die in a senseless accident but sadly, the young (particularly those young who want to conquer the newest and highest frontier) tend to be less risk averse, and sometimes, it bites them. He was only nineteen.
When I was his age, I (too?) thought that I was immortal. I imagine that he did as well. But no matter how advanced the technologies, accidents will still happen. I feel older now, and chastened, and mortal. But somehow, because of many of the advances that I read about as a child only as science fiction, but that I can now see on the technological horizon, I hope to live much longer, and my sadness at Matt's loss (and ours, who knew him) is only magnified by that thought.
From Michael Mealling (who informed me of this via email, noting that it was a motorcycle accident), of Masten Space:
Matt was an intern at Masten Space Systems this past summer. Very sad and shocking...
Indeed.
On Sunday, September 9, 2007 of Bethesda, MD. Beloved son of Dr. Julia A. LaJoie and Robert B. Bowes; loving brother of Audrey and Jackie Bowes. Matt is also survived by a large family and numerous friends. Friends will be received at St. Bartholomew's Catholic Church, 6900 River Rd., Bethesda, MD, on Friday, September 14 from 4 to 8 p.m., where Mass of Catholic Burial will be offered on Saturday, September 15 at 10 a.m. Interment Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Silver Spring, MD. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to St. Anselm's Abbey School, 4501 S. Dakota Ave., NE, Washington, DC 20017-2795, Olin College of Engineering, c/o Office of Student Life, Olin Way, Needham, MA 02492-1200 or to the MARS Society, PO Box 273, Indian Hills, CO 80454.
Please view and sign the family guestbook.
Here another obit, at the WaPo.
[Friday morning update]
More thoughts from Clark Lindsey, Jon Goff (who worked with him briefly at Masten) and Keith Cowing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:38 PMI could hardly think of myself outside the context of the cold war. Without the intense Soviet-American competition epitomized by the space race, I would not have become a science journalist who wrote about astronauts going to the Moon to beat the Russians. I would therefore not be in Baltimore again, this time with astronomers who were preparing to look into the heavens via a giant orbiting telescope.Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:02 AMI found my way to Travelers Lounge, the bar that had been across from the gate to the Army Intelligence School at Fort Holabird. We used to tarry in the back room there, over pitchers of beer fueling arguments about politics and the American novel. I took a stool and told the bartender that it had been more than three decades since I last had a beer here, back in my Holabird sojourn.
One of them comes in every few months and looks around, the bartender said. Were about the only thing left from those days.
So I had seen. The fort was gone. In its place stretched one corporate complex after another, buildings of glass and steel and spreading car parks. The names I saw were as unfamiliar as their digitized new-technology goods and services. I imagined I was looking on a monument to the cold war, and how apt it seemed.
The conflict we had lived through did not lend itself to heroic and triumphal iconography, nothing like the Iwo Jima flag-raising statue, nothing to glorify war or proclaim victory. So these commercial enterprises rising from cold-war technology, supplanting an old fort, were working monuments to the end of the cold war, monuments that do not look back.
I missed this last week, but Henry Cate, who originated the idea, hosted last week's Carnival of Space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:56 AMMy Popular Mechanics piece on propellant depots is up now.
[Tuesday morning update]
Jon Goff has related thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:41 PMOK, I'm back in the ARES Torrance office, and I'll be flying back to Florida tonight. Some conference thoughts:
This was a little disappointing, relative to last year. It seemed much more like a traditional AIAA conference (not that there's anything wrong with that), but it had much less of a NewSpace flavor, for two reasons, I think. First, last year was sort of an anomaly, because it was up in San Jose on Ames' turf, and it was really Pete Worden's conference. He worked pretty hard to make it a NewSpace conference. Second, it was (let's face it) a bad year for NewSpace. While there are some success stories (more on that in a minute), the explosion at Scaled put a damper on things somewhat, and RpK's problems will haunt people raising money, though they had a somewhat unique situation. There was very little NewSpace presence, at least relative to last year.
On the other hand, Jeff Greason was on the first morning's plenary panel, and was a refreshing new voice, in conjunction with the usual suspects from the Aerospace Industries Association and other usual suspects. As he noted himself, a few years ago, there wouldn't have been even a slot on the panel for someone like him, let alone him personally. XCOR has come a long way, and seems to continue to do well.
He was also on a panel with Elon, in which "the Gap" was a topic of much discussion, and for some, consternation. This Wired article describes it (sort of). Why this is big news, I don't know. There has been a "gap" ever since January 14th, 2004. It was intrinsic in the VSE announcement. All that's changed is that it's increased slightly, from four years to five. Stop the presses!
I hope that Elon can live up to his boast, and I suspect that Jeff does as well. I suspect that what he meant to say is that it won't be closed with fully reusable vehicles in that timeframe (a statement with which I agree). I don't think (as the article implies) that he was saying that Elon won't be able to do it. Only the future will tell.
One other interesting (and concerning) bit of information. Though it wasn't publicly announced there (because it's not really an announcement), based on a reliable source, they still don't know what caused the explosion in Mojave. The implications of that are troubling. I would think that it means that they can't move forward on a nitrous hybrid system, and have confidence that this won't happen again, until they know why it happened the first time. That implies that (assuming they don't come up with an answer in which they have confidence) they will either have to change oxidizers (probably to LOX) or perhaps go to an all-liquid system (something I've long advocated, and speculated they might do).
This could be an opportunity for one of the engine companies (XCOR jumping first to mind), since it's unlikely in the extreme (particularly considering what happened with the hybrid development) that Scaled would try to develop one on its own. That's probably the only way to move forward fast enough for Virgin to start generating revenues in a reasonable amount of time.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:25 PMIf I wanted to cause trouble, I'd ask him about this at lunch tomorrow. As Anonymous points out in comments over there, there is zero evidence that China has a manned lunar program underway at all, let alone one that will get them there before 2020.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:34 PMI don't have Internet where I'm staying, and while I'll probably have wireless for the next three days at the conference, there will be way too much going on to have any time for live blogging. I'll try to provide at least some daily highlights, though, and live coverage if there is any breaking news, as there was last year.
[Tuesday evening update]
I don't know whether it's my computer, or the wireless in the convention center, but this is the first time I've been on line all day, when I got back to where I'm staying, with ethernet. Probably little blogging from the conference...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:50 PMThe Space Carnival continues, over at Flying Singer's place.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:26 PMWell, I knew what the new prize was going to be this morning, but didn't upstage them, out of courtesy.
Also, frankly, it's sort of a yawner for me. I just can't get as excited about it as I was supposed to be, based on all the pre-announcement hype.
I'm just not that into space science, or robots on other planets. I was hoping that it would be something that would further drive down the cost of space passenger travel. But hey, it's Google's money. Anyway, if it ups Elon's launch rate, that's all to the good.
[Update a few minutes later]
I knew this would happen. Per comments, look, I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. I'm not even saying that it's not a good or worthwhile thing. I'm sure that there will probably be some good outcomes from it.
I'm just saying that if I had thirty million dollars, and wanted to put it toward a prize (or prizes) of some kind, this isn't what I would have done with the money. And that I just can't work up the kind of enthusiasm about it that many no doubt will.
[Another update]
Alan Boyle has more.
[A couple minutes later]
Wow. Alan's comments section has certainly attracted a bunch of loons. In fact, sadly, they outnumber the sane ones.
[Another update]
A question in comments:
Do you find the search for habitable extrasolar planets to be an exception to your general lack of interest in space science?
Short answer: no.
Why would I? Barring some kind of FTL breakthrough, I don't find habitable extrasolar planets an urgent issue. I think that it will be a lot easier to build habitats in the solar system than to go to extrasolar planets, for a long time, if not forever.
But I'll repeat something I've written before. I'm not uninterested in space science. I just don't find it any more fascinating than other kinds, and I don't think that it can justify the amount of money that's spent on it, relative to other kinds. That's why I always say that it's a dangerous argument for proponents of NASA funding to do it on the basis of "science" or "exploration," because when the people with the money compare how much we're spending on NASA relative to (say) the NSF, they may find themselves out on a breaking budgetary limb.
[Update again]
Bill White makes a good comment in comments, that I hadn't considered. This is good for the people doing the Lunar Landing Challenge (Armadillo, Masten, et al). That ticks my excitement meter up a notch or two.
But it's still down in the mud.
And it raises an interesting question. If the LLC is won this year (or next) will NASA fund a follow-on (higher, longer, etc.)? Or will this prize be the successor, in which the competitors for the prize bid for the services of the lander companies?
[Friday morning update]
Clark Lindsey responds to some naysaying from Popular Mechanics.
I definitely agree that Burt is irrelevant to this. I find all this Burt worship amusing. As I've written before, Burt isn't God, and in fact there are many people who understand this kind of problem better than he does (something I'm sure he'd admit himself). The notion that if Burt is too busy to do something, it won't get done, is ludicrous.
The reason that Burt won the X-Prize isn't because he's a genius who came up with the only way to do it. Burt won the X-Prize because his reputation allowed him to raise the money. There were lots of ways to skin that cat, and people who knew how to do it, but little funding for them.
[Update a few minutes later]
Jeff Foust attended the announcement, and has pictures.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:19 PMMark Whittington doesn't seem to understand the differences between SpaceX and RpK:
Charles Lurio has an interesting explanation why Rocket Plane/Kistler couldn't raise funding for its COTS space craft and is now in great jeopardy of imploding. it's [sic] all NASA's fault. Of course that doesn't explain why Elon Musk's SpaceX seems to have no trouble raising private capital for the very same COTS competition that RP/Kistler seems to have failed at.
Well, actually, it does. SpaceX has no trouble raising private capital because a) it needs a lot less money and b) it has an angel investor, named Elon Musk. SpaceX has not been raising outside investment to date, whereas RpK has to. In addition, SpaceX anticipates other markets than COTS (and would be continuing to move forward in its absence, just as it was before COTS occurred), whereas it's not clear if RpK (at least the "K" part of it) has a business plan that closes without it. So, yes, obviously, if NASA appears to be potentially fickle about whether or not it will eventually purchase COTS services at all (which it has), let alone from RpK, it will scare off needed institutional investors.
The real concern, though, as Charles pointed out, is that this can have a wider negative effect on space investment in general, even though there may be no logical relationship between the RpK deal and others.
And this is more of his typical nonsense:
Nothing is quite to irksome [sic] than to see people who pretend to be big boosters of commercial space who expect NASA or the government in general to guarantee the success of each and every commercial space company.
As usual, he does not (because he cannot) provide an actual quote or citation to support the assertion that there is anyone who has any such expectation. Because the only kind of arguments that he's capable of knocking down are ones that no one actually makes.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:35 AMWell, apparently RpK isn't quite dead yet--it's only mostly dead. But as Billy Crystal noted, there's a big difference between dead and mostly dead. Alan Boyle has the latest. Apparently, if the money is pulled back, it will be recompeted.
[Afternoon update]
Charles Lurio has some a
This piece at today's issue of The Space Review seems to be...incoherent.
I know that this isn't something that someone in Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA) wants to hear, but in fact safety should not be the highest priority of an agency charged with opening the final frontier to humankind.
The STS-5 decision was needed to solve a problem that seemed simple enough. With the first four flights of the Space Shuttle, only two test pilots were on the rocket. With STS-5, NASA wanted to fly four astronauts. But only the pilot and co-pilot had ejection seats. What was NASA to do? The two choices seem rather obvious: you can add two more ejection seats, or remove the two existing ejection seats. The Apollo-era management chose to remove the two existing ejection seats.If there are no longer ejection seats, then the vehicle needs to be declared operational, and the astronauts no longer referred to as test pilots. In right stuff irrational exuberance, thinking failure not an option, the Apollo-era management steered a new course for NASA. If not already over with the launch of STS-1, NASA officially ended the right stuff era with the launch of STS-5 and entered a new era of right stuff irrational exuberance. That is the era NASA is currently in, and will remain until the shuttle is retired.
Pardon me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the "right-stuff era" the era in which test pilots were allowed to get themselves killed without it being front-page news, all over the world, and in which their loved ones were allowed to grieve privately, without having to involve the whole nation, and being pestered by news reporters shoving videocams in their face demanding to know how they felt about their loss?
Also unlearnednot forgottenwas the reason for Apollo 13 success. The independent, redundant lunar module allowed the Apollo 13 crew to escape, even with all of the mistakes and blunders made by management. And, according to NASA, more people watched the Apollo 13 splashdown worldwide than the first Apollo lunar landing. No doubt if the Challenger or Columbia crews had the equivalent escape system and had survived, the world would have cheered NASA. NASA is indeed an organization that does not seem to know what it takes to succeed.
No doubt, indeed. But such an escape system would have added a lot of weight to an Orbiter that was already incapable of meeting its performance requirements, and was viewed as sufficiently reliable that it would have been overkill, and not worth the weight penalty.*
Now, of course, we know now that they were wrong (and in fact, some of us knew it at the time). It wasn't that reliable. And yes, perhaps it was a mistake to build another Orbiter and continue the program after Challenger.
But here's the thing, that S&MA types don't get. Their job is to ensure that no one is injured or killed. But other people, at higher pay grades, have a more important job--to make sure that the mission gets accomplished. Harsh as it sounds, whether or not we killed astronauts in the Shuttle wasn't the point. Once we decided to build a "reusable" vehicle, we had already made a decision that it has to be reliable (particularly when we made the decision, or at least Walter Mondale did, during the Carter administration to only build four operational vehicles).
A reusable vehicle that is unreliable is unaffordable, regardless of whether or not there are people aboard. The very premise of the program was that we weren't going to lose Orbiters, because we couldn't afford to lose Orbiters. We finally recognized that in 2004, after the loss of Columbia, when we recognized that we had to limp along with a short fleet until the ISS was complete, and then retire the system, because it was simply unaffordable (partly, but only partly) because it was unreliable. So, in that context, it made perfect sense, once they'd had a few "shakedown cruises," to say that the system was ready for passengers (in the sense that they weren't piloting the vehicle, but going up in it for some other mission purpose). If the system as flown was safe enough for the Orbiters themselves, it was certainly safe enough to put other people in.
That is why the notion of "man-rating" a reusable spacecraft is an oxymoron, just as it is with aircraft. We don't give every passenger in an airliner a parachute, because it makes no sense to do so. The airliner is designed to not crash, because airliners are expensive to replace, as is the loss of good will that crashes cause for the operator or manufacturer of the aircraft. The same will be (and should have been) true of space transports. That it wasn't with the Shuttle was a failure to design and operate it properly, but that doesn't mean that it should have had an escape system. It means that they should have either designed it better, or told Congress that it couldn't be, at least within the budget and schedule provided, and taken a different approach.
Mr. Torrance makes the classic S&MA mistake of thinking that "safe" is a binary condition. It is not. It is always relative. There is no "safe." The best you can do is minimize the risk within the constraints of the system. If he wants to argue that the Shuttle was a mistake, he'll find a lot fewer people to argue about that with today than he would have a couple decades ago. But his comparisons with Apollo, and "the right stuff" shed much more heat, and mud, on the issue than they do light.
* Note: His thesis also ignores the fact that NASA wanted to carry seven, not four astronauts on the vehicle, which would have meant adding five more seats, with no assurance that they would really add safety--ejection seats have been described as "attempted suicide to avoid certain death," and that statement goes much more than double for a hypersonic launch vehicle during ascent.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:55 PMOver at The Space Review today.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:06 AMNASA is cutting off funding to RpK. It was inevitable, as long as they continued to miss their financing milestone.
The question now is--what will they do with the money? Personally, I'd like to see t/Space get a shot. Full disclosure, though--that's partly out of self interest. If they do, I'll likely get some contract work from them.
It's actually kind of complicated, because it's not clear how NASA will make the decision. Will they have to redo the competition? It's been over a year since the original awards, and presumably the competitors could argue that a lot has changed. On the other hand, perhaps NASA could just ask for a new Best and Final Offer from the contestants.
[Afternoon update]
Clark Lindsey notes that it's not quite a done deal. He also notes the chicken-and-egg nature of the problem (just like that of the launch-cost problem in general):
I've been told that the issue that kept coming up during RpK discussions with potential investors was the lack of a firm commitment by NASA to a contract for launches to the ISS if the demo was successful.
Self-fulfilling prophecy.
And that's the problem with any kind of government prize or guaranteed market. The government is fickle. In addition, in this case, the market wasn't even guaranteed. A COTS participant has to make the numbers close on their business plan without NASA to raise the money, and that's still a tough proposition, in terms of investor perception. RpK had a bigger problem than SpaceX (and t/Space) because their concept needs so much money.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:49 AMRemember Loretta's attempt to come up with a better slogan for the federal space agency? Well, I didn't get much response, but Wired got quite a bit. Unfortunately, it's pretty underwhelming, at least so far.
Is it really up to me? Do I have to unleash my fingers of satire?
C'mon, people.
"We'll support jobs in Houston. The rest of you will go to the stars."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:46 PMDale Amon has a tale from the end of the first century of the space age.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:00 AMI'm hoping to attend the annual meeting week after next in Long Beach. But AIAA has something new this year--a conference blog. It will be interesting to see how this works out.
It's also interesting that they didn't set it up on their own server--they just used Blogspot.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:20 AMI wonder what this prize will be for? Guess we'll find out next week.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:08 AMLoretta Hidalgo Whitesides thinks that the on-line community can help NASA come up with one.
<VOICE="Alice">Must...stop...fingers...of satire...</VOICE>>
Hey, there's always the comments section.
And yes, I have emerged, blinking and confused, from SBIR proposal hell. Thanks for asking.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:44 AMLive from Second Life, it's the Frontier Spaceport. Robin Snelson reports that Colonel Smith is going to report to the Pentagon that SPS is viable.
We'll see.
[Update about mid morning.]
Colonel Smith (aka "Coyote") explains why the DoD is interested in power from space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:13 AMAlmost half a century after the first orbital launch by the Soviets, and in the wake of another failure of a supposedly "reliable" Russian launcher, Clark Lindsey has a brief, but appropriate rant about our national failure to develop reliable and low-cost access to space, a goal that NASA is not only doing very little about, but, by building yet another horrifically expensive throwaway, actually spending billions to delay.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:05 AMYou're going to see a lot of these kinds of pieces as we come up on the fiftieth anniversary of Sputnik, now only one month away. I haven't read it yet, but I'll probably come up with a version of my own in the next few weeks.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:56 PMThis article on testing satellite shielding against space debris is a good reminder that even if NASA solves the foam problem, or someone comes up with a new reusable vehicle concept that isn't subject to debris during ascent, that space vehicles will always be vulnerable to orbital debris:
An object less than 0.05 inch across blew a hole through a section near the payload door of the shuttle Atlantis during its mission last September, according to the July edition of NASA's Orbital Debris Quarterly News journal.The damaged section was replaced.
Had the object, which investigators think was a piece of a circuit board, hit the thinnest part of the wing edge, "There is a question whether the vehicle would have survived re-entry," said Eric Christiansen, a NASA engineer specializing in debris shielding.
A spacefaring nation will have the capability to do repairs on orbit to mitigate the hazard of such events, but to do that requires the development of a orbital infrastructure, something that NASA's current plans strenuously avoid.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:57 AMSpace logistics consultant Mike Snead has an interesting article at The Space Review on how to become a space-faring nation. I've glanced over it, but haven't had time to absorb the whole thing. I don't know how politically realistic it is, but what is most interesting to me is that the word "NASA" does not appear in it, anywhere.
I think that this was fundamental policy failure of the Vision for Space Exploration. While the vision was seen as important for the administration, just as was the case with Shuttle after Apollo, and space station after Shuttle, it was primarily treated as something for NASA to do after Shuttle and station, not an intrinsically important goal in itself. If it had truly been important, an entirely new entity would have been created to carry it out, without the baggage of the past, in much the same way that missile defense was viewed as too important to leave to the Air Force in the eighties, resulting in the formation of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:31 AMUp now at Out Of The Cradle. Ken Murphy's done a great job.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:28 PMI'm kind of surprised (though pleasantly, if true) at the estimated cost of the contract to Boeing for the Ares 1 upper stage:
The $514.7 million cost-plus-award fee contract runs through 2016 and covers the manufacture of a ground test article, three flight test units and six production flight units.
So they're getting about ten units altogether for half a billion? Even if the development costs are zero, that's only about fifty megabucks a copy. If we assume that it's a couple hundred millions for DDT&E, that's only about thirty million each. I'm sure that the J2-X will be cheaper than an SSME, but I would think it's still going to cost several million dollars per engine. I would have guessed that the stage cost was higher. These numbers imply to me that, with learning (and I guess it helps that NASA provides the production facilities at Michaud--I'll bet that's not included in the costs stated above) that they could get the marginal cost per stage down in the twenty-five million range or less.
Better news for sustainability than I would have thought. I wonder what the cost of the first stage is?
[Thursday update]
OK, there seems to be a consensus in the comments that this price doesn't include engine or avionics (those are separate contracts), which is where a lot of the cost of a stage lies. So it's not that great a deal. I thought it was too good to be true.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:09 PMI've always been skeptical of the "drunk astronauts" story, and think that the media (and Congress) were far too quick to jump on it, since it was never substantiated. It just never really rang true to me. Unfortunately, NASA has been put in the impossible position of having to prove a negative, and there will now be people who will believe it as gospel (just as many will continue to believe that NASA never put men on the moon).
And I have to say that I sympathize with members of the astronaut corps who are justifiably pissed off about it.
But it angers me for another reason. There are so many legitimate issues and problems with the agency, that nonsense like this and crazy astronauts distracts us from dealing with them. Yet another reason to hope for needed breakthroughs in the private sector.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:09 AMClark Lindsey addresses the ludicrous, but widespread notion that there is something different about space passenger travel that makes it so fragile that the industry will somehow be destroyed by a single accident.
I suspect that the source of this is the same one that causes us to irrationally grieve astronauts that we've never met, and demand that no more ever die. There seems to be something different about space in the minds of many that causes people to check their brains at the door when discussing it.
It's just another place, people. Folks are going to die opening up frontiers, as they always have. Get over it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:32 AMLots of good stuff over there today. Jeff Foust got an interview with Burt Rutan. I'm not surprised that the accident has caused a delay in engine development (I'd have been surprised if it hadn't). I am surprised to hear that they're considering going away from nitrous. What are the other options, if they want to continue to use a hybrid (whose safety Alex Tai continues to tout, a little too much I think)? Peroxide? LOX? They have their problems, too. I wonder if they'll finally consider releasing control, and giving the work to a propulsion subcontractor that knows what it's doing (e.g., XCOR, though that would mean a liquid, not a hybrid, since they have no interest in or experience with hybrids).
On other topics, there's an interesting article about the V-Prize, a concept that was new to me:
The types of aircraft capable of crossing the Atlantic in less than one hour will have rocket engines. Their average speed will be greater than 6,000 km/h and their maximum speed will reach Mach 15 or even Mach 20. They will take off like space launchers, follow a ballistic trajectory like intercontinental missiles, reach an altitude of 100 to 200 kilometers and then land like gliders. At the height of the trajectory, the pilot will experience several minutes of weightlessness, then be subjected to accelerations of eight, nine or even ten g at the moment of re-entry into the Earths atmosphere, depending on the particular shape of the trajectory, said Christophe Bonnal, a senior expert at the French space agency CNES.
While this is a suborbital flight, it's a very high-energy one. It will need thermal protection systems for entry similar to those needed for an orbital entry, and good mass fractions on the vehicle. I'll be interested in seeing the rules. Will it require a turnaround of the same vehicle for a second flight, as the X-Prize did? If so, how will they ferry it? Will two-stage systems be allowed? I think it's a good idea in concept, but I'm skeptical that it can be done by 2013. If it can, though, orbital capability wouldn't be far behind.
Taylor Dinerman writes about half a century of ICBMs (the technology that got us to the moon quickly, but off on the wrong foot entirely when it comes to affordable and routine space access).
And Nader Elhefnawy discusses the potential for a resource-based space program.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:15 AMKen Murphy is looking for submittals for next week's Carnival of Space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:53 AMAs we approach the anniversary in October next year, there will be a lot of perspective, and prospective pieces like this one by (fellow) baby boomer Keith Cowing. I'll no doubt do one or two of my own.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:35 AMThey've found a cause, and solution to the foam-falling problem that gouged the tiles on the last flight. I wasn't sure they'd be able to do it at all, let alone this quickly. On the other hand, I think they could have continued to fly with it as is, and if they hadn't found a solution, they should have. If it occurred again, it would only be a real problem on the Hubble mission.
I in fact think that the Shuttle is now about as safe as it can be made, and it's in fact pretty safe. I'll be very surprised if they lose another orbiter before they retire it. But even if I'm right, that's no reason to not retire it (though many will attempt to keep it alive). I've never thought it should be retired for safety reasons (at least not because it kills astronauts occasionally). We lose people mining, in construction, driving, and even in recreation. The notion that we can't afford to do so in space is silly. And in fact it's ridiculous, when we're losing people fighting a war, to argue that we can't afford to do so to open a frontier. If we, as a nation, can't grow up about this, and think that it's not worth losing people occasionally. we should just give up.
As I've noted previously, and recently, the real problem with an unreliable Shuttle is that we can't spare the vehicles. A reusable vehicle that's not reliable isn't affordable (one of the reasons that talking about "human rating" one is oxymoronic, and misses the point). And the real problem with Shuttle isn't that it's unsafe, but that it costs too much, for too little. There are a lot more useful things that we could be doing in space for that billion dollars per flight. Unfortunately, NASA is replacing it with a system that will be no improvement at all in that regard.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:53 AMEmily Lakdawalla has the Seventeenth Edition.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:27 AMI haven't commented on this, but the New Scientist has a fairly extensive story of Armadillo's bad weekend.
What do I think?
First of all, full disclosure. I'm working, as I write this, for one of Armadillo's competitors, on SBIR proposals. But it's a close-knit community, even among the competitors.
And having said that, I don't think it's a disaster for Armadillo. These kinds of things are going to happen along the way, as we start to understand how to develop operable and affordable space transports (a goal that has eluded both the military and NASA, almost half a century after the dawn of the space age). I also find it interesting (and I have to confess, somewhat amusing) that the failure was fundamentally a software failure, given the pedigree of the company that provided the funds that created the vehicle:
Post-crash analysis has revealed what went wrong the automatic shutdown that should have triggered when Texel first touched down did not occur. That's because the computer was mistakenly told to expect a stronger signal from the touchdown sensor, beyond what it is actually capable of producing.But the touchdown did have a big enough effect to jostle the onboard GPS unit that Texel relied on to track its motion. The disturbance caused faulty readings from the unit, confusing the vehicle.
"It thought that it was plummeting to earth very quickly, so it fired the engine to reduce the speed," Eaton told New Scientist. "Well, it actually wasn't going down, so this caused it to start going up very quickly." That is when Carmack triggered the manual shutdown.
People tend to focus on the hardware problems of building space vehicles, but the software problems are in many ways more daunting (particularly to the degree that software is used to reduce weight of the vehicle). And it's a major contributor to cost. Norm Augustine wrote a book
Anyway, if it does turn out to be disastrous, it's because John hasn't transitioned this activity from a hobby, shared by friends, to a real business, with real employees and risk-management plans (hint, hint, it's one of the things I do). It's in fact a good test of the company (such as it is) and, as Henry Spencer notes in the New Scientist piece, it makes the race even more interesting.
And, such is the state of this nascent industry, may the best team still win. We need lots of successful companies to have a successful industry.
[Thursday morning update]
There's a lot of discussion in the comments section that seems to infer that I was recommending a more rigorous software verification process (e.g., ISO). I was not. When I was describing risk management, it more related to things like backup hardware, etc. I was not implying that this was preventable, at least not in that way.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:32 PMSince it did the deorbit burn about half an hour ago, Endeavour should be starting to test its tiles right about now. Hoping for the best.
[Update a few minutes later]
Apparently they came through entry all right. Landing in a few minutes. It will be interesting to see the extent of the belly damage once they reach the ground.
[Update a few minutes prior to landing]
I just heard the double sonic boom. It rattled the house. I've never heard one in Florida before. The last time I did was in California, on an Edwards landing. I guess they were approaching the Cape from the south.
[Update]
The vehicle just rolled (apparently safely) to a stop.
[Post-flight update]
Interesting unintended consequences, if it turns out to be the case:
While the resulting damage was later found to pose no risk to the safe return of the orbiter or its seven-astronaut crew, NASA has found similar foam shedding events on its last few shuttle flights. The damage from any such foam loss to an orbiter's heat shield is not believed to be catastrophic, like that which led to the 2003 Columbia accident, but engineers are analyzing it just to be sure, Hale said.The increased frequency has prompted speculation that an extra hour added to launch countdowns - to allow inspections teams to scan shuttle fuel tanks for ice build-up - may actually contribute to ice formation that ultimately cracks or looses foam debris.
There are no risk-free choices.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:35 AMIs it just me, or is this Onion piece on space tourism uncharacteristically lame?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:28 AMThere's been a very interesting discussion in comments over at Space Politics about VSE, ESAS, and public perception. Jim Muncy challenges us to an exercise:
I would respectfully request everyone ask themselves two separate and distinct questions. Answer them independently, in any order you want.1) As a prelude, add any really important problems you think are missing from the list of challenges* Ray laid out. Then ask yourself this question: given that people care about BIG PROBLEMS, why should the American people care about a VSE that does not deliver results on ANY of those problems.
2) Taking the broad outlines of the VSE as a start, and Rays list of challenges as the metric of success, design an implementation strategy for the VSE that maximizes the chance of a high score (adding up the progress across all the challenges). Does your strategy look anything like ESAS?
I talked to Paul Spudis, who served on the Aldridge Commission, at lunch last month at the Space Frontier Conference. I posited to him the thesis that in choosing ESAS, NASA has essentially thumbed its nose at most of the commission's recommendations, and asked him how many of them he thought were still being implemented, and how many ignored. He said that it was an interesting question, and that he was going to go back and reread the report, and perhaps put out a policy paper.
In particular, I think that they've totally lost the connection to national security, but it's also not clear what ESAS does for either the economy in general, or space commercialization in particular, particularly relative to a more open architecture, such as one using commercial propellant delivery. But if some of the commission members were to object now, would anyone care?
*Ray's list:
Katherine Mangu-Ward compares and contrasts NASA's safety approach to that of private industry.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:05 PMXCOR needs one.
And once again, ITAR rears its ugly head.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:13 AMTariq Malik has a good story on the current state of the Shuttle tile issue.
Apparently, the concern is not for loss of the vehicle (and of course, the crew, but we have lots of astronauts*, and only three orbiters left). The concern is whether or not a repair will reduce the turnaround time for repair on the ground that's worth the risk (to both crew doing EVA and the vehicle, in the event they actually make things worse by dinging it somewhere else or botching the repair) of attempting to repair it.
I don't have access to all the data, but I'd be inclined to come in as is, assuming that it really doesn't risk vehicle loss.
Someone on a mailing list I'm on noted that they wouldn't want to be the person who signed off on a return without a repair. As I commented there, there are risks either way. If they attempt to repair it, and lose the vehicle on entry, it would be easy to second guess the decision, and decide after the fact that the repair caused the loss, whereas leaving it alone might have brought them home all right.
There are no risk-free decisions. Every action in life, every breath you take, is a gamble. It's just a matter of judging the odds.
[Friday morning update]
Sorry, Keith, but it wasn't a joke. It's a description of reality. I know that you have trouble with that sometimes.
[Monday morning update]
In rereading Keith's strange comment, I have no idea what he's talking about here:
...to make sure to get a link to a drunk astronaut story in the process.
The only story I linked (other than Tariq Malik's) to was one about Lisa Nowak, the main point of which was that NASA has too many astronauts. Reading is fundamental.
* Of course, the fact that we'd lose Barbara Morgan, the other "teacher in space" (quotes because she's officially an astronaut) would have dire PR effects.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:09 PMForbes has an article on NASA's current problems.
NASA officials have taken days to decide whether the hole threatens the safety of the crew or if the astronauts need to get out to repair the damage.
I infer from the way this is written that the author thinks there's something wrong with "taking days to decide" something affecting the potential loss of vehicle and crew. Did they expect, or want them to rush the decision? The decision doesn't have to be made until it's time to go home (or at least, until they are about to run out of time to do a repair, if necessary). It seems proper to me to gather as much information as possible, and not to do so in haste.
The U.S. space agency is already weathering a veritable meteor shower of problems, including allegations of corruption, underfunding, drunken and disturbed astronauts, and even murder.Can anything be done to turn things around?
NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs says the solution is to emphasize the agency's strong suit--science.
That's the agency's strong suit? I think that's a dangerous position to take. It might make people question why NASA is spending so much money on things that aren't science, and so little on their "strong suit." I expect the public to think that space=science, but it's disappointing to see a NASA spokesman promulgating the myth.
For a brief moment in 2004--less than a year after the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on its return to Earth--NASA enjoyed a swelling of support. President Bush announced his new program for space exploration. He vowed to complete the International Space Station by 2010, develop a new vehicle to replace the aging shuttle fleet and return to the moon by 2020. The ultimate goal, Bush said, would be a new frontier in space adventure--a human journey to Mars.
And beyond. "Mars and beyond." The president said that humans are going out into the cosmos. Mars is just one more stepping stone along the way, not the "ultimate goal." Why can't they ever get it right?
The administration's priorities have changed, for obvious reasons.
Really? In what way? And what for what "reasons," that are supposed to be "obvious"? There has been no change in policy of which I'm aware. VSE was never a high priority, but it was, and remains, the national civil space policy.
But NASA's recent bad luck has been largely self-inflicted.For example, there's the strange case of Lisa Nowak. In February she was arrested after driving more than 900 miles to attack and potentially kidnap a romantic rival in a love triangle involving another astronaut. Last month a NASA study on astronaut behavior and health revealed that some astronauts have been drunk prior to liftoff.
No, it revealed nothing of the kind. We still have no reason to believe that anyone ever took off in a Shuttle while inebriated. Another media myth that will not die.
Just about everyone agrees that the agency is overstretched. In his fiscal-year 2008 budget, President Bush requested $17.3 billion for NASA. A Senate appropriations subcommittee has allotted $150 million more than the president's request, and the House committee also believes the agency is underfunded.Vincent Sabathier, director of the Human Space Exploration Initiatives program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says NASA needs another $3 billion per year to do its exploration and scientific work effectively.
"NASA is an amazing tool for the U.S.," he says. The agency is "in trouble" because "we ask a lot from them, and we don't give them enough money." According to Sabathier, the agency needs another $3 billion per year to do its exploration and scientific work effectively.
"For one year of the cost of the war in Iraq," he says, "we could have a permanent lunar base."
This is always irritating.
Yes, or for a few months of the cost of social security. Or the amount we spend on vacations. Or interest on the federal debt. There are many potential sources of funding for a lunar base, if having a lunar base is important.
What's the point? Obviously, this is a person who would object to spending money on Iraq regardless of what alternate use it could be put to, and thinks that others agree with him, so he uses that as an example of where to get the money for a lunar base, as though the problem is simply not enough money, rather than the national priority we assign to having a lunar base. If we chose to, if it were important, we could afford a war in Iraq and a lunar base. As it is, even if there were no war in Iraq, we'd be unlikely to take the funds from it and instead put them into NASA. More likely, it would be used to reduce the deficit. This is a flawed argument.
Speaking of flawed arguments in favor of (and against) space spending, Alan Boyle has a(n inadvertent) gallery of them in his comments section here. You'll find almost every single one of them.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:56 AMI hadn't previously commented on the story, because I don't take it seriously (for one thing, even ignoring the design issues, how do they propose to get people to it at that price?), but Clark Lindsey notes a disparity in coverage between this fantasy, and a much more hopeful announcement by a real space hotelier.
[Update a few minutes later]
Jeff Foust is (unsurprisingly) skeptical as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:08 PMIt's taken far too long, and cost far more than it's worth, but it's definitely progress.
We used to have a concept back in the eighties at Rockwell called Extended-Duration Orbiter (EDO) in which we'd pack extra fuel cells in the payload bay to extend the mission length of a Shuttle flight, because electrical power (provided by fuel cells, which had finite propellants) was the initial tallest pole in the tent to allowing longer missions.
Now that the station finally has surplus power with the last installation of solar panels, it can provide some to the Shuttle to allow an extended stay there.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:16 PMNever shy to reveal his issues on his blog, Mark Whittington describes his false memories:
I remember being hooted at when I suggested that China might want to deny access to space to other countries, including new space entrepreneurs.
When did that happen, Mark? Got a cite to an actual web page?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:34 PMHere's an essay from Tad Daley describing why so-called "progressives" should be interested in the expansion of humanity into the cosmos.
[via Keith Cowing]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:44 AMAn interesting discussion over at Space Politics about public awareness of, ignorance about, and interest in: NASA, space, space science, and the vision. And I agree with "anonymous" that this is not a (completely) unfair characterization of the human spaceflight program:
ISS: 22 years, 100 billion. Science return: minimal. NASA has no money to use it once its finished. Massive public subsidy for vacation spot for billionaires. Otherwise, boring as hell and not much ROI other than for contractors and govt employees.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:45 AMSpace shuttle: Equally boring. 40 percent of fleet destroyed. 14 dead. Massive expense. Launched teacher when kids are out of school. Still cant launch without putting hole in protective shield.
VSE: tanking. Badly. Negative mass to orbit. Apollo style capsule from 40 years ago. Little or no money for actual lunar lander.
Its a good thing more people dont know all this.
Pamela Gay is hosting the fifteenth Carnival of Space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:35 AMNot a lot, in terms of practical propulsion, but Centauri Dreams reports that there is progress.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:26 AM...what the Shuttle astronauts had for lunch? I guess it's good, because it means it must be a slow news day (i.e., everything is going smoothly for a 6:36 PM launch).
I'm still trying to decide whether or not to drive up. I'll have to leave within a couple hours if I'm going to make it. Patricia is working up in Orlando today, so the problem of finding a parking/viewing location is compounded by the need to meet up somewhere.
[Update a little before 3 PM]
I'm having a gumption shortage. I can't get sufficiently enthused to sit in a car for several hours today, when I've got so much stuff to do around here. So I'll see if I can see it from down here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:09 AMNASA has a new graphical element. Keith Cowing is underwhelmed. Me, too. Lots of good comments from the readers. I liked this one:
'Market tested research' lands NASA with a triangle with tiny words on each corner?They tested this where? The planet Triangulus?
Of course, I think that the lack of an inspiring logo is actually toward the bottom of the agency's problems. But I think that this is symptomatic (even, if I can use a word, emblematic) of a general lack of imagination there, on all fronts.
But at least, as Keith illustrates, it's already starting to inspire the crew for today's flight.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:13 AMIf this story is true, Orion is becoming even more Apollo-like:
Previously, the Orion was designed to land on large airbags at a landing range, although earlier hints that was no longer going to be the case came via documentation that showed a water landing - off the coast of Australia - for the Orion 3 unmanned test flight in September 2012. The first manned flight, Orion 4, was due to land at Edwards Air Force Base.Also part of the mass saving design cycle - knocking off a total of 1,200 lbs from Orion - is the deletion of green propellants on the Crew Module, returning to the tried and tested hypergolic Reaction Control Systems (RCS). This weight savings measure was made in-line with the change to a water landing, due to salt water's neutralizing of potential hypergolic fuel spills after splashdown.
This has many program implications. Water landing has an impact on the trade as to whether to expend or reuse the crew module. Previous trades assumed a land landing, and indicated that both life cycle and per-mission cost would be much lower for reuse, assuming a certain number of flights. But if they land in water, they may not have as much confidence in their ability to refurbish. If this means going to an expendable, they just increased the marginal flight costs quite a bit. And going to hypergolics continues to delay the day that we get propellants that are both clean, and (relatively) easy to manufacture off planet, such as methane and LOX. Of course, if they're not going to refurbish, then at least they don't have to worry about servicing a hypergolic system as part of turnaround, which has always been one of the ops-cost drivers for the Shuttle.
In addition, water landing means that they have to deal with a fixed-cost recovery fleet, for a low flight rate, because I don't think they're going to get free aircraft-carrier service, as they did in Apollo.
These are the same short-sighted types of decisions that killed the Shuttle program--pinching pennies up front with potential large increases in operational costs. And all because they chose to oversize the system, and wastespend their money building a new NASA-unique launcher that's turning out to lack the performance they need.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I see that Chair Force Engineer and Clark Lindsey are also less than impressed.
[Update in the early afternoon]
Keith Cowing reports that PAO denies that a decision has been made. Make of that what you will...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:28 AMBrian Swiderski hasn't been posting much to his new blog, but when he does, it's fairly meaty and lengthy.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:26 PMClark Lindsey, on more clueless commentating from the MSM:
In science it is not considered a valid technique to generalize from a single data point. The same is true for judging RLVs. The Space Shuttle, which is not really reused but rather is rebuilt between flights, has innumerable design flaws and shortcomings far too extensive and numerous to go into here. Predicted to become the DC-3 of launchers, to call it even the Ford Tri-Motor of launchers would be an insult to that historic plane. (Ball also mentions the X-15 but it was a experimental development program, not an operational system. It should be compared to the SS1 not the SS2.)Commercial spaceflight vehicles are being designed and built with the goal of low cost operations rather than highest possible performance. Low cost operations can only arise when high reliability and robustness are designed into the systems from the ground up. Those features in turn will produce safe rides for the crews and passengers. (I'll note that it will be easier to achieve safe and routine operations for suborbital spaceflight but eventually the lessons learned there will be applied to orbital systems.)
One runs into this illogic often in space discussions, as though the Shuttle proves anything at all about reusable vehicles in general.
Though it's not as bad as that Alex Tabarrok piece a while back.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:47 AMCharles Krauthammer goes to bat for them. I do think that this story is overblown, but he overstates the "spam in a can" argument. Like airline pilots, Shuttle pilots need to have a clear head at launch, in the event of an abort. As for the rest of the crew, it probably wouldn't hurt much if they were mildly intoxicated, but the notion that one has to have a couple stiff ones to climb into the Shuttle (or the Soyuz) seems a little silly to me, regardless of how many times the joke is repeated, and he seems to be serious about it. Maybe some of the pilots in the Battle of Britain wouldn't have been able to pass a breathalyzer test, but if so, their chances of killing the enemy, or getting home, would have been sharply reduced compared to their sober colleagues.
And he has entirely much too much faith in NASA to execute the vision, even if it gets support from the politicians.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:28 AMWell, actually a pre-dawn launch, but it should still be a nice sight if/when the Delta II takes off with the Mars Phoenix lander tomorrow morning, from the Cape. I don't know if I can work up the gumption to drive up there for it, though. Particularly if we plan to see Endeavour launch on Tuesday, which seems to be back on track with the valve replacement in the crew cabin.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:02 AMJeff Foust has found the most egregiously awful reporting of the Scaled Composites explosion yet.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:55 AMAmidst huge entitlement programs, paying farmers not to grow food, pork and boondoggles, the nation's transportation infrastructure has been badly neglected, and is quite brittle. It also makes one wonder how many other ticking time bombs there are out there.
This applies to space transportation as well. A category three hurricane could wipe out NASA's manned space program. On some days, I'm not sure that would be a bad thing. It would force them to do something different, and break us out of the rut we've been in since Apollo.
Of course, there's a big difference. The highway infrastructure was a huge improvement over the past, offering affordable mobility to hundreds of millions of Americans, with a great deal of redundancy and resiliency. The space transportation infrastructure has never been affordable to anyone but the government, or able to support more than a few dozen people in orbit per year, and it's always been quite fragile, with no backups. Until we address this issue, we'll never be a spacefaring nation, or accomplish the things there that many of use want. But all that NASA offers is more of the same.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:22 AMSeriously. I'm sure that he's a fine engineer, and manager, but why does that mean that we should give his opinion more weight than anyone else's on the subject of space goals? Just because someone is an expert at implementing a space program doesn't make them one at justifying it, or determining what it should be.
As is always the case with stories like this, there are implicit underlying assumptions that are never stated. In order to argue where we should be going, one first has to decide why are going into space at all, and that's not a subject that ever really gets discussed. I assume that Mr. Gavin is into space "exploration," and assumes that everyone else shares that justification. He thinks that when it comes to the moon, we've "been there, done that," and it's time to go "explore" somewhere else, and that Mars is much more interesting. But what if the goal is instead, space development, or space defense, or geoengineering, or energy production? In that case, Mars makes no sense at all, and the people who want to send humans there should pay for it themselves.
Of course, I continue to wish that we could get a consensus from all the people with disparate space goals that the best approach is to make space access affordable, which will enable them all. Unfortunately, NASA is only making things worse in that regard (unless COTS, despite the paltry sums being spent on it, succeeds).
[Late afternoon update]
Rampant sarcasm has broken out in comments on this subject at Space Politics.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:15 AMIn the wake of last week's tragedy, Leonard David has a report on space marsupial progress. He also has a roundup of reactions to the Mojave deaths.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:39 PMThomas James righteously rails against it. If humans settle space, we will take human institutions with us, and the ones that have proven successful here will do so there as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:42 AM...without it being administered by imbeciles.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:38 AMAllison Gatlin has the latest on the test explosion in Mojave. There are quotes from Jeff Foust and Brett Alexander, including this one, with which I agree:
"Because of the nature of this accident, I think that there will be limited media attention from here on out of this accident," Foust said. "I suspect that you'll see a lot more coverage over the next few days of NASA's peccadilloes - intoxicated astronauts and sabotaged computers - than you will of this accident. As a result, this is going to be out of the general public's minds pretty quickly, outside of those directly affected by the accident."
It's ironic and amusing that NASA's latest foibles may knock the biggest accident to affect NewSpace off the headlines, but I think he's right.
[Update in the evening]
Aaaarrrgghhh...
This is one of my biggest pet peeves:
"Today, as we are focused on the human side of this mishap we can't loose sight of what it is we choose to do and to whom we serve," airport General Manager Stu Witt said Friday.
It's bad enough when people do it on unedited internet fora, but you'd think that professional editors and reporters could get it right. I wonder if it's going to become the accepted spelling, because we can no longer hold back the tide of ignorance?
And yes, I know it's confusing, as demonstrated a few grafs later:
"Our nation enjoys the safest transportation system the world has known, largely because people like the ones who populate the companies engaged in systems research and testing at Mojave, Edwards and China Lake choose this location to practice their craft," Witt said.
Same pronunciation, different spelling. Yes, English has idiosyncratic spelling conventions. But again, professional writers and editors are paid to know the difference.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:50 PMWhen I saw Glenn Reynolds in Dallas at the ISDC in May, he mentioned to me that he'd been reading a review copy of Rocketeers
I haven't said anything about the "drunk astronauts" story, but I do think that it epitomizes the atrocious state of reporting on space (and any technical subject), in which it becomes sensationalized and drained of reality. Everyone assumes that the two incidents referred to were Shuttle launches, when the word I get is that it was a T-38 and a Soyuz flight. And of course it has become inflated from two (anecdotal) incidents to everyone doing shooters before each Shuttle flight. The real story, as Jim Oberg points out in this interview with a terminally clueless BBC reporter, is the special treatment of astronauts, and the (lack of sufficient) power of the flight surgeons (at least in their minds) to ground them. Of course, this is a tough problem, as we saw in the Nowak case.
There is a natural antipathy between the astronauts and the flight surgeons. From an astronaut's point of view, an encounter with the latter can't have a good outcome. At best, it can be a neutral one. The default is that one's flight readiness is go. A flight surgeon can't improve that--they can only change it for the worse. If one is sick enough to need to get permission to go, it's unlikely to happen, since there are many trained backups, even for a given mission, who are fine. Recall Apollo XIII, when Ken Mattingly had to be replaced by Jack Swigert because he had merely been exposed to German measles, due to concern that he might come down with it during the mission. He ended up not getting them, and while the decision made sense, he had to feel frustrated (though obviously not as much as he would have had the mission been successful).
It's not a new problem, and it's not one likely to go away, but it would help if the media would treat it seriously. Not to mention soberly.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:05 AM...to Glen May. He was a lifelong rocketeer."
[Update a few minutes later]
Dan Schrimpsher has more.
And Jim Bennett notes via private correspondence:
You will remember the scenes in The Right Stuff at the funerals of the test pilots; the Navy Hymn was always sung. This version includes the last verse, for space travellers, written by [Annapolis graduate] Robert Heinlein in 1947.
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who biddst the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!O Christ! Whose voice the waters heard
And hushed their raging at Thy word,
Who walkedst on the foaming deep,
And calm amidst its rage didst sleep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!Lord, guard and guide the men who fly
Through the great spaces in the sky.
Be with them always in the air,
In darkening storms or sunlight fair;
Oh, hear us when we lift our prayer,
For those in peril in the air!Almighty ruler of the all
Whose power extends to great and small,
Who guides the stars with steadfast law,
Whose least creation fills with awe
Oh grant Thy mercy and Thy grace
To those who venture into space.
They didn't venture into space, or miss the cool green hills of earth, and now will never get the opportunity, but their ventures among the hot brown hills of the Mojave will make it possible for others to do so. And I think that regardless of how safely they've been operating (and this is the first such accident in many years and many hundreds of tests), everyone at the Mojave rocket test sites will view their own test hardware with more respect and caution now, if only just a little.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:06 AMBrian Dunbar has the 13th one up. I'm sure there's no relationship between this and yesterday's bad news, though.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:34 AMNo, I don't know any more than anyone else, but I fear very much that it's someone I (and we) know. There aren't that many people (though there are quite a few) developing and testing rocket engines in Mojave. An exploding nitrogen tank doesn't really narrow it down--I imagine that everyone (including the hybrid folks) are using those for blowdown pressurization systems.
Between this, and the reported problems with drunk astronauts and sabotaged equipment on ISS, it's been a very bad day for the space business.
I'll update as I get information.
[Update]
Now the report is that it was Scaled. They were developing their own (hybrid--safe, right?) engine for SpaceShipTwo, though they had no previous propulsion experience. It's selfish of me, because he's the only one I know, but I hope that George Whittinghill (who was overseeing the project for Virgin Galactic) wasn't there. And this is an interesting development in light of Northrop Grumman's latest acquisition.
And this will certainly be a hot topic at AirVenture...
[Update at 8 PM EDT]
Here's the story. So we don't know if it was an overpressurization, or not.
There's less detail in it than the story originally reported on Fox News Channel.
Continuing to look for coverage.
[Another update a few minutes later]
This makes more sense. I'm hearing about a nitrous oxide flash explosion. That's probably what the early reports meant when they said a "nitrogen tank exploded." Nitrous is the oxidizer for the hybrid engine. One of those cases where laughing gas is no laughing matter. And again, evidence that hybrids are not quite as safe as advertised. Von Braun had a saying: "There's no such thing as a foolproof system, because fools are too ingenious." It will be interesting to see the post mortem and accident report on this one.
One interesting note. If this had been in flight, the NTSB and FAA would have been involved in the investigation. But I'm not sure that there is any legal requirement for a federal investigation into it, since it happened on the ground. I wonder if Scaled will ask for one? Certainly, it will be a factor in getting a launch license from AST now.
[8:20 PM EDT update]
Jeff Foust has a link roundup of local news reports.
[Update five minutes later]
As Jim Bennett points out in email, Jim Oberstar will make a lot of hay out of this, and no doubt demand more regulation, even though it was a developmental accident.
Gary Hudson emails that it's a black day for the business. Just coincidence, of course, but a 300 point drop in the Dow doesn't detract from the gloom.
Also, I now know the name of one of the fatalities, but it's for Scaled to make that announcement, not me. No one I know, but someone that I'm sure that many there know, and will miss.
[Update a few minutes later]
The pictures coming in look amazingly devastating. Apparently two tanks blew. As Gary Hudson points out (again in email), and most people are unaware, nitrous oxide can be a monopropellant, under the right circumstances. As earlier noted, calling it "laughing gas" can be quite misleading, but it's been overhyped for its safety partly by using that name.
I suspect that this is a major setback for Virgin Galactic, because they may have to go back to the drawing board for propulsion, for PR reasons if nothing else. On the other hand, it could be good news for some of the other propulsion providers. On the gripping hand, it wouldn't necessarily take that long to come up with a good liquid engine for the system, if Burt and Richard Branson are willing to go that route now.
[Update after 9 PM EDT]
CNN has a story up now, but not much new, and no comment yet from Scaled. This is in fact probably the biggest disaster in the company's history, and they may not have had a good PR plan in place to deal with it, though you'd like to think they would, given the nature of the business they're in. There was a session at the conference this past weekend on this very topic--how to prepare for such an eventuality.
[Update at 10:30 PM EDT]
Jim Bennett, founder and former president of the American Rocket Company (among other things), emails:
Unless it was on a test stand during a firing, it wasn't a hybrid system failure, it was a materials handling accident. The question will probably be, were they following the known handling procedures? This material has been handled for over a century, and it's pretty well understood by now how to do it. I'll be very interested to see the full information on what happened.When we were working with N2O at Edwards there was a pretty complete handling protocol for N2O and we had to demonstrate our compliance for the pad testing safety review. The guys at Scaled are certainly professional -- even if they weren't working to the 127-1 they must have had a set of procedures that were reviewed for safety.
FAA may not have direct jurisdiction (it's a fire and industrial safety matter if it's at the plant) but it will probably demand the full report as supporting data to the SS2 license application.
[Friday morning update]
According to Space Today, the death toll is now three, all Scaled employees.
And the Bakersfield Californian has the names of those killed, though not the injured:
The victims were employees of Scaled Composites, the company that is working on the aircraft and helped build SpaceShipOne. Killed were Eric Blackwell, 38, of Randsburg, Charles May, 45, of Mojave and Todd Ivens, 33, of Tehachapi, according to the Kern County Coroners office.
Ironically, May had just come back to work for Scaled this week, after working for another propulsion contractor up through the end of last week.
Condolences to family and friends. They died in a great cause.
[Update at 9 AM EDT]
Uncharacteristically, the LA Times has the most comprehensive story yet.
This headline seems a little misleading. When I first saw it, I thought that it meant that the Air Force had given up on orbital refueling, but all it means is that the experiment was largely successful, and is over.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:13 PMGeneral Chilton is taking over as head of STRATCOM. I'm pretty sure that this will be the first time an astronaut has held that post:
After flying operational and weapon-testing missions in F-4 and F-15 fighter jets, Chilton moved into the space track, joining NASA in 1987. As a part of the worlds most renowned space organization, Chilton flew on three space shuttle flights, according to his Air Force biography. He also has completed stints on the Air Staff and Joint Staff.
He's been saying some enlightened things about space as head of Space Command, and it will be interesting to see if he infuses the whole military with them in his new position:
He said the command is going to shift to follow the fighter squadron model, integrating weapons school graduates into the space squadron, where they become advisors and role models within the squadron."You're going to need people in the (space operations squadrons) who think about fighting their weapons system, because they're going to come under attack," he said. "They need to be out in front of the vulnerabilities. They need to be out in front of the threat. They need to be thinking about what they can do ... and developing tactics, techniques and procedures to ensure they can fight and continue to deliver the capability that is needed downrange."
The general added that while winning a future war without space is not inconceivable, one of the great advantages of having space integrated into the fight is that we can win wars without expending as much American blood as we would without space. Therefore, AFSPC needs to take steps to preserve its space capabilities and improve its space situational awareness.
I'll be particularly to see if this further juices the Operationally Responsive Space activities.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:52 AMIt's interesting how much you can figure out about a classified satellite from ground observations. And these are amateurs. Governments can do a lot better (though with some of the new telescopes available to amateurs, the distinction is getting blurred).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:36 PMI'm going to be on The Space Show this evening, along with my webmaster, Bill Simon, talking about the July 20th ceremony, and other space-related topics. It starts at 7 PM Pacific, 10 Eastern, for an hour on the radio, and some additional time streaming, until 8:30 Pacific.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:54 AMFerris Valyn has the latest edition of his space diary up, with a lot of links, and discussion of the conference. Also, yesterday, I failed to mention the latest edition of the Carnival of Space over at Music of the Spheres.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:15 AMI look at using chemical vapor deposition (and welding) to build a mono-crystalline, mono-molecular carbon space elevator over at The Space Review. Surprisingly, it will cost about what Brad Edwards budgeted for single-walled carbon nanutube (CNT) manufacturing.
If space elevators cost $25,000/kg and space delivery after the elevator's up cost $10-$800/kg, then the second space elevator probably should be built out of less expensive, less exotic materials. If Kevlar is only 2% as strong as carbon nanotubes, you can still afford 50 kg of Kevlar for the price of 1 kg of diamonds at delivery costs and purchase prices less than $500 if elevator-quality CNT cost at least as much as bulk purchases of pure synthetic diamonds wholesale. One wouldn't use Kevlar further down the elevator because then there would be a multiplier because we would need more Kevlar to hold the Kevlar and it would go up by a factor of e50 or so. But that doesn't apply right at the base--it's pretty much linear there.
Another issue I may explore is that if a Mars elevator can be 6 tons or less, it might weigh less than the fuel needed to take off from Mars or even the fuel and aerobrake to get from Mars geosynchronous orbit to the surface. Mars exploration economics change a lot if return oxygen can be carted up from the surface by elevator. Note that one would not necessarily need laser or microwave power to power a climber on Mars. Solar power for a climber would have it climb slower, but it would still climb.
A great place to work the kinks out of space elevator technology is the Moon. A Lunar space elevator going from a little ways Earthward of Earth-Moon L-1, would not need materials as strong as a space elevator for the Earth's surface. If successful, it would allow much more mass to go down to the surface and much more return mass than the 46 metric tons of LSAM ascender and descender. A 7-ton Lunar elevator and some climbers powered from Earth would provide as much cargo capacity as Edwards's starter elevator on Earth. Since Lunar exploration doesn't really begin in earnest until late next decade according to the current (perhaps overly optimistic) vision, it might be worth doing some thought experiments about saving mass on the very first sortie to the Moon by using a Lunar space elevator. Pearson advocated this using M5 fiber to make a 7,000 kg Lunar elevator with 200 kg capacity a few years back. Forget thought experiments, launch the @$%#! elevator.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 04:10 PMAt the NewSpace 2007 luncheon on Thursday, the speaker was Ed Morris, the head of the Office of Commercial Space at the Department of Commerce. In response to a question from Dave Huntsman, he indicated that there might be a possibility of alleviating the situation. Jeff Foust reported on it at the time, and Dave has an interesting comment there, with which I agree. I also agree that while new legislation would help, it's not necessary to fix some of the things, despite what Morris said.
As I noted on a panel at the Space Access Conference in March, I would like to see the burden of proof shifted for whether or not an item should be on the munitions list. The current standard is guilty until proven innocent. I think that it should be the other way around. And it is encouraging to see some recognition at the Pentagon that the cure is worse than the disease. It has alway been a much more realistic position to "mend it, not end it," than to simply demand that there be no export controls, and the argument that, in its current implementation, it's actually damaging our security will be a useful one with its most staunch defenders, such as Duncan Hunter.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:55 AMI was going to post some thoughts on the acquisition (which was really just an increase in equity from a minority to a hundred percent), but before I had an opportunity to do so, Jon Goff must have channeled me. A "skunkworks for NG" was exactly what I thought when I heard the news.
There will probably be more tomorrow. Dennis Poulos was the only NG person at the conference, and he was only there on Thursday (and he's probably not a spokesman for the company on the issue). Alex Tai had little to say about it (with regard to implications for SpaceShipTwo) yesterday, other than that he thought it was a good (even great) thing, and that it was "Northrop's story, not his," to tell.
But I think that this points out that the nature of this business is much more complex than many would like to make it, and it's not simply the "Big Bad, Small Good" template that many like to think, and that the line between New Space and Old Space has never been as sharp as many thought, and it's becoming progressively blurrier. As Jon says, the Boeings and Northrop Grummans, and Lockheed Martins are recognizing that the new century brings new business realities, and it's particularly worth considering, in light of the Apollo anniversary last week, that the old space age is over, and the new effectively begun, despite Mike Griffin's attempt to resurrect Apollo, which seems likely to fail.
I have always swum in both seas, and have often had former colleagues at Boeing (now fairly high in management) tell me that they're interested in this new business, but it's not obvious how to break in, other than watch, and observe, and when something succeeds, to acquire it. And of course, they didn't need to tell me that, because it's obvious, from a business sense. They're simply too risk averse, by the nature of their being large publicly-held corporations, and their existing business relationships, to do things like this from scratch on their own, and that's not a criticism, just a statement of fact. They have to be so, because they have a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders, many of whom are pensioners, to not take big gambles with the company's money, on new but uncertain markets and business lines.
The fact that such acquisitions are now occurring is to me a sign of the transition of the old age to the new. When we really know that it's real will be when one of them buys one of the new companies, born in this age, such as XCOR.
[Update a while later]
I should make one other point. This acquisition really has very little to do with space. SpaceShipTwo may be one of Scaled's most well-known current projects, but they're first and foremost an aircraft company, and that's the bulk of their activities. I think that NG saw this as an aviation, or aerospace acquisition. To the degree that it helped them on the space side at all, that would just be gravy.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:16 AMWireless is still problematic, but I want to at least mention that at lunch today, Jim Muncy gave (a very surprised) Clark Lindsey a well-deserved award for his years of devotion to Hobbyspace web site, and his seemingly tireless efforts to broadening the appeal of space to many people on a number of fronts.
I'll be leaving for the airport in a couple hours, and socializing before then, so probably no more posting until tomorrow.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:53 PMNeil Woodward of ESMD is chairing a panel on how commercial activities can fit into the Vision.
Dallas Bienhoff of Boeing gave a short presentation on the value of having propellant depots in cis-lunar space (he calls them "gasteroids" to the collective groan of the audience). They have the capability of increasing landed mass on the moon from 18 to 51 tons of cargo. They provide a market for commercial providers (300 tons of propellant per year). They also provide a means for international participation that doesn't put them on the critical path (international partners could provide both the propellant and the extra lunar cargo). And it's not in NASA's current plans.
Ken Davidian talked about the need to reduce or remove barriers of entry for commercial space companies.
-- Investor funding
-- Production of commercial space goods and services
-- Demand for commercial space goods and services
- Example of Multi-Phase procurements
-- prize competitors
-- funded space act
-- FAR 12 Contracts
- X PRIZE essentially led to COTS
[Note, above Davidian comments, which I was distracted during, gratefully stolen from Clark Lindsey]
Jim Dunstan: Describing relative difficulties between working with NASA and the Russians. Thinks NASA's biggest problem is hubris. "Get over yourselves."
NASA does not own space.
There is on inalienable right to explore space.
The public doesn't care that much about space.
Neither NASA or the current private space companies know much about business.
Wants to get rid of Space Act Agreements. No enforceability clauses, so any money spent is wasted. Doesn't like FARs and government contracting, but at least they're available. Have to kill "cancel for convenience." Without stiff penalties, hard to get investment. NASA needs to hire business people, not engineers or ex-military people. Same thing for engineers. Need good business help and good legal help.
Remember Dreamtime. A disaster between Hollywood media types and engineers at NASA who had no clue how to put a business together.
Jeff Greason: What does government do well? Railroads were big hit, but government running railroads less than successful. Government did a good job of creating aircraft industry in the US, after the disaster of attempting to have the government own/operate vehicles. No economic activity in Antarctica.
By government's nature, it's an unreliable customer and unreliable supplier, due to being a creature of politics. Private sector much more predictable. Whether or not greed is good, it's predictable. No government infrastructure to guarantee continuing supply of tennis shoes, but they're always available.
If the government has a mission to create a lunar infrastructure, it has to be with heavy commercial involvement to be affordable, but it seems to be the other way around. If the government is the only customer, hard to raise private money. Would have made sense to utilize transportation that other satellite customers also wanted to use.
Points out fragility of having a single government-developed vehicle, so if a commercial customer of a lunar base, you'll be out of luck if the system goes down. Agrees with Dallas that propellant depots make sense as a market. Also critical on lunar end regardless of location. Will eventually need to produce propellant on the moon, and will need places to store it. Architecture in mind doesn't look like one NASA is building. Unclear whether it's opportunity lost or deferred, because unclear whether or not this architecture will be completed.
The notion that you'll build something, then operate it for a while, then hope you can pawn it off on someone else is not a good plan. If a lunar base isn't pre-leased, there's something wrong with it, either in transportation infrastructure or base design or something else, but NASA won't feel the pain, unlike a private company.
NASA has a disease of no pain receptors.
NASA can't successfully run the railroad, or be a property developer, or be a landlord without even talking to the customers, but that's what's happening.
Wants the government to spend its money in such a way as to at least potentially be useful, but understands that this isn't a guarantee.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:11 PMJim Muncy leading a forum on presidential space politics, consisting of himself, Alan Ladwig, Lori Garver and Courtney Stadd. It's a bi-partisan panel, since Alan and Lori are Democrats, and Jim and Courtney are Republicans.
Jim: We are already seven months into the longest, hardest-fought and expensive presidential campaign in history. People in this room can have more effect on our prospects for space than anyone in the Oval Office. We tend to look to presidents to set the direction and lead, but it doesn't have to be just about what they do. Yes, we should wish that we can have an impact on what they do on space, and in a perfect world, we'd have a debate in 2008 debating the merits, successes and failures of the G W Bush administration, and missed opportunities, and new opportunities and what their agenda would be. This is about as likely as Kurds, Shia and Sunnis in Iraq singing Kumbaya with Harry Reid.
What is the art of the possible? What could she say or he do to take up the good things that were accomplished over the past eight years and move them forward, or identify things that should be fixed? He asks Courtney for a report card on Bush space policy.
Courtney: Mixed record at best. Columbia afforded an opportunity to make some major changes, VSE addressed anxiety about presidential space leadership. We can argue about destinations, but we can be happy that there is one for now. New administration will inherit transportation problems. Current NASA leadership has put in high-quality people that would allow next administration to make some advances. Now he's in the private sector, thinks that Bigelow is a dream come true, and told them that he's willing to help as long as they don't make NASA a key part of the business plan.
Lori: Agrees with Courtney about Columbia environment setting new policy to move beyond LEO, and a highlight of the past six years. COTS has increased commercial space transportation pool by order of magnitude over Alt Access. But need more participants (two not enough). Also have issue of no broad base of support for the program. Overall grade: C-
Alan: Space science uber alles is a symptom of the fact that the space science people have always had a long-term vision and agenda that didn't need a president to support them, but the human space flight community has been less visionary, and was waiting for the president to stand up. The president stood up, but hasn't said much since. Cuts to aeronautics are almost criminal. COTS is a good new model for how to get things done. Good things have happened over the past eight years, but it's not much because of what the government has done. Agrees with Lori's C- grade.
Jim: Going to be generous and give them an Incomplete. In human spaceflight and space operations, NASA was not doing a very good job early in the decade, and could have embraced alternatives to space station access more aggressively, but thankfully the Russians bailed us out. Gerstenmaier doing a good job of getting station built and Shuttle retired. Gives them a B or an A- on that. On the science side, they initially threw a lot of money at science because they didn't know what they wanted to do, and got people too excited, so that later "cuts" appeared much worse than they really were, because they were really small increases. Gives the administration (not the president) a D grade. The architecture, by Mike Griffin's own definition, will have to be implemented by a future administration, and Griffin has as much as said that the decision to actually go to the moon will have to be determined by a future congress. Vision itself A- (could have been more commercially oriented), but implementation has been flawed, and thinks it unfortunate that whether or not we're really going back to the moon remains uncertain, and poorly argued. Needs a more forthright statement that we are going back to the moon, and need more embrace of commercialization, and there is too much focus on the gap. The only gap will be of American-government-flagged spaceships going into space.
Lori: Wants to defend Mike Griffin. Has said great things in the Washington Post and other places about the importance of space and colonization, and it's unlikely we'll ever get a stronger advocate in that regard. Jim agrees on that score.
Courtney: Officially not aligned with either party. He sees a fundamental problem with the country, and sees a fundamental dysfunction of organization of the government, regardless of party. We have a 1950's style government in the twenty-first century. Have good vigorous people on the Hill, but no one with the necessary science and technology knowledge. Lots of policy wonks and political science types, but not people who understand the accelerating technologies. People will look back in a few decades and wonder how people we were condescending to recently are beating us. His fear as an American citizen is the fact that NASA is a symptom of a much larger problem with how the government is organized. We are sitting in "six and a half square miles, surrounded by reality." Space policy is a parlor game populated by a very small group, and he hopes that next president will broaden that base.
Alan: Hopes that we can get people to think about space in a broader context than NASA (group NASA and DOD together, rather than just with NSF).
Courtney: NASA was stovepiped in the Bush administration.
Lori: Under the Kerry campaign, space was grouped under science and technology, and she would have preferred it as part of national competitiveness.
Jim: Space has wide impact: environment, energy, etc. Space fits in everything, and we want a space person on all the transition teams.
Alan: Nothing magic about how teams are set up, but we might be able to get some people in. Unfortunately, support for the campaign is a more important criterion for choice of who is in transition than subject knowledge.
Courtney: Signal-noise ratio of campaign very high, and hard to penetrate it with policy analysis, particularly if it doesn't seem to help politically. Campaigns are crisis driven, and it's hard for space geeks to get much attention. We have an infrastructure crisis, and we're not grappling with it. If we can get space into that conversation, we might be able to get some traction with it, but it takes a long time to get national consensus. We have responsibility to grab the political apparatus and politicians by the lapels, and tell them that we have a serious problem.
Jim: If you're running the transition team for the new president, what are the top three things related to space?
Alan: More support for longer-range R&D (quotes Goldin that NASA should be doing things that the private sector won't do). Need better collaboration between NASA and DOD. Better, but still too much stovepiping going on. Third, NASA has to be more commercially oriented. If they can't outsource parabolic flight, why should COTS contestants think they'll do it with ISS delivery?
[Simberg note: I was making this latter argument over ten years ago, when there was this fantasy, on which I did some consulting to USA, about privatizing the Shuttle. I had been fighting to get NASA to buy parabolic services from my own company, and noted how fiercely they defended their turf. My recollection of a conversation that I had with him at the Space Foundation meeting in Colorado Springs at the time, when Alan was at NASA, is that he was defending them, claiming that they had to have control over the training aircraft for the astronaut candidates. So I find it amusing that, having gone to Zero-G after leaving NASA, we're now on the same page. The only difference, of course, is that they have FAA certification, but that shouldn't have been necessary to perform services for NASA anyway. Another example of how one can become sensible once one is out of range of the mind-control stupidity-inducing beams that seem to permeate the agency facilities.]
Courtney: Wants a suspension of all commissions for a period of time. Would tell the new president that we have real problems, and are going out of business as a bureaucracy and a country. Overdue for reinventing NASA and government overall. Will be six to nine months before new administration recognizes NASA and picks a new administrator, because it's too low a priority. Then there will be a scramble to get someone in. Would hope and pray that the next group running a transition will set it up up front. Whether true or not, there's a perception that this administration is bad on science, and this should and could be a high priority for any next administration.
Jim: Describing an article he wrote fifteen years ago called "Never trust a space agency over thirty." Next year it will be the fiftieth anniversary of the agency. We're not very good in this country at reinventing our institutions. Only thing that tends to work is to shrink them (often randomly). Doesn't know if that's possible.
Alan: There's a precedent when NACA became NASA. Maybe because the mission has changed, it shouldn't be contained all in one agency.
Lori: They may create a department of the environment, pull Goddard out. Jim suggests moving it to NOAA. Refers to the next president as she to the fright and amusement of the audience.
Alan: We should plan to hammer out some policy suggestions for the next administration at the next year's conference, but also get other sectors involved, such as the environmentalists, and military space plane people.
In response to a question as to whether or not Shuttle should be extended to close the "gap," Jim says "Hell, no." Points out that entitlement programs are going to be increasing pressure on the budget in the future. Courtney mentions that one day of Iraq is a useful science program. Don't ever underestimate the tremendous inertia that these programs have.
[Monday morning update]
Jeff Foust has a report on this session, and presidential space politics in general, over at this morning's issue of The Space Review.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:38 PMTom Pickens, head of Spacehab, gave the lunchtime speech, in which he proclaimed that the time is right for this industry. Unfortunately, he didn't provide much support for the thesis, and much of his speech seemed to argue that it was still too early, at least in the sense that there's a paucity of fundable business plans. He is also much more enthusiastic about the prospects for the International Space Station and its ability to support microgravity research than I am. But then, that's the business he's in.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:35 AMI'm blogging from the space finance session at the conference (we finally got power in the room, so I don't have to worry about my battery dying).
Thirty-eight years ago, the first men walked on the moon. In December, it will have been thirty-five years since the last footsteps occurred there. The conference I'm attending is about figuring out ways to keep it from being that long before it happens again.
James Lileks has additional thoughts, as does Alan K. Henderson, and there's still time to celebrate it with a commemorative dinner tonight.
Also, blogging will probably continue to be light. The wireless connection here is sporadic and iffy. However, Clark Lindsey is diligently blogging the conference. Just keep scrolling.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:21 AMTheir continuing to push for the US to sign and ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty. As I've pointed out previously, this would set a dangerous precedent, in that it will weaken the arguments against our signing on to the Moon Treaty.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:02 AMDoes the UK ban its citizens from going into space?
Someone better tell Sir Richard.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:55 AMThis is an idea that's been around for decades, but Alan Boyle has a story on the latest advances in space suits, and what may be coming down the technological pike. It's long overdue.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Clark Lindsey has more, with more links.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:44 AMAn interesting comment (number fourteen) by "anonymous" over at Space Politics:
The other interesting rumor from that same post is:I was also told Griffin has put the word out that for now it is retire the shuttle and support ISS and wait to see what the next administration wants to do about the moon.
If true, the VSE is arguably dead and Griffin its self-acknowledged executioner.
I've thought for a while that Griffin made a huge strategic error in focusing all the agency resources on building a new launch system and doing nothing to start the development of the infrastructure necessary to actually return to the moon, like the departure stages and landers. Had he done the latter, the moon program would be be more of a fait accompli, and politically harder to kill. But now, the next administration could easily revert back to a LEO space program if it chooses to.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:09 AMThirty-eight years ago, Apollo XI left Cape Canaveral, and headed off to the moon. Friday is the anniversary of the landing. I'll be at the Space Frontier Conference, but for those who aren't doing that, you have all week to plan a Friday-night celebration and commemoration of the epochal event.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:21 AMBrian Swiderski has taken our advice, and started a blog on space. Like most of his previous commentary on space (and little of his "progressive" commentary on anything else), it's worth a read. It could be particularly useful for him and Ferris Valyn to educate the left on the benefits of space and spaceflight, and shoot down a lot of the egregious nonsense about it from that sector, by people who can speak their language:
Everything is a playground for the rich--that's why most people find becoming rich desirable. However, in this case "conspicuous consumption" may result in a virtuous circle of cost reductions and greater investment, which would increasingly open space to the general public. To have the wealthy pay for the infrastructure of future generations is at the core of progressive economic values, and it makes little sense to be offended when doing so occurs voluntarily.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:28 AM
No, I have no idea why Horowitz is leaving the agency. I do know, though, that the story about "spending more time with the family" is usually code for something else. He obviously knows things about The Shaft that the rest of us don't, but it's not obvious that he's a rat leaving a sinking ship. On the other hand, it's certainly possible.
Also, I've heard rumors that one of the names in the DC madam's little black book was a high-ranking NASA official, but again, no particular reason to believe that it's him, even if they're true.
Either way, as Thomas James notes, it would be nice if he'd take his toy with him, but it's unlikely.
[Update a few minutes later]
Chair Force Engineer, who has been speculating about Orion's mass issues, has further thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:24 AMNeil Armstrong doesn't make many public appearances, but when he does, they're invariably in keeping with the demeanor of a national hero. I was fortunate enough to see him speak at the USC commencement a couple years ago, and he gave a great speech, that wasn't about him, but was about the graduates and their future.
According to this story, he was also recently an inspiration to some kids in Israel:
Asked what lasting value the flights to the moon had, Armstrong responded they showed that "the human species, all of us, is not forever chained to the planet Earth." He added, "I hope that man continues to expand his and her presence in space in the years ahead."Armstrong had advice for youngsters who want to be an astronaut one day: "That requires getting a very good education, particularly in the fields of science and mathematics."
Israel's only astronaut to take part in a space flight, Col. Ilan Ramon, was killed in the disintegration of the Columbia space shuttle on Feb. 1, 2003, along with the other six crew members. But Armstrong had only warm words about space travel.
"How does it feel to be inside a space ship?" a small girl asked him. With a huge smile, Armstrong replied, "You would like it."
Asked if he would take a second chance to go back to the moon today, Armstrong jumped to his feet and said, "Of course," and embracing the questioner, a teenage boy, asking him if he would like to come along.
Armstrong left Israel Tuesday evening without talking to reporters.
Smart move.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:14 AMDan Schmelzer provides a little tour of Wallops Island and its environs, with pictures.
I've never been there, and found this interesting:
As you may know, SpaceX and NASA are in preliminary discussions for the Falcon 9 to launch from Wallops for International Space Station servicing missions. After visiting the area around the spaceport, it strikes me that the rocket is large for launching as close as a couple miles from inhabited areas. I do not think that Wallops has launched a rocket even close to the size of the Falcon 9. Also, the infrastructure in the surrounding area -- such as roads and railroads -- don't appear to be suitable for large rockets. I guess SpaceX would have to barge its rockets in. But if SpaceX does launch from Wallops, it would be quite a sight to see.
I wonder if they've done the quantity-distance calculation? While politically, it makes a lot of sense to use Wallops (it gives Senators Mikulski and House Majority Leader Hoyer reason to support it), the FAA may not allow them to do it if it's too close to populated areas. We'll see what happens with the launch license application.
I also wonder if the local residents know what they're in for acoustically, since they're used to much smaller rockets.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:42 AMFerris Valyn has a new set of links up, with an extensive discussion on whether or not so-called liberals are opposed to space expenditures. I think that it's a pointless argument. Both support of, and opposition to, space spending (and government space spending) are bi-partisan (or rather, non-partisan). Both "liberals" and "conservatives" can have reasons to go either way. Of course, it's silly to oppose VSE simply because George Bush proposed it, but many otherwise sensible people (at least on space issues) seem to do so.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:06 AMWhile reading Michael Belfiore's new book
Thomas James has a link roundup.
And don't miss this speech from NASA's head congressional liaison:
Scarcely a week after the Challenger accident, President Reagan gave his State of the Union. And to a nation still in mourning he declared, The future belongs to the free.The future still does if we will it, and if we work for it.
Step by step and launch by launch, Americas space agency is transforming Heinleins science fiction into hard fact. We can, and I hope we will keep doing so.
Beating the odds, I was the first in my family to earn a college degree a Bachelors in Astronomy. Now, I am a retired Air Force fighter aviator & colonel working for Americas space agency in large part because RAH told me that race doesn't matter, military service is honorable, freedom is better than tyranny and humankind's destiny lies among the stars.
I guess he didn't get the memo about RAH being a right-wing fascist...
[Preemptive hint for the sarcasm impaired. That last was sarcasm.]
[Update on Tuesday morning]
There's more Heinlein event reporting over at the Space Prizes Blog, here, and here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:12 AMHere's an excellent example of why the monolithic, "study it forever and then select a single concept" NASA approach is the wrong way to do vehicle development. With private enterprise in the game, and competing concepts, we'll be able to let the market sort out which is best. And I'll bet that there's market for both.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:53 AMThis isn't good news, if true:
Urie said the funds being used to build the Rocketplane XP, a converted Learjet fitted with a delta wing and a rocket engine, were funneled into Rocketplanes acquisition of Kistler.We were making good progress. Essentially, in early 2006 we started diverting funds to Kistler and that began to slow down the XP, Urie said.
Rocketplane officials said the XP is on hold because the company is concentrating on acquiring $500 million to qualify for NASAs matching funds through the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.
The orbital subsidiary, Rocketplane Kistler, was awarded a $200 million NASA contract last year to build a rocket capable of transporting cargo to and from the International Space Station, but failed to meet a funding deadline for NASA in May and has reworked the agreement to continue that project.
Presumably, part of the half a billion to be raised is to continue to fund XP development as well. But if they don't raise the money, they may take XP down with the ship. In that case, the merger will presumably be viewed as a strategic disaster, particularly by the state of Oklahoma, which may feel like there was a bait and switch. Either way, this has at a minimum clearly delayed their suborbital program, and perhaps any hopes of beating Virgin Galactic to market (though SS2 hasn't rolled out yet, either).
In any event, I would assume that Dave doesn't have to find a job immediately, assuming that his Lockmart pension is reasonable.
[Update a few minutes later]
Michael Belfiore, whose new book
Personally, I'd like to see companies like Rocketplane Kistler tell NASA "Thanks but no thanks," and focus on true entrepreneurial spaceflight without government interference. But with the space agency throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at small companies like this the temptation to take it is just too great.
I hope that COTS hasn't turned into a poisoned chalice for Rocketplane.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:37 AMFrom people attempting to leave it:
While these ventures have a futuristic outlook, what no one questions is whether the planet, already inundated with harmful emissions, needs yet more of them from space vehicles that serve no other purpose that to give rides for people with money to burn for a brief personal adventure.Planes provide needed transportation and scientific rockets hopefully will benefit humankind. But do we really need to unload more fuel emissions into the skies with tourist rockets while we havent yet brought the Earths present overload of toxic gases under control? Just wondering.
Sigh...
This is what's so disturbing about so many journalists. OK, "just wondering," does it occur to you to get out a pencil and paper and actually run a few numbers to see how this compares to all of the other "fuel emissions into the skies"?
Of course not. They probably wouldn't even know how to start to do so, and would be concerned that they'd screw it up, making themselves look even more foolish. Besides, numbers and reality aren't what's important; what's important is expressing thoughtful, deep-frowned concern for the planet.
One could write a lengthy response as to how ultimately, space could help save the planet, by providing new resources, and moving polluting industries off of it, and how the first step in doing this would be to reduce the cost of space access by, yes, flying rich people into space. But I suspect that it would be a waste of time. Particularly since no matter how many times one does it, most people won't read it, and they'll simply continue to "wonder," as though no one has ever asked such questions, or thought about it, until the day it occurred to the brave editorial writer.
Instapundit and John Miller remember Robert Heinlein, whose centennial celebration will be held tomorrow in Kansas City, the town of his birth. I wish I could attend.
I should note, though, that Glenn omits probably the most influential book on space entrepreneurs: The Man Who Sold The Moon
Henry Cate, who originated the Carnival of Space a couple months ago, is hosting the tenth one this week.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:13 AMLeonard David has a useful report on Esther Dyson's recent conference on personal spaceflight and personal jet flight.
I have to say that she certainly has jumped into this with both feet.
And this was an interesting comment from Virgin Galactic COO Alex Tai:
Tai said he's looking for that "Netscape moment" when the public space travel business rockets to stardom - just like the internet browser did when it kicked-started the dotcom boom of the mid-1990s."We have taken in $25 million from an interest of 80,000 people...with our tiny sales force," Tai told SPACE.com. "There's a huge appetite for this offering once we get out there...once we prove that it's something that's going to be safe, really fun to do, and is repeatable. What will happen then is that, suddenly, everyone will see Virgin Galactic making an awful lot of money. And that is the next 'go' moment."
Tai speculated that when Richard Branson decides to fund his next big venture, and he sells 10 percent of Virgin Galactic for $100 million, people will hunger to be part of the public space travel business.
"But at the moment, these guys don't want to invest because there hasn't been that Netscape moment," Tai continued. "It is being held up because Virgin Galactic is the gorilla in the room. Who is going to take Virgin on? That's a shame because I believe it's a massive market. I would much rather there's competition getting ready now," Tai concluded.
Yes, a smart businessman recognizes that competition is necessary for a healthy industry, particularly when it's first getting off the ground (in this case, literally).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:57 AMAnother government-funded overpriced manned launch system. And one from a system that has institutionalized pork-barrel spending, since it's an explicit requirement that each country in ESA get work commensurate with its contribution. Sure, that'll work.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:15 AMJeff Brooks reprises the old arguments about relative cost and value of government programs, and whether we can afford funding for NASA, and proposes that we increase it. Well, of course we could easily afford to spend twice, or three times, or ten times as much money on NASA. We're a very wealthy country.
But the real point is not whether the money we spend on NASA is worth it relative to other agencies, but whether or not we're getting good value for the money. I'd argue that, if the goal is to have a robust, space-faring society, that we've gotten very poor value for the money to date, and simply spending more money doing the wrong things (usually because of porkified pressure from the Congress) would make matters worse, not better.
Until space actually becomes important as a goal in itself, it doesn't matter how much money gets thrown at it. And if it were, then we could probably achieve most of what we want with the available funding, as long as it were spent more intelligently toward that goal.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:30 AMTGV doesn't get as much attention as some of the other NewSpace firms, but here's an article about a recent successful engine test, from Norman, Oklahoma, where it's based.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:11 AM"Anonymous" over at Space Politics thinks so (see sixth comment):
Youre right that its normal for any project to be allocating mass and cost at this (or any other) stage of the design process.Whats not normal is for a project to have mass issues of this magnitude this early in the design process. Inadequate mass before SDR, and having to delay SDR, are big red flags.
Equally troublesome are the likely tradeoffs being considered to buy back mass on pg. 32-35:
Eliminate supplemental Radiation Protection
[Reduce] prop load [to provide] global sortie mission access but with reduced capability for small regions, ie shorter surface stay or fewer crew.
Reduce VMCs from 3 self-checking pairs to one self checking pair
Delete the crash survivable data recorder.
Reduce ATCS pumps from 4 to 2″
Dont size [EPS] for a gimbal failure.
Delete 1 EPS string (power bus architecture).
Go to minimum [GN&C] Functionality: 2 IMUs, 2 RPOD NAV aids, 1 star tracker, no GPS
Delete 1 string of CM/SM RCS (currently 3).
Its rather alarming that these kinds of reductions in safety, reliability, and capability have to be considered this early in the design process due to mass (or any other) issue.
As someone involved in space program management for over two decades, I agree.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:22 PMHere's another story on Peter Homer, at the International Herald Tribune. Not much different than yesterday's offerings, but it's nice to see this getting so much play in the press.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:18 AMThe fruition of Rand's idea for a Centennial Challenge prize competition for a space suit glove is the front-page story of next week's New York Times Magazine coming out tomorrow, but available today in New York and on the web.
Spoiler alert...
[Update on Sunday by Rand]
There's also a piece at the Christian Science Monitor, as a commenter notes.
The winner should give you a tip!
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 07:53 AMMike Griffin doesn't read blogs.
On the surface, I'm sure that he could make a good argument for why he shouldn't, that many would find compelling. He's a busy guy, he's got plenty of other things that he needs to read, why waste time watching a bunch of Interweb people arguing about stuff they know nothing about, yada, yada.
The problem is that, in the twenty-first century, if you ignore the blogosphere, you can get blind sided, as more than a few Senators discovered yesterday.
The administrator may not think much of what people are saying out here, but that doesn't mean that there's no significance to it, or that it has no effect on policy and public mood. The blogosphere, and that includes the space blogosphere, may not have as large a readership as the Washington Post, but its readership is not without influence. Congressional staffers read it, and when they do, and read about problems that they're not necessarily hearing about from NASA, they have to wonder if they're getting the straight story when Code L comes up to the Hill. What's being said in the blogs is often a canary in a coal mine of a potential political imbroglio, that is ignored at a bureaucrat's, or politician's peril.
If Mike isn't reading blogs, he'd better make sure that someone he knows and trusts is, and is keeping him abreast.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:38 AMHenry Cate's experiment seems to be thriving. Emily Lakdawalla (about whom I'm always curious as to what country of origin her last name is) is hosting this week's edition.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:35 PMAs Clark notes, a lot of Mojave space workers live up in the mountains west of town, including Jeff Greason, head of XCOR. Here's hoping that they, and their families and belongings stay safe.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:23 PMHere's a good article on some of what's going on in Wyoming on the space front, from the Laramie paper (which is unaccountably called the Boomerang). Articles like this, and the recent Popular Science piece on space diving, are more signs that the giggle factor is gone, and that the media is starting to take personal spaceflight seriously.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:22 AMGenesis II apparently had a successful launch.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:04 AMI just scored a review copy of Michael Belfiore's new book
Ariane is touted in an article by Andy Pasztor in today's Wall Street Journal with a new person singing its praises--Mike Griffin:
Mr. Griffin declared the launch system "probably the best in the world, very smooth and very impressive."
One quibble: there is an apple to orange comparison of the commercial launch business ($2.7 billion) to US national security space spending ($80 billion). Commercial space launch supports tens of billions in satellite products, services and content. A more relevant comparison would be to look at how much the Department of Defense spends on launchers. The total space budget for military and intelligence is in the $50 billion range. Launch costs presumably would comprise about 3-4% of that if they were more competition. I'm having a little trouble finding a good source of Pentagon launch spending budget figures, but I'm guessing it's in the 5-10% range.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:30 AMHere's a pretty good article about what's going on in that area, with a lot of discussion of NewSpace players.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:51 AMClark Lindsey points out this "new" book
Clark Lindsey has some useful thoughts on the pace of technology development. What I find frustrating is that from a technical standpoint, there's no reason that all of the current progress in NewSpace couldn't have all been happening fifteen years ago. I recall talking about rocket racing with Bevin McKinney and Jim Bennett back in the late eighties and early nineties. But apparently society itself wasn't ready for it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:53 AMA private space passenger conference in, of all places, France.
Looking at the description provided by Jack Kennedy, it doesn't look much different than many similar ones that have been held here over the past few years. The difference, of course, is the location. I think that if this doesn't show that the "giggle factor" is gone, nothing does.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:02 PMLooks like NASA has given up on landing at the Cape. I wish we could get some of the rain that was keeping them from landing there today, but it's pretty dry down here. And hot. Definitely summer time.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:30 AMWhy not blog at Kos? Maybe because of stuff like this.
Highlarious. Hey, Ferris, plenty of subdomains available at Typepad.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:35 AMI hate to link to Kos, and wish that Ferris Valyn would find some other place to blog (like just getting his own domain), but he's got a lot of links and commentary that are worth perusing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:46 PMMy Lunar vendor CSI just got a Space Act Agreement with NASA for their LEO Express system.
CSI studied concepts for recoverable canisters for NASA under in Phase 1A of our Alternate Access to Station contract in 2003-04. We have also looked at placing our canister inside RLVs, such as the Kistler K-1, for return to Earth. We received high marks from NASA's AAS program for our ability to adapt our system to include a recoverable cargo capability.
It is pretty straight-forward to acquire an all-U.S. version of our cargo system based on using the Orion, Dragon, CXV, or some other U.S. spacecraft at ISS, as a tug. The hard part is getting a U.S. spacecraft certified for ISS operations. That, and it needs to utilize "docking", instead of "berthing".
1) More Efficient for Any Given LV: Even if they are qualified to dock with the ISS, our intermodal tug-based approach can deliver 30-100% more cargo to the ISS on the exact same launch vehicle compared to a direct ascent approach.
2) Economical Upgrades: Just like intermodal cargo systems on Earth that use standardized containers, the CSI system is much easier to upgrade and improve over time. We can improve and upgrade the canister, or the launch vehicle, without changing the reusable tug, just like you can build a bigger cargo container ship without changing the trucks on the highway. The technical term that describes this ability in the logistics industry is called "disaggregating the supply chain".
3) Flexibility: The adaptability of the system provides much more flexibility. If you want "more unpressurized cargo" and less "pressurized cargo", you can use a canister that is optimum for your purpose. If you need propellant, it is quite easy to launch a propellant canister.
4) Robustness: If one of your launch vehicles goes down with a problem, you can quickly plug-in another launch vehicle. We have seen how dependent the ISS was on the Shuttle. The ISS is just as dependent on the Soyuz launch vehicle, and NASA is aware of this.
5) Smaller/cheaper LVs: Beyond the Dnepr, which we all know is very low-cost, CSI has also figured out how to incorporate much smaller U.S. launchers into our system, including the Falcon 1 and the AirLaunch QuickReach. For some applications, use of very small and inexpensive launch vehicles might make sense.
Which advantage is the "main" advantage depends on your perspective.
Glenn (and Popular Mechanics) confuse the terms. As is pointed out in the article, rocket packs aren't "jet" packs.
Remember the rules? If you want to cruise in the atmosphere, use an air breather. A rocket belt sounds cool, but it really makes no sense for this application. Rockets are for accelerating, and getting out of the atmosphere as soon as possible (or for traveling in space, if you've already done that). They're not for tooling around near the ground, or for atmospheric transportation (rocket races being an exception, because it helps push the technology, and sounds cool). A true jet pack, though, would be actually cool, as opposed to merely sounding (and looking, when you see a pro do it at a show, for a minute or so) cool.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:10 PMA quote from The English Patient
Charlie Stross isn't very sanguine about the prospects for space settlement. My main criticism of his argument is that it seems to assume that all materials will come from earth, and that there are no resources available in space. When he writes, for instance:
Optimistic projects suggest that it should be possible, with the low cost rockets currently under development, to maintain a Lunar presence for a transportation cost of roughly $15,000 per kilogram. Some extreme projections suggest that if the cost can be cut to roughly triple the cost of fuel and oxidizer (meaning, the spacecraft concerned will be both largely reusable and very cheap) then we might even get as low as $165/kilogram to the lunar surface. At that price, sending a 100Kg astronaut to Moon Base One looks as if it ought to cost not much more than a first-class return air fare from the UK to New Zealand ... except that such a price estimate is hogwash. We primates have certain failure modes, and one of them that must not be underestimated is our tendency to irreversibly malfunction when exposed to climactic extremes of temperature, pressure, and partial pressure of oxygen. While the amount of oxygen, water, and food a human consumes per day doesn't sound all that serious it probably totals roughly ten kilograms, if you economize and recycle the washing-up water the amount of parasitic weight you need to keep the monkey from blowing out is measured in tons. A Russian Orlan-M space suit (which, some would say, is better than anything NASA has come up with over the years take heed of the pre-breathe time requirements!) weighs 112 kilograms, which pretty much puts a floor on our infrastructure requirements. An actual habitat would need to mass a whole lot more. Even at $165/kilogram, that's going to add up to a very hefty excess baggage charge on that notional first class air fare to New Zealand and I think the $165/kg figure is in any case highly unrealistic; even the authors of the article I cited thought $2000/kg was a bit more reasonable.Whichever way you cut it, sending a single tourist to the moon is going to cost not less than $50,000 and a more realistic figure, for a mature reusable, cheap, rocket-based lunar transport cycle is more like $1M. And that's before you factor in the price of bringing them back ...
There's no such thing as a reusable lunar transport system without propellants from space. It makes no economic sense to reuse a lunar lander with earth-based propellants, because the propellants needed to deliver the return propellants cost more than the lander. Similarly, habitats could be constructed of lunar materials, so it makes no sense to scale up an Orlan and assume that the materials must come from earth, as he seems to be doing, at least implicitly.
I also think that he is assuming that we will make no advances in medical technology or bioengineering that allows us to better handle the space environment. Such an assumption seems strange for a writer (particularly a brilliant one) of science fiction.
Certainly it's hard to see how we're going to do anything interstellar with current technology (and perhaps even with current physics), but I think he's far too pessimistic about the solar system, at least the inner system.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:11 AMWho watches the watchmen on software testing? SpaceX's control issue might have been found with better testing, but the test case writer didn't start with a big enough perturbation for the problem to appear. It's also not clear that the tester software is sufficiently good to tease out problems with the control software. That's especially true if the same people are writing the control software and the tester software.
The rest of the entry reads like technobabble from a movie like Failsafe. Nevertheless, this is the $64 billion question that can make SpaceX another of Musk's successes or ground his Mars colonization plans altogether.
There are ways to manage to get high fidelity to desired specifications. One is to have independent testing from designers. Another is to have test plans that are vetted by a second independent verifier. A third is to have multiple independent testers.
Testers can boil the ocean seeking test scenarios. Tests need to hit all regimes that are likely to be encountered, but need to do so economically. A good choice is a fractional factorial design that tests all the regimes for each variable, but not every variable cross every other variable. Deciding what needs to be tested is as important as passing the tests chosen.
It's still a problem if testers are testing the wrong model. If the control software and the test software both have the same error, then there will be a false negative in testing even if every possible scenario is tested.
One thing to do is test the testers by introducing errors into the design on purpose and seeing if the testers can find them. This can give a hint about how many unknown errors there are depending on how many known errors are not found through testing.
This is what I do in my day job at Optimal Auctions for our auction software that has been used to buy and sell over $100 billion in cost of goods sold.
I asked SpaceX this question when I toured SpaceX before their first two launches. I expressed confidence that they were getting this better after their first launch.
I don't see much change in culture with the release of their latest flight review that Rand noted today. Their current culture and methodology may be enough to get them to orbit. With only 8 anomalies they detected with only one fatal, they are in good shape. Actually flying hardware (or in my case holding an auction) can give additional confidence that the test plan accurately models the flight hardware. If they do succeed, flawless results are great for their business but they create new problems; they can also reduce vigilance by the testers.
For testing success, remember Andy Grove's dictum: "Only the paranoid survive."
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 12:19 PMJesse Londin has a pretty good roundup of links. It's like another space carnival.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:29 AMInstapundit links to this story on the successful scramjet test Down Under, which (as usual) overhypes the application:
Butler said they could also slash the cost of sending satellites into space, because their potential payload was much larger than a rocket carrying its own fuel.
Even ignoring the fact (probably attributable to an ignorant reporter) that scramjets still have to carry their own "fuel" (it's the oxidizer that they can leave at home), he shouldn't buy it. The laws of physics haven't changed in the three years since I wrote this piece debunking claims that this would revolutionize space lift:
Proponents claim that by allowing airbreathing up to high Mach numbers, there is no need to take along as much oxygen for the rocket engines, because they can gather it for "free." This argument assumes that space transportation is expensive because propellants are, but those aren't the cost driver. If they were, space would already be affordable, because liquid oxygen is actually about as cheap as milk. Propellant costs are such a tiny fraction of launch costs that they're down in the noise. If we ever get to the point where they become a real issue (as they are for airlines), we'll have solved the problem.Their argument also fails on the grounds that collecting oxygen isn't really "free." As the old joke goes, there's no free launch.
If your space transport were to be single stage, you'd now need three propulsion systems -- conventional jet, scramjet, and rocket for when you left the atmosphere (which you must do by definition to go into space). It may be possible to have a scramjet lower stage and a rocket upper stage, but the bottom line is that time spent in the atmosphere (necessary to utilize the scramjet) is time spent fighting drag, defeating the purpose. Rockets want to spend as little time as possible in the atmosphere, and carrying two other kinds of engines along and spending enough time in the air to utilize them, just to save on a propellant as cheap as oxygen, just doesn't make design sense.
In addition, a scramjet engine is designed to operate at a specific vehicle speed, and has poor performance in "off design" conditions, rendering it a poor propulsion choice for an accelerating vehicle.
It's been said that there are three basic rules to aerospace vehicle design, that many designers continue to forget to their peril:
Even with all of the improvements in jet engines over the years, you can't beat a rocket engine for thrust/weight ratio, and it doesn't care much how fast the vehicle is going. Chasing after solutions-looking-for-problems like this distracts us from solving the real problem--getting enough market and enough activity to get operational economies of scale, the lack of which is the real cause of the high cost of space access. And the near-term solution to that problem, despite the class-warfare whines of Eurocrats, is commercial space travel.
[Update]
I should probably add my usual disclaimer (as I did in the TCSDaily piece). I'm not saying that scramjets aren't useful, or that they shouldn't be researched and developed. The military definitely needs them for atmospheric cruise applications. I'm just saying that space launch will probably not be one of their applications any time soon, and they're irrelevant to reducing launch costs in the near term (i.e, over the next two or three decades).
[Afternoon update]
One more thought. I'm not completely down on air breathers in general. I do think that concepts for collecting oxygen in the atmosphere are interesting, if it allows you to get the gross takeoff weight of a vehicle down to the point at which it can take off from a runway. It would be nice to have a system that still had LOX tanks, but took off with them empty, and then collected and separated the air (subsonically) until they were full. At that point, it could rocket to orbit. Andrews Aerospace is looking at a concept like this. But that's not a scramjet, and scramjet technology doesn't help with it.
[Update late afternoon]
Well, as usually happens in these theological discussions about technical methods of getting to orbit, some of the comments would indicate that I'm a heretic.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:34 AMI haven't read SpaceX's post mortem on their second Falcon 1 flight yet, but Jon Goff has.
It's an interesting example of a complex system failure, in which a small problem in a complex, highly-coupled system can spiral out of control. As to the question of why put in slosh baffles when the problem wouldn't have happened with the right software, it's belt and suspenders. Even with the software problem, slosh baffles may have saved the day, and the additional weight is probably worth the increase in robustness of the system.
Then again, maybe they just added them before they figured out what had really happened...
Of course, the real lesson for SpaceX (and despite the long history of such things, people often have to learn the hard way) is that good configuration management is critical to success.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:59 AMGene Kranz has an editorial up decrying the "gap." Can anyone tell me what's missing from this piece? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Here's a hint, from the last two paragraphs:
Shifts in the worlds geopolitical climate are too unpredictable to rely on our allies for access to space some who clearly intend on challenging our space leadership and whose governments are willing to make the necessary investments to be successful in space exploration.I challenge Congress to heed the call from our industry leaders and the workers they employ. Give NASA what it needs to keep America first in space.
Because, you see, only NASA can put people into space, and keep America a leader.
Incidentally, I hadn't realized that he used the sound bite from the Apollo XIII movie as the title of his book. As someone once said, when failure is not an option, success gets pretty damned expensive. Unfortunately, as I've noted many times, NASA has a culture in which failure is not an option, but often happens anyway, at great cost, and with little innovation, because they can't take risks, politically. That's why we have to involve the element missing from the former flight director's lament.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:52 PMPamela Gay hosts it this week, with an emphasis (but not exclusively) on space science.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:16 AMI just got the following (registration required) from an aviation mailing list. There's certainly nothing hard to believe about it (though it would also be possible to do the same thing as a parody, I suppose).
The European Union's industry commissioner on Thursday blasted companies' plans to offer space flights to tourists, calling them a gimmick for the privileged elite."It's only for the super rich, which is against my social convictions," European Commission Vice President Guenter Verheugen said.
EADS Astrium, the space division of the European aerospace consortium, said this week it planned to build a craft that would be able to carry a handful of tourists on brief forays outside the earth's atmosphere from 2012.
Other groups are considering similar ventures including British entrepreneur Richard Branson, whose Virgin Galactic service expects to make its first commercial flight next year.
The EADS aircraft, about the size of an executive jet, would be able to carry four passengers around 100 kilometres from the earth, where they would be able to experience about three minutes of weightlessness and see the curve of the earth.
At a price of EUR150,000 to EUR200,000 euros ($200,000-$265,000), the experience would be reserved for a small number of rich sensation-seekers, although as many as 15,000 passengers a year are expected to be ready to pay for a trip by 2020, according to consultants Futron.
That would represent a considerable expansion from the tiny number of truly rich adventurers so far who have been willing to pay as much as USD$20 million for a place on a Russian Soyuz rocket to see space.
Verheugen, a German center-left politician who holds the industry and enterprise portfolio within the EU Commission, said the new space race left him uneasy.
"I have strong reservations," he said. "It will always be a very privileged type of tourism."
EADS Astrium expects to build about five craft a year and thinks it can capture about 30 percent of the market.
The EADS Astrium project will be mainly privately financed, and Astrium will not operate flights itself, but Verheugen made it clear that he did not believe it deserved assistance from governments or the European Union.
"I have no sympathy for this. It deserves no support."
Verheugen was speaking at the margins of an awards ceremony to commend EADS's Airbus unit for its efforts to reduce carbon emissions from its aircraft, a coincidence that underlined another potential concern about space tourism.
At the same ceremony, Louis Gallois, head of Airbus and co-head of EADS, declined to answer a question on the apparent paradox of a company trying to cut emissions in one area while investing in a project to blast rich travellers into space.
Airbus recently announced a 25 percent increase in its EUR350 million budget to research the cutting of emissions, a figure dwarfed by the estimated EUR1 billion in expected development costs for the new spacecraft.
Emphasis mine. With morons like this in charge of "Industry and Enterprise" in the EU, is it any wonder the place is such a stagnant economic mess?
This is so stupid and stereotypical, that one hardly even knows where to begin, and the arguments have been made (many times) before.
Yes, of course, at first, only the "privileged" will use the service. That's how one gets the price to drop so that the "non-privileged" can eventually afford it. But the point isn't (or shouldn't be) about subsidizing rides for the rich (assuming that subsidies are involved at all--this economic illiterate seems to think that even private funds shouldn't be spent on it--he knows better how to spend other peoples' money than they do, of course). The point is that by developing these kinds of vehicles, we can ultimately reduce the costs of getting into space for everybody and everything, including many things that presumably even our socialist bureaucrat might find to his liking, such as remote sensing satellites for environmental monitoring, etc.
As for the environmental issues, the amount of environmental damage caused by rocket planes, even if they burn hydrocarbons, is spitting in a hurricane compared to commercial and other jet traffic at any reasonable expected flight rate in the near future. In the far future, they may go to LOX/hydrogen, which will of course pollute the atmosphere with that deadly dihydrogen monoxide, which many think should be banned completely. But again, when it comes to the environmental effects, one has to look at the benefits as well as the costs. Most sensible environmentalists should want us to move as much polluting industry off the planet as soon as possible, and the only way to make this happen is to reduce costs of space access, which is only likely to happen from the competitive environment and economies of scale that a space travel industry will provide.
But then, "sensible" is not the first adjective that comes to mind in reference to people like Herr Verheugen. In fact, it's not even on the list. I have no fear of the EU as long as his type remain in charge.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:45 AMThey scrubbed yesterday, but they're going to attempt to launch those evil spy satellites to watch over innocent Iranian peace ships again today at 11:04 AM EDT.
The sky is clear right now, and if it's like this in three hours, I'll have a good view. But if it's anything like yesterday, by 11 the sky will have clouded up. Of course, they've been warning us for the last two days about heavy afternoon thunderstorms that never arrived. Anyway, we'll see, won't we?
[Update at 9:50 AM EDT]
It had clouded up to the north earlier, but now they've cleared, and an hour and a quarter before scheduled launch, it's looking good if it holds up. The Cape is north-northwest of me, and I have a pretty good view of that direction from my yard, at least once it gets to altitude.
[Update about an hour before scheduled launch]
I just got a text message from Florida Today that range issues are once again threatening the launch.
We really need to break out of this antiquated "range" paradigm, but it will take radically new vehicle designs to do so.
[Update about 10:30]
Looks like they resolved the range issue, and are go for launch in a little over half an hour. Skies to the north still clear.
[Update about five minutes until original launch schedule]
It's always something. Now there's an eight-minute delay due to a technical glitch. Listening to USA ground chatter, it sounds like a problem with a propellant fill/drain valve on the Centaur (the upper stage). New launch time: 11:12 AM. Polling at 11:05 (in about five minutes).
[Update after launch]
Well, it seems to have gone successfully, but I couldn't see a thing. I wonder if the Atlas just burns too cleanly to be seen from a distance in the daylight?
[Update just after first Centaur burn]
I see over that The Flame Trench that they're pointing out that this week is the fiftieth anniversary of the first Atlas launch. It's not as significant as it seems. There's almost nothing in common between this vehicle and that first ICBM except the name, and the fact that it's an expendable rocket. Different fuel, different engines, different type of structure, different everything. It's really an all-new design that came out of the EELV program.
[Update in the afternoon]
As noted in comments, it doesn't use a different fuel. I was thinking Delta 4 when I wrote that, not Atlas V.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 AMAs Clark notes, the time grows short to register for the Heinlein Centennial Celebration next month. As someone strongly influenced by him in my youth, I'd love to attend, but it's hard to justify the time or money right now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:23 PMThere's an Atlas V launch this morning, scheduled for 11:18 AM EDT. I may go out and look if it hasn't clouded up down here--we're expecting a lot of rain in south Florida this afternoon (and tomorrow, and into the weekend).
[Update a few minutes before scheduled launch]
Flight's been delayed four minutes, to 11:22, to resolve some (almost literally) last-minute issues. Unfortunately it's clouding up here, so I don't think I'll see it.
[Update at 11:19 AM]
Range just went red. Launch has been rescheduled for 11:45. I guess they don't have a tight window on it. There's not much info available on the orbit or constraints--the payloads are classified.
[Update at 11:38 AM]
Apparently, they have until noon, and then they'll have to push it to tomorrow. The weather's supposed to be even worse tomorrow, at least down here, though it may be all right up at the Cape.
[Update a minute later]
Scrubbed for today.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:01 AMBurt Rutan thinks that the operating cost of EADS's proposal will be too high. I'm actually much more concerned (as is he) with the development costs. I've seen an estimate of a billion Euros. At 200,000 euros a ticket, you'll have to sell about five thousand rides just to get back the non-recurring costs, and that doesn't even include the cost of the money.
I think that the suborbital market makes sense, but not if you have to spend that much money up front. I think a smart entrepreneur could get to orbit for that amount (Elon has only spent a tenth of that amount, though he's not returning). I just don't think that a conventional player, like EADS (or Boeing, or Lockheed Martin) has either the cost structure or the risk acceptance to take on a program like this and make it successful. I suppose, though, it's possible that they're willing to take a bath on it if they expect it to give them a pre-cursor for a much larger point-to-point market, or military applications.
[Reading a few more articles]
Ah, they're not committed to it. They're just floating a trial balloon:
"We are offering a profitable system and have given ourselves until early 2008 to find industrial partners to share the risk, private investment of around 1 billion and an operator for the journey. We will not do it without that," he said.
If I were a betting man, I'd put money on it not happening. One thing it does show, though, is that the giggle factor is completely gone.
[Afternoon update]
Here are some more details on their business plans:
Auque said Astrium and EADS have investigated the business model in recent months and concluded that their project has sufficient advantages compared to similar efforts under way by start-up companies in the United States to attract as many as 4,500 paying customers per year by 2020.At $267,000 per ticket, that customer volume would generate gross revenues of some $1.2 billion per year.
Yes, it would. If the price hasn't plummeted by then due to competition (e.g., John Carmack thinks that he can get a price in the few tens of thousands).
There seems to be a little hubris here:
Astrium has surveyed other space-tourism projects, mainly in the United States, and found most of them lacking in engineering or business-model seriousness. "There are those who think you can design a rocket plane in a garage," Laine said. "Suffice it to say that that is not our niche."
"Lacking in business-model seriousness"? Apparently, his irony meter is busted.
No, your niche is to bilk European taxpayers out of their hard-earned dollars and build white elephants. Sounds like son of Concorde, to me. I think I'll rely on the people who are doing it with their own money.
[Update about 2:30 PM EDT]
Am I the only one who thinks a one-week turnaround ridiculously unambitious for a suborbital vehicle? If that's true, they won't be competitive, because in order to ramp up their supply to meet demand, they'll have to build more vehicles, whereas a more nimble competition will simply increase flight rate with their existing fleet.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:35 AMI hadn't noticed this before, but apparently Mark Wade has put up a little history of the CEV and Constellation program, which describes how Mike Griffin's NASA, for whatever reasons, completely ignored the advice of its contractors, to whom it had paid millions of dollars to provide potential solutions, and came up with an architecture that, in "synthesizing their suggestions," bore no resemblance to any of them. Of course, they were just doing their job, trying to follow the dictates of the Aldridge Commission (including affordability and sustainability, and synergy with national security), which NASA seems to think no longer matters.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:47 PMDavid Portree has some ill-informed speculation about the NewSpace (which he misspells) industry and space tourism. I was going to respond, but Jeff Foust and Clark Lindsey have already done so more than adequately in his comments section. As Clark notes, it would be nice if people who call themselves "space historians" would educate themselves about what is actually going on instead of embarrassing themselves, and potentially misleading others, in blog posts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:06 AMBack before the 2004 election, there were rumors that the Bush administration was considering withdrawal or renegotiation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which briefly encouraged me. Alas, the pebble disappeared into the pond with nary a ripple.
Now, apparently the administration is instead pushing the Law Of The Sea Treaty. Andy McCarthy is appropriately appalled:
Our current threat environment, coupled with the abysmal performance of international institutions, cries out for a re-thinking all these multi-lateral commitments. Negroponte and England's claim that we need to ratify LOST in order to demonstrate our commitment to "the rule of law" is absurd. The American people, who do more for the people of the world than any nation in history, have a rule of law; it is known as the Constitution. It allows us to make agreements as needed with nations based on our mutual interests (and it is worth noting that most of the benefits under LOST are already honored under other treaties and international law LOST is unnecessary to them). But we don't need another multi-lateral scheme with yet another ever-bloating international bureaucracy to render the actions of the United States legitimate.
The really disturbing thing about this, to me, is that anyone who considers the arguments for LOST to be worthwhile could just as easily support having the US finally ratifying the abominable 1979 Moon Treaty, which was modeled to a large degree on LOST. It was signed by Jimmy Carter (one more reason to be happy he only had a single term), but fortunately never ratified by the Senate, and while in force, it hasn't been accepted by any spacefaring nation. It would be one thing (bad enough) to turn over development of the seabeds of a single planet to the UN. The consequences of handing over the economic development of the rest of the universe to such a transnational entity should be frightening to anyone who wants to see the cosmos opened to humanity in any significant way.
Once again, one wonders why we bothered to elect Republicans, when they seem to be so quickly captured by the tranzis at Foggy Bottom, and go native.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:16 AMIn light of the latest assembly mission to the ISS, Clark Lindsey points out one of the many absurdities with the ESAS approach:
I've noted before that I find it odd that a fundamental goal of the Constellation project design is to minimize in-space assembly. This is a task in which NASA has actually become quite good. If NASA went to the next stage and combined its in-space operations capabilities with fuel depots and a space tug, it would have the tools and skill sets to do some amazing stuff, especially if it worked in close cooperation with private ventures like Bigelow.Unfortunately, as with building Ares 1/5 instead of using existing (e.g. EELV) or nearly ready vehicles (e.g. Falcon 9, K-1), the aim seems to be to time warp back to 1972 and continue on to Apollo II, ignoring much of what was learned and developed subsequently.
Indeed.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 AMThis wouldn't surprise me, if true:
No one seems to be all that fond of continuing the development of Ares 1 (a government-owned solution) or the cost of developing something that already exists i.e. something you can buy now (EELVs). Of course, much can change between now and the election - and who will run NASA in 2009. But the writing on the wall is starting to become rather clear.Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:07 AM
This isn't really a surprise to anyone familiar with him and his history, but Newt Gingrich is continuing to promote prizes for space achievements. I agree with commenters that his proposal of twenty billion for a human Mars mission is a prize too far, not just for all the reasons stated (too much money to raise privately, too long-term a proposition, too little faith in the government to keep its word) but also because I'm not sure that there would be adequate public support for the goal itself. A more incremental approach is indeed required--going from a ten million dollar prize to a twenty billion dollar prize is just too much of a leap.
I also agree with this comment, with a caveat:
IMO, we should start with smaller prizes. I would create three (3) prizes, in the following order: 1) orbital RLVs, 2) LEO propellant depots, and then 3) Processing oxygen on the Moon, and 4) Delivering the oxygen from the lunar surface to a LEO prop depot.
I suspect that it will be a long time before it's economically viable to deliver lunar LOX to LEO, at least directly. What I would envision happening is a LEO depot, an EML1 depot, and a continuous parade of low-thrust tankers (which might also serve as the depots themselves while in place) moving back and forth between the two locations, delivering propellant to wherever the price dictates. If the tankers could deliver lunar LOX to LEO at a lower cost than delivery from earth, then they would do so. If it only made sense to use lunar LOX one-way as propellant to leave the moon, and it was cheaper to refuel at EML1 for the return using LOX delivered from earth, then that's what should happen. The important thing is to establish the propellant supply infrastructure, regardless of the source of propellants. Building roads and a gasoline-delivery infrastructure was critical to making reusable cars (as opposed to the one-way Conestoga wagons) practical, and we need to do something similar in space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:47 AMOver at The New Scientist. And contrary to commenters who think that few indulge in it, the current top posting repeats the fallacy of high launch costs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:56 AMWe watched it from the causeway west of Cocoa Beach. It was a beautiful evening for it--all of the clouds had cleared. I may put up some pictures tomorrow, if they look worth it. Off to bed now, a little after 1 AM.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:42 PMIn the non-space publication PC Gamer in the July issue, we find that video game celebrity and fellow Austinite Richard Garriott will have a regular column where we will find out about his PC Games from NC Soft like Tabula Rasa and also "what one says to Stephen Hawking while riding the 'vomit comet.'"
While technically he rode ZEROG non-vomit comet with only 12 parabolas (which doesn't give me much hope for the space editing in the magazine), Garriott's space persona includes being Vice Chairman of Space Adventures, the company that has the most space tourism cost of goods sold. He is also the son of astronaut Owen Garriott.
So welcome, Lord British! And keep up the good work bringing science fiction to digital--and analog--life.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 02:46 PMMark Whittington reads a prognosticative puff piece by various NASA officials, and thinks that it's somehow a rebuttal to all the critics of the program.
What do you expect, Mark? That they're going to say it's not going to survive? It's not like any of them are going to be around and accountable six years from now. Is there anything they could tell you that you wouldn't believe? Did you know that the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?
Well, at least he admits his confusion.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:15 PMDespite the Bahamian low that's supposed to bring showers to south Florida today, there's an eighty percent chance of good weather for the launch tonight, so I think we'll be driving up. Too bad it's not an hour or so later--then it would be a night launch.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:21 AMIt looks like XCOR has the funding they need to build Xerus. Alan Boyle has the story of the changing, and maturing, nature of space startup funding. No more giggling.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:32 AMOut Of The Cradle has the most comprehensive set of ISDC links so far.
And justified criticism of the Dallas Morning News, which doesn't seem to think that this is important, even when it takes place in its own city.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:16 PMJeff Foust has a report on three of the talks at this weekends ISDC, on the importance of being willing to rethink plans, improvise, and make rapid changes to them. This is something that small private companies are a lot better at than large ones, or government bureaucracies, which is one of the reasons that they're likely to beat NASA back to orbit post Shuttle, or on to the moon.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:17 AMAn interesting interview with George Whitesides, Executive Director of the National Space Society. I would point out, though, that NASA had nothing to do with GPS.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:41 AMInstapundit has some more on space tourism and commercialization. I think he's becoming a space blogger!
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:56 AMTaking off from the conference to St. Louis for a family barbecue. Thoughts on the space conference later. Meanwhile Instapundit has a few more posts, with more to come, as does Jeff Foust. And Leonard David has an article about space diving, which may be a killer app for cheap suborbital vehicles like Armadillo's.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:24 AMI just logged on for the first time since leaving Florida. I haven't had my computer with me in the sessions until now, but Instapundit (with whom I had dinner and drinks last night) has been doing a little liveblogging of the conference, here and here.
Pete Worden, NASA Ames center director, is going to give a plenary speech in a few minutes, which will reportedly be initiated by his Second Life avatar.
Jeff Foust also has a bunch of posts over at Personal Spaceflight.
[Update]
Wireless connection sux. Probably no live blogging, and I have schmoozing to do. May check in later, but no promises.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:19 AMThere are two sources on space policy who I wish that journalists covering space would remove from their rolodexes, or at least not have them at the top: John Pike, and Gregg Easterbrook.
Well, the latter has a piece in Wired that is typically infuriating.
Let's start off with the very first paragraph:
Here is a set of rational priorities for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in descending order of importance: (1) Conduct research, particularly environmental research, on Earth, the sun, and Venus, the most Earth-like planet. (2) Locate asteroids and comets that might strike Earth, and devise a practical means of deflecting them. (3) Increase humanity's store of knowledge by studying the distant universe. (4) Figure out a way to replace today's chemical rockets with a much cheaper way to reach Earth orbit.
Well, OK.
He starts off by poisoning the well. Obviously, since anyone who disagrees with his "rational" priorities is irrational, what's the point in arguing with him?
Well, despite the fact that Gregg considers me irrational, I'll dispute his priorities.
Ignoring the (in my opinion) irrationality of even his order, let us take them one by one.
(1) Conduct research, particularly environmental research, on Earth, the sun, and Venus, the most Earth-like planet.
OK. Even granted (just for the sake of the argument) that this is an important thing to do, why is it an important thing for NASA to do? Venus, OK (though it's not obvious that we'll really learn that much more about greenhouse from it that we don't already know by spending a lot more money on it), but why earth? Why, for instance, isn't this a job for NOAA? Has Gregg read the NASA charter? For that matter, has Gregg observed NASA's general performance over the past half century since its inception? If this is his number one priority, why would he want NASA to do it? If something was important to me to happen, the last place I'd want to see in charge of it (particularly given the rest of Gregg's fulminations) is NASA.
Yes, it involves remote sensing satellites, but so what? DoD does those. NOAA does as well (though it relies on NASA to help with program management, but there's no intrinsic reason for that). Even the NSF could do it. All any government agency that wants data has to do is put out a bid for the data, and select a contractor to provide it. NASA no longer has any unique expertise in this.
Now, to go on to his second priority, looking for things that are going to hit us from beyond, I agree that this is an important function, and not just for the nation, but for the planet.
But again, why does he think that this is NASA's responsibility? Once again, read the agency's charter. If there's any government agency responsible for protecting the planet against predictable natural events, I'd say that it's the Army Corps of Engineers. I'm not (mind you) saying that the ACE is particularly good at this sort of thing, but at least it's within its charter. I'd say that the recent fiasco in which NASA didn't even want to let the public read its own report on the subject would be ample reason to not want the agency in charge of it.
So, let's take on numero tres: Increase humanity's store of knowledge by studying the distant universe.
OK. That's nice. It's even within the agency's charter. But why is it number three? Why not number one, or number ten? He doesn't say. Knowledge for knowledge' sake is great, but how does one prioritize it even among other federal science activities (including the National Science Foundation, let alone the federal discretionary budget. let alone the entire federal budget)?
And last (and also, I agree with him, least), replacing chemical rockets. But I agree with him for different reasons than he might think. Gregg continues to suffer from the (to use a phrase from a former roommate and fellow space activist) "zippy whammo drive" syndrome. He has managed to delude himself that the reason that space access costs so much is because we use those crude chemical rockets.
Well, I've debunked that notion many times, but Gregg continues to not get it (probably because, among other things, he doesn't read me).
So, what does he think that NASA is doing?
(1) Maintain a pointless space station. (2) Build a pointless Motel 6 on the moon. (3) Increase humanity's store of knowledge by studying the distant universe. (4) Keep money flowing to favored aerospace contractors and congressional districts.
Well, he's got the order wrong. Number 4 is actually Priority Numero Uno. And it's absurd to think that NASA has a priority to build anything on the moon, given the architecture they've chosen to do so. They certainly show no signs of building the hardware necessary to actually get to the moon, given that they decided instead to spend all their money building a new unneeded launch vehicle and a capsule to get people into orbit without the Shuttle.
Of course, it's reasonable to be upset that some of the earth observing missions have been cancelled, but that wasn't because NASA wants to "build a Motel 6 on the moon," pointless or otherwise. It's because of specific architecture choices that NASA has made that are eating up all the available budget, and are bound to auger in, one way or another, as has been extensively discussed over the past few days.
For a sense of how out of whack NASA priorities have become, briefly ponder that plan. Because the Apollo missions suggested there was little of pressing importance to be learned on the moon, NASA has not landed so much as one automated probe there in three decades. In fact, the rockets used by the Apollo program were retired 30 years ago; even space enthusiasts saw no point in returning to the lunar surface. But now, with the space station a punch line and the shuttles too old to operate much longer, NASA suddenly decides it needs to restore its moon-landing capability in order to build a "permanent" crewed base. The cost is likely to be substantial $6 billion is the annual budget of the space station, which is closer to Earth and quite spartan compared with what even a stripped-down moon facility would require. But set that aside: What will a moon base crew do? Monitor equipment a task that could easily be handled from an office building in Houston.In 2004, former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, now an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin, calculated that NASA can place objects on the moon for $26,000 a pound. At that price, each bottle of water a crew member uncaps will cost the taxpayer $13,000. Even if the new moon rocket being designed by NASA cuts launch costs in half, as agency insiders hope, that's still $6,500 for one Aquafina (astronauts and moon base are extra). Prices like this quickly push the total construction bill for any serious facility into the hundreds of billions of dollars. A private company facing such numbers would conclude that a moon base is an absurd project at least until a fundamentally different way of reaching space is found and would put its capital into the development of new propulsion technologies. But NASA takes a cost-is-no-object approach that appeals only to those who personally benefit from the spending.
Of course, a private company wouldn't make the mistake of extrapolating costs based on how NASA does it, or of failing to understand (as Gregg apparently does) that it's all about economies of scale. As for the "fundamentally different way of reaching space," it's hard to know what he means, but I'd say that private industry is actually working on that right now, as he notes in the next paragraph, though probably not in the way Gregg seems to expect, with faerie dust or something--no, they'll be using good old chemical rockets, just a lot more of them with higher flight rates.
I agree with him that NASA needs to change its priorities, but that's not NASA's fault--it's the fault of the Congress and the administration. But even if it did, despite Gregg's confidence in his own "rationality," it's not at all clear that NASA 's priorities should be his. Or mine. We continue to suffer from the fact that we never had the national debate on what we should be doing in space that I hoped for after Columbia. And unfortunately, we're unlikely to do so, because space is just too low a political priority to most people, compared to issues like the war, immigration, etc.
The only people to whom space is important enough to do it right are those who are doing it with their own money. So Gregg had better hope that he's wrong about his assessments of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. I'm more sanguine about the future, if not NASA, because I'm pretty sure he is.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:10 AMHere's a cool idea:
Angel, a leading astronomer at the University of Arizona, is proposing an enormous liquid-mirror telescope on the moon that could be hundreds of times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope.Using a rotating dish of reflective liquid as its primary mirror, Angel's telescope would the largest ever built, and would permit astronomers to study the oldest and most distant objects in the universe, including the very first stars.
One thing I don't get, though. How would you point it? It doesn't seem like it could be angled up very much out of local horizontal without both messing up the surface shape and requiring higher spin rates. That means that it's only going to point at the area of the sky corresponding to the current local vertical at the lunar location (presumably they'd want to be on the far side to avoid light interference from the earth). And even then it would take a month to see the whole sky on a swathe, with no ability to go back and take a second look until twenty-eight days later. But if you had a bunch of them scattered all over the far side, you could have a pretty flexible system. This also means you'd have to have data relay satellites, either a constellation in lunar orbits, or a halo around L-2, if you're going to be able to do earth-based astronomy with it.
As the article notes, this would probably require hand assembly to a large degree, which could provide a lot of motivation for lunar bases and lunar construction workers, and potentially even affordable, as long as you don't let NASA get involved. It's the kind of project that demands a lunar infrastructure, for communications as noted above, and habitats. It would be a great way (and perhaps incentive) to industrialize the moon. NSF should tender some bids, and see what the private sector comes up with.
[Via John Hood]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:14 AMThe comments are up to close to a hundred over at the original space politics post on the Perils Of ESAS. Al Fansome provides a little useful bit of history:
NASA buying commercial may be smart procurement policy but that is not private sector space.I hear this whine about the commercial sector.
The truth is that the biggest breakthroughs in transportation in this country were smart partnerships between government and private industry.
I am just arguing for a similar smart partnership. Stating this not true private industry because it is not 100% private industry is a strawman argument.
Let me illustrate:
RAILROADS: I think we can agree that the development of the transcontinental railroad, is a programmatic success. It was not 100% pure private, but it worked, and worked very well from a programmatic perspective. The Government did not come in and start designing trains, or building the train tracks. Instead it provided huge economic incentives to private industry to achieve the goal, and got out of the way.
Building this railroad was sold based on its major economic and national security benefits. If you read the Congressional record from an 1856 report, it is clear why they build the transcontinental railroad.
http://cprr.org/Museum/HR_Report_358_1856.html
The necessity that exists for constructing lines of railroad and telegraphic communication between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of this continent is no longer a question for argument; it is conceded by everyone. In order to maintain our present position on the Pacific, we must have some more speedy and direct means of intercourse than (the Panama Canal, -Al)
The importance of our Pacific possessions is felt in every pursuit and in every relation of life. The gold of California has furnished the merchant and trader with a capital by which enterprises have been undertaken and accomplished which were before deemed impracticable. Our commercial marine has been nearly doubled since 1848; internal improvements have been pushed forward with astonishing rapidity; the value of every kind of property has been doubled; and the evidences of prosperity and thrift are everywhere to be seen. The security and protection of that country, from whence have emanated nearly all these satisfactory results, is of the greatest importance; and that can be accomplished only by direct and easy communications through our own territories. Railroads will effect this.
No talk of cathedrals here.
Can you imagine how the NASA of today would have proposed to solve the transcontinental railroad challenge?
That NASA would almost certainly argue that they need a national initiative to design a new and build a better train, that could go over mountains, and would start a Government-led program, using Government engineers to design it.
AIRWAYS: The US Government did many many things to promote aviation in this country. It invested in technology specifically the technical priorities of industry not the technical priorities of the US government. It created the Kelly Airmail Act to buy commercial services and create a market to justify private investment in buying airplanes. It designed/developed/operated the air traffic control system.
The one thing the US Government DID NOT DO was to design, own or operate the airplanes.
The huge U.S. federal investments in the airways were primarily driven by national security purposes. The biggest policy changes, and federal investments, were driven WWI and WWII.
But even in the face of a national security crisis when we absolutely had to have that breakthrough airplane at no time did the federal government take over the role of designing or building the airplanes.
INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM: Donald Robertson likes to argue that the Interstate Highway is an example of government success in developing transportation systems, which I agree with, but on closer examination it still makes my point. BTW, Donald is correct in that US Government took a larger role in this initiative in that the Government effectively put up 100% of the FUNDING to build the highways. This just means that the Government was the monopsony customer.
The Government did not build the interstate highways they hired private contractors. The US Government did not hire a huge team of civil engineers to produce the detailed design of all individual parts the engineering expertise was primarily from private industry. The US Government did not design or build the cars that run on this highway.
ON THE SUBJECT OF SUSTAINABILITY:
In all three cases, these national initiatives had to be sustained through multiple Presidencies and many many Congresses, and they succeeded.
This is what sustainability is all about.
So, why did they succeed?
Related to Griffins philosophical speechers we did not do this because somebody gave a speech arguing that this was the modern-day equivalent of cathedrals. We did not do this because somebody gave a speech arguing about acceptable reasons and real reasons.
In all three cases, it is clear that our elected leaders wrote huge checks year after year because of the significant economic and national security benefits.
- Al
PS Too bad economic and national security impacts were not evaluated as key discriminators when NASA looked at the various alternatives.
I would note (as I did in the next comment there) that in fact the CE&R studies did consider those things, but it's true that with ESAS NASA essentially ignored them.
Amusingly, Mark Whittington seems to refer to the discussion obliquely (though as always, he's vague about exactly who or what he's complaining about, just repeating his silly and unique-to-him mantra of "Internet Rocketeers' Club"):
One of the common slams against NASA's return to the Moon program is that it is not "politically sustainable." People making that charge don't generally provide any details, though it is suspected that they envision President Hillary Clinton or President Obama cancelling the program the very second their hand comes off the Bible in January, 2009.
This is hilarious, since the "people making that charge" have provided a huge amount of details, including budgets, performance numbers, schedule slips, etc., in the Space Politics discussion thread described above. But Mark doesn't dare actually link to them from his own blog, apparently lest his readers find out what those details are, and realize what a poseur he is when it comes to space policy analysis.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:40 AMThe comments at Space Politics continue. And (unsurprisingly) Mark Whittington continues to look foolish, because he doesn't understand either the technology or the politics:
The problem with the analysis presented by Anonymous is that its opinion that doesnt seem to be buttressed by any evidence.I guess Im a little disappointed that stayed up late last night writing nine pages worth of arguments, each dense with evidence, only to get this response. I hope Mr. Whittington at least appreciates the effort.
But maybe it was my own verbosity that did me in. Ill try to boil it down:
FACT: ESAS included no sensitivity analysis, had very limited optimization analysis, completely missed important hardware combinations (like the option developed in DIRECT 2), and ignored important criteria regarding national goals, competition, and international cooperation. One only has to read the publicly available ESAS report in some depth to see that the ESAS analysis is missing these important elements.
FACT: Contrary to ESAS, industry papers (LockMart/Bigelow) show that EELVs can fly human capsules on depressed trajectories without blackout periods and can be human-rated without Shuttle-type processes and costs (as is planned for the COTS vehicles). ESAS also treated safety figures for unflown and substantially altered Shuttle heritage components as if they were flight-proven systems. One only has to obtain copies of these papers from the AIAA and read them and the ESAS report in some depth to see that ESAS employed bad data on several occasions.
FACT: Just to get Ares 1/Orion started, Griffin had to cut billions in ISS research, Prometheus nuclear systems development, and other human space flight technology research. One only has to read the first or second operating plan that NASA sent to Congress under Griffin to see that Ares 1/Orion blew the VSE budget from the get-go, adding enormous and unnecessary risk to the human lunar return effort.
FACT: Ares 1 is underpowered and Orion must use its own motor as a third-stage to reach orbit. For ISS missions, Ares 1/Orion has no design/development margin left. According to Horowitzs own press presentation available on the web, all the remaining margin is performance margin. Its hard to imagine, contrary to the history of aerospace project development, that Ares 1 and/or Orion will avoid further problems and not eat into that performance margin. At what point the performance margin becomes too thin and a major, time-consuming, and expensive design change is necessary to avoid impacting mission reliability and crew safety is hard to predict, but its highly probable given how much of the development of these systems still lies in front of the program.
FACT: To keep from totally blowing the schedule for Ares 1/Orion, Griffin has had to cut billions from the NASA science budget and nearly halve the aeronautics budget. These cuts are reducing the annual flight rate for new science missions from a 7 to 9 per annum to 2 per annum. The cuts have also halved key VSE research grant programs, halved the number of Mars missions, and completely eliminated future missions to address other key VSE targets (extrasolar planets, outer moons) or in other space science disciplines (high-energy astrophysics). I wont even get into the Earth science and aeronautics impacts. One only has to compare Griffins budget proposals and operating plans on the NASA CFO website and read the Congressional testimony of various National Academy chairs to tally these cuts and their impacts.
FACT: Despite all the billions thrown at the ESAS implementation plan, no significant work will begin on any actual human lunar exploration elements (such as Ares V and LSAM) until the second half of the Presidency that will follow the George W. Bush White House. One only has to read Griffins budget proposals on the NASA CFO website and his Congressional testimony to see that Griffins chosen LEO capability has pushed the decision on whether to return humans to the Moon well past the next election, putting the E in VSE at great political risk.
FACT: Despite all the billions thrown at Ares 1 and Orion, the post-Shuttle human space flight gap suppossedly Griffins top priority since day one as NASA Administrator has more than doubled to five years in the span of just two years under his leadership (from 2010-2012 when Griffin started to 2010-2015 today). And, given that NASA must get Congress to pass a highly unlikely seven percent increase in the FY08 budget just to keep this schedule, the gap is very likely to grow by at least another year to two (from 2010-2015 today to 2010-2016 or 2017 a year from now). One only has to read Griffins budget proposals on the NASA CFO website and his Congressional testimony to see that Griffin has been unwilling or unable to make adjustments in order execute even his topmost priority with any effectiveness.
There are people who will state the exact opposite (and under their own names). Its a little bit tiresome to have to witness, once again, the Internet rumor.
Lets be very clear. Unlike Mr. Whittingtons unsubstantiated reference to people that will state the exact opposite, Im NOT referencing internet rumors, hearsay from my day job, or documents that I have access to but that are not publicly available. Im referencing publicly available documents that anyone can read on a NASA or Congressional website or by making a request to the AIAA.
Id also remind Mr. Whittington that the forum administrator welcomes anonymous comments and frowns on criticizing such comments simply because they are anonymous.
that VSE is on the verge of collapse only to see it proven wrong again.
FWIW, I really do hope the VSE is salvaged is some form, either under Griffin (and I would give him kudos for doing so) or after him. But the VSE is not ESAS, and I think its going to take the major change in direction away from ESAS to save the VSE.
My 2 cents
[Note: with apologies to Jeff Foust--I hope that this falls within fair use, particularly since it's just a comment from his invaluable site, to which I've linked, and I think that it needs wider distribution.]
Also, this is the kind of stuff I'd be posting if I had more time (and info) but even if I did, I can't imagine bettering it. "Anonymous" should get his own blog, but then it would be a lot harder to stay "anonymous."
And again, just another instance of an "anonymous" not (necessarily) being a moron, unlike many of the "anonymous" creatures with which I have to deal in comments here.
There's a nice profile of Tim Pickens over at Air & Space. It includes some good X-Prize history, including the ongoing dispute over who built the engine for SpaceShipOne.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:34 AMA lot of great discussion on Griffin and ESAS over at Space Politics. Consensus is that he and it are a disaster in the making, with the only defender of this ongoing slow-motion train wreck being Mark Whittington, who doesn't even seem to be aware of the difference between ESAS and VSE. From "anonymous" (who unlike many of the anonymouses here, is the opposite of a moron):
Dont take his money and tell him not to slash things, and to keep his original schedule. Something will slip, or something will be cancelled. Poor guy is getting yelled at for doing both!Actually, under Griffin, both have happened. Despite billions of dollars of cuts to science and aeronautics programs and the cancellation of any actual human space exploration development during the remainder of this Administrations term, Griffin still couldnt develop, change, or adopt a path of action that would prevent the post-Shuttle gap Griffins own, self-professed, topmost priority from more than doubling in the space of just two years. I dont deny that both the White House and Congress have not lived up to their budget promises, but a failure to adapt to change at least enough to preserve your topmost priority is the very definition of ineffectual leadership.
(As an aside, I dont agree with Griffins priorities, but by his own goals, hes doing terribly.)
Griffin deserves serious criticism for implementing a human space flight development plan that was fiscally and politically unsustainable and then for staying with that flawed plan regardless of the plans growing technical issues, its threat to getting any actual human space exploration underway, and the large negative impact its had on NASAs other programs.
(Another aside, but because both have played large roles in essentially throwing away rare political opportunities to get a sustainable human space exploration effort underway, I would rank Griffin up there with Truly as one of NASAs worst Administrators. Not that my rankings means squat, but that could change if Griffin changes course over the next year or so. But unless the next White House keeps him onboard nearly impossible under a Democratic White House and unlikely even under a Republican White House time is running out.)
[and from another comment]
...I personally think that trading the start of actual exploration hardware development for a duplicative Ares 1 launch vehicle and an oversized Orion capsule is the greatest tragedy and error of Griffins tenure (on par with Trulys insufficient response to and maybe sinking of Bush Is Space Exploration Initiative) and of the ESAS recommendations. But even if one is a fan of Ares 1/Orion, its very hard to argue that we are not sacrificing very rare and valuable window of political opportunity to get the camels nose under the tent with regard to actual human exploration hardware development for Griffins chosen LEO capability.
Yup.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:19 AMIt's hosted this time by Universe Today.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:51 AMThat is, persecution by a "religion." Keith Henson needs your help:
The petition I asked you to sign asks Schwarzenegger to pardon Keith or commute his sentence. Ask for what you want, but I think she is right that humanitarian and compassionate grounds are best right now, for whichever boon you wish to request.His full name is Howard Keith Henson, awaiting a hearing in the Yavapai Superior Court, jailed in the Yavapai Detention Center, where last night he was kept awake till 2 while another inmate rolled around in agony from kidneystones, then was taken to the infirmary and given aspirin. Then Keith was awakened at 4 a.m. for blood pressure check and meds--which we're glad he got, but 2-4 hours of sleep a night in an extremely noisy dormitory, with no contact lens supplies to clean his lenses, and no blanket in a jail where even the young people complain of the cold (over airconditioned in the daytime, down to the 40s at night here in the mountains). His blood pressure has continued dangerously high for some days. The worst thing about Riverside, of course, where he appears to be headed now is not the weather or the lack of supplies (or having to write with only a stub of a pencil because pens or regular-sized pencils are not allowed) but the control of $cientology over the jail there.
I've categorized this as "Space" because Keith is one of the founders of the L-5 Society, and it is one of his passions (as well as extropianism in general). Unfortunately, so was taking on Scientology.
[Update a few minutes later]
Emailer Jim Bennett notes:
It's a good start. But this seems like a good First Amendment case if nothing else - it really doesn't seem like Keith had very good legal help.
Is there a pro-bono First-Amendment lawyer in the house? Where the hell (pardon my French) was the ACLU? Too busy fighting creches and ten-commandments placards, I guess...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:45 PMLet's hope that this isn't the beginning of a trend:
"After working with [the] Rocket Racing League for the past 17 months, we have concluded that our vision, business practices, and communications standards are incompatible with those of the league," Robert Rickard, Leading Edge president and CEO, said in a statement. "We had very high hopes for this enterprise and tried very hard to find a common way forward."
Or if it is, that the RRL makes whatever changes are necessary to keep things together. I should note that I've no idea what the creative differences are, so I have no opinions as to who is in the right and wrong here. With this drop out, though, it would be nice to get some more teams signed up to provide confidence in the future viability. Comments from people who know more is welcome. Uninformed speculation is less so.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:38 PMThe glove challenge has been won.
This has been a problem for my entire career, and was one of the first issues that I worked on out of college. But I think we made more progress on it in the last three years than we have in the three decades prior, because we finally put the right incentives in place. I hope that this will be a big boost for the prize concept in general. Congratulations to the winner, and to Ken Davidian and Brant Sponberg.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:30 AMThere was a comment in this post about TMIAHM, and Heinlein's idea about waging a war on earth from the moon by tossing rocks at it with a catapult. For those interested, a query to Henry Spencer resulted in a couple old sci.space.* threads debunking the notion, here and here.
You know, this space tourism thing will just be a fad:
"It's not really like being weightless in water," she said. "Water has its own weight. You're still experiencing something like a pressure. But this is the feeling of no pressure." Going weightless made her realize "how rarely we experience an entirely new physical sensation over your whole body, and that was just so different. I couldn't have really anticipated what it would feel like."In fact, she said, it wasn't until she got back on the ground that she "understood the magic" of the experience. "It was like I had gained this momentary super power that I couldn't access any more. I felt like I should be able to just launch off the ground and go flying across the hotel lobby."
I was going to respond to the first comment here, but Brian Swiderski beat me to it. I wish that more of his comments were helpful and civil, like most of his comments on space policy, and fewer (in fact, none) of them on other topics the product of obvious Bush Derangement. Unfortunately, the ratio is the other way around.
However, when commenter "kayawanee" writes that:
While it's true that there is no further acceleration due to gravity, it's really inaccurate to say that the skydiver is no longer in free fall once he achieves terminal velocity. Afterall, any object in orbit is considered to be in a perpetual state of freefall, even if (really, especially because) that object is at a constant velocity.
This is clearly (OK, well, not so clearly, or obviously) wrong, which gets back to the previous post on free fall.
Part of the confusion arises from the word "velocity," and the rest from the special case of a circular orbit.
[Sigh]
The whole reason that I stipulated that the orbit was circular in the previous post was because I didn't want to open up this new can of worms. I promise that I'll finish this post, but I have to go stir some chili, and I don't want people to be misled in the meantime.
[Update a few minutes later]
OK, back from chili stirring (and adding various ingredients to make it more chili-like).
The first issue is simple. Velocity is not speed. Velocity is a vector, and has a directional component. Speed is the scalar of that vector, that represents only the magnitude. Example: going fifty miles per hour east is a vector, going fifty miles per hour is a speed. When one runs in a circular race track at a constant speed (say, 120 mph) the speed is constant, but the vector is continuously changing (with a constant acceleration directed toward the center of the track, otherwise the car wouldn't be turning). So even if the speed doesn't change, there is similarly an acceleration in orbit as well.
Here's where it gets even more complicated. In a non-circular earth orbit, both speed and velocity are changing, because at apogee (the highest point of the orbit), speed is low, but altitude is high, whereas at perigee, it's the opposite. But in both cases, and all cases in between, the body is in free fall. And the energy of the orbit is constant throughout (thus maintaining Newton's laws). Free fall simply means that there are no forces acting on the body other than gravity.
In a parabolic aircraft, the only reason that the inhabitants of the airplane are in free fall is because the pilot is flying the trajectory that would apply if there were no atmosphere (that is, he is compensating for the air drag with the thrust of the engines). He is in fact flying an orbit that, if continued, would intersect the earth. In fact, it's useful to think of the airplane as "flying around" the free fall of the passengers, so that it doesn't cause an impact with them. He doesn't continue it, and pulls out after half a minute or so (for subsonic aircraft) for what I hope are obvious reasons.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:54 AMEric Hedman thinks that there's nothing wrong with the space program that can't be solved with more money.
Sorry, no sale here. Even if it were possible to increase NASA's budget by over fifty percent in the current political climate, all it would mean is more waste, less motivation to do things smart, and less pressure on them to rely on commercial suppliers. It wouldn't result in more cost effective space activities, which are what are required to open up the frontier. Until the people developing space systems are spending their own money, as XCOR, SpaceX, Armadillo and others are, we'll continue to get pork-based solutions, with little resembling innovation, in which success of the mission itself is, at best, a secondary goal.
[Update at 11:30]
Oh, and Mark? There's no such word as "enfusion."
Get Firefox. It has a spell checquer built in.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:24 AM...and hopefully at least as good, if not better. Clark Lindsey explains the significance of the successful UP Aerospace launch:
So why is this a big deal? Suborbital rockets have been launched at WSMR and elsewhere since the 1940s. This flight is significant because of the business model, not the altitude attained. The vehicle was designed to serve a consumer market rather than to carry out a task for the military or some other government entity. To do this profitably, the vehicle must be built for as low a cost as possible and must be cheap to fly. Spaceflight for the general public is new to the rocket world.
[Update a few minutes later]
Jon Goff has a very instructive post for those who buy into the mantra about how much more of a problem orbital is than suborbital with respect to energy.
As I note in his comments section, while these are great points when it comes to getting to orbit, the real issue is the energy that has to be dissipated to come home. I think that this will be the far greater challenge for orbital vehicle developers, at least if they're reusable (and despite progress that can continue to be made in dropping the cost of expendables, ultimately that's the only way to go for truly low costs, not to mention ability to bring the customers home).
Even Burt claims not to have a solution (though he may be sandbagging us). Certainly his current shuttlecock concept won't ever scale up to an entry from orbit. As I've noted before, though, Burt is not God, and just because he doesn't know how to do something, doesn't mean that it can't be done.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:10 AMI'd like to be able to attend this competition, for obvious reasons, but I don't have the time or the money. I asked Davidian to sponsor my trip, but the cheapskate pretended not to hear me. Well, we'll just see if I come up with any more glove competition ideas for him.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:52 AMAlan Boyle has extensive coverage of yesterday's events, here, here, here, and here.
Clark Lindsey has some more links, and thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:24 AMJon Goff writes about the benefits of on-orbit propellant storage and transfer. This is in fact a crucial technology to reduce in-space transportation costs, and become a truly space-faring civilization. But NASA continues to ignore it, wanting to do Apollo over again.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:22 AMHenry Cate has the first Carnival of Space posted. Anyone else who wants to host a future one should contact him.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:14 AMTaylor Dinerman has a lengthy piece in the Journal that's a worthwhile read. There is one nit to pick, though (very few people get this right):
Being in microgravity (since there is always some gravitational effect, this is the correct term) for any length of time changes one's metabolism. The human heart, for example, becomes like a ball rather than the "heart"-shaped organ it is on Earth. Blood flows closer to the outer layers of the skin, giving astronauts a characteristic puffy face. It is estimated that a six-month stay on the International Space Station (ISS) causes an average 11% loss of bone density. NASA is working hard to find a way to keep its personnel healthy during long-duration space operations, either on the moon base planned for sometime in the 2020s or on a later trip to Mars.
No, "microgravity" is not the correct term. Microgravity means literally a millionth of a gee of acceleration. Using it in any other way is very confusing.
A quick tutorial.
First, there is no such thing as zero gravity, anywhere in the universe. Gravity, which is the force that one mass exerts on another, as a function of the product of the two masses and the inverse of the square of the distance between them, is ubiquitous, because the universe is filled with masses of various sizes and shapes. And in a so-called "Zero-G" flight, the gravity level is in fact almost exactly the same as it is on the ground, since the aircraft isn't flying all that high, relative to the distance from the center of the earth. Even in low earth orbit, gravity is still about 90% of what it is on the surface. We have to be very careful with the word gravity. In this context, we are using it as a unit measure of an acceleration, not the amount of pull that is exerted on us by the earth (or other objects).
What happens in both parabolic flight (which is technically a portion of an ellipse, rather than a parabola, but if one makes a flat-earth assumption for the gravity model, a parabola is close enough) and in orbit is that the craft is in weightlessness, or free fall, which are the proper terms.
When one is falling (and in a circular orbit, one is continually falling, with the rate of fall toward the earth the same as the rate of the horizon dropping in front of you, so you never get any closer), one doesn't sense gravity. Gravity is only sensed when one resists it, by standing on the ground, or sitting in a chair, or having air drag slow you down when you sky dive. Also, there is only a single point of your body that is in true free fall; most of it is experiencing various (tiny) levels of gravitational force. Because the trajectory is a line in space, only the portion of an object through which that line passes is in true weightlessness. But for practical (in this case, visceral entertainment) purposes, your whole body will seem to be floating. And the easiest way to describe it, if not the accurate one, is "zero gravity." Hence the company's name.
One other note, which is a pet peeve of mine. In Hawking's note to Taylor, he uses the phrase "risk-adverse" to describe NASA. The correct phrase is "risk averse." That is, one has an aversion to risk. Adverse has a different meaning entirely, but many people get this wrong.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:42 AMIs Ares 1 on life support?
Between rumored Ares performance issues and Orion weight growth, shrinking budgets, and a growing uprising among the space science folks (not to mention Richard Shelby), Dr. Griffin seems to have an unsolvable Rubik's cube. Something will have to give. I hope that it's The Stick. I wonder if they're on the verge of bowing to the inevitable, and reconsidering Atlas? And as commenters point out, what's the significance of May 23rd?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:34 AMSounds like Dr. Simonyi thinks he got his money's worth:
Among the many images burned in Simonyis mind from his spaceflight are the dazzling transitions between night and day in Earth orbit.The ISS orbits the Earth once every 90 minutes, giving astronauts 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours. Simonyi and the Expedition 15 crew docked at the ISS on April 9 just as the Sun set over the horizon with amazing speed, which the space tourist likened to the lighting of a modern opera during his flight.
When they happen, the color of everything changes, Simonyi said of sunsets in space. In about 10 seconds it changes from brilliant white, through all the shades to essentially invisible black that was sunset someplace.
I did not know what I was looking at, but it was the most incredible thing, Simonyi said.
Note that the only discussion was about the delight of the experience, not how thrilled he was to be "one of the first" to be doing this.
I was having a discussion with Michael Turner (who has a non-space-related grudge against Simonyi) over at sci.space.policy on this subject a few days ago. He continued to insist that there is a significant "fad" component to this, and that once a few people have done it, and it's no longer a novelty, that this industry will die, or at least that there's a significant chance of that. At least that was my interpretation of what he was saying.
I think that's palpable nonsense, based on the kind of testimony provided above. That kind of word-of-mouth can't be bought. I asked him to provide me with some basis for his belief, but rather than doing so, he simply dropped out of the discussion. I still hope that he'll explain it, some time.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:52 AMLeonard David has a very encouraging story about XCOR. This is something that I've been predicting for a while, despite those who said that there was no way that the rocket industry could ever be like the computer industry, with people starting businesses in their garages:
Rich Pournelle, XCORs director of business development said small aerospace companies are seeing some encouraging trends for the better. For one, the computer power needed to carry out rocket and engine fabrication, including computational fluid design, is now affordable for small firms.The point is you can do significant technical work with a small team, Pournelle said in an April 12 interview with Space News. The amount of work that five to 10 people in a garage can do nowadays is incredible.
Another favorable trend has emerged within the area of supply chain management. Small space companies can have a lean inventory process and dont need to have a warehouse full of parts. Finding a specialty supplier of a needed rocket part say a cryogenic valve, for example is just a Google search away and a next-day mail delivery, Pournelle said.
Another trend working in favor of small companies stems from the savaging of the U.S. industrial base and the relocation of manufacturing overseas, Pournelle added. Machines, tooling and other hardware that at one time cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said, now can be obtained for pennies on the dollar.
"Pennies on the dollar" is the ratio that we'd like to see between future launch costs, and current ones. XCOR has the right approach, I think.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:28 PM"...to know that competing against the government is a fools game." Read the fifth comment at this post on NASA's decision to give a sole-source contract to the Russians, and its potential impact on COTS:
RpK and any other COTS partner will find fund-raising from private financial markets extremely difficult, if not impossible, as long as NASAs leadership remains dedicated to spending billions on an in-house competitor in the form of Ares 1 and Orions ISS variants. Although Griffin has stated that he is dedicated to standing down Ares 1/Orion if COTS delivers and has even taken one recent step in that direction, Griffin wont be in charge when the critical decisions between Ares 1/Orion and COTS are made in 2009 and out.Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:20 PM
TechRepublic has some photos of Yuri's flight, and Yuri's Night, here, and here.
And The Economist wonders if private space is finally ready to take off.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:35 AMGreg Olsen, the private sector's number three astronaut gave some remarks to welcome the space investors and entrepreneurs to the Space Investment Summit along with Buzz Aldrin on Monday. He said, "I live in Princeton. Everyone knows everyone in Princeton. I went out to dinner and the owner of the restaurant said, 'You're that astronaut guy.' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'Let me give you this bottle of wine!' I was feeling pretty good about myself until my girl friend said, 'If you were Buzz Aldrin, he would pay for your whole dinner.'"
Olsen was not there as an investor. His current investment fancies are energy related. We shared a cab after the event broke up. There was a bunch of road construction near the Ritz where Boeing had hosted the welcome. I asked him, "Which is rougher, a Soyuz flight or a New York City cab ride?" His answer: "Both."
I asked him if he got a tax deduction on the flight from doing experiments. "No."
We were both going to different Jean George's, but Olsen tried to convince me that they had only one location in New York. It seems Olsen can still be surprised.
I explained to him that I'd spent more money than the cost a suborbital flight trying to bring space to everyone. And that Space Shot's Latin motto, Astrae Popularetis, means, "You'll see the Stars belong to the People." I got off first and he said, "Don't worry about the cab fare." I said, "After that story you told, you have to let me pay." I gave the cabbie $20 and said, "Driver, I want to treat this man to a cab ride!" If he was Buzz Aldrin, we would have taken a limo.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 07:08 AMPlease extend your best wishes for a rapid and full recovery to Eric Anderson's step daughter.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:04 AMSam has been blogging individual items from it, but Charles Lurio has an overview over at Space Transport News today.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:52 AMJoe Katzman has a piece on it, and progress to date.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:27 AMAlan Marty, an investment consultant speaking at the Space Investment Summit yesterday, drew the comparison of semiconductor fabs right before the boom and the orbital access market. That there is $500 million of government assistance reducing the barrier to entry now for launchers and then for fabs. He said he thought the window for launching an orbital company is open now but will be closing. This suggests RpK and SpaceX will enjoy a long profitable run if they are successful.
Bob Werb, co-founder of the Space Frontier Foundation, said, "The window is opening and will open again and again," in his remarks at the closing of the event.
I don't see a big drop in access prices if these are the only entrants. Musk and French will reduce prices enough to shut out more expensive launchers, but then split the market and prices will drop no further. But that high price will continue to attract entrants once the subsidized entrants make good.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 06:03 PMJeff Foust has some tea leaves, in several posts, here, here, and here.
He also has a sign that Dr. Griffin has worn out his welcome on the Hill:
We have been working together up until now. Were not doing so well at the moment Im counting the days, one year and eight-and-a-half months and well have a new administrator.
I'd be selling prospects for ESAS short at this point, if there were an obvious way to do it. It would be easier if the contractor were Boeing, rather than Lockheed Martin, whose Atlas vehicle seems ascendant in the real market right now.
[Update a few minutes later]
I can't help but note that the only time that Republican Mark Whittington agrees with Democrat Barbara Mikulski's constituent-indulging fantasies is when they coincide with his own for a race with the Chinese.
[Update late evening]
Keith Cowing has a theory on Senator Shelby's sudden distaste for the NASA administrator:
It would seem by virtue of these remarks (which seem to border on being a slow motion temper tantrum) that Sen. Shelby is becoming increasingly frustrated now that his party is in the minority and he is less able to bully Mike Griffin - and NASA - around.
That's the way that space policy will be until it's an industry, rather than a rent-seeking enterprise for politicians.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:07 PMOne of the presentations at the Space Investment Summit was on Lunar solar power. Solar satellites were also referred to. One presentation noted that if a government agree to buy solar at $0.85/kwh (about a 900% subsidy) that space solar would pay. Great. You can make $50 billion if they give you a $70 billion subsidy. Hand me a glass of ethanol.
My previous best efforts on solar are here, here, and here.
I think there is a fairly simple case against. Grant that space solar is 4x as efficient per kilogram as Earth solar. Ignore the fact that people want more power during the day than at night. Grant that we can take raw silicon and turn it into solar cells with minimal remote human input. Grant that we can beam it. Ignore that if we import solar power in quantity that the price of coal and uranium will drop until they are competitive again as fuels.
Can't we just set one of the 'bots that will build the cells loose in an Earth desert? Doesn't it require the transportation cost to space be on the order of 4 times the manufacturing cost for space solar to be economically effective? Even if we are just talking about the regolith eating robot, don't we have to get transportation cost down to three times the cost of producing a sand eating robot and letting it loose in the desert? Am I missing something? I think this argument means space solar will never be competitive.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 02:28 PM"I've decided to launch an effort through my Share Space Foundation....Share Space Stakes! A sweepstakes or raffle. Proceeds benefit space related and scientific and educational goals. Donations open possibility of winning prizes. Starting with parabolic flights. Expanding to suborbital flights.
"Soyuz costs...millions of dollars.... The cost could be paid for by hundreds of thousands of people donating $50.
"We have not yet developed the rules, but it will be posted on our Share Space web site. Share Space Stakes is scheduled to be launched this year.
"Winners will have to be 18, satisfy certain health restrictions. This will be non-transferable.
"Space travel is poised to go from the few to the many. I hope to play a role with Share Space Foundation.... Who knows who will be one of the lucky winners about to take their own space adventure."
--
Thanks Buzz! Welcome to the party.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:24 AMArt Dula speaking at the Space Investment Summit in Manhattan today called for Congress to reform the Outer Space Treaty to cap the unlimited liability that signatory countries have for their nationals' space accidents. "They don't have this for oil tankers or airplanes."
[Update by Rand Simberg]
One of the reasons they don't have it for airplanes is the Warsaw Convention. Did he propose extending that to space?
[Update by Sam Dinkin]
He proposed getting an act of Congress passed to unilaterally limit the US federal government liability.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 07:28 AMI feel your pain, Clark. You've done yeoman's work in keeping us all informed on space stuff. The rest of us will just have to try to pick up the pace so that you can take a well-earned break, or at least, easing off.
And I agree with the commenters that we have to figure out a way to make this more remunerative for him.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:30 AMKarl Gallagher as some thoughts on how too many requirements can kill a program. This happened to both Shuttle and station.
Unfortunately, because the way NASA has traditionally done things is so expensive, the assumption is made that they can only afford one of them (a National Space Transportation System, a national space station). That means that multiple requirements (often, or usually, conflicting) tend to get laid on them, to satisfy all of the political constituencies. The program as a result bloats, and becomes very expensive (in time and money), making the original assumption a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:57 PMIt probably is overdue, with all the other carnivals over the years. Henry Cate has decided to kick it off, so he's looking for contributions.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:04 AMClark Lindsey has an interesting post on the prospects, now that people more responsive than NASA are going to offer research opportunities. I've always been a skeptic on it, and thought it vastly overhyped, particularly with regard to how it was used to sell the space station, but at least now, it will get a fair shot. And I agree with how he opens the piece:
One of the unfortunate tendencies of NASA is for the agency to implement a good idea in a bad way and thereby discredit that idea. Prime examples include RLVs and space tethers.
Yes, when people ask what harm it is to have NASA doing its own thing, and to just ignore it while we do ours, this is the answer. Few people really understand how much damage NASA has done over the decades in this manner. X-33 by itself probably set back the cause of low-cost spaceflight by over a decade, and we're only just starting to recover from that debacle, with the Air Force finally starting to take space transports seriously again, even if NASA continues to refuse to do so.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:00 AMI haven't said anything about Representative Calvert's proposal to allow NASA to accept ads on its hardware to raise money for prizes, but there's a good discussion of it at Space Politics. I have to say that I agree with "anonymous"'s take on it:
At this very early stage of market development, the pool of private sector dollars for any space advertising and sponsorship is going to be extremely limited. And unlike, say, a more mature market like NASCAR racing, space activities simply dont garner the same repeated exposure and massive number of eyeballs. Theres nothing in the proposal and I dont think anything could be put in the proposal that would prevent NASA from competing for those very limited sponsorship dollars with the very non-profits that manage its prize competitions and with the very teams that compete in those prize competitions (e.g., Armadillo Aerospace has a commercial sponsor for the Lunar Lunar Challenge). And NASA would probably win those sponsorship dollars over the private sector every time. If business has a choice between slapping a logo on Pixel/Texel or the Space Station, theyll pick the Space Station every time. The managers of NASAs prize program demonstrated quite a bit of creativity bringing together a highly efficient (especially when compared to other government prizes like the DARPA Grand Challenge) and competitive universe of privately funded non-profits, privately funded teams, and corporate sponsors on very small, shoestring budget. Instead of fueling and enlarging that proven but still fragile engine of innovation, this proposal would choke off the very private sector sponsorship necessary to sustain it.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:49 AM...I have to say that this is yet another example of Congress not doing its governance job with respect to NASA. Instead of dealing with any of NASAs real problems ranging from a Ares 1/Orion system thats not closing technically, to a budgetarily and politically unsustainable strategy for human space exploration, to a Shuttle workforce thats not ramping down as it should, to major across-the-board cutbacks in science and aeronautics, to even something as easily achievable as directing a few bucks to a working prize program Republicans like Calvert are wasting their time on conservative think-tank pet projects and Democrats like Nelson are wasting their time persecuting potty-mouthed IGs. Enough with the crap start governing already.
Until Yuri's night. It will also be the twenty-sixth anniversary of the first Shuttle launch. Unfortunately for me, it looks like the only Florida party is in Cocoa Beach--nothing in south Florida. Or maybe it's actually not so unfortunate, since I'm not that big on dance parties.
Oh, and if you're into virtual celebrations, and are a resident there, there will be one in Second Life as well. I might show up to that one, but I'll remove my avatar's legs, so I'll have an excuse. I'll also turn down the volume on the dance music, which is a nice feature in Second Life that Real Life doesn't yet offer, short of earplugs.
If so, I'll probably either be at Colab, or the International Spaceflight Museum.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:39 PMWith Freeman Dyson:
My optimism about the long-term survival of life comes mainly from imagining what will happen when life escapes from this planet and becomes adapted to living in vacuum. There is then no real barrier to stop life from spreading through the universe. Hopping from one world to another will be about as easy as hopping from one island in the Pacific to another. And then life will diversify to fill the infinite variety of ecological niches in the universe, as it has done already on this planet.If you want an intellectual principle to give this picture a philosophical name, you can call it "The Principle of Maximum Diversity." The principle of maximum diversity says that life evolves to make the universe as interesting as possible. A rain-forest contains a huge number of diverse species because specialization is cost-effective, just as Adam Smith observed in human societies. But I am impressed more by the visible examples of diversity in rain-forests and coral-reefs and human cultures than by any abstract philosophical principles.
I agree. This is one of my fundamental religious beliefs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:22 AMWhose name is missing from this article? Is this a separate deal from Benson Space Company?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:03 AMI can't imagine any other operator even wanting to use Burt's concept. It was a nice stunt to win the prize, but it's certainly not scalable to an orbital system, and there are plenty of ways (perhaps even better ones) to do suborbital without it. But a patent, however pointless, probably makes some investor (perhaps including Branson, who is reportedly part owner of TheSpaceShipCompany) feel more financially secure.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:46 PMAnd from The Nation. I'm shocked, shocked.
The whole saga is Dickens for the new millennium, but without the other half. So it's up to us scolds at The Nation to point out the obvious. Simonyi might have spent his money fighting AIDS, or building housing for Hurricane Katrina survivors, or providing clean water to developing nations, or mosquito netting and medicine for malaria patients, or musical instruments for needy, photogenic, musically-gifted inner city school children or...well, depressingly, the list goes on and on. But picking on the follies of the rich is easy, and in this case, not particularly fun. Just think of the carbon footprint a Soyuz rocket leaves!But the next time the bards of capitalism sing the praises of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and the outstanding generosity of the mega-rich in the age of extreme wealth (and extreme poverty), I'll trot out Charles Simonyi's space odyssey as counter-example.
Indeed, Simonyi's spending habits are a window into how the world's wealthiest citizens consume and contribute. Worth about $1 billion, Simonyi's no Scrooge McDuck. He's endowed a chair at Oxford and funded the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. In 2003, Simonyi finished 23rd in the Slate 60, the annual ranking of largest American charitable contributions, when he gave $47 million to start the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences. But for each act of noblesse oblige, there's an extravagance. In Simonyi's case, not only is he the 5th space tourist ever, he also owns the world's 39th largest yacht, which is so big that one could, as Power and Motoryacht Magazine tell us, "easily mistake her for a military vessel."
Woe betide a rich person who doesn't give enough of their money away to satisfy Mr. Kim. Somehow, for people like him, I don't think that there is ever enough.
[Sunday evening update]
Mr. Kim is taking quite a(n appropriate) beating in comments, including one from frequent commenter here, Brian Swiderski, under the pseudonym "Space Duck."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:57 AMAviation Week has scooped Bigelow on his plans for next week. Bigelow predicts 800 people to orbit in the next ten years. That's a bold prediction given that there haven't been 800 people in orbit in the last 50. Where is the demand? What's the price point? Where is the supply of transportation? If they are using K-1, they will likely get a good price on the order of $17 million/flight which I'm told is only ever quoted for very high frequency long launch program's like Bigelow's. I'm guessing K-1 can't support 3 flights per month since it's only one ship and 9-day turns seem unreasonable for orbital vehicles. If Bigelow has to cover transportation and the launch cost of his 6 or so heavy launches for all of his outposts, then he has to charge a pretty penny to the visitors.
Who can afford $6 million/month to be on station? Granted, $5 billion would be a bargain for 800 man months in space, but Bigelow still needs to get buyers to step forward who want to station people in space. A factor of five decrease in the price to orbit and a US option might generate 25 rich visitors per year instead of one. The other 55?
I don't see China scrapping its own tech development path to use commercial. I don't see India scrapping its own tech development path to use commercial. Western countries don't seem too keen on astronautics. Maybe one from Poland, one from Hungary, one from Saudi and one from Singapore. Other up and coming countries that have the wealth to spend, but not enough to develop a full rocketry and space station program? Drug companies? If countries with $100 billion GDP don't want the glory at that price, do the drug companies want the PR with turnover of $10 billion/year?
What Bigelow needs to get countries and companies to fund his vision is lobbyists in the national capitols of 40 countries to set up government astronaut corps and subsidies to national champion businesses to do glorified industrial research in space on the government dime. The case has not yet been made that there is any demand beyond national prestige demand and tourism demand.
The US space program is certainly spending a lot more on Space Station and Moon Mars than Bigelow is spending to achieve substantially more capabilities. It will take a major effort to get the battleship approach to Moon and Mars exploration cancelled in favor of Bigelow modules. If the major aerospace prime contractors figure out that Bigelow offers an alternative to Ares and the lunar habs and landers (and Mars equipment), they will lobby to keep the US government exploration on NASA developed equipment. NASA will abet this.
Bigelow is building a better mousetrap, but is that enough?
What was once a huge story--a private citizen going into space with his own funds, has now become almost routine. Charles Simonyi is on his way to the ISS, on a Russian launcher. Docking will occur in a couple days. You can follow his exploits at his web site.
And when someone goes to ISS, or into orbit at all, on a non-Russian launcher with their own funds, that will be big news.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:32 AMRudy Giuliani made a campaign stop in Tallahassee the other day, and offered the assembled these thoughts:
He said one of his first acts as president would be to put the country on a path to produce more ethanol than Brazil, re-start nuclear-power-plant construction, and heavily invest in solar power.Giuliani said the United States should prioritize energy independence much like it did the space race, when Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson fired up the gears of industry and imagination after the Soviet Union beat the U.S. into space.
The result was a bipartisan thrust to the moon that transcended several presidencies and spawned a generation of national pride and scientific spin-offs.
''Politics aside and national interests first. Not only did it help us ultimately win the Cold War, it helped us in countless other ways, in scientific development and products,'' Giuliani said...
..."We can do the same thing with energy independence. But we've got to have a president who knows how to get things done.''
He said he supported continuing to aggressively pursue space exploration. He also said more oil drilling should be an option explored to reduce reliance on foreign oil.
Two points. First, few people who talk about making energy development a "moral equivalent of war" have actually thought the notion through, particularly when it comes to comparing things to Apollo.
We're all used to hearing people who say "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we (cure world poverty, have world peace, fill-in-the-blank). What's foolish about this statement, usually, is that they're comparing a purely technological achievement, amenable to sustained applied engineering, to social problems that are not solvable by throwing money at teams of engineers.
But people who use the argument to say that we should solve the energy problem are seemingly on more solid ground, since this is, in theory, something solvable in that manner.
Of course, the problem is that it's still an apples/oranges comparison. Solving the energy problem involves coming up with cost-effective solutions for new energy sources that are competitive with fossil fuels, and particularly petroleum. But Apollo wasn't about cost effectiveness. It was about achieving a technical goal regardless of cost. So it still remains a flawed comparison. Certainly, it is to be hoped that, by investing large amounts of money, we can come up with processes that can increase the supply and reduce the cost of non-greenhouse energy sources. But actually, history doesn't encourage us that when a government program pours large amounts of money into a search for a technology, particularly an energy technology, that it has a fruitful outcome. Synfuels and windmills, anyone?
Moreover, that's a goal that companies should be (and in fact are) seeking regardless of whether or not there is a large taxpayer-funded initiative. No one would expect a private company to fund Apollo (which is not to say that no one should expect a private company to send people to the moon), but one would expect private companies to look for lower-cost replacements for current energy sources, since this would provide a huge payoff.
The second problem is that the phrase "space exploration" is so nebulous. When it comes out of a politician's mouth, it's like mom and apple pie. Who's against "space exploration"? Yes, there are a few, but they aren't a significant voting block. One can be in favor of space exploration, but that doesn't mean that one favors space settlement, space development, affordable access to space, etc. It could be "manned" or "unmanned" "space exploration." I doubt if Giuliani has given any thought to these issues (few politicians other than Newt Gingrich have). I suspect that he is simply expressing a motherhood statement on a convenient stump.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:20 PMThe latest issue is out, with several interesting links.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:51 AMClark Lindsey has gathered up all the links to the Space Access reporting in one handy page.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:05 AMRobin Snelson (aka "Rocket Sellers") gave a presentation last weekend at Space Access about her recent and ongoing space adventures in Second Life. Alan Boyle has the story.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:47 AMI have a piece up at Popular Mechanics about last weekend's Space Access Conference.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:56 PMIt looks like the testing is going well. It seems to me, though, that this program could move a lot faster if they would commit to it now, instead of dithering around with decisions as to whether to move on the next phases. It's exactly the kind of program that we need to mitigate the ASAT threat.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:12 AMIf you want a flavor of what we saw at the conference last week, Armadillo has put their latest videos on the web.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:02 PMJohn Miller has some comments on the New Mexico Spaceport:
On the one hand, it sounds like a great opportunity for a rural area. On the other hand, why does an "all commercial" venture need a taxpayer subsidy? Isn't that doubly true if private spaceports really are, as advocates say, "an idea whose time has finally come"? Private space travel is attracing big-time venture capitalists, such as Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos. Should the residents of "one of the poorest regions in the nation" subsidize their highly speculative businesses?
At least sports stadiums have a sure market. Even in Detroit.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:04 AMJeff Foust has a summary of the legal, investment and insurance panels over at today's issue of The Space Review.
And since no one seems to have blogged it in detail (and it's hard for me to live blog while on a panel, though maybe I should try it next year, but with a net...) here's the story that I told at the beginning of Saturday night's wrap up, that I think is an interesting view of the change in the investment climate for this stuff.
When we look from year to year at these things, progress seems measurable, but slow. It's only when you look to the distant past that you can see how far we've come. Here's a tale of two space entrepreneurs. Or rather, two tales of one space entrepreneur.
Back about a quarter of century ago, in the age of Joan Jett, the beginning of CDs and the useful PC, and Winchester hard drives, some of which were as large as ten whole megabytes, a few guys (named Jim Bennett, Phil Salin and Bevin McKinney) were up in Palo Alto looking for money. To build commercial rockets. They went up and down Sand Hill road, pitching their plan. One investor looked it over, looked them over, and said, "You know, you fellows look like you know what you're doing, and seem like a good team. But I don't know anything about this rocket stuff. How would you like to start a hard drive company?"
Well, to make a long story short, they found money somewhere else, started a couple rocket companies in the eighties, and Bennett got out after the American Rocket SET-1 failure in 1989, at which point he decided to go make a large fortune doing something else, which he could turn it into a small fortune building rockets, but at least without having to deal with investors. Internet companies were founded, and died, in the bubble pop and with 911.
But in 2006, with the economic (and tech stock) recovery, it seemed like a good time to resurrect the IT ventures. So he went out once again looking for money. He went up to Wyoming, where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and showed some people the business plan. They looked at it, and said, "You know, this seems like a pretty good team. And IT is good, and we could use more of it up here. But when we see your resumes, we were wondering. How would you like to start a space company?"
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:10 AMThomas James writes that he was smarter than even he knew.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:28 AMThis is the last of my conference blogging, probably, unless I do a wrapup tomorrow. I'm on a conference-ending panel in a few minutes. You'll have to read Clark to find out what happens.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:49 PMThis is a concept that Paul Breed and his son are developing for the Lunar Landing Challenge. Showing a video of servos and valves. Demonstrating igniters, have flightweight tanks and motors. Built a 650 lbf ablative motor, which is demonstrated. Uses composite cylindrical tanks, wound on flourescent light tubes, with tube caps at ends. Leaked at fifteen hundred psi, failed at nineteen hundred. Most weight in the end caps. Mass ratio of 6. Failure mode was shearing of aluminum pins, not plastic failure.
Valves initially based on Mikita cordless drill, hooked up to a ball valve. Ultimately ended up with UAV servos from Tokyo Hobbies in Japan. Have valves, tanks, built aluminum igniter, using ideas from Carmack's blog.
Basic vehicle layout will have four modules in quadrants, legs laced together with rope that stretches for landing gear. Has built a test vehicle. Has a blog, if we want to follow progress.
Name based on quote by George Bernard Shaw.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:31 PMThis should be a barn burner. I can't imagine he's very happy with NASA and Mike Griffin. As Jim Muncy said yesterday, the truce may be over. Talk starts in a few minutes.
Thanks Henry, says this is his favorite conference. Opens with a quote from T. E. Lawrence about dangerous dreams. Says that the people here are "dreamers of the day."
It's an interesting field right now, and he decided to get involved with a company called Orbital Outfitters, which is leasing space suits to the startups. Of all the things he's been involved with in the not-for-profit industry, he enjoyed them, but he finally realized why they called it not-for-profit. Having the time of his life as an entrepreneur, and never has been as scared in his life. Has a holding company called Extreme Space, of which Orbital Outfitters is the first one. Suits are "get-me-down-alive" suits. Hope they're never used, but they have to work. IS-3 "Industrial Orbital Spaceport." First thing he learned starting a company was that he didn't know a damned thing, but he's hiring people who do, and are training him.
Press release coming out next week, hiring Jonathan Clarke, who's a world expert in survivability (his wife, Laurel, died in Columbia).
Not exactly Levis to the miners, but there are niches out there. A second entity will manage human factors and physiology. A third one will be announced this summer. General Genius, which will handle legal issues, and others.
End of talk about his company. Next words are just Rick Tumlinson's opinion.
Laying out a paradox. Best hope for humanity is opening up space. Worst enemy of that is the US government and its policies.
Chart says that NASA is killing US Space. Bureaucracies, tokenism, culture of broken promises, lack of understanding of "commercial," Powerpoint Pioneering replaced Real Exploration. When cash gets short because they blew what they sold it yesterday. We are not going to the moon. That is done.
Getting tired of hearing we need to put together a NACA model. Wants to see someone do something about it. NACA Reformation Act of 2009, to be ready for the coming collapse. Long chart with lots of bullets. Going by too fast to capture. Points out absurdity of NASA's latest offer of station for commercial. "What does that do to Bigelow?"
Wants to remove ITAR restrictions with closer allies, create White House Space Council, other ideas (I'll try to get copies of the charts). Says that we need "commitment," with long quote to that effect. Wants to start wikis about why and how to reform NASA. Sorry, just can't type fast enough to transfer the firehose output to keyboard.
Applause.
If you want to lease a suit, rick@ricktumlinson.com
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:46 PMThere is a panel starting on the current investment climate for the New Space industry. It consists of Stephen Fleming, Joe Pistritto, and Esther Dyson. Steve and Joe were early XCOR investors (initial, I think other than founders), and have been coming to this conference for years (in fact, the investment deal with XCOR occurred here several years ago). Esther Dyson is better known as an IT investor, but she's recently gotten interested in space, having put together a space investors' conference of her own a couple years ago (though it was diluted somewhat with non-space ventures), attending this conference last year, and being at the X-Prize Cup last fall. (Note: she is the daughter of Freeman Dyson, and the sister of George).
Infinite amount of capital out there, but you have to find the right sources, with the right story.
Esther: trying to think hard about what's different this year than last, so she can offer new material. Companies are a year older. Biggest change is financial environment around it. More money this year, with hedge funds making multi-billion dollar deals. More excitement among investors, "more ready to be stupid." More attention being paid to space because China's doing something. Unfortunately, better for NASA and the military, but could still help.
Bad news: two meetings with XCOR and CSI this morning. "The fitness function is all based on NASA." Not on how well does it do, but what does NASA want.
Pistritto: The thing that changes year to year in the space create the reality. Every year that goes by with progress and success, and more people flying to ISS as private citizens, decreases the giggle factor, and it's almost gone now. This is good because even if investors do stupid things, they don't want to look stupid to their friends. Space is becoming cool to invest in now. Not as concerned about NASA--at least NASA's now willing to try to help. People are actually getting money from NASA to build useful things. Still not quite at the level where we get VCs to write checks, but getting close.
Fleming: Elon helped with his launch on Tuesday. Nice thing that has happened is that while NASA can step on the mammal by accident, or strangle the baby by rolling on it, but it's no longer actively trying to kill us. May be clumsy in how they partner, but they're trying, and don't minimize that. We don't have to live on their largesse, but don't have to hide from them either.
Dyson: We have to lay out the hard path that you have to tread to raise money. You not only have to pay attention to investors, but lawyers. Issues of international law, ITAR, insurance, liability, intellectual property rights. You may get VCs as investors, but they'll be concerned about the lawyers. Due diligence will be an issue.
Fleming: VC firms have a cadre of young people who will run models, chase legal issues, etc. You aren't ready for them yet. Most VC firms aren't ready, but individual VCs or their friends might. Need to have an exit strategy, because VCs really want cash, soon. There have been no exits in the industry yet. There will be. But for now, need to focus on folks interested in the long haul and building a company. Drive toward angels, holding companies, families, foundations. Not the best use of time or money to go after Silicon Valley VCs.
Dyson: To the extent that investors are interested, space tourism is a lot more attractive than rockets and technology. XCOR now talking about "user experience," and not just the engines. If you're doing something that can talk directly to consumers, talk to investors on that level.
Pistritto: Biggest difference between companies in this business and others is that many of them don't have business attributes. You have to be a businessperson first and technologist second. In this industry unfortunately, the technologists are high up the food chain and often founders. Hierarchy of investors: long-term long-holding period, all the way out to debt investors who will own your engines. There are angels, angels as groups acting as VC fund, thinking like angels, but acting systematically, VCs who are doing it with other people's money. We have the rich guys who started their own and some by angels, but none from an actual investment fund (other than Kistler, he's reminded).
Dyson: If you're a great technologist, you don't have to be a businessperson, but you have to find a partner who is, and find one you like and can work with. You can't do without it.
Fleming: Has to convince people at Georgia Tech that they don't want to be CEO of a company. CEOs get fired when things go sour. Chief technologist generally don't.
Fleming: Coming end of Shuttle has been good, because it has at last opened up a debate of what comes next, and opportunities.
Pistritto: Example of a company that is competing with the government that offers the same thing for free is Zero-G, despite the old dictum not to do that.
Dyson: In response to what investors will provide--money, contacts, common sense, political clout, helping outsiders understand us. Good investors will figure out what we need, and help us get this.
Pistritto: Don't just look to investors for money--they can provide other useful things.
What's the end game? Always IPO, merger/acquisition?
Fleiming: Short answer is yes. VCs aren't operating with their own money. They're operating with someone else's money who want their money back with a multiplier. If you take venture money, your shares have to be redeemable for it. Mergers generally better than going public (particularly since Sarbanes-Oxley). Once you've taken an investor, it's no longer "your" company. And VCs will want more of your company than angels or your brother-in-law, but they can also bring in more money.
What can we expect from the angel community?
Fleming: Need to do due diligence on investors. Ask other people in whom they've invested, ask what they're like sitting across the boardroom table monthly, ask them for their successes and failures.
Dyson: An approach to investors. Ask them if they remember when PCs were toys, PCs were a joke. They want to build new industries.
To question about risk aversion:
Fleming: Someone in this room will kill someone in the next five years. You won't hear that at most investment conferences.
Dyson: You've never been to a medical technology conference.
Pournelle points out that the most expensive tickets at NASCAR races are the locations that are most likely to be hit by a car gone astray. There is value to risk and danger for some people.
What would be the best thing that NASA could do for this industry?
Fleming: Pay money for tonnage of water in orbit. We need markets.
Pistritto: Key elements--good team, plausible business idea, plan to implement.
Dyson: Has to be coherent. Have to be able to explain to her. If they can't explain to her they may not be able to to customers either.
Fleming: Tell me a story. If you can't do it without viewgraphs, you may not have the story.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:22 PMDave Masten is talking about their company, that's now based in Mojave, just down the road from XCOR. Brief delay due to computer glitches. Meanwhile, here's a good roundup of what's going on in New Space in general from Alan Boyle, who unfortunately couldn't attend.
Giving up on the A/V, and just started talking instead.
Nothing in the literature on building expendable launch vehicles tells how to build reusable vehicles. For instance, factors of safety don't work, need more robustness. "Build a little, test a little," is working fine, and making similar progress to Armadillo but behind their schedule. Six months ago, they were two weeks from flight, and still are. As far as he's concerned, Armadillo won the LLC last year. They intend to give them a run for their money this year, but they may not, because they're actually busy with potential contracts. Nothing signed yet, but the exposure of the X-Prize Cup was apparently good for business.
Question from John Carmack about selling engines: same answer as XCOR--liability issues are going to be a problem, they have some ideas how to deal with this, but it's going to add to the cost of the engine. Cost of machining engine is tens of thousands of dollars, but sales price will have to be much higher. Have been looking at indemnification program with one of their insurance brokers. Thinks that some of the risk is reduced because users will likely be flying under FAA-AST review.
Noting that Mojave has been great for them, and when they need something done, people figure out how to do it, rather than telling them that they can't.
What is needed for success. Start with large fortune, large ego, and confidence, or you won't make it. Preparing for both Level 1 and Level 2 of Challenge, and hoping for both. Four people in Mojave, one business development guy (Michael Mealing) in Atlanta, and a few volunteers.
Applause as screen finally comes up.
Goal: aircraft-like operations of reusable rockets, quick turnaround, several flights per day. Spend a lot of time testing components, nothing except propellant changed between flights. Components seem to have almost infinite life. No single-failure modes, failures need to be graceful. Multiple failures don't jeopardize payload or public. They've built a prototype to validate engine, controls and operations. Original design was a maintenance nightmare in terms of leaks, and they redesigned to eliminate it.
History: '01, not just a hobby any more
'02, "Who's this Mormon?" (Jon Goff)
'03, Founders in same room at same time, "We're actually doing this."
'04-'05, setting up facilities, igniter work, vehicle/engine design
'06, Engine works well, but need new injector, because hand-sharpened tools of manufacturer were giving inconsistent results, think they have the problem fixed now. Built first prototype vehicle.
Next steps, finish vehicle, initial flight tests, then next version that will be LLC capable. Plan two test sessions a week of flight tests, of various durations.
Goal is operable suborbital, operable, responsive vehicle to a hundred kilometers. Vertical takeoff, vertical landing. Three-legged vehicle. Planning pistonless pumps, retractable gear, increased thrust, with more or bigger engines, RCS, "space rating" components, then go to space. Running on isopropyl alcohol/LOX. They were close to having permit applications for LLC last year, and anticipate no FAA problems this year.
Further plans, orbit, probably two stage. Notes that they're different from Armadillo in that their primary markets are research/education, rather than passengers. Wants to have system that can allow rapid reflight with experiments, a capability that the research community has never seen before.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:24 AMHe's talking about the orbital prizes discussion on the Arocket listserv a couple years ago, and going to give an update on Centennial Challenges (Two competitions coming up in the next five weeks).
Major points:
Value of purse: bigger is better
- attracts more sponsors
- enables market transformation
Number: more is better
-attracts more competitors
-attracts investors, sponsors
Don't specify reusability--specify high flight rate
Range of suggested payloads to orbit
1, 10, 300 kg
No docking needed
Showing graduated matrix for level of performance and number of flights
Now showing an NASA internal study based on conversation with Bigelow (June 2004)
After talking to Human Rating Board, major issue from Chief Medical Officer--would be unethical to allow other companies to take passenger risks (with training and conditioning) that NASA didn't allow astronauts to take, so missed opportunity to team with Bigelow.
To maximize number of competitors and probability of winner, minimize number of crew, repeatability, duration.
To maximize commercial benefit with challenge outcomes, increase number of crew, then repeatability.
Did mass growth calculations using historical data, assuming 300 seconds Isp, recognized that government cost estimates weren't reliable for figuring out what private entities could do.
Findings:
1-2 crew six hours
1 crew twelve hours
others far term, or too expensive
Suggested:
Two crew, launch to LEO 6 hours, safe return to earth. Bigelow wanted four crew, docking, higher altitude, etc. So no deal.
Had Paragon do an external study, with bottoms-up point design, using historic cost/capability relationships. Recommended well-defined goals from the beginning: strengthen industry? (sorry, charts and words flying by too fast to keep up).
$50M too low, $100M lower bound, $250M ideal (higher would encourage pot stealing by big boys). Suggested first and second prizes, prizes should be tax free. Estimated cost to compete was on the order of $200M. Net prize value should be at least $100M. Viable commercial market needed to really make it attractive.
Bottom line: no orbital prize.
Centennial Challenges Status
Benefits to NASA: looking for technology "spin-in" (leveraging off civil developments). New sources of innovation, leveraging of taxpayer dollars, increased awareness of science and technology.
Five allied organizations help manage the program for now fee, NASA only puts up money. All of taxpayers' dollars go to purses. Their benefit is to get visibility by associating themselves with NASA, and they're allowed to use the "meatball."
May 2-3, astronaut glove challenge in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. Just testing the bladder restraints.
Regolith excavation at the Santa Maria fairground later in May, using eight tons of regolith simulant from Wisconsin.
Personal Air Vehicle is coming up in August (at AirVenture?)
Beam Power, Tether, and Lunar Lander coming up in October at the X-Prize Cup. Next year is a potential MoonROx competition in June, to get breathable oxygen (2.5 kg in four hours) from lunar simulant.
Had problems last year with people who apparently didn't read the rule books.
No new appropriations from Congress for this. Had to figure out how to take the money they had in hand and distribute it for prizes. have a plan out to 2011, but doesn't allow new prizes unless Congress comes up with more money (was in discussion for three new competitions for $7M, but broke them off until they get more money). Recognizes frustration of dealing with NASA when it reneges all the time. Many purses broken up into first, second and third place.
In future years, if they get money, the lunar excavation and oxygen extraction will be combined into a single competition.
In response to a question, he points out that private prizes have much more flexibility if they can raise their own money, because they won't be hindered by all of NASA's constraints. Notes that they were also looking for a lunar robotic landing challenge, with a purse of $45M. Ed Wright notes that there's a Capitol Hill roundtable planned to discuss prizes on the 2nd and 3rd of June.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:09 AMHere is my Space Access presentation:
I asked Robin about her half-price contract with Constellation Services and she says it does not include a test flight, so perhaps if we are not first to buy that, we can have half as many players to get to the trip for two around the Moon.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:46 AMOK, this time for sure.
Starting off with a thank you. This was his first conference in a couple years that he's had time at the conference to actually see the conference and talk with old friends, because he wasn't consumed with meetings.
XCOR turned a profit last year. A small one, but they're still actively involved in the development of product lines, so all that means is that the money temporarily came in faster than they could spend it. Had about $3.7M in revenue last year, probably about the same this year for reasons to come later. About 34 employees.
They are building vehicles to help us go, but because they are the largest company that isn't well funded, they "flip burgers for a living," in that they look for customers who need problems solved that they also need solved, and have managed to turn R&D from a cost center to a profit center, but it's still useful R&D for their goals.
Nitrous oxide/methane thruster in the fifty-pound class for an attitude control thruster. Customer's application is different than XCOR's, but it's still good.
Pump-fed fueled, pressure-fed lox engine for the rocket racer. They turned out to be ahead of the rest of the schedule for the rocket racer activity, and they were asked to slow down to let the rest of the things catch up. Ramping back up now, though. They will be mass producing engines (a dozen in the first order), with a ten-minute turnaround, which will be an eye opener for the military, particularly in the ORS world. Sixteen sorties a day may change minds and careers.
7500 lbf thrust LOX/methane engine is being developed with ATK (for NASA). Theory was that NASA would talk to ATK and ATK would talk to XCOR, to maintain Jeff's blood pressure. Hasn't always worked out that way, but working with ATK has been surprisingly good, and hopes that it will continue, as a model of how to work with the big boys. Thinks that ATK recognizes the value of the smaller companies, and view them as asset rather than threat. Opportunities for synergy. New engine with propellants no one has considered for forty years and high performance requirements, and so far, so good. Playing video that shows the scale of the new (large) mobile test stand.
Showed the engine burn with a beautiful set of shock diamonds. Now showing a three-piston propellant pump, which runs for hours reliably. Finally showing lox/kerosene engine for rocket racer, in typical burn durations for racing.
"Barring some unforeseen event, by the time I come back next year, I will finally have my first ride." Can't say much about suborbital vehicle effort, but it's progressing, and they're past stage of wondering how they're going to solve various problems. No schedule, but feeling good about it. Seeing some signs of interest from government customers, but can't say much more than that right now. So much contract work, hard to keep track (which is a good thing).
Admires Masten's public posture in terms of communicating technical road ahead without getting too deep in the technical weeds. Have to make it clear to the public that suborbital is by no means the last step on the road. Last year, they ran out of technology problems to solve, so are doing strategic thinking, refilling their plate of problems for getting to orbit, and will be looking for customers to solve those problems, so that they'll be able to move on to the next step.
NASA is a challenging customer for XCOR. The reason is not that they're stupid or incompetent. Have been impressed with competency and experience of the people they're dealing with. The unpleasant surprise is that they're like an alien race so alien that there's no point of contact or ability to communicate, in terms of their culture. Fortunately, ATK acts as an interpreter. XCOR producing engine results that NASA didn't expect to get. Instead of a technology hobby shop that they expected, there is now a place on the NASA product roadmap for methane to go, and all of a sudden this is becoming real (for lunar ascent stage). They have real hope that this engine will have a descendant that will lift astronauts from the moon, but this reality is putting new players in the game, and reexamining results to date.
Taking question now. Will NASA reports be publicly available? Not his department, but much of the high-risk work was done prior to NASA contract and is proprietary.
How about selling rocket engines to the private sector? Opens up lots of issues in terms of maintenance, ITAR, warranty violation, liability, etc. Not to the point of selling them off the rack, even if they were in production, and price can't be estimated until insurance costs can be known.
Asked about relative virtues of various pumps (piston, pistonless, turbo, etc.). Saying that XCOR doesn't subscribe to "magic bean" theory to space--that technologies have to be evaluated in context. Don't see a path on their roadmap for pistonless pump, but that doesn't mean that it's wrong for someone else.
What kind of results were NASA surprised to learn about methane performance? Can't be specific without clearing room for ITAR. They set a high bar for performance to beat hypergolics, and XCOR exceeded them, along with smooth starts and stops. NASA was having trouble believing the data, because it is perceived to be too good. Original application for vehicle was backup for CEV SM, and was pressure fed for reliability, but now looking at a smaller engine for for lunar. However still, pressure fed, again because it has to start.
Ken Davidian asks which parts of NASA they're working with. Langley propulsion, Marshall and another that I missed. Ken wants to make the point that NASA is not a monolith, and Jeff strongly agrees (says that even a center isn't one). We have to consider that NASA seems to be seriously considering putting an entrepreneurial company on the critical path of a safety-critical system for their flagship program. If someone had told him that they would do this two years ago, he would have thought they were smoking something.
Asked about differences between NASA and Air Force. Answer: each customer has their own idiosyncracies and challenges. No one shows up at the door with a big pile of money and says "call me when it's done."
Has some comments on policy, because leaving and will miss policy discussion later. ITAR sucks, but reminds of Jerry's comment about "building a golden bridge." National security is critical: we live in a dangerous world. It is essential that US maintain technical advantage over our adversaries. ITAR is not currently doing that, it slows us down, and does nothing to hurt our adversaries. Alternative approach is to provide a new system that offers the State Department as they have right now, but will actually work. (Devil's in the details, of course).
Second issue: what do we want NASA to be. Doesn't know, but he does know what we want NACA to be. We want it to be existing: dual-use technologies of value to government and private sector. NASA is out, out, out of that business. The entire office that they used to work with on advanced technology is gone. Over turning ever couch cushion called "research" and pulling it out to feed the monster. Air Force and DARPA developing space technologies, but not necessarily dual use. No conscious decision to get out of the civil space R&D business, but that's where we are, and Congress has never actually been confronted with that choice. It's our job as constituents to make the choices clear. Retask NASA with that job, retask someone else with it, or create a new entity, but someone should be doing it, and Congress should be made explicitly aware that this has happened.
Jerry Pournelle pointing out that this situation won't pertain forever--someone will figure out that we're doing no long-term technology planning, and we'll have more leverage if we know where we want to go, and can get them thinking about it early. Jeff points out that Congress does push back on a piecemeal basis (e.g., aeronautics) but not as part of any grand strategy of concern.
Talk over. Ken Davidian next.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:34 AMJeff Greason was scheduled to talk later this morning, but he had a situation come up that required him to leave earlier than planned, so his talk has been moved up, swapping with Masten Space. He'll be starting in a few minutes, and I'll be blogging.
[Update]
Oops! My mistake. Sam Dinkin is speaking first. He's showing a video the CSI "Lunar Tour" concept, using Russian hardware for tourist trip around the moon. Three weeks, including a stay at the ISS, for a hundred million dollars. (Note: Robin Snelson tells me she's offering it for fifty million--half price! That's what we want to see: spacefare wars.)
Sam contines to see games as a means to expand the market for suborbital spaceflight, which few can afford on their own. Games are self-financing. Spaceshot is a media company, not a space company. Hope is that with success, will be acquired as a media company, valuation in the hundreds of millions or billions.
Originally thought that adults would be the big market, because they have the money, but it turns out that they're jaded and the kids are the most interested, and they have enough money, if the game is properly repositioned. Expects interest to grow as flights and winners appear. Feels validated by his competition--Virgin/Volvo, Microsoft/Rocketplane/Vanishingpoint. Names were thrown away after games were over. His plan is sustainable, though, rather than a one-shot.
Flight to the moon will require millions of players. But Barbara Morgan has been waiting 22 years to fly on a government vehicle, so be patient. Notes that he is a little early to market, because Rocketplane XP is not yet flying, nor is Bigelow. Will be expanding to new languages (Spanish, Japanese) in the next couple years, new games and non-space prizes (cars, houses, cash).
I'm sure that Sam will correct/expand this report of his talk.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:49 AMThe problem, Sam, with the cost numbers to orbit are that it's not clear whether or not they're cost numbers to come back from orbit. Yes, the first two stages are presumably recoverable, but does the third one contain enough propellant to deorbit and get all the way back down to the ground, propulsively? There's no TPS in this concept, as far as I can see. If he has to come back down the same way he went up, there has to be a lot of propellant left in the vehicle in orbit for return. It's a question that I didn't ask John yesterday, but I may today.
I know that he has been talking a lot to Lutz Kayser, but I hope he didn't drink too much of the koolaid. OTRAG was, after all, expendable.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:50 AMJohn Carmack's announcement of a modular rocket that can reach suborbital space for $25,000 per module is revolutionary. Each module can independently reach suborbital space. Group the modules together and any size or shaped payload can reach suborbital space. The cost to get to space is $250 per module in fuel costs.
In a video that John said will be posted to his web site, he showed the modules being hooked together in a square arrays. These arrays can then be stacked for staging.
He predicts that he will produce the Armadillo orbital "Sputnik" which John also referred to as Mitchell Burnside-Clapp's DYANN--Do You All Notice Now?
There are two revolutions here. The first is an open source garage revolution. With a small warehouse and a budget closer to Charlie Farmer's in Farmer Astronaut than COTS winners RpK and SpaceX, Armadillo in a humble, matter-of-fact tone is brashly announcing an orbital program.
The second is the price of the revolution. At $25,000 per module, the capital cost per delta V is unprecedented and substantially lower than RpK or SpaceX.
This revolution was incrementally developed in plain sight and demonstrated in plain sight. No one thought Carmack's Pixel and Texel were minimum concept proofs for a 64-module version. No one thought that by looking at the specifications they were seeing the ultimate cheap first stage and second stage and third stage.
Carmack thinks he can get the mass ratio down from 27 to 15 with some low cost evolutionary modifications. At 15-1, he can loft "Pixel 2" onto a suborbital trajectory with a 64-module first-stage lifter made up of 16 Pixels arrayed in a 4-4 grid or 8x8 single modules. Pixel 2 will be full of fuel and be the second stage. On top of Pixel will be a single module with a 25 lb. payload that will make it all the way to orbit. The cost for this delivery? The capital costs would be about $1.7 million if he can stay under $25,000 per module. If only the first stage is reusable, the cost per flight would be $150,000. If the first and second stage are reusable, the cost per flight would be $60,000. For a three stage system, that is a not very revolutionary price of $2400 per pound to orbit (albeit revolutionary vs. old space of $10,000+ per pound though.)
If they achieve a two-stage to orbit system where the second stage is also reusable, that would deliver a 100 lb payload to orbit for $35,000. That is roughly half fuel and oxidizer and half capital assuming a 100 flight lifetime. $350/lb is revolutionary. If this could be scaled up to Spacex Falcon IX payload size of 22,770 lbs., that's $8 million or $22 million for a Falcon IX heavy sized payload of 62,500 lbs. An array of 100x100 modules supporting a second stage array of 25x25 modules boggles the mind and would cost $265 million in capital costs at $25,000 each. The flight rate assumptions would not be invalidated, however, because the vehicle could be broken up to support the suborbital tourism industry and smaller orbital payloads.
On the optimistic side, this price is before mass production. This mass ratio is before switching to methane (a 10% improvement in ISP over alcohol and a 50+% fuel price drop too). Google revolutionized servers by using modular white box CPUs. Now Carmack is making a bid to do the same thing. Nevertheless, Henry Vanderbilt cautions me that there is a long way to go from a view graph to orbit.
---------Update 3/24/07 7:00 MST---------
A wide plane requires a bunch of successively stronger connectors moving inward and results in very little additional payload delivered by the outside modules. This is especially true with a square grid which require more connections moving in from the corners than a hexagonal one. Other possibilities are more stages so connections are shorter and more vertical and larger, taller modules for lower stages.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 06:09 AMTim Bendel is head of the company, based in Chugwater, Wyoming (they bought an old Atlas missile silo and set up shop in it, including housing).
They provide attitude control systems, engines, and test facilities to other startups. Describing their use of "state-space" controllers that solve a simultaneous set of differential equations, rather than classical ones, that allow a rapid seek/find of an optimal solution in real time. Had a demonstration at the X-Prize Cup last fall, using cold-gas thrusters, using it to balance a cone on end with air pulses. Showing a video of the demo. "Like balancing a broom on your finger." They gave the kids nerf balls to try to knock it over, to demonstrate its ability to respond to unexpected disturbances. Supplying systems to Masten Space for their attitude control.
Other company is "Speedup" which is building a Lunar Lander Challenge vehicle, which is a prototype for what they call a "flying motorcycle."
Also developing a 7500 lbf engine, and capabilities to design whole vehicles. In addition, they have engine test facilities. Sorry, I'm distracted by other things, but they do seem to have some interesting capabilities to other entrepreneurs. They seem to be one of the companies trying to make money by selling picks and pans to the miners.
Applying for spaceport license out of their facility, which has the support of the Wyoming Economic Development Council. It has a mile radius of empty space, so could provide a good test range for small vehicles that can't exceed that distance.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:31 PMJohn Carmack is showing a video describing all of the testing they've done, and how all the progress they've made is two days a week with an all-volunteer team. Describing the switch from peroxide to lox/methanol, and how they built the two vehicles capable of entering the Lunar Landing Challenge. Time constraints didn't allow them the test time, so they had vehicles that "couldn't land as well as they could fly." Vehicles kicked up so much dust out in the desert, it "looked like a tornado approaching the landing pad." Hard to capture all of the testimonials and desciptions of the flights from the various participants. Presumably this video will appear soon at the Armadillo web site. Showing a computer graphic of assembling a theoretical modular orbital vehicle (influenced by Otrag concepts). Video ends with an NVidia logo, thanking them for sponsoring attempt.
Spent three million dollars over six years. Half a million dollars a year, with most still in volunteer positions. Had to pay Neil, because getting permits doesn't qualify as "fun" like the rest of the stuff. Thinks they're on the right track to get them all the way to orbit, eventually. Have much more robust legs in the vehicles now, has improved guidance to eliminate drift, increased deadbands to waste less RCS. Have experimental permit to go up to Oklahoma Spaceport and do some testing next month. Think they're ready to win, but know they have to wait until October. Vehicle "looks a little funny," but has more capability and performance than either SpaceShipOne or DC-X.
Has a theory that roll-thruster deadband may have been too tight on the Falcon second stage, based on many similar experiences with their own vehicles. Flown half a dozen times since LLC, and they always launch in a "go to space" configuration, including fuel and burn duration, but keep it low. Overall the regulatory burden has been light, and they're expecting to apply for a commercial launch license this year--doesn't expect it to be that bad, though worse than permit.
By the end of this year, space-capable vehicle, with insurance already in hand, at least permits and probably launch licenses at that time. Thinks that if the technology is right, the business issues are solvable. They've learned a lot about manufacturing, and tradeoffs in solutions space for materials, and tank shapes, and they aren't spending that much money, and are flying many more test flights than anyone else is doing. Doesn't expect to go to space the first time. Expects to have many failures, some of them catastrophic. Their philosophy is not to make things perfect on first attempt by spending lots of money (NASA approach), but making things perfect over time with a lot of build and test.
It's been nice to have a growth curve from tee-shirts, appearance fees, sponsorship. Not profitable yet, but can see it ahead. They were rushed last year, but think that this year they have plenty of time, and it will take "really bad luck" for them not to come away with something this year. Program is sustainable with his funding, "as long as the bottom doesn't drop out of the videogame market." Could cost-effectively get to perhaps twice their development rate, but can't speed up much more by throwing lots of money at it. Happy with the rate they're going, and "absolutely going to carry people into space." Making steady progress toward that next year, but not promising. Believes that when the vehicles have been demonstrated, the business case will take care of itself. They expect to have spent five million in development, whereas Virgin will spend ten times that much. They will have much bigger windows and better view. Sees multiple market niches, with some people wanting to take off like and airplane, and some who want to ride a "real rocket ship."
He thinks that a vehicle with "dozens of engine modules" can be reliable. Most look at this with skepticism, but he thinks it's unjustified. May want to have a bigger base module when he gets to large vehicles (Falcon 5 class). Will be adding three-axis GPS, whose price has dropped to ten grand, which will allow recovery from tumbles. Thinks that he is ahead of his competitors because he accepts failure, whereas others still work too hard to get it right the first time. If he wins money, they'll be flying straight up early next year, and think they will get close to a hundred kilometers if not all the way, but there are market opportunities even at a hundred fifty thousand feet. They're getting better at building these vehicles, and they can get more productive at higher rates. Still believes that it's possible to build something that can go all the way to orbit with something built in a garage, or at least a small section of a warehouse. And he thinks he may make back his investment in the next couple years.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:39 PMTalking about how a year ago he propounded a strategic deal that we could and should cut with NASA--if NASA was going to invest in COTS and technology, and fund Centennial Challenges and buy suborbital rides, and reach out to New Space, then why not let them (instead of fighting with them) do Ares? Why fight about Orion, or capsules versus wings. If we could find a way to get enough money out of them over the next few years to do the things that we needed to get done, then go ahead and let them do what they were going to do to get to LEO, because we were going to beat them to the moon. He was not saying we should support Constellation, or Ares or Orion--he was simply saying, "Why fight it?"
He was wrong. Not that we should get into fights over designs, but he was wrong to think that NASA wouldn't screw it up. But the way they seem to be going about it is internally logical and consistent, and predictable with the circumstances they face, but Orion and Ares are eating up many things in the agency, including the things we thought we hoped we'd get. So the truce is over.
Notes that it's easily as much Congress' fault. NASA had the original idea of letting a lot of people try a lot of things, but because Congress couldn't figure out which district the money would get spent in, or when it would get spent, they didn't understand, or have any interest in prizes. Their job is politics, and you pass bills based on getting 51%. Decisions are made on both substantive and political grounds, and when the appropriations committee doesn't know who's going to win the prize, they don't know who's going to come to the fund raiser. They don't see the lobby. It's hard to get federal funding for some set aside that someone might win or might not. He's not a great fan of prizes as a cure-all, but they can be a useful mechanism. And NASA never explained to Congress that if the prizes work, there would be lots of jobs in lots of districts, and if NASA was seen to be responsible for this, it would make it easier for NASA to win support. And now NASA has stopped asking for money for them.
He's concerned that NASA is more interested in cutting deals with foreign partners than nurturing commercial US industry, and they are setting themselves up for having station eat them alive because they won't be able to afford to service it. They gave Marshall the easiest, low-tech rocket to design, and they gave JSC the easiest low-tech crew vehicle to design, and it's going to take until 2015, and cost a lot of money. They have cut Advanced Capabilities, and don't think they need it because they don't seriously expect to do much research at ISS. But it also involved with coming up with better ways to do things in exploration. They are not designing any infrastructure to be commercially owned and operated.
NASA trying to rush Orion in order to get to ISS. The "gap" isn't a national security gap, or a human spaceflight gap, or an American spaceflight gap. It's simply a US government human spaceflight gap. Are we really so cynical about US capitalism and innovation that we don't believe that private enterprise could do the job if given incentives? Griffin himself admitted there was no schedule pull for going back to the moon--the only schedule pull for political support was the gap. The notion was that Congress would care so much about space station that they would fund NASA to fill the gap. "If they wanted it so badly, why didn't they just put out a few billion-dollar prizes to accomplish it"? Because they didn't know where or when the money would be spent. Democracy is the worst form of all the others, but he's not very happy with its results in space policy right now.
There are other bad ideas. Like United Launch Alliance. How could they let this past the anti-trust statutes? They're adding additional oversight, and SETA contractors, and FFRDCs and other "powerpoint shops," as though that would solve the problem.
Now that he has that out of his system, he feels better.
Now for the good news.
Dynamic leadership at the FAA that helped with the passage of the revolutionary legislation a couple years ago. AST is now a star in the FAA for the work they're doing in nurturing this industry. There's now ten million dollars in the airport improvement program this year that can be used to convert/expand airports to spaceports. Spaceport insfrastructure is now recognized as strategic and is funded by the federal government.
Operationally-responsive space is now getting attention from the Air Force, something we've been preaching for years. Transitioning from large, expensive infrequent satellites to small, cheaper, often satellites, with surge capability. And there's a private industry that needs vehicles that can do this for their own needs (providing passenger transport). Even Congress has gotten on board, because they know that the war fighter in the field actually wants to have intelligence when he needs it, not months later. It could make sense to spend a few millions dollars on a Tascat/Falcon launch to get something into place that can make a difference in a battle, and the Chinese ASAT test woke them up, because these "gold plated satellites can't be armor plated as well." There's now eighty million dollars for ORS, though the Air Force was fighting against having anything in their budget for it a few months ago. The relevant new chairman in the House recognizes the need to invest more in "PC" satellites and less in "mainframe" satellites. Cautions that we don't know how successful this will be, but there are opportunities there.
Mike Griffin continues to fund COTS at half a billion, and he's doing other things with other private entities, but Jim is afraid that it's too little, and that Congress won't continue to support it. Doesn't know how things will turn out--not as good as he thought they would last year, but there are good things happening. This industry is encouraging, and despite his "downcast eye," he is happy to see us, and happy to be with us and not in DC.
Ending on (what he thinks is) a positive note. One of the accomplishments that Mike Griffin has accomplished is that Shuttle will not fly much past 2010 or 2011. There are only tanks left for seventeenish more flights, and it costs four billion dollars a year. If they don't end by then, they won't get to the moon.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:56 PMJim Dunstan is giving a talk on acceptable levels of risk for various transportation modes. Case in point, we could reduce our forty-thousand traffic deaths but aren't willing to pay the cost. We accepted significant loss of life for early aviation. It was recognized in developing the Warsaw Convention that we had to "do for law what the engineers were doing for machines," which meant we needed a liability regime. Aviation has strict liability, with a cap per the convention. Space currently has an uncapped liability, driven by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and the 1972 liability convention.
He thinks that he's perhaps found a loophole in the liability convention for spaceflight participant, though it's not clear whether "participant" means "crew" or "passengers" (or both). Unfortunately there's enough wiggle room for plaintiff's lawyers to have a field day.
He is still amazed that we won the battle a couple years ago in getting the FAA to keep hands off passenger safety regs for now, but the battle isn't over. It established a "Informed Risk Regime" for spaceflight participants. Implication for this is that, since there is no federal tort law, it will be matter for state laws (at least in the states in which people operate, if not in all fifty, just to be safe). This is the "next frontier" for space lawyers. Gaol is to provide immunity for operators who have FAA licenses and have obtained "informed consent," based on extreme sports, such as helicopter skiing.
Virginia has passed such a law, though it needs to have a governor's amendment with help from the space lawyers, because original law was based on an agricultural tourism bill to protect farmers on historical farms. Tractors and spaceships aren't quite the same thing, so they took the existing language and tied it back into the FAA regulations as much as possible. Virginia needed to do this early, because they have a spaceport at Wallops, and they also have a common law that says that citizens cannot waive right to sue in prospect. The law had to be amended to override this. It has been submitted to the governor, who accepted the amended language, and it's hoped that it will be repassed in April. He is giving credit to Jack Kennedy to make this happen (in the face of opposition from the Trial Lawyers Association). Still problems with the bill--could be better from a clean sheet of paper, but it's good enough for now.
Next targets--Oklahoma, New Mexico, and California (which might require a state constitutional amendment).
Another concern is if someone comes down with cancer after flying and attempts to blame it on the flight. Need to characterize environment of vehicles during testing to help fight this.
And somehow, it seems appropriate to point to this article that describes how lousy the human mind is at assessing risk. This may be one of the biggest problems with this industry.
[Update at 5 PM MST]
Jack Kennedy checks in in comments with a link to the latest version of the bill.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:37 PMHenry Cate, who normally blogs about home schooling is also live blogging the conference. Just keep scrolling.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:07 PMMichelle Murray of FAA-AST gave a presentation on what the office has been up to for the past year since the last Space Access meeting. In the process, she announced that Blue Origin had a successful test flight yesterday. She's probably not at liberty to say much more than that, but perhaps they will have something at their site about it soon (they don't yet). Then again, perhaps not.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:55 PMKerry Scarlott, an attorney who specializes in ITAR, will be talking on it. Following that, there will a panel on it, on which I'll be sitting, so don't expect me to blog it.
Introduction, saying it is what it is, rather than what we can do to change it. It is effective when talking about guns and bullets and missile technology, but it's questionable whether it is with this community, and there is hope that it may change, but right now, it's something we have to live with. Explaining some of the nuts and bolts of how it works, then put together the panel, where he can respond to issues that the rest of us bring up.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:52 AMThe acronym is the Advisory Committee on Entrepreneurial Space Access. Charles Miller, who is currently consulting to the Air Force Research Lab at Wright-Patt, is providing a status report on the progress in terms of developing means by which the DoD and the entrepreneurial space community can mutually interact, to focus on Operationally Responsive Space. One of the ideas was "a NACA for the twenty-first century," hence the name. AFRL supports this concept. He's been briefing many people on this, and there's support from other elements of the DoD, and there may be a major meeting on this before the end of Fiscal 2007 (i.e., September).
Notes that we are vulnerable to asymmetric attacks in space. This isn't new, but Iraq insurgency has taught much of the world that asymmetry works against the US, and China recently demonstrated that it could work in space, with their ASAR test, people are now taking it seriously. We are much more sensitive to this than the other guy--our entire force structure is now based on space. We become dumb, deaf and blind absent our orbital assets, whereas the enemy isn't bothered at all. Solution is rapid relauch of assets, which capability could give an enemy pause because it reduces the value of attacking us. The systems needed to do this have other benefits, of reducing cost of space in general, reducing the cost of the satellites, commercial spinoff, etc. Need to break out of the cycle of complex, expensive long-lead satellites and more into a more responsive procurement and deployment environment. More from a vicious cycle to a virtuous one. Go with shorter-lived, smaller, more satellites, more consistently on the leading edge, with higher rates that bring down costs.
Describing what NACA did that made things happen, cost effectively, in aviation. Helped coordinate industry and government, helped mitigate disputes between Curtis and Wrights, early advocates for the airmail service. Performed technology development for aircraft that were generically applicable.
We currently have some coordinating bodies, but none that cross the boundary between industry and government. Need annual reports on what barriers are (technology, regulatory, etc.). Need to have internships and cross pollenization, perhaps through vouchers to industry, and stimulate ideas for new markets and perhaps
Commercial spaceplane day on July 19th, supported by AFRL, and a Reusable Access to Space Exchange will be in late August in Dayton.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:33 AMDana finished early, so an unscheduled speaker, Bruce Pittman, is giving a talk on the NASA Ames Space Portal, which was established by Pete Worden (Ames center director) to set up a way for private industry to more easily interface with NASA.
"If space is so great, why aren't we using it more"? You'd think we'd be smarter than we are after fifty years. Held a series of workshops to figure out what's missing to bring the full potential of commercial space to fruition. Time scales too long on research, space not routine enough, no clear demand model. Need to find more robust customer base. Also need to find business cases that will close in order to raise money.
They decided that this is actually a pretty good time to get into the space business. Helping support COTS (which is not a contract--it's a public/private partnership via a Space Act Agreement). We should recognize that this is a very difficult thing for NASA, because they don't like to relinquish control, and if they're not doing as good a job of it as they can, be happy that they're doing it at all, and hope that they get better at it. Pointing out the difficulties of NASA's "visiting vehicle" policy, and need to make this easier, as well as making it easier to do things on the station itself.
They're trying to learn from history, based on NACA (I think that Charles Miller will be talking about this as well, after the break). NACA formed to help regain the lead from the Europeans in aviation early in the century. We need a NACA-like entity for space, resurrecting the good things that NACA did right up until NASA was formed that created the aviation industry. In keeping with the National Space Act, but NASA has done a poor job of implementation.
Goal of the portal is to help NASA meet these legislative obligations, by helping build customer base for space services, and providing a "friendly front door" for the agency.
Working with NASA on COTS, looking for ideas for COTS follow ons. Working on Virtual Reality and simspace (working with Second Life) to see how to apply to the real space world. Commercial workshop results available on the web.
[Stuff coming too fast to capture--recommend going to Ames Space Portal web site for more information.]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:42 AMDana Andrews talking about the company (founded by his son). "Largest unheard-of aerospace company." Now at seventy people, and growing fast.
Lot of work for a lot of people. Formed in 1999. Got started without investors, by doing small contracts for NASA and the Air Force. Double in size and revenue every year. Between fifteen and twenty million in revenue expected this year. They are hiring.
They have a system for going to the moon and Mars that would cost roughly half of ESAS. NASA's Orion module that they show the press was actually built by Andrews, by removing their logo and replacing it with the meatball. Mix of old Boeing veterans with young "computer wizards" who are being mentored. Work NASA, commercial, DoD, split equally, with all three expanding. Woman-owned disadvantaged business (his daughter-in-law is CEO, and Korean--woman who raised Kistler's first major funding).
Share a building with Paul Allen in downtown Seattle. Work well with both big and small companies.
One of the projects is Peregrin, a horizontal takeoff, horizontal landing rapid-response launcher, in which the recent Chinese ASAT test has aroused Pentagon interest. They supported both teams in CEV (firewalled off with different wings). Assisting ATK in Ares 1 first stage. Supporting RpK on COTS, capable of rapid prototyping.
They believe they now have the critical mass of people and resources to go out and design a system that can reduce cost of access to space. They're just waiting for the right opportunity.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:16 AMDana Andrews talking about the company (founded by his son). "Largest unheard-of aerospace company." Now at seventy people, and growing fast.
Lot of work for a lot of people. Formed in 1999. Got started without investors, by doing small contracts for NASA and the Air Force. Double in size and revenue every year. Between fifteen and twenty million in revenue expected this year. They are hiring.
They have a system for going to the moon and Mars that would cost roughly half of ESAS. NASA's Orion module that they show the press was actually built by Andrews, by removing their logo and replacing it with the meatball. Mix of old Boeing veterans with young "computer wizards" who are being mentored. Work NASA, commercial, DoD, split equally, with all three expanding. Woman-owned disadvantaged business (his daughter-in-law is CEO, and Korean--woman who raised Kistler's first major funding).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:15 AMThe first session on Friday morning will be kicked off by Chuck Lauer from RpK, and Dana Andrews of Andrews Aerospace.
[Update]
Chuck is introducing George French, III (son of RpK chairman) to give the talk. Describing how he got interested in space when he went to Space Camp at age 9 with his father, where they both became committed to it. He also realized at that age that he wasn't going to become an astronaut. Was the only ten-year-old kid with a mockup of the solar system, including every exploratory probe with descriptions. Got into an argument with his science teacher about how the moon wasn't habitable. He brought in the space binder that he and his dad had been collecting and presented it to the class. George the second started investing in various companies--OSC, Pioneer Rocketplane, Kistler--and the original Space Camp trip eventually led to him becoming CEO of RpK.
RpK only company with two separate reusable concepts--one suborbital and one orbital. On schedule for first suborbital flight in 2009. Same date for orbital system. Finishing CDR on engine injector for suborbital XP by end of March, avionics defined and under design, at PDR level for ECLSS. Moog doing actuators for flight control system. Built six models for wind-tunnel testing. Well along through AST licensing process, just need to do safety review and expected casualty calculation--don't think that licensing is on the current critical path. Will be able to handle payload modules for microgravity experiments as well as passengers.
Both their launch sites--Burns Flat, OK for XP and Woomera (Down Under) for the orbital K-1--are very flat. Still looking around for spaceport for K-1 in the US. K-1 is meeting COTS milestones, though no details provided in this talk (will provide information later if asked). Structural fab nearly complete.
Will be able to deliver payloads to and from space, unlike most launch systems. Will be able to carry both pressurized and unpressurized cargo.
Here's news: they've signed a letter of intent with Bigelow to carry passengers by 2012. Also have a deal with Microsoft to give away an XP ride as a prize associated with their Vanishing Point game (part of the Vista rollout). Using Abercrombie and Kent to market their services.
Summary--they believe that they will help peoples' dreams of traveling in space come true.
Charles Lurio asks if they can complete the program if NASA fails to complete funding on COTS. Answer is that they have other funding sources, sufficient to complete K-1, even if NASA reneges. Good news, if true. When asked about the Bigelow deal, don't want to give any more details, because Bigelow will be making an announcement at the National Space Symposium in early April.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:29 AMI got here late yesterday, and there was a shortage of space at the bloggers row, so I didn't bother to live blog anything. But Jeff Foust has a report on perhaps the most interesting talk, by Steve Cook, on something that has little relationship to cheap access to space (and represents in fact the opposite)--Ares 1 and Ares 5. As Jeff notes, there was disputation over costs, and he was (understandably) evasive, though it's almost certainly true that even NASA doesn't know (they never really do, the way they keep books). And it's difficult, and even arbitrary to attempt to allocate fixed and development costs of a program like this that has common elements, so people tend to jigger the numbers to make the case they want to make. Steve deserves kudos for walking into the lion's den and doing what is, after all, only his job, as best it can be done.
The morning session begins in half an hour or so.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:01 AMMatt Bowes has an essay on the promise and progress of private spaceflight.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:17 AMClark Lindsey has a good roundup of SpaceX stuff, here here, and here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:10 AMApparently SpaceX had a computer timing glitch that caused an unnecessary abort yesterday. Launch is back on for 7 PM Eastern.
[Update at 6:25 PM EDT]
The launch is apparently still on, but no webcast yet.
[Update at 7:04 PM EDT]
It's about an hour before the new schedule for the launch. 8:05 PM EDT. Webcast still hasn't started, with no explanation as to why.
[Update after schedule launch time]
Wow. Aborted after engine start?
That's a new one.
But Clark says that there still may be a launch tonight.
[Update at 9:30 EDT]
So far the launch seems succesful.
[Another update]
Complete success seems uncertain at this point, but it's a huge improvement over the last attempt.
We'll know more on the morrow. Too late to evaluate for us East Coasters.
More thoughts tomorrow, with more information.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:41 AMUnfortunately, Windows Media is demanding that I download a new version to view it, which generally involves a reboot, which I'm loathe to do right now, so I don't know what's going on. According to the latest reading from Clark, it's still on.
[Update a little after 7 PM Eastern]
Apparently the scheduled launch was aborted due to a telemetry issue.
Could still go tonight, though.
[Update at 8:34 PM EDT]
OK, apparently not. Maybe tomorrow. Fortunately, my commenters are more on top of the situation than I am. Well, I've never attempted to be the site for breaking space news, unless I'm live blogging an event.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:07 PMJane Skinner just did an interview with Granger Whitelaw on the Rocket Racing League. Cool video simulations of the rockets played in the background throughout.
The giggle factor continues to dissipate.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:26 AMIs Galileo the Airbus of space? It never made much sense to me to try to compete with a free service. The only thing that this project ever had going for it was anti-American paranoia and European pride. I don't think it will be enough to save it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:13 AMJeff Foust has a good summary of the current state of planetary defense.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:37 AMCurrent schedule seems to be 4 PM Pacific (that means this evening for us (current) east coasters).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:01 AMAlan Henderson has some thoughts about sunspots, climate change, and space colonization. I have to say, though, that I don't think it's an urgent issue.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:44 AMOr so says Elon Musk.
Here's hoping for a badly needed success.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:42 AMFormer Congressional space staffer David Goldston has a piece over at Nature about the grid-locked and paralytic state of space policy. He also describes the ongoing ignorance of much of the Congress, the media, and the public on the subject:
...the story one hears now from most members of Congress, and some in the media, is that the president made a speech about going to Mars in 2004, got nothing but grief for it, and the proposal went nowhere. This is, of course, almost entirely wrong.
As I've noted in the past, federal space policy has two problems: it's non-partisan, and it's unimportant. It has both supporters and defenders on both sides of the aisle, which might at first glance seem a good thing, but it's not, really, because we never debate the issue in ideological terms that can arouse the partisan passions necessary to really make things happen. Recall John Kerry's "space policy" from the 2004 campaign.
...he released a written space policy document, of sorts, the other day (which is unfortunately conflated with aeronautics policy, so it's a jumble of air and space, and NASA and the FAA), which is probably the best we're going to get before we head into the voting booth on Tuesday.I haven't the space here to dissect it in all its glory, but it's rife with policy non-sequiturs and false choices, and vague in specifics, other than calling for "balance," and making the meaningless pledge of "assigning appropriate priority to all NASA programs" (we're presumably supposed to trust, or hope, that Senator Kerry's priorities are ours). The word "Bush" appears in it nine times, by my count, and there are zero occurrences of the words "shuttle" or "station." This is not a policy document -- it's a campaign document, and like most Kerry campaign documents, it's a pledge to be the un-Bush, no further details necessary.
And the unimportance of space policy (other than to those who get the pork) should be obvious--NASA's budget is now down to one half of one percent of the federal budget.
The other problem he describes, of NASA having too much on its plate, with too little budget, is unlikely to go away for the reason he states--those politicians who support NASA generally only support the part of it that's important to them, so they will all continue to make sure that the money flows to the right places, regardless of whether or not it's enough to actually accomplish anything. His analysis is depressingly familiar to any of us who have studied the situation for much time (and I've been watching it for about three decades now).
So, in that context, what to make of Dr. Griffin's recent offering over at Aviation Week's blog (first I knew they had a blog--cool)? He presents his thoughts on the next half century in space, which includes some interesting history for those who are unfamiliar with it. This part seems to me to be the foundation of his thoughts:
I will have some comments on the international scene and on the possible role of commercial space, but for much of the next five decades, the U.S. government will be the dominant entity in determining the course of human space exploration. We will, I hope, develop robust international partnerships that will enormously enhance the value of space exploration. And we must do everything possible to provide an accepting environment for commercial space entities, standing down government capability in favor of commercial suppliers whenever it becomes possible to do so. But with that said, the U.S. today is spending more than twice as much on civil space, per capita, as any other nation, and I believe this situation is unlikely to change significantly for some time. Commercial space firms offer great promise but, so far, limited performance. For a while yet, it is the U.S. government, through NASA, that determines the main course of human spaceflight.
Well, in light of the moribund state of space policy described above, is this really a good assumption? I certainly don't buy it, and his reason for believing it isn't very compelling. Why is "per capita" space spending an interesting metric? What matters is how much is being spent, not how much is being spent per capita. There are a couple countries over in Asia with a lot more "capita" than we have, so even if they spend less "per capita," they could still outspend us in space. Moreover, if they come up with a more effective way to spend it (perhaps by taking their lead from developments in the US private space industry, rather than from NASA), they could in fact leapfrog us.
But as long-time readers know, I'm not that concerned with international competition from other government space programs. I think that all government space programs (at least for human spaceflight) are going to fade into irrelevancy over the next twenty years, let alone the next fifty. But in any event, as I say, that's the assumption on which the rest of his talk is based.
From there he gets down into the budgetary weeds (probably more than we needed to know about various inflation indices, etc.) but presents a constant-dollar budget profile, with an expectation that NASA will be OK for the next five decades. But here, he reveals what I think to be his naivety:
In an attempt to offer a reasonable, but conservative, vision for government civil space activities, let us assume that NASA continues, in Fiscal 2013 and beyond, to be funded in constant dollars at the average level of the Presidents request for Fiscal 2008-12. This is illustrated in Figure 2, with the average out-year budget assumed to be $14.2 billion in Fiscal 2000 dollars. We in the space community will certainly hope for more, but we should not expect less. More properly, we should expect to perform in such a manner actually delivering a bold, exciting, efficient and effective space program, instead of PowerPoint charts with hopes and dreams that policymakers do not want to provide less!
First of all, why should we not expect less? It's certainly politically conceivable. But the real error here is in assuming that it matters much whether hardware or view graphs are produced. Per the discussion that led off this blog post, all that really matters is whether or not jobs are produced, and in the right places. For instance, Ronald Reagan announced the space station program in 1984, with the hope of having it operational in time for the Columbus quincentennial, in 1992. In fact, ten years later, while there were some pieces and test articles lying around, the vast bulk of programmatic output was paper, including viewgraphs. It wasn't until late in the 1990s that the first piece of space station was actually launched into space. But the jobs persisted throughout, and so the program maintained its support.
And he attempts to make a good case for the notion that, despite complaints from the scientists and aero types, the agency budget remains well balanced:
The summary below shows a then and now comparison. In contrast to oft-repeated claims, human spaceflight is not growing relative to other portions of the NASA portfolio, and is not eating everyones lunch.Category 1959-68 FY08 Request
Human Space Flight 63% 62%
Science 17% 32%
Aeronautics 6% 3%
Comm & Space Technology 10% 0%
Cross-Agency Support 4% 3%
The problem, of course, is that it's not possible to know what's really going on from this birds-eye view (also note that aeronautics has dropped by half, relative to the sixties, and it shows in terms of experimental aircraft projects, among other things). As Godston notes, it doesn't matter that much how much money is allocated to the various areas, if there are too many politically important projects having to share the funds.
Interestingly, he contradicts his earlier comment about the US being the big gorilla in manned space in his section on international cooperation:
Europe has a population 50% greater than that of the U.S., yet spends on a per-capita basis only about a fifth of what we spend on space. A future European generation could choose to do otherwise. India has a middle class population equal in size to the entire U.S. population, and produces engineering graduates equal to the best anywhere. Chinese space agency representatives have remarked publicly that, today, some 200,000 engineers and technicians are engaged in space-related work. And of course Russia could begin the development of a lunar transportation system today, essentially at its discretion, given its existing spaceflight capability and the recent and continuing flow of energy money into that country.By the mid-to-late 2020s, at the latest, several nations will have the independent capability to reach the Moon, and will be doing so. My hope is that the various programs can be bent more toward a cooperative than a competitive agenda. I believe that nations will find it to be in their interests to cooperate in lunar exploration and development, as they do in Antarctica today. But it will also be true that each nation to develop key elements of space infrastructure, especially transportation but also navigation and communications assets, will be unlikely to set them aside in favor of reliance on others. For the next generation, maybe as much as two decades, the U.S. may well be the only nation capable of reaching the Moon on its own. But much beyond that, and I suspect that well be there with others. The Moon will be within the grasp of a significant number of advanced nations. It will be the next big leap, a voyage to Mars, where international cooperation is a requirement, rather than an option.
So in fact, it's quite conceivable that other nations could have a larger program than ours, if our budget remains steady, as he assumes. But I strongly disagree with the last statement. I'm long on record of opposing international cooperation, at least if it's international cooperation for international cooperation's sake. It certainly isn't needed to build a lunar base, or go to Mars. We can afford to do either of those things on our own, if they're important to do. If they're not important to do, though, perhaps international cooperation will be the only way they become done, simply because doing things internationally has a higher value to some people in the political establishment (including, apparently, Mike Griffin) than actually accomplishing things. The ISS is an emblematic example of this. And I should add that using Antarctica as a model would be disastrous, from the aspect of space development, because Antarctica is essentially off limits for development, by treaty. We can't allow the same thing to happen off planet.
Overall, I think that he's far too optimistic about stability, in either goals or budgets, for the next fifty years. And while his thought experiment of an alternate history is useful in hindsight, it doesn't offer the lessons for the future that he seems to claim that it does. Yes, it would have been better to continue the Apollo hardware rather than developing Shuttle, but that's a false choice. I don't know whether to laugh or cry when he talks about an Orion still being flown by the grandchildren of its first pilots. Yes, this happened with the B-52, but there's a critical difference. The B-52 was a successful and cost-effective vehicle. It didn't cost billions of dollars per mission--it cost mere thousands. If we're still flying Apollo-like capsules into and out of space fifty years from now, we will have failed to open up the frontier in any meaningful way. We will have squandered another half century.
There could have been a third way in the early seventies, and there is one now, with even more promise given the advances in all the non-space technologies over the past three decades. It is just forming, in hangars in Mojave, and industrial parks in El Segundo. Mike continues to seem to assume that the mistake of the Shuttle was in going for a reusable vehicle, chasing a chimera of low costs of space access, but Shuttle only proved that having a single vehicle attempting to satisfy all space transportation needs, developed by a government agency whose primary focus was on jobs maintenance, was foolish.
If we don't reduce the costs of accessing space, we will make no significant progress, and I doubt that even Mike's modest goals of a lunar base and Mars missions will be achieved with the current plans. Fortunately, because the third way is happening, despite NASA's paltry support for it, it probably doesn't matter that much what NASA plans.
[Update at noon Eastern]
Jon Goff has further thoughts:
I would go a bit further by stating that commercial space transactions are probably the single best method for expanding the scope of what NASA (and the rest of us) can accomplish in space. A lot of commenters on the internet have tried to paint those of use who'd like to see NASA do more to promote commercial space as "alt.spacers looking for handouts from Uncle Sugar." The reality is though, that with a vibrant and innovative private space sector, NASA can accomplish far more than it possibly can with an anemic and small one. As more and more non-NASA markets for space transportation, services, and products blossom, the cost of space exploration for NASA will also go down, allowing them to do much more for the same amount of money. With how obviously powerful of an impact a vibrant commercial space industry would have on NASA's plans, you'd think they'd be investing more of their time and money into making sure private space blossoms, instead of ambivalently watching from the sidelines to see what happens.
That assumes that NASA's primary goal is to open up space and engage in as much space activity as possible. There are both theoretical reasons (see "public choice theory") and abundant empirical evidence to realize that's not the case.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:06 AMThere's a lot of interesting discussion over at Space Politics about NASA's budget dilemma. Al Fansome makes a very interesting point, that needs to be turned into a policy paper:
There are other clear national strategic priorities that Griffin could tie NASAs future to.EXAMPLE: the DoD cares about ORS. Members of Congress from both sides of aisle are increasingly supportive of ORS now saying ORS is a high national security priority (see the recent thread on Rep. Harman and Sen. Kyl Griffin could HANG HIS HAT on the ORS argument.
Too bad he is so fixated on his huge booster, which nobody else plans to use. If he was not so emotionally attached, it is clear as day (to me) that an architecture that uses a LEO Prop Depot would substantially increase the demand for new responsive (and potentially reusable) launch vehicles. This approach could be tied directly to the national security priority of Operationally Responsive Spacelift (ORS).
Emphasis his. It goes beyond just a lost opportunity. NASA is basically ignoring those parts of the VSE (and the Aldridge Report) that state national security as part of the overall plan. As Fansome points out, NASA has abandoned any synergy whatsoever with DoD needs, and VSE has become (unaffordably) all about NASA. I may flesh this idea out in the next few days, but I'd have to go back and reread Aldridge.
[Update a few minutes later]
Chair Force Engineer says that NASA is putting the cart before the horse, and Jon Goff has some general thoughts on the problems with ESAS.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:59 AMClark Lindsey has some thoughts:
NASA lost public support after Apollo 11 for many reasons but cost was the primary factor. It didn't help that no one could see themselves ever traveling on such a stupendously expensive throwaway system like Apollo. Today NASA managers should not be surprised that few people, especially young people, are excited about seeing NASA build yet another totally impractical and stupendously expensive machine to carry another small elite group of astronauts to the Moon by some arbitrary date.
[Update in the evening of the thirteenth]
Dan Schrimpsher, who is "just an engineer," has some further thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:09 AMJim Oberg has a dozen of them. But I'm sure that the fantasists will persist in their anti-US propaganda.
And while I think that a ban on destructive anti-satellite weapons is unrealistic and unverifiable, I agree that a ban on testing them, at least in orbit, is a good idea.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:00 AMTariq Malik has an article on the Orbital Express satellites, launched as part of the payload on last night's successful Atlas V launch. (By the way, that launch success is good news for both Lockheed Martin and Bigelow--a failure would have been a major setback in their stated plans to use the vehicle to deliver passengers to orbit).
During its planned 91-day mission, the Orbital Express vehicles are expected to go through a two-week checkout period, and then test initial refueling and equipment replacement techniques -- while still mated to one another -- using ASTROs robotic arm. A series of more complicated rendezvous, robotic arm and servicing scenarios are then due to follow throughout the remainder of the mission, DARPA officials said.Wrapping all this inside a software package that can understand what to do with all of it, without significant intervention, has been both the struggle and serious achievement here, Kennedy said.
But why is DARPA sponsoring this mission, and not NASA?
Oh, right. NASA is too busy redoing Apollo to develop new technologies that might actually advance us in space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:47 AMThis looks like an interesting technology, for both detection and deflection. I'm assuming they'd have to be space based, which implies a much more significant spacefaring capability than we have now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:36 AMBut not from as close as we wanted. We got a late start, so we pulled on to the beach in Melbourne just about the time the window opened. As it turned out, because of the half-hour delay, we had time to drive up further to Cocoa Beach, but there was no way to know that at the time. It was a little hazy on the ground, so we initially just saw a dull glow at ignition, that slowly brightened into a fireball that slowly rose into the sky and headed off to the east. Too far away (or perhaps the wind was blowing the wrong way) for any acoustic effects. Looked like a very smooth ascent, though. Here's to the success of Orbital Express, which could give us some badly needed key technology demonstrations for orbital fueling.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:06 AMThere are no technical issues, and the weather is estimated to be 90% probability of acceptable at launch time.
There is this, though, which I think is something that we will need to deal with to make spaceflight routine:
The Air Force will be clearing a Launch Hazard Area off the coast of Cape Canaveral, and mariners are being asked to keep out of the danger zone between 7:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. Friday.Violators can be fined up to $250,000 and jailed for up to six years. A map of the danger zone is: launchhazardarea.doc.
OK. We've warned them. The probability of anyone in the box being harmed by the launch is infinitesimally small (it's the joint probability of a launch mishap and such mishap actually affecting a boater).
Is this really a justification to hold up a launch that costs hundreds of millions of dollars, and the delay of which could cost many thousands or millions of dollars, or in the case of a military launch, not having a military asset on station during war?
This is a stupid policy. It should be changed. Chase people out of the box, and fine (and even imprison) them if they are there, but don't hold up the launch over it. Please?
[Update a few minutes later]
OK, on reconsideration, I now realize the reason for the policy. It's not to protect the boaters. It's to protect the launchers from a boat-fired missile.
But still, we manage to do thousands of airline flights per day. Why can't we do it for space launch? It seems to me like a great application for an anti-missile system, installed at the launch site.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:21 PMThings are looking good for a launch at the Cape tonight. We may drive up.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:31 AMHe may have written a dumber article in the past than this one, on how unsafe rocket planes will be, but I can't recall it. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but in what I've read so far, almost every single sentence in it is wrong. I almost have to fisk it line by line, but I don't have the time right now.
I'll note, though, that attempting to extrapolate the safety record of 1960s research aircraft to twenty-first century operational tourism vehicles is...nutty.
The whole purpose of those programs was to learn how such vehicles operated, and about supersonic flight and spaceflight in general. We have much more knowledge now than we did then, and much better materials. The new aircraft will have much better margins. More importantly, it was a research program. Of course there were crashes--they were pushing the envelope. Tourist vehicles will be designed and operated with an entirely different philosophy.
When he notes that the X-15 broke in an aborted landing when it couldn't do a full fuel dump, he seems to assume that the designers of modern spaceplanes are stupid, and that that their structure won't be designed to handle fueled landing loads. His comment about the safety of SS1 verges on libelous, and his speculation that it wasn't flown again for safety reasons is just that. SS1 was designed for one thing, and one thing only--to win the X-Prize. It was never intended to be a commercial operational vehicle.
When he claims that rocket planes will cost more to test than airliners, he provides zero data to support such a claim. When he writes:
The fatal crash rate will be at least 1-in-200 and probably more like 1-in-50.
...this is a number pulled out of his own exhaust nozzle.
I'll leave the rest to the commenters, for now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:08 AMAn interesting discussion on the subject, involving Jim Benson, at Space Transport News.
My opinion? I think that the danger of liquids is overrated, but may the best concept win. The ultimate answer is competition, on both safety and cost.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:36 PMApparently the Atlas launch I mentioned earlier is Thursday night, not Friday. Makes it a little tougher to go up and see it, but probably worth it anyway, even if we lose a little sleep.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:09 AMMark Whittington has a useful set of recommendations on space policy for the next president. I could nitpick some of it, but there's actually little with which I disagree. But I think he missed one: reform ITAR.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:02 AMThis might be worth a drive up to the Cape for on Friday night.
[Update on Tuesday morning]
Sorry, that's Thursday night.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:47 AMThere's a lot of lively discussion over at Space Politics over NASA's budget crunch and its implications for ESAS. I would note that it's getting harder and harder to find defenders of Ares 1.
[Update at 11:30 AM EST]
Here's another lively thread:
If NASA was somehow developing the technologies to enable very-low-cost human spaceflight, with advanced life support systems, in-situ resource utilization, and advanced propulsion systems, then maybe I could get behind the idea of a govt funded human spaceflight program.But as bad as it was before Griffin, Griffin has made it SO MUCH WORSE. Now instead of leveraging an expensive (but existing) asset, the EELV rockets, were charging off to build the Utah-pork-on-a-stick rocket.
Instead of designing a CEV to fit on existing rockets, like EVERY SINGLE OTHER PAYLOAD in the world is developed, were building a six-person fat gumdrop Apollo on drugs.
Instead of considering lunar architectures that might have some sustainability in them, with fuel depots, or electric-propulsion cargo tugs, or Lagrange staging points, were going after an architecture chosen in 1961 for its extreme expediency at the expense of future evolvability or development. Will we be building Mars vehicles in lunar orbit?
Instead of actually developing technologies to enable all of these malformed activities to reap some modicum of benefit assuming that they actually take place, NASA guts all technology development, including those DIRECTLY related to cislunar activity. No advanced life support, no nuclear power supplies on the lunar surface, no mining systems, no lunar orbital communications architectures.
No, the astronauts wont even have a Shuttle-class toilet in the CEV. Their mixed-gender crews will employ the Apollo technique of crapping in a bag and then kneading germicide into their own feces.
But hey, other than that, the program is great.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:12 AMNo link yet, but Florida prosecutors have apparently reduced charges against Nowak from attempted murder to attempted kidnapping. They may have decided that they couldn't get twelve to agree to the guilt of the murder rap. I also suspect that it may be plea bargained to probation and a lot of therapy and observation.
That of course raises the question of what the purpose of such a kidnapping would be. Hard to imagine it was for ransom.
[Evening update]
OK, I know that this is deplorable, but you shouldn't judge a woman until you've driven 950 miles in her diaper...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:55 AMIn light of the Chinese ASAT test, this old parody post of mine seems prescient now (note the comments, particularly between me and Monte Davis).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:22 AMClark Lindsey has some thoughts on the Russian space tug:
A tug might also make practical a single stage to orbit RLV. Since a first generation SSTO will most likely provide a very small payload capacity, it would help if it only had to reach a low orbit where it would transfer cargo/crew to a tug and also pick up cargo/crew to bring back from orbit. Even with small payloads, the simplicity of SSTO RLV operations might lead to reduced LEO delivery costs when combined with a tug.
Yes, this will almost certainly be necessary, in fact, if SSTO is to become feasible with anything resembling current technology. Any SSTO vehicle has very poor off-design performance. That is, if it's sized for a low-altitude (or a low-inclination) orbit, the performance drop off for it to go higher in either altitude or inclination is very large. For example, one could have a vehicle capable of delivering ten thousand pounds to a hundred fifty miles altitude, that would have zero or negative payload to ISS or a Bigelow hotel). This is an intrinsic problem with SSTO, by the nature of the beast. Since there's only one stage, the entire vehicle dry weight has to be taken to the final destination, so any additional delta V represents a big payload hit. A two-stage (or more) vehicle suffers much less, because the upper stage is much smaller, and is thus less sensitive to off-design cases.
OK, I hear you saying, aha! Then just make the space station mission the nominal design case. OK, now you just increased your development costs quite a bit, because it's now a much larger vehicle. And once you've done that, you'll still never take it to the station, because you'll quickly figure out that it now has humungous payload capability to lower altitudes, that can be transferred with the tug. Regardless of vehicle size, you'll get a lot more payload to the station if you use the tug (some of the extra payload is used to refuel the tug).
This also allows the station to live higher, which it would like to do to increase solar insolation, and decrease drag and monatomic oxygen degradation (the current ISS altitude is an expensive compromise between the desire to have the station higher, and the need to be able to get to it with the Shuttle). That in turn will result in reduced operating costs (reducing reboost and maintenance issues, and providing more power). I in fact proposed such an architecture back in 1982, in a paper I wrote while at Rockwell. NASA wasn't interested.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:53 AMFor my entire career (going on thirty years now), I've seen the horrible adjective "detail." As in "detail design." Funny, I always thought it was a noun.
Why can't these people use proper English, and call it a "detailed design"?
Was this ongoing atrocity on the language deliberate, and is there some rationale for it? Or is it an accident, a result of the fact that when someone says "give me a detailed design," the two "d"s run together, and the engineers dutifully wrote down what they heard--"detail design"--and it's become so embedded in the industry that it's as impossible to remove as roaches in a Haitian kitchen (sorry, had trouble coming up with a PC simile there...)?
Why yes, as a matter of fact, I am going through an Orion schedule (which is apparently going to slip), line by (eye-crossing) line. Why do you ask?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:59 PMIs a space elevator a sign of the end times? Will it bring forth the anti-Christ?
I report, you decide.
[Via that well-known persecutor, Brian Dunbar]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:38 AMThe Chair Force Engineer (aka "Mr. X") likes the TeamVision approach to the VSE. I haven't read it myself, so I don't know if they claim that the Shuttle is "man rated" as Mr. X does (though he also uses quotes, so perhaps he's not really making the claim). It is not, and never has been. "Man rating" is whatever NASA decides that it means, and it's usually just an excuse to not use a vehicle that they don't want (for other reasons) to use.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:14 AMLooks like they lose their March launch window. There was hail damage to the tiles, but it's described as "cosmetic." The big problem is the tank.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:36 AMIf hail damaged the foam insulation that much, what did it do to the TPS?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:04 AMForty-nine years after its founding, Chair Force Engineer asks if NASA should get out of the manned spaceflight business. I think that's inevitable, at least for earth to orbit segment (probably beyond as well, once access gets cheap enough for the Planetary or Mars Societies to sponsor their own expeditions, as the National Geographic Society does on earth), but there's too much political inertia for it to happen before it becomes clear to everyone how absurd its proposed architecture is. That won't happen, as he notes, until the private sector is launching people into space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:43 AMDan Schrimpsher has a comment on Scaled's test flight schedule for SS2:
...the test flights are going to have to start soon, perhaps later this year. At 1 flight/week, it would take two years to make 100 test flights.
I see no reason that they shouldn't have a much higher flight rate than that. I'd think that they could probably fly every day, as long as they make the hybrid motor easy to refuel. I suspect that the only constraint on their test flight rate would be data analysis, and modifications resulting from test flight results. And I also suspect that the high number of "test" flights won't really be test flights, but rather demonstration flights, to establish reliability confidence. Those could go every day, as long as nothing goes wrong. I doubt if flight test (or at least intrinsic flight rate ability) will be the long pole in the schedule tent--I think that just delivering the initial hardware to be tested will be have much more schedule uncertainty.
[Update in the late afternoon]
Dan follows up:
I assume that in the beginning the flights will be less often as problems will show themselves up front. I see more of an exponential cure of flights starting with one every few weeks to get the kinks out. And closer to once per day when they are close to starting service.
I think we're now in violent a agreement.
Also, based on history, SS1 was flown months apart except for the X-Prize run, so I am trying to be conservative.
Well, I'm not sure how good a guide history is here. In the one case, they were trying to win a prize, and didn't need a high-rate vehicle to do it (twice in two weeks, and that was it). I suspect that they're spending more money this time, in order to hit a market, and get it to market as soon as they can within safety constraints to maximize payback. I'll be surprised if it's weeks before the first and second flights.
But I've been surprised before. After all, I didn't think that the stand down after Columbia would be nearly as long as that after Challenger (and neither of them should have been as long as they were), so what do I know?
[Another update a few minutes later]
One other point (see, Anonymous Moron in comments isn't completely useless--but mostly)...
The other difference (which I didn't mention, though I also didn't assume otherwise, contra Anonymous Moron) was that there will be a fleet of vehicles for SS2, though the initial test flights will be only for one, because they'll want to learn a lot of lessons early to incorporate into the other vehicle builds. So the initial test flight series will be with a single version of each vehicle (White Knight and SS2), and only later, when they're doing reliability demo flights and building flight experience, will there be multiple vehicles. And the transition from one to a fleet will be part of the exponential increase that Dan described in his follow-up post.
And in the way of disclosure, I should also add that, despite the fact that I occasionally talk to the Virgin consultant responsible for overseeing the vehicle development (who is an old friend of mine), and Alex Tai himself, this is all speculation on my part.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:21 AMNORAD didn't see the Iranians launch anything.
It's possible that they managed to launch something without our detecting it (though if so, as Allen Thompson notes over at sci.space.policy, I want a tax refund), but I think it's more likely that they just said they launched, but didn't, for propaganda purposes. Did they actually provide any time-stamped evidence of an actual launch?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:42 AMAnyone who watched the video of the Zenit explosion will be surprised to see how little damage was actually done to the SeaLaunch platform.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:18 AMNot me this time, but it looks like an interesting lineup this week:
1.Monday, Feb. 26, 2007, 7-8:30 PM Pacific: Dr. Lee Valentine returns to discuss the upcoming Planetary Space Conference, commercial space investments and much more.2. Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2007, 7-8:30 PM Pacific. Stephen Metschan, President & CEO of TeamVision Corporation comes on board to discuss the comprehensive TeamVision plan for returning to the Moon and going to Mars.
3. Wednesday, Feb. 28, 9:30-11AM Pacific: Dallas Bienhoff, an engineer with Boeing, joins us to discuss on orbit fuel depots and much more.
I worked with Dallas on the CE&R studies a couple years ago, in which we fleshed out a lot of the features and advantages of propellant depots, in LEO and elsewhere. NASA continues to prefer a return to Apollo.
Gregory Anderson repeats a long-time theme of this web site--that we have to broaden our discussion of space far beyond science, which is actually one of the poorest justifications for it. Jeff Foust reviews the Astronaut Farmer, and Taylor Dinerman rightfully mocks the recent call by some well meaning but naive former astronauts to make the UN responsible for asteroid protection. I was going to do one of these myself, because it just begs for ridicule, but I've been busy.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:46 AMWhile the Dem takeover of Congress will have many bad effects, Jeff Foust points out that there's at least one silver lining for space enthusiasts:
...there appears to be a chance to make a serious attempt at some form of export control reform. The change in control of Congress after the 2006 elections has put new people into leadership positions of key committees, including some representatives who may be more amenable to reform. However, getting that reform passed through Congress is no easy task, and is fraught with political peril for those who do support it. The odds of getting meaningful reform passed during this Congress may be higher now than they have been for years, but that doesnt mean the process will be straightforward or assured of success.
It also demonstrates the power of unintended consequences:
I feel some sense of responsibility for what happened, said David Garner, a retired Air Force colonel. Garner had helped put together the 1998 legislation that was designed to add commercial communications satelliteslike those that had been implicated in the transfer of sensitive technology to the Chinese by a House committee led by then-Rep. Christopher Coxto the Munitions List, meaning that their export would be overseen by the State Department rather than the more permissive Commerce Department. That was, Garner said, exactly what he thought the legislation did.Shortly after the bill became law, he recounted a meeting where he and other officials discussed the legislation. At that time, he said, we all had a pretty good sense of what we were going to do, and then the legal office of political affairs at State said, Well, you know, all the parts and components on those comsats are captured, too. We all sort of looked at each other said, I didnt write that. Did you write that? None of us around the table believed that thats what we had done, but in fact thats what ended up.
Even if the chances are still low, higher is better than they have been, and given that Duncan Hunter is now in the minority, and busy running for president, there may be a chance of fixing this. If such a commission is formed to reform it, we need to get some representatives of New Space on it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:36 AMCathy Booth Thomas has a fairly comprehensive overview of the space tourism industry at Time Magazine. I didn't see any mistakes in it, except I'm not sure what she means about Dreamchaser being Russian derived. I thought that it was based on the HL-20. That vehicle was inspired by a Russian design, but she probably should have mentioned the Langley heritage.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:25 AMAlan Boyle has a fascinating exclusive interview with Bob Bigelow, who seems to be planning to homestead EML-1 privately. I'm glad that someone's going to do it, since NASA seems determined to ignore it, despite its many potential advantages. He seems primarily interested in it as an assembly point for building a lunar base that can then be dropped to the surface in one piece, avoiding lunar surface assembly issues. But I suspect that once he starts doing it, there will probably be permanent infrastructure there as well.
[Update at 10:30 AM EST]
In the face of continuing progress in the private sector such as described above, Clark Lindsey once again questions NASA's priorities.
The answer, of course, comes down to pork. Bigelow won't provide/maintain jobs in the right congressional districts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:39 AMIn response to a post about John Glenn's vague boostering of the ISS, there's an interesting discussion in comments over at Space Politics about its utility.
I agree with "anonymous" that orbital assembly techniques are crucial skills, and disagree with Donald Robertson that the ISS was a good or cost-effective (or even necessary) way to get them. Like Shuttle, to the degree we've learned things from ISS, it was much more how not to do things, and the cost of the education was far too high.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:15 AMMatt Bowes writes not to give the environmentalists an inch on space tourism, or they will take a mile. I agree. We should consider the environment in our designs, but sensibly, with rational analyses, and not allow the class-warfare luddites to dictate the shape of the industry.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:04 AMIs NASA starting to sprout a little fur?
NASA's news release said a memorandum of understanding called for the agency's Ames Research Center to work together with Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, to "explore possible collaborations in several technical areas, including hybrid rocket motors and hypersonic vehicles capable of traveling five or more times the speed of sound, employing NASA Ames' unique capabilities and world-class facilities."NASA said the agreement was negotiated through NASAs Space Portal, a newly formed organization in the NASA Research Park at Ames that looks for ways to promote the development of the commercial space economy. The space agency said that the pact would be in effect for two years, and that neither party would be required to pay the other to support the areas of possible collaboration.
This kind of collaboration can be useful, as long as the private folks are careful not to put the agency on the critical path. And note that it's with Ames, arguably the most forward-thinking center, at least currently, under the tutelage of Pete Worden.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:55 AMIn an article at PopMech about Orion, Scott Horowitz sets up a classic strawman:
By relying on existing technology, the design would allow for more efficient construction, narrowing the gap between the shuttle's retirement in 2010 and the next manned flight. But it also stirred a hot debate within the aerospace community. "NASA's attitude seems to be that Apollo worked, so let's just redo Apollo," says Charles Lurio, a Boston space consultant. Burt Rutan, the mastermind behind the rocket SpaceShipOne, likened the new CEV to an archeological dig. "To get to Mars and the moons of Saturn, we need breakthroughs. But the way NASA's doing it, we won't be learning anything new."Scott Horowitz, NASA's associate administrator for Exploration Systems, defends the agency's approach. "Sure, we'd love to have antimatter warp drive," he says. "But I suspect that would be kind of expensive. Unfortunately, we just don't have the money for huge technological breakthroughs. We've got to do the best we can within our constraints of performance, cost and schedule."
Emphasis mine. Note that neither Lurio or Rutan were calling for "antimatter warp drive." Neither were they calling for unaffordable "huge technical breakthroughs," as far as I've ever heard. They were simply asking for something that would be worth the many billions being invested in it. Instead, NASA sets up the false choice that it's either Apollo or Star Trek, and continues, in its attitude, to keep us mired in a world of high cost and low productivity in space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:46 AMFor some reason, Popular Mechanics has reposted the interview they did with me last fall. For those new readers who missed it, here it is, and there's nothing changed since then that would cause revision to my remarks.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:08 PMClark Lindsey has posted Henry Vanderbilt's latest announcement for Space Access, which is a month earlier this year than it's traditionally been, occurring in March instead of April. As Henry notes, if you plan to attend, you'd better hurry and make your hotel reservation.
It's one of the best conferences, if not the best, of the year to find out what's happening with the "other space program" (the one for the rest of us). Don't let the fact that I'll be there, and on a panel, dissuade you from attending.
Also, the National Space Society has moved ISDC back to Memorial Day (a big mistake, I think--one of the reasons that they had such good attendance last year in LA was, in addition to the fact that it was in LA, because it wasn't on a holiday weekend). Here's the press announcement:
National Space Society to Host 26th Annual Conference in Dallas, Convening Pioneers from Government and Private Space Programs 2007 International Space Development Conference Set for Memorial Day Weekend.WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2007 The National Space Sociiety (NSS) today announced details of the 2007 International Space Development Conference (ISDC), which will bring together leaders from NASA, the burgeoning private space industry and international space programs to share the latest news and preview tomorrow's space technologies. The premier public space event for 26 years running, this year's ISDC will begin on Friday, May 25, 2007 in Dallas, Texas.
Additionally, two pre-conference events are scheduled in the days leading up to ISDC, including the Symposium on Space Venture Finance on Thursday, May 24, and the bi-annual meeting of the Aerospace Technology Working Group (ATWG) from May 22 through May 24.More than 30 prominent space leaders have already confirmed their participation in ISDC 2007, including: Rep. Nick Lampson, U.S. Congressman from Texas; Buzz Aldrin, legendary Apollo astronaut and Chairman of the ShareSpace Foundation; Robert Bigelow, hotel entrepreneur and founder of Bigelow Aerospace; Michael Coats, director of NASA's Johnson Space Center and former space shuttle commander; Dr. Simon "Pete" Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center; Laurie Leshin, Director of Sciences and Exploration at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center; John Carmack, legendary computer game designer and founder of Armadillo Aerospace; Donna Shirley, management consultant, author and former manager of NASA/JPL's Mars Exploration Program; Rick Homans, New Mexico's Economic Development Cabinet Secretary and driving force behind the state's planned spaceport; Hugh Downs, legendary journalist and Chairman of the National Space Society's Board of Governors; Rusty Schweickart, Apollo 9 astronaut and founder of the Near Earth Object-focused B612 Foundation; Dr. Shannon Lucid, astronaut, scientist and former record holder for long-duration space flight; Dr. Paul Spudis, lunar science expert; and many others. An extended list of confirmed speakers can be found on the regularly-updated ISDC Web site: www.ISDC2007.org.
The conference will include programs, presentations and exhibits focused on space exploration and settlement, astronomy and scientific research, commercial space ventures, space tourism, and other exciting topics. The conference will also feature displays of real spaceflight hardware, such as Armadillo Aerospace's historic 'Quad' rocket vehicle.
The ISDC 2007 theme, "From Old Frontiers to New: Celebrating 50 Years of Spaceflight," honors the trailblazing spirit that has always been the lifeblood of space explorers around the world.
Call for Papers. The National Space Society is seeking speakers to discuss the latest issues in space technology, science, policy, commerce, medicine, exploration, settlement and more at the conference. Individuals wishing to speak must submit an abstract of 300-500 words by Friday, March 16, 2007. Additional information on details, guidelines and the abstract submission process can be found by visiting the conference Web site.
Registration. ISDC Registration is open to the public at: www.ISDC2007.org, or by calling (202) 429-1600. Conference registration rates are:
Pre-registration by March 15 is $135 ($115 for seniors), $110 for NSS/affiliate members ($90 for senior members) and $30 for students.
Normal registration by May 11 is $150 ($125 for seniors), $125 for NSS/affiliate members ($100 for senior members) and $30 for students.
On-site registration at ISDC is $175 ($145 for seniors), $150 for NSS/affiliate members ($125 for senior members) and $50 for students.
Registration for pre-conference events iincluding the Space Venture Symposium and ATWG Meeting and for meals and tours during the conference is additional and will be available on the ISDC Web site in March.
Media Credentials. Members of the media who wish to cover one or more days of the conference may request ISDC media credentials by completing the secure online credential request form at http://www.isdc2007.org/mediaform.html .
Pre-Conference Events. The NSS Symposium on Space Venture Finance and bi-annual meeting of the Aerospace Technology Working Group (ATWG) will be held before ISDC 2007 formally opens. The Space Venture Finance Symposium will take place on Thursday, May 24 and will bring together leaders from the world of finance as well as the new generation of space entrepreneurs to discuss the future of space business. The Aerospace Technology Working Group (ATWG) will run from Tuesday, May 22 to Thursday, May 24. ATWG is a technical forum chartered originally by NASA with the purpose of facilitating an open dialogue between government, industry and academia concerning advanced space technology issues.
ISDC will be held May 25 to 28, 2007 at the Hotel InterContinental Dallas, 15201 Dallas Parkway in Addison, Texas. The hotel is located 18 miles east of DFW International Airport. More information about the conference, including a daily-updated speakers list, online media registration, hotel information, and a call for papers is available on the conference Web site at www.ISDC2007.org.
Though it doesn't mention it, I'm supposed to be on a space bloggers panel there, along with "Instapundit" (and former head of the NSS Executive Committee) Glenn Reynolds.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:13 AMA group of scientists are complaining because NASA isn't spending enough money to study the earth.
This is another symptom of how screwed up our space policy is. Why should it be NASA's job to study the earth? I thought that was what NOAA was for? Why not put more money into their budget? Yeah, I know, they don't have the internal R&D capability to do build and launch satellites, but there's no reason they couldn't develop it, or even do something innovative, like managing the overall program while farming out some of the work to Goddard or JPL. Or even, heaven forbid, Ames.
For that matter, this seems like a great application for data purchase. Stipulate what kind of data you want, how much coverage in what lighting conditions, in what spectra, and then purchase it on the market.
The fewer things that NASA has on its plate, the more effective it might be in actually executing them, and not getting into all these pitched battles on the Hill over its budgeting priorities. For that matter, I suspect that both space and aviation would be better off if a separate agency were set up for the latter. The Japanese actually used to have the right idea of separate agencies for science and development (unfortunately, they recently combined them).
[Update a few minutes later]
I hadn't looked at the Space Act lately, but looky here:
(e) The Congress declares that the general welfare of the United States requires that the unique competence in scientific and engineering systems of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration also be directed toward ground propulsion systems research and development. Such development shall be conducted so as to contribute to the objectives of developing energy- and petroleum-conserving ground propulsion systems, and of minimizing the environmental degradation caused by such systems.(f) The Congress declares that the general welfare of the United States requires that the unique competence of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in science and engineering systems be directed to assisting in bioengineering research, development, and demonstration programs designed to alleviate and minimize the effects of disability.
Noble goals, to be sure. But again, why NASA?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:42 AMJon Goff says that first impressions matter. A lot.
This is exactly the kind of mindset that we have to break out of. Unfortunately, in its choice of vehicle designs, NASA remains part of the problem, instead of part of the solution.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:20 AMCarolyn Porco, unlike many of her colleagues in the planetary science community, seems to like Ares V (or at least, she's attempting to make lemonade out of it). Like Jeff Foust, I think that she's being unrealistic (read the comments as well).
While an increase in flight rate for additional missions will bring down per-flight costs somewhat, it will still be a very expensive vehicle to operate, and will cost several hundred million per flight. Where will the planetary science community come up with that kind of money, let alone the money that will be required to develop and build the kinds of megaprobes she has in mind?
No, we won't be able to carry out such grand ambitions until we get the launch costs down. Ares is not on the path to that goal.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:08 AMI get a daily email from space.com telling me what's the latest on the site. The emails consist of summaries at the beginning, then a more detailed description of the stories with links. Here's today's:
In today's issue:Science/Astronomy:
* Getting a Grip on Black Holes
* Black Holes: Dark and Deadly
* Scientists to NASA: Study Earth
* Star Shatters Spinning Speed Record
* Doorstep Astronomy: Sirius Gets Serious
* Supersonic Cosmic Winds Collide in Rare Scene
* Image of the Day: If I Were an SRBSpaceflight:
* NASA Successfully Launches Science Satellite Quintet
* NASA Replaces Charged Astronaut for Next Shuttle Mission
* Next Shuttle Astronauts to Fly Take Aim at ISS
* Shuttle Atlantis Reaches Launch Pad for March Space Shot
* NEW! Daily Space TriviaNEW! LiveScience.com
* New Gallery: Small Sea Monsters
* NEW: Life's Little Mysteries
* Flu Myths and Truths
* The Secrets (and Perils) of Sword Swallowing Revealed
* Human Compassion Surprisingly Limited, Study Finds
* Antarctica Hides Surprising Subsurface Plumbing System
* Top 10 AphrodisiacsNEW! Cool Stuff:
* VIDEO: THEMIS Away
* VIDEO: THEMIS Revealed
* VOTE! Most Amazing Galactic Images Ever!
* Top 10 Star Mysteries
* UFO Wallpaper
* Gallery: Astronauts' Views from Space
* Gallery: Visualizations of Mars
* Vote: The Best Space Movies
* Amazing Images: Upload Yours Now and Even Buy a Poster!Plus...
* Uplink, SPACE.com TV and NightSky
* Starry Night, TeamSETI-----------------------------------
Science/Astronomy:
* Getting a Grip on Black Holes
http://bcast1.imaginova.com/t?r=2&ctl=97BC:57135Black holes are dark secrets, shrouded in churning spacetime and scrunched into points smaller than an atom.
* Black Holes: Dark and Deadly
http://bcast1.imaginova.com/t?r=2&ctl=97BB:57135There's something about black holes that draws in scientists and the rest of us terrestrial dwellers, besides of course their tremendous gravity.
* Doorstep Astronomy: Sirius Gets Serious
http://bcast1.imaginova.com/t?r=2&ctl=97C1:57135This is the time of the year when I get lots of inquires concerning a certain very bright starlike object shining over toward the southern part of the sky. It?s Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest star in the night sky.
* Supersonic Cosmic Winds Collide in Rare Scene
http://bcast1.imaginova.com/t?r=2&ctl=97BD:57135Two stellar titans are waging wars of wind in the first such scene spotted outside the Milky Way Galaxy.
* Image of the Day: If I Were an SRB
http://bcast1.imaginova.com/t?r=2&ctl=97BE:57135An X-ray look at the famous Pillars of Creation reveals a region peppered by bright young stars.
-----------------------------------
Spaceflight:* Satellite to Study Auroras Ready for Launch
http://bcast1.imaginova.com/t?r=2&ctl=97B7:57135Five NASA probes aimed at unraveling mysteries surrounding Earth?s colorful auroras are set to launch Friday evening after a 24-hour weather delay.
* Next Shuttle Astronauts to Fly Take Aim at ISS
http://bcast1.imaginova.com/t?r=2&ctl=97B3:57135NASA's next shuttle astronauts to fly, a blend of veteran spaceflyers and rookies, are in the final month of training for a March construction flight to the International Space Station (ISS).
Emphasis mine. Note that the first summary description of the story was that the "charged astronaut" had been replaced. But in the more detailed version, there is no mention of her. Nor is there any in the linked story itself.
So what happened? Was Nowak assigned to the next flight, and then removed because of her...incident? That seems unlikely to me. She just flew in August--it seems hard to believe that she'd have gotten another flight assignment in less than a year, given the demand for slots (though I suppose it's possible, given that she was at least momentarily treated like a rock star during and right after the flight). If so, and NASA changed its mind, why does Space.com have two different versions of the story in its email notification?
Or was it that they got a bogus story that she was originally scheduled on the flight, and then replaced, but it wasn't true, and when they found out, they changed the summary and link, but forgot to fix the supersummary?
Inquiring minds want to know. I've categorized this as "Space," but it could just as well have been "Media Criticism."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:08 PMForty-five years ago today, I was sitting home on the floor in my pajamas, watching the television, as the first American astronaut went into earth orbit. I don't recall the suspense about the heat shield, but it may be that it wasn't broadcast live, occurring behind the scenes. Or it may be that I was just too young to make sense of what was going on.
It's my earliest recollection of the human space program, a subject that became one of lifelong fascination to me, and a career.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:32 AMIt's not really news, but the latest Orion manifest update shows how pitifully little we're getting for the many billions of taxpayer dollars that this program will cost. Two flights per year at four astronauts per flight. The Shuttle can carry seven. so it can carry almost as many in a single flight as the Orion will carry in a year.
I'd be willing to be that the program cost in that time period will be (at a minimum) on the order of a couple billion per annum. So that means that each ride will be costing us a quarter of a billion dollars. That's each ticket, not each flight. And that doesn't include any amortization of the development costs of either the vehicle itself, or the new launcher. And they told us that Shuttle cost too much.
It also highlights my point about too many astronauts and too few flight slots. If this is the best we can do, then we really should give up on a federal manned space program.
[Monday morning update]
Some thoughts from Louise Riofrio on the oversized astronaut "corps."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:17 PMSorry for the lack of warning, but I'm about to go on the air with David Livingston at The Space Show (12:30 to 2:30 PM Eastern Time).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:01 AMHomer Hickam has similar thoughts to mine on why Nowak cracked, with some recommendations, which are opposite to mine. His are to reduce the astronaut office, while mine are to open up flight opportunities. Either way, the situation has to be brought into balance.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:19 PMJust checking in from London Towne (literally--I just checked in to my hotel). It's noon here, early in the US, but not so early that my TCSDaily piece isn't up. I have some thoughts on Lisa Nowak, and NASA.
I'm having dinner with Perry De Havilland tonight, and then off on the train to Brussels on the morrow.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:55 AMOf an old story: waste, fraud and abuse at the National Reconnaissance Office.
Unfortunately, as the article points out, it's very hard to oversee a program as secret as this one. I think that we actually need to scrap the agency and start over from scratch with some fresh thinking, which would include responsive space, rather than the fragile and vulnerable battlestar galacticas, such as the Keyhole series.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:35 AMDan Schmelzer has a breakdown. As I suspected, financing rounds are early progress milestones. For RpK, its second one is coming up this month. I assume that they have until the end of the month to meet it.
[Late morning update]
I just realized that my first sentence could be misinterpreted. I mean he has a breakdown of the COTS documents. I didn't mean to cast aspersions on his mental health, which (unlike, apparently, Lisa Nowak) I trust is fine.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:29 AMLots more budget discussion over at Space Politics today.
As I noted yesterday, I think that this is the biggest problem with ESAS:
Griffin will be gone in January 2009. He needs to put his overall strategy in place so that it is sustained beyond January 2009. Anonymous has separately made a very good case that Griffins strategy to put tons of near-term $$ into a new LV which mostly duplicates existing capabilities and very little current funding into the real lunar parts of the architecture (the Ares 5 and the LSAM) is poorly thought out because of the January 2009 deadline.
I think that, as was the case with space station for years, we are watching a slow-motion train wreck. Fortunately, NASA's not the only game in town any more.
[Update a few minutes later]
And it looks like Lockheed Martin is still positioning itself to pick up the pieces:
United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and SpaceDev, a small entrepreneur driven company, both expect to compete in the developing arena, company officials said at the 10th annual commercial space transportation conference."We're very excited about the new low earth orbit marketplace," said George Sowers, an executive with ULA.
The joint venture's Atlas V and Delta IV heavy lift vehicles are proven, reliable and available right away when NASA begins purchasing non-governmental launch services to re-supply the International Space Station, perhaps as soon as 2010, Sowers said.
Sowers added that the company is far along in obtaining a human rating for the Atlas V launcher, which would then make it qualified to compete to haul astronauts to the space station.
Though I wonder who it is they think would issue a "human rating"? I wish that we could get rid of this misleading word.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:51 AMAlan Boyle has a roundup of thoughts over Mrs. Nowack's escapades. And he beats me to the punch on the article title--guess I'll have to come up with a new one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:33 AMWhat if it had happened on a Mars mission? That's the nightmare of the psychs at NASA.
[Update at 7:20 Eastern]
I'm sure that it's occurred to others, but isn't wearing a diaper for an expected long mission exactly what a deranged 'stro would do?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:24 PMI haven't had much to say about the submitted NASA budget, because I've been really busy (and have some personal problems right now), but there's a lot of good discussion over at Space Politics (there are other posts on the subject as well).
Jeff Foust noted yesterday that it's crunch time for NASA, sooner than many expected. I agree with Chair Force Engineer that if the program dies, or never gets beyond LEO, it will be an own goal by Griffin and company, who insisted on building new unneeded launch systems instead of focusing the funds on actual exploration hardware.
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey has been doing some budget analysis to determine the potential fate of Centennial Challenges and COTS.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:34 AMWow. Talk about the wrong stuff.
Dr. Sanity (a former psych profiler for NASA) has some thoughts on a culture of toxic narcissism.
Unjustified astronaut worship is one of the unfortunate consequences that lingers on, almost half a century after the Cold-War space program began. Just one more reason to try to privatize things ASAP. And of course, this is going to unfairly reflect badly on all the astronauts who really do have the "right" stuff.
[Late morning update]
Heh. Comment #50:
As another famous pilot once said,"a trench coat and wig and, a knife, BB pistol, rubber tubing and plastic bags....Gosh a feller could have a pretty good time in Vegas with this stuff."
[Afternoon update]
It's already been added to her bio at wikipedia.
I see that she's only flown once, last July. I wonder when this behavior started? Several astronauts have been profoundly affected by their trips into space. Some have gotten religion, some became addicted to various substances. The Overview Effect
[Late afternoon update]
I'm a little surprised to see that this has become the news story of the day, at least on Fox. But maybe I shouldn't be. There's probably a TCS column or two in this somewhere.
[Another update a couple minutes later]
I fearlessly predict that some kind of "space adaptation derangement" will play a key part of the defense. I say this because I already heard it on John Gibson's show. Seriously, I do think that it will be played as insanity and a crime of passion. And I wouldn't rule out the Overview Effect
Clark Lindsey has updated his Commercial Space Timeline for 2007.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:56 AMJust to the north of me. Apparently several people were killed by tornadoes early this morning up in central Florida, and now there are tornado warnings for Titusville and the Cape. While it's unlikely, if a twister were to hit the VAB, it could be a disaster for NASA. Of course, a hurricane is a much larger threat, due to the more comprehensive nature of it, but it's certainly possible (and would be extremely bad luck) to get hit by a tornado.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:06 AMHappy Groundhog Day!
I neglected to note yesterday that it was the fourth anniversary since the loss of Columbia (hard to believe, just as it's hard to believe that last Sunday was the twenty-first since the Challenger loss, and last Saturday was the fortieth of the Apollo fire).
Here are my immediate thoughts upon hearing of the event.
What does it mean for the program?Like Challenger, it was not just a crew that "looked like America" (two women, one african american) but it also had the Israeli astronaut on board, which will have some resonance with the war.
Instead of happening just before the State of the Union, it occurred three days after. It also occurred two days before NASA's budget plans were to be announced, including a replacement, or at least backup, for the Shuttle.
The fleet will certainly be grounded until they determine what happened, just as occurred in the Challenger situation. Hopefully it won't be for almost three years. [Note: It turned out to be.] If it is, the ISS is in big trouble, and it means more money off to Russia to keep the station alive with Protons and Soyuz. The current crew can get back in the Soyuz that's up there now. They will either do that, or stay up longer, and be resupplied by the Russians.
The entire NASA budget is now in a cocked hat, because we don't know what the implications are until we know what happened. But it could mean an acceleration of the Orbital Space Plane program (I sincerely hope not, because I believe that this is entirely the wrong direction for the nation, and in fact a step backwards). What I hope that it means is an opportunity for some new and innovative ideas--not techically, but programmatically.
Once again, it demonstrates the fragility of our space transportation infrastructure, and the continuing folly of relying on a single means of getting people into space, and doing it so seldom. Until we increase our activity levels by orders of magnitude, we will continue to operate every flight as an experiment, and we will continue to spend hundreds of millions per flight, and we will continue to find it difficult to justify what we're doing. We need to open up our thinking to radically new ways, both technically and institutionally, of approaching this new frontier.
Anyway, it's a good opportunity to sit back and take stock of why the hell we have a manned space program, what we're trying to accomplish, and what's the best way to accomplish it, something that we haven't done in forty years. For that reason, while the loss of the crew and their scientific results is indeed a tragedy, some good may ultimately come out of it.
They seem (at least to me) to have held up pretty well, and as usual, NASA learned the wrong lessons from the disaster. And while some good did come out of it, the program is still on the wrong track, in terms of prospects for making space affordable.
You can also read many other posts on the subject in the following days. Scroll to the bottom and work your way up.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:08 AMWhile I agree with Virginia Postrel that we shouldn't discount the value of Roger Launius' list of book recommendations
Leonard David has an article describing prospects for NewSpace in 2007.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:18 PMSea Launch lost a rocket and comsat today. Two losses out of twenty-four flights is only a 92% success rate. That kind of sucks for something that costs tens of millions, particularly when the payload also costs tens of millions. That's not good news for the launch insurance business. It's also not good news for Sea Launch's schedule, even if they can figure out what happened quickly, if they have to do major repairs on the floating launch platform (of which they have only one--more fragility in the system).
[Update a few minutes later]
Here's more info. Exploded on the pad. Fortunately, no one was injured, but it's hard to imagine how they won't have to do some major repairs back in Long Beach.
We aren't going to get reliable launch systems until we stop throwing the vehicles away, and fly a lot more.
[Wednesday morning update]
That didn't take long. Here's video.
[Update a few minutes later]
Hard to imagine that the platform is even salvageable. And it's the only one they have. This is a huge disaster for Sea Launch--they could be out of business for a long time. And it's bad for their customers as well, who will have to look for other rides if they want to hit their own service delivery schedules. This could be a setback for DirectTV HD, among others.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:52 PM...until Space Access '07. It should be an interesting meeting, with lots going on in both the orbital and suborbital world.
If you think you might want to attend, it would behoove you to make a hotel reservation today. You can always cancel.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:02 PMOn this week of anniversaries of space disasters, space historian Dwayne Day writes that we should display, rather than hide, the results of past tragedies, and allow not only NASA to learn from them, but the public as well. I agree.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:21 AMI'm going to DC for the weekend to celebrate my birthday with Patricia, sans computer. But because it's my birthday, there are a couple of sad events to commemorate. Tomorrow will be the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire, which occurred the day before my birthday in 1967. And Sunday, people who were born the day the Challenger was lost will be old enough to drink adult beverages legally. It makes me feel old.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:53 AMIran has been getting pointers on rocket design, from that noted space power, North Korea.
Good luck with that. Not.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:32 PMIt looks like a lot of people are starting to agree with me that we need more responsive military space systems:
Peter Hays, a Science Applications International Corp. employee and senior policy analyst supporting the plans and programs division at the Defense Department's National Space Security Office, said that small, distributive space-based systems could particularly benefit compared with larger satellites - speeding up a shift that already started. The new attention could even re-energize the U.S. aerospace industry, he said."It could be a fire under people that was lacking," Hays said. "I wouldn't be surprised if other things get energized."
Of course, as I predicted (hardly a feat worthy of Kreskin) we have the usual foolishness from the usual suspects:
"American satellites are the soft underbelly of our national security, and it is urgent that President Bush move to guarantee their protection by initiating an international agreement to ban the development, testing, and deployment of space weapons and anti-satellite systems," said Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), House telecommunications and Internet subcommittee chairman.
Yes, as I noted in my article, this is exactly what they'd like. If Congressman Markey (and others like him) actually were on the side of the Chinese, how would they behave differently?
[Update late afternoon]
Useful comments in the comments section. It seems to me is that what we want is not a treaty to ban ASATs, which is certainly impractical (and would be to our great disadvantage). A much better model is a convention, similar to Geneva, in which we stipulate the manner in which anti-satellite warfare is to be conducted, in order to eliminate, or at least minimize, collateral damage. I haven't thought about it much further than that, but it's what Theresa Hitchens et al have in mind, we're probably on the same page. But I suspect that's a different page than Rep. Markey.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:20 AMHere's a piece by a Greg Autrey in the Baltimore Sun on space policy. It's kind of a mess:
Why should we care about missiles threatening low Earth orbit? When the Chinese get on with reabsorbing Taiwan - the most likely trigger for a U.S.-China confrontation - U.S. drivers may find that the navigation systems in their SUVs (not to mention their ambulances) aren't working. Low-flying U.S. military spy satellites are the first target of the new weapon, but the slightly higher GPS (global positioning system) satellites that guide our weapons systems are also attractive to Chinese war planners.Or, what about when the censorship-savvy Chinese government decides it has had enough of Howard Stern corrupting the youth and takes out Sirius satellite radio?
GPS isn't "slightly higher." It's thousands of miles higher. GEO, where satellite radio satellites reside is thousand of miles higher than that.
But the real problem is that the whole thing is incoherent. What does the "sands of the moon" have to do with ASATs? Just what is it that he's recommending, policy-wise? More money for NASA? More encouragement of private enterprise? How?
You'd think that with all the knowledge out here on the web, newspapers could find better commentators on space than "a lecturer on business strategy and entrepreneurship."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:06 AMAs I noted in my TCSDaily piece, I'm not a space lawyer, but Jesse Londin is, and she has some thoughts on the legalities of the Chinese ASAT test.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:05 AMYou know, if your world view was really "shaken up by China's ASAT demonstration, you couldn't have been paying attention. China is a very real threat in military space (though not manned space), and has been for some time.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:11 PMI first met Katherine Mangu-Ward at a debate on bioethics in DC a year and a half ago. She was working for the New York Times, as a research assistant for (closet libertarian) John Tierney.
I next saw her in Las Vegas, last summer, at the Space Frontier Conference. She was working on a space piece for Reason, for whom she has apparently left the Gray Lady and gone to work as an associate editor. She's finished the piece, and it came out pretty well, other than that COTS isn't a prize, and SpaceX and RpK are competing, not cooperating.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:02 AMEd Kyle has a comprehensive description of it, with the history of "the Stick."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:15 AMThe Chinese have finally admitted that they blew up their weathersat. But no worries:
Liu Jianchao told reporters that China had notified "other parties and... the American side" of its test."But China stresses that it has consistently advocated the peaceful development of outer space and it opposes the arming of space and military competition in space," he told a news conference.
"China has never, and will never, participate in any form of space arms race."
Well, that's that, then. I feel much better now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:58 AMJeff Foust has a roundup. With (so far) one idiotic comment.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:47 PMIs China in control of its own military?
In interviews over the past two days, American officials with access to the intelligence on the test said the United States kept mum about it in hopes that China would come forth with an explanation.Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:05 AMIt was more than a week before the intelligence leaked out: a Chinese missile had been launched and an aging weather satellite in its path, more than 500 miles above the earth, had been reduced to rubble. But protests filed by the United States, Japan, Canada and Australia, among others, were met with silence and quizzical looks from officials in The Chinese Foreign Ministry, who seemed to be caught unaware.
New to me, anyway. Edward Ellegood, up at Embry-Riddle, maintains a list of links to interesting space articles (particularly as they relate to space in Florida). I've been receiving his emails for a while, but didn't realize that he also has a blog. I'll be adding it to the blogroll.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:24 AMMy TCSDaily piece on the Chinese ASAT test is up now.
Over at The Space Review, Christopher Stone agrees that the notion of space as a sanctuary from military activity in the twenty-first century is a fantasy.
There's a lot of other good stuff over there, including some ideas on non-debris-causing ASATs from Taylor Dinerman, a brief history of space-based radar from Dwayne Day, and Paul Spudis' take on why we go to the moon. Not to mention why so many young people believe in the Apollo Hoax.
I'll probably have some further thoughts on better ASAT techniques later this week, if I get time.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:38 AMDon't hold your breath, Thomas. He has a smarter (or at least more comprehensible and grammatical) Bruce Gagnon rant:
Im sure when he does mention it, however, it will be to point out how it's all our fault -- that innocent China merely perceived the US own ASAT programs as a threat to which it had to respond in kind. After all, the US is the wellspring of all evil, ill-will, and bad things in the universe, especially under the fascist, jackboot rule of Chimpy McBushhitler. China's actions are simply a regrettable response to the U.S.' provocative moves to militarize space. After all, non-Western countries -- being peaceable, sharing, spiritual, and in every way morally superior by nature -- are simple stimulus-response organisms, incapable of undertaking such tut-tuttable actions of their own free will and in furtherance of their own self-selected goals.
I've some thoughts on the Chinese ASAT test as well, but I expect them to appear at TCSDaily today or tomorrow.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:04 AMI don't think he has a prayer of getting the Democrat nomination, barring some political earthquake, but is he really running for running mate?
That would be interesting, if he actually became Vice President, because, traditionally, the Veep is in charge of the space program in the White House (Cheney has actually been one of the most hands off in this regard in years). And Richardson has been very supportive of NewSpace (at least partly because of all the hype over Spaceport New Mexico), so that could actually result in some useful changes of direction for NASA.
Not that I'm thrilled in general about a Dem in the White House, of course.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:40 AMSpaceX' next launch attempt has apparently been slipped to mid-February, due to a thrust-vector control issue. The static test firing will still occur this weekend, though.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:48 PMDid the Chinese violate any treaties about not making messes in space when they destroyed their own weather satelllite? My dim understanding is that this issue remains unsettled in the Liability Convention, due to an inability to agree on a definition of the word "debris." Any space lawyers out there more up to date?
I'd think that, at a minimum, if any of the bits strike someone's satellite, or ISS, that the Chinese could be held liable under the OST. If it could be proven that it resulted from this event, that is (probably a difficult thing to do).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:39 PMBrian Dempsey persists in his folly, in comments.
OK, Brian. You claim that SS1 cost five to ten million dollars per flight. So riddle me this: if Burt had decided to fly SS1 one more time, do you claim that he therefore would have had to come up with five to ten million dollars more to do so?
If so, why?
If not, then how much do you think that he would have had to come up with, and in that case, what was your original point, which was comparing SS1 cost to other suborbital vehicle costs (i.e., apples and kumquats). Wasn't the intent of your mistaken posting to attempt to wrongly persuade people that SS1 is not a substantially cheaper vehicle to operate?
You may think that the difference between marginal and average costs is meaningless, but people who actual understand launch economics (and economics in general) do not.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:17 PMThis guy says we're not going to colonize space.
Suffice it to say I find his "arguments" uncompelling, even if I were Catholic.
For one thing, he conflates advocates of space colonization with advocates of people looking for ET, as though the two things had anything to do with each other. He also deploys the foolish Antarctica analogy. He should stick to theology.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:45 PMOver at this post, Brian Dempsey writes:
SS1 cost between $20-30M for 3 flights, which means youre claiming that prior to those flights a launch to ~70 miles cost something like $15-20M each?
This is a perfect example of a fundamental misunderstanding of launch economics to which many fall prey--the difference between average and marginal costs. It's also a perfect example of why launch costs are so high, and it has nothing to do with technology. It's because the flight rate was far too low.
I would guess that the marginal cost of an SS1 flight was less than a hundred thousand dollars, even with their expensive choice of propellants. That's the number of interest when determining whether or not launch costs can be reduced, not the average cost over the program. They could have flown many more flights, and gotten the average cost itself (based on Brian's oversimplistic division of program cost by total number of flights) down near the marginal cost.
For example, if I'm right on the marginal cost (and if I'm not, then SS2 will probably lose money, based on their current pricing structure), then if they flew thirty more times, they'd add three million to the program total (if it was thirty million, it's now thirty-three million), which would yield an average cost of just a million dollars each. Do three hundred, and it starts to approach marginal, at two hundred thousand each (sixty million over three hundred).
That's why average costs are so misleading. The average cost was high because they flew so few times, and they flew so few times not because either the average or marginal cost was high, but because they had no need for any further flights after they won the prize.
[Update on Thursday morning]
Someone in comments asks what "marginal cost" means. The marginal cost of operating a system is the cost of a trip, assuming that everything else has been amortized. It's often called "variable costs." It's typically computed by determining the costs of n flights per year, and then determining the costs of n plus one flights per year, and taking the difference. Thus, it doesn't include any amortization of development costs, or annual fixed costs for the infrastructure needed to operate the system. For a launch vehicle, if it's expendable, then it would include the cost of the vehicle itself, since it has to be replaced if flown. For a reusable system, it would be the salaries of the flight crew, their mission-specific training costs (if any), and consumables, such as propellants and pressurants. If the vehicle were only capable of a few flights, then you might also consider adding the pro-rated cost of vehicle replacement as well (for instance, if it were only capable of ten flights, then you'd add one tenth of the vehicle replacement cost to the marginal cost, but this is probably unlikely in the real world--at worst, you might do it just for a highly stressed engine, or an ablative thermal protection system, which could also be booked as a consumable).
The marginal cost sets a floor on what the cost per flight can be. The actual cost per flight will always be more, because one has to account for amortizing the fixed and sunk costs, but the higher the flight rate, the closer the two will come. Airliners typically have marginal cost per flight of about half their average cost (much of it is simply fuel). If we ever get to that point with launch vehicles, we'll have the problem solved.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:10 PMElon Musk says that the window opens on Saturday.
I'm guessing that this flight is one of their milestones for COTS.
Meanwhile, speaking of COTS, Jeffrey Bell wonders what's really behind it.
He confuses VSE and ESAS (as many do). The Space Frontier Foundation is not opposed to VSE--it is opposed to ESAS.
I think that the answer to his question is much simpler than any of his speculations, and I don't buy his theory of "COTS as management slush fund for Constellation." COTS is funded because the White House wants COTS to be funded. What their motivation is, I don't know, but this is not a NASA-driven program, for any reason of the reasons he states. And that's bad news, since it may not have any defenders in a new administration. They're going to have to make a lot of progress in the next two years to ensure program survival. And even then, it could be cancelled. We've certainly done dumber things.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:54 AMJon Goff has a nice picture of XCOR's recent firing of their LOX/Methane engine at night.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:43 AMMy former co-blogger, Sam Dinkin, has challenged teevee weatherman Willard Scott to a wager.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:27 AMAs Jeff Foust notes, yesterday was the third anniversary of the announcement of the Vision for Space Exploration. Jeff thinks that the next two years are crucial. I agree.
When the president made the speech from NASA HQ, I was staying at a motel in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, looking for a house somewhere in the area (we ended up getting a place in Boca Raton). I live blogged it using the wireless in the motel room on my laptop, and then had some further thoughts. I think they hold up pretty well.
In fact, there were several related posts over those few days. You can check them out by scrolling about halfway down here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:04 AMClark Lindsey has a little roundup of links relating to the "Direct Launch" concept. Short answer, Doug Stanley believes that it can't provide the necessary performance. Having read his argument, I have no reasons to disagree, or think him less than sincere.
Of course, it doesn't matter to me, since I've never been a big fan of it anyway. The fundamental problems with NASA's approach to achieving the president's Vision for Space Exploration go far beyond critiques of specific vehicle designs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:38 AMI wonder if this guy is making any money on these domains? They seem overpriced to me.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:11 AMRob Wilson seems to be attempting to resurrect his space web site.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:17 AMActually, I think that "Death Star" would be a better analogy myself. At least when George Abbey was running the place.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:42 AMClark Lindsey has the current preliminary agenda:
- Near Earth Objects (Asteroids and Comets)
- Prizes for Space Achievements
- ITAR Reform
- NASA/Commercial Services
Fine as far as it goes, but I think there's an item missing there. We need to send a message to incoming chairman Oberstar to keep his hands off our suborbital launch regs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:31 AMThomas James has lots of new posts over at Marsblog this morning.
Check out in particular his thoughts on spacecraft diets. Also, I'm curious as to what he means by (JARGON WARNING!), "It's worth noting that a good chunk of that excess weight is due to changes to the LM FPR configuration neccessitated by the merging of the NG/Boeing and Smart Buyer configurations and inputs from NASA ADPs."
An acronym list would be useful, but what and when was the "merging of the NG/Boeing and Smart Buyer configurations"?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:36 AM...from the new Congress. A much-needed name change:
As part of a rules package passed by the House yesterday, the House Science Committee has been renamed the Science and Technology Committee.
That committee always dealt with much broader issues than science, and it's nice to see it formally recognized. It may help in breaking this automatic equation in peoples' minds between space and science, as though there's no other reason to have space activities. It would also help, though, if we could lose the phrase "rocket scientist."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:54 AMFrom the Chair Force Engineer. He thinks that EML1 is a good idea, though, rather than lunar orbit rendezvous. So do I.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:34 AMBoy, if you're an old L-5er, this site sure brings back memories. I remember using many (in fact all) of those slides when I'd go around and evangelize space colonization back in the late seventies and early eighties.
[Via Phil Bowermaster, who's not the man he once was.]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:24 AMG. Scott Hubbard says that entrepreneurial space is becoming very real:
Building a new space industry requires three things: demand, access to space and a platform. In the Stanford study, where we deliberately limited the investor horizon to 5-8 years, the only truly new business case that clearly closes for profitability is suborbital tourism. In this arena, the technology has proven itself available, private funding is adequate to build the vehicles, and more than enough wealthy individuals are willing to pay $100,000 or more for a short excursion to the edge of space. Space tourism is coming."So what," some say. They point out that even with generous assumptions about flight rate, the business generated by suborbital companies would still be at best a tiny blip in the estimated $180-billion global space market dominated communications satellites and traditional government missions. So why do we care? The answer lies in the huge future potential for space-based goods and services.
As Boeing's Shaw, a former astronaut, pointed out, human space travel is such a powerful personal experience that, "the more people who go, the more will want to go." Once space becomes accessible to tourists on a regular basis, practical industries will certainly follow. If early aviation is any guide, we can say for sure that the demand is as woefully underestimated as the development costs. Still, clever advertising companies and marketers already are exploiting space connections to capture attention, and their strategies appear to be working.
I think that he's mistaken here, though, continuing to buy into the ongoing myth of weightless research:
My own speculation about the location of space's version of "Sutter's gold," as Walker called it, is with biological experimentation in microgravity. Every living organism that we know of evolved in 1g. Science never has been able to fully examine gravity as a variable. From experiments of a few days to a few weeks in space, there are tantalizing hints of radically different gene expression, unusual lignin (a compound vital to connective tissue) growth in plants, and changed rates of disease infectivity. If one assumes extraordinary new breakthrough discoveries will occur, then advanced biotechnologies and future products will arise. It's very sad that given our current set of U.S. space priorities, only the European and Japanese programs will be able to exploit the full potential of the ISS. However, for the right entrepreneur, setting up a biology lab on the ISS or somewhere else in orbit is not out of the question. They could find gold in "them thar orbits."
It may be that there will be some discoveries of useful things that can be done in orbit, once we build an affordable research facility for routine research (something that ISS is not, and will never be). But I don't think that it will ever be a significant market, in either total dollars or in terms of driving transportation requirements. For the foreseeable future, that will be people going into space for their own ends, of which this kind of research will be only one, and a minor one. It's Sutter's fools gold.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:05 AMWell, everyone is talking about the New Years treat. Blue Origin finally lifts the curtain on its vehicle developments, with comments and pics from the Amazonmeister himself (note: probably not a permalink). John Carmack thinks that the vehicle is too big. Alan Boyle has more, having interviewed some of the Blue Origin folks.
I wonder where he's getting his high-test peroxide? Is he manufacturing it in Van Horn?
There's an interesting comment in Alan's post, with which I don't necessarily agree:
"In response to my inquiry about that, Hicks said, 'I just want to remind you that we said previously we didn't plan to comment one way or another about tests, whether they are scheduled, were scheduled, happened, didn't happen, etc.'"How nice. I can only think that a philosophy like that makes it sooo simple to avoid telling the (potential ticket-buying) public about any screw-ups or failures of system unless forced to by public enquiry via legal means. What kind of public relations philosophy is that for a company that wants to throw and eager public into space and bring them back for mega bucks? Methinks I will not be trusting anyone with the Madison Avenue mentality trying to sell me rides into space. Even NASA kills people in the business of trying to expand our world and species into the universe. It's inherent in the technological challenges. The public has every right to know everything before stepping aboard Wobbly Flight 106 to nowhere in particular.
It's not clear what the best strategy is, from a marketing standpoint. Certainly Blue Origin has been the most secretive of all of the serious players in the business, at least to date. Whether this is for competitive reasons, or because of a fear of revealing failure to customers, isn't clear. It's also unclear why they decided to show their stuff now, after six years of circumspection (the most prevalent theory being that the secrecy was hampering their ability to get good employees, but I'm not sure that makes sense--secret government programs manage just fine).
Does Boeing invite the public to test flights of its airliners? Did the excitement of the "corkscrewing" of SS1 increase, or decrease the confidence of potential passengers? On the one hand, it was an unexpected (and no doubt would have been unpleasant for passengers, given how upset Melvill was about it) maneuver. On the other, he recovered, so it could serve as a demonstration of the safety and robustness of the system.
I think that it's less important to show every single flight test, than it is to demonstrate a long track record of public successful flights. The first passengers to fly on these vehicles will be less risk averse. As confidence builds with a series of safe flights, more will be confident enough to take their ride. I don't think that early prototype test flights will really be relevant, successful or otherwise.
Of course, the great thing is that, like technical approaches, it's not clear what the right marketing or flight test approaches are either. Now that we have a variety of entities working the problem, instead of a monolithic government agency, we'll find out what works best the way we always do ultimately--via the market.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:36 AMOne of the key trades made in the Apollo program was the decision of where to do a rendezvous in preparation for the lunar surface mission. Many credit the decision to do it in earth orbit as a key contributor toward achieving the goal of doing it by the end of the decade. But the quickest way to get the job done wasn't necessarily the best. It looks like NASA is now considering one of the other options originally considered--a lunar orbit rendezvous. And it may be that the Ares IV vehicle described will eliminate the need for the Ares V. This is a step in the right direction, but still much more expensive than it need be, and offering much too little for the money.
[Update in the afternoon]
D'oh!
As is pointed out in comments, in fact lunar orbit rendezvous was the method chosen in Apollo. I was thinking of the reconfiguration in LEO prior to lunar injection, but that didn't involve rendezvous.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:53 AMI wrote about a lunar Zion several years ago. I guess I was just ahead of my time:
Daniel Yaron, CEO of Crazyshop, the company which markets moon property in Israel, explained to Ynet why Israelis are interested in purchasing land on the moon: "People decide to buy land on the moon for two reasons: One is the gimmick of giving a gift a piece of land on the moon."Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:56 AM"The other reason," he continued, "is that now, we see that this is becoming more realistic after NASA's decision to construct a manned base on the moon by the year 2020. Some people think that in a few years from now this property may be more valuable."
The Space Review is back after a holiday hiatus, and Jeff Foust writes about young peoples' attitude toward NASA:
The article cites a study published last fall by Dittmar Associates that found relatively low levels of interest among Americans 18-25 years old, part of a cohort of the population often called Generation Y or the Millennials. The survey, performed about a year ago, found that only about half were aware of the Vision for Space Exploration (down from 62 percent in a similar survey in 2004, when the VSE was still new and very much in the news). The same survey also found that 45 percent supported the Vision (down from 55 percent in the 2004 survey) while 40 percent opposed it (up from 30 percent in 2004.) Most damning of all to NASA, though, was the perception of the space agencys relevance. Just over half51 percentof young people surveyed considered NASA irrelevant or very irrelevant, while just 32 percent believed NASA was relevant or very relevant.
I've been noting for a while that NASA seems to have (inadvertently) undertaken a program to make itself irrelevant, at least in terms of opening up space. Apparently it's already working. And here's the reason why:
One might assume that, because young Americans have a mediocre opinion of NASA and the Vision, theyre uninterested in space in general. However, the Dittmar Associates study offered one interesting result: while just over half thought NASA to be irrelevant to their lives, 61 percent found that space tourism and related NewSpace ventures were relevant or very relevant to them. Why the disparity? Space tourism, the study concluded, appears to offer the promise that anyone can goa distinction that appeared meaningful to those individuals who are at all interested in space. In other words, many young people are interested in space, but as participants, not spectators.
Yes. NASA and the federal policy establishment continue to operate on the assumption that we're a nation of voyeurs, and that we'll be satisfied with simply watching a few government employees go off to the moon, at billions of dollars per flight. (Just as an aside, the word "mediocre" doesn't seem like the right one to describe their opinion, though it does describe NASA, in their opinion. Perhaps a better word would be "indifferent.")
As Jeff points out, simply going beyond earth orbit is not going to light a fire of enthusiasm. Only a policy that intrinsically offers hope of large-scale human activity in space, where people will be able to afford to seek their own dreams there, without having to be federal employees, will change these numbers.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here's a related article at Space.com, which shows just how clueless PAO is on the subject (as is Dr. Griffin):
Even though the Dittmar surveys offer a bleak view, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin believes ventures to the moon and Mars will excite young people more than the current shuttle trips to low-Earth orbit.If we make it clear that the focus of the United States space program for the foreseeable future will be out there, will be beyond what we do now, I think you won't have any problem at all reacquiring the interest of young people,'' Griffin said in a recent interview.
I think he's very wrong, for reasons already stated.
The American public engages with issues through people, personalities, celebrities, whatever,'' said George Whitesides, executive director of the National Space Society, a space advocacy group. When you don't have that kind of personality, or face, or faces associated with your issue, it's a little bit harder for the public to connect.''He said the agency could pick the crews for the moon and Mars trips earlier so the public can connect the faces with the far-off missions of the future.
You can take advantage of these personalities and these stories about triumph over adversity to create heroes, if you will,'' said workshop leader Peggy Finarelli, a former NASA official who is now a researcher at George Mason University.
With all due respect to George, and Peggy, that's exactly the approach that got us into this mess, back in the sixties (combined with the fact that we go nationally nuts when our "heroes" get themselves killed, causing a debilitating level of risk aversion at the agency that is one of the reasons costs are so high).
The public isn't looking for heroes in space. They want to be the heroes and heroines themselves. That's what the Utube revolution is all about.
As Jeff says, it's not the medium--it's the message.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:05 AMClark Lindsey writes about NASA's great leap backwards.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:37 AMSo I was reading this latest post over at Selenian Boondocks on lunar base economics, and in comments, someone put forth the hypothetical prize of fifty billion for a private lunar base.
I think that's too much money, for too nebulous a goal, to be politically practicable. The real problem with all these prizes is that the government can't be counted on to not renege. But what if there were a way to assure the winner that he'd get the money if he accomplished the goal? I think that I've mentioned this before, and it was actually originally suggested by someone in sci.space.policy who is generally an idiot, but perhaps a savant one, because he came up with this brilliant idea.
Drop a billion dollars worth of bullion on the lunar surface. Whoever can get up there, and bring it back, gets it. There'd be no way to pull the prize money off the table with such a scheme.
The question is, how much would it cost to implement it?
The problem is the weight.
Well, at the current price of gold, it turns out that a billion dollars is about a hundred thousand pounds. In fact, the cost of the gold that the Shuttle could launch would be roughly the cost of a Shuttle launch (about half a billion dollars). (This sort of calculation is the source of the oft-noted critique of space manufacturing: that if you had some way of alchemically converting lead to gold in LEO, it still wouldn't be worth the money). And of course, that only gets it to LEO--it would take more pounds of stage and propellant to get it to the moon.
Would it have to be soft landed? If not, then the job's a lot easier. You could do a grazing lithobraking maneuver with it that would save a lot of propellant, though it would leave a long and (to purists) ugly gash in the regolith that would hang around for a very long time before it was cratered over. If you just dropped it in vertically, it would just make a new (big) crater, but it would also probably make excavating for it a challenge.
But for a soft landing, let's say (without doing any calculations) that it takes five pounds in LEO to get a pound on the surface (or subsurface). That means a half a million pounds of launch requirement. Say ten Atlas launches (again, roughly). Or about a billion bucks. So it would cost two billion dollars for the prize (ignoring development costs for the lunar descent system)--a billion for the payload and prize itself, and a billion or so to deliver it to the moon.
Clearly, we need something that has a higher dollar density than gold.
Well, there's cold hard cash.
Of course, if it's going to be cash, it would have to be unmarked, unserialized bills (otherwise the government could retroactively come up with a way to make them worthless). That could be done easily enough (well, not trivially, but it's certainly doable). How much would it weigh?
According to the mint, a currency note weighs about a gram. That's a little less than five hundred to a pound. If we use Benjamins, that means that a billion bucks would be about twenty-two thousand pounds. And unfortunately, that's the largest note that's made today.
There's another problem with currency. It's not that durable, if there's a landing accident on the moon. Metals are better.
What are the other possibilities?
Well, there are other precious metals. For instance, the gold/platinum ratio is currently 0.55, so we could roughly halve the mission costs by using that metal instead. Rhodium would be even better. The rhodium/gold ratio is about eight right now (rhodium is just north of $5000 an ounce on the New York spot market right now), so we could reduce the lunar payload down to about ten thousand pounds with that. Of course, is there even a billion dollars worth of it available for the purpose? And how stable would its price be?
But are there things that have even higher dollar densities? Yes. Some drugs, microchips, etc. The problem is coming up with one that will hold its value. Shipping off a bunch of the latest fastest dual-core Intel processors, or eight gigabyte memory chips, would be sinking a lot of money in the project that would be almost worthless by the time someone got to them, given Moore's inevitable Law.
Well, I've wasted enough time on this little trade study. Anyone have any other ideas?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:25 PMFAA-AST has finalized their rule making for private crew and spaceflight participants. Happy reading.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:48 AMApparently, Canada is reassessing its future in space:
The federal government has turned down a request by Canada's space industry to support a contract that would have allowed the companies to build the European Space Agency's Mars surface rover, CBC News has learned.The decision stunned the companies and has left the ESA scrambling to find a new partner, as no European firm is adequately prepared to match the technical abilities of Canadian firms to build its ExoMars rover.
This points out once again that government space programs are first and foremost jobs programs. If having the best robotics (which at least in theory might translate into the best science) were really important to the Europeans, they'd simply send CSA the money, and hire them as a contractor. But space development funds are not allowed to cross borders. ESA insists that each government get an amount of work on its projects in proportion to each member nation's contributions. Now they'll have to spend a lot of money for one of the European partners to get up to speed, and it will result in schedule delays, cost overruns, and risk of failure, all because (at least) when it comes to space, they don't believe in comparative advantage.
We will make much more progress on the high frontier when it starts to pay for itself, and management decisions can be made independently of politics.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:40 AMI haven't talked much about this, but apparently, as things stand now, NASA is not going to get the funding increase it anticipated for 2007, because the federal government is apparently going to be funded on a continuing resolution.
This could mean a new bloodletting to continue to fund the Constellation-related programs. Under those circumstances, I won't be shocked to see COTS put on the block. Millennium Challenges are probably at risk as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:02 AMThis looks like it's going to be a tough team to beat:
ATK Launch Systems, Lockheed Martin Inc. and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne have formed Team Ares and said they will bid to develop the upper stage of the Ares I rocket.
On top of their loss of the CEV contract, and in the wake of Lockheed Martin's aggressive marketing of the Atlas V, this will be another blow to Boeing's human spaceflight business prospects if they can't win (or decide not to bid) the Ares upper stage. And this one can be chalked up to the fact that they decided they didn't want to own Rocketdyne any more. That decision to sell it to Pratt a couple years ago isn't looking so smart now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:48 PMThis should help boost the economy in Mojave:
The extension brings the runway length to 12,500 feet, making it the longest nonfederal runway in Kern County, according to airport officials. It was declared open for use by the Caltrans Division of Aeronautics on Dec. 5.The longer runway will make possible long-haul freight flights, which may use the airport as a hub for distribution of goods.
Trucking activities could be conducted at vacant areas on the north side of the airport, with access to the State Route 58 bypass and Highway 14, district General Manager Stu Witt said.
A rail spur already connects the airport to the main Southern Pacific line through Mojave.
The activity could lead to the airport becoming the ground distribution center for freight from Central America, Mexico and Asia, Witt said.
And this will help new space companies moving in as well, like XCOR:
New hangar and office facilities, which will utilize vacant land along the new taxiway, will help ease the shortage of space available at the airport, where officials have leased all facilities available.
Good for Stu.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:06 AMJeff Foust discusses the problems that NASA is having in communicating a purpose for its lunar activities. Understanding the "why" isn't just important in terms of maintaining public support. It also drives requirements.
There are implicit assumptions about why we're going back to the moon intrinsic in NASA's chosen mission architecture, though they've never been stated explicitly. I lay out several potential reasons for a lunar base in this post, in which I point out that NASA's architecture is actually ideally suited to a "touch and go" approach (i.e., the only reason we're going to the moon is because the president said so, so we'll build a system that's really designed for Mars instead, and just happen to use it for some lunar missions if the political establishment decides it still wants to do that in a decade or so).
If the purpose was really to enable settlement, rather than just setting up a tiny and trivial government base, we'd be spending a lot more money on systems that drive down the marginal cost of trips to the moon. Instead, NASA has chosen an approach that maximizes it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:27 AMJeff Brooks has an intriguing, but I think fundamentally flawed idea: to set up an international organization to manage Martian land sales.
I'm all in favor of granting title rights off planet, and agree that it could provide a useful mechanism to raise private funds for planetary exploration, but I'm afraid that a transnationalist approach is doomed to failure. Better to simply amend the OST (or withdraw, failing that) and allow sovereignty claims (in fact the treaty could come up with a way to equitably distribute the claims). But I wouldn't trust an international organization to safeguard my civil or property rights, given the nature of the international community.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:09 AMWe're not going up to see the launch tonight, because the probability is still only about 30%, last I heard, and we have to go to a company Christmas party down in Miami. But if anyone is planning to drive over there, don't expect to go in to Titusville:
Normally considered a great place to watch a launch, the main thoroughfare through the town will be closed in both directions this evening for the city's Annual Christmas Parade. Motorists should expect significant delays.Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:56 PM
Dan Schrimpsher has some thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:06 AMJames Sensenbrenner didn't get the ranking member position he wanted on the House Science Committee. He lost out to Texan Ralph Hall. Hall will be much more devoted to JSC, while Sensenbrenner, with no NASA centers in his state of Wisconsin, would have been better for commercial space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:19 AMRussia says they'll help us build a moon base, if we provide them with funding.
Sorry, I think we tried the foreign aid bit back in the nineties on ISS. As I recall, the result was late deliveries of hardware, and a proliferation of dachas, Mercedes, and Cayman accounts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:20 AMNow these are what I call hot rockets. Question is, which are the rocket geeks going to pay more attention to, the rockets, or Sheri?
It reminds me of the old engineer joke. An engineering student sees one of his buddies, a fellow engineering student, riding a bike toward him.
"Hey," he says. "When did you get the bike?"
"It's a weird story," he replies. "I was just walking on the quad, and this girl rides up to me, gets off, drops the bike, takes off all her clothes and lies there, saying 'take what you want.'"
"Good choice," says his friend. "The clothes probably wouldn't have fit."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:42 AMKeith Cowing continues to live blog the Exploration conference today:
Cooke is going through a standard recitation of why we explore, why go back to the Moon, etc. It is fine for NASA folks do this once or twice at a meeting of the faithful (such as this), but I have to wonder why NASA folks feel compelled to spend so much time on this with an audience that is already convinced - except, perhaps, to serve as cheerleaders, I suppose. This is the fourth time the VSE story has been told here.Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:57 AM...Tony Lavoie is speaking now. He opened by making sure everyone knew that these architectural depictions in the fancy graphics were "notional" (NASA's favorite word to make sure they can wiggle out of something later), "points of departure", "Point in the sand" a "Point at which to engage" etc. This is one of NASA's odd habits - on one hand they wave this new architecture around so as to demonstrate to the external world that they have done something and that they can make decisions - and then they turn around and warn people that what they see on the screen (to illustrate the very same architecture) is not what they may get. Hardly what you do to inspire confidence among external observers.
Jonah Goldberg has been discussing the probability of a catastrophic asteroid impact with the earth, based on this post by Ron Bailey. He has an email from one of his very confused readers:
You probably have a lot of others e-mailing as well to point this out, but while that 0.3% seems like a small probability it is wholly implausible. Just as a point of comparison given what Ive seen on the departure screens at every airport Ive been in, there has to be at least 1000 or more domestic airline flights every single day - probably many times that number. If the probability of an accident were 0.3% that would translate into an expected 3 crashes every single day (0.003*1000)! So are we to believe that the probability of an aircraft accident is many orders of magnitude smaller than the probability of an asteroid destroying all life on the planet? Preposterous.
But of course that is exactly what we are to believe, and why not? The probability of an aircraft accident is in fact vanishingly small, which is why we don't have airplane crashes every day. But the reader is confused on two levels. First, I don't think that anyone claims that it would destroy "all life on the planet." The concern is that it would merely wipe out human civilization.
But the probability is what it is, and it's based on the current limits of our understanding of the object's current position and ability to integrate its orbit forward in time with confidence, including all of the secondary and tertiary perturbations (other planets, other objects, etc.). As time gets closer, we will both have a better idea of its actual trajectory, and be better able to model its (and our) destiny as computers get more powerful. At that point we'll have a much better assessment of the probability (in fact, at some point we'll determine it to be either zero, or one, with the former much more likely, given how low it currently is).
But there's certainly nothing preposterous about the number as it stands today. Large objects have hit the planet in the past, much more frequently than we've previously thought (there were two hits in Norway just in the past few months that would have wiped out thousands had they hit a city, as would Tonguska have killed millions were it better targeted, a century ago) and they will do so in the future, unless we go out and herd them.
Frankly, I don't even understand the emailer's argument. Perhaps he's making sort of a category error in comparing aircraft and asteroids. In the case of aircraft, we're talking about the probability of any particular plane going down on any particular flight which, for reasons stated above, is extremely low. But for the asteroid, we're talking about this particular asteroid, hitting us once decades from now, given its trajectory as currently understood, not a generic probability of any asteroid hitting us. Obviously, if there were a 0.3 percent chance of any asteroid hitting us on a given day, we'd be hit many times a day (and in fact we are, but most of them are too small to do any damage), given the large number of objects out there. But he's comparing apples and oranges.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:40 PMI didn't make it to Houston for the Exploration Conference, but Keith Cowing did, and is live blogging it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:19 PMMark Whittington has a largely reasonable assessment of the implications of the Democrat takeover for space activities. I'd just add (though it's not really associated with the takeover per se) that one other interesting potential change in the new Congress would be the return of Jim Sensenbrenner to the House Science Committee, as ranking member (he would have presumably gone for the chairmanship if the Republicans had retained control). As noted in comments at the link, he will be much more skeptical of NASA, and welcoming of commercial activities, than many of his predecessors.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:25 PMIn this post, Jay Manifold comments:
...my (possibly incorrect) understanding is that LH2 can only be stored for a few hours.
It is incorrect. There's no intrinsic limit on how long you can store LH2. It's just a matter of how much weight and power you're willing to devote to insulation and/or refrigeration systems.
In fact, the concept I have for a cis-lunar infrastructure is a series of combination depots/tankers. You'd have at least four of them (probably five, for backup purposes). One would be sitting in LEO, being filled up. One would be sitting at L1 to provide propellant for returning and lunar-bound vehicles. There would always be (at least) two in transit, one heading toward LEO, and the other heading toward L1. When one arrived, the one already there would depart to the other destination.
I'm envisioning them with plenty of power, both to run high-Isp thrusters, and to keep propellants continuously chilled. You might be able to do it with solar (though the panels would take repeated beatings going through the Van Allen belts). The obvious technical solution would be nuclear, but that's probably still politically unacceptable, despite its reasonableness.
[One further evening thought]
If they were powered with nukes, there'd be plenty of power to not only keep the hydrogen chilled, but to actually crack it from water. The marginal cost of doing so, given the initial investment of the nuclear tankers, would be pretty low, and it could dramatically affect the cost of delivering the propellants to orbit, since they could be delivered in a more dense form that doesn't require cryogenic tankage, and is much safer. Of course, the vehicles would either have to operate at a stoichiometric ratio of 8:1 oxygen/hydrogen (which is suboptimal in terms of specific impulse--ideal is 6:1)) or throw away or find other uses for the excess O2.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:15 PMHere's an article from the Guardian about space tourism. It's not too bad, but I found this irritating (as I often do these sorts of things):
...even if space tourism will benefit science done in low Earth orbit, such as launching satellites, it is unlikely to help scientists reach further out into the solar system, says Kevin Fong, a leading UK expert on space medicine at University College London. "It is extremely unlikely that a successful, profitable space tourism operator would find a workable business plan for the exploration of the Moon or Mars," he said.
Why in the world would anyone expect an "expert on space medicine" to know anything about "workable business plans"? Why is it that journalists think that they should go to scientists and researchers to learn about this stuff? They're often the least knowledgable.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:01 PMThis is a paper that I wrote a couple years ago, and that I never really found a place to publish. But then, I remembered that I'm a bloggist, and have a place to publish things that no one else wants to publish. It seems like it's a useful discussion right now, given that NASA has announced their lunar architecture plans, and things seem to be somewhat in ferment.
Background
The choice of transportation node location is strongly driven by both near-term and longer-term architecture requirements, which are in turn driven by overall exploration program goals and their phases. More specifically, the choice of whether and how to utilize the Earth-Moon L1 location is largely driven by our reasons to go to the moon. For this reason, it's not possible to recommend a specific location for lunar transportation staging operations, but we can do analysis that can help NASA or private entities make such a decision in the context of other agency choices as the program evolves.
There are at least four schools of thought on the purpose of a human return to the moon prior to human expeditions to Mars.
In the first two views, any visits to the moon are not for the purpose of long-term operations or eventual settlement, and so any investment in infrastructure to support them would be wasted, when it could be invested instead in getting us on to the actual, eventual goals, Mars and beyond.
In the third view, the infrastructure would be invested in, but emplaced on the Moon itself, so orbital activities, not on the lunar surface, would be superfluous, and again a waste of scarce resources.
It is only in the fourth view, in which the Moon is both a place that we will be using as an ongoing research and development test bed, and as a source for new resources (particularly propellant resources), that orbital nodes related to it become of interest. From that standpoint, EML1 turns out to be a very interesting location.
In addition to the role of lunar exploration in choosing transportation nodes, there is another consideration, which is the degree of desired reusability of transportation elements. This is in turn a function of the cost of propellants at various nodes. In general, due to the nature of the rocket equation, the lower the cost of propellant at any given location, the more likely it is that reusability of elements operating out of that location will make sense.
This is because, currently, the cost of propellants at any location in space is a function largely of the rocket equation, because they must be delivered to those locations all the way from the earth, using chemical propulsion. In a sense, from the standpoint of propellant delivery, a vehicle can be considered a tanker, in which its propellant payload is whatever is left over after expending the much larger amount of propellants needed to provide the change in velocity necessary to get it to its destination. Thus, as a result of the rocket equation, the cost of propellant at any location in space goes up roughly exponentially with the amount of velocity change required to get it there from the production source. This means that, for locations far beyond earth orbit (such as geostationary orbit, lunar orbit, EML1 or the lunar surface), the effective cost of the propellants required to return a vehicle from that location can be higher than the cost of the vehicle itself, rendering vehicle reusability pointless from an economic standpoint.
Establishing propellant production in one of those distant locations can change this logic, perhaps dramatically. (Potentially) cheap propellants manufactured on the lunar surface transform a reusable LSAM, whether to low lunar orbit or some other intermediate point (most notably EML1) from an expensive proposition to an attractive one, at least for one reuse. In turn, using the LSAM as a tanker to deliver the propellants to that staging point could perhaps dramatically reduce the costs of propellants in that location as well, relative to the cost of delivering them there from earth, because the velocity change required to do so is much lower. This in turn potentially makes a multiple-reuse LSAM viable. The LSAM is used to deliver both propellants and cargo, and the number of economical reuses of a vehicle would be driven by the LSAM design itself, rather than propellant logistics issues per se. The issue then becomeswhat is the staging location that best utilizes this scenario, with the two obvious choices being low lunar orbit (LLO), and EML1?
A Place In Space
Lagrange points are to the Moon as geostationary orbit is to the earth. They are the places where gravity and momentum are in continual balance, and from which the view of the moon (due to its tidal-locked situation, in which it never rotates with respect to the earth, or the earth-Moon system itself) never changes, because they rotate around the system with the Moon.
The one that Dr. Lagrange designated L1 is of particular interest, because it is the closest one to the Moon that is visible from both earth and the earth-facing side of the Moon, being located continuously between them on the line connecting their centers. For this reason, it is one of the only few places, and the most convenient place in what the late Congressman George Brown called Greater Metropolitan Earth that can be reached from the lunar surface at the same cost, any time one wishes, and with no launch windowsthere is essentially no relative motion between it and any point on the Moon (ignoring slight variations resulting from the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit and other minor perturbations).
Its advantage lies not only in its location with respect to earth and Moon. It is also a reasonable location for a spaceport to the rest of the solar system. It is sufficiently far from earth to be high up in its gravitational bucket, vastly reducing the amount of propellant needed to escape the earth-Moon system from there. Such an escape trajectory is a minimum, and necessary condition to other solar destinations, whether to Mars or near-earth objects and other inner and outer planets. The location, unlike the earths or Moons surface, or even low earth orbit, is in a little gravity dimple, rather than a deep gravity well. Yet it is close enough to be a convenient trip from both earth and the lunar surface, in terms of trip time.
Near-Term Benefits of EML1 Utilization
As previously discussed, if we are to utilize lunar resources for propellant production, having some place in orbit, but off the lunar surface, would be a convenient location for a depot to store the propellants delivered from the Moon. For lunar operations itself, this propellant would have two potential uses: delivery of payloads back to earth, and delivery of payloads (including a reusable LSAM) back to the lunar surface, either for use there or as a return trip to get more propellant.
LLO could be used for this activity, but it has several problems. First, like LEO, LLO is not a single, unique orbitthere are an infinite number of them with varying altitudes, eccentricities and inclinations. The orbital characteristics will vary over time, meaning that the amount of velocity change to get there from any location on the lunar surface will vary (perhaps greatly) over time as well. The only exception to this would be a polar orbit, accessed from one of the poles (which is a possibility, given that this is viewed as one of the most promising locations for propellant production). However, the node of a lunar polar orbit will also vary with time, making it inconvenient and expensive to return to earth from it much of the time. Furthermore, any low lunar orbit tends to be unstable over time, due to mass concentrations on the Moon, which means that any permanent facility in an LLO will eventually crash into the lunar surface absent continuous active station keeping.
For all of these reasons, LLO is probably a poor choice for a propellant depot (or construction hangaranother potential application for a cis-lunar staging area). It also would require communications relay when on the far side of the Moon, if continuous communications with earth is required or desired. Its use as a safe haven (or in fact any application that implies permanent infrastructure in that location) would probably be precluded by these considerations as well.
EML1, however, for reasons already discussed, will be relatively stable (it needs minimal station keeping to remain in place), is always the same distance, in time and velocity, from any point on the Moon (providing flexibility in lunar surface activity locations unavailable from a fixed LLO). In addition, it will always be the same distance (again, in terms of time and velocity) from the earth.
This stability allows it to be used for all of the things for which permanent facilities might be desired. Of course, any discussion about propellant depots or construction hangars at EML1 or, for that matter, at any off-planet location raises the specter for some of another space station, with all of the attendant concerns about costs and program complexity. However, as with the Shuttle program, in which many assume that its shortcomings have somehow proven that reusability is a mistake, it is dangerous to extrapolate any general conclusions about building space facilities from a single programmatic data point, such as ISS.
There are many reasons that ISS has turned out as it has, and few, perhaps none of them are intrinsic to building space facilities. Without getting into a detailed critique of the program that would be well beyond the scope of this article, a key point that should be understood is that the ISS had many purposes, the most important of which were political, rather than to actually do anything useful in space (including providing continuing employment in key congressional districts, providing foreign aid to Russia without dipping into conventional State Department budgets for such things, justifying the Shuttle development, etc.). It also suffered from mission creep, with requirements evolving and changing over time. Most of its true program requirements could, in fact, be satisfied without ever launching hardware into space, as evidenced by the fact that it survived for well over a decade (much longer if one counts all of the concept studies of the seventies and early eighties) without doing so. Most importantly, it was not part of anything largerit became, and was, an end in itself.
A facility at EML1 (or anywhere else as part of the VSE) would not suffer from these problems, at least not intrinsically. It would simply be another development as part of a much larger activity (establishing a base on the Moon). It would not be the single focal point of human spaceflight development, as ISS became, and would be less prone to hijacking by other interests, allowing the focus to better remain on the development itself rather than which centers and congressional districts get the biggest slices of the pie. If its actually necessary as part of the overall infrastructure (in ways that neither Freedom or ISS ever have been) it will have a much better chance of success in terms of meeting its program and schedule goals. It makes no more sense to programmatically fear another space station in orbit than it does to fear a lunar base, or a Mars base, all essential things to developing robust space capabilities.
There are, of course, disadvantages as well for this location. As an intermediate point, EML1 adds both velocity and time to the total trip from LEO to the lunar surface, increasing total propellant requirements for the mission. However, this wouldnt necessarily increase the mission costs, if the reduced propellant costs make up the difference. In fact, there is actually a benefit to the increased velocity change, in the sense that doing so increases the size of the LSAM, increasing the total amount of cargo able to be delivered to the lunar surface in a single flight (assuming that the LSAM is sized for the crew mission).
One further consideration of whether or not to use EML1 as a staging point is whether or not propellant depots based on lunar propellants are economically viable at all, relative to earth delivery. This will be a function of the cost of propellant production on the lunar surface, the cost of mission turnaround of an LSAM, and the cost of operations at the orbital depot, including propellant storage. An analysis should be performed to determine this, but it is highly sensitive to a number of inputs about which we presently still have too little understanding.
Far-Term Benefits of EML1 Utilization
As previously discussed, EML1 is a potentially interesting departure point for Mars and other points beyond the earth-Moon system. In addition to the delta-vee advantages already described, it could also be a safe place for a quarantine facility. Vacuum makes a good firewall, and it's better to have a hundred thousand miles of it than a couple hundred (as would be the case in LEO).
If it turns out that propellants can be delivered more cheaply to this location from the lunar surface than from earth to LEO, it may be a more cost effective means of doing outer (and inner, such as Near-Earth Objects) exploration than staging from LEO. The answer to this will not be known until the propellant-production technology requirements and designs are better understood, as well as the economics and degree of feasible reusability of surface-orbit tankers from the Moon, subjects beyond the scope of this article.
However, in general, if we are to become a truly space faring civilization, including the capacity to explore, mine and perhaps move NEO objects that could become a danger to us, we will at some point have to develop the capability to fuel and service spaceships off planet, including gathering extraterrestrial resources with which to do so (perhaps from those same objects). At some level of activity, this approach will reduce costs of operations, particularly marginal costs, an issue to which we tend to devote far too little attention. The sooner we start to develop such a capability, with all of the learning and technology development involved, the sooner we will attain that status. If we are to use the Moon as more than a brief foray on the way to Mars, or redoing Apollo, and if we want to get a head start on utilizing extraterrestrial resources, an EML1 base appears to be a logical way to do this, early on. However, it is also conceivable that initial forays to the Moon could be direct, until we understand more about lunar operations, at which time we could transition to an EML1 architecture as we understand more about the economics of surface operations, while still providing potential savings for missions beyond the earth-Moon system. As previously noted, it depends largely on just what we're trying to accomplish.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:18 AMJon Goff has some very good suggestions for getting NASA on the right track.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:00 AMJeez. I have to find out via Clark Lindsey that my latest take on NewSpace in The New Atlantis is now on line.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:54 AMIn yesterday's post on bypassing the moon, a commenter writes:
As long as you're going somewhere where there are no in-situ resources to produce fuel with, you've got no, repeat NO advantage in terms of the amount of mass you have to put into space to get something somewhere.Orbital refueling is the same whether it takes place next to a space-station or in the middle of nowhere. You still have to launch all your fuel from Earth. Constructing a fuel-factory base on the moon, on the other hand, means that you only have to get the payload in an agreeable orbit for the booster rockets/tanks to be launched to it from the moon.
This isn't necessarily the case. Not all payloads are created equal. It's conceivable that propellants could be launched more cheaply than other things (for instance, with catapults, or relatively unreliable but cheap boosters). So fueling in LEO would make sense under those conditions. In addition, you might be able to deliver propellants to GEO or EML1 much more cheaply than other payloads (e.g., by sending them on a slow tanker with a high Isp, with trip times that wouldn't be tolerable to humans, particularly through the Van Allen belts). So there is potentially a lot of benefit to orbital fueling even in the absence of ISRU.
[Early afternoon update]
I should note that it's also not true that "you've got no, repeat NO advantage in terms of the amount of mass you have to put into space to get something somewhere."
If you can deliver propellant to a staging point (like EML1) for your return more cheaply than conventional means, you can in fact reduce the total amount of propellant required for the mission, and that must thus be delivered to space. That's because it takes propellant to move propellant. If you deliver your return propellant as part of the total lunar insertion payload, it costs just as much, in terms of injection propellant requirements, as a pound of anything else. But if you can get it out there using low-thrust systems or (as Jon Goff suggests in comments) by Weak Stability Boundary trajectories, you can get the propellant there with a lot less propellant. There are really huge payoffs to the ability to store and transfer propellants on orbit, regardless of the cost of launch from earth.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:56 AMHere's an article in the Jackson Hole Star Tribune about Frontier Astronautics, a company that has set up shop in an abandoned Atlas silo outside Chugwater, Wyoming.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:30 AMThis is an interesting concept, but I think that it would be a tough sell politically, partially because of the false lessons learned from ISS:
The notional mission design that Farquhar presented is based on what he calls the Deep Space Shuttle, which is similar to Orion but features a reusable service module that would aerobrake into Earth orbit at the end of the mission. The vehicle would also have drop tanks carrying the propellant needed to send the spacecraft to SEL2 and back; as the name suggests, the tanks would be jettisoned after use. A 35-day round-trip mission to SEL2, including five days at the libration point to carry out telescope servicing, could be carried out with a total delta-v only marginally higher than a round-trip mission into lunar orbit....One disadvantage of this proposed architecture is that rather than going to a universally-known destination like the Moon or Mars, it involves, at least initially, going to quite literally an empty location in space, a concept that may be a little too abstract and difficult to grasp for the general public or politicians. As one person noted in a Q&A session after the talk, once youre there, theres nothing to plant a flag in.
I don't think that Farquhar endeared himself to the administrator with this comment, either, even (maybe especially) if it's true:
Theres a tremendous performance advantage doing it this way, he said. I did talk to [NASA administrator] Mike Griffin about this once, and I think it went over his head.Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:08 AM
Jon Goff explains why the ESAS windmill is worth a tilt:
How are we going to find investors willing risk the money to develop on-orbit propellant transfer when they're being told that multi-launch architectures are too unreliable? That the best way to get back to the moon is building Ares I and Ares V, and that any EELV or light launcher based system would require too many launches to be practical?Who's going to fund a commercial lunar transportation system if we've abandoned the field to those who claim the only way you can do lunar transportation is using HLVs?
Ideas matter.
Honestly, as much as I would like to see NASA change to a more commercial aligned position, I don't really think it is likely to happen. But if we can sway the conventional wisdom that these other, more commercial approaches really are not only technically feasible, but technically and economically superior, it doesn't really matter. In the end, NASA will do what NASA will do, but if we can convince potential investors that there really are more cost effective ways of doing things, it will have been worth it.
But if we abandon the field of ideas, and stick to our knitting, we're setting ourselves seriously up for failure.
It's impossible to even begin to estimate the staggering amount of damage that has been done over the past decades to our prospects of opening space, by NASA-driven public perceptions about the difficulty of doing various things in space, in terms of decimating investment prospects. The false lessons from Apollo, the Shuttle and ISS continue to haunt us today, and this current irrational fear of orbital operations just continues that destructive legacy, in my opinion.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:53 AMRyan Zelnio has started a new space policy blog, that reviews space policy papers. He seems to be off to an interesting start.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:53 AMThe latest edition is up on the web.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:28 AMI wonder what the center picture is on this web page? And what the "15" means? Years until it flies...?
[Update late morning]
As a commenter notes, it's not Chinese, but Korean, which I should have known by the name of the publication.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:27 AMMost of the alternatives put forth against ESAS are different launch vehicle concepts, with no major changes to the nature of the lunar mission hardware or operations itself. Following up from his previous posts, Jon Goff has been exploring a different corner of the trade space, and has some interesting results. As a commenter points out there, he's grossly overoptimistic on his vehicle weights, but it remains an interesting avenue to explore, regardless.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:41 AMThomas James notes something that I didn't get around to noting yesterday--how limited in his thinking Stephen Hawking is:
If you're going to have to terraform even barren worlds with Earth-like parameters, how is that so much different from developing Mars-like planets as well? Why be so picky?Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:32 AMIn fact, there just happens to be a Mars-like planet nearby, which wouldn't require anti-matter rockets or tens of thousands of years to reach...
And for that matter, there are plenty of asteroids and moons in the universe, not to mention the infinite possible variations on O'Neillian space settlements. Settling Earth-like planets isn't the only way to preserve the species.
I haven't read it yet, but Jack Schmitt's new book
[Update a few minutes later]
Unfortunate typo of Dr./Senator Schmitt's name has been fixed...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:04 AMJon Goff has some more good posts up on exploration (and particularly lunar) architectures. Here's a key point that undercuts NASA's rationale for HLVs:
Why doesn't NASA land enough stuff to support 4 people for 6 months on a single lander? Or 6 people for a year? Because it would require much too big of a lander, which would cost too much to develop, and way too much to operate. By making the lander smaller, and less capable, but using LSR, ESAS provides a much cheaper approach than trying to do a Battlestar Galactica scale lunar lander. However, you could see where that logic goes...And Doug Stanley more or less admitted it. He said that had the 4 people for 7 days edict not been "blessed" by Mike Griffin as one of the ground rules, that EELV based architectures would have traded a lot better compared to the chosen ESAS architecture. And he's right. All the numbers I've run show that you could probably do a reasonable 2-man lunar architecture using st0ck, or nearly st0ck EELVs (or EELV equivalents like Falcon IX if it becomes available).
They admit the need for assembly on the moon, because they know that (as Jon notes) it's completely unrealistic to get a full-up base to the surface with a single launch of any vehicle short of Sea Dragon (come to think of it, that's one HLV that I could get behind, because it's innovative and wouldn't necessarily cost that much). Now admittedly, it is easier to do assembly in a gravity field (though in some ways, it's harder as well, since with weight, you need cranes, etc.). But it's not so much easier that they should have ruled out doing orbital assembly, something that we need to learn to do anyway, and that they will have to do for Mars, even with Ares V.
Again, as Jon points out, the entire architecture, and justification for an expensive (in both development and operations) heavy lifter is based on an arbitrary requirement--four crew for seven days. Remove that constraint, and the trade space blossoms tremendously. But it apparently doesn't satisfy political imperatives, whatever their source.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:53 AMWhen NASA first proposed a single-SRB-based launcher, one of the issues that jumped out immediately to many familiar with vehicle design and Shuttle design was roll control. As designed for the Shuttle, there are two SRBs, both of which can gimbal the engines. This allows roll control of the Shuttle stack by gimbaling them in opposite directions. But when there's only one, the engine gimbal provides pitch and yaw control, but there's no way for it to control roll.
There are two potential solutions to this--to modify the SRB itself to add roll-control thrusters, or to incorporate them into the new upper stage. The latter has the disadvantage of oversizing the roll-control system for the period after stage separation, which adds weight and affects performance, but it simplifies design by requiring only one system.
In any event, the concept seems to be in trouble. Now this certainly isn't a show stopper, and issues like this are inevitable in the development of a new launch vehicle, but it's just one more demonstration of the fact that deriving a new launcher from existing pieces isn't as easy as has been advertised by many, both within and out of the agency.
[Late morning update]
Gary Hudson emails one other option:
There is a third possibility: let it roll. Depending on the rate and duration, it may not be a problem. Some current vehicles do this (Taurus, for one) and we are planning a subset of it for the AirLaunch QuickReach. In our case, we have a Stage Two roll thruster but its purpose is to limit the rate, not hold a specific roll attitude. Makes for a much small thruster. It is later used as part of the normally smaller sized Stage Two attitude control subsystem.Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:35 AM
I'm going to be very interested in this briefing on lunar architectures next week.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:56 PMGeorge Abbey, who ran NASA's manned spaceflight program in the Goldin years, seems to be attempting to position himself to replace Mike Griffin with the advent of a Democrat administration. There are some grammar problems with this report of a recent speech by him (it reads sort of like a live blog of the speech). I know that you will all be shocked to hear this, but he doesn't want to replace the Shuttle--he wants to keep operating it:
The space program needs realism, Abbey said. Putting an end point on the shuttle forces NASA to focus all of its remaining missions on the space station, giving little leeway for other missions.
What other missions? Other than Hubble, what does he have in mind? Surely he doesn't think that we can afford to do deep space exploration with it as a launch vehicle?
If we don't retire it, how long does he expect to be able to keep operating it? What happens when (not if) we lose another orbiter?
The major difference between the two craft, Abbey said, is versatility a handy attribute when working in space [sic--I assume that there is supposed to be some kind of punctuation after the word "versatility"]. (Orion) is not as capable as the shuttle it cant [sic] do any of the things the shuttle can do.
Well, it certainly can't do all the things that the Shuttle can do, but it can certainly (at least in theory) deliver crew to space and back, which is one of the things that the Shuttle can do. Whether or not it even should be able to do all of the things that the Shuttle can do is barely even debatable any more, given the consensus of most observers of the program that a primary problem with Shuttle is that it had too many conflicting requirements. This is thinking right out of the early seventies, and it's also thinking born of a career at NASA, in which it is automatically assumed that we can only afford one vehicle type, so it must do everything (ISS was severely crippled by this attitude as well). And of course any system that has to have so much capability, if it's possible at all, will be very expensive to develop and operate, so the notion that we can only afford one becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I find his concern about other space nations misplaced. Certainly China isn't going to make any great strides at their current place. And his spinoff argument is typical NASA fluff. The only thing he says that I agree with, in fact, is about ITAR (at least I assume that's what he's talking about when he says):
First, Abbey said too much government red tape is making it very difficult for wanting nations to purchase satellites from the U.S. The red tape is forcing nations to other competitors those competitors are surpassing us.
Of course, it's hard to know exactly what he said, or meant, given the quality of the reportage.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:33 PMI'll probably have some commentary on this when I get more time (i.e., when relatives aren't visiting for the weekend), but Jon Goff has an interesting post on some candid comments by Doug Stanley on ESAS. I'm sure that Doug is sincere in his beliefs that a) Mars is more important than the moon and b) ESAS is the best way under the political circumstances to make it happen. But I think he's wrong on both counts, and more importantly it is not his place (or even Mike Griffin's) to make policy. If he has problems with VSE as stated, and wants to do a touch and go on the moon (ignoring the president's directive), he should work to get the policy changed, rather than pervert the architecture in his preferred direction without such a debate.
[Update on Monday morning]
More interactions with Dr. Stanley, from Keith Cowing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:09 AMJon Goff is unaccountably questioning the value of his blogging. I haven't been linking to him as much as I should, but he has been putting up a lot of well-thought-out and thought -provoking posts on potential space architectures that would be far superior to NASA's current plans. Head over there and tell him to keep it up.
I do second the recommendation to get off Blogspot, though. If nothing else, it would allow him to post his URL in comments here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:38 AMClark Lindsey notes that the FAA-AST web site has been revamped, by folding it into the general FAA web site. While the improvements he notes are worthwhile (though the changing of permalinks definitely is not), I'm unthrilled with the concept of entwining AST even more deeply with the FAA. AST was originally the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, reporting directly to the Secretary of Transportation. The Clinton administration demoted it, and folded it into FAA in the early nineties.
This had two deleterious effects. First, it gave it less clout within the department, since the AA for it now had to report to the SecTran up through the FAA administrator. Second, it placed it in an agency that, after the Valujet crash, had its responsibility declared solely for public safety, with none to promote the aviation industry (one of its charters in the early days).
But the infant space transportation industry needs a different balance between safety and promotion than a mature aviation industry, and there is a potential clash of regulatory cultures as long as AST remains within FAA. Its current bureaucratic abode makes it much easier to justify nannyism that could strangle it in the cradle. I think that there should be a push on by the space activist community to restore it to its original position as a separate administration within DOT, and I'm not happy whenever I see its status as a subset of FAA further entrenched.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:24 AMRight after the election, I pointed out one of the less-obvious consequences of it--Jim Oberstar's potential strangling of an infant industry in the cradle. Taylor Dinerman expands on the thought today.
In spite of some weasel wording, the hard legal requirements of Oberstars proposed regulation would effectively kill the whole entrepreneurial suborbital industry. The cost not only of developing a manned rocket that complies with the kind of safety burden that Oberstar wants, not to mention the astronomical cost of proving that a vehicle actually does comply with the regulations, will make it all but impossible even for the deepest pockets to build anything.Even worse, Oberstar might open the door for the tort lawyers to come in and strip mine all the investment capital out of the industry. They almost killed off the US general aviation industry before Congress stepped in and put a stop to the lawsuit avalanche. In that case, tens of thousands of US jobs were at stake, but with the space tourism industry so far only hundreds of jobs are now at risk. The greatest danger is that all the thousands of high-paying jobs that the space tourism industry will create if the industry is left to develop under current rules will simply never exist.
I wish that folks like Oberstar were more worried about that potentiality than a few tourists potentially being killed in the early years.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:26 PMClark Lindsey isn't impressed by Scott Horowitz' ability to ignore "outside noise:"
I guess this is an improvement over the deaf/mute NASA that produced the Space Shuttle, the ISS, X-33, X-34, SLI, OSP, etc. NASA leaders were then completely oblivious to the existence of any outside voices on space hardware development and never felt it necessary to address complaints from know-nothings (i.e. anyone not working at NASA). At least now they go to the window and before closing it they yell at the peons outside to shut up and stop making a racket.Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:06 PM
Rick Tumlinson challenges the space activist community:
The most disappointing thing about the state of the Centennial Challenges is that the pro-frontier/pro-NewSpace community hasn't made Congress change its position.Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:01 PMGiven the importance we have all attached to prizes and new ways of NASA/USG doing things in space, the tepid response of this community and its inability to raise enough pressure to get the prizes funded shows we are either too weak to effect significant change, too disorganized to do so, or we simply don't care or aren't willing to put our muscle where our mouth is.
We have a few weeks to put that pressure on and bring one home for the cause. The leaders of this community, including many of the great bloggers out there, need to wake up and make this happen. We need to both focus attention on the committee(s) involved and on NASA to fight for one of the brightest spots in its otherwise dark future. This isn't about who does the prizes or competes for them, or even how soon anyone wins, it is about the concept of trying something new with hundreds of years of proven track record, changing how we do space, supporting the fledgling NewSpace industries and movement, and showing that those of us who care about humanity's future in space is worth fighting for.
I noticed someone posted links to the Appropriations committee and its staffers. Those in the know as to how the machine operates should enlighten their readers, and we all should step up to this one.
I saw Pixel (Armadillos vehicle) hovering above the desert [at the X Prize Cup], and it was a magical sight. Not just because it was accomplished so cheaply and by pseudo volunteers, nor that it and the tether challenges inspired so many and generated such news, not even for the looks of the amazed children in the audience, but because it signaled what is possible at a fraction of the cost of todays old space industrial complex.
There are many who would be quite happy to see this sort of symbol just fade away, but for those of us believe in the dream of an open frontier in our lifetimes it is time to stop whining and get something done.
I urge you and your readers to take action. Organize your local space groups, spend a tiny bit of the time they use typing at each other on these forums and weigh in with those who need to feel the heat.
If we cant win something this relatively small in the battle to change our national space agenda, it bodes extremely ill for our chances not only to force NASA to implement a pro-frontier strategy, it also is an ill omen for our ability to defend the newborn child of NewSpace and our chance to move beyond governments into space.
In the next weeks I and my associates in the Foundation are going to do what we can. I ask those others who care to do the same.
Keith gathers up internal criticism of The Shaft, and of its management. I hope that NASA folks feel free to do that here as well--as our troll(s) demonstrate almost daily, it is possible to post anonymously.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:14 AMI'd been hearing rumors about this for a few days, and I've even had an email exchange or two with Elon in the last couple days on other subjects, but Clark apparently asked him what I didn't. Falcon 1 first launch has been delayed until early next year.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:07 AMFor those of you with HDTV, the Discovery Channel will be doing a live broadcast from space in a few minutes, at 11:30 Eastern time. This will be the first time ever that there's been such a broadcast in HD And if you miss it live, it will be repeated at 9 PM.
[Watching]
Some random thoughts. They spend a lot of time up front justifying and defending a space station. The problem is that this is a straw man. Many critics of the program agree that we should have a space station (I think that we should have multiple ones). The issue is not a space station, but this space station.
Also, there are no stars. They obviously filmed this in a movie studio, with hidden wires on the floating astronauts... (that's a joke, for those unfamiliar with my posting style).
The beginning is just the astronaut floating and describing experiments. Not that interesting a use of the medium, I think. Now they're showing views out the window, which is much more useful.
Now they've gone back to interior views, and are showing astrofood. I'm not fascinated by this, but I guess a lot of people are. Hope they won't demonstrate use of the hygienic facilities...
[A few minutes later]
OK, broadcast over. They needed to do more views of the earth below, which is really the feature attraction. I think there's a market for a camera that does nothing except orbit the earth at this resolution and show it in all its seasons, weather and diurnal cycles. It's almost like a living kaleidoscope.
[Update about half an hour after broadcast end]
Glenn agrees. Great (or some kind of) minds think alike, I guess:
It was pretty good, but it was the images of Earth from space that were really captivating -- they came across as IMAX-like -- and they didn't show enough of those. The stuff from the station interior was okay, be we've all seen people eat in zero gravity before and the demonstrations weren't especially exciting just because they were HD. I would have rather had half an hour of pictures of Earth from low orbit, with only minimal talking-head involvement.I wonder if you could make money with a cable channel that just showed pictures from a low-earth-orbit satellite in HD? It would certainly be cool -- bringing the "Overview Effect" down to Earth -- though I don't think the technology's really there for that yet.
[Update]
I'd like to see HD of the view of this from space:
KFC Corporation today became the worlds first brand visible from outer space by unveiling a record-breaking 87,500 square feet, updated Colonel Sanders logo in the Area 51 desert.
[Update late Wednesday evening]
Jesse Londin wasn't impressed, either.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:50 AMGerry Williams has a report from a space awards ceremony in San Diego, featuring Peter Diamandis and Burt Rutan.
Pet peeve--I wish that people would learn the difference between "risk averse" (correct) and "risk adverse" (incorrect).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:34 AMJon Goff has an interesting post on deciding when to quit, a critical ability for success.
Is it always right to keep going and see any difficult task through to completion, no matter the difficulty? Or is it best sometimes to reevaluate and change course when the going gets tough? How do you know which situation is which?One of the things I got hammered into me growing up was the power of determination. If you set your mind to it, the saying goes, there is almost nothing you can't accomplish. Unfortunately, I've ran into several situations in the past which have made me wonder when it really is best to keep slogging through a tough problem, and when it truly is wisest not to keep slogging away at it, but to completely change courses.
In a sense, this is a trap into which NASA has fallen many times (Shuttle and ISS both being excellent examples, and Ares may be as well), but they are often forced by politics to forge ahead with bad ideas. This is one of the many reasons that we will have to privatize space in order to make much progress.
There's probably a lesson here for the administration vis a vis Iraq as well--clearly, we'll have to do something different. The problem is that now the different thing that the people in charge want to do is give up and claim defeat, instead of coming up with a way to win.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:56 AMHere's an interesting story in the Gray Lady this morning:
Most astronomers doubt that any large comets or asteroids have crashed into the Earth in the last 10,000 years. But the self-described band of misfits that make up the two-year-old Holocene Impact Working Group say that astronomers simply have not known how or where to look for evidence of such impacts along the worlds shorelines and in the deep ocean.Scientists in the working group say the evidence for such impacts during the last 10,000 years, known as the Holocene epoch, is strong enough to overturn current estimates of how often the Earth suffers a violent impact on the order of a 10-megaton explosion. Instead of once in 500,000 to one million years, as astronomers now calculate, catastrophic impacts could happen every few thousand years.
If an asteroid or comet hit the Indian ocean five thousand years ago, and caused a megatsunami, as the article points out, this could provide an explanation for the almost-universal flood myths of ancient times.
But it also means that we have to continue to look out for these things, and become sufficiently spacefaring to manage them. Unfortunately, NASA's current plans are just the opposite. But then, I'm not sure that protecting us from asteroids is in NASA's current charter. I certainly wouldn't trust them with the job.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:44 AMBrian Berger has a roundup of political impacts on NASA from the new Congress.
I think that there are some additional nuances here, but it's a good start on understanding the implications. Bottom line--when it comes to space, there's only one party--the Pork Party.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:44 PMAlan Boyle has an interesting scoop on progress from Blue Origin.
That's a dedicated space reporter.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:32 PMOver at The Space Review today, Dwayne Day brings some clarity to the "debate" over the administration's new space policy, and Jim Oberg demonstrates the cluelessness of many commentators on space weaponry.
Also, Jeff Foust reviews a recent attempt at space commentary by the Utne Reader. It shows that "progressives" are as out to lunch on this topic as most are.
Just as a side note, this is my eight thousandth post here, and I neglected to note my fifth bloggiversary last month.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:04 AMThe Indian President seems serious:
He said that he visualized India launching a manned space mission with two astronauts into low earth orbit and recovered after planned orbits in the Bay of Bengal in 2014.It is a beautiful site to see the two Indian astronauts coming jubilantly towards the shore; Coming majestically towards the cheering gathering and being greeted by the enthusiastic scientific community presided by Chairman, ISRO. Of course, among the welcoming crowd is a 83 year man who is none other than myself, he said.
Of course, the notion that this is a "race" remains ludicrous.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:11 PMI'm back from Wyoming, but busy painting the house. But Clark has a lot a lot of good stuff over at his site. Just keep scrolling.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:51 PMJon Goff has a good overview of the alternatives to ESAS, with commentary. Read the comments, also, particularly regarding propellant delivery. I am getting more and more intrigued by Lockheed Martin's approach, and starting to think they're really serious.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:52 AMSo, I was flying from Dallas to Denver this morning, reading the WSJ, and looking over the new committee assignments, and I noticed that Rep. James Oberstar (he who would have us overregulate the fledgling space passenger business, perhaps fatally) will be taking over the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. I wondered if he was planning to take another run at that, now that he's in the majority, instead of minority.
Now that I have Internet access again, I see that Jeff Foust already indicates that he just might have such plans.
If it happens, the main effect, I think, will be to chase people overseas, perhaps to Australia. We'll still get there, but it won't happen in the US.
The other issues that aren't mentioned in Jeff's post are the fate of Centennial Challenges and COTS under a Democrat Congress. I can see them preserving VSE/ESAS because of the jobs in Houston et al, but it's not obvious that prizes and commercial activities will continue to be supported by the Dems. They were by the Republicans due to White House pressure (at least in the case of COTS), but the White House won't have as much influence (to put it mildly) over the new budgetary sheriff in town, barring veto threats.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:56 PMThey had to evacuate the OPF due to a hydrazine leak yesterday. But they plan to continue to use hypergolics in Orion.
Just one more sign of business as usual at NASA.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:42 AMHere's an amazing demonstration of the cluelessness and credulity of reporters, particularly when it comes to NASA and space:
With the cost of gas hovering between $2 and $3 a gallon and the oil supply declining, scientists at NASA have discovered a potential new energy source -- helium-3.When combined with water, the element creates energy.
Just add water? What a breakthrough! Guess we don't have to figure out how to do that complicated fusion thing.
Grigsby said he also plans to discuss NASA's other creations, including the ion motor. It's an engine that accelerates so quickly in space, picking up speed as it moves, that it creates artificial gravity.
A high-acceleration ion drive? Another breakthrough!
And of course, we get the usual spinoff argument.
Grigsby said most Americans don't understand the importance of NASA. It's more than space travel, he said."The problems we solve in space have a direct spinoff on people," he said.
Well, actually, maybe not that usual:
Even tennis shoes, with their rubber soles, are partly a NASA creation. Before the 1960s, shoes were all leather and, often, not comfortable.
Wow. Tang, teflon and tennis shoes! Who knew?
Guess those old Converses I wore before we got to the moon were a figment of my imagination. Or maybe I just forgot about the leather soles--it's been so long, after all.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:46 AMDan Schmelzer checked out the Blue Origin site on his way back from New Mexico, and provided a photo tour.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:07 AMOver at NASASpaceflight.com. The Italian proposal is quite intriguing (I'm guessing that some of the people involved were the same ones teamed with Boeing on CE&R), and the Lockmart proposal seems better as well. Of course, from an affordability and sustainability standpoint, it's hard to do worse than ESAS.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:51 AMCommercial space, that is. I got a call a couple weeks ago from the author of this piece for the Jewish Journal. He was looking for Jews involved in NewSpace (and he guessed I was from my last name, though I'm not). I gave him a couple other names (notably Goldin's, which he misspelled, though he's not exactly NewSpace). But I see that he found some others. For instance, I wasn't previously aware that Paul Allen was Jewish.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:21 AMJeff Foust has found a story of some people who are clueless on multiple levels:
According to Net#work BBDOs creative executive director, Julian Watt: So, given that Virgins plan is to send a passenger airplane into space; shouldnt there be some advertising right up there with them? Why cant there be a space billboard to read? Never before has a billboard roamed the stratosphere for commercial consumption.How exactly are they going to pull this off? The report says that the ad agency has sent a letter to NASA, which Watt calls our official appeal to NASA to set in motion our project plan to engineer, build and launch the idea.
First, why would these genii think that people who are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for their suborbital experience would want to have to watch commercials? This is pay per view, on a grand scale, morons.
And as Jeff points out, the notion that they think that NASA has anything at all to say about this is also mind-numbingly ignorant, and a sad reminder that NASA still remains too wedded to the concept of space in too many people's heads. And also as Jeff points out, the reporter doesn't demonstrate much knowledge either, to let this go unremarked in the story.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:00 AMModel rocketeers need some pro bono help against an out-of-control government agency.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:46 AMWill India beat NASA back to the moon?
At a forthcoming meeting of the country's top scientists on November 7, ISRO will, for the first time, unveil two of its ambitious plans - to send an Indian into space around 2014 and then to have one walk on the moon about six years later. Both missions will be accomplished without any foreign assistance. ISRO will even find a Sanskrit word equivalent for the US's 'astronaut' and Russia's 'cosmonaut' to describe the Indian in space.
They seem to be taking the same high-cost approach, though, so I'm not sure where this will lead, or how affordable it will ultimately be. Of course, they also have to avoid a nuclear war with Pakistan.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:00 AMSome have asked my opinion of the Direct Launcher concept. Frankly, I haven't taken a close enough look at it to have one, other than it suffers from the same fundamental flaw as ESAS--that NASA will once again be developing its own vehicles, for its own unique purposes, and they will be very expensive to operate for very little in the way of results, and won't move the ball down the field much in terms of opening up space for The Rest Of Us. But for those into arguing the technical issues, here's a discussion page on the concept. Jon Goff has some related thoughts:
NASA may be lousy at doing commercially effective R&D, but they are far worse when they try acting like an airline. If NASA deserves to exist at all, they should be spending most of their money on trying to help "encouraging and facilitating a growing and entrepreneurial U.S. commercial space sector," not trying to fund and run their next Amtrak in the Sky. People like to point at how much X-33, SLI, NASP, and other such programs have wasted, but what they seem to be missing is that while these were "R&D" programs, they were "R&D" programs trying to lead to another NASA operated space transportation system. Which is basically what the money for CEV, Ares I, and Ares V are. Sure, Ares I and Ares V aren't trying to break new technological ground, but they are trying once again to establish the national space exploration transportation system. The fundamental flaw in all of those failed research programs wasn't so much that they were trying new technology, and new technology is bad. It's that they were trying to make yet another NASA owned and operated transportation system. Ares I and Ares V aren't so much a bold break with past mistakes as they are an unimaginative repeat of the same.
[Update at 1 PM EST]
No, Mark, I don't "hate" it (once again, one must wonder at his feeble powers of reading comprehension). I'm indifferent to it.
[Late afternoon update]
OK, I will say that Direct Launcher has one thing to commend it. It is indeed preferable to develop one new launcher than two. Of course, my point is that it would be even better to develop none, and let the private sector provide crew and cargo deliveries to LEO, so that NASA can concentrate on getting to the moon affordably.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:37 AMArnold Kling has an interesting alternative to the preferred solution of many European bureaucrats (deindustrialization) to global warming, and it's one that would warm the hearts of space enthusiasts.
I think it would be a mistake to get the NSF involved, though. This is a job for engineers, not scientists. I'd work with the engineering societies (e.g., AIAA) instead. And I wouldn't let NASA anywhere near it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:23 AMHere's a story on plans for a suborbital space port in Singapore.
But don't try to smuggle any drugs through it...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:48 PMIf I were a member of the Mars Society, I'd be looking for a new leader, or looking to form a new organization. This seems like a very unprofessional press release to me (but hardly out of character for Bob Zubrin). Does he really imagine that this is going to win support for any cause associated with him?
I agree that O'Keefe's decision was a mistake, and that the robotic mission was a waste of money. I also think that he should have left earlier, and let someone else make that decision, because he was obviously unable any longer to deal with risk after the trauma of Columbia. But that doesn't justify this kind of vicious, personal attack on a good man.
Also, this is simply wrong:
Alone among space advocacy groups, the Mars Society responded the former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe's stupid and cowardly decision to desert the Hubble with forthright opposition, exposing as fraudulent the technically illiterate oaf's claims that a mission to Hubble was more dangerous than missions to the Space Station...
There was nothing fraudulent about it. It was true then, and remains true, that a Hubble mission is in fact riskier than an ISS mission. O'Keefe's mistake wasn't in believing that it was riskier, but rather in believing that it was too risky. He was wrong, but that doesn't mean that we should pretend that the risk isn't greater. I agree with Mike Griffin's decision to go forward (and think that, if anything, it's late--he could and should have made it much sooner), but only because we are continuing to fly Shuttle for ISS. It certainly wouldn't have been worth keeping Shuttle alive just to fix Hubble.
In the meantime, Bob might want to invest in a Dale Carnegie course.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:38 AMThe Chair Force Engineer continues to be unimpressed with the Ares program:
Of course, the problem here is that we are sticking with "shuttle derived" instead of pushing technologies that have been developed since the early 70's when the shuttle was finalized. The EELV programs have taught the industry how to reduce the marginal costs of added launches and how to streamline the processing of the Delta & Atlas rockets. And it's also clear that the shuttle hardware was never capable of meeting ambitious flight rates, which are the only way to make spaceflight more cost-effective.If Congress insists that NASA retain the shuttle workforce to the maximum extent in its moon launcher planning, the "Direct Launch" proposal is the smartest way of launching human missions to the moon.
Of course, it's that congressional insistence that's the real problem, and what will probably prevent the president's vision from being implemented. And don't tell me it's not pork, Mark.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:51 AMJeff Foust describes the current situation with Centennial Challenges. It's not quite as bleak as earlier reports, and the issue may be resolved in conference. But as Jeff points out, even it not, it doesn't affect any prizes currently funded; it just prevents NASA from initiating any new ones. That's still a bad thing, but not as bad as pulling money out of prizes that people are currently working toward.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:42 AM...if Jack Kennedy had? That's an intriguing question that Dwayne Day is asking in today's issue of The Space Review. Unfortunately, the data isn't yet available.
And I'm continually amused by Democrat space supporters who still buy into the Camelot myth, and think that we'd be on Mars long ago had only Oswald (or whoever they may think actually did the deed) missed, when he clearly wasn't that big on space. In fact, based on the speech cited in Dr. Day's article, he would have been solidly behind the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which basically declares space off limits, at least philosophically, to exploitation and settlement, through its ban on claims of sovereignty.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:24 AM...we're NASA.
Laura Woodmansee talks about some first-hand experience of the absurd prudishness of the space agency, and much of the space community.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:03 AMIt looks as though there may have been a mid-air collision, but we'll have to await the accident investigation to know for sure.
The question in my mind is, why there were five people in a camera chase plane? Yeah, it's probably a fun ride, and I'd like to have gone along myself, but I suspect that they'll rethink who are and are not essential personnel on such flights in the future.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:51 AMJon Goff has a long, but interesting description of Masten activities at last weekend's X-Prize Cup. And rocket geeks may want to chime in the comments section with John Carmack about the theoretical and practical Isp of the Masten engines.
Jon's post reminds me that I forgot to mention this past weekend the tragic news that he notes about Ed Wright's company, which lost five personnel in the crash of a camera chase plane. My condolences to him and his coworkers. It's ironic, of course, because while we may expect to lose people in the development of new vehicles, an accident like that is always completely unexpected, and a shock.
One thing that strikes me is the behind-the-scenes look at the confusion of the operations people on the field, which was also apparent (but less so) from the press tent. Hopefully, they'll get better at this in future years, and be able to offer a better show.
Another is the continued and heart-warming camaraderie of the industry, with cooperation and well wishes between all the players. A sign of maturation may be when they start to feel more competitive, because there are real businesses going, with real fortunes to be won or lost.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:01 AMClark Lindsey notes that, despite the fact that the prizes haven't been won yet, Centennial Challenge is working. Which means, of course, that the Senate is now trying to kill it.
As Clark says, we'll have to mobilize to save (or worst case, if we can't win in conference) restore this funding next year. There are people spending a lot of time and sweat, and money, in the hopes of winning these prizes. It would be a tragedy if the prizes were snatched away now. Unfortunately, it would also be typical, and an example of why it's hard to make government-funded prizes work, given the fickleness of the governors.
And of course, it's one of the few really cost effective things that NASA is doing, in terms of advancing us in space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:38 AMAlan Boyle has an interesting interview on launch regulation with Marion Blakey and Patricia Grace Smith from last week's X-Prize Cup Executive Summit.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:33 AMJohn Carmack has a fascinating (at least to me) description of the lead up to the XPC and what happened there. And some thoughts about the future.
Im not at all sure that holding contests like this as the main event of a show like the X-Prize Cup is a good idea. It came out well this year, but it was all just one mishap in testing away from not having any real meat in the show. If you know for sure that you have a real field of contestants it will probably work out, but if the field is probably one, it gets real dicey. My official bet is that there will be no more than one other competitor next year, and it may well just be Armadillo again. Masten is the closest, but they still need to fly their very first test vehicle, then design, build, and test a more potent vehicle to even be able to compete for the level 1 prize. We spent six months and about a quarter million dollars in direct pursuit of this, and we had a running start at it. For many things, time can be traded for money, but there are limits. One hundred thousand dollars cash out of pocket is probably the minimum amount that someone needs to be prepared to spend to be in the game next year, and that would be for a single vehicle, relying on luck to not have any mishaps.
And I want to, like the others he mentioned, extend my own congratulations. As I said, it was a good show, even if he didn't get any prize money.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:23 AMAlso in today's issue of The Space Review, Bob Clarebrough asks if the EU is capable of allowing a space tourism industry to develop in Europe:
...consider this: the Gettysburg Address ran to 264 words, the Declaration of Independence required 1,332, yet the European Union regulations on the sale of cabbages need 23,826 words. Its hard to believe that commercial space operators will enjoy the light-touch regulatory approach adopted so far by the FAA. Call me intuitive, but my gut tells me that launching stuff into space might need even more complex rules than trading vegetablesor am I missing something?Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:04 AM...Gaining approvals and funding to construct a spaceport, transportation links, hotels, and housing for workers in a pristine wilderness will take forever. But the last word will come from Britains Health and Safety Executive. This government department recently advised the police not to pursue escaping criminals in case they endangered the felons safety! When the HSE writes the rules for space operations their weight will exceed any rockets lifting capacity.
Jeff Foust already has a piece up at The Space Review about this past weekend's X-Prize Cup, and the state of NewSpace:
Both the overall Cup and Armadillos efforts in the Lunar Lander Challenge illustrated one thing: the entrepreneurial NewSpace industry is in a particularly demanding phase of its development. The publics expectationsand those of some in the industryhave risen because of past successes, like SpaceShipOne. Yes, most companies are still in the earliest phases of developing vehicles and related technologies, a phase prone to failures as new technologies and approaches are tried and often discarded. Its a steep part of the learning curve, and even more difficult when its on public display.Its easier than the professionals think it is, but its harder than the amateurs think it is, Carmack said between flights of Pixel at the X Prize Cup. You just cant expect everything to work the first time.
Yes, space is hard. It's not as hard, and doesn't have to be as expensive, as NASA and conventional wisdom tell us, but it's also not as easy as some of the more facile commenters would indicate. The current "garage," "build a little test a little" approaches will work fine for exhibitions like this, but at some point, the players are going to have to start doing the unfun things, like systems engineering, requirements analysis, configuration management, if they want to have real businesses, with real customers, real insurers, major investors, and regulators. In fact, a little more time and analysis up front might have resulted in a success for Armadillo this past weekend. Structural analysis isn't rocket science--the vehicle legs should have been able to handle the landing loads. And speaking of systems management, Eve Lichtgarn has a review of what looks like an interesting book on that subject for the Apollo program.
Anyway, sometimes lessons learned from personal experience are taken more to heart than lectures from the old timers. I just hope that they learn the lessons before they start actually riding the vehicles, and congratulations to them for a good attempt, and a great show.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:50 AMArecibo can't find any ice on the moon.
I think we should be planning asteroid/comet missions, anyway. The private sector is more likely to do that, since they'll be more focused on the practical use of resources than science and symbolism.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:48 AMI'm back from New Mexico. I got home about 11:30 last night. During my layover in Dallas, I learned from Robin Snelson, and saw on my Treo, that Armadillo didn't get the job done. It was a good attempt, though, and I think that it's actually good that all the money is still on the table for next year. Hopefully, their efforts this year will make it easier for others to raise the money in time for next year, where we can have a real competition.
One thing I don't understand, though. How do they break ties? Suppose that there had been two successful contenders this year, in terms of meeting the minimum prize requirements? Anyone know?
[Update a little after noon Eastern]
Paul Breed has an answer, that I'll assume is reliable, in comments. Also, Jeff Foust has posted some pictures of yesterday's events over at Flikr.
I actually think that this is the coolest picture from the event, and a unique one.
But then, I confess to a bias. (And note the pants creases from too much sitting in the press tent...)
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:10 AMHave to leave for the airport. I'll check back in tomorrow, barring travel mishaps. Go over and read Clark and Jeff for more updates.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:47 AMJeff Foust says that Armadillo will try again about 12:45 MT. Unfortunately, I've got a 2:20 flight out of El Paso, so I'll be leaving here about 12:30. While I wish good luck to the Armadillo team, I have to confess some hope that the prize remains unwon, so there will be some real competition next year. But I guess I'll find out when I get home tonight.
But just as I type this, they're getting ready to start the clock again, and send the vehicle back out to the test site. So maybe, if things go ahead of schedule, I'll get to see it after all.
...
OK, the clock just started.
Yesterday, the University of Michigan team climbed the ribbon using a beamed-power system (lights below shining on solar panels). Today another team (a high school from Silicon Valley) just did it using solar power, with the arrays tracking the rising sun here mid morning. No word on their time yet.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:22 AMTim Pickens uses an asphalt-nitrous combination for both his rocket bike, and his rocket truck. Earlier, he had an igniter failure on the rocket bike. Just a few minutes ago, he was demonstrating the rocket truck (it's in the bed of his Chevy, pointing--no surprise--backwards). He has it chocked for a static engine firing--for some strange reason, he can't get insurance to actually propel it. This time, the igniter ignited, but there didn't seem to be any oxidizer flow. It may be a failure of a temperature sensor that allows the valve to open.
So he's 0 for 2 today.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:19 AMPixel will launch in two minutes.
...
First leg looked successful, but it did yesterday as well. Some talk that they may have missed the pad on landing. Now it's looking like the ship tilted on landing.
They'll definitely have to start over. The question is whether or not they damaged it, which will determine whether or not they have another chance today. If not, the prizes remain unwon for this year, giving hope to Masten and other potential contenders.
[Update a few minutes later]
I just talked to Ken Davidian, of Centennial Challenges. He says that as far as he knows, they could still go with Texel for Level 1, and perhaps for Level 2 as well, if they can get the parts back in her (him?). But if they don't win a prize today, they have to wait until next year. If so, it will give other teams time to catch up, and make for a more exciting event in 2007.
Just hearing that Tim Pickens will take another rocket bike ride in a couple minutes.
...
A failed ignitor. They may try again later.
Word now is that Pixel landed off the pad, on its side, but there are no fuel leaks. Still unclear whether or not they'll attempt it again today.
[Update about 10:25]
The Armadillo team just came by the press tent with the wounded Pixel on their way to the staging area from which they're required to start any next attempt. Still unclear if they're going to fly it again, or swap the parts back into Texel. I'll go over and see if John has time to talk.
[A couple minutes later]
"We're going to get a sandwich, dust it off, make sure the bolts are tight, and then try it again."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:00 AMLiterally. Fifteen minutes until LOX pressurization on Pixel.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:44 AMCongratulations to Mark Whittington, who has managed to get a column about COTS and Bigelow into today's WaPo.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:22 AMYeah, I know, it's a mixed metaphor. Carmack and crew worked overnight to repair Pixel by cannibalizing Texel. Unfortunately, they also found a cracked combustion chamber on the engine that came down hard, and have also replaced it with a higher-life version, so John says that there's a slightly higher chance of an engine failure today.
If they succeed with the Level 1, they'll put the missing bits back into Texel and try for Level 2. But even if not, they may fly Texel anyway, just to beat the old DC-X flight duration record of 142 seconds.
And as I type this, there's about to be a dual Tripoli launch. Two minutes to launch.
...
And both flights were successful, about a minute apart. There were small sonic booms in both cases.
By the way, any more trollish off-topic comments like those yesterday will be deleted with extreme prejudice. I'll leave the ones from yesterday up, since others have commented on them, and they're a continuing testament to the putrid imbecility and vandalistic mentality of too many leftists.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:12 AMOK, one more post (really, I can quit any time I want).
I just talked to John Carmack. They'll have to cannibalize, but they can swap parts quickly, so they are planning to make another attempt to win Level 1 tomorrow with Pixel, using Texel parts. If they succeed, and have sufficient time left, they may move the parts back to Texel and go for Level 2. But as I said, even a recovery to win Level 1 is a great story.
He was pretty happy with the vehicle performance (other than the hard landing, which they'll fix by changing some of the parameters in the software), other than a small roll oscillation (~1 degree) that causes some ullage issues (I assume by "roll" he means the vertical axis). He'll try tweaking the software, but the only way to really fix it, which will occur in the next vehicle, is getting rid of the solenoids controlling valves, which are causing unacceptable lag, and going back to differential throttling. At least, that's what I think he told me.
Anyway, I'm really done now. Packing up computer, and heading into town. See you tomorrow.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:26 PMThat's what Keith Cowing says that Bill Nye is.
I disagree. He's a lot confused. But what do you expect when you get a "science guy" commenting on general policy?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:09 PMThey're chasing people out. I hate to leave--it's the best Internet I've had all week. Mainlining, man, it's the good stuff... But I can quit any time I want.
Off to the hotel for adult beverages and an AIAA reception.
[Update before packing up]
Clark Lindsey has some pictures of the Armadillo flight.
If they manage to work all night, recover, and win at least one prize tomorrow, that will be the story of the show. Even more if they win both levels.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:59 PMThere are reportedly twenty-five thousand people here today which, if true, doubles last year's reported attendance. It doesn't seem that crowded to me, but I think that it's because there's lots of room. Many busloads of children were here (presumably from local schools on field trips, and X-Prize reportedly bused in 5000), and Margaret noted that it gave the atmosphere a sort of Disneyworld quality.
I was just walking around, looking at the kids, and trying to cast my mind back decades. I've been doing this too long, and am pretty jaded, though I think that this is the most exciting thing going on in space right now, far eclipsing NASA's plans. But I know that if there had been something like this as a kid, I'd have been wandering in wonder, looking at the displays, playing in the simulators, watching the flyovers and rocket launches. And dreaming.
One sad thing about it is that the location doesn't lend itself to bringing in large numbers of people--it's simply not near enough to any major population centers. Perhaps the X-Prize cup people should consider doing more than one a year, in different locations that are more accessible to crowds, or combining rocketry with conventional air shows, like the Edwards Open House. It could provide more revenue for the struggling rocket makers, and spread the wealth of inspiration to much more of the nation's youth.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:25 PMAlan Boyle,, of MSNBC, has posted his first story of the day, giving a good flavor of events.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:16 PMThe Pixel landing was harder than it looked from here. They reportedly damaged a leg, and started a small fire that fried some electronics. They may be out for the weekend, unless they can do some cannibalizing of their other vehicle.
[Update a few minutes later]
John did an interview on the big screen, in which he noted what they had accomplished with a few hundred thousand dollars and eight people working part time, in a few months. "NASA and its contractors should be ashamed of how much their efforts cost."
Sadly, they have no shame, at least when it comes to that. Their number one product is jobs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:26 PMWe're about to get a flyover from an F-18. It's ten miles south.
[Update]
He did a fast pass (though not supersonic) and then a slow one, flaps and gear down, nose up about ten or more degrees, in a high-alpha flyby. It was a NASA airplane.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:01 PMArmadillo has been given permission to pressurize tanks for their first launch attempt. Not sure what the delay has been, but the judges have granted them an additional hour over their original alloted two and a half hours. And Rocketman is about to fly again.
[Update a few minutes later]
About a minute to ignition of Armadillo's "Pixel" vehicle.
[Update]
It looked like a succesful flight. It ascended smoothly, translated to the left (from my view), hovered for half a minute or so, then descended halfway to the ground, hovered again for a bit, then slowly descended to a soft landing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:43 PMIt doesn't seem to be covered very well on the jumbo screens and program, but the University of Michigan tether team apparently had a successful climb in the Challenge. Go Blue!
I had heard earlier that two of the Canadian teams had dropped out. They didn't win the prize, though, because there was too much wind, and they couldn't meet the speed requirements with the tether jittering around. This scoop brought to you by my old...errrrrr, I mean long-time (she's actually my age, within a few days) friend Margaret Jordan, who just came over to the press tent to tell me.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:09 PMOne small rocket ride for a man on a bicycle.
Out on the tarmac, Tim Pickens of Orion Propulsion just demonstrated his asphalt-powered rocket bike (which, by the way, may have been featured on the Daily Show yesterday--Tim was telling us about his visit from Jon Stewart earlier this week).
It wasn't one of his better efforts. The burn seemed short. As he glided past the press tent, Robin Snelson yelled out, "That was punk!"
Sigh. When will the media discover that they're supposed to cover the news, not make it?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:54 AM...than mine can be found over at space.com, which is the official media for it. This has aroused some controversy, as Keith Cowing notes.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:46 AMClark Lindsey has gotten his connection going.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:40 AMWe just got a flyover from an F-117. I suspect from Holloman AFB, but not sure.
Back to rockets.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:33 AMTripoli is going to launch another rocket, supposedly in five minutes, at 10:30. Also, the Rocket Racing League and XCOR are going to unveil the first rocket racer about 10:45.
[Update]
Half an hour late. The first attempt fizzled, but they started the count again about a minute later, and then had a spectacular launch. It went straight up, out of sight, and came back down with a strobe and a streamer. The chutes opened a couple hundred feet off the ground. Looked nominal to me. Also, the crane picked up Armadillo's vehicles and started hauling them over to the launch pad for their Lunar Landing Prize attempt.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:53 AMI didn't report much on the symposium earlier this week, because I was too busy schmoozing to hear a lot of it and the wireless situation was so crummy, but here's an article at the New Scientist about etiquette in space. Most of it seems like common sense to me.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:43 AMI didn't follow up yesterday, because I never got a connection in the afternoon, but Armadillo does have FAA permission to fly today, as Alan Boyle reported. Their first attempt at the Level 1 is scheduled shortly.
People here are frantically looking for a rogue wireless network, which is interfering with Armadillo's ground-to-air communications. John controls it with a joystick operating on 2.4 GHz.
In the meantime, "Rocketman" (aka Don Schlund) is supposed to fly on a peroxide rocket belt in five minutes or so.
[Update a few minutes later]
He flew around on the tarmac for a little less than thirty seconds (that's how much propellant he has). Max altitude, probable thirty or forty feet. It was quite loud. I'm sure he wears earplugs, but there should probably have been some for the closer spectators as well.
Meanwhile, while we're waiting for Armadillo to do their Lunar Lander Challenge attempt, go read Jon Goff's account of getting to Las Cruces and setting up, with Masten Aerospace.
And Anousheh Ansari's plane just landed and taxied in front of us.
[Update at noon]
Jeff Foust has a picture of the Rocketman. He has other pictures (and a video, laready) as well. Check out the adjacent posts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:49 AMjeff Foust is on the case. More updates as I look around, at least for the usual suspects.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:36 AMI'm in the third row of tables--I didn't get here early enough to stake out something closer. I'm looking at the backs of Jeff Foust and Alan Boyle. Robin Snelson is up there as well, and Leonard and Barbara David have front-row seats.
I wandered around yesterday as they were setting up. Masten Space has a static display of the vehicle that they wanted to fly in the Lunar Landing Challenge, but couldn't ready in time. XCOR has a modest tent, with the occasional demo by Doug Jones of their tabletop rocket engine, when the crowd pressure builds up enough to justify it. Sort of like a little geyser.
Rocketplane Kistler has a static display of the XP vehicle. No mockup of the Kistler K-1.
NASA has a walk-through inflable Orion spacecraft, with an inflatable spacesuited astronaut inside, larger than life. Kind of scary for the kids, if you ask me. But no one did. Some people have inflatable girlfriends, others inflatable astronauts. Space geeks, what can you say?
I guess the inflatable spacecraft is the latest attempt to save weight. On the other hand, if they reduce the weight too much, they won't be able to justify the development of CLV. [VOICE="Homer Simpson"]In case you didn't realize it, I was being sarcastic.[/VOICE]
More later.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:16 AMI'm sitting in the press tent at the X-Prize Cup, with an ethernet connection. Woohow! Bandwidth, sweet sweet bandwidth...
Typing is a little slow--the temperature is still in the upper fifties or low sixties, but phalanges will wiggle faster and with more reliability as the sun continues to warm the field.
The first rocket launch was scheduled for 7:15. It was a replica of one of Goddard's rockets. It was a little over an hour late. Ascent was beautiful, in a cloudless windless sky. Unfortunately, as Gregg Maryniak pointed out, sometimes chute happens and sometimes it doesn't. In this case, after apogee, it nosed over and plummeted straight down into the field exactly like a feather wouldn't. No failure analysis as of this writing, though there was speculation by the Tripoli rep that the altitude-actuated system didn't work, perhaps with an altimeter failure due to condensation from sitting on the pad overnight.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:59 AMThe big news of today, I think (since somehow my invitation to the Executive Summit for the X-Prize Cup got lost in the mail. Or something) is that John Carmack almost has a license to fly tomorrow for his attempt at the Lunar Landing Challenge? The catch?
He must answer these questions three. You know, like what is your favorite color?
Well, not really. Actually, the questions three are three successful flights today, when the crowds aren't present. I'm informed that if he can do that, then he'll have permission to fly with folks present. At least that's what I was told late last night. But Alan Boyle says that they only have to perform a single hover test.
Anyway, I'm heading up to the airport shortly to see how it goes. Or went, if I don't get there in time.
By the way, I see that Robin Snelson has been doing a good job of keeping up on what's going on here. Just keep scrolling.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:02 AMI'm flying out to Las Cruces in the morning, and will be there all week. Hope I'll see some rocketry.
Assuming that my hotel was on the up and up about broadband in the room, I hope I'll have some updates from the X-Prize Cup festivities.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:42 PMA worth-repeating quote from Henry Spencer (a Canadian) over at sci.space.policy a few days ago:
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:56 AM>> Of course, I don't expect that this fact
>>will make the politics of launching
>> a nuclear engine much easier.
>
> Oh it will happen. It's just that manned space
> exploration is passing away from the
> democraciesthat are too narcissistic to care.Nonsense. What we've seen so far (and what NASA is trying to return to) is just incidental dabbling. The days of real space exploration by free men still lie ahead, and in fact are getting pretty close. The cartoons are ending, and the curtain is about to go up on the main feature.
If all this sounds bizarre and fantastic, you need to stop thinking in terms of the socialist dream -- spaceflight for the glory of the almighty state, the way NASA does it -- and start considering the sort of space exploration that free people might do for their own reasons. It's already possible to fly in space for any reason you think sufficient, if you've got the price of the ticket. It hasn't worked out quite the way we thought -- who would have *imagined* a world in which the only commercial spaceline requires you to learn Russian to get a seat assignment?!? -- and it's too damned expensive, but these nuisances will change soon, when real competition begins.
NASA will never, ever put men on Mars. Their target date for it is receding more than a year per year. But the first footprints on Mars almost certainly will be those of free men.
From Burt Rutan. I haven't had time to read the whole thing, yet (I'm still on vacation, and relaxing from a couple dives this morning), but when I do I may have some additional thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:36 PMOr economics. Clark Lindsey once again takes on John Pike. This wouldn't be necessary if reporters didn't continue to go to him for the "other side."
What's particularly frustrating is that John never actually addresses the rebuttals to his ignorance. He simply continues to repeat it, to any who will listen, which is far too many, particularly in the media.
[Saturday morning update]
This thread seems to have drifted a ridiculously long way from John Pike's knowledge of engineering, business, and physics. I'm quite upset about it, actually, because it never had anything to do with either Fox News, or wiretapping Al Qaeda. Some people just insist on bringing their political hobby horses to graffiti any opportunity they have. I'm partially guilty myself for allowing myself to be sucked into it. Forewarned: any more comments on either of these subjects in this post will be deleted with extreme prejudice.
In a decision that left Boeing's once-mighty but now flailing manned spaceflight business reeling, Lockheed Martin has also thrown the so-called "NewSpace" community (those private ventures started up to dramatically reduce the costs, while increasing the reliability and frequency, of access to space) into a state of confusion, with its announcement a couple weeks ago of plans to investigate rating its Atlas V launcher to transport humans to orbit. To the consternation of some, this was announced in a joint press conference with Bob Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace, in which he declared his intention to launch a small "space hotel" capable of three people by the end of the decade, with an expansion to nine guests within three years after that. Bigelow has always been considered a member of the new guard, and the move left many scratching their heads.
NASA is no doubt concerned (and some of its personnel perhaps infuriated) about Lockheed Martin's announcement. They are currently trying to justify the development of a new launch system, partially based on Shuttle hardware, for their new Orion lunar exploration spacecraft, the contract for which was awarded to Lockheed Martin only three weeks ago. Part of the justification for that new launcher was that it would be "safe, simple and soon," and that the existing expendable launch vehicles available from Lockheed Martin and Boeing would cost too much to "human rate" for the new crew system. Lockheed Martin's claims are potentially a body blow to this argument. After all, if Lockheed Martin is contemplating doing this with their own money for commercial purposes, it's hard to imagine that it costs the several billion dollars that it would have to in order to justify spending that amount on a whole new launcher. NASA will no doubt continue to argue that the Atlas doesn't have the necessary performance for the job, but Atlas performance improvements could probably also be included in the human rating process. NASA administrator Mike Griffin and Associate Administrator Scott Horowitz (whose former employer, ATK, is lined up to build the new vehicle) can't be pleased.
Why would Lockheed Martin take this action, sure to anger one of its biggest customers, so soon over the Orion award that many viewed as a surprise, when it toppled the expected winner and incumbent human spaceflight contractor, Boeing? One theory is that it is finally starting to take the new commercial space age seriously (something that Boeing, at least so far, seems to continue to fail to do), and are willing to risk NASA's wrath to take advantage of this new future market. Both they and Boeing had to dramatically increase their prices a few years ago when much of the anticipated market for the the new Atlas and Delta, whose development was heavily subsidized by the Air Force, failed to materialize, and there were too few missions to effectively amortize their fixed operational costs over each flight. So one consideration could be that they hope to increase their flight rate for the vehicle by finding new customers, which could reduce their per-flight costs considerably, providing some margin for future price reductions.
This is possible, but it seems improbable, given the company's historical aversion to either commercial space or investing its own bottom-line money in space. In order to determine whether or not it's true, we'll have to see a lot more than a press announcement over the next few months and years. There was, after all, no commitment to do anything except perform some studies of what might be needed technically, along with some business cases. If they actually start spending their own money to make the needed modifications to the vehicle, then this will look like a more tenable interpretation.
Was it instead a PR move to draw more support from potential users in the NewSpace community? Or a feint to somehow keep Boeing off its game? At this point, those outside the company's executive suites can only speculate, barring additional data.
Equally, or perhaps even more interesting, is Bigelow's motivation for this new arrangement. He had been long viewed as an informal partner and supporter of Paypal founder Elon Musk's new Space Exploration (SpaceX) company, which promises much lower launch costs than any of the existing American providers. He reportedly has contracts in place to use the company's Falcon launchers, upon achievement of operational capability, to launch his hotel prototypes, and the company planned to develop a crew module as well as part of its recent contract award with NASA under the Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) program, to help provision the International Space Station after the Shuttle is retired in 2010.
But SpaceX's projected schedule continues to slip. Their first delayed launch attempt of their initial small Falcon 1 vehicle early last spring resulted in a launch failure shortly after leaving the pad in Kwajalein, and the months since have been spent in fixing the problem that caused it, as well as other potential issues. Their next attempt is scheduled for late November. Perhaps Bigelow, a shrewd businessman, is simply hedging his bets. Or he may be spurring competition among his potential providers. Either way, it would seem to indicate at least a reduction, if not a loss, of faith in the ability of SpaceX to deliver on Bigelow's part.
Some in the NewSpace community have expressed concern that the Lockheed Martin announcement could bode ill for the COTS program, by indicating that the company will have the capability to do the job without the need for NASA to invest in the two contractors. But like Bigelow, Mike Griffin was using the COTS program to hedge his own bets that NASA will be able to develop the new systems planned to get the agency out of low earth orbit, in the hope that a fledgling industry could perhaps pick up that slack, and this announcement would seem to do nothing to change his need to do that--he can't rely on Lockheed Martin either (particularly when they haven't yet actually taken any concrete action). For those concerned that this move could put that company in a position to take all the market of the NewSpace industry, this would seem to indicate little faith in that industry. The premise, after all, is that the "mammals" of NewSpace can do it cheaper and better than the old "dinosaurs" of old space. Lockheed is not developing a new vehicle, after all. It is still the expensive Atlas, and any modifications needed to allow it to carry humans can only make it more so. Increasing its flight rate will allow price reductions, but there is a floor on the price set by the marginal costs of throwing an expensive launch vehicle away with every flight (unless Lockheed is willing to operate at a severe loss to grab the market--something that it has never done before). Both SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler, the two COTS awardees, with partially and fully reusable vehicles, respectively, should in theory have much lower marginal costs than the Atlas, since they don't throw their vehicles away. If this turns out not to be the case, then the promise of NewSpace was a false one, and they don't deserve the business anyway.
Either way, the future of human spaceflight just got more interesting in the near term, because regardless of whether Lockheed Martin is serious or not, Bob Bigelow has demonstrated himself to be. He is following the dictum of the movie, Field of Dreams, in the hope and expectation that if he builds it, they will come. With the latest private space adventurer docking to the only existing space hotel, the ISS, just a few hours before his announcement, it's looking like an increasingly good bet.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:34 AMCheck out the latest Christmas gift at Neiman Marcus.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:07 PMI know I'm a little behind here, but Clark Lindsey has some thoughts on Star Trek and real space, based on Dwayne Day's essay in The Space Review.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:40 AM...of the first Ansari X-Prize flight. The one that corkscrewed and gave everyone (not the least of whom was Mike Melvill) a scare. Noted over at Anousheh Ansari's blog.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:50 PMAlan Boyle has an interesting "compare and contrast" of the current planned providers:
The feedback from would-be fliers has been that "the overall nature of the experience is primarily about the view, and feeling the forces," Lauer said. Thus, both companies are trying to optimize the view of a curving Earth, spread out beneath the black sky of space. But they're doing it using different methods.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:17 AMSpaceShipTwo will offer as many portholes as it can, placed strategically around the side walls of the passenger cabin. Rocketplane, in contrast, plans to make the most of the forward view. "The best views are really out the front window, just as they are with any airplane. ... When you're in the back seats, it's surprising how much of the forward view you do get," Lauer said.
Back-seat passengers will each get two of their own windows as well, currently planned for placement at shoulder height and above their heads, he said.
The SpaceShipTwo concept gives you dials to watch, showing G-forces, altitude and other statistics, plus a larger cabin display. Rocketplane promises to provide a customizable video display for each passenger. And both spacecraft will be fairly bristling with video cameras to record the highlights of your out-of-this-world flight.
RpK has replaced OSC with Andrews. They'll take over some of the systems engineering and integration work, and will be making an investment. So another one of the unsuccessful COTS bidders gets back in the game, through the back door.
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey has a press release.
[Update at 5:30 PM EDT]
And here's a more extensive article on not only the Jim Benson announcement, but on NewSpace in general. Bottom line (buried in the middle of the article)--investors are starting to take this industry seriously.
Mr. Benson says he "managed to raise $1 million with less than a dozen phone calls." Some investors said yes without ever seeing a formal proposal, he says. "If I had tried three or four years ago to solicit money for this kind of private space flight, I wouldn't have had any luck."
Not much giggling left.
Alan Boyle has more.
And yes, I really do have some thoughts on this stuff, but I'm saving them for a couple articles I'm working on, for TCS Daily and The New Atlantis.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:33 PMJim Benson is leaving SpaceDev, the company he founded, to form a new public space travel company. Looks like he's starting a separate spaceline to use Dreamchaser.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:17 AMDennis Wingo has some thoughts on Anousheh Ansari's excellent adventure.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:29 AMKeith Cowing has been critical of the overhyping of all the firsts. In that context, he has an interesting posting to her blog.
Bravo.
[Via Robin, who is apparently managing Anousheh's blog]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:38 PMDwayne Day has a good rundown on a conference I missed last week because I was attending one on the left coast.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:38 AMTaylor Dinerman had an article in yesterday's issue of The Space Review, but it doesn't have the latest news about the OSC deal falling apart.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:16 AMThis experiment doesn't make a lot of sense to me, if they're really trying to understand what surgery will be like in weightlessness:
Whizzing above southwest France aboard a specially modified Airbus, strapped-down surgeons will attempt to remove a fatty tumor from the forearm of a volunteer in a three-hour operation.The Airbus A300 Zero-G, based in Bordeaux, is designed to perform roller coaster-like maneuvers that simulate weightlessness. It will make about 30 such parabolas during the flight.
The problem is that you only get about twenty-five seconds of weightlessness at a time. In between, you get two or more gees as you do the pullup maneuver going in and the pullout on the way down. So in addition to probably making the surgeons nauseous, they'll have to deal with tools being pulled down in the high gees (and any fluids will also be pooled, rather than continuously floating). I really don't think that it will usefully replicate the problems of surgery in a continuous weightless environment (and it really is a problem). This is the kind of research that has to be performed on ISS, or some other orbital facility.
I also found this a little strange:
The patient, Philippe Sanchot, and the six-person medical team underwent training in zero-gravity machines, much like those astronauts use, to prepare for the operation.
What "zero-gravity machines" are they talking about? I'd like to get one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:36 AMNot to mention an astrophysics blogger.
I met Louise Riofrio last week at the conference in San Jose. She has a lot of posts, and pictures. And she likes to put herself in the pictures, for an "I was there" feel to it. Keep scrolling.
(Note to readers from the distant future--this is just a link to the blog, not a permalink, so you'll have to dig into the archives for the date of this post.)
She's also going on the blogroll.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:24 PMThis is interesting news: if this story is true, OSC is pulling out of the deal. I'm guessing they pulled a bait and switch on George French. When they made the original deal with RpK, OSC wasn't expecting a CEV win for Lockheed Martin, but now that they're on the Orion team, the COTS deal doesn't look as good to them, so I'm speculating that they tried to renegotiate it.
It's not clear what this means for the overall COTS deal going forward. I don't know to what degree having OSC in the proposal was a factor in the NASA award. But if they can't raise the money, they'll have to get out of the game, and NASA will have to award another COTS contract to one of the runners up.
[Update a little before 5 PM EDT]
Just to clarify, per the first comment. Why did things change when Lockheed Martin won the Orion contract? OSC was hungry, and they committed to a ten million dollar investment in RpK in order to get a lot of the work on COTS. Once they had their plate full with the Orion work, it didn't look like such a great deal to them any more. They pushed too hard for a do over, and RpK pulled the plug (partly, no doubt, because they didn't want to do business with someone who would renege on a deal).
[Late evening update]
Here is a semi-official statement from RpK:
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:20 PM
- In June 2006, Rocketplane Kistler and Orbital Sciences initiated discussions regarding a strategic relationship in which Orbital would have both a significant role in the development of the K-1 and a significant financial interest in Rocketplane Kistler.
- Rocketplane Kistler has been very pleased with the programmatic and technical interfaces with the Orbital personnel.
- However, in recent weeks, Orbital has conditioned investment in Rocketplane Kistler on changes to the K-1 Program that Rocketplane Kistler does not believe are in the best interests of Rocketplane Kistler and would be inconsistent with the goals and objectives of NASA in entering into a Space Act Agreement with Rocketplane Kistler.
- As a result, Rocketplane Kistler and Orbital have decided to terminate their strategic relationship.
- As part of its planning processes, Rocketplane Kistler has anticipated the possibility that one or more of its contractors may elect not to participate in the K-1 program. While the company regrets Orbital's decision, the decision will not impair the ability of the company to meet its obligations to NASA under the SAA. Among other things, we are increasing near term RpK staffing plans for conducting SE&I related activities that were previously planned for Orbital. RpK is also continuing discussions with several potential industry strategic partners who have recently approached Rocketplane Kistler about participating in SE&I and other development and operational areas of interest on the K1. We anticipate completing those discussions in the very near future and finalizing appropriate agreements that will provide the best strategic and economic value to Rocketplane Kistler.
I was at Ames most of the day yesterday, with no net access, and then took a red eye back from SFO via LAX. Probably no posting today, because there's a lot of stuff to catch up on around here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:42 PMBigelow announced at lunch that he will be putting up a three-person space station in late 2009 or early 2010, about fifty percent bigger than an ISS module. He is putting up a destination in hopes that the transportation will come along (and in order to spur the transportation providers). Station will last for several years. Will be executing contracts in 2008 for transportation contracts to Sundancer. Expects between four and eight trips (people and cargo) per year, after six-month shakedown. Then trips will commence whenever transportation becomes available. 2012 will see the launch of another module providing 500 cubic meters of habitable volume. Will support sixteen launches a year for full utilization (again, cargo and people). Minimum three-week stay, but market limited at ten million, so wants to establish private astronaut program for other nations (this is not news). Make sixty instead of eleven countries with an astronaut corps. Could represent on the order of a billion a year in revenue. Launch estimates from fifty to a hundred million per flight. About time to take human spaceflight from the exclusive domain of governments. Will be changing that in the next half decade.
He also announced that he and Lockmart have a joint agreement to study what it will take to human rate the Atlas V for commercial passenger transport.
A press conference is about to start at which he will have more details and take questions. I'll try to live blog it, despite my lack of mouse.
[Update at start of conference]
Conference with Bob Bigelow and George Sowers from Lockheed Martin. Bigelow saying that he's happy to simply take questions. Dr. Sowers saying that they're pleased to be working with a pragmatic visionary like Bob Bigelow to get the human spaceflight industry started. Handing a model of the Atlas V with the Begelow payload on top. Two-stage, one engine per stage, most reliable Atlas ever built.
Bigelow saying that he's been looking at the Atlas for a while, and impressed with the family track record. Has a lot of faith in the people of Lockheed.
In response to question from David Livinston, this will be handled by ULA if ULA happens, won't be outside.
Warren Ferster asks if Bigelow will continue to self finance. He says yes, and he's looking for another job (joke). Has sufficient funds to go through 2010-2012, but wants to start to establish relationships with other companies, because he expects it to be huge. Will be looking for joint venture opportunities.
Each organization will handle its own contribution to feasibility studies, but Sowers says that Atlas V human rating is not a new subject. They have a lot of info to bring to bear.
In response to a question from me, expects to use NASA standards for human rating absent a large document from the FAA.
TBD situation as to who will build crew module. Bigelow is providing destination, and focusing their resources on that. Have had conversation with various people. Bigelow can't say what cost situation will be, but thinks it's between three and twenty millions.
Sowers won't directly answer my question as to whether or not Lockheed Martin is considering a variant of Orion as a crew module. Says that discussions have taken place, and that there are options, and the focus of this announcement is on the launch vehicle and destination.
Not considering any launch site other than the Cape currently.
In response to question from me, says that they currently plan to be at forty degrees inclination for "early out" options in the US (didn't quite understand this comment from Bob--didn't seem to be ascent abort, but rather some kind of "early" return from orbit).
Definitely don't want to discuss cost (particularly with respect to the module).
Wired reporter asking how many people. First module is three, second is five, for a total of nine. Want to reduce costs initially as low as possible to spawn industry and create demand. Will be aggressive with low lease cost (Bigelow).
Sundancer will be as close to forty as possible (response to Warren Ferster). Won't know specifically until they know launch provider and location. Will be able to change altitude to accommodate launch provider. BA-330 is name for the second module.
Considering EM tether and other methods for maneuvering in response to question from me. Can't specify electric power level yet.
Conference over.
Thoughts and analysis later.
[A couple minutes later]
I think that this has upstaged the major Orion discussion at the plenary this morning. I haven't been to an AIAA conference in a while, but this is the first one that I've been to that had some of the feel of a NewSpace conference.
[Update a little while later]
Apparently NASASpaceflight.com had the story earlier (I've been too busy reporting to know what's going on, though I was hearing rumors in the morning). Also, there was some speculation in comments in my previous post. Clark Lindsey has thoughts. as does Jon Goff, even if I don't have time to gather mine right now.
Shutting down the computer now. Back later, probably tonight, after the conference is over. Be nice in the comments section.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:54 PMYes, sorry, I know that it's been non-existent (other than deleted whining about wireless problems and the overwhelmingness of it). But Bob Bigelow is the luncheon speaker, and he's going to make some kind of news announcement at 1:30, so I'll try to get the word out on that, at least.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:08 AMLight posting due to being overwhelmed. One of the reasons these AIAA conferences drive me crazy is that it's not like trying to drink from a firehose--it's like trying to drink from Niagara Falls. There are a dozen or more sessions going on simultaneously, plus trying to network with various people in the hallways. There's simply no time to sit down and write anything. This is compounded by the fact that I lost my mouse yesterday, and dealing with a touchpad really slows me down. And I have no time until after the conference tomorrow to run over to Fry's and get a new one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:40 AM[Note: The dangers of blogging.
I put up a regrettable post last night. The title of it is all that remains (well, also comments), but it takes on a whole new, and appropriate meaning. As I said in it, I was grumpy from lack of sleep, and frustrated from a seeming inability to post all day, but that's not an excuse. I can't even claim that I had overimbibed, but that's not an excuse, either--no one (at least as far as I can remember) has ever strapped me down, cackling, and thrust a one-gallon funnel down my gullet. Short version of it: I was childishly whining because I couldn't log on from the conference.
I'm not deleting it completely because that always seems a little Orwellian, but it was, as Keith correctly notes in the comments that I am leaving up, an epistle that the AIAA neither would or should appreciate, and it should not remain on the web (this note is mainly for those who might still manage to read it if Google was so unfortunately overdiligent as to have cached it last night).
Even if it were true (I understand now that it was not), it was completely unjustified, and simply a symptom of how spoiled we (or at least I) have become in the early twenty-first century, with expectations, if not outright demands, of the instant gratification of ubiquitous abundant bandwidth. I have had my differences with AIAA over the years, but they are a vital institution to this industry. Like NASA, they are staffed and supported by great people operating under the constraints of their institution. This conference in particular is great (of which I'll write more later), and despite that churlish growl, I do appreciate them much.
Mark Twain once wrote, "A dog will not bite the hand that feeds him. This is the principal difference between a man and a dog." Although you can't always tell on the Internet, I am not a dog.]
Bob Clarebrough says that space settlers should take some lessons from the Polynesians, and Jeff Foust writes about the continuing debate over the term "space tourist."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:21 AMThat's what Keith Cowing says that Anousheh Ansari's flight is being.
I agree. It's great that she's flying, and I hope that it provides useful inspiration, but Space Adventures has gone overboard. I'll be much more interested in what she does with her money and time when she gets back, in terms of helping private enterprise.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:25 PMAnousheh Ansari and Peter Diamandis continue to post over at the new X-Prize blog.
[Update at 4:30 PM EDT]
Here's another interview with her. Note (to those who continue to talk about the "first Muslim woman in space") that she never mentions her religion, or the word religion.
[Saturday morning update]
Alan Boyle has more on the nationality/religion angle.
As to the Iranian flag issue, just out of curiousity, did the flag change when the mullahs took over, or is it currently what it was during the time of the Shah? If not, it would be an interesting statement for her to have a pre-mullah flag. But in general, she seems to be avoiding the politics as much as possible.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:13 AMLeonard David has a story on progress in the X-Prize Cup and Rocket Racing League.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:26 AMHere's an interview with Danny Davis, manager of the ARES I upper stage at Marshall. I wish that Ross had asked about roll control, though.
I find this fascinating, albeit confusing:
NASA selected a Shuttle-derived launch architecture after a thorough apples-to-apples study last Summer - the Exploration Systems Architecture Study. NASA carefully weighed a wide variety of launch options for both crew and cargo - a Shuttle derived architecture was the clear winner when considering total cost, schedule and safety/reliability to achieve an exploration-capable system. NASA did not do this in a vacuum - in fact, we received inputs from industry, including studies funded by the agency, in the year prior to ESAS. The ESAS results were independently reviewed and concurred-in by experts outside the agency.Last Winter and Spring, after a series of trade studies, NASA elected to alter the launch architecture to a 5 segment RSRM-derived 1st stage and a J-2X upperstage for Ares I and an Ares V core stage powered by an RS-68 (still boosted with a 5 segment RSRM and a J-2X earth departure stage).
So, are they saying that they originally were Shuttle derived, but have backed off from that ( with the abandonment of the SSME, there's nothing left of the Shuttle derivation other than RSRMs), or that they recognize that the initial choice was mistaken? Are they still claiming that it's significantly Shuttle derived?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:14 AMClark Lindsey is building a new section at Hobby Space devoted to NewSpace.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:53 AMAlan Boyle has done what I couldn't--scored an interview with her. Of course, that's why he's a pro.
And, of course, I might have had a better chance if my URL said "MSNBC" instead of "Transterrestrial." But he done good nonetheless.
She does seem to be in this for the long haul, as I'd hoped.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:26 PMThe X-Prize blog, from Peter Diamandis and Anousheh Ansari. Go wish her a happy birthday in quarantine.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:00 AMBurt Rutan said in Mojave Desrt News (via Leonard David)
I expect we will see at least two space flights a day in the next few years, Rutan said, noting that the spacecraft and the launch vehicles he is designing will be able to make two flights per day, the newspaper story stated.
730 flights a year carrying 5-7 passengers each has capacity for over 5000 paid seats flown per year. Futron's new white paper updating the assumptions used to do its 2002 suborbital tourism study predicts demand for 600 paid seats flown in 2008 using its model. So "in the next few years" means 2017 according to Futron and that is for the entire suborbital industry combined.
The white paper still excludes games and promotions demand, but only a few firms have emerged with offerings so far (including mine, Space-Shot.com). Even if that doubles the quantity predictions from Futron, the industry won't hit 5000 flights a year until 2014. The Futron study does predict a steady S-Curve adoption and capacity addition. If there are four or more players with overcapacity such that two of them can serve the market, expect the price to drop to just below the marginal cost per flight of the 4th or 3rd cheapest to operate. That would not include development cost or overhead, just fuel, maintenance, pilot and training. That would allow the market price to hit $100k or less as soon as overcapacity arrived and drive ticket prices down to the 2017 levels that would support 5,000 seats a year. $500 million is still pretty good revenue. 10,000 seats a year if there are two such firms (with the third and fourth going bankrupt, yet operating anyway at marginal cost to keep the price down on the first two) isn't seen until 2020 by Futron at a price point of about $65,000. But that price point is not implausible in an overcapacity situation. Again, $650 million is a pretty good chunk of change so don't weep for them.
If you recall that firms were selling seats retail for $100k, you might expect that the wholesale price for some of the firms doing suborbital are south of that, and that was all-in including development costs.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:32 AMOne small step for a small man. Behold, the Mercury Joe story.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:46 AMMichael Huang says that we need human rights in space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:27 AMThe entire drive up from Boca Raton to Titusville, I was listening to the radio, wondering why they were still talking about the failed ECO sensor as a potential flight issue, and hoping that they weren't going to scrub on account of it, but if they were, I wished the entire way up, with every mile, that they would do it now, so we could stop wasting time and gas. What I couldn't understand was what the MMT expected to change in the hours leading up to flight that would make them suddenly decide that they were going to follow the (absurd) flight rule.
They knew in the early morning hours that they had a problem. There was no reason to think that it was going to fix itself prior to launch. So if it was a violation of the launch commit criteria to fly with a failed sensor an hour before launch, why wasn't it eight hours before launch? Why did they put the crew in the vehicle, and have them sit on their backs for hours, why did they let everyone drive from all over the place to attend the launch, if they weren't going to fly with it?
The only possible excuse that I could come up with was that they were waiting for the best possible weather report for a next-day launch. If the weather was deteriorating for Saturday, then they might have made a last-minute decision to waive, and flown on Friday. As it turned out, the forecast for Saturday was good (and in fact better than existing conditions on Friday), so they may have decided that, since they'd have one more shot, they might as well do a tank drain, see if the problem cleared up, and do it then.
Nonetheless, it's not the decision I'd have made. A delay of another day lost them a day of contingency at ISS, and it risked something else going wrong in the recycle. They were all ready to go on Friday, other than the failed sensor, and that shouldn't have kept them on the ground, since the new rule was an overreaction to Columbia, anyway, and they should change it back to what it always was--fail operational (i.e, only two sensors are needed, and the other two are available for redundancy). When I was at KSC yesterday, I talked to one of the briefers in private after a status briefing, and said that they were crazy not to launch Friday. He agreed that they've overconstrained the system to make it almost impossible to meet scheduled objectives, and done so in a manner that makes little contribution to true safety--settling for appearances instead.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:52 AMI had a long two days, but saw the launch this morning. Suffice it to say for now that I'm both amazed that they didn't launch yesterday, and angry that they waited until an hour before liftoff to make the decision. More later.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:45 PMThey've made a decision to fly tomorrow with the flaky pump (probably the right one under the circumstances) and it's seventy percent chance of good weather for an 11:40 AM launch. Morning is better than afternoon, when the showers start to cook up. So I guess we'll get up early, drive up and take our chances.
[Update early Friday morning]
Dang. Another fuel sensor problem, just like last year. I would waive the rule, or change it entirely (it was an overreaction to Columbia) and fly with only three, but I wish I knew they were going to do that before we drive up.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:48 PMThe source selection rationale is apparently out for the CEV decision:
Doug Cooke, NASA's source selection authority, wrote in the Aug. 31 document that although both team's proposals were sound, Lockheed's possessed a "clear advantage." Both received ratings of "very good" in overall mission suitability, but Lockheed's was numerically ranked somewhat higher because of its superior technical approach....Cooke deemed Lockheed's past performance on Phase 1 of the CEV program "exceptional," saying there is "no better predictor" for how a company will perform in Phase 2. Lockheed's past performance was rated "very good," and Northrop/Boeing's was rated "good."
Good apparently wasn't good enough.
I wonder if Northrop Grumman and Boeing are reconsidering their future relationship. I think that part of the strategy of the team became obsolete when Admiral Steidle was forced out by Mike Griffin. It looked as though the team was designed to appeal to him (having Northrop Grumman, a major Joint Strike Fighter contractor) leading would give him more comfort than Boeing (Steidle was in charge of the program during its development). But with Steidle's departure, the spiral development concept vanished, as did the NGB basic strategy.
I suspect that there was a lot of complacency on the team as well, though, due to all of the manned space heritage within Boeing. Many probably couldn't imagine NASA going with anyone else.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:28 PMWe were thinking about getting up early and driving up to the Cape in an attempt to see the launch today. Good thing we didn't.
As I've said in the past, it's amazing that this thing ever launches, with so many things that have to go right.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:11 AMJon Goff has an interesting post on the potential use of the Kistler K-1 upper stage as a lunar transport vehicle, using aerobraking. He also wonders of the Ares 1 is already obsolete.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:31 AMI'm interviewed by Popular Mechanics for this weeks blogcast, about the recent Orion award.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:40 PMMark Whittington has a useful overview of COTS. The only problem is in this paragraph:
The Falcon 9 is designed to launch up to 24,750 kilograms into low Earth orbit for a cost of seventy eight million dollars, according to the SpaceX web site. That compares to a cost of two hundred fifty four million dollars to launch 25,800 kilograms into low Earth orbit estimated for the Delta IV Heavy, a competitor to the Falcon 9 built by the Boeing Corporation.
No. Those numbers are the price, not the cost. Confusing the two words is one of the reasons that people get confused about whether or not we've made any progress in reducing launch costs over the years (partly because we don't really know what launches actually cost, particularly in Russia, but also with the Shuttle, due to opaque bookkeeping).
Price is what is charged to a customer. Cost is the amount of resources that the launch provider has to devote to providing the service. If cost is less than price, then the provider makes money; if it's the other way around, then the provider is operating at a loss. I'm sure that SpaceX costs (at least its marginal costs) are less (and probably quite a bit less, to account for the business risk factor of developing it) than the published price, or there would have been no point in going into the business. I'm also sure that Lockheed Martin is not losing money on Atlas launches.
In both cases, of course, the average cost is highly dependent on flight rate. This is one of the reasons that EELV prices have gone up dramatically over the last few years. In fact, I used that example in my piece in The New Atlantis a couple years ago as an explanation to why vehicle design is at best a secondary issue of launch costs, while flight rate is a primary one. There's an appalling amount of ignorance, even within the professional space community, as to the reasons for high launch costs, not to mention low reliability (see comments in this post for an example), which is one of the barriers to improving the situation. And of course, the problem is made worse by the lack of recognition of their lack of knowledge. As the old saying goes, it's not what we don't know that hurts us, it's the things we know for damn sure that are wrong.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:10 AMWe finally have an answer to whether or not Anousheh Ansari is a Muslim. Sort of.
In this USA Today article (per a commenter in the other linked post), she's quoted as calling herself a "liberal Muslim" (whatever that means).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:23 AMWho discovered the mouth of the Columbia River?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:57 AMIf you want to see some really ignorant and moronic commentary on space policy, check out the public thoughts on this BBC bulletin board. I couldn't make myself click past the first page of it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:43 AMMark Whittington continues his delusion that private industry cannot get to LEO without NASA money. Elon has been planning to get to orbit all along, and funding the development of vehicles to do so. People would be planning and funding private orbital trips in the absence of ISS. COTS has the potential to accelerate the schedule, but it's not necessary. It will happen with or without it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:33 AMThomas James defends Lockheed Martin from Seth Borenstein. And Howard McCurdy.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:56 AMI agree with Clark Lindsey:
I doubt that in the coming months and years I will be commenting much on Orion or the other shiny, precious projects in Mr. Griffin's Constellation. Frankly, it all seems a bit boring. Maybe this program will successfully return the US to the Moon by 2020. There are lots of great engineers working in it and they are quite capable of making it a success. However, the price tag is far too high for far too little. I want spaceflight to become practical, useful and broadly available. That's when it gets exciting. NASA will achieve none of these with the Constellation program. They are not even goals the agency recognizes.
I'll miss the paycheck. I won't miss the program (though I will miss some good people that I worked with).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:34 AMI just did an interview with the BBC, along with John Pike (the embarrassing thing is that I suggested him, because they insisted on doing a "point-counterpoint" format), who continues to denigrate the notion of people doing what they want in space. I'll let you know when it airs, when I find out. Hopefully there will be some sort of webcast available.
[Update at 6:30 PM EDT]
It will be broadcast in half an hour, at 7 PM Eastern. Unclear if there will be a download later. If anyone listens, and can record, it will be appreciated.
[Update a little after 7 PM Eastern]
OK, not right at seven, but it's about to start.
[A minute later]
Sorry, false alarm. Not sure when it will start. I assume within the hour, but no way to pin it down better than that.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:52 PMJust got the news, prior to the announcement. Congratulations to the Lockmart team.
And no, I have nothing profound to say about it. I only saw one proposal, so I don't have any basis on which to judge whether or not this was a good decision. Of course, I'm on record as thinking the program itself misbegotten, regardless of who builds it.
[Update while listening to the NASA webcast]
I should add that I want to offer my condolences to the NGB team, many of whom I've worked with for the last year, and who put in a lot of long hours, for naught. Unfortunately, someone has to win, and someone has to lose. We'll find out in due course what NASA thought the key weaknesses of the NGB offer were.
[Update about 4:30]
They just showed a model. It has circular solar panels.
A reporter is asking about human space experience vis a vis Lockmart. Horowitz makes the point (with which I agree) that no one has experience in developing manned spacecraft. We're a new generation.
[Update about 4:40]
I find it interesting (and a little amusing) that everyone in comments seems to think that this was Boeing versus Lockmart. Northrop Grumman was the team lead.
[Update]
On further reflection, I should add that this is a bitter pill for Boeing (not legacy Boeing people, but the former McDonnell-Douglas and Rockwell folks), because they remember the X-33 program, when Lockmart conned NASA, and pissed away a billion dollars of taxpayer money, while devastating prospects for reusable vehicles for years (something from which the agency hasn't recovered, given its current launcher development choices). I'm sure that a lot of them are thinking that this just happened again. The difference, of course, is that this isn't a technology development program, but I can understand the bitterness, if it exists.
[Update at 5:45 PM EDT]
An emailer who wants to remains anonymous defends Lockmart:
...it's worth noting that aside from the inherent problems with the concept, the execution was botched by Skunk Works, due to a combination of handing it to their "second string" team and lingering Lockheed/Martin Marietta rivalries. LMSW wouldn't listen to Michoud when told that what they were doing on the LH2 tanks was wrong, for example, despite Michoud having the bulk of the corporation's expertise in that area. For another, LMSW couldn't *ever* seem to grasp the notion that they were designing a (suborbital) spacecraft rather than a plane, and indeed continued to call X-33 and VentureStar "the airplane" throughout the program.Thankfully, LMSW has nothing to do with Orion, so the X-33 debacle doesn't directly apply here (aside from the bitter lessons learned coming from the Michoud side). Denver and Michoud are the primary business units involved, so we at least have *some* clue what we're doing on this project.
I'll also add, per a comment, that Lockmart doesn't share sole responsibility for the X-33 fiasco. I would assign at least as much, if not more blame to Marshall, for letting themselves be snookered. It does take two to tango, after all.
[Update a little after 6 PM EDT]
Boy, CNN is really bashing Lockmart, too. As my anonymous emailer notes, this really isn't fair, but it's also not ununderstandable (if that isn't a word, it oughtta be. As should "oughtta").
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:20 PMNASA will be announcing the winner of the CEV Phase II competition at 4 PM Eastern. And since I'm supporting one of the teams, good news for me will be bad news for Thomas James, and vice versa.
As Thomas notes, NASA has been astonishingly good at keeping it a secret. It's all the more astonishing when one considers that they had to tell Congress who the winner was a month ago.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:59 AMAlan Boyle reports that Blue Origin has gotten their environmental assessment approved, which was one of the last hurdles to getting their FAA license as a spaceport. It will be the first private spaceport, but it will also be the first spaceport to be licensed for vertical takeoff and landing (Mojave and Burns Flat are only licensed for horizontal operations). I wonder if Jeff Bezos will be open to allowing others to operate from it? I'll bet that Armadillo and Masten would like to use it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:56 AMRick Tumlinson, co-founder of the Space Frontier Society, will be on CNBC at 1:40 Eastern
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:27 AMI hadn't noticed earlier, but Rocco Petrone died last Friday. I worked for him in the eighties, when he was president of Rockwell's Space Transportation Systems Division in Downey. He was a key member of the Apollo management team. On the morning of the Challenger disaster, he questioned the decision to launch when he saw icicles hanging from the gantry, but he wasn't part of the MMT.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:55 AMIs "the Stick" alive and well?
Who knows?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:09 AMThey've started the rollback from the pad. Probably the best decision, since the consensus of the tracks is to put the storm right over the Cape when it exits the state, between Cocoa Beach and Daytona.
Well, at least I won't have to be distracted by taking any trips up to the Cape to watch a launch for the next few weeks.
[Update at 10:30 AM EDT]
It's starting to look like the storm is going to be a little further west than even the early morning predictions were:
Speaking of RECON, it good to have them back in the storm this morning. The Cuban Government did allow the Air Force reserve plane to fly into Cuban airspace this morning to get a good fix on the storm's center. We thank them a great deal. Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, Cuban overflights can be acomplished to better warn their citizens as well as ours. The RECON data is so important, a few hours without it can mean big changes! Ok, back to the storm...The latest guidance is again tightly clustered thanks to the valuable data that the NOAA Gulfstream IV jet was able to add to the model suites. This has landfall in extreme southwest Florida and the upper Keys mid-morning on Wednesday as a moderate to strong tropical storm or minimal hurricane, although the odds of Ernesto topping 74mph is very small. The storm should then begin to re-curve to the north and northeast east of Tampa, over Orlando to just southeast of Jacksonville by late in the day on Wednesday into the overnight hours.
We'll still get a lot of rain over here, but probably the winds will be barely tropical force. If that prediction is true, it also means that they probably didn't need to roll back. Wonder if they're thinking about putting the crawler in reverse?
[Update at 3:37 PM EDT]
From my mouth (so to speak) to NASA's ears. As Mark Whittington notes in comments, they've decided to do exactly that.
Good crisis management by NASA. Everything they've done so far is exactly what I would have done (well, in the context of this particular mission), for what little it's worth. The emphasis needs to be on flying this vehicle, early and often, despite the hand wringers.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:26 AMKeith Cowing writes about the inflexibility and fragility of the Shuttle (a subject near and dear to my own heart).
NASA's current launch dilemma began to develop much along the lines of the 70's movie - based on the 60s novel "Marooned" where a hurricane threatened the launching of a rescue mission to an orbiting space station. When things got tough - the Russians helped out - at the last minute. Things are not as dire this time around, but the confluence of various facts would make for a good book someday.Weather has always been an issue for launched from Florida - and it always will be. Russians will be as obstinate as they can get away with so long as they are in the equation for American human spaceflight aboard the ISS.
Given that NASA seeks to used "shuttle derived" architecture and hardware - and launch it from KSC - it has more or less guaranteed that such uncertainties will remain part of human spaceflight for decades to come.
I disagree with him though, that the lessons to be learned are from the Russians, who have developed only a slightly less expensive, and slightly more robust system.
Until we develop a truly robust and low-cost space transportation infrastructure (with full redundancy in vehicles and vehicle types), spaceflight will remain expensive, and rare.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:02 PMNASA needs to get on with the program and get rid of the daylight restriction:
NASA could reconsider restricting this flight to times when the shuttle and external tank, upon separation, are lit by the sun. That was a post-Columbia rule intended to provide good pictures of the tank and its insulating foam to make sure safety changes worked to eliminate dangerous debris. It was supposed to be in place for the first two post-Columbia launches. After the 2005 return to flight mission saw a large piece of foam debris, NASA decided this third post-Columbia flight also would be limited to daylit launch opportunities. If NASA sticks to the rule, there could be just three days the rest of 2006 meeting all safety requirements. Indeed, it could be February before another viable launch window exists that meets the daylight and other flight rules. NASA officials on Sunday were given the opportunity to rule out the possibility of simply eliminating the daylight launch restriction for this flight, the agency did not rule it out. That could open many more days in the latter half of the year to avoid a potential five-month delay in the resumption of space station construction.
Emphasis mine.
They know they have the capability to inspect at ISS now, and most of the major foam fears should be laid to rest. They need to fly as often as possible, particularly given that it's hurricane season.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:24 AMI've seen a number of references to Anousheh Ansari being the first Muslim woman in space, including this piece on space tourism in today's issue of The Space Review, by Taylor Dinerman. I know that she's Iranian, but this is the first time that I've heard that she's a practicing Muslim. Not that there's anything wrong with it, of course, but I was doing a search on "Anousheh Ansari Muslim" and I can't find any primary source to that effect.
For instance, in this roundup at Muslim World News, all the story says is:
Moscow, May 8 (DPA) An Iranian-born US businesswoman is tipped to become the first woman "space tourist" to fly to the International Space Station (ISS), Russian media reported Monday.Telecommunications manager Anousheh Ansari, who was born in 1967, may make a short flight to the orbiter next spring as part of a Russian crew, space officials told the Itar-Tass news agency.
Nothing about her religion. Looking at her web site, there's no mention of her religion. She talks about wanting to inspire Iranians, but says nothing about Muslims. One would think that one's religion would be described in an "about" section, unless she's concerned about negative perceptions arising from it. That doesn't mean, of course, that she's not Muslim, but I can find no actual evidence that she is.
So is it true, or is this just an assumption that many are making because of her birth nationality?
I would also note, per this statement by Dinerman:
The industry has a long way to go to get there. The problem is still the cost of access to orbit. Some in the space industry believe that NASAs COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) will eventually lead to a second path for space tourists in get into orbit. Others are more or less skeptical, since NASAs track record on commercialization is not very good. Mike Griffin seems more committed to COTS and to the entrepreneurial space sector than previous administrators, but unless he can profoundly reform the system COTS may not survive his tenure.
My understanding is that it's not Griffin's tenure that COTS has to survive, but George Bush's. My sources tell me that the strongest support for it comes not from NASA, but from the White House. That means we have about two years to prove the program's worth with cost-effective milestones. And even that may not be enough.
By the way, via my search, here's an interesting blog by a Kuwaiti girl who wants to be the first Arab Muslim female to go into space, called "So I Want To Be An Astronaut."
May her wish come true.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:54 AMEric Hedman has concerns about the VSE (really, ESAS--I wish that people would be more careful to make the distinction). This is a new one that I hadn't previously considered:
Michael Griffin recently said two things that significantly bother me about the Ares architecture. He said that the Ares 5 is being designed with the requirements of a Mars mission in mind. He also said that he didnt foresee sending humans to Mars for at least twenty years. By deductive reasoning, the first journey to Mars would take place using twenty-year-old (if not older) technology. Isnt old technology one of the reasons there are problems maintaining the shuttle fleet? If a Mars base is going to require a nuclear reactor and the Ares 5 architecture isnt deemed safe enough to launch it, are we just adding a cost for capabilities that may never be needed? Are we committing NASA to using circa 2006 concepts and technology for two to four decades from now? Are we so arrogant that we think we know now what will be the preferred technology for possibly the next half century?
Well, "we" aren't, but those running NASA right now obviously are. It's a normal trait for someone in charge of a major long-term government program. Taking a dynamist approach to developing the future is outside the comfort zone of bureaucrats. There is too great a need for control.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:32 AMThere's a very friendly article toward NewSpace in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required, sorry) based on the reporter's interview with Clark Lindsey. It notes the disconnect between the science-fiction reality in which we live in many respects, and the woefully slower pace of space development, relative to what we thought we'd have:
...the Pluto debate was another unhappy reminder that except for a few astronauts, we're stuck down here on Earth long after sci-fi paperbacks predicted we would have been occupying moon bases or exploring Mars or mining asteroids. It's not as if we haven't seen an enormous amount of technological progress in recent decades. In some ways, we live in a science-fiction world: We carry massive music collections in our pockets, conduct real-time conversations with people across the globe for fractions of a cent and can spend hours playing (and even making money) in hypnotically detailed virtual worlds. Pure cyberpunk, down to the jihadis exchanging deadly tips on hidden message boards.Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:50 AMBut at the same time, the science fiction of "out there" seems stillborn -- 25 years after the first space shuttle took off, it's news if it returns with all aboard safe and sound. Space elevators and moon bases? C'mon, kid: Your square-jawed rocket engineers of future histories past are now tattooed, pierced software engineers coding social-networking sites. Pluto's a faraway place in more ways than one.
Or is that too pessimistic? Is there another way into space, one that isn't dependent on the fitful attention of big government and the iffy performance of big bureaucracies?
Clark S. Lindsey, for one, is optimistic. Mr. Lindsey is a Java programmer and space enthusiast who runs the blog www.spacetransportnews.com. Last summer, a Real Time column being decidedly mopey about the future prompted a letter from him, contending that we're at the start of a private-industry-led era in space development, one that would develop more quickly than many disappointed sci-fi fans like me thought. (His letter, and other reflections on space exploration, are available here.)
...As sketched out by Mr. Lindsey, it sounds convincing -- aided, perhaps, by the fact that I desperately want to believe it. Once thing that does seem certain is this: If we're to shed our disappointment, we have to let go of space exploration as it was, and accept how it will be. Don't think of the race to the moon as a first step to Mars and beyond -- that's a perspective best left to history books that will be written centuries from now, if we're lucky. Instead, consider the space race of the 1960s a mutation of cold-war competition, a peaceful contest that caught the imagination of a more-uniform society that united behind it. Put that big-government model from your mind, and the relatively small scale of private-sector efforts to get into orbit may catch your imagination, instead of just arousing cynicism and disappointment.
Jon Goff's musings on essential spacefaring technologies was very useful, inasmuch as it seems to have kicked off a substantial discussion in the blogosphere. One wonders how many at NASA are reading.
[Friday morning update]
Jon has some further thoughts. I would add one technology to his list: routine EVA equipment and orbital assembly techniques.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:49 PMAnousheh Ansari may want to reconsider her upcoming trip:
Zvezda has manufactured seats, suits and other personal equipment for every single of Soviet cosmonauts, including Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova who was the first woman to fly to space. Ansari as any other female member of a Soyuz-TMA crew requires a different bowl for disembowelment, Pozdnyakov. "This equipment is fit for answering both kinds of calls of the nature," Pozdnyakov told Space.com in an interview on Thursday.
[Emphasis mine--Via emailer Adrian Reilly]
[Update at noon]
This part was cute, too:
A woman's organism is different, that's why we need to modify some of the life systems in the capsule...
It sure is. Vive la difference!
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:47 AMJon Goff writes about technologies necessary to a spacefaring civilization that NASA is avoiding developing, instead pouring most of its resources into new and expensive (and probably ultimately unaffordable) launch systems.
[Afternoon update]
Clark Lindsey notes an omission. I agree, tugs are important as well. And NASA's not working on one of those, either.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:02 AMTravis Johnson writes about SpaceDev's prospects, with the loss of its COTS bid. I'm not sure he understands Rocketplane Kistler, though:
Rocketplane Kistler arguably has the design that's most like SpaceDev's DreamChaser, in that it's based on a spaceplane design somewhat like a smaller version of the current shuttle, so if there was a spot for SpaceDev on this contract I expect we have Rocketplane to blame for them not getting it. SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft is essentially a capsule that rides on the Falcon launch vehicle.
I have no idea what he's talking about here (perhaps because he has no idea what he's talking about, either). There is no resemblance whatsoever between the Shuttle, Dreamchaser or the Kistler orbital vehicle.
Well, all right, there's a superficial resemblance between Dreamchaser and the Shuttle, in that they're both vertical takeoff/horizontal landing vehicles. But neither of them look anything like the Kistler vehicle, which returns a capsule with no wings at all (via parachute, I believe). Perhaps he is confused by the Rocketplane XP (a Learjet derivative), but that has nothing to do with COTS--it's a suborbital vehicle only.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:06 AMEd Kyle has a new lunar architecture proposal (or rather, a variant on an old NASA lunar architecture proposal). It's an improvement on ESAS (a low bar, of course), but it would still be horrendously expensive, and in the long run, neither affordable or sustainable.
[Update]
Sorry, link is fixed now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:20 AMI shouldn't have to tell regular readers this, but not all who come here are regular readers. Clark Lindsey has a blow-by-blow of the COTS announcement, an RpK press release, and other info.
He does this stuff, so I don't have to.
[Update on Saturday morning]
Clark has another set of links, and an idiotic quote (are there any other kind?) from John Pike.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:33 PMCOTS finalists are supposed to be announced in a couple hours.
Clark Lindsey has an overview of the program, and links (including one to the webcast of the announcement, which will occur at 4 PM Eastern).
[Update shortly after begin of announcement]
Just said that two have been selected. So we know they're not going to be spreading money thin.
Well, that didn't take long. SpaceX and RpK.
That means two (partially) reusable vehicle companies.
[Update a minutes later]
Well, I see via comments that I didn't have to liveblog it. An army of reporters!
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:19 AM...and probably even get well paid for it, in an influential publication, if I didn't want to lose my job. Unfortunately, it wouldn't pay that well...
Proposition (with which I don't necessarily agree):
NASA's approach, a return to Apollo (both in terms of the "we need to set a goal and get there," and the actual hardware concepts) represents the mindset of a cargo cult.
As Rusty Barton noted over at sci.space.policy, in response to this story, "When Boeing started designing the 787, did its engineers go to the Udvar-Hazy Museum and start pulling parts off the Dash-80?"
Discuss.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:00 PMOK, my question to Dr. Stanley is, if it's a good idea for Mars, why isn't it a good idea for the moon?
"If you refilled the EDS in orbit [using commercial LEO fuel depots] it could act as the MTV," says Georgia Institute of Technology aerospace professor Douglas Stanley, manager of the November 2005 NASA exploration systems architecture study (ESAS).Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:39 PM
I think people tend to draw far too many generalizations on the basis of far too few examples in the launch business.
There is a long essay to be written on this subject.
I agree with this as well:
Ironically, most SpaceX personnel come from Boeing, Northrop and other space companies. It is the sometimes Dilbertian environment, not the individual engineers, that holds those organizations back.Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:36 AM
I've never read anything by "Vox Day" before, but one of my commenters cited him in a previous post. But having read this, it makes it pretty hard to take anything he (or she) has to say seriously:
I tend to support the faked Moon landing theory myself, not because of any particular detail, but simply based on the theory that if the Official Story is that we landed there, then we probably didn't.
Note, that's the only reason stated for disbelief--pure contrarianism. Never mind that it would have been much more difficult to fake it than to actually do it, and that all of the supposed "anomalies" or "proofs" that we didn't go are readily explained by simple references to actual physics and facts.
I should also add that the Fox Network (which is not the same thing as Fox News) should be eternally ashamed of itself for broadcasting that travesty of a crockumentary on the subject a few years ago, and feeding the loons who believe this stuff.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:48 AMI know a lot about solar power and trust me, space solar power is not a good option.
Elon Musk, Aug 3, 2006
When Caltech looked at the sailboat that lost the America's Cup, they found that it had less drag being dragged backwards than forwards.
The case for beaming solar power to Earth is bad. So bad that it actually works better to beam from Earth to space.
A coal plant costs about $0.75/watt peak capacity ($1B for a 750MW plant), plus $0.07/Watt Year (Wy) in coal to run all the time. Space solar costs about $202.5/watt. Let's make the heroic assumption that we can build and launch 100,000 kg satellites. If we need a team of 12 people earning $15 an hour to take care of the satellite ground operations ongoing, then we can keep the $360k in wages to $0.07/Wy.
What about $100/kg launch costs (1% of now) $0.025 manufacturing costs (1% of now) where we can expect the floor of orbital transport prices to be for decades because that is 10% of the price of the existing suborbital flights that have $10 million in deposits. Surely at $10,000 to orbit, there would be enough takers to sell out capacity until a major construction push on orbital launch capacity was made. At $2.025/watt, and 10% interest, coal prices would still need to triple to make the math work. That is, we need a factor of 300 through some combination of lower launch and manufacturing costs, watts/kg, coal taxes or emissions credits.
On the other hand, we get about 8% energy efficiency sending power from the Earth to the Moon. That translates to $1.80/Wy for Earth power on the Moon vs. $20.32/Wy for solar (at the pole!). Add $175/w for lasers and $313/w for mirrors (or about $100 million for four 2.5 meter mirrors and 8 2.4 kW lasers), then we can increase comm. sat. launch payload by 50% to save a good fraction of $1 billion per year in launch costs and billions more by having longer lived satellites and lower insurance costs. In the mean time, we can run satellites whose batteries have gone down or whose solar panels never fully deployed for longer and with more function ($500 million/year estimated value).
So shoot the energy into space to colonize space and the Moon. When the prices for space manufacturing come down to Earth, then we can talk about space solar.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 08:26 AMJon Goff has some interesting thoughts. I agree, for the most part. If Florida wants to continue to play in the game (at least for commercial vehicles), it has to realize that it no longer has the intrinsic geographical advantage that it's thought it did for years. This is an issue that is going to take a lot of work with AST to sell, though, particularly for orbital flights.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:20 AMApparently, the last Shuttle flight had more foam damage than they thought. It was actually about average. They should keep flying, though. Or shut it down. Stop wasting money and time trying to fix the foam problem.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:13 AMJeff Foust has a podcast up of Mike Griffin's speech and Q&A from last week's Mar Society Meeting.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:54 AMJames Van Allen, discoverer of the magnetic belts surrounding the earth that bear his name, has died. He was one of the most (perhaps the most) notable long-time opponents of the manned space program. He never understood that civil space is about much more than science.
Condolences to his family. It is a loss to science, if not informed space policy debate.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:44 AMDwayne Day has a review of a new documentary on the Mars movement starring (for better or worse), Bob Zubrin:
One of Zubrins public speaking weaknesses is his inability to hide his contempt for anybody who disagrees with him. Most of his verbal ticks dont come through in the documentary, but his contempt for NASA and those who question his philosophy and technical ideas do rise to the surface at times. A polite way to say it is that he does not suffer fools gladly, except that Zubrin obviously considers the population of fools to be very large. Like many very intelligent people who are passionate about their ideas, he exhibits little patience for those who do not simply take his word that something is possible and want to check his math and maybe his chemistry as well.But to give him credit, Zubrins passion, intelligence, and cleverness are also in evidence in the film. Zubrins Mars Direct proposal was adopted by a study team at Johnson Space Center where it was modified to become Mars Semi-Direct and incorporated into NASAs Mars Design Reference Mission. The Design Reference Mission was never more than paper, but it applied more realistic numbers to Zubrins idea and demonstrated that a human Mars mission was within the realm of the possible. It may not have busted the NASA paradigm of massively expensive human spaceflight mission concepts, but it put some serious dents in that paradigm.
He seems to like it, and thinks it has the potential to change public perceptions, if it can reach the audience:
If the documentary does make it to cable television it would be a boon for Zubrin and his Mars Society, not only because it would be seen by tens or even hundreds of thousands of people (as opposed to the few thousands who would see a DVD), but also because the film does a better job at selling Zubrins ideas than he does himself. After watching The Mars Underground, many people will be convinced that exploring, settling, and even terraforming Mars is far easier than NASA would have you believe. Heck, Im a realist and a skeptic, and it almost had me convinced. Almost.
Fo forth and read.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:27 AMGrant Bonin discusses the papers put out by the Space Frontier Foundation and the GAO on problems with NASA's exploration plans in todays issue of The Space Review.
It's worth the read, but being busy working on same plans, I would comment only on this bit:
Human-rating either the Atlas 5 or Delta 4 is likely to be an expensive proposition regardless of the fact that both boosters have already been developed (especially since no one really knows what it means to human rate these machines, beyond ensuring they dont kill anybody). Also, since both the Atlas and Delta lines have very different assembly and integration processes (Boeing, for example, assembles its rockets horizontally for ease of access, while Lockheed uses a vertical integration facility), it may be particularly difficult to human-rate both varieties of launchers, and one option may inevitably gain preference as a result.
I agree that no one knows what human rating means, other than an excuse for NASA to not use the vehicle (since there hasn't been a human-rated spacecraft built, at least by the US, since the sixties). All I think that it should mean is to put in some kind of Failure Onset Detection (FOSD) that gives the astronauts enough warning that things are heading south to punch out. I don't understand why Grant thinks that assembly orientation would have anything at all to do with it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:02 AMClark Lindsey notes (probably correctly):
Certainly one way to help insure that the exploration program continues past this administration would be to tie it closely with international partners as was done with the ISS in the early 1990s.
Based on history, it would also be a good way to insure that the program is delayed, over cost, and doesn't achieve its objectives. Back in 1993 NASA made a Faustian bargain. It would accept the need to make the station more "international" in exchange for keeping Congressional (and in that case, more importantly, administration) support. It won its appropriation by a single vote.
We went to the moon alone, and it was vastly successful, at least in terms of getting to the moon. There's no reason to think that bringing in other nations increases the probability of success, or reduce costs, even if it increases the probability of keeping the program alive politically. This is not a dig at other nations--it's simply a recognition of the degree to which bringing in other entities, with their own inscrutable politics (that, like ours, largely have nothing to do with space), can complicate and confound our own efforts. For recent (in the last four years) readers of this blog, I discoursed on this subject back in 2002.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:47 PMClark Lindsey has some thoughts on John Kavanagh's thoughts about NASA's potential conflict of interest in COTS/Constellation (at least as currently formulated). I might have some thoughts, too, but not today. Perhaps this weekend or next week, after I get home to Florida (where it now looks unlikely that we'll get any severe weather soon).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:56 AMHere's a link to the show at Utube.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:42 PMClark Lindsey has dropped in on the Mars Society conference, which is in DC this year, and has some first-hand reports, on Mike Griffin's speech and the latest from Elon Musk and SpaceX.
I haven't spent much time reading them myself, being too busy, but when I do later, I may have some thoughts.
One question I do have, though. Just how big does Mike think is big enough for a heavy lifter for a Mars mission? How many decades does he plan to put off developing the critical technologies of orbital storage and handling of propellants, and vehicle assembly?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:44 PMPopular Mechanics has a new podcast up with interviews with Bob Bigelow (presumably on space hotels) and Tom Jones about spacewalking (among other non-space topics).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:42 AMThe latest roundup of links at New Space News is up.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:31 AMClark Lindsey has scored an interview with Glenn Reynolds on the subject of space.
He also has an interesting update on plans for Kistler.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:59 AMSomeone was asking last week about pictures from the NewSpace Conference, other than the one of Misuzu and her space fashions. Jeff Foust has put some up on Flikr.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:43 AMClark Lindsey notes an interesting (and useful) shift in the conventional wisdom, in the wake of the Rocketplane Kistler/OSC joint venture.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:56 AMSpaceX has moved to "version 1.1" which expresses Elon Musk's confidence that the next launch will not have the same problems as the first. (In software culture, which Musk earned one of his fortunes in, an initial version of 0.9 or no version augmentation from previous expresses scepticism. 1.1 or augmentation of the major or minor version expresses confidence.) To fix the specific failure from the last launch "...any exposed aluminum B-nuts are being replaced with either an orbital welded joint or a stainless steel B-nut that won't corrode." To fix many other sources of potential failure, the electronic monitoring, automatic launch procedures, remote monitoring, exterior redesign and better climate control for payload are all excellent improvements. Bravo!
The oversight by managers they implemented needs more details released before I would recognize it as a new improved way of doing business. (Finally, while I have seen another company launch with the engine compartment on fire, a technical coup may be a PR mistake.)
In other news, Musk's electric car company is making headlines.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 06:49 AMA Dneper rocket carrying a lot of Cubesat university experiments failed to get them to orbit. I'm glad that wasn't Bigelow's Genesis 1 flight, though.
And it demonstrates once again that no one currently builds reliable launch systems. It also shows the continuing folly of using (in this case literally) converted munitions as transportation devices. Until we fix the problem of reliability and affordability (issues that NASA's plans don't even attempt to address), it's pointless to plan lunar or Mars missions.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:42 PMIn light of the recent GAO report, Keith Cowing is being pretty hard on ESAS himself:
The CEV/CLV is already a debacle of epic proportions with the contractor teams saddled with requirements that change on a daily basis (as the GAO report infers [I think he means "implies"--rs]), a launch vehicle with severe technical deficiencies, and 8A small business set asides that guarantee that minimally competent companies with little experience in this realm are placed in the critical path of the program. The sense of doom is so bad that many of the top engineers at the primes refuse to work on the CEV, preferring to remain with the more stable military programs. Everyone is expecting a repeat of 1992/93 when the Space Exploration Initiative collapsed under the weight of unrealistic schedules, reduced budgets, and a new president from a different party who cared little for the return to the Moon effort.
I have to say that, from the inside of one of the contractor teams, I'm not seeing those kinds of things, at least to that degree, but I don't necessarily have that much visibility. For example, I don't know of any "top engineers" who have refused to work the program, but then, I don't know that many "top engineers." And we haven't had a formal requirements change since January (at least until this week, when a new Systems Requirements Document came out), though there have been many questions about potential trades that need to be performed, from which one can infer requirements changes coming down the pike in the future (probably upon award in late August or early September).
[Update at 10:30 AM PDT]
As Keith notes in comments, I misread that. It's a reader's comment, not his. I was mislead because I didn't read carefully, and there was only one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:21 AMMy webmaster has augmented the image in my previous space fashion post. It does much more justice to Misuzu, to whom the camera is usually a friend (though a zoom in would have done much more so). He also sends along his idea of space fashion. (Warning, slightly work and family unsafe.)
What? Don't tell me that blog sweeps week is over! Let's make it blog sweeps month.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:07 PMThis post is for the purpose of discussing the ceremony, and how we can propogate the meme, that we discussed on The Space Show today, per a suggestion from the host.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:57 PMI'll be on The Space Show at 7 PM Pacific with my webmaster, Bill Simon, discussing last week's Apollo anniversary and the ceremony we came up with to celebrate it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:52 PM
There wasn't much worth taking pictures of at the conference in Vegas this past weekend, but Misuzu Onuki is always worth taking a picture of, and when she's with her space fashions, it's worth posting. The one on the left is a wedding dress, with wires in it to make the fringes "float" up as they would in weightlessness.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:01 PMThe Space Foundation has put their new white paper on line. Released at the conference this weekend (and summarized by Leonard David), it calls for cancelling Block I of the CEV (the one that's designed to go to ISS), and using the funds to increase COTS funding, and restore aeronautics and space science that has been cut over the past couple years.
I should note that I haven't been blogging much this week because I'm busy reviewing and rewriting requirements and verification statements for CEV Block I...
[Wednesday update]
There are a lot of reader comments over at NASA Watch.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:20 PMHere's an upbeat article in the local paper about this past weekend's space conference in Las Vegas.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:02 AMMichael Huang says that humans are scientifically useless. Taylor Dinerman says that (despite the uselessness of humans) solar physics is important (for those concerned with such things, ignore the demonic nature of the link URL). And Jeff writes about Bob Bigelow's excellent rodeo adventure. (Other good stuff there as well, wander around the site.)
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:07 AMWhile I was driving back from Vegas, Alan Boyle was writing a more coherent article about my post on Extraterrestrial Copulatory Activities. But then, he's a pro.
But I have to say, I thought that blog sweeps week was over.
Oh, and in case you haven't inferred it (I suspect that most of my readers are smart enough to have done so) I'm back in LA.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:22 PMTumlinson thanking people who put the conference together, and expressing his honor at being part of a conference of "doers." Seeking feedback on future conferences. There is a dream in this room that we all hold--an incredible future for humanity, that we can all participate in, and paint that future in the stars. There's a dream outside, and they want it too, but they don't know that they don't know. They would rather have that future than one in which Israel and Hezbollah are bombing each other. Sees a future of space colonies, in which we can have a Hezbollah space colony. Horizon narrows if we stay on earth, and widens if we move into space.
Back to regular blogging now. Well, after I drive back to LA...
[Update, back in LA]
If I don't put quote marks around words, one shouldn't assume that they are literal quotes. When I type these things, I'm typing as fast as I can, and doing as much gist gathering as possible. Sometimes I'm mistaken (I often don't even know what I've typed until I go back and read it later--there seems to be a direct short between my ears and the keyboard, with little time for processing in the brain (not that my feeble brain would be able to do much with it anyway)).
In addition, it's quite churlish to jump on extemporaneous speeches. But then, one has to consider the source.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:28 PMOK, this is what you've obviously all been waiting for. The last session of the conference, after which I get back to the usual blather...
The panelists are Laura Woodmansee, a science writer who has apparently just written a book about the subject of extraterrestrial copulatory activity (ECA), Vanna Bonta (a writer and poet, according to her placard, not to mention voice actress--not sure why voice only, the camera is certainly not unfriendly to her) and Dr. James Logan, former Chief of Flight Medicine (and other similar titles) from NASA.
Bonta led off by presenting Woodmansee with a Fisher Space Pen in congratulations for her book. Pens and sex are toosl that bring new things into being. Also praising Bob Bigelow for converting missiles to launchers.
"What happens in space, does not stay in space." People are closely monitored. "[ECA] is not just a good idea, it's survival." We're going to settle space, and we need whole brains (science and poetry) to succeed. S3x does not take rocket science. Life is creation and structure, and even poetry is engineered. Burt Rutan is one of the greatest poets today. Continual symbiosis between engineering and poetry (seeking of beauty is a human purpose). ECA is ultimate in poetry and science. S3x is about recreation, companionship, progeny. [Really tough to convey this talk with a real-time blog post. Talking and showing slides] Another benefit of weightlessness (which is an aesthetic) is great hair, but don't accept substitutes (shows a spray-on weightless hairstyle.
Physiological issues: deyhydration, possible 3r3ctile dysfunction due to loss of blood in lower body. More sweating, and coupling will spew various fluids that will be hard to manage. However, love will find a way, for long missions, compatibility should be predetermined.
Ideal foreplay might be hydroroom, with fluid orbs to play with in enclosed space, with varying size, speeds and fragrances of water drops. Stabilization will require hand and footholds in cubicles. Space Adaptation Syndrome may be a problem. Bring mouthwash, and don't get too wild until afterwards. Really hard to keep mass of bodies together (based on her experiment with a kiss on a Zero-G aircraft ride). Suggests a "two suit" with nylon or velcro zippers to connect at the top, with diaphanous interior clothes that spread out in weightlessness, to just chill and float and stay together. Varoius fabrics should be available, with "sensible underwear' attachable to wall spaces.
Talking about "the higher purpose." Creating children in space. We've been having sex in space for thousands of years, just under one gravity. Our dreams and powers of creation distinguish them. ECA has its up sides, some of which we know, and some of which are unknown. In-vitro fertilization may work in weightlessness. This is the most important thing we can explore for the future of our species [Hey, I'm just typing what she says]. It's our birth right. May the continuum be unbroken.
Jim Logan up now. Notes that this audience is part of the hard core. His mother will be very pleased when she hears that he's on this panel.
"Aside from the thrill, what's the big deal?" Disclaimer: not representing the agency--came here on his own dime. NASA has been by, of, and for engineers. That has to change. What comes after ECA is very important. Thinks that fantasy may be superior to reality about weightless s3x will be. But thinks that simulating choreographed action in weightlessness will be very stimulating to view (if not choreographed, will just be a flail).
We come up with countermeasures for weightlessness, and the ultimate countermeasure is returning to gravity. Existing countermeasures are inadequate. Been spending about thirty million dollars a year on critical-path roadmap items, and not a single one has been retired--this is one. Weight of the fetus up to eighteen weeks is small on earth and in an essentially weightless environment, but after twenty-one weeks or so starts to experience gravitational loading. Can't use countermeasures on fetus, and bone development in a weightless environment will be major issue. Gross developmental milestones (sitting, standing walking) could be delayed. Could be impossible to ever make critical brain connections in weightlessness. In mice we mimic immune-system problems due to weightlessness with simple hind-limb suspension, so gravity is very, very important to development. There's been a lot of changes in the earth over three billion years, but one thing has been constant in evolution--gravity.
Considers it extremely naive to imagine a weightless civilization. We take or make, our own air, we take or make our own food. We will have to take our own gravity. We still have no idea what the gravity prescription is. After forty-five years, we don't know the dose, the frequency or the side effects. We have to lobby for more research to understand this. We have to decide whether space is a sortie or stay destination. It is possible that one-sixth gee won't be enough, which means the moon is out as a frontier destination, until we make some serious medical progress. Same argument applies to Mars--we may need more than one-third gee. Whatever gravity prescription is, it probably won't be one size fits all. All we know is that one gee works.
If not now, when? In the long term, the tall pole in the tent is life sciences, not rockets. The future of space will not be pioneering, it will be bioneering. Historically, if humans couldn't adapt to their environment, they didn't survive.
Laura Woodmansee talking about her book on the subject. Not a scientist, but has a deep interest in science and space. Subject makes everyone giggle. But humans take their sexuality everywhere they go. It's going to happen, there will be weddings and honeymoons in orbit, and we have to start taking it seriously. Book is about both the fund part and the serious part. Looking at the future as a mother, and the concerns about gestating and raising children in that environment.
First chapter is about the question everyone wants to know. Many rumors exist. There was controversy about Mark Lee and Jan Davis, a married couple went into space, and declined interviews. Another issue is pr0n in space. There was an attempt to do a film on Mir, but it didn't work out. She wishes that it had happened, because it might have generated interest in space. Quote from Gene Roddenberry--"I guarantee you it happened, for no reasons other than common sense."
Talking about "docking maneuvers," and need for restraints. Rooms will have to be designed. No convection, so cooling will be a problem. Will need fans, and privacy. "Initial awkardness will detract from the romance, so it will take practice to make perfect."
Third topic is about new life in space (subject of Jim Logan's talk). She is very concerned about the subject, from conception, through gestation, to delivery (which could be disastrous). Drugs work differently. Unanswered question: do oral contraceptives work in weightlessness? Are they testing to ensure suppression of ovulation? Is conception even possible? Animals indicate yes, but can't necessarily extrapolate. Biggest issues are gravity and radiation. Our descendants in space will adapt to space, and become aliens.
NASA and other agencies have an archaic view of this subject, viewing it as something separate from life, rather than a part of it. What kind of crews would be good for long journeys, what would he sexual and relationship issues be like? How will it affect off-planet cultures? Might there be laws against reproduction in areas in which resources are limited? PAO at NASA was very frustrating. They were in denial. Book was based on people willing to talk to her outside of NASA, with many disclaimers. Interested to see reaction to book when it comes out. Agency has a "deep cultural discomfort zone."
She thinks that this is the "killer app" for space tourism. Talking about "heavenly bedroom," with stars and privacy.
Question for Dr. Logan: will going into space restart the evolution process that we've slowed with our technological adaptations? A: Evolution never stopped, and it will continue in space.
Question: will NASA, or who, take on a settlement-based investigation of these issues (as opposed to NASA's Mars-mission-based approach). Dr. Logan says that NASA doesn't do frontiers. NASA does vehicles. Should look elsewhere.
Vanna telling anecdote about arriving at conference, and someone in hotel said, "are you going to that conference on s3x in space." She answered that she was presenting on that subject, and the reply was "...but you don't look like an engineer." Reiterates earlier point that our humanity has to be integrated with the technology, and that NASA cannot continue to ignore this issue.
Now she's raising the bioethical question about whether or not it would be ethical to conceive a child in such an unknown environment. In Logan's opinion, seventeen-percent decrease in muscle mass of the fetus is over the line.
Logan is pointing out that water is dangerous to human beings. We had to develop technology to isolate ourselves from it. Earth shouldn't be called earth. It should be called "Water." Space should be called "Radiation." We will have to learn to protect ourselves from it. He's also pointing out that if we can live in reduced gravity environments, he'd love it, particularly as he gets older, because there'd be much less damage from falls. Also notes that there are major problems with artificial gravity as well, which is actually a good thing, because it will force us to large structures.
Ben Muniz pointing out that getting to orbit is simple engineering, whereas this is a critical research issue that NASA continues to ignore. Logan agrees that this is a critical issue, and one that someone must address. Asking this group to actively make connections to the life sciences community, because both the New Space people and that world have things to teach each other. Life Science at NASA is a cultural problem. Engineers don't like gray areas, but in Life Science, the only on and off are life and death, and everything else in between is fuzzy. [I'll not that this is another instance of Snow's two cultures.] Logan says there's also a political dimension to this. He speculates that some people who want to colonize Mars might not actually want to know the answer, because they might not like it.
Rick Tumlinson pointing out that there used to be conferences that talked about these kinds of issues, at Princeton (which are starting up again next spring). But in the early eighties, everyone thought that the Shuttle had solved the transportation problem so we shifted our thoughts to destinations. But as we discovered that was a mistaken notion, all of our energy has gone back into the transportation problem, and we've ignored this fundamental one. Thinks we need to add more sessions on this subject in future conferences.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:47 AMEnvironment is very important to many people, and showing environmentalists about the potential benefits of space can build support for it. Jeff Krukin says that he asks people "where does space begin?" If you consider it only a hundred kilometers over our head, then it seems a lot closer than many perceive. Has two speakers on this subject.
Molly Macauley has done a lot of work on the economic aspects of environmental policy, and will be talking about the economics of space power. John Mankins formerly of NASA is now head of the Sunsat Energy Council.
Mankins: Talking about Sunsat, which was formed in 1978 by SPS inventor Peter Glaser. Only NGO set up to promote the provision of clean energy from space. Has long been an advocate of the types of New Space activities being highlighted at this conference. Notes that Peter Glaser doesn't travel much any more, but is still energetic in research and promoting the idea. Also notes that Bill Brown, of Raytheon, who was a pioneer in wireless power transmission, is no longer with us (and that Tesla's ideas came first, but they were omni-directional, whereas the Raytheon concept was pointable). Concept wasn't treated well in the seventies for a variety of reasons, some political, and says that it has been politically incorrect to talk about this technology for years as a result of the seventies studies. Despite this, demand for energy is growing, and continues to grow, with the dilemmas of other solutions. Showing limits of terrestrial solar power given intermittent and geographical availability of sunlight. Hydropower is perfect, but also limited. Space solar power has a very complex trade space (including not just designs, but market demand, cost to orbit, energy density for safety, etc.) The reference design solution that resulted from all these trades in the seventies was a series of very large (gigawatt class) satellites in GEO, with large antenna (order of a kilometer) that must be flat to a centimeter or two (fraction of a wavelength). This architecture has a vey high pre-power cost (hundreds of billions of dollars). There were other technical problems but the up-front cost was the biggest issue.
In the mid-1990s, NASA revisited the concept (the "Fresh Look Study") to see if tech advances through the eighties and nineties could result in new approaches. They came up with something called "intelligent modular systems). Uses skydivers as an example of such a system. Insects do it all the time. Self-assembling arrays of systems of systems could build very large structures that didn't require the high up-front infrastructure investment. In 1980, the NRC panned SPS, and recommended no further work. In 2000, they were much more positive. "Technical roadmap feasible, costs reasonable through the first round." But all work stopped within a year or two anyway.
Summary: we need energy, it's more feasible to talk about this now, and we should consider this again.
Molly Macauley of Resources for the Future. Came to space economics by accident back when Comsat was still a quasi-government agency, and proposed a dissertation on the economic value of geostationary orbit, which was accepted. Then she discovered Resources for the Future, which has thought about space as a resource in itself. She went there for a postdoc, and stayed. Saying that she's been doing work on the economic implications of third-party risk for the FAA regulation. We're still living with the effects of the Three-Mile-Island effect, and only now is the nuclear power industry recovering from false perceptions of safety on the part of the public.
She has been doing work on SPS economics at the urging of John Mankins, and has some data. Her work was funded by NSF, NASA, and by Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) [note: I was unaware that EPRI was interested, and find this encouraging].
SSP is large scale, and unlikely to be a US-only system. Looking to the southwest, Midwest, Germany, and India general markets, and looking at the relative advantage of SSP compared to other energy technologies. Acknowledging difficulties of managing all the uncertainties in such studies, and are doing probabilistic analyses, and expertise in the energy industry. Can start to use known economic data like prices per ton of carbon as carbon trading markets develop.
To stack the case for SSP in an initial run, they imposed carbon penalties on other technologies as part of their studies. People think that wind power is ugly and noisy, and it kills birds and bats, precluding wind development. They looked at a host of other energy concerns for other energy technologies. They also considered the political and security implications of relying on the Middle East for hydrocarbons. Notes that electrical energy can be decoupled from these concerns (though an in-space source of power controlled by an international consortium can also have energy security concerns and notes that SSP itself may have environmental issues). Also, we will still be vulnerable to terrorism against the grid.
Their numbers show that if SSP can come on line by the 2020-2030 timeframe for on the order of $0.11/kW-hr, it can be competitive in the markets examined. However, cleaner power may come to have higher value in the future, (as long as it's as reliable as current sources). Additional model runs are asking other what-if questions. She does think that SSP looks a lot better than it did in the past, but other technologies are advancing as well, so SSP has to look over its shoulders at the competition.
Howard Bloom says that everything in Gore's film is wrong, and all of the implications of it are wrong. He's been getting convinced by Paul Werbos that ethanol and methanol are viable fuels for automobiles. Howard had also been skeptical about SSP until Paul started to convince him. He's also been convinced to some degree by Feng Shu (risk analyst at NASA, in the audience). He's now come up with a simple plan--concentrate energies for the next ten to fifteen years on biofuels (many cars could be made biofuel capable, meaning that they can automatically run either biofuels or gasoline, with automatic detection, which has resulted in a forty-percent)
Our civilization doesn't seem to see a future for itself and thinks that it deserves to die for its sins (which is what most of his friends believe). Citing Declaration of Independence, The Astonishing Rise of the Roman Empire Which Stayed On Top For About Twelve Hundred Years (he thinks the book was misnamed), and the Wealth of Nations. He thinks that the misnaming of Gibbon's book resulted in a false paradigm that our nation must fall.
Need to tell people to look up, that the sun is shining, that we have an endless supply of energy in space. Also point out that there are lots of materials up there as well, so we don't have to schlep everything up.
But none of this is what he came to talk to us about. (Getting back to Gore's book).
He's a Democrat, and voted for Gore. But he disagrees with the notion that nature is nice, or that we should buy into the Garden of Eden myth. Mother Nature has thrown eighty ice ages at her creatures, many mass extinctions, lots of space dust. There's lots of strange galactic weather out there, and that will have a much larger effect on our environment than anything we could do. The notion that if we just cut back on carbons, Mother Nature will be good to us, and Bambi's mom will live, is ludicrous.
Cell and DNA partnership is responsible for the vast majority of life. Life has been trying to find itself as many nooks and crannies as possible before the next catastrophe comes. Every pollutant turns out to be an energy source. Cyanobacteria are converting energy, excreting stuff, and one bacteria fart doesn't make any difference, and trillions don't make a difference, and trillions of trillions don't make a difference, but when you make enough, it's a massive pollutant, which resulted in a huge die off. The cells that could process this oxygen thrived, and some of those that couldn't were absorbed into larger organisms where they could survive. So stopping out industrial pollution is pointless when it comes to weather change.
What does this have to do with SSP and the Moon?
Every location that is now a coastal area will be beneath the sea or atop a mountain. We can't count on the Midwest always being a grain belt. They'll eventually be swamps, or deserts.
His notion is floating cities. Gerard O'Neill proposed this for space, but it can be applied to earth as well. Putting New York on a floating vessel will be almost impossible. But not completely impossible. Citing condominium cruise ships, and oil rigs, designed to survive almost any kind of weather that can be thrown at them. The reason we wouldn't sign Kyoto was that it would cost a fortune, and did nothing to stop India or China. It would have been a huge mistake.
We want to find nooks and crannies where life can survive, and can't afford to throw money at the wrong things, like Kyoto.
SSP is something that can grab the imagination of the public, because the public wants to be free of the constraints that the current energy system put on them. It can be a beacon in the sky, and it's an excuse to get O'Neill's colonies into space. The moon has the materials to do this as well, and to get us to Mars. A vessel the size of this hotel (the Flamingo, in Vegas) could be sent to Mars for very little propellant, with solar sails and ion drives.
We don't want Big Brother providing us with our energy source, and India doesn't want the DoD to turn off its power. Proposes decentralizing and having munipalities put up satellites on their own. Wants massively parallel processing, where everyone puts up their own system, and just like the internet, it's robust and not subject to crash. John Mankings points out that decentralization is practical for localities, but not individual house. To get the kind of precision needed for households implies lasers and a high power density.
Howard proposes a conference on the four-step program he just laid out (space settlement, SSP, biofuels, and not sure what the last one is). [Sorry, this stuff is coming out like a firehose, so I'm not necessarily doing justice to it.]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:37 AMReda Anderson is talking about her turn-ons and turn-offs to be a space passenger. She wants an astronaut as a pilot, not an airline pilot. She doesn't want to wear a space suit. She doesn't want to be released from the seat--she's not that into weightlessness or floating around. In fact she doesn't want to wear anything that she perceives as increasing her risk. She'll be training with the Civil Aerospace Mediacal Institute in Oklahoma. She reduces her risk by finding out as much as she can, by attending conferences and visiting Rocketplane, for whom she's the number one customer. She doesn't want a round-trip ticket. She wants to go up in one place and come down in another (e.g., Oklahoma to Mojave). She's a repeat customer. Thanking us for our life-long interest in space so that she as an interloper can come along and enjoy the experience.
Ken Gosier is a member of the Suborbital Spaceflight Club, which is a high-end club (thousand dollars a year) that allows you to stay in touch with what's going on (recently had a dinner at Dennis Tito's house). Has suggestions about what to do to make people feel safe (in addition to actually being safe). Be open about testing and engineering process. Show failures as well as successes. Uses example of Masten blog as an example of openness while not scaring away investors (investor page describes only successes).
Randall Clague, government liaison and safety officer for XCOR.
It's not "welcome to the revolution." For safety, it's "welcome to the evolution." Pointing out that George Nield said things yesterday that made sense to libertarians, which is a revolution itself, that a government employee would do that. They don't know how to regulate safety, other than to bring it up to Shuttle standards (which kills people, and XCOR doesn't want to do that). Makes the familiar (at least to regular readers of this blog) point that reusable vehicles have to be safe, regardless of the payload, or they're not economically viable. We should appreciate just how revolutionary the Congress and FAA approach is, that they're willing to be hands off on passenger safety. XCOR plans incremental approach, with many flight tests prior to revenue service. They don't like EZ-Rocket because it has operability issues. Their next vehicle will apply lessons learned, and be more reliable and safe.
They won't be flying "passengers" (they won't be taking passage from point A to point B). They use the term participant. Passenger has too many liability implications. Informed consent is the key to safety for spaceflight participants. He's happy to hear a customer like Reda who is focused on safety, because he is as well. Talking about the D. D. Harriman story, when his board of directors got an injunction against him going to the moon. He violated it, went to the moon and died there. This was informed consent, but it presents an ethical problem: should XCOR fly someone who has a good chance of dying? His initial take was no, but Jeff Greason convinced him that informed consent is informed consent. The customer is always right. Different companies have different approaches to the experience. Reda doesn't want to unstrap, but Virgin will allow this (though they are rethinking whether or not to let them float). XCOR and Xerus will stay in a pressure suit in their seat. There are different providers for different markets. Allowing someone to get out of seats requires a steward, which is one less seat for passengers. They will require a suit because they want redundancy in life support. There will be a number of different providers, with more experiences and more choices for the customer. This is fantastic [simberg aside, it's also good because it will allow us to learn a lot more lessons a lot sooner]. Their saying is "boring is beautiful." They want to make it boring, at least for the pilot.
Reda says "If anything happens to me, don't stop. This industry must go on." This is a new venture, and if you can't accept risk, don't fly. She agrees that she doesn't like terms tourist or passenger--she likes being a participant. She is not a payload. She wants to come back equal or better than when she came up there, and to keep her in mind with all of the design activities. She notes that she's gone to see the Titanic, and the crushing pressures outside were far worse than the space environment.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:01 AMA panel discussion with half a dozen people, introduced by Rick Tumlinson. Rick pointing out that Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bob Bigelow are a legacy of Apollo, but they were also inspired by Star Trek, and he thinks it takes both.
First speaker and moderator David Beaver (Chairman of MindSpace Media). Says that how the media reports stories is critical to how investors, politicians and public understand industry. Surprising that the media is paying so little attention to a movement that promises to get them into space. Part is due to ups and downs of NASA, but part is due to the changing nature of the media itself, in its transition to new media. Thinks that role of special-effects movies and television is going to be unexpectedly powerful. He's a virtual reality technologist. Creates 3D world on a live stage and immerses people in it interactively. Calls it the magic theatre project to tell unusual stories and new information. Says to check out World Space Center. "Paradigms don't just rigidify thnking, they rigidify perception itself." We in the space movement have different perceptions of space because we are immersed in it. We need to imprint enough information in the minds of the public so that they view space the way that we do. The brain fills in much of the information that we take in through our senses. Few people have been in space, and those who have have difficulty in describing it, and pictures don't do it. have to break down the cognitive barriers that prevent people from fully understanding the experience of space travelers--have to somehow give others an "Overview Effect" a la Frank White. Have to move beyond verbal, written and pictorial descriptions and use new media to convey it.
First speaker is Dan Curry, in charge of special effects for Star Trek shows and movies, and many other films and shows. Star Trek is space fantasy (warp drive unlikely) but distances had to be compressed for story telling. Tried to create a dream of space and future in which we've gotten our act together on our own planet in terms of disease and freedom from want. Showing beginning of Star Trek Voyager, with overture and cool images while credits roll. Talking about "Voyage To The Moon" as the "Star Wars" of its day. Also talking about Chesley Bonestell and his developments in movies and astronomy, and his realistic space paintings, which influenced many movies. Other critical films Forbidden Planet, Conquest of Space, From Earth To Moon, Earth Versus Flying Saucers, etc., until Roddenberry came up with "Wagon Train in space," which became Star Trek. As time went on, the more we learned about the reality of space, the easier it became to make the movies more realistic.
Next is David Livingston, of The Space Show, who has interviewed more than 500 movers and shakers of the space. Hard act to follow Star Trek. Star Trek is in The Space Show, because if it weren't for Star Trek, and Forbidden Planet, and Apollo, there wouldn't be a space show [applause]. Working on a book on popularizing space, and has come to unique point of view of why there's a disconnect between meetings like this and AIAA meetings, and the general public. The general public thinks it's ask not what you can do for space, but ask what space can do for me, and be specific. To say that space is about settlement doesn't connect a single dot, and velcro and medical tools or the Internet or financial transactions have to do with space doesn't matter, because they already have those things. It's not enough to talk to the general public in the way we talk among ourselves. They see space from their perspective, not ours. They can be made to space as a valuable part of their life, but it requires an investment. Have to bring it down to the lowest level so they can identify with it. Key is to listen to what they're telling us, and find out what they want from space. If their priority is curing cancer, then we have to figure out how to sell it on that basis (if there's a case to be made for it). Gives examples of how to hook people into talking about space as it could impact their lives and careers. Being on the radio has taught him how to listen (though his girlfriend doesn't agree). Coolness counts, but the public wants personal, not screensavers. It's easier to connect space to personal than to get people to give up personal. We have a space consciousness. To develop one with the rest of the public, we have to talk to them and listen, and learn from when we fail.
Misuzu Onuki, creator of the first space fashion show (also director of Asian business development for Rocketplane Kistler). Showing a video of the space fashion contest in 2005. Concept seems to have caught on with the general public, more than she expected. Science and technology can become more understandable to many through art. There's been no fashion in space to date: astronauts wear flights suits or shorts in orbit. Have to develop fashions once everyday people are going. For instance, some will want to get married in space. They will want to wear wedding clothes, not flight suits. Weightlessness causes clothes to appear differently (like hair). A wedding dress with frills that lie down flat in one gee can float out in weightlessness. Also describing space themes on cell phones (I think). She sees two types of people who want to go to space: passengers and those who want to do a business in space by finding sponsors and missions. (Note: she had technical problems with her presentation, and plowed through)
Howard Bloom: scientist/engineer and media agent, author of several books on the evolution of earth to present. He was turned on to space by Chesley Bonestell's illustrations, and when Star Trek came out in the sixties, it seemed so bad compared to that that he never watched it, but then when he happened to see the new shows in the directions, he was amazed because it had not only caught up with Bonestell, but moved beyond it (tribute to Dan Curry). Preaches imagination "Dream your ass off." Got to get kids to identify with Burt Rutan's machines, XCOR's machines, and others. Raw imagination, the unexpected that will take us places. Pictures are important. This is his second space conference, and he doesn't know what XCOR is, because he hasn't seen pictures. Used to think that Lucas failed, because he had this great first movie, but then the theme fell apart, but his son went out and rented all six and watched them in the order that Lucas intended, and it seemed to take on a new life. Surprise is key to "grab the public by the gonads." Need to get people interested in private space as well as NASA space. One example is "Stars, Stories and Scores." Have to focus on stars (relates story of how he created Shaka Kahn). Should make a fictional story featuring Burt Rutan. Dow Jones average comes out every day, and creates publicity by doing that every single day. We need to come up with metrics for the space industry that come out regularly (e.g., number of dollars invested into private space efforts, published weekly). Tells the story of a department store that decided to have a parade as a publicity event. Parades weren't new, but the idea was to hook the parade to a yearly holiday as an excuse to repeat it. Holiday was Thanksgiving. Macy's remains a household name today even though department store industry is dying. Get kids involved with concepts and ideas with contests. He also likes idea of space olympics.
Richard Godwin, president of Apogee Books. How do we make weather so interesting, and space so mundane? Reality of Shuttle launch not captures in any way by watching on television. Took his son, who he'd been trying to get interested in space, to a launch. "Dad, that was awesome." Have to engage the women. Explain to them that women make better astronauts than guys. (e.g., they have the same brain power for less body mass, and use less consumables). "If you really want to populate space, send the women and let the guys follow them." We preach to the choir too much. Test: If I can change my mother-in-law's mind about space, I can convince anyone (she thinks that the Shuttle changes the weather in Chicago). People are interested in survival and money, and we have to make those connections. Have to reinforce the connection between science fiction and science fact. Make people see that it's not just fantasy, but that it's important. Show them that there are things to do in space and advance our species is important, but difficult. Have one line that's outrageous to bring in the interest. Ultimately have to get the kids involved, and get the message to them in a way that piques their interest.
Wrapup by moderator: Just building the ships will not put butts in seats. We will really have to keep selling if we want to have emigration to space. Asks question: why doesn't this story have legs? Howard Bloom thinks that it's because in order to do good publicity, you have to be three times as good as the best journalist you know. Take it for granted that they will screw up a lot of things, but if you have a good publicist who's developing the story day after day you can develop habits in the press to come to you for the story. Question: is it premature to publicize this stuff? Howard thinks that if you love the audience and give it to them on a regular basis, you'll serve it well. You have to get to the psyche of the audience. Repeats, Stars, Scores, Stories.
Need a world space fair every couple years, to show the public how space is important in their daily life, because they don't have a clue, other than that it is difficult. David: outreach is fine, but you have to listen too, because lecturing doesn't work.
[Update]
See also Clark's briefer, but perhaps more useful notes.
That's pretty much the end of the day's sessions. Probably more in the morning, including S3x In Space! (how's that for a teaser...?)
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:52 PMIs Mike Griffin just asking for help in getting humans to Mars (and note that he's asking for help from foreign governments, not the American private sector) or is he laying the groundwork for abandoning ISS?
NASA chief Michael Griffin appealed on Wednesday to the leaders of the world's leading space agencies to join NASA in its bid to send astronauts to the Moon and Mars.Unless they do, he said, there will be little point in completing the International Space Station. The ISS will make a perfect staging post for such missions, he believes.
Well, I guess. For certain values of the word "perfect" (e.g., horrible)...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:05 PMHere's a story from the Dayton paper on this week's RASTE workshop that Jess Sponable talked about in this morning's session.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:00 PMMike Beavin describing the resurrection of this office, which has languished throughout much of the Bush administration. Office is at the Department of Commerce, next to the White House. Beavin worked on the Hill in the House Aeronautics Subcommittee, sat next to Jim Muncy (still deaf in one ear from that). Then went to AIAA and Satellite Industry Association.
Office is the principal unit for coordination of space activities within the Department of Commerce. Originally "Office of Space Commerce," which he prefered--wants to nurture actual commerce in space. Originally supported National Space Council (which no longer exists--Clinton dismantled it). Office ended up in Technology Division in 1996, but funding was moved to NOAA in 2004, and didn't get presidential appointee director until this year (Ed Morris, from Orbital Sciences Corporation). Charter is policy development, market analysis, and outreach and education. (Lot of discussion about GPS and space-based positioning, which is one of the things that the office was given responsibility for in 2005.) Listing some recent accomplishments, few of which have any relationship to getting humans into space. Supporting development of new national space policy document.
Ed Morris only there since January, and he's only been there a month and a half, so still in the process of resurrecting the office. Has Aerospace Corporation on contract to help with outreach to stakeholders to see what they should be doing. Just testified to Congress on economic impacts of space--discussed GPS and remote sensing/NOAA. There may be hearings this fall on COTS, and if so, they hope to play an advocacy role for that. They recognize that they haven't done much for the entrepreneurs lately, but they had a workshop in 2001 on space commerce, and hope to do something similar to make a new roadmap of market oppotunities in space. Want to hear ideas hear. One issue they do want to deal with is ITAR. There needs to be a voice for the commercial side in the government ITAR debates, and they want to serve that role.
Question from Joe Carrol: If Centennial Challenges is successful, do you think that Commerce could get involved in their own prizes? Answer: they're interested in that, if there are departmental precedents.
Break for lunch.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:33 PMStu Witt, Mojave Airport Manager is coming up. Starting with a five-minute video promo of Mojave. "Mojave is a place where dreams are nurtured." Vignette with Jeff Greason at XCOR extolling the "Mojave is a perfect place"--Burt Rutan.
Witt: FAA is responsible for the uninvolved public--we are responsible for the involved public, the people who fly the vehicles and fly in the vehicles. Describing the joint-use operational restricted airspace over Mojave--the largest testing site in the continent. When established by Congress, it was established for both commercial and military use for flight test. Military has been very supportive of civilian flight tests.
They're open 24/7 with a crash fire/rescue division, and support the Air Force at Edwards and Navy at China Lake when it's after hours for them. They're expanding their runways and will have longest commercial runway in Kern County (other than the Edwards lakebed). Has gone from forty percent occupancy to a hundred-plus percent occupancy since the first SS1 engine firing in 2003. A "Silicon Valley"-like atmosphere for cutting-edge space companies. Lots of things going on you never hear about every day. Eight rocket test stands at the airport for thrust up to eighty-thousand pounds, with provisions up to 120,000. Doesn't worry about competition--wants to see spaceports all over the globe. Describing all the companies there: XCOR, AirLaunch, BAE, National Test Pilot School, etc. They also do a lot of filming of movies and commercials, and it's an intermodal freight transport hub. The new 12,500 foot runway can handle any airplane in the world (e.g., fully-loaded 747F from Mojave to Shanghai). Describing all the celebrities who come through (picture of Burt talking to Clint Eastwood about the back nine at Pebble Beach).
Lessons learned: prepare for growth--they had no idea they'd ever have the crowd control issues. There are plans for four thousand houses in Mojave now, which is more than the current population, Get plenty of runway--you can't have enough. If you don't have a lakebed nearby, build one--you'll need it. Only sees three viable spaceport sites in the near term: Utah, New Mexico and California. "Keep your AST sponsor informed." "Keep your local officials informed." On risk: risk and gain must be balanced.
Next talk from Australia's Mark Sonter, discussing a spaceport proposal at Manus Island. Glad to speak at a conference where the focus is getting hmans into space. Manus Island is the northernmost island of Papua New Guinea (staging area for MacArthur's invasion fleet of the Phillipines). It has an airstrip that's an emergency site for Australia-Japan traffic. There was a proposal in the early nineties for launching Protons or Zenits from it, so there's history (locals had exhibited enthusiasm for it, but viewed as "too adventurous" by internaional banking community). Good equatorial site (some interest in LEO comsats for equatorial coverage. Can double GEO payload compared to Khazahkstan. Maximizes performance to orbit, and would be a good launch site for an equatorial LEO infrastructure. Sees SSPS as the big market. If it can compete economically, will pay for colonization of space. Showing picture of Mankins' power tower. Discusses other possible equatorial sites. Not very many good ones, Kourou the only one that's active. Alcontera a possibility, but most other than Kourou are done by sea launches. Proposing a small basic launch facility, and then seeing if it can grow.
Chuck Lauer sitting in for Bill Curry, head of Oklahoma Spaceport (who has come down with pneumonia). Rocketplane was going for "O-Prize" (a tax incentive from the State of Oklahoma) rather than the X-Prize, and got it. Oklahoma spaceport started out as a potential X-33 port (when people were naive enough to believe the Lockmart scam). Oklahoma remembers the potential, even if it didn't pan out. There's a B-52 SAC base that was closed down in the 1970s, and they've been trying to figure out what to do with it since. Established Oklahoma Spaceport Authority, modeled on the Disney deal in Orlando. When X-33 died, Oklahoma was "all dressed up, with nobody to go to the dance with." Rocketplane provided a letter of intent on letterhead in 2000 which enabled the Space Authority to get up and running. They want jobs and economic development. Provided a modified tax credit targeted at entrepreneurs (transferable fifty-percent R&D tax credit spread over five years, which they sold to a bank to raise money). Now reshowing slides from previous day's talks on Rocketplane progress. Site got its license from FAA on June 16th. Seven miles off I-40, so potential for tourist traffic, and hoping for growth as the space plane starts to fly. Lots of room for other people--Armadillo is testing now.
A brief talk about "Spaceport New Jersey." "Sounds like a ridiculous idea, and may end up being that." New Jersey Spaceport could take advantage of proximity to large cities, NJ has a lot of infrastructure, with Atlantic City Coast Guard facilities and FAA facilities. Thinks that spaceports may evolve differently than airports. For tourism, takeoffs and landings may be different locations. Building a team at Rutgers with necessary backgrounds, and pursuing the idea.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:38 AMDescribing thirteen years ago, when there was a monsoon rainstorm and his hangar flooded around the DC-X. Cleaned it up, talked to Pete Conrad, who said facilities are a mess, but the vehicle's in great shape. Old space wouldn't have flown, but they did. Not high, not far, but it went up, translated, and came down on the pad. It was a transition point in his career. Had big plans for multi-billion-dollar single-stage experimental rockets, but politics and bureaucracy prevented it. And it still would have been old space.
Perhaps that was a good thing, because new things are happening now that only cost hundreds of millions, or just millions, and in some case hundreds of thousands.
Describing his work at the Air Force Research Lab in Dayton.
Starting with absurd predictions about the future ("Man will not fly for fifty years" -- Wilbur Wright, in 1901). Don't count on the opinions of the "experts." Citing Macchiavelli, about the difficulty of managing the creation of a new system. Discovered after AF retirement and attempt at entrepreneuring how difficult it was to raise money, and is happy to be back in government, where he has an opportunity to help nurture these new ideas.
Describing technologies, including new TPS that can be removed and installed five hundred times faster than Shuttle tiles, with order-of-magnitude improvement in strength and durability. Also discussing lox/methane and integration techniques, avionics, GN&C, health monitoring, aerothermal tools. Goal is delivering aircraft-like operations for space vehicles.
Describing FALCON program, and hybrid launch vehicle that goes to Mach seven or so, hopes to grow it into a platform for a hybrid reusable/expendable orbital launcher, that can evolve to fully reusable two stage. FALCON down to SpaceX and Airlaunch. First flight of SpaceX failed, expect another attempt in November. Airlaunch is lox/propane rocket dropped from back of C-17. Going to Critical Design Review this fall. Flight test planned next week with actual fully-fueled (but inert) rocket from C-17. ARES "hybrid launch vehicle" requires minimal new technology, But technology can carry on to next step, which is reusable upper stage. Will be lox/hydrocarbon, could be horizontal or vertical landing, will be tested from ground initially, with incremental flight test. Hope that technology can be spun off to New Space industry. Looking for "takeoff point" where industry "grows like mad."
Describing relationship between conventional aerospace, DoD, and the emerging private-sector industry. Discussing parallel between current space industry and dawn of aviation, with smart government investment spurring growth. Also wants to ensure that thriving industry is supportive of emerging defense needs for Operationally Responsive Spacelift. Sees emerging industry consensus on ways for government and industry can cooperate, leveraging relationships. Had a conference this week in Dayton where there were presentations of technologies being developed by the government to the industry. Hoped to link up commercial sector and defense vendors with technologists. Wants to know where to go with this in the future, to continue the development of relationships. Thinks that there's an overlap of interests, and wants to figure out how to continue to build on it.
Charles Miller giving a history of aviation, pointing out that we lost the lead in aviation early in the century, having to use European designs in WW I, due to patent fights between Wright and Curtiss, and poor coordination of the industry. NACA gradually helped fix this, and we need a new version of NACA for space.
Jim Muncy describing new types of "prizes" where the government paid for results, rather than effort. Sounds like a good thing, except that when you do that, Congressmen don't know which district the money will go to, Also, since we don't know when money will be awarded, and the money has to be set aside. Congress also doesn't understand why it can't spend money this year if the prize isn't going to be won, and is reluctant to set aside money unspent. Bureaucracy doesn't like it, either, because they lose control (Can't "help" the contractors, don't know how the job is going to be done, etc.). Not normal procurement and contracting, and doesn't work in Washington--only in the real world. But there's hope because there's some legislation working to give the Air Force some prize authority. NASA already does, but some in the Congress don't believe that they should actually get money to give out. He also notes that prizes are useful but not a panacea for all ills. Can't be too easy, or too hard. Good for incremental achievement. Were instrumental for huge breakthroughs in aviation when properly designed.
Comment from the audience that prizes are just a part of the solution, because there's a consensus that the general procurement process for the government is badly broken. Citing development cycles in private versus government, with dramatic differences in time to market. Jess response: agrees except no comment as to whether or not the current process is broken. Jim Muncy asking for formal written comments from small companies to Jess on the RASTE conference this week on this subject. We need to come up with a way for the entrepreneurial firms to do business with the government without becoming "little Boeings." Need to avoid buildup of infrastructure and bureaucracy in the company, and that needs to be written down and submitted to the Air Force.
Another audience comment: if having to build DeHavilland airplanes during the war was embarrasing, how embarassing is it that so many companies in this country have to use Russian launch vehicles? Jess comments that he agrees, but that fixing it (particularly ITAR) is above his pay grade.
Ed Wright suggests having future RASTE conferences in Mojave or at the X-Prize Cup so that industry participants can actually see things fly. Jess thinks it's a good idea, but they're currently funding limited.
Next talk in a few minutes--space ports.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:31 AMHe's the first talk of Saturday morning.
Three questions that always seem to come up: how soon, how safe and how much? People are asking if anything is happening, because there hasn't been a lot of visible activity lately. Cites Stephen Stills: "somethin' happenin' here, what it is ain't completely clear."
A great deal is happening--lull is only on the surface. Momentum hasn't stalled. We're following a typical time line with other transportation systems. Very little visible activity for a couple years after December 3rd, 1903. Dumont, Wrights, Bleriot, Curtiss were doing a lot, but it wasn't going on in the sky. Shopwork, experiments, bench testing, craftsmanship. Things that needed to be done, but not things that got one into the papers. It was a consolidation of understanding a new technology. We're in a similar period right now.
AST involved with a dozen entrepreneurs at various stages of developing new launch vehicles. Not glamorous work, but essential. Headlines are just prelude to longer-term important developments. Citing Golden Spike, and Lindbergh, after which transportation systems gradually grew and then exploded.
Industry is in the ready room, but not quite ready for the camera. But will be very soon, by the end of the decade. Answer: no launch delays due to paperwork, though there have been struggles to achieve that. We need to recognize that this is new activity, and, keep communications lines open. Learned lessons from SpaceShipOne and will continue to learn as we go.
For safety, we have a good record, but we will not be perfect and everyone needs to understand that. Citing the hundreds and thousands of people who die in other forms of transportation (aircraft, boating, autos). Safety will be at the top and middle and bottom of every checklist, but risk will always be present. Rules will require informed consent of passengers. Flights will be safe as possible, but perfection is not humanly probable. These flights will be spectacular--sensations, sounds, sights...and risk.
Initial market in good shape (fifteen millions sales for Virgin Galactic two years before flight). Question is if it is a large enough market to sustain. He sees promise.
Using example of three-body problem back in the sixties. A similar three-body problem has held us back in human spaceflight--technology, capital and market. A critical mass of private investment is becoming available, the technology seems adequate, and the market is willing (though only a small fraction is able to pay current prices).
Early train travel was expensive, but technological improvements brought it to the masses.
What is FAA doing?
First, what is FAA not doing. Regulating to ensure safety to the uninvolved public, but staying out of the way of critical technological developments.
What they are doing: finishing up rules on experimental permits, and in process of issuing to seven different developers, just granted OK Spaceport license, ahd working with X-Prize Cup. Also continuing to work with ELVs, and now have 178 consecutive launches with no damage or injury to general public.
Question about lunar landing challenge and if we're ready: still feeling way through the experimental permit process--recognizes that time is short, but will see what they have when the time comes.
Question about whether FAA is working develop standards for passenger safety: No, working on informed consent basis for now, though no compromise or change for safety to uninvolved. Need to get experience before we can establish standards for passenger safety, so we don't strangle industry, per Congressional maddate. Not like stepping on an airline.
Stu Witt (Mojave airport manager) asking: have we missed any RLV launches due to regulation?
Are any states of spaceports applying their own passenger safety standards? Not to his knowledge. Wouldn't be a good idea for individual states or communities to come up with their own standards, because it would complicate life.
Do you have enough budgets and people: Things are tight, but attitude is that the next year or so will tell whether or not we'll be able to continue at this level. Expect workload to skyrocket as industry develops. May have to request more resources in future to prevent delays, but this year will give a good indicator.
Will orbital have an extension of the same treatment that suborbital got, and what kind of timeframe does he see? Answer: current law requires separate licenses for launch and entry, but there is no regulatory regime for on-orbit activities (not necessarily a problem, because there is no danger to on-ground public from this). No opportunity yet to license a reusable orbital vehicle, but thinks that regulatory infrastructure is in place to handle it, a few years downstream.
Rocketplane's number one passenger asks if there are any government agencies asking passengers what they think is safe and what they'd like to see? Answer: FAA is interested in input, and potential passengers have same process in the NPRM comments process as everyone else.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:58 AMJournalism Prizes
Congratulations to Leonard David for winning the 2nd Annual Space Journalism Award of $1,000 for best article on human spacefaring for January-September 2005 for his article, Space Tourism: Keeping the Customer Satisfied. I sponsored this and it was judged by Clark Lindsey, Jeff Foust and last year's winner, Eli Kintisch. I also sponsored a prize for Best Breaking News Reporting of $1,000 judged by the Space Frontier Foundation Board that went to Alan Boyle.
Bigelow
Nothing that Bigelow said or did was particularly surprising except that Bigelow Aerospace is now being an open company and lifting the covers off of a very interesting and ambitious program. Another surprise was that Bigelow himself led the three tours of his facility. He's in good shape with grey hair and a moustache. He wore a shirt that was colorful with patterns reminiscent of seismometer tracks. Bigelow opening up was like a quake that was building up for a long time. The Bigelow items at the Space Frontier Foundation Teacher's in Space auction went for high prices. One of five signed Bigelow posters went for more than tours of SpaceX and Rocketplane, and generous affinity packages from XCOR, Masten and Armadillo Aerospace.
One auction item of note is the right to name one of the scorpions going up on a Genesis or the next larger scale model, the Galaxy (perhaps a renamed Guardian at 45% scale). During the tour, Bigelow pointed out his life sciences area under construction where he will keep a control group of various animals that will mirror another set going up into space on future missions.
The Genesis is "1/3" scale, but that encompasses less than 1/27 of the volume of the Nautilus because of some components that do not scale well. The Guardian/Galaxy if it's 45% would have almost 10% of the volume of the full size BA-330 Nautilus. The ISS is only 425 cubic meters at this point and will only be triple that volume when "completed" (if ever). Five Bigelow habs could be four times the volume of the current ISS. With the floor and ceiling usable, and two bulkheads making three decks, a single 330 presents as much living "area" as a 5000 square foot house. Stringing them together would make a pretty nice lab and hotel complex. Bigelow's anticipated market of the rest of the countries of the world sending astronauts is intriguing and reminiscent of The Rocket Company by David Hoerr. He's not talking about industry any more after finding out how badly burned they were with their dealings with NASA.
On a positive note, Bigelow says he'll be starting an Astronaut corps in four years. When I asked him what people should do to get ready, e.g., study hard in school, he said "I'll have to think on that."
Masten
At Michael Mealling's business plan presentation, he said that a key differentiator for Masten for their later generations will be the ability to go to 500km with their tourist version. Another differentiator is that the pilot will be on the ground.
First to Suborbit
I heard from George French III (aka little George) who is son of Chairman George French, on the Board of Directors at Rocketplane Kistler and heading up Sales and Customer Relations that Rocketplane will delay their first revenue flight for XP past 2007. This leaves Armadillo with the earliest announced date for beginning of test flights for their tourist vehicle. At least four different vendors have told me they will or could be first and there are at least two fast followers that I am aware of. Some are still seeking funding. It should be pretty exciting when it all hits which may be 2007, but depending on how successfully development and testing go for Armadillo, it may hit in 2008, or if it goes slowly for a wider crowd, 2009.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:00 AMCharles Miller of Constellation Services is talking about COTS and servicing ISS. He's discussing the difficulty of the certification process to be allowed to dock to ISS. Their solution was to use Russian hardware that had already been allowed to do it, using an "intermodal transportation" approach.
Their idea is to use Progress as a "tug" and cargo containers that look like a station in terms of the interface, for a "plug'n'play" system. He's apparently presenting their COTS approach. (I should note that today's Space.com says that Charles is unhappy at not being selected for COTS, and some (though not necessarily Charles ) think that NASA doesn't take either COTS, or the station resupply problem seriously.)
Go read the link for background, but his bottom line is that they're still offering ISS cargo delivery to NASA, even if they don't get any of the COTS development money.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:38 AMI just missed Jim Benson's discussion of SpaceDev's Dreamchaser, because I was out in the hallway, but Neil Milburn of Armadillo Aerospace is about to speak.
Giving a brief history of the company. It's a volunteer organization (so far) funded by John Carmack, writer of the Doom and Quake video games. They're hobbyists, mixing computers and rockets. Think of themselves as "twenty-first century bicycle mechanics."
Describing their new vehicle, with LOX/ethanol propellants. They're have a "vertical drag racer" in January of '07, and expect to have a hundred-kilometer altitude, X-Prize class vehicle next spring. They've been talking to Lutz Kayser, who developed OTRAG back in the sixties and seventies, and are incorporating some of his modular, low-cost-component ideas into their vehicle. It's called Large Array of SimplE Rockets (LASER). Starting to think about orbital capability.
Chuck Lauer talking now about Rocketplane Kistler. Combining the two companies--one a horizontal takeoff and land, and the other a vertical takeoff and land, provides some good synergies. Showing CAD views of the XP suborbital vehicle. Based on a stretched Lear 25 for a four-seat vehicle, and working on a version with stretched fuselage and larger wings with eight seats. Verified computer design against the wind tunnel (did a lot of work at Marshall Spaceflight Center) and consider configuration validated, with stable entry (Burt Rutan wrong about feathered configuration only safe way to come back). Uisng Rocketdyne RS-88 engine.
Three and a half gees up, four to five minutes of weightlessness, four gees coming in. Oklahoma Spaceport got its license about a month ago. Established the first non-military overland track for rockets.
Looking into using XP as a platform for an expendable second stage. Would separate out of the atmosphere to avoid aero loads during separation. Using a Japanese hybrid rocket (LOX/Polyethylene). Developed as sounding rocket, and determined that they could get it to over four hundred kilometers altitude with a seventy-kilometer release, with nine minutes of weightlessness. Could also do scramjet/entry research with it.
Looking at other spaceports in Japan, Australia, Dubai, and US orbital spaceports (site still TBD), with long-term goal of point-to-point service. Hope to eventually integrate spaceplanes into conventional ATC system, with perhaps Anchorage as a world-wide hub.
Kistler is getting their contractors back on board, preparing for COTS, but also interested in Bigelow as a customer even without COTS. COTS only necessary to meet early NASA goals. They expect to be able to launch in 2007 or 2008 given funding because vehicle is three quarters built. Considering Florida and New Mexico as potential US launch sites. Could have fully-reusable system, at the same time that LEO comsats seem to be making a comeback.
Can fly standard space station hardware with a pressurized cargo module, for microgravity experiments of a couple weeks without ISS. Looking into ways of getting back to the moon with it, when combined with propellant depot. Need to have an entire earth-moon system serviceable by commercial vehicles quickly and cheaply. Thinks that with needed flight rate, could do heavy-lift job at fraction of the cost, and would like to see COTS model extended to lunar missions.
Dave Masten up now. Formed in Space Access '04, built a lot ot test stands and infrastructure. Had major milestone of igniter about the time of Space Access '05, had initial engine testing in November, and right after the recent ISDC had successful engine tests. Major milestones always seem to come right after major conferences. Will have their first flight test next week.
Starting off with suborbital, hundred kilograms to hundred kilometers. Want to build on operational capability, without being too concerned about performance initially. Next step will be a vehicle with a little more payload and a lot more altitude. Then scale up to something that can take people into space, vertical takeoff vertical landing. Want to be able to stack them to eventually get to orbit. Like vertical vertical because it lends itself eventually to a lunar lander. Interested in pursuing lunar lander challenge.
Engine R&D is complete, expect first hover flight next week (July 27th). Will compete for X-Prize Cup Lunar Lander Challenge, and expect to be able to go into space in early 2007.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:18 AMRick Tumlinson is introducing Bob Bigelow, admiring someone who "antes up." He's worked all his life to build what he's got, and now he's doing something bigger and grander and more important to create a great future for our kids. He's translating his business and real estate knowledge into the development of space which is (in the Foundation's words) just a place.
Definitely wants to go to space. His wife says that she would like to send him to the moon (bang, zoom...). No rimshot.
Thanking the Russians for how they accommodated them, and the extra effort they went to. Also thanking his company's staff. A small organization that makes up for it with incredible enthusiasm and skills. Still looking for more people in engineering, legal, accounting. Two plants, one in North Vegas, one in Houston. Also a Washington office, which is a crucial part of the activities. Technological challenges are huge, but not on the top of the list of what can hurt you. Politics is much tougher, which is what the Washington office struggles with every day.
Burt Rutan and Elon Musk are successful because they're not just good technically, but good businessmen. (Acknowledging Buzz Aldrin, who just walked into the room, calling him "my hero.") They know how to manage money, and people, and the technical aspects follow. Priority order is politics, management, and then the technical part.
Community is not very large and "we need to stick together, pull together, and make things happen." He sees himself as being part of the destination part. "We will fly your stuff." Taking emailed photos, converting to cards, and flying them in the habitats where they can float around and be viewed with a camera. Also taking golf-ball-sized objects. Inviting people to fly with them.
Evolving to the goal of a full-size module that can sustain up to six people for years at a time--LEO, deep space, and lunar and Martian surfaces. Each additional spacecraft will be increasingly complex, getting larger and testing new subsystems, while also learning how to manage communications with multiple spacecraft simultaneously. Will be flying every six months, so up to five spacecraft to track and communicate with over a two-and-a-half-year period. Building own tracking stations in Hawaii, Fairbanks, etc. Will fly a second flight later this year, also out of Russia (SS-18 Dneper--an altered ICBM). Likes the idea of swords to ploughshares.
ISS not "customer friendly," leaving rest of the world sitting on the sidelines. 350 astronauts in the world right now, but hopes to increase that by fifteen to twenty times over the next dozen years or so. Sees astronauts for other governments as a more interesting market than tourism per se.
Look at themselves as providing facilities to meet customer requirements, but not necessarily involved in what actually takes place on board (like a regional mall). Banks understand this kind of deal. A number of terrestrial and marine models for destinations that can serve as useful models. Wants to train thousands of "professional astronauts" to serve needs of big aerospace in a similar manner to which the military trains pilots and aviation professionals for that business.
First module will be 330 cubic meters (a little over half of current ISS size). Dneper can handle first two generations--Genesis and Galaxy, but generation after that will outgrow it. Estimate twenty launches in third year of operation (sixteen for people and four for cargo). Would like a crew vehicle that can handle eight people, but thinks that's driven by seat cost, and would be happy with less if it can be done for comparable seat cost. Looking to Atlas V or Falcon 9 (if Elon is of a mind to do that).
Thinks that space tourism will happen, but their focus is on the path of serving private services for exploration and cargo, following the nautical analogy. Doesn't want to depend on any one income stream, and trying to develop thorough understanding of what kinds of income streams can be derived from robotic applications. Thinks that tourism will be relatively small population for the first few years, due to high price. Professional astronaut community seems like the biggest single revenue opportunity, by pursuing countries that have previously had few opportunities. Space tourism pricing will have to be lower than "professional astronatus." Thinks that eight million per trip would have some market, but they'd make no profit at that price. They would put tourists to work, filming, helping with tasks. Want to coordinate with Space Adventures and others to put together packages.
Have "only been a spaceflight company for one week." "This is our first rodeo."
Can't believe that they're doing this, and how well it's going. Expecting Murphy to show up any minutes. Would not have been financially possible without Russian help. Don't know what future is, not taking anything for granted, looking over their shoulders, feeling "hot breath of challenge." Don't take this likely.
Expects competition, but have a lead, and hope to keep moving quickly to maintain it. Have to make quick decisions. Plenty of things to worry about, but are optimists, so they don't hesitate when decisions have to be made.
Just asked how much more time he had. "All you need, Bob." (Rick Tumlinson)
[Note: I see that Clark Lindsey has a description of yesterday's Bigelow facilities tour.]
They've taken about 500 photos of Genesis 1 up to this point in time.
They're showing a video now, mostly press clips. I'm shutting down temporarily, so I can go tour the Bigelow faclity.
[Update]
I may regret this, but the tour was going to last several hours, and I didn't want to miss that much of the conference.
Clark Lindsey has a summary of Bigelow's talk.
[Update]
Alan Boyle also has a Bigelow tour report.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:57 AMI made it up from LA in three and a half hours flat. It's a lot easier to do when you leave at 4 AM. I'm sitting in the conference room at the Flamingo, waiting for the keynote speech by Bob Bigelow. Let's see if he makes some news.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:49 AM...but hopefully not a dollar short.
I have some ruminations on yesterday's (actually, still today's in Mountain, Pacific and Central time) anniversaries.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:13 PMAny readers I have who are interested in working on the CEV program (despite any disparaging remarks I may have made about it) have an opportunity now, if you have the right experience and skill set. The company with which I'm consulting, ARES Corporation, is hiring, for both southern California and Houston.
If you go there as a result of this post, please let them know, so we know how effective it is, relative to other ad media.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:17 PMI won't be getting to the conference until tomorrow, but Clark Lindsey has several posts up already with what's been going on, here, here, here, and here.
And Jeff Foust has interviewed Bob Bigelow, who will be keynoting tomorrow morning.
One thought on Clark's report:
Tumlinson: The whole Exploration architecture is going to fail because it is financially and politically unsustainable.
He's right.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:29 PMThose are the number of years ago, respectively, that Viking 1 landed on Mars, and Apollo XI landed on the moon. I'll have more thoughts up later, either here or elsewhere. But if you haven't made plans for dinner tonight to commemorate it, there's still time.
[Update on holy night]
Alan Boyle, who I expect to see in Las Vegas tomorrow, has a lot of related thoughts and links.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:13 AMHoward Dratch has some thoughts on the value of failure for the commercial launch industry. This was resonant with me:
The photographer who shoots and sees that the story he/she wanted to tell was lost, the moment missed, the avenue of seeing not taken, and uses the failure to become Gary Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, or Robert Frank has used failure as a step toward the stars. The question is if there is creativity to see the possibilities of the failure and the guts to put it behind. The new space entrepreneurs may have it, probably have it. The government agencies are a question. Will NASA learn from its mistakes and tragedies as quickly and as well?
It's apparent to me that NASA has taken lessons from its failures (and from its successes as well, such as Apollo), but strategically, it's learned the wrong ones.
I've had an essay on this subject bubbling around in my brain for a while now that I'll have to unburden myself of soon.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:11 PMBen Chertoff has an podcast interview with astronaut Thomas Jones on the implications of the most recent successful Shuttle mission.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:53 PMDiscovery has performed its deorbit burn (about half an hour ago). One way or another, it will be back on earth in another thirty-five minutes.
[Update at 9:15 AM EDT]
Picture perfect landing. Looks like the mission at the end of next month is definitely a go.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:03 AMAlan Boyle has scored a long and interesting interview with Bob Bigelow (yeah, I know it's old news--I've been busy for the last few days), in which, among many other things, he discusses the prospects for American commercial launch providers for his needs:
Looking ahead, Bigelow plans two launches per year, moving up from the third-scale Genesis to a roughly half-scale prototype, and finally launching the full-scale, 330-cubic-meter Nautilus spacecraft by 2012. The time line targets 2015 for an honest-to-goodness space station, capable of hosting tourists or researchers, performers or athletes.Bigelow hopes that the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will be ready to go in time for the Nautilus launches. If SpaceX founder Elon Musk is successful, "we are probably a multiple-flight customer for him," Bigelow said.
But read the whole thing.
And I hope that I'll get some of Mr. Bigelow's thoughts myself, next week, in Vegas.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:00 PMYou still have time to register at next week's Space Frontier Conference in Vegas, where it was just announced that aspiring orbital hotelier Bob Bigelow will be making the keynote address. The lower price applies until Monday night. I'll be there, but you should come anyway.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:13 PMThe Bigelow test article has reportedly inflated and deployed its solar panels.
[Update before bed]
Here's the story.
And Clark Lindsey has a brief roundup of the state of the alt-space industry.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:49 PMLeonard David says that the Bigelow mission is in orbit. I haven't been paying enough attention to this to have any profound thoughts [When did that ever stop you before? -- ed Quiet, you], but it's clearly good news, and big news.
[Update in the afternoon]
I'm in the middle of meetings, but Clark Lindsey is continuing to follow this and provide links here and here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:15 AMNot that this suprises me (well, actually it does a little--even I didn't think that it would be this high), but if this is true, it's hard to imagine that there will be much enthusiasm for lunar missions. There certainly won't be from me, considering the alternate uses for the money:
...individual lunar missions using a CEV, CLV. CaLV, LSAM, LSAS, etc. are now estimated to cost $5 Billion each. By comparison, Space Shuttle missions cost $0.5 billion.
As always, that Shuttle figure has to be heavily caveated. Shuttle missions at current budgets would only be half a billion if we were launching eight to ten flights a year. The last Shuttle flight cost about five billion.
Like real estate, there are three rules of per-flight costs: flight rate, flight rate, flight rate.
And ESAS doesn't allow a high flight rate...
[Wednesday morning update]
As is almost always the case, I am frustrated by the ambiguous terminology in discussing costs. What does "individual lunar mission" mean? I took it to mean average cost based on annual operating expenses. That would imply ten billion a year for two flights a year. Is that right? If it were four flights a year, then this interpretation would imply a twenty billion annual budget. Some could interpret it to mean marginal cost, but that would be even more insane.
If the number is correct, I suspect that it was derived by taking the total life cycle costs of the program, including development, and dividing by the total number of planned missions. If that's the case, it looks like a reasonable number. A lot more than I'm willing to pay for it as a taxpayer, but it makes sense, given typical NASA program costs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:09 PMThere may be one tomorrow, with a successful launch. We need to be developing cost-effective hardware for orbital facilities, and this could go a long way toward that end.
As Jim Oberg points out in Alan's article (and a concern I've long had), Bigelow has always been too passive with respect to helping get launch costs down (though the recent Bigelow Prize will be helpful). It's too bad that SpaceX couldn't do the launch for him. Maybe next time.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:19 AMAccording to this story, the Chinese are going to launch a space station. They don't have a date, though:
China will launch Shenzhou VII with three astronauts in September 2008, after the Beijing Olympic Games...After the launch of Shenzhou VII, a space station with 20 tons will be built...
Why wait until after the Olympics? What does this have to do with anything? Unless, of course, the purpose of the program is primarily for national prestige, as opposed to actually accomplishing something that's important.
And "after the launch of Shenzhou VII" could be anywhere from October, 2008 (unlikely) until...the end of time. But we'd better hurry--we're in a race!
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:14 AMMojave seems to be recovering from the construction of the Highway 58 bypass:
In four years, Mojave Airport has gone from an under-utilized airport and civilian flight test facility to a spaceport with a worldwide reputation as a "Silicon Valley" for the emerging commercial space industry.Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:51 AMNew companies are arriving and established tenants are seeing their contracts and payrolls grow.
Companies such as Scaled Composites - which won international acclaim for SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded, manned space program - and XCOR Aerospace are among the cutting-edge aerospace firms outgrowing their existing facilities as they add employees and projects.
Here's a gorgeous picture of Tuesday's launch taken from the wildlife preserve. High technology set against a foreground of nature.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:20 AMKeith Cowing has a roundup.
I don't necessarily agree with all (or even any) of them, but it's useful to see what the space-interested community has to say.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:17 AMThe power of bird droppings.
Obviously, these NASA engineers have never owned a car that they had to keep outside of the garage or carport.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:11 PMThe folks on site have found no damage to the orbiter.
There has been so much undue hysteria building up to this launch, that it's amazing that they've ever flown it at all.
The issue isn't safety, or risk of loss of vehicle of mission. The simple fact is that it costs too damn much.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:04 PMIt's a little late for me to mention, but Thomas James has some space-related memories of the nation's 200th birthday. He, too, was part of a generation cheated by the porkmeisters.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:54 AMWe're going to head up north and see what we can see. Primary location criterion will be clear skies to the north-northeast, up the coast, as far north as we can get before launch time.
[Update about 4 PM]
Just got back. We watched it from Hutchinson Island, on the beach. There was one cloud that obscured part of the ascent, but we saw most of it until SRB burnout. Maybe a pic later, but I've got to go get ribs on the grill.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:07 AMFlorida Today has a feature to give you launch status updates by cell phone, for those of you headed for the beaches or barbecues.
I'd bet that they're going to launch today--no technical issues (no ice formed where the foam came off) and the forecast is about as good as it gets. Unfortunately, we can't drive all the way up and back from Boca, and also have the people over for the planned barbecue and fireworks tonight (at least not easily, with high probability of success). We might head up north of Jupiter or Hobe Sound, though, where the coast turns to the northwest to give a view of the Cape from the south on a barrier island. That would only take an hour each way, and be relatively uncrowded. We wouldn't hear or feel the launch, but we'd see it. Still making plans.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:33 AMLooks like there may be a launch today:
It's very cloudy out around the launch pad this morning, and there are showers out to sea drifting this way, but it's more than 8 hours before launch. Weather forecasters say those clouds and other unacceptable weather forces should move out of the spaceport area before the 2:38 p.m. liftoff. The weather forecast is only 20 percent "no go" and it very rarely ever gets better than that for any launch here on the Space Coast.Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:08 AM
I'm informed by a reliable source within NASA that COTS is not being cut (at least, not now). PAO will supposedly be straightening the story out with Flight International. While I'm obviously glad to hear it, the fact remains that I was unshocked at the original story. Things like this have happened too many times before, and NASA still has the sad precedent of Alternate Access to live down.
[Update at 3:40 PM EDT]
Clark Lindsey makes a good point about the danger of these kinds of rumors:
According to the FI story, it was one or more of the companies among the finalists in the program that told them about the problem. If the companies are confused about the NASA funding, that's obviously not a good thing since it would hamper their money raising among private investors. Most of the money for their projects will have to come from private sources.
[One more late-night Monday update]
I'm informed (again, reliably) that COTS is in fact sacrosanct, as a result of strong support from the White House. Which makes it a shame that it doesn't get support for more funding. Five hundred million sounds like a lot in absolute terms, and it's better than a kick in the teeth. But over several years, it's a pittance, both against what it would really need to ensure a diversity in space transportation providers, and against what NASA will be spending otherwise, almost certainly much less productively.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:51 AMAs I said before, it's really amazing that we've ever flown this vehicle:
Current plans are for a 2:38 p.m. launch on Tuesday. However, the mission management team is meeting at 10 a.m. this morning to discuss "a range of possible options" related to the foam crack, NASA spokesman Bruce Buckingham said. The options include repairing the crack before launch or flying as-is.It's unclear if the repair can be done at the launch pad (though that seems very unlikely) or how long the work might take. If the work can't be done at the pad, this is a rollback situation and it's unlikely NASA could fly in this July window. The next window opens Aug. 28.
And there would go another few hundred million dollars.
It's enough to make one cry when one contemplates what that kind of money would do for a new space transport industry.
[Update in mid afternoon]
John Kelly has the latest. They're still going to attempt a launch tomorrow, but will have to do an inspection to ensure that ice isn't forming in the spot where the foam isn't. If it is, that will scrub the launch (and presumably necessitate a rollback, unless they can find some way to repair it on the pad).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:31 AMI got an email on my NRO piece this morning from a David Barnhart:
I would like to offer another point of view. Every astronaut death has been avoidable. Yes, people are going to die when pushing the edge of the envelope. Shit happens. But Grissom, Young, and Chaffee died because the system (NASA) built an unreliable dangerous vehicle. You only have to listen to Grissom's words days earlier complaining about the communications gear to realize that. Challenger astronauts died because the system did not listen to the real concerns of the scientists and engineers. The foam issue was always an accident waiting to happen. Columbia astronauts died because the system ignored the problem too long.Soldiers die from EIDs but not because the command structure failed them. The soldiers' commanders are doing everything they can to eliminate unnecessary risk. That is not the case at NASA.
While it can certainly be argued that NASA management was negligent in the cases of Challenger and Columbia (and the astronauts didn't understand how risky their missions were), that can't be said in the current situation, in which everyone, including crew, are aware of the risks now, given the openness of the discussion about it. I'll bet they're eager to go, regardless.
It's very easy to talk about eliminating "unnecessary" risks. It's a lot harder to get agreement on which risks are "necessary" and which are not. The command structure in Iraq is in fact not "eliminating all unnecessary risks" to the troops. Many (e.g., war opponents) would, in fact, argue that their being in Iraq at all is an "unnecessary risk," because this was a "war of choice." Every time they are sent out on patrol without adequate armor, they are taking an "unnecessary risk." Never mind that they might be less effective in the armor, or that it costs money that might be better spent on other items. No, they're being forced to take "unnecessary risks," because soldiers' lives are of infinite value, just like those of astronauts.
Right?
Every single day that we don't fly the Shuttle represents another expenditure of over ten million dollars devoted to that program, with zero results. As I said in the column, "safe" is a relative word, not an absolute one. Flying Shuttles will never be "safe." Neither will flying the new planned CLV/CEV. For that matter, neither is driving down the freeway in your car, and I don't care what kind of car it is. There is no risk-free state except the grave. People are irrational about this, but we must make tradeoffs every day between safety, money and schedule. Rational people who recognize this develop optimum, cost effective, and relatively reliable and safe systems. Those in denial, who think that complete safety somehow can be achieved, if we only spend enough money, and delay launches long enough, give us Space Shuttle programs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:47 AM...shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
COTS doesn't seem to be a very high NASA priority.
Sources close to the companies have told Flight International that the NASA budget proposal for fiscal year 2007 has a major reduction for COTS, which could make the projects targets unobtainable.
I'm shocked, shocked!
A commenter over at Clark Lindsey's place nails it, I think:
It seems that the decision-makers in charge of recent NASA budget choices view its priorities in something roughly like the following order: continuing the Space Shuttle, completing the ISS, NASA-designed and operated CEV and CLV, NASA-designed and operated human moon transportation systems to go with CEV/CLV, using the ISS, very large lunar robotic missions, non-lunar (and small lunar) robotic space exploration probes and technologies, Earth observation satellites, aeronautics, Centennial Challenges, and COTS. My guess is that the actual interests and needs of the nation as a whole (the general public, the commercial space industry, other government agencies like DOD and NOAA, academia, science organizations, etc) are roughly the reverse of these priorities.
I'm sure that Mark Whittington will chime in with his foolish mantra any minute, about us being "unwilling to take 'yes' for an answer."
[Sunday evening update]
I see that Mark is indulging himself in his favorite solo sport again--setting up and kicking down strawmen. Which is why no one I know takes him very seriously.
[Update at 10 PM EDT]
Clark Lindsey has more details on the proposed budget cuts.
[Monday afternoon update]
I'm hearing now that the Flight International got it wrong, and that no cuts are being contemplated, or at least not requested.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:47 AMThere's a problem with a vernier thruster heater. I'm not familiar enough with the commit criteria to know if that could result in a launch scrub. It's certainly not something that can be easily worked on the pad, but there may be sufficient redundancy that they could go anyway. The problem is that for many missions in the past, verniers aren't necessarily required, but I suspect they don't want to try to dock to ISS if they're missing one.
We haven't left for the Cape yet. We may drive up anyway, just for the drive, and hope for the best, since it will likely be windy and rainy here the rest of the weekend.
By the way, the gang of Florida Today reporters over at The Flame Trench is probably the best place to keep tabs on the launch, at least as far as blogs go.
[Update a few minutes later]
Can't be fixed on the pad, as I suspected. They're figuring out now if they can live without it, if necessary. There are so many thrusters on the vehicle (though a lot more primaries than verniers), that I'd guess they can come up with a workaround control scheme.
The problem is either with the thermostat or heater. The heater was supposed to read hot, but it read ambient.
I wonder how they know that it's not just a failed temperature sensor?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:48 AMThe latest issue is up. Lots of interesting links.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:28 AMIt looks like the weather prospects have improved for the launch today--now only a forty percent chance of getting weathered out, as opposed to earlier estimates of sixty percent. We may drive up and try to see it from Cocoa Beach or Titusville. If they don't go today, it may be several days before they get better weather, because there's a tropical wave coming into Florida tonight from the Caribbean. But a successful launch today would be like an early Fourth of July.
Note also that today is the hundred fifty third anniversary of the start of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:50 AMHere's an email from a 'stro (who's a regular reader, and who reports that others are as well, but has to remain anonymous for what I hope are obvious reasons), on my NRO piece:
...great article in the Nat'l Review online. Agreed with most of it, but it was almost too rational -- the public and especially the folks in this Agency have an emotional attachment to the Corps that defies, in my direct experience, all rationality. One of the big advantages the emergents have is that their test pilots will be seen as test pilots, not some sort of symbol for what is great about America. Hence, they are more comfortable taking appropriate risks than this agency can be.This is actually a very interesting topic -- think some sociology student will get a Ph.D. dissertation out of it someday. It's interesting because it's also frustrating to us astronauts -- we're more comfortable with the risks & the results of the failures than people who don't even know the folks involved.
Yes.
Here's an example of the emotional attachment, from right after Columbia was lost (scroll down to the email from Houston).
I would also note (sadly) how many of my off-the-cuff predictions, including programmatic response, from the initial minutes after hearing about the loss of Columbia have held up.
[Update a little while later]
I'll note also that NASA hasn't learned the lesson from Columbia:
The lesson we must take from the most recent shuttle disaster is that we can no longer rely on a single vehicle for our access to the new frontier, and that we must start to build the needed orbital infrastructure in low earth orbit, and farther out, to the moon, so that, in the words of the late Congressman George Brown, "greater metropolitan earth" is no longer a wilderness in which a technical failure means death or destruction.NASA's problem hasn't been too much vision, even for near-earth activities, but much too little. But it's a job not just for NASA--to create that infrastructure, we will have to set new policies in place that harness private enterprise, just as we did with the railroads in the 19th Century. That is the policy challenge that will come out of the latest setback--to begin to tame the harsh wilderness only two hundred miles above our heads.
I need to finish (errr.....start) my essay on false lessons learned from Shuttle and station.
[Update at 3 PM EDT]
It just occurs to me that, while I don't know if any sociology students have gotten theses out of it, Tom Wolfe managed to get a best-selling novel, as well as a movie.
[Update at 5 PM EDT]
Popular Mechanics has a blog post on probability of success of Shuttle and other space missions.
One nit (based on a quick read). They're comparing the probability of lunar mission success to Shuttle probability of crew loss. Apples and oranges. Apollo lost no crew in space (which excludes the pad fire).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:54 AMApparently, that's the name of the new launch vehicles that NASA wants to develop, which will be announced in a couple hours. The Crew Launch Vehicle (heretofore called CLV) will be the Ares 1, and the Cargo Launch Vehicle (previously known as the CaLV) will be the Ares 5. A tribute to the Saturn numbers, I guess, and an indication of the ultimate planned destination (Barsoom).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:07 AMAmidst all the talk about the Shuttle launch this weekend (hopefully), the fact that we had a successful Delta 4 launch from Vandenberg seems to have gone largely unnoticed. A few more successes of this vehicle and the Atlas V could at least put a stake through the heart of the "stick," given that the design of it still seems to be in flux, and it's turning out not to be as "safe, simple or soon" as advertised.
[Update a few minutes later]
This is funny. I decided to link to http://www.safesimplesoon.com, but the site is down. Is it just a temporary problem, or did ATK decide it was an embarrassment?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:10 AMI'll be talking about my NRO piece, NASA, the Shuttle and the future of human spaceflight on the Ron Smith Show this afternoon, a little after 3:30 Eastern.
[Update a few minutes later]
Apparently, just before me, the guest host (Ron Smith is apparently on vacation) is going to be talking to a Matt Towery, who had this "Scuttle the Shuttle" piece at Townhall.com yesterday. It seems a little incoherent to me--it's not clear what he's proposing in its place, and the logic doesn't necessarily hold together:
Experts still refer to the shuttle as an "experimental craft," one in which the odds of a catastrophic failure -- loss of the shuttle or the crew or both -- are somewhere between one in 60 and one in 100 launches. Would you get on a conveyance of any kind that had one chance in 60 of killing you?
Well, in general, no. But if I thought that it were my one and only chance of getting into space, I might spin the cartridges on the revolver--it's ten times better odds than classical Russian roulette, with a heck of a payoff. If not one in sixty, what is the right number?
The Shuttle safety debate often reminds me of the irrationality of the fifty-five-mph speed limit. Or the minimum wage. These people think that there's some rational basis for their arbitrary numerology, but you can never get them to explain it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:36 AMWayne Hale, manager of the space shuttle program, shares some thoughts and emails to the team on NPR this morning. I believe Hale has mismanaged the shuttle program.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 07:50 AMThat was quick. My NRO piece is up. Almost as good as blogging.
[Update at 5:20 Eastern]
Clark Lindsey has more thoughts on the (futility of) the Scuttle the Shuttle campaign.
And as Bill White points out, for once, the Space Frontier Society and the LA Times are on the same page. Probably for entirely different reasons, though...
[Update a few minutes later]
The press should really give up on trying to get this right:
Each shuttle mission costs about $450 million for a few days in low-Earth orbit.
There is no single, always usable number for the cost of a single Shuttle mission. As I pointed out in my NRO piece, the last mission cost over ten billion, and this one will have cost about five.
Which is a good time to reiterate my point about costs of space access.
It's the flight rate, stupid!
[Update at 9:40 PM Eastern]
Mark Whittington says:
...I take my guidence [sic] from Dr. Hawking in that ultimately the thing to be accomplished is the spreading of humankind across the Solar System and ultimately the stars, to ensure our survival at least until the death of the universe.
Believe me, no one in Washington, with control over the federal pursestrings, is talking about that as a national goal or purpose for the space program, and if they are, ESAS is one of the most cost-ineffective means to achieve that goal.
Fortunately, others, with more foresight, are, and are acting upon it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:35 PMSo says the Space Frontier Foundation, two days before the next scheduled launch:
The Space Shuttle program consumes approximately five billion dollars a year whether or not it flies a single mission. Most of these funds go to support the so-called "standing army" of NASA and aerospace employees dependent on the Shuttle for their jobs. If all goes according to plan, twenty billion dollars will be spent between now and the last Shuttle flight. Meanwhile, NASA's much-ballyhooed Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) project meant to create a new and varied humans-to-space transportation industry using the space station as a customer is spending only $500 million to spark the development of new low-cost systems with none at all allocated to purchase rides."We are spending the same amount of money every six weeks to not fly Space Shuttles as we are investing in the entire NewSpace industry. We are mortgaging our future while starving these incredibly talented and promising new companies and ideas, all to sustain a system that has completely failed," Tumlinson said. "It is time to get the U.S. government out of the Earth to space transportation market. They may have pioneered it, but they are incapable of operating efficiently there and it's not their job. Let's give the NewSpace companies, like those who have stepped up to offer their rocket ships in the COTS program, a real shot."
As Chuck Lauer said at Space Access (or was it the ISDC?), "Give us the lead, not the crumbs."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:15 AMJeff Foust points out that the usual suspects in Congress are trying to defund the president's new space initiative. And as usual, they have the same stale, non-sequitur arguments about the relative cost effectivity of "science" between humans and robots, as though that's the only reason we have a space program (as I point out in comments over there).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:57 AMJim Pinkerton agrees with Stephen Hawking, that we need to get some of our earthly eggs into other baskets.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:16 AM...until the registration rates at this year's Return to the Moon conference in Las Vegas (which, at least for this year, also coincides with the annual Space Frontier Foundation conference) go up. It's at an auspicious time of the year--it will be the week of the thirty-seventh anniversary of the first steps on earth's moon. If you can't attend the conference, I hope that you'll celebrate it at home.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:26 PMSpaceShipOne first flew into space. I was there (posts are here and here--you might want to hit "previous" or "next" for a few other related items). Jeff Foust has some thoughts. And Robin Snelson has a report on goings-on in Mojave now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:32 AMOne of the reasons that NASA is willing to launch the Shuttle, even though they can't fully resolve the foam issues, is that they're not concerned about losing a crew from it, as they did with Columbia, because they're going to ISS, and can remain on orbit if necessary, at least for a while. I should note that I may have been the first to publicly discuss this option, less than a week after Columbia was lost, in which I advocated that we tame the wilderness into which we had sent the crew of that ill-fated ship:
I've written before about the fragility and brittleness of our space transportation infrastructure. I was referring to the systems that get us into space, and the ground systems that support them.But we have an even bigger problem, that was highlighted by the loss of the Columbia on Saturday. Our orbital infrastructure isn't just fragile--it's essentially nonexistent, with the exception of a single space station at a high inclination, which was utterly unreachable by the Columbia on that mission.
Imagine the options that Mission Control and the crew would have had if they'd known they had a problem, and there was an emergency rescue hut (or even a Motel 6 for space tourists) in their orbit, with supplies to buy time until a rescue mission could be deployed. Or if we had a responsive launch system that could have gotten cargo up to them quickly.
As it was, even if they'd known that the ship couldn't safely enter, there was nothing they could do. And in fact, the knowledge that there were no solutions may have subtly influenced their assessment that there wasn't a problem.
The lesson we must take from the most recent shuttle disaster is that we can no longer rely on a single vehicle for our access to the new frontier, and that we must start to build the needed orbital infrastructure in low earth orbit, and farther out, to the moon, so that, in the words of the late Congressman George Brown, "greater metropolitan earth" is no longer a wilderness in which a technical failure means death or destruction.
NASA's problem hasn't been too much vision, even for near-earth activities, but much too little. But it's a job not just for NASA--to create that infrastructure, we will have to set new policies in place that harness private enterprise, just as we did with the railroads in the 19th Century. That is the policy challenge that will come out of the latest setback--to begin to tame the harsh wilderness only two hundred miles above our heads.
Note that in its proposed ESAS architecture, NASA has not learned those lessons, though COTS may be a baby step in that direction, if it survives.
In any event, I wonder if they've really thought the scenario through?
OK, they launch, and the cameras reveal that they've taken some foam hits on the way up. They get to ISS, and do an inspection. There are three possibilities:
Scenario 2 is easy--just come home.
Scenarios 1 and 3 are more problematic. Scenario 1 is actually two potentials--one in which there is no hope of repair, and the other in which a repair attempt can be made, which converts it to scenario 3, since the degree of confidence in an in-space repair will be unknown, given our lack of real-life experience with it.
But for Scenario 1 in which no repair seems possible, the orbiter is now the largest piece of space junk ever launched. What do we do with it?
Well, if we had ever installed the servos necessary to drop the gear and control the nose wheel and brakes, we could send it down sans crew with fingers crossed, and hope that we could recover it regardless of the damage. There would, after all, be nothing to lose. Presumably this would be an Edwards landing, so the breakup, if/when it occurred, would happen safely over the Pacific (no need for recovery of the pieces, since there will be no doubt of what caused the vehicle to break up).
But wishes aren't horses, and the vehicle is in fact not capable of landing without someone in the cockpit (a state in which it has remained for years as a result of pressure from the astronaut office, or so rumor has it, out of a fear of redundancy). So any return of the crippled orbiter has to be a planned crash landing, should it beat the odds and survive the entry.
So, do we just drop it in the ocean, or do we attempt to belly it in (again, at Edwards). The former is the safest option from the standpoint of third-party hazard, but if we could get it down in (sort of) one piece, then we might learn more about how the damage to the tile seen on orbit correlated to damage that occurred during entry, which would be useful for future TPS design work. We would also have a source for cannibalization of parts should Mike Griffin change his mind and decide to finish out ISS with only two vehicles remaining.
So, those are the options where we are reasonably sure that we have a doomed vehicle. Not easy decisions, but neither are they ones that will keep a NASA administrator up at night.
The really ugly choices come in with the scenario in which the prospects for a safe entry are uncertain.
We still have a three orbiter fleet. It would be highly desirable to keep it at that level. Depending on the perceived level of damage, do we get a volunteer to attempt to bring home a very valuable national asset (one is enough, I believe)? There's a limited pool, of course--it has to be one of the crew at the station, and only a small subset of that crew is qualified for the job. If someone does volunteer, does the agency accept it? It would be irrational to throw away a third of the fleet, and a multibillion dollar asset to avoid risking the life of a willing volunteer whose job it is to take such risks, but I can imagine the agency doing exactly that (with no doubt a lot of kibitzing from the peanut gallery on the Hill).
That's the kind of decision that causes sleepless nights for flight directors and agency heads.
Note that in none of this discussion have I yet addressed how to ultimately get the crew down, and to support them at a crowded ISS until such a time as we can do that. Options for crew return are multiple Soyuz flights, or simply chance another Shuttle flight, with the risk of stranding yet another crew, but only a two-person crew this time. The chances of two incidents in a row (and three out of four in a row, counting Columbia--though that makes it a conditional probability) seem pretty slim to me, but of course the probability of heads on a coin toss is always fifty fifty, regardless of the history. If this option is chosen, likely this will be the last Shuttle mission ever flown, regardless of its success. Unless we become more rational about such things, in which case we may do one more to repair Hubble.
In any event, the administrator may have set himself up for some very interesting decisions in the near future with his decision to launch.
[Update late afternoon Pacific]
I see over at The Flame Trench that NASA plans an August 21st rescue mission with Atlantis (a week earlier than its planned August 28th mission) should it be necessary. That means a seven-week stay at ISS.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:07 PMSome people are criticizing Mike Griffin's decision to overrule some of his managers, and go ahead with the next Shuttle flight, claiming that "schedule pressure" is driving the agency to make a decision in defiance of launch safety, as occurred with Challenger and Columbia.
I disagree, of course. The only thing wrong with Griffin's decision is that it came almost a year too late--they should have restarted the regular schedule after last summer's return to flight (and in fact, the return to flight should have been much sooner). I'm on record of long standing as believing that the CAIB's recommendations were unrealistic, and if they weren't at the time, they certainly became so when Bush came out with his new policy in early 2004 (which included retirement of the Shuttle fleet in 2010). The Shuttle is as safe as it can practically be made (and despite a lot of confusion among many, including professional "safety" engineers, "safe" is a relative, not absolute state).
I'm doing a lot of work right now with a company that specializes in this sort of risk analysis (though we fine tune it a little more, using a five by five matrix, rather than a four by three). While useful, this kind of analysis is more art than science, with an unavoidable level of subjectivity.
But what it doesn't take into account is the schedule and cost issues. I've noted before that we're in the worst of all possible worlds right now (and will remain so until we start to fly again with regularity). We're spending billions of dollars per year to not fly the system, and the date (admittedly arbitrary) of retirement looms, leaving less and less time to complete the ISS (the only reason that the Shuttle hasn't already been retired). We know as much as we can know about how safe the vehicle is, we don't know how to make it any safer, absent spending many more billions and years (money that would be much better spent on new systems). The crew are ready to fly, and most of the astronaut corps would have been the day after Columbia broke up. Or if not, NASA did a lousy job in choosing them. Even a "catastrophe" (loss of another orbiter and crew) wouldn't be the end of the world (though it might be the end of Mike Griffin's career, since he's decided to do his job and make this decision), because we're planning to retire the fleet anyway. But it's extremely unlikely (and would have been had we done nothing after Columbia, as evidenced by the fact that it happened only once in a hundred flights). The chances of losing another vehicle in the few remaining flights are small.
Mike Griffin is right. It's time, long past time, to fly.
[Update late afternoon]
There's a pretty lively discussion of this over at The Flame Trench, with a post by Todd Halvorson. Some of the comments contain the typical fallacies. I loved this one:
You wrote your comment on a computer that without the NASA program would only fit in a large room, you probably cook on a teflon pan. The astronauts do not take up cargo bays full of cash and shovel it out of the airlock, the money is spent to pay salaries and for goods. This money is then returned to the various communities in the form of; buying houses, buying cars, buying groceries, and also paying taxes. Government employees are the only ones that "pay their employers for working".
Let's see, there are two false spinoff claims, the old "we don't send money into space" strawman, and the "multiplier effect" (containing a version of the broken windows fallacy) all in one graf.
I liked this one, too:
If you think the program is a waste of money, think about this: After the Apollo program ended, the Brevard County Area was a waste land. Homes were worth zero and business folded. The Wedgefield area in Orange county is a prime example. Do away with the space program and you will have a disaster here. The economy of this area will drop to almost zero and your local investments will be worth zero. I realize some think it is a waste of money thats becuase you want that money to go into free government handouts for you. Get a job. If you do away with the program and let China get a foot hold in space, we will be in dier straits. The space program is Brevard, no program, no Brevard.
Yes, the taxpayers are clearly obligated to maintain home values in Brevard County. Well, and to keep the Yellow Horde (whose earliest prediction in their "race" with us to the moon is several years after NASA's plans) from becoming our space overlords.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:29 AMIf this is true, that's the ultimate product placement--for something that doesn't yet exist. (Not implying that Mark isn't right--just that I didn't follow the link, because I didn't want to see the spoilers.)
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:31 PMSomeone over there has been noticing the new space industry:
New commercial markets, among them space tourism, have a great potential to become major drivers in space technology development. This study aims at the assessment of the feasibility of European initiatives to address these new markets through the development of crewed space vehicles.
The more the merrier, but given Airbus' problems and the general bureaucratic issues over there (even worse than NASA, if that can be believed), I'm not as encouraged as some might be. In addition, they've even more of a nanny-state mentality than we do here, and they'll have trouble getting the kind of flexible regulatory environment with regard to passenger safety that we just won from the FAA. Not to mention the fact that they don't have any natural flight test sites there--they'll have to go to Africa, Asia or the Middle East to find sufficiently large unpopulated areas.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:34 PMIt looks like we may actually have a Shuttle launch in a couple weeks. The best place to stay on top of this will probably be The Flame Trench, the Florida Today blog.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:19 AMKeith Cowing seems to think that Stephen Hawking is being inconsistent:
When asked about his thoughts on President Bush's proposal to put a man on Mars within 10 years, Hawking simply replied: "Stupid."
This, in the context of the recent story that Dr. Hawking thinks that we must colonize space for our long-term survival.
I don't see what the problem is. It's possible to both believe that we should colonize space, and that the current policy is a poor way to do so, for the expenditures being proposed. I can attest to this, because I do in fact believe that.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:06 AMOver at Volokh's place. It may not have been as big a kaboom as originally reported. Certainly (on the evidence, thankfully) not an earth-shattering one. Or even a Norway-shattering one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:19 AMMark Whittington has a strange complaint about a Russian space program:
However, like a lot of other Russian schemes, it seems to me to depend on getting a hold of a lot of other peoples' money.
In what way does that differentiate it from "NASA schemes"?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:09 AMA meteorite struck Norway a couple days ago, releasing many kilotons of energy--equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb in explosive power.
Fortunately it was out in the boonies. If it had hit a major city it would have killed many thousands of people, and if it had struck in the ocean it could have generated a nasty tsunami. And we continue to do very little to defend ourselves from them.
We were lucky this time, but we shouldn't continue to count on luck. The sooner we become a truly spacefaring country and planet (and NASA's current plans do little to advance us in that direction), the sooner we'll be able to manage these things.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:34 PMNASA hasn't completely given up on propellant depots. At least, not all of it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:22 PMMichael Belfiore reports that winners of COTS contracts will be ineligible for America's Space Prize.
This makes sense. Bigelow probably wants to encourage as many players as possible, and he wants to encourage commercial space companies, so this spreads the wealth, increasing diversity in space access providers. And COTS winners don't really need the prize money anyway. It's the same philosophy that disqualified people from winning the X-Prize using government-developed hardware.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:04 PMBrian "Rocket Guy" Walker's latest thrill scheme is to launch himself with a giant crossbow.
Hey, it's reusable...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:03 PMRobin Snelson says that you can still form a team for the Lunar Lander Challenge.
I do think that NASA is being overly restrictive with regard to propellants. I mean, it's not like they're proposing fluorine. It's just acid.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:49 PMOver at The Space Review today, Jeff Foust writes that space enthusiasts have to avoid the Segway problem of overhype. On a related note, Bob Clarebrough says that space entrepreneurs need to be both visionary and customer focused.
[Late morning update]
Clark Lindsey has further thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:13 AMJesse Londin has a good roundup of comments on the new NPRM from FAA-AST on experimental permits for reusable rockets.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:51 AMBigelow Aerospace seems to be making good progress in developing private orbital facilities (a key component of a spacefaring infrastructure). Alan Boyle has more.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:15 AMClark Lindsey has some thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:44 AMFranklin Chang-Diaz wants to build magneto-plasma rockets. In Central America.
Doing the jobs Americans won't do, I guess.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:24 AMA NASA center director has started a blog. It's too bad there aren't more Pete Wordens to replace existing NASA center directors. And speaking of Ames, it looks like they just lost a promising program, as a result of politics as usual.
Punish success, reward failure. Does this look like an agency that needs an emergency appropriation? If so, it's only due to Congressional meddling and pork barreling.
This is why NASA will not get us back to the moon, or open up space.
[Both links via NASA Watch]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:13 PM...to Peter Diamandis, who has won the Heinlein Prize. Michael Belfiore notes the appropriateness of the award itself:
Heinlein's work is characterized by ordinary people cobbling together ordinary resources to do extraordinary things--like go to the moon. In Rocket Ship Galileo, three high school students and a nuclear physicist build a moon ship just because they can. It must have seemed possible in 1947, when that book came out. Then in the 1960s, NASA convinced everyone that only massive government programs could send people into space, and stories about people building spaceships in their back yards went by the wayside.Now, finally, in the 21st century, science fact has caught up with the science fiction of the 1940s and 1950s. Private citizens are now building space ships for real, in large part because the winning of the Ansari X PRIZE proved it was possible.
The sad thing is that it could have been done much earlier, at least from a technological standpoint. It has been our own attitudes and policies holding us back.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:13 AMMy contribution to the NPRM (which the vendors themselves can't say):
The 30 expected fatalities of the uninvolved public per million flights standard is too stringent. If six families drive from Austin to Las Cruces round trip across half Texas to go to the Spaceport to watch the dads all take a flight together, together they will expect incur 150 deaths per million flights in auto accidents.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 01:00 PMJon Goff says that we need to step up to the plate and comment on the latest NPRM from FAA-AST on experimental rocket licenses. Well, we don't need moonbat comments, and it's possible that the proposed rules are sufficiently reasonable that there is no need for further input from the industry (presumably there was a lot of industry input into their drafting). But there are just a few days left, so go read them, and comment, or forever hold your peace.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:40 AMThat's how long it's been since Kennedy's speech in which he committed the nation to send men to the moon, and return them safely to earth, before the decade was out. A little over eight years later, the job was accomplished, with a dozen men walking on the moon over a period of three and a half years. It's been over a third of a century since the last footprints were made.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:03 AMWell, the vehicle isn't shrinking--it's growing, actually. But it's SDLVness is definitely shrinking, as former astronaut Tom Jones points out:
Although it was plagued by development problems in the 1970s, the SSME has amassed more than a million seconds (more than eleven days) of reliable run time during the shuttles three-decade-long career. Ive ridden twelve SSMEs to orbit on four shuttle flights, and they are smooth-running marvels of engineering. Fully reusable and burning highly efficient liquid hydrogen as fuel, each SSME is as finely tuned as a Swiss watch. But that complexity and efficiency means that building an SSMEeven for just one throwaway useis more labor-intensive than turning out an RS-68, which was designed for low cost and streamlined manufacturing. The RS-68, which also burns liquid hydrogen and oxygen, doesnt yet have the track record of the SSME, but it has proven reliable in three Delta IV launches. For an expendable, non-astronaut-carrying Cargo Launch Vehicle, NASAs engineers evidently decided that the SSMEs high efficiency and reliability were not worth the extra premium.
Of course, they've already decided that it's not worth it even for their astronaut-carrying Shaft..errr...Stick, either, since they've also replaced the SSME with the RS-68 on that vehicle. I'm wondering if this was a bait'n'switch on NASA's part--putting forth an SDLV architecture to assuage certain members of Congress (cough..Hutchison...cough...Nelson...cough) and Marshall long enough to get support to move forward, and then "discovering" that it might not be as cheap to keep all that expensive Shuttle infrastructure around after all.
If so, it's a good (or at least better) outcome than the original ESAS. The good news is that the use of all those RS-68s will provide more economies of scale (since the EELV program doesn't seem to be planning to use that many), reducing costs, at least in theory. The bad news is that we lose resiliency, with only a single liquid ascent engine for all of the human exploration activities. On the other hand, we never had that resiliency to begin with, since there is only one vehicle planned to carry out the missions. Fortunately, this will probably get fixed eventually, as private capabilities to deliver people and cargo to orbit develop (and likely long before NASA gets around to actually building its mondo grosso vehicle). There's a lot of taxpayer money to be wasted before that becomes recognized, though.
[Update a little after five eastern]
I should also note this article, via Clark Lindsey, that notes the other way in which the HLV is less SDLV, which is tied to the engine.
The previous thinking had been that they should go with ET barrel sections for the propellant tanks, because the tooling was in production for ETs, but they "discovered" (scare quotes for same reason as "conspiracy theory" above) that they could still manufacture Saturn-diameter tanks at Michoud, so they could go with the lower-performance, but also lower-cost RS-68s. So they're not using SSMEs, or Shuttle ET tooling. And there's nothing left of the Shuttle infrastructure except the RSRMs, which will be used to make new strap-on solids. In other words, it's no longer very Shuttle derived at all. Not that that's a bad thing...
[Update on Wednesday morning]
It's pointed out in comments that the Satay uses a J-2, not an RS-68. That's right. At least this week...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:19 PM...EELV was/is:
...the government's total investment in the two rockets has grown from an estimated $17 billion to more than $32 billion since its inception.
It makes one cry, when considering what we could have had instead, if a small fraction of that money been applied to actual cost reductions and reliability improvements (e.g., by putting it up as a market for delivery of water to orbit, or a prize for ten consecutive successful launches). I doubt if any of the cost-per-launch quotes for either Delta or Atlas include amortization of that outrageous welfare program. And now, having wasted all that money, they want to shut down one of them, losing the resiliency that was one of the supposed features of the program.
At least NASA is starting to come to its senses, as the once "Shuttle-derived" heavy lifter slowly morphs into an EELV-derived one, with the RS-68s, so perhaps the investment won't be for (almost) naught.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:35 AMNigeria is building its own communications satellite.
A dedicated spam relay?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:26 AMMaybe not:
Laboratory tests have shown that individual nanotubes can withstand an average of about 100 GPa, an unusual strength that comes courtesy of their crystalline structure. But if a nanotube is missing just one carbon atom, this can reduce its strength by as much as 30%. And a bulk material made from such tubes is even weaker. Most fibres made from nanotubes have so far had a strength much lower than 1 GPa.Recent measurements of high-quality nanotubes have found them to be missing one carbon atom out of every 1012 bonds; that's about one defect over 4 micrometres of nanotube length1. Defects of two or more missing atoms are much more rare, but Pugno points out that on the scale of the space elevator they become statistically probable.
Using a mathematical model that he has devised himself, and which has been tested by predicting the strength of materials such as nano-crystalline diamond, Pugno calculates that large defects will unavoidably bring a cable's strength below about 30 GPa. His paper has been posted to arXiv2, and will appear in the July edition of the Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter.
Pugno adds that even if flawless nanotubes could be made for the space elevator, damage from micrometeorites and even erosion by oxygen atoms would render them weak. So can a space elevator be made? "With the technology available today? Never," he says.
This seems like kind of an oxymoronic statement, because "never" implies the technology available any time, not just today. I would think that devices that continuously repaired redundant cables at a molecular level could solve this problem, though they're not "technology available today." In any event, I remain an agnostic.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:23 AMClark Lindsey has some thoughts on the myths about radiation in space. I should note that this is one of the more popular lunatic (and I use that phrase in its most pejorative sense) theories about why we never went to the moon.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:02 PMThe Antelope Valley Press has a self-serving editorial on spaceports. Agenda revealed in last graf:
Right now, there is a serious and dangerous shortage of viable commercial airports. It would be far better to deal with that overwhelming present-day need than to try to compete for space tourism that will become a reality through the good works of Burt Rutan and Sir Richard Branson.
It's certainly true that there are more spaceports being planned than are justified by current demand (or constraints of locale), and it's also true that there's a hard regulatory road ahead for many of them, given the issues that they'll have with general aviation (something solvable with a more rational approach by AST). But to think that only Mojave will have a spaceport, and only Burt Rutan and Richard Branson will succeed or are even making any progress is, at the least, disingenuous. This was the line that Burt took in his luncheon speech in LA a couple weeks ago, and Stu Witt (manager of Mojave Airport) said the same thing when I met with him in Mojave last week (no confidences broken here, as far as I know--he's happy to tell the same thing to anyone who asks).
I expect Burt and Stu to say those things, and I expect the Antelope Valley Press to stenograph them, but Oklahoma has a tenant with funds, developing vehicles, and we don't know what Jeff Bezos is going to do out in the middle of Armadillo* Scrotum, Texas, where he's not near either populated areas or military ranges, and may in fact have an easier time getting a site license than some of the more "conventional" choices. In any event, such editorials are to be taken with the prescribed amount of sodium chloride.
[* Update: Sorry, no slight to these guys intended]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:11 PMRobin Snelson is. Enough to have started a blog about it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:22 PMWhat I found interesting was this, though:
The FAA also is considering two proposed spaceports in Texas, including a private spaceport on 165,000 acres of desolate ranch land about 120 miles east of El Paso bought by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Bezos had said his space tourism firm, Blue Origin, would first build basic structures, then begin flight tests in six to seven years.
Six to seven years? I thought that they wanted to do suborbital tourism, at least initially. Why would it take six to seven years, given that they've been working on it for a number of years already? It makes me wonder how serious Mr. Bezos is about this business, because that would put him way behind the competition (though perhaps he thinks that his design will be so superior that it won't matter).
One of the dangers of having too much money is that you're sometimes willing to spend it with no expectations of getting it back, so it's treated more as a hobby. John Carmack has noted this explicitly in the past with respect to Armadillo (though he may be evolving it into a business), but is Blue Origin similar?
Over at today's issue of The Space Review, Robin Snelson writes about NASA's latest (and very interesting) Centennial Challenge, to demonstrate lunar landing technology. Also Jeff Foust writes about Elon Musk and SpaceX's status, and there's an interview with Newt Gingrich, on space prizes, private enterprise, and NASA.
[Update a few minutes later]
I just got around to reading the Gingrich interview myself, and clearly, under a (hypothetical, and unlikely) Gingrich administration, space policy would look much different:
I am for a dramatic increase in our efforts to reach out into space, but I am for doing virtually all of it outside of NASA through prizes and tax incentives. NASA is an aging, unimaginative, bureaucracy committed to over-engineering and risk-avoidance which is actually diverting resources from the achievements we need and stifling the entrepreneurial and risk-taking spirit necessary to lead in space exploration.
And he's just warming up. I'm sure that Mark Whittington will now attack Newt as an "Internet rocketeer."
[Update at 1 PM PDT]
I had been unaware of the schedule controversy described in the comments. It would be interesting to see a response from Ken Davidian or Brant Sponberg.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:10 PMIf XCOR achieves the turnaround time in the Economist article on suborbital adventure travel that Rand spotted of 4 flights per day, that puts them with higher capacity per plane per day than Rocketplane's 3. (Full disclosure: I have business dealings with both firms.) Assuming that their two-seater does not take more people than Rocketplane's to service, that should give them a revenue advantage in a Boom town scenario and a cost advantage in the Dullsville scenario. If Xerus indeed costs only about $10 million to develop vs. more than $40 million for Rocketplane (according to Chuck Lauer at ISDC), then they will have lower implicit interest costs too. Number of lifetime flights and flights per major overhaul are interesting questions that will also factor in. Since neither plane has flown, a 33% difference in servicing time per passenger is quite speculative at this point, but interesting.
This cost/revenue disadvantage per plane won't be a problem for Rocketplane if it can fly 100 flights of 3 passengers in their first year and earn $60 million before any of the competitors can bring their planes on line (although Carmack is optimistic he will start flying next year according to what he told me at Space Access).
In a boom town scenario, RLI, Virgin, Armadillo, Blue, Masten, SpaceDev, XCOR and probably a few new players will all build more craft than they were originally anticipating. This will result in lots of business for the low cost/high value player, but probably several bankruptcies or mergers eventually.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 07:49 PMThe Economist has a good roundup of what's going on in the private spaceflight business. They're pretty optimistic (appropriately, in my opinion).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:21 PMat the Texas Space Authority organizational meeting tomorrow in Austin. I am too. Email me at dinkin@space-shot.com or comment if you think we can do something for you from a business angle or want to see my slides.
-- Update --
Buzz continues to promote Starcraft Boosters and his plan for many space adventurer orbiters on the same launcher. He asserts that orbital is "so hard that only 3 governments have done it". That was also true of people to 100 km before Rutan won the Ansari X Prize. Number of governments that can go to 100 km without losing money=0. Number of governments that have a reusable craft that can fly again in less than a week to 100 km=0. He views suborbital as a dead end. He is still promoting lotteries to fund spaceflight. I asked him to join forces once skill games can finance orbital flights and he agreed.
I bet Buzz $20 that orbital craft would emerge without government funding.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 12:44 PMAlan Boyle reports at MSNBC.com that "several" vendors are in negotiations for $500 million in commercial orbital transport service (with the same acronym as commercial off the shelf):
Oklahoma-based Rocketplane Kistler and California-based Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, acknowledged that they were finalists. Other sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the official NASA reticence, indicated that the Virginia-based t/Space consortium, California-based SpaceDev, Texas-based Spacehab and Andrews Space in Seattle were also on the list.
Before being bought by George French, owner of Rocketplane (whose flights I am offering as a prize at Space-Shot.com), Kistler had an agreement with NASA which was unawarded after an objection from SpaceX. In this competition, there are many strong companies and the winner may have a march on orbital adventure travel competition. I hope the winner chooses a fixed price agreement so it will maintain the discipline to compete in the private markets too.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:33 PMThis is a good example of how it's easier to make your investments grow with small companies than big ones (albeit riskier). Just a few days ago at the ISDC, Jeff Greason was saying that XCOR's sales had increased dramatically, to about three million per year in the coming year. I noticed that Jeff disappeared for a day after that announcement on Thursday, arriving back at LAX late Friday night. I suspect that this may have been the subject of that excursion. They just doubled their sales for this year again:
XCOR Aerospace announced today that it had won a $3.3 million contract with ATK as part of ATKs contract to develop low-cost LOX/methane rocket propulsion for NASA.
Jeff's talk last week didn't include this contract, which was apparently still in negotiation at the time. Not only is this good for XCOR, but it's good for the near-term prospects of getting methane propulsion.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:26 PMHow can a man top the creation of X Prize, X Prize Cup, X Racer and Zero G Corporation, International Space University, Starport.com, Students for Exploration and Development of Space and Space Adventures?
As keynote speaker at the International Space Development Conference last night, he forecast that he would be making a major announcement this year about a private foundation to support spaceflight to Mars. His expectation is that he could privately raise $3 billion dollars from 10,000 people willing to commit $100,000; 1,000 people willing to commit $1 million and 100 people willing to commit $10 million. He thinks with the right fund managers, this could earn 15-17% returns and double every 5 years. Within 10 years, the money would be sufficient to finance two or more human Mars missions.
These people would then play a game to determine who would be in the 100 person astronaut corps. That corps would be rigorously trained and tested and down-selected into 12 colonists for the first crew. These crew would then undertake a one-way colonization mission to Mars.
Earlier would come private exploration missions. Later would come private pre-placement missions pre-placing supplies, power generation equipment and habs. Then a cycler would take colonists to Mars who would use a lander to get to their pre-placed equipment. The bulk of the mass would head back to Earth to be refurbished, resupplied and reused if economical.
He calls it the 'Mars Citizenship Program'.
Peter, I said it last night. I am in for $100,000. I am also willing to run a game for you to select from 100,000,000 people putting in $10.
Peter also motivated his goals for space development by saying that the world was running out of things. For example, "iron". Nope. I rolled my eyes at the geophysicist sitting next to me. 5% of the Earth's crust is iron. Steel production in 2002 was 900 Mt. Edison perfected a way to pull high grade iron ore out of low grade ore, even beach sand in 1891. It was not economical then and not the way ore is mined now, but we could easily do so if the price when up. Why go for plentiful deposits of ore containing 30% iron when there are deposits with 50% ore and higher? Pig iron cost $400/ton in today's dollars in 1900. In 2002 it cost about $600. Per capita GDP in the US has gone up by a factor of 10 in the same time from about $4,000 to about $40,000 in current dollars. We can afford more iron every year, not less.
Peter also said that there are "trillion dollar checks" flying around in the asteroid belt. That is moot. Extraterrestrial minerals will have extreme difficulty competing with high value cargo. It would only cost $100,000 per pound to get the asteroid mass to the Earth. We need to get that down to less than $1/lb before it is competitive for iron. Even platinum sells for only $20,000/lb. Until the price to orbit gets much lower, those "trillion dollar checks" will bounce.
Stick to Elon's "Back up the biosphere" message and our drive to explore and expand.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 07:34 AMI'm posting this a little after midnight, but May 5th was the forty-fifth anniversary of Alan Shepard's historic flight. And I have to get to bed for about four hours sleep so I can catch a 6 AM flight to Detroit, where my niece is having her first communion this weekend. Blogging will be light. Thoughts about the conference upon return.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:31 AMDale wants me to comment on yesterday's entertaining but unconstructive rant from the sage of Mojave. I know it will sound like heresy to some, but the post title is all I have to say at this time, for those commenters at his post who seem to think the opposite. He won the X-Prize because he got funded, not because he's the only person who could do it, or even had the best way to do it. The fact that he doesn't know how to get to orbit means nothing, except that he doesn't know how to get to orbit. There are smart people who do, given sufficient funds, and there is more than one way to do it.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I just noticed that Sam had some other thoughts on one of Burt's other unuseful and illogical comments.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:47 AMRutan said anyone offering spacecraft for commercial service should demonstrate their confidence in the system's safety by having their children be among the first fliers, as Branson has said he will do."Spaceship guru roasts his rivals," Alan Boyle, MSNBC.com
Should cigarette makers force their children to smoke or withdraw their product? Should parachute makers force their children to skydive or withdraw their product?
This does not follow. People afraid of heights should be allowed to sell bungee jumping supplies without personally testing them. The deathly afraid maker might design better equipment than a fearless one. Makers of hazardous products do not have to partake and may be sending a clearer message if they don't. That does not mean their product should be shunned.
It is ironic that Virgin Galactic will be required to disclose its product is quite risky. It will require flying thousands of times before showing a spacecraft is as safe as a military jet. Very little is learned from a single draw on a distribution. 98% of shuttle astronauts returned. All that Branson and his family flying prove by flying is that they are risk takers, not that his craft is safe. It is a greater disservice to create a false impression of safety than to put a product on the market where hazards are fully disclosed and no effort is made to express false confidence.
Rutan's sentiment is a throwback to medieval food testers to test for poison. He is not alone--Transportation Safety Administration required people to take a drink of liquids they were carrying (at least in Austin). Weird.
We will have a choice of vendors for spaceflight. Some of them will fly the owners first. Some of them will fly with a pilot and others will be remotely operated from the ground.
Would Space-Shot.com customers like me to raise the price of an entry so I can fly personally before the first winner?
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 08:46 AMBill Hulsey and various other concerned Texans are forming the Texas Space Authority. We meet next week at University of Texas at Austin.
I found a couple of documents about Texas space plans. They are from 2003 and 2004. The Texas 2003-2007 strategic plan is here. Another is a 12 MB spaceport plan file. Email at dinkin@space-shot.com if you want me to share it with you on xdrive.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 06:48 AMI'm not blogging the conference--I'm too busy schmoozing, and I'm not staying at the conference hotel, so it's a PITA to haul a laptop around there. But Clark Lindsey has already built a page of links to his and others' comments so far. I may have some thoughts on the conference early next week, after things have calmed down and I've had some time to gather some. Anyway, there are three days remaining (though I will only be attending today).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:41 AMPosting has been light, because I've been busy helping someone help Mike Griffin get us Back To The Moon, And Beyond, but I'll be heading over to the hotel tonight to schmooze with early arrivals at the conference. There should be quite a few, since the festivities start at 9 AM tomorrow.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:56 PMOne of the announcements at the Space Access Conference last weekend that I didn't mention is the new private Teachers in Space initiative (boy, is that web site hard on the eyes...). Jeff Foust has the story at The Space Review today.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:04 AMThe most interesting addition to the Space Access crowd was Esther Dyson. Far from the outsider she was pilloried as when she set up Flight School last year, she has a healthy vision for how to take space travel, micro sat's, space burial and the rest of "New Space" and shape it into a growing large industry.
She mentioned on a panel that she would like to see companies sharing their lists of investors. The purpose is to allow those investors to diversify. She is
"talking her own book" here as she has already invested in XCOR, Space Adventures, Zero G Corporation and Space Services, Inc. I hope that her comment that she liked the Rocketplane presentation translates into some money for them too.
Someone knowledgable about the inner workings of the New Space firms (whom I agree with) assures me that it will take a major cultural shift for these firms to share investor lists. But Dyson by telling everyone at Space Access her goal may encourage other investors to advertise their own interest in space investment diversification.
Dyson got into space because of her family. Her father, Freeman Dyson, designed the Orion spacecraft. Her brother is the historian at Blue Origin.
Following her around was a post-modern experience. She had many suiters and always seemed to have three conversations going at once. It took almost as long to talk to her as it did to talk to Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit. To talk to Glenn I had to fly to Atlanta and drive to Knoxville.
Talking to her was also thoroughly post modern. Conversations with Dyson jumped from electricity to food, to luxury goods reporting. She immediately grasped the concept of the Space-Shot.com game noting the single elimination tournament is a "binary tree". She pressed me about my electricity auction history asking the single most thoughtful question on that topic I have ever been asked, "if you auction the electricity in advance, how do you assure the spot price is the right price?"
Spot prices in New Jersey are determined by a spot market and many of the large customers have to pay the spot price. In those cases, the forward auction merely determines the cost of the capacity. This piece is critical to why New Jersey and Illinois are different from California's ill-fated experience with CalPX. Dyson got to live through the California electricity crisis. I bid to run the CalPX and lost. I could have averted that crisis.
Hopefully space in ten years will do as well as the Internet is doing now under her thoughtful guidance or electricity under mine.
Sorry, but I'm busy with work and continuing kitchen drama. But meanwhile, here's a knee slapper of a space joke:
Q: How did Mary's little lamb get to Mars?
A: On a rocket sheep.
Get it?
A rocket sheep?
Huh? Huh?
Feel free to pass it on to everyone you know--share the hilarity!
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:36 AMThis isn't news any more (it was published in February), but Paul Dietz had a post that I just found out about describing a new asteroid-hunting scheme that seems very promising:
All NEOs down to a few hundred meters in diameter will be found. If any are possibly going to hit Earth soon, we'll know.
Good. We can't do this too soon.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:08 AMDear Mr. President,
I want to bring to your attention a major opportunity to get people thinking about the future in the only area of federal activity you threatened a veto: Space. There are new opportunities for ordinary citizens to fly into space. Major industrialists Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen, Elon Musk, George French, John Carmack and Jeff Greason have all started rocket companies to carry ordinary citizens into space for far less than the $20 million price to fly on the Russian Soyuz. You have the potential for a major win here. These industrialists will beat China and NASA back to the Moon. Anyone can buy an entry into a skill game for $3.50 to win a trip to space at my web site http://www.space-shot.com
Take some credit for the good news.
Regards,
Sam Dinkin
CEO
SpaceShot, Inc.
3101 Lating Stream Lane
Austin, TX 78746
(512) 750-1751 Sound
(512) 347-9149 Image
http://www.space-shot.com
dinkin@space-shot.com
...until the next International Space Development Conference, in Los Angeles. I'll be there--will you?
Clark Lindsey has more.
[Update a few minutes later]
Ken Murphy talks about space activism.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:54 AMis not for sale. Volvo doesn't rent lists or send out third party solicitations. 135,000 people who registered for a spaceflight giveaway after Super Bowl 2005 I have to contact the hard way about my site, Space-Shot.com.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 12:09 PM...of space economics fallacies, the topic of my panel discussion at Space Access on Friday night:
...did you ever think about what is involved in presenting anything to the general public? When is the last time you purchased, studied, or otherwise became interested in a subject that was not in some way advertised to you? I would say, "never". The time, and sometimes dollar, investments are heavy, but necessary if there is anything worthwhile to say. Getting information out to people costs a lot, but the return will, hopefully, be worth it. How? In terms of public support for the program, backed up with funding to make it possible. This, in turn, provides jobs for engineers, scientists, and, well, you. They, subsequently, provide jobs and income for car salesmen, lawyers, doctors, service providers, restaurant owners, teachers, website owners, and all who get pieces of the income spent by the space workers.
Yes, it's all about job creation. Who cares if anything useful is accomplished, or wealth created?
This (flawed) argument would apply to any government program--there's nothing unique about NASA with regard to it. I beat this one to a pulp a few years ago, but people still fall prey to it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:54 AMSo, China is going to wait another two and a half years before their next, and third human spaceflight. That makes it one flight every two and a half years. And we're supposed to be worried about them denying us the moon?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:35 PMClark Lindsey has updated his Space Access Conference page with his reports from this past weekend. For those interested, this also has his reports from past years.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:00 AMUp till the little hours guzzling Amber Bock, and just crawled out of bed and checked out. I'll be driving back to LA this afternoon.
Jeff Foust has a summary of some of yesterday's panels. Overall, though, no big news at this conference--it was sort of last year, part II. I think that the biggest change is that more people are attending, and more important people. There was a reporter from The Robb Report here to do a story, and Esther Dyson showed up and seemed to have a good time, so I suspect that she'll be continuing to get more involved.
More thoughts perhaps this evening, after a drive across the desert.
[Update in the evening]
Well, I'm back in Manhattan Beach, but I don't have any more thoughts. An interesting weekend, but a tiring one.
[Monday morning update]
Jeff Foust has written up a general conference report in today's issue of The Space Review, so I didn't have to.
...where on the roller coaster are space entrepreneurscollectively known in recent years as alt.space or, more recently, NewSpacetoday? The rate of ascent, one can argue, has slowed from a couple of years ago, with no manned commercial suborbital launches since SpaceShipOnes prize-winning flights over 18 months ago. On the other hand, there are no obvious signs of a downturn: interest in suborbital space tourism remains high, and several companies are making progress on their vehicles. Instead, what emerged from the Space Access 06 conference in Phoenixthe annual gathering of many of the major companies in the industrywas evidence of gradual, incremental progress, with neither major breakthroughs nor significant setbacks.
Thanks, Jeff!
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:23 PMThe conference is winding down. We just finished dinner at various places in the area (one of the features of this conference is no grand meal events--it allows people ample breaks, both dinner and otherwise, to schmooze and deal). Jim Muncy is about to give a wrapup of the current political situation, and I'll be live blogging it in a few minutes. It may be the last event on the program for this year's iteration of Space Access. Well, other than the mingling and drinking into the wee ones.
[Update about 8:40 MST]
He's talking about space the political frontier. Going to talk about current political affairs, focusing on two issues that are challenges/opportunities, then open it up to other subjects. Explaining what a space policy consultant does. Mission statement of Polispace is to help entrepreneurs in space succeed. Doesn't work for major contractors or NASA. Tries to do things that are different, and that generally doesn't include big companies. Tries to help with projects where they intersect with the political environment. Also includes business strategy and media work, as necessary.
"Space is in a crisis of change." Chinese word for this is two pictograms: danger plus opportunity. Good, but also a challenge. The people who like the way it's been in space for the past decades are not enjoying the change.Old order won't go down without a fight. "We are living in interesting times, and coming to the attention of important and powerful people."
Unlike when PCs challenged mainframes, and the mainframes were fat, dumb and happy, the current dinosaurs aren't doing well. Difference between Marshall Spaceflight Center and Jurassic Park? One was a massive area overrun by dinosaurs, and the other was a movie.
What was the "killer asteroid"?
Dennis Tito's flight?
Columbia?
Bush declaring that NASA will exit LEO?
X-Prize win?
He thinks it was Columbia, which led to the VSE speech.
Food supply drying up, and the dinosaurs are getting hungry. The fight between new and old space is a political fight, not about rocket science or economics. Politics is war without (much) bloodshed. The ends aren't political, but politics is how we manage society. Jeff Bezos can buy a space program, but for the rest of us there is politics. Andy Beal and Elon Musk have learned that space is about politics. Elon is competing against a US Space Transportation Policy that subsidizes his competitors, by paying fixed costs, letting them attack his range use, waive anti-trust for United Launch Alliance, etc.
Two fronts of the war are NASA, ISS and Apollo on Steroids, and the Operationally Responsive Space Initiative.
ISS: necessity is the mother of invention. NASA is being forced to turn to the private sector by the retirement of the Shuttle. Crew Exploration Vehicle will be able to carry crew/cargo, but it will be too expensive, and the unpressurized cargo version of it has already been cancelled. Even if they use CEV, there will still be a servicing "gap," due to the 2014 operational date. They also need to free up funds for development of their heavy lifter, EDS (stage that delivers things to the moon) and LSAM (lunar lander/ascent vehicle).
So they're doing COTS, and we should praise NASA (though that doesn't mean that we should say it is wonderful because they're throwing us a few crumbs). When they're doing something a little right, we should praise that, then ask for some more. We need to assuage the concern about the gap, and make an argument that we can help close it, without relying on the Russians or Chinese.
We want to avoid a slip of the moon program, so we can get them out of our hair and leave us to practice capitalism in LEO. So we should argue that adding more money to COTS could provide a more diversified portfolio of players (fund Kistler, t/SPACE and SpaceX to get at least one of them to develop a manned system).
Don't fight about the architecture. The fight is between any commercial activity in LEO and an all-government program. The fight is for enough resources so that more of us can get into business, regardless of how much money NASA wastes to send a few astronauts to the moon. We know there's a commercial market for it, we know there's an entertainment market for it. Once we get the costs down, someone will put the deal together and beat them, so why fight them.
Topic 2: Operationally Responsive Space. ORS means not just launching into space, but through space, and it's part of the US Space Transportation Policy. It's not about using ICBMs, or ELVs, a little faster and cheaper. The warfighters understand the need for true responsiveness, but the AF space bureaucracy doesn't get it.
Asking the current AF space bureaucracy how to get ORS is like asking IBM in the mid seventies how to put a computer on every desk. Many entrepreneurs are already spending their own money on this for their own reasons, independently of what the government is doing. Provides and opportunity for cooperation. Last fall we had a meeting in LA, and came up with a consensus document with the community and some in the Air Force. Didn't require that the government spend more money, or have set asides for the companies, but just requires a little money to coordinate this activity and start a dialogue to benefit the government from the private investment, and benefit the private investment by minimizing reinvention of existing government wheels. He sees this as a new version of what NACA did for aviation, which not only did technology development, but forced cross licensing on Curtiss and Wright, and forced the industry to work together. AF Research Laboratory will serve as a liaison between the entrepreneurs and the DoD.
Right now, to use an Air Force wind tunnel or test facility, you have to come with cash, due to full-cost accounting, but if some money were made available to AFRL, this process could be eased. Pro-Space helped draft legislation last month to set up a center at AFRL to start this cooperative process. This is another operational opportunity for the community. "There is an opening in the titanium wall." There are people within the system who want to work with new space, for whatever reason, and we have to seize the opportunity.
Taking questions now.
It's pointed out that there's a good match between what the community is working on and what ORS needs in terms of payload size.
Discussion going on as to whether or not a prize might be a solution to the X-37 quagmire, using the DARPA Grand Challenge as a precedent.
Question about potential impact of loss of one of the houses to the Democrats. Muncy doesn't think that new space is a partisan issue. Relates anecdote about Nick Lampson and Dan Goldin, when Goldin called Tito a bad American because he wasn't working with NASA, but when Tito actually flew, Lampson noticed that the people in his district were turned on by Tito's flight. Lampson said at the follow-up hearing with Tito that he, Nick Lampson, was wrong, and that he'd done more to promote spaceflight with his one trip than NASA's PR had, ever. You have to talk to Democrats in a different language with different emphases, but it can be sold to them (points out the amusing fact that Pete Worden just became Nancy Pelosi's NASA center director).
Talk to Democrats about showing thousands of people that there are no borders, that we can sensitize them to the fragility of the earth.
"The Democrats do not have a monopoly on stupidity in space policy."
Progress has been good under the Republicans, but not huge by any means.
If a Dem takes over the White House, we can make the argument to the anti-military-in-space types that it would be better to be able to quickly reconstitute capabilities by rapid satellite replacement, than to have to defend the assets with space weaponry.
[Upate a few minutes later]
Another Space Access Conference is history.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:57 PMBerin Szoka is giving a talk on reforming ITAR, and makes the useful points that it will do no good to attempt to persuade someone on the basis that it's bad for business, or impeding the development of space. They won't care. ITAR is about national security, and any arguments against it must use ju jitsu--those defending it must be convinced that ITAR, as currently constituted, actually damages our national security. Fortunately, this is a case that can be made, and must.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:00 PMMike Kelly is announcing the formation of a new association to promote personal spaceflight, called (creatively enough) the Personal Spaceflight Federation.
Will represent the personal spaceflight industry--companies that will provide human spaceflight under the regulatory auspices of the FAA. Includes developers, operators, marketers, resellers, spaceports, and commercial space destinations.
Challenges for the industry:
Purpose is to present a unified front on critical issues, such as FAA rules and environmental issues, industry standards, coordination of lobbying efforts, public relations, research, pool resources and expertise to deal with common issues, establish partnerships. There will be bi-yearly meetings of principals (assuming this means semi-annual, e.g., twice a year).
Non-profit 501(c)6 (Trade Association) in California with board of directors, chaired by Mike Kelly and staffed by John Gedmark. It is financed by membership fees. First official act was to produce consensus comments on the recent FAA-AST NPRM on human spaceflight participants. Managed to come up with unanimous set of comments (seventeen pages), which presumably the FAA will take seriously. One major issue was the nature and definition of "informed consent." Another was potential for foreign passengers to be excluded due to ITAR issues. Another was definition of "crew." They wanted to make a distinction between "safety-critical" and "non-safety-critical" crew (e.g., pilots versus people gathering data, such as the NASA equivalent of "mission specialists").
Next area to be tacked is set of voluntary industry standards, once technology is mature enough to warrant them. This will provide better liability protection, since neither the developer or the FAA will be liable if they follow the industry standard. Use of AIAA seen as key here. Care has to be taken here--bad standards can cause as much harm as bad regulation. Premature to establish them now, because standards represent best practices, and industry is too immature to know what those are. Fortunately, it will take a while for them to evolve.
Future activities: Develop consensus document on NPRM on reusable expendables, continue research on liability waivers for passenger spaceflight, continue research on standards development, and develop ITAR strategy.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:35 PMAs Jeff Foust notes, there hasn't been a lot of breaking news at this conference, but he has recovered sufficiently from last night's pistonless-pumped margarita party to put up a summary of yesterday's sessions.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:04 AMThe wireless is up in the room. For now.
George Nield of FAA-AST is talking, and describing the new rules for human spaceflight.
Here is Jeff Foust's first post from the conference.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:52 PMI'm posting this from the lobby after lunch. In theory the wireless is supposed to be up in the room Real Soon Now.
Clark Lindsey has some stuff up from the proceedings so far. And more here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:10 PMAt least for a Space Access conference. There's no broadband in the rooms. There is a wireless connection in the lobby, from which I'm posting this. Michael Mealing is attempting to set up a wireless connection in the room in which the proceedings are occuring, so we can blog from there, but there's a problem with the network connection to the router, and there will be no resolution before tomorrow morning. The restaurant took half an hour to take out orders, and an hour to deliver them, then screwed up the check. Not to mention that my linguini was spaghetti., and overcooked.
Other than that, everything is great. Hopefully better news on the morrow.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:06 PMI was hearing rumors of this last night through the grapevine, but some news outlets are now reporting the Scott Crossfield's private aircraft is missing, possibly (and even likely) with him aboard.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:13 AMJeff Foust has started up (yet another) new blog on personal spaceflight. He's come up with a very creative and descriptive name for it--Personal Spaceflight.
Bookmark it. I'll be adding it to the blogroll.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:14 PMClark Lindsey reminds us that the Space Access Conference starts on Thursday. Hope to see some of you there.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:10 PMEric Hedman has a column in today's issue of The Space Review on whether or not ESAS is a good approach, or at least a good enough one. His bottom line:
After reading over the ESAS, Im confident that it can and probably will work. It wont make everyone happy, but what does?
The issue to me isn't whether or not it's workable. It probably is, from a purely technical standpoint, given sufficient funding (which is actually a huge caveat). The issue is whether or not it's politically and economically sustainable. I believe that it is not. But there are other problems with the piece.
His last sentence above makes this (to me, unnecessary and trite intro) irrelevant:
If you read a number of the space-related web sites, forums, and blogs, you will find opinions on the direction NASA is going that range from just about perfect to that it will condemn the human race to extinction.
In fact, he negates it with his very next sentence:
I think that this range of opinions would exist no matter what the plans are or become.
Exactly. So why even bother to state it? Mark Whittington seems to imagine (based on his quoting of it) that there's some kind of useful point to be made here. Moreover, I suspect that he thinks that it's one that somehow reflects badly on yours truly and others that have criticized the architecture. But how can that be? If, as is stipulated, any plans will have fan and critics, that tells us absolutely nothing about which fans and critics are correct in their praises or critiques. It's a statement both true and trite.
He goes on:
I find it fascinating that a government agency that spends less than one percent of the federal budget can generate this kind of passionate discourse.
What is so fascinating about that? Since when is the percentage of the federal budget expended on something correlated with the degree of passion that some feel about it? People are passionate about space because...ummmm...they think it is important, not because it gets federal dollars. I'm only passionate about the federal dollars part to the degree that, as a taxpayer, I think they're being wasted. The fact that they're being expended in a way that will probably, tragically, have the opposite effect of that advertised (getting humanity into space in a big way) is just the more tragic, but the tragedy arises from the fact that it's being perverted from an important goal, not with how much money it is in terms of the overall federal budget.
When you read the arguments presented about what was good and bad about past and current vehicles under development, the arguments range from technical to purely emotional. Some of the arguments against the ESAS architecture are that it is a rehash of Apollo or it doesnt include a spaceplane. Other complaints are that there is not a firm commitment to technology usable on a Mars mission. I personally dont think that a cool look is a reason to pick a design. Cost, reliability, and mission capabilities should be the reasons a design is selected.
This criticism seems incoherent to me. Yes, one argument against it is that it is a rehash of Apollo. There is much to be said for that argument, to the degree that it's true (and the NASA administrator admitted as much himself, when he dubbed it "Apollo on steroids"). Though I haven't necessarily called for a "spaceplane" (whatever that is), the desire for one isn't necessarily driven solely by the desire for a "cool look." There are arguments for better earth-LEO transportation that actually relates to "cost, reliability and" (yes) "mission capabilities."
In other words, this is a strawman, at least in terms of my own criticism. Who would argue that the selection shouldn't be based on those criteria? The debate is not much about what criteria to use (or at least not exclusively that) but which type of architecture best satisfies them.
Here, he makes a classic fallacy of economics:
NASA has international commitments to complete the ISS. Not completing the ISS would waste the huge investment the US and our partners have put in it. Retiring the shuttle before the ISS is complete is not a realistic option. It would diminish the American space leadership position and NASAs credibility. It would make it easier to cancel Moon exploration plans when NASA gets into the next budget tight spot or unexpected technological hurdle.
It doesn't matter how huge the investment is in a project, if it's not worth it at completion, or if it's not even worth the forward expenditure to get it to completion. That's called the "sunk-cost fallacy," also known as "throwing good money after bad." Perhaps it is in fact worth it, but Hedman doesn't make that case here.
It could just as easily be argued that by finally displaying a sense of fiscal and technical realism, and admitting that the ISS was a politically driven policy and technical disaster, NASA would have a better chance of establishing its credibility for future programs. I know that it would make me more inclined to support it. But that's just me.
[Monday evening update]
Mark Whittington has an incoherent rant about this post. If anyone else can explain it to me, please do so in comments.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:42 AMIn "Human orbital spaceflight: the ultralight approach,", Richard Speck looks at a cheap, light, low tech escape system and fleshes out the new rocket adage, "Be the escape system".
In "The challenges of Mars Exploration," Donald Rapp assesses the not-too-bright prospects of various technologies on the necessary timelines for Mars exploration.
There's one I disagree with him on: in-situ lunar oxygen. In-situ oxygen extraction on the Moon need not be a major industrial process. The basic needs are a heat source and vapor recovery. Suppose you have an Earth imported high efficiency pump. Add a lunar glass bell jar and an Earth imported parabolic mirror (later, lunar made). If you make the bell jar big enough, the mirror can sit inside the bell jar. Set the whole thing on a flat piece of lunar glass to make a low efficiency seal.
Operation would be as follows:
Some kind of airlock conveyor belt thing where the top layer of the ore is fried might be a more advanced version. It's ore efficiency would be quite low, but there's plenty of ore up there.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 07:28 AMThis weekend Jews celebrate Passover and Christians celebrate Easter. The latter holiday has its roots in the former as the Last Supper was a Passover feast. Christians celebrate Jesus being seen alive following his crucifiction and subsequently ascending to heaven, the Jews celebrate Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt to the promised land.
The ultimate Earthly oppressor is not Pharoah or Rome, but gravity. This month, my web site, Space-Shot.com took steps to throw off the yoke of gravity. For $3.50 the myriads can compete in a tournament to win a trip to space. If they don't win, they help someone else do so.
It does not take divine intervention, a miracle or ten plagues to get people into space, just a creative web site. (Albeit praying for a change in the weather can't hurt.) Now people of all means can ascend to space and soon can reach the planets and the stars.
Let my people go to space!
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 01:42 PMI guess it's time to give Mark Whittington the secret decoder ring, and initiate him into the Secret Brotherhood of Internet Rocketeers:
Clearly recent experience teaches us that simply telling the current NASA to go forth and build a lunar base is the last thing anyone would want to do. For NASA the construction of a lunar base would be the work of decades and at least tens of billions of dollars. If you like how NASA has managed the International Space Station, youll love how it would build a lunar base......the notion, prevalent at NASA, that the future can be micromanaged, should be set aside. Government central planners are very maladroit at forecasting, not to mention accommodating, business development and technological change. No one could have planned the current Internet, for example, nor the myriad technologies that support it. The best that government can do is to put into place policies-such as tax incentives-which encourage private sector development, but not shape it.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
[Friday morning update]
Clark Lindsey agrees that, regardless of the validity of that particular document, ESAS remains "profoundly flawed."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:40 PMChris Bergin has retracted the story about problems with ESAS. That's why I hedged my piece yesterday with the word "apparently." This doesn't, of course, mean that there aren't problems with ESAS--we just don't know what they are, yet.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:12 PMAt the risk of violating a trademark, I can only say, heh:
NASA's various attempts to develop new space transports, particularly fully reusable launch vehicles, in the past decade or so have not been successful. However, rather than revealing poor planning and management, NASA said those failures proved that RLVs were not feasible with current technology. So if the CEV program collapses due to overruns colliding with a no-growth budget, I guess that will prove that capsules on expendables are not feasible with current technology.Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:43 PM
Today is the forty-fifth anniversary of the first man in space, and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first flight of the Space Shuttle. If you want to celebrate, it's also the fifth anniversary of Yuri's Night. Go find a party near you.
[Update a few minutes later]
I have some thoughts on this anniversary over at National Review (note, it's been edited somewhat from what I submitted).
[Update in the afternoon]
Mark is whining again:
First, Rand has presented a breath taking lack of specifics in his suggestions on how to improve the space program.
I only had nine hundred words. I've offered many specifics, many times, in many places. It was an anniversary commemoration, not a policy white paper.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:12 AMAmidst the big anniversary tomorrow, it's easy to forget that it's been exactly thirty-six years since Apollo XIII headed off on its ill-fated voyage around the moon. It occurred at an inauspicious time, for those who are triskaidekaphobic.
[Update a few minutes later]
It's also been five years since the X-33 died. That didn't happen soon enough.
I disagree with this, though:
NASA was willing to take the risks inherent in the winged potato for one reason: LockMart was willing to put its money where its mouth was, to a degree that Rockwell, McDonnell Douglas, or Boeing weren't. LockMart had even touted its orbital "VentureStar" as a replacement for the shuttle and Titan IV, ready for flight between 2004 and 2006.
This isn't true, for two reasons. First, NASA picked it because they were enamored with the technology. Second, there's no evidence that Lockheed was "willing to put its money where its mouth was," and quite a bit to the contrary. Their business plan was a joke, and not a good one, but NASA was unable to distinguish between a good and a bad business plan. If Lockheed had really been willing to put its money where its mouth was, it would have made the investment to complete the program. I don't believe for a minute that Lockheed-Martin management ever intended to develop Vstar with their own money. They just told NASA what it wanted to hear.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:18 AMJames Taylor, a graduate student at University of Washington studying human migration, has one of the best records on my site, Space-Shot.com. Said Taylor,
I think I'm managing well over 75%.... Right now, I'm stuck at level 4 with three open plays. I need some more competition to go against me so we can get a flight faster. This is the 'bring-it-on' moment. There certainly were enough of us who wanted to be astronauts as children. Now that we have the chance, I don't see the grown-ups putting their money where their dreams once were.
There is another player that bought in at level 6. It only takes 4096 players at that level to win a trip to space. Regarding his level 4 plays, Taylor said, "I didn't buy those plays at that level, I won my way there--although I challenge everyone to buy in at my level and try to knock me out!"
...just shocked to hear that the exploration mission hardware has outgrown the planned launchers:
Once characterized as "Apollo on steroids" by NASA administrator Mike Griffin, the architecture surrounding the ESAS (Exploration Systems Architecture Study) has grown too heavy for its launch vehicles.
I wish there were more to the story. The last bit, about a rendezvous thousands of kilometers above the far side of the moon is tantalizing. Are they proposing to use L-2 instead of L-1? Why? Inquiring minds want to know.
This was (almost) inevitable. And it shows the shortsightedness of the "Apollo on steroids" approach. By insisting on doing it all in one and a half launches, they put off the day that we developed the necessary spacefaring capabilities of orbital rendezvous, docking and routine operations, including propellant transfer and storage. What did they plan to do when after a few lunar flights, they decided to go to Mars? Develop a Seadragon?
[Update a couple minutes later]
I see that I was channelling Clark Lindsey (as often is the case). He has more, including the fact that it was apparently due to their (other shortsighted) decision to abandon methane.
And a big D'OH! There was a lot more to the story that I mentioned above--I just didn't realize that I had to scroll down. Yes, it is an L-2 architecture. Let me go read, and think about it, and I'll have more later.
[Not much later]
OK, I've at least glanced through it, and here are initial thoughts. First, the understatement:
It appears that the changes made to the ESAS architecture in the near-term may have long-term ramifications for the entire VSE.
Which was exactly why Steidle wanted to perform the CE&R studies--to consider all of these possibilities, and their implications, both short term and long. But the architecture that NASA came up with doesn't resemble any of them (as far as I know). There's little evidence that they even bothered to look at the reports--they're simply gathering virtual dust on the servers.
I like a Lagrange rendezvous point, but all of the analysis that we did at Boeing indicated that L-1 was a better choice than L-2. The advantage of L-1 is that it's always visible from earth, and it's a relatively short trip home from there. We were strongly driven in our trades by NASA demands (unreasonable ones, in my opinion) that astronauts be able to get home in an arbitrarily short amount of time. The disadvantage of L-1 is the propulsion cost, and L-2 is indeed more efficient from that standpoint. But it wasn't considered in the Boeing CE&R studies because of the trip-time constraint. Its other problem is that unlike L-1, which is continually visible from earth, L-2 never is. For communications, a relay satellite in a halo orbit, or a series of them in lunar orbit, will be required.
I would think that the problems they're running into at this point would justify a complete reconsideration of their approach, including their previous aversion to orbital operations and propellant depots. Not to mention, as Clark points out, methane. It's funny, because I was just in a telecon a little while ago in which I was told to expect "big changes" in CEV. Now I understand what that means. It will be interesting to see how this ripples down, and right now, it makes it hard for the contractors to move forward in requirements analysis.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:11 AMX-37 finally had a successful flight today, but a not-so-successful landing:
...the vehicle experienced an "anomaly" and went off the runway, DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker told me. The X-37 team is investigating what went wrong, and no further information was available immediately, Walker said.
No apparent word as to how much damage, if any, and what caused it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:59 AMI put up a level 9 entry on eBay for my Space-Shot.com tournament to win a trip to space on Rocketplane. This was Joe Latrell's entry for winning the SpaceShot, Inc. beta 1 tournament and he will get the proceeds of the sale. He is ineligible to use it himself because he is on the advisory board. Face value $750 for an entry to compete against 511 other players for a trip to space, starting price $499. The price needs to rise 15% to be 1/512 of the retail value of the prize ($192,500 ticket plus $100,000 cash).
SpaceShot also received Rocketplane congratulations on a successful launch.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 10:19 AMPoor Mark Whittington. He continues to grasp at any straw that offers him hope of the Great Race with the yellow hordes, despite their obvious slow pace and uncertain plans for their human spaceflight program.
Sadly for him, Dwayne Day sets the record straight, in comments:
I'm increasingly surprised by the shallowness of the coverage that the Chinese space program is receiving from spacedaily.com's Australian commentator. See, for instance, here.The commentator, Morris Jones, speculates based upon limited knowledge and data. For starters, he was not even _at_ the talk by Mr. Luo Ge (I was), and is making his judgments based upon a Reuters news article. That article was essentially accurate, but did not discuss Luo's comments in detail or really in context. Thus any conclusions that one draws from the article are going to be a distorted assessment of what Luo actually said.
Read all, if you're interested in this subject.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:26 PMRemember Safe, Simple, Soon? Well, I guess they never explicitly said it would be cheap, but they sure implied the hell out of it:
NASA's initial internal estimate of what it would cost to modify the current SRB used for Shuttle missions to serve as the first stage of the new Crew Launch Vehicle had been around $1 billion. That estimate has been revised up to around $3 billion.
Nice bait and switch--you have to admire ATK for their marketing, if nothing else.
And tell me again, what was the estimate to "human rate" an EELV? And more to the point, how many very juicy first, second and third prizes for low-cost crew access to LEO could three billion dollars fund?
Also, for any enterprising muckraising space journalists out there, this has been a juicy scandal waiting to happen, what with Scott Horowitz' recent job change, and all. Moreover, it could potentially be one that kills the Satay (or as Henry Spencer calls it, Porklauncher I).
I'm just sayin'...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:17 PMPaul Spudis reviews Harrison Schmitt's book
The vehicle presumably still had a lot of propellant in it when the engine cut off and it fell back on the reef, presumably in flames from the fire that caused the problem, and wouldn't be shut down by the cutoff valve. Why wasn't there an earth-shattering kaboom?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:06 AM...of ants and islands. I doubt if it will persuade anyone, though, even if they get the point.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:40 AMWe start with the richest among us only able to afford a few minute or a few days in space. As we get richer and space gets cheaper, we can have space studios, then space apartments, space mansions, space palaces and space shopping malls. People live where they are. The spectrum from tourism to settlement is just a measure of time. Where does space tourism leave off and space settlement begin? Two-week time shares are probably tourism. One-way tickets, definitely settlement. What's the down payment on a one-year lease?
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:31 PMThis isn't really news for anyone paying attention, but I found this article about the potential for an asteroid hit in 2036 interesting, because it describes a new method of diversion that I hadn't considered or heard of previously (though it's obvious, once you think about it).
It's called a "gravity tow," in which you hover a large mass near the asteroid, and maneuver it, pulling it from its trajectory simply using the gravitational attraction between them. It seems like the safest, most controlled way to go, and doesn't require physically grappling, which could make problems worse if you end up breaking it. I'm glad to see that there's a lot more thought going into this than the traditional "nuke it" approach.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:41 AMOccasional co-blogger Sam Dinkin's new space tourism venture kicks off today.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here's more from Sam, over at The Space Review.
[Another update a couple minutes later]
I just noticed that Sam beat me to tooting his horn here.
[Late night update]
As one of Glenn's emailers points out, that's marketing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:56 AMYou've been hearing me talk about my venture ever since I started co-blogging with Rand. Anyway, it's real and it's live. Win a trip to space for $3/entry. There's a new animation of the Rocketplane trip too.
--Update 2006-04-03 11:30--
Rand, I am glad to see you are over your April 1st malaise and can tout a basement startup. Alan Boyle has more in his article at MSNBC.
OK, I've had a long day, I'm coming down with a cold, and I'm tired, but I've got one more post before I go to bed, and the day is over. Just in case I do end up posting a little more, because it's such an important post, I'm going to keep it at the top until the end of the day.
I've been really depressed for the last week as a result of the failure of the SpaceX launch attempt. It was a major blow and disappointment not just to SpaceX, but to the whole notion of private space. I've gone through a lot of soul searching, and am starting to question everything I thought I believed about the best way to open up the new frontier.
I've come to realize that we do in fact have launch systems that work, most of the time, even if they're expensive. We have a space station, if we could just muster up the gumption to finish it, and start to turn it to the useful ends for which it was intended. Shuttle is risky, but any new frontier is risky. We need to work hard and spend whatever it takes to continue to minimize the risk of losing our priceless astronauts, even if we don't fly it for another three years. We have a president with a vision, a Congress willing to support it to a degree, and a new NASA administrator (a genuine rocket scientist--something we've never before had as a NASA administrator, and isn't it about time?) with great ideas about how to get us back to the moon quickly (or as quickly as the stingy folks on the Hill are willing to fund).
Maybe it's just because I'm getting old, or don't feel well, but I know now that relying on guys in garages, operating on shoestrings, is never going to get us into space. The skeptics are right--Rutan's done nothing except replicate what NASA did over forty years ago.
Furthermore, I realize now that it's not important that I get into space myself--what's important is that the opportunity is there for my children. Or my grandchildren. Or my great-grand children. It may take a long time, because we know that space is hard.
What's important is that we have to keep striving, keep supporting these vital efforts, never let our interest flag or wane, in getting our people back to the moon, and on to Mars, no matter how long it takes, no matter how much it costs. Yes, it costs a lot, but we are a great country, and a rich one. There are so many other things that the government wastes money on, it's very frustrating that we can't get the support we need to ensure that this NASA human spaceflight program, critical not just to our nation's future, but to that of humanity, can't move faster. I now realize that Mark Whittington is right, and that there's a very real chance that the Chinese will beat us to the moon, and lay claim to the strategic high ground. But we must accept that, and work to change that potential outcome, whatever it takes.
Ad Astra.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:59 PM"...when the government's not involved."
Alan Boyle has been attempting to do some investigative reporting on his home-town rocket company, Blue Origin. It's certainly been the hardest of the upstarts to get much info on, but it's a tantalizing story. My inner editor tells me that he needs to end it with an adverb, though. ;-)
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:53 AMHow can I resist a story that combines b00b jobs and space tourism:
Bosses fear the implants may expand and burst due to cabin pressure, according to The Sun......Spokesman Will Whitehorn said: "We've discovered there may well be issues with breast augmentation.
"We're not sure whether they could stand the trip - they could well explode."
June is busting out all over...!
Captain, I dinna think she can take any more...
Also, the picture accompanying the article reminds me of this optical illusion (caution, not work safe).
What does this mean for Hooters Spacelines?
[Some gags courtesy of this thread, where I found the article]
Seriously, this seems a little overwrought. Unless they have gas in them, there should be no problem if they maintain a decent cabin pressure, and if they don't, burst mammary enhancers may be the least of the problem (and it would make for more entertainment to have more pendulous objects in weightlessness). And for as much money as these folks are spending, I'm sure they could afford an ultrasound to make sure that they're all fluid, and remove any bubbles from the bubbies with a needle if necessary, preflight.
I'd be more concerned about gee loads during acceleration and entry. Maybe a new crash program in bra technology is required.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:40 AMKen Murphy critiques recent pieces by both Bob Zubrin and Gregg Easterbrook. I may take a shot at the Easterbrook thing myself a little later, if I get time.
I still await the opportunity for an on-line debate on space with Gregg, but he doesn't seem interested in doing that with anyone who knows what they're talking about.
[Update at 1 PM EST]
Clark Lindsey has further thoughts:
Seems like he could call a scientist like Paul Spudis or Larry Taylor and listen to their reasons for advocating a return to the Moon. But I guess contrary facts would mess up the flow of his essay.Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:00 AM
This is silly. There's nothing either new, or illegal, about NASA administrators endorsing political candidates (though some, thinking NASA some kind of "special" agency, above the fray, may find it distasteful). The Hatch Act was meant to prevent civil servants from being pressured to engage in political activity by political appointees, not to prevent political appointees from committing acts of politics.
[Update a few minutes later]
The problem here is not that the administrator is doing anything wrong in such an endorsement, but that, as Keith Cowing points out, he can't keep his story straight as to whether he is or isn't, or whether he can or can't.
And this email to Dr. Griffin from a "tax payer" is also silly:
When you say that "every effort should be made to re-elect him to office" that sounds to me like a civil servant making an endorsement of a political candidate and a violation of the Hatch Act. I am a huge fan and supporter of the space program. It is hard for me to imagine why it is helpful to tie a corrupt politician to NASA, which needs more federal support, not less, especially when you just had to cut your science budget to shreds.I am a tax payer and pay your salary and you do not speak for me when you publicly encourage people to re-elect someone who has become less effective since he has been indicted on felony charges. If another NASA employee had made this same speech, would he or she have been fired?
a) As already noted, this is not a violation of the Hatch Act.
b) Whether or not Tom Delay is a "corrupt politician" is a matter of opinion, not fact (and in fact will remain so even if he were to be convicted, though the case for it would obviously be stronger).
c) Whether or not such an endorsement increases, decreases, or has no effect whatsoever on public support for NASA is purely speculative (my opinion is the latter).
d) The notion that just because someone is a taxpayer, all public officials are "speaking for them" is ludicrous and illogical. Even ignoring the fact that he puts forth no reason why anyone would conclude that a taxpayer's views are somehow being represented by public officials' statements, consider the inherent contradiction, since many public officials say many things, often at odds with each other. How could anyone think that they all speak for our confused emailer without their head exploding?
e) Finally, yes, some other NASA employees could potentially get in trouble for making such a speech, because they would be covered by the Hatch Act. Not all NASA employees are equal, despite the egalitarian ideals of some NASA idealists.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:19 AMSpeaking of incremental testing for the Falcon, Iain McClatchie has come up with a plan.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:14 AMThe late defense secretary may have saved the manned space program. I'm not sure that that's necessarily a good thing, in retrospect, but it puts the Nixon administration in a different light than the popular perception.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:06 AMI'm not a big fan of web surveys, viewing them more as entertainment than providing useful data, but for those interested, Phil Bowermaster has a new one on predictions for space activities.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:37 AMAs is often the case, Mark Whittington sees things that aren't there:
Rand Simberg has a post mortem on the lost of the Falcon 1, with some links to some more. Reading it, along with stuff in the coments section, I am detecting the first whispers of back biting and second guessing of Elon Musk and his team who, the day before yesterday, were going to instantly revolutionize space travel.
Among his other annoying rhetorical tricks, Mark likes to take individual things that some individuals may have said, and conflate them with the implication that the larger group of individuals (his so-called nefarious "internet rocketeers") believe all of these things. One never knows to whom he's referring with these vague emanations of "back biting and second guessing," so it's difficult to respond to them, but if he's talking about me, it's nonsense (again, as is often the case).
Note that he couldn't be bothered to actually quote anything to back up his assertion (though he at least had the decency to link to it).
Here's what I wrote, and it ended with this:
...good luck to SpaceX. There's no reason to think at this point that they can't be as successful, ultimately, as their predecessors that cost much, much more to develop, but still had early failures.
Some "backbiting," huh?
As for "second guessing," I'm on record as always being concerned about SpaceX's approach, from the time I first heard about them (though, as I noted at the time, that was a provisional concern, subject to change). I've never thought, or written, that they "were going to instantly revolutionize space travel." And I suspect that Mark, as usual, will continue to claim that I (or some unnamed person) did so, without actually providing a citation or quote.
What I've always thought (or at least since learning more about them and their approach), and continue to think, is that they will, if successful, play an important role in modestly (that is, by a large percentage, though nowhere near as much as necessary) reducing launch costs, and demonstrating alternate funding and management approaches to space-transportation system development, and that's a good thing. But I've also always thought, and said, that we need a plethora of approaches, and should never put all our hopes on any single player. I continue to wish SpaceX good fortune, as I suspect all of the other mythical "backbiters" do.
[Update in the late afternoon]
Mark, I never said I didn't criticize SpaceX. I in fact said that I was an early critic. I know you have trouble getting the point, but this post was never about whether people were criticizing SpaceX--it was about your spurious and unsupported fantasy that sycophants turned critics overnight. Please learn to read for comprehension.
[Late night update]
Mark hilariously updates his second post, indicating that he remains clueless as ever, and still unable to read English, at least with comprehension:
Addendum. Rand makes my point. First he says quotes himself with this:...good luck to SpaceX. There's no reason to think at this point that they can't be as successful, ultimately, as their predecessors that cost much, much more to develop, but still had early failures...Then he retorts:
I never said I didn't criticize SpaceX. I in fact said that I was an early critic.So, is the supposition this: "I was a supporter of SpaceX before I was a critic?" Or maybe the other way around. Or both at the same time. With Rand, one never knows.
OK, I'll explain to Mark one more time, and I'll type it slowly in the hope that he might get it this time.
Mark's original post seemed to claim that I and unnamed others had started to "second guess" and "backbite" SpaceX because of Friday's failure. He provided zero evidence of this.
I noted that there was nothing new in any criticism I had of SpaceX--that I had done it when they first started out. I also noted that this was provisional, and could change as I got new information (I wonder what Mark does with his opinions when he receives new information?). So, yes, I was "against" SpaceX before I was for them, though my change of mind was in light of new information, and even though I still wish them well, I'm not convinced that their approach is the best one, and I continue to hope for many others, and let the best approaches win.
But as I noted in comments, Mark doesn't do nuance, or anything other than black and white, unchanging, well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:08 AMClark Lindsey has lots of links and thoughts about yesterday's loss (not a permalink--just keep scrolling). I agree in particular with this:
As Elon Musk has said, expecting a rocket to work perfectly the first time is like expecting a huge, elaborate software program to run bug-free the first time it is run. (Fortunately for programmers, a computer usually doesn't burst into flames if there is a fatal bug.)This is why I and many other alt.spacers prefer space transports that can be tested incrementally rather than requiring "full up" performance the first time out. While the Falcon is partially reusable, it doesn't offer the "fly a little, test a little" capability of vehicles with flyback stages. The SpaceShipOne test flights, for example, revealed several significant design problems but the increments in the system's envelope expansion were always small enough that the flaws did not destroy the SS1. Instead the pilots were always able to return the craft safely and the particular problems found during a test were fixed before the next flight.
Yes. That's the one thing that's remained "old school" in SpaceX's approach. You can test subsystems until the end of time, and still not know if the entire beast will work together perfectly, all singing, all dancing, the first time. NASA took this approach with the Shuttle, and got away with it, but they spent a hell of a lot of money on it. This is why it's nice to have vehicle that's not only recoverable, but one that lands the same way it takes off, so that it can be incrementally tested. Now that some other companies are starting to take that approach (both horizontal and vertical) it will be interesting to see how much more of an incident-free (or at least vehicle-loss-free) test program they have.
In the meantime, good luck to SpaceX. There's no reason to think at this point that they can't be as successful, ultimately, as their predecessors that cost much, much more to develop, but still had early failures.
[Update in the late afternoon]
Other people are having similar thoughts:
I guess that when you have an incredibly complicated system like Falcon or like other existing orbital vehicles, where everything has to work just right, there are almost no margins, and nothing can be flight tested beforehand, risks and sucky days like these are inevitable.Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:07 AMI'm glad that for our suborbital vehicles we will be able to do things like cutting our teeth on takeoffs and landings hanging under a tether. While we'll still probably have our ulcer-inducing moments where we have to push the envelope into some new regime that we haven't tried before, and where something could go wrong, those will be fewer and farther between. Trying to get every part of a rocket vehicle like that, with all the subsystems working perfectly from the start is a real challenge. SpaceX has a phenomenal crew, and I'm sure they'll get this figured out, and probably make a whole bunch of money on this, but I'm glad that the approach they're taking is not the only way to solve this problem.
[Note: I've moved this post to the top until 6 PM Eastern, so scroll down for potential new content]
Here's a link for a live webcast of the SpaceX launch in less than two hours (via Tom Merkle).
[Update at 2:42 PM EST]
They're picking up the pace on the launch sequence now. They have a pretty long checklist, it sounds like.
[Update at 3:16 PM EST]
Uh oh. They're currently fourteen minutes into an unplanned hold (no explanation yet as to why). I wonder how much slack they have, or if this intrinsically delays the launch?
[Update at 3:26 PM EST]
A recovery boat has wandered into an area in the drop zone that's off limits. They're moving it and will be back into the count shortly. Good to hear that it's not a technical problem.
[Update at 2:37 PM EST]
Aaaarrrgghhh.
Not a problem with the launch, but the cabinet people just arrived to unload them into the garage, so I may miss the launch while supervising them. Good luck, if so.
[Update at 4:08 PM EST]
Picking up the count, with a new scheduled launch of 5:30 PM EST
[Update about 4:30 PM EST]
I've moved this thread to the top until 6 PM, so if you see it, you can scroll down for newer material. Also, there's a live discussion going on over at Free Republic.
[Update at 5 PM]
Starting to see what looks like LOX boiloff vapor from the top of the vehicle.
[Update at about T-10 minutes]
They just finished the poll. "Clear to launch."
[Update a minute or so before]
I'm noticing a couple-minute delay on the webcast, so it may launch before we actually see it.
[A little after 5:30 EST]
It seems to have gotten off the pad, but my image is frozen on one of the on-board cameras. It seems to have dropped the webcast.
It looked like a good launch, as far as I could see, before we lost the feed, but that was only for a few seconds, and what looked like a couple hundred feet of altitude at most. I guess we'll have to wait for word from SpaceX as to what happened during the remainder of the trajectory. I have to say that it's a little unnerving to lose contact like that. I'm wondering if SpaceX cut it off because it was showing something untoward. Here's hoping for the best, though.
[Update a couple minutes later]
The people at Free Republic who retained the stream longer than me reported blue sky and clouds, but also rolling before the webcast cut off. That could be part of the normal trajectory, but I can't think of any reason for a symmetric vehicle to do a deliberate roll maneuver during ascent, so it remains unsettling.
[Update at 5:43 PM EST]
Vehicle lost, according to Gwynne Shotwell. Probably range safety destruct.
I'll post more when I know more.
Schade.
Scheisse.
[Update shortly after 6 PM EST]
Word travels fast these days. The BBC already has the story.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:00 PM...over four decades later. Via Jim Oberg, here's an interesting article about the first woman in space.
This part I found a little puzzling, though:
Astronaut Mary Ellen Weber , who went up twice on the space shuttle, was also in attendance at the dinner, as was Lori Garver, whose plans to go into space were shelved in 2003 after the Columbia tragedy.
Huh?
What did Columbia have to do with Lori shelving her plans to go into space? She was going to go on Soyuz. I thought she shelved her plans because she couldn't find a sponsor to pay for it. Of course, it doesn't say she did it because of Columbia, but that's certainly the obvious inference to me, else why mention it?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:26 AMJoe Betcher, Lake Superior State, email interviews Sam Dinkin (reprinted with permission):
Betcher: In what areas has current space program failed to live up to expectations?
Dinkin: Settlement. Cheap access.
Betcher: What aspects of human spaceflight have been successful?
Dinkin: Dead end jobs. Glory among non space cognoscenti.
Betcher: What changes to human spaceflight can we expect in the future?
Dinkin: Business-like led by Russia.
Betcher: Do you believe the Vision for Space Exploration will be successful and if any changes are necessary to make it better?
Dinkin: Yes. Yes.
Betcher:What are some of the benefits of a trip to the moon or Mars?
Dinkin: Make it one-way and we are a bi-planet species.
Betcher: Do you believe the risks of sending people into space are worth it? Is there any way to make it safer?
Dinkin: Are the risks of pregnancy worth it? Practice makes perfect.
Betcher: In what ways can robots replace humans in space?
Dinkin: We can send a 77-year old robot around the planet a few times to do geriatrics research.
Betcher: What do you believe is in store for the future of human spaceflight?
Dinkin: Going to a store and buying a human spaceflight.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 10:49 AM...of the SpaceX launch, over at Out of the Cradle. Just a little over three hours to go, if all goes well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:12 AMOr, at least a missile engineer gap:
Not only are fewer American engineers and scientists choosing to work on missile technology, there are fewer of them altogether, the report says. Each year, about 70,000 Americans receive undergraduate and graduate science and engineering degrees that are defense related, compared with a combined 200,000 in China and India, the report says.The government should pay higher salaries and offer other incentives to attract more experts into the strategic missile field, the report says.
As always, I find it irritating that reporters think that it takes "scientists" to design and operate missiles. I guess they think that someone with a physics degree is a "scientist," even if they're actually doing engineering (perhaps because they think that getting a journalism degree makes one a journalist, regardless of how much journalistic malpractice is committed).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:25 AMThe SpaceX launch attempt has reportedly been delayed until tomorrow, same time.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:10 AMMaybe. If all goes well, SpaceX may finally get off their first launch to orbit, at 4 PM EST. Clark Lindsey has a roundup of links with which to follow proceedings.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:33 AMFabio Sau, UND says:
I count on all of you to provide me with your input and insight for my master thesis. Please, visit this quick online survey on the Political Feasibility of a Human Mission to Mars.
John Marburger made a speech at the Goddard Symposium, in which, as Paul Dietz notes, he clearly gets it:
The Moon has unique significance for all space applications for a reason that to my amazement is hardly ever discussed in popular accounts of space policy. The Moon is the closest source of material that lies far up Earth's gravity well. Anything that can be made from Lunar material at costs comparable to Earth manufacture has an enormous overall cost advantage compared with objects lifted from Earth's surface. The greatest value of the Moon lies neither in science nor in exploration, but in its material. And I am not talking about mining helium-3 as fusion reactor fuel. I doubt that will ever be economically feasible. I am talking about the possibility of extracting elements and minerals that can be processed into fuel or massive components of space apparatus. The production of oxygen in particular, the major component (by mass) of chemical rocket fuel, is potentially an important Lunar industry.What are the preconditions for such an industry? That, it seems to me, must be a primary consideration of the long range planning for the Lunar agenda. Science studies provide the foundation for a materials production roadmap. Clever ideas have been advanced for the phased construction of electrical power sources perhaps using solar cells manufactured in situ from Lunar soil. A not unreasonable scenario is a phase of highly subsidized capital construction followed by market-driven industrial activity to provide Lunar products such as oxygen refueling services for commercially valuable Earth-orbiting apparatus. This is consistent with the space policy statement that the U.S. will "Develop the innovative technologies, knowledge, and infrastructures both to explore and to support decisions about the destinations for human exploration".
I watched the live video coverage of Neil Armstrong taking the first footsteps on the Moon, and I was tremendously excited by it. To actually do something productive on the Moon would validate and justify the risk and expense of those early ventures and create an entirely new level of excitement. The operations I have described are intricate but many could be accomplished robotically. It is difficult for me to imagine, however, that such a complex activity could be sustained without human supervision and maintenance. This, in my view, is the primary reason for developing the capacity for human spaceflight to the Moon. It is a pragmatic reason and more likely to be sustainable over the decades necessary for success than curiosity or even national prestige.
It's refreshing to see a presidential science advisor forthrightly state that space activities are about much more than science. Unfortunately, NASA's exploration plans don't seem to be aligned with this vision, based as they are on seemingly maximizing marginal mission cost and avoidance of developing key orbital technologies (ones that will be applicable for lunar surface activities as well) that could provide much more flexibility and robustness to our transportation architecture.
And I found this closing paragraph somewhat ironic:
Goddard's vision of a future in which rockets would open up new frontiers is being realized at a pace that he could hardly have imagined. Developing the new territory for human use will take unimaginably longer, but we know how to get started.
This can be read (at least) two ways. Frankly, I doubt if Goddard could have imagined the ponderously slow pace with which we've been opening up the space frontier, particularly considering how many hundreds of billions of dollars we've been throwing at it for almost half a century, with little change in strategy (at least as far as plans for the bulk of future expenditures) in the offing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:58 AMHere's an interesting update on the ongoing legal war between BATF and the model rocketeers.
[Warning: not a permalink, so readers from the future beware]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:27 PMCo-blogger Sam finishes up his tour of SpaceX. The discussion is less about rockets than about corporate cultures and marketing messages. There certainly seems to be a lot of momentum finally building in the media and the business community for the new space age.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:01 AMThomas James writes about libertarian versus statist approaches to space colonization. A different way of framing it might be a dynamist versus a stasist
Thomas also has a new pillory of the space luddites up (his previous one spurred the post about libertarianism in space).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:38 AM...from SpaceX. Clark Lindsey does have a little interesting news from India, though. It sounds like they may be getting smarter:
The stages appear to be powered by conventional rockets using "semi-cryogenic " engines, e.g. LOX/kerosene. Previous Indian RLV designs that I have seen usually involved some sort of scramjet first stage.
That's it for now--still busy demolishing the kitchen. I hope that I can finish that today, so that I can get to the rebuilding part, which I find much more enjoyable.
[Sunday evening update]
Alan Boyle has info in comments, and at his site.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:45 AMSpaceX apparently had a successful static test firing at Kwajalein today. I assume that this means they're go for launch sometime in the next few days.
[Update at 5 PM EST]
D'oh!
As a commenter points out, this is old news. I should have double checked it first.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:52 PMJon Goff writes:
If space transportation was as free and healthy of a market as most other markets, I don't think anyone would care about robots vs humans. It would be so obvious that the answer is "depends on what you want to do" that nobody would even ask the question. The saddest thing about the mainstream robots vs humans debate is that it isn't really a robots vs humans debate at all, but merely people arguing over who gets the pork.
Yes. Unfortunately, we continue to fail to ask that fundamental question: what do we want to do in space?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:59 AMRand points out that you can carry a lot to orbit without a space elevator for some number of billions of dollars. You can also carry a lot of people in a ferry for the cost of a bridge. But once traffic gets high enough, you get economies of scale. There are actually several confounded questions about the cheapest way to GEO and beyond here.
First, it is very cheap to go from GEO to the planets with an elevator since you are on the downhill side of GEO and you slide out to the planets without any lasers or propellant.
Second, optimal energy to obtain orbit might be better to be hauled along. Maybe a climber could generate enough electric power to climb itself by burning LOX and kerosene in an internal combustion engine. No energy lost to air resistance. No energy lost to following an imperfect trajectory.
Third, optimal propulsion system might be a rocket engine. A rocket designed to go up an elevator would be a lot more capable than one that goes in free space.
Fourth, staging can be used with elevators cars to increase payload fraction in elevator cars. Stage 1 could just slide back down the elevator. Stage 2 could hit the brake and do a full systems checkout before moving up. The occupants could even get out and manually disengage the stages or something.
Fifth, the thing could even be refueled at 50,000 ft by some kind of a hovering balloon or vto refuelling craft. The balloon could even make it so that the last 50,000 feet of elevator at the bottom wouldn't weigh down the thing. This is analogous to air launch or balloon launch.
Finally, there is the economics question. Will there be sufficient demand to justify a high capacity lifter of any sort? The marginal cost of ELVs is high. But the average cost may be lower for low mass to orbit (and beyond). This gets back to the bridge vs. ferry question. If it can be shown that the bridge is more profitable than the ferry, it is worth the billions that terrestrial bridges cost. Or it might be justified anyway via tremendous national prestige and driving down marginal costs even if it is a money loser (like, say, the Chunnel which cost $15 billion or so). I think demand is surely a matter of when rather than if. Demand for orbital space tourism will grow as the number of centimillionaires grows even if nothing else does.
The business case for elevators has not been scrutinized nearly as much as the one for rockets. For example, why not leave the spool for the second strand at the bottom of the elevator and send a climber up unreeling from the bottom as you go and send another "zipper" unit up after? What about suborbital jaunts for folks that don't want to go all the way to orbit? It might even be cost competitive with airplanes for skydiving. As long as you are sending a newspaper roller up, you might as well print something in ink that will evaporate before too long. How much to print a 100,000 kilometer long love letter? Point-to-point hypersonic drop ships.
It is not necessarily true that space cannot warrant two pork infrastructure projects: a cheap RLV and an elevator. If you put it in the highway bill, you only have to compete against the dubious last $500 billion of infrastructure where trillions have already been invested. Bridge to nowhere indeed. The GEO elevator stop could even be called "the Middle of Nowhere".
A space elevator also can be thought of as a national work of art. A modern pyramid. The longest film strip. The longest playing highest fidelity 8,000 track tape. So Bill, would you like to say to Paul, "Keep your laughing gas and rubber, mine's made of diamond."? How many carats in dozens of twenty ton strands? Work it right and get the ends of the nanotubes to join up and the whole thing can start as a single molecule, a single CNT lightyears long.
The promise if we can get orbit and deorbit down to a small multiple of the fuel cost whether via awesome RLV or awesome elevator is substantial. The cheapest way to get there will be a matter for competition to solve. Whether it is competition for Government projects or commercial service will hopefully be decided in favor of the market by capitalizing both projects in the st0ck market and proceeding to get them built.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 11:27 AMSome of the reporters over at Florida Today have started a new group space blog, called The Flame Trench. The name seems appropriate, because they seem to have gotten into a little pissing contest with Keith Cowing (via whom I learned of its existence). Though, as I mentioned in a comment there (unpublished as of yet), I wish that people would learn the difference between "infer" and "imply."
Anyway, welcome to the neighborhood, guys (and gals, if there are any).
[Update at 1 PM EST]
I just got an explanatory email from John Kelly:
Sorry it took a pissing contest for some folks to find us. But we're always glad if people are reading and visiting. There's three guys, one lady, writing for the Flame Trench. Our space team is veteran aerospace reporter Todd Halvorson, space, science and tech writer Christine Kridler, our Washington correspondent Larry Wheeler, and myself, the humble space editor. The blog is an add-on to our existing space news site.
Now, if they could just fix their commenting software so that it will capitalize my first and last name...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:56 AMOf the first flight of a liquid-propellant rocket.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:02 AMFrom Henry Spencer, over at sci.space.policy:
...as Jordin Kare noted a while back, the elevator people say they could give us launch cost of a few hundred a kilogram for a ten-billion investment... but there are plenty of rocket people who think they could match or beat that launch-cost number with a lot less up-front money. "They aren't Boeing, but neither are you."Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:44 AMAnd the nanotube materials that the elevator people need will do wonders for rocket structure, well before they're good enough for elevators.
This post made me wonder--since so many people seem to prefer aisle seats, do they even care if window seats, or windows, exist? I'd be very uncomfortable sitting in a windowless aluminum tube going hundreds of miles per hour through the air, but I notice that many people in airplanes don't look out the window at all.
I wouldn't fly in an aircraft in which I couldn't see out a window, at least somewhere (even if I had to walk forward in a cargo plane to find one). How many people out there are indifferent?
And on the subject of space, one of the costs of designing a passenger spacecraft is exactly this--the need to put in windows, which increase structural weight. This isn't just because the view is a large part of the experience--I suspect that many space passengers would be just as psychologically uncomfortable in a windowless space transport as they would in a windowless aircraft.
Oh, one more thing. It's very hard to get me into a glass elevator--there, I insist on not knowing what's outside. The difference is that one is a vehicle, and the other is part of a structure (I'm acrophobic).
[Update on Wednesday evening]
Just to clarify, I'm not asking which seat people prefer. I'm asking how important it is that the airplane has windows, regardless of whether or not you sit next to them.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:22 AMPhil Bowermaster is running an interesting poll. So far, my vote (for a private developer) is in the plurality. I'm kind of surprised that "Russia" isn't an option.
And Stephen Gordon describes exciting advances in cancer therapy, improving the chances of many of us to visit or live on a lunar settlement, even if it takes longer than we hope.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:28 AMIt seems to me that if NASA was really listening well to the hardware, they'd get the real message--shut the thing down and put the money toward something useful to actually advancing us in space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:09 AMHey, I like space elevators, but if James Miller thinks that this idea will win the 2006 election for Republicans, he's...well...politically naive.
I can just imagine the Democrat commercials, were they to attempt such a thing. All they'd have to do is show the end of the Simpsons monorail episode, with the giant magnifying glass, the skyscraper made of popsickle sticks, and all of the people riding the escalator to nowhere and falling off the top.
"Millions go without health insurance, our soldiers are dying in Iraq, and the Republicans want to build an elevator to nowhere."
Sadly, in many ways (as I've noted previously), the human spaceflight program has in fact been building a metaphorical elevator to nowhere.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:33 AMI haven't read the whole thing yet, but here's a long piece from ABC News about the prospects for public space travel, and it seems to take it quite seriously.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:42 PMThis should make Mark Whittington happy, seeing as how he likes space races (real or not). The Swedes have plans to colonize space.
At least that's what the headline says. Makes as much sense as saying that the Chinese have a program to be on the moon before us just because one of their bureaucrats say they have the technology.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:46 PMDwayne Day doesn't believe in "Blackstar":
it turns out that the atomic-powered bomber never existed, and the plane was never observed both in flight and on the ground by a wide variety of foreign observers. It was observed by nobody at all, but that did not prevent the magazine from reporting about it.It is worth remembering that when you are reading about Aviation Week and Space Technologys latest report of a top secret aircraft known as the Blackstar. According to three articles that appeared in the March 6 issue of the magazine, Blackstar is actually a two-stage-to-orbit system consisting of a large mothership aircraft and a small transatmospheric vehicle possibly capable of flying into orbit. Despite the fact that it is on the cover of a magazine, there is no reason to believe that Blackstar exists, at least not in the form that the author claims it does.
Like Fox Mulder of The X-Files, the author wants to believe, even when the evidence is lacking. Admittedly, Fox Mulder was actually right. But he was also a TV character...
...These stories sound somewhat like the parable of the six blind men describing an elephantone feels the trunk, another a tail, another a foot, and so on, creating a description that makes no sense. But what is more likely here is that rather than six blind men describing an elephant, we have six blind men in a zoo, each describing a different part of a different animal, and a reporter assuming that these reports all refer to the same very strange beast.
I think that this is the most likely explanation, given the obvious inconsistenceies in the story. People do tend to lend too much credibility to AvLeak, and it must have been a slow newsweek indeed to let this thing become the cover story.
I remain skeptical as well, despite the fact that Jeffrey Bell agrees with me. Hey, even a stopped clock...
[Update late morning]
The Chairforce Engineer thinks it's Aurora all over again.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:46 AMWant to watch a rocket blow up on the pad, at night (warning: about a hundred-megabyte wmv file)? I've never heard so much cursing in such colorful European accents. It happened three and a half years ago at Plesetsk, in Russia. Here's the story.
[Via Jim Oberg]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:55 AMA test flight of the X-37 was postponed for snow. There are some beautiful, and rare shots of the phenomenon in the high desert and the Tehachapis over at the Mojave weblog.
I wonder how good the poppies will be this year? So far, it doesn't look good.
[Via Clark Lindsey]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:34 AMThe news is coming fast from from SpaceX and Musk.
Makes my interview (part 1 and 2) of Dianne Molina, Marketing Manager at SpaceX just the tip of the iceberg.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 04:30 AM
I've got a lot of work to do today, and then I'm heading home on a red eye tonight. In the meantime, lots of interesting stuff over at Clark Lindsey's place.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:10 AM...if you're in the Salt Lake City area today. Scott Lowther writes:
If you're in the Salt Lake area tomorrow, come see the RSRM firing at ATK-Thiokol., scheduled for 1 PM. I've seen two... impressive as all get-out. Plus, it brings in every bald eagle for forty miles.
Why the eagles?
The two theories that do make a measure of sense to me are:1) Some form of curiousity at the *extremely* loud noise with the very low tones.
2) The ground vibrations that are set up *may* cause subsurface critters for miles around to come boiling out... rats, mice, voles, snakes, etc, and the eagles have learned there are easy meals to be had when that particular dinner bell rings.
[Update late morning[
Where in the heck did the phrase "all get-out" come from, anyway. What does that mean?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:20 AMFred Kiesche asks if we can keep politics out of the CEV program.
Sorry, but politics intruded as soon as Dr. Griffin decided to build Shuttle-derived hardware as the launch vehicles, in order to assuage the politicians in Alabama, Utah and Florida who were worried about the loss of Shuttle jobs. Politics intruded with the decision to complete the useless (or at least, very poor value for the money) ISS, to maintain the international commitments.
It's completely unrealistic to expect a massive taxpayer-funded space bureaucracy to be unencumbered by politics.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:05 PMA requiem for a space dog, from Henry Vanderbilt:
Rufo, Rufe, Rufus T. Maximus, "Big Boy", black and grey Akita with white feet, tailtip, and throatpatch, born "Socks" in February 1993, first owned by someone who left him half-starved to DC Akita Rescue, adopted by Aleta Jackson who gave him his real name and his first good home, then "temporarily taken care of" when impossible circumstances hit Aleta in November 1995 by Henry Vanderbilt (relevant quote a few months later: "I see you two have bonded.") Rufo feared neither man, beast, nor machine - he once threatened to eat a reigning King of Atenveldt (not a post attained without considerable martial skill), he acknowledged no dog in creation as being bigger (despite the facts on occasion being much to the contrary), and he reached the end of his days without his firm position that he was also bigger than any eighteen-wheeler truck ever being disproved (largely due to considerable attention being paid by his human sidekick to avoiding tests of that theory, true.) Bluff aside (in twelve years and one month, he never laid serious tooth to any living being), Rufo was the gentlest brightest most amiable eager-to-please 3/4 inch fang 110-pound carnivore you could ever hope to meet, the world's largest fur-covered creampuff where cats, small children, and pretty girls were concerned.Rufo had been getting gimpy and less outgoing in recent years, chiefly concerned with leisurely walks around the neighborhood and sleeping in the sun, past being up for his youthful regimen of chewing through gates, midnight sprints through the neighborhood, SCA wars and fighter practices, SF conventions, space conferences, and close to 30,000 miles of cross-country car rides (he'd hung his head out in the breeze and startled passersby in at least twenty-five of the fifty states.) He succumbed to advanced stomach cancer, giving little sign of anything at all wrong until just a few days before the end - he was always a stoic, seldom acknowledging any pain short of the overwhelming. He was amiable and affectionate right up to the end. He will be much missed.
If you never knew him, you missed one of the finer dogs that's ever been. If you did know him and have memories of him, please share them in whatever forum you come upon this. To all the people who were kind to him over the years, my heartfelt thanks.
I knew Rufo. Rufo was a friend of mine, and I'm a cat person, not a dog person. I shared a bedroom (though, thankfully, not a bed) with Henry and Rufo, once upon a time.
Rufo, ad astra.
[Update a few minutes later]
I feel a little bad about Jane Bernstein's comment, because it's perfectly justified. It's not possible for a blog to be completely not a "little club," because every blogger has a history and (if they've been a blogger for long) a long-time readership, and a lot of inside baseball, but this post is probably too obscure for even long-time readers.
Briefly, Henry Vanderbilt is the founder and long-time proprieter of the Space Access Society, which has been working for a decade and a half or so on making space access affordable for The Rest Of Us. He has pauperized (or at least, refrained from lifting himself from penury) himself in that endeavor, and has recently given up the reins for more remunerable activities, though still in furtherance of his goal, and his many friends are thankful that he's had the opportunity to do that. One of the critical things that the SAS has done is to put together a conference every year (the next one is next month, in the Phoenix area) that provided a venue to bring together all of the crazy people (of whom I'm one of the looniest) who think that this is a solvable problem, and many good things have resulted from it over the years.
Aleta, Rufo's original rescuer, was an employee of the L-5 Society many moons ago, and later co-founded XCOR (whose initial funding was one of the good things that happened at one of Henry's conferences). Another good thing that happened at one of Henry's conferences was that I met Rufo, when I was being a starving entrepreneur, and Henry generously offered me a free bed in his room, as long as I was willing to share with both him and the dog. I accepted, and Rufo proved a good roommate (as did Henry), particularly given the price (though it would also have been the case had I paid a king's ransom for the room).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:02 PMI've been hearing rumors about this for about three years, but as part of its COTS proposal, SpaceX has revealed that it's been developing a crew capsule (presumably to be launched on the Falcon series).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:33 AMI've got a 7 AM flight, and just got cleaned up from demolishing the kitchen, so I don't have time to comment on this "Blackstar" story. Fortunately, over at RLV News, it's all Blackstar, all the time. Clark Lindsey has comments here, here and here.
I agree with Clark--it's a pretty fishy story, with a lot of inconsistencies. I remain a Missourian on this one for now.
[Monday morning update, from LA]
Jim Oberg has an update at MSNBC.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:44 PMMichael Belfiore describes what looks like a potentially great book on the new space age.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:52 AMVirgin Galactic mailed me a survey which you can access. Answer truthfully. I (owner of SpaceShot) am not like the competitors that Julian Simon talks about in his mailorder books that tries to muck up competitors' surveys. They inquire about pricing for Virgin Galactic Quest in $10 increments from 0-60+. Drop me a line at transterrestrial@dinkin.com or comment what you think tournament entries for a trip to space should cost. Also tell me what kind of profit margin you think would be fair. And whether a bundle of more than one entry would be OK. Note that credit card fixed charges are $0.30 + 2-3% at paypal which has a restrictive skill games policy and $0.40 or more elsewhere so credit cards will eat up 6-7% of a $10 charge, but only 4-5% of a $20 charge. Can someone give me a quote for the cost of building and analyzing one of those surveys? (I don't want to buy one, just validate my decision not to.)
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 08:57 AMI don't know whether to categorize this as "Space" or "Media Criticism" (often the case, given how often the media get space issues, like most issues, wrong).
Jeff Foust has a follow-up on the Wired News article that said March Storm was a front for people who wanted to militarize space. I was originally willing to give the reporter the benefit of the doubt, and just consider it shoddy reporting, and him a shoddy reporter. But it's clear now that he had an agenda (something that should probably have been clear at the time, given that he took a nutcase like Bruce Gagnon far too seriously). As far as I'm concerned, he has zero credibility from this point forward.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:23 AMClark Lindsey sees some reason for hope that the new rocket companies may be able to achieve their cost (and business) goals. It would be interesting to see what conventional aerospace costing models would have predicted for RDT&E and ops costs for a government Eclipse program. We have to break out of the cost-plus culture, and ESAS does nothing toward that end.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:14 PMJesse Londin has a good overview of the public (mostly industry) comments to the FAA-AST NPRM on suborbital launch regulations. This is an issue that I'm a little concerned about:
Along with the comments filed by the Peronal Spaceflight Federation, Pat Hoar for Space Adventures, offered a few additional thoughts; and with regard to the FAA's statement "The FAA does not expect orbital commercial human space flight to occur in the immediate future" Pat specified: "Space Adventures notes that it has sent three space flight participants to the International Space Station since 2001 with additional orbital space flight participants currently in training. Space Adventures assumes that the FAA intended to say ' orbital commercial human space flight using non-government launch vehicles '"Bretton Alexander, VP of government relations for t/Space also objected to the language about the government not expecting orbital in the near future, and noted it created "a negative perception with the public, potential investors, and developers..."
Yes. One of the things that's held back investment for years is such negative perceptions, and this has often been caused, inadvertently or deliberately, by stated policy or pronouncement of government officials (NASA and others) who supposedly know what they're talking about, but often don't. The problem is, while we fought and largely won the battle to establish a legal regulatory regime for suborbital passenger flight over the last couple of years, we don't have any similar enabling legislation for orbital passenger flight. It's potentially possible to extrapolate the new regulations to it, but that process would be fraught with regulatory uncertainty (not a good thing for raising money).
In an ideal world, of course, that which is not explicitly illegal would be legal, and we wouldn't need one, but in the real socialist world, in which the country remains bound by the OST with its obligations to accept government responsibility and liability for all US-based space activity, government and private, it's not too early to perhaps start thinking about some new legislation that can enable this sooner rather than later.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:31 AMI doubt if it will kick off a space race with Arabia, though. Mark Whittington will be disappointed again.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:54 AMOK, it looks like Thomas James was too hard on Dr. Hansen, because it does indeed look like the quotes were taken out of context, as several commenters pointed out. And as the latest escapades of Bruce Gagnon (as reported at Wired News) show, it's truly unfair to lump the two together. When it comes to moonbattery, Bruce is simply in a class by himself, a virtual one-man belfry. But what's really appalling about this article is the shoddy reporting. Jeff Foust shreds it. Clark Lindsay isn't impressed, either.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:54 AMThe latest edition of NewSpaceNews is out, with a roundup of alt-space activities from around the web.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:01 AMThomas James (who reads this stuff so you don't have to, though it's entertaining even if you do) has the latest roundup, including a certain NASA scientist who's been in the news recently.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:54 AMIf numbers get repeated often enough, like in this gallery of commercial space opportunities, they start to be believed. Business 2.0 as part of a big spread on space investment opportunities in their March cover story retells some whoppers.
Space Hotels: $5B/year by 2015
This is inconsistent with Futron and world launch capabilities and expense. First let's see if someone wins the America's Space Prize. Expensive travel means very little revenue. By 2025, very possible if space access costs drop. $2M/month would get a lot of takers if we can get 600kg worth of people, spaceship and consumables to orbit at $3000/kg including payload. A Progress at 2000-3000kg of payload lasts 2-3 months with three eaters.
Mars: $400B in exploration by 2030
If you just put NASA spending in line with US GDP growth and put 12 years of it to "Mars" you get about $400B.
Orbital labs: $10B/year by 2015
NASA can't even come up with a business case to finish ISS. So far the only demand has come from Greg Olsen so he could take a tax writeoff on his vacation. Hmm, maybe it will be a conference destination.
Solar sats: $100B/year by 2020.
You have to beat the marginal cost of hydrocarbons to make money on this. Julian Simon's Ultimate Resouce 2 indicates heavily against this. Methane hydrates, coal and uranium would have to be taxed to a standstill (which is not impossible) for this to be this big. Space elevators flip it.
Space elevator: $2B/year by 2021
If it works much bigger. It will probably be bigger than solar sats or asteroid mining. Without competition, almost all profits from solar sats and asteroid mining will accrue to the elevator owner.
Asteroid mining: $10B/year by 2030
The space access and demand curve math does not really work except for local consumption in space. But it would be a great place to colonize along with the Moon and Mars.
Moon: $104B in exploration by 2018, $250B in helium mining by 2050
The exploration comes from extrapolating the NASA budget: good bet; the He3 requires us to run out of uranium or patience for it. Not likely.
Microsats: $1.5B/year by 2018
Likely an underestimate as miniaturization, space access costs and dedicated launchers for microsats come into their own
Space Tourism: $1B/year by 2023
This will be bigger than hotels, which is not to say that it will be more than twice Futron's prediction repeated here. (The factor of 2 selfishly comes from games. The transport to and from the hotel is more expensive than the hotel stay.)
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 07:41 AM...don't know when I'll be back again, but my return reservation is for Friday night. I'm off to Califor Nye A early tomorrow morning, and may be too busy to blog, as there are a lot of deliverables due this week, on top of the CEV proposal work. But I'll try to check in tomorrow.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:08 PMIt doesn't sound like a smart design to me, though:
The first stage is configured as a winged body system, which will attain an altitude of around 100 km and deliver nearly half the orbital velocity. After burnout, the vehicle will re-enter the earth's atmosphere and will be made to land horizontally on a runway, like an aircraft.In the second stage, after delivering the payload, the vehicle will be made to re-enter the atmosphere and will be recovered using airbags either in sea or land.
No description of the first-stage propulsion, but if Clark Lindsay (from whom I got the link) is right, and it's a scramjet, that's a huge mistake. And an ocean recovery with airbags? Please.
Of course, what do you expect from a government? And at least they haven't bought into the current nonsensical conventional wisdom that "Shuttle proved that reusable vehicles don't work."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:45 PMI'm too busy to blog much, but the Chairforce Engineer has a follow-up to the previous discussion (see here, too) on lunar transportation architectures and L1.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:15 AMJon Goff has some useful thoughts on space system design goals, and some advice for Elon Musk:
Take a look at the EELV program, and even SpaceX. EELV's goal was to reduce the cost of launching satellites for the military from absolutely obscene to merely ridiculous (ie a 50% drop in price IIRC). So, they tried to make some incremental changes to how they build and operate their vehicles. In some areas they've gotten a lot better, but the reality is that they didn't even acheive the modest goals they set out for themselves. It isn't that they're dumb, or malicious, or incompetent. It's just that they set themselves too easy of a goal, so they didn't actually have to think outside the same high-cost artillery box that they've put themselves in over the years.
It should be pointed out that one of the reason that they haven't achieved the cost reduction goal is the collapse of flight rate. As I pointed out in my New Atlantis piece, flight rate, even for expendables, is a much higher contributor to launch cost than design is.
He also writes something that a younger Jon Goff would have found heresy:
...if they go for the BFR instead of trying to radically change the Earth-to-Orbit transportation market by going fully reusable...They're probably going to get their lunch eaten. I mean, they could possibly acquire one of the companies that actually develops a fully reusable, high-flight-rate orbital space transport. But the reality is going to be that if they don't keep pushing more and more reusability into their Falcon line, it's going to go obsolete.
That's sort of an inside joke to long-time readers of sci.space.*, but once upon a time, Jon was a, hmmmm...shall we say, vociferous proponent of expendable launchers. It would be interesting (and possibly educational to others) sometime to hear a description of how his thinking has evolved.
Now, we just have to work on his politics...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:17 AMKen Murphy has a useful tutorial on the use of Earth-Moon L1 as a staging point to and from the Moon, and to other destinations.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:18 AMThe latest newsletter of the Space Access Society is out, and it has a long, but good rundown of the current situation in space transportation (at least that portion of the industry that actually promises to reduce costs and improve reliability).
We are seeing signs that this industry is growing up fast. One trend is specialization - rocketship builders are starting to differentiate from rocketship operators, something that happened to the air transport industry too around the time it was getting serious.Another is that rocketship builders are beginning to access a novel method of finance for this industry: Paying customers, both government agencies wanting a mix of tech development and delivered payloads, and commercial operators wanting actual ships to fly.
And while most company finance in this industry is still via some variant of "angel investors", aka wealthy individuals, there have been a number of signs that the venture capital industry may not be that far behind. First there's all the positive press buzz of the last year, of course. Never underestimate the herd factor in investment trends.
There are also signs of a fundamental VC investment requirement firming up: The exit strategy. One time-honored way to cash out investment in an innovative startup is by selling out to an established player that wants a foot in the new door. Arianespace showed up at the X-Prize Cup's Personal Spaceflight Symposium last fall "looking for possible connections" in this new industry. We've seen indications the US launch majors too are keeping a close eye on developments among the startups. Looking to eventually buy what they can't foster internally? It wouldn't be unprecedented.
I think we're a long way off from a rocketcom bubble (that would be fun, for a while...), but it's nice to see the money finally starting to flow.
It also announces the final date and location of the next Space Access conference, which is a must-go for people really into this subject.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:20 AMGrant Bonin is having a debate on the appropriate launch vehicle size for exploration. My attitude is either use what you have, or if you're going to spend billions of dollars developing new vehicles, focus it on something that actually reduces cost and improves reliability.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:20 AMWayne Eleazer has an interesting brief history of the US military space program at today's issue of The Space Review. I was working at the Aerospace Corporation when some of the changes described were occurring in the early eighties. Clearly what they're doing now isn't working well, but I'm not sure that just going back to the SPOs is going to help. The problem is, as described, that space hardware (at least as historically developed and procured by the Air Force) is not like airplanes. Until they get some fresh thinking there, and try to make it so, I suspect that their woes will continue.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:40 AMThomas James has another Carnival of the Space Moonbats.
[Update in the afternoon]
Oh, this is too weird. One of the people that Thomas links to is Elaine Supkis, but in a posting at his blog she calls herself Elaine Meinel (her maiden name, apparently). As an old L-5er, this made my antenna go up.
A little googling reveals something that I didn't know (assuming it's true). She's Carolyn Meinel's sister. I didn't know Carolyn had a sister. I also didn't know that Aden worked with the CIA.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:43 AMMy policy of sponsoring realistic space art to spawn realistic space economics may be bearing some fruit. I sponsored this picture from David Robinson first published in September. In January, Aerospace America had this to say:
"Picture a buggy pulled behind a rover that is outfitted with a set of magnetrons," [Larry Taylor, distinguished professor of planetary sciences at the University of Tennessee] suggests. (A magnetron is the heating element in a microwave oven.) "With the right power and microwave frequency, an astronaut could drive along, sintering the soil as he goes, making continuous brick..."Posted by Sam Dinkin at 10:09 AM
I read more of the FAA EA (still 6MB) for OSIDA's spaceport at BFV in CSIA.* The most interesting things I found were the fuel and noise calculations for concepts X, Y and Z. I don't really like those designators. Concept X, let's change to concept R. Concept R has a maximum number of launches proposed of 12 in 2006, 12 in 2007, 24 in 2008, 48 in 2009, and 48 in 2010 (p. 4-2). Concept R runs on LOX and RP-1 (4-47) and needs an estimated 5761 kg of LOX and 2404 kg of RP-1. Concept R takes off and lands with a jet engine (4-39) reaches Mach 1 at 9144m (4-40), drops back to Mach 1 at 99,670m and speeds back up to Mach 1 at the same altitude and slows back down to Mach 1 at 16,459m. All these values are approximate. Let's suppose concept R starts charging $200,000 per seat in 2008. If they sell three seats at that price per flight, they could expect $14.4 million in revenue at this airport in the first year of commercial operation and $28.8 million in their second and third. I am not sure how the maxes of 12 flights in each of the first two years square with a 25-flight test program with a maiden launch in July 2007. Perhaps they will fly out of other spaceports, have some non-rocket flights, or up the maximum number out of Burns Flat.
I don't like the letter for concept Y either. Let's call it X'. Concept X' is scheduled to fly two times per year 2006-2010 (4-2). X' does not exceed Mach 1 (4-38). Concept X' runs on LOX and kerosene or alcohol (4-47). Concept X' has rocket takeoff and glide landing with 1800 lbs thrust (4-40).
I don't like the letter for concept Z as you might have guessed. Let's call it concept V. Concept V has max 2 flights in 2006 and 2007 with 3, 4 and 4 in 2008-2010. Concept V vehicles (sic) will take off with a jet engine (4-39). They will carry Jet-A fuel for the carrier vehicle and 1295kg N2O and some HTPB for the launch vehicle (4-47) (laughing gas and rubber).
You can see pictures of concept R, X' and V on pages 2-11, 14 and 17 (although V has an Andrews Space Technology logo in the corner even if there might be a "Virgin" on the side of the carrier--it could be a SpaceDev HL-20 but the two tails and canard on the carrier scale back my expectations of that), and the picture of X' looks like a Xerus instead of a Velocity and concept R has only one tail instead of two).
In layman's terms? Expect there to be some kind of attempt at a rocket show in Burns Flat. Rocketplane is getting their spaceport. Hard to say what this means for business as the EA process was started in 2002.
*FAA=Federal Aviation Administration, EA=Environmental Assessment, OSIDA=Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority, BFV=the little known designator of the Burns Flat Vortac which I am guessing at to try to be cute, CSIA=Clinton-Sherman Industrial Airpark
--Update 2006-02-18 09:18
--Update 2006-02-18 09:46
It's actually a Gryphon Aerospace Plane from Andrews. Probably should be concept G.
NY Times has an article on "the Space Tourism Race" which is interesting mostly for the following quote:
Will Whitehorn, the president of Virgin Galactic, said that 157 people have put down deposits totaling $12.2 million to fly...
Unlike the Chinese versus NASA, this is a space race worth taking seriously:
I do wonder if Virgin Galactic/Spaceship Company will accelerate their vehicle development in response to this project if it looks probable that the Explorer vehicles will start flying next year. I think suborbital space tourism business will grow robustly beyond just those who want to claim that they were the "pioneers" in public space travel. In fact, more people will want to go once there have been lots of flights since this will help to demonstrate safe and reliable operation.Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:37 AM
Jeff Foust asks a question (scroll down about thirty comments):
...should settlement be an explicit goal of the space agency, with programs specifically tailored to that, or should settlement be instead a commercial initiative that is either an outgrowth of, or even completely independent from, government space efforts?
I've some thoughts on that, but no time to put them down right now. The comments section is open, however.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:16 AMThe FAA Oklahoma Spaceport Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) is available for download (6 MB). I haven't read it yet, but I can already say it is very similar to the Mojave Spaceport one. That's because there is an XCOR Xerus on the front cover. They are soliciting comments and will have a public meeting in Oklahoma on March 9.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 06:43 AMFrom Henry Spencer, over at sci.space.policy:
As various people have pointed out in the past, to judge by the fuss that gets made when a few of them die, astronauts clearly are priceless national assets -- exactly the sort of people you should not be risking in an experimental-class vehicle.Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:33 PM
I tracked down the cite to the following quote in The Economic Impact of Commercial Space Transportation on the US Economy: 2004.
Recent market studies have shown public space travel has the potential to become a billion dollar industry within 20 years.
It's the famous 2002 Futron study made public in October 2004. On the bullish side, still no accounting for games. No accounting for $200,000 starting prices (It assumes $100,000) which is bullish for price, bearish for quantity. On the bearish side, still none of the demand flown off. Why am I analyzing 4 year old data when I could be testing the market personally for a little more than the cost of a new study?
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 01:53 PMA lot of people disparage newcomers to the space field as having "paper rockets."
Well, at little cost, you can now make your own paper Saturn V. And here's another company that's going to be offering a paper MLP and crawler. The pictures are pretty amazing, considering the construction materials.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:45 AMTom Cuddihy (to whom congratulations on his upcoming marriage are owed), inspired by some musings on the subject by Jon Goff, runs some numbers on reusing lunar landers, and finds that (unsurprisingly), it doesn't make sense. At least with the assumptions that he uses.
The utility of reusable space transportation elements is heavily dependent on the cost of propellants in all of the transportation nodes through which they operate. If we are going to deliver all propellants from earth, to the surface of the moon, using chemical propulsion, then it's not possible to justify reuse of the lander (and in fact it would be impossible to justify reuse of the crew module itself, except for the fact that we have to return crew, anyway). If we are to have a cost-effective cis-lunar transportation infrastructure, it's not sufficient to get the cost of LEO delivery down (though it is certainly necessary). We also either need to manufacture propellants on the moon, or deliver them to L1 via low-thrust high-Isp tugs from LEO, or both.
This was discussed (I believe--at least I wrote a lengthy input to it) in the final Boeing report on the CE&R contract (a document that NASA apparently never even bothered to look at once Steidle was fired and they came up with ESAS).
OK, enough space blogging for a while. I've got to get back to work.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:23 AMAt The Space Review today, in the context of NASA's new budget, Jeff Foust reprises one of my recurring themes--that we can't make sensible policy decisions until we decide what we're trying to accomplish and what the purpose of a space program is.
These editorials all seem to follow the old argument that robots are better, cheaper, and safer means of exploring the solar system than humans. However, buried in that debate is a deeper issue that is almost never brought up in superficial newspaper editorials and other commentary: what is NASAs underlying mission? There is an unstated assumption among just about everyone who engages in this debateeither in favor of human or robotic missionsthat NASAs purpose is some sort of space exploration, but one that is rarely defined in more specific language. That nebulous notion of exploration means different things to different people.
Actually, I'd go further, and say that NASA has purposes beyond exploration (e.g, encouragement of technology development, and developing a space-faring nation), but it's even harder to debate that one.
In any event, unfortunately, it remains a debate that the nation continues to avoid, and we will continue to have a policy mess until we have it and reach a conclusion.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:15 AMI'd like to add my name to the list of luminaries at the bottom of this letter. Jim Muncy has been an unsung (or at least not sufficiently sung) hero of commercial space for decades.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:04 AMWell, that depends on what you mean. NASA has always been politicized--it is a government agency, after all. Anyone who thinks that the agency has ever made decisions, from what part of the country in which to award a contract, to whether or not to ship money off to Russia, that weren't driven strongly by politics has no understanding of how government agencies work. The question here is, has the science that NASA purports to do and report become more politicized?
Troublingly, the answer may indeed by yes, but again, it's still nothing new. On the other hand, the Sentinel damages its credibility when it writes:
Former Administrator Sean O'Keefe made an unprecedented decision that fall to campaign on behalf of Republicans. In the final days before the election, he visited Huntsville, Ala., home of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, to endorse U.S. Rep. Bob Riley, R-Ala., for governor. A similar visit to Cocoa Beach to stump for U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, was canceled only after O'Keefe's flight was delayed.
There's nothing unprecedented about this. Where were they when Dan Goldin was doing the same thing with Barbara Mikulski in the nineties?
Setting that aside, though, certainly hiring an unqualified political hack and college dropout for a powerful position at the Public Affairs Office (PAO) was shameful, but just as much of that thing went on in general during the Clinton years (anyone remember Craig Livingstone, the former bar bouncer made head of White House security?). And it's not like PAO has ever been a bastion of competence, either. Certainly, though, it's troubling when you have people with very little understanding of science (at least based on the quotes) telling scientists how they have to present their data (the young idiot insisted on prefixing the phrase "Big Bang" with the word "theory," as though this was somehow pejorative--ah, well, just one more blow to the reputation of journalism degrees).
But there is also this myth that science is science, and that scientists never let their own personal political viewpoints color their interpretation of the data, and that scientists can be, and are above the fray of political debates. Unfortunately, particularly when it comes to environmental issues, many scientists have allowed themselves to become political pawns in issues for which many of them have sympathy, and they often attribute too much certainty to their conclusions than is justified by the data, because they find them personally appealing from a policy perspective.
In fact, it seems to me that claims of scientific objectivity are similar (though perhaps slightly better founded, given the nature of the scientific method and peer review) to those of journalistic objectivity--the notion that somehow, despite one's personal prejudices, it's still possible to play it straight down the center. We know that in journalism, that's a nonsensical conceit, and we should be wary of the same argument made by people with science degrees.
The lesson here, I think, is that rather than have an unrealistic expectation of pure scientific objectivity coming from a government agency, we should instead expect politics to intrude, both from without and within, and always maintain a realistic and skeptical view of the process with as much transparency as possible, and keep the debate flowing freely with no assumptions of nobility on either side. Blogs can help with this.
[Update at 9 AM EST]
Thomas James has a Carnival of Space Moonbattery. It really is related, honest.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:00 AMAs NASA continues to chop everything in its budget other than the least cost-effective things--Shuttle, ISS and ESAS--Lou Friedman of the Planetary Society is starting to whine about the loss of space science. But Clark Lindsey points out the irony:
[Dr. Griffin's plan to delay planetary science programs] would make perfect sense if the CEV program promised to significantly lower the cost of space access and of its utilization. Lower transport costs would make all of those science projects much cheaper to build and operate and would allow for many more science missions than can be flown now.Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:22 AMHowever, as has been argued often here and in many other sites, flying capsules on Shuttle derived expendables and building a hugely expensive and seldom launched heavy lifter just isn't going to lower the cost of space very much over what it is now. While halting the Shuttle program now would help to fund a handful of space science missions, it would not help overcome the long term limitations to space exploration and development caused by the extremely high costs of getting to space...
...I'll note that much of the basic CEV architecture using Shuttle components was born via a Planetary Society sponsored study (pdf) by Griffin and several collaborators before he came to NASA.
Clark Lindsey has some good news on the model rocketry front--a legal victory over ATFE (a situation about which I've written previously). I love this quote from the ruling judge:
The problem in this case is that ATFE's explanation for its determination that APCP deflagrates lacks any coherence. We therefore owe no deference to ATFE's purported expertise because we cannot discern it. ATFE has neither laid out a concrete standard for classifying materials along the burn-deflagrate-detonate continuum, nor offered data specific to the burn speed of APCP when used for its 'common or primary purpose.' On this record, the agency's decision cannot withstand judicial review.Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:18 AM
Elon Musk's wife, Justine, is a horror-fiction writer with a blog, and a new book out
Probably doesn't hurt to be married to a multi-millionaire.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:56 PMUnfortunately, I haven't been to the FAA Commercial Space Transportation conference (held every February) in a few years. The years that I have the time, I don't have the money, and the years that I have the money, I can't find the time (the latter, which was the case this year, is a better situation). Funny how that works.
Anyway, while I didn't go, Clark Lindsey did, and he's got a report from yesterday's festivities.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:47 AMThe count is back on (if you can believe the blog--he says not to, probably to cover his keister). If there were no problems, the test should have occurred by now.
[Update at 4:05 PM EST]
Close, but no cigar:
A few seconds before the engine ingited [sic], the count was held. They are now safing the vehicle and we will find out soon if they will restart the count and take it all the way to ignition.
It's sounding like a good thing that they did this test before launch. I think they're finding out how hard building and flying rockets is.
[Update about 4:30 PM EST]
They've recycled the count to T-15 minutes.
I find the fact that they can take the engine all the way to ignition and recycle to a fifteen-minute count a testament to the simplicity of the system (none of this having to empty tanks and recycle to the next day stuff). I'm not sure what it says about reliability at this point, though.
[Update at 4:50 PM EST]
They've stopped the count again, but this latest post expands on my comments above about repeated launch cycles, and how far the technology has allowed us to come in that regard. It also provides some explanation of the issues they've been encountering today.
Once again, though, it points out that they weren't ready for prime time when it came to launching (and that these test firing rehearsals were a good idea). That's what test flights are for, and so far, while they haven't launched, they haven't lost anything, either, except some time. Hopefully, this "shakedown cruise" will reveal a lot of things that will give them better schedule reliability in the future.
[Another update a couple minutes later]
It really is a family affair. Note the last name of the commenter to this latest post.
[Update a few minutes later, for those not following the Kwajrocket blog]
They've emptied the propellant tanks and are analyzing data, but it doesn't sound like they've yet given up on an engine firing today.
[Late night update]
Two to four weeks (sorry, no permalink--just click on the link to "New Launch Date Update.")
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:08 PMThey were supposed to have their engine test a few minutes ago, but they're on a hold at T-1.
[Update a few minutes later]
They haven't restarted the count, yet, but Kimbal has some pictures up. Keep checking the main page of the blog for updates.
[Update at 4:05 PM EST[
Close, but no cigar:
A few seconds before the engine ingited, the count was held. They are now safing the vehicle and we will find out soon if they will restart the count and take it all the way to ignition.
It's sounding like a good thing that they did this test before launch. I think they're finding out how hard building and flying rockets is.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:35 PMToday SpaceX is going to have a test firing on the pad. If it's successful, they'll launch tomorrow (and there will supposedly be a webcast--go to the site for details). Kimbal Musk (Elon's brother?) is blogging from Kwajalein.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:29 AMBill Whittle's been working on a movie script:
(spoiler alert!)* Men travelling through space WITHOUT THE AID OF GOVERNMENT AGENCIES!
* People facing extreme risks and DECIDING TO TAKE THEM ANYWAY!
* Puny Earthlings using THEIR OWN MONEY ANY DAMN WAY THEY CHOOSE TO!
* Nuclear Energy being portrayed in a NON-EVIL FASHION!
* BUSINESSMEN and ENGINEERS as HEROES!
* PROTESTORS and CELEBRITIES as JOKES!
Full disclosure: I've been kicking ideas around with him over beers and comestibles over the past few months.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:16 AMClark Lindsey has some more perspective on what a waste of money the Shuttle program is currently, given that we aren't even flying it (and perhaps even if we were):
* Elon Musk has spent about $100M so far on developing the line of SpaceX Falcon launchers. The first Falcon 9 launch is scheduled for 2007. He hasn't said how much more money it will take to reach that launch but I doubt it could be more than another $100M.Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:20 PM* Kistler says it needs a few hundred million dollars to finish its fully reusable two stage K-1 vehicle.
* T/Space said it can build a CEV system capable of taking crews and cargo to the ISS for around $500M.
* LockMart once promised to build the VentureStar for $6B. If they had a 100% overrun that would still be less than $13B.
On NPR, coming up at noon Pacific.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:07 AMClark Lindsey writes that next week's inaugural launch of the Falcon 1 is still on, and that this time it will be webcast. So there was some benefit (to those interested) in the delay.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:20 AMI'm still swamped at work, but Clark Lindsey has updated his commercial space timeline. I personally continue to find it quite encouraging, though 2005 wasn't nearly as groundbreaking and eventful as 2004 was.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:16 PMRob Wilson over at Out of the Cradle asked me to direct you to a forum where Gary Lantz, engineer at Rocketplane, is currently answering questions. My company, SpaceShot, Inc., is working with Rocketplane to provide suborbital spaceflight prizes to anyone who can enter a skill game tournament for less than $5 per entry.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 10:08 AMI've been surprised at how little commentary there is in the blogosphere about today's anniversary, with the only note of it I've seen so far at NASA Watch.
Here's what I wrote at the time (off the top of my head, having just been woken up by a phone call from the east coast telling me that Columbia was missing in action over Texas). And here are some links to other things I wrote on the subject over the next few days. I'd change little of what I wrote then. Unfortunately, NASA (and Congress) don't seem to have learned the lesson from that event or, worse, they've learned the wrong lessons.
From that day three years ago, here's the lesson they should have learned:
The entire NASA budget is now in a cocked hat, because we don't know what the implications are until we know what happened. But it could mean an acceleration of the Orbital Space Plane program (I sincerely hope not, because I believe that this is entirely the wrong direction for the nation, and in fact a step backwards). What I hope that it means is an opportunity for some new and innovative ideas--not techically, but programmatically.Once again, it demonstrates the fragility of our space transportation infrastructure, and the continuing folly of relying on a single means of getting people into space, and doing it so seldom. Until we increase our activity levels by orders of magnitude, we will continue to operate every flight as an experiment, and we will continue to spend hundreds of millions per flight, and we will continue to find it difficult to justify what we're doing. We need to open up our thinking to radically new ways, both technically and institutionally, of approaching this new frontier.
Anyway, it's a good opportunity to sit back and take stock of why the hell we have a manned space program, what we're trying to accomplish, and what's the best way to accomplish it, something that we haven't done in forty years. For that reason, while the loss of the crew and their scientific results is indeed a tragedy, some good may ultimately come out of it.
Unfortunately, while there was a minimal debate within the government, it wasn't really a public one, and the real issues never got properly thrashed out--we still, as a nation, don't really know why we're doing this. And we still have the mentality that the way to get the nation into space and keep it there is for the space agency to develop a launch system to its own specifications, with a low flight rate and high costs, with no resiliency or diversity of approaches. The CEV program looks more and more like the OSP every day. OSP was a capsule designed to go to ISS that might have evolved into a lunar transportation vehicle. CEV is a capsule originally conceived to go to the moon with an early capability to deliver crew to ISS, but the latter goal seems to have come to the forefront, with the dropping of the methane requirement and potential acceleration of the program to close the Shuttle "gap."
If CEV is successful, it will be just as expensive to operate as Shuttle, probably even if one ignores the high development costs of both it and its all-new (and yes, despite the marketing hype from NASA and ATK, the SRM-based "stick" will essentially be a new vehicle development) launcher. It will have the theoretical capability to get to the Moon (assuming that NASA can find the money to fund the ridiculously expensive Shuttle-derived heavy lifter on which they needlessly insist, and the lunar lander and departure stages), and it will probably be safer, but that in itself won't make it worth the money that it will cost, particularly when one contemplates the opportunity cost of how that hundred billion could be better spent.
The other lesson that NASA seems to have mislearned is one of basic economics. We have not been rational in the decision to return to flight. Jeff Foust notes some recent foolish congressional commentary:
"One of the arguments that NASA uses is that we have a contractual obligation to 15 other countries with the ISS," said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL). "There is no sympathy for that argument with the Congress." Feeney said that if there is another foam-shedding incident with the shuttle (or presumably another problem of similar seriousness) "it's going to be really hard to save at that point, really hard to save" the shuttle program.
As someone who considers international cooperation in space to be (in general, though there have been exceptions, one of which is certainly not the space station) a bug, rather than a feature, I agree that Congress shouldn't let this drive the decision. But the notion that the Shuttle program's fate should be a function of whether or not we shed more foam is nonsensical.
The last Shuttle flight we had, last summer, which was the first one since that fateful day three years ago, probably cost (just guessing here--no time or reason to try to do a more precise estimate from the budgets) on the order of ten billion dollars (the amount of money we spent on the Shuttle program from February 2003 through July 2005). If they fly this spring, that flight will have cost probably another two or three billion. Every day that we keep this Shuttle program alive probably costs us about ten million dollars or so, whether we fly it or not (a number that makes one weep when one thinks of it as an X-Prize per day). And retiring one of the Orbiters, as some have suggested, will save very little money. In fact, as loved as Hubble is by the public, it doesn't make financial sense to use a Shuttle to repair it unless it is done quickly, because we could probably afford several new telescopes for the cost of maintaining the Shuttle program long enough to get the mission off.
There are only two reasons to be concerned about whether or not the foam shedding continues. The first is the risk of another vehicle loss, and the second is the risk of losing another crew.
It would make sense to worry about losing another orbiter, if the probability of loss was high, and we had to conserve the fleet for many flights. But the program is already planned to be terminated within another couple dozen flights anyway, and even if more foam is shed, the chances that it will result in another vehicle loss are pretty small--it flew many successful flights prior to all of the renewed attention to the foam issue since 2003. Yes, it's Russian roulette, but sometimes, if the odds are right (one is playing with a hundred-chamber gun, instead of a six-chamber gun, and there is a significant payoff to playing), playing Russian roulette can be a rational decision.
The reality, of course, is that every action we take is an act of Russian roulette, every decision we make a gamble--all that differs is the odds. If, against the odds, we lose another Orbiter in the next few flights, we could still finish the station with a fleet of two. We could, in fact, probably get to the goal with only one remaining, though the schedule would be further slowed (this all assumes, of course, that there aren't some new reliability issues of which we're currently unaware, which seems unlikely at this point given our experience base). So given that we plan to retire the fleet anyway, it makes sense to fly them out, to accomplish their intended purpose and get some value for the money we're spending to keep the program alive.
The other reason to avoid a loss is to avoid another loss of crew, but that makes no sense, either. Everyone in the astronaut office is as well informed on the risks as anyone can be. If there are some who aren't willing to fly in that knowledge, then there are plenty who will be happy to take their slots. If they (and the nation) don't think that it's worth a one in a hundred shot of dying to complete the space station, then the nation must not attach much importance to completing the space station, either out of some (misplaced, in my opinion) sense that doing so advances us in our goals in space (whatever they are), or in terms of keeping international agreements.
As Congressman Weldon pointed out in Jeff's post, NASA has a serious budget problem. They probably aren't going to get the money to both complete ISS and to keep CEV on schedule. They, and Congress and the White House, have to make some hard choices. The current policy, of keeping the Shuttle program going, without flying, is the worst possible one. Either retire the system now, and put the money toward our future (preferably in some other direction than ESAS, but even ESAS is better than paying for a Shuttle that doesn't fly) or start flying it now. But three years after the last tragedy (a longer period of time than when we were down after the Challenger loss) don't just keep sitting on the pot, as the billiondollarometer continues to tick away.
[Update in the afternoon]
Clark Lindsey has some other links to commentary on the anniversary.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:14 AMMaybe I've got this all wrong, but it sure looks like the EELV program will go down as one of the biggest mistakes, if not fiascos, in Air Force management history. If you include the Boeing cheating scandal, then it's a huge black mark upon the whole aerospace industry.
Sounds right to me.
Sometimes it seems like the DoD is in a heated competition with NASA to see who can accomplish the least in space with the most amount of money.
[Update in the afternoon]
In my pain-induced madness, I forgot the link earlier. Now you can go and, as they say, read the whole thing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:33 AMPat Santy has a twentieth anniversary update on her ruminations from last year's anniversary.
I'm still on vacation, though.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:47 AMIt's twenty years today since Challenger was lost with all aboard. It was the first real blow to NASA's confidence in its ability to advance us in space, or that our space policy was sound. It finally shattered illusions about twenty-four flights a year, to which the agency had been clinging up until that event, but it wasn't severe enough to really make a major change in direction. That took the loss of Columbia, three years ago this coming Tuesday.
Unfortunately, while that resulted finally in a policy decision to retire the ill-fated Shuttle program, the agency seems to have learned the wrong lessons from it--they should have come to realize that we need more diversity in space transport, and it cannot be a purely government endeavor. Instead, harkening back to their glory days of the sixties, the conclusion seems to be that, somehow (and inexplicably) the way to affordability and sustainability is exactly the approach that was unaffordable and unsustainable the last time we did it.
But one has to grant that Apollo was safe, and probably the new system will be more so than the Shuttle was. But safety shouldn't be the highest goal of the program. Opening frontiers has always been dangerous, and it's childish to think that this new one should be any different. The tragedy of Challenger and Columbia wasn't that we lost astronauts. The tragedy was that we lost them at such high cost, and for missions of such trivial value.
This is the other false lesson learned from Challenger (and Columbia)--that the American people won't accept the loss of astronauts. But we've shown throughout our history that we're willing to accept the loss of brave men and women (even in recent history) as long as it is in a worthy cause. But NASA's goal seems to be to create yet another appallingly expensive infrastructure whose focus is on recapitulating the achievements of four decades (five decades, by the time they eventually manage it, assuming they keep to their stated schedule) ago.
Will the American people be inspired by that? I can't say--I only know that I am not.
Would they be inspired by a more ambitious program, a riskier program that involved many more people going into space at more affordable costs, even if (or perhaps because) it is a greater hazard to the lives of the explorers? I surely would. But it seems unlikely that we're going to get that from the current plan, or planners.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:19 AMI'm pretty busy and don't have time to write anything particularly profound about it (I'm about to get on a flight to the Great White North, where we may have a mini bloggerbash in Edmonton), but as I mentioned on The Space Show a couple hours ago, tomorrow will be the thirty-ninth anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire, in which Gus Grissom, Roger Chafee and Ed White were suffocated and burned. Saturday will be the twentieth anniversary of the loss of the Challenger. Here were my memories of that event from a post four years ago. Jim Oberg takes advantage of the anniversary to explode (so to speak) several myths about the disaster.
And of course, next week will be the third anniversary of Columbia's breakup over Texas. I may have more to say on that when the date arrives.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:01 PMI'll be on The Space Show in about half an hour. You can listen live on the net.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:17 AMThree days before the twentieth anniversary of the Challenger loss, Clark Lindsey muses on what might have been.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:55 PMI'll be on The Space Show tomorrow morning (Thursday, January 26th) from 9:30 to 11 AM Pacific, if anyone is possessed of sufficient masochism and fortitude to listen to my latest blather.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:50 PMRick Tumlinson has some space policy advice for the White House. As one of the people in attendance at the meeting last fall that Rick mentioned (and who has signed off on the consensus document that resulted), I encourage you to read the whole thing.
I doubt if they'll pay any attention, though. I think that this administration's space policy is pretty firmly fixed now, absent some new unexpected event (e.g., another Shuttle loss, assuming that it ever flies again), and there are many more critical issues to them at this point, both from the standpoint of the national interest and electorally. I suspect that they think that space policy is currently one of those things that ain't broke, so there's no need to fix it, relative to more pressing concerns. I think that the best we can hope for, at this point, is that the policy is sufficiently non-hostile to private enterprise that current NASA activities and expenditures won't hold things back too much. This is not to say that NASA isn't doing useful things for the private sector, but the amount of resources being expended in that direction, relative to those being spent on centralized (and ultimately unaffordable and unsustainable) fifteen-year plans, remain tragic.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:21 AMAs Clark Lindsey (and Keith Cowing) notes, NASA hasn't formally dropped methane propulsion from Constellation, or CEV. The final CFI doesn't, after all, forbid methane, or specify hypergolics. They simply appear to have dropped it in the final version because the earlier draft version of the CFI so emphatically required it.
However, given the risk aversion of industry, it's almost a foregone conclusion that neither bidder on CEV will propose methane propulsion, absent a strong sense of a desire to have it on NASA's part. The driving requirement at this point seems to be cost and schedule (including schedule risk), which means avoiding any unnecessary technology development programs on the critical path. So despite the fact that methane propulsion isn't intrinsically risky, the fact that it's currently non-existent in terms of the technology-readiness level that NASA will want at the Preliminary Design Review probably assures that it won't be incorporated into the CEV, at least for the initial version. It could, however, be an upgrade later, assuming that the program gets to the point at which upgrades will occur.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:10 AMOne of Alan Boyles' readers repeats a common myth about the emerging space industry:
"OK, rocket-powered planes have been around since the early 50s. Rocket engines are less efficient than jets when operating in the lower atmosphere, and most of these planes will be structurally limited to subsonic speed. What exactly is the point of developing racing planes with rocket engines? They sure the heck will not contribute to developments for flying into space."
This statement is, to put it simply, wrong. They will contribute to developments in a number of ways.
As Alan points out, they will help grow the business of people building rocketplanes, that will allow them to eventually build spacegoing rocket planes. But the emailer probably means that they don't make a technical contribution. This is wrong as well.
Operating rockets, even in subsonic aircraft (and they won't be subsonic for long) will help establish a base of experience for the industry in routine operations of reusable rocket propulsion systems, a critical component of building space transports. Having many hours of trouble-free operations under the industry's belt will start to dispel the myth that rocket engines always blow up, which is one of the contributors to the perception of cost and risk in space vehicles.
It's certainly not the whole answer, but it's a key part of it. We have to move the industry forward, both in a business and technical standpoint, on a number of fronts, but this is an important one, not a sideline.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:56 AMI'm busy writing a proposal or two, but here's an innovative way to get to the Moon. Much lower marginal cost, and exactly the kind of things that NASA should be considering.
[via Mark Whittington]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:31 AMThere's an interesting interview with the authors of The Rocket Company over at The Space Review today.
TSR: With all the information you've presented, shy of seven relatively sympathetic and understanding billionaires and an engineering group from heaven, what other missing pieces are needed for someone to develop The Rocket Company?Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:03 AMDave: Thats really all it would take! Seriously, we dont need any exotic technical breakthroughs, we dont need a government mega-project. We just need a well-funded, competent team to build on the rocket and space vehicle technology that has been developed over the past 60 years and go out and do it. It will probably take more money than some of the alt.spacers like to guesstimate, so it may indeed take more than one angel to pay for all of it.
Patrick: Although we've done some back of the envelope calculations and simulations, and have run the idea by a few experts in the field, nothing like a complete engineering study has been done. The point of the book is to flesh out a scenario for developing a vehicle that everyone with some understanding of the field would have to agree could be done. The problems for which there arent such straightforward solutions, like heat shields and recovery systems, are ordinary engineering challenges not requiring any large technology development program.
But, hey, if it was, no one would bother to shell out a couple hundred thousand for the real thing, right?
Chuck Lauer of Rocketplane emails that they have a streaming video of a computer-generated movie of one of their suborbital flights over at Pure Galactic (apparently a new spaceline on the block). I was surprised to see that the modified Learjet has a "V" tail.
He's interested in comments on the soundtrack. It's a little too new agey and native Americany for my taste, and the musical transitions don't evoke the visual ones to me. But what do I know?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:18 PMThomas James beats the eternally clueless Bruce Gagnon with a heavy cluebat. One could say that he beats him senseless, but it's so short a journey that it would be pointless.
It does bring to mind an interesting issue. If we do ever achieve the desideratum of low-cost, high-volume launch, will it become a significant contributor to atmospheric pollution? As Thomas points out, Jet A and oxygen overwhelm rocket exhaust by orders of magnitude, so it's hard to imagine lox/RP, lox-hydrogen or even lox-methane as being a problem, but I can see a point at which solids might be banned (though I suspect that they'd have long before that point been eliminated as unsafe and uneconomical).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:29 AMI'm struggling through my Internet issues to do a little posting tonight. Mike Griffin was interviewed by the BBC, and had some interesting comments. Think of this less as a fisking, than an analysis of what's really going on in the agency.
...having spent about Ł1.5bn on returning the shuttle to flight last August, how could the same problem that killed seven astronauts on Columbia have happened again?The agency did the best it could, according to Dr Griffin. His engineers couldn't carry out test flights to understand what went wrong, so they had to rely on modelling the problem and then try to fix it for Discovery's mission.
This, in a nutshell, is the problem not only with the Shuttle, but with current launchers in general, and the reason that we cannot either reduce costs or improve reliability. We can't "carry out test flights to understand what went wrong." This is because the marginal cost per flight of all of them (including, perhaps exemplified by the Shuttle, which was supposed, by virtue of its reusability, to have low marginal costs) is so high as to be unaffordable for the purposes of doing test flights. And NASA is doing absolutely nothing to change this.
Before the Columbia tragedy, the space station was in trouble - ambitious plans to build a research lab in the sky were being scaled back as its costs began to increase beyond expectations.Now Nasa has to make up for lost time and somehow finish off the ISS before the remaining shuttle fleet is retired in four years' time.
Dr Griffin claims it can be done, but only by using all the remaining planned shuttle missions to take up and bolt on the outstanding modules.
All of them? What happened to the Hubble mission? I hope that this is a misquote, or a slip of the tongue.
Publicly, Dr Griffin defends the International Space Station and the shuttle programme. But my sense was that he regards them as follies from a bygone age.He will do whatever he needs to in order to meet international commitments; but he's keen to move on to President Bush's programme to send people back to the Moon, Mars and beyond. So I asked him directly - was the shuttle and all that went with it a mistake?
Dr Griffin says it is time for Nasa to move on and do other things. "I wouldn't characterise the space shuttle as a mistake. I would characterise the decision that America made 35 years ago to retreat from further lunar and Mars missions as a mistake.
No, of course he wouldn't characterize it as that--he learned his lesson from the last time that he committed that faux pas (defined as a politician accidentally telling the truth). But the fact that he now denies it doesn't mean that it isn't true.
And in response, here's a nice bit of understatement by Joe Rothenberg:
Joe Rothenberg, head of NASA's manned space programs from 1995 to 2001, defended the programs for providing lessons about how to operate in space. But he conceded that "in hindsight, there may have been other ways."
Yes. Yes, there may have been.
[Update on Friday afternoon]
Clark Lindsey has additional thoughts on this, and on some other things that Dr. Griffin has said recently.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:39 PM...but head over to Space Transport News, and keep scrolling. Lots of good stuff.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:05 AMWell, the "safe, simple, soon" launch vehicle doesn't seem to be as simple or soon as advertised. I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you.
Whether or not it's safe remains to be seen.
[Update on Thursday morning]
Chair Force Engineer has some further uncharitable thoughts:
It would be wise to ask the engineers behind the Exploration Systems Architecture Study, Was "The Stick" really better than Delta & Atlas, or did you just do what Scott Horowitz told you to do?
[Another update on Thursday afternoon]
Jon Goff isn't impressed, either.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:42 AMSaturday was a little-noted anniversary for the space program. Jeff Foust has some thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:29 AMFAA's authority from Congress extends only to takeoff and landing. This is duly implemented in the new proposed regs. The Outer Space Treaty makes the US liable for damages caused by US spacecraft and citizens to other signatory's people and stuff whereever they are. That includes outer space and the rest of the planets. These areas too should be considered and governed for every US citizen and corporation that wants a US flagged spacecraft. There are excellent opportunities for US (mobile home) colonies in unoccupied territory. It's time to appoint someone whose job it is to make that happen. A new position should be created: the Governor of Outer Space Territory.
Like the Space Paidhi in C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series, there would be a need for bridging tremendous cultural gaps between political leaders and spacers, quick thinking about governance modes, and even some rough frontier justice.
Why stop there? We should have an Ocean Territory Governor, a Sky Territory Governor and (an underground) Crust Territory Governor.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:27 PMMark Whittington has an idea to solve the methane problem (no, not that methane problem--that one we'll solve by burning down the rain forests):
If NASA feels that building a methane/LOX engine is too risky for the ESAS, there is a solution. Make such an engine one of the Centennial Challenges. Critics of the Vision for Space Exploration will be less unhappy because that would be another piece of technology developed by non traditional means. NASA will benefit because it gets the engine for the CEV and Mars Lander relatively cheaply.
Well, maybe. The problem is, I guess I don't see LOX/methane engines as particularly risky, at least no more so than any other generic propulsion development. It's not a technology risk (in the sense that there may be some unknowns out there that prevent it from being possible) so much as a programmatic risk, in terms of schedule delays or cost overruns. NASA has a lot of experience with these in propulsion programs, so they're wary of new engine developments (though I suspect that XCOR has broken a lot of the conventional industry cost/schedule estimating models for propulsion system development). Our lack of methane propulsion isn't because it's a Hard Problem, but because no one has had sufficient requirement to date to fund it.
If we have unlimited money for prizes, I guess that a prize would be a good way to fund this, but prizes are better employed in those cases for which innovation is required to solve a really difficult problem that many have attempted and no one yet solved, not for a straightforward development program. Rather than offer a prize, I'll bet that someone like XCOR (or the other companies working on the problem) would be happy to take a fixed-price contract to develop engines to NASA's specs (they could use the technology contract they have from Marshall to develop a reusable cryo tank as a model), and it would be a lot cheaper than funding a cost-plus contract to Aerojet or Pratt. There are lots of other ways to do innovative procurement than offering prizes.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:52 PMWe're starting to see the programmatic consequences of NASA's political inability to get the Shuttle/ISS monkey off its back. I was reading the final Call For Improvement from NASA on the CEV program, that just came out this week, and noted that one of the biggest changes in it from the draft that came out late last year was that the word "methane" had been excised from it, whereas in the draft, it had been baselined. Apparently, NASA doesn't have the funds to pursue this propulsion technology, despite its potential for improved safety, reduced operational costs, and extensibility to eventual Mars (and Near-Earth Object) missions.
The Shuttle and ISS have both been programmatic disasters exactly because of decisions made early in their development to skip key technologies that could have dramatically reduced down-stream costs, and (as seems to be inevitable with a space program funded on an annual basis by a Congress that's focused on the next election), we're apparently following the same path with CEV.
NASA Watch has more on this subject, as does Clark Lindsey:
The fundamental criticism of the Exploration program that has come from the alt.space community is that the program as currently designed will make little progress towards development of a sustainable, long-term, in-space infrastructure. This decision further pushes the program towards "flags and footprints" rather than "return to stay" or "steppingstone to Mars."Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:47 AM
Clark Lindsey points out a potentially interesting program tonight for those of my readers who get BBC2.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:26 PMThis isn't really big news--Burt has always said that he wants to get to orbit, but it looks like Virgin Galactic has made an announcement recently. What will be really interesting is when they reveal the design (if they have one), because the current "badminton birdie" approach isn't going to work for orbital entry velocities.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:50 AMThis year, the Space Studies Institute is doing what used to be known as the Princeton Conference on Space Industrialization in conjunction with the National Space Society's International Space Development Conference, in LA in May. They have a call for papers up for anyone interested in presenting relevant ideas.
[Update on Wednesday morning]
As Lee Valentine notes, the full name of the conference is Conference on Space Industrialization and Space Settlement, making it rare, if not unique, among regularly held space conferences.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:18 AMOr at least without educating oneself on the subject. Over at this week's Carnival of the Capitalists, the very first post is a libertarian (my guess) whining about government regulation of space tourism. This is always the knee-jerk response of small-government types (of which I'm one) when they're completely unfamiliar with the history of commercial space and space law in general.
The FAA NPRM that Mr. Cohen is so exercised about was not a spontaneous power grab by the federal government, and didn't appear ex nihilo, even if he wasn't following the subject--it was the result of years of discussion with the industry, and a result of a consensus between them and the regulators (though there are a few dissenters, but even they don't want no regulation--they just want a different set of rules and a different part of the FAA to regulate it).
Like it or not, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty obligates the federal government to regulate launches. It will continue to do so until we decide to renegotiate or withdraw from it (good ideas, in my opinion, but unlikely to happen soon). There was never any option for non-regulation--the only question was what form the regs would take. Absent any defined regulations for it, it was impossible to raise money for it (because investors hate uncertainty in general, and regulatory uncertainty in particular), which is why the nascent American space tourism industry fought very hard a couple years ago to get legislation to legally define this new flight regime, and expand the FAA's legal authority to explicitly deal with space passenger launches, in a way that would green light investors and not stifle the industry. So far, it has been quite successful, since the money is now flowing, and no serious player (other than Burt) is complaining about the regulation level. If you look at the comments on the NPRM so far (and ignore the nutty ones), you'll see that they're constructive, and meant to fine tune a good first cut by the agency. So far, they seem to be in keeping with both the letter and intent of the legislation.
Before people let loose with their keyboards on this issue, they might serve their readers better if they review and familiarize themselves a little with the history first.
[Update on Monday evening]
Here's an equally naive, but more optimistic (and realistic) take:
Last week, for probably the first time in my life, I got excited by the prospect of U.S. government bureaucracy. The Federal Aviation Administration took a step toward developing rules for space tourism, issuing more than 120 pages of proposed guidelines for space flight participants. The initial set of regulations is set to go into effect in June, and to me its a sort of tipping point, cementing the reality that in just a few years any one of us may be able to blast off into the cosmos the same way we can fly Jet Blue to Vegas for the weekend. Thats an awesome thing, in the true sense of the word.
It is. The government is not always evil, and the people who worked on Congressional Hill (against many other staffers and Congressman who were on the wrong side of the issues) and at the FAA deserve big kudos. They understood the issues, and their own potential failings, and I know, from working with and talking to them myself, that many of them share the dream.
When they get things right (which thankfully happens much more often than one would reasonably expect from a big bureaucracy) we should congratulate and thank them.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:47 AMOf course it is. And, as Ron Bailey points out, there's never been a time when it wasn't, for all the reasons he describes and more, and the Dems are just as (if not more) guilty of this than the Bush administration (contra Chris Mooney's ideologically blinkered thesis).
The same applies to space "science" (though in fact much of NASA spending has very little to do with science, despite the popular myth). And in light of how something as supposedly objective as "science" can get politicized, it's foolish to think that major government-funded engineering projects (like the president's Vision for Space Exploration) aren't, or that the politics don't drive the architecture decisions much more strongly than economics or the loftier goal of building a space-faring civilization.
It may indeed be the case that the "stick" and a Shuttle-derived heavy-lift vehicle are necessary to maintain (at least in the short term) Congressional support for the overall program (though that's not at all clear to me), but we shouldn't fool ourselves that this will result in significant progress in our space capabilities, particularly relative to more flexible, versatile, diverse and ultimately lower-cost means of achieving the desired goals.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:02 AMPerennial "peace-movement" nutcase Bruce Gagnon has finally gotten off his duff and is attempting to put together an anti-nuclear protest of the New Horizons launch:
We might have escaped Cassini, we might escape New Horizons, but with plans to put nuclear reactors on the Moon to power bases there in the coming years, NASA will be launching a host of these missions. One thing we have learned is that sooner or later, space technology can fail.
I'm sure that his nemesis, Thomas James, will be all over this.
But why does Bruce have to bravely pick up the styrofoam cudgel on this one? What happened to the Christic Institute, so active during the Cassini launch? They don't even seem to have a web site.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 AMThe list of comments on the space passenger NPRM continues to grow:
first of all, there should be NO commercial space flights since the pollution from commercial space flights negatively impacts every single u.s. citizen. one flight alone can kill thousands of people. i think this should be solely a govt. endeavor.secondly, it is clear that the most rigorous standard must be used for any person who is permitted to do this by our govt. it is clear this should not just be a jaunt in the sky for a celebrity or rich man, as seems to be going on these days.
the pollution from these flights is substantial. it is time to put a damper on the endless pollution being allowed by those who profit from it, with no regard for those negatively impacted by the pollution from it (their health, their breathing dirty air, etc.
what does the rest of the american public gain from these kinds of extravaganzas? nothing.
Broken shift key. Broken brain.
If you want to read the rest (there are some serious comments up now, from XCOR, Rocketplane and Orbital Commerce), click here, and type in Docket Number 23449. Some of them are very large (multi-megabyte) PDFs. Interestingly, there's nothing up there yet from Scaled Composites, Virgin Galactic or The Spaceship Company. Is Burt just holding his fire? Or still looking for a regulatory end around?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:52 AMClark Lindsey (who is a physicist, at least by training) has more thoughts related to the earlier post.
[Update on Saturday morning]
Alan Boyle has a roundup of (mostly skeptical) comments from the scientific community.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:50 PMLast February, Alan Boyle predicted a 100 year wait for Lunar surface tourism.
I think 100 years to Lunar surface tourism is pessimistic. SA is already offering Lunar orbit tourism. You only have to a little more than eight times the $100 million Lunar-orbit seat price to get Lunar tourism on the Apollo model. You'd rendezvous with a lander in Earth orbit, you'd take two cosmonauts instead of two passengers. The passenger and one of the cosmonauts would land on the Moon. Roughly four $200 million launches. That includes the cost of doing it robotically once, then the price will drop in half. There are about 691 billionaires. If 1% of them want to go, we could be doing Lunar tourism as soon as a few years after someone puts down their $100 million deposit to get it going.
With global income doubling every thirty years, a larger percent of the economy becoming private sector and with concentration of wealth increasing, we could see thousands of billionaires in 60 years. There are 70,000 with $30 million in 2005. There will be more than 70,000 with $120 million in 2065. With thousands of new centimillionaires every year, utilization might allow a cycler that only centimillionaires would use. E.g., $20 million in 60 years garnering a flight a month. That would be 0.02% of them per year, a rate sustainable indefinitely with no repeats. The numbers to orbit would have to be about $2 million, but the big step from $12-20 million to $2-4 million will occur in the next 10 years with Bigelow stations and America's-Space-Prize caliber launchers and vehicles.
With an L-1 station refitting the return portion of the lander for reuse, cyclers, Lunar oxygen, etc., the mature industry price could drop roughly to three times the fuel cost which is only about 5 times the cost to orbit. So $100,000 trips to orbit means maybe million dollar trips to the surface of the Moon. I'd go at that price even if I have to sell my house, take up a major weightloss program and go through years of therapy to overcome spacesuit claustrophobia. I'll be ready to go at that price no later than 15 years when I pay off my 15-year mortgage and my daughter is graduating college. I won't be unusual--with tens of millions of million dollar mortgages with payments of $5000/month tax deductible at 6% mortgage rates, there will be tens of millions of millionaires in 15-30 years. People on both coasts are paying 50% of their income for houses. There's an average of $120,000/year GDP (not counting those pesky local taxes and insurance). That's only three times per capita GDP or the average GDP for a household of three. Median per-capita income is less than half of average GDP ($45,000) so we are not talking about 50% of the US population being able to afford this in 15 years, but that would not be impossible. In any event, there are still likely to be tens of millions of millionaires by then in the demographic for full-price orbital flight and SpaceShot for everyone else.
Like the Economist wrote last week, it will be hard to do conspicuous consumption of space travel any more.
The topic for this post is "Space," but it could also be "Media Criticism." New space blogger Eric Collins emails:
You may have noticed the post on HobbySpace about the so-called hyperspace drive. The linked-to article from the Scotsman is annoying on several different levels. I was really disappointed that this article was making it onto several highly visible blogs (including slashdot).I was preparing a long blog rant about this incredibly speculative, bordering on crackpot, theory when I finally came across a link to the original article posted at New Scientist. This article is much more informative and manages to sufficiently address the speculative nature of the proposal. So, rather than blog about it myself, I decided that I would just try to make sure people were aware of the New Scientist article. And, since your blog is much more visible than mine, I figured you could probably get the word out much more effectively than I could.
Yes, I was going to post something about this, particularly after Glenn picked up on it, but I haven't had time, so thanks to Eric.
The strangest thing (of several strange things) that jumped out at me about the Scotsman article to me was this paragraph:
...if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.
Huh?
Even ignoring the mumbo jumbo about magnetic fields and different dimensions, this is the equivalent of saying "the solution to land-based transportation is to raise the speed limit from seventy MPH to 500 MPH," ignoring the fact that no one has a car that can drive this fast. There is no description in here of how one goes faster than our "dimension's" speed of light, even if the speed of light is faster. The problem isn't speed limits, it's propulsion. Hell, if we could approach the speed of light here, that would be a huge breakthrough. Once we figure out how to do that, then we can start worrying about how to increase the speed of light.
This is another example of how science and technology stories can get mangled by reporters who don't have any idea what they're writing about. And the New Scientist piece is, indeed, much more interesting (and describes what actually is a new form of propulsion, by converting electromagnetic forces to gravitational forces), to those who (unlike the Scotsman reporter) are numerate and literate in basic physics.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:11 AMI haven't had time to read the NPRM from the FAA on the new space passenger regulations, or formulate any inputs, but Jeff Foust has done a little research and come up with some amusing examples of people who have.
I will say that I think that it's a little premature for the FAA to be worried about smuggling on commercial space transports, disarming the universe, or especially people on a spacewalk throwing things at the planet.
As for the concern about requiring that space transport pilots be licensed aviation pilots, I doubt if the FAA considers that to be a sufficient condition, but it's certainly not unreasonable to make it a necessary one.
Meanwhile, over at Space Law Probe, Jesse Londin has more serious thoughts on it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:49 AMJon Goff has some follow-up comments to Grant Bonin's HLLV critique.
[Update at 11:30 AM]
Sorry, that was Ken Murphy, not Jon Goff.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:16 AMOver at the first issue of The Space Review for the new year, Grant Bonin writes the essay that I would write if I wasn't swamped with proposals and other work, on the wisdom of building a heavy-lift launcher. He provides a good overview of the economic considerations, and the myths surrounding them.
As he points out, the cost of NASA's proposed new Shuttle-derived vehicle will be very high, and since development isn't planned to start for several years, there are many events that could occur between now and then to forestall it. It is a shame that NASA has essentially ended any further architectural analysis (unless they're continuing such activity in house), because we ought to be thinking about more innovative ways of getting propellants and hardware into orbit, and storing them and assembling them. That is much more of a key to becoming a space-faring nation than building bigger (and more expensive) rockets.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:45 AMis the midpoint between the high and low scenario numbers that FAA chose for the Proposed Rule for Human Spaceflight Requirements for Crew and Spaceflight Participants to calculate how much of a burden the regulation would be. 7500 flights over ten years with one paying customer paying $200,000 would be $1.5 billion. Rocketplane is building a 4-seater expected to enter testing in 2006. Masten has a 5-seater on their product roadmap for some time after 2008. XCOR Xerus is a two-seater. The Spaceship Company has an operator who says they have $10 million in deposits for flying in a 7-9 seater. 7500 times 4 passengers would be $6 billion over ten years or $600 million/year.
Likely there will be higher prices early and more flights at lower prices later as operations become more routine, more suborbital vehicles get built and competition takes hold. If flight rates grow linearly from zero, we would get 1425 flights in year ten and even if the price drops to Futron's predicted 2015 price of $80,000 per passenger, we would substantially exceed the demand forecast by Futron if this prediction holds up. $500 million per year was a number they did not think would get hit until 2018.
If we double the Futron price estimates (they anticipated $100k prices at the start), we might double revenues, but that requires that all those launches have willing purchasers. (As I've said when Futron first released the study in 10/2004) since Futron doesn't include demand from games, this may be reasonable.
Put another way, reconciling Futron's passenger numbers with the FAA flight numbers, we get an average passengers per flight over ten years of only 2 passengers per flight.
The high estimate for suborbital flight rates by FAA was 10142 and the low 5081 with a 50% probability attached to each. These include test flights and non-passenger flights.
--Update 2006-01-04 04:56:00 CST--
And non-government orbital passenger flights.
I don't normally watch Sixty Minutes, but apparently they're going to have a segment tonight (starting in about twenty minutes, Eastern Time) on Burt Rutan and similar efforts.
[Update at 8:55 PM EST]
Clark Lindsey thinks it's a repeat from last year. Having seen it tonight, that seems right to me (particularly considering that it's a holiday, and they're probably just doing redos). But this year or last year, it's a good sign.
I should note that anyone who is familiar with the story won't get anything new out of it, but it's nice to see it being played to the Geritol set. I doubt if it will result in much, but if even one new investor is brought into the game because of it, it's worthwhile.
I'd also compare and contrast it with the segment they did on Aubrey de Grey, in which they found it necessary to "balance" his prognostications about thousand-year lifetimes with cautionary words from Jay Olshansky. Apparently, Sixty Minutes found the Rutan story sufficiently uncontroversial that they didn't have a need to "balance" it with quotes from some NASA official or John Pike. That's a great sign for the acceptance of this new meme.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:00 PMFAA-AST has (as expected for the past few months) issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) on public space passenger travel. This is the next step in the process by which the useful enabling legislation passed by Congress a year ago gets translated into actual regulations. The public has sixty days to provide input to it, and as a potential spaceline operator, I'll have to sit down and read the 123-page document when I get a chance and comment on it, to both them and my readers.
Unfortunately, that's not likely to happen in the next week or so. Jesse Londin, over at Space Law Probe, has similar immediate constraints, but I expect some useful commentary from that quarter over the next few weeks, and will link to it when it happens.
[Update at 11 AM Central]
Jeff Foust (who has some other interesting space policy items) points out an AP article on it. While I obviously have to read the NPRM itself, just glancing through the article and looking at the reporter's summary of it, all the rules seem reasonable to me, and consonant with the intent of the legislation (though I remain concerned now, as I did then, that the time period before FAA can regulate safety more stringently remains too short). But in any event, the devil, as always, dwells in the details.
[Another update at noon Central]
Liz at Regolith has a summary of the proposed regs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:02 AMProfessor Reynolds has some thoughts, with which I obviously agree:
Space enthusiasts, God knows, have seen plenty of disappointment in the past few decades, as the brief false dawn of Apollo led to years of failed promises and no visible momentum. But we're now seeing signs of new technologies -- and, just as important, new systems of organization -- that make a takeoff into sustained growth much more likely for the space sector. Prizes to develop technology, space tourism to develop markets and help us move up the learning curve, and people with the money and vision to provide the seed capital for both: The essentials now look to be in place. It's about time.
And other than the potential prizes, much of what NASA is doing seems increasingly irrelevant.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:57 AMThere's a little discussion over at the Motley Fool web site about Blue Origin and Jeff Bezos (registration required). I thought that this little bit raised more questions than it answered:
...entrepreneurs such as Bezos, Branson, and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) co-founder Paul Allen -- who funded the winning SpaceShipOne in the X-Prize competition -- appear ready to provide the capital. That's good news for dozens of companies, from Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Ball Aerospace (NYSE: BLL) to Orbital Sciences (NYSE: ORB) and SpaceDev. They're all likely to have a hand in our latest quest for the heavens.
Well, as the old test question goes, one of these things is not like the other three. Why Lockmart, Ball and Orbital? Why not Boeing? Or Northrop-Grumman?
How does the success of low-cost entrants benefit the stock of people operating at high costs, under the old paradigms? Maybe it does, but they certainly don't explain it. Simply saying that "they're all likely to have a hand" hardly makes for a useful (or credible) explanation. This kind of thing makes me question the wisdom of any of their other stock advice.
[Via Clark Lindsey]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:45 AMClark Lindsey notes an encouraging trend in discussion about space:
...both Bezos and Musk (in other articles) cite the long term goal of space settlement as one of the primary motivations for their projects. In the past year I've seen a rise in the visibility and credibility of space settlement as a motivation for human spaceflight rather than simply exploration and science.
About time.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:45 PMAlan Boyle has a useful wrapup. It would have been hard to top 2004 for an exciting year for private space, but things are moving slowly but steadily toward the day that we open up the frontier, with or without government help.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:47 AMMaybe last year? All I know is that, historically, it's unusual for Congress to pass a NASA authorization bill. Usually the thing dies, in committee or because it never makes it through conference, and NASA ends up just working off the appropriation. Traditionally, there has never been much pressure to pass one, because it's largely viewed as symbolic anyway, and the appropriations bill (which actually funds the programs) is the only one that really counts. But with the new authorization for larger prizes, it's a great symbol this year.
[Via Space Politics]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:25 PMOut Of The Cradle notes a new program to look for errant objects:
When fully operational, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) project will deeply scan most of the night sky several times a month. About three-quarters of the sky are visible from the Hawaiian Islands, and Pan-STARRS will use four linked telescopes connected to its enormous cameras to take broad pictures of unprecedented detail. Objects as dim as 24th magnitude250 times fainter than objects detected by the current champ in asteroid spotting LINEARwill pop out of the background and be analyzed for their threat potential.
Now, if we can just get some funding for some creative thinking about what to do about them when we find them (and stop listening to the people at Livermore who've never seen a problem that can't be solved with a nuke). Particularly ideas that allow us to utilize them, as well as avoid them.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:46 AMNASA can now authorize up to ten million dollars for a prize without consulting Congress. The previous limit was a quarter of a million.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:02 AMIt's apparently not a structural design flaw, as I had feared yesterday.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:29 AMHopefully, until the beginning of a new era of lower-cost spaceflight.
[Update just before scheduled launch]
On a fifteen-minute hold for winds. It looks like Clark Lindsey is on the telecon.
I would assume that the count clock will remain stopped at fifteen minutes until the winds die down. They have about an eight-hour launch window.
[Update at 2:27 EST]
Kwaj Rockets says that the mission is aborted (I assume that means for today), but no one else has confirmed that yet.
[Update a minute or two later]
Clark Lindsey confirms. And it's not just weather:
A structural problem has been found in the first stage and will require repair. So launch is scrubbed till next year. RATS!!
Rats, indeed. Better safe than sorry, though.
How is it that they discover a structural problem with the first stage only fifteen minutes prior to launch?
[Update at 4:20 EST]
Here's a report from Alan Boyle.
This seems pretty serious to me. If they discovered that there structure couldn't handle fully-fueled tanks in a static one-g environment, then how could it possible have handled launch loads? Sounds like they had negative design margin at first glance, though we won't know more until they tell us. Fortunately, it's on the first stage, so if they end up having to add weight to it to beef up the structure, it won't have as big a payload impact as it would if it were up higher.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:11 AMGood luck, SpaceX and Falcon. I expect Clark to stay on top of this today.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Out of the Cradle will be liveblogging it too.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:25 AMDwayne Day and Jeff Foust have an interesting history of recent (i.e., over the past several years, prior to the announcement of the VSE) internal human exploration studies at NASA, with some unanswered questions:
...who initiated the discussions in the White House concerning the need for a new human spaceflight goal and why? Who championed the issue and how much interaction did they have with NASA? Why and how did the White House pick and choose between plans? Why was NASAs science-driven approach rejected in favor of the more vaguely-defined exploration goal? Was Sean OKeefe helped by the existence of the DPTs studies, or did their proposals for a lunar L1 outpost and a human mission to Mars seem uninspiring, unrealistic, or too expensive to the White House?
Yes, this history has yet to be written, though Keith Cowing has a point when he complains about the phrase "...little has been written about President Bushs 2003 decision to pursue the Vision for Space Exploration." Flawed as it is, he and Frank Sietzen did write a book on that subject, after all, which Jeff reviewed. It might have been more accurate to say that little has been written about human exploration planning prior to the Columbia disaster.
The story reminds me that one of the problems (in my opinion) with the new ESAS is that it has apparently essentially abandoned EML-1, the Lagrange point between earth and the moon, which was a priority destination for NEXT. I wrote about the benefits of this destination (particularly in the context of a dry-launch architecture) in the Boeing CE&R report. I may dig that out and publish it as a separate piece sometime.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:19 AMSpaceX will be making their next launch attempt at 11 AM Pacific time.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:37 AMMark Whittington has further (uncharitable) thoughts about the late Senator Proxmire. It's a harsher obituary than I'd write, particularly seeing as the body has barely cooled off, but then, I've never been as enamored of large federal space budgets (particularly considering how ineffectively they've been spent, for the most part) as he is.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:34 PMAleta Jackson writes that XCOR's EZ-Rocket flew home to Mojave today, piloted by Rick Searfoss, from its record-breaking trip to California City. It finished its taxi to the hangar the same way it took off--under rocket power.
It was apparently its last journey. It's now achieved (and probably exceeded) all of its original technical and marketing objectives, and its final destination is now a well-deserved display area in an aviation and space museum.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:04 PMIn response to the new Virgin Spaceport in New Mexico, I suspect that Mojave will have to market itself a little harder in California--how about calling it the "Little Bit Slutty Spaceport"? It's closer to Vegas, too...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:49 AMOut Of The Cradle (a site that I've also added to the space blogroll) has an interview with David Livingston, in which he decribes how he almost didn't do his dissertation on space tourism, and how The Space Show got started.
They also have the first part of an interview with John Powell, of JP Aerospace.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:32 AMIn my opinion, the most important thing that NASA is doing right now, in terms of ultimately opening up space for the rest of us, is their first tentative steps toward procuring commercial orbital services. Michael Mealing seems to agree, and has set up a new blog to monitor progress, or lack of it. I'm adding it to the space blogroll.
[Update at 9:20 AM EST]
Michael Belfiore has some industry reaction to the announcement.
Short answer--t/Space is pleased.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:19 AMJeff Foust notes that there's surprisingly little opposition to the RTGs in the upcoming New Horizons Mission (with some interesting discussion in his comments section).
I think that his take is right--back in 1997, when Cassini launched, loony leftists didn't have a lot of better things to do, but now they're so consumed with the war and George Bush that they don't have the time or energy to focus on non-issues like this. As I pointed out in comments over there, when even perennial loony tune Bruce Gagnon doesn't have time to organize anything against it, no one else will, either.
[Update a few minutes later]
Thomas James (Bruce's occasional nemesis) has more New Horizons info.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:12 AMLeonard David writes about space sports, an activity that many have thought about for years, but now seems much closer to coming true.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:45 PMClark Lindsey (whose domain forwarding is still on the fritz) has a roundup on them, including that well-known one in Sheboygan, WI.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:24 AMEd Kyle ponders the current state of the US launch industry. Well, they are making awfully expensive buggy whips...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:42 PMIn yesterday's issue of The Space Review, Ryan Zelnio offered a model for international cooperation in lunar development (begging the question of why this is necessary).
Thomas James critiques it.
Speaking of Thomas, I wonder what he'll think of this scienctifically ignorant hysteria?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:29 AMThat's what Michael Mealing says.
while I agree with Rick and Jon that NASA and Congress could do a lot better, the odds of being able to convince the existing organizations to change is so slim that its hard to justify spending your time attempting to change it. The political reality is that the various Shuttle derived systems exist because no other plan pays the political bribe that gives NASA the budgets it needs to do other things. Any suggestion that causes the standing army to stand down is dead on arrival. It sucks but its just the nature of our system of politics. Its the nature of any large organization.Does that mean you give up and start cheerleading for the Architecture as the only show in town? No. Did Jobs and Wozniak become cheerleaders for mainframe computing? No. They simply ignored the current way of doing things. While their products did eventually disrupt the computing industry rather radically, they didn't set out with that goal. They did it by finding new markets and routing around adoption barriers.
I've thought this for a long time, which is one reason that I don't devote much (unpaid) time or energy in trying to change the agency or its plans, or even in critiquing them. And Michael's suggestion is exactly the path by which space will be opened up.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:35 AMClark Lindsey has some links to stories and pics about their record-setting rocket flight. Here's hoping that it's broken soon, and repeatedly.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:29 AMThat's what Jon Goff says that ATK should do with its "Safe, Simple, Soon" vehicle.
I agree. But we can bet it won't happen, now that they have their own man running the exploration activities.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:06 PMNASA has two new Centennial Challenges:
The space agency is challenging innovators to build an autonomous aerial vehicle to navigate a tricky flight path or robots capable of building complex structures with only limited guidance from their human handlers, NASA officials said.
I hope that a few of these start to pay off soon, to provide incentive to start spending a lot more money on them. Right now, by my count, they're spending about a hundredth of a percent of the agency's budget on them.
Leonard David also has a report on a recent space tourism roundtable in California. The giggle factor continues to dissipate.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:56 AMMore foam cracks on the PAL ramp.
At the current flight rate, if they get it off next fall, the cost per flight will be many billions. Either fly it, or retire it, but stop wasting all this time and money on trying (in futility) to make it safe.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:40 AMThe Space Frontier Society has put together a new feature at their site, called NewSpace News. It has a nice roundup of links to stories of interest to fans of the new (private) space program(s).
Also, Rick Tumlinson has an editorial with some advice for Mike Griffin. Like many of us, he's underwhelmed by "Apollo on steroids":
It's dead Mike. That horse won't run. That dog won't hunt. The fat lady has sung. Or, to bring it closer to space, I'll quote Bill Paxton in the film Aliens: "Game over man!"Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:40 AMThe bloated, business as usual, cost-plus, pork-based, design-bureau use-it-and-throw-it-away approach to space is a failure. The excitement and momentum that might have existed when the president aimed us toward the Moon, Mars and beyond has been squandered. It has been worn down by the dumping of vision in favor of pork, and the jettisoning of the President and Aldridge Commission's declarations that frontier infrastructure building based on commercial enterprise is a prime goal. Dumped in favor of getting a few folks on the Moon relatively quickly (for these timid times) and pretending that this will lead us on to Mars with no intention of making either location supportable long term.
...is to call for an end to controversial debate. I got more calls and letters on this article than I got in a year of previous writing. The responses were polarized. The most controversial item was my list of companies that could succeed if we stop space industry infighting. The list was a mistake--no list can be completely inclusive so better to describe broad categories. I did not intend to exclude companies. Many many companies can prosper in a boom. Not all will be around 25 years from now. IBM is not even in the PC business any more.
Setting aside the list, the correspondence was bi-modal. Half said it's about time that someone said this. Some of these people had Washington return addresses. The other half said it is brutally repressive to cage the intellectual debate, and counterproductive.
I think there must be some kind of inverse square law that says if you have a political party that represents 50% of the people, it has one opinion, but a splinter interest group that represents 1% of the people has 2500 opinions.
There certainly can be a democratic process to arrive periodically at consensus. I favor a knockout auction where the proponents of a position pay those that disagree with it if they win.
Those who agreed with my article probably would think that just about any civility and unity in the space industry would be better than division and infighting regardless of the message disseminated.
Those who disagreed with my article challenged that there was any way to arrive at a consensus without free and open debate that wouldn't fatally taint the ultimate message.
I guess I will have to go on being controversial and dividing people.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:28 AMI haven't written anything about the former Canadian defense minister's recent descent into (literally) loonytunes madness, but Thomas James has a good roundup.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:09 AMVia Mark Whittington, an article in which he (as usual) takes false hope, with a misleading title: "China Aims to Put Man on Moon by 2020."
But if you read the article, it's clear that "China" has no such "aims." The only person with such "aims" is the "deputy commander of the Chinese manned spaceflight program." He himself makes clear in the paragraph following that this is not (yet) a national goal:
But the goal is subject to getting enough funds from the government, Hu said, explaining that the space program must fit in the larger scheme of the country's overall development.
If Mike Griffin's deputy said, "I think that in about fifteen years, we could have the capability to send humans to Jupiter," would Mark then agree with the headline "US Aims To Put Man On Jupiter By 2020"? Would he say that there are "indications" that this is a US goal?
Well, given his apparent gullibility, perhaps he would.
[Monday morning update]
Mark amusingly (as usual) misses the point:
Of course landing a man on Jupiter and landing one on the Moon are exactly analogous. At least it seems Rand thinks so.
First of all, I didn't say "land a man on Jupiter." But then, reading comprehension has never been Mark's strong suit, either, at least when it comes to reading me. But ignoring that (non-trivial) distinction, for the purpose of this discussion, they are in fact analogous. The point is that a statement of technological capability (and we could in fact send a man to Jupiter if we so chose in that time period, not that it would be a sensible thing to do) is not a statement of intent, or a declaration of a national goal. Even Mark might realize this, if he actually read the article he cites with such misplaced hope, and thinks about it a little.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:13 PMOut of the Cradle is live blogging it. They seem to be weather delayed right now.
[Update at about 3 PM Pacific (two hours before the launch window closes]
They need to check valves on the LOX fill tanks and then clear the area restarting the countdown in 1 and a half to two hours. What been driving the delays? weather? equip? Weather at one point - then lox - no other Boiloff of mechanical - doesnt know 3 camera crews at launch site, waiting Anyone streaming live - not sure Possible further update coming?
Sounds like they're cutting it pretty close for a launch before the window closes. I think that they can continue to attempt it tomorrow and for a few more days, though.
[Update at 8 PM EST]
They've extended the launch window, but still no launch. Hard to believe it will happen today (their time).
[Another update a minute or two later]
Paul Dietz notes in comments that they scrubbed the launch. No other indication of this from my limited (in time) resources, but it seems likely to me.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:27 PMToday's Falcon 1 launch has been delayed until tomorrow:
In order to facilitate preparations for a missile defense launch, the Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) has bumped the SpaceX Falcon 1 maiden flight from its officially scheduled launch date of 1 p.m. California time (9 p.m. GMT) on November 25. The new launch time is 1 p.m. California time (9 p.m. GMT) on November 26.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:58 AM
I took a lot of notes at the SpaceX press conference in El Segundo today, but I think that the proceedings will be available at their web site, so I'll just put down some highlights and thoughts. While I was there, I'm probably less valuable as a reporter than as a participant, because I asked several questions. Fortunately (for me, though not necessarily for the company from a PR standpoint), as I noted earlier, the attendance by the media was sparse, so I was front and center, with an opportunity to almost interview Elon in real time. I should note that he didn't say a lot that was new here, but it was a good opportunity to hear it all in one place at one time. This may ramble a little, because I'm one of those guys in their pajamas who don't have editors...
He was clearly confident and happy with the current situation. When asked if he was nervous, he responded that he was actually relieved, because he feels that they've now done everything possible (or at least reasonable) to ensure success of this critical first launch, and are "at peace with themselves."
I think that what came through most to me was that there is clearly a vision to this venture, and that while he's happy for the business from DARPA and the Air Force, the ultimate purpose is not to deliver military satellites cheaper.
He is clearly doing this because he believes that it is important, even imperative, that we help life expand out into the universe (he even explicitly said that--unlike many, he didn't do this to get himself into space--he did it so others could). That's not a usual motivation (at least voiced) for an entrepreneur, and it could cause some stockholders to be concerned that it will take primacy over returns, but this is mitigated by the fact that he is clearly a successful businessman with a track record.
Along those lines, when asked about his lawsuit against Boeing and Lockmart, he noted that many times, if there were victories in such things, they were often posthumus. He said that he wanted his legal victory to be "prehumus."
He gave some hint of what he has in mind for a tourist market, mentioning that a Falcon 9 could deliver a "loop around the moon." One more bit of evidence (besides the launch contract) that he's been talking to Bob Bigelow.
Some interesting (to me) tidbits:
He did say one thing that concerned me. When asked if he had considered a dummy upper stage on a first-stage test, he pointed out that Apollo had tested all up. I'm not sure that Apollo was the best model to follow, given that they had unlimited funds, and were in a race. Also, he said that he thought a successful launch would validate their design, but he's mistaken about that. It might merely validate their luck. You can't go and focus on manufacturing quality from a single successful launch--it will take many launches to develop a level of confidence in both design and manufacturing. I hope that they will rethink this philosophy.
Overall, though, I was encouraged, and will be cheering for them next Friday.
[Update late evening]
Michael Belfiore was live blogging it. Clark Lindsey also has good notes.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:08 PMKevin Parkin has an interesting post on post-graduate education for blue brass. This is a problem not just for procurement and program management in general, but for strategic military vision for space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:46 PMI played hooky today for an hour or so and attended the press conference that Elon Musk held over at SpaceX. Bottom line, a launch next Friday at 1 PM Pacific (Saturday morning at Kwajalein). I took a couple pictures and some notes, and may have more info later. Attendance was sparse, at least partly because all the local television camera crews were covering the fire up in Ventura.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:22 PMI take all pronouncements about the Chinese space program with a heavy dosage of sodium chloride, but for those who breathlessly (and wishfully, if it feeds their fantasies) believe everything they read on the subject (and yes, Mark, before you start whinging about it, this is a strawman--I figure turnabout's fair play), here's a report that says they're three decades from landing a human on the moon.
That sounds a lot more realistic to me than "one year before NASA." Of course, when they do, they won't need to bring much in the way of supplies--they'll be able to check in to the Lunar Hilton.
[Update on Friday morning]
Mark hilariously demonstrates his cluelessness about my attitude once again:
Rand Simberg breaths [sic] a sigh of relief...
No, Mark.
In order for one to "breathe a sigh of relief," one would have to have something to be "relieved" about. I've never expressed any concerns about the Chinese space program (one of the reasons that you continually go off the rails), so it's nonsensical to describe me as "relieved" at news that simply confirms my continuing skepticism. You're the one who should be relieved, but I know that, on this subject, you'll continue to make Chicken Little look calm, collected and rational.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:04 AMClark Lindsey says that NASA's R&D priorities are exactly reversed.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:31 PMI'll bet you're wondering how I'm going to pull this one off. And I'm not sure what the category should be.
But I was reading a piece from a few days ago by Michael Rubin on Iraq, and the connection dinged in my mind:
Iraq is a complex country, difficult to crystallize in a simple poll. But this is exactly what too many news organizations seek to do. On October 24, 2005, for example, the Guardian reported a new poll finding that 82 percent of Iraqis were "strongly opposed" to the presence of foreign troops in their country. Critics of the war seized on the poll to demand immediate withdrawal.True: Polls do not lie. Iraqis dislike occupation. They resent stopping on busy highways for slow-moving military convoys. They juxtapose the Green Zone's generators with their own worsening electricity supply. They fail to understand why U.S. diplomats who seldom leave their quarters must block off the center of their city rather than build their cantonment on its outskirts. They are annoyed by helicopters hovering over their villages. But such annoyance with occupation does not translate into demands for immediate withdrawal.
Polls in mature democracies like the United States are difficult enough to conduct and get right. The task is far more formidable in post-autocratic societies. When pollsters instead ask Iraqis to prioritize their top-20 concerns, withdrawal of Coalition troops usually ranks near the bottom of the list. Restoring electricity, combating corruption, and maintaining security are consistently at the top priorities.
There's reason here for those who advocate big government space programs to be concerned. Yes, in the abstract, people like the space program. But when it comes down to actually setting priorities, NASA is always way down the list, and there's little in the president's vision, and even less in NASA's proposed implementation of it, to change that. Dr. Griffin is riding for a fall.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:42 AMMark Whittington once again demonstrates his inability to understand the arguments against his wacky "Chinese-taking-over-the-Moon" hysteria:
Of course I am assured that the Chinese would not even think of behaving badly in space. That would be "stupid."
No, Mark. What is stupid is thinking that anyone has ever made such an argument. Or at least anyone at this web site. Perhaps you're arguing with someone at some fantasy web site in your own mind.
Just more evidence of Mark's continuing flight from reality, and another demonstration of why it's so difficult to take him seriously.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:37 AMI'm about a week late on this, but Michael Belfiore is feasting on crow.
Michael, there's an old saying on Usenet, which is that the best way to learn something about a subject you're interested in is to post something blatantly (almost trollishly) wrong about it in a relevant newsgroup.
With the blogosphere, the whole web is Usenet now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:47 PMJeff Foust has an interesting report on a speech by Elon Musk this past weekend, detailing SpaceX's long-range plans.
Meanwhile, Eric Hedman is pessimistic about the business prospects for SpaceX. Clark Lindsey responds.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:35 AMXCOR is going to set some precedents:
"We also plan to deliver some mail to California City deliver it, not just carry some post cards for souvenirs," Jackson added. "I dont think that has ever been done with a piloted rocket powered vehicle. We would like to set a precedent..."..."As far as we know, itll be the first intentional cross-country flight of a rocket plane and the first roundtrip under power," Clague told SPACE.com. "Its basically Dicks payment," Clague continued, for flying the vehicle in its initial test program because "all we ever paid him was breakfast and we paid for the fuel."
I'm sure they've got this worked out, but the article doesn't discuss how they handle this from a licensing standpoint. Is it an AVR flight (on an experimental aircraft certificate), or AST, with a launch license? If the latter, California City doesn't have a site license (as far as I know), so how does that work?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:55 AMThe defenders of the ESAS claim that this architecture is the only one that could get political support. This claim seems to be made in the absence of any actual analysis explaining why this is so, and what it is about this particular approach that makes it more (in fact, uniquely) politically palatable than any possible alternative. It implies that any NASA administrator, who knew what was politically viable, would have come to exactly the same conclusion as Mike Griffin did. It assumes that it was the politically inevitable result of any competent manager.
But this belief ignores the fact that Dr. Griffin has been promoting something very like this architecture for years. It's possible, I suppose, that the sole reason that he's favored it is because he was prescient in knowing to the nth degree what kind of plan he could get past the Congress, even in the absence of knowing who would be committee chairs ahead of time.
I think it more likely that the plan is simply what he's always (well, since the eighties) planned to do if he ever was placed in a position to do it. I'm sure he's quite sincere in his belief that this is the best plan, but that doesn't make him correct.
Some have been demanding that I provide an alternative plan that would be equally politically viable. Ignoring the fact that it's not clear that this plan is, over the long haul, if I don't understand why people think that this one is, I don't know how to formulate an argument why some other one would be in a way that they'd find convincing.
I've got lots of ideas of better ways to implement the president's broad vision, but until I understand from the current architecture's proponents why they think that this one uniquely threads the needle, I don't know how to make a case for any other.
Discuss.
[Update on Wednesday evening]
I'm not going to write new stuff, but this subject reminded me on a piece I wrote right after the Columbia loss:
The lesson we must take from the most recent shuttle disaster is that we can no longer rely on a single vehicle for our access to the new frontier, and that we must start to build the needed orbital infrastructure in low earth orbit, and farther out, to the moon, so that, in the words of the late Congressman George Brown, "greater metropolitan earth" is no longer a wilderness in which a technical failure means death or destruction.NASA's problem hasn't been too much vision, even for near-earth activities, but much too little. But it's a job not just for NASA--to create that infrastructure, we will have to set new policies in place that harness private enterprise, just as we did with the railroads in the 19th Century. That is the policy challenge that will come out of the latest setback--to begin to tame the harsh wilderness only two hundred miles above our heads.
NASA has learned nothing.
[Update in the evening of November 9th]
Here's another relevant piece that I've written in the last couple years. I continue to be amazed when I look at all of the pieces on space policy that I've written over the last few years, because I can find few words in any of them that I would change. I am simultaneously saddened that it all seems for naught.
I ought to gather up all the Fox News pieces, and build them into a book. Having to put together a thousand-word column every week does instill a certain level of discipline, and apparently results in great thoughts, at least occasionally.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:27 PMMark Whittington continues to make false and unsupportable claims about my writings and beliefs:
Rand Simberg thinks that the idea that the Chinese might behave badly in space is--well--delusional. He doesn't say why, which tells me quite a bit.
I don't say why I "think" that for a very simple reason--because I don't think that, except in Mark's bizarre imagination, and as I've said in the past, Mark is unable to actually provide any evidence that I do. Apparently Mark is unable to get his mind around the (what should be) simple concept that I might find his fantasy a fantasy for some reason other than some misguided view of the benignity of Chinese intentions.
Jon Goff offers just one reason (there are others, involving basic logistics, economics and physics) that Mark's scenario is so hilariously illogical and implausible, that has nothing to do with the intent or goals of the Chinese government.
[Update in the afternoon]
Oh, this is too much:
Rand Simberg, in essence, calls me a liar without, as far as I can tell, proving it. It's sad when some people can't engage in debate without engaging in that kind of behavior.
As I note in comments, Mark is apparently as clueless about the meaning of the word "lie" and "liar" as those who foolishly continue to claim that "Bush lied, people died." So once, again, he accuses me of saying something that I didn't. Anyone can see above that I accused him of making a false statement. It is possible to make false statements without lying--all it requires is a belief (no matter how mistaken, or deluded) that the statement is true. So, since I haven't called him a "liar," I rationally felt no need to "prove" that he was one.
As for proving that his statement is false, that's kind of problematic, since that would involve proving a negative--that is, I would have to somehow prove that I have never, anywhere, made the statement that he accuses me of making. More specifically, I would have to prove that I have never attributed non-malign intent to the Chinese government, either in space, or on earth. (I should note that anyone familiar with my writings would know that I don't trust the Chinese government any farther than I can toss Tiananmen Square, but perhaps Mark has been too busy making up things that I supposedly write to pay attention to things that I actually do write).
Anyone familiar with logic (unlike, apparently, for example, Mark) knows that it's impossible to prove a negative (though it's possible to develop a high level of confidence about the falsity if sufficient effort is undertaken to search for affirmative evidence, with no results).
But there's a solution to this problem, accepted in science and courtrooms for centuries. Mark has made a positive claim about me, which I contend is false. Positive claims, however, can be substantiated. Thus, the burden of proof is on him. Since he continues to filibuster, and ignore my demand that he prove his multiple false statements about my statements and beliefs, of which this is just the most recent, I guess we'll just have to let the audience decide.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:46 AMIt would be delightful to have a war on the Moon. It would be a good way to spark development and settle on a sensible property rights regime. I don't see, however, the Chinese spending $80 billion on the Moon much less $10 trillion or so to plant a base with 5000 km anti-spacecraft range and the techs to operate it. Unless there is an alternative way to get to the Moon than big dumb government programs, I see the Chinese as less likely to lift a finger to take the Moon than Quimoy or Matsu off their coast.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:26 AMMark Whittington manages to conflate both a strawman and a feverish delusion in a single post:
Allow me to present a scenario. The United States follows the suggestions of Jon, Rand, and others and stops the NASA return to the Moon.
This should have been "Allow me to present a strawman," (Mark's debate tactic of first resort).
Neither Jon, nor I (I can't speak for Mark's favorite bogeymen, those "others") have suggested that NASA not return to the moon. We have merely pointed out that the means by which they've chosen to do so will result in tears, just as it did the last time.
For the delusion, one can go read the rest of the post. It's hilarious.
I'm busy, so I'll leave it to the wolves in my comments section to tear it to pieces.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:09 PMI can't figure out from this space.com article on the new commercial ISS procurements why it's characterized as NASA 'subsidizing" commercial space development. Why is it a subsidy to provide money for services, but not to issue a cost-plus contract?
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey asks the same question:
So when the Air Force contracts with airlines to deliver people and cargo to foreign miltary bases, is it "subsidizing" the airline companies? More likely it is doing so because outsourcing the deliveries is a lot cheaper and quicker than using its own vehicles to do the job.Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:04 AM
One of my partners in blogging crime has announced a new space-related venture.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:19 AMDwayne Day debunks sensationalistic misreporting about the Chinese space program.
Despite Western mediaand politicalcomments to the contrary, all of the speakers agreed that China is not trying to race the United States in space. In fact, the Chinese make an issue out of stressing that they should not race the US. As one speaker noted, They clearly recognize what happened to the Soviet Union getting sucked into SDI. They dont want to repeat that mistake.A different speaker suggested that the Chinese space program, particularly its manned program, was a major liability for the country because it used up scarce engineering talent that was required elsewhere. Every engineer working on the Chinese space program was one who was not building bridges. This is even more acute because the space program is incredibly inefficient, with far too many people working on it. One person who recently visited China remarked that they had asked a Chinese engineer if he liked his job. He replied that it was great, but he only wished that the three other people who also held it would get out of his way.
Yup. I'm quaking in my boots at the Chinese space menace.
Mark Whittington prefers to live on in his dreamland of a new space race, though.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:44 AMI missed Pete Worden's talk on the use of lunar resources to alleviate global warming, on the first day of the Space Frontier Conference, because I was splitting time between it and work in El Segundo. But it was quite interesting, and Jeff Foust has a report on it in today's The Space Review.
It has this curious exchange, though:
...someone asked Worden after his speech, if this system is privately developed, whats to prevent someone from blocking ten percent of sunlight, instead of two, and sellingor ransomingaccess to it? Thats where governments have to say that there has to be some level of regulation, Worden admitted. Unlimited capitalism is just as evil as unlimited government.
This has nothing to do with "capitalism," bridled or otherwise. It would be illegal extortion, plain and simple, and the act of a criminal, not a capitalist.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:28 AMBlue Origin is moving and expanding its facilities in Seattle:
Blue Origin's mission, according to a brief description on the company's Web site, is developing reusable launch vehicles and technologies ``that, over time, will help enable an enduring human presence in space..."...During an interview that lasted a little over a half-hour, Bezos discussed his plans to develop reusable suborbital launch vehicles that could carry passengers nearly into space, the couple said.
Simpson said Bezos hoped to be able to begin offering commercial passenger flights within three to five years of the initial test launches, with the ultimate goal of helping humankind achieve space colonization ``in his lifetime.''
Well, I'm glad to see that someone is working on this, since NASA obviously isn't.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:45 AM"Rusty" over at sci.space.history says:
The Chinese space program is similar to the early American space program.Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:21 PMExcept, Tang is one of the astronauts.
In another dispatch from Planet Strawman, Mark Whittington writes, among other nonsense:
Settling the Moon or any place else in space without a government presence is a fantasy.
I haven't seen anyone propose that space will or should be settled without a government presence. Mark confuses legitimate concerns about the architecture that NASA has chosen to return to the moon with proposals for anarchy. He's apparently impervious to irony when, in his indefatigable NASA worship, he accuses others of being kool-aid drinkers.
[Update at 10:18 AM PST]
Jon Goff has a much longer response.
[Afternoon update]
Robot Guy has further thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:42 AMMichael Belfiore updates his previous post, to indicate that Rocketplane (as I was quite confident was the case) has in fact been in discussions with the FAA. But he persists in his misguided (in my opinion) fear of liquid propulsion:
I say a good healthy dose of skepticism never hurt anyone about to climb into a commercial spaceship fueled with explosive liquids.
While not denying that skepticism is always appropriate to some degree, he still seems to think that hybrids cannot explode. That would come as a shock to many (including me) who watched an Amroc 250,000-lb-thrust motor launch itself down the mountain up at the rocket lab in the early 90s, as a chunk of rubber got caught in the throat, blocking the flow and causing the internal pressure to build up to the point that it blew the bolts on the aft bulkhead, with spectacular results. Hell, even steam boilers can explode (this killed many people in the early days of river transportation).
It's true that a hybrid can't achieve total combustion in the same way that mixing liquids can, but it's a big mistake to think of them as intrinsically "safe" (a term that is always relative, and never absolute). I would personally feel just as comfortable on a vehicle powered by one of (for example) XCOR's rocket engines as by any hybrid, because I'd be confident that they would build adequate margins and safeguards into it to make it as safe as reasonably possible.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:10 AMMichael Belfiore is concerned about Rocketplane's business plan and technical approach:
These guys say they'll fly paying passengers--and not just any paying passengers, but ones able to blow almost a quarter of a million dollars on a what amounts to a fabulously expensive roller coaster ride--in an experimental spacecraft built around a used business jet. Because its cheaper.
Well, there's actually nothing wrong with that. It's certainly an airframe with which we have a lot of experience (though not necessarily for this application). It's not at all obvious to me that it's better to use a new design from scratch. And the fact that it's used doesn't bother me, either. Many airliners are flying safely with aging airframes (and we now have B-52s flying some of whose current flight crews may have grandfathers who flew them). What matters is not age (or even cycles), but inspections.
And there's more, unfortunately. Turns out the rocket engine is going to be preowned as well, of the highly explosive liquid fuel variety. That's because the built-from-scratch engine they were going to use blew up on the test stand.
Without knowing more about this, I can't really comment, but liquid engines are not intrinsically dangerous, marketing hype from SpaceDev aside. It depends on the design, and the margins.
And something for me to follow up on: a tipster tells me that Rocketplane hasn't approached the FAA about certifying their hot-rodded Learjet--surely a requirement for following through with their business plan.
If they haven't talked to the FAA at all, I'd be concerned (and surprised, if not astonished). But if the "tipster" is saying literally that they haven't applied for "certification," I wouldn't expect them to, now or later. "Certification" has a very precise meaning in this context. The whole purpose of the new launch legislation last year was to allow passengers to fly without having to go through certification of a spaceplane (something that the FAA-AST doesn't know how to do at all, and that FAA-AVR, the part that certifies aircraft, doesn't know how to do it for spacecraft).
All that is needed is a launch license. Virgin Galactic may attempt to get their spacecraft certified (because that seems to be Burt's druthers), but if they do, I suspect they'll find out that it will throw a wrench into their business plans, cost them a lot more than they expect, and delay their entry into the market for years.
[Update on Sunday night]
Robin Snelson makes a good point in comments--Belfiore is comparing apples and orange. Virgin Galactic is a spaceline, whereas Rocketplane is a manufacturer. Better to compare the latter to the SpaceShip Company.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:50 AMSlick Goodlin, who lost a chance to be the first man to exceed the speed of sound in level flight to Chuck Yeager due to a dispute over the pay, has died.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:13 AMFrank Borman apparently displayed a distinct lack of imagination the other night at the Smithsonian. Clark Lindsey comments, pointing out once again why we shouldn't take pronouncements of astronauts on space (or any subject, for that matter) as seriously as we too often do, just because they're astronauts:
As I found from books such as The Right Stuff and John Glenn's autobiography, most of the Space Age astronauts, except for a few exceptions like Buzz Aldrin, were not space buffs. They had instead been obsessed their whole lives with flying airplanes. After working their way up to the elite world of test pilots, they saw their selection as astronauts as the ultimate proof that they were the hottest flyboys around. They didn't go through all that just to open up the cosmos to any Tom, Dick, or Dennis Tito.
And as Clark also stingingly points out, Frank Borman should hardly be considered an expert on commercial anything.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:48 AMThomas James notes that:
Michael Griffin spoke at JSC today, and is reported to have said that the Chinese are "five or six years closer to the Moon than we are."
Depends on what he means by "we." This statement needs elaboration, and a description of how he thinks that, at their current snail's pace, the Chinese are going to get to the Moon at all, let alone before "us." If he means Americans, I've no worries at all--the government-copycat Chinese space program is not going to beat private enterprise.
On the other hand, if he means NASA, I suspect he's right. Of course, the way NASA goes about things, I don't expect them to get to the Moon before 2040 or so...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:53 AMKen Silber says that space settlers may be living in caves.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:57 AMThomas James thinks that Elon Musk is trying to get Boeing and Lockmart to pay the development costs for the Falcon series.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:08 AMThe Guardian is talking seriously about property rights on the Moon.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:31 PMThe Chair Force Engineer has a lot of good stuff over the past few days, including commentary on the SpaceX lawsuit against BoLockMart, NASA's architecture plans, and many pictures of the recent X-Prize Cup exhibition in New Mexico.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:13 AMJeff Foust has a good wrapup of the current state of play in the space activist community over the proposed exploration architecture, from this past weekend's Space Frontier Conference, over at today's The Space Review. Bottom line, to quote Bob Zubrin, is that it "sucks." Those in the community who (unlike Space Frontier and Space Access) aren't saying so officially are doing so only to be polite, and operating on the principle that if you haven't anything good to say about it, say nothing at all.
Unfortunately, as Jeff points out at Space Politics, the sophistication of the debate on space policy in Washington is less than informed or reasoned. It's very easy to confuse criticism of NASA's chosen means of executing the vision with the vision itself. Nonetheless, if NASA has chosen a hopeless path for our goals (which in fact they have) we must state that. There's little point in supporting a program that will once again end in tears, after many more billions of taxpayer dollars and more wasted years just because it is ostensibly a "space" program.
And speaking of debate style, Jeff was overtactful in characterizing Bob Zubrin's as "contentious," in which he repeatedly interrupted anyone who disagreed with him, shouting "stop, stop," "it's impossible!" "stop."
This heavy-lift issue is one that needs a vigorous, informed (and civil) public debate, since it's not at all clear that it ever received one in the workings of the exploration team at NASA. Cyberspace, and the blogosphere, would be a good place for it.
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey points out an Aviation Week article that indicates that many are in agreement that the "all eggs in one basket" approach is potentially disastrous (and does little to advance our abilities as a spacefaring nation), and asks:
What is going to happen to the lunar program when (1) there is the inevitable long delay in the development of the HLLV and (2) when a HLLV fails and destroys a really big collection of lunar exploration hardware, and (3) the HLLV is then grounded for a long period?
Hey, Clark, didn't you get the memo? We're not supposed to ask those kinds of questions.
[Update at 7:40 AM PDT]
Clark has further thoughts:
...NASA's plan is already under considerable stress due to budget restraints.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:15 AMThis further emphasizes the need for NASA to focus on lowering space transportation costs significantly rather than on getting to the Moon by a fixed date with a straight-forward but very costly and impractical system. With cheaper space transport, NASA can still reach the Moon within a budget that probably won't grow and may even shrink.
Michael Mealing is chairing a session on various brief presentations of potentially interesting technical concepts.
First up is fellow Transterrestrial blogger Sam Dinkin, who is talking about Spaceshot, his new company that is making a skill game that will offer a prize of a ride on Rocketplane. The game will be a non-dexterity skill game. Tickets will be less than five dollars, the flights will start in 2007, and they will also provide money to pay taxes for the flight. Not a game of chance (poker, lottery drawing). Examples of skill games are tennis or chess. Idea is to increase demand, and offer space travel to the less well heeled (nine billion dollars spent on Halloween each year--wants to tap that kind of money).
Someone from Frontier Astronautics (didn't get the name) is up now. He recently quit Lockheed Martin to form his own company with three or four other people. They're selling attitude control systems and rocket engines. Their first customer is Masten, to whom they're selling attitude control. Still looking for a first customer for their rocket engine, 7500 pounds of thrust, liquid oxygen and kerosene.
Alex Bucolari (sp?) is a student at Dartmouth, and is working on beamed propulsion systems. Planning to beam vehicles to orbit from the ground, either with thermal rocket or pulsed ablation (they're working on the former). High specific impulse , about 800 seconds (Nerva class) and hydrogen propellant. Using a 1 kW System with cylindrical resonance chamber. Working with Kevin Parkin at JPL/Caltech. Plans to build clustered array for orbital system.
Berin Szoka has developed a public policy think tank to reduce regulatory roadblocks to space, and will be dedicated to do this in Washington. He's a lawyer with a background in the DC policy world. He thinks that this community needs a professional organization, like Cato, to deal specifically with these issues. Still looking for funding to get it going, and wants feedback on our priorities. Focus now is on ITAR but will work other issues. Will not lobby, but will provide intellectual ammunition for the foot soldiers on the Hill and in the administration.
Phil Chapman points out three recent developments in SPS development: methane hydrates (enough to meet all the world's energy needs for at least a thousand years) which will put a ceiling on the price of electricity (SPS will have to beat $.04/kW-hr); artificial thin-films of diamond are turning out to be easy to make as thermionic conversion devices, which may make for cheap and light SPS; they have a design for an SPS that is isoinertial, allowing easy pointing at the sun as it goes around the earth.
Steve Harrington of Flometrics is talking about his pistonless pumps, which will reduce cost, weight of engines, and increase reliability. He has a demo in the exhibit area, and he used one to pump a low-concentration alchohol-based rocket fuel (also known as margaritas) at the Space Access conference. He's going to do it again tonight. I will attend the demonstration.
James Schulz of Space Resources, Inc. is talking about his company, which is looking at building large-scale platforms in LEO for commercial uses. They are looking at a three-phase approach: customers first, then transportation, then construction. Expecting it to be customer-driven concept that will lead to large amounts of in-space construction, because best way to stimulate business in orbit is large-scale habitable platforms and labs. Need to start now to be ready when vehicles are ready. Looking for people who share the vision. He doesn't see himself as in competition with Bigelow--sees his timeframe as farther out. Expects developing customer base will take three years, and transportation will take several years beyond that. Market is envisioned to be corporate users. Analogy is building a shopping center, and they're indifferent to what business occupy it.
Alliance for Commercial Enterprise In Space (ACES) by Bruce Pittman. Addressing demand (in biotech area). Biotech needs throughput, and they don't like dealing with NASA. Looking for mechanisms in public-private partnerships that can help show how NASA can work (started with Ames, but also working with other NASA centers, including manned spaceflight centers) Four pillars that ACES supports: supply, demand, capital, and public policy.
Manny Pimente has a company called "Lunar Explorer" completing the development phase of a virtual reality simulation of the moon. Looking for high fidelity. Want to shrink the moon so that it fits into a computer at home. Allows people to "walk" along the surface. Modeling Apollo and other landing sites. Trying to extract more value from data gathered in the past by programs like Clementine, particularly for kids. They've raised $300K to date and are looking for more money.
Alan Crider working with Tom Taylor and Lunar Outpost will provide labs on the moon, for NASA and private enterprise (Lunar Base Systems). Uses both inflatable technology and retrofitting existing technology, to land bases anywhere on the moon. No data on weight of the base (guessing about a hundred tons).
Steve Knight (sp?) is looking at non-traditional corporate approaches to avoid middle management. Started thinking about it after Challenger, in which a pyramid of information flow restricted knowledge at the top and made for bad decisions. Started using internal contracting and decision markets a year or so ago as a new way of building high-tech knowledge infrastructure to build high-tech companies. Will have more case histories to show us next year. Casting a wider net to find people interested. Says to keep an eye on trac.t7a.org for updates in the coming weeks.
Joe Caroll, of tether fame, had developed a new interest, and thinks that most of the people buying seats will be tourists. Has new passenger vehicle designs, but doesn't want to be a big company, so is offering his ideas (patentable) to people who want to see a tourism-oriented practical vehicle happen.
Derek Shannon, finishing up masters at USC, and working on urban transit program (very spacy) and a renewable energy project--an alternative to the DoE Tokamak program. Not cold fusion, but an interesting new approach.
Day's sessions are almost over, and I need to take a break.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:11 PMThis panel consists of Jim Muncy of Polispace, Jim Dunstan (lawyer for t/Space), Randall Clague of XCOR and George Nield of the FAA. These are some of the people largely responsible for developing the current regulatory regime as it has evolved in the past couple years. Dunstan is the chair.
Format is short presentations, with a follow-on roundtable discussion.
Dunstan describing the underlying precepts of launch regulation. Question is how do we get from SpaceShipOne, with a well-informed test pilot, to a cruise ship on which one can take one's family to space. Issues: amount of risk that society will allow individuals to accept, and the overall legal regime. We currently treat space differently from other activities in terms of allowable casualty rates. We've lost a million people on highways in the past quarter century, and a thousand a year in aviation. We've killed 0.56 passengers per year in space over that period. Autos and aviation have been trending downward, while space has long periods of no accidents with a couple blips of seven deaths at a time.
We could build cars that are ten times as safe, but they would get four miles to the gallon and cost a quarter of a million dollars a piece, so we make the tradeoff. In 1918, airplane reliability was 90%, yet we allowed people to fly them and delivered airmail on them. In 1929 we adopted the Warsaw convention, limiting airlilne liability, when we had a passenger fatality rate of 45 people per million miles flown. We apparently decided to allow a lot of risk in this field, because we decided that air travel was important. Currently, we don't seem to think that space flight is important enough to accept a similar level of risk.
Several different models for spreading risk: no-fault model, to encourage activity; "negligence" regime, another auto model, and used in domestic aviation; strict liability, with damage cap via international conventions (international aviation); strict liability with insurance (current domestic launch business); strict liability, period (international space flight regime, due to 1967 Outer Space Treaty and 1972 Liability Convention). The latter treaties make governments responsible for anything launched from their jurisdiction. That's the end of the brief overview.
George Nield follows up to point out that the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 (and amendments since, including last year's) was passed specifically to address the treaty obligations, and the FAA license is the instrumentality that implements the act. Reiterates from morning talk that they have to maintain a balancing act between safety and a viable industry.
Jim Muncy notes that a year ago, this conference was on the Queen Mary, and at that time they were in the middle of negotiations with Congress on last year's launch amendments act. Says that there have to be two different kinds of risk regimes: one for uninvolved parties, for whose safety the federal government is accountable. The other one is involved persons (passengers, and crew) assuming a known level of risk for a benefit from the activity, in which a negligence regime applies rather than a strict liability one. A year ago some in Congress wanted to make it clear that while there would be some differential between these two regimes, they also wanted to protect the people in the vehicles, and couldn't accept that you had to let people learn how to build the vehicles before they could be regulated as aircraft are today. Shuttle has only flown a little over a hundred times, and each event was very expensive, and it still isn't safe after many billions of dollars and many years. We can't know what's safe until we go through a "barnstorming" era, though one more safety conscious than the earlier aviation one.
We have to fly to learn, and we can't regulate people out of being able to fly and make money, which is a necessary activity to learning how to fly safely (just as we did over decades with aviation). Our position last year was that we would rather have no legislation than legislation that required in principle that we had to ensure safety of passengers. The legislation passed last year allows, but does not require, the FAA to start to pass passenger-related regulations after a period of time, to allow lessons learned to be incorporated, while still allowing companies and people to fly. He thinks that the FAA is doing a good job so far.
Jim Dunstan asks George Nield to walk us through what the process has been and will be on the new rules to come out.
He says that from his perpsective, there were four outcomes: put administration and Congress on record of supporting private human spaceflight as a good thing; established an informed-consent regime as the one in which we will initially fly passengers, distinct from the uninvolved public; introduced experimental launch permit, to make it easier to allow launches without the issuance of a full launch license, which is much more onerous, allowing easier research and development activities in a manner analogous to an airworthiness certificate; and finally, AST had to go off and implement regulations for the experimental certificates and passenger flight for revenue. Initially, they're guidelines, which will be followed by a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in December and regulations in June of 2006. The current guidelines are available at the the AST web site. They'll be taking public input on these guidelines now and on the proposed rules after December when the NPRM comes out. Comments are encouraged, and can be provided electronically. They've had little feedback so far, and they think and hope that this is because the current guidelines are pretty good.
Question for XCOR--do they expect life insurance companies to have exclusions for flight as passengers? Answer is that they probably already do, since the activity would be in the same class as general aviation that already is excluded in general.
Muncy points out with regard to lawsuits by passengers or families that cross waivers should be required as part of indemnification (the current legal regime for satellite launches), but the current legislation didn't retain that feature for passenger flight. But the government is not guaranteeing the safety of passengers, and it's hoped that this will be a strong enough message to discourage notions that passengers weren't flying at their own risk.
Break now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:06 PMChaired by Berin Szoka, head of the new Institute for Space Law and Policy. Other panelists are Kerry Scarlott, of Posternak, Blankenstein and Lund LLP (a Boston law firm), Dennis Wingo of Orbital Recovery and Skycorp, and Randall Clague , government liaison of XCOR Aerospace.
Scarlott talks about how ITAR works, and how it serves as an impediment to what we're trying to do. Three export control paradigms in US. Export Control Act (munitions items on the munitions list), Export Administration Act (dual-use goods), and other ad hoc presidential orders.
In 1999 all controls from Administration Act were moved to Export Control Act, which had profound effects on how it affects our industry (there's a lot of history behind this, but he doesn't discuss it, and I don't have time to go into it right now while I'm trying to transcribe). It's administered by the State Department, Director of Trade and Controls. They have a stringent attitude on how ITAR is applied. Small set of regs (forty pages of text). US Munitions List is the heart of it. Has twenty-one categories. Space technologies are covered by Category 15. Includes some basic catch-alls--anything that can be designed, used by a space vehicle or satellite (including technical data and defense services). It serves to pretty much capture everything we do. The "Deemed Export Rule" provides that you can be subject to licensing requirements of ITAR even if you don't actually export--sharing of tech data with a foreign national within the US is sufficient (e.g, plant tour, meeting, etc.) which has become an onerous licensing requirement. Under ITAR, and export subject to ITAR requires an export license, including the "Deemed Exports" described above. These are granted through applications submitted to the State Department, and can take from weeks to months to a year, with no certain outcome. It's a very anal bureaucratic process (paraphrasing here). It applies even to data that's in the public domain--that's been excepted out of Category 15, making it more onerous than any other category. He doesn't understand why this category is subject to higher control, but this is a key point to make in lobbying. There is a Canadian exception, but few others. Most allies are treated almost exactly like North Korea.
After this intro, Randall Clague talks about the prospect of XCOR being an "arms dealer." It costs them a lot of money to remain compliant and out of jail, and they view it as a protection racket. Propellants are on the list as well as hardware, and liquid oxygen, and kerosene cannot be exported. Candle was is on the list, technical data about them cannot be put on a web site where a foreign national can read it. You can buy Sutton, the canonical rocket book, in Syria, but you can't put excerpts on your web site, where foreigners might read it.
Dennis Wingo follows. Founded Orbital Recovery to extend life of geostationary satellites. Company morphed from an American one to a European one because that was where the money and market was. They wanted to choose Dutch Space as a prime contractor, and contract with Arianespace for launch, and use German robotics. They had to find a law firm with an ex State Department guy on their staff to make things go smoother. He has technical assistance agreements to talk about people within his own company, and to talk to European suppliers, and to overseas customers. He has trouble talking to many companies because they don't want to have to deal with signing the various agreements that the State Department requires.
He describes what would happen if Intel had to deal with this (ITAR Inside). For EACH processor sold to Lenovo (a Chinese company), they'd have to hire lawyers for the paperwork, instruct each customer, etc. Each meatting would only be able to take customer requirements, and answer direct questions associated with that requirement. ("Does it have an L2 Cache?" "I can't tell you that.")
They wouldn't be able to include Windows (that would require a separate agreement). They'd also have to have another agreement to include Office.
The American computer industry wouldn't be what it is today had such regulations been applied to them.
European industry has a stated policy of becoming ITAR free. Hundreds of millions of Euros are being spent to implement this. Sensors, actuators, antennae and software development underway, costing us huge European markets.
A brand new 21 Gigaflop process and computer running advanced mathematic software can be built and sold in Hong Kong for a few thousand. An antique actuator requires a technical agreement from the State Department to export one.
Need to go back to Reagan-era policy--Rohrabacher's "Free Trade With Free People's" approach. Deny advanced technology to our declared adversaries (sell them the old stuff). Free trade with everyone else.
This would vastly improve export sales in the US, and render moot the money that ESA and the EU is spending on ITAR remediation. He also points out that we have no appreciation of just what an irritation this is to Europe.
Point in discussion that has to be made over and over. This is not about space. It's about national security, and the current regime is making us less, not more safe, and is resulting in a loss of our technological edge.
The major space companies don't mind it that much, because they view it as a cost of doing business, and it presents a barrier to entry for newcomers, so they won't lobby against it.
Clague notes that he's not opposed to true useful export controls. What he opposes is the artificial and arbitrary definition of what they're doing as export of advanced technology, when it is not.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:14 PMParticipants: Mark Schlather, Gary Oleson of Northrop Grumman, Barbara Thompson of NASA Goddard, Tom Matula MBA Professor, Henry Vanderbilt of the Space Access Society, Ed Hudgins of Objectivist Center.
Schlather: "Ask not what your country can do for you, because you're not likely to be pleased with the answer."
Sense of excitement, amusement and horror at recent events. Lot of activity after a long period of stagnation, resulting from the Columbia disaster. "Focus on space program went away with Cold War, shifting to government stovepipes and a jobs program, due to a failure to present unifying vision. Horror comes from fact that discussion is focused on destination, rather than purpose. Like saying that we fought the second world war not to free earth from history, but to get to Guam. "Because it is there" is insufficient rationale. Purpose in space is not to do "world-class science." Agenda should drive science, not the other way around.
Purpose is to become spacefaring civilization, to be multi-planet species, seek resources, etc. Recent civil space program has been dismal from this regard, particularly when it comes to buying commercial services. Much lip service, no action. New administrator has been encouraging. Noted that Washington Post has rejected these arguments of purpose, even after Griffin stated them in an interview, so we need to do a better job of arguing them. New architecture makes little sense. "Thought of the giant leap of going from a three-man Apollo capsule to a four-man Apollo capsule in just a half a century" makes his heart leap with excitement (note: sarcasm).
Thinks that recent private events may be superceding NASA plans. Making a pitch for "March Storm" lobbying event next spring, will be an important year for influencing the direction of the program.
Gary Oleson: Talking about frequent and affordable access (both for military and civilian needs). Over time becoming three times, fifty times and a hundred times less expensive (latter in twenty-five years). Launch primary limiting factor to space operations, progress has been slow relative to market-driven technologies, such as IT, and no one in government seems to know what to do about it.
Government programs have problems reducing costs. Aversion to short-term risk turns into long-term risk (Shuttle example). Government agencies are mission oriented, and have difficulty breaking out due to institutional inertia. Asks if government should create markets, or nourish them? Government needs to go beyond existing missions to help commercial markets, because it doesn't do enough to provide necessary high-volume production. SpaceShipOne, regardless of what one thinks it accomplished, was done much cheaper than NASA could have done it, according to standard cost models (24 million versus almost a billion dollars).
Recommendations that government coordinate internal demand, invest in technologies, involve space entrepreneurs and look for short and mid-term payoffs. Need to create interagency fora to coordniate missions and tech investments, and encourage/coordinate potential users in defense and intelligence community. Notes that civil agencies (NOAA, NASA?) will also benefit.
Should provide clearinghouse of ideas to support emerging space industries, and suggests a new version of NACA (not a new idea, but perhaps support can be gained for it now). Notes that first decade of NACA resulted in explosive growth of commercial aviation in the late twenties, by breaking the Wright-Curtiss intellectual property logjam. Like NACA, new advisory committee would counsel the federal government on space issues, and do generic cutting-edge research. Greatest impact of NACA was early, when budget was lowest. The coordination function was at least as important as IR&D.
Proposes unpaid committee of government and private, with small HQ staff. Supports commercial and government applications. Must be inclusive and insulated from politics. Government must do it, because only that way will it be taken seriously by both government and private sectors. Must be in a position to propose funding, and be independent of existing US government missions. Would have great payoff in terms of reduced costs, increased capabilities and American dominance of future space industries.
Question from audience: should we go out and start this now, rather than waiting for government to do it? Answer: yes, doing that will force government to act.
What is relationship with NASA? A: NASA will be a client of it, but is too busy with its own problems and has too many conflicts of interest to do it itself.
Phil Chapman suggests that it be called the National Advisory Committee on Astronautics (retaining NACA acronym).
Question about prizes: NACA didn't do so (there were ample prizes from other sources), but the new one might.
Q: How would it coordinate with other agencies such as the California Space Authority?
A: Use the clearinghouse of ideas to determine which are best, and be able to point to state examples.
Henry Vanderbilt:
Taking question literally. We should do things collectively where the profit is too diffuse to do privately: national defense, space telescopes, cutting-edge space exploration, etc. Problems arise when bureaucracies arise to do these things. As they mature, get larger, higher percentage of resources go to structure, get set in their ways with difficulty getting them to do innovative things. NACA was successful early (as was NASA) in their early days, and much less so later. As example, AST at FAA is more innovative than aviation side of the agency, because it's newer.
Proposes that agencies be wiped out every ten years, not allowing anyone to be rehired for a couple years (a "modest proposal"). Argues that disruption resulting wouldn't be as bad as current situation, in which things often never get done at all.
NASA has learned to specialize in launching a handful of people per year with billions of dollars and thousands of people, and have no real incentive to change. Response to VSE continues that broad outline, which they're comfortable with. May not be competent to do anything else (if they're even competent to do that). Bureaucracy's primary urge after it matures is preserving itself, and we see this in both NASA and DoD space (though the latter isn't quite as bad). Holding this jaundiced view will make dealing with them better, so you don't have unrealistic expectations. Don't surprise them with a new spaceship--give them advance warning, and try to point out how much what you want to do is like what they're used to, rather than forcing them into radical changes of their system. Thinks we're in for interesting times.
Randall Clague of XCOR points out that while not surprising them is good advice, don't expect them to not surprise you. Henry notes that sometimes when doing something different with a bureaucracy, you may inadvertently invoke some ancient feature that no one previously knew existed.
NASA's response to disaster: shutting down, analyzing, having commissions, then going back to business as usual.
Advice from Dennis Wingo--to the extent you can avoid government, you're better off, because they're an unreliable. Th ink of yourself as a bicycle and them as a semi truck with the potential for collision. They may not notice you, but you'll find it a life-changing experience.
Barbara Thompson:
Not speaking for NASA (she works at Goddard). In her opinion, it is not the responsibility of the government to make companies viable, but it is perhaps to make an industry viable. She thinks that the government has done a good job in laying a foundation for the industry in the area of space weather forecasting, but it needs more input from industry to move forward. She wants her talk to get us to think about space weather and when the next space weather conference is, because we are going to be flying more human flesh into space in the next few years as the government has in the past four decades, and we need to understand this issue to have a successful industry. There is advantage to us as a company and industry in participating in the continuing development of this area.
Talking generically about elements of risk. Hates phrase "failure is not an option." Failure must be an option. If we are successful, we will kill people, because even cars kill people. Even though little time is spent in the low-radiation environment of suborbital flight, we need to be aware, because someone in the future who develops a brain tumor will blame us, and sue us. Have to balance probability of risk, versus effect, versus cost of mitigating it. Cost of understanding and mitigating space weather risk is fortunately very low.
Need combination of models, forecasts, and robust flight components. Key components are prediction, reaction (postponing activities), and mitigation with shielding and monitoring. She notes that in her discussion with industry, we seem to be on top of the problem. Space weather research is a fundamental role of the government, at least for now. Space weather development will occur in the same manner as terrestrial weather, in concert with the needs of the travel industry. Space travel without space weather may ultimately be more dangerous than air travel without atmospheric weather, because airplanes can land.
Hiding from: Solar eruptions/flares, magnetic disturbances, magnetospheric and interplanetary shocks, energetic particles, "killer" electrons, increases in solar irradiant flux, electric current systems, changes in ionospheric structure, global voltage "generators." affects human health, and electonics/communications systems. Short anwer: nearly everything "interesting" in the space environment is a potential hazard. But also makes for beautiful views.
Current NASA goal for radiation exposure is "As Low As Reasonably Achievable" (ALARA). Recognizes that it's not a good commercial specification, from a risk/return ratio standpoint, and probably not economically. Need more data to refine it. This industry can provide data from its passengers and flight experience. Short-term effects and long-term effects (latter being cancer).
Astronaut exposure affected by structure, altitude, attitude, inclination, time duration. NASA launching a "space weather desk." JSC deals with astronaut safety. She has been evangelizing this industry to others at NASA, and will continue to do so, but we need to start participating with them and with NOAA. Notes that National Weather Service has expanded into space weather. Has estalbished "Space Weather Week," with opportunities to attend "morning briefings, and most attendees say that conference meets their needs. Comes right after Space Access Society meeting. Wants Space Frontier Foundation and Space Access Society to coordinate to discuss mutual needs of space weather community and emerging space transportation industry. She expects us to get to orbit much sooner than many do, and we need to start planning now, so that we will have a good handle on the weather issues as we start spending hours and days in space, rather than minutes. It will be required to make safe the long-distance travel in space.
Hudgins: Problem with space sector is too much government and too much bureaucracy, resulting in stunted sector, like an underdeveloped country. Must recognize that government will continue to be involved, but private sector must lead the way. Future in a private space hotel put up by Bigelow. We see the future in government procuring commercial services. Notes C0ngressman Walker's proposal to provide tax moratorium on lunar base revenues.
No reason to think that the NASA that built the ISS will be able to build a lunar base in an economically responsible manner.
Wants to talk about the nature of government, rather than the role of government. Talking about the moral foundation of government that will provide the moral nature of a future space society. Moral basis for most of us here is Jeffersonian, with autonomy of the individual and codes of values for freedom to act, but also building a society in which we can interact to create wealth. The purpose of government is to protect life, liberty and property of individuals and that actions should be based on mutual consent (basically a libertarian view). Assumption is that US and other governments will be involved in space activities. Suggests a different direction that will be of future benefit. Private actors whould think about how to form consortia to get into space (e.g., Bigelow gets a hotel up, private providers populate it, bases are established on other worlds), using compacts of how to govern themselves. Early US provides a model (e.g., Mayflower, Jamestown compacts). Jamestown was bad, with access to common provisions, but no accountability or individual responsibility. Over half the people died until John Smith changed the compact, requiring people who ate to work, after which it did better.
Shared resources in space (air, water, etc.), but need to allow people to opt out of the compact. Must provide incentive for individuals to be creative (e.g., if an individual can come up with a way to produce oxygen, they should be able to opt out and provide it to others.) Law will emerge from mutual assistance agreements (citing Hayek). Suggests that as we get into space, we think of having sovereign off-world governments, with autonomy. It will be desirable to have earth governments recognize consortia and off-planet governments, with the ability for individuals to be citizens of them. Set up agreements similar to those that allow overseas bases with earthly sovereignty. Also uses Channel Islands as models.
Future is humans creating spacefaring civilization with government structures that unleash creativity, and new manifestation of governments off planet.
Question: Wouldn't current American notion of private property rights be good model to start.
Answer: Yes, and longer treatment discusses transition issues. Talks about recent examples in Eastern Europe. Need to avoid tentacles of government that will strangle us if we allow it to continue to adversely affect space development. Also notes that he didn't discuss military issues, which is a different speech.
Tom Matula:
Proposing a Near-Earth Asteroid bounty program. Discussing standard asteroid threat issues. Two goals that stand out in public opinion of national space goal: energy from space, and planetary defense (he notes that there's large support for space tourism, but not as a government goal--they think that should be up to private industry).
Discussing NEA data needs: composition, rotational characteristics, size, shape, orbital parameters. Best determined by spacecraft. Old west used bounty program for predators. Similar program would be useful for data gathering from NEOs. Federal NEA bounty program better than data purchase, and would stimulate the new space industry by creating a stable market for private space exploration missions. Would generate new technology for low cost, and create NEO data base.
Suggested NEA bounty price list:
$5M for chemical composition, or rotation, size and shape, larger prices for other data (sorrry, charts moving too fast to capture it all). Payment must be automatic, and per asteroid, not per mission (allowing moving from one target to another an a mission). Only one bounty per asteroid. Companies can reserve asteroid for some period of time to avoid races to individual objects. JPL would administer program. NEA would be withdrawn from program only if NASA was fully funded for a mission within 36 months. NASA can launch asteroids that are reserved, but company still gets paid (meaning that NASA would have little incentive to do so). Money would have to be escrowed by Congress once asteroid is reserved. Thinks that program would accelerate both knowledge of NEOs and technologies to gather data on them. Will also accelerate utilization of resources. Fixed price allows high profits with good technologies.
Question about how to prevent data fraud. Answer is to do quality control. Joe Carroll suggests a fee to reserve, with a right of transfer. Question from Phil Chapman (which I would have asked) if reservation is equivalent to a mining claim for some period of time. Answer is that this gets into international treaty issues, but Phil thinks these can be circumented (as do I, since the Outer Space Treaty doesn't prohibit property rights per se, just sovereignty claims).
Breaking for lunch now. After lunch will be sessions on regulatory issues, including ITAR and launch regulations.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:42 AMI'm at the Space Frontier Conference, with computer today. George Nield of the FAA is about to speak about the current state of launch regulations.
Here goes...
Happy to be here with people so dedicated to affordable access to space. Thinks that this is a subject whose time has come. At a key transition point now between way things were done in the past and what can be accomplished in the future.
"Our world is on the verge of a truly historic breakthrough--cheap access to space."
On the verge--a time and a place where public spirit and public policy are coming together to make it possible for public space travel.
Talking about the thousands of people who have already signed up for suborbital flights. Notes events of just the last month--Greg Olsen flying to space on his own dime, the formation of the rocket racing league, the X-Prize Cup event, the Chinese taikonaut launch, the FAA International Safety Forum with a panel on private spaceflight, moderated by Bob Walker, with panelists Dennis Tito, Elon Musk of SpaceX, Will Whitehorn of Virgin Galactic, astronaut Hoot Gibson, etc. demonstrating that people are taking this seriously.
Encouraged by the formation of so many entrepreneurial companies, specifically Virgin Galactic's and Scaled Composites "Spaceship Company." Pointing out that new services initially have high prices, but that price comes down eventually (uses early aviation as an example). Lauding Bigelow's new space prize. Entrepreneurial spirit a key component.
Another key component is growing support in the federal government. Citing Aldridge Report that commercial activities should be a key component of the Vision for Space Exploration. New transportation policy from December 2004: "Government must capitalize on private sector," "Secretaries of Commerce and Transportation must encourage commercial space activities, including commercial human spaceflight." Also citing Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act from last year. FAA must have final rules in place by June, 2006.
What comes next? Emphasis on safety. All previous licensed launches have resulted in no casualties, but they were all expendable. Reusables pose new challenge, but emphasis on safety will continue. Patti Grace Smith noted recently that private human spaceflight will encourage and stimulate interest in spaceflight in general. People increasingly will know people who have flown into space, and will start to realize that one doesn't have to be an astronaut, waiting for NASA to select you, to do so--will be able to fly on FAA-licensed private vehicles. Hoping that many of us will get to fly. "FAA plans to take us beyond the verge."
End of talk. Questions now.
During speech, he said that people at the conference had criticized the president's vision the day before. Along the lines of Michael Mealing, I pointed out that we weren't criticizing the vision, but rather NASA's proposed implementation of it.
In response to a question about concern of overreaction to an accident, he says that people die in aviation accidents every year, but that the FAA doesn't shut down the industry, or people stop flying. Primary focus will remain on safety to uninvolved public, not passengers. Congress and FAA recognize that people are flying at their own risk.
There's a break now. Upcoming is a two-hour panel on the role of government in opening up space, which should be interesting.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:51 AMI've been at the Space Frontier Conference, but was in and out, having to split my time with issues at my current day job in El Segundo, so I haven't had my computer there, and consequently haven't been live blogging it. But Michael Mealing has.
He also useful thoughts on nomenclature:
In light of the desire for budget controls in the aftermath of Katrina and Rita, Congress is possibly in the mood to cut budgets either now or in the future. If the space community is misunderstood by Congress to be against the Vision itself then Congress may not have any qualms about forcing the Architecture to be indiscriminately cut. Currently the Centennial Challenges program is part of the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate which is the part of NASA in charge of the Architecture as well. If ESMD's budget is cut and money has to be moved around to support large contracts with the primes then that money will in all likelihood come from programs like Centennial Challenges. Ambiguous punditry that confuse the Vision with the Architecture now would most likely result in future cries of "That's not what we meant!"Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:17 AM
I learned from Gwynne Shotwell today that SpaceX has delayed the launch of the Falcon I from their earlier planned date of October 31st to later in November. She didn't describe any particular issue, other than that they want to take a little more time to make sure that they get everything right on this flight, which is their maiden one, and will be crucial to the credibility of their future endeavors. Unfortunately, if they delay past the third week of November, they'll lose their launch site in Kwajalein for a couple months, so if it doesn't fly in November, it won't fly until next year.
Good luck to them--a lot of hopes are riding on a company that can demonstrate that orbit doesn't have to cost as much, or take as long to develop, as conventional wisdom would indicate.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:05 PMBut if you're interested in space, and aren't a regular reader of Space Transport News, you should be, and there's lots of good stuff over there today.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:35 PMFolks in southern California will have an opportunity to see the last Titan IV launch out of Vandenberg in about an hour, at 11:04 AM Pacific time. If the sky is clear, go outside and look to the west. Spaceflightnow is blogging the countdown.
[Update a couple minutes later]
To clarify, it's the last Titan IV (or Titan anything) launch, period. It just happens to be launching out of Vandenberg. And with its retirement, Delta IV can take over as reigning pad queen.
[Update at 11 AM PDT]
I don't know if it was the Transterrestrialanche, or what, but SpaceFlightNow is now down.
[Update at 11:30 PDT]
Well, it apparently launched, but I didn't see it. There was a slight marine layer, and it may have obscured the view.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:17 AMDoD space programs are a management mess.
[Via Kevin Parkin]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:21 AMAlan Boyle has an interesting report from New Mexico:
The "giggle factor" that often dogged the space tourism industry in the pre-SpaceShipOne era is gone forever. "Now the idea of personal spaceflight can come out of the closet," Michael Kelly, vice president of the X Prize Foundation, told an audience of more than 200 at New Mexico State University here.
Jeff Greason explains the importance of these kinds of events, and the suborbital industry, despite the foolish naysayers who think it has nothing to do with orbit:
"We don't know how to make spaceships that can fly a couple of times a day, every day for years," he said. "We don't know how to fly so safely and so reliably that we can fly people as a business. We don't know how to make money yet. ... If we're ever going to free ourselves from the kinds of fits and starts, one spurt of energy per generation, little incremental bits of progress that characterize government funding in space, we've got to start making a profit. And we don't know how to do that yet. We don't know any of those things. But we think we have pretty good ideas about how to solve them, and we aren't the only ones."
He also had some good news:
"We are off the back burner [with the Xerus project], but we don't have enough money that I can confidently say we can finish working on the vehicle," Greason told MSNBC.com.
Other interesting news:
Tai told the audience of rocket entrepreneurs and enthusiasts at Thursday's symposium that Virgin Galactic wasn't necessarily locked into using SpaceShipOne design exclusively, just as the Virgin Atlantic airline isn't locked into using a specific kind of airplane."We want to partner with all of the people in this industry. ... If you have a better spaceship than Burt Rutan, then Virgin Galactic wants to operate that spaceship," Tai said.
In other words, they want to be a spaceline.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:16 AMI'm going to be attending this conference in LA in a couple weeks. Those who are interested in the other space program may want to do so as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:16 AMYou know, if Tom Hanks could stop being so enthralled with NASA, and use his money and influence to help out some of the private players in space, he might actually be able to get to the moon before 2018. And they'd even be willing to build a vehicle that can handle his 6'1" frame.
[via Fred Kiesche]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:07 PMClark Lindsey just got back from the Air and Space Museum. He's got pictures.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:20 PMThat's the title (except theirs is declarative, not interrogative) of an op-ed piece in the business section of today's Journal (sorry, subscription required) by Holman Jenkins, in which he quotes yours truly, Henry Vanderbilt and Charles Lurio:
We put these views in the paper as a public service. NASA can be expected to dismiss them. Most of the media, bound up in its notion of legitimate "sources," reports only the views of NASA, the lobbying sector and the congressional delegations whose main interest is keeping the pork flowing.Political reality is that government does not admit mistakes, briskly decide not to throw good money after bad, junk failing organizations and start over with a clean sheet. That's what business does.
To his credit, and at the risk of ridicule, NASA's Mr. Griffin has at least given the best explanation of why space colonization is important: survival of the species over the long term. Yet already visible is the unworkable budget logic that's destined remorselessly to deflate NASA's conceit that only a government-led program, at a cost of billions of dollars per astronaut, can get personnel and equipment the first 100 miles of whatever journeys we take to elsewhere in the solar system.
NASA's core competence, which Mr. Griffin is fighting to retain, consists of treating space as fit terrain for occasional budgetary blowouts, with the inevitable intervening hangovers.
This may be a way to keep its massive civil service and contractor armies together. But it's the enemy of routine access to earth orbit, which would allow space finally to become a thriving part of our human economy and make it affordable to contemplate a permanent human presence on the moon and Mars.
Note the new media flavor. Also, go check out Henry's latest thoughts (probably not a permalink):
This plan is crippled from the start, in that it doesn't contemplate more than minor trims and reshuffles of the current Shuttle/Station standing army, and it calls for development of not one but two major new NASA-proprietary launch vehicles rather than working with existing US and world commercial launch assets. The combination ensures costs will be far too high for the program to have any chance of doing sustainable deep-space exploration over the long term - possibly too high to allow NASA to even make it past the first major hurdle, simultaneous winddown of Shuttle/Station and development of the oversized new "CEV" Shuttle-minus-the-payload-bay and the large new CLV launcher to lift it.
[Update at mid morning]
This part bears a little comment:
It may not be important in the grand scheme of things, a $16 billion a year agency. But one thing has changed: There's now a popular constituency for space policy that does more than just tune in for the blast-off extravaganzas. Blame the Web: We told you last year how seething space fans had kept Congress's feet to the fire and ended up saving a bill designed to speed development of private space tourism.The same folks are also a source of critique of NASA's Exploration Systems Architecture Study, issued last month, mostly in consultation with the usual suspects -- the giant aerospace contractors, who've been NASA's primary iron triangle sounding board since Gemini. Now there's an effective peanut gallery, their voices magnified by the Web, which has sprouted numerous sites devoted to criticizing and kibitzing about NASA.
This plan actually wasn't in consultation with the usual suspects, or at least not all of them (other than probably ATK-Thiokol for the SRB, and Lockmart for ET mods). At least in Boeing's case, this architecture is not at all what they recommended in their architecture studies. The sixty-day study was strictly a NASA-internal activity, initiated and led by Mike Griffin and Doug Stanley, and as far as I can tell, they paid little attention to industry input, except what they needed from the contractors named above to flesh out their Shuttle-derived designs.
[4 PM EDT update]
Instapundit has more excerpts, including the quotes.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:36 AMKeith Cowing says that this is more bad news for NASA, but I disagree. If the cause was worker carelessness, at least we now know what it is, and it's easily fixable, by retraining workers, or hiring new ones. Ideally, of course, you'd like to have a system that's not so sensitive to the individuals who have to implement it, but at some point, the people are part of it, and you have to look for quality there as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:58 PMOver at Reason, Ted Balaker takes a whack at NASA. It's not always fair:
When I interviewed him earlier this year, X Prize winner Burt Rutan pointed out that after almost half a century of manned space flight, NASA still hasn't achieved the kind of safety breakthroughs his small team achieved in a just a few years. Take the "care-free re-entry" design. It allows Rutan's SpaceShipOne to align itself automatically for reentry, making it much safer to plunge back into the earth's atmosphere. Although Rutan's ship only returns from suborbital space, the design takes the traditionally complex process of reentry and makes it simple.
Emphasis mine. That "although" makes all the difference. Burt's approach wouldn't work for an orbital entry, and it's not a valid comparison. Entry from orbit is a tough problem, and it's going to take a lot of experience and approaches to figure out how to do it safely.
And when he writes:
...when they're not swimming in tax dollars, inventors come to appreciate the value of simplicity. Take the hatch, for example. Private astronaut Brian Binnie explained to The Space Review's Eric Hedman that SpaceShipOne's hatch opens inward and has no moving parts. Binnie estimates that it costs a couple hundred bucks. Compare that to the multimillion dollar shuttle hatch which swings outward and requires complicated mechanisms to seal it for flight.
While the principle of parsimony is good, this is a dumb example. NASA's hatch designs are a legacy of the Apollo I fire. I hope that Burt doesn't kill too many people before he figures out that there are sometimes good reasons for the way NASA does things.
I do agree with this, though, at least in concept if not detail:
How many cosmic hints does NASA need to realize that it might not be long before it's eclipsed by space entrepreneurs? If it wants to stay in the game, NASA should move from player to manager: Spell out the mission, offer a nice reward for its completion, and kick back until someone collects the dough. NASA could borrow from a suggestion made by the Aldridge Report, itself the result of a presidential commission, and offer, say, $1 billion "to the first organization to place humans on the Moon and sustain them for a fixed period."Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:34 PM
Speaking of a new space age, this is a real coup for XCOR. It's been a long slog since the EZ-Rocket first flew, four years ago, but they may now be able to raise the money they need to build a vehicle, and not just engines. In fact, in rereading that old post, it's remarkable how prescient it was:
While EZ-Rocket doesn't fly high, or fast--unlike NASA's reusable rocket programs--it actually flies. And in fact, though it doesn't fly particularly high, or fast, it is a testament to the neglect of this field that, had XCOR bothered to call the appropriate French certification agency to have them witness today's flight, they would have simultaneously awarded it the new world's records for height, speed, and time to climb for a rocket plane.It not only flies, but it can, given small amounts of money (equivalent to just a fraction of the overruns on programs like X-34 and X-33), fly every day, or twice a day, for mere hundreds of dollars per flight. And the experience developed from it can lead to bigger, faster rocket planes, that can also fly every day, or twice or thrice a day, and teach us how to fly rocket planes, and by selling experiment time, or even (heaven forfend!) rides to wealthy people who want a thrill, make a little money while doing it. We may have rocket racing competitions, sponsored by ESPN, or the Xtreme Sports Channel, or Pratt & Whitney.
Now, let's hope this prediction works out as well:
And the records will get faster, and higher, and the revenues will grow, until we are offering rides to orbit, and people (with fortunes less than Bill Gates and Larry Ellison) are buying. And then some crazy fool will develop a space suit, and haul up enough parts to build a space hotel, and we'll offer week-long stays, instead of barn-storming joy rides. And someone else will actually rent space in the hotel and perhaps do some research, or figure out how to build something bigger, like a Mars mission vehicle, that can be afforded by the Planetary Society, or the Mars Society, or even the (renamed?) National Geographic Society.
Jon Goff has similar thoughts, and congratulations to XCOR.
[Update at 10 AM EDT]
Michael Belfiore has more:
Initially XCOR will build 10 rocket racers. My editor tells me that these babies will cost $1 million each, so that will be a nice boost to XCOR's finances.
It will indeed, assuming that they can build them for less than that (and I think that's a pretty good assumption).
Belfiore also has a story in Wired about John Carmack and Armadillo.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:21 AMTwo years from today, it will have been half a century since the launch of Sputnik and the beginning of the old space age. Sadly, rather than initiate a new one, NASA seems determined to prolong the old one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 AMClark Lindsey points out that, while there may be many good arguments against NASA's human spaceflight program, the notion that we can't afford it is ludicrous.
It's really tragic that the debate is so simple minded. There seems little point in debating whether or not NASA should continue to spend money on manned spaceflight--that seems to be inevitable, for reasons of inertia, perceived prestige, and (most importantly) pork. So, as Clark points out, if we could accept that as a given, it would be nice to have an intelligent discussion about how NASA spends the money that they seem inevitably to be given. Unfortunately, that debate is driven largely by pork as well.
[Update at 8:50 AM EDT]
Jeff Foust has an article about media reaction over at The Space Review this morning.
[Late afternoon update]
There's an interesting discussion in comments at this post by Jeff Foust at Space Politics, including comments on the existence of lunar water by Paul Spudis.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:32 AMThe Washington Post has an editorial against the Vision for Space Exploration in general, and Mike Griffin's implementation plans in particular. As usual, there are unstated assumptions built in:
...we believe that the needs of NASA -- and the country -- can, at this point, be better served by continuing and expanding robotic exploration.
But what are those needs? They don't say. They think they know what they are, and assume that everyone agrees with them. But I can't think of any needs of mine that are met by sending robots to other planets. NASA obviously has some need to do so, because they do so, but clearly that doesn't satisfy the sum total of their needs either.
Once again, we have clueless pundits making policy pronouncements when we haven't had a national discussion or debate about what the purpose is of having a national space program and policy. Until that happens, it will continue to be driven by the needs for pork in certain congressional districts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:20 AMOn 9/27 Tierney's column in the New York Times (subscription required; the cheapest option is get home delivery and go on permanent vacation hold) again picked up the alt.space agenda of colonization. His advice, "If officials hope to get money for NASA's new program of manned exploration, I suggest they go to Capitol Hill with a two-word sales pitch: gray goo."
I second the sentiment that civilization protects and heals itself, but a rich planet can afford a stylish colony just in case the unthinkable happens.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:42 AMThomas James investigates and dissects the moonbat space agenda.
[Late morning update]
A commenter asks what a "moonbat" is. Short answer is a leftist idiotarian. Here's a picture of the subspecies barking moonbat, but google the word and you'll come up with plenty of examples and more images.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:24 AMDan Wiener wants to use space elevators to prevent hurricanes.
And if we could get them to lance volcanoes, Jonah Goldberg would probably get behind the project, too.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:22 PM...and about a hundred million more to go. Liftport had a successful space elevator climber test.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:23 PMThomas McCabe fires a broadside at Bob Zubrin, with an article about the irrelevance of the Martian frontier.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:52 PMRobin Snelson reports on the "losers" of the X-Prize competition. It's a good survey of what's going on in the suborbital world right now, and some of them could still end up being winners.
Also at today's issue of The Space Review, Taylor Dinerman wonders whether NASA will renege on its launch deal with the Air Force (my money's on "yes"). I think the piece is mistitled. The question isn't whether NASA can keep up its end of the deal, but whether it will.
Also, Jeff Foust has a movie review from the premiere of Tom Hanks' Magnificent Desolation.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:39 AMSomeone over at Free Republic (see comment #11) had an amusing comment on the space elevator concept, which brings up a serious issue:
So this elevator "would crawl up a single cable into space over several days." How would people be able to not start up conversations for that long? Would they be allowed to make eye contact or would they have to look up at the ceiling? What if there's a pretty girl on the elevator? And would they pipe in Muzak? These are the things that would have to be worked out.
For this reason, and perhaps safety reasons, even if elevators are built, they may be used primarily for bulk cargo, rather than passengers. Given my acrophobia, I know that I personally wouldn't want to ride one--I don't even like elevators in medium-size buildings, and you couldn't get me into a glass one of more than a story or two on a bet.
I still suspect that there will be a market for reliable space transports to get people quickly to and from LEO. From there, cheap propellants made possible by use of extraterrestrial resources (and perhaps the elevator for more sophisticated equipment) will open up the other "half of the way to anywhere."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:09 AMKevin Connors is arguing with Sir Arthur C. Clarke (the guy who invented geostationary orbit, and popularized the concept of space elevators) about the technical viability of the latter. All I can say is that he's a braver man than I. He's also a little confused about orbital mechanics:
...orbit in the Clarke Belt is achieved because the centrifugal force of the orbiting satellite exactly matches the force imparted upon it by gravity.
Well, this is sort of correct, but oversimplifed. In reality, there's no such thing as a centrifugal force, but one can pretend there is in the rotating (non-inertial) reference frame. It's more correct to say that the centripetal acceleration exactly matches that of gravity at that altitude.
Propelling a payload up a tether attached to that satellite would upset that equilibrium. Further, their is the distributed mass of the tether itself to consider. It is therefore necessary that the satellite be in a far lower orbit, in order to maintain tension on the tether.
This is where he goes off the tracks. I don't know why he thinks a lower orbit would be required (or what he means when he says "satellite").
A space elevator is designed to have its center of mass at a point beyond geostationary orbit. The idea is to have a balance between the forces that would provide sufficient tension in the cable. During construction, the anchor would initially be in GEO, but as the cable is dropped from it, it will move upward to keep the CM at GEO altitude, to maintain a geostationary period. Once the cable has reached down to earth, the other end is anchored. At that point, you'd continue to reel it out, but moving the anchor up to increase tension in the cable to whatever was desired, at which point the geostationary orbital period is maintained by being attached to the planet. The old conventional wisdom (if such a phrase makes sense in the context of a concept like this) was that one might use a small asteroid for the anchor. Newer concepts don't require as much mass, but in either case, there will be sufficient mass, at a sufficient supergeostationary altitude to allow motion up and down without major issues.
Indeed, the path the transport vehicle takes to reach the satellite will not be a straight path, as is popularly envisioned, but a great parabolic arc.
Again, I don't know what he means by this, but (also again) the path will depend on the reference frame. From the reference frame of a rotating earth, the path will follow the cable, which is to say straight up to GEO (where the weightless docking station would be, though the elevator structure would continue on to higher altitude, as described above). From an inertial frame, the path would appear to be a spiral, as the car orbits the earth once per day with increasing altitude. There will be some coriolis force on the moving car as a function of its velocity and altitude (as there is in an earthly elevator car), but the tension of the cable will be designed to be sufficient to prevent it from bending it much.
From a basic physics standpoint, the concept is fine, and can be easily simulated, honest.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:21 PMWhile Andrew Sullivan makes many good points in this Times piece, in which he accuses George W. Bush of being a socialist, he damages his credibility, at least to those familiar with space policy, with this:
...when Katrina revealed that, after pouring money into both homeland security and Louisianas infrastructure, there was still no co-ordinated plan to deal with catastrophe, a few foreheads furrowed.Then there was the big increase in agricultural subsidies. Then the explosion in pork barrel spending. Then the biggest new entitlement since Lyndon Johnson, the Medicare drug benefit. Then a trip to Mars.
There is no trip to Mars. NASA just announced their plans for the next decade and a half, and they did not involve Mars in any way, other than as a long-term goal that the lunar missions would ostensibly support. Space is one of the few areas of federal spending that hasn't exploded under Bush. I'm not a big fan of the specifics of the new plan, but his new policy didn't create new spending for NASA--it simply redirected how the money that they'd have been getting in the future, anyway, would have been spent.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:08 PMBusiness 2.0 has a list of nine trendy fads to ignore. One of them is space tourism:
Travel to the final frontier is riskier than buying a vacation home in Aspen. When the first billionaire perishes in the icy void of space, itll take years for this nascent industry to bounce back.
This is...what's the technical business phrase for it?...oh yeah--ignorant nonsense, just like Alex Tabarrok's dumb piece at TCS a few months ago, which I promptly dismantled.
It's wrong on two counts. First, it's not all that intrinsically risky, at least for the suborbital market, which is what will mostly be happening in the near term. And second, a death of a billionaire wouldn't kill it at all, unless one wants to argue (in the face of the counterreality) that all the deaths of millionaires climbing Everest, or doing helicopter skiing, or the other risky things that some wealthy people do has killed those businesses off.
To me, this is simply good publicity, since they spelled the name right. If someone is calling it a "fad to ignore," it means that it has at least percolated sufficiently into the public consciousness that someone feels compelled to tell us to ignore it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:00 AMMore of a note to myself, if anything, to be expanded on later, in another venue.
It strikes me that NASA's response to the president's challenge is a statement of fundamental unseriousness about it.
A serious program to go back to the Moon, and beyond, would be based on a foundation of an infrastructure that would dramatically reduce the marginal costs of getting to orbit, operating in orbit, and getting to the points beyond low earth orbit. It would be a decision that would allow dramatic and affordable increases in space operations, for both the government and the private sector.
That they have chosen an architecture that makes the marginal, per-mission costs of doing anything in space as high or higher than they've always been indicates that they're more interested in short-term milestones (getting back to the Moon and completing the lost missions of Apollo) than in opening up a frontier. I thought that I heard the president say something else over a year and a half ago, but perhaps, politically, they're right, and I'm wrong.
[Update on Saturday afternoon]
Clark Lindsey has some expanded thoughts on this subject.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:49 PMJon Goff on trade studies, and why you can use them to justify almost any answer you want.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:04 PMI haven't read it yet, but Michael Belfiore has an article in Popular Science about t/SPACE. He's also going to be live blogging the X-Prize Cup for PopSci.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:14 AMJSC is evacuating the Mission Control Center in anticipation of the monster storm that may be about to hit them. One wonders what would happen if there was an Orbiter in orbit right now--I don't think they could just hand that off to the Russians. It makes one question the wisdom of putting a supposedly vital function in such a vulnerable area. There are good geographic reasons for the location of KSC, and Michoud, but having the manned spaceflight center in Houston is an historical accident, because they got a donation from Rice for the land (and it probably didn't hurt that LBJ happened to be from Texas).
There is a reason, after all, that NORAD is inside the Mountain, and it might make sense for NASA mission control to be in a similarly-secure place.
On the other hand, it also begs the question of whether or not mission control, sixties style, is really needed, or if it's just a relic of the way we happened to do it then. That space systems are still designed to require the support of hundreds of people on the ground says that maybe there's something wrong with the way we design them. And it's not obvious that the new architecture is going to address that.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:37 AMThe BBC has a gallery of pictures of NASA's exploration architecture. It's a shame the damned things will cost so much, and do so little.
[Update at 1:30 PM EDT]
It looks like they got them here, if you want high-res versions.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:21 AMMy Freedom of Information Act request to verify OSIDA's claim that they are on target for December 2005 did not net any documents (all marked proprietary), but it did net a confirmation of the existence of the documents and a confirmation that the scheduled release of the environmental impact statement (EIS) is December 2005.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 07:26 AMBen Chertoff and Carl Hoffman at Popular Mechanics are live blogging the public announcement of NASA's exploration architecture from NASA HQ. Chertoff's calling it NASA's "lunar retread."
[Update at 1:15 PM EDT]
Griffin on commercial contractors:
...when you use a prime contractor in the traditional way it IS more expensive, but at least you know that you'll get what you ask for. We don't want to get in a position where we ask for something and they can't make it happen.
Yeah, they cost more, but we all know that prime contractors never fail to come through.
I'm with Hoffman:
Only one question about commercial space activities - Rutan, X prize, Bezos, Elon Must [sic], who's about to launch his first rocket with commercial payload into orbit for a reported $16 million - that was never mentioned by Griffin himself. And that has to make you wonder whether anything has changed at all...Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:09 AM
This article describes why NASA's plans are probably fiscally and politically unsustainable, though you have to read between the lines:
NASAs Crew Exploration Vehicle is expected to cost $5.5 billion to develop, according to government and industry sources, and the Crew Launch Vehicle another $4.5 billion. The heavy-lift launcher, which would be capable of lofting 125 metric tons of payload, is expected to cost more than $5 billion but less than $10 billion to develop, according to these sources.NASAs plan also calls for using the Crew Exploration Vehicle, equipped with as many as six seats, to transport astronauts to and from the international space station. An unmanned version of the Crew Exploration Vehicle could be used to deliver a limited amount of cargo to the space station.
NASA would like to field the Crew Exploration Vehicle by 2011, or within a year of when it plans to fly the space shuttle for the last time. Development of the heavy lift launcher, lunar lander and Earth departure stage would begin in 2011. By that time, according to NASAs charts, the space agency would expect to be spending $7 billion a year on its exploration efforts, a figure projected to grow to more than $15 billion a year by 2018, that date NASA has targeted for its first human lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Note that all of the discussion is about development and operational costs per year. But let's do the math. Even ignoring the amortization of the development costs, consider fifteen billion a year. How many missions will they get for that amount of money? Let's be generous, and assume that it's four. That means that each mission would cost three or four billion dollars.
Hey, forget about the lunar missions--let's just look at the CEV itself. I've seen estimates of annual operating costs for the system of three billion (and it's not clear whether those are fixed costs, or total). If they're only fixed costs, and it flies six times a year (say, in support of ISS), that comes out to half a billion dollars per flight. If we have to add in the expended hardware costs of the Satay (my name for "the Stick") it's even more. This for something that only delivers crew to the station and returns them--no cargo capability. In other words, we're going to be spending as much on a LEO crew mission with the new architecture as we are currently on an entire Shuttle flight, including payload delivery and return.
Sorry, but this is nuts. I can't see how the public will accept this, once someone explains it to them, particularly in an era in which there may be private human spaceflight for orders of magnitude less. I certainly don't find it acceptable. The federal establishment has apparently simply given up on the notion of making space affordable. Thus, NASA will make itself increasingly irrelevant as the years go on.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:38 AMHenry Vanderbilt isn't very happy with NASA's exploration plans:
This Apollo redux has the same fatal flaw as Apollo: The specialized throwaway systems invented to get (back) to the Moon ASAP were (will be) far too labor-intensive at far too low a max flight rate to allow affordable followup. The new ships are not only based in significant part on existing Shuttle components and facilities, but they are to be operated in significant part by the existing Shuttle organization. IE, tens of thousands of people narrowly specialized in various aspects of flying a handful of astronauts on a handful of missions a year - at, by the time all this fixed overhead is added up, billions of dollars a mission.Like Apollo, NASA's new ESAS plan has built into it the seeds of its shutdown by some future Congress, once the warm glow of the first few daring missions has once again faded...
...Once what's come out unofficially so far becomes official, we will have no choice but to decline further support for new NASA exploration funding, and if as seems likely we can't persuade our fellow SEA members to join us, we will have to regretfully resign.
Sadly, I find nothing at all here with which I can disagree.
[Update a few minutes later]
Aviation Week also says (correctly) that it's Apollo redux, and is skeptical about its political prospects.
...basically using a replay of the Apollo approach of the 1960s, with updated electronics.
And here's another problem:
Rewriting the exploration-hardware development plans drafted under his predecessor, Griffin will exert tighter control over hardware design, leaving much less to the imagination of the contractors and perhaps building the new vehicles in NASA facilities.
Shades of X-38...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:59 AMDefense Industry Daily has a rundown on current plans for SpaceX, and their leap directly from Falcon 1 to Falcon 9. They don't mention the recent engine test failure, though.
It's also amusing that they describe Mike Griffin as "...a former NASA exec and president of the venture-capital firm In-Q-Tel."
I'm pretty sure he has a new job now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:11 AMHe's talking about the DHS, but Cliff May may have an explanation for NASA:
When bureaucracies become sclerotic, they dont go out of business. They simply fail to do the job they are expected to do. When caught in this position, they generally complain that they have been under-funded (Give us more money and well do better!) Then they generally get rearranged, with complex new organizational charts and, often, new layers of bureaucratic management.Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:51 PM
If this story is true, it looks like Prometheus is dead. No nuclear propulsion for the foreseeable future.
This part, though, is a little puzzling:
NASA had hoped to develop the nuclear propulsion system to carry spacecraft beyond the solar system, according to a June 19 story in the Times Union.
That's news to me. I thought the program's purpose was to enable easier exploration of the solar system, not to go beyond it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:03 AMJon Goff has some interesting speculation about the recent changes in SpaceX payloads. There are some even more interesting comments to the post, including one from the horse's...errrr...Falcon's mouth.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:00 PMIn the wake of the damage to Michoud by Katrina, and the threat to the Cape from Ophelia, one of Alan Boyle's readers has an idea to avoid further impacts to the space program from tropical weather:
NASA will have to weigh the benefits of the possibility of keeping space shuttle faculties in the Gulf Coast or relocating elsewhere in the United States to avoid the specter of frequent hurricanes. In the beginning of the space shuttle program, Vandenberg Air Force Base (Lompoc, Calif.) was to be a West Coast launch site. Thanks to budget cuts, Vandenberg AFB never was expanded for shuttle launches. While NASA might have gotten off easy this time, NASA might not be so lucky after the next hurricane. NASA and its contractors might consider moving back out to the West Coast and move its displaced workers at the same time. The facilities are still here at Plant 42, Edwards Air Force Base and Phillips Laboratory as well as throughout Southern California."Having grown up in the Antelope Valley (in Lancaster), in the shadow of Edwards AFB (where the shuttle landed last time) and Palmdales Plant 42 (where the shuttle fleet was built), with some of the people and the tooling available (whats the cost of a retrofit?), it might make sense to move back out to California for a time to escape further hurricanes.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. First of all, while Vandenberg was planned to be a west-coast launch site at one time, the facilities to support the Shuttle have all been converted to other uses, and even when they were in place, there were many technical issues with them (the primary one being hydrogen trapping at the pad, with associated explosion risk). To restore a capability that was never fully there in the first place would almost certainly take longer than the time that the Shuttle has remaining in its planned program life (i.e., by 2010).
But more fundamentally, even if we could launch Shuttles out of Vandenberg, it was never intended to be a backup site to the Cape. It was a launch site for different kinds of missions (primarily military) that require a high orbital inclination (72 degrees and above).
It's not possible to reach an inclination lower than the latitude of the launch site without extreme performance penalties. Because the Cape has a latitude of 28.5 degrees, it allows launches to a 28.5 degree orbit, by launching with an azimuth (initial direction of flight from the launch site) of due east. Any deviation from that azimuth, either north or south, will result in an inclination higher than that.
Vandenberg is farther north, at 34 degrees, so that's the lowest inclination that one could attain from there by launching due east. Now that would be all right, since the ISS is at a higher inclination (51.6 degrees). The problem is that one can't launch due east from Vandenberg, because this would result in an ascent over the population of the United States, and dropping the SRBs out in the California desert. The only allowable launches from Vandenberg are south into the Pacific, and the minimum azimuth that doesn't overfly the US or Mexico allows a minimum inclination of 72 degrees. The only was to get around this is to do what's called "yaw steering" in which a turn is made after land overflight is no longer an issue, but this entails a severe hit on performance. The minimum inclination that one could have gotten out of a Shuttle from Vandenberg would have been about sixty degrees, and that's with zero payload.
So while moving the Shuttle operations to California sounds like a good idea in theory (at least to some Californians), it really makes little sense from either a programmatic or physical standpoint.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:19 PMIf you only read the head on this story, you'd think that Neil Armstrong is claiming that a Mars mission is easier than a lunar one. But he's not comparing a future lunar mission to a future Mars mission--he's comparing a future Mars mission to Apollo. Based on the headline, though, it's not at all clear that the reporter understands that.
[Update at 2:50 PM PDT]
It occurs to me that I'm too hasty to blame the reporter. Headlines are usually the copy editor's responsibility.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:26 PMJeff Foust has a preliminary damage assessment of the hurricane and its aftermath on the space agency's near- and far-term future.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:59 PMClark Lindsey was usefully busy over the weekend. He has moved and renamed RLV News. It's also now a full-blown blog, with permalinks. Last, but not least, he has several interesting new items up on it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:00 AMProfessor Reynolds has some questions about the legal status of space elevators.
Here are some more. The problems associated with anchoring such a beast in an unstable and/or corrupt equatorial country has caused many of those planning such things to put them instead on floating ocean platforms, in international waters. This raises some new issues, because now, instead of (as Glenn notes) the structure simply being a very high tower, it would be a tall ship that would put to shame all of the previous false claimants to that designation, with their puny little sticks for masts. This thing would have a crows nest above geosynchronous altitude. It would also imbue an entirely new meaning to the old phrase, the "high seas."
Presumably, maritime law would apply to it, absent any codicils to the Outer Space Treaty. Thus gambling would be legal, the person in charge of the facility would be captain of the ship with all implied powers (including wedding officiation), etc. He would also keep the keys to the gun locker.
As to whether such an object would be "launched" or not, that depends on the construction technique. Most plans for these things would in fact involve launching them, in the conventional usage of the term. It would be only after the initial mass had been deployed at geostationary orbit that it would be slowly lowered and attached to the planet. After that, more mass would be added via the elevator route, so it would really be a hybrid creature, partially launched and partially constructed from the surface.
It would get even more interesting if the orbital anchor were a captured carbonaceous asteroid, and the diamondoid materials needed for the tether manufactured from it. In that case, it would be more akin to a grappling of the earth from another planetary body. I'm not sure what the legal implications of that would be. Would its status somehow change once it was actually attached to the planet? And what does "attached" mean, if the bottom of it is simply floating on the ocean or, even more tenuously, in the atmosphere?
This is one that will indeed keep the lawyers happily busy for years.
[Update at 8:30 AM PDT]
This strikes me as a loophole in the sovereignty restrictions of the OST. If an asteroid were the orbital anchor for the beanstalk, and it were designated a ship (flagged, perhaps, in Panama or Liberia), then the property rights to mining (and owning) it would presumably be settled. Or at least much more so than they would be for it as a freely orbiting body. And one could protect additional objects in like manner by simply attaching them.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:12 AMKeith Cowing says that NASA continues to dig itself deeper into its hole of irrelevancy to our future in space.
[Update at 9:15 AM PDT]
As Keith correctly notes in comments, those are my words, not his. I should have written that he provides evidence of that (in my opinion), not that he says it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:29 AMThomas James has a lot more discussion of the ET manufacturing facilities that were in the path of Katrina. There was also a story at Space Daily about it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:19 PMMichael Huang tries to smooth over ruffled feathers in the Human vs. Robot space exploration debate by playing the colonization card. I vote humans. Nevertheless, there can be self-replicating nanobots or, before those develop, self replicating macrobots. If we are too busy or craven to leave the planet, then maybe we can settle the universe with 'Cylons' (the future human-created silicon cum wetware nemesis race from TV show Battlestar Galactica).
Come to think of it, DNA makes us digital life. An argument for Intelligent Design is that if you were trying to colonize a new world like Earth, you would probably arrive at something very much like life as we know it. Genetic algorithms work pretty well at solving ecological problems. Are we some other race's expendable robot explorers?
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 08:13 AMThomas James asks a question in comments that I've been wondering about as well. If the manufacturing facilities for the external tanks in Michoud, Mississippi are destroyed, maybe Shuttle will be retired sooner than we think. It may also put paid to Mike Griffin's ambitions about Shuttle derivatives. It wouldn't be as devastating as a hit on the Cape, though. They could probably rebuild tank manufacturing facilities, but if the orbiters were wiped out, the program would truly be dead.
[Update late on Sunday night]
Thomas James points out correctly in comments that Michoud 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.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:46 AMLet it be noted and time stamped that Dwayne Day and Clark Lindsey have proposed an interesting wager. Though Dr. Day may still back down, given Clark's definition.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:43 AMIt's not a surprise, really, but Virgin Galactic has publicly announced that the next goal after a successful SpaceShipTwo commercial suborbital service is an orbital system. I wonder what the projected schedule is for first service, and if it will end up beating the CEV into space?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:46 AMClark Lindsey has a powerful rejoinder to a recent pessimistic article about our future in space in the Wall Street Journal, which they printed.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:27 AMGlenn points out an article touting space elevators at IEEE Spectrum. I like space elevators, but I think that their proponents overstate the case when they say things like this:
SO WHY CAN'T WE DO ALL THIS with rockets? And why is the space elevator so cheap?The answer is that chemical rockets are inherently too inefficient: only a tiny percentage of the mass at liftoff is valuable payload. Most of the rest is fuel and engines that are either thrown away or recycled at enormous expense.
Well, it's a myth that "WE CANT DO ALL THIS with rockets." Space elevators are clearly better, but that doesn't mean that we can't open up space without them. They are a sufficient technology, but not a necessary one. Rockets are still far from a mature technology, and the costs that he claims for the initial space elevator ($200/kg) are achievable with rockets as well, once we start flying them enough to get suitable economies of scale.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:48 AMToday's NYT reports that Iraq and Afghanistan if they drag on for another five years will comprise, "The Trillion Dollar War". World War 2 was a multitrillion dollar war. Every war with more than a million casualties is a trillion dollar war if you take the value of a life at a million dollars. That might not be reasonable some time and place where the median income is less than ten thousand dollars, but I would call for measuring by purchasing power parity. While the article is a pretty poor analysis considering opportunity costs. First, that veteran's health costs would have been big without the war. Second, that salary and so on would have to be paid without the war. Third, that there would be some major price to pay in blood and coin keeping the prior regimes in place in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Seen in that light, a trillion dollar war is a bargain. Especially if it results in friendly economies (if not friendly polities) in Iraq and Afghanistan going forward.
As I have stated before, we should step up to the plate and spend the next trillion colonizing the Moon and Mars. $50 billion a year could launch 20 times as much stuff into orbit as was launched last year and colonists could pay for their own payload. With the long bond rate at 5%, the net present value of $50 billion a year forever is a trillion dollars.
There are a bunch of good reasons why the Moon would be a better bet than Iraq. Colonizing the Moon would not face any guerilla warfare. There are no existing users of Lunar resources. There is no government worthy of note to displace. There are no Lunar sympathizers that would start violent revolution if we went. (If you are out there, keep quiet until after the colonization gets going so you can have your fifteen minutes while I have my colonization.)
No air on the Moon? Oxygen is there and nitrogen costs $0.50/gallon on Earth. Let's say we imported 11,000 liters of air a day and just vented it into space. A liter of air weighs about 1.25 grams. Importing your 14 kg of air a day is not a big deal. $50 billion a year could deliver enough air for 1,000 people to just vent every single breath to space at today's launch rates. Don't you think a thousand people could work out a way to recycle and replace air from local materials? There are 4000 kilograms of nitrogen in every 1000 tons of regolith. At 1300K, some of it will come out as Nitrogen gas (a ton worth of various gases). If I could get $50 billion a year for selling air on the Moon, I would sure as heck work hard to figure out how to do it for less.
So we could have our lunar colony and if people consumed two pounds of earth imported food per day (which should be plenty) and we can get air and water recycling down pat, we could support 7,000 folks. If we can get food production going then we can support a lot more for $50B/year. We would need to get the cost of the mass to the Moon down to $100,000 per year if we wanted to support 500,000 on the Moon like we have in Wyoming for $50 billion/year. That would either mean just 5 kg in Earth imports at $20,000/kg to the Moon or about 20 kg at $5000/kg to the Moon which is roughly what Elon Musk is promising by 2010.
By Sam, not Rand
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 06:14 PMI wish that someone would explain just what is meant by "microgravity technology" in this encouraging article about progress in stem cell production. It could be inferred by an uncareful reader that this research occurred in space (the only place that we can get sustained microgravity), but that doesn't really seem to be the case. Rather, it is apparently a spinoff of bioreactors that were originally developed for use in orbit (presumably aboard the ISS), but perhaps never used there. The reactions seem to be occuring down here, in a full gravity.
This is often the case with all of the predictions of space manufacturing. By the time someone gets around to doing it on orbit, someone comes up with a cheaper and more practical way to do it down here (unsurprising, considering how expensive and time consuming it is to even do an experiment with NASA in space, let alone set up an actual production facility).
Nonethess, this is presumably a spinoff of NASA spending that arguably (though by no means certainly) wouldn't have occurred in its absence, and that's all to the good. But while this is a great benefit, it's not at all obvious that it was worth the cost, or that it couldn't have been achieved in some other (perhaps less costly, with more benefits) way. As I noted a couple years ago (just before the loss of Columbia, in fact):
Certainly there is some spinoff technology benefit from the [space] program--it's impossible to engage in any high-tech endeavor without occasionally coming up with serendipitous results. And of course, there's occasionally some cross fertilization with military space activities (though from a taxpayer standpoint, disappointly little). But neither of these facts is reason, in itself, to either support or oppose it.Proponents [of the ISS] need to come up with real goals, and real reasons, that can resonate with the American people--something difficult to do with the program as currently planned, in which we spend billions for a Motel 6 in space that can support only half a dozen people, even if current plans come to fruition.
Opponents need to get their facts in order, and come up with good reasons to end it (and perhaps replace it with something more useful for getting humanity off the planet). The manned space program has, so far, been very lucky in its enemies.
I add with some amusement that, when I was googling for that old Fox piece I found this "critique" of it, in a breathless paen to space spinoffs, over at the "Ethical Atheist" web site. Note the logical shredding of my arguments:
Many of you are familiar with the highly-biased commentary of Fox News. In researching for this article we found the following commentary on NASA's space program. At first, we were surprised and outraged. But, considering the source, it no longer surprises us. Fox is known for its highly-conservative, pro-religious, liberal-slamming, uneducated opinions...[repeat poster's list of "benefits"]
...We hope the "Benefits" listed above 'resonate with the American people' more than the small-minded opinions presented by the Fox News Channel!
Which is to say, of course, note the absence of logic or argument. It's pure ad hominem against Fox News (which of course neither wrote or even solicited the topic--it was purely mine). And I'm "highly-conservative" and "pro-religious"? And "uneducated"? Who knew?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:20 AMDoing some baby-sitting blogging, Jon Goff asks how NASA is going to reconcile two apparently conflicting memes. I'm glad he has time to write this stuff, because I don't right now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:03 AMThere was a bit of discussion about dry launch in the space blogosphere in the last day or two. It seems to have started with Jon Goff's piece at Selenian Boondocks, which Clark Lindsey picked up and expanded on (see the "Fueling a Space Town" post), and was followed up with a post on agile space development by Dan Scrimpsher.
This is an important topic, and I wish that there was some sign that the new management at NASA is paying attention to it.
I would also add, as a response to the commenter who asks in Jon's comments section, why deliver propellant that has to be transferred as a fluid on orbit, rather than easier-to-handle propellant tanks? It's because delivering tanks doesn't offer the possibility of refueling them on orbit, so they'd only be single use. And in-space refueling is a critical technology in becoming a truly space-faring civilization, and the sooner we get on with developing and becoming comfortable with it, the sooner we'll reach that desirable (at least to me) destination.
[Update at 9 AM EDT]
I was imprecise above. As Paul Dietz points out in comments, delivering tanks doesn't preclude the possibility of refueling them later, but that wasn't what the the commenter was suggesting. What I should have said is that it doesn't advance us toward that (in my opinion) worthy goal, and it was clear from the commenter's question that he didn't have in mind tanks designed to be refueled (and it is a significant design issue).
[One more update]
I should have written "...preclude us from refueling from them later," to respond to Paul's most recent comment about mischaracterizing what he said.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:19 AMBoy, it's all Thomas James, all the time, at least this morning. He also writes that potential future Martians are too focused on science, and central planning.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:04 AMAt Astronautix, it says that:
The propellant combinations WFNA/ JP-4 and later IRFNA/JP-4 were the first storable systems given serious consideration in the United States. Problems which caused the abandoning of these propellants were the absence of reliable hypergolic ignition and unstable combustion. IRFNA/UDMH and IRFNA/JP-X finally did prove satisfactory.By the late 1950's it was apparent that N2O4 by itself was a better oxidiser. Therefore nitric acid was almost entirely replaced by pure N2O4 in storable liquid fuel rocket engines developed after 1960.
Apparently it was so apparent that they have no need to explain why it was so apparent. What was the benefit of going from nitric acid to tetroxide for hypergolics? What was "better" about it? Anyone know?
I'm back in DC, and busy, so I don't know how much posting there will be, but I did want to note on reconsideration one problem with the New York Times editorial advocating ending Shuttle and ISS. Jorge Frank, over at sci.space.policy, pointed out last night that they seem to want to eat their cake and have it too.
They call for an end to any more ISS missions, but want a Hubble repair. Well, if they do that, they should realize that a) they won't get the forty billion in savings that their editorial states, and b) that Hubble repair mission will cost at least six billion or so (more than launching multiple replacement telescopes). This is because the soonest that a Hubble repair mission could be mounted is probably about a year and a half from now. That means that the infrastructure to support the Shuttle would have to be kept in place for another year and a half. It also means that, since there would be no ISS missions against which to charge these fixed costs, these would all be debited against the Hubble mission (the only reason that the system remained in place, accruing those costs).
So they can phase out Shuttle and ISS, but it's hard to then make an argument for Hubble. And if they're going to keep it alive for Hubble, then they might as well figure out some way to maximize the utility of it for getting station as far toward completion as possible while the system is still operating. In the latter scenario, it just means figuring out the minimum number of flights that should be done with Shuttle, and how to manage without it for the rest. Which (almost surely not coincidentally) is exactly what Mike Griffin's NASA is planning to do.
[Update a few minutes later]
Mark Whittington disagrees with me. Well, actually, as he often does, he disagrees with a strawman argument he pretends is me:
...the fact of the matter is that the first people to return to the Moon and then go to Mars will be employees of some government (hopefully including the American one). The private sector will have a very big role, especially once people start living off the planet in significant numbers. But big bad government will also have a role in opening up the high frontier, just as it has with every other frontier. That's the truth, supported by history and common sense, whether one wants to believe it or not.I of course never said that "big bad government" wouldn't have a role in opening up the high frontier. I was speaking specifically of certain NASA centers, and what their role would be, and I don't think that it will be anywhere near as large as most conventional thinking about the space program would have it. The issue is not whether or not government will be involved, but which branches of it, and how. The monocultures that NASA's manned space centers tend to produce will continue, I think, to be evolutionary dead ends (just as Shuttle and ISS have turned out to be). But because they generate so many jobs, they will continue until (like Shuttle and ISS) they become untenable in the face of clear private (and other government, such as the DoD) alternatives.
[Update again]
Now Mark trots out a new straw horse in response:
I must admit to a little confusion. What other government agency besides NASA would take the lead government role in space exploration?
I expect NASA (until costs come down quite a bit) to continue to lead "space exploration" (though much of that will be done out of Pasadena, and will be unmanned). But of course, until now, I said nothing about space exploration. I thought we were talking about humanity moving out into space, which is much less about space exploration than space development. And space development will occur with the help (and hindrance, and connivance) of a number of government agencies, including the FAA, the DoD (including DARPA), DoE, and perhaps even Commerce. NASA building small and expensive capsules launched on equally-expensive heavy-lift expendables from Cape Canaveral may provide some entertainment to the masses for a while, but it will have little to do, ultimately, with the development of space, any more than Shuttle and ISS have.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:33 AMI went to read the NYT editorial that Sam pointed out, in which they advocate cancelling Shuttle and ISS. I assumed that if it was the right recommendation, it was probably for the wrong reasons, given their history, but I actually could find very little with which to disagree. Really, the only reason to keep Space Station Albatross going has been the diplomatic one. Unfortunately, that's probably been enough, given that the administration has been loathe to give its enemies one more club with which to bash them over our relations with our "allies." But as the Times points out, even they would probably be relieved to get out from under this white elephant themselves (though they'd know doubt spout crocodile tears about this latest unforgiveable breach in international relations).
Some are complaining in Sam's post that the only reason that the Times is doing this is because they hate "the manned space program." Well, if they do, it's partly because there's a lot to hate there, and little to love at this point. But they also have to reconcile this charge with the Times' argument that killing off these deadweight programs could accelerate outward human exploration. In fact, usually the argument from NASA manned spaceflight enthusiasts whenever it's suggested that we end the Shuttle (and/or ISS) program is that it will toll the end of manned spaceflight in the US, and that a bird in the hand is better than two in the...errrr...Bush.
That argument may have had some resonance prior to January 14th, 2004, when the only human-in-space policy was Shuttle and ISS, but it doesn't any longer. Yes, some new president could come in and cancel the exploration initiative in 2008, and if that happens, it would be impossible to resurrect the Shuttle and station if they're ended now. But barring some major political earthquake, I find that scenario unlikely. For better or worse, the public does seem to have some intrinsic desire to see human spaceflight at NASA continue, and I don't think that it's in the cards politically to end it. In fact, with the new program having been bought into by both the administration and Congress, I'd think that NASA manned space program proponents would be eager to shed these deadweight programs so they can get on to the more exciting activities of returning to the Moon and going on to Mars. Unless, of course, they're getting their paychecks from the status quo...
And of course, this all ignores the vast potential for much more interesting private human spaceflight activities, which I'm quite confident will make almost everything that NASA is doing in this area irrelevant by the end of the decade.
Anyway, as I said, I could find little in the editorial with which to disagree. I'll toss in my concurrence as well, though from a long-term policy standpoint, I don't really think that it makes much difference to our future in space whether we end these dinosaurs now or later. Either way, humanity's expansion into the cosmos will have little to do with anything happening at JSC, Marshall and the Cape now. They did some noble and needed pioneering things there forty years ago, but I'm afraid that when it comes to the future, they continue to represent the past.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:17 AMIn tomorrow's New York Times, they call for the cancellation of Shuttle and ISS. I called for it last June. Seems like a long shot still.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:51 PMJeff Foust points to a memo that indicates agreement between NASA and the DoD on new launch systems. Read the comments, too (not just my continuing frustration with the man-rating myth, but the last one by Jim Muncy).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:33 AMRich Lowry says that it's time to retire the Shuttle. He doesn't really say anything new. Or wrong, as far as it goes.
But he hurts his case (at least with me) by citing Gregg Easterbrook. And there seems to be no recognition in his post of the potential for any non-NASA space activities, though it's not possible to come up with any kind of sensible policy prescriptions without such a recognition. I also find it frustrating that these calls for ending the program are for the wrong reasons, when the best reason is (and always has been) that the program is a ghastly failure from the standpoint of cost and making spaceflight routine, which was its original goal.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:06 AMHere are a couple of unprecedented views of an Orbiter in orbit.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:48 AMJim Oberg emails that Phil Klass has died:
Phil was a friend and colleague for more than thirty years, an award-winning technical journalist specializing in avionics, for 'Aviation Week' magazine. His iron will carried him through his last difficult years against physical hardships brought on by age and medical errors. He had a bulldog persistence in digging into stories most journalists considered too technical, too difficult, or even too un-researchable, both in military and civilian aviation and space systems, and in his pastime of 'UFO stories'. He aroused fierce enmity in many circles, most of it a credit to his percing intellect and acerbic wit, and if one is best measured by the enemies one makes, Phil had even more reason to be proud. I was proud of him and proud to be his friend.
Nadya [Phil's wife] went on to say that funeral services will be held at Mt. Lebanon Cemetery, plot 18-4, Section 8B, at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, August 14. They will be in 'Temple Micah Cemetery', located at 2829 Wisconsin Avenue, interment at Mt. Lebanon Cemetery, which is located at 9500 Riggs Rd., Adelphi, MD (DC suburb).Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:28 PM
My prediction was borne out. Except it was a day late. And on the other side of the country.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:08 AMTaylor Dinerman has a new review of an old book. There seem to be only two copies available. With all of the Apollo nostalgia going around these days (especially at NASA) I'd bet there's a market for a new printing. The proceeds would go to a brave and noble woman, who could use some legal (and sadly, medical) help.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:51 AMElon Musk seems to be planning an EELV killer. And I've added Jon Goff's Selenian Boondocks to the blogroll, as well as an Air Force procurement officer's blog (he's stationed at Kirtland, but reports on Musk's visit to Wright-Patt recently, where he seems to have been training) from which Jon got the story, and he seems at first glance to be interested in space procurement. In addition to the SpaceX story, Jon has a lot of good reportage of the recent Return to the Moon conference, and some appropriate criticism of NASA's new lunar return architecture.
A few weeks ago, I solicited suggestions for additions to the space blogroll, and am embarrassed to admit that I never got around to doing the update, so here's a second call. If you have a partial or fully space blog that you think that Transterrestrial readers will find interesting, point it out in comments (in other words, I'm actually inviting comment spammers to post here, as long as it's the right flavor), and I'll try to actually do an update this time, but if nothing else, you'll get a little PR from the comments section.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:32 AM"J. Random American" has a bit of fascinating deja vu from Aviation Week about Shuttle tile repair, and some good questions to which I don't know the answers off the top of my head:
The similarity of the rest of the system to the original tps repair kit makes me curious about the circumstances under which the original tps repair system development was abandoned. Do we have some new 21st century technology that is essential to making it work which just wasnt available then? Or did early luck with re-entering the shuttle on damaged tiles convince NASA that tps inspection and repair was unnecessary, until the Columbia accident forced them to reconsider that decision? Were they right then to not risk in-orbit repairs, and now they are developing it anyway just to look like they are Doing Something?Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:09 AM
William Broad stenographs NASA in this New York Times article, in which a false dichotomy is set up.
For its next generation of space vehicles, NASA has decided to abandon the design principles that went into the aging space shuttle, agency officials and private experts say.Instead, they say, the new vehicles will rearrange the shuttle's components into a safer, more powerful family of traditional rockets.
Note the implication here--there are only two ways to build rockets into space. One can use the design principles that went into the Shuttle, or one can go back to the design principles that we used in the past--you know, "traditional" rockets.
[Cue Tevye: "Tradition.........Tradition!]
There's little discussion of what the "design principles" of the Shuttle are that make it so bad, other than it's allowed to have stuff fall on it during launch. And the "separating crew from cargo" myth prevails:
The plan would separate the jobs of hauling people and cargo into orbit and would put the payloads on top of the rockets - as far as possible from the dangers of firing engines and falling debris, which were responsible for the accidents that destroyed the shuttle Challenger in 1986 and the Columbia in 2003.
No explanation of why separating people and cargo makes people safer (because it doesn't) or why we should care about losing people, but not payloads or launches that cost tens, or hundreds of millions of dollars.
And of course, there's the standard confusion about launch system economics:
By making the rockets from shuttle parts, the new plan would draw on the shuttle's existing network of thousands of contractors and technologies, in theory speeding its completion and lowering its price."The existing components offer us huge cost advantages as opposed to starting from a clean sheet of paper," the new administrator of NASA, Michael D. Griffin, told reporters on Friday.
"Cost" and "price" seem to be used interchangeably here (as is often the case with government programs, since price is usually just cost plus a fixed percentage). And there's no distinction between, or discussion of, development costs versus operational costs. Yes, if you're going to develop a new heavy-lift launch vehicle, or even a new vehicle for the CEV, then using existing components will reduce development costs. But if those components are very costly to procure and operate, the operational costs will remain disastrously, and unsustainably high. When they say "lower price" and "cost advantages" they're referring to development cost only. They've simply thrown in the towel, and given up on getting safe launch.
And of course, no major media piece would be complete without the obligatory quotes from John Pike and Alex Roland, who seem to have an honored place in every reporter's rolodex, though neither of them really have any expertise in these matters.
John E. Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, a private Washington research group on military and space topics, said he wondered how NASA could remain within its budget while continuing to pay billions of dollars for the shuttle and building a new generation of rockets and capsules.Alex Roland, a former historian of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration who now teaches at Duke University and is a frequent critic of the space program, said the plan had "the aroma of a quick and dirty solution to a big problem."
They always justify Roland's inclusion in these things by saying he is a "former historian" for NASA. They never mention, though, that this was only for a brief period, over two decades ago, and he dealt with aeronautics, not space. But he's a good gadfly, like Pike, and Robert Park, so of course we should care what he thinks.
And I love this bit:
"The shuttle is not a lemon," Scott J. Horowitz, an aerospace engineer and former astronaut who helped develop the new plan, said in an interview. "It's just too complicated. I know from flying it four times. It's an amazing engineering feat. But there's a better way."Dr. Horowitz was one of a small group of astronauts, shaken by the Columbia disaster, who took it upon themselves in 2003 to come up with a safer approach to exploring space. Their effort, conceived while they were in Lufkin, Tex., helping search for shuttle wreckage, became part of the NASA program to design a successor to the shuttle fleet.
Well, he's a former astronaut. And an aerospace engineer. He has no axes to grind--he just wants a safer launch system, right?
That's a useful introduction, I guess, but somehow, I wonder if it's the whole story. Well, as it turns out, the real agenda starts to dribble out a little later:
"It's safe, simple and soon," said Dr. Horowitz, an industry executive since he left the astronaut corps in October. "And it should cost less money" than the shuttles. Their reusability over 100 missions was originally meant to slash expenses but the cost per flight ended up being roughly $1 billion.
Note the implication that Shuttle is expensive because it's reusable (with the further implication that we shouldn't build any more reusable vehicles).
Anyway, it's "safe, simple and soon." Who could ask for more?
But wait a minute. Haven't we heard that phrase before?
Well, it does say he's an industry executive. But what industry? What company?
Oh, here it is, tucked away toward the end of the article:
After leaving the astronaut corps, he went to work for the booster maker, ATK Thiokol, where he now leads the company's effort to develop the new family of rockets.
Nope, no axes to grind there. Well, at least they did mention it, finally.
My problem with articles like this is that, as I noted above, they set up a false dichotomy. We have other choices than doing it on expendable launch vehicles with capsules, and doing it with an oversized airplane stuck to the side of expendable parts that are a major contributor to the costs, and shed parts onto the reusable portion. Shuttle didn't have to be the way it is, and it's not the platonic ideal of a reusable (or even partially reusable) launch system, that allows us to extrapolate its flaws to any conceivable space transport. It was a program that was compromised early in its development by the same need to save development costs that seem to be turning the latest plans into another budding disaster, at least from an operational cost standpoint.
But as long as reporters at the New York Times rely on technologically ignorant naysayers like John Pike and Alex Roland, and breathless industry boosters, we're never going to have an intelligent discussion of the real alternatives.
Well, not really, but for those who (like me) couldn't make it, Clark Lindsey has a link-rich wrapup of the Return to the Moon Conference.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:47 PMI earlier noted the irony that the one part of the Shuttle that has actually been reliable (the Orbiter) is the one that Mike Griffin wants to retire. Both Shuttle disasters were caused by the non-Orbiter parts (SRB in the case of Challenger, ET in the case of Columbia), and those are the pieces that he wants to build the new vehicles out of (SRB as a lower stage for the crew vehicle, and SRB and modified ET for the heavy lifter).
Of course, the response will be that the only reason those failures were a problem was because of the overall system configuration with the Orbiter. Since both the new concepts will have the payload on top, where blow torching from joint leaks, and falling foam won't cause problems, that makes it OK (though that's actually not true with the heavy lifter, since the ET was the first casualty from the SRB failure, before the Orbiter broke up).
Which brings up a question: how much side forces were detected during the Challenger launch from the SRB leak (presumably from attempts by the TVC to keep the vehicle straight)? Does anyone know (I assume that the data may be in the Rogers Commission Report)? Would it have caused a problem with "the stick"?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:08 AMJust a few random thoughts before crashing.
I haven't had time to read much about the fleet grounding thing, but I've often said that when government occasionally does the right thing, it's almost always for the wrong reason. If we end up retiring the Shuttle now, it won't be because it costs too much for what it does, and soaks up a lot of money that could (at least in theory, though probably not in practice, given the way our space policy seems to work) be used for something more productive in terms of moving humanity into space. It will be because we got better cameras so that we could finally see the rain of debris that's been falling from every ET every time we fly, and we're nervous about killing astronauts (even though taking such risks is, at least in theory, part of their job description). Ignorance was bliss, at least if you make a healthy living off operating Space Shuttles.
I frankly think that it's a dumb reason, but if it happens, I also think it's a good outcome, so I won't complain too much. But here's the problem. There's an old saying about some businesses being "too big to fail" (e.g., Lockheed, various banks in the eighties, perhaps GM)--that is, the political consequences of letting them go out of business are viewed as sufficiently dire that the government will continue to prop them up, a la Weekend at Bernies, even when the carcass begins to stink. Shuttle, I'm afraid, is like that.
What I suspect is going on is that the declaration of fleet grounding is to piously show NASA's contrition over Columbia, and to demonstrate that they have a new "safety culture." What it really means is that they'll do some kind of kabuki dance to come up with another "solution" to the foam-falling-off problem, and then launch again. And when it falls off again, they'll say, "time to ground the fleet again, back to the drawing board." And then they'll do another test flight. It could plod along in this manner for years, if JSC and Huntsville are lucky, and the rest of us (those who pay taxes and care about a serious space program, anyway)...less so.
Anyway, off to bed, and (oh, joy) another airplane ride at the crack of dawn.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:44 PMOK, one more before I head to the airport. Leonard David reports that Burt Rutan and Richard Branson have a new spaceship company.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:24 PMIt's too soon to say. The coverage of it has been disappointing so far as I've heard (just listening to Fox News getting ready to come to the office). They said that "if the Shuttle is damaged, NASA has to choose between repairing it on orbit, or abandoning the Shuttle and sending Atlantis up to rescue them."
No. Repairing it on orbit is probably pretty much a non starter, but there's another choice (and I suspect the most likely outcome). The Shuttle is damaged, but no more so than previous flights from which it has returned safely.
Thomas James gets to the nub of it:
Given the fact that foam has typically fallen off the ET on ascent, I have to wonder how much what concern there is over the insulation is motivated by new data: being able to actually see the problem happening for once, instead of only seeing the effect of foam shedding post-landing. Perhaps the ET routinely sheds cable-tray foam (or whatever it ends up being identified as) with no ill effects.Losing a tile around the nose gear door, however, is a little more concerning. It's hard to tell from the picture and the data provided so far how serious it is, or whether it too is in-family with prior tile damage.
"In-family" is NASA-speak for "within a class of previously-experienced anomalies." I'm quite certain that NASA has an extensive data base of tile damage from every single flight, organized by section of the orbiter in which it occurred (and if they don't, someone should certainly be keelhauled across Atlantis), and are even now scouring it to see if there was similar damage in a similar location on some previous flight, including notes of any structural insult observed when the offending tile was removed and replaced. That, and perhaps a closer inspection by EVA, will determine the resolution of this.
I think that it's most likely that they will decide to come home with it as is. And if they do, I also think that they will undergo a great deal of ignorant criticism for this decision, because they've "lost their safety culture," just one flight after they killed all those astronauts, and now they're recklessly gambling their lives again (disregarding the fact that throwing away a two-billion dollar vehicle, and a third of the remaining fleet, is not a decision to be taken lightly either).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:55 AMWell, everything looked fine so far. The ascent went off without a hitch, and now they're just coasting, waiting to do the orbital insertion burn in a few minutes. No indication that there were any anomalies at all, from what I could hear on the chatter. Good job, to all the people who worked this flight. Launch Control Team can breathe a sigh of relief, and now the Flight Control Team is in charge.
It will be interesting to see how the tiles look in an inspection at ISS, now that they're sensitized to the issue.
[Update a little after noon]
OK, not quite perfect. The cameras caught some insulation in the act of peeling off the ET after SRB separation. No indication of damage to the Orbiter, though.
There's a silver lining to this little cloud--it will provide more data to allow NASA to calibrate and gain confidence in their other, non-video instrumentation to detect such things, which if successful, means that they won't have to be afraid of launching in the dark for much longer.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:15 AMThere are a lot of misconceptions about NASA's decision to launch tomorrow even with another sensor failure like the one that caused the last attempt to be scrubbed almost two weeks ago. They're on full display by some of Alan Boyle's readers:
It sounds like a lot of rationalization to me. It may not be a safety issue, but someone thought that all the redundancy was important, otherwise they would have just put in two or three sensors..."
or
I do not agree with NASA's plans. The next mission into space should not have any glitches or any other problems. I do not believe there is an imperative reason for NASA to launch the shuttle, so they should correct any problems before doing so. Not only would it be irresponsible of NASA to launch Discovery, but also it would be a national tragedy and embarrassment if anything were to happen to the shuttle or the fine men and women aboard.
or
What do I think of NASA's plan? Same as always. Say one thing, do another. If triple redundancy wasn't necessary, they wouldn't have designed it in. It is necessary. The fuel-gauge issue illustrates that not only has NASA not learned its lesson, but that it is incapable of learning the lesson. Requirements are not optional. They are requirements. That alone should decide the issue. Lacking that, we have seen the same faulty safety culture destroy two vehicles and their crews. We are using a decades-old spacecraft. That isn't a reason to be more tolerant of faults, it's a reason to be less tolerant! If they can't get the shuttle safely prepared, as I feel they can, without resorting to 'management decisions' which put the crew at risk, then the shuttle should not fly. End of story. If they want to automate the shuttle so no lives are at risk, fine.
You get the picture. These people clearly don't understand the issues.
And note the very last. This person seems concerned about nothing except whether or not lives are at risk--lives that are risked willingly, and are not people he knows, and he (like all of the commenters quoted) seems completely indifferent to cost, or schedule, or whether or not we lose billions of dollars worth of hardware.
All four sensors are not required for a safe launch. If that were true, then they'd need five, or six. Only one (as far as I know) is sufficient to do the job. That's what redundancy is all about.
The problem is (as I and George William Herbert noted a few days ago), at least as I understand it, that NASA originally designed to be fail operational, but in the hysteria over Challenger and Columbia changed the rules to declare it fail safe instead. In other words, it was originally designed with the idea of having sufficient redundancy to allow launch with a single sensor failure, to allow operability, but they later (as a result of tightening things up after the disasters) changed the launch commit criteria to scrub under those circumstances, which is what happened on July 13th.
Any system as complex, with as many components as the Shuttle, must have adequate redundancy to allow safe operations with a failure of some components, because there are so many of them that some are bound to fail statistically, and if we mindlessly demand perfection on every flight, we'd never fly. This is the airline philosophy, and it used to be NASA's, but they've gotten gun shy, at least on this particular issue. But in making an a priori decision now to go with a failed sensor at launch, they're returning to a common-sense approach, for which the system was designed.
Now, here's the deal. This is a tough problem to troubleshoot, but the prevailing theory seems to be bad wiring. So they've come up with a clever solution. They're going to swap the wiring between the sensor that failed, and another one. Now, either all of the sensors will check out fine tomorrow, in which case they shrug their shoulders and launch, per the new, stricter rules. Or else, they'll see a failure, except it will be on the sensor that they changed, which will mean that the wiring was the problem, and they now understand the issue. Under those circumstances, they can waive the rules (and this won't be a "last-minute decision," as I heard it reported this morning--it will be a well-thought-out one that they've been thinking about for days) to launch knowing that they still have fail-safe redundancy. The only circumstances that should cause a scrub tomorrow (other than weather, or finding some new problem) is if there is some new unexpected failure associated with the sensor system, but an expected failure (confirming wiring hypothesis) or no failure should allow a (safe, or as safe as any Shuttle launch can be) launch.
Now as to these demands that NASA not launch until the sensor is fixed, how much are those making the demand willing to spend (noting that the money belongs to all of the taxpayers, not them individually)? And to what end?
Someone once said that when failure is not an option, success gets very expensive.
Right now, NASA's hypersafety philosophy has made spaceflight hyper expensive (though not particularly safe). Rather than unrealistically making failure not an option, we need to embrace the fact that failures will occur occasionally. What we have to do is make sure that failures aren't as expensive as they were in the case of Challenger and Columbia (and numerous other lesser NASA program failures). What that means is making it cheap to fail, which in turn means making it cost much less to make attempts. That won't happen until we develop much more robust systems, with much more activity. But investing further millions into Shuttle (not only in terms of money spent fixing things, but the costs of continued delay, which are substantial) in a futile effort to make it any safer than it currently is, is a fool's errand. We should have flown a couple years ago.
[Update, one hour before scheduled launch]
Jim Oberg has more.
[One more update, forty minutes before scheduled launch]
Yishai Mendelsohn has related thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:29 PMJeff Foust says that, when it comes to commercial space, NASA may at long last be (in the word of Paul Dietz, a frequent commenter here) bowing to reality.
I suspect he'll have more tomorrow at The Space Review.
Clark Lindsey also has an interesting wrap-up on the subject from Jim Muncy in Las Vegas:
Getting another "big idea" accepted is also making progress. Large scale space settlement must become the primary goal of the space program. No Antarctica-like outposts on the Moon but Las Vegas-es instead. Griffin, in fact, stated in testimony to Congress that human expansion into the solar system is his long term vision for space policy. However, this big idea is still foreign to many at NASA, in Congress, the press and the general public.
We have to continue to work to change that.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:26 PMWell, this is annoying. Mark Whittington needs to work on his, apparently.
He claimed that:
...some people...on the one hand, preach libertarian cant and, on the other hand, demand government pay money up front, before the promised hardware is even built, not to mention delivered.
We asked him for an example of such a person.
Bizarrely, he responded with:
Unlike Kistler, t/Space will not try to develop their system with commercial money but will seek a fixed-cost contract, milestone payment approach with NASA.
By what tortured logic does he think that this means that the government would "pay money up front, before the promised hardware is even built, not to mention delivered"?
Apparently he doesn't understand the meaning of the words "milestone payment approach." Or else he doesn't understand the meaning of the words "up front," or "before hardware is built" or "delivered." Either way, it's a head scratcher of a post.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:48 AMAbout a year and a half ago, in one of my occasional meandering rantswell-reasoned disquisitions against heavy lifters, I suggested that NASA use the Centennial Challenge prize to develop a better space suit glove. Well, per Alan Boyle, I find out today that they have:
The Astronaut Glove Challenge award will go to the team that can design and manufacture the best performing glove within competition parameters. The $250,000 purse will be awarded at a competition scheduled for November 2006, when competing teams test their glove designs against each other.
Cool.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:04 PMWhen I was in California, it was no big deal to drive to Vegas for the Return to the Moon conference, which I live blogged last year (scroll about halfway down--there are a lot of posts around July 16th and 17th). But it's a little tougher to get there from south Florida. Clark Lindsey is there, though.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:25 AMI don't have time to answer this email query, but perhaps some of the other readers do, in comments:
I loved your article about the Hyper X 43 and scramjets in genral, it was amazingly informative. As an amatuer space enthusiast I try to keep up, some of the stuff is completely out of my league. I had some questions, even if a singlestage could be built, would it be able survive re-entry? Second, even though Rutan's Spaceship one did in fact go to 62k up, didn't all the x-15's do the exact same thing? Could the feathering device that Spaceship one uses be applied to a space craft coming in from low-orbit or is that type of system restricted forever to sub-orbital manuevering? if not is the composite material shell of the Spaceship as effective or even in the same league as Shuttle's tiles? and finally, with the weight of turbofans and some kind of orbital manuevering system and reaction control system, could the design or anything like the design of the Spaceship One work off taking us to the runway to low orbit system that we only dream of in science fiction.Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:52 AM
The Christian Science Monitor has a good story on the new private space activities.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:16 AMJim Oberg emails that NASA has made a decision for a launch attempt on Tuesday.
We'll see. I'll be on the road, and unable to attend.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:08 PMThey're commemorating the Apollo anniversary with a new map feature.
[Update a few minutes later, chuckling]
Be sure to zoom in all the way.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:02 AMJon Goff argues against heavy lift (one of my hobby horses as well, as long-time readers are aware, and as today's Apollo anniversary piece hints at).
[Update at 2:05 PM EDT]
Mark Whittington takes issue with us:
There are technical arguments, one suspects, for doing it either way. But the real sticking point, it seems to me, is the idea that using heavy lift is insufficiently commercial, that it's just another bad old, big government, dead end way of doing things.
No, that's not the sticking point. The sticking point, as was explained at length in Jon's post, but which Mark didn't seem to have read, is that it's uneconomical, and makes for an extremely fragile infrastructure. If we're dependent on a single launch system type to get to the moon, and we make that vehicle so large that we're putting all of our mission eggs in a single basket, then a stand down of the vehicle fleet (as we've seen occur twice with Shuttle now, each time for over two and a half years) stands down your capability to get to the Moon, and any single launch failure adds up to a loss of not only the launch vehicle, but billions of dollars worth of expensive hardware. Putting things up in smaller pieces, with multiple vehicle types, lends much more resiliency to the infrastructure, and any given launch accident (as is inevitable) will result in much less loss. In addition, launching smaller things more often is much more efficient in terms of operational economies of scale, and utilizing work forces.
This has nothing to do with government versus commercial, per se. It has to do with affordability, and sustainability, characteristics upon which the VSE is supposed to place a high value.
The commercial space sector right now is building on Burt Rutan's achievement to build suborbital space ships to give the well heeled and adventurous thrill rides.
Really? Is that all it's doing? What are Elon Musk and Bob Bigelow up to, then?
[Update at 3:40 PM EDT]
Well, we've got quite the debate going in the comments section.
Let me respond to this comment in the main post, because it contains many of the myths and bad assumptions that characterize the debate.
"In addition, launching smaller things more often is much more efficient in terms of operational economies of scale, and utilizing work forces."The problem with this debate is that there are a lot of assertions and no good evidence. I've not seen any detailed cost analyses of the HLLV vs. multiple ELV options.
Well, I wasn't comparing HLLV to multiple ELVs (which are almost as bad from a cost standpoint, though more resilient)--I was describing space transports. But in any event, that should be remedied soon. George William Herbert has written a lengthy paper on this subject that is undergoing review right now by me and others smarter than me, and should be published soon, either at The Space Review, or here (if he'd like).
The anti-HLLV crowd claims that all kinds of money can be saved, while handwaving aside the fact that putting things up in lots of little pieces creates additional costs in terms of operational mass, R&D, and technical restrictions.
We're not "handwaving" it aside.
For instance, put one big piece up and you don't have to waste extra mass on docking collars and associated equipment. Put it up in five smaller pieces and each of those pieces has to carry equipment to enable it to be hooked together. That could include docking collars, extra rendezvous and maneuvering equipment and fuel, and other things. Plus, now you have to do the payload integration in orbit rather than on the ground, where it is easier. Run a data network through your spacecraft and if it is in multiple pieces, you have to connect every piece up to that data network. Ditto for power.
Many of these problems go away with a space-based orbital tug. As far as general overhead, the costs of this can be estimated, and this is an issue that George's paper will address.
Also, putting it up in lots of little pieces requires new R&D. For instance, nobody has done on-orbit refueling yet, let alone refueling involving large amounts of fuel and/or LOX. I'm not saying that this is impossible to do, but it _has not been done._ So if your approach requires it, then you have to develop that capability and that means expending R&D dollars. (So those who claim that you don't have to spend R&D dollars on developing a new launch vehicle have just created a requirement for the R&D to be spent on something else entirely.)
Well, actually, the Russians have demonstrated orbital fueling--it's just a matter of scaling it up. It hasn't been demonstrated for cryos yet, but that could be done at the ISS (something more useful than almost anything that it's done so far).
But the point is that no matter what we do, it's going to require R&D. The question is how we spend that R&D. I would prefer to spend it in directions that give us more flexibility, more resiliency, and in ways that develop more of the technologies that will be necessary for us to become truly spacefaring (e.g., orbital assembly, orbital fueling, routine rendezvous and EVA, etc), rather than on a new large vehicle that will lead to a fragile and inflexible infrastructure.
Then there are other costs. If you are going to do on-orbit refueling over a substantial period of time, then cryos are out. So you lose that ISP and you drive on-orbit mass up.
You can store cryos in an orbital depot for an indefinite period of time, through good insulation and active refrigeration.
Also, how fast can you launch? Are there enough launch pads free to support the program without impacting other customers like comsats?
How fast you can launch depends on how intelligently you design your launch vehicles, and what kind of turnaround time they have, and whether or not they require "pads" (e.g., Pegasus doesn't, nor will any vehicle designed by Rutan), and whether or not you'll have to launch out of the Cape.
If you plan on substantial on-orbit assembly, it may take many months of orbital operations simply to get your vehicle built. What kind of costs are associated with that? Do we really want to assemble each lunar mission like we are currently assembling the ISS?
No, we want to do it much smarter than that. And ISS is much more complicated than the kinds of things we're proposing.
And then there's the fact that the industrial base to support payload preparation is finite. Are you really going to be able to hire and train enough people to have perhaps a dozen payloads in preparation for launch simultaneously?
I'm sorry, but this is simply an absurd question. We live in a nation of three hundred million people. The notion that we couldn't hire people to operate a well-designed system (one that's optimized for cost, rather than maximizing jobs in Brevard County) is ludicrous. And it's ludicrous even if we do it the NASA way.
Right now rockets fail at a (best) rate of 1-2%. Multiply that number by the number of launches you want to conduct and you have increased the chances that something blows up on its way to orbit. If the rocket that blows up is the same one that you also employ to carry your people, the rocket will be grounded until the problem is found and fixed. So all that hardware hangs in orbit until the program is resumed.
That's the failure rate for expendable systems (which the Shuttle counts as, since it's the expendable components of it that have caused its problems). The failure rate for a well-designed space transport would be much lower, because you'd eliminate the infant mortality problems caused by the fact that for expendables, each flight is a first flight. You'll get more reliability through better statistical process control as your activity level goes up, something impossible when you only launch a few times a year.
And when you start to consider human Mars missions, the idea of doing it as small missions really looks impossible. The requirements for a human Mars mission are about 500 metric tons in earth orbit. It is not realistic to think about doing that in 10-20 metric ton increments.
Most of that mass is propellant, which can be delivered in whatever size increments you want. This argument is like saying it's not realistic to build a house unless you develop a truck that can carry the entire thing to the building site. Simply saying that something is "unrealistic," with no support, is an uncompelling argument. It's less a sign of realism than a failure of imagination and innovation. The sixties are over. Get over it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:28 AMSpeaking of our celebratory ceremony and the Apollo XI anniversary, you can hear the radio show that Bill Simon and I did Monday night here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:28 AMThirty-six years ago today, John F. Kennedy's goal of sending a man to the moon, and returning him safely to the earth within the decade, achieved a key milestone, as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin gently set their lunar excursion module (named "Eagle") on to the rocky, and dusty, surface of the moon. They had yet to "return safely to the earth," but they would, a few days later.
Unfortunately, while many at the time believed that this was just the beginning of many such explorations, ones that would establish bases on the moon, and send humans beyond, to Mars and perhaps other places (the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey had been released the year before, featuring a rotating space station in low earth orbit, a Pan Am space transport to reach it, a lunar base, and manned mission to Jupiter all occurring in that seemingly distant year), the program was already ending. The goal had never really been to open up space, so much as to win a race against the Soviets, to demonstrate our technological superiority, as a proxy battle in the Cold War between democracy and totalitarianism (sadly, it wasn't viewed as a war between capitalism and socialism, else we might have taken a more promising approach). But with the knowledge that we were winning that race, and the budget pressures of Johnson's Great Society and the Vietnam war, the decision had been made years before to end procurement of long lead items necessary to advance much beyond a few trips to the lunar surface.
Only six missions would actually be successfully performed (Apollo XIII didn't get to the moon), with the last one just three-and-a-half years later, in December of 1972. Some of the leftover hardware would go toward the Skylab program in 1974, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, whose thirtieth anniversary occurred just a few days ago. After that, there were no flights into space by Americans until 1981, when the first Shuttle flight occurred--a six-year hiatus.
It's become common wisdom now that the Shuttle was a mistake, and indeed it was, but not for the reasons that many think. And unfortunately, so was Saturn, in that it didn't provide an affordable or sustainable means of opening up space. But we're misreading the lessons of that past, because we view Apollo as successful, and the reason for that success as Saturn, so many today want to turn their back on the Shuttle, and return to what they view as a proven method--putting capsules up on large expendable launch vehicles.
While it is past time to retire the Shuttle, it's a profound logical error to attempt to extrapolate to a general class (reusable space transports) from a single flawed example, and somehow conclude that they are intrinsically a bad idea. Shuttle was a good idea in concept (a reusable vehicle, flown often), but it failed in execution, because we weren't willing to spend the money in its development that would have been necessary in order to make it fully reusable, or operable.
And while it did achieve Kennedy's (narrow) goal, in terms of opening up space Apollo was in fact a failure, and replicating its approach with modern hardware is likely to be as well, because throwing away launch vehicles is an intrinsically bad way to perform large-scale space activities, and to become a spacefaring nation, and no number of design concepts will get around that fact. Until we learn the true lessons of history, our government space program will continue to disappoint those of us who desire great things from it, and who want to go ourselves.
Fortunately, though, unlike the 1960s, we can now see a means by which we can do so without having to hope for bureaucrats to make the right decisions as to how to spend taxpayer money. Before too many more Apollo XI anniversaries roll by, I suspect that there will be many non-NASA personnel on the moon, visiting it with their own money, for their own purposes. And they won't be getting there in little capsules on large vehicles, that are thrown away after a single use.
But for all that, it was still a monumental achievement, and one of the greatest events in the history of the universe. Go celebrate it properly tonight.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:36 AMBill Simon and I will be on The Space Show to discuss the commemoration ceremony about Wednesday's space anniversary in about an hour.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:17 PMIn light of the hoopla (well in space circles anyway) over the thirtieth anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), Jim Oberg has a little corrective to point out the danger of confusing cause and effect:
Even if Apollo-Soyuz had never happened, Shuttle-Mir (in some form) would have become possible in the political context of the early 1990s, and both countries space teams would have found a way to proceed to the space dockings with little additional effort, even without any historical precedents. Alternately, with Apollo-Soyuz as historical fact, a surviving Soviet regimewith its political repressions, imperialistic client states, massive nuclear and conventional strike forces, and soul-killing society of deceptionwould never have been given veto power over the centerpiece of Western human space flight, the space station.So where does this leave the space handshakers? Well, like the robin who may think its song ushers in the spring, or the rooster who thinks he commands the sun to rise, a lot of spacemen in Russian and in America enjoy recalling their roleshonorable ones, to be surein carrying out such a mission. If they want to think their flight caused the international thaws rather than merely reflected them, theyve earned the right to their point of viewjust as sober historians, practical politicians, and sensible space buffs have the right to gently refuse to believe them.
He also puts paid to the politically correct nonsense that space exploration must intrinsically be international--a notion often stated, but never actually defended in any compelling way:
I am convinced that all future flights will be international, Leonov said at the NASM. Stafford agreed that international efforts are needed for the return to the Moon and making several expeditions to Mars. But why should merely saying so make it true?Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 AM...Having the Russians along was supposed to make the project cheaper, but it cost more to build the proper international interfaces. Launching all components into a northerly orbit accessible from Russia increased the space transportation cost by billions of dollars.
Nor did the Russian presence make the project faster, better, or safer, as it turned out. NASA was supposed to learn from the immense body of Russian experience, but it seems they never didthey just flew their missions and learned the necessary lessons directly. Repeated inquiries to NASA to specify things that had been learned exclusively from Russian experience have resulted in a pitiful short list of trivial lessons.
It can even be argued that the most important lessons learned were harmful. On Shuttle-Mir, NASA watched space crews dodge death on almost a monthly basis and may have subconsciously absorbed the lesson that since nobody had actually died, you could get sloppy with safety reviews and it wouldnt ever bite you.
Wednesday is the thirty-sixth anniversary of the first Apollo landing, and long-time readers will be aware that I and some others (primarily Bill Simon, also the Transterrestrial web designer) have come up with a Sedar-like ceremony to celebrate the event, and describe all (well, all right, not quite all) of the events throughout the history of the universe that culminated in it.
We'll be discussing and perhaps reading from it on The Space Show tonight, from ten to eleven thirty PM, Eastern time (7-8:30 on the west coast). You can listen live on the Internet by following the link. It will also be podcast.
And if you want to perform the ceremony yourself, there are still a couple days to plan a dinner with some friends. It seems a little weird, but everyone I know who's actually done it has been surprised and pleased with the results (we've found that people who aren't as heavily into space actually find it more interesting than some of the more jaded types).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:58 AMAs I pulled into Titusville last week to the news that the launch had been scrubbed due to a sensor failure, I had similar thoughts to the following from George William Herbert, posted at sci.space.policy today, but he wrote them down, and I didn't:
"Something has been nagging me since the current round of hydrogen depletion sensor problems started on Discovery's launch attempt, and I haven't seen any good comments come up on the newsgroups or other commentary, so I'm going to launch it out there.
The Shuttle design was intended to be highly reliable and to have multiple redundant sensors and systems in most key areas. By and large, other than structural items where it's hard to have another whole heatshield under the first one, they have had good success with redundancy covering flight faults and avoiding nasty aborts and the like.
There is a key difference to be seen between the behaviour last week trying to launch Discovery, though, and what typically happens with say a large 747 jetliner and its typical operational cycle.
Airliners have what's called a Minimum Equipment List. This covers a set of systems that have to be operational in order for the vehicle to safely depart on a flight. The MEL is usually designed so that a number of minor faults are tolerated, and in areas where a fault would cause the aircraft to have to stay and be repaired, where possible an extra set of redundancy is applied so that if four units are needed for safe suitably redundant flight operation, five are installed, and the MEL is four. One sensor or navigation system or whatever can be completely broken, and the required flight safety level is still met with the remaining units.
Airliners are designed that way because it costs serious money when they can't depart on time... either they have to be repaired in a hurry, which means lots of technicians at each airport and lots of expensive spare parts stocked everywhere (plus, a long enough operating cycle to accomplish the repairs in), or you have to scramble to find another plane to shift to the flight whose aircraft is down with a gripe, and then shift another plane to cover for the one you grabbed, and so on.
Shuttle was designed with an adequate level of systems redundancy for safety considerations, in most systems. It was not designed with an adequate level of systems redundancy for operational considerations. The cost per day of a Shuttle sitting on the pad, the ops crews and the control room crews and the costs of a rollback and destacking are all very significant. The opportunity cost of not being able to fly on time is also not at all a minor issue, with Shuttle's life span limited by a currently hard deadline and too many ISS flights remaining to get done between now and then.
Redundancy is often described in "N+1" or "N+2" or "2N" terms; shorthand for one or two more units than are required for safe operation, or twice as many as are required. MEL logic really goes to a different level. We should really be looking to "(N+1)+1", or both safety redundancy and an operational redundancy margin. Defining the safety redunancy factor as the N plus or multiplied by whatever, we can then define an operational redundancy factor, consisting of some margin on top of the minimum safety requirements. In shorthand, let's say O for Operational Factor = (required safety factor including margins), or for example O = N+1 . The operability factor would then be, for example, O+1 or 0+2, with the additional operability margin depending on the maintainability of the parts.
Future reusable spacecraft and their operators generally already have a clue about these issues, but it bears repeating in public to make the point. The capsules I am working on should not have to be destacked and dissassembled if one out of a set of four units fails while we're on the pad; either there should be a fifth, or three should be adequate for safe flight including safety margins, and listed in the MEL. The same should go for any other manned orbital project.
Not every system can be made this redundant, but as Discovery is showing, there are many systems for which safety dictated enough redundancy that adding an operability margin on top of that would have not been that difficult. Two wires in the shuttle/tank interface, one more sensor unit, a few pounds of payload capacity lost... and how many millions of dollars lost destacking Discovery the first time, and in this launch delay now?
Thin margins kill costs."
[Copyright 2005, by George William Herbert]
[Update a few minute later]
Via Clark Lindsey, here's a good description of the sensor that failed from Bill Harwood.
I should also mention that there's a good discussion of the problems associated with troubleshooting this problem over at sci.space.policy. Some of the posters there are theorizing that it's a separation of an electrical conductor that only occurs at cryo temperatures (if so, it would likely be due to differential thermal expansion). They also point out the high costs of figuring out just where it's happening to the degree necessary to have confidence in flying again. And as always, it points out the fragility of the system, and the danger of relying on a single hardware concept for all of NASA's human exploration goals. Because this is an element of the external tank, which would be common to all Shuttle-derived heavy lifters, our ability to get to the Moon would be shut down until this issue was resolved.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:21 PMThere are many lessons to be drawn from the programmatic disaster that is the Shuttle program. Unfortunately, many of the most popular ones are wrong. Alan Boyle has apparently succumbed to one of them, when he writes:
Of course, it takes a lot of innovation to replace a manned spaceship capable of putting almost 30,000 pounds of cargo into orbit. Im betting that Rutan would favor another approach, sending the payload and the people on separate breeds of spacecraft. It turns out that NASAs new management tends to feel the same way a big reason why the shuttle fleets days are numbered.
I suspect that to the degree that Burt has given much thought to the matter (probably not a lot--he's focused on his own markets, not NASA's), he would do things the same way that aviation does them--a single aircraft design for both cargo and passengers. The notion that the problem with the Shuttle was mixing crew and cargo is one of those popular myths of the old space age, but it's really a red herring.
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with mixing crew and cargo. The reason that people think that there is, is due to the fact that the Shuttle hasn't turned out to be as reliable or safe as many imagined, or hoped, at the program inception. After Challenger, the conventional wisdom became that, because flying into space is intrinsically hazardous, we shouldn't risk the lives of astronauts for cargo missions that don't require them.
That's fine, as far as it goes, but it misses the point. The fact that the Shuttle isn't safe or reliable doesn't mean that safe and reliable space transports can't be built (the foundation of many false lessons from the Shuttle lies in the fundamental mistake of drawing generalizations about a class from a single flawed example). A well-designed space transport would be sufficiently reliable so as not to necessitate a crew escape system (which was in fact the philosophy of the Shuttle--it was just poorly executed due to pinch-penny development). And regardless of whether it carried passengers or not, it would have to be designed for high-reliability recovery, because the cost of the asset itself is so high.
An aircraft guy like Burt would probably recognize that safety and reliability are paramount in the design of a reusable space transport, just as they are in a reusable air transport, because otherwise a reusable vehicle is not economically viable. It's only in the space business that we would come up with such a nutty idea as throwing hardware away every flight, a philosophy that lies at the core of our reliability problems. The only difference in design between a 747 and a 747F is the cargo door and lack of windows in the latter. It is a single aircraft design, capable of handling both passengers and cargo safely (even on the same flight), and there's no intrinsic reason that we couldn't do the same thing with a space transport.
Unfortunately, NASA has apparently decided (learning more wrong lessons from the Shuttle, and other failed attempts of the agency, such as X-33 and X-34) that it's not possible to build vehicles that are either reliable or affordable, so instead they've gone back to the future, and are redoing Apollo, which over the long term was neither affordable or sustainable.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:12 AMWe heard about the launch scrub just as we were pulling into Titusville. We headed back down the coast, but took A1A all the way, so it was a longer, but more scenic trip.
I find it a little ironic that the part that failed today was one of the components that Mike wants to keep ad infinitum, while there was no problem with the Orbiter, which he wants to retire. I may have some further thoughts on this at TechCentralStation, if I can work up the gumption for a piece, but unfortunately, because I lost any productivity today to this futile expedition, I've got three other deadlines breathing down my neck in the next couple days.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:32 PMI just got a call from Bill Khourie (pronounced 'curry'), Director of OSIDA who let me know that they are putting their finishing touches on Oklahoma's spaceport application with FAA AST and environmental impact statement and are targetting December 2005 for approval for horizontal takeoff horizontal landing vehicles. He said they would be delighted to be approached by the vertical crowd and would be pleased to welcome them assuming AST says OK.
--
Wednesday, 15:30 CDT: One of the vertical crowd emailed me and said that they already approached OSIDA some time ago and "would be pleased" might not be enough to get a new AST spaceport application filed.
Over at The Space Review today, Jeff Foust has a more detailed critique of the "Abbey-Lane" Report, a document that I didn't have a very high opinion of. Also, Craig Carberry has a rundown of the political prospects for NASA and the Vision for Space Exploration in the context of the 2008 elections. He repeats a popular myth, though--a common one:
...it was a Republican president who initiated the new vision, and back in 2000, the Republican platform called for exploration of Mars and the rest of the solar system. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan also strongly supported NASA (although it was a Republican, Richard Nixon, that cancelled the Apollo program).
Nixon did not cancel the Apollo program. Lyndon Johnson did. Nixon could have, in theory, resurrected it, though the politics for it certainly weren't favorable, but he can't be blamed for the cancellation.
[Evening update]
Mark Whittington has further thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:31 AMI got this message from Ned Abel Smith of Virgin Galactic this morning.
Hope all is well. Only 2 of us made it into the office this morning due to the Suicide attacks on London, but have heard that everyone is accounted for. Very scary.
He also answered my question about where deposit money goes:
All moneys are not kept in escrow and therefore any deposit received is backed by Virgin Holdings Ltd.This project is so exciting because its so real and anyone that has the opportunity to become a Founder or Pioneer with us is incredibly fortunate. I have attached your Terms and Conditions to be printed and signed.
Here are the terms and conditions Ned mentioned:
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 08:43 AMMike Griffin has been calling for using nuclear power for Earth's rocky Moon exploration rather than Jupiter's Icy Moon exploration. Anti-nuclear activists should propose a cost-effective non-nuclear alternative.
Here's an old idea for lunar nighttime power worthy of rediscovery: laser illumination of solar cells from Earth.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 08:35 PMSince the dawn of history, mankind has feared comets. Now they have reason to fear us. Pretty spectacular fireworks for the 4th of July.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:50 AMSorry about the late warning--I just found out myself. There's supposedly a segment on the topic tonight--CBS, at 7 PM EDT. Hopefully the story won't be "fake, but accurate."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:09 PMI got a solicitation call from Virgin Galactic after getting an email reminding me I registered and asking to confirm my phone number and a good time to call. They say they are about half way through their group of "Founders". The first 100 seats paying full price of $200,000. They are keeping two other queues. "Pioneers" are people who pay $100,000 and get to be one of the first 1,000 people in space on the whole planet. They project that will be 300-400 people depending on how many people their competitors and NASA put up into space in the mean time. Then they will start taking people who put down $20,000. All of these deposits are "refundable".
In any case, that is about $10 million in the bank from the Founders. They did say that they are using the money to develop the product. I will seek further clarification from Virgin Galactic on whether that is just the interest and the money is in escrow or what. If not, it would really be a player mutual sort of like the one I proposed about a year ago in The Space Review. I will aim to post terms and conditions when I receive them.
You get a seat number in your queue if you put up the money. Could someone with $320,000 please put that up so I can get an exact count on the number of seats with deposits in each queue? They project 500 riders in their first year. That's $100 million dollars. Pretty good revenue on a $100 million investment. That also means that the non-Founders and Pioneers will start flying no later than year 2.
If you don't have the money, you will be pleased to hear that their skill game partner is Virgin Games. More about that next week depending on what I am told and what kind of non-disclosure terms I have to agree to.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 11:19 AMNot me, but Michael Mealing is.
Unfortunately, it's for a conference, not a procurement contract.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:21 AMCheck out this.
Commentary later, time permitting.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:28 PMAnd of course, NASA should be embarrassed, even ashamed of itself about it. That seems to be the subtext of this media roundup by Keith Cowing about the safety panel that reported yesterday on progress in getting Shuttle ready to start flying again.
Of course, as is often the case when it comes to space (and sadly, other) reporting, it's the media who should be embarrassed. If they had had a little more technical competence at the time, they would have pointed out that some of the CAIB recommendations were technically unrealistic, and that Sean O'Keefe was foolish to pledge to meet them all. This was, in fact, the first point at which it was becoming clear that he was the wrong man in the job. He had no reputation for being technical, but one of four conditions must have applied:
I'm not sure which of the four is worse--having an administrator who made the pledge cluelessly, or one who made it knowingly, perhaps because he thought that it was important to do so to maintain public support for the agency, in the face of apparent public anxiety over killing astronauts, who are apparently more precious and irreplaceable than babes in arms. I think that it was another symptom, like the misbegotten Hubble decision, of his inability to deal with tragedies occurring on his watch.
He was a good administrator for a pre-Columbia era, but not for a post-Columbia one. And the problem is that one never knows when one era can change to the next. In this case, it happened in a few brief minutes over the skies of Texas. He remained afterward for almost two years, which was far too long, but it was a difficult situation politically--forcing him out early would have made it appear that what happened was his fault, which it really wasn't. I'm sure that he felt that he had to see the investigation through, and then oversee the beginning of the development of the president's new policy.
In any event, I'm heartened to see that both the safety panel (consisting of astronauts) and the new administrator are being more realistic about this now, and press carping on the issue looks foolish to me.
[Update on Thursday morning--yes, I am busy...]
Professor Reynolds has some related thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:00 AMI'm reading the space policy paper by (former JSC Director George) Abbey and (former Clinton Science Advisor Neal) Lane.
It gets off on the wrong foot, in my opinion, right in the preface:
Space exploration on the scale envisioned in the presidents plan is by necessity a cooperative international venture.
I know that this is an article of faith with many, but simply stating it doesn't make it an incontrovertible fact. In reality, this is a political decision. If it became important to the nation to become spacefaring, and seriously move out into space, there's no reason that we couldn't afford to do it ourselves. The amount of money that we spend on space is a trivially small part of the discretionary budget, and even smaller part of the total federal budget, and a drop in the bucket when looking at the GDP. Even ignoring the fact that we could be getting much more for our money if relieved of political constraints, we could easily double the current budget.
The statement also ignores the fact that international cooperation in fact tends to increase costs, and there's little good evidence that it even saves money. It's something that we tend to do simply for the sake of international cooperation, and we actually pay a price for it.
Neither the presidents plan nor the prevailing thrust of existing U.S. space policies encourages the type of international partnerships that are needed. Indeed there is much about U.S. space policy and plansparticularly those pertaining to the possible deployment of weapons in spacethat even our closest allies find objectionable.
While I don't favor doing things just because other countries find them objectionable (with the exception of France), this issue should not be driving our space policy, as I pointed out almost exactly three years ago. What the authors think is a bug, I consider a feature.
In the introduction itself, I found this an interesting misdiagnosis:
In January 2004, President George W. Bush announced a plan to return humans to the Moon by 2020, suggesting that this time U.S. astronauts would make the journey as a part of an international partnership. However, the recent history of the U.S. space programthe tragic Columbia accident, a squeezing of the NASA budget over many years, the cancellation of the Hubble Space Telescope upgrade mission, a go-it-alone approach to space activities, the near demise of the U.S. satellite industry due to U.S. policy on export controls, and international concern about U.S. intentions regarding the military use of spacepoints to serious obstacles that stand in the way of moving forward.
Again, they state this as though it was obviously true (and perhaps it is, to them). But they don't actually explain how any of these things present obstacles to returning to the moon. The loss of Columbia was actually, despite the tragedy to the friends and families of the lost astronauts, a blessing, to the degree that it forced the nation to take a realistic reassessment of the Shuttle program. We aren't going to use Shuttle to go back to the moon, so how can they argue that its loss is an obstacle to that goal?
Similarly, how does squeezing of past NASA budgets prevent future intelligent spending in furtherance of the president's goal? While lamentable if it doesn't occur, repairing Hubble was not going to make any contribution to the Vision for Space Exploration. And while the state of the satellite industry is troubling, again, there's no direct connection between this and human exploration. I've already dealt with the spuriousness of the complaints about international cooperation. In short, this statement is simply a lot of unsubstantiated air, but it probably sounds good to policy makers who haven't given it much thought.
They sum it up here:
U.S. policy makers must confront four looming barriers that threaten continued U.S. leadership in space: export regulations that stifle the growth of the commercial space industry, the projected shortfall in the U.S. science and engineering workforce, inadequate planning for robust scientific advancement in NASA, and an erosion of international cooperation in space.
There are some barriers to carrying out the president's vision, but so far, with the exception of the export-control issue, these aren't them, and they don't seem to have identified any of the other actual ones.
From there, they go on to give a brief history of the space program, with its supposed benefits to the nation. They then go on to laud the international nature of it. When I got to this sentence, I was struck by the irony:
The International Space Station best portrays the international character of space today.
If that's true, it should be taken as a loud and clear warning that we should be running as far, and and as fast, from "international cooperation" as we possibly can.
The largest cooperative scientific and technological program in history, the space station draws on the resources and technical capabilities of nations around the world. It has brought the two Cold War adversaries together to work for a common cause, and arguably has done more to further understanding and cooperation between the two nations than many comparable programs.
What they don't note is that it is years behind schedule, billions over budget, and still accomplishes little of value to actually advancing us in space, other than continuing to keep many people employed at Mr. Abbey's former center, and other places. But, hey...it promotes international cooperation, so that's all right. Right?
The piece goes on to describe the four "barriers," of which only one (export control) really is. While it's troubling that not as many native-born are getting advanced science and engineering degrees as there used to be, there will be no shortage of engineers, since the foreign born will more than pick up the slack. It's perhaps a relevant public policy issue, but it's not a "barrier" to our sending people back to the moon.
The most tendentious "barrier" is what the authors claim is inadequate planning and budgets for the vision:
President George W. Bushs NASA Plan, which echoed that of President George H. W. Bush over a decade before, is bold by any measure. It is also incomplete and unrealistic. It is incomplete, in part, because it raises serious questions about the future commitment of the United States to astronomy and to planetary, earth, and space science. It is unrealistic from the perspectives of cost, timetable, and technological capability. It raises expectations that are not matched by the Administrations commitments. Indeed, pursuit of the NASA Plan, as formulated, is likely to result in substantial harm to the U.S. space program.
Even if one buys their premise--that expectations don't match commitments, that all depends on what means by the "U.S. space program," doesn't it? They seem (like many space policy analysts) to be hung up on science, as though that's the raison d'être of the program. Leaving that aside, they (disingenuously, in my opinion) attempt to back up this statement:
The first part of the NASA Plan, as proposed, was to be funded by adding $1 billion to the NASA budget over five years, and reallocating $11 billion from within the NASA budget during the same time frame. These amounts were within the annual 5 percent increase the current Administration planned to add to the NASA base budget (approximately $15 billion) starting in fiscal year 2005. This budget, however, was very small in comparison to the cost of going to the Moon with the Apollo program. The cost of the Apollo program was approximately $25 billion in 1960 dollars or $125 billion in 2004 dollars, and the objectives of the NASA Plan are, in many ways, no less challenging.
This is a very misleading comparison, for two reasons.
First, as the president himself said, this is not a race, but a vision. Apollo was a race. Money was essentially no object, as long as we beat the Soviets to the moon. The vision will be budget constrained. NASA's (and Mike Griffin's) challenge is to accomplish those few milestones that were laid out in the president's plan within those constraints. It will cost that much, and no more, by definition.
Second, simply stating that the goals of the plan are no less challenging than Apollo doesn't make it so. While the goal of establishing a permanent lunar presence is more of a challenge, it's not that much more of one, and we know much more about the moon now than we did in 1961, and we have much more technology in hand, and experience in development than we did then. In short, any comparison between what Apollo cost and what the vision will cost is utterly spurious. The only way to get an estimate for the latter is to define how it will be done, and then do parametric costing, using 21st-century cost-estimating relationships, on the systems so defined (a process which is occurring, and is one not informed in any way by Apollo budgets).
The U.S. Congress has made clear with its NASA appropriation for fiscal year 2005 that it has serious questions about the NASA Plan.
No surprise there. But that's merely a reflection of specific items (i.e., pork for their districts) that were cut, and says nothing in particular about the overall ability of NASA to achieve the plan with the budget. In fact, an annual appropriation is just that--it provides no insight whatsoever into what Congress might think is required in the out years, when the real budgetary issues would emerge, if they do at all.
Overall, this section strikes me as less a serious policy discussion than a political slap at the administration, by one of the first high-level NASA officials to be canned by it, and by a disgruntled physicist (and science advisor from the previous administration) unhappy that science is not the be-all of the program.
I've glanced through the rest of the thing, but I think I've covered the major flaws in it already. What's actually most notable to me is that they completely ignore the potential for private passenger flight, and commercial space in general (other than bemoaning the impact to the satellite industry of export restrictions). Given how badly they've misdiagnosed the problems, their prescriptions have little value. In terms of providing a basis for administration policy, my own recommendation is that it be simply filed away--in a circular receptacle.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:31 AMKeith Cowing has now posted a transcript from the Q&A portion of the Griffin talk on Tuesday. It's quite interesting, with good questions (and answers) from Keith himself, Jim Muncy, Klaus Heiss, Lori Garver, Debra Lepore (of Kistler), Mike Lounge from Boeing, and others.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:52 AMBernie Schriever has died.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:50 AMDoes Mark Whittington want to name names, or provide credible examples from serious people?
This may annoy some people who, on the one hand, preach libertarian cant and, on the other hand, demand government pay money up front, before the promised hardware is even built, not to mention delivered.
Most "libertarians" that I know have been demanding that the government only pay for progress, when achieved. Mark's straw man notion has in fact been the standard government approach with the big contractors for years, with dismal results.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:43 AMRick Tumlinson eloquently states many of my concerns with NASA's (and specifically Mike Griffin's) approach to getting back to the moon:
...it is tempting to harken back to the good ol' days of Apollo, when a focused and NASA in-house-dominated team carried out an incredible program and put us on the Moon in under 10 years. This seems to be the model Griffin is adopting. Unfortunately, for all its virtues, this is a deeply and fatally flawed model. Yes, it got us to the Moon. But it could not keep us there. Whatever societal and political blame you wish to make, centralizing and institutionalizing our national space agenda set it up to be unsustainable once it reached its stated goal.Imitating Apollo will result in the same end -- if it even gets that far -- for the costs of today's program far exceeds the available funding. According to some sources, even if NASA shuts down all the nonrelevant field centers it now operates, fires all the employees at those centers, kills all the research we are ostensibly going to do on the way out, tosses the space station into the trash, retires its private jets and makes its managers fly coach, the money just isn't there.
He's optimistic, though for other reasons. Here's one of them, from a talk the administrator gave yesterday to the Space Transportation Association (kudos to Keith Cowing for getting a transcript up so quickly). I'll have more to say about Dr. Griffin's remarks later, but they're very encouraging.
[Both links via Clark Lindsey]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:42 AMIt must be true, it's on the Internet.
No, I don't know whether or not they're serious either.
[Via Jeff Foust]
[Update a few minutes later]
Thomas James has further commentary.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:31 AMIt looks like the private solar sail mission may have gone in the drink.
This just points up how ridiculous our space transportation situation is. There is no other field in which we would accept the horrifically low reliability of vehicles, and the only reason for it is that we've historically simply come to accept it, and won't demand better.
[Update on Wednesday morning]
Good news. Or at least better news. They seem to have found it. It's not in the right orbit, but it's in an orbit. Let's hope it's in an orbit that will last long enough to get it on its sunshiny way.
[Another update at 9:20 AM]
Emily Lakdawalla is blogging the progress.
[Update at 1:20 PM EDT]
Looks like the mission is history.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:26 PMLast summer solstice, a year ago today, I was in Mojave, California, watching SpaceShipOne go into space for the first time. Tariq Malik describes all of the activity since then that bodes well for private space passenger travel.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:27 AMOK, I decided to do a mild (because there's actually much of it with which I agree) fisking of last week's piece.
Like the monster in some ghastly horror movie rising from the dead for the umpteenth time, the space shuttle is back on the launch pad. This grotesque, lethal white elephant 14 deaths in 113 flights is the grandest, grossest technological folly of our age.
He must not have been paying much attention to the space station program.
If the shuttle has any reason for existing, it is as an exceptionally clear symbol of our corrupt, sentimental, and dysfunctional political system. Its flights accomplish nothing and cost half a billion per.
This is a gross overstatement. They generally accomplish nothing that is remotely close to being worth half a billion dollars, but they do have some notable accomplishments (launching and servicing Hubble come to mind).
That, at least, is what a flight costs when the vehicle survives. If a shuttle blows up which, depending on whether or not you think that 35 human lives (five original launchworthy Shuttles at seven astronauts each) would be too high a price to pay for ridding the nation of an embarrassing and expensive monstrosity, is either too often or not often enough** then the cost, what with lost inventory, insurance payouts, and the endless subsequent investigations, is seven or eight times that.
That estimate is probably low, though the investigations don't cost much.
There is no longer much pretense that shuttle flights in particular, or manned space flight in general, has any practical value. You will still occasionally hear people repeating the old NASA lines about the joys of microgravity manufacturing and insights into osteoporesis, but if you repeat these tales to a materials scientist or a physiologist, you will get peals of laughter in return. To seek a cure for osteoporesis by spending $500 million to put seven persons and 2,000 tons of equipment into earth orbit is a bit like well, it is so extravagantly preposterous that any simile you can come up with falls flat. It is like nothing else in the annals of human folly.
Well, hyperbole aside, it's hard to argue with that.
Anyone who finds it easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket just hasnt been following the shuttle program very attentively. One astronaut death per eight flights!
Now here, we have a pointless statistic. It's really quite meaningless.
It provides no useful information about how safe, or dangerous, the vehicle is, because it's much more a function of the crew size than of the system reliability. Had it been designed for fourteen crew instead of seven, then the number would be one death every four flights, even though the reliability (two losses in over a hundred flights) would have been exactly the same. And if it only had a crew of two, it would be less than one astronaut death per twenty-five flights. Much safer!
Mr. Derbyshire should be ashamed of this particular argument. As a mathematician, he should know better.
The rest of the presidents address on that occasion was, to be blunt about it, insulting to the memories of the astronauts who died, and still more insulting to their grieving spouses, children, parents, and friends. If these astronauts believed that they had a high and noble purpose in life, they were mistaken, and someone should have set them straight on the point.
I have to think that somehow, the families will feel much more insulted by Derb than by the president, regardless (or perhaps because) of his degree of "bluntness." Bluntness, after all, does not confer correctness. High and noble purposes are in the eye of the beholder, after all, and his curmudgeonly gainsaying of their beliefs shouldn't be expected to have any effect on them.
Please note that if. The motivation of shuttle astronauts would, I suspect, make a very interesting study for some skillful psychologist. Here is Ken Bowersox, one of the astronauts who was actually on board the International Space Station (steady now, Derb, husband your wrath) when Columbia blew up. He is writing in the June 2005 issue of Popular Mechanics, putting the pro case in a debate on the continuation of the Shuttle program, versus former NASA historian Alex Roland arguing the con.
Alex Roland was (briefly) a NASA historian of aeronautics. He's never published anything of note about space, and many of his public pronouncements on the subject are laughable. True space historian Dwayne Day has unmasked him in the past, noting that "his frequent pessimism about NASA and its programs is based very little on facts or experience." Derb unknowingly actually damages his case by citing him.
Bowersox:"Ive wanted to be in space from the time I was listening to the radio and heard about John Glenn circling the earth. Columbia was the klind of blow that could have made me walk away from it. As astronauts, though, we wouldnt have been on the space station if we didnt believe in the program. Even after losing our friends and our ride home, we still believed that exploration was important."
Far be it from me to pull rank on Astronaut Bowersox, but Ive wanted to be in space for somewhat longer than that since seeing those wonderful pictures by Chesley Bonestell in The Conquest of Space, circa 1952, or possibly after being taken to the movie Destination Moon at around the same time. The imaginative appeal of space travel is irresistible. I dont think I could resist it, anyway. Even with two young kids who need me, and a wife who (I feel fairly sure) would miss me, I would still, if given the opportunity to go into space tomorrow, be on the next flight to Cape Canaveral. As Prof. Roland says in that Popular Mechanics exchange: The real reason behind sending astronauts to Mars is that its thrilling and exciting. Absolutely correct. The danger? Heck, we all have to go sometime. As President Bush said, I am sure quite truly: These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly Its the presidents next clause I have trouble with: knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life.
Did they really know that? My experience of pointless make-work, which is much more extensive than I would have wished when starting out in life, is that people engaged in it know they are engaged in it. Whether they mind or not depends on the rewards. For a thousand bucks an hour, Id do make-work all day long aye, and all night too! Astronaut salaries dont rise to anything like that level, of course; but there are rewards other than the merely financial. I hope no one will take it amiss I am very sorry for the astronauts who have died in the shuttle program, and for their loved ones if I quietly speculate on whether, being engaged in such a supremely thrilling and glamorous style of make-work, one might not easily be able to convince oneself to, as Astronaut Bowersox says, believe in the program.
Well, of course, one could convince oneself to do so. That's how one comes to believe in anything. He says this as though there's something wrong with that. Of course, NASA can be very selective when it comes to picking astronauts, since there's a much greater supply than demand (one reason not to have so much national angst when we occasionally lose some). Doubtless one of their selection criteria are to "believe in the program." But that doesn't mean that there's anything insincere, or even invalid about their beliefs. No one knows better than astronauts how pointless much of NASA's activities are, but as long as the taxpayers continue to shell out the money, one can hardly blame them for wanting to experience something that very few have, to date. I'm not sure exactly what Derb's point is in this part of his little rant.
None of which is any reason why the rest of us should believe in it, let alone pay for it.
Agreed.
There is nothing nothing, no thing, not one darned cotton-picking thing you can name of either military, or commercial, or scientific, or national importance to be done in space, that could not be done twenty times better and at one thousandth the cost, by machines rather than human beings.
Now he simply pulls numbers out of the air. This is a popular myth, particularly among people who get their space expertise from the likes of Bob Park and Alex Roland, but the recent studies of robotically servicing the Hubble put the lie to this nonsense.
Mining the asteroids? Isaac Asimov famously claimed that the isotope Astatine-215 (I think it was) is so rare that if you were to sift through the entire crust of the earth, you would only find a trillion atoms of it. We could extract every one of that trillion, and make a brooch out of them, for one-tenth the cost of mining an asteroid.
Again, this is hyperbolic, and nonsensical. I could mine an asteroid for a few tens of billions of dollars, at the most. And that's just for the first one. The marginal cost of additional ones would be orders of magnitude less, if one did it sensibly.
The cost of chewing up the earth's crust is literally incalculable (even ignoring the many trillions of global wealth destroyed in the process).
The gross glutted wealth of the federal government; the venality and stupidity of our representatives; the lobbying power of big rent-seeking corporations; the romantic enthusiasms of millions of citizens; these are the things that 14 astronauts died for. To abandon all euphemism and pretense, they died for pork, for votes, for share prices, and for thrills (immediate in their own case, vicarious in ours).
Largely true, sadly. Such is the nature of our federal space program.
I mean no insult to their memories, and I doubt they would take offense. I am certain that I myself would not certain, in fact, that, given the opportunity, I would gleefully do what they did, with all the dangers, and count the death, if it came, as anyway no worse than moldering away in some hospital bed at age ninety, watching a TV game show, with a tube in my arm and a diaper round my rear end. I should be embarrassed to ask the rest of you to pay for the adventure, though.
Somehow, I suspect that they will take offense, regardless of his intent. But I agree. Until we start making it possible for those (and they are many) who want to go to do so on their own dime, there's little prospect for either reducing the costs significantly, or increasing the size of the tiny club of space explorers. In fact, NASA's current plans will involve opportunities for many fewer astronauts, since we'll be going less often, and with smaller crews, than even the Shuttle flights. And as long as we continue to spend so much money, for such absurdly little activity, rants like this will continue to be written, and to a large degree (despite the errors and hyperbole), justified.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:17 AMJohn Derbyshire doesn't think much of (what I'm guessing is) Keith Cowing's emails:
I had some exchanges with one fellow who took strong exception to my Space Shuttle piece. "It must really suck being you," he asserted. Now, this is pretty lame on a first occurrence; but in our subsequent exchanges he just couldn't think of any way to improve on it. "Like I said, it must really suck being you," he'd close. It dawned on me at last that the guy thinks this is the most crushing, most devastating put-down that has yet been devised from the English language. I weep for these people.
Which reminds me that I still plan to critique the piece myself.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:42 AMI was going to comment on this strange and hyperbolic broadside at the Shuttle, and the manned space program in general from John Derbyshire, but Mark Whittington (who really should spell check his posts) and Clark Lindsey have preempted much of what I would have written.
Briefly, while I agree with his conclusions, he gets there by accident, because his premises are mostly wrong, and his numbers exaggerated beyond any semblance of reality.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:23 AMDwayne Day has an interesting article on the degree to which the space station can be considered a success, but I would have thought that he knew that it was mostly made of aluminum and composites--very little steel involved.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:05 AMJim Oberg says that too many people are hyperventilating over space weapons.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:54 AMNo surprises. They picked the two bidders:
Phase 2, covering final CEV design and production, was scheduled to start with a down-selection to a single industry team in 2008. To reduce or eliminate the gap between the Shuttle's retirement in 2010 and an operational CEV, the Phase 2 down-selection is planned for 2006.Results of NASA Administrator Michael Griffin's Exploration Systems Architectural Study will be incorporated into a Call For Improvements later this year to invite Phase 2 proposals from the Phase 1 contractors.
While, as I said, not a surprise, based on all the scuttlebutt, this really turns up the heat on the contractors. They don't have four years to convince NASA as to who has the better concept and ability to execute it--they have (possibly less than) one. There will be no fly off, and they'll now basically write new proposals under contract.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:09 PMI had heard last Thursday that some kind of announcement on the CEV contract was imminent, expected any day. According to Keith Cowing, there will be some word this afternoon. I'll update when I hear something.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I'm guessing they're waiting for the market to close at 4:30 so they don't influence late traders.
[Update at 3:20 PM EDT]
In this Reuters piece that quotes Jim Albaugh of Boeing as saying he expects an announcement today, Dr. Griffin says something at the Paris Air Show that I find a little disturbing:
"We have enough money to put people back on the moon in that [2015-2020] timeframe," he said. "The model that I have is that we should build a lunar outpost similar to the kinds of multinational outposts we have in Antarctica."
Antarctica is a very bad model, for two reasons. First of all, Antarctica is basically off limits to mineral exploitation, a precedent that would be disastrous if applied to the moon and, in the words of the infamous Moon Treaty, "other celestial bodies." Second, Antarctica is focused primarily on scienctific research. Such a mindset isn't necessarily conducive to the other uses to which a base might be put.
Basically, it sounds like he wants to dust off his old plans from the early 1990s for "First Lunar Outpost" or FLO, that he developed before he left NASA, just before the president's father's Space Exploration Initiative died.
I just think that by the year 2015, it's going to be very clear that the future, and probably present, of space transportation will not lie in putting up throwaway capsules on throwaway rockets, whether Shuttle derived, or EELV derived. What he's proposing is just picking up where Apollo left off, but there's no reason to think that that will be any more sustainable than Apollo ultimately was. It's certainly unlikely to be much more affordable.
Then there's this:
NASA is weighing up competing bids for the so-called Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the successor to the space shuttle, which will be retired in 2010. The new vehicle is expected to be compatible with the International Space Station and to play a role in a manned mission to the moon.
This is a little misleading. It's not going to succeed the Shuttle in the sense that it will perform all the same functions as Shuttle does. In that sense, there will never (praise the heavens) be a successor to the Shuttle, because its overspecification was one of the things that made it such a programmatic disaster.
Also, the "expected to be compatible with the ISS" is a new requirement, not addressed in any of the proposals submitted, because it wasn't required at the time the RFP came out (a result of the fact that Griffin hadn't had time to influence it, being newly arrived). But now the first task of the contractors (and it would be surprising if that turns out to be anyone other than the Boeing/Northrop-Grumman team and the Lockmart team) will almost certainly be to redesign their respective concepts to satisfy this need.
[Update at 4:35]
Keith Cowing is saying that Lockmart has won something. I don't see anything at their web site yet. That doesn't (yet) mean that Boeing/Northrop-Grumman hasn't, of course.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:22 PMTaylor Dinerman says that we should be optimistic about the political staying power of the president's Vision For Space Exploration.
Unfortunately, the example he uses doesn't inspire confidence in me, at least in terms of the potential for success of the program, though it may continue to get funding ad infinitum, as our ineffective space activities already have for the past three decades since Apollo. After all, over two decades after Reagan made his "Star Wars" speech, we still don't have a missile defense.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:23 AMAlan Boyle has more details on Blue Origin's plans.
A hundred kilometers, once a week, with three or more passengers. That's at least a hundred fifty new "astronauts" per year. How big will their fleet be?
Their choice of propellants is interesting--peroxide and kerosene. I wonder what the strength of their peroxide is, and where they're getting it?
Ed Kyle has an overview of Mike Griffin's plans for a Shuttle-derived launch architecture.
I think that it's a mistake to maintain the expensive Shuttle infrastructure, and an even bigger one to make the president's vision dependent on heavy lift vehicles, particularly when there's only one type, with no resiliency. But as Ed points out, politically, there are a lot of influential congresscritters with Shuttle employees in their districts, so pork may rule the day once again.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:54 AMJeff Foust asks, with regard to Griffin's reorganization:
At what point does the standard reorganization of officials during a change of leadership become something more like a purge?
I'm not sure exactly where that point is, but it seems pretty clear to me from this WaPo article that, though they don't use the word, we're well beyond it.
As I've said before, Dr. Griffin is either going to be a spectacular success, or a spectacular failure, but either way, he's going to do it his way. As the article points out, he's been thinking about these issues for a long time. If I were in his position, I'd do a pretty thorough housecleaning as well, but I wouldn't necessarily bring in all of the same people that he will.
[Update in the afternoon]
Via Keith Cowing, here's a Slashdot discussion of this.
[Another update at 3 PM]
Thomas James says that Griffin is being Machiavellian. He means that in a good way, of course.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:04 AMJeff Foust points out a couple of editorials in the DC Examiner that set up the false choice of manned exploration versus, well, other stuff. In the one case, it's earth sciences, though why this is NASA's job (as opposed to, say, NOAA or NSF) isn't said.
And both point out the continuing need for resolving my pet peeve, that we have still not had a national debate on why NASA even exists. Until we can develop some kind of consensus on why we have a government-funded space program, and particularly a manned one, we'll continue have these pointless discussions. As it is now, the purpose is vague and chameleon like, allowing proponents of pork and hobby shops to continue to proliferate.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:08 PMMark Whittington has a survey of space tourism activities in which you can participate today.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:26 AMClark Lindsey has an excellent idea. The problem, of course, is how to make it pay.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:52 AMWil McCarthy says the moon is too darn big. He has a plan.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:33 AMJack Parsons is an interesting character in the history of American rocketry, but it's a major slight to the memory of Dr. Robert Goddard to call Parsons the father of it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:26 AMVia NASA Watch, an interesting article about SETI:
Denounced a decade ago as a misguided effort to find "little green men" and cut off from government funding, SETI, which stands for search for extraterrestrial intelligence, has found a new following among Silicon Valley titans and techies elsewhere who are interested in space. They have infused the institute with money and unconventional technical ideas, bringing a new respect and energy to the organization. Some argue that being cast away by the federal government was the best thing that could have happened to SETI, that it has become stronger and more innovative in the private sector than it ever could have as part of a public bureaucracy.
More of this, please, particularly for human spaceflight.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:43 AM...that seems to be having problems with dodgy procurement practices. OSC may be in trouble as well.
Orbital said an investigation led by the U.S. attorney's office in Phoenix appears to be focusing on "contracting procedures" related to "certain U.S. government launch vehicle programs."Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:19 AM
Here's a pretty good take on NASA's current situation by the Economist.
My main complaint comes toward the end, when it seems to lament that this isn't about science. Who says it should be?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:16 AMFlorida Today makes a rampant speculation, unsupported by anything, apparently, other than the fevered imaginations of its editors:
In case you missed it, NASA's former chief Sean O'Keefe killed the [Hubble] mission in 2004, citing post-Columbia safety concerns. More likely, that was just a cover story to start redirecting money for the agency's moon-Mars plans.
No, more likely it was exactly what O'Keefe said, and no evidence has ever been produced to indicate otherwise. It was a dumb decision, and O'Keefe should have stepped down much sooner, because it was quite clear that he no longer had the stomach for the job post-Columbia, but it had nothing to do with the VSE. As Keith Cowing says, if they don't have any actual basis for this statement, they shouldn't be making it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:27 AMRobert Zimmerman says that we're on the verge of a new renaissance in space exploration, with an explosion of creativity partly fueled by the new media.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:20 AMJeff Foust has an extensive description of Virgin Galactic's plans, based on Will Whitehorn's talk at last week's ISDC:
Virgin is open to other uses of suborbital spaceflight, such as point-to-point transportation, although Whitehorn noted that they are not actively pursuing it because they would then be treated as an airline from a regulatory standpoint, with strict limitations on the flights that a foreign-owned airline can offer in the US. Instead, Virgin is looking at the possibility of orbital spaceflight. If, by year five, weve got this business into profitand we believe we can do it before year fivewe will embark on the next phase of the project, which is to create an orbital commercial system, Whitehorn said.If that happens, Whitehorn believes such a system will do far more than provide another source of revenue for Virgin Galactic. Im a firm believer that this will provide the foundation for the actual colonization of space, he said. That is really what this project is all about to us.
Glad it's about that to someone, because it sure doesn't seem to be to NASA.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:53 AMFrom Clark Lindsey, with links to others' reports:
I last attended a NSS conference in 1990 and much of that meeting dealt either with NASA or with theoretical proposals for grand futuristic projects of all sorts. This time most of the focus was on projects in the private sector that are actually doable. The discussions dealt extensively with real hardware that has flown, like the SS1, or is under development, like the SS2.This time there were representatives from well financed companies with believable business plans such as those that are getting ready to offer spaceflight services to a space tourism market that looks increasingly viable and sizable. Companies like ZERO-G are offering spaceflight related services today and seemed to be doing it profitably.
NASA and its exploration initiative certainly had a place at the conference but I didn't detect any great excitement with the agency's long term plans. Skepticism towards NASA and its ability to carry out its plans has been well earned. Most activists have learned that nothing great is going to happen in space until the costs come down significantly. So there seemed to be much greater interest in the t/Space consortium and its plan for an Earth-to-LEO transport system with a price tag a factor of ten below the expected price.
Space activism has had many ups and downs over the past 30 years or so since the end of Apollo era. There will certainly be many more disappointments. However, there is a substance and vitality to what is happening now that I've never seen before. I think this conference definitely is an sign that things have changed fundamentally. The old "NASA is space, space is NASA" paradigm is fading fast and a new age of independent space pioneering is upon us.
Amen.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:36 AMAs a demonstration that the web is a conversation rather than a lecture, Dwayne Day has inadvertently written a couple of interesting essays on military space in the comments section of this post.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:52 PMI wholeheartedly agree with Peter Diamandis here:
Diamandis said that the wealth of individuals is rapidly increasing thanks to the evolving power of the Internet, and very shortly through breakthroughs in nanotechnology. Billionaires and multi-billionaires are making their own future happen, he said.At the same time the number of millionaires and billionaires are very rapidly increasingly the price for getting into space is coming down. Were at that crossing point right now, Diamandis said.
Once private operators routinely gain access to orbit, the momentum forward is unstoppable, Diamandis said. We cannot depend upon on the government to do this.
While wishing NASA and its new leader, Mike Griffin, good luck, Diamandis said, the space agency is subject to Congressional start-stop, start-stop funding. The fact that there are four to six human flights to orbit a year is pathetic and pathetically small.
"Pathetically small" is a very apt description of the level of activity NASA actually plans to carry out the president's vision. And as long as it remains so, it will remain unaffordable, at least in terms comprehensible to everyday people and, ultimately, unsustainable, just as it was during Apollo.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:15 AMI'm still getting ready for a last-minute trip across the Atlantic, but Thomas James has a restorative tonic for Helen Caldicott's ongoing idiocy about "militarizing space," and Clark Lindsey has a lot of good stuff on the recent International Space Development Conference in Washington, DC.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:31 PMClark Lindsey has a good rundown of yesterday's meeting in Washington on space policy.
A couple of strong impressions came through. Firstly, the end of the Shuttle in 2010 is now taken for granted by everyone. Weldon wants NASA to assign a manager full-time to monitor the transition so that the community disruptions as happened after the end of the Apollo program don't hit the KSC area again.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:46 AMI also noticed a widespread awareness of the existence of an entrepreneurial space industry and that it is becoming a force to reckon with.
That's the title of my piece over at TechCentralStation today on big changes at NASA per its new administrator.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:06 AMTaylor Dinerman says that the administration has to start getting serious about space weapons. I agree.
[Update late afternoon]
There are several good critiques of the piece in comments, that I don't necessarily disagree with. My only point was that I agree with his bottom line.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:25 AMLots of good stuff over at Clark Lindsey's site yesterday, including a tribute to the failed space entrepreneurs of the past that laid so much of the groundwork for today's burgeoning industry. He also has some parting thoughts on last weekend's Space Access Conference, with a link-rich summary of many of the talks.
Over at The Space Review, Jeff Foust takes my "hangover" metaphor and runs with it in describing the state of the industry as represented by the conference (first of two parts--presumably the second will be next Monday).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:13 AMIn response to my previous post citing Orson Scott Card's Star Trek critique, Tobias Buckell takes issue with my comment (and Jim Oberg's concurrence) about Trekkers' interest in space:
Boy, I'd have to quibble with that. I recall ST folk being excited enough to beg NASA to rename the first shuttle Enterprise. That hardly smacks of 'not being interested in space activities.'
This little episode, dating back to the late 1970s, actually makes my point, not his. OV-101, the test article for the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT), was originally supposed to be called the Constitution, but the Star Trek fans were mobilized to rename it the Enterprise, despite the fact that it would never actually fly in space. Many (including me) attempted to make them aware of this, but they didn't seem to care, and pressed on regardless.
It was kind of a drive-by interest, and whether or not the vehicle they were attempting to rename would actually be a space vehicle seemed to be of much less importance to them than that it be named after the Enterprise. If they thought that they could have pulled it off, they'd have probably signed a petition and sent in letters demanding that the astronaut uniforms be bell bottoms with boots, a la STTOS. If Mr. Buckell has any other data to indicate interest by Trekkers in space, or reality, I'd be interested to hear it, because this sure isn't it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:33 PMHere's more description of last weekend's Space Access Conference with pictures (albeit insufficiently lit ones). There doesn't seem to be very good navigation to previous posts, but if you're checking this out in the future, check the later April and early May archives.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:13 AMThe most interesting talk at Space Access was a fill-in that was not blogged by Rand, but was by Clark Lindsey:
a CEV concept [was presented] that Boeing is investigating that involves commercial delivery of fuel to orbiting depots. This so-called "dry launch" approach would mean that vehicles for in-space and lunar transport could be launched without fuel and so, being lighter, they would not need new heavy lifters. This would open a great opportunity for the new launch companies to provide fuel to the depots.
It involves an alternative concept (see page 32) from Boeing. The idea is to launch the lunar transfer vehicle dry and provide commercial propellant delivery. This could result in thousands of metric tons of fuel needing to be delivered to LEO. This might bootstrap the commercial launch industry. There are also opportunities for "the last mile" because some launcher companies will not want to have to figure out how to dock with a fuel depot.
1000 metric tons of fuel would be a cool $3 billion unless someone can undercut Elon Musk. 9000 metric tons through 2030 would be $27 billion at current prices, but would likely spur a tech drive and a bidding war to compete prices down to $1000/kg or less.
I just got an interesting note from Popular Mechanics:
At 12:01 a.m. EST, Popular Mechanics will unveil on its Web site an early look at Lockheed Martin's proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle -- one of two major proposals submitted today to NASA to replace the Space Shuttle and eventually carry us to Mars. We'll be including images and specs. A larger piece will run in our June issue.
I don't know if I'll stay up for it (I'm still recovering from the Space Access Conference sleep deprivation), but comments here are open for anyone who does. I'll take a look in the morning. I am curious to see what Lockmart will propose, particularly now that the competition has gotten more heated with the apparent decision to only award a single contract.
[Tuesday morning update]
The biggest obvious difference between it and the Boeing concept (at least the Boeing concept that has been on display in the exploration studies--I can't speak to what was actually proposed) is that it's got wings. Or at least a body with a lot more lift than a capsule, with supersonic drogues. Despite that, it still lands with chutes and bags, so it's not clear why they want such a high L/D, except for more cross range and landing site flexibility, and reduced entry gees. What NASA has been calling a Service Module they seem to be calling a Propulsion Stage. It's not clear whether it also contains life support consumables (as the Apollo Service Module did), though it does mention that the crew module itself has a LOX supply and fuel cells.
It definitely looks more sexy than Boeing's design--they may be hoping that will help them as it did in X-33, but having that much L/D is a problem for the launch vehicle, because it will impart bending loads (for which it's not designed) on it from the side force of the lift. It will be interesting to see how they explain this.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:52 PMI had a long travel day yesterday. My scheduled return flight was supposed to leave Phoenix at 3:30 in the afternoon and arrive in Fort Lauderdale (via DFW) after midnight. I went to the aircraft in the morning, assuming that I could get an earlier flight to Dallas, and thus get home earlier, on standby.
Wrong.
I ended up spending all the time at Skyharbor not getting on to three separate flights, and ended up taking my original flight anyway. Next time I'll do more than verify that the flights exist--who would have thought that so many others would be so desperate to get out of Phoenix yesterday?
Michael Mealing has a summary of the results of the panel discussion that ended the conference Saturday night. Thanks again to Henry Vanderbilt (and particularly for getting a hotel with wireless everywhere) for putting on another good get-together for this growing community.
[Update at 10:30 AM EDT]
Clark Lindsey has some good further coverage of the sessions that I didn't get to, or write about.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:21 AMI'm listening to John Carmack describe future plans for X-Prize Cup and future vehicles and flight tests, but I'm getting sore wrists from blogging in my lap, so I want to conserve keystrokes for Jim Muncy, who is scheduled to speak shortly. I should mention that as a result of switching from peroxide to LOX/methanol as propellants, John says that Armadillo has about fifty thousand dollars worth of good peroxide equipment that he'll let go cheap. His next vehicle should be a space vehicle, and he expects to crash it a few times in the process of perfecting the design.
3:06 MST: Jim Muncy is coming up to the lectern to speak now. His job as a political consultant is to help space entrepreneurs at the intersection between their endeavors and the political sphere. Talking here primarily about t/Space (among his many other clients). First part of t/Space consortium is AirLaunch (a company of Gary Hudson's) that has one of the Falcon contracts. The goal is "operationally responsive spacelift." Joint project between DARPA, Air Force and NASA.
Title of his talk: AirLaunch, t/Space and a Fast Prototyping Path to Prompt Global Strike, Orbital Tourism and Maybe Even the Moon.
Thanking everyone here for getting the regulatory legislation passed last year, for which this conference was a key event.
NASA has decided that working with these crazy people like Scaled Composites and the entrepreneurial space community is a good idea. Goal is to responsively replenish, replace satellites and respond to space threats, a capability which the nation currently doesn't have. Also able to get several thousand miles in a couple hours and deliver a payload. Key part of program is developing Small Launch Vehicle (hopefully more than one) for smallsats into LEO or hypersonic test vehicles, at less than five million dollars per launch. Trying to return to the launch vehicle paradigm operating in the DC-X program.
Upper stage for launch vehicle isa two-stage self-pressurizing LOX/propane system. Goal is 24-hour response time. It's launched from a C-17 transport (aircraft can carry two). No aircraft modification required. Benefits of air launch aren't performance, but safety in ability to abort, and security, provided by the ability to hide launch location until the last minute. Vehicle is deployed by gravity (about a 750-foot drop prior to ignition, with a large right bank by the aircraft to prevent collision).
t/Space has people from both entrepreneurial community and aerospace establishment: David Gump, Gary Hudson, Jim Muncy, Brett Alexander (White House space policy), Jim Voss (veteran NASA astronaut--will run vehicle development). Two key contractors are AirLaunch LLC and Scaled Composites.
A frontier means new resources and opportunities, not just new knowledge. Create the frontier through government leadership, not government ownership. Inviting private sector to party means more affordable and more sustainable.
They promote commercial delivery of crew, cargo and propellant to LEO. Don't use CEV as a means of getting crew to orbit--turn that over to the private sector, and use CEV in space. Don't base the hard part of going to the moon on the system that gets people into orbit. Their CEV would be space based, and return to LEO via aerocapture. Transportation between earth and LEO would be done privately. The proposal is a split-level architecture: ETO and LEO to Moon. Goal of architecture is to get to lunar-produced propellant as soon as possible. They send a convoy of two vehicles to the moon for redundancy and safety.
They propose air launching their crew transfer vehicle on a "stilt" 747 carrier aircraft. It has longer gear to allow the vehicle to be slung underneath to carry peoploe into LEO. It uses LOX/Hydrogen. A second air launch concept is a new airplane by Burt (that he wants to build for other reasons), which is a "White Knight on steroids."
Goal is to help NASA go faster. Hopeful that new program direction of single CEV contractor will free up funds to allow NASA to have "non-traditional" approach in parallel.
Concerned that Air Force will only have enough money for a single Falcon concept to go forward. Would like us to lobby the Hill to get them to make sure there is sufficient funding for two concepts, to keep the competition going, and keep more companies developing low-cost launch vehicles. Talking about ARES (Affordable REsponsive Spacelift). Not encouraged about it, because it's being managed by traditional missile guys at the Air Force. Wants to get Congress to encourage the Air Force to work with non-traditional players, and get new management in place. If we can't get an award to go to the small guys, we should at least get the big guys to get the small guys as suppliers for subsystems.
He's announcing a new activity that could provide the seed of a new NACA for spaceflight, by developing synergism between the Air Force Research Lab and the entrepreneurial community, called ORSTEP (ORS Technology Enterprise Partnership--where ORS is Operational Responsive Spacelift). Hoping for five million in FY 2006 to get it started.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:02 PMRick Tumlinson of the Space Frontier Foundation is starting with his standard greeting--"Welcome to the Revolution!"
Congratulating Henry on the quality of his conference, and comparing it very favorably to the Esther Dyson event. A lot cheaper, and a lot more fun.
2004 was a very important year, beginning with the president's speech, then the Aldridge Commission speech, then Rutan's flight, and finally the regulatory legislation, and they're all tied together. Direction from the White House of permanence and moving outward, working with the private sector--unprecedented. O'Keefe's job was to bail the water out of the boat, make sure it didn't sink, but he's not a ship's captain. Roadmaps were confusing, and unfocused.
Now new team coming in--boat is floating, has a new rudder, with a new captain and officers. Courtney Stadd, Scott Pace coming in, with O'Neillian viewpoint.
Three kinds of space people:
Saganites: "Space is big, billions of stars, isn't God's creation incredible...DON'T TOUCH IT."
Von Braunians: "We vill go boldly into space, and you vill watch on television, and you vill enjoy it." That's the current space program.
O'Neillians: "We will build the tools, go into space, and use its resources to expand humanity and freedom into the cosmos."
Dichotomy between people who want to "do" space (contractors and NASA), and people who want to actually open space.
Griffin has some of religion and ideas, but "I'm not naive." Don't trust, and verify. Griffin is centralizing control--the spirals are going away. He has a mandate to the White House. President screwed up in one big way in his speech when he said "Crew Exploration Vehicle" instead of crew exploration system, which has some thinking that one vehicle has to do the whole job. Griffin using sixties model to accelerate the program, which is strong central control, dictating to the contractors. But underneath, he is sympathetic to permanence, and opening up space, and really wants it to happen. Roadmaps not going away, but wrapping up in the next few weeks (though transportation roadmap is going away).
Looking at creation of a non-traditional programs office (more detail tonight from Jim Muncy). Has had some exchanges with Dr. Griffin about the "Frontier-enabling test."
Rick reads an email from Griffin (yesterday) explaining that he supports the test, but that it's not his only goal, and that it would be irresponsible of him to allow NASA to sit on the sidelines hoping that the private sector will deliver (I'll get an exact copy from Rick after the session and post it here).
"We need to get the word out about what we're doing--we're one of the best-kept secrets around." "Don't overpromise." "We're space geeks--people don't believe us when we start talking." "Stick together, don't let personal differences keep us from the goal--the trash talk has got to stop." "Build each other up, not tear down." "Need to carry on what Henry Vanderbilt has started--the creation of a community." "Even if we can only agree on three bullets, we need to find them and push them as an industry."
One of the bullets should be to kill ITAR. "It is killing this industry. All ITAR does is force the foreigners to go and develop it themselves in an uncontrolled way.
Mentions "Teachers in Space" initiative, giving teachers vouchers to fly, and then take the knowledge and enthusiasm back into the classroom.
Wants to create "Port Authority" for ISS that goes beyond NASA, more like and airport authority, to allow everyone to work on free-enterprise activities to the benefit of all. Wants to involve private sector in lunar activities from first landing. Give companies leases to property on the Moon if they can demonstrate capability to utilize it, and allow them to retain intellectual property (with perhaps tax sweeteners). Allow someone to put together a total package for investment, modeled on railroad land grants.
Build and fly, and make sure the world sees it." "You are the experts, the da Vincis, the Raphaels of building spaceships, and it makes people believe and want to invest their heart, soul and money in what you're doing."
Question about raising prize authority from $250,000.
Rick responds that Griffin's distrust of commercial companies includes the main aerospace industry. As far as prize authority, it should be raised, but probably taken out of NASA, but someone needs to propose a different model or entity for who would manage it.
Jerry Pournelle points out that Rohrabacher wants to start a National Space Foundation that looks like NSF except it can receive private donations as well as government funding, and hand out prizes (preview of his talk tonight). This would help with some of the bookkeeping problems. If this is a bad idea, now is the good time to tell him, because he's about to tell Rohrabacher that he thinks it's a good idea.
Len Comier says that investors aren't interested in one-shot prizes--they want to see steady ongoing markets.
A Bob Ashman says that the people from Griffin's team at Johns Hopkins are in tune with any of the things that Tumlinson is saying, and he's supporting this through making videos and documentaries, and wants to serve as an interface between the nascent space industry and the entertainment community.
Breaking for lunch now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:15 PMChuck Lauer is describing Rocketplane Limited's activity in Oklahoma, funded by state government tax credits and operating out of the new Oklahoma Spaceport at Burns Flat, at a decommissioned Air Force Base.
Chuck actually gets quite emotional when describing the feeling of going into the hangar and seeing all the people working, earning a living, finally living the dream that he and Mitchell started working on a decade ago.
Their spaceplane will be able to transport at least four people to 330,000 feet and back, with net perceived gees in the range of three or so. It's a converted Learjet, with new wings and other structure. Their base market is tourism, but they also hope to be able to use the vehicle to demonstrate rapid turnaround to help win future Air Force contracts. The vehicle will have both jet and rocket engines. It's a completely electric airplane, using lithium-ion batteries, allowing elmination of APUs (this is one technology that wouldn't have been ready for prime time a few years ago). Using cold-gas for reaction control system, with LOX-kerosene for main propulsion.
Fuselage has already been tested to thirty PSI overpressure. Fact that it's an older airplane actually gives it more margin for this mission compared to a more modern aircraft with lighter structure. They'll be doing pressure testing of it in an old missile bunker that was originally a city killer--Chuck likes the swords-to-plowshares symbolism of converting one of the MAD facilities to developing twenty-first century space hardware for human enjoyment.
Vehicle will have automatic flight control, and be capable of autonomous operation, but tests will nominally be piloted. Will allow vehicle to compete in both piloted and unpiloted classes of X-Prize Cup. Room for passengers will be able to unbuckle and stretch out, though cabin will be small. Still determining whether or not they'll allow people to unbuckle--will determine in atmospheric parabolas to see if they have time to get back and buckled in prior to entry. Full real-time video with views of interior and exterior.
Critical Design Review in August, rollout of vehicle late this year, initial flight test next year, with first revenue flights in 2007.
Long-term view is getting to orbit, doing ISS cargo, and they are interested in ocean hopping as well.
Most amusing comment on the business model:
"Thank you, thank you, Sir Richard, for raising the price to $200,000."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:42 AMThere is a panel on investing in space startups consisting of Steve Fleming and Joe Pistritto (XCOR initial investors) and Tom Olson of The Colony Fund. Most of it is boilerplate, but one point made is that the hope was that business plans would become more realistic with the Rutan X-Prize breakthrough, but some even wackier plans have been crossing their desks recently (not actually surprising, considering what kinds of things were getting funded during the dot-com craze).
Consensus is that there will be serious investment by professional investors in the next twenty-four months, because people are now starting to take the market seriously based on Virgin Galactic's numbers and plans.
Not news, again, but something that technologists and engineers have trouble understanding--investors invest in teams, not in products.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:06 PMThe meeting has picked up again at 4 PM with a discussion by Mitchell Burnside Clapp on what Rocketplane is up to in Oklahoma.
Mitchell starts off by explaining that he has left Rocketplane Limited over "creative differences." Apparently Chuck Lauer will give the Rocketplane Limited talk tomorrow.
Pioneer Rocketplane Corporation is not Rocketplane Limited, and he is still Pioneer Rocketplane, looking for what to do now. He has a new rocket engine cycle that doesn't involve combustion, using differential temperature between the propellants. By running a heat engine between the two, you can generate the enough shaft work to pressurize the propellants, which makes for a much simpler pressurization system. He likes it because it involves no chemistry--just physics. "Worst thing that can happen when starting a jet engine is starting a fire, which you can run away from. A rocket engine can generate an "earth-shattering kaboom." He thinks it's a good thing to be able to test the pressure condition of the powerhead before ignition, and this would allow that. The idea is to allow a non-catastrophic engine start sequence. Looking at Stirling, Brayton and Rankine cycles (he currently favors Brayton). This kind of technology would mitigate his concern about vertical takeoff/landing.
They're also doing a lot of work on hot metal structure. Inconel, stainless steel and aluminum have similar strength/weigh ratio, but elastic modulus is different. Nonetheless, he thinks that one can learn a lot about Inconel behavior by building airplanes out of stainless, so he's doing some research in that area as well.
Talk was quite entertaining (as always), but he talks too fast to do the raconteurage justice on a typed blog.
In questions, a discussion about why Brayton is preferable to Stirling. In short, better power density. Preferred working fluid is supercritical nitrogen.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:29 PMEric Anderson from Space Adventures had to cancel at the last minute, so I just gave an impromptu presentation on the market potential for delivering propellants to low earth orbit for the Vision for Space Exploration. It seemed well received. No decaying vegetation was hurled, at any rate.
Jeff Greason is now giving the XCOR pitch. Suborbital is turning into a very viable market, versus 1999 when the company was founded. Market segments are passengers, payloads (for a few minutes of microgravity, or scientific instruments), and use of suborbital vehicle with expendable upper stage for orbit.
Developments in the last couple or three years: a) customers coming to them, which indicate that the market was much larger than they thought; regulatory situation has had much of the risk reduced by learning how to work the process, getting to know the regulators, and Jeff can now say that regulatory risk is no longer (as it was earlier) one of the top three business risks for them. They are getting government contracts that are synergistic with their business, by developing things that both they and the government need, with government money. Capital formation has been tough, but they're continuing to survive, and prospects are improving.
They have just won their largest government contract to date to develop a liquid oxygen tank using proprietary technology, that solves problems in composite tanks that NASA has been struggling with for years. It's worth potentially up to seven million dollars over four years. They've come up with a composite material that is resistant to microcracking, unlike existing epoxy-based materials. They're using a flouropolymer matrix with an inorganic fiber that maintains its flexibility at cryogenic temperatures, with high flammability resistance.
After five and a half years in this industry, they're making progress, though they had no idea how hard it would be when they started. Their business prospects look good now, and certainly better than they've ever been. Expect an announcement sometime in the near future about a possible intermediate vehicle between EZ-Rocket and Xerus.
Aleta Jackson announces that there will be a flight of the EZ-Rocket on September 21st of 2005, for a big air show in Mojave.
Question from Jerry Pournelle: Why did you ask for a fixed-price contract, instead of cost-plus?
Answer (paraphrased): If we developed a cost-plus culture, we might be able to be financially successful doing government contracting, but we'd never be competitive in the commercial markets, and we wouldn't be able to develop as much hardware for the money that we need in order to achieve our strategic business objectives of building affordable suborbital space planes. The cost-plus environment of the aerospace industry has created several decades in which a lot of very smart people have figured out ways to make things cost more, and they've been very successful. We want to make things cost less, instead of costing more.
XCOR is hiring for the first time in a while--looking for a structural designer with experience in composite aerostructures. There will be an announcement on the XCOR website in a couple weeks.
In response to a question from Chuck Lauer, he notes that they will retain rights to the technology used in building the tank, for which patents were filed a couple weeks before proposal submittal.
Note that Clark Lindsey is also posting summaries of the talks. Yesterday's are up now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:02 PMThere will be presentations from XCOR, Rocketplane, and a panel on investing after lunch, starting at 2 PM Pacific time (or Arizona standard--same thing). See you later.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:42 PMFollowing the speakers' presentations, there is now a panel discussion on regulations, consisting of the people who will be affected by them--Chuck Lauer from Rocketplane, Jeff Greason of XCOR, John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace, and John Powell of JP Aerospace.
Chuck is describing the surprise when the bill passed late last year, and is excited by the prospects. "Right thing at right time" and AST seems to take it seriously and recognizes the importance of doing it right. "We're the first, please be gentle with us." Rocketplane's schedule corresponds very closely with their rulemaking schedule (which was what happened to Burt). They plan to fly next year, and are working closely with AST. They are getting good feedback, and think that it's a good collaborative process.
Greason: How many are in the launch business? How many actually respond to NPRMs? Those are the people are are really in the launch business.
"If this is like farming, last year was harvesting a great crop." "Now we're tilling and weeding and prepping, and the regulatory process never stops." Message is to get involved. Regulations aren't perfect, but are incredibly close to it compared to what they could have been. "Overall approach and architecture of regulations looks excellent."
Carmack: Haven't interacted this much this year because no race for the X-Prize, and vehicle has changed significantly. Much of testing can still be done under amateur rules. XCOR has a much easier time because he can test on premises in Mojave, whereas they have to travel all the way to New Mexico to do flight test. Still not comfortable with dealing with frustrating aspects of simply having to get permission for a smaller engine, burning slower. Want to get permission to operate closer to Dallas. In general AST people easy to work with, and Armadillo recognizes that many of the issus (e.g., environmental impact) aren't within their power to ameliorate. Still need a licensed spaceport for vertical-launched vehicles. Thinking about launching and landing from a barge, and are planning to participate in X-Prize Cup activities in New Mexico.
John Powell: "In an unusual position with respect to AST--has read the rules, and he likes them, and isn't quite sure how to handle that." Rules are "shoulds" rather than "shalls," which gives necessary flexibility at this stage of the game. Need to keep an eye on the words as the rules evolve, to keep them from becoming too prescriptive too early.
Lauer points out that Melchior Antunano at the FAA has provided a lot of good guidance as to potential medical protocols, and that Rocketplane has been getting good support from his people (he surmises that Antunano wants to fly himself). Greason says that the medical guidelines are the most detailed of all of them, and the approach is good, but is concerned that they're looking beyond suborbital flight to orbital flight, and this is probably premature because we're not that smart yet, and he's concerned that some of the orbital thinking has crept back into suborbital. Need to recognize that the flight regimes are a continuum, no clear distinction between medical requirements for 3 gees and 3.1.
In response to question about vertical spaceports, it's pointed out that space traffic and air traffic are currently poorly integrated. This needs to be fixed.
Mitchell Burnside Clapp points out Burt's differences with many of us in the room, and that he's built many more spaceplanes than many of us. Does the panel want to comment. Powell points out that certification regime is wonderful in theory, but it's not here yet, and (Greason points out) it's probably premature to have it now. Greason: "Fly at own risk" won't last forever, and we all understand that. Most agree on level of safety necessary for viable industry. Mitchell interrupts to point out Burt's research into early aviation safety (one in thirty-three thousand). It turns out to be the same as the current FAA numbers for uninvolved public. Question is whether to solve on consequence-based process (current approach) or probability-based process.
Greason points out that reusable vehicles drive reliability for business reasons, regardless of regulations or license requirements. Question is whether level of safety will evolve out of evolutionary design process, or safety mandates by federal government. Doesn't think we're smart enough for latter yet.
Lauer notes that in the future, if we're doing suborbital flights for intercontinental transportation, the license/certification argument will become moot, because those vehicles will have to be integrated into the existing internationalair regulations.
Jeff says that we have to find the things we agree on, and push those as a united front. John Powell points out that there's a new issue on UAV airspace, which has become extremely contentious. We have an opportunity right now to form things properly before some of the new airspace regimes come in, not to mention insurance companies and other stakeholders as the process evolves.
Criticism of AST that the regulatory process is too set in stone, with too much inertia, and cautions that we don't want to have happen what happened to the ELV people, who got a set of rules that seemed designed to put them out of business, and had to work very hard and spend a lot of money to fix it. Important to get things going in the right direction early (i.e, now).
"Can't get a categorical exclusion for environmental protection act until we have a category, and can't get a category until there are multiple things to put in it." A catex for this isn't in the cards immediately, and it would be a very difficult thing to do politically.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:42 AMTim Hughes, the staffer for the House Science Committee primarily responsible for last year's legislation clarifying the regulatory situation for suborbital passenger flight, gave an interesting talk at the conference about the history and philosophy behind the bill.
The intent of the legislation was clearly to help the industry grow, and they came up with what they hope was a good balance between safety and progress. Things they didn't consider included ITAR issues, which came up repeatedly in last week's hearings, and he said that this perhaps should have been considered, but that it might have held up the bill, because this is a much more contentious issue, particularly in terms of its implications for national security. In response to questions, he said that there are no current plans of which he's aware to renegotiate the Outer Space Treaty and Liability Conventions to mitigate some of the insurance issues.
George Nield of the FAA will be speaking next.
He's giving a short history of the AST office, pointing out that they have to maintain a balance between safety and avoiding stifling the industry, which is a delicate balancing act (Simberg note: and it's one that the FAA no longer has to do for aviation, as a result of changes made in the charter after the Valuejet crash a few years ago--they're now supposed to focus only on safety, which is why it might be a good idea to get this office back out of the FAA).
Now he's talking about the Vision for Space Exploration, and pointing out that part of the vision was to include commercial opportunities as well. He's describing a US Space Transportation Policy update early this year that mandates that the government procure commercial space transportation services whereever and whenever possible. Going over a list of significant events last year, including Burt's historic flights, and the provision of XCOR's launch license at this conference last year.
"We're at the dawn of a new era." "First to market groups will be small entrepreneurial companies." "Designs will feature creative application of existing technologies. Citing Futron study to indicate that there is indeed a market for suborbital flights, capable of generating over a billion dollars a year by 2021. Orbital flights will happen as well, but market will be smaller in near term.
What's different now? We have supportive national policy, including the words "public space travel" in the Space Transportation Policy for the first time in history, with responsibility falling on Secs of Commerce and Transportation to carry that out. We have realistic objectives this time: no technology breakthroughs required, suborbital trajectories with primary emphasis on passengers, using available technologies. We also are seeing non-federal funding become available from numerous wealthy individuals, as well as good support by state and local governments. Prizes are helping as well. The regulatory framework is in place with the Commercial Spacelaunch Amendments Act, which puts Congress and administration on the record as supporting human spaceflight.
FAA has a very ambitious homework assignment to write the regulations for passengers, experimental permits, and license requirements, which will result in a Notification of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) in a year or two.
Talking about Branson, because he's the one we know the most about, not necessarily because FAA thinks that he's got the inside track. Branson's plans imply 2600 people launched into space each year, so that if Shuttle retires in 2010, and Branson flies in 2008, there will be ten times as many people flown into space privately by that time as have flown in space to date by governments. He sees no showstoppers, and FAA is committed to promote this activity in a way that continuously improves its safety.
Question: Do the new regs apply to orbital as well as suborbital? Yes and no. The experimental permit, for one, only applies to suborbital. Orbital regulation will continue to evolve as we learn more from suborbital experience. FAA is strongly supportive of this conference and think that it plays a major contribution. Announcing Craig Day, from AIAA to come up to announce a cooperative effort between government and industry to come up with guidelines for RLV safety regulations. Neild points out that there are still people who want to see reusable vehicles certified (didn't mention Rutan's name, but we all know who he means). He still doesn't think we understand enough about reusables to do this, and points out that a feathered tail for reentry or a propulsion system using laughing gas and rubber wouldn't have gotten certification (amusing dig at Burt).
Half hour break starting now, after which will be a talk from Michelle Murray of FAA about the launch licensing process.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Michael Mealing, who's sitting behind me, has pictures.
Michelle has started talking. I don't know if she'll have much worth blogging--it seems to be a description of the process for regulatory rulemaking.
One key point she's coming to now--they want public participation in the development of these rules. Feedback can be provided electronically or by paper. Everyone will be able to see everyone else's comments (unless someone wants to provide proprietary info, in which case a note will be made in the public docket that such an input exists but it not available). They may have public meetings for the purpose of fact finding where a particular issue is controversial. Meetings may be in meatspace or virtual, and will be announced in the Federal Register, at least thirty days prior, along with email notifications to affected parties if they know who they are (e.g., in this case, they might send an email to Henry Vanderbilt, or the RLV working group of the Commercial Space Transportation Committee (COMSTAC)). Public requests of a public meeting can also trigger one. They haven't yet come to a decision as to whether or not they plan to have a public meeting for this new rule-making process arising from last year's legislation. They probably will have one, but haven't determined when yet. May consider having one in conjunction with this conference or an RLV working group meeting.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:06 AMWell, here is the first, big obvious result of the new administrator:
After examining many options, we have formed a policy on institutional support of systems engineering and integration in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate portfolio, which underscores the importance of reinforcing the Government's internal systems engineering competency. Accordingly, NASA has concluded that Government personnel at Headquarters and NASA Centers will implement systems engineering and integration in Constellation Systems and other areas of the Exploration program. Consequently, Exploration Systems Mission Directorate will not be releasing a Request for Proposals (RFP) for an Industry systems engineering and integration contractor.
For months, Admiral Steidle, head of EMSD has been saying that 2005 was "the year of system integration," and it's been clear that he wanted to let a contract out for this task in time to help get CEV off to a good start by the end of the year. There are a lot of issues and history associated with how NASA does large-systems integration, enough to fill more than one book, but the basic issues are competence of the agency, ability to hire/fire/compensate the best people for the job under civil service rules, and avoidance of institutional conflicts of interest if it's performed by a hardware contractor. My sense had been that NASA was going to let a contract for this (as they did with the Shuttle--it went to Rockwell in conjunction with their win of the Orbiter contract), and put in place firewalls and other procedures to minimize conflict-of-interest concerns.
But according to this release, it looks to me as though Dr. Griffin has decided to preempt the Admiral, and thinks that he can oversee his civil servants adequately to do the job in house, and he wants to start to build up the capability to do so. This throws a wrench in the works of all the major contractors' plans for Constellation. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out, particularly combined with the desire to accelerate the CEV program (the desire is to move first flight up from 2014 to 2010, which puts schedule pressure on a lot of things in this decade).
I hope that some NASA types who are in the know will be at the Space Access Conference, and that I can pick their brains a little over a beer.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:00 PMClark Lindsey points to a study (with which new NASA administrator Mike Griffin was heavily involved) that's been kicking around for about a year now, apparently popular with some in the astronaut office, proposing an SRB-based crew launch system. Clark notes that "The reasoning is that this system could be developed more quickly than a CEV on a Delta IV or Atlas V since the SRBs are already 'human-rated.'"
Well, not exactly. At least, they (correctly) don't say that. As I've noted many times in the past, the phrase "human rated" is a very misleading one. What they actually say is that "...the SRM has proven to be the most reliable launch vehicle in the history of manned space flight, with no failures in 176 flights following the modifications implemented in the aftermath of the Challenger accident."
The reality is that the SRB is not "human rated." In fact (surprising to many) the Shuttle itself is not. "Human rated" or "man rated" is a phrase that so many misuse that I'd just like to purge it from our vocabulary, because as I've explained, it's really a relic of the sixties. All we can say about the SRB is that it has flown reliably (at least after the O-ring problem was resolved) on our only vehicle that carries crew. As such, it may be the basis of a relatively (as expendable launchers go) safe ride for astronauts.
One thing that I never see mentioned in this concept, though, is how they propose to do roll control. The current SRB has none, because it is part of a larger vehicle, which rolls by gimbaling its nozzles. As a stand-alone system, it would have no roll authority at all, without adding fins or a reaction control system. Is that what those little appendages down at the bottom of the figure in Clark's post are meant to represent?
In any event, such a vehicle will in fact be a new launch system (and one with a pretty rough ride and probably pretty high accelerations toward the end of the burn)--no one will be able to simply stick a capsule on top of an SRB.
[Update about noon eastern]
I just noticed another depressing little statement in the report: "During the time frame addressed by this reportthe next several decadesthe cost of access to Earth orbit can hardly be less than several thousand dollars per kilogram, and, as we have discussed, even a Spartan expedition to Mars will require many hundreds of metric tons of material to be delivered to LEO."
With an attitude like that, we're going to waste a lot of money trying to get to other planets. Or even into orbit, for that matter. That's why I think that much of the funds being spent for the VSE program will be for naught. But they probably won't be spent any worse than they have been for the past three decades, and at least now we have an interesting goal.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:02 AMKeith Cowing also wonders why NASA would want a missile defense analyst on a space exploration advisory committee. My reading of the VSE and the Aldridge Report is that the new vision should support several goals, one of which is defense, both national and planetary. It would in fact be quite useful to have someone from the space defense community involved in the planning, to keep an eye out for opportunities for synergism, and to bring a different perspective in the development of systems that could both help in that defense goals, and perhaps complicate them if done without consideration of those other strategic needs.
While it's not obvious to me exactly how they would fit (other than for the planetary defense role), concern about how LEO activity will coexist with potential LEO missile defense systems is worth worrying about, and it's not a bad idea to have someone on board who does think about such things for a living.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:54 AMKeith Cowing wonders why NASA is procuring hardware for military tanks.
Well, without discounting the possibility (even likelihood) that there is something bureaucratically suspect going on here, there is a plausible justification, in that the technology for an oil-free turbine would be very handy for space applications (e.g., power conversion for nuclear systems), reducing maintenance and helping with reliability. Since the funding is from Glenn (NASA's propulsion center), it makes sense that it would develop this potential dual-use technology. It may even have other civilian terrestrial spinoff applications.
It is strange that the applications cited are so military specific, though. Equally strange is that the application (a diesel environment) is so specific so as to make it look suspect as a pure technology development. We're a long way off from space diesels.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:47 AMDale Amon has some interesting, and plausible, speculation about Richard Branson's business plans for space transportation.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:27 AMThere are a variety of ways to subsidize space transportation. Rand's idea to implement my proposal is a good one. I chose the $15 billion number not because I thought it was the minimum necessary to kick start the industry, but to beg the question about what we are getting from NASA for the same amount of money. I do not propose to use new spending.
Instead of an auction for launch services, followed by a delivery of cash on completion of the launch there are several other ways to implement a subsidy:
Rand's auction is simple and would set the price in advance of flying which would be good.
As for popularity, it will take someone like Eisenhower or Kelly to make this happen. If someone can make the case for California stem cells, the case for space access ought to be possible.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 02:22 PMSam, what I don't understand about your proposal is, well, how it would actually work. The devil is always in the details in these things. When you say:
It would be private industry and individual citizens who could book whatever missions they wanted.
...what does that mean? What price will they get the service at? Who is purchasing from the launch providers?
My idea would be to have the government purchase some fixed (and large) quantity of various goods and space services (e.g., tickets to LEO, pounds to LEO, maybe even tickets and pounds to the lunar surface), use whatever there was a government need for, and auction the rest back on the market. If the market price turns out to be higher than the price paid by the government, then the program costs nothing at all (other than the cost of the services that the government needs). If it's a lot more, presumably the providers would stop selling to the government (assuming they were allowed to opt out) and sell directly to the market. If the differential was low, then we'd have a subsidy, in which the cost of the program would be the difference in price between market and government cost of the service.
But in order to make this fly, the country (and its government) would have to decide that having large amounts of activities in space at reduced unit costs were sufficiently important to justify what would be considered a large expenditure in the context of current space activity (essentially doubling the NASA budget under your proposal, but I think you could do a lot of damage to the problem for a few billion a year). There's been little sign of that so far.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:14 AMSee my proposal for a decentralized approach to developing space in this week's The Space Review here. What people don't seem to understand about my subsidy proposal that I first put forward last year (See recommendations 10 and 14) is that NASA and DoD would no longer be directing the space programs. It would be private industry and individual citizens who could book whatever missions they wanted. That would lead to the following benefits:
1) Freedom and liberty
2) Capitalism instead of central planning allocating capacity
3) Private development instead of government development
Government would be the primary beneficiary of cost savings since they are the primary space user. They would have more responsibility since all of space would become open for business.
Private industry and citizens would have new services that would be less valuable at first, but would be more price elastic than the government demand.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 06:57 AMThomas James expresses a fear about government lunar bases, and NASA, that I share. We've got to break out of Apollo mode. I hope that the new administrator understands this, but so far, I see little sign of it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:34 AMJohn Schwartz of NYT has written "NASA Is Said to Loosen Risk Standards for Shuttle" published today. My cost benefit analysis is here.
The statistics can be simplified. What are the failure modes? What are their probabilities? How much do those probabilities overlap? What rate is it OK for the shuttle to fail? How much does it cost to mitigate the failure modes? Stack rank them according to the highest increase in safety for the lowest cost. Go to work.
So we have a failure mode of about 1% based on 100 trials. So far it has cost $2 billion to mitigate it. That implies that NASA is acting as if the value of the orbiter and crew on each flight is $7 billion or more to make the benefits of the fix outweigh the cost ($2 billlion to achieve a less than 1% reduction in the probability of a fail in 28 flights. $2 billion/(28 * 1%) = $7 billion). The families of the 9/11 victims each received $2.1 million. To compensate the families of astronauts who may die at the same level would cost $15 million. At commercial prices of $16 million for a Falcon V which delivers about 1/4 of a shuttle's worth to the ISS, we could buy 443 flights for $7 billion not counting range and payload costs or over 100 shuttles flights' worth. Even using the Ariane at $4,000/lb according to Futron's 2002 price estimate we could buy 28 shuttle flights' worth of Ariane payload for $5.6 billion. With viable outside commercial options that are less expensive to build and operate than the shuttle is to just operate, the sale price of the shuttle would be zero. We should not be treating it like a $7 billion asset. So perhaps the cost/benefit analysis is a little off at NASA.
Or maybe the following quote from AWST, 4/11/2005 (subscription required) will give you a better feel for what is really going on at NASA:
"We had one place in the backpack where, because of the confined space, the wire bend was tighter than the specified engineering limit was. And the EVA folks said it will cost us $100,000 to fix this," [Wayne Hale, the deputy shuttle program manager] said. "Well, in the space business, $100,000 is not a lot of money, so I said go fix this."
This man should be relieved and someone put in place someone who can explain cost-benefit to the public.
Not that I'd noticed, but apparently today is the thirty-fifth Earth Day. Jim and Cooky Oberg said a year ago that the proponents of the day are thinking too small. Nothing's changed since, apparently.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:50 AMThe president's science advisor says that Mike Griffin will ride to the rescue, and save us from the dreaded gap.
Unlike Senator Hutchison, though, who unaccountably thinks gaps are a national security crisis, Dr. Marburger is more sanguine about them. Too much so, in fact, for my taste:
...more gaps in access were likely in the future of the U.S. space program. These gaps are to be viewed as a fact of life in space operations, he suggested."There will be future gaps from time to time. The thing to remember is that the president's plan is a long-term, sustained commitment." Gaps, he suggested, were simply a part of the continuing process of space exploration.
While I don't in fact think that "gaps" are that big a deal, given the trivial things that we're currently doing (and even planning) with our civil manned spaceflight program, I'm quite disturbed by the notion that they are an inevitable feature of space operations. Imagine if he'd said, "there will be future gaps from time to time in our ability to get into the air," or "there will be future gaps from time to time in our ability to cross the oceans."
Clearly, this isn't an attitude that would be acceptable if we were actually doing anything important with humans in space. The fact that he can make such a statement is a window into his perception of the importance of being a space-faring nation, a goal at which the current plans for VSE still fall far short, for decades.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:28 AMSenator Hutchison is going to be a distinct downgrade from Sam Brownback, when it comes to space policy, though she'll probably be good news for JSC. It also means that one of her nicknames should be "Senator from ISS."
In an article in which Bill Readdy says that NASA plans to accelerate the development of the CEV (not intrinsically a bad thing, given that it's going to be built at all, and certainly in line with the new administrator's desires), note this:
Sen. Kay Hutchison (R-Texas), subcommittee chair, said that NASA must work to avoid being caught without the ability to launch its own human missions to the ISS and low-Earth orbit.I think that we cannot allow that kind of hiatus right now, Hutchison said to a panel of NASA program managers, astronauts and scientists. I think of it as a national security threat to our country and I intend to pursue everything I can to look at ways to shorten that time period.
A "national security threat to our country"? To not be able to get to the space station? Could she elaborate? What is it, Battlestar Galactica? Last time I checked, it was purely a civilian program, with no military significance. In what way is not being able to get to it a "national security threat"?
What's interesting about this is that the ISS mission has been the elephant sitting in the living room that no one working the exploration studies has been talking about, or at least required to talk about. The requirement to go to ISS has never appeared in the Level 0 requirements for CEV, and adding it means a different design, for both it and the launcher (though the differences aren't humungous). But it would sure be helpful to the contactor community if NASA (and Congress) would make up its mind on this and decide whether this is supposed to be a (partial) Shuttle replacement, or an exploration vehicle for trips beyond LEO.
The missions can be performed by the same system, in theory, but that has to be understood up front, and it should also be understood that making it both a dessert topping and a floor wax will render it less effective at performing both missions. This kind of mission creep was one of the things that made the Shuttle (and station, for that matter) such a programmatic disaster.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:04 PMThere is an interesting argument going on here about my article on Orion. I am cc'ing you the following:
I always thought the active-passive distinction in philosphy and law was a cop out. We are just as responsible for the millions who die from our inaction as we are for murder. If you are consciously not donating to a hunger fund with the understanding that the inevitable consequence is that an additional person will die of hunger, it is tantamount to first degree murder.
There is an active choice to be part of coal deaths. Every time we turn on a light switch, we actively increase the coal output that kills tens of thousands per year or more. So each flick is increasing the likelihood of death. It is therefore self-deception to suggest that moving in the direction of safety is a sinless course. It is just murder too common to prosecute.
So if we can all agree that we are a civilization of murderers, then we can get on to real questions like is it better to kill people with atmospheric nuclear explosions to colonize the solar system or kill each other through inaction.
Sticking with spending $15 billion/year on chemical rockets instead of half on nuclear rockets and half on defibrillators is killing hundreds of thousands.
I would give my life to colonize the planets. Our focus on saving every life is penny wise and pound foolish.
Do people avoid having children so that all their cells can die a natural death? Envision all humanity as cells of a greater organism, the global species. Envision that it is time to have a child species on another planet. Isn't that worth the death of millions or hundreds of millions if new billions will spring into existence? I am asking for dozens possibly killed offset by savings thousands of others that would otherwise be killed.
I don't expect to fundamentally change dinosaur thinking. "I will not kill anyone to save the species from the asteroid that has our species' name on it." But be aware of the systematic cost of the capricous risk aversion we impose in the name of morality.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 09:05 AMMike Griffin wrote Marshall a blank check yesterday.
As Keith points out, this doesn't exactly square with his previous (laudable) statements about having more (needed) competition between centers.
[Afternoon update]
Clark Lindsey isn't very impressed, either:
MSFC is rewarded for all those successful launch vehicle development projects it carried out in the past couple of decadesPosted by Rand Simberg at 08:02 AM
Here's an interesting bit from Will Whitehorn's (of Virgin Galactic) testimony this morning on the Hill:
Mr. Chairman, let me now turn to the question the Subcommittee asked about what preparations we presently are undertaking for the use of the spaceships we plan to purchase from Mr. Rutan. We are focused on complying fully with the letter and spirit of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004. Scaled Composites will have sole responsibility to certify the spacecraft. However, together, we are engaged in an active dialogue with the Federal Aviation Administration on other aspects of our business.
Emphasis mine.
This does not compute. If he complies with the CSLA, there will be no spacecraft certification--just a launch license. So the question is, was this a deliberate attempt to insert the C-word into the discussion (since Burt has been agitating to do this for some time), or was it simply sloppy usage by someone who doesn't know better? One would think that company lawyers would vet a submitted Congressional testimony from someone representing a company like this, but it could be that they didn't realize the significance of it. And in fact, it may have no significance at all, and I'm just being hypersensitive.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:11 PMSorry I didn't notice this earlier, but Clark Lindsey has been live blogging this morning's commercial space hearing. There seems to be a common (and worthy) theme here--reform ITAR.
[1 PM update]
Keith Cowing has the prepared testimony.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:29 AMI don't know if they read this or not, but Virgin Galactic appears to be taking money.
I got the following link in an email confirmed for all to see here.
Go quick. $20,000 refundable deposit only costs about $1200 in interest costs at today's money market rates. No word if the deposits are transferrable.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 02:42 PMMike Griffin seems to agree with me about Shuttle upgrades:
Asked at his first news conference if he would allow Discovery to fly despite some reservations by the independent Stafford-Covey Commission, which monitors NASA progress on safety recommendations after the Columbia disaster, Griffin replied, "In concept, yes I would."Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:41 AM..."Advisory groups advise. We need to take our advice very seriously ...," Griffin said. "But at the end of the day, the people wearing government and contractor badges charged with launching the vehicle will be the ones who are responsible and accountable for their actions."
Jon Berndt has an article in the current issue of the Houston AIAA newsletter on the subject of heavy lift, citing yours truly, among others. (Warning, it's a three meg PDF). My only quibble is that he misses one of the other problems with a heavy lifter--lack of resiliency. If we develop an exploration architecture that's dependent on heavy lift, then we should have multiple means of providing it, which means two development programs with inadequate flight rate to amortize the costs.
Along similar lines, Bob Zubrin has a long essay on space policy in The New Atlantis that's now available on line, with a harsh critique of NASA, including the Bush-era NASA and Sean O'Keefe. Surprisingly, I agree with much of the early part of it (though as always, the tone is a little problematic). I don't agree with this:
The ESMD plan requires a plethora of additional recurring costs and mission risks for the sole purpose of avoiding the development cost of a big new rocketa heavy lift vehicle (HLV). Yet, since one goal of the Vision for Space Exploration is to get humans to Mars, an HLV will need to be developed anyway.
He states the latter (the necessity of heavy lift for Mars) as though it's established fact, rather than Bob Zubrin's opinion. He doesn't seem to support it in any way, except for his ongoing complaints about the "complexity" of multiple launches. He also repeats the flawed argument for heavy lift that I critiqued a few weeks ago.
He concludes, of course, with his proposal to go to Mars, go directly to Mars, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. Except, in the tenor of the times, he's saluted the Moon by pointing out that his plan allows us to go there, too. He's explicitly calling for a revival of the Apollo mentality, not understanding why Apollo ultimately failed in terms of opening up space to humanity.
There is no question that his plan is technically feasible. But I don't think that it's either affordable, or sustainable (nor are ESMD's current plans, which have their own problems). In either case, we are spending far too much for far too little, because we don't recognize the real problem--the cost of access to orbit itself. Until we address that, and creatively, we will be doomed to continue spending (and wasting) vast amounts of money for little return on our space dreams.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:58 AMA commenter at this post writes:
When it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to fly a single Shuttle mission, I fail to see the problem with spending another 10 to fix the wiring.
The first problem is a misunderstanding of Shuttle costs. The marginal cost of a flight is not "hundreds of millions of dollars." It's probably somewhere between a hundred and a hundred and fifty million. The average cost is much more, but that's not a useful number, because it can vary so much with flight rate (for example, when the flight rate is zero, as it has been since February, 2003, the average cost per flight is infinite, regardless of how much we spend on the Shuttle program).
The second problem is that, while ten million dollars may not seem like much in the context of a program that costs billions annually, the fact remains that NASA has a finite budget, and ten million spent on one item is ten million less available to be spent on something else, that might be more important. According to the article that the original post linked to, the odds of an uncommanded thruster firing resulting in a catastrophe are somewhere between one in ten thousand and one in a million (it doesn't say if that's on a per-mission basis, or totaled over the next twenty-odd flights). Assuming that those are valid numbers, with any degree of confidence, then the standard way to determine how much we should spend to prevent that event from happening would be to use the expected value of that event (probability times cost). The problem with that, of course, is assessing the value of either the Shuttle fleet, or the ISS, given that current policy recognizes them both as dead ends, in terms of future space policy.
That, in fact, is why I think that the CAIB recommendations should have been revisited after the new policy was announced. If the CAIB had known that the Shuttle was going to be retired at the end of the decade, they may not have recommended some of the more costly (and impractical) fixes for what would then have been recognized as a rapidly depreciating asset.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:04 PMThis article, describing the potential danger of an uncommanded thruster firing, is just one more illustration of why the Shuttle has to be retired, and the sooner the better.
Back in the olden days, when I worked at Rockwell in the eighties and early nineties, some of my colleagues would write technical papers, in all seriousness, that we would likely be flying the Shuttle well into the 2020s or 2030s. Ignoring the fact that this was a self-serving delusion (we were, after all, in the business of building and flying the things), their logic was that it was designed for a hundred flights, and at the low flight rate we were getting out of it, it would easily last well into those decades. I didn't make myself very popular when I laughed at this logic, but I did nonetheless.
Setting aside the issue of what a disaster it would be for space policy if we were still flying such an economically absurd system five decades after it had been designed, they didn't seem to understand that, like the old oil commercial, "think months, not miles." The fleet is aging, as we saw a couple years ago with the cracks in the fuel-cell liners. The standard rejoinder to this argument is that we are still flying B-52s that were originally built in the 1950s, and in some cases we have grandsons of some of the original flight crews flying them today.
That ignores the economics, of course. B-52s are heavily used, still flying sorties every day, and it makes sense to continue to maintain and inspect them, because the cost of doing so is amortized over a large number of flights. But it's hard to justify the expenditure of many millions of dollars to replace wiring in the RCS, when the fleet is going to be retired soon anyway, and only flies a few times a year. This logic applies to almost any maintenance/replacement issue with the vehicles, all of which are uniformly hyperexpensive to implement. Unless it's a clear and obvious safety issue in the context of the next couple dozen flights, it's very hard to justify the expense at this point.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:31 AMYou know that space tourism is being taken seriously when you can read about it in Travel and Leisure magazine. This piece by Los Angeles writer M. G. Lord was in the January issue, which Patricia just pointed out to me.
I last saw M. G. last June in Mojave for the first SpaceShipOne flight into space. I hadn't realized that she has a new book out. It looks quite interesting. Check out the review by NASA historian Roger Launius.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:21 AMJeff Foust has an article today on a recent speech by Gene Kranz (yesterday was the thirty-fifth anniversary of the successful return of the crippled Apollo XIII). It's become popular myth as a result of Ron Howard's movie that Gene was the director of flight control, solely responsible for getting the crew back safely, when in fact there were more than one. In my opinion, Glynn Lunney in particular gets short (in fact zero) shrift in the movie, though the work obviously had to be done in shifts.
But I'm afraid that we (and I include Gene in this) take the wrong lessons from that incident. Yes, the teamwork was splendid, and the improvisation excellent, and they did everything they needed to do to get them back. But as I commented back in days immediately following the loss of Columbia, those are necessary, but not sufficient, to ensure that we won't lose people in space. It has to be recognized that in addition to all of the smart moves on the ground, that crew was also damn lucky. If that explosion had happened while the crew was on the surface, or on the way back from the Moon, they'd have died, no matter how much derring do was on display in Houston. A lot of other things could have gone wrong that would have killed them, and no amount of teamwork, training, and smarts would have prevented it.
Sending people into space is a risky business, and we have to accept that. It sounds nice when Gene says it, but "failure is not an option" isn't a realistic attitude. As someone once said, when failure isn't an option, success gets damned expensive. And of course, the easiest way to ensure that failure isn't an option is to not even make the attempt.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:00 AMMy current partner in crime here, Sam Dinkin, has some interesting ideas about how to encourage space activity and drive down costs over at The Space Review today. I don't agree with all of them, and I'm sure that in some cases there may be some bad unintended consequences, though I haven't given them enough thought to identify any yet.
I like the idea of subsidizing EELV at the margin. Government policy in general doesn't seem to understand the concept of marginal cost (one of the reasons that both Shuttle and ISS are programmatic disasters), and a more explicit recognition of its importance could have some good policy outcomes.
I'm not sure what he means by "privatizing ISS and Shuttle," I think that the infrastructure to maintain both of them is too expensive for anyone to operate at a profit, even if they were given away.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:37 AMThis is a pretty funny commentary on the Senate confirmation process.
[Via NASA Watch]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:21 AM...well, not the spotless mind, but actually the lunar north pole.
This is very interesting, for two reasons. Most plans for lunar bases assume a need for a nuclear power plant, because of the two-week-long night there. Discovering regions where the sun always shines means that we can get by with solar power. From a design standpoint, it will also be a lot easier to design equipment for a single temperature (-50 C) than for an environment with huge temperature swings, which is the case between lunar day and night.
The real question now is whether or not there's ice in the craters, where the sun never shines, as seems to be the case at the south pole.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:29 AMMike Griffin (who only Tuesday testified before the relevant Senate committee) has already been confirmed by the full Senate, and may be the NASA administrator before the weekend.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:57 AMI read information about Prof. Robert Benny Gerber and his coauthors discovery on Space Daily and asked him a few questions for Transterrestrial.
Dinkin: May I ask you a few questions about your new Xenon compounds? Can you summarize your discovery of the ability to combine noble gases with hydrogen for the lay rocket scientist?
Gerber: Thank you for your kind interest. I am going on a lecture trip to France tomorrow [4/1], so I shall have to reply in haste. I should say at the outset, with apologies, that I know nothing of rocket science, and have not considered at all any applications in that direction. I would be very happy if anybody has got creative ideas in that respect.
Our results led to the discovery of a new family of xenon compounds. These are molecules formed of a noble gas atom (xenon or krypton) with hydrocarbons. A typical case is HXeCCH, a molecule made of xenon and acetylene. Another specially interesting material that we predicted most recently (but was not made yet experimentally, is polymeric xenon acetylide, a polymer built of the unit -(XeCC)-. The only applications we are pursuing actively are medical applications (anesthetic agents), which is completely irrelevant here. There is some relevance to your points to the fact that these are high energy density materials.
Thus, our results do not combine just H and a noble gas atom. HXeCCH for example, is expected to decompose mainly into Xe + acetlyne. Depending on the conditions, it may also decompose in a secondary channel, giving H2 and HCCCCCH. Both channels release a very large amount of energy, but since Xe has a large atomic weight, I would not expect any relevance to rocket fuels.
Dinkin: Can you combine hydrogen with helium?
Gerber: There is no compound to my knowledge consisting only of He and H. We predicted stability of the compound HHeF in pressurized solid helium, about 3 years ago. However, this compound was not made yet, and its preparation even in very small quantities is expected to be a major challenge.
Dinkin: Can you combine hydrogen with Neon?
Gerber: There is no known chemically-bound, neutral molecule of Ne, with hydrogen or with any other element. There are quite a few weakly-bound complexes, but I think this is a very different matter (I assume you are only interested in chemically bound, neutral species).
Dinkin: How do the disassociation energies compared with the combination energy of water? (Forgive me if I am using the wrong word, it has been 13 years since I took freshman chemistry at Caltech.)
Gerber: The energy released in the decomposition of HXeCCH into HCCH + Xe is 4.5eV is somewhat lower than that obtained in the recombination of OH + H into water (I think the state of the art number is 5.1 eV).
Dinkin: What is the highest boiling point you have found so far compared to liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen? The boiling temperature of HXeCCH is not known, but should be much higher than that of liquid O2 (and certainly H2).
Dinkin: How much quantity could you produce if I gave you $1 million, $10 million or $100 million? How long before industrial quantities could be made available with $10 million, $100 million or $1 billion in development money?
Gerber: I do not know, I have never done applied research or dealt with such questions.
Dinkin: Would any of the molecules be suitable to use as a monopropellant, but safer and easier than peroxide? Would you describe your discovery as revolutionary to propulsion economics? Are there catalysts that make it easy for these molecules to burn as a monoprop? Do you think H-Xe would be any easier to work with in an ion engine than straight Xenon? Any other exciting possibilities for rocket reactions? He-CH3?
Gerber: Here I can only offer a disappointing opinion. As I understand it, a desired property for a rocket propellant is high Specific Impulse. Because of the high atomic weight of Xe, HXeCCH should be poor in this respect. (It may have some promise as energetic material for other applications, but that is another matter).
I also asked Jeff Greason, CEO of XCOR (the rocket company, not another Xenon compound), about it and he said something to the effect of I like propellant that does not combust at room temperature.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 08:20 PMToday is the thirty-fifth anniversary of the day that Apollo XIII developed the "problem" that they told Houston about, when a liquid oxygen tank overpressurized and exploded en route to the Moon. Via email, Jim Oberg points out an interesting article in IEEE Spectrum with the real story, for those familiar only with the movie.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:24 PMMark Whittington is appropriately skeptical of the notion that obscure astrophysical discoveries will energize the public and maintain support for the Vision for Space Exploration:
As interesting as such things [as a magnetar explosion] are, I'm afraid that NASA need something else besides that to sustain public interest. I had never heard of this discovery before I read it in Blandford's piece. It certainly did not supplant the death of the Pope, or Terri Schiavo or (please God) the Michael Jackson trial.
However, like the scientist he criticizes, he's much too unobjective and overenthusiastic himself when he continues:
A human return to the Moon this year would have done all of those things.
Why?
What's so exciting about NASA sending a few government employees back to the Moon? NASA's been there, did that, got the hat, a third of a century ago. The public found it boring then. Why, in the twenty-first century, amidst the explosion of technological wonders that we've seen since, would they get jazzed about it now? What would make it so newsworthy as to knock the death of a great Pope off the headlines? Why is NASA astronauts walking around on the Moon any more fascinating to a modern, jaded public than NASA astronauts circling the earth in a can, something that is never in the news unless something goes wrong?
I can tell you that, as a die-hard space enthusiast, I sure can't get excited about it. In fact, I don't think that the current VSE, at least as put forth by some of the major contractors (and like the Shuttle and ISS), is worth the money. And I (unlike most of the public) actually know what a tiny percentage of the federal budget it constitutes. If Mark can't sell me on it, why does he think that those who don't have that much interest in space (the vast majority, at least when it comes to relative depth of interest), and think that NASA consumes half the federal budget, will be excited?
I will tell you what might have knocked those other things off the headlines, at least temporarily (at least based on the response to the SpaceShipOne flights)--if Paul Allen walked on the Moon, with his own money, and was selling tickets so that others could do so.
[Update at 11:20 AM EDT]
Mark replies with a post that's mostly straw.
The way the Vision for Space Exploration is shaping up will make it a bit different than Apollo. It will not, ultimately, consists of just "a few government employees."
That remains to be seen. My point (and my only point, really) is that contra Mark's claim, NASA astronauts walking on the Moon per se will not excite the public much more than space science discoveries, or knock other stories out of the news. I think that most people are pretty jaded about technological advances, unless they can see how they'll actually affect their own lives. If NASA can show how astronauts on the Moon will do that, then it may be sustainable. If they can't, it will be Apollo redux.
I do think he sells people short, projecting his feelings and assuming that most people share them. I think (again) the polling data backs me up.
That's pretty amusing, considering that I think that's exactly what he's doing. I'm not aware of any polling data that backs him up. He'll have to show some, rather than simply asserting it, if he wants to convince me or (I would hope) my readers.
By the way, he also has a new column about the promise of Mike Griffin.
[One more update, at 11:55]
I should add that when Mark writes in comments that "It's virtually certain that the first human return to the Moon will be the biggest story of the next decade," he displays a paucity of imagination about potential stories of the next decade (and once again confuses his own interests and preferences for those of the masses).
Bigger than a cure for cancer? Or indefinite life extension? Or artificial intelligence, or artificial life? Or the opening of a major LEO space hotel by Disney? Or a major terrorist attack killing thousands or millions? Or a 9+ earthquake in Seattle? Things like that will be knocked out of contention simply by a repeat of something we already did a third of a century ago?
I seriously doubt it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:40 AMWe really need some kind of overarching committee to keep track of these kinds of things, and prioritize them, and postulate potential solutions to them in keeping with those priorities. I think I feel an article coming on...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:08 PMAleta Jackson emailed me this news last night. This is a big breakthrough for XCOR, and should make it easier to get capital for some of their more ambitious projects.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:45 PMKeith Cowing has a quick take on Mike Griffin's confirmation testimony before the Senate this morning. I'll be interested to see the full transcript, but there's some interesting stuff here for now.
I've rarely heard such bi-partisan praise for any nominee, for any position. This will be one NASA administrator that at least begins the job with powerful support from both the White House and the Hill, and that can't hurt. Senator Stevens said that he sees it as vital, almost an emergency, to get him into place as soon as possible. We'll see how long this era of good feeling lasts, because he's got some tough decisions ahead, that are certain to alienate at least some constituencies.
He's clearly a man in a hurry. He wants to get CEV up before 2014, to avoid (or at least minimize) the gap in (government) human spaceflight beginning with the end of the Shuttle. He also sounds like he's inclined to reverse O'Keefe, and do the Hubble servicing mission. He's had to backpedal on his previous criticism of the ISS, showing that he's no fool politically. Who knows what he'll do about aeronautics?--it doesn't sound like he's given it much, if any, thought.
I'd say overall that he has a very ambitious agenda (and this testimony confirms my take a couple weeks ago). He definitely wants to do it faster and better, and since he's not likely to get much more budget, he's going to have to figure out how to square the circle and do it cheaper as well. I'm sure he believes that he can do it. We'll have at least three and a half years to find out if he's right.
[Update at 2:30 PM EDT]
His prepared statement is up now.
I'm always a little leery of using the Columbus analogy, because I think it's flawed in many ways, but I suspect that it will go over well, regardless. This bit is worth repeating, because we tend to think of the 1960s only in terms of Apollo:
NASA in the Apollo Era was hardly the "single mission agency" in the simplified view that is often heard today. In addition to the manned spaceflight development programs of the time, NASA executed dozens of Explorer-class missions, a dozen Pioneer missions (including Pioneer 10 and 11 to Jupiter and Saturn), Ranger 1-9, Surveyor 1-7, Mariner 1-10, the Orbiting Solar Observatory, Orbiting Geophysical Observatory, and Orbiting Astronomical Observatory series, and paid for most of the Viking missions to Mars, which were launched in 1975. Communications satellite development was initiated with Telstar and Early Bird, while the TIROS, NIMBUS, and ESSA series did the same for weather satellites. In addition to these robotic science and technology development missions, NASA also executed 199 X-15 flights (which still hold the speed record for piloted flight within the atmosphere), and accomplished an otherwise vigorous program of aeronautics development, including the liftingbody research which enabled the development of the Space Shuttle.
Before he died, former administrator Tom Paine once told me that during Apollo, NASA did a lot of things that they didn't even realize that they were doing, there was so much going on. But there was a sense of urgency then, and I'm not sure that stories about the far-sightedness of Isabella can restore it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:27 AMIt's been forty-four years since the first man went into space, and orbit. On April 12th, 1961, the Russian Yuri Gagarin was the first human to go into extended weightlessness, a major event in the development of the race to the moon in the 1960s. For those who are into raves and partying, it has provided an excuse for young people to commemorate the event, so go see if there's one in your area.
In addition, it is almost a quarter of a century since the first flight of the Shuttle (next year will be the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first flight of Columbia). That the two anniversaries are the same was not deliberate, but due to a computer glitch on the pad. It was originally supposed to launch on April 10th, 1981, but a timing anomaly between the flight computers caused them to scrub for two days. I was down at the launch, and took advantage of the delay to go over to Tampa for the day, and check out the beach and Cuban restaurants. Columbia's last flight, of course, ended tragically a little over two years ago, when it disintegrated on entry, on February 1st, 2003.
At this point, I think it's safe to say that the Shuttle program has a much longer past than it does a future, and while it's done some interesting things, it was also a policy mistake in many ways, so this isn't a bad thing.
[Update at 10:40 AM EDT]
I didn't mention it yesterday, but it was the thirty-fifth anniversary of the launch of Apollo XIII. Tomorrow will be the anniversary of the oxidizer tank explosion that ended the mission, and almost the lives of the astronauts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:16 AMInstapundit points to a WaPo article about asteroid hunters.
It's a good article, and even points out that the popular notion of blowing them up with nukes doesn't make much sense, but it doesn't talk about it in the context of present space policy. In order to be able to control our fate with respect to extraterrestrial objects, we need to be a true spacefaring nation, with affordable reach not just beyond LEO to the moon, but to (in the president's words over a year ago) "Mars and beyond," with emphasis on the "beyond."
That unfortunately implies a level of activity that isn't allowed by the planned budgets for the VSE, at least if it's done business-as-usual, using existing launchers, or derivatives of them. Conventional cost models indicate that there is budget for another Apollo-like program, sending a few astronauts to the moon once or twice a year, into the third decade of this century (and millenium). That might be enough for some (though I think that it's not worth the money), but it surely isn't a path to get us in a position to deal with these kinds of threats, which I think should be one of the major justifications for the program.
Not to sound like a broken record (you young whippersnappers can run to ask your folks what that phrase means), but we simply aren't going to get the levels of activities necessary to drive down the costs to make things like this routine until we open up space to the market, whether the actual one, or an artificial one spurred by a recognition from NASA that they need to be getting a lot more for their money. If they go with the conventional aerospace wisdom, we're very likely to end up with an expensive lunar base with insufficient activity to justify it for the next twenty years, instead of a space station like that. We're also more likely to get clobbered, and be able to do nothing about it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:29 PMThe paper that Sam is presenting at ISU is now available on line.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:35 AMGuest blogger Sam Dinkin has a couple pieces at The Space Review today--an interview with Dave Criswell, co-inventor of the Lunar Power System (Bob Waldron, who used to work for me at Rockwell, is the other co-inventor), and an assessment of the global implications for the development of such a system.
I have to confess to being an LPS skeptic, but DoE has wasted a lot more money on a lot less promising things. In any event, the key to making any of these things happen, whatever their technological feasibility level, remains the cost of access to space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:25 AMI will be in North Dakota presenting a paper today and tomorrow so I wont be able to post. The paper is When Physics and Economics Collide: The Challenge of Cheap Orbital Access. I'll try to get it on line in the next couple of days for those interested.
Posted by Sam Dinkin at 08:35 AMWell, it sounds like Alan Binder's book may be less interesting (or interesting in a different way) than I originally thought.
On page 722 he describes one NASA manager as an "incompetent jerk engineer". On page 710 Binder refers to another NASA manager as a "arrogant, fat little bastard" and after repeating this compliment dozens of times, adds "pompous" to his tirade on page 728. On page 421 he refers to someone else as a "back stabbing SOB". And so on. If I spent 5 more minutes I am sure I'd find more examples of gratuitous name calling.
Sounds like an editor was in order--in fact, badly needed. This is a shame, as I'd previously had a pretty high opinion of Dr. Binder.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:19 AMBetter luck next time, Thomas.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:20 AMI was too busy to comment at the time, but when I saw this post at NASA Watch the other day, I said "Huh?"
In recent days [Courtney] Stadd has made it known to people that he would be interested in the position of Deputy Administrator - if asked.
My own sources indicate that Courtney could have had the administrator job, back before O'Keefe was picked, but didn't want it because he couldn't afford to take it, and didn't want to become as consumed with it as he'd have had to in order to even hope to straighten out the agency. So why would he now be interested in playing second banana to Mike Griffin, when the workload would be just as high, and the pay and authority less? As Keith notes, however, Courtney has denied it (as I would have expected).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:07 AMThe spelling is deliberate. Mark Krikorian is upset that we're going to shut it down, and thinks that it's penny wise and pound foolish, given the low costs of continuing to listen to it. But I wonder how low the cost really is, and how high the value.
I haven't paid much attention to it, because I'm not that big on space science, but I'll bet that the costs cited to keep it going don't include time on the DSN. Does anyone know how DSN time is allocated, and what the opportunity costs would be for Goldstone, Canberra et al to have to point at Voyager to listen to the tiny trickle of data that's coming in at this point? I'd think that if they want to stop listening, that would be the reason, but I don't know if there is any procedure or pricing policy set up for actually buying time on the big dishes, even if a non-profit foundation were set up to take it over. Anyone out there knowledgeable about this?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:26 PMThere is at least one, and possibly two ignored elephants sitting in NASA's living room, that they're going to have to start to deal with soon, as a result of the president's new space policy. They're called Space Shuttle and International Space Station--the two fundamental components of what currently passes for the nation's civil government-funded space program.
As Keith Cowing reports, they're only starting to come to grips with the associated issues, but if the answers aren't forthcoming yet, it's partly because everyone knows them, but don't really want to say them out loud. We have a policy that we're going to shut down the Shuttle when station is completed, but what if we have problems along the way, and the station still has some way to go at the point we've a priori decided to shut down the Shuttle? And how do we transition personnel from the Shuttle to other programs, when it's not clear that the current skill set is what is needed for future activities? Dwayne Day examines these questions, and as already noted, the answers may not be very pretty.
More fundamentally, since the Shuttle phaseout plans are now being driven entirely by ISS considerations, to what degree does continuing to do ISS make any sense? In my opinion, of course, to the degree that NASA's space station plans ever made much sense (i.e., very little), that degree went to zero in 1993 when it became almost purely an instrument of foreign policy having almost nothing to do with the advancement of useful goals in space activities. Taylor Dinerman discusses some of the issues facing the international partnership (as does Jim Oberg), particularly in light of the politics with Russia and Iran.
I think that in announcing a 2010 end of the Shuttle program, the administration was just kicking the can down the road, but I don't think they can do it much longer, because hard decisions have to be made as to how much more Shuttle hardware must be procured (a decision complicated by the fact that some, including the incoming administrator, want to build a Shuttle-derived heavy-lift vehicle for the lunar and Mars program). It's probably not (yet) politically tenable to do so, but I think it's almost inevitable that once we really confront the realities of the mess that the past thirty years of space policy have wreaked, a decision will have to be made to just hand off ISS to the Europeans, Japanese and Russians, to do with as they will, allowing us to shut down Shuttle as well. Simply giving them the facility outright could obviate some of the diplomatic damage of withdrawing from our agreements, while allowing us to end the farce that is the current US manned space program and get on with something worthwhile.
Some will complain, of course, about writing off the many billions invested in station to date, but there's an old sayng in investment circles about throwing good money after bad. Unfortunately, Americans (and particularly the American government) aren't always good investors.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here's just one example of how absurd it is to continue operating the Shuttle, at least with the current risk-averse mindset:
NASA has from May 15 to June 3 to launch Discovery. Otherwise, it must wait until mid-July for the proper daylight conditions needed to photograph the entire ascent. The Columbia accident investigators insisted on multiple camera views at liftoff in order to check for debris or damage.
That constitutes a six-week period during which this vehicle cannot be flown, for the sole reason that they can't take good pictures of it during launch.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:30 AMThis looks like an interesting new book:
Though the Lunar Prospector Mission was a small, inexpensive, unmanned, orbital mapping mission, the reader will, via the author's experiences in conducting his mission, become intimately acquainted with the inefficient and self-serving activities of the entrenched NASA bureaucracy and the big aerospace companies. As such, the reader will come to understand how NASA's increasing incompetence led to 1) the destruction of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia and their crews, 2) the loss of the 1992 Mars Observer, the 1999 Mars Climate Observer, the 1999 Mars Polar Lander, 3) the never-to-be-finished International Space Station that is already five times over its $8 billion budget and a decade over its original schedule, and 4) many similar NASA failures that have cost the taxpayers tens of billions of dollars and have already taken 14 human lives.
[Sunday night update]
Keith Cowing isn't impressed.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:21 PMThere's a guy out there who thinks he has one. He claims that it wasn't tile damage that destroyed the vehicle, but what he thinks is proof that it entered sideways.
Without even bothering to examine his fuzzy pictures that supposedly constitute his "proof," I have to say, sorry, it doesn't hold any water. Even ignoring his implausible theories about sensor failures and software glitches, the entry g-loads are such that a sideways entry would be immediately noticed by the crew, as would the direction of the earth motion, particularly for an experienced crew (there were several veterans on this flight). The seats aren't designed to take loads in that direction at those levels. But the cockpit chatter indicates nothing abnormal until just shortly before breakup.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:50 AMProfessor Reynolds is optimistic about NASA, and particularly about the prospects for space elevators and solar power satellites. I certainly agree with him that prizes are much more promising than NASA's past approaches, but it's discouraging to see the huge ratio between funds expended for traditional ways of doing business and those used for prizes. Still, at least the ratio is no longer infinite, as it has been in the past. If the prizes are successful, it should (at least in theory, though bureaucracies and politics can be perverse) make it easier for their proponents, like Brant Sponberg, to expand them in the future, and carve out a bigger budget for them.
As for the prospects for space elevators and SPS, I'm a little less sanguine. Successful prizes will move us closer, but it's still not clear that SPS will ever make sense compared to terrestrial alternatives (e.g., fusion, or nano-assembled solar-powered roads and clothes, or even nuclear if we can come up with more sensible reactor designs and attitudes toward waste). The inefficiency issues with power beaming are never going to go away, though advancing technology may mitigate them. I think that this will be a technology race, and it's not at all obvious to me what will ultimately win.
But because we can't know that, it also isn't to say that it's not an avenue that should be pursued, and perhaps even more vigorously than it has been. It's certainly been underfunded relative to those more conventional solutions. And if it is going to be pursued, as Glenn says, it's certainly better to do it via a technology prize route.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:45 AMI've added a blogger who's an employee at Johnson Space Center to the "Space" links to the left, who runs the "Mazoo" blog. I'm keeping this person anonymous, because I don't know if (s)he wants the notoriety--if a self outing is desired, I have a comments section. As a content sample, there are some thoughts there on Hubble, the role of aeronautics in NASA (the first "A" and a subject to which I've been giving some recent thought) and the new administrator.
I've also moved Spaceship Summer, Rocketman, and The New Space Age blogs to the "AWOL" list, in the interest of weeking my garden, since I've seen no posting there for quite a while. They can inform me if they start posting regularly again.
By the way, if there are other space bloggers out there of whom I'm not aware, let me know, either in a trackback/comment here or via email.
[Update a couple hours later]
Here, via Instapundit, is another space blog previously unknown to me--Space Law Probe
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:27 AMJeff Foust has a good rundown today on the state of the commercial launch market and industry. It's a subject of limited interest, though, to those of us who want to go ourselves. On the other hand, Sam Dinkin has an interview with Dave Urie that offers much more promise in that direction.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:08 AMMy take on the incoming NASA administrator is up at TechCentralStation.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:41 AMI wish I could get a sweet gig like this. I could have given NASA much better advice than this study, for a lot less than three hundred thousand:
The study by George Washington University researchers urged the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to cut down on shuttle flights by limiting construction on the space station and to reinvest extra funds in developing a new manned vehicle. NASA could use shuttles as remote-controlled cargo ships to finish the station, the report said.
No matter how many times people make that recommendation, it remains fundamentally wrong, and displays an ignorance of economics, and the purpose of the Shuttle. There's no point in flying it at all if you're going to fly it without crew, and no way to justify the expense of maintaining the infrastructure for it. The astronauts, who are paid and willing to risk their lives, are the least valuable element of the system, and NASA has an oversupply of them. NASA only has three orbiters left, and if it loses one more, it will almost be out of the Shuttle business anyway, regardless of whether or not more astronauts are lost.
But I can't get my head around this bizarre notion that some seem to have that sending people into space is supposed to be risk free. What is it about that environment, unlike the sea, coal mines, construction, or any other activity in which people die all the time, that make some people check their brains at the door?
NASA at least had an appropriately diplomatic response:
Erica Hupp, a spokeswoman for NASA, said the organization "appreciates all the work that George Washington University put into its study. We are working toward the same goal to make human space flight more reliable and less hazardous.''
Translation: thanks for the clueless advice, but no thanks. What a waste of money.
[Update on Saturday morning]
Keith Cowing isn't very impressed, either.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:14 PMJohnson Space Center in Houston is having an open house in April, for the first time since September 11th.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:16 AMX-Prize judge Rick Searfoss informs me via email that tonight's episode of "The Apprentice" will have a very interesting prize for the winning team.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:10 AMMark Whittington describes an innovative concept for developing the moon and near-earth space. I hope it's under serious consideration. I haven't seen much evidence of it so far, other than keeping their options open by granting contracts to a couple of the unusual suspects.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:06 AMAlan Boyle has an interesting report from Esther Dyson's little space conference, on the state of the entrepreneurial space industry, and its invigorated prospects for investment.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:11 PMClark Lindsey has lots of interesting thoughts on NASA's priorities:
It certainly seems strange that NASA is initiating the VSE by alienating virtually every natural constituency that it has. In addition to this hit on space education, the science community is becoming convinced that the VSE just means big cutbacks in its funding (At NASA, Clouds Are What You Zoom Through to Get to Mars - NY Times - Mar.21.05), the aviation community is now sure that NASA wants to eliminate all aeronautical research (Congress Quizzes NASA On Cuts in Aeronautics Spending - Space News - Mar.21.05), closing a research center or two will certainly reduce its circle of friends (NASA BRAC: a bad idea - The Space Review - Mar.21.05), and cancelling the Hubble repair mission angered every astronomy fan in the country.It's not as if NASA has a shortage of waste. It could clearly accomplish much more with its 16 billion dollar budget. Often it appears, however, that particular NASA programs are cut not because they are failing or because they lack cost-effectiveness, but because they are small and don't have the political clout to fight back. Meanwhile, the huge Shuttle and ISS programs relentlessly suck up all funding in sight.
He also has an updated timeline for private space activities. He's increasingly optimistic. Me too. But I'd expand on one point that he makes:
In the US, for example, it is quite possible that NASA's new exploration initiative will fail to produce new systems that significantly lower the cost of access to space.
I would put it more strongly. It will almost certainly fail to do so, particularly since that doesn't even seem to be a program goal.
Based on the results of the architecture studies so far, NASA seems to find it satisfactory to spend billions to send a handful of NASA astronauts to the moon once or twice a year fifteen years from now. Mike Griffin wants to develop a heavy-lift vehicle for that purpose. The traffic rate doesn't justify one such a system, let alone the two that would be required to provide resiliency in the architecture.
The utter economic absurdity of our current approach to spaceflight (which seems largely a return to the glory days of Apollo) continues.
[Update a few minutes later]
One other comment on his new timeline:
2009-2010: ...NASA cancels the CEV under development by one of the large aerospace consortiums and contracts with the America's Space Prize winner for its launch needs.
I don't know if they'll cancel the CEV per se, because they still need an entry vehicle capable of returning astronauts from the moon, unless the plan changes to have them deorbit propulsively. This requires much more heat shielding than a simple entry vehicle from orbit, because the specific energy to be dissipated is twice as much.
What NASA will really have to do (and should be thinking about now) is how to design the CEV with the flexibility to "unbundle" its functions. Private access to orbit means that they don't have to develop the CEVLV (which probably consists anyway of simply "human rating" an EELV like Delta 4 or Atlas V, whatever that quoted phrase turns out to mean), and they don't have to deliver crew to orbit in the CEV command module. Cheap access to orbit, for both people and propellant, will require a radical rethinking of the requirements for a CEV from the current ones, including propellant depots at LEO (probably low inclination, not ISS orbit), as well as at L1 and on the lunar surface. With sufficient propellant available from the moon, propulsive circularization in LEO (perhaps with an aerobrake assist) from the lunar vicinity becomes a more reasonable proposition, and we can design systems that are more specialized for their environment, rather than one that, like Apollo, has to go all (or most) of the way to the moon from the earth's surface, and return, which is the current CEV concept.
And part of that rethinking also has to be the possibility of private interest in developing regular commerce to and from the moon...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:39 AMReading them, that is.
This reporter Down Under seems to think that the CEV contractors will be selected on May 2nd. In fact, that's the time that proposals are due (the RFP was released on March 1, with a two-month response time). There's no way in the world that the source selection could occur that quickly. If you look at the program schedule from the Industry Day briefing a week and a half ago, you can see that the award will actually occur in August.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:38 AMOne of the big questions about the incoming NASA administrator is whether or not he'll reinstate the Hubble mission. Keith Cowing has doubts:
...Mike Griffin will work for the very same White House which endorsed Sean O'Keefe's decisions regarding Hubble - and adjusted the agency's budget profiles accordingly - two fiscal years in a row. Such a reversal would be a change in Bush Administration policy - and we don't really see a lot of that, now do we?
I don't think it's quite that simple. For example, Dr. Griffin could have made such a policy change a condition of his accepting the job (I'm not saying that he did, just that he could have). As a sweetener, he might have offered other savings (such as his postulated plan to reduce Shuttle support to complete ISS from the planned two-dozen plus missions to just a few, with earlier phaseout). That would allow the mission to be accomplished with no increase in budget.
My sense, from knowing him, is that he has some big ideas about how to implement the president's goals that aren't necessarily completely in synch with current plans. Many consider him (not Dan Goldin) the true father of "faster, better, cheaper"--a legacy from when he left the agency in the early nineties that he probably considers to have been poorly implemented by Goldin.
I'll bet that he's coming up with what he thinks are "faster, better, cheaper" ways of getting back to the moon, and on to Mars, and he could very well include keeping the popular Hubble alive as part of the overall deal. And I doubt if the administration is all that wedded to the specifics of the plan laid out a year ago, as long as the goals are achieved. I also doubt that the administration has any innate desire to end the Hubble program--they just didn't want to pay for it, so if Mike can come up with a way to do both, I doubt if they'd view it as a "policy reversal."
I'm not claiming any special insight into what he will do, or wants to do, just what he could do. Hubble may yet live. The confirmation hearings will be very interesting.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:56 AMOr even Plan 9.
The Economist points out the elephant sitting in the corner of the space program living room. And the absurdity of our current space policy. This will be one of Mike Griffin's greatest challenges.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:16 PMAs someone (potentially) in the space passenger travel business, I'd like to know more about this story.
Any confirming links would be appreciated, but until then, Carnival Cruises remains in the "alleged" column.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:09 PMOne of the issues with building reusable space transports are those of maintenance and inspection. The Shuttle is a nightmare in terms of the things that have to be done to it between flights, and the question arises--is this intrinsic to reusable orbital launch systems, or was it a bad design? It's some of both, but mostly the latter. The development budget for the Shuttle was severely constrained, resulting in a lot of design decisions that proved to be very costly down the road, when it came to operating it. And the technology at the time the design was frozen (early seventies) is three decades behind ours of today.
A major issue is inspecting structure for fatigue between flights. We have quite a bit of experience with aluminum and other metals, and their behavior after repeated stress, and we know how to inspect for it. But one of the ways that we hope to get launch costs down in the future is to shift from metal structure to composites, which are much lighter for a given level of strength. That's an area that we understand much less well, as demonstrated by the fact that rudders are, apparently inexplicably, falling off of Airbuses:
Composites are made of hundreds of layers of carbon fibre sheeting stuck together with epoxy resin. Each layer is only strong along the grain of the fibre. Aircraft engineers need to work out from which directions loads will come, then lay the sheets in a complex, criss-cross pattern. If they get this wrong, a big or unexpected load might cause a plane part to fail.It is vital there are no kinks or folds as the layers are laid, and no gaps in their resin coating. Holes between the layers can rapidly cause extensive "delamination" and a loss of stiffness and strength.
Airbus, together with aviation authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, insists that any deterioration of a composite part can be detected by external, visual inspection, a regular feature of Airbus maintenance programmes, but other experts disagree.
In an article published after the flight 587 crash, Professor James Williams of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the world's leading authorities in this field, said that to rely on visual inspection was "a lamentably naive policy. It is analogous to assessing whether a woman has breast cancer by simply looking at her family portrait."
Williams and other scientists have stated that composite parts in any aircraft should be tested frequently by methods such as ultrasound, allowing engineers to "see" beneath their surface. His research suggests that repeated journeys to and from the sub-zero temperatures found at cruising altitude causes a build-up of condensation inside composites, and separation of the carbon fibre layers as this moisture freezes and thaws. According to Williams, "like a pothole in a roadway in winter, over time these gaps may grow".
Commenting on the vanishing rudder on flight 961, he pointed out that nothing was said about composite inspection in the NTSB's report on flight 587. This was an "unfortunate calamity", he said. Although the flight 961 rupture had yet be analysed, he continued to believe Airbus's maintenance rules were "inadequate", despite their official endorsement.
Barbara Crufts, an Airbus spokesperson, said visual inspections were "the normal procedure" and insisted Williams's case was unproven. "You quote him as an expert. But there are more experts within the manufacturers and the certification authorities who agree with these procedures." She disclosed that the aircraft used in flight 961 -- which entered service in 1991 -- had been inspected five days before the incident. She said did not know if the rudder had been examined.
How applicable is this cautionary tale to the design of space transports? Well somewhat, but not quite as much as one might think. Fatigue is (usually) a phenomenon that occurs as a result of a large number of cycles (assuming that the stress is reasonable--obviously, one can fatigue a paper clip to failure in just a few extreme twists back and forth with a pair of pliers). It's a real concern for aircraft that are in the air a lot, with many takeoffs and landings, and continuous buffeting from the air.
A space transport has two things going for it. First of all, it spends little time in the atmosphere, which is where most of the structural stress occurs, at least that due to aerodynamics. In space, it's actually a quite benign environment, from a structural standpoint. Second, if we ever get to the number of flights of a single space transport that even start to approach the cycle life of an air transport, we'll have clearly solved the problem of space access, even if we occasionally (as in the aircraft industry) lose a vehicle to structural fatigue.
But regardless of what this means for spaceship design, I think that Airbus has some big problems, until they understand this issue better. And now that Boeing is also using composites for primary structure, they need to get on top of it as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:31 PMIt's apparently going to be Mike Griffin. Mike is a sharp guy technically (probably the best in that regard in NASA history, if he's confirmed), but I think that this is good news/bad news. I'll explain why later, but I'm swamped right now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:01 PMRick Tumlinson has some useful suggestions for NASA, and the government. I doubt if they'll follow them.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:19 PMT/SPACE is finding the paperwork involved in performing a NASA contract too onerous:
"NASA wants 40 to 50 monthly reports on what you're doing," David Gump, president of the Transformational Space consortium told New Scientist on Monday. And while "we could build a great Crew Exploration Vehicle", Gump says, the consortium cannot comply with the reports and studies NASA stipulates to monitor the project.
This is one of the reasons that space hardware costs so much. In order to perform a government contract, you have to bear the overhead of the contract specialists, accounting people, etc., above and beyond that necessary to just build the hardware. In addition, all of the status reports and reviews tend to chew up a lot of the time of the engineers and managers who are preparing them rather than doing engineering.
In theory, T/SPACE could hire the necessary additional staff in order to meet the contractual requirements, but it dramatically changes the corporate culture to do so. I can understand their reluctance. And as a result, it's almost inevitable that the two CEV contracts will go to two of the usual suspects, with the usual high costs.
Thus shall it be until we develop a robust commercial space industry.
[Evening update]
Keith Cowing has a different take on it:
Yawn. When the going gets tough, blame it all on paperwork.Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:38 AM
Jack Benny used to say about a fellow comedian that "nobody knew what a cramp looked like until Fred Allen was born." Well, along those lines, Jeff Foust can now point at a physical instantiation of a budgetary earmark.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:24 AMTaylor Dinerman has a piece on heavy lifters in this week's issue of The Space Review that I find a little frustrating, on several levels.
I get heartburn right out of the gate:
The consensus is that the Vision for Space Exploration requires a new heavy-lift launch vehiclenot just to launch the CEV capsule (or Human Carrier Module, or whatever they end up calling it), but to economically launch the other elements of the CEV and associated structures. NASA has not forgotten that the best pound-to-orbit price they ever achieved was with the Saturn 5. The debate is now on. Should NASA buy an upgraded version of the Delta 4 Heavy or a future version of the Atlas 5, the two Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs), or should it go with a shuttle-derived system and, if so, what should it look like?
I guess that depends on how many make a consensus, and what "heavy-lift" means. Is a Delta Heavy in the same class as a Saturn? These are very imprecise terms.
I guess that, given that we're not going to develop either low-cost or reliable access, and are going to continue to carpet the Atlantic with a new launch vehicle every flight, that it probably makes sense to build them larger than smaller, but if I were King, I'd wait a bit to see where the fledgling space transport industry was going before betting all my chips on expendables. The fact that Saturn V was NASA's cheapest per-pound vehicle says more about how bad all the other were than how good it was, and I'll bet that's using marginal cost. If one has to amortize the development costs of a new Saturn-class vehicle, it's not at all clear that it will pay for itself, given the trivial flight rate that it would see under current NASA plans.
The size and capacity of a future US heavy-lift system will determine the size and mass of the largest components. The nature of a future lunar base will be set by whatever vehicle is chosen to fill this role. A rocket that could lift a hundred tons to LEO could send large and complex unitary structures to the surface of the moon. One with a smaller payload would only be able to deliver one element at a time, and each element would need a complex and expensive system of hatches and connectors.
This is meaningless absent an actual cost analysis. It depends. If the heavy lifter costs five times as much per pound (including amortization of the launch system) as a much smaller vehicle (much cheaper to develop) flown much more often (marginal cost much closer to average cost) and doesn't get thrown away, the expense of building interfaces and doing orbital assembly could be paid for with the savings in launch costs. And orbital (and lunar) assembly and construction is something that we're going to have to learn anyway in order to become a truly spacefaring civilization, so why not start now? But the key remains, of course, launch costs.
If the leadership of the DoD were to look out beyond the five-year budget planning cycle and the Quadrennial Defense Review, they would see that there is a strong possibility that there will be a need for a military VHLV, probably beginning in the middle of the next decade. Future space based sensors will require very large apertures, and the ultra-lightweight systems and materials which many experts hoped to see developed by then will just not be there. The power requirements of a future military laser communications satellite might also be much larger than expected.
None of this dictates heavy lift. Large apertures can be effectively built with a large number of smaller ones, computer controlled. There's nothing intrinsic about power systems that dictate they go up in a single launch.
There is also the question of future space weapons. The now-canceled Space Based Laser program would have required as much as five tons of chemicals per shot. In its full operational configuration, the whole thing would have weighed about eighty tons.
Again, that means that given low enough launch costs, the propellant could be delivered five tons at a time. Or even one, though that might be pushing the logistics issues.
While nothing like this is now on the drawing board, there are other possible uses for a heavy-lift vehicle. For example, small boost-phase intercept weapons, such as Brilliant Pebbles, could be launched in very large numbers, and all at once on such a rocket. So could very heavy kinetic energy strike weapons that could penetrate deeply buried targets without resorting to nuclear, or even chemical, explosives.A heavy-lift launch system could be used to replace large numbers of military satellites that had been lost to a Space Pearl Harbor type attack. The fact that it could do so in a single launch, rather than after a long drawn out series of launch campaigns, should make this option attractive to US strategic planners trying to cope with future worst-case scenarios.
So if you have a launch failure, you lose many millions of dollars worth in a single incident. If you're doing rapid replacement, and your vehicle crashes and burns, you're SOL. Sorry, but for delivering lots of small things, smaller launchers are definitely much more robust.
Sorry, but I still think that the proponents of heavy lift continue to fail to make their case, particularly considering the fragility of our launch capability if we only had one type, and few people are proposing developing two. As Thomas James points out, NASA and its major contractors continue to pay lip service to involving smaller companies and smaller launchers, but clearly the mainstream industry is firmly back into Apollo mode. And if they don't get out of it soon, they won't even be as successful as that program was.
[Update at 2 PM]
A commenter says that Bob Zubrin makes a good case for heavy lift.
Well, he makes a case, I guess, but I couldn't call it a good one. In fact, I'd say it's kind of disingenuous. Without dissecting the whole thing, I'll just point out two major problems with it:
Instead of paying for launching 87 tonnes to orbit per mission, we are paying for launching 96 tonnes , and more importantly doing it by the non-cost effective means of using multiple MLVs to launch an HLV payload. It is a well known feature of launch vehicle economics that larger boosters are more economic than smaller boosters, with costs/kg scaling roughly as the inverse square root of the total payload. Thus, by dividing the launch mass into four parts, we could expect the overall launch costs per mission to roughly double.
This is such an oversimplified rule of thumb as to render it useless for this analysis. It assumes similar designs, simply scaled up. Two rockets of radically different design, one large, one small, wouldn't be expected to follow this rule.
Moreover, the "costs" referred to here are almost certainly marginal costs, which don't include the amortization of the development costs for the new launch system, as noted above. So an existing small launcher will cost less per launch than a new large one, particularly for low flight rates, which will probably never allow full amortization of the development costs.
This next bit is extremely misleading:
Table 2. Success Record of US Medium Lift Vehicles (through 1999)
Vehicle Family Number of Launches Number of Successes Success Rate Delta 271 253 93.3 % Atlas 305 265 86.9% Titan 203 184 90.6 %
When he writes "Delta," he's lumping all Delta (Delta II, Delta III, Delta IV) flights together, including early ones before they got the bugs worked out. Same thing with Atlas. One would never know from this table, for example, that Atlas III has a perfect success record, and Atlas II and III combined have a perfect success record over the past dozen years, of seventy five consecutive flights without a failure.
So until these issues with his paper are resolved, there's no point in even critiquing the rest.
[Wednesday morning update]
Clark Lindsey has further thoughts:
...there is no better way to kill the VSE program than to start it off with a costly expendable rocket program.Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:10 AM
Whatever the merits of the case, Walt would seem to have a novel defense for his tax avoidance:
He was going to use the money to change the world. To fight for arms control and human rights. To promote family planning and space exploration. He was going to give the money away, starting next year...... Anderson was one of the driving forces behind MirCorp, which sought to privatize Russia's decrepit Mir space station and arranged for an American financier to take an excursion in space. MirCorp's ambitions were dashed with the station's demise.
But Anderson has remained passionate about space. "I want to build my own space station since we lost the Mir," he said. "I want to have a moon base."
It also has some interesting quotes from Jeff Manber and Bob Werb.
I believe him. Unfortunately, the government doesn't view that as a good reason to stash funds overseas.
It would be nice if we could get some philanthropy going in this area from some less flaky sources. One of the reasons that we've made so little progress is that the people with the money aren't interested in space, and the people interested in space haven't had the money, and when on the rare occasion you get someone with both, there's some other problem. I hope that the Paul Allens and Jeff Bezos' of the world will start to change that.
NASA Watch has links to this and related stories.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:43 AMRobert Zimmerman has a disturbing (though not surprising, at least to me) piece at Space Daily, which reports that NASA did no analysis in support of its original decision to cancel the planned Shuttle flight to repair Hubble, and ignored more viable options in favor of its misguided robotic gambit:
NASA historian Steven Dick gave a presentation at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Washington, in which he described the process by which that decision was made and revealed that, in fact, no formal risk analysis had been completed.Dick had interviewed all of the NASA officials who had been involved in the decision to cancel the shuttle mission to the Hubble, a discussion that came to a head in December 2003 when those officials had been working on NASA's fiscal year 2005 budget.
According to Dick's interviews, risk was the major factor in the discussion, but the officials decided a formal risk analysis was unnecessary. Instead, Dick noted, "The decision was made (by O'Keefe) based on what he perceived was the risk."
In other words, O'Keefe canceled the Hubble mission solely on his gut feeling of the situation. So, the only way NASA can provide the House Science Committee's requested copy of that risk analysis from December 2003 is to recreate it after the fact.
I had always suspected this. I think that Sean O'Keefe was good for the agency, in terms of starting to get the books straightened out (a task that's by no means complete), and starting to restructure it for the end of the Cold War, but I also think that he lost his nerve after having to stand on the tarmac and tell those families that their loved ones weren't coming home two years ago. He simply didn't want to have to risk doing that again. And that's fine, but if so, he was no longer the man for the job, and perhaps didn't step down soon enough, because it clearly adversely influenced the decision he made a year later. Spaceflight is inherently risky, and if we can't accept that, as either a NASA administrator or a nation, then we have no business doing it.
And as Zimmerman concludes, that's really what's so disturbing about that decision, in terms of its potential implications for the future:
For NASA and the American space program, this increasingly untenable position is beginning to have a serious political cost. By refusing to reconsider their decision and reinstate the shuttle servicing mission to Hubble, NASA is undercutting its ability to persuade Congress to give it money to build spacecraft to fly humans back to the moon.As Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., noted during those same science committee hearings, "If we're unwilling to take the risks to go to Hubble, then what does that say about (our willingness to mount) a moon and eventual Mars mission?"
Or as Boehlert remarked, "In a budget as excruciatingly tight as this one, NASA probably should not get as much as the president has proposed."
Unless President George W. Bush appoints a new NASA administrator with the courage to reverse the Hubble decision, he is going to find it increasingly difficult to persuade Congress - or anyone else, for that matter - that NASA has the wherewithal to handle his ambitious space initiative.
But it goes beyond the risk aversion. If the story is true, the changing stories and lack of data after the fact bring back memories of the Goldin years, in which some said that NASA stood for "Never A Straight Answer." That was something that O'Keefe was supposed to fix, not contribute to, and it may take a further investigation with some mea culpas and credible recommendations for avoiding this sort of thing in the future, in order for NASA to gain the confidence needed, from both Congress and the public that still wonders why it's about to lose one of the few NASA programs with genuine widespread support.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:20 AMA group has been formed to save Star Trek, the latest version of which, Enterprise, has just been canceled. Here's what I found interesting, though:
We are in the commercial space flight industry and would like to testify that at least one out of two of all the actual entrepreneurs involved in this industry has been inspired by Star Trek; and we are not only good at watching TV sci-fi , we are also good at writing checks, big checks. The people airing this kind of TV have a responsibility; inspiration. Star Trek has inspired us, and particularly Enterprise, with its superb theme song that tells so much about our struggle to move space travel forward and closer to the public, this inspiration is so self evident, that Virgin Galactic has ordered a 5-sub orbital ship fleet from Scaled Composites, a 100 million dollar investment, and the first one being built is going to be christened VSS Enterprise. Now doesnt that ring a bell in Paramounts ears?
I wonder who the anonymous donors are? Bezos? Musk? Allen himself?
While I don't doubt the statistic, a lot of people conclude from things like this that Star Trek fans are interested in space. Largely they're not. While a lot of people interested in space got that way through watching Star Trek, that doesn't mean that it had that effect on most fans. There are many more Star Trek fans than space enthusiasts. I say this based on personal experience in sending out appeals for space activist donations to Star Trek data bases, and attending a conference or two. Trekkers are largely interested in Trek, not in space. It's a very poor ore for space activism--in my experience, you'll do better among the general public.
Still, even if shows like this inspire only a few, that's probably reason enough to keep them going.
[Update at 6 PM EST]
Here's another one. They should merge and pool their resources, but if they're anything like space activist groups, they won't. They'll instead splinter into five more. You'll have one that just wants to save those episodes that focus on time travel, and another one that wants to see more episodes in which T'Pol goes into Pon Farr.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:03 PMHere's some more on Esther Dyson's overpriced space entrepreneur conference:
"Nobody's holding a space conference, so I decided to do one," she said in an interview. "It's not that there aren't space conferences, but nothing as tacky and commercial as we want to be."
So it wasn't just hype on the web site. She really is clueless about what's been going on in this field. This is both disappointing, coming from Freeman's (for whom my respect is boundless) daughter, and annoying. A lot of us have been in the trenches trying to make this stuff happen for years, even decades. We've overpaid our dues, and now we get to deal with an Esther-come-lately.
And she can't even be bothered to focus on the subject at hand:
The conference, which costs $1,492 to attend, is also aimed at taking on a topic of more immediate potential - a concept called "air taxi." A growing number of entrepreneurs are looking at using relatively small, inexpensive airplanes to revive and expand the short-hop commuter industry, ferrying people to and from small airports.
That's an interesting subject, but it has little to do with space technology, and all it will due is further dilute the utility of this one-day conference. I said I'd like to go if I could afford the time and the money, but now I'm thinking that even if I did, I'd get little out of it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:18 AMI'm not sure what to say at this point. Walt Anderson, bankroller of several emerging space companies (some of which I've worked for and with), has been arrested for tax evasion:
IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said the allegations mark the largest criminal tax case against an individual.Anderson, 51, earned millions by dealing in telecommunications companies after the AT&T breakup and became a global figure about five years ago when he embarked on a mission to try to rescue the ailing Russian Mir space station.
I hadn't talked to him since last June, at the first SS1 flight into space, in Mojave.
Without speaking to the merits of the case, it's safe to say that this will put a severe crimp into the capability of the first dotcom millionaire who was putting his money where his mouth was to continue to support space entrepreneurs.
[Via NASA Watch]
[Update on Tuesday morning]
Here's more from the New York Times:
The Justice Department said that Mr. Anderson was involved in starting long-distance telecommunications businesses as the industry was being deregulated, and that he realized in the early 1990's that the merger of his first successful company, Mid-Atlantic Telecom, with another company would result in substantial taxable earnings.To avoid paying those taxes, the department said, he formed an offshore corporation called Gold & Appel Transfer in the British Virgin Islands and hired a trust company to serve as Gold & Appel's registered agent and sold director. Gold & Appel was owned by another British Virgin Islands company previously formed by Mr. Anderson, the department said.
Mr. Anderson structured his dealings so that he had complete, albeit hidden, control of the corporations, prosecutors said. They said he further obscured his holdings by forming another offshore corporation in Panama, transferring Gold & Appel shares to that entity and having the shares sent to a mail drop in Amsterdam that he had rented under an alias.
The indictment said Mr. Anderson concealed his illegal dealings from his accountants, repeatedly tried to thwart I.R.S. inquiries, sometimes used the alias "Mark Roth" and falsely proclaimed himself a citizen of the Dominican Republic when he opened accounts with a New Jersey bank.
Gold & Appel (prounounced "Golden Apple") was the investment source for many of his investments, including Rotary Rocket, Mircorp, and others. I don't know, but suspect that it also provided the seed funding and endowment for the FINDS fund.
Well, can't have that money funding projects that could get us off the planet. Much better to sink it in that vast black hole known as the federal budget, of course.
[Update at 9:45 PM EST]
Here's more (though for some unaccountable reason the NYT reporter consistently misspells Gold & Appel as "Gold and Appeal"):
Mr. Anderson has long attracted a certain level of public attention, especially when he tried to arrange a rescue of the Mir space station five years ago. He frequently flew in a private jet and made deals involving millions of dollars. At conferences on space travel he often spoke of his hatred of government......Gary Hudson of Redwood City, Calif., said that Mr. Anderson invested $30 million in his Rotary Rocket, the primary backing for a private rocket launching and recovery firm that ultimately failed.
"One condition of his investment was that we could not take any government money," Mr. Hudson said in a telephone interview on Monday.
I guess that occasionally it's possible to be a little too libertarian.
[Update at 11:20 AM EST]
Here's one more, the longest piece on the story yet, from the WaPo.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:23 PMSpeaking of international space programs, here's a news story claiming that Japan is going to establish a lunar base.
I don't know how seriously to take it. It could just be a trial balloon by an agency official. But they don't seem to be in any big rush about it.
Japan's space agency, JAXA, is drawing up plans to develop a robot to conduct probes on the moon by 2015, then begin constructing a solar-powered manned research base on the planet and design a reusable manned space vessel like the U.S. space shuttle by 2025.
This was interesting too:
Long Asia's leading spacefaring nation, Japan has been struggling to get out from under the shadow of China, which put its first astronaut into orbit in October 2003. Beijing has since announced it is aiming for the moon.
Some people think that China's sending a man into space has kicked off a new space race with us. It may have kicked off a new space race, but the competitors will be Japan and India. And perhaps South Korea (if they can afford in the face of what's almost certain to be a messy collapse north of their border).
The Japanese program has always been a derivative of NASA's--the H2 is a knockoff of the Delta, and this talk about their own "Space Shuttle" is just more of that. I'll take all of these countries seriously when I see significant creativity, and private space activity, and not just government chest thumping.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:22 AMI was forwarded this email today by Mark Reiff:
My name is xxxxxx and I am a journalism student at xxxxxxxxxxx. I am currently writing a story about international collaboration in space exploration, with a focus on newer agencies and their impact on exploration overall. I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me or put me in touch with a policy analyst or expert who could. I couldn't find a number for you, so I'm including my questions at the end of this e-mail. But if you'd rather chat on the phone, you can reach me at xxxxxxxx or on my cell at xxxxxxxxxx. My deadline for this is Friday, March 4, so any help before then would be greatly appreciated.Thanks so much!
1. What motivates countries to join the space race?
2. How do new entrants impact foreign relations?
3. How do foreign relations impact scientific exploration?
4. How does scientific exploration impact foreign relations?
5. What political impacts does joining the space race have on a country?
6. How does president Bushs vision for NASA impact other space agencies?
7. What role do you think space tourism will play in foreign relations?
8. What role does defense in space play in foreign relations?
9. What sort of backlash, if any, can a country that starts to get involved in
space exploration expect?
10. What else should I know about the political impact of newer agencies that I
should include in my story?
11. What is your title?
She (on the assumption that it's a she) is asking questions that would take a lengthy essay, if not a book) to answer properly (which would, of course, be doing her work for her).
In fact, any one of them requires a lengthy response. I'm not sure who she thinks will be willing to take the time for this. My response is that there are a lot of hidden (and not necessarily valid) assumptions in the questions. For example, they assume that there is such a thing as a "space race," and that everyone knows what that is. They assume that the only kind of international cooperation in space is between government agencies. Despite the question about space tourism, there's no apparent recognition of private activities in space, in the US or elsewhere. They're twentieth-century questions asked in an era in which they've become an anachronism. I've no idea how to answer them. I think that her questions should be much more fundamental.
I'm suspecting that she already has the "story" basically written, or at least knows what the story line will be, and is simply looking for confirmation from "experts." Thus is a journalist made.
Or perhaps I'm being unfair. In any event, I don't know how to help with that story, and it's not one I find particularly interesting.
If I'm wrong, I have a comment section for her response (and that of others).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:34 AMThis looks like an interesting event, but at almost fifteen hundred dollars to attend, it's way out of my price range.
And this is simply false:
Flight School is new for us - and new for space and aviation, which doesn't yet have a single gathering where pioneers and entrepreneurs can talk strategy, tactics...and experience, whether in space and aviation or in the Internet computing industry.
Actually, there has been an annual event (and arguably two, if you count the Space Frontier Foundation meeting) that does exactly that for years, and it only costs a hundred dollars to attend.
In fact, it's just a couple months from now, and I'll be planning to attend. I'd encourage anyone else interested in alt-space to do so as well. If I had unlimited time and funds, I'd love to attend Esther Dyson's event, but I suspect that Space Access will continue to be the best such conference, and certainly the best value, for some time to come.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:00 AMThomas James has a brief post that describes what's really holding us back from space settlement.
He also joyfully points out that moonbat extraordinaire Bruce Gagnon now has a blog. I expect that Thomas will be a regular visitor, and commentator.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:15 AMEric Soskin writes about a sighting of some interesting public outreach for the new space exploration activities.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:51 PMClark Lindsey points out another boneheaded move by Congress in the name of "national security":
Congress, in its collective ham-fisted oafishness, dictated after 9/11 that the government place restrictions on access to spacecraft tracking information. Apparently, this will keep terrorists from shooting down comsats with RPGs...Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:50 AM... Congress once again shows that it is incapable of making sensible policies with respect to space that carefully and effectively targets the particular problem without causing devastating collateral damage to nearby legitimate activity.
If you haven't been paying attention to the current state of play in the regulation of suborbital vehicles over the past few months, Jeff Foust has a good, up-to-date summary today.
And yes, I am very busy, with some consulting on the Vision for Space Exploration. And I don't get President's Day (which I think is an atrocity to the memory of Lincoln and Washington) off.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:12 AMChairman Boehlert had a very interesting opening to today's hearing on the NASA budget. Some highlights:
I am for returning humans to the moon by 2020. I am for moving ahead prudently but swiftly with the development of a Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) for that purpose. I am for retiring the Space Shuttle as soon as possible, but under absolutely no circumstances later than December 31, 2010. I am for a NASA that sees itself as a science agency, with all of Space Science, Earth Science and Aeronautics receiving theattention and funding accorded to priority areas. I am for a NASA that is open to outside ideas from academia and the private sector......We understand that the Administration could send up in the next month or so proposed language to amend the Iran Nonproliferation Act. Thats a critical matter because the current law would bring the Station program to a halt by next April. Any proposal will be reviewed carefully. The only thing I can say now and I think the Administration agrees with this is that the Station is a lot less important than non-proliferation is. Im not interested in having to go into space because weve blown ourselves up.
In other words, he places a very low priority on ISS completion. He's not going to let NASA use its non-completion as an excuse to continue to fly Shuttle, and he's apparently willing to abandon ISS if it means that we have to knuckle under to the Russians on their ability to continue to supply Iran with nuclear technology.
He also seems determined to break precedent and actually get an authorization bill out this year (usually, it never makes it, and the policy is driven exclusively by the appropriation).
It will be interesting to see White House reaction, and if his counterpart in the Senate agrees.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:50 PMIs that "very soon," as in perhaps tomorrow, Keith?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:58 PMI guess. Ariane V (ESA's version of the Space Shuttle, in that it's an overpriced white elephant) had its first successful launch yesterday. A previous attempt a couple years ago was a failure.
[Update in the evening]
A commenter points out that I was too inspecific in describing the vehicle that failed:
Hehe, talk about misleading news postings. Even though you might hate the french, you could stick to facts.The Ariane 5 G version has launched succesfully 19 times and failed once.
Ariane 5 EC-A, which is an upgraded version, was now launched succesfully for the first time, having failed once before.So your post would be correct if you said "Ariane 5 ECA had it's first successful launch".
While I stand second to none in my dislike of the French, my snark was more aimed at stasist government space programs, and unjustified Arianespace triumphalism.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:57 AMI think that the incoming chairman of the House space subcommittee is going to be a worthy successor to Dana Rohrabacher, and very good for the commercial space industry:
We need affordable, reliable and responsive ways to get people and hardware into orbit. NASA took the lead in proving we could get there. Now it is the private sector's duty to make it efficient and affordable.The job of Congress is to pass legislation and exercise its oversight functions in such a way that will enable this industry to succeed. We must keep a watchful eye on our government agencies to ensure they are operating and cooperating with the commercial Space industry and not implementing unnecessary or overly burdensome regulations. In the American tradition, government opens frontiers but people settle them. This was true in the west, with medical research and with cyberspace. If we follow that model we will succeed.
Read the whole thing. Rep. Calvert gets it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:53 AMThere was a hearing to discuss the new launch regulations yesterday on the Hill. Clark Lindsey attended, and I know just how he feels:
As someone who has for many years followed space development and its impact, or lack thereof, on society, I found yesterday's House Transportation Committee hearing on Commercial Space Transportation to be quite amazing. Even just a couple of years ago, a scenario with a congressman expressing passionate views on the best approach to regulating suborbital space travel to a witness from a company named Virgin Galactic would have seemed like a wild fantasy.And I find it a bit astonishing to hear the head of the FAA giving well-informed responses to questions about suborbital space transport. Maybe we are making progress...
Rep. Oberstar is up to his old tricks, continuing to whine about a "tombstone mentality." As Clark (and Jeff Foust) discuss, he's introduced a bill to overregulate the suborbital passenger industry (that's my characterization, surely not his). I think that it's unlikely to go anywhere, given his minority status, and the fate of his attempts at amending the current legislation a couple months ago. Nothing has changed in the interim that I'm aware of that would make the committee more receptive to his point of view. That's my hope, anyway.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I think this assessment by Mark Whittington far too harsh:
James Oberstar seems not to have given up his drive to crush the embryonic suborbital space flight industry, using safety as a weapon.
I really don't think that the congressman's goal is to "crush the embryonic suborbital space flight industry." I think that he's sincerely concerned about safety, but extremely misguided.
From Jeff Foust's account:
Oberstar had a contentious exchange with FAA Administrator Marion Blakey, who defended the limited regulatory powers her agency has for passenger safety on commercial spacecraft. Oberstar, though, wasn't convinced by Blakey, who said that the FAA already has the power to regulate safety for the uninvolved public (which carries over to the safety of crew and passengers, she noted), and that commercial spaceflights today aren't really transportation per se, but instead an adventure people are willing to embrace despite the risks. "Experimentation with human lives, we don't allow that in the laboratories of the Food and Drug Administration or the National Cancer Institute," he said, "why should we allow it on space travel?"
Leaving aside the interesting and perhaps valid argument that the FDA in its hypercaution perhaps kills more people than it saves, and that the National Cancer Institute does in fact do experimentation with human lives (as does the FDA), he's making a category error or two here. The issue is expectation--people have come to expect (rightly or wrongly--often wrongly) that, because of agencies like the FDA, food and drugs are safe. Moreover, they demand such safety because everyone has to eat, and those who get sick need medical treatment--neither are elective activities.
No one (as far as I know) has such an expectation for suborbital spaceflight, or adventure travel in general, and no one is going to be compelled to participate in it (again, under current legislation...). For many, in fact, the risk is part of the experience. Carried to its logical conclusion, Rep. Oberstar's philosophy would ban, or at least insist that the government heavily regulate mountain climbing, rock climbing, bungee jumping, skydiving, contact sports, extreme skiing, etc.
But perhaps those things are next on his agenda.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:08 AMI got a comment to this morning's Hubble column from a "Steve Mickler" at the post announcing it. I thought it would be better to respond in a different post, because it gets into one small aspect of the column in much greater detail:
Just read your article in TCS and while its a fine piece of writing; I must take strong exception to your dismissal of telerobotic technology.
I wasn't dismissing it in general--I was indicating skepticism for the purpose of this specific mission. A skepticism, for what it's worth (if you're into arguments from authority) that the National Academy of Sciences shares.
Firstly, using Skylab as a refutation of telerobots is bizarre and the relevance of the Solar Max repair mission is something of a stretch since it used old technology and did not include anything resembling the two armed, dual camera, anthropomorphic robot using 2000's tech that was proposed. Since no comparable device has been tested on-orbit and given the absolute confidence expressed by the contractor based on ground tests, your conclusion seems premature.
My invocation of Skylab, and the other successful (some only by the skin of their teeth) repair missions was to point out that something almost always happens that's unexpected, and difficult to anticipate enough to build in a telerobotic capability to handle it.
I have no doubt that the contractor has "absolute confidence" based on ground tests. So did the contractor who belatedly discovered that objects in zero gee don't behave the same way that they do in a Weightless Environment Test Facility (because the viscosity of the water has effects that don't occur in vacuum), or the contractor who designed the grappling mechanism that ended up not grappling the satellite. Such "absolute confidence," in light of the history of space repair, goes beyond confidence, to hubris.
Also, development of telerobotics on-orbit is an enabling technology which can increase human mediated activity in space by orders of magnitude versus spacewalking astronauts. The flexibility of humans to respond to the unexpected is actually increased if a telerobot is their tool since it is able to do things that would be to risky for the human and since it can stay on station hundreds of times longer. Untill a hard shell type spacesuit with dextrous gloves is developed, humans will be severely limited vs. telerobots. With TR the number and variety of repair and reboost missions will greatly increase while the lead times and costs go way down.
I wrote nothing in my article to dispute this. I expressed no opinion on the general utility of continuing to advance telerobotics, and in fact am all in favor of it. I was simply pointing out that the chances of success in using it on Hubble were very low, in proportion to the costs, and the risks of screwing something up so that perhaps even a later crewed mission might not be able to fix it were non-zero. This is a useful technology, but not, in my opinion, one that's ready for prime time on a critical system that was designed to be serviced by humans.
Admittedly there are many issues including the variable signal delay time to be solved but at the end of the day a new capability is developed not just a single repair accomplished.
Yes, and that's not a trivial issue. It's one of the things that makes the mission risky. I agree that if the mission is successful, it's a huge step forward. I disagree that we should use a critical mission as a test for such a system, particularly given the high cost. Test it on ISS first. That's one of the reasons that we supposedly built it.
Remember how long it took to get Hubble up there in the first place? Well that was done when the gov was in far better financial shape than now. I wouldn't hold my breath.
Well, even if things go on schedule, I wouldn't advise that...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:55 PMThomas James says that NASA might be starting to get serious about commercial support of ISS.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:41 AMThat's the title of my piece at TCS this morning.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:00 AMJeff Foust has taken some pictures of the new annex to the National Air and Space Museum out by Dulles Airport. There are also interesting articles at today's The Space Review by Sam Dinkin, about the prospects for O'Neillian space colonies (with a little historical perspective of the concept), and by Stephen Ashworth on the vital need for NASA to work cooperatively, rather than adversarially, with private enterprise. Finally, Jim Oberg has a first-hand account of how technical organizations become sloppy, with potentially deadly consequences.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:36 AMHere's a long, but interesting article about SpaceX and Elon Musk.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:48 PMC'mon, Keith. What's the point in passing on this tidbit if you're not going to name names?
Who's the administrator candidate? Who's the former JSCer? This isn't journalism--it sounds like a Cindy Adams gossip column.
I suppose the response will be that (s)he knows who (s)he is.
[Noon update]
Commenter Leland makes a good point:
Now others are left speculating on names of who is doing what to whom with the greatest likelihood of muddying the names of innocent people.Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:56 AMKnock it off indeed.
This could revolutionize interplanetary flight.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:37 AMI didn't expect the president to mention space last night, and he met my expectations. Reflexive Bush-hating space enthusiasts (you know who you are...) will of course claim that this is indicative of his lack of enthusiasm and support for his own new initiative, but I think that's nonsense. I think that it's more reflective of confidence in his ability to continue to execute it without having to rally the public behind it (something that it's not clear that it's possible to do). If anything, parading it in a SOTU address might simply draw fire from critics in a time of massive budget deficits.
I will continue to judge the president's support by his actions, rather than public speeches. He got the full NASA budget passed last fall, using a rare threat of a presidential veto. The program is moving forward as quickly as it's possible for a bureaucracy like NASA to make it happen, with concept studies underway, an RFP about to be released for the CEV, and plans for a Lead System Integrator to be selected this year. Ultimately, it's hardware, not speeches, that will get us into space.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:49 AMTwo years ago, I (and much of the rest of the world) woke up to learn that Columbia had been destroyed on entry. Here were my immediate thoughts at the time (before we had much data to work with).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:20 AMClark Lindsey is disappointed that Dennis Tito hasn't followed through on his pledge to invest in space tourism, and cites his congressional testimony:
He declared that the "only big problem that stands before myself and others who want to do this is the regulatory risk.
There was one other big problem standing between at least him and investing that he didn't mention (though it may not have happened yet at the time of his testimony). Eliot Spitzer and the SEC have been hounding him (whether fairly or not is unclear to me), which can be quite distracting from a number of other activities.
In any event, whether he invests soon, or later, or never, he still did a great service to the industry by being one of the triggers that resulted in the legislation being passed this year, opening up more opportunities for investment from others.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:46 AMThe Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed, with all aboard. Here's a vivid remembrance of the event, from someone who was there.
Here are my recollections of that fateful day.
[Via Jim Oberg]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:55 AMToday is the first of three grim anniversaries in late January and early February (within a week of each other) of the deaths of American astronauts. On this day in 1967, Ed White, Roger Chafee and Gus Grissom were incinerated on the launch pad in a ground test of the Apollo capsule.
Jim Oberg has more on these closely-timed anniversaries, in which he makes a compelling case that none of them were "accidents" but that all were avoidable, and that we've been lucky that we aren't commemorating even more astronaut deaths. Here's what I wrote a year ago (in which I criticized NASA's reluctance to send a Shuttle to Hubble, a subject on which nothing has happened in the interim to change my mind).
[Update a little after noon]
OK, my dear friend Tim Kyger is whining at me in email that they didn't die from their burns--they died from asphyxiation. True enough.
I didn't explicitly say that the burns killed them, but I did imply it, and probably "incineration" is too strong a word for the degree of the burn damage to their bodies. The point remains that they died from a fire (and their deaths, like those of their later colleagues in the Shuttle) were avoidable.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:58 AMGlenn has a piece at TCS about it today. He links also to the one I wrote for National Review back in the fall of ought three. In addition, he links to another one that Mark Whittington wrote at The Space Review in the summer of that year. There, Mark wrote:
One interesting point against the idea of a Chinese space threat was made recently by Rand Simberg in his Transterrestrial Musings weblog. He stated, a true free-market approach (of which, under the current regime, I suspect theyre incapable) will leave them in the dust. Thats why I dont even consider them relevant to our species future in space, unless they display some dramatic change in approach. The problem is that the United States is not following a free market approach in space flight. NASA is still insisting on running its own space line, rather than going to the private sector for launch services, for example.
Well, the problem is that we actually are, if you ignore NASA, or even if you don't, assuming that we can take the administration at its word about incorporating commercial providers into the new exploration activities. What a difference a year and a half makes, in which the X-Prize has been won, several funded competitors have come out of the closet, and we have a new regulatory policy that encourages private passenger spaceflight. Meanwhile, China continues to plod along in the old Soviet path.
I wonder if Mark has changed his mind since? Apparently not, since he (presumably) provided the link to Glenn. I did so to point out that my opinion hasn't changed since the fall of '03. Despite his continuing pride in it, I think that Mark's has stood up a little less well to the test of time.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:00 AMThat's what Keith Cowing says that historian John Logsdon is doing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:53 PMJeff Roche emails that CNBC's program, The Closing Bell, will have a segment on the new commercial space race (show is on at 4 PM Eastern).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:37 AMEd Driscoll has an interesting review of what looks to be an interesting new DVD series detailing the history of Apollo.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:31 AMOn a day that we have for the first time landed a probe on another planet's moon, it is also the first anniversary of the day that President Bush announced a new direction for our nation's space activities. I don't use the phrase "space program," because I hope that it will be much more than that. To paraphrase the Space Frontier Foundation's motto, it's a vision, not a program.
How are we doing?
Well, while the president (probably wisely) didn't emphasize it in any way after the announcement, NASA has moved forward in implementing it, with a new Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, with a new and apparently able man in charge (Admiral Steidle, of Joint-Strike Fighter fame). After the recent election, he (along with Tom Delay) ensured that it received full funding for the current fiscal year (in the face of budget cuts for almost all other domestic programs). Exploration architecture studies were let, technology studies have been selected, and an RFP is about to be released for the first phase of development of the Crew Exploration Vehicle. I've been spending this week in Houston at a fairly intense workshop to work out many of the implementation issues, in support of one of those architecture studies.
This could all be contrasted with the response of his father's announcement in 1989, in which the project was immediately ridiculed in the media and the Congress, the NASA administrator worked behind the scenes to sabotage it on the Hill, NASA came out with an unaffordable price tag for it, and it died within a couple years.
I have many issues with the implementation of it (that I won't go into now), but it has many promising aspects, and if we're going to be spending government funds on manned space, they're probably being spent more effectively now that they have been since the end of Apollo (and perhaps in the history of NASA). If you're interested in what I had to say about it at the time, I actually had quite a bit. Just go here and scroll down to mid month, then scroll back up.
My real hope for our expansion into the cosmos continues to lie with the private sector, but it's nice to, for the first time in decades, not feel utterly hopeless about prospects for the government civil space sector.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:42 AMGlenn Wilson has succombed to diabetes at the age of eighty two. He had a long and distinguished career in space and space policy, but I don't think that he ever realized the potential for the new space age, and remained too firmly mired in the old one for the space activist organization that he led to be effective in achieving its stated goals.
During his tenure (and mostly since) at the National Space Society, the group always tended to be too much of a NASA cheerleader, unable to conceive of any other way to get us into space, or offering a realistic roadmap of how supporting NASA's goals du jour would have any hope of getting us there. Nonetheless, he was a good man, as far as I know, with good motives, and I offer my condolences to his family and friends.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:58 AMTaylor Dinerman says that space technology is making a positive impact in the aftermath of the tsunamis, but that it could be leveraged much more.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:08 AMArticles like this don't hurt at all.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:51 PMBut I'm beat. Got up about 4:30 this morning to catch a flight out of Palm Beach to Reagan, and worked all day, and just got in to the room a few minutes ago. My brain hurts.
Nothing much to say, except that as others have noted, the administration belatedly released the space transportation policy that was supposed to have been released a couple years ago, before the loss of Columbia put everything on hold. I have some heartburn with it, as does Clark Lindsey (which I share), but won't get around to commenting on it specifically until the weekend.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:00 PMI've done interviews in the past with Gary Hudson and Jeff Greason, but Mitchell Burnside Clapp, of Rocketplane Ltd. Inc., has eluded me up until now (primarily because my pursuit has been inexplicably less than hot).
Mitchell Burnside Clapp is the CEO and founder of Pioneer Rocketplane and the Director of Flight Systems at Rocketplane Limited. He graduated from MIT in 1984 with two degrees in Aerospace Engineering, one in Physics, and another in Russian, establishing an apparent trend of being constitutionally unable to limit himself to just one field of endeavor. During 1988 he attended the USAF Test Pilot School, whence he graduated in that year to work on the YA-7F program, serve as an instructor on the school's staff, and later as the Air Force's flight test person on the DC-X program. It was this experience that led to his initial involvement with the alt.space community, and indirectly to his development of aerial propellant transfer technology to enable horizontal takeoff, horizontal landing spaceplanes.
When I first met Mitchell, he was a major assigned to the USAF Phillips Laboratory, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Shortly after that (but hopefully not as a result of our meeting), he left active-duty military service in 1996 to found Pioneer Rocketplane, which won a series of contracts from NASA, the DoD, and the state of California as well as significant private investment and contracted efforts. He is also the CEO of another technology startup called Short Order Video.
He claims (with some reason, I might add) to have a wife, several patents, three children (two beautiful daughters, and a son, of whom Mitchell is apparently too charitable to provide a physical description, though I'm sure he's probably a strapping handsome lad as well), two houses, a dog, a cat, many songwriting credits, a growing expertise in wine, and (as he apparently attempted to demonstrate here) pitiably little skill at writing biographical information about himself. I should add that in addition to Russian, and almost-passable English, as a result of misspending much of his youth in one of the most lord-forsaken corners of the Outback, he speaks the most difficult language of all, so well that it's totally incomprehensible when the listener is not under the influence of heavy drink.
Over the past couple weeks, I've belatedly engaged Mitchell in an email give and take, and hope that you find the results interesting and worth the wait.
Transterrestrial: I remember back in the olden days, when Pioneer Rocketplane was founded, based on your concept of taking off with empty liquid oxygen tanks, refueling (or reoxidizing, if that's a word) the vehicle in the air, and then flying into space from there. The market was the vast arrays of LEO comsats that were going to make it dark at noon.
The latest plan that I see is a modified bizjet for suborbital tourism, and it seems to be moving forward with some amount of funding. Can you describe how the company, and your thinking, have evolved to get from there to here, and what are the current prospects for fully funding it, if it isn't already?
Burnside Clapp: Looking back over the last decade, it's pretty clear that we were all mesmerized by the prospect of the Teledesic Winter. Especially early on, when they were talking about nearly 1000 satellites, it was hard not to get excited about the opportunity. Even when the Teledesic constellation is set aside, there was still, at least theoretically, ample market to support a Kistler, Kelly, Rotary and a Rocketplane, in the style to which we'd dearly love to become accustomed.
What we all missed, it seems to me, was something that Rachel Villain, an analyst at Euroconsult, pointed out to me about LEO comsats. Let's say you're running such a constellation. You have to develop satellites, with a bus from scratch most likely, secure spectrum globally in a new band most likely, enter a consumer business in dozens of countries.. you have collossal, and very uncertain costs in your whole program. For a GEO comsat program, launch is maybe 50% of your program costs. For LEO constellations, it might be as much as 15% - and it's the only part of the whole business plan for one of these operations that has low uncertainty. In a business like that, even free launches might not be an acceptable incentive to convince the customer to take a risk on you.
So when the wheels came off the LEO comsat segment, we were all wondering what to do. The trend at Rocketplane has been over time to get less and less grandiose in our ambitions. The initial design, back when I was in the military, was a single spacecraft all the way to orbit using Aerial Propellant Transfer, called Black Horse. When I left the Air Force, and tried to get something going commercially, the program became less ambitious--a two-stage-to-orbit system with a reusable first stage, also employing Aerial Propellant Transfer (sorry for the terminology hairsplitting, but fuel and oxidizer are different stuff, and I think it behooves would-be rocketeers to be disciplined about what they mean). Later, as the market diminished, so did the vehicle performance. We developed an even smaller vehicle based on no propellant transfer at all, the purpose of which would be to fly to over 328,000 feet and return safely.
This latter vehicle, more or less, is what we're currently developing. The latest angle, which simplifies much of the design but also introduces complications, is to recycle as much as possible from the 20 series Learjets. So over the last decade, we've gone from single-stage-to-space rocketplanes to X-prize class vehicles, getting slower, but more developable, at every step. The irony is that the primary structure and rocket technology, indeed, everything on this vehicle except for perhaps the flight control computer, was in use before I was born (today is my 42nd birthday).
Transterrestrial: Happy birthday. Would that I were such a sprout.
Burnside Clapp: It seems ironic to me that at age 42 I am probably still below the median age in aerospace.
Transterrestrial: Both ironic and depressing. Hopefully that will change if we can make the business more cutting edge and exciting to younger people.
Burnside Clapp: In any event, our strategy appears to have been effective. I've not heard what if anything is going on at Kelly, but Kistler is in Chapter 11 and Rotary is gone. It seems that the companies that are still active are the ones that are more or less pursuing this market. The other aspect to effectiveness, of course, is financing. In January of this year, we received a tax credit from the state of Oklahoma. The way this works is that to qualify for such a credit, the company has to have an assessed value of $10M, a contribution of facilities or the equivalent from a locality within Oklahoma, and a certification from the state's Department of Commerce that, basically, there's enough job creation in the deal to make it a good bargain for the state of Oklahoma. Subsequently, tax credit investments in such a qualified company of up to $30M dollars can be issued by the state. This was done in January, and we sold the tax credit, at some discount, in the first half of the year to entities within Oklahoma that have tax liability there.
As of now, we have over twenty people working in our Oklahoma office (it's right at the airport, just north of the hotel there) full time, and we're definitely hiring. It appears that, although we are definitely interested in further financing options and the financial team is by no means sitting idle, that we're going to be flying our first vehicle in late 2006. By 2007 we should be in revenue service.
Transterrestrial: That's great news, but lest I be accused of tossing softballs, wouldn't a strategy that realized the realities of the marketplace much sooner have been more effective? Do you consider yourself a leader in the new suborbital tourism industry, in the context of Rutan, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and XCOR?
Burnside Clapp: I'm not sure the realities of the marketplace were all that real before the current moment. Short of finding a patron, as Rutan and Blue Origin have done, we've been doing largely what XCOR has been doing, in the sense of subsisting off of smallish private investment and government contracts, to the extent that the latter don't dilute our focus too terribly. XCOR and Rocketplane have emphasized different areas in business development, but the strategy has been fairly similar. And as yet, the marketplace for space tourism is still very much a developing thing.
Do we consider ourselves a leader in the new suborbital tourism industry? It's really not for us to say. We're doing quality work with enough money to see it through to a flight vehicle, and the market will judge if that was the right thing to do or not. I can't imagine that we'd do anything all that differently if we knew absolutely everything that was going on at Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic, nor would we change our design or our schedule if the other enterprises ceased to exist overnight. In a sense, though, they provide a valuable service to us--validation that there's a market worth entering.
Transterrestrial: OK, we've talked about Christmases past and present. How about the ghost of Christmas future? What can you tell us about the company plans, and what you see as the development path to orbit, both in a technical and a market sense?
Burnside Clapp: I believe this is where I say "Bah. Humbug," or "Chanukah Shalom" or something. But I like the metaphor, and Dickens, so I'll go with it.
We created a vision statement that says, basically, that our vision is to make space travel as safe and commonplace as air travel--and by space travel we mean travel via space from place to place on the Earth's surface. I think the rocket transports in Heinlein's Friday, If This Goes On..., or Between Planets represent the sort of future I'd like to see. Once you've managed horizontal-takeoff, horizontal-landing space transports, and then improved them to the extent that they can fly from continent to continent, with sufficient safety to permit the public to travel, then I think you've accomplished something significant. A transcontinental space transport is about half the performance, approximately, of an orbital vehicle. You could say that developing such a vehicle puts you "A quarter of the way to anywhere", which I would regard as enormous progress.
Transterrestrial: Half the performance in what sense? Delta V? Energy? Do you see this as a single-stage vehicle? Are you still considering aerial reoxidizing?
Burnside Clapp: It's between half the delta-V and half the energy, very approximately. Much depends on how much aerodynamic glide range extension you can eke out during the reentry phase. Aerial propellant transfer remains a trick in the bag, with either propellant, potentially.
Transterrestrial: Oklahoma hasn't previously been known as a hotbed of space activity, but the state seems to be making a concerted effort to change that, and we now have you and TGV Rockets (and others) based there. How is that working out, and is it a useful model for other states?
Burnside Clapp: Oklahoma would surprise you in a lot of ways. We've got amazing depth in just the sort of aerospace engineering we need--the second-tier supplier-level stuff. We've been able to attract good people, although we're definitely still hiring. I think the financing we were able to access made all the difference in making our decision to locate there, but I'm very glad we did. And housing is amazingly affordable. I purchased a second house, on the shore of a large lake, and wrote a check off my home equity line out here [in California]. Four bedrooms and 2200 square feet for $100K in a decent area is not hard to work out at all. So you can have a pretty decent quality of life there, work with great people, and get important work done...there's nothing not to like, really.
Transterrestrial: Any concerns about living in Tornado Alley? Do you anticipate this location as a launch site (or should I say, spaceport), or just vehicle development?
Burnside Clapp: We're committed to using the 13,000-foot runway and associated facilities at Burns Flat, Oklahoma. This place was a former bomber base, I believe, and sits between Elk City and Weatherford. While you might think of this as the corner of No and Where, it's a pretty decent place to fly. The weather is pleasant for the most part, and this part of Oklahoma is fairly sparsely populated, which simplifies spaceflight operations.
As for tornadoes, well, pick your disaster. Florida has hurricanes, California has earthquakes, Hawaii has tsunamis, no place is perfect.
[Editor's note: this portion of the interview occurred on December 24th of last year, a day or so before the recent devastating tsunami in south Asia, of which we were both, obviously, unaware at the time.]
Transterrestrial: What are the prospects for them getting a site license from AST, like Mojave? Do they have funding for the needed environmental impact analysis?
Burnside Clapp: The prospects for a site license are pretty good. One of the reasons for this is that OSIDA, the Oklahoma Space Industrial Development Authority, is investing in the necessary paperwork and certification stuff to keep AST happy. The facility, and Burns Flat, Oklahoma, is outstanding... there's a 13,000-foot-plus hard-surface runway, hangars and everything you need for an aviation development program, surprisingly consistent and workable weather--I'm very glad that Oklahoma stood up and made us take a good look at what they had to offer.
Transterrestrial: Along the lines of regulation, are you happy with the outcome of the legislation this year? Most peoples' understanding (to the degree that they paid any attention to it at all) was that it was held up largely due to concerns on the part of Rocketplane that the suborbital definition would exclude your vehicle, because you have a hybrid concept (both airbreathing and rocket). Is the current regulatory situation satisfactory to you now, or are you with Burt Rutan, who wants to be regulated by AVR? Or something else entirely?
Burnside Clapp: My personal views and my corporate position are at some odds. Personally, I agree with Rutan pretty much down the line--but the field has to be level for everyone. There shouldn't be a situation that permits one team to make a design choice that allows them to claim some other set of rules to fly under if their vehicles are fundamentally the same. For example, by trajectory shaping, it would be possible for Rocketplane to evade the new definition in the current legislation. In other words, the regulatory category of the vehicle would depend, real time, on pilot decisions. That seems unreasonable.
At the same time, there was a rush to get the bill passed last year that had language in it that excluded the Rocketplane design a priori. While I might prefer AVR-type regulation myself, I wouldn't want to be in a situation where my regulatory burden was higher than anyone with a similar vehicle because we had designed a safer aircraft--that is, one whose main propulsion system wasn't flight critical. While I'm mindful of the idea that sticking a trivial rocket on an airplane and then pretending you're an RLV might provide an end run around aviation safety rules, I don't see that as anything but a strawman argument. We wanted a definition that did not exclude our vehicle simply because it had an additional, redundant, propulsion system. We had some help from Sen. Inhofe and his people in that regard, and we're grateful that the bill that the Congress finally passed is one that seems to satisfy all parties.
But what I really think about all of this is as follows, and is derived from a USENET post of a bit over a year ago.
I am firmly of the opinion that shopping around for the most convenient set of rules is a recipe for investment-dampening confusion. I also think that there's a lot of good on both sides of the argument about who regulates what.
For me, the bright-line test is this: If it is under the sole control of a pilot, physically present aboard the vehicle, who is able to take corrective action at all phases of flight if something breaks, then it is an aircraft, regardless of whether the lift comes from aerodynamic forces, propulsive forces, inertial forces, buoyant forces, or supernatural forces. I think the same is true of control and it's not consequently helpful to draw a distinction between "needs reaction control" and "needs aerodynamic control." All such vehicles should be certificated by AVR, in a category appropriate to their design.
Let me stress, by the way, that control is not used here to mean "real-time control-loop closure", or hand flying. Some designs just don't permit that. It does, however, mean that there ought to be actions the pilot can take at every instant of the trajectory to assure vehicle and public safety. Systems that contain a person with a stick that isn't hooked up to anything don't count. Systems that have unabortable flight phases where the crew's only recourse is to make their peace with their Maker don't count. An occupant is not a pilot.
If the jettison of (unpiloted) stages is contemplated, then it becomes an AST responsibility. Calculating things like expected casualties and so on becomes an appropriate thing to do in those circumstances. I think this is true for follow-on space launch systems like the ones we're working on at Rocketplane that imagine very high-speed over-water release of upper stages. There's no chance such a stage could survive intact to the ground, and there's precedent for "no range safety" package for Pegasus Stage III, which releases at a similar flight condition to what we are imagining, but I think we are obliged to prove that to a competent regulator, and that's AST.
Remotely operated vehicles, and I'm thinking in particular of Kistler here, have an interesting problem under these sets of rules. Aviators necessarily become a little apprehensive at the "who's flying this thing?" concerns of remotely operated vehicles. It isn't common to see vehicles without occupants in normal airspace whatever type of vehicle they are, and in this case I think you're essentially tackling the UAV problem. That means that the fidelity and security of your communications link is a safety-of-flight item. That in turn means that if it fails you are flying an unpiloted, possibly internally guided, space vehicle, and that means that you are back in AST's area of responsibility. Again, if the system has an architecture choice that could lead to an AST-like vehicle configuration, then it's reasonable to expect them to sign off on what you're doing.
Burt Rutan has an (I believe) unpublished e-mail running around describing in some detail what it was like working with AST during the development process of Spaceship One, and it wasn't a lot of fun for him and his team. On the other hand, for all their achievements, Burt has never certificated an aircraft for passenger travel with AVR.
Clearly this is an issue that needs a lot of attention, and I'm hopeful that the new legislation is a step in the right direction. But let's also be clear that the number of passengers flown on AST-certified vehicles so far is zero, and that it is a challenge for everyone in the community to contemplate how this is going to work in practice. My concern about AST certification is mostly to do with the uncertainty, which is, even after the legislation, significant.
Transterrestrial: I'm asking you these questions at the end of the year 2004. I think that when people look back on the history of this crazy business, decades from now, they'll see this past year as an extremely significant one in the development of the industry. Do you agree, and how optimistic are you about the future for it (and Rocketplane as well), particularly relative to some times in the past (and even the recent past)?
Burnside Clapp: Well, I suppose I agree. Previously, I thought 2000 was the pivotal year--the one where there was a great contest for survival among the previous group of startups, the year space tourism began to become perceived as a realistic market...I used to say it was 2000: A Space Iliad. But 2004 will be looked back on as pivotal as well, what with Rutan's X-Prize effort, SpaceX, and the other things that are going on.
Rocketplane is going to be around, I think, if anyone is. Sometimes I become concerned that we're all a little ahead of our time--that it just isn't time yet to build the sorts of machines we want to build. But the validation of having so many other smart and disciplined people working on the same problems we are reassures me. Rivals are good--they remind you that your goals are worth pursuing.
Thirty years from now, I expect that suborbital travel is going to be commonplace and that many thousands of people will visit LEO on a routine basis. From the year 2035, we should be arguing over the prospects for Lunar Tourism, if indeed we're not having that argument from the bar at the time share facility where we've all purchased our vacation condos on the moon.
Jim Muncy says that the biggest breakthroughs last year, in a spectacular year for space activities both public and private, were not technological, but political.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:32 AMA few years ago, under commission from the Sophron Foundation, headed by Tom Rogers, who was (and I hope still is, given his time on this earth) a noted proponent of space tourism, I wrote a long essay on the near-term prospects for space tourism. It was printed, but just a few copies only for the use of the foundation as a printout of a Microsoft Word file. To the degree it was published at all, it was on the web, at one of my own websites, and at Space Future.
Subsequently, somehow, Amazon has decided that it's actually a book, out of print.
I've already received notification from an emailer that they've backordered a copy, whenever Amazon gets some in st0ck.
How did this happen? Does anyone have enough insight into the workings of Amazon to know?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:56 PMClark Lindsey has helpfully put one together for the significant events in space actitivities over the past very eventful (and probably historic) year.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:51 AMI know that many of you are tapped out from the successful disaster relief fundraising, but we have to think about the future as well. The X-Prize Foundation has some matching grants up that expire at midnight, if you want to make a contribution to keeping the effort going for space prizes. I think that this is one of the most effective ways that a private citizen can contribute to opening up the frontier for all of us.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:44 AMHere's a study that says people derive more happiness from life experiences than from material possessions. I don't know if it's true, but it's not obviously wrong, and it buttresses my long-held belief that public space travel is the largest near-term market for space products.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:23 PMClark Lindsey has an interesting roundup of links, and some plausible speculation about the potential development path for orbital passenger vehicles.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:13 AMJay Manifold has some personal memories of a Christmas thirty six years ago.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:43 PMJPL has started maintaining a status page on potential earth impactors.
I still think that we need to get the Corp of Engineers working on this.
[via emailer Paul Breed]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:17 AMI missed the Delta 4 Heavy Launch yesterday--couldn't justify driving up to the Cape on a weekday. But I'm bemused by the reporting. To read this story, it was spectacular success, but SpaceFlightNow says that it underperfomed significantly, something you'd never know from the space.com piece, which reads like a Boeing press release.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:44 PMCrushKerry.com says has spotted a potential dark horse candidate for 2008--Sam Brownback. Regardless of your views on his other views, this would be potentially the best possible president to continue to carry out the president's Vision for Space Exploration, with emphasis on entrepreneurs.
[Update at 11 PM EST]
Nick Kristof is fascinated as well despite his "right-wing" views.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:37 AMOn Friday, I threatened to write a review of the year in space. Jeff Foust has preempted me this morning, over at The Space Review, and it's unlikely I'll do any better.
Lots of other good stuff over there as well, with items on Bigelow, and a well-deserved slapdown of Alex "Eeyore" Roland by Dwayne Day.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:23 AMThe GAO has released a report on Hubble servicing costs:
At our request, NASA prepared an estimate of the funding needed for a shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble. NASA estimates the cost at between $1.7 billion to $2.4 billion. However, documentary support for portions of the estimate is insufficient.
What a surprise.
NASA, an agency that has already internally decided that it isn't going to use Shuttle to save the Hubble, comes up with an outrageously high cost number to do so in order to help justify its decision, but doesn't substantiate it.
This number is simply incredible. I'll bet they're using a cost per flight of between half a billion and a billion dollars (which is the average cost, but isn't the appropriate number to use when estimating the mission cost, which should be the marginal cost--between one hundred and two hundred million). I'll also bet that they're including the cost of Hubble replacement hardware that has already been built and paid for. I'll also bet that getting the basis for this "estimate" from NASA will be like pulling teeth from an unanaesthetized elephant on crank.
The only costs that need to be compared are the cost of developing the robotics necessary to do this mission without Shuttle (already estimated to be hundreds of millions, if not over a billion), the cost of any modifications necessary to allow the equipment originally designed to be serviced by astronauts to be instead replaced by the aforesaid "robot" (which is really not a robot, but a teloperator, and which will up costs even more), to the cost of launching another Shuttle mission, training the crew, and using the equipment already designed and built to do so. I would truly be shocked if any honest analysis would indicate that the Shuttle mission isn't the cheapest way to go.
[Via NASA Watch]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:07 AMThat's what Roger Launius says that launch technology is.
Anthropomorphising technologies? Is solar power a "cheerful" technology"?
And as Clark Lindsey points out, his comparing what's happening with today's emerging suborbital industry with Pan Am's selling of reservations back in the sixties is equally bizarre.
Between him and Alex Roland, one wonders if there are any NASA or space historians (other than Dwayne Day) who aren't clueless.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:55 AMJeff Foust says that the Pete Worden bandwagon is gaining momentum, with open support from Senator Brownback.
I'd love to see it happen, but I just can't believe that he'll be named by the White House, and if he is, he may have tough sledding getting confirmed, even with the Senator's support. Based on his history of pretty blunt comments about NASA and the mainstream aerospace industry, he threatens too many rice bowls, particularly in Houston and Florida.
"Im absolutely convinced that we dont ever need to fly the shuttle again. Weve got three of them. Put them in the Smithsonian ... school parking lots. Kids can climb on them," said Worden, whose 30-year career spans a range of space duties, including stints at the White House National Space Council, the White House Office of Science and Technology and recently as a legislative fellow for U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Commerce science, technology and space subcommittee."Im a veteran NASA basher," said Worden, who was on detail from his job as a research professor at the University of Arizona while he worked for Brownback. Worden said his Capitol Hill experience demonstrated to him that NASA actually stood for "Never A Straight Answer."
I'd bet that as the home Senator from JSC, Kay Bailey Hutchison would effectively blue slip his nomination by herself.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:39 AMMark Whittington has a pretty good summary of Sean O'Keefe's tenure as head of the national civil space agency.
[Update at 1:30 PM EST]
He says he has no regrets, and wouldn't change any of his decisions.
Well, perhaps the incoming administrator can fix his dumb Hubble one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:30 AMKeith Cowing disagrees with (retiring) John Young's comments (valid, in my opinion) that it's time to accept the risk of the Shuttle and start flying again:
...to just throw up your hands, as Young has done, and say nothing has changed - and that its not worth the effort to try and get better - is defeatism of the first order. It is curious that he feels this way when you recall that a contemporary of his, Gene Kranz, coined the phrase "failure is not an option".
It's not defeatism--it's realism. Shuttle's safety flaws are intrinsic, and really unfixable for the most part, without spending much more money on it than a new, much better launch system would cost. I've always believed that the CAIB recommendations about what was needed to return to flight were unrealistic, and at some point NASA (and the administration) will have to admit to that as well, or stop flying. We know we're going to retire it (so we don't have to husband the resource of orbiters as hard as we have in the past), and we've got plenty of astronauts willing to fly it, so we should either start flying it again and getting some use out of it, or shut the whole thing down and apply the savings toward something with a future. As it is now, we've the worst of both worlds--spending billions on it every year, with no activity at all other than trying to put lipstick on a pig.
As for the quote about failure not being an option, it all sounds very inspiring, but like the Kennedy quote of "because it's hard," it doesn't really make much sense when one actually parses it. As someone once said, when failure isn't an option, success gets pretty damned expensive. If we can't take risks, there's no point in even attempting to venture into the cosmos.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:18 AMThe Economist has a serious article about the state of the space tourism industry at the end of 2004, with new details on both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin. I was confused by this bit, though:
In September, news emerged that Robert Bigelow, who runs Bigelow Aerospace, a firm based in Los Angeles, was going to back a $50m prize modelled on the $10m Ansari X prize that led to the creation of SpaceShipOne.
As far as I know, Bigelow Aerospace is now, and always has been, based in Las Vegas.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:57 AMHere's some evidence that NASA is starting to take the policy to retire the Shuttle seriously.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:14 PMAlan Binder is too sanguine about the prospects for extracting lunar oxygen in the absence of ice at the poles:
"Its totally irrelevant what form the hydrogen is in whether its solar wind implanted hydrogen or whether it is water. We just have to know what equipment to take. Thats because you harvest solar wind hydrogen one way and you harvest the water ice another way. Its still good news," Binder explained."In both cases, its the hydrogen that is the valuable thing," Binder concluded, "because theres plenty of oxygen around. We know that you can crack the rocks and get the metal and oxygen out."
Yes, we know that in theory we can do that, but as someone once said, in theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they're different. Melting ice is a much easier chemical process than cracking silicates in the absence of water, particularly when you have to recycle the reagents. There have been many postulated methods for doing this, including hydroflouric acid leaching, and magma electrolysis, but neither of them have been demonstrated in a lunar environment, or even a simulated one. We were trying to get support for this kind of research at Rockwell back during the SEI scare, but it came to nought, and as far as I know there is still little research going on in this area aimed at useful demos (I hope that someone can point me to some activities that indicates I'm wrong).
But even if it is occurring, it's a much more difficult process, and to say that whether or not we find ice is "irrelevant" at least for the near term, is handwaving. The ice discovery was exciting because it clearly made things much easier than previous plans for lunar materials utilization, and it remains that way today.
[Wednesday evening update]
Well, here's a little encouraging news.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:54 AMIs, according to NASA Watch, Bob Bigelow. Makes sense to me, but I don't know how influential he is with the administration.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:45 AMSorry for the short notice--I should have said something sooner, but if you can get out of town, and the sky is clear, the best meteor shower of the year is tonight.
Jay Manifold has more, and actually had it over a week ago.
Again, sorry.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:07 PMThat's the rumor. Jeff Foust has the story here and here, as does NASA Watch.
I find this a little surprising, given that he's just gotten the budget go ahead for the new exploration initiative. I would have thought that he'd at least want to see the program off to a good start (though perhaps he thinks it already is).
What's most surprising is where he's going--to academia. There were rumors throughout his tenure at NASA that he was being groomed to replace Rumsfeld in a second term. Either those rumors weren't true, or the fact that Rumsfeld is staying for now has thrown a wrench into them, or the administration is unhappy with him for some aspect of his job performance (Columbia? The Hubble fiasco?).
In that case, it's sort of like the old "up or out" philosophy for military brass. Get passed over for your next scheduled promotion, and you might as well take your retirement.
Fortunately, with the new initiative and the budgets, it's a more appealing job to many competent people than it's been in the past. In previous vacancies, the running joke was that the administrator had to be someone smart enough to do the job, and dumb enough to take it. That may not be the case any more.
[Monday morning update]
A commenter wants to draft Pete Worden. Now Keith Cowing is reporting that this is, indeed, one of the names being discussed. I wonder who the "well-known millionaire" is. Dennis Tito? Paul Allen?
It would certainly be an interesting appointment, and reasonable payback for the shabby treatment (in my opinion) that he got from Don Rumsfeld's Pentagon. If it were to happen (it seems unlikely to me), NASA would for the first time have as administrator a member of the alt.space movement.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:16 AMThere aren't very many things that I find appealing about living in Florida, but being able to see launches is one of them. The inaugural flight of the Delta IV Heavy is scheduled this afternoon. For those not living as close to Cape Canaveral as I do, Boeing will have a webcast, starting about 2 PM EST.
[Update in the evening]
Yes, the launch was scrubbed, for weather. Apparently winds aloft.
We don't have time to drive up there and back every day until they get it off, so I guess we'll miss it. But we did have a nice day. We saw some birds up in the Merritt Island Refuge, and took a leisurely drive back down the coast along A1A. The hurricane damage from Frances and Jeanne along the coast in southern Brevard and St. Lucie counties (which were basically ground zero, in terms of being on the northern eyewall for both storms) remains impressive. Many houses along the shore were gutted, and we saw lots of tarps on roofs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:52 AMThe post title is an acronym for "Yet Another Space Society," a running joke back in my space activist days in the eighties.
Here it is: Americans For Space.
There's no explanation of who they are, what they propose to do (other than "educate legislators"), of whether or not they're aware that there are other groups, many of which have been around for decades, purporting to do the same thing, or what unmet need they think they're filling with this new organization (if it indeed is that, and not just a website).
Sigh...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:24 AMMark Whittington discusses the prospects for energy production via He3 mining on the moon. He also discusses the reluctance of the administration to talk about it as a justification for the VSE. I find the latter understandable--I suspect that they fear ridicule if they do so.
And I have trouble buying this statement:
For every ton of Helium 3 extracted from lunar soil, researchers say, nine tons of oxygen, water and other life-sustaining substances, as well as six tons of hydrogen useful for powering fuel cells, would be yielded.
While He3 is much more abundant on the moon than on earth, I have a hard time believing that it's that abundant. There has to be much more than nine times it for those other substances. Oxygen alone is a major constituent of lunar regolith, whereas He3 is a trace element. I'd like to see the basis for those numbers.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:13 AMHenry Vanderbilt, of the Space Access Society (who has been following this closely), just left a post at sci.space.policy indicating that the launch legislation just passed the Senate (miracle of miracles), at the last possible minute.
While I think that this legislation is flawed, it's better to have it than nothing, in terms of investment, and the flaws can perhaps be fixed in the future.
More when I get more.
[Update a few minutes later]
It's not new info, but I just got an email from Henry to the same effect.
I should note that I claim victory because this is now almost as good as law. It only requires the president's signature, and the White House has never expressed any opposition to this legislation. And if he were to veto it, it would be the first bill that he vetoed since taking office.
It's a done deal.
[Another update at 10:43 PM EST]
Keith Cowing, of NASA Watch, confirms.
[Update on Thursday morning]
Alan Boyle (as usual) has the details. Apparently it rode on some other legislation at the last minute. Kudos to whatever Senate staff tactician managed to pull it off.
Clark Lindsey and Jeff Foust have thoughts and links as well.
2004 continues to be a great, perhaps watershed year for those opening up the high frontier.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:20 PMHolman Jenkins has a column in today's WSJ about the launch legislation being held up in the Senate (link may be subscription only--I'm not sure). With the title, "The 'Final Frontier' May Be a Senate Waste Basket," he's clearly not impressed with that body. He makes an analogy with what happened to the general aviation industry in the eighties (in which it almost went under from fear of lawsuits and costs of insurance), that was only revived in the nineties by farsighted legislation limiting liability for aircraft makers. He also asks an interesting question, that I've been wondering about as well:
For a pair who say they want to spend $100 million making space tourism a reality, Messrs. Rutan and Branson have displayed an odd indifference to the legislative battle. Either Sir Richard is peddling vaporware and doesn't really intend to fly -- or he's making an improbable bet on the FAA's willingness to let paying clients fly in an "experimental" spacecraft in violation of every rule in the book.
My guess is that Branson is taking his cue from Burt, who wishes that AST would dry up and blow away. He wants to be regulated by AVR. He should be careful what he wishes for.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:47 AMI don't think this is necessarily a bad idea, but I do think that it's extremely premature--a couple of European scientists have come up with a plan for conservation parks on Mars.
I think that their concern here is vastly overblown:
"It is the right of every person to stand and stare across the beautiful barrenness and desolation of the Martian surface without having to endure the eyesore of pieces of crashed spacecraft scattered across the landscape," they write in the latest edition of Space Policy.
Mars is big. Mind bogglingly big. It has about as much surface area as the land of the earth. The likelihood that you'll see any traces of humanity over most of it for the next century or two is vanishingly small. They seem to be dramatically overestimating the amount of potential activity there, and by the time we get around to sending enough spacecraft for it to even start to be a potential problem, we won't be "crashing" them there. The notion of destroying a sufficient number of probes for them to become an eyesore anywhere one goes on Mars is ludicrous, logically and economically.
But he's not a total moonbat (or in this case, Marsbat):
But Cockell argues that if a planetary parks system were in place, it would free up the rest of the planet for exploitation and claim-staking, which might encourage these nations to sign up to the system.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:39 AM
This is probably the last shot we have at saving the new suborbital launch legislation this year, which was passed by the House last month, but still needs to get through the Senate. If it doesn't pass, we'll have to start from scratch next year. Jeff Foust has some useful links.
And one of those links, this story from Alan Boyle irks me:
The word from some quarters on Capitol Hill is that the House bill was caught up in a cross-chamber dispute with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is pressing the House to move forward with boxing-reform legislation.
It's always frustrating when needed legislation gets held hostage for reasons having nothing to do with it. On the other hand, this probably prevents a lot more bad legislation from passing than good (since most legislation is bad), so perhaps I shouldn't complain.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:07 AMVia Clark Lindsey, here's an interesting first-hand description of what it's like to pilot SpaceShipOne.
I was amused at this part:
We talked about G forces on Tuesday. He says that he gets hit with about 3Gs kicking him backwards as soon as he lights the rocket motor. He's supersonic within about 9 seconds later. But he immediately starts to pull up into an almost vertical climb. So he also gets over 4.3Gs pushing him down into his seat just from that maneuver. The combined force is "very stressful" and Mike says it's "important not to black out" at that point.
Emphasis mine.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:35 AMI've written on this subject before, but I agree with this editorial. Why in the world is the administration supporting the Law of the Sea Treaty? Is it Powell's State Department, and no one else is paying attention?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:53 AMCharles Rousseaux describes the story, little discussed in the press, of the president's and Congress' visionary support for the new space age, both NASA's and the private sector's. And Ken Silber talks about the outer solar system.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Speaking of the outer solar system, here's a beautiful shot of Saturn's rings and its moon Mimas from Cassini, courtesy of NASA Watch.
I think that for honeymoon destinations, the rings will be the late twenty-first century equivalent of Niagara Falls.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:03 AMJeff Foust has an interesting column at The Space Review today about use of the word "tourist" to apply to private citizens traveling into space.
Unlike Rick Tumlinson, I've never minded the term all that much--it captures a lot of what we're trying to accomplish in a single word, and clearly differentiates it from the NASA astronaut paradigm. And as Jeff points out, it's easier to criticize it than to come up with an alternative that people will readily use. In the nineties, when Dan Goldin's NASA could be cajoled or pressured into paying any attention to the subject at all, they resisted using the word, preferring the phrase "public space travel."
But Jeff makes a point that I'd never previously considered. If the resistance to the new launch legislation allowing space passenger travel without heavy FAA regulation for passenger safety arose from the use of the word, perhaps we do need to come up with substitute, at least in a formal sense. Clearly, the early flights for the next few years are not going to be for the masses, expecting airline-like safety, but if Reps DeFazio and Oberstar had the mistaken impression that they were, due to the t-word, it may be time to give it more thought.
How about "space adventurer"?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:19 AMCosts of the robotic Hubble repair mission have been skyrocketing.
The estimated price tag of a robotic rescue mission -- between $1 billion and $2 billion -- is raising eyebrows and questions about whether Hubble is worth the investment amid tight budgets and periodic reports of technical woes that could cripple the spacecraft before the robot gets there.
I've never taken this mission seriously. I don't think that NASA ever really intended to do it. The initial studies were just a fig leaf to distract attention from the fact that they weren't willing to send a Shuttle to it, and assuage Hubble fans. The problem that they have now is that just safely deorbiting the thing is going to be impossible to do for a reasonable amount of money. I still think they should do the Shuttle servicing mission, because the marginal cost of that is the absolute cheapest thing they can do, and the risk is overblown (though even if it's as dangerous as some think, it's still one of the few things that Shuttle could do that would actually be useful).
By the way, they (like almost everyone) gets this part wrong:
If the cost hits $2 billion, that's three to four times what it would cost to send astronauts to do the job as they have four times before and as NASA planned before the Columbia disaster.
That's not what it would cost to send the Shuttle. The marginal cost of a Shuttle flight is somewhere between a hundred and hundred fifty million dollars. They're basing this assessment on the average cost, which is more than half a billion, but that's not the number one would properly use to make that decision.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:22 PMOn this busiest shopping day of the year, Alan Boyle has a good roundup of gifts for space geeks.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:05 AMJim Oberg says that it's possible. It's certainly technically doable, and a cool idea. The big question, I think, is the market at the price that it's doable for. As they point out, though, it's certainly within the capability of many governments to do it, if they just want the prestige. I'm not sure that it could be justified scientifically. Unfortunately, the Soyuz capsule is too small to fit someone like this.
[Disclosure: I've done some consulting for Constellation Services in the past, and may in the future, but I was previously unaware of this.]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:50 AMI haven't (yet) commented on the American Physical Society's little screed against human exploration, but the membership should be embarrassed over this. Keith Cowing is being threatened with a slander suit (why slander? Why not libel--it was published on his web site?) for criticizing it.
I think that they need to get someone for their public affairs office who knows how to actually deal with the public. Professor Lubell is not as bad as this guy (yet), but he shows promise. And now I suppose he'll send me a threatening email, too.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:14 AMMark Whittington contrasts the President's space initiative with that of his father. Suffice it to say that the current one has much better prospects for success, or at least lasting beyond his term.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:24 AMKeith Cowing notices a curious lack of enthusiasm.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:04 AMGlenn has a piece at his MSNBC site wrapping up last week's arguments over safety and the coincidental passage of the new launch regulation legislation by the House. It's a good roundup, but when he writes:
That's how we took aviation from an expensive and risky activity, mostly the province of governments, to a safe and reliable means of transport.
He's mistaken. Actually (and fortunately), aviation has never been mostly the province of governments, starting from the beginning with the Wrights. Had it been, we'd probably still be arguing about whether to build National Air Transportation System II (after the necessary technology had been proven out), or whether to just increase the fleet size of the current, dangerous "Air Shuttle" from three to five...
He also says that the legislation passed on Friday afternoon. Actually, it didn't happen until Saturday.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:08 AMI know that this proposal by Greg Zsidisin isn't serious, but it does demonstrate just how deranged some otherwise intelligent people have become at the prospect of Democrats no longer being in power. It's not particularly clever satire. I think it's just sad.
And by the way, Greg, perhaps in your conspiratorial dreamworld in which the new Inquisition with corporate sponsorship by Enron and Halliburton will start any day, Tom Delay is a senator, but in this universe, he's the majority leader of the House.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:46 AMThings were a little too frenzied in the past few days to actually spend much time analyzing the legislation, but now that the shouting is over, Nathan Horsley has an analysis of the legal effects of the launch legislation passed by the House this weekend. I agree with it, and share his concern that the compromise language inserted in the bill may cause the good people at FAA-AST to be more (and possibly too) concerned about passenger safety, to the detriment of a fledgling industry.
As Nathan says:
Well, shouldnt they do something to protect the passengers? I have to answer a resounding no. The reason for this answer is that paying customers in the space tourism industry are not the same as passengers in the traditional sense of transportation by air. Instead, it is more appropriate to think of these persons as adventure tourists or reverse skydivers. Suborbital tourists are not paying to be transported from one point to another. In fact, they generally will end up just where they started. Instead, suborbital tourists are paying to be allowed along for the ride. Subrbital space tourism is the ultimate roller coaster ride, not a service designed to transport passengers. While we all want this to develop into a passenger service in the traditional functional sense, for now they are paying for the heart-pounding thrill of the ride and to see the awe inspiring view. Just as is not appropriate to mandate safety for persons who go swimming with sharks or climbing Mount Everest, it is not appropriate to mandate safety for private space flight participants.
I'm also concerned about the time frame of eight years until the hammer drops with full regulation. I'm concerned that it's not long enough to get the industry going. However, it's something that can always be extended, if Congress can be persuaded to, so it at least buys some time to try to figure things out.
The bottom line is that, as Nathan says, this is mostly PR, but right now PR is very important, and one of the many pillars needed to raise critical investment right now. But as he also points out, it pobably won't be the end of the world if the Senate doesn't follow through in December. Just having the debate was useful, to the FAA, to the industry, and to Congress, and if it doesn't make it, this year, we stand on the shoulders of the effort to get something even better next year.
[Update at 9 AM EST]
Clark Lindsey makes another good point:
If it doesn't pass this year, then the commercial space legislation is dead and the whole process must start from square one in the new Congress. However, the FAA and AST may take HR3752/HR5382 as the general intent of Congress, especially with the two large votes in the House in favor of them.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:09 AM
The House has passed the new regulation bill (HR5382) with the required 2/3rds majority. Alan Boyle (who properly owns this story, with his diligent reporting over the past couple days) has the latest. As he says, now on to the Senate.
[Update at 6 PM EST]
Alan Boyle now has the full story up.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:04 PMJeff Foust says that it's this morning or never. Or, at least, next year.
Keith Cowing has a copy of the letter from Chairman Boehlert to his colleagues, which lays out the issues.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:32 AMA final email from Jim Muncy:
The House Leadership just announced that there would be no more votes tonight.Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:18 PMThe House of Representatives will convene at 9am on Saturday morning to consider outstanding votes plus the Omnibus approps bill, etc... so phone calls, faxes, and emails to House Members, especially House Democrats, should continue until at least mid-morning Eastern Time on Saturday.
Remember: HR 5382 is a bipartisan bill that was developed as a compromise between the House-passed HR3752 and the Senate Commerce Committees Democratic Staffers. So nobody should think it is a partisan issue or a pro-Republican bill.
From Jeff Greason at XCOR:
As of 1:19 Pacific time, the compromise version of the commercial human spaceflight bill is expected to come to a vote in the House today under a new bill number, HR 5382. The compromise in this bill allows passenger safety regulation by AST -- but only after a significant safety problem has been revealed in flight. The bill is currently opposed by a Representative who wants the FAA to have unlimited authority to regulate passenger safety. We encourage timely support for this bill. Text is available at:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961/
[Update at 5:25 PM EST]
Michael Mealing helpfully points out in comments that:
Oberstar's number is (202) 225-6211
DeFazio's number is (202) 225-6416
(these are the congressmen dragging their heels)
And here's an email from Jim Muncy:
Friday, November 19, 2004Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:59 PMDear Space Advocates & Correspondents:
This afternoon the House of Representatives had a 40 minute debate on legislation designed to advance the U.S. commercial human spaceflight industry. It was a good and spirited debate, with bipartisan supporters speaking in favor, and two partisan Democrats speaking against HR5382.
Unfortunately, the opponents arguments reflected the same misunderstanding of this issue that so many people have. Their presumption is that the federal government needs to set standards to protect the safety of the early adventurers who wish to buy a risky ride into space. Even before the vehicles that would fly them are designed, let alone built and flying. Frankly, Mr. Oberstar and Mr. DeFazio, the Ranking Minority Members of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee and its Aviation Subcommittee, seem to believe that we need to regulate spaceflight as if it were just another approach to Aviation.
But rockets are not airplanes, and the Commercial Space Launch Act and the U.S. commercial space transportation industry are not under the jurisdiction of the Aviation Subcommittee. Space is a new sphere of economic activity, and the Houses experts on these issues are members of the Houses Committee that is focused on Americas future, the Science Committee.
More importantly, the House worked for several months with the Senate to develop a compromise version of the original HR3752, which was passed by a vote of 402 to 1 in March of this year. It is important to note that HR3752 told the Secretary of Transportation to promote and license the carrying of space flight participants for compensation, i.e. to make money, under an informed consent regime.
In other words, the rocket company had to tell the passenger how likely it was they might crash, and then the passenger could choose to take the risk or not. All regulation was focused on making sure the rockets didnt hurt anyone on the ground. The Secretary was not given any authority and has none under current law to regulate in order to protect people riding on the vehicle.
And I might just point out, Mr. Oberstar and Mr. DeFazio both voted for HR3752 in March, along with every other Democratic member of the Transportation Committee who showed up to vote. (The only vote against HR3752 in March was by a libertarian Republican who didnt think the government had any right to regulate rockets at all !)
So todays choice on HR5382 is a choice not between one level of safety and another. Its between Congress telling the American people they have a right to go into space and an expectation that, over time, it will become more affordable and more reliable to do so... and saying we cant be bothered to write legislation to help enable this new industry. Fortunately, the American people *already* have the right to go into space. And the American free market will make it ever-more-affordable and ever-safer, even without the help of federal regulators. But it would be a good thing if this bipartisan legislation were enacted into law to help accelerate the process.
Ironically, the two members speaking in favor of higher safety today will actually leave the industry free to do whatever it wants under current law, with no process by which the Secretary could, let alone would, start to set safety standards. So perhaps they are more committed to stopping legislation and a new industry than safety, after all.
James Muncy
Consultant to several Commercial Human Spaceflight companies
Reports of the suborbital passenger launch legislation's demise were greatly exaggerated, but it's still on life support. According to Alan Boyle, here's the problem:
Goldston said it was not clear to him whether the bill would be acceptable to Rep. Oberstar, the ranking Democratic member of the Transportation Committee. But Jim Berard, communications director on the panel's Democratic staff, made Oberstar's view quite clear to MSNBC.com: Oberstar believes the bill still does not go far enough to safeguard the safety of crew members and passengers on future suborbital spaceships, he said."If the bill is brought up under unanimous consent, Congressman Oberstar would most likely object, unless something can be done to address that particular language," Berard said.
In a straight up-and-down vote, the opposition of just one member wouldn't pose a problem. But so little time remains in this lame-duck session that congressional rules have to be short-circuited in order to approve the suborbital spaceflight bill. The easiest way would be through unanimous consent, and Oberstar's objection would close off that avenue.
Rep. Oberstar apparently thinks that he has to destroy the industry (or prevent it from coming into being at all) in order to save it.
I hope that they can do a rules change to get around him, but I don't think that they should capitulate to him. I have a feeling that no bill will be better than one worded the way he would want it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:43 AMMy promised (well, actually, hoped for) rebuttal to Alexander Tabarrok's mistaken hit piece on the space tourism industry is up at TechCentralStation.
[Update at 10 AM EST]
I have to say that I'm underwhelmed by Professor Tabarrok's response to my rebuttal. He seems to have read it, or at least glanced at it, since he complains about my use of the (admittedly overused, but appropriate in this case, I believe) word "paradigm." However, he doesn't seem to have comprehended it, or if he did, he chose not to provide a substantive response.
He is still apparently unable to discern the distinction between orbital and suborbital, and between reusable and expendable, and why such a distinction is important. He accuses me of relying on "faith," when in fact I made a very clear and rational case as to why these new vehicles are different than the ones from which he mistakenly draws his misleading statistics.
In this last graf, he displays a fundamental lack of understanding of the economics of the space industry (disappointing--one would hope that as an economics professor, he could get that right, even if he doesn't understand the technical issues):
What's so great about space tourism anyway? Even though an increase in rocket safety of a factor of ten is not much when considering the safety of large numbers of people it is very significant when thinking about satellite launches or temporary low-orbit launches. A reduction of risk of this amount means much lower insurance costs that will open up space to new private development.
What's so great about space tourism is that it is the only market, or at least the only one that doesn't require some technology breakthrough beyond the development of low-cost vehicles themselves, that is sufficiently large to get us to the scale of operations necessary to reduce costs and improve reliability.
And if he believes that the high cost of launch insurance is the barrier holding back private space development, he understands nothing at all about the current launch industry, either technically or in a business sense.
David Masten isn't impressed, either.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:09 PMI've allowed myself to get sucked into a discussion in comments over at Marsblog, and decided it made more sense to post about it here. There are a lot of misconceptions about the president's Vision for Space Exploration (and they may actually be deliberate strawmen by those trying to twist it to their own ends).
Foremost among them is that the plan is to go to Mars via the moon, with the implication that everything that goes to Mars will therefore have to first go to the moon. Having established this as a fact, it is then blasted by some as a proposal to "build Cape Kennedy on the moon," which is obviously ridiculously infeasible and expensive. It was the basis of this so-called argument by "Mark" against using the moon to get to Mars.
I believe the figures in the book demonstrate that the deltaV to get from LEO to moon is higher than that of getting to Mars. This is due to aerobreaking [sic] I think. Thus, even if there are prepaired [sic] fuel tanks waiting for you there for free, it's more expensive to stop off at the moon. I could be fudging this as I don't have the book in front of me.
He assumes that everyone going off to Mars "stops off at the moon." If that were the case, then the relative delta Vs would be of interest.
But it's not. This is nonsense, of course, and not what the president proposed.
What the president proposed was using the moon as a place to learn how to operate on another world, much closer to earth in case something went wrong, and looking into the potential to get resources there that could help go to Mars, particularly propellants. Propellants for a Mars expedition have to come from somewhere. They can either come from earth, by launching them from earth to LEO or L1 or some other staging point, or they can come from the moon.
If launch costs are such, and the ability to mine ice on the moon are such, that it's cheaper to get the propellants from the moon than from the earth, then this is what will be done, and it has nothing with "stopping off at the moon." It is simply logistics.
And no one can say with certainty a priori what the answer to that question is (including Bob Zubrin). We will only know after years of studies and initial robotic exploration, which are only starting to be performed now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:52 AMThis article about the safety of the space tourism industry is wrong on several levels. I'll be rebutting it one way or the other within the next day or two.
[Update at noon]
Clark Lindsey beats me to the punch (at least as far as publishing--ahh, the wonder of blogs), with many of the points that I'll be making, probably in a rebuttal at TCS tomorrow.
If statistics were a child, Alexander Tabarrok would be arrested for abuse...
Heh.
[Update on Friday morning]
I have to say that I'm pretty underwhelmed by Professor Tabarrok's response to my column. He seems to have read it sufficiently to complain about my use of the (admittedly overused) word "paradigm," but not comprehended it. He certainly doesn't offer any substantive response to my arguments or criticism, except to cling to his old myths. David Masten wasn't very impressed, either.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:09 AMThe suborbital launch legislation seems to have finally given up the ghost, at least for this year. It's not necessarily a bad thing, particularly given the fact that it almost passed a few weeks ago with a pill that would have poisoned the new suborbital passenger industry by overregulating it.
As Nathan Horsley points out in comments at Space Politics,
While a clear statutory basis for manned launch licensing is a desirable goal in that it would make it easier for new companies to tailor their designs to the regs, the existing companies should be able to go ahead under the current regime. The fact is that even under a new regulation, the licenses are still going to have to be tailored to each individual craft and mission plan (or at least series of similar mission plans). Further, the new push to include passenger safety as a factor in licensing is very dangerous. While the newest compromise limits this to situations where there has already been an accident, this is at best a marginal gain for the launchers in terms of insurance availability and litigation risk.Bottom line, given that the FAA AST is doing a pretty good job under the current regime, sending the legislators back to the drawing board is not so bad a thing, and won't even force launchers overseas.
Also, more from Alan Boyle here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:43 AMThere's apparently a lot of public support for going back to the moon, but not much for going to Mars.
While I agree with that sentiment, I found this part a little less encouraging:
Out of 5 options, Americans ranked "International participation and cost-sharing" as their #1 choice for funding the Vision -- with certain conditions.
That's a failure of public education, to my mind (or a success of propaganda, depending on your point of view...). They don't realize that "cost sharing" tends to increase costs to the point that we end up spending more than we would if we simply did it on our own.
And here's some more propaganda that people seem to have absorbed:
Americans understand and appreciate the benefits of the space program ("spin-offs," science, and the impact of space-based technology developments to daily lives).
My concern with this is not just that it's probably not true (spinoff is highly overrated as a net benefit of space programs), but that if the purpose of having a space program is international cooperation and spinoff, it becomes possible to have a program that achieves those goals with no discernable progress in actually doing something in space. See the ISS for a sterling example.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:26 AM...is scheduled for a week from today at the Cape, between 2:30 and 5:30 PM EST.
I'm going to try to go see it--it should be pretty spectacular. One of the few benefits of living in Florida that I've found so far.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:49 AMBob Bigelow has announced the rules for his new fifty-million-dollar prize for an orbital vehicle. I saw this yesterday, but haven't posted because I haven't had time to think much about it, but Derek Lyons has.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:28 AMJon Goff has an excellent roundup of the recent Space Frontier Society conference in Long Beach, for those of us not fortunate enough to have attended.
[Via Clark Lindsey]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:17 AMKeith Cowing is having some legal problems with Orbital Sciences Corp.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:37 AMXCOR needs a new subsystem for their rocket propulsion development. They're offering a prize.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:40 AMJay Manifold has an extensive follow up on my original short post.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:47 AMI hope that this story is true, and if it is, it's one more reason for me to support the reelection of the president. It's certainly not something that a Kerry administration would consider (except possibly to make things worse).
[Via Mark Krikorian]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:21 PMCNN talks to Mark Shuttleworth. Most of the discussion is about his privately financed trip to Mir, but he does talk about the future of the industry:
Shuttleworth: We're just starting to see the first private vehicles being certified as safe for flight, carrying passengers to the edge of space and back. Now, to put that in perspective, 30 years ago NASA and the military had vehicles that were capable of doing the same thing. But these are now vehicles that have been entirely privately designed. So in the next year or two, we'll actually see the first privately funded space flights that take people out of the atmosphere and back. And those aren't sort of Mercury Star or Apollo Star or Soleal Star orbital flights; they don't go round the Earth and go into orbit. They literally shoot up like a canon ball, get you out of the atmosphere into space and falling back to land within a couple of minutes of your launch. That's the first step that will really lay the groundwork for a whole exploration of private space flight.Within five years I expect that we'll have regular private flights, so that people paying relatively small amounts of money to have the privilege of being shot out of the atmosphere, experiencing the Earth as seen from space, that incredible sight of the Earth without borders, and then experiencing weightlessness and the feeling of looking into the universe, you realize just how small the Earth and solar system are in the context of the broader universe. So that's really what we'll see over the next five years. And then in 10 to 15 years, that will have grown to the point where maybe we can expect to see four orbital flights, entirely privately funded with vehicles that are entirely privately designed. There's a tremendous amount of capital now going into the private space industry on the basis of somebody having done it. It's like the four-minute mile. Once somebody does it the first time, everybody else wants to step up and give it a run. So, this really is the cusp of a new era.
Curnow: Which nations will dominate?
Shuttleworth: Clearly there is a lot of American capital going into private space flight at this stage. A lot of the technology, though, is still Russian and there are other countries entering the space race as well. India, China and Brazil all have developing capacity in space. I've no doubt though that it will be American-driven investment that leads the private exploration of space.
Curnow: What about private visits to the moon?
Shuttleworth: Well, the two are very intricately interlinked. It's space tourism that's going to reduce the cost of getting to space. Once you reduce the cost of getting to space, then national space budgets -- the amount of money that NASA spends keeping people in lowest orbit, for example -- can be used to take us that much further. It's going to be a very rich interplay between commercial space flight, private space flight and a public exploration into the solar system for the greater good of humanity. The two are absolutely interlinked and we couldn't realistically get to the moon without reductions in cost that will only come from private space tourism.
Emphasis is mine.
I'm not sure what he means by "four orbital flights." Does he mean four companies offering them?
Unfortunately, he wasn't asked what his own investment plans were.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:40 PMCaptain Kirk is finally going into space for real. Along with 7000 other people. If those numbers are right, then that's about one and a half billion dollars in pledges. Not bad for a planned investment of a couple hundred million on Branson's part.
So much for the giggle factor about space tourism.
Here's one Enterprise captain who probably won't be going, though. And he spouts the usual idiocy:
In an interview with BBC World Service radio, Stewart said he backed unmanned missions such as Nasa's Mars rover Opportunity and the UK's Beagle 2 mission.But he said he did not believe the human race was ready to begin thinking about beaming down on other planets.
"As I get older my unease at the time and the money that has to be spent on projects putting human beings back to the moon, and on to another planet, is so enormous," he said.
"And it would take up so many resources, which I personally feel should be directed at our own planet."
Interviewed by the World Update programme, he added: "Humankind has just not simply become sufficiently evolved to now leave this planet, take itself out to space and began establishing more of us out there.
"I would like to see us get this place right first before we have the arrogance to put significantly flawed civilisations out on to other planets - even though they may be utterly uninhabited."
I wonder when he'll think that we're sufficiently evolved? Perhaps after we've become socialists, as apparently the federation had become by the time of The Next Generation.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:11 PMDavid Chandler (who interviewed me a few years ago for a similar article) has a piece in the Boston Globe that provides a good overview of the fledgling commercial space passenger industry, with a suitable cautionary note at the end:
All of this growing interest and activity could still be thwarted, though.Last week, a bill that had been painstakingly negotiated in Congress for more than a year was suddenly about to be amended at the last minute. Instead of helping to enable the new space tourism business, as intended, a new provision would have required safety standards comparable to a mature industry like the airlines. The bill is still in backroom negotiations and might be salvaged in the lame-duck congressional session.
It would certainly be ironic, said Boston-based aerospace engineer and consultant Charles Lurio, that if, as enthusiasts gather next month to celebrate the human and engineering triumph in Mojave, the industry it might have spawned was being strangled in the halls of Washington.
Henry Vanderbilt at the Space Access Society has more on the ongoing legislative crisis. An important point:
Don't assume because you didn't read this until a week or two after we sent it out that it's no longer urgent. The window for effective action on this will likely be open well into November. Stay tuned for further word; we'll report as soon as we know anything. Meanwhile - fax and call!Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:31 AM
This columnist at the Daily Cal likes the idea of rides in space, but he's (irrationally and ignorantly) worried about the military implications:
But just as the discovery of oil in the Middle East set the stage for decades of conflict, the prospect of energy resources in space could drive its militarization. Because of its technological advantage, the United States has a clear shot at becoming the firstand perhaps the onlyspace energy prospector. In addition to peaceful uses, errant targeting of microwave transmissionswhether intentional or accidentalcould fry circuits and bodies on the ground, an application foreseen by the inventor of wireless power transmission.
This is one of those myths that will not die. A phased array of microwaves, with less than the intensity of sunlight (which is the design concept for space solar power), cannot "fry bodies on the ground." If you stood in the center of the beam, you might feel a little warm after a while.
While space solar power and energy independence are not explicitly mentioned as motivations for space superiority, these long-range goals would help explain some of the Bush administrations seemingly irrational actions, such as withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Freed of the treatys restrictions on space weapons, we are implementing a missile defense system with a demonstrably poor chance of shooting down a ballistic missilebut perhaps a better chance of killing a satellite in geosynchronous orbit.
This is innumeracy and silliness. First of all, withdrawal from the ABM Treaty may be "seemingly" irrational to the author, but there was actually a very good basis for it, particularly now that we know that the North Korean continue to develop nukes and missiles with the range to hit the continental US. But that aside, the notion that our current military space policy has anything at all to do with future solar power satellites is nuts.
Furthermore, a missile defense system would have no capability whatsoever to hit something in GEO. I can't even figure out what the scenario is here. What satellite does he think we'll attack? A powersat? They'd be huge, able to see an interceptor coming from a long way off, and easily capable of defending themselves with lasers in the vacuum of space. If not, then what is he saying?
This piece is an incoherent mess, in which he takes several facts, completely unrelated except that they all have to do with space, and foolishly and illogically attempts to weave some kind of weird conspiracy theory about the Pentagon's space program. It doesn't work.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:02 AMI found a dumb letter to the editor in my new hometown paper this morning (scroll down):
Use money for space travel to develop alternate fuelsCommercial space travel is a dubious and dangerous prospect for mankind ("Private rocket wins $10 million prize," Oct. 5). It is bad enough that governments are devoting scarce resources to space travel while there should be an intensive program to develop nonpolluting energy sources. All would benefit if a replacement were found for nonrenewable fuels.
Commercial space travel as well as governmental space programs will benefit only the very few and the very rich. Each venture pollutes and helps to destroy the upper layers of Earth's protective atmosphere. The few who will partake in space travel will leave the rest of God's creation choking on rocket fumes.
RABBI NASON GOLDSTEIN
Royal Palm Beach
Even ignoring the scientific ignorance about "rocket fumes" (it's quite possible and even likely that most rocket exhaust in the future will be di-hydrogen monoxide, or a combination of that and CO2), the good rabbi manages to combine the fallacy of false choice (the notion that money not spent on space will be spent on alternative fuels, particularly absurd in the case of private space travel), ignorance of economics (all innovations initially benefit the wealthy, who provide the initial markets needed to drive down the price to those less so), and the mistaken notion that there will be "few" going into space, and that there is no benefit to anyone doing so.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:02 AMThat's what The Independent says:
The man behind the lunar mission was Dr John Wilkins, scientist, theologian and brother-in-law of Oliver Cromwell. In 1640, as a young man of 26, Dr Wilkins wrote a detailed description of the machinery needed to communicate and even trade with beings from another world......Although earlier philosophers and poets had written about visiting the Moon, the writings of Dr Wilkins were in an altogether different league, Professor Chapman believes. Wilkins lived inwhat he describes as the "honeymoon period" of scientific discovery, between the astronomical revelations of Galileo and Copernicus, who showed a universe with other, possibly habitable worlds, and the later realisation that much of space was a vacuum and therefore impassable
Even if true, it seems improbable that it would have been successful--he was a little dodgy on his physics:
According to Dr Wilkins, the gravitational and magnetic pull of the Earth extended for only 20 miles into the sky. If it were possible to get airborne and pass beyond this point, it would be easy to continue on a journey to the Moon. Inspired by the discovery of other continents and the great sea voyages of explorers such as Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, Wilkins conceived an equally ambitious plan to explore space.
I'll be curious to see if this story stands up to peer review. If so, it's an interesting new and unknown chapter in the history of man's dreams of spaceflight.
[Via Jim Oberg]
Keith Cowing has obtained a copy of the draft legislation in the Senate that contains the poison pill. Jeff Foust has the latest description of what's going on, including an analysis of the text.
And for those who say that this won't kill the industry, that it would just move it off shore, Taylor Dinerman points out that if so, it won't be done by Americans, due to ITAR restrictions.
All in all, it's very important to both fix this legislation, and get it passed, as soon as possible, if we want to continue to build on the momentum provided by last week's successful Ansari X-Prize win.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:19 AMOnly four days after we lost Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper, Max Faget (pronounced French-style, "Fah-zhay"), the man who designed his capsule, has died.
[Update on Monday morning]
Here's a profile of the man by Jim Oberg from almost ten years ago.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:56 PMThat's what Michael Mealing is doing at the Space Frontier Conference. You'll particularly want to read his description of Jim Muncy's talk about the new launch legislation.
"...the poison meat is in the Senate sausage machine so we're going to stop, clean out the machine, and start over..."Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:44 AM
The Air Force has come out with a new badge.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:53 PMThat's the subject of this column by Mark Whittington.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:38 AMClark Lindsey explains the issues involved with yesterday's legislative emergency for passenger spaceflight.
And he points out a very good piece by Richard Foss on the prospects for space tourism and the town of Mojave.
[Update in the afternoon]
Here's a related piece from Space.com with several good points made by Jeff Greason:
Greason said he is in total agreement that it is necessary for regulators to ensure that potential passengers have adequate information. But he sees a "critical distinction" between the risk faced by the uninvolved public and that faced by those who want to fly into space."The uninvolved public has to be held to a very high level of safety," he said. "There's no reason they should be exposed to a level of risk that's different than they see from any other aspect of industrial life.
"The involved passenger, the people who are deliberately putting their lives and treasure at risk to open the space frontier they've dreamed of their entire lives, as long as they know what they're getting into, I think they have to be allowed to take that risk."
One of the nation's advantages, he asserted, is that there is still a "culture of risk acceptance as long as it's only for the participant..."
...Greason said commercial space transportation, for it to succeed, has to chart new ground to improve the level of safety set by government programs such as the space shuttle.
"That means the classic regulatory prescriptive approach of 'We'll do it just like all those other successful very safe personal space transportation vehicles' can't work," he said. "It's a paradoxical, hard to understand thing, but in order to achieve greater safety, we have to allow many approaches to be tried, because only in that way can we find out experimentally those which offer greater safety."
[Update at 3:45 PM EDT]
Jeff Foust has the latest word from former committee staffer Jim Muncy on the bill status, from this morning's session of the Space Frontier Conference in Long Beach (which I wish I were attending, and almost certainly would be if I were still in southern California).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:10 AMI just got an email from Jeff Greason at XCOR Aerospace:
There is a last-minute move by some staffers in the Senate to heavily amend HR 3752. The amendments would completely change the charter of the office of commercial space transportation (AST), placing the safety of the crew and passengers on equal footing with the safety of the uninvolved public. Since that is well beyond present technology, it would effectively stop development of the industry in the U.S.. It is too late to fix the bill before the session adjourns, but not too late to stop it. If you or people you know have connections to any Senator, please ask them to put a "hold" on HR 3752. That prevents it from passing by unanimous consent. We may have less than 24 hours.If the bill is "held" there may be opportunity to fix it in a post-election session -- but if not, we would still rather the bill die than pass with these poison-pill amendments.
I'm now wondering if the AIAA was aware of this, and if so, whose side they're on.
[Update at 11 PM EDT]
Alan Boyle at MSNBC has the latest on the issue. Bottom line: the bill is almost certainly dead for this session, and will have to wait for next year. But:
That's just as well, said Andrew Case, the acting director of the Washington-based SubOrbital Institute and a research associate at the University of Maryland at College Park."It leaves us with continuing uncertainty," Case told MSNBC.com, "but it's better to have continuing uncertainty than the certainty of bad regulation."
Perhaps more tomorrow, but thanks to Alan for quickly getting to the bottom of what's going on in the murky labryrinth of what's going on inside the Beltway in this matter. That's why we have professional journalists with the resources and sources to ferret this stuff out. Too bad they don't all do as good a job.
[And thanks to commenter "gs" for the tip to the MSNBC piece]
[Update on Friday afternoon]
There are some more follow-ups in this more recent post.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:24 AMHere's a good roundup of the accelerating trend (that I pointed out last year--scroll down past satirical piece) of dotcom millionaires to become space entrepreneurs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:12 AMIt's not looking very good to get HR 3752, the bill to provide necessary regulatory changes for suborbital flight, passed this year. The AIAA (which I'm happy to see supporting this) has a last-ditch legislative alert.
[Via Jeff Foust]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:51 AMI just noticed that the audio of my interview with Warren Olney on Monday is on line.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:56 PMTariq Malik has a piece on the new space prize today, in which he writes:
Former astronaut and U.S. senator John Glenn's 1998 space shuttle seat cost NASA $50 million, and private orbital passengers like Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth have paid about $20 million for jaunts to the International Space Station, McCurdy added. At present, British millionaire Sir Richard Branson's announcement of suborbital flights on his newly christened Virgin Galactic venture will cost around $190,000.
I'd be curious to know where he got the fifty-million number. There is no accepted cost for a Shuttle seat--it all depends on how one wants to do the accounting. I'm guessing that he (or whoever gave him the number) came up with an average cost for a Shuttle flight in the year that he flew (perhaps $350M, itself a contentious number, and probably low), and then divided by the number of crew.
But this is a completely arbitrary way to do it, and in fact extremely overprices it, since it values the cost of delivering a payload bay full of tons of cargo at zero.
The reality is that John Glenn's flight cost virtually nothing, at the margin. They could have flown seat full of John Glenn, or seat empty, and the cost of the flight would have been identical, other than training costs. Unless the services of the Shuttle are "unbundled," there's no definitive way to put a cost on a seat.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:13 AMI've been too busy to blog today, but Derek Lyons has some thoughts about what lies ahead for the suborbital industry.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:38 PMI hope that whatever "aerospace industry expert" assured the insurance company that there was little chance that the X-Prize could be won has trouble finding further consulting work.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:04 AMJohn Weidner was there with a camera. I wish I could have been.
[Update at 10 PM EDT]
Clark Lindsey finally found an internet connection, and has lots of updates from Mojave.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:40 PMAnd then there were three.
On the forty-seventh anniversary of Sputnik, on the day that the Ansari Prize was won, astronaut Gordon Cooper, one of the original Mercury Seven, has died. Of those seven, only Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, and Wally Schirra remain with us.
Of course, he was not an uncontroversial astronaut:
In his post-NASA career, Cooper became known as an outspoken believer in UFOs and charged that the government was covering up its knowledge of extraterrestrial activity."I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets, which obviously are a little more technically advanced than we are here on Earth," he told a United Nations panel in 1985.
"I feel that we need to have a top-level, coordinated program to scientifically collect and analyze data from all over the Earth concerning any type of encounter, and to determine how best to interface with these visitors in a friendly fashion."
He added, "For many years I have lived with a secret, in a secrecy imposed on all specialists and astronauts. I can now reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown to us."
Nonetheless, he was a hell of a pilot. Rest in peace in the cosmos.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:35 PMGlenn's been throwing me lots of links, lately, deservedly or not, so I'm happy to be able to link back to a nice post of his at MSNBC about today's winning of the Ansari Prize.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:36 PMI'll be in a short segment of Warren Olney's "To The Point" at 2PM EDT, discussing the implications of the X-Prize.
[Update at 2:30]
It went very well. Warren (who is an excellent interviewer) just wanted a five-minute update on how the flight went, and the implications for the future of space. It should be available for streaming sometime today, and it will be rebroadcast in LA on KCRW at 1 PM Pacific.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:25 AMMy former co-worker at Rotary Rocket, Brian Binnie, will be piloting today's (hopefully) prize-winning flight.
[Update a couple minutes later]
After a little surfing, my recommendation is to watch on MSNBC if you get it. Intead of John Pike, they've got Jim Oberg to provide commentary.
[Update a couple more minutes later]
Oops. He just misspoke, saying that the FAA would have to certify the spaceship that Burt builds for Branson. Not under the current regulatory regime. All they will have to do is get a launch license.
[Another update]
I switched back to Fox, where Bridget Quinn was interviewing Walt Cunningham. When she asked him if this meant that we'd be able to go into space, he splashed cold water on the idea, saying that maybe her "children's children" would do it. He then went on to explain that what Branson wanted to do would be much more expensive, because SpaceShipOne didn't have all the redundant systems that "safety regulators" would require.
Grrrrr...
He doesn't know what he's talking about, since there are no "safety regulators" when it comes to passenger spaceflight. The FAA is concerned only with third-party (uninvolved people on the ground) not first or second parties. As I said, there is currently no such thing as certification for such vehicles--only launch licensing, and that is a process that doesn't oversee passenger safety.
[Update after launch]
Well, that was a lot smoother than the first two. I don't know if Brian is a better pilot, or if he was on the lookout for things based on his discussions with Mike Melvill.
Shortly after apogee, someone said that he's won the prize.
Not yet. He has to land safely first...
[Update at 11:10 or so]
OK, the nosewheel just touched down. The prize is won, once they verify the altitude, which if it holds up at 368,00 feet will be a new altitude record, beating the previous one long held by the X-15 by almost three miles.
Dale Amon (who just called me to inform me of that) has been covering this as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:47 AMOn this date, forty-seven years ago, from the windy steppes of Kazakhstan, a missile, originally designed to deliver a deadly warhead, sundered the skies. But its payload was not a bomb, but a basketball-sized sphere of metal with transponders. Its destination was not another territory on earth, but the semi-permanent freefall of outer space. It was the first object since the dawn of time, crafted by humans, to enter orbit around our planet. It was the beginning of the space age.
As I write these words, it's still dark in Mojave, California. If it's a typical night there, the winds are high, even howling, rattling the rafters of the airport hangars, many of which were built years before that first satellite launch. But in an hour or so, the rising sun will slowly illuminate the desert, and the winds will die down. A crowd will be gathered to watch an ungainly-looking aircraft, resembling mating birds or insects, as it taxis out to challenge the heavens for the second time within less than a week.
If today's flight is successful, and the prize is won, many may look back on this anniversary as a dual one. October 4th will not only be commemorated as the day that the old space age began, but perhaps, the new one as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:10 AMUnfortunately, not me. Clark Lindsey is going, though, for tomorrow's historic flight. Here's hoping he finds an internet connection.
I'll have to watch on teevee again (which, truth be told, actually provides a better view of the flight than being there does). Still, I'd like to be in attendance, but now that I'm in Florida, it's a lot harder to justify a cross-country trip for it than a two-hour drive up from LA.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:24 AMWhich is mine.
The fact that the roll problem seems to get worse as the burn progresses could be a result of:
I'm guessing that it's a combination of all of the above and that the vehicle doesn't have enough RCS control authority to muscle past the (unplanned) thrust asymmetries. The pilot is probably fighting to keep the nose pointed forward, and as Brett Buck suggested, yaw and pitch moments are getting coupled into roll.
If so, this is a problem that could be solved with a better engine nozzle design, thrust vector control on the main propulsion (a more expensive fix), more powerful RCS jets, or all of the above.
As I said previously, though, this shouldn't necessarily prevent them from winning the prize, as is.
Burt says it was caused by a "known deficiency": Wind that hits an airplane from the side causes the craft to roll as a corrective technique, Rutan explained. The same thing applies to SpaceShipOne as it pierces the upper reaches of the atmosphere, although the rocketship "rolls much too much to correct for that," he said.The unplanned corkscrew maneuver Wednesday was characterized as a "spin-stabilized" roll. Rutan said theres a "known deficiency" in SpaceShipOne that caused the roll.
That still doesn't make much sense to me. Perhaps a better explanation will be forthcoming.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:42 AMSorry for not posting sooner, but my DSL connection's been flaky all morning.
I'm concerned about that roll we saw during ascent. I was very concerned when it seemed to be accelerating, but it looks like he got it under control after engine shutdown. I wouldn't fly again until I understood what caused that. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't want to ride a vehicle that did that, though others' mileage may vary.
It was a little irritating to listen to John Pike on Fox. On the one hand, he actually did seem to be cheering them on, but he's out of date on current events. He told the Fox hosts that DaVinci was planning to fly in the next few days, when they've announced that they're delayed several weeks. It would be nice if media people could get some other names in their space rolodexes than John's.
Maybe more thoughts later.
[Update]
Bruce Hoult (in comments to this post thinks that it's being caused by swirl in the oxidizer flow of the engine. I doubt that. Brett Buck has a different, and more plausible to me (and more disturbing, if correct) diagnosis over at sci.space.policy:
...the problem appeared to be a coupling from yaw to roll - definitely had a significant yaw angle, and the effective dihedral is extraordinarily high with this design - a lot like the lifting bodies that had similar control issues. Maybe that resulted from a yaw thrust vector misalignment, maybe just plain old roll/yaw coupling issues at high speeds. But it seems very unlikely to be something that can easily be fixed.
If he's right, it doesn't mean that SS1 can't win the X-Prize, since it's had two successful flights with the problem. It may mean that they may have to go back to the drawing board for SS2, and that the technology's not quite as in the bag as Mr. Branson thinks. As I said, safety issues aside, I think that the market for a rolling ascent is more limited than for one that's smoother and more controlled.
[Another update, after further reflection on Mr. Pike]
He also blew it when being asked why people find this so exciting, whereas they don't seem to care about NASA. He repeated the old cliche about how NASA has managed the seemingly impossible feat of making spaceflight boring, but his (mis)diagnosis was that this was exciting because we could identify with the pilot, whereas NASA had reduced emphasis on showcasing the astronauts since the 1960s.
No, John. People find this exciting, because it offers a promise that they can go themselves.
[Update at 12:45]
A commenter points out that Mike Melvill says that he screwed up. He doesn't say exactly what he did wrong.
Anyway, that's good news, because it means that they don't have to do any analysis to figure it out, and pilot error is easily fixable, either by making the pilot smarter, or by using a different pilot. I was surprised to see Melvill fly this time--I had the impression that he's gotten his ride in June, and was satisfied to let someone else do it. Now, will he be the pilot on the second flight?
[5 PM EDT update]
Derek Lyons asks if the space community has already lost interest in this.
I don't think so. I'll bet that a lot fewer people came up from LA, because they'd already done it once, and the entry price increased quite a bit over the last one. I do think that there's a sense that it's got enough momentum now, and they are content to watch on the web (combined with the fact that, truth be told, like sporting events, the view is much better from home). I'll bet that once it becomes a real race, like the Ansari Cup, there will be big crowds, and it will be crowds of people who weren't necessarily interested in space.
The most important gauge of public interest isn't how many people physically show up to events like this, but how many marketing deals, and investment agreements get signed, and how much continuing buzz it gets in the major media.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:01 AMClark has a schedule of events for the flight, and a roundup of links, many of which indicate that the space tourism business is rapidly picking up steam.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:42 AMOn the morrow will occur the first flight to win the Ansari X-Prize. It will be live streamed on the web, and here's a Free Republic thread that will follow it with great interest.
As an aside, and for what it's worth, I doubt if there will be a similar one at Democratic Underground (perhaps the first time I've ever linked to anything there), though I have to admit that I don't want to wade through the moral and intellectual swamp at that site to look for one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:29 PMVia email, Clark Lindsey points out a column by Philip Ball at Nature, citing (but not deigning to actually link) yours truly, that is both amusing and sad:
There is no point in being coy about the role of military incentives in the advancement of science and technology. After all, it has a history far older than that of aviation and space science. But this does not suit the narrative the X prize needs, and so the foundation has transformed the story into one of private (yet populist) enterprise battling public (yet elitist) prevarication.As an example of where this reasoning leads, aerospace engineer Rand Simberg suggests in The New Atlantis that the commercial space age would be further accelerated if the United States were to withdraw from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, because it "bans declarations of national sovereignty off-planet, and makes the defense of private property rights in space problematic".
How otherwise can McDonalds colonize the Moon (or should that be the Moonź)? Simberg neglects to mention that the treaty also outlaws the militarization of space. But no one would do a thing like that, would they?
This is funny on a couple different levels. First, as Clark writes, "How about we campaign for a moratorium on political references to McDonalds except by ACTUAL sophomores?"
A few days ago, I got an email from someone at NPR, asking me to point him to people who opposed commercialization of space, so that they could present "the other side" for a story on the Ansari X-Prize, since we all know it's always important to present the other side, no matter how whacked out, in order to pretend to have a "balanced" piece. Well, here's a prime specimen.
I didn't mention that the treaty outlaws the militarization of space because, well...it doesn't.
It outlaws the emplacement of weapons of mass destruction on planetary bodies, but there are no strictures in it against military activities per se. Otherwise, it would have outlawed ICBMs, which travel through space to reach their ultimate destination. In fact, I always found it amusing that the anti-missile-defense types wanted to maintain space as a sacred sanctuary through which missiles could pass unimpeded.
Of course, one of the purposes of the treaty was to in fact remove one of the incentives of militarizing space, by rendering all of it to a state in which there was little to defend. I'm not sure that's the best way to spread wealth into the universe, whether in the form of fast food, or human freedom. But based on other comments in his little piece, we already know what Mr. Ball thinks about the latter.
[Update on X-Prize Day]
If you can imagine it, that capitalist universe-destroying monster, Chris Berg, actually likes the idea of a lunar McDonalds.
Me, too, even though I rarely eat there.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:39 PMI was told (by someone who should know) at the Return To The Moon Conference in Las Vegas in July, that Futron would soon be releasing their proprietary space tourism market research study (based on research by the Zogby polling organization), that they'd previously only been selling for twenty-five hundred bucks.
Well, the day before tomorrow's initial Ansari X-Prize attempt, they've done it. I'll try to read it in the next few days, and provide some thoughts.
[Via Clark Lindsey, who does a much better job that I possibly could in keeping up with this kind of thing]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:56 PMAs Clark Lindsey says, why oh why do the media think that just because someone is a scientist, even a space scientist, he would know anything about space transportation or space tourism? There are many people who do understand this subject, but it's apparently too much work to go seek them out. Instead, they think that they can just go down to the local observatory, or university astrophysics department, and get the opinion of someone that's worth printing. Instead, they often get nonsense, and they don't even know it.
"The idea is great, I like the idea, but I am very aware that even people like NASA find it a challenge. Eventually it will come. Whether it will come in Richard Branson's time, and in his way, remains to be seen," he said."I take it as a declaration of intent, to look into it, rather than to take bookings straight away."
What does this mean? If it's a "declaration of intent" (which indeed it is, and a quite forthright one by my reading), then it's more than "looking into it." All of the pieces are in place, now that the technology has been demonstrated by SS1, and Branson is going to put up the money (or raise it from others, which he's fully capable of doing). I suspect that he will be taking bookings, if not "straight away," then certainly within the year, with all the concomitant marketing hoopla and tie-ins.
But it gets worse. He's supposedly a scientist, but he can't even get the science right:
The space tourists would not be completely weightless, he added."You can't have an orbit at that altitude, so you could not be totally weightless. It would be probably fairly close to it, but it is not an orbit, it is still within the upper atmosphere."
This is simply false, on two levels. You don't have to get out of the atmosphere to be weightless (though these flights do leave the atmosphere, for all extents and purposes), nor do you have to be in orbit to be weightless. And in fact, as I've pointed out, a suborbit actually is an orbit--it's just one that intersects the planet's surface, so it can't be sustained for long. The passengers will in fact be truly weightless, in free fall, for several minutes.
Of course, part of the problem, and reason that stories like this get published, is that Space Daily doesn't have an editor. It just has a publisher who thinks that it's more important to have quantity of content than quality.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:06 AM...on Virgin Galactic, the Bigelow space prize, and other topics, over at RLV News, that I missed this weekend as a result of the hurricane. Just keep scrolling.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:21 AMOne more sign that the "giggle factor" is disappearing from space tourism. Richard Branson has been toying with the industry for years, but it looks as though he's finally ready to make his move. I'll be interested to see if Jeff Bezos does anything publicly in response.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:26 AMThe DaVinci Project has been put on hold for a few weeks, leaving a clear field for SpaceShipOne to win the Ansari X-Prize in a couple weeks. It's definitely now Burt's race to lose.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:55 AMThe St. Louis Post-Dispatch is running a series on the history of the Ansari X-Prize (based in its home town). Here's the first installment.
[via Alan Boyle]
[Update at 9 AM EDT]
Here's a story about judging the event, with the focus on head of the judging committee (and former NASA astronaut) Rick Searfoss.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:58 AMHere's a long article by Leonard David.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:06 PMI was supporting Boeing during Phase A of the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) on technology risk issues, and indirectly supported their Phase B proposal. However, NASA just announced that they're awarding the contract to Northrop Grumman. At least the program is moving forward.
Better luck next time, guys.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:36 PMXeni Jardin scored a ride on one of the inaugural Zero G Corporation flights.
She loved it.
(I'd recommend scrolling down to the bottom first, repeatedly clicking on the previous ones until you get to the beginning, in which she continually describes all the advice that she gets from people leading up to the flight. Then read it in proper sequence by hitting the "back" button for the next page.)
[Via TexasBestGrok]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:42 AM...is coming down to the wire.
This is an important piece of legislation for the alt-space community, and no one is paying attention to it except us, so any calls that Senators on the Commerce Committee get will be noticed. So get on the horn, particularly if you have one in your state.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:31 AMAlan Boyle reports on the inaugural services of Zero Gravity Corporation, an entity that's been attempting to offer weightless flights to the general public in the US for over a decade. It was held up by FAA regulations.
In full disclosure, I attempted to start a business like this about that long ago, but couldn't raise the money to get started. We did offer service for a brief time in a much smaller aircraft, but never managed to expand beyond that, though we had plans to do exactly what Zero G has done, using cargo 727s that could be quickly converted on a daily basis using pallets. But had I known what travails Peter Diamandis and company would have to go through, I probably wouldn't have even made the attempt, and I'm probably lucky that I didn't have to go through it at all.
I want to take exception to a quote that Alan has in his piece, however:
Cosmic Log reader Ayanna Bryan provides a cautionary note:"As someone who has gone on parabolic flight several times for research purposes, let me assure you that most people do indeed get sick. And it's not just nausea. There are other forms of motion sickness that are very unpleasant and sometimes disturbing.
Some people remain sick for several hours after the two-hour flight. Unless medicated (which has its trade-offs: comfort in-flight for discomfort 6 hours later), the normal human vestibular system is easily affected by sharp changes in gravitational level. Some fliers still get sick after taking the Scopolamine/Dexedrine medication. Some people even 'freak out,' for lack of a better term, once they experience the effects of increased and then decreased gravity.
I hope fair warning is given to paying customers, and I hope the preflight training is good enough to meet Air Force standards. Otherwise someone could get seriously hurt."
As someone who has done extensive research in this business, let me point out that this comment is completely spurious. Research flights have a specific goal in mind--research. Comfort of participants is a distant second to that goal. They don't call NASA's airplane the "Vomit Comet" for nothing, but there's no reason to think that such unpleasant side effects can't be avoided.
For one thing, people who don't have to perform research can use much more effective anti-nauseants than scope-dex. For another, since the purpose of a NASA research flight is to get as much research in as possible, the plane basically flies, and gets in as many parabolas as possible, until it's either low on fuel, or until everyone on board has green gills, and no more productive activity is possible. That won't be the case on these flights, in which the goal is to provide an enjoyable and exciting customer experience. There will be far fewer parabolas, and they will be developed gradually, with low-gravity maneuvers preceding the weightless ones.
If Zero G makes a significant number of people sick, it will be because they're doing something wrong, not because it's an intrinsic feature (or in this case, bug...) of the experience. Sadly, this is just the type of misinformation that makes it so difficult to raise money for space tourism ventures.
[Monday morning update]
Clark Lindsey has similar thoughts, and provides a little tutorial on weightlessness, but it requires one bit of clarification.
The "zero g" effect produced by these flights, just like in orbit, is an apparent one. Earth's gravitational pull doesn't change and remains as strong as ever. (It decreases as 1/(distance squared) as you move away from the planet.)Over the top of the parabola, both you and the plane are falling together. You are no longer being pressed against the floor of the plane, which is usually keeping you at a fixed distance from the earth via the lift of its wings. (In the valleys of the trajectory, the plane is having to decelerate and reverse you from the speed gained during the falling portion of the parabola. So you feel higher g force in that case.)
In orbit, the same principle applies except you and the vehicle are falling around the earth because your rocket produced enough horizontal speed to keep you from hitting the ground as you fall. That is, the curve of your falling trajectory matches the curve of the earth.
This last sentence is true only for a circular orbit--it's not true in general. For suborbit, or elliptical (or hyperbolic trajectories), there's no relationship between the trajectory and the earth's curvature. But this is not required for free fall.
Essentially, what you feel when you feel "gravity" is the force of some other object (such as your chair if sitting, or the floor if standing or walking) supporting your weight against it. In a free-fall trajectory, the airplane is basically "flying around you," following the path that you would take if you'd simply been launched from a cannon (in vacuum), so it never contacts you and can thus not give you any feeling of weight by supporting you against the force.
One more subtle point. What we call a parabola in so-called parabolic flight isn't a true parabola, mathematically, precisely because of the curvature of the earth. If we were using a flat earth model, in which gravity were a constant, (as Galileo assumed when he first started doing calculations for his pioneering work in ballistics), then it would be a parabola. In reality, it's a small section of a non-circular ellipse (that is, a suborbit would be an orbit with an extremely low perigee, if the earth didn't get in the way). However, over the distances involved in subsonic aircraft, flat earth is a reasonable approximation, and the difference between the trajectory and a true parabola are inconsequential, and probably unmeasurable.
[Update at noon eastern]
Here's a space.com article that describes the (overly onerous, in my opinion) FAA approval process for the flights.
Incidentally, I don't buy the notion that Zero G can really patent the idea of using cargo airplanes during the day for this that fly at night--it seems almost as silly to me as Amazon's single-click system. I doubt if that would stand up in court very long.
Whether it does or not, though it looks like the real barrier to entry to this is the FAA certification process (though now that there's a precedent for the Special Type Certificate it may be easier for a competitor to come in than it was for Zero G, should the market prove robust enough to support one). Space enthusiast Peter Diamandis should welcome this, even if Zero G investor and executive Peter Diamandis doesn't...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:36 PMMark Whittington asks if that's what the moon will be in the twenty-first century. He also misspells Gerard O'Neill's name in the process...
I assume that he means in the energy-production aspect, not the exporting-murderous-nutballs-with-a-misogynistic-fascist-ideology aspect.
Maybe, but we're a long way from it, both in terms of the cost of getting there, and in developing the technologies to make it happen. I think that it's a race between using space for energy, and developing radical new technologies on earth that will make that unnecessary, and I don't have my money on either one right now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:34 AMJeff Foust has an overview at The Space Review today about a new concept that many (including many in the astronaut office) are pushing as a CEV delivery vehicle--an SRB-based design, with a new J-2 powered upper stage. This is what many are calling a "single-stick" vehicle, as opposed to the EELVs with their strap-on boosters.
I actually agree that such a system could be built, and could have a (marginal) cost of a hundred million per flight (though it's not clear what the actual cost per flight would be, including amortization of the development costs). However, the issues aren't quite as simple as the proponents make out.
A major drawback of using an EELV to launch the CEV is that neither the Atlas 5 nor the Delta 4 are human-rated, that is, not designed to carry people. At the time the Air Force developed the EELV program, it was never envisioned that these vehicles would carry people: that was a task to be left to the space shuttle or its reusable successors then under consideration. Exactly whats required to human-rate either vehicle is uncertain, but most engineers and analysts believe it will require considerable work on both vehicles to increase redundancy and lower the risk of a fatal accident.
Well, actually, while it would be nice to get better reliability than the currently advertised 98%, the real issue in human rating an EELV is having an effective Failure Onset Detection System (FOSD) that gives warning of an incipient problem in time for the flight abort system (FAS) to be activated. If the vehicle instantaneously blows up underneath the (human) payload, it won't do any good to have an escape rocket. Such a system doesn't exist in the current vehicles, at least not one that satisfies the true requirement. The other issue, in the case of the Atlas, is that the solids can't be shut down, and this implies a risk of being chased by them even after the FAS is initiated.
Which brings us to using an SRB.
Horowitz and others at NASA are not the only people speaking out in favor of using an SRB-derived vehicle to launch the CEV. As one might expect, ATK Thiokol, the company that builds the SRBs, is a supporter of the idea [I'm shocked, shocked-- ed]. A human rated and flight proven CEV launch system can be available by simply utilizing a single booster combined with a liquid engine second stage, Mike Kahn, vice president of space operations at ATK Thiokol, said in May during a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committees space subcommittee.
Here's a dirty little secret. The SRB isn't human rated either. The Shuttle itself is not, and never has been. There is no FOSD system in the SRB, because there is no way to do a flight abort while the SRBs are burning. The first abort opportunity (Return to Launch Site, or RTLS) comes after SRB burnout. So from a human rating standpoint, an SRB-based system won't be an improvement over EELV. The only potential advantage of this system is a theoretical one--improved reliability. I say theoretical because no one really knows what the reliability of the EELVs are, at least based on empirical data.
On the other hand, it's not an obviously worse system.
Of course, my humble opinion is that we should figure out how to get people up on systems that are fully reusable, and end this retro fad to rush back to the sixties, when things may have been successful and even "safe," but they certainly weren't affordable. Or sustainable. This concept won't be either.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Taylor Dinerman agrees with me that we need space transports, and argues that the military should be figuring out ways to encourage their development, which could make CEVs on expendables expensively superfluous.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:33 AMThe post title is the title of my (long) essay on space policy, that's finally appeared on line in this quarter's issue of The New Atlantis. It's a survey of the myths of the old space age, and will probably form the basis for a book on which I'm working, between hurricanes, still moving into the new house, and trying to make a living.
And no, before anyone asks, I don't in fact know why it's right justified, and ragged left. Go ask the folks at The New Atlantis.
[Update a few minutes later]
The ragged left problem seems to be the use of non-standard HTML. It looks OK in Explorer--it's only weird in Mozilla.
[Update on Thursday morning]
The justification problem has been fixed by the good folks at The New Atlantis (a publication that I highly endorse, and recommend that folks get a dead-tree subscription to, so you can get it early and often).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:33 AMIf you care about the future of commercial human spaceflight. Clark Lindsey explains why.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:52 PMPaul Dietz points out (in comments) that if Frances hits the cape as a Cat 4 or greater, none of the major facilities are designed to take it. If the VAB, OPF and LC-39 are significantly damaged, it could mean that the Shuttle will retire even sooner than the current plan (i.e., it will never fly again). It would be a strange end to the current trajectory of our four-plus-decade manned space program, but it might be an opportunity for a clean start, since there won't be an opportunity for a rear-guard action to save the Shuttle (and it may even finally put to rest notions of Shuttle derivatives, though that's probably asking too much).
[Update a few minutes later]
As Paul mentions, he found the info at the new and improved NASA Watch, now with an infinite percent more permalinks.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:16 AMEmailer Ken Talton asks:
I'm curious about the VASIMR engine, its performance and maturity. I understand you are working on Prometheus via JIMO and was wondering if the VASIMR technology is going to be used on that mission. For that matter how close to an actual space engine is this? What I've seen in print indicates that it has performance throttleable between ion engine efficiency and thrust like a chemical rocket. How does this compare to, say, a Spaceshuttle engine? Could it be used in a launch vehicle for instance? How big a breakthrough is it really?
JIMO is planned to use ion propulsion, a technology that is currently in use (in communications satellites and in Deep Space 1), and only requires scaling up. VASIMR is an entirely different kind of electric propulsion. Both types work by accelerating charged particles with electromagnetic fields, but ion propulsion is driven by electrostatic forces, whereas VASIMR accelerates a plasma using electromagnetic forces. It has the potential for much higher thrust (though lower specific impulse, so the fuel efficiency isn't as good), but it's only in the preliminary development stages. Neither type of engine would have high enough thrust/weight ratio to be used as an engine on a launch system--they're only useful in space. There's a good tutorial on the subject here.
Via Wired, it looks like the Da Vinci Project (now renamed the GoldenPalace.com space program) is running into problems with finding insurance.
Insurance is a huge deal for suborbital startups, and will probably turn out to be a showstopper for at least some of them. I was very surprised to find out how much of a problem insurance and launch licensing (including environmental regulation) were going to be when I first got seriously involved with this area. Launch licensing is partially addressed by Senate bill 2772, but insurance is still out there. If I was to start a suborbital launch services company tomorrow I'd tackle the insurance issue in parallel with vehicle development. The right vehicle design will keep insurance costs low, and the wrong design will drive them towards infinity.
Posted by Andrew Case at 05:24 PMTim Worstall has some post-apocalyptic thoughts that are applicable to pre-apocalyptic space policy. I can never remind people enough the reason that we aren't a true space-faring nation is not lack of technology or technologists--it's lack of the viable institutions and means of organizing resources toward that end. Fortunately, that's starting to change.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:30 AMNot a whole lot new here to people who've been following this, but Jim Oberg has an article about SpaceShipOne in the IEEE Spectrum magazine.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:23 PMA loon from my home state of Michigan believes that NASA's Mars exploration activities are affecting weather on the earth.
[Via emailer Frank Johnson]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:06 PMThere's a huge (and largely pointless) argument going on over at Space Politics about whether or not we should go to the Moon before Mars (kicked off by Bob Zubrin's wishful thinking).
I liked Ed Wright's comment:
We don't have a national consensus on what to do in the air or on the sea or on land.We don't need a national consensus to decide whether Americans will go to Las Vegas or Disneyland next year.
Why is that when it comes to space, people think there can only be one destination and one goal, which is chosen by national consensus?
That is the question. Sam Dinkin discusses the pros and cons of pilots in space vehicles. He ignores the most critical issues, though--the willingness of passengers to fly, and the FAA to license, an unpiloted space transport. I've discussed this issue in the past.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:28 AMI doubt it. I suspect that Bob Zubrin is fooling himself, and that these supposed Kerry space staffers are just telling him what he wants to hear. After the election, if Kerry manages somehow to win, he'll just tell Bob that he was for Mars exploration before he was against it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:12 AMThe Beagle 2 mission team has released its own report on what went wrong - they place a lot of blame on ESA management, but the upshot is that the atmosphere wasn't as dense as they thought. Story via Nature
Nature also has a story on the Shuttle return to flight. One paragraph stands out to me:
The CAIB report said that safety checks were often poorly managed. "The shuttle programme had become comfortable with an operational mindset that treated a developmental vehicle as an operational vehicle, accepting debris strikes as normal, and so on," says Hubbard. This culture is being challenged through increased communication between different areas of NASA, says Hubbard.
On space, this time. Thomas James points out a dumb article about the DaVinci Project, including an obligatory bonus quote from John Pike.
To be fair, of course, the folks up in Saskatchewan probably don't get many opportunities to do first-hand space reporting.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:33 AMVia WorldChanging, an item about a NASA sponsored simulation of Mars colonization that's being sat on instead of released. I don't see why there is a need to do much of anything active to release it other than just slap it on a web server, but then again, I'm not a NASA official. Who the hell knows what calculus leads to this sort of thing. From the article linked in the WorldChanging post it sounds like most likely somebody had an overly ambitious plan to release it on CD, and once the money dried up they didn't come up with an alternative. If anyone reading this has free server space and is willing to host the game, I'd suggest contacting Professor Henry directly and offering to distribute the game. Double bonus if you distribute source as well. My bet is that if source is released the very first hack will be to add hostile aliens and weapons.
Posted by Andrew Case at 11:28 AMThomas James mildly fisks a clueless space policy op ed.
By the way, I just got a complaint in the previous post that I'm doing too much politics, and not enough space stuff.
Maybe. I just don't see that much going on in space right now worth commenting on, and if you browse through some of the space related blogs to the left, you'll see that there's not much activity there either (other than at the always-prolific Clark Lindsey's site).
Maybe it's just the dog days of August (and my continuing travails in getting the California house rented and finally getting to Florida), but I'm also getting a little burned out on space commentary. After almost three years of this, and a couple years of Fox News columns, I start to feel like I'm repeating myself. In addition, I just finished up a several-thousand word essay for The New Atlantis (in the mail to current subscribers, probably on line about the beginning of September, at which point I'll put up a link to it), and I'm expanding it into a book, so I don't have a lot of space energy remaining to blog about it unless something really topical pops up.
And I find the story of how the press is AWOL on Mr. Kerry's tall tales, and clearly desperate to prop up his candidacy, the most fascinating thing going on right now.
Maybe Andrew can pick up the slack, but I suspect he's busy as well.
[Evening Update, with thanks to Glenn for the link]
Per Bill Maron's comment, I don't think that space is an unimportant issue for this election. I think that, at least for those interested in space, it's a very important one and an important election, and that Kerry would be a return to the stagnation of the nineties. But there are still over two months to the election, and most people aren't really paying attention yet. To the degree that I'm going to invest much energy, mental or otherwise, in the subject, I think that it would be a better investment to do so in October rather than August.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:10 AMWelcome Masten Space Systems to the new-vehicle fray. It's another VTOL concept.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:14 AMIt's Monday, which means a new issue of The Space Review. Sam Dinkin points out the logical economic fallacy of "space versus butter" (one in which Senator Kerry indulges himself). Thomas Olson examines the prospects for a commercial heavy lifter, and specifically a Shuttle-derived one. Unsurprisingly, they're not good. Also, editor Jeff Foust has a review of Dennis Wingo's new book, Moonrush.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:55 AMLeonard David has a good survey of the state of space tourism, with a discussion on the risks of failure and their potential effects.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:22 PMAlan Boyle has an email interview (something that I should have done long before now, if I hadn't been buried in other issues recently) with John Carmack, in the wake of this past weekend's vehicle loss (though not necessarily test failure). What was most interesting, though, was a little aside at the end of his column:
...Sunday's explosive rocket mishap put Space Transport Corp. in the national limelight as an X Prize underdog with a can-do spirit.The result: A slew of investors have e-mailed the cash-strapped company, saying they are interested in making an investment in the partners' dream of developing space tourism.
"The national attention has been great. We've gotten a flood of e-mail, a lot from potential investors,'' Space Transport vice president Eric Meier said Monday after he, company president Phillip Storm and volunteers cleaned up the wreckage and debris of Rubicon 1 on the beach near Queets.
"I'm trying to raise some money, and am responding to people who have expressed interest.''
Of course, it remains to be seen whether these were serious investors. We'll find out in the next few weeks and months.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:01 PMAl-Reuters has a story about Bigelow Aerospace:
The hotelier-cum-space entrepreneur cites his refusal to spend public money as the single most important factor in keeping his costs relatively low."It's substantially important to use private money," he said of space development. "You can't do it on time or on budget on government money."
It might be nice if, in addition to what he's already doing, he or someone else would emulate another hotelier.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:03 PMThe latest revision of what used to be H.R. 3752 has been released by Sen Inhofe. The new bill is S. 2772 (no static link: go to Thomas and search for "s2772"). Changes are to the definition of suborbital rocket:
`suborbital rocket' means a vehicle, rocket-propelled in whole or in part, intended for flight on a suborbital trajectory whose thrust is greater than its lift for the majority of the rocket-powered portion of its flight.
There are some other relatively minor changes, and then this:
The Secretary of Transportation shall not require any additional license, permit, certificate, or other legal instrument be obtained from the Department of Transportation for any activity, including flight and return, for which a license or experimental permit has been issued under this chapter.
Hat tip to Randall Clague of XCOR for letting me know about this development.
Posted by Andrew Case at 03:18 PMMaybe not permanently, but it's clear that when it comes to winning the prize this fall against Scaled Composites, this team is out of the running.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:08 PMThe Christian Science Monitor has an article up on space law (pointer from Michael Wallis). Most of it is the usual stuff that many readers will be familiar with, and they miss the most important contemporary development in law and space, namely HR3752, which will make major changes in how spaceflight is regulated in the USA.
There's the usual fluff like this:
"Outer space is a province of all mankind," says Sylvia Ospina, a member of the board of directors at the International Institute of Space Law. "There is not, and should not be, any privatization of outer space. It is a common thing that should belong to all."
Which is unfortunately a view that has significant traction even within spacefaring nations. I'm quite sympathetic to concerns that a land grab by spacefaring nations would leave huge chunks of the solar system in the hands of a few countries, effectively excluding most of mankind from the opportunities available offworld. The solution is simply to require actual working of resources in order to stake a claim, not to declare everything to be owned by the UN. In effect whichever body makes the laws regarding extraterrestrial resources is laying claim to the bodies in question, but there's a substantial difference between a claim which only becomes active when a body is being worked and a claim which effectively forbids working a body without explicit permission.
It's important for the long term future that we work out a method of assigning ownership and jurisdiction for extraterrestrial bodies that is widely accepted as fair. The alternative is to plant the seeds of future conflicts like the range wars which marred Americas westward expansion.
A lot of space geeks look forward to a future in which the high frontier contains libertarian utopias and so forth. Chances are good that some of the earliest settlers offworld will be going with the explicit intention of founding new societies with new ways of living together. This requires ownership of the resources on which the new colonies are founded. The flipside of this is that it is virtually certain that some of the new societies will have much more in common with Jim Jones' People's Temple than they will with Heinlein's visions of the high frontier. You and I may be comfortable with that, but the folks back home are unlikely to be willing to sit back and do nothing as images are beamed back from the lunar farside of human rights violations on a grand scale. If there isn't already a regulatory framework in place which has international credibility before that happens, there will be one after, and it will not be favorable to the free frontier mentality.
No law at all on the high frontier is not a realistic option. The sooner we realize that the sooner we can work to make sure that what law there is stems from rational understanding of economics and human nature. The two main things to watch out for are statist overreaching (with homilies about "the common heritage of all mankind") and corporate entrenchment in the regulations so that only megacorporations can plausibly be players. This second possibility is much more worrisome to me than the first, since I think most people are blind to the ways in which large corporations game the regulations to exclude competitors and create comfortable oligopolies for themselves. One example of how this could be done is simply by requiring a single large up-front lump sum payment to get into the game. The Dinocorps can afford to pay, but the little guy cannot. This sort of thing is relatively straightforward to arrange under the guise of either environmental protection or worker safety.
Posted by Andrew Case at 01:17 PMAs many speculated, the Da Vinci team announced today that they are in the race, with a first attempt on October 2nd. They claim to have gotten funding from a sponsorship by an on-line gambling site. I'll bet that this sponsorship wouldn't have been forthcoming absent Burt's successful flight in June. More evidence of the diminishing giggle factor.
If they can really pull it off, it will make for much more excitement. There's plenty of overlap on the dates, so if Burt gets his first flight off without a hitch, it may come down to turnaround time.
[Thanks to Andrew Gray for the tip, over at sci.space.policy]
[Update at 2:15 PM PDT]
Clark Lindsey has a lot more links, and points out that Burt is hinting that he'll be a passenger on one of the flights.
Here's the press release from the casino.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:36 PMOver on Nature online there's an article on inducing hibernation in humans, with applications to space travel. Long story short, it's at least a decade away, and there are lots of unknowns. The first thing that springs to mind for me when I think about this is that before hibernation is applied to something like a Mars mission they'll have to send some poor sap up to ISS and leave him passed out cold up there for 9 months, just to be sure there's no unforeseen problems due to hibernation in microgravity. In practice the experimental subject would probably have to spend at least a couple of weeks up there prior to hibernating and also a month or so after coming out, so it wouldn't be as bad as just flying up, going to sleep and then coming straight back. Still, being a mission specialist whose task is a nine month nap is a little shy of the image of the Right Stuff.
Posted by Andrew Case at 11:15 AMBurt Rutan says that NASA will be eating his dust.
"Thirty years ago, if you had asked NASA -- and people did in those days -- 'How long would it be before I could buy tickets to space?' the answer was, 'About 30 years,' " Rutan told reporters in June.Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:01 AM"If you ask today, you'll get about the same answer, '30 years.' I think that's unfortunate. There's been no progress at all made toward affordable space travel."
There's a fairly in depth look at scramjets in the latest edition of The Industrial Physicist. It's got enough meat on it to be worth reading, though I have a visceral dislike of scramjets. It's nothing to do with the technical merits - it's just that they are yet another technology that's constantly being held out as the technical breakthrough needed to bring down launch costs. Someday I suspect scramjet powered vehicles (at least missiles) will be practical. In the meantime they are a kind of interesting technology that's worth understanding just for curiousity's sake.
Incidentally, I'm not singling out scramjets here - space elevators also trigger my "here we go again" reaction. Ditto electromagnetic accelerators.
Posted by Andrew Case at 02:13 PMI'm on a deadline crunch today, trying to wrap up some consulting work, and a long essay for The New Atlantis, but it's Monday, which means Jeff Foust has lots of good stuff up over at The Space Review, including a book review of New Moon Rising, a slapdown of Professor Van Allen (something apparently required every few years, ever since the dawn of the space age, yet he never seems to learn), and a proposal to send a Soyuz to the moon.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:25 AMFast Company has an article on Jeff Bezos, famous as the founder of Blue Origin - apparently he's also been involved in some wacky scheme to sell stuff on the Internet. Who Knew?
Anyway, the article has some of the usual business 'zine puff piece aspect to it, but it's fairly in depth, so worth a read if you'd like to get a sense of the man. He comes off fairly well, even allowing for the reporter's need to be nice in order to maintain access. I'm encouraged that he'll push Blue Origin towards a successful business model, and he seems willing to spend real money up front before seeing returns, which is probably a necessity in the suborbital launch services industry.
The two really deep pocketed players in the industry are Bezos and Allen. Of the two I suspect that Bezos has the better approach to business (based on little information, unfortunately). The article suggests that his business orientation places a premium on customer service, which I'd always thought was sort of the obvious thing to do until I started paying attention to the way many businesses actually work.
Here's an interesting article on syntactic metal foams, with a brief mention of RLV applications. As materials continue to improve SSTO becomes more and more achievable. It's still not trivial, but it certainly seems within reach for vehicles that aren't loaded up with pet hobbyhorses like lifting reentry or linear aerospikes.
Posted by Andrew Case at 01:55 PMHere's more on the Return To The Moon Conference a couple weekends ago, by Leonard David. In USA Today. It's got some new stuff that wasn't in his initial space.com piece.
[Via Thomas James, who seems to be posting more now that he's settled into his new digs in Colorado. Though shouldn't he change the name of his blog to the Colorado Mars Society?]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:04 AMA just published study (actually still in preprint) suggests that Earth like planets may be quite uncommon. I'm a little skeptical about the reasoning (based on the discussion in the link: I haven't read the paper). It's quite possible that the reason we haven't found system's like Sol's is just that we don't yet have the capability. The existence of systems which evolved in an entirely different way doesn't really bear on the number of solar systems like our own except very indirectly.
That's the date that Burt Rutan as set for his first X-Prize attempt. And just to keep things interesting, he's not alone:
Hot on Rutans heels is Brian Feeney, leader of the Canadian da Vinci Project. Feeney also reported today that his team is rolling out on August 5 their completed X Prize vehicle -- the balloon-lofted Wild Fire rocket. The public unveiling will take place at the teams Downsview Airport hanger in Toronto.The da Vinci Project Team, widely heralded as a contender for the $10 million purse, will pursue its own Ansari X Prize space flight attempts this Fall.
And Paul Allen remains coy about future plans:
"This competition has proven that there are many different ways to attack the challenges set out by the Ansari X Prize. From the start we have approached SpaceShipOne with a 'can-do, home-brew' attitude," Allen said. "We are grateful that our previous flights have brought even more attention to the Ansari X Prize and given more momentum to the groundswell of excitement that is continuing to build for the long-term potential of affordable space exploration."
Dosn't sound like he thinks it's a stunt.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:57 PMNASA is still trying to salvage the Centennial Challenges program, but Congress remains resistant.
...Democrats on the subcommittee, including Reps. Nick Lampson, Sheila Jackson Lee and Bernice Johnson (all from Texas), expressed reservations about relying on prize money to spur technological innovation.Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:24 AMWhile establishment of a NASA prize program is certainly worth considering, we should not be lulled into thinking that it is any substitute for providing adequate funding for NASAs R&D programs, said Lampson, the subcommittees ranking Democrat.
Dwayne Day says we need another Carl Sagan.
Here's my candidate for a replacement.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:21 AMJeff Foust has a writeup on Paul Spudis' and Wendell Mendell's talks at last weekend's Return To The Moon Conference. Bottom line: as is often the case, NASA has met the enemy, and it is them.
Spudis thinks that NASA officials are deliberately misrepresenting the vision. My point is not that they misunderstand it, but that they are misrepresenting it, he said. This is all done deliberately, and the agenda is to kill this, or to morph it into something that it was never intended to be.Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:06 AM
As a result of an MRI, Derek Lyons has some thoughts about the near-term future of the space tourism industry.
As big a space nut as I am, I'm not sure that I'll be able to go myself, at least soon, because I have a tendency to claustrophobia also.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:24 AMEmailer Jon Goff points out an article by Alan Boyle indicating that the logjam over HR 3752 has apparently been broken. It looks like the legislation can be passed this year. At least this will help things move forward on the private front (which I think is more promising anyway) even if the president's new vision doesn't get funded.
It looks like he's not going to make a public fight for it, since he didn't take the opportunity of the Apollo anniversary to say anything about it. But he may still try to twist arms behind the scenes.
[Update at 10:30 AM PDT]
Here's an interesting development. According to space.com, the president is threatening to veto the appropriations bill if it doesn't fund the new vision. Hard to know whether or not this is bluff. It would substantiate the Cowing/Seitzen thesis that the president truly wants this if he actually does veto this bill, because it would be the first bill that he'd have vetoed in his presidency. Of course, the fact that he's never vetoed a bill yet takes away some of the credibility of the threat if he's only bluffing. A president has to choose battlegrounds carefully to maintain clout, because he doesn't want to get into a position from which he has to back down.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:37 AMSpaceToday reports that a Russian millionaire may be the next ISS tourist. The giggle factor for space tourism continues its death spiral.
Apparently some amateur rocketeer (though there's rumor he was actually a fireworks maker) blew himself up in Denver. Sad for the family, potentially very bad news for amateur rocketry.
The University of Georgia has received a 5 million grant to study electromagnetic accelerators. The piece claims they can be used for launchers, but I'm extremely skeptical. Going hypersonic in the lower atmosphere doesn't seem like a good idea to me. OTOH, for launch from the moon it could be just the ticket, but that's a long time off.
Posted by Andrew Case at 06:11 AM...from Bruce Gagnon.
I don't have time to critique it properly, but I toss it out as fresh meat to the commenters and the blogosphere.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:22 PMCassini has returned a natural-color high-resolution image of Saturn's rings.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:32 PMThere's an article in the Houston Chronicle about the cuts to NASA's 2005 budget request. The Majority Leader does seem to be on the warpath about it:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the Sugar Land Republican whose district includes NASA's Johnson Space Center, called the cuts "unacceptable," then warned: "It would be very hard to get this bill to the floor if it's unacceptable to me."DeLay, the second-highest-ranking House Republican, schedules measures for floor consideration and wields considerable power over spending bills.
So, why?
I haven't looked at the cuts in detail, but they seems mainly to affect the president's new vision. One of the biggest cuts is in the Prometheus Program (largely Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter at this point), most of which would go to California (JPL and whatever contractor is selected) and DOE labs for the reactor work. No money for JSC there. The general exploration activities, including CEV, are nominally funded out of Houston, but it's managed at HQ and will go to contractors all over the place. Shuttle is fully funded, as is ISS. This action doesn't seem to be bad for JSC at all, all things considered, from a pork perspective.
So why is DeLay up in arms about it? He is supposedly, after all, one of those Republicans who are supposed to be concerned about federal spending.
Theory 1: He's greedy, and assumes that any budget cuts will affect JSC to some degree, however minor (probably a valid assumption).
Theory 2: He wants to support the president in his budget request, out of loyalty to the White House.
Theory 3: He actually believes in the vision, and wants it to be funded this coming year.
Theory 1 doesn't seem worth holding up an appropriations bill over. I've got to surmise that it's theories 2 and 3 in some proportion. Can it be that the Hammer has become a space nut?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:49 PMThe show we broadcast last night, in which we read our ceremony on the air, is now up on the web site. There is also a link to my solo appearance on Sunday night. They'll both be on line for a week or so.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:22 PMVia Space Today, there is a press conference next Tuesday to make some announcements regarding X Prize developments. More than likely this will be Rutan's official announcement. Brian Feeney of the Da Vinci Project will also be there. Let's hope he also announces a prize shot. Nothing like a little competition to rev up the ratings.
Posted by Andrew Case at 10:01 AMJeff Foust rounds up more stories on the House cuts to the NASA budget request. A quote from Congressman Weldon:
This bill takes care of most of our needs at Kennedy Space Center, so I'm hard pressed not to support my chairman when he's taking care of Florida.
Yup.
I've got mine. What did posterity ever do for me?
I also always wonder if they understand the impact of "delaying" a program for a year. A contractor has a team put together, and they can't just put them in cold storage until Congress decides to finally fund the program. They get reassigned to other projects, and it's hard to reassemble them later, resulting in putting together a new team, with associated learning curve. This is one of the reasons that government space programs are so inefficient and costly.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:14 AMOver at RLV News Clark Lindsey takes an uncharacteristicaly blunt swing at a particularly stupid article on SpaceDaily. I can't say it any better than Clark, so go on over there and read his take.
There's also a good item on the state of sounding rocket research (dismal). I'm a fan of sounding rockets since they offer a low cost means of doing simple space research. In science it's often the simple experiments that have the most dramatic impact (in part because it's harder to quibble about simple results, but that's another post entirely). Unfortunately simple isn't sexy, and sexy is what NASA is most interested in. Another point about sounding rockets that's not generally well understood is that there's a region of the atmosphere between about 50 km and 100 km which is too high for balloon research but to low for satellite research. There's some important processes that take place in this region, and sounding rockets are really the only way to study them directly.
Posted by Andrew Case at 06:33 PMWe'll be reading the ceremony live, starting in less than an hour, at 7 PM PDT. You can listen here. There will be opportunities to submit questions via email and chat.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:24 PMJohn Gizzi reminds us that the administration supports the Law of the Sea Treaty, which Reagan tried to bury twenty years ago, and even Clinton didn't support.
I wonder if anyone in the administration understands that the principle behind this treaty is the same one behind the 1979 Moon Treaty, which would have effectively outlawed private property in space, and the implications for the new space policy? I, too, like Gizzi and Doug Bandow, would like to know what the rationale is for this policy.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:42 PMAs Duncan Young points out in comments, the House Appropriation Committee has chosen today to announce that it's not funding the new Vision for Space Exploration next year. Casualties: the new exploration architecture studies and CEV, and the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter. Zero funding. Meanwhile, the Shuttle program, which is facing overruns on its return to flight activities, gets over four billion dollars, though it's not flying.
Perhaps we'll now see how important the new policy is to the administration.
[Update at 5:45 PM PDT]
Jeff Foust has further thoughts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:18 PMI'll be on the radio tonight, discussing the anniversary and the ceremony we came up with to celebrate it.
[Update a little after noon]
I should add that it's another anniversary (several, actually--the Hitler assassination attempt was sixty years ago today, and Vince Foster's body was discovered in Fort Marcy Park eleven years ago, though how it got there still remains unclear). It has been twenty-eight years since the first Viking landed on Mars.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:10 AMThirty-five years ago, the first men from planet earth walked on the moon.
I was fourteen years old, watching it on a black and white television (though it would have made no difference if we'd had color--the images were black and white themselves). I saw Neil Armstrong step down from the ladder onto the surface, and heard him say "...one giant leap for mankind."
I wasn't thinking about the future as I watched, but as a naive teenager, I assumed that this was just the first of many such flights, that were the precursors for bases on the moon, and then flights to Mars and other places. I didn't know that Lyndon Johnson had made the decision to end the Apollo program two years earlier.
I grew up with the space program--one of my earliest recollections was sitting in my pajamas in front of the teevee, watching John Glenn become the first American in orbit. I couldn't imagine then that the last manned flight to the moon would occur in less than four years, and that it would be at least four decades, and probably more, after that before humans would return.
But later, as Apollo wound down, and Vice President Spiro Agnew's proposals for continuing manned space exploration were ridiculed, it became clear that we weren't going to see the future in space that I'd been promised by grade-school teachers and science fiction, and my interest waned through high school, to the point that I got perfunctory grades, and made no plans to attend college.
I didn't know that in that same year that the first men trod the lunar regolith, a physics professor at Princeton was doing class projects to determine the feasibility of building huge colonies in space, and moving polluting industries off the planet. And later, thirty years ago this coming September, as I spent my first year after high school working as an auto mechanic, I didn't read the issue of Physics Today in which his first seminal paper on this topic appeared.
But, laid off from the VW dealership in the wake of the 1974 recession, as Michigan unemployment hit levels not seen since the Depression, and disillusioned at the thought of spending the rest of my life unable to ever really get my fingernails clean, I decided to go to community college. I took math and science classes, and a couple years later transferred to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. There I met people who were aware of Professor O'Neill's work, and introduced me to it. My interest in space was rekindled, and it led to the career that's made me the wasted wreck of a man you see today.
Thirty-five years after Neil and Buzz walked on the moon, we have neither the NASA Mars base, or the huge spinning space colonies. But we're finally seeing new progress on a front in between those two visions. Forty years after the end of the X-15 program, we're recapitulating some of the early NASA program privately, and diversely, with the efforts of Burt Rutan and the other X-Prize contestants and suborbital ventures. They won't be diverted down a costly dead-end path of giant throwaway rockets. Instead they'll slowly and methodically evolve capabilities and markets, creating the infrastructure for low-cost access to space. Once we can afford to get, in Heinlein's immortal words, "halfway to anywhere," we'll finally be able to return to the moon, to complete the job begun by those first voyagers, and this time we'll be able to stay.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:39 AMAlan Henderson has a photo tribute.
Jim Oberg has some thoughts as well.
I don't agree with his thesis. If we return to the moon, I want to see it done for that other traditional motivator--not fear, but greed. And it's not obvious to me that international cooperation in space has the benefits he thinks it does, but read and judge for yourself.
[Update an hour or so later]
It's still not too late to plan a commemorative dinner tonight.
[Continuing updates]
Alan Boyle has a roundup of links, and commentary. I was sorry not to see him this past weekend at the Return to the Moon Conference.
Mark Whittington has an optimistic view of the future.
Here's space.com's tribute.
Over at The Space Review Sam Dinkin has a piece on scenario planning for suborbital companies. Some thoughts:
I think the most likely scenario is that the suborbital launch services industry will segment into three divisions. There will be the tourism oriented businesses, the earth observation (or reconaissance) businesses and the science oriented businesses. Obviously anyone with a vehicle can attempt to serve all three, but the requirements are not the same for the different mission profiles. Some of the science can be done on just about any vehicle, namely experiments which merely require a couple of minutes of microgravity. This covers a fair number of little experiments in materials science. Only time will tell if it's enough to sustain a business alone (I suspect not), but it's certainly enough to add a little to the revenue stream of any company willing to go after it. Other scientific missions require launch at specific locations in order to study the environment of near earth space. I suspect there's a market for launches near the poles for plasma experiments, but again, that's probably rather limited.
Earth observation requires a mobile launcher, since mobility greatly expands the number of sites that can be watched. This argues against horizontal takeoff or landing since that imposes limits. For earth observation a vertical takeoff, vertical landing vehicle like TGV's MICHELLE-B or Armadillo's Black Armadillo are most likely to be successful, though a mixed mode vehicle like Pioneer's XP which has both jet and rocket engines can overcome at least some of the limitations on range imposed by the need for a runway.
Tourism imposes few requirements on the vehicle other than safety. Tourists can reasonably be expected to travel to the launch site, and the operator can have a significant fixed infrastructure without impacting the ability to serve the target market (though the infrastructure may be expensive). The real driver for the tourism market has to be safety. Losing a ship taking pictures or running some grad student's PhD thesis experiment is bad, but it's not necessarily a killer for the business. If, on the other hand, you lose a ship with a couple of tourists on board you significantly impact your ability to recruit future customers. This suggests that tourism oriented businesses ought to be as conservative as possible in their vehicle design, and should focus on passenger survivability to the exclusion of nearly all other factors. The lowest risk incremental path forward is probably horizontal takeoff/horisontal landing, keeping operations as airplane like as possible, which is the path taken by XCOR and Scaled. The dangerous part of the flight profile is near the ground. Having a vehicle with the ability to glide (basically prolonging the fall) makes a lot of sense from the standpoint of keeping failure modes as graceful as possible. There's certainly an added appeal to VTVL from the thrillride standpoint, but from the standpoint of the operator of the vehicle keeping the passengers alive under a wider range of failure conditions probably trumps giving them the most exciting experience.
Tourism implies HTHL and earth observation implies VTVL is a little too tidy to capture the messy realities of the way the marketplace is likely to evolve. Nonetheless, the future evolution of the suborbital launch services market is almost certainly going to end up picking a prefered launch/landing mode with specializations depending on the business model of the operating company. In the very long term, when there is a large experience base of operations on VTVL ships, I suspect that the orbital vehicles that evolve from the suborbital vehicles of today will end up being DCX style tailsitters.
Posted by Andrew Case at 04:54 PMDespite (or perhaps because of?) the recent lack of selling it on the part of the president, the public seems to support his new space plan:
More than two-thirds (68%) of the American public say they support a new plan for space exploration that would include a stepping-stone approach to return the space shuttle to flight, complete assembly of the space station, build a replacement for the shuttle, go back to the Moon and then on to Mars and beyond.With funding for such a program expected not to exceed 1 percent of the federal budget, 42% of adults surveyed say they support the program and 26% strongly support it.
Gallup must have screwed up.
They obviously forgot to ask the question properly: "Many experts estimate that the new Bush space initiative will cost a trillion dollars, most of which will probably go to Halliburton and Enron on a no-bid contract. Do you support it, when there are so many other pressing needs, involving starving children, women and minorities, right here on earth?"
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:41 PMThis past Friday, July 16th, was the thirty-fifth anniversary of the launch of the first mission to land men on the moon. Tomorrow, July 20th, will be the thirty-fifth anniversary of that landing. I and Bill Simon, primary authors of the Evoloterra Ceremony, will be on The Space Show tomorrow night at 7 PM Pacific to discuss the anniversary and the ceremony. You can listen live here.
It's not too late to plan to get together with family and friends for dinner, and celebrate our first human visit to another world.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:12 PMOver at RocketForge Mike Mealling has his RTTM trip report up. One line stands out, regarding changing perceptions: "What does work is creating value for a customer from their point of view and then slowly educating them through direct interaction with the product over time. But it requires the customer to have already made a decision to buy."
This is an excellent point. Only after the purchase decision is made (which may be in a metaphorical sense) can you expect the customer to be sufficiently engaged to stick with a line of argument that may fly directly in the face of things they "know" to be true. As always, it's not what people know that's an obstacle to understanding, it's what they know that ain't so. Once you have buy in (either literally or in the sense of getting seriously interested) there is a possibility of getting people to change their view. It's not just physical products that have this dynamic, it's ideas too. In fact, I'd argue that in the case of a physical product it's the idea associated with the product that's important, not the product itself.
Unfortunately people tend to be very committed to their beliefs, usually without regard to how well supported they are. Everyone likes to be told stuff they already believe to be true. It takes active effort and a commitment to truth before comfort to actively seek out opposing ideas and to take them seriously. Unfortunately very few people choose that path.
Applications to RLV development, politics and anything else is left as an exercise for the reader. Bonus points for figuring out how to get the initial buy in to RLV development needed to start the process of changing perceptions. Hint: begins with "Sub," ends with "Orbital" :-)
Posted by Andrew Case at 12:08 PMI've started reading the book, but I had to drive home from Vegas yesterday, whereas Michael Mealling flew, and had time to read the whole thing. He already has a review up. Mine will come later, hopefully this week.
Also, I'll note how much faster things happen today. The book was rushed to print (which, as Michael points out, shows), but it's extremely timely, and only two days after its release, we already have a published review from the buying public (not from someone given a pre-publication copy).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:38 AMMichael Mealing informs me that he's going to shut down the wireless in a few minutes, so I'll log off for now. Perhaps more conference thoughts this evening, when I get back to LA.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:18 PM"I think we've gone overboard with this notion of safety."
Dr. Mueller (who was head of the Apollo program) received (yet) a(nother) well-deserved award at the banquet last night, to a standing ovation, for his contributions to our nation's lunar efforts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:37 AMLeonard David managed to find time between other deadlines, and carousing with low lifes like me, to file his first report from the conference, even before it's over.
Brief summary: there are many institutional barriers to achieving the president's vision, and the newly emerging private sector will be key. Go read it--it's the first good overview of the conference so far (and probably overall, since it will be over in a couple hours.
[Via Mark Whittington--Leonard neglected to tell me at the bar last night that he'd filed...]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:32 AMAndrew Chaiken, author of "A Man On The Moon," gave a speech at the banquet last night. It was an entertaining talk, but he seems to have a misplaced nostalgia for the era that he chronicled in his excellent book. I wasn't taking precise notes, but he said something to the effect that, when (if?) we go back, this time it will be with 3-D color high-definition television, and that this time the excitement of watching people walk once again on the moon will be sustained.
I think him far too optimistic on this score, and still out of touch with the real problem. Obviously, watching government employees gallivant on another world thrills him, but he's mistaken to project his level of interest onto the general public. He's apparently among the class of people who complain what philistines the public are, and just think that we need to make astronauts' activities more exciting to revive that old Apollo spirit.
"Well, OK, people got tired of Apollo, but that's because we just had those funky black and white images."
"Well, OK, people aren't that excited about watching people floating around in the space station, but if only we send NASA astronauts back to the moon, that will get their juices flowing. That's how we'll sustain the vision (and the funding)."
No.
The American people are not going to support a program that costs billions of dollars per year, for the vicarious "thrill" of watching a few civil servants kicking up dust on the Moon, or Mars. In fact, I won't, and there are few more hard-core space nuts than me. We are a nation of voyeurs, true (at least judging by the financial health of the pr0n industry), but many of us don't want to just watch, and even if that does content us, unless there are going to be lunar orgies, it's hard to imagine it holding our attention for long.
Only a program that promises the potential of an opportunity for them to go will elicit such support. Until the supporters of the new initiative understand this, it will remain doomed to ultimate failure.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:07 AMSomeone mentioned this during the conference yesterday, but now I've found a URL. Costs to return the Shuttle to flight have exploded, now estimated at 1.1 billion dollars.
As someone over at sci.space.policy said, "Surprise, surprise, surprise."
IMO, most of the return to flight activities are a waste of money for bandaids, similar to the foolish "escape pole" that some insisted be added to the Shuttle after the Challenger.
They should either start flying again now, or shut the program down. Wasting all this time and money on an unfixable system that's going to be retired after twenty-five flights is pointless. We still need to revisit the CAIB recommendations in light of the new policy, something that, AFAIK, has not happened since the January 14th announcement.
Fortunately, there's at least one lawmaker with his head screwed on straight (not surprising, since Pete Worden has his ear):
This most recent cost increase isn't going to sit well with some lawmakers, said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee.Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:45 AM"We're pouring a lot of money -- $4 billion to $5 billion a year -- into the shuttle whether it flies or not," said Brownback. "There will be some real hard questions such as what are we getting out of putting more money into the shuttle."
Brownback said he would rather retire the shuttle sooner and divert its budget and accelerate NASA's plans to follow through on President Bush's vision to send astronauts back to the moon and eventually to Mars.
"If you believe that if we would only give NASA more money, then everything would be fine, you won't like the story I'm going to tell you."
"A NASA administrator [Goldin] who was even more dysfunctional than anyone thought."
"Struggling against the tide of inertia at [HQ]"
"[Bush] knows more about NASA than we ever thought. Gave instructions to O'Keefe, to go over and fix that mess up (but used a different word than mess, not fit for a family blog)."
"President was very involved, even in the details. Was never interested in a specific destination, but thought that exploring the universe was important. NASA was, to him, an embarrasment, and he didn't like to be embarrassed."
"Columbia showed that NASA was even more dysfunctional than the president had thought."
"A group of low-level staff in the White House asked if they could get together to come up with a paragraph for the president to say at the centennial of flight in December 2003. They met, unaware that there were higher-level meetings going on on space policy."
"Policy advisor from Reagan administration, met with president. 'NASA is screwed up!' President: 'I know that.' Advisor: 'Not only is NASA screwed up, but we ought to go back to the moon, and I have a white paper.'"
"President comes back from Columbia memorial, and wants to develop a vision."
"Young staffers are coming up with ideas independently."
"They develop a realization that Shuttle is a roadblock to human spaceflight. The age of the Shuttle had ended on February 1, 2003. A hinge of history had opened. The age of reusability was over [Simberg note: this is the single biggest flaw in the administration (and Aldridge Commission) thinking]."
"NASA is unaware of all this, and they want a new mission, they want an Orbital Space Plane, they want everything."
"Reconstitute the low-level staff work and come up with a vision, with a strawman policy structure and a calendar. Committee eliminates options until they get down to two or three. O'Keefe continues to ask for budget increases, claiming that they could accomplish all kinds of things with budget increases. Problem was that NASA couldn't get new money in current environment."
"Looked at two options--five percent decrease, and five percent increase. Former is "going-out-of-business" budget, and latter isn't enough for the Moon."
"Independently, five Senators met Cheney, 'NASA didn't have enough money, NASA had no vision.' (Hollings, Brownback, McCain, Breaux, and Nelson--three of them Dems)"
"OMB came up with five percent for NASA. O'Keefe met with his advisors, and asked them if they'd be willing to give up something for a new vision, and got a consensus. They gave up the Shuttle, and the space station."
"Loss of SLI means that the government won't be helping develop any new technology for the next few years."
"O'Keefe would have given up anything, to save his agency. Why? Because he caught the bug from the president of the United States."
"Marburger: 'Mr. President, I think that the objective should be a return to the Moon.' President: 'This is about exploring, not destinations.' So they went back and laid out the Moon as a test bed for exploration. Bush: 'This is about going to other destinations than the moon, right?'"
"Bush decided that he wanted to address the nation about space. Bush to speechwriter: 'Get to work on a space speech.' Speechwriter (who had never heard of any of this): 'What!?' President: 'You heard me.'"
Now describing how they got their story out before the speech, and almost got scooped because no one would believe them.
[shot at Leonard David]: "The UPI editor wouldn't run the story without being able to verify this." [To Leonard] "You don't have a problem like that at Space.com."
"President to O'Keefe: If you get this mission, you can't go about it in the way that NASA does today. You have to get things operating more like FFRDCs, you have to involve entrepreneurs and private enterprise, and you have to get out of the launch business."
"Stovepiping ends on August 1st. People at centers start to report direct to HQ instead of to the center directors. Some of rank and file are fighting this tooth and nail. Can you imagine an agency that was given the greatest vision in space in the history of the space program, fighting it? There are people who are against this, because they are afraid."
"Sean O'Keefe has a trick for people who complain that he can't do something. He reaches into a desk drawer, and pulls out an application for the Post Office. 'You apparently don't want to work for NASA...'"
"Things don't look good for the initiative if Kerry is elected, and even if President is reelected, it's not clear whether Congress will fund it. To initiate reforms requires more than one group of reformers. If there is a fight over civil space, he [the president[ has to win."
"This is not the vice president's story--he only appears in the book three times. This is the president's program."
Taking questions now. Jeff Krukin: "Is there any sense that all of this could be made irrelevant by things happening in the private sector"?
Answer: "Yes, O'Keefe has met with Musk, and O'Keefe is very skeptical about the ability of the conventional space industry to do things affordably. Was particularly disturbed by cost estimates for OSP. Has been reaching out to the smaller players."
"Estimate cost of getting to the Moon by 2020 is 64 billion dollars. They found nine billion for a down payment by 2009, but they won't be able to afford it all without much lower costs from the private sector (and that doesn't mean traditional contractors)."
Andrew Chaiken: "Trying to reconcile the stories of the Texas governor who never visited JSC with this new space visionary president."
Answer: "Read Paul O'Neill's book. Describes a completely different president than the one O'Keefe described. Was confronted with embarrassment of dysfunctional space program. If it would have been Paul O'Neill as head of NASA, it would have been like talking to a wall--O'Keefe's personal relationship with Bush was key to making this happen (is personal social friend with the family). Complaint about lack of vision and money from Congress was essential, and if Columbia hadn't happened, we would not have gotten the new policies. Kids working in White House were necessary as well--everything came together."
"Different than his father's space policy, because it recognizes budget realities."
Now drawing the inevitable comparison with Jim Webb, the administrator during Apollo.
Asked about announcement today that NASA thinks that budget estimate for Return to Flight has more than doubled. Thinks will either shove schedule out, or ratchet up pressure on the Hill to get a budget passed.
"Rollout of the plan was botched, because they didn't involve Congress, which is under pressure for war and deficits. Senator Brownback is the key."
Dennis Wingo: "Is there a plan to keep centers like JSC and Goddard from sucking as many funds as possible"?
Answer: "Yes, aware of the problem, working on a strategy."
End of speech.
I'll have thoughts later.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:42 PMFor hallway discussions. I'll be posting about Frank Sietzen's talk in forty-five minutes. He'll be talking about his and Keith Cowing's new book about the formation of the new space policy.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:44 PM"That Saturn shakes purty bad, but not near as bad as it did in the movie..." in reference to Apollo XIII.
He's describing his flight to the moon.
The Principal Investigator for the seismometer told him, "If you don't put my experiment out right, don't come back."
He's describing a spinout in a lunar rover. "Do you know what saved us? ...There was nobody coming the other way. I'm sure that when we get two rovers up there we'll have the first lunar auto accident."
He describes dust as one of the key challenges to lunar operations (a point made by a speaker yesterday, who was a designer of the rover).
He illustrates the fractal nature of the lunar surface by pointing out an object that looks like it's a few feet away from him, which is actually the distance of two football fields.
He's showing a picture of the far side, which is very heavily cratered, particularly in the highlands. He's clearly very concerned about the threat of extraterrestrial object impacts. He points out King Crater, which is 77 km in diameter (he claims that the object that created it could have wiped out Nevada and much of California.
Now he's talking about supervolcanoes, three of which are in the US (including Yellowstone and the Long Valley Caldera by Mammoth Lakes in California--I didn't catch the third one). Yellowstone is overdue to blow, and no one knows when the next one will happen. When it does, it will likely wipe out civilization.
"You're ten times more likely to die in a civilization-ending event than in a commercial airline crash. NASA is working to make airline flights ten times as safe, so you'll then be a hundred times more likely..."
He's praising Bob Bigelow for his work on inflatable structures.
"You'll know we're serious about going back to the moon when you see people heading back there with shovels."
In a question on the state of the art in new suits, talking about the need for a good glove: "The human hand is a heck of a piece of machinery, and sometimes gets into trouble going places that it doesn't belong."
Ends by showing a picture of his grandchildren: overall theme of his talk is protecting the planet. He thinks we're in a space race, but not with another country, but rather against nature.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:00 PMJeff Krukin points out another shortcoming of the Aldridge Commission report. It doesn't contain the word "settlement," settling (as it were) instead for the more neutral (and neutered) phrase, "extended presence." It remains focused on exploration, and not the broader vision.
He is announcing the formation of a new Space Frontier Foundation project to rectify the public perception of space as exploration, rather than the broader view, called the "Space Settlement Project."
Sounds like a worthwhile activity.
John Young is going to speak after lunch.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:40 PMDavid Gump of Lunacorp started off his talk with a twenty-year old poster about business opportunities in space, displaying the Shuttle and the then newly announced space station program. It was a cautionary note, reminding us of all the things that can go wrong, and how the more things change...
[Update]
Central lesson learned:
Government-owned infrastruxture (with federal employees as the space workforce) is poison to commercial ventures (cannot be overcome by good intentions--institutional barriers are too deep).
Privately owned facilities (vehicles, platforms, bases) are essential to success.
He hates the phrase "space advertising." Emphasis needs to be customer rewards.
Prizes are good, but cannot be the only way for NASA to involve the private sector (same point that Jim Benson of SpaceDev made yesterday). Prizes are good for amateurs and angels, but businesses won't accept the risk of being beaten to the deadline.
Lunacorp's submittal for the NASA exploration initiative was to rely on the invisible hand, by nurturing private enterprise, and not to attempt another "Stalinist plan."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:07 AMThanks to Michael Mealing (see comment here), I'm back on the air, and waiting for the first talk (Wendell Mendell, lunar guru from Johnson Space Center).
[Update about 9 AM]
Dr. Mendell is relating a history of how his thoughts have evolved on getting back to the moon. Brief summary: he started out naive in the early eighties, and but eventually came to realize that NASA was incapable of carrying out the vision, and that private activities will be the key. He made a variation of a theme that I've commented on in the past (when I called space, including currently low earth orbit, a wilderness). He described it as an undeveloped country with vast resources, but no infrastructure.
[A few minutes later]
He's hammering on a theme now that Paul Spudis reinforced yesterday in the keynote address: that various players are working hard to subvert the president's initiative to support their own agendas. Moreover, the continued focus on Mars indicates that people were not listening to what the president said (he mentioned it only once, as part of the phrase "Mars and beyond").
He's knocking down the misconceptions that the only purpose of going to the Moon is to learn how to go to Mars, or to test equipment that will be used on Mars.
More thoughts on this later (and probably a column or two) after I collect my thought, and am not distracted actually listening.
[Another update]
This was mentioned briefly yesterday, but Dr. Mendell says that there is serious talk among some at NASA of doing a "touch and go" on the Moon. In other words, immediately after a lunar landing, we'll then go on to Mars, thus somehow (in their demented view) having satisfied the letter (if not the spirit) of the president's vision.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:43 AMNASA has published a report (PDF) on last month's Centennial Challenges Workshop (thanks to Neil Halelamien over at sci.space.policy for the pointer).
I haven't read the whole thing, but I did go look to see what they did with my glove idea.
I regret that I wasn't there--they made some decisions that I would have argued about. I think that the glove should be 8 psi, not 4.3--a large part of the idea was to eliminate the need for prebreathing and avoid risk of the bends. I like the idea of providing plans for gloveboxes to the contestants, and think that worrying about someone injuring themselves is silly, not because it's not a danger, but because it's a danger we have to accept if we want to progress. I still like my task idea of tearing down and rebuilding an auto, or motorcycle engine. I proposed a million, and they came up with a quarter million (though they recognize that the amount may be too low--it's driven by legal constraints which will hopefully be removed in the future).
Anyway, it looks like a promising start, and Brant Sponberg should be congratulated. Let's hope he can keep the ball rolling.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:27 PMSpaceRef has a summary of the hearing on prizes for space achievements, held on the Hill this morning.
Molly Macauley made an excellent point:
"Even if an offered prize is never awarded because competitors fail all attempts to win, the outcome can shed light on the state of the technology maturation. In particular, an unawarded prize can signal that even the best technological efforts aren't quite ripe at the proffered level of monetary reward. Such a result is important information for government when pursuing new technology subject to a limited budget," she said.
The DARPA Challenge is a good example of that, in my opinion.
Of course, we have the usual caviling:
"While establishment of a NASA prize program is certainly worth considering, we should not be lulled into thinking that it is any substitute for providing adequate funding for NASA's R&D programs," cautioned Subcommittee Ranking Minority Member Nick Lampson (D-TX).
Rep. Lampson is one of the representatives from JSC.
Overall, while there were some appropriate cautionary notes, there seemed to be a consensus that this was a good idea. Let's hope that they can get the funding now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:14 PMAndrew, that piece really is worse than you say.
The trouble is that the space program's purposes are inseparable from its Cold War-era context.
No, the trouble is not that they are inseparable--it's that we've never made a serious policy attempt to achieve such a separation.
He gets the NASA budget wrong (it's closer to twenty billion than fifteen). That doesn't change his point (in fact it strengthens it, to the degree that it's valid), but it's sloppy. It's also not clear that the plan will require a significant increase. That was one of the selling points of it--that by putting down the Shuttle program, we can shift funds to the new activities.
Along the way, the space commission he appointed has offered up a smorgasbord of absurd side benefits, such as possible improvements in our (so far non-existent) ability to deflect threatening incoming asteroids, of the sort that may have severely disrupted life on Earth as recently as 35 million years ago.
I guess his point is that it doesn't happen very often, so it's not a benefit. He's probably unaware that if the Tonguska event had occurred on the eastern seaboard of the US, instead of in Siberia, we could have lost millions of lives only a century ago.
It really is a typical "why pour all that money into space when we have so many problems on earth?" rant. Nothing new here.
[Update in the afternoon]
Jeez, I'm almost starting to feel sorry for the schmuck. Dwayne Day really goes after a gnat with a howitzer in the comments section.
I'd say that he's been pretty thoroughly discredited. Unfortunately, most of the PI's readers probably don't read this blog.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:12 AMCan someone explain to me why Aura is a NASA mission, and not a NOAA mission? It seems to me that if one wants to focus NASA better, this is the kind of thing that would be better done by a different agency.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:05 AMOver at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Alex Roth has an op-ed piece that is simulteneously insightful and inane. It's no mean trick to pull that off, but he manages to do so. He correctly identifies some of the problems with NASA:
The trouble is that the space program's purposes are inseparable from its Cold War-era context.
...but immediately follows with this pointless slur:
The very concept of a "space station," for example, is a 1952 brainchild of Nazi rocket scientist-turned-American-Cold Warrior Wernher von Braun, who was later caricatured as "Dr. Strangelove" in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 Cold War satire film.
I enjoy a good rant as much as anyone (OK, probably more than most), and Roth has certainly written a stem-winder. Unfortunately getting a few small points right is not enough. The editorial is well written from a polemical standpoint, but it utterly destroys a strawman that nobody in either the alt.space or NASA communities believes.
It's worth a few minutes just to familiarize yourself with his arguments, since they will be coming up again, and it's good to know what the other side is saying.
Posted by Andrew Case at 07:29 AMLeonard David has a report from Las Vegas on what Bob Bigelow is up to with inflatable space structures. I probably haven't emphasized this activity enough. If SpaceX is successful, we will soon have a private space habitat testbed launched on a private launch vehicle.
So whats wrong with this scenario: Private space modules, launched on private rockets, and visited by privately-built space ships?That may not be too far-fetched. Along with Bigelow, there is a growing guild of millionaires and billionaires now tossing in their own bucks to back an array of space ventures.
Were all aware that were somewhat co-dependent on each other, Bigelow made clear. We kind of know each other. We kind of keep track of who is doing what, he said.
Ideally, Bigelow stated, is having a federal entity, like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) say: Welcome home boys. We can make fast decisions. We have some discretionary money for space activities. We have some ideas and maybe you guys can save us money.
DARPA would save money, as well as time, counting on a confab of private space entrepreneurs, Bigelow said. I think their patriotism would surface. They would have a potential customer that has money that we can count on. And thats going to be a customer that we can serve.
I should note also that, since Leonard seems to be in Vegas, I expect I'll see him this weekend at the Return to the Moon conference. If all y'all go, you may as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:04 AMMichael Mealing reminds us about this weekend's Return to the Moon conference, in Vegas. So I do too...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:29 AMOn next week's thirty-fifth anniversary of the first manned lunar landing?
[Via Rob Wilson]
[Update a few minutes later]
Boeing has established an anniversary web site.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:21 AMVia RLV News, the presentations from the most recent COMSTAC meeting are available. I haven't read any of them yet, but I figured I'd post a pointer. I'm a little snowed under trying to make sure I've read everything I ought to read in order to do a decent job for the SOI, but I think the paper by Terry Hardy on Ec[*] calculations is a good place to start. I'm beginning to think that the single best paradigm change for moving towards a sustainable and vigorous spaceflight industry is a public safety regime that doesn't use Ec as a figure of merit. Ec is a little bit like man rating in that it implicitly assumes that the norm for space vehicles is that they blow up with some regularity.
[*] for those not already familiar with it, Ec is the expected number of casualties from operations of a given launch vehicle. You need less than 30 casualties per million flights in order to get a launch license.
Posted by Andrew Case at 10:18 AMReader John Breen points out this "Foxtrot" comic strip, about a little kid making an X-Prize attempt.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:32 AMAs Rand has already blogged, I'm the new interim Washington Director of the SubOrbital Institute, since Pat Bahn is too busy actually running a company to take care of the nitty-gritty of running the Institute. This goes for many of the other Institute members, which is very good news. Unfortunately I'm paid exactly the same as I am for blogging here, but that's not zero except in dollars. Let me clarify that statement a little: I realized a few years ago that I was thinking about the problem of space access all wrong. The problem is complex and has many conceivable solutions, but only a small set of practically implementable solutions. Which solutions are practical is not obvious except in retrospect, and since we don't already have low cost space access, retrospection is not an option.
Given that the shape of the technological and economic landscape ahead of us is not well understood, it's impossible to plan in detail for the long term. That means plans have to be made in the short term, with the only long term considerations being to maximize the number of available options when the short term plan succeeds. Once you realize this, it changes everything. Thinking in the fuzzy long term about space elevators or scramjets becomes untenable, and you're forced to break everything down to the most fundamental questions.
When I first started getting serious about space access it was with a focus on mining asteroids for platinum group metals (oddly enough, I had an email exchange with Jeff Greason about this subject way back before XCOR or even Rotary). I started actually writing business plans and designing techniques to handle what I thought would be the long pole in the tent, namely prospecting. Since high value PGM rich asteroids are expected to occur with a frequency of less than one in a thousand, the prospecting phase has to be really cheap on a per-candidate basis, even if ground based spectroscopy is used to winnow the candidate pool by 90%. I figured out how to do it (sort of) if the cost of space access came down by about a factor of ten. Of course, given factors of ten to toss around at will we can also do commercially viable nuclear fusion and flying cars. Or fusion powered flying cars, for that matter.
Setting aside PGM mining for the time being, I went back to first principles. What is within reach that I really want to do? I want to go into space. Even mining asteroids isn't enough without actually being there. It'd be cool to mine asteroids, but it'd be so much cooler to actually go into space and experience spaceflight in person. That's my current focus. Not saving the world, not imagining wondrous possible futures - just me looking out of the window from 100+ kilometers above the earth.
I believe that this is the right approach to space activism. There are simply too many demands in life to keep a focus on working towards something that will never provide concrete personal benefit. Even people doing supposedly purely altruistic things like helping famine victims are constantly rewarded with positive feedback from the people they are helping. It's simply not sustainable on a personal level to work hard over the long term for no personal reward other than an idea. Sure there are individuals capable of that kind of effort, but they are exceedingly rare. Much more common are the folks who work for a while and then burn out or just lose interest.
Given the realities of near term technologies (and the irrationality of planning based on nonexistent technologies), and given the realities of human nature, the best approach to space activism is to focus on personal hands-on participation. Nobody is going to build a space elevator in their garden shed. You might, however, save up enough money to afford a ride on a suborbital vehicle. You might invest in a suborbital company with a realistic expectation of profit. In time, you might even be able to build your own suborbital vehicle. You could certainly help push for sensible regulation of the suborbital industry, with the certain knowledge that it has a positive impact right now as opposed to some unknown time in the future (if ever).
The upshot is that the reward both for blogging and for working with the SubOrbital Institute is gradual progress towards a very concrete goal - putting me personally in space. I suggest that this goal is a good one for all space activists and enthusiasts to adopt. Focus on the near term practicalities because those are the only ones you can realistically have confidence in. Everything else is speculation. The net effect of a bunch of people seriously working to get themselves into space is that costs come down, markets are established, and new opportunities move from being speculative to being attainable.
Posted by Andrew Case at 07:33 AMMichael Turner has a piece in today's The Space Review arguing that Moore's Law won't apply to space development. His argument fails, at least to me, because it rests on a false premise (and a common myth)--that the reason access to space is expensive is because we don't have the "right" technology.
While I don't literally believe in a Moore's Law for space (in the sense that we can see seemingly never-ending halving of costs on some constant time period), I do expect to see dramatic reductions in cost in the next couple decades, but not because there are vast ranges for improvement in the technologies, but because there are is vast potential for improvement in the real problem--the heretofore lack of market.
Costs will come down dramatically when we start flying a lot more. It's that simple. Once we reach a plateau, in which the costs of propellant start to become significant in the overall costs of flight, then we should look to some new technological breakthroughs, but we're sufficiently far from that that some form of Moore's Law, at least in the short term, is actually quite likely to hold.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:53 AMIt's Monday, and that means a new issue of The Space Review. Dwayne Day leads off the week with an interesting comparison between the 1989 Space Exploration Initiative, and the new Vision for Space Exploration.
Editor Jeff Foust also makes an interesting analogy between planetary exploration and sports.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:07 AM...on your new job, Andrew. I think.
It's certainly a key position right now, with the legislation continuing to hang fire. Be sure to let us know what we can do to help on an ongoing basis.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:53 AMSorry for the short notice--it slipped my mind. I'm going to be live on The Space Show with David Livingston in about an hour. On the air in the Seattle area, and there's an internet feed here.
[Update afterward]
The interview went well, but I found out it wasn't broadcast live (thought it was on the internet). It was taped for a later broadcast. I also want to remind people that Bill Simon (transterrestrial webmaster) and I will be on the show next Tuesday. It's the thirty-fifth anniversary of the first Apollo landing, and we'll be talking about that, and the sedar-like ceremony that we developed to commemorate it.
If you're really into the significance of that date, it would be a good time to gather with family and friends, and have a dinner to help remember the first liberation of our species (and earthly life itself) from its homeworld, just as the Jews celebrate their liberation from Egypt at Passover.
Despite all the saturation coverage of space in the past year and a half, it would seem that we need such tools to educate ourselves about this new frontier, as Jay Manifold sadly points out today.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:12 PMMike Mealling over at RocketForge has added to his shwag offerings. In particular the Apollo LEM mug is cool, though the Skylab Mousepad is also quite geek-chic. I'm hoping he'll add an RL-10 mug (hint).
I'm a big fan of the RL-10, since it's as close to the realizing the ideal of evolvable design as any spaceflight gadget that I'm aware of, having been in use since 1963, with continuous upgrades and improvements since then. It's also the engine that was used (in yet another variant) on the DC-X, which is enough to earn it a spot in space history even without the large number of variants. I suspect that there are Russian engines which come close to the RL-10 in realizing evolvable design, but none pop immediately to mind (a reflection of ignorance more than anything else).
I'd be interested to hear of other candidates for best realized evolvable design in space hardware. Bear in mind that by "realized evolvable design" I mean not just design that is capable of incremental improvement, but design which has actually undergone substantial incremental improvement, or which has spawned a large number of useful variants. Soyuz is one obvious candidate. I suspect that there are Russian spacesuit designs which also meet the criteria for realized evolvable design.
This post honestly started out as just a pointer to the new RocketForge mug, but obviously I'm in a bit of a rambling frame of mind. For more on why you too should be a fan of the RL-10, check out the relevant collection of archived Usenet posts on Yarchive.
Posted by Andrew Case at 08:30 PMThat's the date that, with a little luck, the insurance company loses their money. And the date after which it starts to get easier to raise money.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:46 AMApparently SpaceShipOne's problems have been resolved. Burt says that he's ready for the X-Prize flight attempts (though there's not yet been a formal announcement). Alan Boyle has the story as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:40 AMHere's an interesting article, on a couple of levels.
With demand waning for its traditional service - clearing Arctic shipping lanes - the Murmansk Shipping Company, which operates the world's only fleet of atomic icebreakers, has started offering tourists a chance to chill out at the top of the world for $20,000 per head.The business has outraged environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth Norway, which is urging would-be ticket buyers to consider the damage a nuclear accident can do to the pristine region's fragile ecosystem...
... The green group has found an unexpected ally in the Russian Audit Chamber. Parliament's budgetary watchdog, after investigating partially state-owned Murmansk Shipping's finances earlier this year, urged the government to revoke the company's license to operate the fully state-owned icebreakers because it had "improperly used $79 million worth of state property and cheated the state out of $7.3 million in revenues," auditor Yury Tsvetkov said June 29.
The superficial (i.e., obvious) one is the issue of whether or not we'll let environmental groups object to tourism on grounds either real or spurious (and in particular, the notion that it shouldn't be allowed because it's a nuclear-powered ship is extremely spurious, and one that we should expect to confront in the future as we start to use nuclear reactors in space).
But the other one is that the Russian government itself is opposed to such tourism. That indicates to me that some there are starting to figure out what things actually cost, and that the tourist dollars don't actually cover the operating costs.
While popular legend has it that Dennis Tito paid twenty millions bucks for his ride into space, reality is that such things are extremely negotiable, and that he actually paid much less (perhaps a little over half) of that amount. The Russian space program has survived largely on the basis of its prestige (one of the few things that Russia can surpass the US at, at least by some criteria). If they discover that tourist flights (and NASA payments) aren't covering the true costs, will that continue?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:36 PMThe latest issue of The Space Review is up a day late (I assume due to the holiday yesterday) but it was worth waiting for. I'm too busy to post much, but go read about Oklahoma spaceports by Jeff Foust, an old study on asteroid deflection by Dwayne Day, a cautionary note to space entrepreneurs about patents from Sam Dinkin, and a report from Taylor Dinerman on the prospects for a new space military service to supercede the Air Force.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:58 AMI'm headed to Boca Raton. We don't have internet connectivity there yet (and as of the last few hours, we don't even have a land line), so I don't know when I'll be logging on again, but hopefully by early in the week.
Until then, congratulations to the Cassini team. Sometimes, amidst all of the ongoing disaster of our space policy (for instance, check out this bit of micromanagement foolishness by Congress), it's easy to get jaded, but if someone had told you thirty-five years ago (the first moon landing) that there would be a satellite in orbit around Saturn sending back such spectacular close-up pictures of its rings and its many moons (most of which we were unaware at that time), you would have been amazed, even in the face of the manned moon landings. This is one of those moments (which are happening ever more frequently) in which I finally feel like I'm living in the twenty-first century.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 PMA couple weeks ago I published a eulogy to Ronald Reagan at National Review on line, with respect to his legacy for space. It wasn't the original piece I submitted--the original submission was longer and more comprehensive in terms of his overall space policy.
The piece that they published was better, partly because it was tighter and more succinct, and partly because, in the interests of the old saying of de mortuis nil nisi bonum, it was uncritical of his failures in space policy.
Now that he's been interred, and it's time to reflect on his presidency in its entirety, I'm republishing the original piece here. It will follow when you click on the "read the rest" link (unless you're coming directly to the permalinked post, in which case it follows after the next couple paragraphs).
I'm prompted to do this for two reasons. First, because it has some perspective on the Reagan space policy that is relevant today, but also because Dwayne Day had a piece at The Space Review today that I think is too kind to Bill Clinton in that regard (and by the way, there are a lot of interesting pieces at that site today, so don't restrict yourself to that one).
Thus, I'm providing what I hope is a relatively objective perspective of Reagan's space policy, which was by no means completely laudatory, in anticipation of a similar one on Mr. Clinton's, which was yet another decade-long setback, and one that the current administration is not addressing in many important ways.
...
One of the most memorable of Ronald Reagan's many notable speeches was the comfort he offered the nation on the evening of January 28, 1986. That was the day that the Space Shuttle Challenger was lost with its crew of seven, in front of a national audience including millions of schoolchildren watching the first teacher in space on her way to orbit. When most people are asked to associate his presidency with space, that's probably the most immediate, visceral connection that jumps to mind.
But what was his legacy for current space activities? Are we more, or less advanced into the high frontier today than otherwise because he was president then?
Back in the early eighties, there were two recognized aspects to federal space policy: military, and civil. In at least the first one, the military one, the Strategic Defense Initiative (almost immediately dubbed "Star Wars" by its detractors), announced on March 23rd, 1983, was, in the most essential sense, a resounding success. This was despite the fact that it never became operational (though it may finally be on the verge of doing so in the next few years). To paraphrase Lady Thatcher, he won the Cold War without shooting down a single missile, or even launching a system capable of doing so. By many accounts (including Soviet accounts), it was a key element in persuading the Soviets that they couldn't keep up with us in technology or military spending, ultimately contributing to their collapse.
On the other hand, Reagan's civil space legacy is at best mixed. Current conventional wisdom among most historians would probably be that he will be most remembered for initiating the space station program, which he announced in his State of the Union address on January 25th, 1984 (almost exactly two years before the loss of the Challenger). While his speech announcing the new NASA initiative was expansive and visionary, it was born of a much more mundane purpose. A year and a half earlier, on the Fourth of July, 1982, the president had gone out to Edwards Air Force Base and (prematurely, as it later turned out in the wake of the Challenger investigation) declared the Shuttle "operational" after only four flights. This was not his error, of course--he couldn't be expected to know (and perhaps no one could at that time)--it was done on the advice of people like Jim Beggs, then NASA administrator.
With this announcement, it was becoming clear that, just as the Shuttle program was started in 1973 largely to give NASA's manned spaceflight centers and contractors something to do after Apollo, as the Shuttle development wound down in the early eighties they would have to be transitioned into something else. That something else was a space station, the so-called "next logical step" that was part of the grand goals ever since the fifties when Wernher von Braun outlined plans for solar system exploration in Colliers and in conjunction with Disney. In fact, one of the stated justifications for the Shuttle was to build and sustain such a thing, so both programs tended to mutually reinforce each other.
So, given this logic and no doubt at least to some degree mindful of jobs at home, at the aerospace contractors in southern California (just as Nixon was when he authorized the Shuttle), he approved the program. It should be noted that, to whatever degree one thinks that the space station was a step forward for our space aspirations, it hung in the balance in the 1984 election. Walter Mondale, his election opponent that year, was a vociferous opponent of the NASA manned space program. He had tried to kill the Shuttle first in the early 1970s as a Senator, and later as President Carter's vice president in the late 1970s, but only managed to get the Carter administration to reduce the fleet size from seven to five (a decision that saved little money at the time, but haunts us now, as we have only three left). Had he won that November, the station, still in its early planning stages, surely would have died. For better or worse, Reagan's victory kept it alive, ironically leading to many of the problems that NASA has today.
However, in the future, as history plays out off planet, the late president will in fact eventually be remembered as a visionary pioneer in space, but not for any decisions he made with respect to new NASA programs. Rather, it will be for much less publicized but more far-ranging ones. There is a third aspect to space policy beyond military and civil--there is a commercial sector as well.
In less than two weeks, a small manned rocket-powered craft will pierce the top of the atmosphere in the southern California desert, going into space with a newly minted license to do so from the Federal Aviation Administration. That license is a result of policy decisions that stretch back over two decades, to President Reagan's first term of office.
The early eighties were the formative years of the nascent commercial launch industry. It's difficult to remember now, but everything launched into space up until that time, including commercial communications satellites, had been lifted on a government launch vehicle, by either NASA or the Air Force.
A few people saw the potential demand for private launch, and established companies to provide such services, but they ran into huge institutional roadblocks. It wasn't obvious how to go about performing a legal private launch, and they had to coordinate with a myriad of government entities--launch ranges, the FCC for frequency permits, the FAA for air clearances, the EPA for environmental issues, the State Department for international treaty obligations, etc. This created a great deal of regulatory uncertainty, which in turn made it difficult to raise funds.
Some of these companies approached the administration with a request for regulatory relief, which was proposed as setting up a "one-stop shop" that they could deal with for permission to launch. This agency would in turn coordinate all the others.
When this issue was raised to the president, it piqued his interest. Having lived through the same early history of the space program as the rest of us, which consisted only of government agencies going into space, he had never considered the possibility of private individuals doing so, but it resonated strongly with his basic philosophy of freedom and individualism, so he decided to make it happen. He had a cabinet meeting in which the main issue under discussion was not whether or not to do it, but how and where, with the two candidates being the Department of Commerce, under Malcolm Baldrige, and the Department of Transportation, under Elizabeth (now Senator) Dole. Per his natural predilections, the decision was made on the basis of which department would be the most nurturing of the new industry and provide the fewest hindrances.
Apparently Secretary Dole was the most persuasive in that regard, because in 1983 the president signed an executive order establishing an Office of Commercial Space Transportation in the Department of Transportation, which would issue launch licenses. In 1984, Congress codified this into law in the Commercial Space Launch Act, and Reagan was pleased to sign it.
This was a key development in the fledgling industry, but it still had the burden of having to compete with government-subsidized launch systems, particularly the Shuttle. Part of the cost justification for the Shuttle was that it would attain its high flight rate (necessary to achieve the advertised low costs) by flying all of the nation's payloads, including commercial payloads. Hughes (now Boeing Satellite Systems) had even designed a communications satellite specifically for launch in the Shuttle.
While the 1986 Challenger loss was a tragedy for the nation, and for those who had invested their dreams in a government space program, it turned out to be a boon for the commercial launch industry. Eight months after it occurred, recognizing that the policy had been flawed from the beginning, the Reagan administration issued another executive order ending the use of the Shuttle for commercial payloads, unless they could only be launched on the Shuttle.
One might argue, of course, that a President Mondale would have solved this latter problem by simply killing the Shuttle program (along with the space station) a year and a half earlier, in 1985, but while he may have desired to do so, it's unlikely that he would have persuaded powerful members of his own party on the Hill whose districts benefited from it--it was probably too late at that point. In any event, it's hard to imagine him having the vision to even imagine a private space program, let alone choosing a department to manage it on the basis of which would most and soonest enable it.
Regardless, the pieces were finally in place for a commercial launch industry--they had an established regulatory process in place by which private launches could occur, and the market had opened up with the end of the subsidized Shuttle rides. As a result, today we have a number of commercial launchers of various sizes and prices, carrying a variety of communications, remote sensing, and other satellites. Beyond that, we are now on the verge of an era of commercial manned spaceflight, in which no one need apply to space bureaucracy for a ride--they'll soon be able to simply buy a ticket.
That will be a future in which we finally have a space program with the traditional American values of free enterprise and open frontiers to all, rather than a cold-war one of centralized government bureaucracy. Moreover, it will be a future that had its roots in decisions made by a far-seeing cowboy in the White House two decades ago.
Ad astra, Mr. President.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:53 PMDale Amon has pictures from Mojave that you're unlikely to see anywhere else. They're worth a look, even though my ugly mug is in some of them.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:35 PMClark Lindsey has a summary of the Av Week article.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:25 AMApparently there was an attitude control failure toward the end of the burn. That could have been a vehicle (and pilot) killer if it had happened earlier.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:07 PMHere's a great photo slideshow, including a lot of pictures from the chase planes.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:50 PMBurt seems to have inspired a number of people to start blogging about space. Here's a new entrant, called The New Space Age.
It points out some interesting quotes from John Marburger, the president's science advisor, on the vision. He seems to be implying space settlement and resource utilization.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:04 AMIf you're serious about changing federal policy to encourage young people to learn about space and rocketry, you'll do something about stupidity like this:
In any case, since the federal Safe Explosives Act -- which requires permits for rockets with more than 0.9 pounds of fuel -- went into effect in late 2002, the rocketry industry has been battered.Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:07 AMJohn Wickman, president of CP Technologies, an amateur rocketry supplier, said his company's sales have dropped by about 50 percent since the act passed.
"It was a major hit, because people just dropped out," said Wickman. "They just dropped out of the hobby completely."
Part of the problem, say people like Wickman, is that the ATF doesn't even understand the hobby it is trying to regulate.
First, a little bit of Blue Origin Kremlinology: They are advertising for a crew systems engineer. There are rumors that they are working on a manned suborbital ship but then again there are also rumors that they are working on a transdimensional intergalactic warp drive. Either way, it looks like they want to put humans on it.
Clark Lindsey has an interesting item on the development of GPS, with lessons for RLV development.
...and Derek Lyons starts strong out of the gate with a piece on the business practicalities of space access.
Update a few hours later: Check out Dr. Day's detailed comment on GPS, which is meatier than either my post or the one I linked to. Good Stuff.
Posted by Andrew Case at 07:24 AMJP Aerospace's balloon broke. Here's hoping for a rapid repair.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:21 AMI've been weeding the blogroll garden a little. I've divided my former space/science section into two separate ones, and I've added a new one to the space section--Spaceship Summer. Its author, Derek Lyons, says that it is "dedicated to information about space tourism, the X-Prize, and CATS (Cheap Acess to Space)."
Derek has been known on at least one occasion, in sci.space.policy, to disparage the blogosphere.
Welcome to the evil empire, Derek.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:04 PMThe Economist has a good article on SpaceShipOne. There's only one problem with it:
...it is difficult for his competitors (as well as everybody else) to work out what a ticket might actually cost.A back-of-the-envelope calculation gives some idea. Mr Rutan says his highest costs are staff for the pre- and post-flight check-ups. He has a few dozen staff and, at one point, had a plan to run SpaceShipOne once a week for five months. Assuming each of his staff cost $120 an hour to employ, it would cost a minimum of $60,000 per tourist for staff alone.
That assumes that his entire staff is dedicated to SpaceShipOne operations. He has many other projects to which they would charge, so a SpaceShipOne flight won't bear the full burden of his standing...well, not army, but perhaps a large squad, or perhaps a platoon. So I think that these are overestimates of his overhead costs.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:06 PMLeonard David has an interesting article on twenty-first century travel.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:34 AMEli Lehrer has the right solution, for the wrong reasons.
I'll explain why a little later, when I get a minute.
Actually, looking at what I just wrote, I realize that people are going to think, "Great. Now he'll go off somewhere and get hit by the beer truck, and it will be like Fermat's Last Theorem, and it will take centuries to figure it out."
I'll try to get to it later, honest. In the meantime, I can leave it as an exercise for the students in the comments section, and maybe I won't have to.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:44 AMWhy do you ask?
I'm in the middle of helping figure out lunar/Mars transportation architectures for a client in response to NASA's Broad Area Announcement, and have little time to post. Fortunately Andrew's picking up some of the slack, and Clark Lindsey has an amazing number of interesting links this week (check out yesterday's edition as well as today's).
Also, Jay Manifold has been collecting media reactions here and here. As Andrew reports via Pat Bahn, the "giggle factor" is dissipating rapidly, if not gone completely.
Things are definitely heating up.
[Update at 9:25 PM PDT]
Here's another non-giggling piece from Newsweek.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:30 PMI just got back from a pleasant evening hanging out with some of the local space geeks (Clark Lindsey, Jeff Foust, Phil Smith, and Pat Bahn). The main topic of conversation was obviously SpaceShipOne and the ramifications of the flight. Two noteworthy things came up. First of all, Pat confirms that the giggle factor is pretty much dead as far as investors are concerned. He can't go into details for obvious reasons, but he speaks from direct experience. Everyone suspected this would happen, but it's nice to have real data. The second point that came up which I thought I'd mention is this: In the SS1 development program so far there have been four incidents in which the pilot saved the plane. The landing problem on the December 17th test, the uncommanded nose rise on the August 27th test, the computer failure on the May 13th shot, and the roll problem on the most recent flight. In an unmanned system each one of those would most likely have lead to loss of vehicle. The lesson is clear - pilots are good. Again, no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention to alt-space, but it's nice to have further confirmation.
Dwayne Day says that the next frontier for reality teevee will be the high one.
My friend Dr. Day has long been a skeptic about commercial human spaceflight, but like many others, he's slowly coming to his senses... ;-)
Seriously (like most of his work) it's a carefully researched and interesting history of the intersection between private manned space and television over the past several years. Amidst the rubble of the past failures (as is often the case) it may be about to finally succeed.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:43 PMI just drove back down from Mojave. While I was up there, people who were watching the news might actually have a better idea than I do of the actual flight results, because I couldn't get into the press conference, and none of the reporters who did were talking until they'd filed.
There's some discussion going on in this post that the damage to the vehicle may have been more severe than thought. If the fuselage literally "buckled," that's a Very Bad thing, and I'm not sure what it means except that either their design is wrong, or its execution is. Of course, there was damage on the last flight as well, and they flew this one. I don't know when they were planning to announce the Ansari X-Prize attempt, but I suspect that if they'd had a picture perfect flight today, it would have come sooner than it will now. I'm betting on at least one more flight test before the official attempt, particularly since it seemed to be underperforming as well (it barely achieved altitude, and it wasn't carrying the ballast to account for passengers).
More tweaking ahead. Of course the fact that it's tweakable is exactly the point of the program.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Kevin Murphy has a play by play.
[Another update a couple minutes later still]
Here's Leonard David's account based on the press conference.
[Late night update]
Jeff Foust has the best reporting on the flight that I've read so far.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:31 PMIf there were any hitches, they weren't apparent from the viewing stand. They hit the apogee of at least a hundred kilometers, and had a smooth entry and landing. I took some pictures, but until I can figure out how to get them onto a big screen, I won't know if they were any good, or worth posting. If you watched live on television or webcast, I'm sure that the pros did a better job than me (if for no other reason than they have much better equipment.
The question now is what effect, short and long term, this will have on the growing prospects for this new liberating industry. XCOR has gotten a lot of good publicity out of this. Here's hoping it means investors as well. And we still await announcements from Paul Allen and Richard Branson about future plans.
[Update at 9 AM PDT]
Leonard David has filed his report from Mojave.
[Another update]
Here's a copy editor for whom the president's new initiative can't come a moment too soon. The San Francisco Chronicle says that SpaceShipOne made it all the way to the atmosphere. [Hat tip to Orbital Mind-Control Laser]
[Another update]
I should mention that Dale Amon has been describing this over at Samizdata as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:44 AMThe sun is up now. I'll have pics later. The XCOR hangar is right on the flight line, and I hear the sounds of helicopters and other aircraft (perhaps including chase planes), getting into position prior the rollout.
I'm heading down to the viewing area, so no blogging for a while.
[Update a few minutes later]
OK, one more. They've got White Knight halfway out of the hangar, fueling and prepping it to taxi over to the viewing area at 6:30.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:01 AMDuring the day in the Mojave desert, the sun beats down on the ancient rock and sand through cloudless skies. Its rays are reflected back upward, and it heats the dry air. Following the inexorable law of Boyle, with no volume to contain it, it expands, and as it does, it has to go somewhere.
What this eventually means, as the late morning and afternoon progress, is wind. And not just high wind, but dynamic, changing, don't-know-from-what-direction-it-will-come-from-one-minute-to-the-next wind, grabbing-a-seemingly-tranquil-hangar-door-right-out-of-your-hands wind. The natives know this, and expect it. In fact, overlooking the town of Mojave, along the road leading up to Tehachapi, is a wind farm, a crop of subsidized windmills. In fact, some wag last night suggested that this wasn't a natural wind--Burt, a natural showman, had simply decided to pay for the electricity to run them in reverse to build up the suspense for the next morning's flight.
When we arrived last night, it was gusting at (my estimate) thirty to forty knots. In XCOR's hangar, you could hear the groans of the old metal walls straining against it. The rave last night was sandblasted by it--I could taste and feel the grit in the watermelon slices left to its untender mercies. Many, with no experience with Mojave, had two questions: could the flight occur in conditions like this? And if so, would the conditions be like this in the morning?
The answer to the first is almost certainly no. A steady wind can be managed, if one can take off into it, but no prudent pilot would attempt a takeoff or landing with high and unpredictable potential crosswinds, which could suddenly flip over a twenty-million-dollar one-of-a-kind investment, just before it was about to bear fruit.
Fortunately, the answer to the second question is also probably no.
When I got up this morning, the desert had cooled and the atmosphere had calmed, and the notorious Mojave gales had settled down to a gentle breeze, as they almost always do. It looks like it will be a gorgeous morning for history.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:22 AMJust as Leonard David predicted. Much beer was consumed, much loud hideous noise that was proclaimed to be music was heard. The good thing about it was that it did seem to be bringing in young people, and as I realize every time I look at my cohorts and see the graying of the hair, the space movement can certainly use some new blood.
I'm off to sleep, with rollout a little over six hours from now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:23 AMDoug Jones of XCOR Aerospace has graciously allowed me to use his computer (and to throw an air mattress by his desk) to post from here.
The partying has begun, and many luminaries of the space movement are here. It's like old home week. Rollout is only nine hours off now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:46 PMAccording to Aleta Jackson of XCOR (see comments), Mojave Airport is now an FAA-licensed spaceport, the first inland one in history (note: probably not a permalink), as of yesterday, with Launch Site Operator License # LSO 04 009. I'm sure that it's just by coincidence, but it's just in time for Burt's flight on Monday.
[Update at 6 PM PDT]
There seems to be a lot of confusion in the comments section. When I say spaceport, I mean a place that the FAA has specifically licensed for commercial launches under American jurisdiction. As far as I know, that doesn't include, for example White Sands (which is one reason that Armadillo probably won't be able to make an X-Prize attempt this year). And it has nothing to do with Shuttle launches or landings.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:11 PMJeff Jacoby says that space should be given over to the private sector.
...if human beings are truly meant to slip the surly bonds of Earth, as the poem "High Flight" says -- if we are destined to live on the moon, walk on Mars, explore the solar system -- we will need to draw on greater reserves of imagination and creativity than government bureaucracies can manage. Solid rocket boosters can get human beings off a launch pad, but getting them permanently into space will require something even mightier: the unmatched power of competition, incentive, and free enterprise.Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:24 PM
I've skimmed the report. It's got a lot of good things in it, and it's probably the best report of its kind to ever come out in terms of policy recommendations (which is to damn it with faint praise). I agree with Andrew that absolutely the most damaging recommendation in it is to initiate a heavy lift program as soon as possible, and to imply (with that photo of a Shuttle-derived vehicle on page 29) that the Shuttle would be a good basis for such a program. It provides absolutely zero support for its contention that (from page 30) "...Heavy-lift capability is a critical enabling technology for mission accomplishment and a plan for achieving this capability needs to be developed now."
A major omission in the section on engaging the public was any mention about public space travel. This was disappointing--I had hoped that they would have paid attention to Tony Tether's testimony. Apparently they didn't. Instead, they fall back on the same time-worn calls for better propaganda:
The Commission recommends that industry, professional organizations, and the media engage the public in understanding why space exploration is vital to our scientific, economic, and security interests.
The poor proles just don't seem to be able to understand why we should take money from their wallets to send government employees off to other planets so they can watch on teevee. Apparently we haven't been explaining it well enough. This time for sure!
It was particularly disappointing that in support of a repeat of this flawed approach, they chose this comment from an audience member, rather than Tony Tether's:
And so my One Urgent Request Give Us More! Distill the Spirit and Energy of everything youve heard of what is Possible to its Quintessence! Make an MTV Video An X-Box Game! Show us a human and a robot doing a High Five on Mars!Give us your Results in a form powerful enough to keep a nation of nine-year olds Awake All Night!
Knock Our Socks Off!
Roger G. Gilbertson
comments from the audience
Commissions San Francisco Public Hearing
April 16, 2004
Note that whoever transcribed this heard capital letters in it where they don't belong, making it look like a kook post on Usenet.
Somehow, the commission decided that a call for better video games and voyeurism was the key to gaining public support, while ignoring the vast numbers of the public who want to go themselves.
One other major lost opportunity (particularly sad, considering the earlier call for an easing of regulations). In the section on motivating the nation's youth to study math and science there is no mention of model rocketry, traditionally the most powerful gateway to a career in aerospace engineering, or the idiotic policies that are making it much more difficult for kids to build model rockets. It's particularly ironic that they missed this in the context of this statement, on page 43:
At present, there are insufficient methods for students to acquire hands-on experience in the scientific and technical disciplines necessary for space commerce and exploration.
A strongly worded reprimand, or at least a mention, in this report would have elevated the issue within the administration, but its absence means that it won't even be considered in the context of the new initiative.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:54 AMThomas James, amidst his own problems of an interstate move, has done us all the favor of providing the findings and recommendations of the Aldridge report.
[Update a few minutes later]
He has several more condensation posts. Just keep clicking on "next" and "previous" from the above links to find them all.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:58 PMAbout human spaceflight and its problems. From The Economist. If we could get consistently smart coverage like this, the job would get much easier.
[Via Alan Boyle]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:42 PMI've had a chance to read through the Aldridge Commission report, and I've made some notes along the way. I have no doubt that much of this is duplicated by other blogging spacehounds, but I haven't yet surveyed the blogosphere. After the usual suspects take a shot at it perhaps we can compare notes and put together a canonical list of kvetches, comments and compliments.
First, an observation that's long overdue. It's been around in the activist community for decades, but it's nice to see it getting some traction with people who might actually be listened to:
NASAs relationship to the private sector, its organizational structure, business culture, and management processes all largely inherited from the Apollo era must be decisively transformed to implement the new, multi-decadal space exploration vision.
In the executive summary this recommendation stands out:
(We recommend) the Administration and Congress work with NASA to create 3 new NASA organizations:
a technical advisory board that would give the Administrator and NASA leadership independent and responsive advice on technology and risk mitigation plans;
an independent cost estimating organization to ensure cost realism and accuracy; and
a research and technology organization that sponsors high risk/high payoff technology advancement while tolerating periodic failures;
The three items are all necessary, but it's the second one which is most important. The powers that be within NASA will struggle mightily to retain some control over it precisely because an *independent* cost estimating organization won't fall for the kind of rubbish that gave us the litany of overbudget hangar queens of the last decade. The cost estimation arm has to be truly independent in order to be effective. If the people working there have any kind of conflict of interest it will endanger the whole operation.
The ideal cost estimation organization should not even be in the NASA hierarchy. It should be outside NASA, reporting directly to Vice President or whoever the administration gives the space portfolio to. It should consist of a small permanent staff, with people drawn from academia, government, and industry as they are needed. Where the report gets into details it pretty much says exactly that, with concrete examples of other such organizations.
The third organization, the R&D sponsorship group, is also going to be very hard to get right. There have to be a certain number of failures, or you're not pushing the envelope. As long as the sponsorship organization is kept separate from the teams actually performing the research the fallout from those failures ought not affect the organization's mindset too much. Presumably there will be political pressure to fund research in the home districts of powerful politicians, but it's not like that's new. Because the funding power is separated from the research institutions, the funding organization can push the research in more productive directions even if politics make it an imperative that at least some money be spent at a particular institution. This will only work if the funding agency is held accountable for the usefulness of the work in some manner. In the worst case all the funding is parceled out to institutions for the pet project du jour, and the funding organization is not accountable for the value of the research performed. This is a separate issue from the success or failure of the individual projects. It's quite possible to hit 100% of project goals within budget on a research project that does nothing at all of any use to anybody.
Next, a little bit that's 100% right:
( We recommend) Congress increase the potential for commercial opportunities related to the national space exploration vision by providing incentives for entrepreneurial investment in space, by creating significant monetary prizes for the accomplishment of space missions and/or technology developments and by assuring appropriate property rights for those who seek to develop space resources and infrastructure.
Property rights! wohooo! Probably the single most important thing in the entire report. If only one recommendation is implemented, let's hope it's this one. It's also nice to see the prize meme propagating back into the mainstream. Thank you Peter Diamandis.
Unfortunately they follow up with perhaps the worst recommendation in the entire report:
(We recommend) NASA pursue international partnerships based upon an architecture that would encourage global investment in support of the vision.
Those wonderful international partnerships that place the project concerned at the mercy of every election, every shift of political power and every economic downturn, in every major participating nation. Yay! sublinear accretion of benefits, and nonlinear compounding of pitfalls. What's not to like about that?
Regarding the implementation of the recommendations for structural change within NASA, the report says:
Suffice to say that NASA must fully explore and use the long list of available lessons, and fully internalize those lessons to manage what will surely be mankinds most complex technical undertaking.
I wholeheartedly agree with this, but I worry that NASA has a particularly severe case of 'Not Invented Here' syndrome, which makes it hard for them to learn lessons from outsiders. Perhaps a top level purge followed by an infusion of people from DARPA, DOE, and industry might help. Incidentally, the NASA org chart on page 24 speaks volumes about what's wrong with the status quo.
The list of enabling technologies is unremarkable, apart from the fact that they list the need for affordable heavy lift, which isn't rightly NASA's business. I firmly believe we can do everything that's needed with cargo in the class of Delta IV Heavy and lower. We need to really suss out one orbit assembly, but that's the case anyway, so why bitch about heavy lift? What needs to happen is prices need to come down, but that just means flight rates need to go up, as Rand has said here and elsewhere on many occasions.
In section III there are a few home runs, in particular the need for regulatory relief (this is an issue that directly affects the suborbital launch services industry, and has been raised by the SubOrbital Institute in our lobbying tours of Congress), and property rights, which I've already discussed.
The science agenda is fairly solid, though dropping the word 'evolution' might be politically savvy. 'Development' might be a better term. For some people evolution is a hot enough button that they're going to react instinctively against it. I have little respect for those people, but I'd rather not have them oppose what is basically a good idea just because they can't understand part of it.
The final set of recommendations has to do with inspiring future generations, which has been a part of the space program from the beginning. I happen to think that if we're doing genuine exploration we don't need a program element specifically aimed at inspiring people. The simple fact of doing real exploration is inspiration enough. Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute has a small budget devoted to outreach and education, but even if they didn't, kids would still be inspired by the activities of Alvin and the bizarre lifeforms of the abyss. All that's really needed in order to make inspiration more accessible is a little training of the explorers themselves in how to communicate complex information to technically unsophisticated audiences, and making some video available on a website.
Overall, the report is nearly exactly what the doctor ordered. The main objections I have are to the suggestion we need heavy lift, and to the recommendation that international partnerships be pursued. Of these two, the heavy lift suggestion may be the more harmful, since at least it's possible to pursue international cooperation without putting the partners on the critical path (in fact they suggest how to do this in the report). Heavy lift, on the other hand, will inevitably end up on the critical path if it's seriously pursued at all. This leaves the whole enterprise at the mercy of a single program of exactly the sort that NASA and its contractors have so thoroughly hosed in the past.
It's a good report, and well worth reading. The Commission did an excellent job.
Posted by Andrew Case at 06:12 PMAvailable here. There will be more detailed discussion later, either by me or Rand.
One point that stands out is the picture of Mars on the cover. I for one am sick of Mars. It's "Moon, Mars, and Beyond". Mars is a middle step, and it's one that provides enemies of the President and opponents of manned spaceflight with a convenient straw man to knock down. Frankly, I'd much rather see flights to NEAs before Mars, but the sex appeal of Mars for some outweighs other considerations. It's just a cover, and you can't judge a book, blah, blah,blah, but really, folks: we have a perfectly good planetessimal only a couple of days travel time from Earth, and a bunch of others equally accessible passing through the neighborhood all the time. Is it too much to ask that we focus our attention on the next step instead of the step after the step after the step after...?
On the plus side, a quick read through suggests the commission does have their collective head screwed on fairly straight. But the person who picked the cover picture should be slapped around a little.
Update a few minutes later: Yes, I saw the little chunk of moon at the bottom of the cover. It's a nice image, standing on the moon looking at Mars (ignoring the scale issues). Still, the cover to me says Mars is the objective, which it shouldn't be. There's a better image a few pages into the report, showing not just Mars, but also earth and some of the gas giants. I particularly like the Gas giant pictures, because nobody has a serious plan for making them part of the program. It's a straightforward acknowledgement that we really don't know what the later steps of the process will be.
[Update in the evening]
Here's a link to a follow-up discussion post, for those who've been linked to this post from elsewhere.
Posted by Andrew Case at 09:36 AMAlan Boyle points to Sam Dinkin's article at this week's The Space Review that contends that there will be three players in the suborbital market (not because he has identified three favorites, but because that's the way markets of this kind tend to work). Alan then predicts that Space Adventures will be one of them.
Well, maybe, but not necessarily.
This isn't to imply that Space Adventures won't survive, or continue to be successful, but I question its categorization of a spaceline. To date, it hasn't acted in that role, or rather, it hasn't acted fully in that role.
We have to define terms here. I consider a spaceline to be an entity that operates spaceliners. It can perform other functions (such as marketing, which is what Space Adventures primarily does), but if it doesn't do that, it's not a spaceline, any more than a company that doesn't lease/own, and operate airliners can be considered an airline.
In the aviation industry, we have large commercial aircraft manufacturers, like Boeing and Airbus (the only two surviving after the consolidation of the past few decades), and we have airlines, which purchase or lease those aircraft and actually operate them, providing air transportation services to the public. The airlines market their services to the general public, and Boeing doesn't have to worry about that--they only have to market their airplanes to the airlines.
In the early days, it wasn't as cleanly delineated. In fact, in the thirties, the aircraft manufacturers also operated the airplanes, and established their own airline services. For instance, in the late twenties, Boeing had an airline called Boeing Air Transport. This company later purchased and merged with three other airlines to become United Airlines.
As a result of the Air Mail Scandal, in which charges were made of improper awarding of routes to politically powerful conglomerates, the airlines were forced to divest themselves of association with aircraft manufacturers, and we ended up with the system that we have today.
However, it's not clear what the model will be for spacelines. Certainly initially, the people who build space transports will operate them, because no one else will know how, but it remains to be seen how the business models will work. The traditional wisdom is that with such a small market, the money is to be made in operations, rather than manufacturing, because there's no need for that many vehicles.
In any event, I in fact founded Interglobal Space Lines years ago because I recognized a hole in the space industry. For aviation, there's an interface between the flying public and the aircraft manufacturers--it's called an airline. But there were no spacelines, and if someone wanted a ride into space, they had to deal directly with a launch vehicle manufacturer, who didn't know how to deal with the general public--their customer base was government agencies and comsat manufacturers. My hope was that in founding a spaceline, I could start to address this disconnect.
I still hope to do that, as some of the vehicle designs and operations mature to the point that they can be purchased and operated by a separate entity. In fact, one of the things that I've been talking to FAA-AST about as the new regs have evolved is ensuring that launch licenses can cover providers who aren't the vehicle manufacturer (analogous to having a Part 121 Operaters certificate). There's no current precedent in the space industry for this--all licenses issued to date have been to the vehicle manufacturer, but I've been assured that there's nothing in the current regulations that would prohibit it.
Anyway, as I said, in this formulation, Space Adventures is not an operator--they are a marketer of other entities' services. This is an important role, but they're not (yet) a spaceline. Only time will tell whether or not they choose to become one, and are successful at it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:00 AMArmadillo Aerospace had a perfect flight of their testbed vehicle yesterday. There's video (7 MB MPEG) and some notes on the Armadillo website.
It's a really impressive flight, reminiscent of DC-X, if a bit shorter (and a heck of a lot cheaper). Congratulations to the Armadillo crew.
Posted by Andrew Case at 06:33 AMHere's a little blurb from this week's Av Week (subscription required--I don't know if it's even available on line with a subscription):
Easy On The ELVsNASAs astronauts arent exactly ready to kick the tires and light the fires for aride on human-rated Atlas V and Delta IV Evolved Expendable launch Vehicles 9EELVs), an early candidate for getting the proposed Crew Expendable Vehicle to Orbit. In a May 4 white paper the Astronaut Office at Johnson space Center call the for an order of magnitude reduction in the fatality risk on ascent, and fret that an EELV simply may not be up to the takes even with upgrades for human safety. These rockets belong to a family of vehicles with a success rate of 0.975, the white paper states, noting for comparison that on ascent the space shuttle has a 0.991 rate even counting the Challenger disaster. Even with extensive modification, they may never achieve a meaningfully higher success rate. The Astronaut Office took the position that human rating should be designed in, not appended on. Upgrading EELVs could potentially be as costly as building a new human-rated booster, and still would place excessive burden on abort mechanisms to save the crew with a reliability estimate of 95% based on the record of the older Atlas, Delta and Titan rockets.
- Av Week, 14 Jun 04, page 15, first column, upper left.
The (NASA) astronauts are being self centered here, and I don't mean that in the sense of looking out for their own keesters--I mean that they're ignoring the fact that they're not going to be the only people going into orbit over the next couple decades. If they simply want to object to putting up a capsule on an EELV, I agree with them as far as that goes--it's a very expensive way of getting into orbit. But there are a lot of other issues involved as well. I'm not sure what they're proposing here as an alternative, and I do in fact think that a capsule on an EELV would be safer than the Shuttle, even if it's not as reliable.
The emailer who sent this item to me notes:
I have several criticisms. First, the author(s) believe that a new vehicle can be made more reliable than existing ones by virtue of setting the requirements. The two subproblems here are that they do not understand debugging a new product, and they ignore the marketplace that is trying to do that and hoping to sell vehicles to these people to increase their experience base.Second, they think the budget to do this is going to come from...................where?
Third, and most importantly, they don't seem to grasp that you have to assume that any given vehicle will fail. Given that, the escape tower and/or ejection seats are what save your bacon.
Yes. EELV may not be reliable, but it will be safe (just as the Russians were saved with an abort motor off the pad back in the mid eighties).
They also, like many others, use the word "human rating" as though it has some universally understood meaning. We can get vehicles as reliable as they seem to desire, but we won't do it in a single generation, and we won't do it via a NASA contract to a NASA contractor (and it won't happen via "human rating"). If the astronauts really want to get safe and reliable vehicles, they'll be encouraging their agency to put up money to buy rides from the emerging entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, it looks like the Aldridge Commission is going to let the agency stay in the manned space transportation business. If so, that's probably the biggest single flaw in their report.
By the way, if any astronauts are reading this (I know that at least one does), I'd be happy to post your comments, without attribution. It's an important debate.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:16 AMThat's what Michael Mealing says the Gray Lady is.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:58 AMJeff Foust points out another article on the upcoming commission report over at AP. As Jeff points out:
The article also notes that "some experts have said President Bush's goals could ultimately cost $1 trillion," citing Douglas Osheroff, the Stanford physicist and CAIB member. Perhaps that shows that even Nobel laureates can be lousy cost estimators
Indeed. This is a dumb statement on several levels, and it's disappointing it to see it come from a member of the CAIB. It demonstrates to me why it's a bad idea to put scientists on such panels (or at least why it's not automatically a good one--there are obviously exceptions, such as Dick Feynman, and I'd love to have seen Freeman Dyson on the commission).
First of all, there's zero basis for it, as Dwayne Day has shown.
Second, it's even more meaningless in the absence of a precise definition of what the "President's space goals" are, with a timetable. Does he mean lunar base, plus Mars landing? A Mars settlement? How many people? How long will it be there? If it's there for hundreds of years, the costs could be in the trillions, but the benefits might be even more.
Which gets to the real issue, which is that we analyze space policy in a very dysfunctional way that we rarely, if ever, do with any other kind of public investment--an ongoing symptom of our continuing decades-long hangover from the exhilaration of Apollo and the Cold War.
Jeff has a good article at the Space Review today with some sensible things said by scientists, particularly by Wes Huntress. Wes addresses the issue appropriately:
Huntress had two general recommendations for the plan. The first called for NASA to look outside the agency for exploration architectures. The agency should do everything possible to solicit and engage as many innovative ideas as they can from individuals and organizations throughout the nation and other countries before drawing the roads on the map of the solar system and specifying the vehicles that are going to travel on them, he said. This, he feels, is a necessary step towards gaining ownership of this enterprise among more than just NASA and its major contractors today.His second, and arguably more difficult, recommendation is for Congress to view the exploration plan as a long-term investment in the nation. The current tendency is for Congress to focus on total cost, he said. Theres no such number. This number is incalculable for the very same reason that no one could have provided such a number when Eisenhower initiated the US interstate highway system in the 1950s. The correct approach, he said, is to determine how much money is needed each year to sustain real progress towards the goals of the policy.
Yes. As I said back in January, the key point is that the president has now made it the explicit policy of the nation that we will expand humanity out into the solar system. That is new. The rest is details. As far as how much it costs, there's no way to determine that, and it makes no more sense to ask that than it would have been to ask how much it would cost to develop Alaska after Seward committed his "folly." And as unknowable as the investment is, the return is even more so, in monetary terms or any other.
We will, as a nation, decide how much annual federal resources to devote to the job, and we will, as individuals and companies, decide how much in the way of private resources to invest (with those decisions driven at least in part by smart or dumb federal policies independently of federal expenditures). Then we will accomplish as much as we can, as quickly as we can, within those budgetary constraints. It's pointless to argue that it's too expensive--we simply have to decide if we want to advance the broad goal, and then decide how much we want to spend how fast.
Historically, since Apollo, we seem to be willing to spend about a percent of the federal budget on spaceflight, and we can certainly afford to continue to do that. If it's spent more intelligently than it has been in the past, with better focus and less bureaucracy, we could make an astounding amount of progress with that funding level.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:57 AMBrian Berger has apparently gotten an early look at the Aldridge Commission report, now scheduled to be publicly released Wednesday.
It has some encouraging things, but there are also some areas of concern.
It says that NASA should rely on the private sector for transportation to LEO, which is good, but it also excludes human transportation from that, which is an implicit go-ahead for the Crew Exploration Vehicle on an expensive expendable. I find this program almost as economically senseless as the Orbital Space Plane was, if envisioned as a Shuttle replacement (a role that many are urging for it), but apparently there's too much political pressure to build such a thing to kill it off completely.
I think that NASA is setting itself up for embarrassment a decade from now when their vaunted "Crew Exploration Vehicle" ends up costing hundreds of millions of dollars per flight while there are regular space tourism flights to orbit costing a couple of orders of magnitude less. By giving NASA permission to ignore the private sector for passenger services, the commission is simply putting off further the day that it will become a reality.
The other concern is this:
The commission also identified 17 enabling technologies needed to accomplish the exploration goals. These include an affordable heavy lift capability, advanced power and propulsion, automated spacecraft rendezvous and docking capability, high bandwidth communications, closed loop life supports systems, better spacesuits for astronauts and others.
"Affordable heavy lift capability" is not a technology, and its certainly not an enabling one. At best, to the degree that it's a technology at all, it's an enhancing one. "Enabling" implies that we can't do without it. I absolutely reject the notion that it is essential, and if we believe that it is, it will simply hold us back in schedule while we wait for it to appear, and we will miss a lot of opportunities for innovation.
This heavy-lift fetish is going to be (or at least should be) one of the major space policy debate issues, because it is a hingepoint for the direction of our near-term future.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:44 AMThe New York Times has an article on SpaceShipOne today. It's a good piece, though it doesn't talk much about the potential for the suborbital flight industry. My biggest issue with it is a subtle one--it appears in the Science section. There's nothing in the article about science, but it just shows how inextricable the perceived relationship is between space and science in the public mind (including New York Times reporters). Now that we're starting to get accurate stories about this, the next step is to get them where they belong--in the Business sections.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:28 AMA meteorite hit a home in New Zealand. Nobody hurt.
Posted by Andrew Case at 07:47 AMBrian Berger has a preview of the Aldridge Commission report. This is the part that (obviously) piqued my interest:
Specifically, the commission will recommend that:...NASA allow the private industry "to assume the primary role of providing services to NASA, and most immediately in accessing low-Earth orbit..."
I'll be interested in seeing the elaboration on this topic. As usual, the devil will be in the details.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:29 AMAlan Boyle asked for commentary on Ronald Reagan's legacy for space. My thoughts on that subject are over at National Review Online today.
[Update a few minutes later]
And there was tribute to him today, from space.
[Update at 8 AM PDT]
Here's a more NASA-centric tribute to him from Sean O'Keefe.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:47 AMHere's another good story about the upcoming flight, the X-Prize, and its implications, with an LA angle.
[Via Clark Lindsey]
Many X Prize competitors plan on making their millions in space tourism, even if they dont win the prize itself. Maryniak says their expectations are reasonable. To paraphrase Pogo, we have found the payload of the future, and it is us, he says. In a recent poll, seven out of 10 people said that if they could buy a ticket to space, theyd go.
The "giggle factor" continues to diminish. And here's a related story.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:06 PMMichael Mealing has some interesting commentary (similar to what I might say if I had the time) to a conventional-wisdom article from James Burk. Yes, it is a fisking, but a gentle one, and a needed one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:56 AMI don't know if I've mentioned this previously. I've been thinking it, but may have been too busy to post.
Here's my theory on why they picked the solstice. It has nothing to do with the fact that it's the solstice. I think that it's because thirty days later is the thirty-fifth anniversary of the first moon landing. Burt (and perhaps Paul Allen) seem to be big on anniversaries.
[Update at 3:30 PM PDT]
Andrew Gray has an even better theory in comments:
Unless I'm miscounting, thirty days *less one*; isn't Apollo 11 generally taken as being July 20th? (which is also the anniversary, I note, of the eventual recovery of Liberty Bell 7...)But on that note, July 21, 1961 - Liberty Bell 7's flight, being the second suborbital flight, might be considered not inappropriate as a date?
That aside, this does beg the question... what is in the two weeks after that, if he's so keen on anniversaries? It'd be unusual to not have one for the second flight, if this is his plan as you suggest...
He's right on the arithmetic--I forgot about the old "thirty days has September, April, June, and November." And it would be an appropriate anniversary.
But as for the fourteen-day one, they would be foolish to wait fourteen days for the second attempt. They'll do it as quickly as they can, so they have some margin in case they have weather or other problems. The first time you have the luxury of choosing an anniversary date, but the second one has to be driven solely by winning the prize.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:31 AMClark Lindsey has some details of an Aviation Week (subscription required, so no link) article on the planned SpaceShip One flight in the latest RLV News. Well worth a read.
Posted by Andrew Case at 11:02 AMHere's a UPI story about alt-space. The writer, Irene Mona Klotz (of whom I hadn't previously heard), seems to get it. It's great to see this kind of coverage in the mainstream press.
What's even better is that it's the first in a series on the emerging suborbital industry.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:34 PMYes, Andrew, it's just for one day, unfortunately.
And I assume that this means that the NASA briefing in response to the Aldridge report, which was supposed to occur on that day, will be postponed until Monday?
[Update]
A couple commenters aren't reading my post carefully. I'm not referring to the Aldridge Report release, which is scheduled for Thursday. I'm referring to the NASA response to it, which was scheduled for Friday. Follow the link.
[Update late afternoon]
As another commenter points out, the whole thing has been delayed until next week.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:58 AMDisney doesn't seem to think so.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:21 PMThe commission's report will be released next Thursday, a little less than five months after the president's announcement of the new policy and the formation of the commission. NASA will have a briefing on it the next day, a week from today.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:04 AMVia Clark Lindsey, here's an article on the upcoming SpaceShipOne flight that's more than just a regurgitation of Scaled's press release. It helped that the author interviewed Jeff Foust about it. I only found one problem with it.
The pilot, who will become the first nongovernmental astronaut in history, then will fly the craft back to Earth after it reconfigures from rocket to glider plane.
Emphasis mine. Apparently he's never heard of Charlie Walker, the Japanese news agency guy, Helen Sharman, Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth...
It would have been correct to say that he was the first astronaut to fly on a non-government-developed vehicle, which is the real significance (particularly when one looks at the relative cost).
I also found this part interesting, because I hadn't previously seen much of a hint about Paul Allen's motives:
Crediting Rutan and the Scaled Composites team with accomplishing "amazing things" without government backing, Allen said SpaceShipOne proves that a privately funded space industry is possible. "Every time SpaceShipOne flies we demonstrate that relatively modest amounts of private funding can significantly increase the boundaries of commercial space technology," Allen said in a statement.Foust said "modest" might be in the eye of the beholder, but Allen's funding had shown that a relatively small amount of money -- on the order of a few tens of millions -- can fund development of a manned, reusable, suborbital spacecraft that could open new markets, such as space tourism.
It's not clear if he has a business plan for follow-on developments, but it is clear that he's been thinking about it. If he starts to compete with fellow Seattleite (Seattleinian?--are either of those correct, or even words?) and dotcom entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, things could get very interesting very quickly.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:12 AMAn emailer points out a local NPR show airing at 1 PM Pacific today in Seattle, with Charlie Vick and Gregg Maryniak (of the X-Prize Foundation).
Here's the promo:
The ConversationGuy Nelson, in for Ross Reynolds
1 pm Pacific KUOW 94.9 fm
Listen to past shows in The Conversation archive
Call-in numbers 206 543 5869, toll free long distance 1-800-289-5869
The first space launch by a private investor will happen this month. The man behind the project: Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. His rocket, called SpaceShip One, is designed for short visits to space, and does not travel fast enough to be put into orbit. What do you think of space travel moving into the private sector? What can they accomplish that NASA can't? What questions do you have for the designers of these new rockets? Would you like to travel to space on a vacation? On The Conversation today, we'll discuss the future of space travel, the Ansari X prize competition and find out what Allen hopes to accomplish.
Join us at 1:00 on KUOW. Call in your thoughts before the show to The Conversation feedback line, 206 221 3663 or send e-mail to conversation@kuow.org.
Join us on the air by calling 206 543 KUOW or 1
800 289 KUOW.GUESTS: (as of 12:00pm PACIFIC)
Dr. Charles Vick: Senior Fellow on Space Policy with GlobalSecurity.org with more than 40 years of experience
Gregg Maryniak: the executive director of Ansari X prize
The show should be available on the archive shortly after it ends, for those who aren't local. I hope that this month's event, and the eventual winning of the prize, causes a lot more public discussion of this topic.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:31 PMOver at RLV News Clark Lindsey writes:
Rand Simberg has been after to me to change the name of this page from RLV News to Space Transport News. Not quite ready to do that but I will promise to refer to the SS1 missions as "flights" rather than "launches". I suggest that all you alt.spacers out there take the pledge as well. Time that we transition out of thinking of spaceflight as a series of one-offs and start thinking in terms of spaceship departures and arrivals instead.
Sounds good to me. Now that I'm done posting, I think I'll shut down my reusable computation machine, get into my reusable wheeled transportation device, and head back to my reusable dwelling unit :-)
Posted by Andrew Case at 11:44 AMThere's a piece up on Spaceref on the lessons from the Columbia accident. I don't think there's anything really new there, but it's worth a read anyway.
One thing that stands out is this quote, from Aristotle: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Posted by Andrew Case at 07:11 AMSpaceShipOne will attempt the first flight to a hundred kilometers on the summer solstice, June 21, about three weeks from today, according to an email from Jim Oberg.
[Update on Wednesday afternoon]
Leonard David has the story.
Here's the full press release (in response to a question that Duncan Young asks in comments):
Mojave, CA: A privately-developed rocket plane will launch into history on June 21 on a mission to become the worlds first commercial manned space vehicle. Investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen and aviation legend Burt Rutan have teamed to create the program, which will attempt the first non-governmental flight to leave the earths atmosphere.
Paul G. Allen and aviation legend Burt Rutan have teamed to create a manned space program, which will attempt the first non-governmental flight to leave the earths atmosphere. SpaceShipOne will rocket to 100 kilometers (62 miles) into sub-orbital space above the Mojave Civilian Aerospace Test Center, a commercial airport in the California desert. If successful, it will demonstrate that the space frontier is finally open to private enterprise. This event could be the breakthrough that will enable space access for future generations.Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:14 AMAllen, founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc, is financing the project. Along with Allen, Vulcans technology research and development team -- which takes the lead in developing high impact science and technology projects for Allen -- has been active in the projects development and management.
"This flight is one of the most exciting and challenging activities taking place in the fields of aviation and aerospace today," said Paul G. Allen, sole sponsor in the SpaceShipOne program. "Every time SpaceShipOne flies we demonstrate that relatively modest amounts of private funding can significantly increase the boundaries of commercial space technology. Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites have accomplished amazing things by conducting the first mission of this kind without any government backing."
Todays announcement came after SpaceShipOne completed a May 13th, 2004 test flight in which pilot Mike Melvill reached a height of 211,400 feet (approximately 40 miles), the highest altitude ever reached by a non-government aerospace program.
Sub-orbital space flight refers to a mission that flies out of the atmosphere but does not reach the speeds needed to sustain continuous orbiting of the earth. The view from a sub-orbital flight is similar to being in orbit, but the cost and risks are far less.
The pilot (to be announced at a later date) of the up-coming June sub-orbital space flight will become the first person to earn astronaut wings in a non-government sponsored vehicle, and the first private civilian to fly a spaceship out of the atmosphere.
Since Yuri Gagarin and Al Shepards epic flights in 1961, all space missions have been flown only under large, expensive Government efforts. By contrast, our program involves a few, dedicated individuals who are focused entirely on making spaceflight affordable, said Burt Rutan. Without the entrepreneur approach, space access would continue to be out of reach for ordinary citizens. The SpaceShipOne flights will change all that and encourage others to usher in a new, low-cost era in space travel.
SpaceShipOne was designed by Rutan and his research team at the California-based aerospace company, Scaled Composites. Rutan made aviation news in 1986 by developing the Voyager, the only aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without refueling.
To succeed takes more than the work of designers and builders, Rutan said, The vision, the will, the commitment and the courage to direct the program is the most difficult hurdle. We are very fortunate to have the financial support and the confidence of a visionary like Paul Allen to make this effort possible.
To reach space, a carrier aircraft, the White Knight, lifts SpaceShipOne from the runway. An hour later, after climbing to approximately 50,000 feet altitude just east of Mojave, the White Knight releases the spaceship into a glide. The spaceship pilot then fires his rocket motor for about 80 seconds, reaching Mach 3 in a vertical climb. During the pull-up and climb, the pilot encounters G-forces three to four times the gravity of the earth.
SpaceShipOne then coasts up to its goal height of 100 km (62 miles) before falling back to earth. The pilot experiences a weightless environment for more than three minutes and, like orbital space travelers, sees the black sky and the thin blue atmospheric line on the horizon. The pilot (actually a new astronaut!) then configures the crafts wing and tail into a high-drag configuration. This provides a care-free atmospheric entry by slowing the spaceship in the upper atmosphere and automatically aligning it along the flight path. Upon re-entry, the pilot reconfigures the ship back to a normal glider, and then spends 15 to 20 minutes gliding back to earth, touching down like an airplane on the same runway from which he took off. The June flight will be flown solo, but SpaceShipOne is equipped with three seats and is designed for missions that include pilot and two passengers.
Unlike any previous manned space mission, the June flight will allow the public to view, up close, the takeoff and landing as well as the overhead rocket boost to space. This will be an historic and unique spectator opportunity. Information for the general public on attending the event is available at www.scaled.com.
Based on the success of the June space flight attempt, SpaceShipOne will later compete for the Ansari X Prize, an international competition to create a reusable aircraft that can launch three passengers into sub-orbital space, return them safely home, then repeat the launch within two weeks with the same vehicle.
The Discovery Channel and Vulcan Productions are producing RUTANS RACE FOR SPACE (wt), a world premiere television special that documents the entire process of the historic effort to create the first privately-funded spacecraft. From design to flight testing to the moments of the actual launch and return, the special takes viewers behind-the-scenes for the complete, inside story of this historic aerospace milestone. RUTANS RACE FOR SPACE will be broadcast later this year.
Via RocketForge, apparently one of the things that came up at the recent ISDC conference was 10 reasons not to go into space.
I particularly like #9 Space is "just another rich white guy's playground", kind of like the deep ocean is just another rich white guy's playground, right? In the short term, space development will quite likely involve rich white guys getting their jollies. The RWGs will subsidize technology development that will get the rest of us up there. Sounds great to me - after all, joyrides into space will have a lot better impact on the long term future of humanity than an equivalent amount of money spent on a game fishing vacation.
Incidentally, it looks like there's an NSS blog now, with Arthur Smith at the helm (or at least lurking in the pilothouse :-) I look forward to reading it.
Posted by Andrew Case at 09:58 AMVia RLV News, Alan Boyle has a piece on the much needed senate companion to HR3752, which is being held up for reasons that don't actually make much sense. Read Alan's piece for details. This is one of the issues we were working on SubOrbital Day. Hopefully we won't have to revisit it next time.
Posted by Andrew Case at 06:49 PM...is here. Two movies of flights, including a minor prang.
Posted by Andrew Case at 08:32 PMVia email, Transterrestrial web designer Bill Simon points out this interesting site for rocket builders.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:11 AMRead Kevin Parkin's excellent account of yesterday's town hall meeting at JPL (in the comments section of Jeff Foust's post announcing it), and weep:
From memory (expect lots of errors):Estimated average audience age - 55 years
Estimated audience size - 250
Aprox. % of JPLers - 80%
Estimated people there my age (27) or younger - 10 (including the camera man, myself, and Derek Shannon (see earlier comment))Sen. Brownback gave a 5 min intro to set the stage for the town hall meeting, making it clear that he was highly interested in innovative suggestions for how to structure the legislative architecture of the exploration initiative. Rep. Rohrabacher said a few words and was congratulated by JPL President Charles Elachi on having triplets this month. Also in attendance was Buzz Aldrin and Gen. Pete Worden.
- The first audience speaker spoke eloquently and extolled the virtues of prizes and industry collaboration. Sen. Brownback asked people who did/didn't support prizes to raise their hands. Sen. Brownback asked the audience speaker how much the prize award should be. This seems to be a point of particular interest, since Sen. Brownback asked precisely the same question of Elon Musk at the launcher hearing a couple of weeks ago. Back then, Elon Musk said something like it should be 10% of the amount the government would otherwise spend on developing that capability. This time, the answer was "as much as possible" to which there was laughter and Sen. Brownback rephrased the question, how little can we spend on prizes? Nothing as good as Elon's answer was put forward.
- The gentleman sitting on my left believed that the focus of NASA should not be on exploring Mars but rather on studying the dynamics of Earth, global warming, etc. Knowing of Rep. Rohrabachers views on this subject I watched the expression on his face as this was said. Rep. Rohrabacher patiently waited and then said that he couldn't disagree more with said gentleman. So began a period of booing and a sequence of rebuttals from various members of the audience throughout the remainder of the evening.
- Someone else suggested that looking at computer images was just as good as listening to an astronaut give a first-person account of their experiences of exploration/other planets. Most people in the room disagreed in a reserved way.
- One lady declared that we should spend billions of dollars on space, so that unbelievers in Jesus could all be sent to the moon. This was arguably the highlight of the meeting, and I briefly imagined churches passing around collection plates for money to send me to the moon, and then happily recalled the episode of South Park where the church sent missionaries to convert aliens on the planet Marklar and so held a TV funding drive for a spaceship, photon torpedoes etc.
- One elderly lady spoke at length, beginning by mentioning her two congressional science medals, moving on to discredit herself by saying something like the settlement of the moon would be impossible because the lack of magnetic field on the moon, and therefore the radiation would kill everyone. She finished up by saying that NASA wouldn't spend $100K to maintain the only laser capable of ranging the moon (to the accuracy of ~1 cm) and that she had spent the last 20 years of her life fighting for that small slice of funding. Sen. Brownback listened with a concerned expression.
- Sen. Brownback at some point took a show of hands who thought we would be on the moon in 30 years, then 20 years. Very few thought 20 years.
- One gentleman referred to the human exploration program as not generating any useful science (except on how humans degrade in space) and referred to the space station as a useless tin can. He was against the exploration initiative because science had so far been much better conducted by robotic craft than humans (*).
- One gentleman in front of me said that these JPL scientists understandably viewed the exploration initiative as a purely scientific endeavor, when in fact there were other less tangible motivations too, such as exploration itself. He did not mention reversing the decline of the science base or the military justifications, but nevertheless he was about the only person who had taken on board the essence of this new initiative. He is the NASA employee I would keep.
- Sen. Brownback asked how people might feel if someone else were to colonize the moon and then there was some discussion of international cooperation, particularly with Russia. Sen. Brownback seemed unaware of the pitfalls of international collaboration in making projects _very_ expensive, but did make a good point that ISS would be in a very bad position right now if we had not partnered with Russia.
- Sen. Brownback wrapped up by again thanking JPL for their excellent success with the Mars Rovers, which makes his job of justifying space expenditure on Capitol Hill much easier. Rep. Rohrabacher had earlier expressed the same sentiment, and my own view these expressions were absolutely sincere. Retired congressman Robert Walker said a similar thing to NSS Exec Director George Whitesides at the Aldridge Commission hearing in New York. He basically said that legislators realize the value of space exploration but that without the public continually asking questions about space exploration and a general impression of broad-based popular support, that it was very easy to vote money to veteran's affairs rather than NASA (they compete in the same budget category). Shortly thereafter the Space Exploration Alliance was announced, of which NSS is a member.
(*) On a personal note, this was the viewpoint I had expected from JPL and which I feel is small-minded linear thinking. If we are still conducting robotic science and human operations the same way we do now in 10-15 years, once the exploration initiative gets going, then I may as well go into the finance sector right now and forget my dreams --because they will never happen with the status quo.
I don't have time to comment much on this right now, but I think that it speaks for itself. I will say that in response to the notion that "...ISS would be in a very bad position right now if we had not partnered with Russia," the ISS program would have died a decade ago if we hadn't partnered with Russia. It's not clear to me that that would have been a worse position for it than the present one...
[Update in the afternoon]
Here's a report from a Pasadena reporter.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:25 AMAndrew, my very first Fox News column, a couple of years ago, was on this very subject.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:49 PMIf you don't already have plans for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend (I'll be unpacking boxes in Boca Raton...), and can get to Oklahoma City, think about attending this year's International Space Development Conference. Info on the linked press release.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:23 PMThe 2004 Space Transportation Forecastsis now available. Link via RLV News.
Note the very cool cover art by Phil Smith, who AFAIK accepts commissions, so if you're a startup looking for some artwork, drop him an email.
Jeff Foust, friend of TTM, blogger, and fellow-traveler in the alt.space underground also worked on the report.
Posted by Andrew Case at 01:33 PMNow this is a much more creative (and probably effective) way to herd errant asteroids than crude nukes.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:55 AMJust a reminder, for those interested, that the Centennial Challenges Workshop is coming up the middle of next month in Washington, for anyone who wants to attend and influence the direction of NASA's new prize program.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:42 AM"Fortune Favors The Bold"
That's apparently the motto of the new Exploration Office, complete with logo.
Hmmm...tell it to the Islamonutballs who attack our forces in Iraq and other places, and get generally slaughtered. Methinks that it's one of those things that's a necessary, but not sufficient condition. Smartness is required as well as boldness.
[Hat tip to emailer Ken Talton]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:12 PMDon Peterson has a long disquisition at SpaceRef about why we shouldn't go to Mars via the moon.
The problem with this, of course, is that it presumes that the only goal is to go to Mars. He seems to recognize no intrinsic value in returning to the moon, or in establishing a base there. He's welcome to his opinion, of course, but that's not in concert with the president's goals, and in my opinion, he's wrong. There are many reasons to go back to the moon, as were laid out by several witnesses to the Aldridge commission a few weeks ago, regardless of its eventual utility in supporting a Mars flight.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:39 AMThe post Rand links to below brings up some issues that have been floating around in the amateur rocketry community for some time. There are some people within the community who claim that there is no realistic problem, but they are simply wrong. If amateur rocket scientists are to have any relevance to opening the high frontiers they will develop weapons relevant technologies. The simple and obvious reason for this is that rockets are a transportation technology, and as such they can be used to transport harmful payloads just as aircraft, boats, and trucks can.
Compounding this problem is the fact that the ideal method for developing new technologies or bringing established technologies within reach of amateurs is to leverage the power of information technology to facilitate collaboration between widely separated individuals and groups. This is something that Michael Mealling of RocketForge has been working on for some time now. The Arocket mailing list is another collaborative tool (and Michael has been extremely helpful in providing tools to the Arocket community such as the Arocket Wiki).
I've been working on an igniter for some time which is part of a collaborative project with other folks on Arocket (see the Arocket Igniter Wiki on RocketForge for an idea of what we've been up to). One of the nice things about a high reliability bipropellant igniter is that it's not very weapons-relevant since weaponeers tend to prefer either solids or hypergolics. The ARocket Igniter is explicitly intended as an exploration of the feasibility of open development for rocketry. John Carmack has shown that open discussion of R&D efforts can help cut development time and bring out good ideas. It would be very sad if we lost this tool due to terrorism concerns.
The only way forward I can see which both leverages the Open Development model and minimizes the terrorism proliferation risk is to work primarily on systems aimed at manned flight. Obviously a terrorist would love to have access to a manned RLV, but the bad guys can do cost-benefit analysis just as well as anyone else. If the effort required to build a vehicle is high relative to the cost of an alternative attack with equivalent results then the alternative will be preferred. The difficulty associated with construction of a manned vehicle also increases risk exposure from the terrorist standpoint - the more time spent in development, particularly development of a vehicle with a large number of "suspicious" components, the higher the chance of being discovered and the investment being lost. The bad guys face a resource deployment problem that any businessman can relate to - given the available set of resources, how should they be allocated in order to most effectively achieve the desired results? It is within this framework that amateurs must work to ensure that our discussions of rocketry technologies take place in an unfavorable region of the terrorist's resource allocation trade space.
Within the context of this trade space I think that unmanned solids fired straight up with primitive guidance are just about the worst thing amateurs could work on. I won't go into details other than to refer to Jay Manifold's post, and to note that the enemy understands public relations. The target would not be surveillance satellites. It would be ISS, STS, or a Soyuz (almost certainly the former). A manned vehicle would have a much higher chance of success, but also a vastly larger development program, with negative (from the enemy's point of view) impacts on the chances of discovery, as well as large opportunity costs.
Apart from choosing the right problem, the only thing I can see that amateurs can do to be relevant to opening the high frontier is to support an active research and development program in ballistic missile defense. If there is a credible defensive option then the hazard created by easier access to rocketry technologies is much less. This doesn't help the ISS attack scenario, but it reduces concerns due to other factors.
A note on comments: I very much want feedback on this issue, as it directly affects my own choice of future path. However: do not discuss technical details of weaponizing amateur class rockets, modes of attack, or any other technical details which might lower the bar for the bad guys. As a calibration point - Jay's post is a little past the line I am comfortable with, as he discusses some technical details of warhead design and suggests a possible attack scenario. I will delete or edit comments which I think cross the line.
I've gotten a few comments on this post that I want to respond to on the front page. They're subjects that I've discussed before, but there are probably a lot of new readers here, since many of them presumably came via the link from he whose links must be followed and NRO.
Several people expressed comments along the lines below, but I'll just respond to this particular one, since it's pernicious, and I commented at some length on this right after Columbia was lost last year.
I take some offense at the idea that, since we're planning to replace the shuttle fleet anyway, we can send them up to do more dangerous missions because we don't need them for much longer. I'm sorry, but if the safety of the astronauts is in question, as you indicated, then we should not send them up. The shuttles may be expendable, but the humans are not.
I'm sorry that you take offense, but any other idea is irrational, despite your claim to be a science and math teacher. Read again what you wrote. You are saying that human life is infinitely precious, and that there is nothing that's worth its risk.
Now, it's debatable whether or not a Hubble repair is worth that particular risk, but the attitude expressed here will make the president's new human exploration plans moot, since we cannot guarantee the safety of astronauts who go to the moon, or even into low earth orbit, let alone Mars.
I know that this will sound politically incorrect, but the reality is the exact opposite of this reader's commentary. We have more astronauts than we know what to do with, but we only have three orbiters, and they are essentially irreplaceable, since most of the tooling for them and knowledge of how to build them is gone. It would take several years, and many billions of dollars to replace one, and it would be an extremely foolish expenditure. So the decision as to whether or not to save Hubble with a Shuttle has (or at least, should have) little to do with crew safety, and everything to do with whether or not we're willing to risk a third of the remaining fleet. In my opinion, it is worth it, if the odds are 98% success.
This is why the notion that we should send the Shuttle up without crew is senseless. The major asset at risk is the orbiter itself, and sending it up sans people (as another commenter suggested) does nothing except dramatically reduce the possibility that the mission will be successful, at very high cost. Hubble was designed to be serviced by astronauts, and that's the most reliable means for it to be serviced this time as well. If a telerobotic mission is successful (and I consider such a mission very high risk--a subject on which I'll be discoursing further in the coming days), it can be done without Shuttle, and an uncrewed Shuttle adds zero value to a Hubble repair mission.
Let's get this straight once and for all, folks. The primary purpose of sending an orbiter into space is to deliver astronauts into space--the other cargo capacity is just lagniappe. Unmanned orbiter missions are largely pointless, given their ridiculously high cost, yet the notion continues to surface, among both the public and people who should know better, like Congressmen.
This commenter below is entitled to his opinion that:
Hubble needs to be replaced, and not having a telescope in space for a couple of years isn't a big deal at all.
But his opinion is apparently not that of the space-interested public, or there wouldn't have been such a hue and cry when NASA made the decision. There's no question that Hubble needs to be replaced, but it's continuing to provide good science (and beautiful images) and given that we're going to be continuing to spend billions on the Shuttle program, money largely wasted, it would be nice to get a little value out of it for this mission to keep the system alive until it's replaced with something better.
Finally, as to this:
Your probability calculations tell me (I'm a math and science teacher, for the record) that you have fallen into the infamous "gambler's fallacy". Basically, the gambler's fallacy goes something like this: if I flip a coin, and it lands on heads, then the next time I flip the same coin, it is more likely to land on tails, since the coin should land on heads and tails in roughly even amounts. In fact, the probability on the second flip is still exactly 50/50. What you have said here is equivalent, though with a smaller probability. You seem to be claiming that, because the shuttle has a 98% (or so) success rate, and the remaining shuttles have made a large number of successful trips, that the probability of them being destroying is increasing with each successful mission. While this may be true from an engineering standpoint (since parts and materials degrade over time), you can not reach that conclusion by looking at straight probabilities.
I have no idea how he could so misinterpret what I wrote. I am claiming no such thing, and I don't know how I even "seem" to be claiming it. I repeat: "At that reliability, there is a forty percent chance of losing another orbiter (which would cost billions and years to replace) in the next twenty five flights. There's a two in three probability of losing one in the next fifty. That means there's an excellent chance of losing one over the next ten years, at an optimistic flight rate of five per year."
My claims are that if there is a two percent chance of loss per mission:
With which of these statements does our math and science teacher disagree? Which of these statements represents the gambler's fallacy, or says anything about extrapolating the probability of the success of the next flight from past performance?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:37 AMJay Manifold has some disturbing thoughts on the recent successful amateur space launch. He's right--we are going to have to come up with some smart solutions to this problem, or we may remain bound to the planet, which is just one of many ways in which the terrorists could win.
This is, of course, a generic problem with the development of any advanced technology as it becomes increasingly less advanced, and available to a wider distribution of people on the bell curve, both in terms of judgement and evil intent. This was one of the things that had Bill Joy's knickers in a knot a few years ago.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:24 AMNASA was surprised by the reaction to its announcement a few weeks ago that it wasn't going to risk a Shuttle crew to keep the Hubble Space Telescope alive.
It apparently underestimated the popularity of the program. It shouldn't have.
How many people have screen savers of the Shuttle payload bay, or the space station?
How many, in contrast, compute to a background of the Eagle Nebula, or other Hubble images?
Many, particularly in the space science community, were quick to point out the timing of the decision. Was it just a coincidence that, just a few weeks after the president's announcement on January 14 of a new human-exploration space policy, in which NASA's resources would be focused on the goals of sending astronauts to the moon and Mars, Hubble life extension was pronounced to be an unworthy cause on which to risk a Shuttle flight?
Well, actually, it was.
While some of the motivations of the agency in this action remain murky, it's safe to say that, despite the timing, the decision probably wasn't a result of the new space policy. The most likely suspect remains the CAIB report on the loss of the Columbia last February, which was released last fall. While the commission didn't specifically recommend not flying to non-ISS orbits, this was an inferred recommendation from many of the others, given that it's quite possible that the Shuttle crew might have lived, even had the vehicle been written off, had their mission been to the station, where the damage might have been clearly seen and they would have had a safe haven.
But in the timing of all these events and decisions, there seems to be a disconnect in terms of policy. To the degree that the Hubble decision was based on the Gehman recommendations, that decision must now be revisited. Here's why.
The Gehman report was delivered last fall, before the president's January speech. At that time, the space policy of the United States was, among other things, to continue to fly the Space Shuttle as long as possible, until a decision was made to replace it, and its replacement developed. With the loss of Columbia, we had only three orbiters in the Shuttle fleet, making each one very precious if they were to support a program of indefinite duration, particularly given the now-empirical reliability of ninety eight percent (two losses in about a hundred some flights over twenty years). Despite any improvements they're making, that's probably the number that NASA is using to estimate future losses, to be conservative.
What does it mean?
At that reliability, there is a forty percent chance of losing another orbiter (which would cost billions and years to replace) in the next twenty five flights. There's a two in three probability of losing one in the next fifty. That means there's an excellent chance of losing one over the next ten years, at an optimistic flight rate of five per year. Hence the eagerness to follow the Gehman Commission's recommendations and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to solve the problem, because the prevailing policy is to keep the Shuttle fleet flying until it's no longer needed.
OK, now fast forward to January 14th of this year, when the president announces, among other things, that the Shuttle is to be phased out with the planned completion of the International Space Station, in 2010, six years from now.
It's a new policy world. NASA no longer has to worry about sustaining a three-orbiter Shuttle fleet into an indefinite future--they've been told that it only has to fly another thirty flights or so.
In fact, here's the irony.
While its critics are lambasting the agency for sacrificing Hubble on the altar of the new space policy, the new policy in fact would actually justify a Hubble mission. Consider--if it's no longer essential to maintain a three-orbiter fleet into the indefinite future, the two percent risk of losing an orbiter now looks small compared to the value of keeping Hubble going for several more years, until we can be assured of a worthy replacement. If, against the odds, we do lose another orbiter on that mission, the worst case is that it will simply take another couple of years to complete station, at which point we'll still shut down the fleet, if the new policy is to be believed.
So here's the policy disconnect.
We have one part of NASA (the Shuttle program) furiously running off to implement the recommendations of the CAIB, recommendations which were based on a circa-2003 policy made obsolete on January 14th, 2004, with apparently no recognition of the events of that date. We have another part of NASA desperately trying to implement the new, January policy.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that the expensive and delayed Shuttle return-to-flight activities (the latest estimate is to fly again is March, 2005, almost two years after the Columbia loss, and approaching the ridiculously-long standdown after Challenger) should reflect the new, existing policy, and not the old one in which the Gehman report was written. It's conceivable that, if asked, the commission might not change any of their recommendations, but it's insane not to ask them, given the dramatic change in national space goals since they issued the report.
Accordingly, I propose that the Gehman Commission be reconvened to weigh in on this issue. It need not be a several-month-long process, or disrupt the lives of the commission members to the degree that the first one did. No long investigations are needed, no facts have changed, except that the nation has a new space policy. It would be appropriate to gather the commission members in a room once more, to review their recommendations from last fall, and to reconsider them in the light of the new space policy that the president announced in January. It need not take more than a day or three.
The costs of it would be minimal, particularly considering the ongoing costs of NASA continuing down an expensive and perhaps pointless road, one costing many hundreds of millions of dollar per year, in developing expensive fixes to a system that we have already stated as policy will be phased out in much less than a decade.
Mr. President, Administrator O'Keefe, please reconvene the commission. Please reconcile this apparent disconnect of the policy of yesteryear with the forward-looking policy that you proclaimed over three months ago. It may indicate that the current NASA policy is correct, but it might alternatively save many millions of taxpayer dollars on fruitless fixes to an obsolete program. And it may create many more beautiful images from distant times and distant galaxies, images that satisfy both scientists' curiosities, and peoples' aesthetic souls.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:14 PMSubOrbital Day went off pretty smoothly today. We basically walked around in teams briefing Senate staffers on issues of importance to the emerging suborbital launch services industry (see below for our talking points, which pretty much cover everything we talked about). The message was well received for the most part.
We were a little disorganized due to the fact that the principal players are busy building hardware (woohoo!), but everything came together in the end. One kind of cool thing that happened while I was briefing Landon Fulmer, a legislative correspondent for Sam Brownback - the door to the conference room opened up and in walks General Pete Worden, who is working as a Congressional Fellow in Brownback's office. While I was recovering from my surprise, Pat Bahn (who was my teammate) showed up from his previous appointment (we'd split up to make up some lost time). Fortunately Worden and Pat know each other, as evidenced by the fact that Worden offered to deliver Pat's canned SubOrbital background briefing. He did an excellent job of it, too. It's nice to have people who really get it in positions of influence.
I had a similar surge of hope when Steve Parker, a Legislative Fellow in Bill Nelson's office, started asking about the Black Armadillo. Very encouraging, especially considering we were meeting in a room covered with Space Shuttle pictures - I thought making the SubOrbital pitch would be like trying to sell Linux to Bill Gates. A pleasant surprise indeed.
It was nice to catch up with the SubOrbital Institute usual suspects, though Neil Milburne of Armadillo wasn't there, most likely since they are building and testing hardware at a furious rate. There's going to be some interesting news in the coming months, not just related to the X Prize. Unfortunately I can't divulge everything, but stay tuned.
Posted by Andrew Case at 08:15 PMBoy, ask and ye shall receive. A few more posts like that, on a regular basis, Andrew, and I could retire. Unfortunately, this blog has a lousy pension plan.
And after y'all have read Andrew's post on Suborbital Day, head over to The Space Review, where Jeff Foust explains, once again, why we shouldn't build a new heavy-lift vehicle.
The Saturn 5 proved that heavy-lift vehicles can enable human exploration of the Moon. Its tempting to go back to what worked, but different times require different solutions. In the 1960s, the Saturn 5 was the best option in an era where the goal was less to explore than Moon than to beat the Soviets. Today, with no real race against another superpower, the goal should be to blaze new trails into the solar system in such a way that others can follow. The Saturn 5 didnt do that, and their modern equivalents may be similarly ill-suited to that task. If the long-term goal is, in the words of one advocacy organization, to create a spacefaring civilization, perhaps its time to leave the Saturn 5 and their ilk in the past, and seek a new approach.Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:30 AM
Today is SubOrbital Day, a lobbying event for the SubOrbital Institute. I've cut 'n' pasted the talking points for the day below the fold. I'll post more later, possibly tomorrow if the evening wrapup is especially festive. We'll be walking around Capitol Hill briefing Senate staffers on the issues below, trying to encourage them to take action that will make it easier for you and me to get into space.
Who are we?
The Suborbital Institute (SOI) is a trade association promoting the suborbital reusable launch vehicle (RLV) industry. Institute members include RLV developers TGV Rockets, XCOR Aerospace, Armadillo Aerospace, X-Rocket LLC, and Vela Technology.
Why are we here?
SOI is urging legislative action to promote the industry. Specifically, were pushing:
Senate passage of H.R. 3752
Reform of the International Trafficking in Arms Regulations (ITARs)
Restoration of the DOCs moribund Office of Space Commerce
H.R. 3752
H.R. 3752 is the first commercial space legislation to pass the House since the Commercial Space Act of 1998, which specifically authorized reentry vehicles and reusable launch vehicles. H.R. 3752 specifically authorizes space tourism, clarifies jurisdiction within FAA for suborbital vehicles, establishes an experimental permit regime for RLV flight testing, requires that training and medical standards be set for crew members and space tourists, authorizes FAA/ASTs budget for three years, continues the present indemnification regime for three years, and calls for a study of how to phase out indemnification. We are pleased the Congress has demonstrated a clear commitment to suborbital flight with this bill, and continues the 20-year effort the Federal government has made in supporting the commercial space industry.
ITAR
The ITAR Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) is out of control. Intended to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, it has instead driven foreign customers of U.S. launch providers to the competition, because the U.S. satellite manufacturers cant talk to their customers about anything technical. This has cost the U.S. satellite industry billions of dollars since 1998, when administration of MTCR was moved from DOD to State. It is also having a negative impact on the suborbital industry: we are unable to hire some very talented rocket engineers because they are not U.S. citizens.
Office of Space Commerce
Within the Department of Commerce, the Office of Space Commerce (OSC) has been doing excellent work on a shoestring for years. They have produced a number of excellent reports about the U.S. launch industry, including a 2002 report on the suborbital industry which was very helpful in reducing the giggle factor associated with space tourism and other suborbital markets. OSC has no budget, no permanent director, a staff of one (1) out of five (5) authorized, and they are perennially ignored within Commerce. We think theyve been doing a great job, and we want them to keep doing it, but they need help. Wed like to see their budget restored, a permanent director hired, and the Office staffed to its authorized level. Theyve done great with two and three people; they could really shine with five.
H.R. 3752
H.R. 3752, the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004, does many things to enhance the U.S. RLV industry. H.R. 3752:
Specifically delegates space launch licensing authority to AST;
Specifically authorizes commercial human space flight, including space tourism;
Defines suborbital rocket and suborbital trajectory, clarifying FAA/AST jurisdiction over suborbital launch vehicles;
Defines crew and space flight participant (a customer, but distinct from a passenger of a common carrier);
Requires that training and medical standards be set for crew members;
Requires launch providers to disclose their safety records, in writing, to prospective space flight participants;
Requires launch providers to obtain informed consent, in writing, from space flight participants before launch;
Creates a fly at your own risk liability regime for space flight participants (requires that they mutually waive their liability with the launch provider, like any other payload operator);
Establishes an experimental permit regime for RLV flight testing:
o Permits must be issued in 90 days, vs. 180 days for licenses;
o Permits may be issued only for R&D, showing compliance with license requirements, or crew training;
o Permits would authorize unlimited experimental flights, like current experimental airplane practice;
o Permits would specify what changes could be made to the vehicle;
o Permits would prohibit carrying people or cargo for hire, like current experimental airplane practice; and
Encourages the Secretary to use his authority under 49 USC 70105(c)(2)(C), waiving requirements of other laws if the waivers are in the public interest, in issuing experimental permits.
The biggest obstacle to licensing a launch or series of launches is the environmental review. Every licensed launch is a major Federal action, and according to the National Environmental Policy Act, needs an environmental assessment. This takes months at best, and can take decades. But every rocket launched since 1972 has flown under a Finding Of No Significant Impact (FONSI), including Titan IVs carrying hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic propellants. H.R. 3752 encourages the Secretary to use his waiver authority under 49 USC 70105(c)(2)(C). AST could use this to issue FONSIs, on a case by case basis, for launches of suborbital RLVs carrying thousands of pounds of non-toxic propellants. This would allow AST to issue permits in 90 days with no adverse consequences to the environment.
Issuing permits in a timely manner would, in turn, allow expeditious flight testing of new vehicle designs, turning the crank for a startup community poised to become a multi-billion dollar industry.
ITAR
The ITAR Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) is intended to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. While it is difficult to assess how well an export control regime suppresses exports you cant track crimes people dont commit it is not at all difficult to assess the secondary effects ITAR is having on the U.S. suborbital industry.
As developers of rocket technology, SOI member companies cannot hire engineers who are not U.S. citizens. This deprives the industry of some of the most talented rocket engineers in the world. XCOR, in particular, was unable to hire a foreign rocket engineer with 20 years experience developing liquid fuel rocket engines.
Foreign aerospace engineering students come to the United States to get the best technical education available anywhere. When they have learned all that the U.S. can teach them, they try to get jobs here in the U.S. Because they are not U.S. citizens, U.S. industry cannot hire them. So they go home to Teheran and Beijing and Bangalore and get aerospace jobs there. Most of the aerospace jobs there are jobs building missiles. Thus, a regime designed to prevent proliferation of missile technology is having the opposite effect, promoting missile proliferation, to the detriment of U.S. national security.
SOI member companies also cannot advertise our wares. Any information that might be useful to a potential customer trying to make a purchasing decision is technical in nature. ITAR forbids us from disclosing technical information in any way that might lead to its leaving the United States, or its being read by a foreign national. Being unable to advertise our products, even for domestic sale, is hurting the industry to a degree that, because we have never been permitted to advertise, we cannot determine. However, in a media-driven world, the consequences of being unable to advertise the merits of our products must be considerable.
ITAR export restrictions have other unintended effects, similar to the de facto prohibition on advertising. We cannot discuss the technical details of our products with foreign nationals, including foreign nationals who know more about our field than we do. We cannot discuss the technical details of our products in any forum where foreign nationals might be present. We cant sell engines to prospective customers in Canada. When we sell products to U.S. customers, we can only do so if they are able to ensure that our products will not be open to inspection by foreign nationals.
XCOR, specifically, had a German intern for a year. The file server had to be segregated so that the intern could not access technical information. The intern had to sent out of the office when the engineering staff needed to discuss rocket engine design or construction. Drawings that the engineering staff needed to look at on a regular basis had to be posted on the back of the Chief Engineers door, so that the intern did not see them by accident. The intern was, and all foreign nationals are, barred from the Chief Engineers office. Photographs of rocket engine parts had to be kept in a secure location so that the intern could not look at them. When the engineering staff inspected parts after testing, the inspection had to be in the Chief Engineers office, with the door closed. All this distrustful action had a very negative impact on XCORs corporate culture. To add insult to injury, after spending a good fraction of million dollars training this intern, XCOR was unable to hire him, because he is not a U.S. citizen.
Probably the most nonsensical unintended effect of the current ITAR regulations is that we are unable even to talk about Sutton. Rocket Propulsion Elements, by George P. Sutton, is the introductory text in the field. It is available for purchase all over the world. Yet Sutton contains material that is sufficiently technical that the State Department considers it subject to export control. That means that we cannot talk about introductory rocket engineering with foreign nationals which, not to put too fine a point on it, makes us look foolish, hidebound, and afraid to speak the truth. Afraid to speak the truth, in America.
Office of Space Commerce
Within Commerces Technology Administration (TA), the Office of Space Commerce (OSC) has been doing excellent work on a shoestring for years. They have produced a number of excellent reports about the U.S. launch industry, including a 2002 report on the suborbital industry which was very helpful in reducing the giggle factor associated with space tourism and other suborbital markets. OSC has no permanent director, a staff of one (1), out of five (5) authorized, and they are perennially ignored within TA and within Commerce. We think theyve been doing a great job, and we want them to keep doing it, but they need help. Last year, their budget was misdirected, and their acting director retired (he had stayed on per Congressional intent from 2002 to 2003). They are hurting. Wed like to see their budget restored, a permanent director hired, and the Office staffed to its authorized level. Theyve done great with two and three people; they could really shine with five.
In 2003, DOC was considered closing OSC, and Congress passed legislation directing DOC to keep OSC open. However, there were mixed signals, and while the authorization bill directed DOC to keep OSC under TA, the appropriations bill sent all of OSCs budget to NOAA. This effectively killed OSC. We would like to see OSC revived to continue the excellent work they were doing before their recent troubles began.
Our essential desire is to restore OSCs budget to OSC. We also want the Senate to encourage the Secretary to find a way to make the Office effective again. The best way to do that is not to micromanage the Department of Commerce from Capitol Hill, but rather to give the Secretary the freedom he needs to find the best place to put OSC. The best place for OSC may be in the International Trade Administration (ITA); it may be directly under the Secretariat, where it was created in 1988; it may be under the Technology Administration, where it is now. We dont know where OSC would be most effective; we do know that they were effective in the past, and we would like them to be effective again.
OSC is currently under TA by statute, the Cyber Security Research and Development Act (Public Law 107-305), which amended the Technology Administration Act of 1998 to read (amendment in italics), There is established within the Technology Administration of the Department of Commerce an Office of Space Commercialization.
So we are asking for three things from Congress: first, redirect OSCs budget back to OSC; second, Require the Secretary to appoint a Director for OSC; third, encourage the Secretary to take the necessary steps to make OSC effective again.
Posted by Andrew Case at 03:57 AMSpaceShipOne flew to over two hundred thousand feet today. In a sense, as Jim Oberg points out (via Alan Boyle, and by the way, congratulations on the second anniversary of Cosmic Log), at that altitude, it could be said to be the first private manned vehicle to fly into space.
It's looking more and more like that insurance company that funded the X-Prize is going to lose the bet, but I'm still hoping for an upset for the prize by some upstart.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:07 PMSpacearium is running a series of posts on the history of the American Rocket Company. Here's the first one.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:30 AMNew Mexico has been selected to host the X-Prize Cup.
[Update]
Here's more info.
[Another update]
Here's more from the New York Times. It's very confusing--they seem to be conflating the Ansari X-Prize with the X-Prize Cup, which will be a separate annual competitive event, much like the Americas Cup of sailing.
[One more]
Leonard David has fleshed out the story more, with a better explanation of what the X-Prize Cup (which is what this story is about) is about.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:47 AMGeoff Landis has a paper out on novel approaches to space solar power systems.
One of the reasons I'm skeptical of lunar He3 for fusion as a viable space based business is the competition from SPS. If you can put enough infrastructure on the moon to process the enormous quantities of regolith needed to extract He3, you can just as easily churn out huge numbers of SPS satellites. Unless there is some unforseen showstopper with SPS (and the only one I can think of is possible long term environmental effects due to the microwave beam, but that seems unlikely), then SPS construction will win over He3 fusion. We can do SPS with current technology. We're not even close to being able to do fusion with He3, and we won't be for probably two decades. That's just fusing the He3, not doing it cheaply enough to compete with other power sources.
I'm slowly churning through a detailed piece on fusion which will hopefully clarify a lot of these issues, but I'm a having trouble making the piece not suck, so don't hold your breath. Hopefully I'll get unstuck soon.
Posted by Andrew Case at 06:30 AMDan DeLong has a suggestion for the NASA Centennial Prize:
1. first edible tomato over .1 kg grown at 5 kPa total atmospheric pressure
2. first edible potato over .1 kg " " " "
3. first kg of edible corn kernels " " " "
4. first kg of edible peas " " " " "
5. first kg of edible beans
etc.Where 5 kPa is Martian atmospheric pressure and also a reasonable-to-build lunar greenhouse. If you make the winner of each ineligible for the others there will be a large number of contestants.
Each contestant gets to choose atmospheric constituents from oxygen, nitrogen, and CO2 in any combination.
Then, another series of prizes would be for food crops grown with 2 weeks daylight and not more than X% duty cycle and Y illumination intensity for 2 weeks, repeat cycle as necessary. Then, X and Y decrease to lower and lower values for higher dollar prizes.
I hesitate to extend the idea to animals because I wouldn't want the issue to get confused by animal rights activists.
Unfortunately, things that are literally edible (they won't kill you, and might even prove nutritious) don't necessarily taste all that great. As I pointed out to Dan in email, there are a lot of items in the produce department of my local grocery (including tomatoes) that I consider inedible, at least relative to the home-grown variety. Maybe you could come up with a panel of judges to make a determination as to whether it was sufficiently edible to be useful to space colonists.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:16 PMIf you're interested in returning to the moon, you might want to think about attending the Return to the Moon Conference, sponsored by the Space Frontier Foundation, in Las Vegas this July (around the time of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the first manned moon landing on July 20th). Film director James Cameron (Terminator, Titanic) is scheduled as one of the speakers. Considering that the president has made this part of the new space policy, it should be a very interesting meeting.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:54 PMVia RLV News, Pete Knight, X-15 pilot, has died.
Posted by Andrew Case at 08:48 AMIt looks like a cool site, at first glance, Andrew. I've added it to the blogroll.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:53 AMThese guys spammed me this morning. Looks like an interesting site, though I haven't looked around much. They have launch footage and a movie about Goddard (the man, not the NASA center), along with all the NASA SP-8000 documents, among other things. Anyone know who's behind the site? I dug around a little, but didn't find anything.
Incidentally, this illustrates the basic rule of unsolicited commercial email - it's only spam if you don't want what they're selling.
Posted by Andrew Case at 10:39 AMThe X-Prize finally has a name (as did the Orteig Prize). It will now be called the Ansari X-Prize, after immigrant Iranian entrepreneurs who have made a major donation to the foundation. They made the announcement today, the forty-third anniversary of Alan Shepherd's first suborbital flight and first flight of an American into space.
[Hat tip to Clark Lindsey]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:00 PMThe Aldridge Commission is at least singing the right tune:
In many cases, the experts found the modern space agency too wedded to the agency founded at the height of the Cold War to overtake the former Soviet Union's technical prowess......The changes envisioned by the panel would transform NASA into an agency working alongside an industrial partner, academia and parts of other Cabinet-level agencies to expand the nation's economy into space as a means of creating new wealth and strengthening national security as well as advancing science.
"Creating new wealth." What a concept.
Let's hope that they can stay on key. I'll be looking forward to hearing their recommendations. I do wonder at the use of the singular, though. Why not "alongside industrial partners"? Here's hoping it's a misstatement--I hope they're not intending to set up a monopoly of some kind.
[Via Mark Whittington, from his home-town paper]
[Update at 9 AM PDT]
The administrator agrees.
"Business as usual, if we simply try to overlay this [vision] on top of an existing structure, isn't going to work," O'Keefe said. "There is no way that the present organizational structure, and how we do business today, will be the most appropriate way to go about doing this."
I don't agree with him on this, though.
O'Keefe also told commissioners that the space infrastructure required to push the new space effort forward is already in place, and stressed that international cooperation will play a vital role in missions to come. The cooperation needed for the International Space Station (ISS), for example, has led to the necessary political relationships, communication networks and engineering teams - among others - to take on such a project, he added.
As I wrote yesterday, international cooperation may be useful, but it shouldn't be a goal, and it's certainly not essential, except perhaps from a political standpoint. But more importantly, I disagree that the "space infrastructure required to push the new space effort forward is already in place."
It remains much too costly to get to orbit, on far too unreliable launchers. The tragedy is that the agency has given up on the goal of improving this situation (not that it was really capable of doing so--it wasted billions over the past couple decades proving that it wasn't). But the government should be doing more in terms of policy to achieve this goal, even if NASA can't.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:30 AMProfessor Reynolds discusses off-planet property rights.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:36 AMNeither the headline or the lead paragraphs are justified by this article at Space.com.
Hed: "Space Experts Say International Cooperation is Key for NASA's Space Vision."
Lead grafs:
NASA should not limit itself to merely seeking support from the American public to push forward its vision of the human exploration of space, according to the foreign space agency directors, scientists and space enthusiasts addressing a presidential commission Monday.While support from the American people, and the politicians who represent them, is a critical component of the space vision, so to is international cooperation, panelists said during the final meeting of the Commission on the Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy.
Now one would think from such an introduction that there was unanimity, or at least some kind of consensus, among the "foreign space agency directors, scientists and space enthusiasts" on this point, but there's no evidence of it in the article. If anyone other than the "foreign space agency directors" mentioned the need for international cooperation, it went unreported. And of course, pleas of foreign space agency directors for international cooperation on space are the space reporting equivalent of dog bites man.
And of course, they whined, politely:
The lack of a concrete plan, one with specific goals that are more detailed than the broad statement "to the Moon, to Mars and Beyond," has made it difficult for some of NASA's international partners to gauge whether they could be an asset in the vision."We'd like to see the details of the plan," said JAXA executive director Kiyoshi Higuchi, adding that the lack of specifics in Bush's vision are partly responsible for JAXA's hesitation to formally commit its resources to assisting NASA. "It makes it difficult for us to single out what technology we can bring to the effort."
Because a bureaucrat, particularly a space bureaucrat, is lost without a, you know, twenty-year plan.
I don't believe that international cooperation is necessary for this initiative, at least in the sense that it's normally used, though I have no problem with purchasing technologies from overseas if they're useful. The space station experience should be cautionary, and when international cooperation becomes an end, rather than a means, it can rapidly lead to disaster. I wrote a Fox column about this a couple years ago.
In fact, I think that Mr Malik buried the actual lead. Here's what I found of more interest in the article, which I think would have been as valid a theme:
During its hurly-burly days in the race with Russia to put humans in space, NASA's most attractive quality was in the imaginations of the American people, who hoped they would soon join the astronauts on spacewalks, panelists said."What NASA seemed to forget was that then, we all wanted to go," Tether told commissioners. "We were forgotten about."
But if NASA can find a way for American citizens to take the baby steps that would eventually allow them to reach the moon - or even just space - themselves, it would do wonders for the space agency's support, he added.
"If you can do that, you will have a constituency that you don't have today," Tether said.
That's Tony Tether, head of DARPA. He gets it, even if NASA doesn't. I hope that the commission was listening.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:31 PMJeff Foust has a good overview of the current regulatory and insurance situation for reusable launch vehicles, based on talks by Jeff Greason, Jim Muncy and George Nield.
[Update on Tuesday afternoon]
More related discussion over at Space Politics.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:34 AMThe comments section of this post, while interesting, has drifted way off topic, so I thought I'd start a new, more focused one. Alfred Differ of JP Aerospace stopped by, and a few people have been asking him questions about their concept for getting to orbit with a lighter-than-air vehicle.
Paul Dietz asks:
First: what is the desired thrust/weight ratio?Second: how fast will it be traveling in the atmosphere, and what is the L/D ratio at those speeds?
I'm not sure that either of those parameters are useful in evaluating the performance of such a beast (assuming, of course, that it will work at all). T/W is meaningless because it's lighter than air, and similarly, L/D isn't relevant because it's getting its lift from buoyancy, rather than aerodynamics. The only really important characteristic, it seems to me, is thrust/drag ratio. In other words, as it goes faster and faster, can it continue to accelerate against the prevailing atmosphere at whatever altitude it is?
Intuitively, what I thought was being proposed is maintaining altitude via buoyancy, and staying high enough that the drag is small enough to allow acceleration, eventually to orbital speeds. Having given it some thought over the past week, my intuition also says that this won't work, because I don't see how you can displace enough air to support you while at the same time having to accelerate through it. If the idea is to just use the upper atmosphere as a starting point and getting into orbit with conventional thrusting, then the T/W does have to exceed one, at least at the beginning, but if that's the case, I don't understand how/why it takes five days to get to orbit.
For now, just color me confused. I hope Alfred will stop by again to elaborate, if he can.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:41 PMI don't recall which one, but a few years ago, the mood at the Space Access Conference was pretty somber. X-33 had cratered without even flying, X-34 the same, the dreams of a "Teledesic winter," in which the skies would be blackened by LEO comsats and RLVs to deliver and service them, had been shown to be a fantasy, and the future for affordable space access looked grim to many. It didn't to me, because I had never held out hope for any of those things, but the conference generally had the air of a funeral.
This year's meeting was much more upbeat. Burt had just gotten his launch license and flown a couple weeks before, with good prospects for an X-Prize win this year, and the community was finally focused on the promising area of suborbital flight, a necessary transition for us to go through in order to get low-cost orbital flight.
While people were in a good mood coming into the conference, there was a lot of news there to further encourage them. The big news from the weekend, of course, was XCOR's new launch license. But this was just the most notable example of a growing trend--this is a real industry, with people making real investments, and bending real metal. The prize, and not just the X-Prize, appears to be real, and people with their eyes on it are focused on the real-world issues of regulation, insurance and marketing.
Of course, there were a couple technical surprises as well. John Powell's concept of a lighter-than-air vehicle to orbit was a new twist, and it's not obvious that it won't work.
Clark Lindsey has an extensive writeup, and I suspect that Jeff Foust will as well, perhaps in next week's issue of The Space Review, but I want to focus this post on Jim Muncy's talk, because as I said in the previous post, there are some interesting wrinkles in the new legislation that have been uncommented on so far. It's a revised version of the legislation introduced last fall, with a new bill number of HR 3752 (sorry, no permalink available--do a search on "HR 3752," and pull up the bill as passed), titled the "Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004." It has passed the House, and an identical version is in the Senate. I analyzed the previous version in October.
Clark was generous enough to provide me with his notes of Jim's talk, and this is based on them, my own recollection, and my own reading of the bill.
Jim started his presentation with a little history, pointing out two disastrous decisions made during the Clinton administration. The first was in taking away from the FAA its traditional role of promoting the aviation industry, because there was a perception that this conflicted with its responsibility to regulate and ensure that the industry flew safely. It was judged that the industry was mature enough that it didn't require such promotion, at least by the FAA.
Unfortunately, about the same time that this decision was made, another (probably unrelated) decision was made, in the interest of "reinventing government," to move AST from its own office reporting to the Secretary of Transportation, into the FAA. In other words, the regulation of a non-existent industry (reusable space transports) was being moved into an agency with no duty to or interest in promoting it. And of course, the best way to ensure safety, if you have no interest in the well being of the industry, is to simply eliminate any possibility of actually flying.
Under those circumstances, it's surprising that we've made as much progress as we have, but the new legislation is meant to undo some of the damage of those dual decisions.
Based on my quick read, and Jim Muncy's comments, there are three key aspects of the legislation that are new from last fall.
First, is this section (shown only in part):
(7) Section 70105 of title 49, United States Code, is amended by redesignating subsections (b) and (c) as subsections (c) and (d), respectively, and by inserting after subsection (a) the following new subsection:(b) Experimental Permits- (1) A person may apply to the Secretary of Transportation for an experimental permit under this subsection in the form and manner the Secretary prescribes. Consistent with the public health and safety, safety of property, and national security and foreign policy interests of the United States, the Secretary, not later than 90 days after receiving an application pursuant to this subsection, shall issue a permit if the Secretary decides in writing that the applicant complies, and will continue to comply, with this chapter and regulations prescribed under this chapter. The Secretary shall inform the applicant of any pending issue and action required to resolve the issue if the Secretary has not made a decision not later than 60 days after receiving an application. The Secretary shall transmit to the Committee on Science of the House of Representatives and Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate a written notice not later than 15 days after any occurrence when a permit is not issued within the deadline established by this subsection.
Many in the community have been advocating this for years. It's an experimental rocket permit, analogous with an experimental aircraft certificate. It authorizes the holder to do the kinds of flight testing that Burt has been doing with his vehicle, and it allows a series of tests with a single permit, with much less paperwork than a full launch license.
It's another major step away from the original launch license mentality, and toward a regulatory regime that allows incremental testing. Like an EAC, it doesn't allow taking passengers for pay, but that can be done with a launch license after testing is complete.
Here's the next significant difference with last fall's legislation, and another step forward:
(17) Section 70112(b)(1) of title 49, United States Code, is amended--(A) by inserting `space flight participants,' after `its contractors, subcontractors,';
(B) by inserting `or by space flight participants,' after `its own employees'; and
(C) by adding at the end the following: `The requirement for space flight participants to make a reciprocal waiver of claims with the licensee or transferee shall expire 3 years after the first licensed launch of a launch vehicle carrying a space flight participant.'.
That there is a requirement for reciprocal waivers means that Congress intends that this be a "fly at your own risk" regime, i.e., it will be viewed as something similar to Everest expeditions, rather than as aircraft passengers, with expectations of the kind of safety afforded by that industry. This will ease the liability and insurance burden considerably, and is vital to getting this industry off the ground (so to speak).
The bill also requires that AST issue licenses within 90 days, instead of the current 180, and to streamline their procedures to whatever degree necessary to achieve that goal. This will be a great challenge to the agency, considering that they issued Xcor's license just under the 180 day wire, but it will help accelerate progress for the licensees.
Jim mentioned one other aspect that was fascinating--he said that the legislation provides the Secretary with the authority to waive "all requirements of law" to grant a license. In other words, if (for example) the National Environmental Protection Act becomes too onerous in some particular case, the Secretary can grant relief. If true, this could be a huge breakthrough. Unfortunately, I can't find where in the legislation that such authority is granted. If anyone can provide some enlightenment on this, I'd appreciate it.
There is some resistance to the legislation from the large launch companies and insurers, who don't want to have to play on a level playing field with the startups. It's not clear whether there will be enough to derail it--it clearly wasn't in the House, but it's hard to get any kind of legislation through the Senate in an election year, regardless of its degree of controversy. Nonetheless, Jim remained hopeful that this bill will be authorized into law this year, and if it is, it represents a great step forward for the alternative space movement, and a maturing of the industry from infancy into at least toddling.
[Update at noon]
Gary Hudson emails, in response to my query:
70105(c)2(C) But it requires the intervention of the SecDOT plus consent of the affected agency, i.e., EPA. Chances of that actually happening are about the same as pigs flying...
[Update on Wednesday evening]
Normally, I hunt down and painfully kill people who attempt to correct me, but since it's the Great Man himself, and someone who I've known and loved for over two decades, I'll simply point out that Jim Muncy notes in comments:
Thanks very much for your kind write-up of my speech to Space Access last Friday.Unfortunately, a casual reader might draw two innaccurate inferences from your piece.
First, the legislation does not require that AST issue licenses within 90 days. It requires that they issue experimental permits within 90 days. This will be a challenge for AST, but I am convinced they will be able to achieve this as they refocus their resources towards this new, dynamic industry.
Second, the legislation does not give the Secretary any authority to waive NEPA that he doesn't already have. That authority was written into the original CSLA. However, HR3752 explicitly reminds the Secretary of this authority, and mentions NEPA in report language.
The authority is not to simply "waive" NEPA, but rather waive by regulation. In other words, AST could promulgate a regulation that sets a standard for "environmentally clean" RLVs, specifying non-toxic and total quantity of propellants, and other vehicle system and flight profile characteristics, such that if one met the standard, NEPA would no longer apply.
My friend Gary Hudson is wrong, however, about EPA. The coordinating agency is the Council on Environmental Quality. Once these vehicles are flying, and repeatedly getting 'findings of no significant impact', there will be a strong paper trail to justify such a regulation which effectively replaces the NEPA requirement, rather than simply waiving it.
I realize that many of us would prefer not to have to obey this stupid law (NEPA), but it is in fact a requirement levied on FAA/AST, not on the launch company. We just have to deal with the consequences.
So now you've got the word from the hors^H^H^H^Hman himself.
I should also add something that no one else noted, because Jim's comment reminds me. We should all thank Tim Hughes, Jim's successor on the committee staff, for making this legislation happen. One of the exercises that he had us do at the conference was to write a personal thank-you note to him for this legislation, and I encourage my readers to do the same.
[Update on Thursday morning]
Clark Lindsey has put up a page describing the JP Aerospace concept for light-than-air to orbit.
[May 5th update, as a result of the link from TechCentralStation]
There's more here on the legislation.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:04 AMWhile I continue to do thought gathering (and getting ready to move, while starting a new job doing technology evaluation for the Jupiter Icy Moons project), Clark Lindsey has his usual comprehensive report on this past weekend's Space Access Conference. Now that he's done the heavy lifting, I'll try to fill in any gaps from what I can recall, hopefully tomorrow.
At first reading, the only slight deficit I see is inadequate coverage of Jim Muncy's talk on the new commercial space transportation legislation, which had a number of key items worth repeating, and of which I'd been previously unaware. Hopefully I'll rectify that manana, though if Clark has good notes, he's obviously welcome to flesh out his already excellent report with those details.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:48 PMBased on his trip to Phoenix this past weekend, Alan Boyle lays out a potentially interesting schedule for private manned spaceflight activities in the coming months. I'm still gathering my own thoughts on the conference.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:59 AMIn the midst of an article in which he recommends that the administration encourage the Chinese to race us to the moon, Dwayne Day writes: "There is nothing that a human can do in low Earth orbit, other than the study of other humans, that a robot cannot do better."
I hope that he didn't give very much thought to that statement, because it's demonstrably untrue. Could a robot have done this better? How about this? Or especially this, which happened over three decades ago?
I doubt that we have the robotic capability today to do those things, let alone at the time. Dwayne can argue if he likes that they weren't worth doing (I would disagree in all cases, especially in the case of Skylab), but to say that there's nothing that robots can't do better than humans in LEO is...mistaken.
Interestingly, of course, this is being discussed as an alternate means to save Hubble, but it will clearly be a technical challenge, and it's not being done because it's a better way, but because NASA is unwilling to send a crew.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:41 AMBut there's a lot of non-blogging stuff to catch up on. I'll try to get a post and pics up of the conference in the next day or two, but no promises. Bottom line--there're lots of exciting things happening, and the days that NASA dominates manned spaceflight are looking increasingly numbered.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:52 PMThanks to Michael Mealling, I've got connectivity enough to announce that the FAA presented XCOR with their launch license this morning, at the Space Access Conference. It was the 180th day after completion of their licence application submittal, so they brought it in under the wire.
More later, but further details can be found at Michael's wiki. Up to the minute pictures are also available on the wiki page.
[Update on Sunday evening]
If you haven't seen it, Alan Boyle, who was in attendance with me (and who I greatly enjoyed meeting), has a more extensive story.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:58 AMI'd think that a planetary protection officer would have a much larger portfolio than just worrying about extraterrestrial biological contamination. If he's not responsible for detecting and fending off errant asteroids and comets, who is?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:17 PMAs though I wasn't busy enough, I find this at NASA Watch (I also heard about it from a friend at Boeing).
White papers are invited that address initial challenges facing Project Constellation and Project Prometheus in general, and the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) in particular. Enclosed are the key focus area, issues, and suggested white paper topics. White papers that examine one or more of the topics are invited. Papers that address other important aspects (in a manner consistent with the information requested below) are also welcome. Viable white papers should be consistent with the January 14, 2004, U.S. Space Exploration Vision, as well as with generally accepted laws of physics. Innovative approachesincluding novel technologies and systems conceptsare welcome, but should be consistent with advances that are 'reasonably achievable' in supporting the established program milestones.
Darned those pesky "generally accepted laws of physics." That's going to restrict my repertoire some (but some other people much more, I suspect). Of course, the real phrase of art is "reasonably achievable." That will allow them to exclude almost anything they choose to.
Now I've got to write a white paper or two, in the midst of everything else.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:01 PMI haven't had time to read it, but the Cap'n of the Clueless has what looks like an interesting post on warfare in space.
I've always found it a little ironic that in Star Trek, and most other science fiction, the model of the interplanetary/interstellar military is the navy. That makes sense, because we generally, or at least popularly, think of spaceships rather than spaceplanes, and the relatively slow maneuvers and docking, and indeed the nature of outer space itself, make the ocean a much more apt analogy than the air.
Yet in this current time-space continuum, the Pentagon has assigned space to the Air Force, and they've made notably little progress with it. I suspect that once we solve the earth-to-orbit problem, and the atmosphere becomes a temporary hindrance on the way to the rest of the universe, that the naval model will in fact prevail.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:15 AMLeonard David has a good roundup of X-Prize progress.
Last month, the X Prize rocketship race garnered the support and participation of the Champ Car World Series -- an organization steeped in checker flag competitions of open-wheel speedsters around the globe. The seven-figure sponsorship includes having the Champ Car World Series logo placed on all X Prize vehicles. The series will also be the primary corporate sponsor of the X Prize flights......"I find it interesting that everyone says the X Prize expires at the end of the year when in actual fact the trophy is available until whenever it is won. And just like the Americas Cup, the trophy has very significant value perhaps more than the $10 million cash," Sheerin stated. "I have every confidence we can make a launch before the end of the year."
That's an interesting point that I hadn't considered. Even though the money turns into a pumpkin at the end of December, there could still be an X-Prize winner next year--the trophy remains available indefinitely, and in many cases this is being done for fun and prestige--the purse is just gravy, at least if you're Paul Allen.
It's also having the hoped-for effect of spurring new businesses--XCOR, Rocketplane, and others may soon have some interesting competition:
Meanwhile, groups like Israels IL Aerospace Technologies have frozen the design of their Negev suborbital reusable launch vehicle system. "We are now in the process of raising the funds to build it, test it, and certify it for commercial use. We are definitely looking beyond the X Prize at this point," said Dov Chartarifsky, founder and chief executive officer of the company."Our company is striving to become one of the first, if not the first private entity to establish a self-sufficient space venture targeted at space tourism and other emerging markets," Chartarifsky said. "Our company objective is to begin the commercialization stage of our program by mid-2007."
Chartarifsky said that while the company may not meet the X Prize deadline, ILAT is "very much alive and well."
For some reason, there was no mention of any entries from an Arab nation.
The usual frustrations continue, though:
Needless to say, building human-carrying rocket hardware is a tough challenge. But paperwork alone can leave you stranded on Earth......Armadillos launch license is currently stalled on the environmental assessment, Carmack reported.
"If I was willing to throw a million dollars at the problem by hiring the right firms to write the environmental impact statement and finish the launch license, things could get done faster, but I'm not willing to toss that kind of money at parasitic paperwork," he said.
This was always one of the concerns of the FAA-AST launch licensing route. If it were being regulated by FAA-AVR, this wouldn't be an issue because aviation has a categorical exclusion from the Environmental Protection Act, but launch regulation does not. This may be the next regulatory frontier to tackle, but it would certainly stir up the environmentalist hornets' nest.
I hope to be talking to John Carmack, and others at this week's Space Access Conference (which can still be attended, for anyone who can get to Phoenix by Thursday--by the way, Henry Vanderbilt has the latest news roundup on space transports, X-Prize and the president's lunar/Mars initiative at the Space Access Society site now).
I'd say that, based on this, even if the prize money expires unwon at the end of the year, that the prize was a success. As Peter points out, tens of millions of R&D have been generated for a couple dozen new concepts, and I think that this probably evolved the state of the art of reusable rockets much more than the billions that NASA wasted in the nineties on the subject.
In fact, if the insurance company wins the bet, ironically, it may make it easier to raise money for the next one, at least via that route. But I hope that Burt (or even better, someone else) wins, and that they lose, because it will show a lot of people and investors the danger of relying on "industry experts" who tell you something can't be done.
[Update on Wednesday]
Both Nathan Horsley and Jim Bennett in comments correct me on the categorical aviation exclusion issue (which is fine with me, if true--the fewer valid arguments for giving regulation to AVR, the better, as far as I'm concerned). Regardless, whatever the solution, NEPA is serving as a barrier to a fledgling industry, and some solution to this problem should be sought.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:15 AMJay Manifold has done some depressing googling. I guess it is up to the blogosphere.
[Tuesday morning update]
Jay has a follow-up post in response to comments here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:47 AMLeonard David (who I hope I'll see at next week's Space Access Conference) has an interesting article today on the prospects for returning Shuttle to flight, and the potential consequences, political and otherwise, of delaying or failing to do so.
There's a fear expressed in the article that a NASA that's afraid to risk a Shuttle launch isn't a NASA that can accept the risk of sending people back to the moon, let alone Mars.
I think that's right. The first step toward a bold new space program is defeminizing our space policy. And while Dwayne says that his intent was to point out the feminine language of the rhetoric of our policy, I do think that this irrational risk aversion is in fact a feminization of the policy itself.
I'm with Jack Schmitt. My position is that we should quickly decide whether or not we're going to continue the program. If we are, then start flying now, so people don't forget how to fly it, and we don't wear it out in the hangar. Stop wasting all these hundreds of millions of dollars and all this time developing improvements for something that we're only going to fly another couple dozen times and are probably just political bandaids anyway, and just get on with it, while putting into place a plan to develop alternative capabilities as soon as possible. Tell the nation to recognize that the vehicle has risks, to expect to lose another one, and to suck it up and stop crying about dead astronauts who, now more than ever, accept the risk with eyes open, just as do our troops in Iraq. Fly them until we either finish station (and fix Hubble), or lose two, at which point the remaining one goes to Dulles.
If we can't do that, then just shut the thing down now, so we can take the billions that it costs to keep the standing army sitting around and apply them to something useful. As it is now, we have the worst of all worlds, with wasted money and time, and continuing uncertainty as to whether or not we'll get any value out of the wasted money and time. Let's just do it or get off the pot.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:04 AMGlenn has an article at TCS today about private spaceflight and prizes. There's an error in it, however--he says that Burt flew his latest mission on the same day that he received his launch license. As this article by Leonard David correctly states, he got his launch license on April 1, and flew a week later, on April 8.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:33 PMI've been meaning to post about this for a while, but haven't had the time to get back up to speed on it, after all these years, but the Law of the Sea Treaty has reared its ugly head again, and once again, it's looking like it's stalling in the Senate, though the Bush administration seems to be supporting it, at least in theory. It went into force ten years ago, but the US has still not ratified it, and Doug Bandow explains why we shouldn't. Here's the part that concerns me the most as a space enthusiast:
The treaty's mining scheme is flawed in its very conception. Although many people once thought untold wealth would leap from the seabed, land-based sources have remained cheaper than expected, and scooping up manganese nodules and other resources from the ocean floor is logistically daunting. There is no guarantee that seabed mining will ever be commercially viable.Yet this has not dimmed the enthusiasm of the Authority. Like the U.N., it generates lots of reports and paper and obsesses over trivia. Protecting "the emblem, the official seal and the name" of the International Seabed Authority has been a matter of some concern. Among the crises the Authority has confronted: In April 2002 the Jamaican government turned off its air conditioning, necessitating "urgent consultations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade." A year later Jamaica used the same tactic in an ongoing battle over Authority payments for its facility. Oh yes, half of the Authority members are behind on their dues.
Were seabed mining ever to thrive, a transparent system for recognizing mine sites and resolving disputes would be helpful. But the Authority's purpose isn't to be helpful. It is to redistribute resources to irresponsible Third World governments with a sorry history of squandering abundant foreign aid.
Those familiar with the history of the L-5 Society may recognize this. The Law of the Sea Treaty was the model for the 1979 Moon Treaty, which, like the sea bottom, declared everything off planet the "province of all mankind." Here's the key part:
The exploration and use of the moon shall be the province of all mankind and shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development.
In other words, if you or I were to go develop some extraterrestrial resource (and "moon" in this phrasing really means "moon and other celestial bodies") we would have to share in the proceeds with all other countries, including those that in no way contributed, per the decision of an as-yet-undefined international authority under the auspices of the United "Oil for Palaces corruption" Nations. I can't think of a better way to guarantee that space will not be developed, which is perhaps the intent of the authors.
While the L-5 Society was largely ineffectual in terms of achieving its goals, it did manage to almost singlehandedly prevent the US from ratifying this treaty (an issue that few others cared about at the time except a few bureaucrats at Foggy Bottom), and that in itself probably made the existence of the society worthwhile, even for as brief a time as it lasted. Just for historical interest, note some of the names in that L-5 history of people who were instrumental in defeating the treaty. In addition to Keith Henson and Carolyn Meinel, Eric Drexler and Chris Peterson, of more recent nanotechnology fame, were also lobbying hard for this outcome.
If the Law of the Sea Treaty is ratified by the US, it would set a precedent and make it harder to argue against similar ratification of the Moon Treaty (which while in force has not been ratified by a single spacefaring nation). I'd say, thanks, but no thanks to both.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:16 PMToday is the 23rd anniversary of the first Space Shuttle flight, and the forty third anniversary of the first human space flight, by Yuri Gagarin. Which also means that tonight is Yuri's Night. Here's a column I wrote two years ago for Fox News about all three events. Get out tonight and party.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:23 PM...of a licensed piloted spaceship this morning. Henry Vanderbilt, head of the Space Access Society, reports that Burt wasted no time in using his new launch license. Early reports of 105,000 feet and a thirty-five second burn time, with a safe landing.
More details when I find some--there's nothing at the Scaled site yet.
And speaking of Henry Vanderbilt, it's less than a couple weeks until the annual Space Access Conference in Scottsdale, AZ. For anyone interested in the emerging launch industry, this is a must-go event, and this year's should be particularly interesting with all of the X-Prize activity heating up.
[Update at 1:25 PM PDT]
That altitude is about twenty miles, or about a third of the distance required to win the X-Prize. I wonder how many more flights they plan to do envelope expansion before they do full altitude?
Also, Jim Benson should be pleased that he's now demonstrated two successful flights of the hybrid engine. Between this, and their new Air Force contract, SpaceDev seems to be on a roll.
[Update at 2:20 PM PDT]
Space.com has the story now. The first flight went supersonic. This one apparently went to Mach 2.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:12 AMBurt Rutan has gotten his launch license for the SpaceShipOne. That was pretty fast, considering that last summer he was refusing to apply for one. The most reliable place to track this kind of stuff is over at the X-Prize blog, where they have links to other stories.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:13 PMJim Oberg forwards an amusing variation on the Nigerian email scam:
Date: Sat Apr 3, 2004 3:20:10 PM US/Eastern Subject: Nigerian Astronaut Wants To Come Home Dr. Bakare Tunde Astronautics Project Manager National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) Plot 555 Misau Street PMB 437 Garki, Abuja, FCT NIGERIADear Mr. Sir,
REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE-STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
I am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of Nigerian Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979. He was on a later Soviet spaceflight, Soyuz T-16Z to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T in 1989. He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humor, but wants to come home.
In the 14-years since he has been on the station, he has accumulated flight pay and interest amounting to almost $ 15,000,000 American Dollars. This is held in a trust at the Lagos National Savings and Trust Association. If we can obtain access to this money, we can place a down payment with the Russian Space Authorities for a Soyuz return flight to bring him back to Earth. I am told this will cost $3,000,000 American Dollars. In order to access the his trust fund we need your assistance.
Consequently, my colleagues and I are willing to transfer the total amount to your account for subsequent disbursement, since we as civil servants are prohibited by the Code of Conduct Bureau (Civil Service Laws) from opening and/ or operating foreign accounts in our names.
Needless to say, the trust reposed on you at this juncture is enormous. In return, we have agreed to offer you 20 percent of the transferred sum, while 10 percent shall be set aside for incidental expenses (internal and external) between the parties in the course of the transaction. You will be mandated to remit the balance 70 percent to other accounts in due course.
Kindly expedite action as we are behind schedule to enable us include downpayment in this financial quarter.
Please acknowledge the receipt of this message via my direct number 234 (0) 9-234-2220 only.
Yours Sincerely,
Dr. Bakare Tunde
Astronautics Project Manager
tip@nasrda.gov.nghttp://www.nasrda.gov.ng/
The web site appears to be genuine. It makes no mention of stranded astronauts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:27 PMPaul Spudis (a member of the Aldridge Commission) defends the president's plans to return to the moon.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:57 PMHere's an X-Prize blog that barely made it out of the starting gates.
Meanwhile, this one has some news--SpaceShipOne has been doing more test flights in the past week.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:44 AMPlease read: NASA FLY-OFF UNDER STUDY
Excerpt from UPI: WASHINGTON, April 1 (UPI) -- "NASA may borrow a development approach from the U.S. Air Force and seek to build multiple prototypes of its proposed new moon landing craft, and then test competing designs against one another in a celestial version of an airplane designers' fly-off."
This is potentially very exciting news. It will be to NASA's advantage-- budget-wise and politically -- to adopt such a competitive bid/prototype process. - Jim McDade
...to terraform Mars?
It depends. It depends on your basis of ethics, and it depends on whether or not there's life there now, and its nature. I wrote about this last summer.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:18 AMGerard Van der Leun has some thoughts on saving Hubble.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:45 PMAs Jim mentions below, it looks like the battle to save the Apollo launch tower has sadly been lost.
But I've been wondering about another space heritage site. Does anyone know what the situation is with the old North American plant in Downey, California? It's been vacant since Rockwell/Boeing moved all of the space operations there to Seal and Huntington Beaches, but it's got a lot of history (not just Apollo/Shuttle, but going back all the way to the war, when it cranked out warbirds, including the P-51 Mustang, which took off over orange groves and dairies).
In particular I'm wondering what the status or plans are for the little "walk of fame" in front of Building 6, which had several astronauts' hand and footprints in cement, a la Sid Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Are they still there? Are there plans to move the cement to a safer location? I'd hate to think that it would just get demolished, like any other bit of sidewalk, whenever they decide to use the site for something else. I'm also concerned about the DEI room, with its full-scale half mockup (it's only got one wing) of a Shuttle orbiter.
A quick search shows that someone else was as well, five years ago. According to this site, the city was supposed to fully acquire the property last year. Plans for commercial development are shown there.
Anyone know the current status? Last time I drove by everything still seemed intact--it was a ghost plant.
[Noon update]
Here's a site dedicated to preserving our aerospace heritage, describing Downey.
I should add, I don't know if it's still there, but one of the original McDonalds' restaurants was in Downey as well, preserved just like the fifties (it was outdoors).
[Quick Google search]
Yup, as of last year, it was still there. The post claims it's the world's oldest (could be--it was the third one built over half a century ago, before Ray Kroc bought the chain). Here's a picture of it, and some more taken in 2000.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:12 AMMy latest TechCentralStation column is up.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:33 PMMichael Mealing attended last week's hearings in Atlanta, and has a useful summary. In particular, he has thoughts and concerns about the inputs from organized labor, which I share. I was going to write something about this last week, but hadn't seen any of the testimony:
It was my determination that this group is one of the main problems with how space is done these days. They are organized and seem to hold a very large amount of political capital because of that. Apparently their members have been a large determining factor behind ISS and Shuttle. They view these programs as purely ways of creating what they view as "high tech jobs". At one point Paul Spudis threw out a strawman (transcripts aren't available yet so I can't quote directly) that asked that, if the goal of our space program was to "keep our technological sharpness" then should all of it belong as part of DoD as simply a national strategic priority? They answered yes! Not only did they agree with the premise but with its conclusion as well.One of them even went so far as to suggest that the reason the US is loosing [sic] jobs overseas is due to the cultural decay caused by television and the lack of good morality plays like they had during the old radio days! If this is what Big Labor has to offer these days no wonder we're loosing [sic] jobs overseas...
...Daniel is saying something that Tom Peters is saying in Re-imagine. That the future of America is in its core value: that this land, this system that we've developed, is about radical opportunity. Simply 'earning a living' isn't enough. Simply 'manufacturing' isn't enough. Simply doing what we did last century isn't enough. Every moment has be to worked at the tip of innovation; at the sharp edge of creative distruction. And these labor guys find that to be the worst evil that could be visited on man because it means there is no such thing as job security. It means no such thing as jobs. Period. Every American's new responsibility is to be his/her own CEO of Me, Inc.
It means things like re-thinking the relationship between 'labor' and the processes it supports. It means having a worker in a factory actively spending his/her own time to figure out ways to not just increase his/her production, but to obsolete his own current job. It means things like figuring out how to build dark factories so that where one 'factory worker' ran one stop along an assembly line, that same 'worker' is the owner of an entire factory that runs itself. It means thinking of space as an opportunity and a market segment and not as a source for government ensured job security.
These are the people who have killed America's greatness in space. I lay Columbia and Challenger at their door.
This point cannot be emphasized enough. The commission needs to have someone talk to it about wealth creation, instead of job creation, or we'll remain mired in the failed policy of the past four decades.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:13 PMIt's a mathematical one. Discovered by a couple high school students.
[via Paul Hsieh]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:54 PMDennis Powell talks about the unpleasant choices potentially facing a president, given our disastrous space policy for the past few decades, that has resulted in our relative impotence as a space-faring nation.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:39 AMCan be seen at the Langley website.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:07 PMYou can follow the progress of today's Hyper-X test here, starting at noon Pacific time.
[Update at 12:23 PST]
Fox News says they're going to cover it, if you want to see it on television instead of your computer.
[Update about 1 PM]
As Hefty notes in comments, the B-52 is in the air. Listening to Fox is a little irritating. First they have the PR guy from the program on, and he's talking about how this will enable a five-hour trip to Japan. That's nonsense. First of all, you don't need scramjets to do that--supersonic flight will. A scramjet flying at this speed would do the job in an hour and a half. But there's nothing about this technology that deals with the real issues of supersonic/hypersonic flight--the drag and the sonic boom. This is a military technology, first and foremost, and its first application, if there is one, will almost certainly be in hypersonic cruise missiles. It's also unlikely that it will be used in launch vehicles for a very long time, for reasons that I explained here, with responses to criticism of that article here.
I'm also irritated that they reflexively go to John Pike as their "expert."
[Update at 4:45 PM PST]
The test appears to have been successful. Leonard David has the story.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:24 AMSteven Weinberg has a 5500-word essay in the New York Review of books on the president's space initiative. It repeats the same tired nonsense and myths, about how space is for science, that there's no reason for people to go, that it will cost a trillion dollars.
The President gave no cost estimates, but John McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, has cited reports that the new initiative would cost between $170 billion and $600 billion. According to NASA briefing documents, the figure of $170 billion is intended to take NASA only up to 2020, and does not include the cost of the Mars mission itself. After the former President Bush announced a similar initiative in 1989, NASA estimated that the cost of sending astronauts to the moon and Mars would be either $471 billion or $541 billion in 1991 dollars, depending on the method of calculation. This is roughly $900 billion in today's dollars. Whatever cost may be estimated by NASA for the new initiative, we can expect cost overruns like those that have often accompanied big NASA programs. (In 1984 NASA estimated that it would cost $8 billion to put the International Space Station in place, not counting the cost of using it. I have seen figures for its cost so far ranging from $25 billion to $60 billion, and the station is far from finished.) Let's not haggle over a hundred billion dollars more or lessI'll estimate that the President's new initiative will cost nearly a trillion dollars.
This is, of course, as I said above, nonsense on stilts.
It's frustrating that scientists and particularly physicists (like Weinberg and Bob Park) continue to somehow be regarded as intrinsic experts on the space program and space policy. I also wish that we could get a moratorium on the title, "The Wrong Stuff." It was sort of amusing the first time, but it's pretty stale now. And yes, before anyone does a search, I plead guilty, but my usage was much more appropriate than Weinberg's, and I will go forth and sin no more.
It is difficult to think of any direct economic benefit that can be gained by putting people into space.
No, it's quite easy to think of some. It's just difficult for you to think of any, professor. Simply put, the direct economic benefit that can be gained by putting people into space is by fulfilling their desire to go, but sadly, this is something that neither scientists, or proponents of our current voyeuristic space program (including the new initiative) are able to get their heads around.
Fortunately, not everyone is as blinkered in their outlook.
[Update a few minutes later]
I just noticed (and I'd probably seen it earlier, but forgotten) that Clark Lindsey has discussed this piece as well, earlier this week.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:08 AMLaughing Wolf attended yesterday's Aldridge hearing in Atlanta, and blogged it live. So did Michael Mealing.
It sounds like it was an interesting discussion, particularly Steve Fleming's presentation. I'll be looking for the transcripts.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:51 AMNow there's a new blog dedicated to covering it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:10 PMI've just been notified that Jeff Greason's full (not spoken) testimony at today's public Aldridge Commission hearing is now available. There is little here with which I disagree, except for the beginning:
I am here today because I have seen signs of hope an awareness that we cannot succeed by re-creating Apollo, and a dawning realization within NASA that this is truly their last chance to refashion the agency into a new and effective organization.
I view this as appropriate diplomacy (I'm not as politically correct, or as optimistic). I don't see such signs, at least yet, but I'll await final judgement until the commission issues its recommendations.
Here are the key points, in my opinion:
The surest path to lower cost and greater reliability is not man-rating, or review boards or mil-specs it is traffic volume. The more frequent the launches, the faster the providers will learn. And let us not be distracted by the myth of man-rating. The difference in reliability between commercial satellite launchers and historic man-rated vehicles is a few percent while the presence of a robust escape system can increase the probability of crew survival 10 or 20 fold. Clearly, that is where effort should be focused......if the exploration initiative founders, there will be no business to compete for. And if NASA continues business as usual, that is where we are headed. America can afford to dare and do great things but we have to do it as exploration has been done throughout history; by working with what we have, by living off the land where possible, and by building expensive custom equipment only when nothing else can possibly do the job. That is the true spirit of exploration and an endeavor XCOR would be proud to be part of.
But go read the whole thing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:38 PMI'll be very interested to hear the testimony from tomorrow afternoon's local hearings in Atlanta.
1:15 2:00 p.m. Space EntrepreneursMr. Elon Musk, Founder, Zip2 and PayPal
Dr. Peter Diamandis, Chair & CEO, ZeroGravity Corp.
Mr. Jeff Greason, XCOR Aerospace
Unfortunately, they haven't allowed a lot of time for the three of them to do anything but give a short statement.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:43 AMDwayne Day has a long, but worthwhile description of how bad the reporting has been on the president's space initiative, and the source of the mythical trillion dollar program.
Jeff Foust has a related piece on how badly the administration and particularly NASA has handled the media, with the danger that this president's space initiative may share the fate of his father's.
I remain very concerned about this program, because I think that the approach is fundamentally technically flawed. If Dennis Wingo is right, they've narrowed down the trade space far too much too early, by looking at a binary decision between building at ISS with EELVs (a bad idea for two reasons--ISS and EELV) or building a heavy lifter and replicating Apollo. Either approach will result in a program that's ultimately unsustainable, if it succeeds at all.
There are other options, but it requires new thinking that NASA is clearly not yet ready for. I think that the president's initiative would have a much better chance if he had set up a clean new agency, rather than giving it to the existing NASA, just as we did when NASA was established forty six years ago. It's not clear that Code T as such will be able to break out of NASA think as long as it's a code within the agency, rather than one that's independent.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:48 PMDennis Wingo has a lengthy criticism of Jeffrey Bell's recent Space Daily articles.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:25 AMGeeeeez.
Go check out the idiot union rep at NASA Watch. The moron can't even spell his name right. Maybe she'll threaten to sue me for unfair labor practices, too, for calling her a moron and an idiot. Sorry, dear, but truth is an absolute defense against libel.
(Sorry, no permalink--maybe Keith will move this to Spaceref so future viewers of this post can find it).
And hat tip to Mike Puckett in the comments section of this post.
[Update at 9 PM PST]
I should add that I found this particular part the most moronic (and sadly, typical of leftist thinking):
You have either missed the point of the Bulletin, or you are trying to stifle Freedom of Speech.
Once again, we're not allowed to critique dumb commentary without being accused of "stifling Freedom of Speech." As though by the mere act of criticism, the perpetrators of free speech have been hustled off to the gulag, to speak no more.
Here's a quarter, Virginia. Go call someone who gives a damn.
[Update on Saturday morning]
Clark Lindsey has some further thoughts (scroll down, though the beginning part about potential Centennial prizes is worth a read, too):
It also brings up the serious topic of the brother-in-law effect commonly cited by space startup companies. A potential investor initially shows great enthusiasm and seems ready to write a check but a few days later backs off after talking to a brother-in-law or other contact who works at NASA. The NASA person typically knows little about the project but bashes it anyway and influences the investor against it.Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:46 PMI've heard that the military has rules forbidding employees from expressing any such personal judgments about commercial products of possible military use because of potential conflicts of interest. Similar rules should be placed into the next NASA budget authorization.
OK, I've gone back and taken a look at Jeffrey Bell's Space Daily piece again.
In addition to the comments that Dwayne Day made on the previous post, he's wrong about architectures. I was a little confused on my first read, and I thought I agreed with the following:
People who say that a manned moon mission could be assembled in LEO out of small pieces launched on existing boosters like the new EELVs are dead wrong. This option was never seriously considered by either the Red Team or the Blue Team back during the Moon Race. It vastly magnifies the chances of failure.Both Delta 4H and Atlas 5H can lift about 20 tons to LEO, so many launches would be needed for each moon flight. The need to design the moonship in many small pieces increases its total weight. Rumor suggests that the actual number coming out of current studies of this option are in the range of 6 to 9 launches (120-180 tonnes). If any one of these launches were to fail, the whole mission plan would be disrupted.
Also, there is no way we could produce the number of Delta 4H or Atlas 5H boosters it would take to support a serious moon program on top of all other launch requirements. Since each Heavy EELV uses three core stages in parallel, 18 to 27 stages would be dumped into the Atlantic for one Moon landing.
I actually do agree with much of this--I don't think that it's sensible to use EELVs for the new space initiative. Of course, I don't think that it's sensible to use expendables in general. My biggest disappointment in the new space policy is that it seems to have thrown in the towel on the possibility of getting low-cost launch.
If we were to launch the pieces on a reliable, low-cost launcher (a highly reusable space transport), then the concerns about a missed launch would be vastly mitigated, the pieces themselves would be much cheaper, and there would be spares in the event of a launch failure. Unfortunately, this is an option that no one seems to be considering now, because NASA screwed the pooch so badly on X-33 that the agency (totally irrationally) really seems to believe that it's not possible to build reusables, or lower launch costs significantly. And for the paltry goals that the agency has (even in the wake of the new space initiative), it's probably not.
It will only happen when the nation (not NASA) decides that we have to have routine affordable access to space, and puts in place policies to achieve that goal (which involve much more activity than NASA's space exploration goals). But once the goal is achieved, the trade space will become radically transformed, and articles like Jeffrey Bell's will be irrelevant.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:30 PMA thirty-meter-diameter asteroid is going to pass within twenty-five thousand miles of the planet this afternoon (America time).
That is very close--about a fifth of the distance to the moon and well inside its orbit. A few thousand miles lower, and it could take out a geostationary satellite. If it were to hit land, it might leave a scar something like this.
And of course, like all bad things that happen, it will be Bush's fault.
I took the picture Tuesday on a flight from Fort Lauderdale to LA, over Winslow, Arizona. The crater is almost a mile in diameter and about a two and a half miles in circumference. When it hit, back during the Pleistocene, it probably wiped out all life for many miles around. You can read more about it here.
Just another reminder that we have to start paying attention to these things.
[Update at 1:20 PM PST]
Clayton Cramer has more details.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:03 AMJeffrey Bell has a thought-provoking article over at Space Daily today on the potential costs of the president's space initiative, and the viability of doing the lunar base. However, my thoughts haven't been adequately provoked yet to respond, or even decide to what degree I agree or disagree with it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:11 AMAt first glance, this didn't seem like a very auspicious beginning for government-sponsored prizes in the modern era.
A $1 million race across a southern California desert by driverless robots ended Saturday after all 15 entries either broke down or withdrew, a race official said.Two of the entries covered about seven miles (11 kilometers) of the roughly 150-mile (240-kilometer) course in the Mojave Desert while eight failed to make it to the one-mile (1500 meter) mark. Others crashed seconds after starting.
Color me confused. No, flabbergasted.
Were there some rules of which I'm not aware of in this contest? Like you couldn't run the course, or some facsimile of it, ahead of time? You weren't allowed to test your vehicle under actual course conditions?
I should start by saying that I'm not sure what the purpose of making it a real-time race was, unless they thought that this would generate more public excitement, or perhaps make it more challenging by having to deal with competitors as well as the course itself. If the goal is to get from Barstow to Vegas in a certain amount of time, then that's the goal--why have everyone do it at the same time?
Why not do it like the X-Prize people, at least to start? Set a date that you're going to make the attempt, have the judges show up to watch, and do the attempt. No need to have everyone go at once. Use graduated prizes--a million for the first, half a million for the second, a quarter million each for the next four. Once you've got some vehicles that can demonstrate their ability to do it, then you put them on the same course and actually have them race each other in real time.
But what amazes me is that, given that it was a real-time race (you had to beat not just the clock, but other competitors), wouldn't you want to test and see if you could do it at all first, let alone in the allotted time period?
I mean, if I had a Formula I car, I don't think I'd enter it in a race with other Formula I cars, or even with the pace car or a bicycle, until I'd at least seen if it could make it around the track once or twice. In fact, you know, I think that I'd drive the course the requisite number of times to win, and even see if I could at least approach some course records before I actually put it in competition.
Yet somehow, not a single one of these team's vehicles were capable of making it five percent of the distance without some kind of breakdown. What's up with that? Could it really be just an unfortunate set of circumstances, lousy luck all around?
Does anyone have an explanation?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:54 AMThere was a talk at the University of Maryland today by Daniel Kleppner, one of the co-chairs of the American Physical Society's Boost Phase Missile Defence Study Group. The report is summarized here, and the whole thing is available here.
Anyway, the talk was very well presented, and it's clear that if you accept the initial assumptions the conclusions follow logically. It's the input assumptions that are somewhat problematic. I've seen people complain that the choice of initial assumptions is due to liberal bias, but Kleppner defended them quite well on the basis of the National Intelligence Estimate and the systems actually under consideration. Some of the parameters considered, such as the burn time, were skewed in favor of the defender, and they considered zero decision time cases, which also favor the defender. The minimum kill vehicle mass considered (90 lbs, including sensors, thrusters and fuel) seemed to me a little large, but I don't have a basis to dispute it. This is a critically important parameter, since it scales all the other masses in the system.
Kleppner stated at a number of points that there is room for reasonable people to disagree on the assumptions, and that judgement calls needed to be made in order to choose concrete numbers to put into the models. Given the credentials of the people on the study team it's unlikely that the numbers are off by much, though. It is clear, however, that under only slightly more optimistic assumptions (or under the assumption of an aggressive research program), the system can be made to work, at least against limited attack by relatively unsophisticated opponents. The technology horizon for consideration in the study was only ten years, and there was no consideration of potential breakthrough technologies.
The study also comes down firmly in support of the effectiveness of boost phase intercept against missiles launched from ships close to the borders of the US. This is significant for two reasons. First of all, this is the scenario considered most likely by the National Intelligence Estimate (which makes sense - it's an easier attack, and it makes tracking the attacker harder). The second reason is that high tech systems tend to be most effective when developed incrementally. By starting with short range boost phase interceptors the system can be debugged before extending capabilities to intermediate range and finally to ICBM ranges.
Kleppner dismissed Brilliant Pebbles as not credible, despite considering much larger space based systems. The conclusions on the large space based systems were negative due to the need for greatly increased launch capacity. Launch is the long pole in the tent - all the other technological components needed were considered viable. Yet another reason to work to increase launch rates. The increase needed was cited as being 5-10 times current rates, which ought to be well within reach. If Uncle Sam was to decide to just go ahead and deploy space based BPIs it would be a massive boon for the launch industry, but I think that's a faint hope at best. The dismissal of Brilliant Pebbles is a little more puzzling to me, and I can't help wondering if maybe the study group simply didn't look hard enough at the possibility of dramatically reducing sensor size, which would also help on the kill vehicle mass.
Overall it was a good talk. If you get a chance to see Kleppner talk, take it. He's very clear, gives complete answers to questions and admits the limits of the study and his own knowledge. The study obviously has considerable limitations, but it's a good starting point for policy discussions, which is pretty much the point. It's a start, not an attempt to have the final word. A lot of the reporting on this topic in the press has suggested that the study's conclusions are much firmer than they in fact are. It's a nuanced study, as appropriate for a problem of this complexity. Trying to shoehorn it into either the pro or anti missile defense camp does a disservice to the study group and to the seriousness of the issue.
Posted by Andrew Case at 07:29 PMJeff Foust has a review of Greg Klerkx' new book, Lost In Space (the title of this post is a subtitle of the book). I read it right after it came out a few weeks ago, and have been meaning to review it myself, but Jeff has mostly done it for me. He's right in that there are some errors in the book that detract somewhat from its credibility. Here was a list that I made as I went through it.
He says that "...at their most basic, tethers are analogous to the wire that runs from a wall socket to a lamp."
Errr, no. At their most basic, space tethers are a line that connects one object to another in orbit. He's talking about a special category of space tethers--electrodynamic tethers, and an uninformed reader might believe that these are the only kinds of tethers that exist, and that their only use is for converting orbital energy to electrical energy and vice versa, when in fact that's only one application.
He repeats the myth that "Even the paper plans for building the Saturns were gathered up and destroyed." Not true. Well, perhaps it may be literally true--the plans exist on microfiche, but the implication is that they are beyond our reach. What really no longer exists is the tooling (at least not all of it), which was expensive to preserve and warehouse for a program that was considered part of the past. Should we choose, we could resurrect the Saturn program. It wouldn't be wise, four decades on, but we have the plans, and there was no conspiracy to burn the bridge over the Rubicon to Shuttle, once across.
He says that "...two congressmen have flown, with little rationale other than their political status..." on the Shuttle. It's wrong no matter how you define "congressman." Two Senators (Garn and Glenn) have flown, and one congressman (now senator)--Bill Nelson. This is a particular perplexing error, because it should have been caught by an editor--later in the book, in discussing Senator Glenn's flight, he writes, "To [Alan] Ladwig, this was Garn and Nelson all over again."
In describing the Kistler K-1 vehicle (a project that recently got a new lease on life with a couple hundred million NASA contract to purchase flight data), he writes that it "would be a lot cheaper to use than the shuttle...because it will not be piloted and therefore will not have need of the extensive 'human rating' requirements that NASA employs for the shuttle."
Here, he's bought into (or at least is implictly endorsing) two myths of spacecraft design.
The first is that pilots add cost to vehicles (including space vehicles). There's actually no evidence for this, at least in any vehicle other than space vehicles. There's actually good reason to believe that piloted vehicles, properly designed, could be cheaper than unpiloted ones--a proposition that the X-Prize and commercial suborbital developers will test in the coming months and years.
The second is that the shuttle is human rated. In fact, it is not, and never has been, by the standards that NASA has established as human rated. For instance, it doesn't have "zero-zero" abort capability (that is, the ability to abort from the pad all the way to orbit, the zeros corresponding to the velocity and altitude of the starting condition). I've discussed both of these aspects extensively in the past.
He states that Columbia wasn't able to reach the ISS orbit. In fact, it was--but its payload would have been much less than that of the other orbiters, so it was designated mostly for non-ISS missions. It was in fact scheduled to go to the ISS had it not been destroyed a year ago.
On page 224, he expresses concern about sending nuclear waste into space that indicates a lack of understanding of the issues--he's a little too prone to buy the scare mongering of some people about this. I do think that it might be financially feasible, and safe, to store nuclear waste in space, but this won't happen until we develop much more reliable vehicles than are available at present. I discussed this a couple years ago in an early Fox News column.
Greg also has a higher opinion of Bob Park's opinions than I do.
Overall, I agree with Jeff's assessment of the book. It's an interesting read, and will provide a lot of background in terms of NASA versus the private sector, but as Jeff says, it's a little schizophrenic, in that he can't quite decide whether the agency is an evil monolith, or a bunch of warring fiefdoms. Ultimately, while descriptive, it's not very prescriptive, or well organized. It's more a compendium of interesting stories than a coherent narrative, and it seems to peter out at the end, with no clear conclusion.
The world still awaits the book that lays out clearly the problems with our space policy, and viable recommendations to address them. This isn't that book. Perhaps mine, if I ever get around to finishing it, will be.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:01 PMIt's fitting that my first post on Transterrestrial Musings is on suborbital industry lobbying - it certainly won't be my last on this topic.
The Suborbital Institute has announced that it will be holding an event on May 17-18 to lobby congress on issues affecting the nascent suborbital spaceflight industry. If you are in the DC area or are able to travel to the area please join us. I'll be there, as will various folks from the alt.space crowd. The date is chosen so that people planning to attend the May COMSTAC meeting can just come a couple of days early. I've been involved with the SubOrbital Institute since the beginning, and it's a good bunch of people. SubOrbital days are interesting and fun, though there's no doubt that it's real work. I'll post more on the institute and its agenda in the coming weeks.
On the topic of suborbital spaceflight, X-Rocket has revamped their website and they have some very interesting news. They have a working operational demonstrator for their planned vehicle, and they have test flights. Congratulations to X-Rocket and Ed Wright (who is one of the founders of the SubOrbital Institute). Link via HobbySpace.
That's enough for now. I'll post a formal introduction when the current family crisis has passed. I probably won't be able to post more than occasionally until then.
I've often said that Apollo wasn't about space, and that was one of the reasons that those who hope to resurrect the "space program" on an Apollo model are doomed to failure. The implication, of course, is that space activities that "aren't about space" are a bad thing. My old friend (old in the sense that I've known him a long time, not that either he or I are old...) Jim Muncy has a different opinion:
Space exploration is not merely about the wonders of science and technology, although it produces countless discoveries and innovations. It is not merely about stunning images and daring adventures, although it has those aplenty. And to the disbelief of so many space professionals and aficionados alike, it is not even really about outer space.Rather, space exploration is about strengthening and spreading the very essence of freedom: the magic of going and doing what you want, where you want, when you want and why you want. It is about the endless and innately human quest for a better, wiser and richer life, not just for yourself today but for generations hence. Freedom is as much about the creation and pursuit of new dreams, horizons and challenges as it is about achieving them.
RTWT
[via Mark Whittington]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:51 PMMany of those enthusiastic about the president's new space policy want to redo Apollo.
I pointed this out when it was first announced, but I didn't really describe all the implications of it.
There are many, but I want to focus here on those aspects of it that affect our choice in launch systems to achieve the president's goals, whether existing, or new.
There is an assumption that we cannot move humans beyond earth orbit without a heavy-lift vehicle, like the Saturn that first took men to the moon three and a half decades ago (and the fact that this July 20th will be the thirty-fifth anniversary of the first lunar landing makes me feel quite ancient). This assumption is based on the fact that it's how we did it the first time, and some have too little imagination to conceive that it could be done in any other way.
But that was then, and this is now.
What are the differences between then and now, in terms of our ability to fling humans beyond earth's orbit, and on to other worlds?
First, of course, we know much more now than we did then, if for no other reason than we've done it. But more importantly, technology has advanced over the past third of a century since we first went to the moon, in a time period in which technology has been generally advancing at a dizzying pace, with a seeming continuous acceleration.
Computers are much smaller and faster, materials are stronger with the ability to take higher temperatures, our ability to design is much greater, and our ability to get designs from a computer screen to functional hardware is phenomenal, compared to our capabilities in the 1960s.
Consider also that our goal then was not to open up space in any sustainable way, but to simply beat the Russians to the moon.
Under those conditions, our choice to launch a lunar mission on a single large rocket probably made sense. It wasn't cheap, but it was low risk, since we knew how to build big rockets (we only had to scale up what we already had), and we didn't know how to assemble things in space.
But there seems to be an assumption on the part of many that large launch systems are an intrinsic requirement of manned space travel. Accordingly, they've skipped past the part of the trade studies that would determine whether or not this assumption is valid, and gone straight to debating the best way to get heavy lift.
Of course, there's another motivation on the part of many engaged in such debates--a large launch system means a large development contract that provides continued employment for many who may fear losing their jobs when the space shuttle is phased out.
There is a huge constituency for the Shuttle program--in Florida where they are processed and launched, in Utah where the Solid Rocket Boosters are manufactured, in Louisiana where the external tanks are built, and other places. The president's announcement that we will no longer fly the shuttle after the end of this decade had to have cast a pall over many people in those places, because even if the new initiative blossoms, there's no guarantee that it will benefit the communities that are currently supported by shuttle-based jobs.
So it's not surprising that some are talking about building a new heavy-lift launch system that uses shuttle components. If they can't keep the orbiters, there are certainly many parts of NASA and its contractors that will work very hard to maintain the rest of the (costly) shuttle infrastructure. Concepts for shuttle-based launchers have been around as long as the shuttle itself, and many will claim that this is the fastest and cheapest route to the capability that they insist we need.
But do we?
Most people are unaware that other options were considered for Apollo, including earth orbit assembly, but as I wrote above, this mode was ultimately rejected as being too risky in terms of the primary goal--beating the Russians to the moon.
But as the president said last month, this isn't a race--it's a journey, and we need to come up with modes of operation that recognize that, and make the journey an economically sustainable one. A heavy-lift vehicle, even a shuttle-derived one, will cost a lot to develop, and unless it flies enough, it will be difficult to amortize those development costs. Smaller vehicles, flown more often, will be more likely to reduce launch costs in the near term.
The objection, of course, is that orbital assembly carries its own risks. What few realize is that this is because NASA hasn't really devoted the effort necessary to reducing them (particularly in developing space suits that don't tire out the astronauts).
The current soft suit resists motion because bending a joint changes the volume of the air inside it, providing a force that wants to restore it to its original position. Think of a rubber glove, limp until inflated, but difficult to bend the fingers once under pressure.
In fact, the glove is the biggest problem in designing the high-pressure space suits necessary to avoid the bends (the same problem a diver has when she surfaces too quickly) when an astronaut goes out into the vacuum of space. Larger joints like shoulders and knees have special designs that are zero-volume change, but no one has yet miniaturized such a design to finger joints.
Because this is a critical technology, and one that has great leverage in influencing launch system trades, I would propose the following:
Build a vacuum glove box with a task box inside (perhaps an automobile engine that has to be dissassembled and reassembled). Put up a purse of a million dollars to the first person who can achieve the task working through gloves under a pressure differential of half an atmosphere, without a break.
Unlike many space activities, it's a project that can be literally done in someone's garage, and it may spur a great amount of innovation for very low cost. Accordingly, it would make an excellent candidate for the Office of Exploration's new prize fund, and I hope they'll strongly consider it. At very low cost to the taxpayers, one or more successful concepts could lay to rest myths about the intrinsic difficulty of working in space, opening up the options for how we will get to the planets beyond redoing Apollo, perhaps saving billions in dollars, and constituting a major step toward becoming a truly spacefaring nation.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:31 AMIn comments on this post, Chuck Divine has a review of last night's space policy debate in DC.
Muncy was superb. His top ten myths of the Bush space plan were excellent. Myth #1? The plan is about NASA. No, it's not. The plan is about us (humans). Muncy eloquently put forward the observation that space was about all kinds of human endeavors.Former astronaut Searfoss was the big surprise. He was critical of NASA, supportive of private space endeavors. He observed he lost six friends when Columbia burned up. I was very favorably impressed.
Hudgins and Park were very predictable. To be honest, I could have done a better job at presenting cases for their positions (even though I have some disagreements with both) than they did. Debate training from high school and college (at least what I got decades ago) does give me a bit of an advantage, though.
Rick Searfoss wouldn't have been a surprise to me. He's a 'stro who gets it, and is on XCOR's board of directors.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:20 AMI'm still too busy to write much, and it's not going to get much better until the end of the month--it will be a challenge even to do my Fox columns this week and next--but in the meantime, go read this little history of presidential space initiatives by Dwayne Day, over at The Space Review.
For those who aren't familiar with past attempts to set a new direction for NASA, it provides a lot of good guidance, and potential food for thought as to how to avoid the mistakes of that past. It also debunks the nonsense that anything that NASA does beyond LEO automatically costs four hundred billion dollars (which of course, because NASA is doing it, is automatically inflated to a trillion dollars by clueless commentators).
And by the way, congratulations to Jeff Foust on the one-year anniversary of The Space Review. It should be one of your weekly must-read links if you're interested in space policy and technology.
[Update on Wednesday]
Clark Lindsey has an email from someone at NASA who says that the SEI cost estimate was even more inflated than Dwayne says (scroll down a little).
...the internal NASA JSC number was $100 Billion -- this number was doubled by the comptroller at JSC and then doubled again by the Comptroller at NASA Headquarters.
It wouldn't surprise me at all.
[Update at 8:45 AM PST]
Dwayne responds in comments.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:01 PMToo busy to blog (I'm working overtime, have a sick furnace and a sick cat), but fortunately, Henry Vanderbilt over at the Space Access Society is picking up the slack. He's very upbeat, and has an update on X-Prize progress, a smart analysis of the president's space initiative, and the new House legislation on launch regulation, a subject that I still haven't had much time to analyze.
As part of his new space policy analysis, he also has a powerful argument against the "Bush space policy hoax" folks.
...we think this new plan is very unlikely to be what many are claiming, mere election-year feelgood puffery. Were it so, the Administration would be making promises left and right, jobs for everyone and a contract in every district, and not worrying overmuch whether the Congress would fund it all once the election's over. Instead, the White House and NASA HQ have been notably reticent about reassuring the established NASA manned space Centers and contractors that they'll all have major roles in the new initiative. Refusing to promise job security is a poor way to win votes. It is, however, a good way to keep options open to implement the sort of major restructuring NASA will need to meet the new program's ambitious goals within relatively modest budget increases.
It's long, but read the whole thing.
[Update on Tuesday morning]
There was one specific other item of note from Henry's report that I would have mentioned last night if I hadn't had the cat and furnace problems. Pioneer Rocketplane apparently has funding to build their suborbital vehicle, thanks to tax credits from the state of Oklahoma. Mitchell Burnside Clapp, founder and president, told me about this over a year ago, but it's public information now.
I think that 2004 will continue to be a very interesting year for the new emerging space transport industry.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:48 PMWith regard to Josh Marshall's uninformed hit piece, Keith Cowing makes a good point:
I call this hit and run policy analysis. Here is how it works: the practitioner makes some wildly unsubstantiated comments based on a few microseconds of analysis - usually on a topic about which they know nothing. They then throw in some wild cost estimates to scare folks, link a series of unrelated items together to suggest a trend (or usually a conspiracy), and then end the piece with a global pronouncement. Since the practitioner is a popular commentator and talking head on TV, most people just take him at his word. The net result: a complex issue is left lying by the side of the road in people's minds without ever having a chance to explain itself. The fact that this flimsy analysis appears in a publication that touts itself as being "for and about the U.S. Congress" ought to have a few people at NASA's Office of Legislative Affairs concerned.
At the risk of violating Instapundit's trademark, indeed...
[Update on Tuesday morning]
Welcome to any first-time readers from Instapundit. I apologize for the little foofaraw in the comments section--it's actually quite unusual.
Keith, thank you for the kind and helpful comments on the cat. I'll continue to visit NASA Watch, and to encourage my readers to do the same, for whatever it's worth, because I think that it is a valuable website, but judging from several comments, I do think that you're machine gunning yourself in the foot here.
It would be nice to end this pointless (albeit mild) flamefest and actually have a few comments on the substance of the post.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:03 PMI received an email from an astronomer pointing out an article in today's Gray Lady that says a Hubble mission might be as safe, or safer, than an ISS mission. I've omitted the emailer's name in case there's any political sensitivity.
While I don't subscribe to Josh Marshall's hoax theory about NASA's new focus, I do believe that the NASA hierarchy has been less than truthful concerning changes to its mission goals. When Sen. Barbara Mikulski called Sean O'Keefe concerning the cancellation of shuttle missions to Hubble, he told her that the decision was a combination of money and safety concerns. Once he heard from her that money might not be a problem, his message changed to that of safety alone. Indeed, Jon Grunsfeld's first comments about the mission cancellation also mentioned money, but safety has now become the overriding arguement, as it is harder to dispute from the outside.As an astronomer, I'm concerned about the future of basic astronomical research under the new NASA. NASA has quietly put off for at least a year, perhaps more, funding for its MIDEX and SPEX smaller space astronomical instrument missions and cut back funding for approved programs, and O'Keefe's press conference about the budget was not friendly to basic science (unless you are studying the science of weightlessness on the human body) or space astronomy. Now, this is NASA's perogative --- as my husband says, none of the "A"s in NASA stand for "astronomy" --- but I can't help but think that the broader public might not be concerned about the decline of the one science everyone seems to find compelling and approachable. And it was Bush's father who made a similar announcement about big goals for the US space program, which then petered out into nothing. It doesn't take political animus to fear that current path could lead to little progress.
Anyway, I emailed you because I haven't seen much sign that, outside of those of us who are directly affected, people have appreciated how much the new NASA focus is pulling money away from space science instrumentation and research. I'd like to see some discussion on this issue.
Well, I'm on record as believing that we ought to go ahead with the flight, and safety shouldn't even be an issue, but that's not politically correct these days. But I do believe that's the primary driver for the decision, and don't think that O'Keefe is being in any way disingenuous--at least I have no reason right now to think so. Risk assessments are always judgement calls, and while one engineer's analysis may be perfectly valid, it's always possible to find others who disagree, and NASA is erring on the side of caution right now, in response to the Gehman Commission and a reaction (and probably overreaction) to what happened a year ago.
However, I think that it's a little too early to tell whether or not the new initiative will be good, or bad, for space science and astronomy in general. People are inferring from the fact that the Hubble decision was announced after the president's speech that it was somehow a result of it. It wasn't. They were both a result of the same root cause--last year's loss of Columbia.
Actually, history indicates that we have the most vibrant space science program when we have a vibrant manned program as well (though it's not clear whether that will be the case for deep-space astronomy). For example, as far as I know, Webb remains on track.
But what fans of space telescopes should really be doing is cheering on people working to reduce costs (i.e., not NASA), because that's going to make it affordable for universities to put up their own suites of multi-mirror space telescopes. And if we really do set up a lunar base, farside will make a great place for a radiotelescope, blocked from the noisy earth.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:47 PMJosh Marshall subscribes to the "hoax" theory of the new space policy. Jeff Foust and his commenters show him (as is often the case) to be full of it. As commenter "Brad" says:
The Marshall piece is not a serious analysis of the merits, or lack, of the new Bush space policy. The complete omission in Marshall's story of the fact of the Columbia disaster and the floundering of NASA is telling. If Bush had done nothing at all in response, or made a Clintonian style non-decision to muddle through, that would itself warrant criticism. But instead Marshall attacks the president for having the balls to make a real choice......I have no illusions that Bush is some kind of space exploration enthusiast, even though he does have a background in military aviation. But I do think the Bush style of blunt decision making is what is responsible for finally cutting though the thirty years worth of bureaucratic B.S. surrounding space policy.
I am worried though that the political venom level is so high now that if Bush is defeated, his replacement will kill manned space exploration just because Bush was in favor of it. The Marshall piece is just another example of the venom.
Yes. I made this point as well a couple weeks ago.
There's been new legislation introduced in the House a couple days ago, that amends the Commercial Space Launch Act. It appears to supercede HR 3245, introduced last fall, which I analyzed at the time.
I haven't had the time to analyze it in detail, and I'd like to talk to some of the people involved in drafting it before I pontificate, but one major change seems to be a new way of allowing people to fly, by letting them get a permit for research and experimentation, without requiring a full launch license. I think that it's meant to be analogous to an experimental aircraft certificate, and it's probably to address Burt Rutan's chafing under the licensing regime.
I've long advocated something like this, and it will be interesting to see if it makes it through the legislative process unscathed (and if it gets vetted by Foggy Bottom, which may be concerned that the process isn't rigorous enough to keep us compliant with the Outer Space Treaty). There are other implications of this legislation as well, but further discussion will have to await my finding enough time to dig into it.
[Update on Saturday morning]
XCOR seems pleased with the legislation.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:29 PMThe Bush administration has released its proposed budget for NASA.
It reflects the new policy that the president announced a couple weeks ago, and Keith Cowing, of NASA Watch, has spared us from having to plow through the turgid document ourselves, and interpreted it in that context.
As Keith points out, the budget increases for the first few years are modest, but they are real, and NASA, having been now told that Shuttle will no longer be available a decade from now, can truly focus on new things with the funding available. The agency budget will slowly grow to almost twenty billion dollars by the end of a second Bush term (should that occur), but given the dramatic growth of the federal budget in this administration, it will remain less than its historical one percent of the total, which this year will exceed two trillion dollars.
However, there's one little item in the budget also mentioned in Keith's report that, while tiny, may be a portent of huge things to come. The budget of the new Office of Exploration is about a billion dollars (less than ten percent of the total NASA budget), and buried deep within it is a twenty-million-dollar line item called "Centennial Challenges."
According to the description, the purpose of this is "to establish a series of annual prizes for revolutionary, breakthrough accomplishments that advance exploration of the solar system and beyond and other NASA goals...By making awards based on actual achievements instead of proposals, NASA will tap innovators in academia, industry, and the public who do not normally work on NASA issues. Centennial Challenges will be modeled on past successes, including 19th century navigation prizes, early 20th century aviation prizes, and more recent prizes offered by the U.S. government and private sector."
The latter reference is to a prize offered by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the first autonomous robotic vehicle to navigate itself across the desert from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, in a race to be held next month. It's for a million-dollar purse.
As this article points out, the prize may not be won this year, but even if not, the teams will learn a great deal from the experience, and be ready to try again next year (the program is currently funded at least through 2007).
Why did DARPA do it?
DARPA was convinced that good ideas existed for overcoming some of the problems plaguing vehicles that drive themselves. But officials also suspect that they aren't hearing all those ideas because some people are unable or unwilling to run the bureaucratic paperwork gauntlet necessary to secure a DARPA contract."Who's out there in their garages, their bedrooms, in their labs, working on this?" Negron said. "We want to know." The race might appeal to some people who simply want to show what they can do, without all the red tape.
It's also a reference to the X-Prize, which may be won this year (and if not, it won't be won at all, because the prize expires on December 31st). This, a private prize, has spurred several teams to attempt to build vehicles that can take people out of the atmosphere, and repeat the effort within two weeks, proving out the concept of a reusable spaceship.
Both prizes are modeled on something else obliquely referred to in the Office of Exploration document ("...early 20th century aviation prizes...")--the Orteig Prize, which Charles Lindbergh won in his solo flight across the Atlantic over six decades ago, and both take advantage of the efficiency (at least to the prize offerer) and leverage provided by such prizes. For the DARPA prize:
...it's not a race likely to be won on the cheap. Whittaker estimates it will cost about $5 million to win the $1 million prize.
The Orteig prize similarly generated many times its value in net resources poured into the goal, and Burt Rutan's X-Prize attempt alone has reportedly already cost more than the ten million dollars on offer. More importantly, unlike many recent NASA programs, it achieved its goal, in a spectacular fashion (a fate to soon be hoped for with the DARPA and X-Prizes as well).
What's the down side? Again, looking at the Office of Exploration document, here's a key phrase: "...from 19th century navigation prizes..."
I'm not sure what they're referring to here, because the most famous navigation prize was the Longitude Act, passed by the British Parliament in 1714 (that is, in the eighteenth, not the nineteenth century). This was a 20,000 pound prize (worth millions in today's currency) for the ability to determine the longitude of a ship at sea.
As related by Dava Sobel in her best-seller Longitude, the prize was won by John Harrison. He invented the spring-powered clock, unaffected by the rolling of the waves as previous pendulum clocks had been, which allowed ship's navigators to know what time it was in England--necessary information to determine their position.
I should have used quotes around the word "won," because as hard as the challenge of achieving the goal itself was, it proved even more difficult to collect the full reward, an endeavor to which he devoted much of the remainder of his life. His thinking turned out to be a little too far "outside the box," and some used this as an excuse to try to deprive him of his rightful dues.
This should be a cautionary tale for modern government prizes as well. Anyone who's ever dealt with Congress knows that it can be most fickle, and ultimately, the greatest barrier to the utility of such prizes may be confidence of the contestants in the ability and willingness of the government to ultimately deliver.
The initiative in the new Office of Exploration budget is small--just two percent of its budget--and perhaps just the proverbial camel's nose under the tent, but that may be just as well. It could prove a useful pilot program to determine whether NASA is truly interested in true innovation, from previously-unknown talents, or instead in continuing to maintain the status quo.
The eyes of the alternative space community will be kept very closely on this prize.
I'm a little delinquent in responding to this, because Adam Keiper pointed it out to me last weekend, but it's been a busy week. Gregg Easterbrook is determined to waste my time having to correct him.
There's no reason right now to go back to the moon, other than as make-work for aerospace contractors. For 30 years, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (nasa) has sent no automated probes to the moon, because no one has proposed anything compelling for even robots to do there.
There are many reasons to go back to the moon. We (literally) barely scratched its surface thirty-plus years ago. There are abundant resources there to potentially establish settlements, to produce clean abundant power, to produce propellant, and for the narrow-minded people (like, apparently, Gregg) who think that the only reason to spend money on space is science, there remains a great deal of science to do there.
Gregg is simply wrong. Many people have proposed things for both people and robots to do. They may not have been compelling to NASA, or Gregg Easterbrook, but neither of those two entities have shown themselves to be reliable indicators as to what is, or should be, compelling to others.
Going from Earth's surface to orbit requires a lot of energy and is very expensive with existing technology. At the current space shuttle launch price of $20 million per ton, merely placing 1,000 tons of Mars-bound equipment into orbit would cost $20 billion--more than nasa's entire annual budget. And that's just the cost to launch the stuff. Design, construction, staffing, and support would all cost much more.
The problem with this is that Gregg remains mired in the belief that Shuttle is "existing technology," when in fact for the most part it is thirty-year-old technology. As I've pointed out before, Shuttle is an absurd benchmark for cost of launch in estimating costs of doing things in space in the twenty-first century.
These are reasons why, when Bush's father asked nasa in 1989 about sending people to Mars, the Agency estimated a total program cost of $400 billion for several missions. That inflates to $600 billion in today's money and sounds about right as an estimate
Yes, Gregg, there are reasons why the agency estimated that cost. Reason 1: they decided to use the program to justify everything that every center was doing. Reason 2: they didn't really want to do it, desiring to continue to focus on space station instead, and they in fact actively lobbied against it on the Hill, an act for which Dick Truly was later canned by George Herbert Walker Bush. Non-reason: it bears some resemblance to what such a program would have to cost.
In fact, it's absurd to worry about the cost of such a program right now, or to try to stretch absurd examples to attempt to estimate it, as Gregg mistakenly does, in this and other recent articles. We have no idea what it will cost, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be a goal of the nation. When it comes down to actual designs, and plans, and cost estimates, then will be the time to criticize it and decide whether it's worth the money at that point in time, or to wait until some better plan (or technology) comes along. But it's pointless to take potshots at it now, and to say that we shouldn't do it because the Gregg Easterbrooks of the world can't figure out how to do it cheaply.
One of the frustrating things about Easterbrook is that in any wrongheaded column, he always somehow finds a way to say things with which I agree:
...while a Mars visit would be an exhilarating moment for human history, planning for Mars before improving space technology is putting the cart ahead of the horse. Nasa's urgent priority should be finding a new system of placing pounds into orbit: If there were some less costly, safer way to reach space than either the space shuttle or current rockets, then grand visions might become affordable.
But it's still not quite clear if he's got it right, because I don't know what he means by "find." If he means develop a Shuttle replacement that somehow operates more cheaply, this would be another programmatic disaster, but if he means to simply put out basic requirements to the private sector and purchase services from whoever can meet them, then I am in a hundred percent agreement. But I've never seen anything in any of his writing to indicate that this is what he as in mind. He seems to remain in the mindset that NASA should do the thing, it's just that they're not doing the right one.
As long as he remains stuck in that stale, four-decade-old paradigm, he'll continue to write uninformed articles like this, in which he occasionally arrives at the right result, for entirely the wrong reason.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:51 PMLate January has developed a reputation as a grim and fatal period in NASA's history.
Thirty-seven years ago this Tuesday, on the 27th, Apollo astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chafee died horribly, of asphyxiation and rapid incineration in an Apollo capsule on the Saturn launch pad. Destined for the moon, they never got off the ground in the vehicle that was to take them there.
The event caused a massive overhaul of the Apollo program, but NASA recovered, and two and a half years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon and, per President Kennedy's audacious goal, returned safely to the earth.
Eighteen years ago today, on January 28th, 1986, the space shuttle orbiter Challenger was torn apart by aerodynamic forces as it separated from a collapsing fuel tank and its solid boosters. Just as their mission was beginning, seven astronauts fell to their deaths, from a great height, in what remained of the vehicle.
That accident resulted in two and a half, in fact almost three, years of delay until the shuttle flew again, as well as a supposed change in NASA management.
Apparently, there wasn't enough change, because now, in 2004, coming close on the heels of those two tragedies, NASA has another sad date to commemorate. This coming Sunday, February 1, will be the first anniversary of the loss of the orbiter Columbia with its seven gallant crew.
How long it will be before shuttles fly again is now anybody's guess. The goal is late this year which, if it occurs, will be shorter than the hiatus from Challenger, but there's also a good chance that it will stretch into 2005.
Is there any reason, physical or psychological, for this close clustering of fateful anniversaries?
Probably not.
Certainly the Apollo I fire had nothing to do with the season--it occurred in a controlled environment that was indifferent to the weather outside.
Challenger would arguably not have occurred in the summer, since it was caused by an O-ring below rated temperature, but there are many weeks that it gets cold in central Florida, not just January's end.
If the prevailing theory about Columbia is correct, the damage to its thermal protection system was caused by falling foam, not ice, and even if it was ice, this can happen any time of year due to the cryogenic temperatures of the external tank. It could have occurred regardless of the date--it was purely bad luck. Or perhaps a better description, to be more in line with the findings of the Gehman Commission, is a string of luck running out on a flawed mindset.
It's just coincidence, but engineers--even NASA engineers--are human, and in any future manned spaceflight activities this time of year, one suspects that they'll have their fingers crossed, even if hidden in their pockets, for many years to come.
But in light of such a history, just how risk averse, how devoted to crew safety, should NASA be? Were our past decades' achievements in space worth the cost, in lives and treasure?
To some, the answer is obvious. No expense, no course of action, should be spared to prevent the deaths of astronauts, even if that means they don't fly at all. They should not risk their lives on any mission "needlessly." This is the argument often used by opponents of manned spaceflight in general.
Of course, such a position makes no sense when even cursorily examined. If that philosophy were applied to other endeavors in life, we'd remain in the caves today, or perhaps even in the trees. No minerals would be mined, nor autos driven (did you really need to go to the store for that ice cream?), no bridges or skyscrapers would be built, because sometimes, in these activities, people die. Any activity resulting in human progress entails risk.
And who is to decide what "needlessly" means? Certainly, if you have no interest in putting people into space (as, for instance, is the case with many scientists), then any manned spaceflight is needless. "No, no," they say. "We just mean that we shouldn't be doing things in space that can be done better with robots."
But that of course begs the meaning of the word "better."
Why don't we mine coal exclusively with robots? Why didn't we develop robots in the 1930s to build the Golden Gate Bridge, an undertaking that cost dozens of lives? In some cases we do, of course, but not to achieve a risk-free state (which isn't possible) so much as to save costs through increased productivity. But that's not the argument that people who say we shouldn't "risk lives" for "needless activities" seem to be making.
Let's take a concrete, and topical example. NASA has effectively decided to deorbit the Hubble Space Telescope, an instrument that has opened up vast new vistas of the universe. Some have decried this decision as the first casualty of the president's new space initiative.
Of course, it's not that simple. Hubble was designed to use only the shuttle for servicing, but the shuttle is now focused on the ISS. We will have limited shuttle flights available, even after we return to flight, and we have international commitments to the latter, but not the former.
But the real issue is that, as a result of last year's tragedy, we have made a policy decision to never again send an orbiter into the wilderness--to an orbit from which the vehicle cannot be easily inspected and the crew easily rescued. This means effectively that all future shuttle flights must go to ISS, and barring some alternative means of saving it, Hubble will come down.
That's not the decision I would have made, if the only choices are using a Shuttle or letting Hubble die. Yes, Shuttle missions are expensive, but we're flying them anyway--we might as well do something that's of clear value with them. Yes, astronauts' lives will be at risk, but that's their decision to make, not pundits and scientists. Yes, another orbiter will be at risk, but we've already decided to phase out the program, and it actually could limp along on two through ISS completion, if necessary.
In any event, it's not really that risky. We went seventeen years without a loss of an orbiter. The probability that we'll lose another in the next two or three years is pretty low. We're may be playing Russian Roulette, but that's a misleading analogy for a gun with a hundred empty chambers and a short game.
On the other hand, the decision may prove a blessing in disguise, because there may in fact be other options to save Hubble, if NASA can expand their thinking and contemplate alternative and innovative approaches. This may be a golden opportunity to see if some new, non-government players can start to undertake risky but worthwhile ventures, free of the fear of Congressional inquisitions, and undaunted by deadly anniversaries.
[Update at 4 PM PST]
As some probably guessed, this is today's Fox column.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:51 AMClark Lindsey, who's covering space stuff much better than I could hope to right now, given my schedule, has some thoughts about the effect of seeing Mars on the public:
The article speculates that this sort of remote sensing of Mars via the internet will satisfy the public's interest in the planet. I think it will have quite the opposite effect. The landers' imagery transforms Mars from an abstraction into a real place and will entice and inspire many either to want to go there themselves or at least to want to see living, breathing, thinking representatives of the human race go there and report back their impressions and experiences in person.
No daily permalinks yet, so scroll down to January 27th. There are other good links and info there as well. And listen to Clark on The Space Show tonight. There will be a live stream available here.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:42 AMThere's a second installment up of Keith Cowing and Frank Sietzen's history of the decision to reformulate national space policy. It has additional detail on the plan, and indicates that the planned gap between Shuttle end and CEV operations is three years, not four (earliest lunar flight possibly in 2013), to be filled with Russian capability.
Here's the part that I found interesting, and hasn't been discussed much.
With a new focus on human exploration, the ISS will now be focused specifically on human physiology and factors needed to flight certify humans for long-duration space travel. Any research failing to contribute to this focus will be dropped from NASA's space station research plan.So-called microgravity science investigations into metallurgical and materials sciences will be dropped, as will overtly commercial and fundamental life science research that does not have a human life science linkage.
Other nations will likely continue their own research plans using their resource allocations on the ISS -- but the U.S. portion will have a human exploration focus first and foremost. And even that will probably end by the middle of the next decade, with the station possibly taken over by the international partners, or perhaps a commercial concern.
The station has always had incompatible requirements (an inevitable result of the decision to have a single station) and this is one of them. Life sciences cause disturbances that interfere with good-quality microgravity, necessary for the materials research. This decision doesn't make that problem go away--it just makes it the Europeans' and Japanese' problem. We'll do our treadmill work and exercise, while they get exercised over the poor quality of their lab environment, until we pull out and hand it over to them.
But at least we're starting to develop a sane policy toward station. Despite all the hype over the years, microgravity research has never panned out in accordance with the hoopla and promises. Perhaps there is still some potential there, but it will await a dedicated station that's affordable to access on a timely basis. ISS never was that, and perhaps never will be.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:58 AMGreg Klerkx, who I met at the EZ-Rocket rollout a couple years ago, has a piece in the NYT that resonates with my Fox column this week: The Citizen Astronaut.
Greg also has an interesting-looking book out, that I'll have to read before finishing mine, so as to avoid redundancy.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 06:39 AMYou know, correcting Gregg Easterbrook's malanalysis of space issues could be a full-time job in itself. It's dismaying that people who should be intelligent enough to otherwise know better glom onto them in order to validate their own unknowledgable preconceptions on the subject. And by the way, it's no insult to be called unknowledgable on these issues. Few people are, even many in the space industry. To become so requires a huge investment in time and study that few have the time for.
I find it particularly frustrating, because there is so much to legitimately criticize in the recent proposal, NASA, and space policy in general, but the opportunities to do so are drowned out by better known, but far less knowledgable people who rest on their laurels from a few lucky shots against the shuttle a quarter of a century ago.
I don't really have time, but since he gets entirely too much credibility in the blogosphere and elsewhere, I'll take apart his latest bit of misinformation.
Just the cost numbers for the Crew Exploration Vehicle alone--forget all the probes, colonies, and other stuff--make Bush's announcement yesterday an all-time monument to budgetary low-balling. He declared that for the next five years, $12 billion will be devoted to the Moon-Mars initiative. That, the president said, is enough to fund new the Moon probes and development of the ill-named Crew Exploration Vehicle. This figure is utterly ridiculous, a mere fraction of what will be entailed in anything beyond some "paper spacecraft"--engineers' lingo for studies and Power Point presentations of hardware that never gets built. Boeing expects to spend around $7.5 billion merely to develop the new 7E7 jetliner, which will stay within the atmosphere and use very well-understood engineering. The development cost of the Crew Exploration Vehicle will be several times greater
This paragraph is chock full of nonsense. He's doing something worse than comparing apples to oranges--he's comparing space capsules to commercial airliners. There is no way to infer the costs of one from the other--they are totally irrelevant to each other. One carries hundreds of people, has to fly thousands of times, provides its own propulsion, has to meet all requirements of FAA certification. The other is simply a can that carries four people or so, with basic subsystems like a reaction-control system, avionics, life support, with thermal protection and a recovery system if it's going to do an entry. And in fact, it's also "well-understood engineering," and has been since 1968 or so. It may be expensive, but there's no way to tell by looking at airliners.
The best way to tell is to do a parametric cost analysis on it. It's basically an upgraded Apollo capsule (and perhaps service module for modest propulsion and additional consumables). We know how much that cost the first time, and it should be easier now, particularly considering the technology advances over the past four decades (e.g., computer microization). If NASA can't develop that vehicle in a few years for a few billion, it should be disbanded.
The timetable is also a low-ball. Bush declared that the Crew Exploration Vehicle would be tested in 2008, just four years from now. There's no way on Earth, as it were, this could happen without a cost-no-object crash program to rival Apollo. The Air Force's new F22 fighter has been in development for 13 years; an entire new spaceship can be developed in four years?
I didn't hear Bush say that. 2008 was the first robotic probes of the moon in anticipation of a manned return seven years later.
If we could develop such a thing in four years the first time on an Apollo budget, why couldn't we affordably do it again in ten years (first flight is supposed to be 2014) on a less urgent basis?
[Update]
Commenter Duncan Young says that Gregg is right on this point, but that doesn't make him right that it can't be done. As I said, it's perfectly feasible to develop and test a capsule, and associated service module, in four years, particularly since we already know how to do it, and have done it before. Apollo was a crash program, but the capsule itself wasn't really a long pole. As an aside, this is probably the only major development that will have to occur during Bush's term of office.
[/Update]
It may be that we can't, but Gregg certainly offers no coherent reasons why we can't, except with another absurd comparison--to a multi-mission fighter that's gotten into a lot of political problems with interservice rivalries, and which again, fly hundreds of sorties and have to be maintainable by high-school grads.
And I don't know what Gregg means by "spaceship," unless it's a way of intimidating his readership into thinking that he's one of them there "rocket scientists," and knows what he's talking about. If he means a "ship" that flies in space, there's nothing inherently expensive or difficult about that.
It's just a capsule. It's not a launcher.
But if, as Bush declared, it will be capable both of flying back and forth to the space station and of flying to the Moon, we're talking quite a machine.
You mean, like the Apollo capsule, which was capable of both flying back and forth to the moon, and to Skylab (and to meet a Soyuz)?
Quite a machine. How ever will we do it?
Alternatively, a smarter approach might be to construct one spaceship that always stays in space, looping back and forth between Earth and Moon; people, supplies, and fuel would be launched to meet the ship in Earth-orbit, but the ship itself would never come down. (This was a Werner von Braun idea.) That would mean design, engineering, and construction of a type of flying machine that has never existed before. Development of the space shuttle cost between $50 billion and $100 billion in current dollars, depending on whose estimate you believe. The idea that something more challenging, the first-ever true spaceship, can be developed for $12 billion is bunkum.
I hesitate to call ideas loopy, but this one is literally. He says that it would be smarter, then he says it would "mean design, engineering, and construction of a type of flying machine that has never existed before." He's criticizing a plan that doesn't require that as being unaffordable and requiring decades, and then proposing one that's undefined and has never been done before as somehow "smarter." On what planet?
Again, this is not a Shuttle. This is not an airliner. It's not a fighter jet.
It's a supersized Apollo capsule. We have an existence proof that we know how to build them. It will be easier now than it was forty years ago, honest. If we need a separate lander to get down to the lunar surface, we know how to build those, too. It's even possible to develop things in parallel, though I suspect that only the capsule will be required for the 2008 date, so they have something to replace the Shuttle capability for crew transfer in 2010.
And what's going to put this Crew Exploration Vehicle into orbit? No rocket that exists in the world today is capable of lifting the Apollo capsule and Moon lander of the late 1960s. Unless the Moon-bound twenty-first-century Crew Exploration Vehicle is going to be significantly smaller than the Apollo of a generation ago--carrying just one person and no supplies--a new, very large rocket will be required.
No, Gregg, we have acquired no experience with docking vehicles, or orbital mating over the past four decades. It's inconceivable that we could launch a capsule on one flight of a Delta or Atlas, and a service module on another flight, and hook them up in LEO. We have to redevelop Saturn.
And of course, even if one is truly unknowledgable enough to believe that, we could develop a Shuttle-derived launch vehicle with Saturn-like capability in about four years for a billion or three (though that's a separate budget than the one for the Crew Exploration Vehicle). We've known how to do that since the eighties. We haven't done it because there's been no need, not because it can't be done, or because it's unaffordable.
We shouldn't expect George W. Bush himself to know that $12 billion is not enough to develop a spaceship. We should expect the people around Bush, and at the top of NASA, to know this. And apparently they are either astonishingly ill-informed and naïve, or are handing out phony numbers for political purposes, to get the foot in the door for far larger sums later.
And we should expect a pontificating journalist, masquerading as a space expert, to know that a Crew Exploration Vehicle is not a "spaceship" in the sense that it will go from earth to moon unaided, and that he wouldn't throw out phony numbers and strawman arguments for...well, I can't figure out what his purposes are, other than to see himself write.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:21 AMIn response to today's Fox News column (it's a reprise of this post from last night, with a new title), I got a couple emails from a Richard Lasher, who, judging by his email address, works for the government of the state of ten thousand lakes. Unfortunately, he's no Lileks:
I do not support ANY form of HUMAN space initiative. There is nothing we can "discover" that is worth just 1 human life! We should require a 500 year moratorium on space initiatives. The funds, resources, and energy should be devoted to solving REAL problems, here on Earth! If, after the 500 years, we are not extinct, do not live in caves, or only have pre-industrial age technology, then we should ask, "Are there any problems on Earth yet to solve?", and finding NONE, then consider space exploration.Don't we have enough problems to solve? Drugs, Terrorists, HIV, SARS, children (American and worldwide) going to bed sick and hungry, an army (700,000 - 1 Million) of illegal aliens entering the U.S. every year, worldwide social issues of poverty, genocide, labor laws, environmental, and human rights issues need to be solved BEFORE "The World" should spend money on space exploration! To do otherwise is OBSCENE". What's the hurry? Our Sun won't destroy the Earth for several Billion years. Perhaps, if we survive for another million years we will have learned compassion (greed will no longer be a "GOD") and how to use the resources of the Earth to the benefit of ALL mankind, not just the rich, not just the multi-national corporations, not the warlords supported by drug money, or corrupt governments.
A few minutes later, thinking that the first one hadn't gone through, he sent another gem (he's apparently not familiar with the concept of a "sent" folder that allows one to resend emails). To wit (or in this case, lackwit):
I hope you got the text from my previous e-mail... It was really "good stuff" ;-}My system prematurely sent the e-mail.
In Short. Stop human space initiatives, and focus on the real problems that we have here on Earth for the next 500 years and then see if space exploration should be a priority. What can we learn from human space travel that is worth just 1 human life? We can't go far enough to escape the Sun's destruction of the Earth is several billion years.
Who cares if the Earth is 13.57678765533445809987654345 Billion or Trillion years old? What can you do with than information? Who cares if the Universe was created by a "Big Bang" or a "Big Implosion", or the result of some "String thing"? What can you do with that information? Nothing! Who cares if Mars ever had water or Microbes? There is no surface water there now! Do we plan to import subterranean water from Mars, if there is any? NO!!!! So What, if there are live microbes on Mars? Who is to say that WE did not put them there by crashing into Mars on previous landing attempts? If there are microbe fossils, WHO CARES? That would say, "We are not alone in the Universe", if you equate human life to that of a microbe. It might be the same microbe that "got life started" on Earth, and even IF you could prove it, WHO CARES?
Space exploration is a shiny trinket, but we need to solve the tough problems here on Earth first!
"God help us" if we find anything of value on the Moon! We could have WW3 over that future resource!
It's a treasure trove of idiocy, complete with cranky idiosynchratic capitalization and lots of exclamation marks!! So we know it's really important, and must be true!!!!
It's not really worth fisking, and I'm busy today, but I thought I'd throw out some chum to the sharks in the comments section. I may get around to addressing it later if the mood strikes and I find some time.
[Update]
Here's another one, though not quite as bad, in an email with the subject "mars fantasy":
Every one is so positive about this new space program that was proposed by our president.Balderdash! Are these people crazy? The war on terror is till continuing and will continue through our lifetime. Along with a huge national debt which is wrongly considered by neo-conservatives to be inconsequential. One accident in several years and we change everything around. Did anyone not think the space program to be dangerous? Loss of life was to be expected and will still happen in the new program.
The Mars mission had been proposed by Lyndon Larouche many years ago. It was to cost in the neighborhood of one trillion dollars. At the time his idea was ignored and he was considered to be a nut case. Isn't he now in jail?
The present approach is correct. The space shuttle is needed to put satellites in orbit, take them from orbit, and perform repairs. As well as for the construction of a space station; which will be necessary sooner or later. A prime example of the need for the space shuttle is the Hubble telescope which was a Major Triumph of the space program. Sadly I just learned that it has been admitted by these people that elimination of the space shuttle would mean that there would not be any more missions to the space telescope. And probably the enhanced space telescope would be canceled also. The news said that the telescope would degrade gradually and that this was very unfortunate. I call this ignorant; big time. Telescopes above the Earth's atmosphere are a part of the effort to explore space.
I have just read a book on the history of astronomy that was published in 1957. In that book it was mentioned that Dr. Werner Von Braun had a plan for going to the moon and Mars. It consisted of a space station at 1,000 miles above the Earth that would be used for the refueling, repair and construction of vehicles for traveling to the planets. He is said to consider that travel to the planets would be a simple task once the space station was in operation. Do we have anyone of the stature of Dr. Von Braun today or is every government agency staffed by party hacks that have not been educated in technical matters. Not to mention the numerous commissions.
I am ashamed of what the present administration has done. Are there no serious dissenters?
Gotta like a guy who uses the word "balderdash."
Even ignoring the mistaken notion that we can't walk and chew gum, or kill terrorists and explore the solar system at the same time, among the many other problems with this is, of course, the "poisoning the well" fallacy. Just because some reprehensible person advocates a position doesn't discredit the position. Hitler was militantly anti-smoking. I wonder if Michael thinks that therefore we should be even more firmly in favor of it?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:55 PMLaughing Wolf thinks that there may be a method to Dubya's madness in not mentioning private enterprise in tonight's speech (beyond the fact that he gave the speech at NASA HQ). Here's hoping he's right, but even if it isn't the president's intent, it may be the effect, which is just as good if it works out.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:07 PMThe new space policy expected since the loss of Columbia almost a year ago was finally announced by President Bush today.
In his speech, the president correctly pointed out that in over three decades since astronaut Eugene Cernan was the last one to kick up lunar regolith, no American, or indeed human, has been farther from the earth's surface than four hundred miles or so. In response to this tragic statistic, in stirring words, the president pronounced that "humans are headed into the cosmos." After years of watching science fiction movies, like 2001, and television shows like Star Trek, it's a message that we have grown to absorb culturally for decades, but now, for perhaps the first time, it's formal federal policy.
Whether or not it will actually result in achieving the goals that Mr. Bush laid out remains, of course, to be seen. Only the most minimal one, of starting preparatory robotic exploration of the moon in 2008, will occur within his term of office, and that only if he wins reelection this year. The rest of the objectives--completing the station and phasing out the space shuttle in 2010, manned visit to the moon in 2015, lunar base in 2020--will all occur, if at all, after he has left office.
The speech was broad brush, with details and specific architectures to be left for later, which is appropriate. Some of the few details that were revealed are a little troubling.
It's apparently the end of the Orbital Space Plane project, which is a good thing--it will probably transform itself into the new Crew Exploration Vehicle, which is apparently intended to become a modern version of the old Apollo capsule. But if I heard the speech correctly, that vehicle isn't to be ready for a decade, in 2014, while the Shuttle is scheduled to be taken out of service upon planned station completion in 2010. This implies that there will be a four-year gap during which we have no ability to get people into space, at least on a government-funded American vehicle. I suspect that this, and other issues, will be fleshed out over the next few days.
It should be noted that on that schedule, it will take us over a decade to get back to the moon, whereas we did it much faster the last time, when we knew much less about how to do it. Of course, the last time, funding was no object--a circumstance that no longer holds. It should also be noted that if the station is completed in 2010, it will be over a quarter of a century after the program was initiated--results from the new initiatives will have to be more timely to keep to the stated schedule.
Many have pointed out that the goals are not new--they're the same ones that Vice-President Spiro Agnew presented as a follow-on to Apollo during the Nixon administration, and that the president's father laid out on the Washington Mall on July 20, 1989. In both cases, they fell flat, and were eviscerated by the press and the Congress. Indeed, in the latter case, NASA itself played a role in subverting them by coming up with an outrageous cost estimate of half a trillion dollars, thus removing this potential distraction from its desired focus on the space station.
The challenge of the administration will be to prevent this initiative from similarly faltering, at least during its term. From this standpoint, the proposed schedule and funding profile is convenient, because the majority of new expenditures for this will occur, like the milestones, after the president is out of office. Most of the initial funding will come from a reallocation of already planned NASA resources, with very few new funds to be requested.
The other strategy will be to have an independent commission come up with the implementation approaches that were absent from the speech, and the president announced he was doing exactly that, to be headed by Pete Aldridge, a veteran aerospace executive. It's not a choice that I find particularly inspiring--I'm afraid that Mr. Aldridge is too deeply steeped in space industry business-as-usual, but there will be others on the commission, and I hope that there is an outreach program to seek fresh ideas and approaches.
While I'm glad that the president has stated a national goal of finally getting humans beyond earth orbit, I'm disappointed that those humans are apparently to continue to be NASA employees, who the rest of us watch, voyeuristically, on television. NASA was not just given the lead--it was apparently given sole responsibility. There was no mention of private enterprise, or of any activities in space beyond "exploration" and "science." It was encouraging to hear a president talk about the utilization of extraterrestrial resources, but only in the context of how to get to the next milestone.
This is the part of the policy that should be most vigorously debated in the coming months--not whether or not humans, and American humans, are heading into the cosmos, but how we get humans doing that who aren't only civil servants, and whether or not there are roles for other agencies, and sectors of society. Given NASA's track record, and in the interests of competition, the administration should in fact consider setting up a separate organization to manage this initiative, and put out portions of it to bid, whether from NASA, DARPA, other agencies, or the private sector.
Most of all, I hope that the administration can break out of the apparent NASA-centric mindset demonstrated in the president's speech today, and come up with a broader vision, rather than a destination, and help create a space program for, as Apple Computer used to say, the "rest of us."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:16 PMStarts with obligatory paen to the dedicated people at NASA. Some of it is nonsense, of course--"bold," and "risk takers" hasn't described NASA personnel for many years, but it's obligatory nonetheless.
Now he's using the Lewis and Clark analogy. Not too bad Going through the litany of benefits from space exploration, including weather, GPS, communications, imaging processing, etc.
Hyping Shuttle and station, talking about space telescopes and probes, and finding water on other planets, and current searches for life beyond earth with robots. Pointing out that we haven't been further than four hundred miles from earth in thirty years.
"expand a human presence across our solar system."
Finish space station by 2010, and use it to focus on long-term effects of space on humans. Return Shuttle to flight ASAP. It will be used to complete ISS assembly, and then retired in 2010.
Develop new spacecraft, CEV--first mission by 2014. That means a gap of four years when we don't have a government vehicle for manned spaceflight.
Return to the moon by 2020, with initial robotic missions in 2008. Now he's saying 2015 for manned mission, so maybe the 2020 date is for a lunar base.
Talking about moon as base for deep space missions, including lunar resources for propellants. It will be used as a learning experience for Mars missions. We need to send people to really explore the planets.
"Human beings are headed into the cosmos."
"...a great and unifying mission for NASA..."
Commission of private and public-sector experts to figure out how to implement it. Pete Aldridge to head it. Lousy choice--we need someone who's less steeped in government programs.
"We choose to explore space..."
[Speech over]
OK, no big surprises, other than fleshing out dates. Nice speech, but it really is picking up where Apollo left off in terms of goals. In fact, it's exactly the same goals laid out by Spiro Agnew during the Nixon administration, which was promptly shot down in the press and Congress. It's also the same goals that his father laid out on July 20, 1989. It's not at all clear to me what's going to be different this time.
Listening to it, NASA was clearly given not only the lead, but the sole responsibility for this--there was no mention of private activities in space, or how they might play a role, if for nothing else, getting stuff into LEO. My disappointment of last week is confirmed--there's little hint of new thinking in the administration how to approach space policy.
However, for as long as it lasts, it is nice to have as national policy that "humans beings are headed into the cosmos." It may at least provide a rudder for activities across the federal government, not just at NASA, but at the FAA and other places. I continue to believe that ultimately this program will not get humans into the cosmos, at least not in any large way. If the schedule laid out by the president holds, I won't be at all surprised to see the first NASA expedition to the moon in 2015 greeted by the concierge at the Club Med Luna.
[one more point]
Jay Manifold has already laid out a "triple-constraint" program summary.
[Update]
I've gathered some more-coherent thoughts in the next post.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:26 PMI've known this was in the works for a while (well over a year, in fact), but it looks like Pioneer Rocketplane is finally getting into the space tourism business. In Oklahoma.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:52 PMDavid Grinspoon asks the question.
[Update in the afternoon]
I had a related article about Martian game preserves at Fox News last summer.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:58 AMHere's that interview with Bob Zubrin that Linda Seebach told me about yesterday.
And speaking of Dr. Zubrin, he sent me a review copy of his new science fiction novel, The Holy Land, a few weeks ago that I read and enjoyed at the time, but didn't get around to formally reviewing. I was reminded of this by a review of it at NRO yesterday by Adam Keiper.
I have to confess that I was surprised by it, because I'd previously had no idea that Bob wrote fiction. If this is his first attempt, it makes it all the more impressive.
Everyone calls it a satire, but it's not really, or it's more than that. Monty Python's The Life Of Brian was a satire of the modern Middle East (among other things), but this book is allegory, which has a long tradition of being a pointed way of illuminating issues to which we may be too close to have the proper perspective.
I found the parallels striking (though I naturally would, because I shared Bob's apparent views on the Middle East situation prior to reading it--I'd be interested in reading a review by someone whose mind was changed by the book to see how truly effective they are), but I don't really have anything to say about the nature or quality of the satiric parallels that Mr. Keiper didn't already--you should go read his review. I'd like instead to point out something that I've seen no other reviewer do.
While the political points are sharp, one can completely ignore them and still enjoy the book, because it actually is a good story in itself. It's yet another retelling of Romeo and Juliet (though it's hardly love at first sight), except it has a happy ending.
Let us hope that the tragic situation that it spoofs ultimately does as well, as unlikely as that may sometimes seem, given the ancient hatreds and irrationalities that still seem to prevail there.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:51 AMSpeaking of blindered and dyspectic views on space, the usually-smart Anne Applebaum disappoints with this WaPo editorial.
Mars, as a certain pop star once put it, isn't the kind of place where you'd want to raise your kids. Nor is it the kind of place anybody is ever going to visit, as some of the NASA scientists know perfectly well. Even leaving aside the cold, the lack of atmosphere and the absence of water, there's the deadly radiation. If the average person on Earth absorbs about 350 millirems of radiation every year, an astronaut traveling to Mars would absorb about 130,000 millirems of a particularly virulent form of radiation that would probably destroy every cell in his body. "Space is not 'Star Trek,' " said one NASA scientist, "but the public certainly doesn't understand that..."...Too often, rational descriptions of the inhuman, even anti-human living conditions in space give way to public hints that more manned space travel is just around the corner, that a manned Mars mission is next, that there is some grand philosophical reason to keep sending human beings away from the only planet where human life is possible....
Right, and the Arctic isn't the kind of place where you'd want to raise your kids. Nor is it the kind of place anybody is ever going to visit. Even leaving aside the cold, and sparseness of plants, there are the deadly polar bears. If the average person in temperate climates has to contend with wolves, an Arcticnaut traveling to that hostile clime would risk storms that might drown him in the frigid waters, or expose him to sharks.
No, space is not Star Trek, Anne, but it is an environment that is conquerable, and people exist who wish to conquer it. It's only a matter of technology levels. African bushmen wouldn't survive high latitudes, but the Inuit figured it out. Radiation can be shielded against. It's very costly to do so now, given the high launch costs, but that's a problem that's solveable.
Earth may today be the only planet where human life is possible, but before we developed the right clothing and weapons, tropical climates were the only region of earth where human life was possible. This is not a persuasive argument for confining ourselves to a single planet, any more than it would have been to do so to a single continent.
Crowded out of the news this week was the small fact that the troubled international space station, which is itself accessible only by the troubled space shuttle, has sprung a leak.
Meaning what? That it's therefore impossible to send people into space? There are two errors here. First, she makes the mistake that many do in believing that it can't be done any better or cheaper than NASA does it. But even if the station springs the occasional leak, so what? So did whaling ships. It didn't stop them from whaling--they had pumps and repair techniques. Space vehicles will be the same.
It's interesting in the way that the exploration of the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is interesting, or important in the way that the study of obscure dead languages is important. Like space exploration, these are inspiring human pursuits. Like space exploration, they nevertheless have very few practical applications.But space exploration isn't treated the way other purely academic pursuits are treated. For one, the scientists doing it have perverse incentives. Their most dangerous missions -- the ones involving human beings -- produce the fewest research results, yet receive the most attention, applause and funding. Their most productive missions -- the ones involving robots -- inspire interest largely because the public illogically believes they will lead to more manned space travel.
This is simply untrue. Manned missions return much more science than robotic missions, at least when it comes to planetary exploration. We got much more science from Apollo than from all of the other lunar probes combined. The problem is that it costs a lot more money to send people (at least the way we've done it to date), not that they return less science.
And of course, she falls into the other trap of assuming that the only reason to send people or robots into space is for science, ignoring the potential for new resources, planet protection, and most importantly, new environments for the expansion of human freedom.
I can agree that it may not be a worthwhile expenditure of taxpayer funds to send people to other planets right now, or into space at all, but the notion that it has no value to anyone is utter nonsense. We will explore and settle space, because there are many people who wish to do so, and the means to do so are growing rapidly as technology advances and wealth increases. The issue is not if, but how and how soon, and with whose money.
[Update]
Mark Whittington has fisked this piece as well.
[Another update]
Linda Seebach (editorial writer for the Rocky Mountain News) points out via email that the Applebaum piece is an opinion column, not a WaPo editorial. She's correct, of course.
She also says that she'll have an interview with Bob Zubrin up tomorrow--I'll post a link when it happens.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:18 AMFresh from a tour in the belly of the space beast, Laughing Wolf describes the sad state of NASA at the end of 2003, and offers hope for the future similar to mine.
Clark Lindsey has some good roundups as well.
[Update at 4 PM Central Time (I'm still in Columbia, MO)]
My New Years Fox column is up. As some may have guessed, it's a reprise of this post. I should issue a correction, since my editor is probably out partying by now and won't be fixing it any time soon (it's my fault, not hers--she ran it as submitted, instead of correct). I say that Lockheed is the only remaining provider of large commercial expendable launchers. That should have read, of course, the only domestic one. There are others, in Europe, China and Russia.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:32 AMJason Bates has an article on the current state of space policy development. As usual, it shows a space policy establishment mired in old Cold-War myths, blinkered in its view of the possibilities.
NASA needs a vision that includes a specific destination. That much a panel of space advocates who gathered in Washington today to celebrate the 100th anniversary of powered flight could agree on. There is less consensus about what that destination should be.
Well, if I'd been on that panel, the agreement would have been less than unanimous. I agree that NASA needs a vision, but I think that the focus on destination is distracting us from developing one, if for no other reason than it's probably not going to be possible to get agreement on it.
As the article clearly shows, some, like Paul Spudis, think we should go back to the moon, and others, like Bub Zubrin, will settle for no less than Mars, and consider our sister orb a useless distraction from the true (in his mind) goal. We are never going to resolve this fundamental, irreconciliable difference, as long as the argument is about destinations.
In addition, we need to change the language in which we discuss such things. Dr. Spudis is quoted as saying:
"? For the first time in the agency?s history there is no new human spaceflight mission in the pipeline. There is nothing beyond" the international space station."
Fred Singer of NOAA says:
The effort will prepare humans for more ambitious missions in the future, Singer said. "We need an overarching goal," he said. "We need something with unique science content, not a publicity stunt."
Gary Martin, NASA's space architect declares:
NASA?s new strategy would use Mars, for example, as the first step to future missions rather than as a destination in itself, Martin said. Robotic explorers will be trailblazers that can lay the groundwork for deeper space exploration, he said.
"...human spaceflight mission..."
"...unique science..."
"...space exploration..."
This is the language of yesteryear. This debate could have occurred, and in fact did occur, in the early 1970s, as Apollo wound down. There's nothing new here, and no reason to think that the output from it will result in affordable or sustainable space activities.
They say that we need a vision with a destination, but it's clear from this window into the process that, to them, the destination is the vision. It's not about why are we doing it (that's taken as a given--for "science" and "exploration"), nor is it about how we're doing it (e.g., giving NASA multi-gigabucks for a "mission" versus putting incentives into place for other agencies or private entities to do whatever "it" is)--it's all seemingly about the narrow topic of where we'll send NASA next with our billions of taxpayer dollars, as the scientists gather data while we sit at home and watch on teevee.
On the other hand, unlike the people quoted in the article, the science writer Timothy Ferris is starting to get it, as is Sir Martin Rees, the British Astronomer Royal, though both individuals are motivated foremost by space science.
At first glance, the Ferris op-ed seems just another plea for a return to the moon, but it goes beyond "missions" and science, and discusses the possibility of practical returns from such a venture. Moreover, this little paragraph indicates a little more "vision," than the one from the usual suspects above:
As such sugarplum visions of potential profits suggest, the long-term success of a lunar habitation will depend on the involvement of private enterprise, or what Harrison H. Schmitt, an Apollo astronaut, calls "a business-and-investor-based approach to a return to the Moon to stay." The important thing about involving entrepreneurs and oil-rig-grade roughnecks is that they can take personal and financial risks that are unacceptable, as a matter of national pride, when all the explorers are astronauts wearing national flags on their sleeves.One reason aviation progressed so rapidly, going from the Wright brothers to supersonic jets in only 44 years, is that individuals got involved ? it wasn't just governments. Charles A. Lindbergh didn't risk his neck in 1927 purely for personal gratification: he was after the $25,000 Orteig Prize, offered by Raymond Orteig, a New York hotelier, for the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris. Had Lindbergh failed, his demise, though tragic, would have been viewed as a daredevil's acknowledged jeopardy, not a national catastrophe. Settling the Moon or Mars may at times mean taking greater risks than the 2 percent fatality rate that shuttle astronauts now face.
Sir Martin's comments are similar:
The American public's reaction to the shuttle's safety record - two disasters in 113 flights - suggests that it is unacceptable for tax-funded projects to expose civilians even to a 2% risk. The first explorers venturing towards Mars would confront, and would surely willingly accept, far higher risks than this. But they will never get the chance to go until costs come down to the level when the enterprise could be bankrolled by private consortia.Future expeditions to the moon and beyond will only be politically and financially feasible if they are cut-price ventures, spearheaded by individuals who accept that they may never return. The Columbia disaster should motivate Nasa to set new goals for manned space flight - to collaborate with private groups to develop a more cost-effective and inspiring programme than we've had for the past 30 years.
Yes, somehow we've got to break out of this national mentality that the loss of astronauts is always unacceptable, or we'll never make any progress in space. The handwringing and inappropriate mourning of the Columbia astronauts, almost eleven months ago, showed that the nation hasn't yet grown up when it comes to space. Had we taken such an attitude with aviation, or seafaring, we wouldn't have an aviation industry today, and in fact, we'd not even have settled the Americas. To venture is to risk, and the first step of a new vision for our nation is the acceptance of that fact. But I think that Mr. Ferris is right--it won't be possible as long as we continue to send national astronauts on a voyeuristic program of "exploration"--it will have to await the emergence of the private sector, and I don't see anything in the "vision" discussions that either recognizes this, or is developing policy to help enable and implement it.
There's really only one way to resolve this disparity of visions, and that's to come up with a vision that can encompass all of them, and more, because the people who are interested in uses of space beside and beyond "science," and "exploration," and "missions," are apparently still being forced to sit on the sidelines, at least to judge by the Space.com article.
Here's my vision.
I have a vision of hundreds of flights of privately-operated vehicles going to and from low earth orbit every year, reducing the costs of doing so to tens of dollars per pound. Much of their cargo is people who are visiting orbital resorts, or even cruise ships around the moon, but the important things is that it will be people paying to deliver cargo, or themselves, to space, for their own purposes, regardless of what NASA's "vision" is.
At that price, the Mars Society can raise the money (perhaps jointly with the National Geographic Society and the Planetary Society) to send their own expedition off to Mars. Dr. Spudis and others of like mind can raise the funds to establish lunar bases, or even hotels, and start to learn how to operate there and start tapping its resources. Still others may decide to go off and visit an asteroid, perhaps even take a contract from the government to divert its path, should it be a dangerous one for earthly inhabitants.
My vision for space is a vast array of people doing things there, for a variety of reasons far beyond science and "exploration." The barrier to this is the cost of access, and the barrier to bringing down the cost of access is not, despite pronouncements to the contrary by government officials, a lack of technology. It's a lack of activity. When we come up with a space policy that addresses that, I'll consider it visionary. Until then, it's just more of the same myopia that got us into the current mess, and sending a few astronauts off to the Moon, or Mars, for billions of dollars, isn't going to get us out of it any more than does three astronauts circling the earth in a multi-decabillion space station.
There's no lack of destinations. What we continue to lack is true vision.
[Monday evening update]
As is often the case, Mark Whittington utterly misstates my position, which is clarified in the comments section. Also as usual, I don't mind that much, because most people can figure that out on their own, and links are links.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:26 AMAs not totally unexpected, to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the Wrights' first flight, SpaceShipOne lit its hybrid rocket engine in flight for the first time and busted the mythical sound barrier today. A friend of mine, Brian Binnie, was the pilot, and I'm glad to see that he's finally getting a chance to fly a rocketplane.
It's a significant event, though it would have been better had they been able to go into space. It will be interesting to see if mainstream media picks up on it.
[Update before bed]
CBS covered it, but there was no tie-in to the Wright anniversary, and much focus on the landing-gear problem.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:14 PMThere's an old aphorism that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Unfortunately, there's another, related one, to the effect that the main thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.
To digress for just a moment, scientists and engineers, and rationalists in general, try to expand their knowledge about the world by formulating theories, performing experiments to test them, gathering data, and drawing conclusions about them. But such experiments have to be controlled--that is, they have to be structured in such a way as to allow a focus on a single aspect of it. If one gets different results from different cases, but there are multiple factors involved, there's no way to tell which factor caused the difference, and the experiment isn't particularly useful.
This is what makes history so problematic for such people--it's not possible to do controlled experiments. All that we can do is dig through the entrails of events, capture what we think (and being human, often hope) were the most significant aspects of them, try to draw conclusions about why they occurred from those aspects, and then attempt (often in vain) to make predictions about the effects of future events. But we can never know for sure which factors were the most important ones, because they can't be tested in isolation--with history, what you see is what you get, and there's no rewind button.
Those who make and pontificate about space policy are largely such people, so it's all the more frustrating to them that it's so difficult to come to a consensus on what's worked in the past, and what will work in the future. Sadly, absent a large body of data, it's actually very hard to learn from history, a fact that's demonstrated by this article, in which, in the face of turbulent times in space policy, a number of disparate viewpoints are offered about NASA's future direction. Some of those viewpoints are ones that I've expressed in this space, and others, for many years.
The disparity of viewpoints arises from two sources, that often get intermingled. The first, and a point that I've made repeatedly, both here and in other fora, is that it's difficult to get a consensus on means when we can't even agree on ends. Not all of the people quoted in the article desire the same thing from a space program, so it's not surprising that it's hard to get agreement from them on how to go about getting it.
The second source of dispute is that, even if two people agree on an end goal (e.g., large-scale space colonization), it's not at all clear what the best government policy might be to achieve that goal, because of the scant historical basis for past successes (and because of the first factor, it's difficult to even get agreement on what constitutes a success).
Everyone views history through the lens of his or her own experience and prejudices. William Hartmann, quoted in the article, is a scientist. He is also, apparently, knowingly or otherwise, a transnationalist.
Hartmann thinks international governmental cooperation is the best way to get humans to the Moon or Mars. Eventually, if a proper framework can be set, commercialization could and should blossom, Hartmann figures......Hartmann, whose latest book is "A Traveler's Guide to Mars" (Workman Publishing Company, 2003), worries whether any possible new Bush directive on human spaceflight would serve long-term global interests, however.
"Do we want to hand over this unique moment and all those resources to a bunch of deregulated CEO's with their short-term, self-serving accountant mentality?" asks Hartmann. "Or can we design a strategy that fosters a better global payoff for our grandchildren?"
He believes that the primary, if not sole, purpose of having a space program is for science (though he's apparently willing to allow some exploitation of resources, as long as it's done under the auspices of some appropriate international bureaucracy). He also believes that doing such a program internationally is not just a good idea because we can share the expense of such an endeavor, but because international programs are somehow more noble, and higher of purpose than national ones. He doesn't want to sully the pristine, untrammeled scientific preserve of space with the greed of unbridled capitalism.
For him, the lesson of history is that we once had a space program that was paid for by all the people, and that it sent men to the moon "in peace, for all mankind." Somehow, we lost that noble spirit, and frittered away all of our capability to even repeat it, let alone go on to the next unexplored world. It was a failure of political leadership, because the president that launched us on such a grand adventure was assassinated. Now, he can only hope for another president of such vision.
But such a lesson is a mistaken one, for a number of reasons. The first, of course, is that, as I've noted before, the legend of the visionary space president isn't true. JFK pursued Apollo for temporary political reasons, and for him, it wasn't a space program--it was a national security and propaganda program. Were space, or science, the point, we wouldn't have waited until the last flight before we sent an actual scientist to the moon (and it should be noted that, on this coming Sunday, it will be the thirty-one years since man last walked on our sister orb).
But the second reason is that, even if it were true, it would have been an anomalous event, not a normal one. Historically, governments rarely expend vast amounts of national resources on exploration for exploration's sake, or for science. Isabella didn't pay for Columbus' voyages out of intellectual curiousity--she was seeking better trade routes for known riches.
As much as Dr. Hartmann disdains it, abundant evidence from history should teach him that greed is one of the primary human motivators, the other being fear. Apollo was an example of the latter. Only when we stop living in a past that never was, and embrace and harness the former, will we start to truly make the new frontier a significant part of human history and make true exploration of the cosmos affordable and sustainable. Let us hope that, to the degree that the Bush administration is reconsidering space policy now, it understands that lesson as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:01 AMRobert Roy Britt has an interesting roundup of opinions about the future of human spaceflight, including some envisioning such a future without NASA, and some that yours truly has espoused once or twice in the past.
William Hartmann remains firmly mired in the past, however.
"This is naive and wrong-headed," says author and artist William K. Hartmann, also a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.Hartmann thinks international governmental cooperation is the best way to get humans to the Moon or Mars. Eventually, if a proper framework can be set, commercialization could and should blossom, Hartmann figures...
...Hartmann, whose latest book is "A Traveler's Guide to Mars" (Workman Publishing Company, 2003), worries whether any possible new Bush directive on human spaceflight would serve long-term global interests, however.
"Do we want to hand over this unique moment and all those resources to a bunch of deregulated CEO's with their short-term, self-serving accountant mentality?" asks Hartmann. "Or can we design a strategy that fosters a better global payoff for our grandchildren?"
Newsflash, Dr. Hartmann. CEOs with short-term, self-serving accountant mentalities don't put their own personal fortunes into developing reusable tourist vehicles. This is exactly what has to happen to foster a global payoff for our grandchildren. The "give NASA billions of dollars and hope for the best" approach has been an unmitigated failure.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:09 AMGregg Easterbrook gets it half right, sort of, which is usually the case when he pontificates about space policy.
Once again, he uses Shuttle as the exemplar of launch costs to argue that we can't afford a lunar base. In addition, his numbers are simply pulled out of the air, or perhaps some danker, less sanitary location--I don't want to know...
He also remains hung up on science as the raison d'etre of doing such things, and assumes that the ISS is representative of what a space station should or could cost, which is just as absurd as using Shuttle costs for the estimates.
Now, I'm not a big proponent of sending NASA off to build a moon base, but if one is going to argue against it, it should be done for sound policy reasons, not financial handwaving.
He finishes up with one final flawed argument:
A Moon base would actually be an impediment to any Mars mission, as stopping at the Moon would require the mission to expend huge amounts of fuel to land and take off but otherwise accomplish nothing, unless the master plan was to carry rocks to Mars.
This misses the point. The purpose of doing a lunar base is to learn how to do planetary bases in general, in a location that's only two or three days from earth if something goes wrong, not to provide a way station on the way to Mars. And of course, it's possible that we might be able to generate propellant on the moon. If that's the case, and it can be done for less cost than lifting it from earth, then the moon may indeed be a useful staging base for deep-space missions.
I do agree with his last graf, though, as far as it goes.
NASA doesn't need a grand ambition, it needs a cheap, reliable means of getting back and forth to low-Earth orbit. Here's a twenty-first century vision for NASA: Cancel the shuttle, mothball the does-nothing space station, and use all the budget money the two would have consumed to develop an affordable means of space flight. Then we can talk about the Moon and Mars.
My only quibble is that this should not be interpreted as giving NASA the money to develop the affordable means of space flight. That will simply result in another attempt at another single monoculture vehicle that will leave us no better off than Shuttle. It should be given to people who have the motivation and organization to do so, probably via prizes or other forms of market guarantees.
[Via Tyler Cowen]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:37 PMThe new edition of The New Atlantis is out, and editor Adam Keiper has what he says is a "bold new vision" for the nation's space agency. He wants to go to Mars or, to be more accurate, he wants NASA to send a few people to Mars while we stay home and watch.
Yawn...
Not that Mars is boring, but the notion that this is a bold new vision is kind of silly. It's a vision, and a flawed one, as old as the space program itself.
It's a long piece, and has some good history of the space program, but it also contains a lot of conventional wisdom.
Space tourism is often put forward as a viable industry, although no one has yet convincingly made a case that explains the economics of how it would work. Two tourists have already been in space: American Dennis Tito in 2001 and South African Mark Shuttleworth in 2002 each paid $20 million for a stay on the International Space Station. Some companies claim to have data that show that a vast percentage of the population would pay to go to space, and some studies have estimated that the market for space tourism might reach as high as $20 billion in the coming decades. But it just isn’t clear how space tourism will transition from the exploits of a few adventurous millionaires into an industry with any hope of making profits.
Flashback to the early 1980s:
Video cassette recorders are often put forward as a viable industry, although no one has yet convincingly made a case that explains the economics of how it would work. A few people have already bought them, but they cost thousands of dollars each. Some companies claim to have data that show that a vast percentage of the population would pay to have one, and some studies have estimated that the market for VCRs might reach as high as several billion dollars in the coming decades. But it just isn't clear how the VCR will transition from the entertainment of a few adventurous millionaires into an industry with any hope of making profits...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:06 AMThat's not exactly the headline of this dumb NYT editorial, but it almost could be.
Let's leave aside that no meteor has ever struck the earth, or anything else, other than eyes (a meteor is the flash of light that an object makes when it hits the atmosphere--not the physical object itself). They talk about how life has been devastated in the past by bombardment from extraterrestrial objects, but instead of proposing that we do something about it, they use it as an opportunity to preach about how we're extincting too many species. In fact, they not only don't propose doing anything about it, they deny that anything can be done.
There's no controlling the possibility of a meteor strike. But there's every reason — ethical and practical — for preventing our own habitation of earth from having the same impact.
Well, in fact, there is "controlling the possibility of a meteor [sic] strike." One starts looking for them, and as Clark Lindsey (from whom I got the link) points out, one develops the spacefaring capability to divert them, which is entirely feasible, and relative to the cost of being hit, quite affordable.
It's particularly ironic that the Gray Lady publishes this silliness on perhaps the eve of a major change in space policy that might, in fact, ultimately lead to such a capability, but I guess that there's some comfort in knowing that, even under new management, some things at the Times never change.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:54 AMDennis Powell is still hopeful about a major space policy announcement by the Bush administration two weeks from now. It's not clear whether or not he knows something that the rest of us don't, or if he's just going on the same contradictory rumors.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:30 AMI just pull my hair when I read articles like this (and I haven't all that much to spare).
It has so many fallacies in it, and such an abundance of nonsense, that I just despair at the advice that politicians and policy makers are getting from our vaunted space agency, and it confirms exactly why we make no progress in space.
It resurrects the ridiculous notion that we should use Shuttle for cargo only, and has things turned completely on their head.
Although not completely set in stone, it is extremely likely that any future launch vehicles NASA develops will divide the roles of lifting people and cargo into Earth orbit."It's always up for debate," Martin said, noting that launch vehicles such as the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 seem ideal to carry into orbit an OSP with astronauts aboard, while shuttle derived hardware might best solve the larger cargo needs.
"We are poised to make a much safer system now, a much more reliable system, based on new technologies. And at the same time bring down the overall costs," Martin said of the OSP specifically and NASA's space transportation needs in general.
What new technologies? The whole goal of the OSP program is to avoid the use of new technologies. It's a program requirement--nothing that isn't at least at Technology Readiness Level 6.
"New technologies" would be building fully-reusable space transports, not sticking a capsule on an expendable, which we did forty years ago.
OSP may be safer than Shuttle, but that's damning it with faint praise, and the notion that NASA's current plans will save money is simply laughable. Also, there's no reason to think that it will be more reliable--the advertised reliability is only 98% or so for EELVs. The only reason it will be safer is because there will be crew escape opportunities throughout ascent.
Exactly how much any of these ideas will cost to build or operate hasn?t been determined yet, and support in Congress for programs such as the OSP is facing some challenges these days.Martin said it?s likely that NASA isn't "articulating the vision very well. I think that what Congress is asking is how does (OSP) fit within the larger picture, and we're developing that."
Right. There's nothing wrong with the vision or plans--NASA just isn't "articulating it very well."
Go ahead, stay in denial.
"The United States, if it?s going to be a spacefaring nation, and it?s going to continue exploring the solar system, is going to need a reliable, upgraded system. The next step, past what the shuttle was in technology in order to keep moving forward," Martin said.But if the OSP is adopted as the next piloted spaceship -- whether it's a winged vehicle or shaped like an Apollo-era capsule -- NASA still will need a way to lift large amounts of cargo into Earth orbit.
And of course, they assume that the only way to do that is with a large vehicle. Hence their desire to use the Shuttle for cargo, and the EELV for people. But an unmanned Shuttle will cost little less to operate than a manned one (though if you take out the crew cabin completely, you could probably pick up ten thousand pounds of payload capability for the same launch price). There's really only one justification for flying Shuttle--as a means of getting crew to and from space.
Martin said some studies completed regarding a return to the Moon mission would require launching 265,000 to 440,000 pounds (120 to 200 metric tons) just to get the project started. The goal would be to launch that weight in as few missions as possible hoping to minimize risk and cost -- but there's no easy answer.
Now that's simply absurd. Which is higher risk: launching lots of small pieces, so a launch failure doesn't cost you much payload, or betting a large amount of payload on a single launch? A heavy lifter might be more cost effective than a small launcher, but only for truly high traffic demand, much larger than anything that NASA has ever proposed. When you consider development costs and fleet size issues, it would be much smarter to build small, cheap launchers with high flight rates (which are a much better economy of scale than simply building large vehicles), and figure out how to do things on orbit to utilize smaller payloads.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:35 AMJust a quick lunch-time post here. Keith Cowing has an insightful analysis of potential Bush administration space policy.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:34 AMAs I said last night, I've little time to blog, but for those of you who need a transterrestrial fix, Phil Bowermaster has an interview with me at his site.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:16 PMChief Engineer Dan DeLong of XCOR emails:
Patricia Grace Smith, FAA Associate Administrator, has made a public statement that there are three organizations with RLV launch licenses in process at AST. They are: Armadillo Aerospace, Scaled Composites, and XCOR Aerospace. Furthermore, she said that XCOR's license application has been deemed "sufficiently complete". This means the FAA now has a maximum of 180 days to either issue a license or report to Congress why they did not.Notice the change in terminology from "substantially complete" to "sufficiently complete". Also, I do not yet have an on-line reference for her statement. It came to me from Jeff Greason; he and Randall Clague are currently in Washington DC, and were surprised at the speediness of the announcement.
This is good news, and will establish the precedent--another first for XCOR. I assume that means the Mojave Airport has passed the environmental review, but I'm sure that someone will correct me if that's a false inference.
I also assume that the license will be issued in less than the 180 days--I can't see why they would delay it much at this point.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:24 PMUpdating and reorganizing my blogroll is long overdue, but in the meantime I've added a couple new space-related blogs. I just found out that Jeff Foust (of The Space Review) is also running a blog at his other site, Space Today.
Also, now that Clark Lindsey has added daily permalinks (though still none for individual posts) to RLV News, I'm adding that as well.
Now, if we could just get NASA Watch with the program...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:12 PMReally. Boy, talk about specializing.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:33 PMThat's what I say at National Review today.
Oh, and if Jim Oberg reads it, I didn't mean to plagiarize you. The blockquotes around the two grafs from your article seem to have been lost in editing. It will hopefully be fixed shortly.
[Update in the afternoon]
Mark Whittington has some comments. I find them unconvincing, but your mileage may differ. I will note, though, that the V-2 never had the accuracy necessary to make it an effective military weapon for the purpose he describes.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:13 AMI'll note two things.
First, that they launched (Thanks to reader Ken Anthony for the link).
Second, that no one in the US ran live coverage.
So much for shock and awe among the American people over the magnificent achievement of the Chinese, in which they did something that we did forty+ years ago.
And so much for the new space race...
I'll have further thoughts in a column somewhere tomorrow.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:34 PMA bill has been introduced into the House to encourage private manned spaceflight, by clarifying the regulatory situation, and making more explicit government support for it. It's numbered H.R. 3245. The text of the bill can be found here.
What it seems to do is the following:
1) It authorizes funding of about eleven million dollars per year to the Department of Transportation to support its regulatory activities, but more importantly, if I'm reading it correctly, it seems to reestablish the old Office of Commercial Space Transportation, which implies to me that it will be pulled out of the FAA (undoing one of the many dumb things that the Clinton administration did in this area) and having it once again report directly to the SecDOT. FAA-AST will be no more, and it will revert to OCST.
I infer that this is the purpose because they direct the SecDOT to "clearly distinguish the Department's regulation of air commerce from its regulation of commercial human spaceflight, and focus the Department's regulation of commercial human spaceflight activities on protecting the safety of the general public, while allowing spaceflight participants who have been trained and meet license-specific standards to assume an informed level of risk." That implies to me that it will no longer be within the FAA.
This would presumably give the office more horsepower in its turf battles with FAA-AVR. Whether or not Patti Grace Smith will remain in charge of the office remains to be seen. She's a Clinton administration holdover, and the Bush administration never replaced her, probably because it didn't pay much attention to the office at the time, having other priorities. With the establishment of OCST, it may be an opportunity to force the issue of whether or not to put in someone actually vetted by this White House.
2) It rewords Section 70101 of Title 49 (Findings and Purposes of the DOT space activities) as follows:
It changes paragraph (3) from
new and innovative equipment and services are being sought, produced, and offered by entrepreneurs in telecommunications, information services, microgravity research, and remote sensing technologies;
to
"new and innovative equipment and services are being sought, produced, and offered by entrepreneurs in telecommunications, information services, microgravity research, human spaceflight, and remote sensing technologies;
and it changes paragraph (4) from
the private sector in the United States has the capability of developing and providing private satellite launching, reentry, and associated services that would complement the launching, reentry, and associated services now available from the United States Government;
to
the private sector in the United States has the capability of developing and providing privatesatellitespace launching, reentry, and associated services that would complement the launching, reentry, and associatedservices now available fromcapabilities of the United States Government;
The effects are to make clear that human spaceflight is now to be considered as an area for private development, and that the government shouldn't necessarily be making available (i.e., competing) its services.
3) They amend the Definitions per the following:
They add one: "crew" means an individual or individuals carried within a launch or reentry vehicle who performs a function necessary for the protection of public safety.
And they modify a few others. The paragraph that currently reads:
''payload'' means an object that a person undertakes to place in outer space by means of a launch vehicle or reentry vehicle, including components of the vehicle specifically designed or adapted for that object.
would now read:
''payload'' means an individual or an object that a person undertakes to place in or return from outer space by means of a launch vehicle or reentry vehicle, including components of the vehicle specifically designed or adapted for that individual or object.
After the paragraph:
''reentry vehicle'' means a vehicle designed to return from Earth orbit or outer space to Earth, or a reusable launch vehicle designed to return from Earth orbit or outer space to Earth, substantially intact.
They would insert a new paragraph:
"spaceflight participant" means an individual who is not crew carried within a launch or reentry vehicle during a launch or reentry.
In other words, a passenger (and, perhaps, a flight attendant, since their function is to provide for the safety (and comfort) of the passengers, not the public).
After the paragraph:
''reentry vehicle'' means a vehicle designed to return from Earth orbit or outer space to Earth, or a reusable launch vehicle designed to return from Earth orbit or outer space to Earth, substantially intact.
they would add the following definitions:
"suborbital rocket" means a rocket-propelled vehicle intended for flight on a suborbital trajectory whose thrust is greater than its lift for the majority of the powered portion of its flight."suborbital trajectory" means the intentional flight path of a launch vehicle, reentry vehicle, or any portion thereof, whose vacuum instantaneous impact point does not leave the surface of the Earth.
These are the definitions described earlier this year by FAA-AST representatives at the Space Access conference in Scottsdale.
They amend the definition of third parties:
''third party'' means a person except -(A) the United States Government or the Government's contractors or subcontractors involved in launch services or reentry services;
(B) a licensee or transferee under this chapter;
(C) a licensee's or transferee's contractors, subcontractors, or customers involved in launch services or reentry services; or
(D) the customer's contractors or subcontractors involved in launch services or reentry services.
to the following:
''third party'' means a person except -(A) the United States Government or the Government's contractors or subcontractors involved in launch services or reentry services;
(B) a licensee or transferee under this chapter;
(C) a licensee's or transferee's contractors, subcontractors, or customers involved in launch services or reentry services;
or(D) the customer's contractors or subcontractors involved in launch services or reentry services; and
(E) crew or spaceflight participants.
The effect of all of this is to formally recognize passengers in the law, something that was not contemplated under the original Commercial Space Launch Act passed in the mid 80s.
Now comes a more controversial, and potentially problematic change. In Section 70104, which describes licensing requirements, they add the following:
COMPLIANCE WITH SPACEFLIGHT PARTICIPANT REQUIREMENTS- The holder of a license under this chapter may launch or reenter a spaceflight participant only if--(1) the spaceflight participant has received training and met medical or other standards specified in the license;
(2) the spaceflight participant is informed of the safety record of the launch or reentry vehicle type; and
(3) the launch or reentry vehicle is marked in a manner specified by the Secretary of Transportation which identifies it as a launch or reentry vehicle rather than an aircraft.
I understand the intention of this, and it's a good one. They're apparently trying to codify into law Patrick Collins' and Peter Diamandis' concept of "accredited space passenger." This could potentially provide a work around for liability issues, using the analogue of a "qualified investor" by the SEC's definition, to allow people to fly without placing too large a regulatory burden on fledgling spacelines.
The idea is that certain people could be accredited to accept what would certainly be a higher-risk ride than on an airline, and remove the need for the spacelines to come up with an unrealistically high reliability and certification (which, if it ever comes to pass, would be the equivalent of an IPO, in which anyone can buy stock, rather than just qualified investors).
The problem is that the language isn't very specific, and seems to leave it up to DoT discretion as to what the training and medical standards will be, which means that what actually comes out of the process could be pretty onerous (particularly when Boeing and Lockmart's lobbyists get done with it).
I haven't had time to think about it enough to comment, but over at sci.space.policy, Gary Hudson has already expressed concern with this provision, and David Gump has the following thoughts:
"Regulation expands to fill the space available" is a physical law of government.Regulators given a task will keep at it, until they hit a limit. If they're regulating an existing industry, either the corporations or their customers will eventually push back when the regulations reach a tipping point. For our almost nonexistent industry, we have no substantive mass to push back with, so any regulatory train set in motion will likely continue going well beyond what we'd consider to be logical limits. So we have to be *very* careful what paths we start the regulators down.
The only safe task to set before FAA is disclosure (ala food labeling, or campaign contributions) so that anyone buying a flight is fully informed of the risk.
What's not safe: enforceable medical standards and any "other" standard that might appear to be a good idea to the fine professionals at the FAA, whom I admire.
Why not medical standards: The medical conditions of the 500 or so previous space travelers are secret. NASA is obsessive about protecting all astronauts' medical privacy. Yet, the only logical course for the FAA is to attempt to gain access to these very sensitive records, and then make its own judgments about what they mean. Rocket companies will *not* get to see them in detail and thus will *not* have any way to influence their interpretation.
So what standards will the FAA adopt? Only conditions that have failed to disqualify astronauts will fail to disqualify private passengers? What about a condition that's OK for an astronaut who was 30, but the proposed private passenger is 60? Still OK? We all know that many of the private firms' initial passengers will be older because they've accumulated the most money, and their grown children aren't responsibilities anymore... yet older people take more pills and have more medical conditions. Do you want to be arguing with FAA doctors about the medical status of most of your passengers, based on a medical database you can't examine yourself... while trying to equate the strains of a Shuttle or Apollo flight with whatever stresses you believe exist for your perhaps quite different vehicle?
Yikes!So consider the above for the straight-forward issue of Medical Standards. Now consider what can happen if any "other" standard can be thrown into the vetting of passengers.
Full Disclosure for Informed Consent -- that's how it is done when testing risky new drugs, and it's the only sane way to approach the issue of the government's role in passenger space flight.
Yes. This will probably be the main area of contention of this legislation in the space community. I'm not sure how it will play out, but other than that, I'm fairly happy with the legislation as proposed. If nothing else, it will help to ease some of the regulatory uncertainty that has been holding back investment.
[Update on Sunday night]
As a result of talking to several people at this weekend's Space Frontier Society conference, including Jim Muncy (former staffer for Congressman Rohrabacher, who was the principal sponsor of the bill, and who played a key role in drafting the legislation) most of my initial analysis has been borne out.
However, I was mistaken on one front. It was not the intent of the legislation to create "accredited passengers," as I wrote above. Also, it's clear to me now that the intent is not to privide the Department of Transportation with discretion to set or control the standards for either medical condition or training of passengers or crew--that is to be left up to the individual licensee. In support of this, it's important to emphasize the wording of the change to the definition of "third parties" as described above.
The explicit exclusion of "spaceflight participants and crew" to the definition of third parties is much more significant than I had previously implied.
Under the original Commercial Space Launch Act (as perceived to be required by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and 1972 Liability Convention) the Department of Transportation has no responsibility to ensure safety of payloads, or authority to deny a license on the basis that the launch may endanger them. It only has responsibility to protect uninvolved third parties on the ground.
By explicitly excluding passengers and crew from the category of third parties, the department is explicitly detached from responsibility for their safety. In so doing, it removes the danger that the clause about setting medical and training standards can be morphed into one establishing uniform standards in these areas, obviating previous concerns expressed above. The standards will be set by the individual licensee, and the only requirement for a license will be that those standards are adhered to by that licensee.
This interpretation was verified by Jay Garvin in Friday afternoon's regulatory panel, in which he reiterated that FAA-AST has responsibility for only third-party safety, and does not have statutory authority to regulate the safety of passengers.
This language will thus provide flexibility to have different training and medical standards for different types of space transports. For example, a company that has a system with a 9-G entry will obviously have different medical standards than one with only a 3-G entry. Similarly, a company with a vertical takeoff/landing vehicle will have different crew training standards (e.g., helicopter experience) than one that employs horizontal takeoff/landing.
Some may be concerned by the fact that the government is not going to regulate the safety of passengers in this new industry, but it must be understood that if they were to attempt to provide the level of safety through regulation that the airline industry currently provides, the industry will be stillborn.
People die climbing Everest, people die rock climbing, people die sky diving, and people die scuba diving. This industry is simply too immature to impose unreasonable safety requirements on it--the providers don't yet know exactly how to do it, and the regulators don't either, and attempting to do so would raise costs so high that it won't be possible for anyone, even those willing to take the risk, to afford it. This is truly the best solution at this time.
In addition, there's a benefit to the providers, in that they will be able to turn away potentially risky passengers, on the grounds that they don't meet their licensed standards as required by the DoT. This will minimize the danger of some potential lawsuits (e.g., oversize people who demand single-seat pricing on airlines, even though they may take up two seats).
To summarize, the bill does the following:
Overall, while the language could perhaps be tweaked to make things a little more explicit, I think that this proposed legislation is a major step forward in clarifying the regulatory situation, and I would encourage all who want to further enable our nation's and species' future in space to lobby their congressional representatives to sponsor and support it.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:45 PMJeff Foust reports on Burt Rutan's presentation at the annual symposium of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots last week in LA. Worth a read if you want to get the latest scoop on SpaceShipOne. He saves the most intriguing bit for last:
The final slide of the presentation, put on the screen during a brief question-and-answer session, showed what appeared to be a scaled-up version of the SS1 (see photo). A cutaway showed the cabin, with one pilot and ten passengers (arranged in three rows of three people with the tenth person floating above them.) The illustration was simply captioned ?A Future Space Tourism Ride??Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:18 AM
When we last left Rocketman, he was accusing Gregg Maryniak of comparing launch vehicles to submersibles, an accusation that, knowing Gregg, I found quite unlikely.
He has since had an email discussion with Gregg, and clarified the issue. I found this little bit of Gregg's response interesting, because it wasn't something to which I'd previously (or at least recently) given much explicit thought.
Bottom line is that space stuff costs perhaps 500 times as much to develop historically as (very challenging) undersea stuff. Why? It may be largely because of the expectation that it should (based on the history of governments racing each other without regard to normal engineering cost contraints.) When I speak to big audiences of traditional government space program engineers and program managers I usually pray that one of them will ask me: "You mean to say that mere expectations can be cost drivers--ridiculous"...to which I say, I have two words for them...."stock market."
Is Gregg right? Is space hardware and operations expensive because we expect it to be?
There's actually quite a bit of evidence that it is.
Most space contracts, particularly government contracts are cost plus fixed fee. This means that the contractors are reimbursed for the actual costs of executing the contract, as reported by them, plus some amount for profit (typically a few percent of the contract value). This is because high-technology research and development is recognized to be high risk--that the schedule might slip, or the costs be greater than originally estimated, and few if any private companies
are willing to absorb those costs, and NASA knows that none would bid on any other basis.
The problem with this, of course, is that it skews incentives in a way that are bad for the taxpayer (though not necessarily for the true constituencies of the space program--the contractors themselves, and the congresspeople in whose districts the contractors employ people). Perversely, the more they spend, the more they earn. There are occasionally attempts to mitigate this by putting in bonuses for hitting cost targets, and penalties for missing schedules or overrunning the budget, but they're largely ineffective, at least judging by the space station program.
But there's a more pernicious result of this, that's less often considered. In order for NASA to project the cost of the contract, they have to have a way of estimating the costs, even if it's something that may have never been done before. The way they (and the contractors) typically do this is called parametric cost analysis. They have cost models that are built up by examining many past programs, and incorporating the cost and schedule data from those programs. The models might use factors such as complexity (which is hard to measure), weight, technology level, and so on. The hope is that a good cost estimator can come up with a valid estimate for the program cost and schedule, based on similar efforts that have been performed in the past.
One problem with this is that it's more art than science, and heavily dependent on the assumptions that the modeler uses. Another problem, of course, is that reinforces notions of how expensive things will be, because by definition, it's based on how expensive things were in the past. It doesn't provide any way to model true innovation. In addition, because almost all of the experience comes from government programs, the data base for private space activities is very sparse, so they don't have any way of modeling that with any degree of credibility. And it turns even government programs, given the right team and incentives, can beat the estimates. As an example, consider the DC-X program:
Prior to letting the DC-X contract our program office conducted a cost estimating study. We used three models, one developed internally, one used by the US Air Force and one from NASA. The results were that our cost estimate based on the rapid program assumptions I described earlier and projected a cost between $60 and $70 million, the Air Force model using standard aerospace procurement practices produced an estimate of $365 million, the NASA model based on highly technology development based shuttle program experience projected the program would cost over $600 million. The actual DC-X program cost through the first test series came in around $65 million.
In other words, they beat the conventional Air Force costing model by a factor of more than five, and its NASA equivalent by almost an order of magnitude, or factor of ten.
Sadly, here's the process (slightly oversimplified). NASA comes up with a program idea. They come up with a cost estimate for it. They request a budget. If Congress authorizes it, they put out a procurement for that budget target. The contractors write their proposals, and then come up with their own cost estimates that magically, and almost invariably turn out to be close to what NASA has money for. And thus the expensive game is perpetuated.
But as one more example of how such estimates and quotes can be voodoo, let me relate a story (possibly apocryphal, but it's certainly believable to anyone with experience in the business) that was told to me by a program manager from the seventies. In the process of submitting a proposal, a small, almost insignificant typo found its way into the final version as delivered to the customer. It was a decimal point, misplaced one place to the right, resulting in a bid for that part of the program ten times too high, relative to the contractor's internal estimate.
The contractor was downselected for a Best And Final Offer, which is an opportunity to negotiate a little bit. The contractor fully expected to be raked over the coals for their outrageously high bid (I think that it was something like ten million dollars, when it should have been one), and they weren't disappointed. The NASA contracting officer excoriated them, calling them crooks and cheats, and other names not mentionable in a family web site, and finally finished up his lecture with the words, "...and we're not going to give you a dime over nine million!"
And of course, the outraged response from the contractors' representatives (as they sighed with relief) was, "But we can't do it for that!"
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:09 AM
Galileo (the spacecraft, not the scientist) is going to plunge into Jupiter's atmosphere tomorrow, ending its many-year exploration of that planet and its many moons. NASA is deliberately dropping it into the Jovian atmosphere in order to prevent it from accidentally hitting one of the moons, such as Europa, which may harbor life, and thereby contaminate that body with earth life that may have somehow survived the many years in deep space and Jupiter's intense radiation fields.
This weblog has a warm feeling for the spacecraft, which had a very hard life. The picture of the earth and moon in the banner was taken by it on one of its gravity-sling encounters, in which it stole a little momentum from the earth-moon system to augment its trip to the gas giant. In its honor, I'm displaying it in this post in more detail.
I don't like to anthropomorphize spacecraft, but it was a doughty explorer, and despite the rocky start to the mission, delivered a wealth of new information about our system's largest planet and its satellites. May it rest in peace.
[Thanks to my web designer Bill Simon for the heads up]
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:30 PMRocketman has a post on the X-Prize and related subjects that's worth reading, but there are a couple problems with it.
This is the most egregious:
The difference in energy required for a vehicle to reach the 100 mile altitude necessary to achieve orbit is ~25 times greater than the energy necessary to reach an altitude of 50 miles (I leave it as an exercise for the readers to figure out the difference in energy necessary between 62.5 and 100 miles).
This makes no sense at all. The difference in altitude between 50 and a hundred miles is, well, fifty miles. It's merely doubled, so it makes no sense that it would be twenty five times the energy.
The problem of course, is that there are two components to energy--the specific potential energy as represented by the altitude (approximated as gravity times the altitude), and the kinetic energy, corresponding to the velocity (half the velocity squared). By ignoring the latter, this statement comes out completely garbled (and the exercise left for the readers is utterly meaningless, and would be frustrating to any who attempted it). Energy is a combination of both altitude and velocity, and the big problem in getting into orbit isn't the former, but the latter.
Orbit is harder because it has go faster, not because it has to go higher. X-Prize is probably achievable at Mach three or four (say, a couple thousand miles an hour), and getting to a hundred miles wouldn't require much more energy. Orbit requires seventeen thousand miles an hour--that's the real killer.
He makes another point that's more arguable (as opposed to physical nonsense), and I'll argue it, as I did in last night's post and today's Fox column.
The statement that the "'harsh environment' of space was less harsh than that imposed by the ocean on the submersible" is just silly. Deep Rover operates in the ocean at a maximum depth of 1000 meters (3280 ft). At that depth, you are surrounded by water that is at ~40 degrees F and ~120 PSI. In space you are in a vacuum and your vehicle is exposed to direct solar energy that heats up one side of the vehicle and the vacuum of space that cools off the other.The temperature extremes that exist in space create some difficult engineering problems because of the differences in thermal contraction and expansion that occurs between dissimilar materials. I have had to deal with these problems in my designs, and it is not trivial to engineer effective solutions.
Unlike vehicles that operate in salt water, the choice of materials that can be used in space is extremely limited. Most common materials get brittle at cold temperatures, and they also outgas in a vacuum, which changes their material properties. Some materials have problems with salt water, but there are many common materials that can be used under the conditions Deep Rover operates at.
But the biggest difference between a submersible and a spacecraft is that submersibles do not have to fly. You can afford to have relatively large factors of safety and, if necessary, redundant components in a submersible because weight is not a big issue. Also, spacecraft are subjected to tremendous dynamic and acoustic vibrations during launch, vibrations submersible never see. Designing and testing components to handle the vibrations of launch is again not a trivial problem (I speak from experience on this as well).
No matter what Maryniak would like to believe, space is an extremely harsh environment to design for. It also is not cheap to test components to determine how they will handle that environment. You cannot just sail out to deep water and drop your vehicle in the ocean to test it like you can with a submersible. Environmental chambers with liquid nitrogen ?cold walls,? large halogen lamps and huge vacuum pumps are needed to conduct these tests. And even the largest of these chambers is incapable of testing a complete launch vehicle, so components have to be tested individually.
They're both harsh environments--but they're different kinds of harsh. The marine environment is extremely corrosive, and it's much more difficult, from a structural standpoint, to deal with many atmospheres of positive pressure (the deep sea) than a single atmosphere of negative pressure (the vacuum of space). Yes, space has radiation and temperature extremes that the ocean doesn't, but both environments are harsh. For example, the choice of materials that can operate in salt water are limited as well.
Many of the implications of expensive launch are subtle, but they validate Gregg's (and my) point.
Every objection that he has would be obviated by cheap launch, a point with which even he agrees at the end. If launch were cheap, you could afford heavier satellites, because the additional mass wouldn't be so expensive. If launch were cheap, you could afford more redundancy. Cheap launch systems will have relatively smooth rides (because they'll have to in order to be reliable and affordably reusable) so the launch environment won't be an issue. Cheap launch implies affordable test facilities on orbit, so the components can be tested more easily.
So I'm not sure what his point is in arguing with Gregg on this issue.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:24 PMGregg Easterbrook gives a little history of the Biosphere venture, and how Columbia University has finally ended its affiliation with it. But in the process, he makes a glib comment about the affordability of a Mars mission:
It seems certain that as the space shuttle debate continues, some prominent person will advocate the bold new adventure of a trip to Mars. When someone advocates that, this blog will demolish the idea in detail. Here's a quick preview. Last week the Wall Street Journal ran a letter to the editor blithely asserting that colonization of Mars could be accomplished "easily and cheaply." The Russian rocket manufacturer Energia recently estimated that the hardware for a stripped-down manned mission to Mars would weigh a minimum of 600 tons in low-earth orbit. At current space shuttle prices, it costs $15 billion to place 600 tons in low-earth orbit. That's just the initial launch cost for a stripped-down high-risk flight with a couple of people--spaceship and supplies are extra.
Sorry, Gregg, this does not compute. Why would you take the word of Energia for the mass of a Mars mission, and then make the insane assumption that it would be delivered with a Shuttle (probably the most expensive launch system on the planet, and one to soon go out of business, one way or another)?
If you're going to go with Russian quotes, use Russian launch prices. Of course, any rational person, contemplating fifteen billion dollars in launch costs, might consider spending that money instead on reducing launch costs...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:33 AMDon't you just hate it when your multi-million-dollar satellite falls over and breaks?
Way to go, Lockmart...
Keith Cowing over at NASA Watch provides the following reader comment:
"It turns out that the POES group at GSFC had a training session for an ISO 9000 audit in July, 2003. Here's the link to the briefing slides.Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:01 AMThe accident appears to be LockMart's fault, but once again we see the benefits of an ISO 9000 program..."
"'Forget Mars!' the president was heard to say."
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:07 PMClark Lindsey has a plan, in the unlikely event he's put in charge of NASA.
It's certainly a lot better than any of the current ones.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:54 AMAn email from Andrew Case informed me of an item that Clark Lindsey over at RLV News found. Homer Hickam (author of Rocket Boys, the book on which the movie October Sky was based) has an op-ed in today's Journal (subscription required, unfortunately), titled, NASA's Vietnam.
...when I put emotion aside, I can't ignore my engineering training. That training and my knowledge as a 20-year veteran of the space agency (and also a Vietnam vet) has led me to conclude that the Space Shuttle is NASA's Vietnam. A generation of engineers and managers have exhausted themselves trying to make it work and they just can't. Why not? Because the Shuttle's engineering design, just as Vietnam's political design, is inherently flawed.
He thinks that NASA doesn't have a culture problem, just a lousy vehicle design. He wants to build an OSP and fly it on an expendable. That will make everything all better!
Sorry, Mr. Hickam, with all due respect to your cherished agency, it has both. It has a lousy design partly because of a cultural problem, partly because of a policy problem, but there's much more to be fixed at the agency, that simply coming up with a different expensive and unsafe way to put people into space isn't going to solve.
I know that it pains a veteran like you, but we need to fundamentally break the connection in the minds of both the public, and policy makers, between NASA and space. They are not synonymous. It's time to open up the competition and let some other folks give it a shot.
Besides, I've always thought that Space Station Albatross was NASA's Vietnam, and that we should just declare victory and go home.
[Update at 4 PM PDT]
For those who want to Read The Whole Thing, there's a slightly longer version of it up at Spaceref now, with a different title--"Not Culture, But Perhaps A Cult."
[Update on Saturday afternoon]
It occurs to me that this piece, which I wrote last fall, is relevant to this topic.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:55 AMThere's a very depressing example of how sterile and mindless the debate about space remains in the wake of the CAIB report over at the WaPo today. If not a full-blown fisking, it requires an almost line-by-line analysis.
Administration officials disclosed in an interview that the White House will begin work next week on a blueprint for interplanetary human flight over the next 20 or 30 years, with plans calling for Bush to issue an ambitious new national vision for space travel by early next year.
Ahhhh, no timorous five-year plans for these central planners--we'll have a thirty-year plan!
The officials said they will wrestle with the military's role in space, as well as with whether to emphasize manned or robotic missions, whether to build a base in space, what vehicle should replace the shuttle and what planets should be visited.
That's interesting, but how can they do that, when no one seems to be discussing what we're trying to accomplish? How can one decide whether to "emphasize manned or robotic missions" when we don't know what the the hell we're trying to do?
Guys?
"The question is: What do we say to the president about why we should continue humans in space and in what vehicles and to what ends?" a senior administration official said.
Yes, that is the question, but there's a wide array of answers, and I seen no indication, at least not in this article, that there's any discussion of anything beyond "exploration" and "science."
But those answers will not come as swiftly as Congress would like, and lawmakers and some administration officials said they do not see how Bush will find the money to pay for any meaningful expansion of the space program given the costs of his tax cuts and the demands on the budget from the Pentagon, homeland security and possibly new Medicare benefits.
Well, look, not that I necessarily favor an increase in NASA funding (and in fact, right now I'm in the "abolish NASA" camp), but this is just fiscally stupid. We are spending less than one percent of the federal budget on NASA. We could double it and it wouldn't even make a blip in the deficit. There may be, and in fact are, good reasons to oppose an increase in funding, given the current plans, but "we can't afford it" ain't one of them.
That could turn his aides' study of options for future astronauts into something of an academic exercise."You can't fight a war on terrorism and stimulate the economy and put billions and billions of new dollars into the space program," an official said, adding that the end of the Cold War had made mastery of space a less pressing priority.
Well, some would argue that putting billions and billions of new dollars into the space program would be part of stimulating the economy, though how well it does so depends in part on how you actually spend the money.
But what does he mean when he says that "the end of the Cold War has made mastery of space a less pressing priority"?
Is he talking about civil space? If so, it's pretty appalling that, almost half a century after Sputnik, policy makers still think that the only reason to go into space is to flex our technological muscles to impress other countries.
If he means from a military standpoint, I don't know if he's noticed, but we're engaged in a hot war right now, and one in which space assets played a critical role that will only increase in future battles.
I would really, really love some elaboration on this comment.
Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), chairman of a Senate subcommittee that oversees NASA, said he will seek a presidential panel to examine the future of the space program, including whether to shift resources from the shuttle in order to resume the exploration of the moon.Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.), a member of the House Science Committee, is calling for a shift from manned to unmanned flight "for both safety and research value."
See, instead of "it's all about ooooiiiiillllll," when it comes to space it's all about "exploration" and "research."
Of course, one does not intrinsically increase "research value" by leaving people at home. I disagree with Bob Zubrin about a lot of things, but he's certainly right when he says that you'll learn a lot more about a planet by sending a geologist than you will a robot. And for those who obsess about "safety," I'm sorry, but I have nothing but contempt. Yes, we should try not to kill people, but ultimately, the only way you can avoid it is to not let them go at all, which seems to be Rep. Smith's goal here. As the old saying goes, a ship in a harbor is safe, but that's not what ships, or explorers, are for.
A senior administration official said a White House group will meet at least weekly to assess "the benefits to the nation and the world of continued human spaceflight by the United States.""We know we can do it. What do we seek to achieve through it?" the official said. "Where and how does human spaceflight fit into national requirements and national priorities over the next several decades?"
Yes, those are good questions. Even better one are "is human spaceflight going to continue to be performed only by NASA, or are we going to encourage the nascent private human spaceflight industry?" "What role will they play?" "Are there things we can do to help make that happen that don't require expenditures of taxpayer dollars to a bloated, sclerotic civil space agency?"
But I'll bet those kinds of question won't get asked, at least based on anything I read in this business-as-usual article.
Officials said the new panel on human spaceflight, led by the White House and involving several Cabinet departments, is scheduled to have recommendations ready for Bush in the next several months. Aides said they hope Bush will make decisions by the end of the year so that the ideas can be included in the administration budget for 2005, which will go to Capitol Hill in February.The official said the interagency group will look at the space program's relationship with national defense, as well as with the advancement of science, and at "the question of how this relates to national goals that, at first blush, have nothing to do with spaceflight."
OK, this does look a little more encouraging. I would hope that those departments include (at the least) Commerce, Transportation, Energy and Defense.
The rest of the article pretty much focuses on NASA and its budget and the CAIB.
You know, it would help if reporters themselves, like Mike Allen and Eric Pianin, would bring up these issues, but they're sadly apparently unaware as well, and stuck in the same NASA-centric mindset. Maybe they should read this weblog once in a while...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:20 AMLaughing Wolf has some ideas.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:35 AMI'm reading it, and I'll probably post on it as I go, in a series of posts. I'm also working on an related column for NRO. My initial impression, having read the summary and just started to get into the first section--it's a great, free book for anyone who wants to understand the history of the manned space program, and the Shuttle, and how we got into the mess we're in. The fact that John Logsdon was on the panel helps ensure that the history is accurate. I often disagree with John about the future, but he can be counted on to get his past correct (even if he occasionally misinterprets it).
A lot of it I'm just skimming, because little is new to me. I just want to comment on this bit for now:
Rockets, by their very nature, are complex and unforgiving vehicles. They must be as light as possible, yet attain out-standing performance to get to orbit. Mankind is, however, getting better at building them. In the early days as often as not the vehicle exploded on or near the launch pad; that seldom happens any longer. It was not that different from early airplanes, which tended to crash about as often as they flew. Aircraft seldom crash these days, but rockets still fail between two-and-five percent of the time. This is true of just about any launch vehicle ? Atlas, Delta, Soyuz, Shuttle ? regardless of what nation builds it or what basic configuration is used; they all fail about the same amount of the time. Building and launching rockets is still a very dangerous business, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future while we gain experience at it. It is unlikely that launching a space vehicle will ever be as routine an undertaking as commercial air travel ? certainly not in the lifetime of anybody who reads this. The scientists and engineers continually work on better ways, but if we want to continue going into outer space, we must continue to accept the risks.
As regular readers are aware, I disagree that it is "...unlikely that launching a space vehicle will ever be as routine an undertaking as commercial air travel."
It may not achieve the level of safety and reliability of aircraft, but I do think that it will become routine, in the sense of regular schedules, and something that millions of people will be able to afford to do, and will be safe enough for them to do, in my lifetime, and certainly in the lifetime of young adults. This conventional wisdom is based on 1) an underestimate of how long lifetimes of those living today may be and 2) a misunderstanding of the reasons that it isn't routine.
And of course, most of the "basic configurations used" are variations on a flawed theme--one-shot systems, built at low rates, which makes it difficult to get good statistical quality control. It's not really a physics or an energy problem--it's more a consequence of the path that we've followed in launch system design for the past forty years. Fortunately, we're starting to break out of that with a return to developing suborbital vehicles, and doing it right.
[Update at 5 PM PDT]
Page 24: "The per-mission cost was more than $140 million..."
What does that mean?
One of the frustrating things about discussing launch costs is that people don't use the vocabulary consistently. I suspect that's the marginal cost (that is, the cost of flying the next flight, given that the system is already operating). It's not the average cost (the total number of flights per year divided by the annual budget)--that's much higher.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 03:28 PMThere's been a lot of talk, with today's release of the Gehman Report, about NASA's "culture." Jim Oberg (who should certainly know) has a pretty good description of it.
I haven't read the report yet, but I've heard nothing about it in the various news accounts that I found surprising. I had a pretty good idea what it was going to say within a week of the event, to a very high confidence level. They examined every possibility, but the prime suspect was always the foam debris hitting the leading edge, and I predicted that it would be a broken leading edge on the day it happened. But this was an interesting comment from Admiral Gehman:
...when asked at a press conference how much of his final report could have been written BEFORE the disaster, Gehman thought momentarily and replied, ?Probably most of it.?
Yup.
But this is the key point:
Perhaps the most salient characteristic of the ?NASA culture? is that its managers act as if they are proverbial ?rocket scientists.?In late 1999, following the loss of a fleet of unmanned Mars probes, a NASA official was asked at a press conference about what the repercussions might be. Would anyone lose their jobs over such performance, a reporter asked?
There would be no such consequences, the official replied. ?After all,? he explained, ?who would we replace them with? We already have the smartest people in the country working for us.?
There's an old saying about pride and falls...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:56 PMJeff Foust reports that the OECD is starting to study the issue of commercial space. They're going to study it and issue a report in a year and a half. As he points out, it's likely to be too little, too late, and focus on trees while missing the forest.
Assuming the report is approved, the OECD will publish the report by April 2005.There is an absence of representation by both entrepreneurial ventures and developing countries, primarily because of the high membership fees.
It?s this timescale and lack of inclusiveness that should cause the most concern about the OECD?s efforts. To get the best view of the prospects for commercial space, the project needs to take into account the plans and opinions of those small entrepreneurial ventures that largely operate under the radar of established players in commercial space, but who represent technologies and markets that hold the greatest promise for the future. These companies, in general, don?t have over $50,000 lying around to participate in such ventures, and typically lack the personnel and time required to participate at the same level as large companies and government agencies. The IFP needs to reach out to these companies and solicit their input for the project?s efforts to have the best chance of success.
Meanwhile, the drawn-out schedule of the project threatens it, if not with obsolescence, then at least with being overtaken by events in some arenas. By April 2005 it?s quite possible, for example, that suborbital space tourism will be a real industry with one or more companies offering services, based on the considerable progress made by companies like Armadillo Aerospace and Scaled Composites. Broadband satellite services offered through Ka-band satellites scheduled for launch in the next two years could prove to be a major growth sector for the satellite telecommunications office, or they might prove unable to compete with entrenched terrestrial alternatives like DSL and cable. While the IFP?s 30-year planning horizon is unlikely to make the whole report irrelevant, they will have to take care to keep up with and respond to developments in the industry in the next eighteen months."
Yes, it's (happily) a particularly dynamic time to be doing such an analysis.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:25 PMMy latest piece at Tech Central Station is up, about how suborbital space transports may revolutionize space programs overseas as well, and its potential implications for national security.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:20 AMJohn Carter McKnight recently wrote an article on the rights of Martian lifeforms, should they turn out to exist.
The question arises because, unlike the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, we haven't yet reached any consensus on a protocol for how to respond if we discover non-intelligent extraterrestrial life, particularly a physical discovery in our own solar system that could be adversely affected by such a discovery (though people are working on one).
While we may not want to go to the extremes of Star Trek's Prime Directive, which forbids contamination of another culture with technologies that are beyond it, or knowledge of other species on other planets, it can provide a useful starting point for dealing with other sapient beings. We would presumably treat them differently than non-sapient beings, for the same reason that we make a distinction on earth between humans and other animals. The former are moral agents, and the latter are not.
What, then, should be the basis for developing an ethic with respect to unearthly non-sapient beings?
McKnight lists three broad philosophical perspectives.
Our current terrestrial environmental policies (at least in the United States) are based on a combination of preservation and stewardship. The Endangered Species Act is an example of the former, while the federal policies for logging and ranching are of the latter. The policy has to maintain a balance between these conflicting views, and the current debate about how much forest thinning to allow, in order to prevent devastating wildfires, is an excellent example of the continual tension between them.
Intrinsic worth doesn't inform much public policy, but it's the position of the more radical (and in some cases, terrorist, perhaps because they've been so unsuccessful in getting their views implemented into law) environmentalist movements, such as Earth First. These people are often called deep ecologists, many of whom believe not just that man is of equivalent moral standing with other animals, and even all other living things, but perhaps of lower moral standing. Indeed, some of them consider humanity a cancer on the face of the universe, that needs to be quarantined to this planet, if not exterminated entirely, for the benefit of the rest of nature.
Now, suppose that we find, via either a robotic probe, or a human mission, that Mars (or, some other possible locations, such as Jupiter's moon Europa or Saturn's moon Titan) has some sort of primitive life form, such as bacteria or lichen? What is the implication of each of these points of view for how to treat such life?
The intrinsic worth position would be pretty simple--we had no darned business sending those robots out there in the first place--they might contaminate the ecosystem and destroy it.
But assuming that such a view will be as politically untenable in space as it has proven on earth, likely the policy would be, like here, some combination of preservation and stewardship.
It's probably possible to establish human settlements on Mars without destroying the indigenous lifeforms, as long as they are sealed apart from the environment (necessary to support human life anyway, given the fact that the atmosphere of the planet is so thin as to mimic a vacuum, as far as human lungs are concerned). As long as we don't take along any bugs that are particularly well suited for the natural Martian environment, it's unlikely that earthly life will be able to outcompete life that evolved there. So both goals can be accomplished under those circumstances.
But if we get to the point at which we want to "terraform" the planet, to provide it with a breathable atmosphere, it will prove a death knell for anything living there now, just as the early life forms on earth were wiped out by more advanced forms that created our present oxygen atmosphere, which proved toxic to them. The only way to satisfy the preservationist ethos would be to take the existing flora and fauna, and put it into the equivalent of a zoo, to at least preserve the species.
I would like to propose a possible fourth perspective, based on an interesting recent theory that the universe may have a teleology, or purpose. The proposition is that intelligent life created the universe, and will ultimately help it reproduce itself. Even more controversially, it may be that things can somehow "wrap around" such that we may have reached back in time from other universes to create the one in which we live.
As someone who is not religious in the conventional deistic sense, I can't say whether it's scientifically true, but I find it at least a comfortable belief. One of the purposes of a religion is to provide meaning to existence, beyond sitting around chugging beer and watching football. To me, being a part of the process by which the universe attains self awareness and fulfills its ultimate destiny seems as good a goal to which to hitch one's fate as any.
In this formulation, it is not just our right, but our duty to take such actions as to increase the amount of intelligent life in the universe, and expand consciousness throughout. This means carrying the flame of life beyond the earth, bringing life to the sterile places, and creating new ecosystems first throughout the solar system, then out into the galaxy, and ultimately beyond.
But what happens when we encounter another ecosystem? Well, it depends on whether it's intelligent (and particularly, if it's conscious) or not.
If it is (assuming it's not hostile), we can leave it to do its bit to satisfy the goal, and move on to virgin territory.
But if it's not, then it has no special claim to existence, or the territory in which it evolved. In the interests of the preservation of knowledge, the ecosystem will be preserved, but its range may be vastly limited in order to carry out the higher purpose. Think of it as "Manifest Destiny" not for white men, but for intelligent life and perhaps the universe itself.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:31 PMThere's been a debate raging within the space technical community and inside NASA over whether or not the Orbital Space Plane should have wings. Obviously, it was named before anyone realized that there would be a debate and the assumption was that, of course, it would.
Jeff Foust has a good overview of that debate, but I want to make a different point, because I strongly disagree with Bob Walker's comments here, and if they're true they're profoundly depressing.
While OSP is portrayed as an interim vehicle, a stopgap between the shuttle and a future RLV, some caution that whatever approach NASA selects it may be stuck with for decades. ?Whatever we design and spend money on is going to be the vehicle for the next 20 years,? said Walker. ?You can kid yourself that there are going to be follow-on vehicles and all that, but we kidded ourselves that way throughout the shuttle program. So you can depend upon the fact that whatever we do here is going to be around for a long time. It seems to me that you want something that at least will be adaptable.?
Two problems. First, I don't accept that there will be, or at least that there should be, "the vehicle for the next 20 years." The notion that NASA should have a vehicle is the source of much of our inability to make major space accomplishments.
We have to get out of this monoculture. We need multiple vehicles. And of course, because NASA has no grand ambitions, there's no way to support their development.
But even if he's right, and that NASA will have a new vehicle that will be "the" vehicle, it's not at all clear that simply putting wings on the thing gives you much leverage into the future. It might be necessary (though I'm not sure that's even the case) but it's certainly not sufficient. Some fantasize that they can build this vehicle as a payload for a Delta IV or Atlas V, and then later use it as an upper stage for a fully-reusable system.
The problem with that is it implies that that system will be a three-stage system, because the delta-V capability of the OSP is not meant to help get it into orbit--the expendable launcher is supposed to do that--it's only enough to meet the requirements for maneuvering on orbit, and deorbiting.
If you were designing a fully-reusable launcher right now, I suspect that it would optimize out to two stages. This probably balances the margins needed for operability (provided by staging) against the operational complexity of too many stages. But an OSP designed as a payload for an orbit-capable launch system won't be optimized for that future vehicle--it will simply be a payload for it as well--not part of the launch system per se. Thus, the notion of using it as the upper stage of a new launch system is a non-starter. That means that the new system must have enough capability to deliver an OSP sized payload to orbit, and, by the logic above, be a two-stage system itself (meaning that the OSP will be the third stage).
If the goal is really to have a space transport, then they should simply build one, instead of building evolutionary dead ends that they hope can be adapted later on.
Of course, this is all beside the point, because what we should really be doing, as a nation, not just NASA, is figuring out how to encourage and nurture a private industry that can not only satisfy NASA's requirements, but those of the rest of us as well, something that OSP will never be able to do.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:20 PMI've previously noted the oversupply of astronauts at NASA.
Jim Oberg points out an insidious effect of this--a dysfunctional culture at the agency. This is one of the many reasons that NASA's manned spaceflight program needs a dramatic overhaul, assuming that it should even continue to exist in anything resembling its current form.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 11:48 AMJeff Faust attended last week's congressional hearing on suborbital launch regulation, and has a good first-hand report.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:40 AMIt would seem that my post yesterday (and my Fox column) were quite timely.
I've often discussed the chilling effect that regulatory uncertainty can have on investing in private space transportation efforts. Usually, I mean that in the sense that it makes investors hesitant, or reduces the potential pool of them. But you can't get a more clear cut case than what happened yesterday, when Dennis Tito testified to a Congressional panel, with no ambiguity, that he's ready to invest, and the only thing preventing him from doing so is fear of the FAA.
I hope that they're listening.
[Update at 8:57 AM PDT]
The testimony is now on line.
Here's Tito's. Key graf:
Please understand me: I am not looking for government funding or technology. I don't need an investment tax credit or a loan guarantee. I'm not even looking to escape the regulations under which other space transportation companies operate. But I would like to know which government agency, and which set of regulations, will oversee this new industry.You see, I am willing to risk my money on a technical concept and a team of engineers. I am willing to risk my money on the customers actually showing up. And I am willing to risk my money competing against other companies in the marketplace. But I am not willing to risk my money on a regulatory question mark, on waiting for the government to decide who can give me permission to get into business, and what the regulatory standards for my business will be.
For an excellent tutorial on the history of aviation and launch regulation, and the differences between the two, I also encourage you to read the testimony of Jeff Greason, head of XCOR.
The key point is that the mature aviation industry's goal is to protect passengers and cargo. At the state of development of launchers, we must be prepared to accept much higher risk to (informed) first and second parties, and focus regulations on protecting third (that is, otherwise uninvolved) parties on the ground, as required by the Outer Space Treaty and common sense.
Elon Musk (founder of Paypal, and now President and owner of SpaceX) also has some useful thoughts, with some specific recommendations for making government ranges more user friendly, and with an optimistic outlook for the industry based on his internet experience:
It is worth noting that the perspective I bring to the launch vehicle industry is drawn from a particularly Darwinian experience in the business world, having founded and helped build two successful Internet companies in Silicon Valley. Seldom have we seen a faster moving, more voraciously competitive business environment or one with more tombstones. However, for all the problems associated with that era, the rise and fall and perhaps rise again of the NASDAQ, it is easy to forget that the vast majority of the monumental work required to build what we know as the world wide web was done in less than a decade.If you doubt that we can possibly see such progress in space access, please reflect for a moment that the Internet, originally a DARPA funded project, showed negligible growth for over two decades until private enterprise entered the picture. At that point, growth accelerated by more than a factor of ten. We saw Internet traffic grow by more in a few years than the sum of all growth in the prior two decades.
John Kutler's testimony is worth reading as well, providing the perspective of the institutional investment community. Summary: they're not ready to jump into this yet, so the startups will have to continue to rely on angels for a while.
Finally, read the testimony from Futron on their space tourism market research study.
As I said, I hope that Congress was listening carefully.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:56 AMThe Houston Chronicle has been running a very good series of articles this week on the mess that is our manned space program.
Too often, press accounts of the space program are either breathless and unquestioning regurgitations of overhyped NASA Public Affairs Office releases, or at the other extreme, dark exposes about activities of minions of the military-space industrial complex, plotting to enrich themselves at the expense of the downtrodden taxpayer and/or carry out secret space missions that will continue to make the rest of the world toiling slaves of the Amerikkkan Empire (TM).
Refreshingly, authors Tony Freemantle and Mike Tolson set just the right, sober tone, and considering that it's the hometown newspaper for NASA's Johnson Space Center, they, along with their paper, are to be commended for their willingness to tell stark truths, and to provide a history of the program untainted by local boosterism.
On Sunday, the thirty-fourth anniversary of the first moon landing, they provide the setting--NASA is at a crossroads in the wake of the Columbia loss.
I was encouraged by the fact, as reported here, that many are starting to realize that there is much wrong with the program, far beyond mere vehicle design. I've long been agitating for a serious national debate over the purposes of our civil policy, and if this article is correct, that may finally be happening:
"The Gehman report will mark the moment which will be noted in history as before and after," predicted U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. "After the report comes out, everyone will be committed to charting a new direction for the program that will have discernible goals."
Of course, that debate should be an informed one, and I would accordingly encourage everyone involved to read Monday's installment, which provides a great summary history of the space shuttle. Tuesday's installment describes similarly the history of the space station. Together, they give a good insight into how each program is dependent the other, not just technically, but in terms of institutional support--the shuttle was needed to provide a means of getting to space station and an excuse to build it, and the space station was needed to provide something for the shuttle to do.
A much better station could have been built, and much more quickly, had that been the goal, by developing a shuttle-derived heavy lifter. The costs of doing so would have been trivial in comparison to the cost savings. But to do so would have been to admit that the shuttle wasn't all that great for building space stations, ostensibly one of it primary purposes. So we spent at least an additional decade in construction, and arguably two (we could have had a fully-capable shuttle-derived station in the late eighties, and the current one isn't yet complete), to get a far inferior product.
But of course, building a space station wasn't the goal--having a space station program, that employed lots of people, was. I hope that, in the weeks leading up to the release of the Gehman report a month from now, there will be many more articles like this in the broader press, and that we can establish the basis for a long-needed national debate on not just the means, but the purposes, of our manned space program. And according to this article, the people seem to agree.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:31 AMI wrote three weeks ago about overburdensome regulations potentially shutting down the model rocket community.
The problem extends beyond hobbyists. While it's important for our long-term future in space to continue to nurture budding space engineers, there is a more immediate problem. Here's an interesting article that describes the confused situation with respect to regulation of suborbital space transports.
This is a hot subject in the news right now, with the growing excitement about the X-Prize and the fact that people are now investing in commercial suborbital passenger vehicles. And it's a good article, but probably in the interest of brevity, it glosses over some of the history necessary to really understand the issue, and why Burt Rutan is still potentially gumming up the works, though he's at least conceded that he needs a launch license from FAA-AST to fly his vehicle and win the prize.
From the article:
Permission to fly the proposed suborbital crafts in the United States rests at the Office of the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (AST), an arm of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).Established in 1984 as the Office of Commercial Space Transportation in the Department of Transportation, AST was transferred to the FAA in November 1995.
That's part of the problem. The enabling legislation for that office, the Commercial Space Transportation Act of 1984, didn't require that it be under the FAA--that was a policy decision made (for reasons that remain obscure, at least to me) by the Clinton administration. That administration made a number of disastrous decisions with regard to space (e.g., the X-33 program, Russianizing the space station, putting NASA in charge of the development of reusable launch systems) and this was one of them.
Here's the problem.
The aviation industry is a mature one. The regulations that regulate it evolved along with it, allowing it to develop over the past several decades. Very few of them existed at its infancy, back in the late 1920s and early 1930s. If they had, it's likely that the industry would have been stillborn, because they would have been much too stringent for companies still trying to figure out what worked and what didn't.
And in fact, some have argued, with some merit, that the regulatory regime in place for commercial aircraft has actually held back progress in aviation even today, because the regulations are aimed at conventionally-designed aircraft, which leaves little room for innovation. In fact, the experimental aircraft category, in which Burt Rutan swims like a fish in the ocean, has been the main force in allowing visionary engineers to try new things without either being shut down by the regulations or the litigation attorneys.
At this date, early in its development, no one knows how to properly regulate a (non-expendable) space transportation industry, because no one has any experience with doing so, either from the standpoint of the regulator or the regulatee.
As long as the regulating authority remains within the FAA (charged with regulating aviation), there will be an ongoing danger of overregulation. Those who wrote the language for the 1984 Commercial Space Transportation Act recognized this, and deliberately put the office that would regulate space transportation independently within the Department of Transportation, rather than the FAA (an agency also within that department).
There were two reasons for this.
First, because doing so would give it more preeminence and clout--it could report directly to the Secretary of Transportation, rather than having to get its viewpoints heard through an insulating layer of the head of the FAA.
Second, because (also as already described) the modern FAA, had it been in place during the golden age of aviation, would have preempted the modern aviation industry.
Now here's the problem. While Burt seems to be at least now pretending to go along with the program, this part is disturbing:
Rutan said that their initial concern is that AST considers no distinction between research flight tests and certification for commercial operations."Until this is done, we believe there will not be a proper environment to allow proof-of-concept research, and may result in the real progress being made by foreign competition," Rutan said.
"I want to be sure it is clear that we have no current disagreement with AST on what the requirements should be for certification of commercial space operations," Rutan said. "As we have found with our many previous aircraft development programs, it is helpful to understand certification requirements in order to best structure an initial research test program."
This, of course, is exactly the issue. Burt continues to consider this an extension of the current aviation model, in which spacecraft will be "certified" by the FAA.
Here's the rub. FAA "certification" has a very specific, and expensive meaning. The gauntlet through which an aircraft has to go to attain this vaunted imprimatur is well understood in the aviation community. However, it is so expensive (it can increase development costs by at least an order of magnitude) that it is in fact a barrier to entry to new players in the business, which is one of the reason that it's supported strongly by existing entities.
On the other hand, it is currently meaningless under the FAA-AST launch licensing procedures--there is no certification regime for spacecraft, passenger or cargo. So it's not clear at all what Burt is saying here. It's not currently possible to "structure an initial research test program" around certification requirements, because they don't exist, and (if we're lucky) won't for a long time, until we have developed experience with this new flight regime via vehicles such as the one that Burt is developing.
Perhaps what Burt means is that they make no distinction between flight test and operations for licensing purposes, and this may in fact be the case, since their licensing procedures for reusable vehicles are still evolving.
Unfortunately, confusion such as this, and the potential danger of industry-killing overregulation, is likely to persist as long as the office that licenses launches remains within the FAA. A good first step toward clarifying the situation may very well be to reverse the mistake of the previous administration, and set it up once again as a separate office within the Department of Transportation, as Congress originally intended.
Let us hope that the administration has the wisdom to consider doing so, or that Congress might direct it in this year's relevant legislation. With the money for the X-Prize finally raised after many years, it would be a tragedy and a travesty if it all ends up being for nought because of regulatory confusion.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:19 AMJoshua Elder wants to see the Moon become a retirement community.
It's possible, though I suspect that it might even become a desirable location for the working class as well, depending on how bad things get down here from a tax and freedom standpoint. There's nothing in this piece that wasn't true a decade ago, though, and he seems a little overenamored of particular technical solutions (e.g., single-stage-to-orbit).
As is often the case, it started off a round of comments arguing about the best way to build space transports, and how it's expensive to get into space because of the "physics" (which reminds me--I found a nice page the other day that thoroughly debunks this notion, and provides a good FAQ as to why space access is currently expensive).
The real point is that we have to get private enterprise on the case to figure out the best way, rather than arguing about it on the internet, and once we do, it will become apparent what the best uses of our off-world locales and resources are as well.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:55 AMOn this Apollo anniversary, go check out The Speculist. There's not much information about the proprieter, but the focus seems to be on space and the future.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 01:49 PMFive hundred million years ago, the moon summoned life out of its first home, the sea, and led it onto the empty land. For as it drew the tides across the barren continents of primeval earth, their daily rhythm exposed to sun and air the creatures of the shallows. Most perished ? but some adapted to the new and hostile environment. The conquest of the land had begun.We shall never know when this happened, on the shores of what vanished sea. There were no eyes or cameras present to record so obscure, so inconspicuous an event. Now, the moon calls again ? and this time life responds with a roar that shakes earth and sky.
When the Saturn V soars spaceward on nearly four thousand tons of thrust, it signifies more than a triumph of technology. It opens the next chapter of evolution.
No wonder that the drama of a launch engages our emotions so deeply. The rising rocket appeals to instincts older than reason; the gulf it bridges is not only that between world and world ? but the deeper chasm between heart and brain.-- Sir Arthur C. Clarke (L'Envoi)
[Update at 3:05 PM PDT]
There's more at Winds of Change, including Jews in space...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:54 AMThe competition to ride into space, as well as to provide rides, is heating up. According the linked article, Space Adventures had a little soire in London to show off potential services to well-heeled clients, and it does indeed look as though (assuming that NASA gets the Shuttle flying again), there will be a purely commercial space tourism mission coming up. And also according to the article, Richard Branson would like to lose his space Virginity.
There's also a continued shift in perception underway:
...not everyone with an interest in British space exploration was excited about the prospect of the UK's first space tourist. Professor Colin Pillinger, the Open University scientist leading the Beagle 2 project to Mars, was among them."I'll believe it when I see it," said Professor Pillinger. "I doubt very much whether Nasa will let people just drop into the International Space Station for a cup of tea.
This kind of snooty dismissal is not atypical of responses from space science types. But what's different is the next quote from him, which shows that at last, he and his colleagues may be starting to get it. I should also note that he doesn't know what he's talking about, because in fact NASA has done just that, twice.
"The only possible benefit I can see from all this is that if more people are going into space, rockets will become cheaper for the rest of us."
Exactly. That's the point.
And that should be benefit enough for you, if not for those of us who want to go, so maybe you'll at least stop poo-pooing it?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:08 AM[Warning, long space policy post]
That seems to be NASA's current attitude, and just one more reason that the Space Launch Initiative program should be hauled up to the top of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Cape and hurled off the roof.
They're proposing (as was the case with X-33) that the new launch system be designed to be flown unpiloted, and have a separate, separable crew module when it has to carry people.
This notion of manned vs. unmanned launchers contains many myths. Even people who are supposedly expert often don't quite understand the issues involved.
One of those myths goes back to the Challenger disaster. Prior to it, Shuttle had been taking up commercial satellite payloads, as part of NASA's efforts to get the flight rate up, and thus reduce their per-flight costs. This had the incidental effect of severely damaging, and in fact almost destroying, the nascent commercial launch industry at the time, since the private developers were competing with a government-subsidized system.
After the Challenger disaster, an edict was laid down that Shuttle would no longer fly commercial payloads. As is usually the case when the government does the right thing (banning commercial payloads which were injuring the commercial launch industry), it was for entirely the wrong reason. The rationale was, instead, that "never again should our brave astronauts risk their lives doing things for which they're not required" (launching satellites).
The thinking here is that since commercial satellites can be launched on unmanned launchers, they should be launched on unmanned launchers. Never mind the fact that Shuttle launches are rarely single purpose, or that the costs may be lower (though in fact they weren't really--only the price was). At the heart of this thinking, of course, is the notion that spaceflight is dangerous, and intrinsically so. So since any human spaceflight is risky, we should restrict it to those purposes for which it is required that humans be aboard.
This would be a reasonable enough position, if it were true that a) spaceflight is inherently dangerous and that b) having humans aboard doesn't increase the probability of a successful mission.
Now for Shuttle, both of those assumptions may be valid, though for assumption (b) there were a number of cases in which crew checkout of the satellites prior to deployment might have been the difference between success and failure, even more so if the mission were designed with this capability in mind.
But there's no reason to think that it will be true for any future space transport.
Despite this, as always, the generals are fighting the last war, and NASA thinks that one of the problems with the Shuttle was that it was designed to fly crew on every flight, and are thus incorporating that "lesson" into the SLI program--by designing it to be capable of unmanned operation.
There is another factor that drives this decision. It's called "man rating." This is a concept that everyone who is familiar with space programs thinks they understand, and that very few, in fact, do. The myth here is that vehicles designed to carry people are intrinsically more expensive to design, build and operate, because they are "man rated." Now in the case of the next-generation Shuttle envisioned by NASA, even without a crew, the vehicle will still have to be "man rated," because it's meant to carry passengers in a separate module in the payload bay, so they won't get the cost savings that conventional thinking would indicate by not "man rating" it.
But the very notion that a space transport, even one that carries pilots and passengers must be "man rated", or that it will cost more than one that doesn't carry crew or passengers, is yet another myth.
To understand why, it's necessary to understand what man rating really means, and why it's therefore inapplicable to the new launch systems envisioned. And in fact, here's a shocking bit of news, to people who don't fully understand the concept--the Shuttle is not man rated.
A couple of years ago, I posted the following contribution (with some minor edits) to an FAQ over on sci.space.policy, which set off a rousing two-hundred-plus post thread/debate, but not one that ultimately changed my basic thesis.
Q: What is man rating, and what are its implications for the cost of designing, manufacturing, and operating a launch vehicle?
A: Man rating is a process by which design and operations of an expendable launch vehicle are analyzed and, if necessary, changed to reduce the chances of injuring or killing any person who might use it for transportation, relative to its design and operations prior to such analysis and modification.
It evolved as a practice in the 1960s, when, in our hurry to get to the Moon, we used existing ballistic missiles as the basis for our launch systems, rather than develop new space transportation systems from scratch (the Saturn was an exception to this).
The premise was that because these systems were designed to be used only once, and would be used en masse and redundantly (to lob warheads at folks to kill them and break their stuff), their individual reliability was sacrificed to a degree, in the interests of globally minimizing the overall cost. The reliability of the individual launch systems that resulted from this philosophy was deemed unsatisfactory for putting people on top of them (even for the early astronauts, who were test pilots at Muroc and Pax River, and riding on top of a tested guided missile was probably the safest thing that they'd ever done in their interesting careers).
Without getting into detail, it involved improving the reliability of the missile by using higher-quality components, adding in redundancy and testing in critical subsystems, getting lots of signatures, and ensuring that there were ways for the astronaut to semi-safely abort from a launch gone bad (in the words of Mitchell Burnside-Clapp, President of Pioneer Rocketplane--"attempted suicide to avoid certain death").
What does it not mean? It does not mean having systems/subsystems that permit people to be carried on board, such as cockpits, and life support. A man-rated Titan remains man-rated without the Gemini capsule that goes on top of it.
It also does not mean federal certification of a vehicle to allow it to legally carry passengers, which is more about testing and paperwork than about vehicle design per se.
This tradition continued into the development of the Shuttle in terms of design philosophy, though because large portions of the system were reusable, it started to lose some of its meaning.
The Orbiter itself is fully reusable (albeit with high maintenance costs--some would characterize it as "rebuildable" rather than reusable). And in fact, I am going to surprise (some) people here and say something good about the Shuttle, or, at least about the Orbiter.
It is a damned reliable vehicle.
It has never had or caused a catastophic failure. It has rarely caused a mission failure, most of which are caused by failures of the payloads themselves. In fact, perhaps someone can correct me, but I cannot think of a single instance in which a mission failed because of an Orbiter system/subsystem (other than vague recollections of some being somewhat shortened due to fuel cell or APU or similar problems). The one case where we had an on-board propulsion problem was caused by a faulty sensor, and the vehicle still made orbit.
The single event where we lost an Orbiter was due not to the Orbiter, but to one of the semi-reusable ballistic missiles that we had attached to it. Thus, I don't count it against Orbiter reliability.
In that spate of delays where the system was shut down in the late 1980's and early 1990's for hydrogen leaks, this was again a feature of the fact that we were crossfeeding from an expendable system--it had little or nothing to do with the Orbiter design per se.
Shuttle should thus give us great confidence that fully-reusable space transports can indeed be quite reliable. In fact, based on its performance to date, it should be clear that reliability is not the issue for a reusable launch system, as long as we have adequate performance margins. The only issue is cost of operations and turnaround, which cannot be addressed with the existing Orbiter--they will require a clean-sheet design.
For all this reliability, each Orbiter cost on the order of two billion dollars, and now would require several years of time to replace (with additional billions for reclimbing the learning curve and retooling). We only have four of them, and they are *all* needed to keep to scheduled plans.
Now for a thought experiment for those who are worried about "man rating" space transports. Ignoring the crew module (which as I said, is not relevant to whether or not the Shuttle is "man rated"), I challenge anyone to tell me how the Orbiter would be designed or manufactured differently, in terms of reliability or capability to deliver payloads, if it didn't carry crew on board.
[End Usenet excerpt]
My point is that a reusable vehicle represents a significant asset in itself, and that it has to be reliable, regardless of whether it has a crew, and regardless of the value of its payload, even human payloads.
Now, as I said, this is a secondary issue in the case of the intended output of the SLI program, because it's meant to be a Shuttle replacement, and must of necessity be capable of carrying people.
But I will argue that, for a space transport, a piloted vehicle will be lower cost, and more reliable, than an unpiloted one. Were it otherwise, Fedex would automate their aircraft and remove the crew.
There are a couple reasons for this. When things go bad, there are some situations in which having a pilot on board will allow the vehicle to be saved. It's often argued that this could be done remotely, but there's nothing like being on the scene, and feeling what's happening, to control a vehicle. Also, a remotely-piloted vehicle is vulnerable to a communications loss in a way that a piloted vehicle is not.
But the most important reason is that the ability to get FAA approval for flights of such a vehicle will go much more smoothly if the flight testing, and flight operations, are performed in a regime with which the regulators are familiar--i.e., piloted aircraft.
There were two potential development paths for space transportation. One was to take existing aircraft, put rocket engines on them, and gradually expand their performance envelope to the point at which they were capable of routinely flying into space. This was, in fact the evolutionary path that we were on in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
However, in our rush to beat the Soviets to the Moon, we short circuited this path, and in fact, cut it off altogether with the end of the X-15 program. Instead, we put men on top of munitions, because they were available, we knew how to build them, and we could do it quickly. As a result, all government-funded launch vehicle development (including Shuttle), has been right down the groove worn originally by Apollo and the early military and NASA unmanned space programs, and we seem to have trouble getting out of it.
The next generation of launch vehicles will arise from the first evolutionary path, which is being picked up again by companies like XCOR, and Pioneer Rocketplane, and some of the X-Prize contenders. NASA and its conventional contractors are institutionally incapable of following such a path--there's far too much bureaucratic inertia, and this bizarre notion of building an unpiloted reusable vehicle is just more evidence of that.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:05 PMMy, I seem to have hit some nerves in my Fox News piece today (it's simply a repeat of the post a few posts down, about how we're supposedly too sinful to go into space).
Here are a couple of the emails that I've received:
In response to your response to Lori M's letter, your missing the point and your way of thinking is part of the problem not the cure.
?If I have to explain you wouldn't understand.? AND I wouldn't waste my time trying.
Well, that's certainly a persuasive and compelling argument. Now I know I'm wrong for sure...
Holy cow. I started reading your article (Foxnews.com) and your ridicule of Lori M. disgusted me so much, I had to stop. You article did not appear to be one of informing your readers the importance of space travel or the benefits of exploration in general. Instead, your article appeared to be a disgruntled writer that had the forum in which he could bash someone. It seemed rather personal to me.
Personal? I don't even know her. I was attacking her attitude, not her person.
Sarcastic and rather childish. "Newsflash Lori", what was THAT? Why not put her email address in the article along with her phone number and address and ask your readers to send her some hate mail and prank phone calls?
Because that would be wrong, and you would no doubt have castigated me severely for it (not to mention that Fox would, appropriately, have never published it if I had). But I find it bizarre that you seem to be taking me to task for something that I didn't do.
You came across very much as an ass.
Well, that's obviously a subjective thing. Like the above emailer, you come across to me as someone who doesn't actually have any valid arguments about what I wrote, and are thus reduced to spurious charges of childishness, and insults.
I'll keep this thread going as I get other emails today. As I said, I think I really hit a nerve.
[Update at 9:53 AM PDT]
Just got a follow up from the first emailer above:
If we spent a fraction of the time, effort and money that is spent on the space program developing our own energy sources in this country we wouldn?t have to kiss middle eastern ass and could avoid most of the mess we find ourselves in today. Duh.
I suspect that this person hasn't got clue one about how much we spend on either. Duh, himself.
[Update at 10:19 AM PDT]
I got a more reasoned response from Christopher Watkins:
How could you not even wish to take into account any sense of responsibility or concern for our effect on environments when discussing the possible populating of other planets?
I don't believe that I ever expressed that view.
It frightens me how easily you can dismiss the idea that human beings should be concerned with damage they cause to the place they live.
I didn't dismiss that idea. In fact, what I dismissed was the notion that we are incapable of doing that. I, unlike Lori M., believe that we are capable, and that we should, and will be concerned.
Are you of the school of thought that proposes a "slash and burn" and careless disregard for our environments because we can always move onto to a new one?
No.
I would certainly not say the space travel is "not ethical", but I would say that it could lead to such a huge step in our future that it is of the utmost importance to evaluate all aspects, included ethical and moral theories. If we were ever required to relocate to another planet I would hope the people in charge are not driven by reckless abandon and careless expansion as you suggest. Interest how you describe someone discussing integrity, ethics and responsibility as "meek".
She wasn't discussing any of those things. She was simply accusing all humanity of lacking them, and therefore being unworthy to leave the planet. I vehemently disagree.
[Update at 11:41 AM PDT]
A Tom Dunn writes:
You take yourself and the human race way to seriously. I'm sure that most concientous survivors would gladly exchange their existence for a more responsible breed of human.
I'd argue with this, if I could figure out what it means. Or then again, maybe I wouldn't. It depends on what it means.
[Update at 12:19 PM PDT]
Greg Fuller throws out yet another strawman:
How many people do you know that like starlings? How about house sparrows?
Coyotes? Crows? Hyenas? How about cockroaches? I just think it is interesting that men most despise those species that are successful in spite of us and because of their tenacity and adaptability, are most like us. All the creatures of the world aside from us are perfectly justified in seeing us as a cancer on the earth.
I doubt if they see us as anything at all. And I certainly don't view them that way.
I don't fully agree with the e-mail quoted in this article but as humans we should at least have a little empathy for our fellow earthlings.
Who said we shouldn't? Who are you arguing with?
[Update at 1:34 PM PDT]
Thomas Hawthorne writes:
It's amazing how egotistical humans are. For a people who want to put 77,00 tons of nuclear wastes into a big mountain in Nevada, to think that we have the ego to travel into the unknown just blows me away.
Ummmm...OK. I don't see the logical connection, but go on...
Humans can't get even get along with their own fellow humans because they look "different". How can travel into the unknown RAND?
Again, there is some logic missing here. The conclusion doesn't in any way follow from the premise. The fact that some people can't get along with other people does not prevent yet other people from exploring the unknown. There has been prejudice for centuries, but somehow, we managed to explore the entire planet, and send people to the Moon.
You know I had a discussion with a friend of mine about possibly discovering other intelligent life on other planets. And I asked what him what if this "being" was blob of nothingness, would we consider it an "intelligent" life form? He said no. He said because they would not be similar to us. It's amazing how egotistical humans are......
Ummm, yes. You already said that. I'm having trouble getting your point, though.
People like you would land on a planet, declare it as you own, set up a republican party, and give tax breaks to all the rich aliens...........
Apparently you know nothing about "people like me."
I'm sorry folks. I've gotten a lot of supportive emails, but I really wanted to focus on the opposition. I've put up everything that I've received that's negative--I'm not holding back some plethora of intelligent criticism. This really does seem to be the best they can do.
[Update on Saturday night, the 27th of April, at 11PM PDT]
I'm back from Phoenix, and I see there's quite the fray in the comments section.
I got one more gem of an email from a Bill Feeney (I've slightly redacted it--this is, after all a semi-family blog, at least if you're the Addams Family):
Good god I haven't seen, read or heard anything this inane in quite awhile. Here's a newsflash, Rand, from you column you appear to be a small minded limp d**k with a severe short man complex. Do you get paid? Your writing has not logical flow. You sound like a four year old fighting in the playground. Please tell me how I can get my own bulls**t column at Fox.
The posts where people criticize my writing amidst spelling errors, punctuation lacks, insults, profanities and inanities, are always my favorites...
Humankind is a pestilence--an unhealthy malignant growth, ravaging and destroying everything that it touches. For the sake of the rest of the universe, we must confine the vile infection to the single planet that it now inhabits.
That's the attitude of surprisingly many people (though not of your humble weblogger).
I got an email this week from one of them--a "Lori M.":
Forget "practical and affordable"- space travel is not ethical. Let's face it: We cause problems here and we would just take them somewhere else.
Humankind consistently demonstrates a strong lack of the integrity for such a venture. History foreshadows the cyclical injustices of the past played out anew on some poor, unsuspecting ecosystem. Space travel/colonization would be irresponsible and sadly consistent with the thinking that got us to the state of informed depravity we are in now.
I'm not saying we should trash space travel- just table it until human societies show more promise. We do best to spend more time and effort developing character before technology.
"Space travel is not ethical."
My, my, where to begin?
I don't know where my correspondent was when she sent me the email, but I'll bet it wasn't the African savannah. I wonder if she thinks that the human race had the "integrity" to leave that place where we evolved and expand into what is now Europe? Or that those who had spread further east, into Siberia, should have had second thoughts before crossing the Aleutian land bridge and thus despoiling the Americas?
Is she of the school of thought that those descendants of the Africans, having developed the technologies of sail and navigation, should have then stayed in Europe, until they had attained some kind of societal perfection, by her (no doubt lofty) standards? Well, perhaps she is, though, of course, had they done so, she probably wouldn't be here to so helpfully (if not specifically) point out to us our myriad failings. And wouldn't that have been a tragedy?
Human beings "cause problems here..."
Indeed we do. Of course we cause lots of other things as well.
We often cause solutions to those same problems.
We also cause scientific theories. And symphonies, and majestic works of art, and gardens, and laughter, and joy. But apparently she would insist that all non-terrestrial existence remain empty of these things, because we're too "depraved" and insufficiently "ethical" (by whatever unexplained standards of ethics she uses). To paraphrase the kid in West Side Story, as he told Officer Krupke, she wants to "make the universe deprived on account of we're depraved."
And she's concerned that we will attack some "unsuspecting ecosystem." Here's a newsflash, Lori--not only are ecosystems off the earth "unsuspecting"--they're non-existent, as far as we know. There is no solid evidence for life in the universe anywhere other than on our planet (which isn't to say with any certainty, of course, that it doesn't exist).
If this remains the case, our role in expanding into the universe will not be to ravage ecosystems, but to create them. We can, and will, make our dead solar system flower, filling it with life (and not just human life), and love, and beauty, and laughter.
And unfortunately, because we're human, we will indeed take along many of the uglier things that our emailer deplores. But we will do it regardless, and we won't wait to develop the "character" that she demands--to do so would, I suspect, postpone the next step of our evolution forever. Because I suspect that that's how long it will be before the "Lori M"s of the world finds our flawed race up to their hypercritical and unrealistic muster.
Fortunately, the decision will not be hers. She is welcome to stay behind. As the old tee-shirt says, the meek will inherit the earth--the rest of us will go to the stars, and do so with a clear conscience.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 04:15 PMAs he promised, Brink Lindsey has come quickly up to speed on the asteroid question. It's a good survey of the problem with some good recommendations, and I appreciate his commendation of my knowledge, but there are many who both follow this issue, and are more knowledgeable about it than me. I've just been fortunate enough to have a venue (here and Fox News) to sound the trumpet. Now that Brink has taken up the cudgel, we can make some serious public-policy progress.
(And I don't know whether or not I'm smarter than Jay Manifold or not, but again I appreciate the thought and I doubt that I know more about this particular issue than he does.)
He makes one other point.
One final thought: I think it's interesting that the enviro's haven't gotten hold of this issue. They're suckers for apocalyptic scenarios, and asteroid or comet impacts offer real and plausible threats of ecological catastrophe. So why aren't the greens all over this? Their apathy would seem to be solid evidence for the proposition that the environmental movement is often motivated more by hostility to technology and markets than by love of nature. Because here's a threat to nature that can't be laid at the doorstep of capitalism, and that can only be addressed by more technology. As apocalypses go, this one's no fun at all.
Well, actually, it's not really a threat to nature, since it is nature. If you're a Deep Eke, there's no problem with a natural event wiping out species wholesale, befouling the air and water, devastating vast expanses of the planet--that's, after all, by definition, natural.
It's only evil, and a thing to be battled, when we do it.
Never mind that we're a part of nature ourselves...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:09 PMMy Fox News column is up. The summary on the headline page is a little misleading--it says that "Landing on Mars should not be the priority of the United States' space program."
One can infer that from the piece (which is essentially the same as the one a few posts down), but it wasn't the main point. My main points are that we aren't going to, and shouldn't, repeat Apollo, and that the Kennedy-as-space-visionary myth is not only something that's not going to be repeated, but never really happened the first time.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:19 AMI'd like to take another little war break here, for a post on loftier and more inspiring subjects.
I know that I'm often (but justifiably) hard on NASA and the ISS, but watching the orbital construction going on right now is pretty damned cool. It's like when I was a kid and was fascinated by the bull dozers, but much better. It almost makes me feel like I'm living in the twenty-first century, even without the flying cars.
I don't have NASA TV, but those who do can probably see it non-stop for the next few hours. Fox is cutting to shots of it occasionally. The video isn't great--it's a little grainy--but you can clearly see the swirling blue ocean and clouds slowly scrolling past the station on the earth over three hundred miles below.
How anyone can think that there's no market for views and experiences like that is totally beyond me.
Anyway, for those who want to get down and pa-tay to celebrate space, the Yuri's night party is tomorrow night. The flagship party is at the Air Museum at the Santa Monica airport, and they'll be linked by video with the other parties, and the space station. I just got this press release:
Yuri?s Night: The World Space Party, rocking the world on April 12, reached its goal of 100 parties today by blasting into orbit. The 99th and 100th Yuri?s Night parties take the form of video messages from the International Space Station (ISS) and the US Space Shuttle.
The greetings transform Yuri?s Night from a planetary celebration of space to one that has taken its first steps into the solar system.
?I just wanted to tape a short greeting to all of those of you who are attending Yuri?s Night,? said astronaut Jim Newman, speaking 360 miles above the Earth?s surface onboard Shuttle Mission STS-109. ?There are really no boundaries visible from space,? Newman continued, ?and I just wanted to leave you with this short message, celebrating the accomplishments of humans in space, and hoping for a better future for humans on Earth.?
Newman?s message will join a special greeting from the Expedition Four ISS Crew of Yury Onufrienok, Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz, that will be broadcast worldwide on April 12.
Both videos will be the centerpiece of Yuri?s Night parties around the world. The dual recordings hold particular significance for Yuri?s Night, as April 12 is not only the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin?s historic first spaceflight, but also the anniversary of the first launch of the Space Shuttle.
The Space Station greeting was recorded at the Russian Mission Control Center in Korolyov, Russia, and made possible by the support of the Youth Space Center, Bauman Moscow State Technical University (BMSTU). Victoria Mayorova, Youth Space Center Director, Yulia Stetskyuk, BMSTU student, and Julia Tizard, a student at Manchester University, joined forces to bring the World Space Party into orbit.
?Yuri?s Night unites humanity in a peaceful celebration of space,? said Tizard. ?Since humanity is now in orbit, it only makes sense to celebrate Yuri?s Night there as well.?
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:13 AMI've previously talked about how we're in a decade of fortieth space anniversaries. Well, today is a fiftieth anniversary of a very significant space-related cultural event.
Fifty years ago today, the first of a series of popular space articles was published in Collier's Magazine. This was a collaboration with several space engineers (including Werner von Braun and Willey Ley) and space artists, including the incomparable Chesley Bonestell.
It presented a future in space that helped prepare the American public for the upcoming space age. It included von Braun's vision of expansion into the solar system, nurtured even while he was designing the V-2 rockets for Hitler's Third Reich. The series described crewed reusable shuttles, large wheeled space stations (as later depicted in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey), lunar shuttles and bases, and manned flights to Mars. It later resulted in a Disney animated series that was shown on Sunday nights.
Unfortunately, for many reasons, the future didn't turn exactly as von Braun, Ley, Bonestell and others envisioned. NASA was formed in response to a public panicked by Sputnik, and then diverted from a slow, rational development of the high frontier to the Cold-War imperative of beating the Russians to the Moon (and per Lyndon Johnson's desires, helping industrialize the South) with the Apollo program. Once this pattern had been set in place, the space bureaucracy acquired an institutional inertia that has prevented us from making much further progress, at least in proportion to the funds expended on it.
There's another article on the topic from Space.com a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, it's used as the background of a depressing puff piece for NASA and the International Space Station:
Some of the elements of the "Collier's Space Program," like the creation of crewed rockets, a reusable space shuttle and the first landings on the moon, have already been achieved. With a few trial runs behind us, we soon will be a step closer to a permanent crewed space station -- the next stage in the magazine's imaginary conquest of other planets -- once the International Space Station goes on line.
Yeah, right. No one on that team envisioned going to the Moon and then abandoning it. Or a reusable Shuttle that would fly only half a dozen times a year at a cost of over half a billion per flight. And there is nothing in the design (or location) of ISS that will allow it to make much of a contribution toward going to other planets.
At a planned size of 356 x 290 feet [118 x 97 meters], the ISS will favorably compare to von Braun's 250-foot [83-meter]- diameter ring-shaped station, which the Collier's team designed to hold 80 people.
Favorably compare?!
By what criteria? Apparently this guy thinks that size means something. Because it's a few tens of feet larger (because the solar panels stick out that far) than the planned wheeled station, he thinks that it's a better station, even though the wheel held 80 people, and ISS holds three (and perhaps a dozen if it ever gets fully built).
However, unlike the ISS, the Collier's station would have been built exclusively by U.S. funds. Given estimates that such a structure could be built by 1967, the total bill would have come in at around $4 billion in 1952 dollars.
And even accounting for inflation over the past fifty years, it would have been a bargain, compared to ISS, particularly when one considers that it had artificial gravity, and held an order of magnitude more people.
Australian David Sanders has produced a documentary of what life would have been like over the past half century had that vision been actually carried forward. From his website:
This film is based on an alternative timeline to the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo era of reality - it is based on the premise that all that had been proposed in the early 1950's in Colliers actually came to pass - and sooner than they expected.
Through the expert use of special visual effects and computer-generated imagery (CGI), the world of wonder and imagination expressed though Collier's has become real. The film Man Conquers Space looks like a documentary from the 1960's, complete with varying grades of film quality, scratches and lab marks, and a tinny soundtrack - just the way it would appear today if it had indeed been made over 30 years ago on the limited budget afforded to documentary makers of that era.
David has the vision, even if Washington has lost it. Check it out.
[Update at 1:30PM PST]
Dr. Al Jackson has a web page commemorating this series, with his own personal recollections.
The Lance Bass visit to space is apparently back on, with sponsorship from Radio Shack. Both Lunacorp and Mircorp apparently negotiated the deal (Lunacorp, a company that plans to place rovers on the Moon that can be teleoperated from earth, for a fee, had previously attained Radio Shack sponsorship for its concept).
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:45 AMWe had another (cosmologically speaking) close call the other day; a piece of cosmic debris passed within half a million kilometers of the planet, a little farther than the distance to the Moon. It was previously uncatalogued, and approached us from the direction of the sun--our blind side.
If it had hit, it would have been at least as devastating as the Tonguska explosion in Siberia early last century, in which trees were leveled for miles around. Such a strike in a populated area could kill thousands, or millions.
Current estimates of the probability of such an event are one in ten million. I've previously discussed the desirability of at least doing a good sky survey to get a handle on the problem, but I'd like to talk again about a little different aspect of it.
Suppose that, after multiplying the probability times the potential damage, and getting some kind of expected value of avoidance, we do decide that this is a problem to which we should devote societal resources. Who should take care of the problem?
Many would reflexively say NASA, just because (unfortunately) NASA remains synonymous with space in many people's minds (though I'm working daily and weekly to change that perception). But NASA is an agency set up for research, development, and science--not deflecting wayward space rocks.
Well, it's a threat, so maybe we should put the Pentagon in charge. This actually makes sense, until you think about the problem a little more. If we were being attacked by ET, or Marvin the Martian or his Martian buddies, then sure, let's send the Space Patrol up there to kick some scrawny Martian butt.
But this is a natural phenomenon, not a smite from heaven at the behest of some malign intelligence (at least as far as we know). It's more like a forest fire, or a tsunami, or an earthquake, or a...flood.
A flood--yeah, that's the ticket.
It's basically just a problem of managing the whims of nature, and to the limited degree that we are capable of doing that, we have an agency in charge of such things. They build dams, and levees, and suchlike, and take preventive measures against future disastrous natural events. They're called the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE).
In addition to the fact that it seems like a natural (so to speak) role for them, the other thing that I like about the idea of using the ACE is that they could take fresh approaches--they wouldn't be bound by the institutional inertia of NASA and the Air Force Space Command in how they'd tackle the problem.
They'd have to take new approaches, because it would require different capabilities than any other space activity to date--moving minor planets. And the technology that allows us to divert asteroids to prevent them from pulverizing the neighborhood is the same technology that will allow us to utilize many of the abundant resources available in the solar system.
Finally, it would set up some competition in government space activities, which is sorely needed, and best of all, it might give them something else to do so they won't have time to build any more of those dam...err...darn dams.
[Update at 7 PM PST]
Jay Manifold has a nice report direct from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference with the latest thoughts of planetary researchers on the subject.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:12 PMYesterday's Opinion Journal had a piece by Ralph Peters on how the fact that we are now seeing more casualties in Afghanistan is a "good" thing.
While at first reading, such a statement sounds appalling, I agree, in the relative sense of the word "good." That the casualties have so far been low has possibly been an indicator that our war strategy has been insufficiently aggressive, and insufficiently...effective. Many of the Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters who have killed some of our troops, and who we are now destroying, escaped from Tora Bora last fall, when we relied on Afghan troops to corral them, rather than putting our own at risk. Tragically, but necessarily, some of our own are dying now so that future others, perhaps in the thousands, or millions, many of them women and children, will live.
Risk-averse strategies can fail in many spheres--not just military campaigns. In the training and fitness industry, there's an old saying (crass though it may sound in the context of dedicated soldiers who will never come home to their families...) of "no pain, no gain."
And any competent financial analyst can describe the indisputable and inevitable relationship between risk and reward. That's why junk bonds pay a much higher interest rate than the debt of blue-chip stocks, or why startup firms offer a potentially much larger rate of return--with the corresponding chance that the entire investment may evaporate.
The same principle applies to research and development. Over the years, particularly since the Challenger disaster, NASA has become risk averse to the point of impotence. They will spend billions of taxpayer dollars in analysis, to avoid an outright and telegenic failure, even if the goal of the program itself is not achieved.
As an example, consider the X-34 program. It was supposed to produce a vehicle that would demonstrate the ability to fly hypersonically, reliably, as a major step on the way to affordable space access. (Unfortunately, NASA insisted that the contractor use an engine developed by NASA, which they later said was never intended to be a usable engine).
After the vehicle was mostly developed (minus the engine that the vehicle had been designed for, per NASA specifications), and NASA had a failure in a Mars mission, the agency decided that X-34 lacked sufficient redundancy and safety to fly. When they got an estimate of how much it would cost to add these (unnecessary) modifications to add the required redundancy, NASA decided instead to cancel the program.
Result? The vehicle never flew.
And the data obtained from it?
Zero.
All because NASA was unwilling to risk a failure of an experimental vehicle (the purpose of which is to determine whether or not a particular technology is viable or worth pursuing further).
If you want to know why only governments can afford spaceflight, seek no further than the outcome of this program...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:40 PMAs regular readers will recall, someone was posting to the Cheap Access To Space (CATS) BBS looking for his lost felines.
It turns out he's even more clueless than we thought.
According to his website (sorry, no link--this is second-hand info), he's trying to set up a no-kill, no-confinement shelter for cats. No confinement. For cats. And he wonders why they keep going missing...
Also, he's upset because the Humane Society keeps taking his cats away. Apparently, he's decided to run for governor of "Minnessoeda" to solve the problem.
Well, if Jesse Ventura can win...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:05 AMBryan Preston has some heartburn over some of my space commentary (I'm not sure exactly which, because he doesn't provide any specific links).
I guess my problem with Simberg is that he focuses exclusively on the manned space flight program, and just ignores everything else that NASA does.
That's because I don't have that much of a problem with the other things that NASA does (though I think that the aeronautics program has a lot of problems as well). What JPL does is great, for the most part, though they could do it even better if launch were lower cost and more available. Hubble is one of the many things that NASA has done that is worthwhile, even with the initial cockup.
But my point is that there is more to space than science, and 1) NASA is unwilling to recognize it, and doesn't do those non-science things very well, yet it receives exhorbitant funding for them and 2) NASA pretends that the manned space program in particular is about science, when it is certainly not--it is about jobs and national prestige.
The manned flight program is usually the most visible part of NASA, but the science mission is arguably the most important-- that's where most of the real ground-breaking research is taking place. And with programs like Hubble that require in-orbit servicing, you can't have one without the other at this stage. NASA will evolve into whatever the American taxpayer wants and needs it to be, but calling it "socialistic" and calling for its defunding is just hyperbole without thoughtfulness.
When I (accurately) call NASA that, I am primarily talking about the manned spaceflight portion.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:47 PMSorry to burden my gentle readers with Yet Another Space Policy Post, but over at Spaceref, Keith Cowing has a description of NASA's new criteria for public space travelers, at least those planning to travel to the International Space Station. I find it quite troubling, and hope that my readers will as well.
"ISS crewmembers shall refrain from any use of the position of ISS crewmember that is motivated, or has the appearance of being motivated, by private gain, including financial gain, for himself or herself or other persons or entities. Performance of ISS duties shall not be considered to be motivated by private gain. Furthermore, no ISS crewmember shall use the position of ISS crewmember in any way to coerce, or give the appearance of coercing, another person to provide any financial benefit to himself or herself or other persons or entities."
As Keith points out, this could have a potentially chilling effect on any commercial activities aboard the station. Can't have any of that free enterprise stuff up there...
Also, there are some criteria that might be usable for arbitrarily keeping people off the station:
The following list defines some of the factors that would be considered as a basis for disqualification: (a) delinquency or misconduct in prior employment/military service; (b) criminal, dishonest, infamous, or notoriously disgraceful conduct; (c) intentional false statement or fraud in examination or appointment; (d) habitual use of intoxicating beverages to excess; (e) abuse of narcotics, drugs, or other controlled substances;(f) membership or sponsorship in organizations which adversely affect the confidence of the public in the integrity of, or reflecting unfavorably in a public forum on, any ISS Partner, Partner State or Cooperating Agency."
Well, (b) would certainly exclude Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy, (c) would get Mr. Clinton again, and (d) would exclude Kennedy and a goodly proportion of the Congress.
But as Keith also points out, (f) is the most disturbing. It would, as he says, potentially preclude his being allowed to go. And perhaps me...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:44 AMWARNING: THIS IS AN EXTENSIVE POST ON SPACE POLICY. THOSE WHO HAVE NO INTEREST IN THIS SUBJECT SHOULD SCROLL DOWN TO MY NUMEROUS NON-SPACE POSTINGS, OR GO TO ANOTHER WEBLOG. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I PUT UP SUCH POSTS, GO HERE.
A reader, who will remain nameless to protect the guilty (unless
I'd like to put my two cents in on how to get moving forward in space. This is probably too long and boring for a comment, but feel free to use it as you wish.
Well, it's not boring at all, at least to me, and I wish to use it as a typical example of exactly what's wrong with our thinking about space policy. And to show that, despite the fact that it was emailed to me, the author hasn't really read what I've been writing, or else (equally likely) I've been abysmally unsuccessful in making my points. Gee, I'll bet he/she's glad that they offered it to me now...
(Also, I hope that this doesn't discourage anyone from emailing me in future. I actually thank the writer--it's a good letter in the Limbaughian sense, in that it provides an opportunity to make the host look good...)
I believe that NASA has three legitimate functions:
a. Provide infrastructure for low cost access to low earth orbit
b. Perform research and development of space technologies (propulsion, navigation, life support, reentry, etc.)
c. Utilize space technologies for pure science (planetary exploration, satellite observatories, biomedical research, etc.)
Well, legitimate meaning "legal," NASA's legitimate functions are described in its (somewhat vague) charter. It doesn't include the first item here (even assuming that we could agree on what "infrastructure" means). It could be construed to include the second. It certainly includes the third.
If you mean "legitimate" in some esoteric Constitutional sense, it's arguable whether the existence of NASA itself is legitimate (a characteristic that it shares with many federal agencies).
Of these three functions, low cost access to low earth orbit is the most important at this time and should receive at least 80% of funding. It's reasonable and probably unavoidable that the government will have to finance these activities. They are too expensive and too long term for most investors.
While I agree that low-cost access to LEO is important if we want to make any national progress in space, the assumption that NASA can or should make this happen, or that 80% of its funding should go toward that goal are highly questionable.
As to the second statement (like almost all the contents of the email), this is conventional wisdom, and it is utterly wrong. There is nothing intrinsically expensive about space stuff, except in the way that we've chosen to do it for forty years. And even if it were, private investments of many billions of dollars are made every year
No, the only thing keeping necessary private investment out of space right now is perception of the risk, in terms of technical risk, market risk, and most importantly, regulatory risk.
It seems to me that there are at least three approaches to reaching low earth orbit that NASA should examine:
And when you say "approaches," you mean, of course, technical approaches. You believe that the dominant risk is technical, and that if we can just come up with the "right" kind of technical solution, and have NASA build it, we can reduce costs. OK, I'll play along.
a. Conventional rockets optimized for low cost, not man rated. This would include the Shuttle Derived Heavy Lift Vehicle and could also include advanced designs that rely only on chemical rocket engines (e.g. aerospike and X-33 type engines). These can provide a short term solution that should be able to reduce the cost to orbit by a factor of 10 and that can be fielded in 5 to 10 years (the Shuttle Derived system could probably fly in 2 to 3 years).
There's little reason to think that this approach would reduce costs by that much, unless the market increases dramatically. And if the market increases dramatically, even existing rockets (certainly Russian and Chinese ones, but probably EELV) will do it. But if it only reduced costs by a factor of ten, it wouldn't be worth the investment, because it almost certainly wouldn't expand the market much--it's relatively inelastic in that range.
b. Systems that use aerodynamic lift and are man rated.
I'm going to stop right here and make the point that there's not really any such thing as "man rated." It's an oxymoron when talking about reusable launch systems (which I assume that you are). "Man rating" is a concept that NASA came up with in the 1960s to describe how materials, quality control and design would be modified to allow us to have some vague comfort level in putting a human on top of munitions (i.e., ICBM's). It was deemed necessary to take measures to get the missile as reliable as possible, since the payload was very valuable--even priceless.
For reusable launch systems (I prefer the apellation "space transports") it's a meaningless concept. The vehicles themselves will be of such high value that adding people in the mix will make no difference in designed reliability. There's no such thing as a "man-rated" airplane, and similarly there will be no such creature as a man-rated space transport.
This would include revisiting failed approaches such as NASP and X-33 and scaling up systems like Pegasus. More likely, this approach could yield a solution similar to the original, fully reusable shuttle concept. These systems would deliver modest payloads, be fully reusable, and have rapid turnaround. Target should be at least one flight per month per vehicle, preferably more frequent.
ONE FLIGHT PER MONTH?!
ONE FLIGHT PER MONTH (he repeated in stunned disbelief)??!!
If we are only going to get one flight per month, any moneys expended on a new system may as well be flushed down the toilet, or, equivalently, spent on some other new government program.
Any launch system that doesn't fly multiple times per week is not worth building--it will not reduce costs significantly below what we are currently paying.
The long pole for this system is reusable rocket engines.
Actually, that is not the long pole, at least if you study Shuttle turnaround timelines. But those are probably not relevant to a modern space transport.
Hopefully we've learned enough from the Shuttle to design reliable, reusable engines.
I don't know about that. We've probably learned quite a bit about how not to design them. What we've primarily learned from the Shuttle (or at least what we should have learned) is that NASA should never, EVER again be put in charge of developing an operational space transport.
The aero-lift system should reduce the cost of delivering astronauts to orbit by 10 to 100 fold and could probably be fielded in 10 to 20 years.
There is no reason to suppose that aero-lift will help the problem (nor that it won't) and all of the numbers provided here are purely guess work, and certainly not adequate to use as a basis for policy decisions.
c. Limited skyhook system. I read an article at least 20 years ago in AIAA Journal (sorry I don't have the citation) that proposed a low orbit space station with a long cable and winch. At the end of the winch is a docking module. Vehicles would launch from Earth in a suborbital elipse and rendevous at the apex of their trajectory with the docking module. Once docked, the vehicle would be simply winched up to the space station. This process would lower the orbit of the space
station slightly, but either rail gun or ion thrusters could return the station to its desired orbit. Winching satellites away from Earth could easily provide the force to insert the vehicles into transfer orbits to geosynchronous orbit, the moon, or beyond. The beauty of this system is that it opens space to a wide array of commercial vehicles that are feasible today and that it reduces costs by many orders of magnitude. This is a long term project that will probably take more than 25 years, but also offers the best alternative for low cost access to space.
Skyhooks are neat. Sometime, in the future, when it's clear that there is adequate market for millions of pounds up and down, and the technology matures, someone will put forth the money and build one.
But for the purposes of this discussion, skyhooks are also irrelevant.
As is any discussion about: whether the vehicle has wings or not; uses scramjets or rockets; uses hydrogen or kerosene or propane or methane for fuel, uses vertical or horizontal takeoff or landing; has one, two or twenty stages; breathes air or pixie dust, hypersonically, or otherwise, etc. These are all theological issues, and they will not be resolved by posts on the web, or emailed opinions, or even extensive analyses by government contractors.
There are many ways to lower the cost of launch, but none of them will succeed unless they are funded, and funded in such a way that the goal of reducing launch costs is important (as opposed to the goal of simply feeding funding to NASA and its contractors). No one knows for sure what the launch system should look like.
That is a question that will only be resolved by the marketplace--a marketplace that, to first order, does not currently exist. If the federal government wants to make a contribution to space transportation, it will remove the barriers to space commerce, which are mentioned above. The market is uncertain, and the regulatory environment is frightening. In addition, we have been inured, for over forty years, to the bizarre notion that space transportation is unbelievably expensive, and something that is only in the realm of government, so investors will enter only at extreme peril. In the face of this reality, figuring what the launch vehicle should look like is like figuring out where the deck chairs should be located on the Titanic.
NASA's legitimate objective should be to develop the technologies to make space flight routine and inexpensive. In effect, I'd like to see NASA act like the government agencies that built and maintained canals and locks to facilitate trade.
The history of government subsidization of particular modes of transportation is not as beneficent as your historical analogy implies. Whenever the government sticks its nose into the transportation business, some other transportation business suffers. Canals were nice, but it isn't clear that they were the best way to move freight and people in the late 18th century. Government-subsidized railroads opened up the west, but they drove the canals out of business, perhaps before their time. The federal highway system destroyed much of the cargo, and most of the passenger rail system, perhaps at the cost of economic and energy efficiency. Bob Poole, founder of the Reason Foundation, has published numerous articles and papers on this subject.
To the degree that the government should play a role here (and it's not at all clear that NASA should even continue to exist, let alone develop launch systems), it will be to clarify the regulatory situation, and to help provide a market for space transportation. A real market, not a few people to space station a few times a year. The precedent for this is the airmail subsidy in the 1930s that helped develop the modern aviation industry. Hang a big enough carrot out there, and let the providers figure out what the vehicle should look like.
Why should the government do such a thing? Because it's in our national security interest to do so. We just won a major phase of the war against terrorism because we had assets in space. Without them, we would have been unable to deliver ordinance precisely. The enemy would have escaped much of the devastation (or it would have cost us much more, in money and lives to provide it) and many more civilians would have been killed, and their property destroyed. Had the enemy had the capacity to eliminate our space-based assets, he surely would have done so.
We dominate space, in the sense that no other country has as much power as we do there, but we do not control it. Had someone launched a missile to take out our satellites, there's nothing we could have done to prevent it. Nor could we have replaced it quickly. A robust space transportation infrastructure would solve this problem, but the most efficient way to accomplish this is through the private sector, satisfying market needs. The space policy challenge is not in figuring out what a vehicle should look like, or coming up with technologies to build it, but in putting in place the proper institutional incentives to develop such an industry and infrastructure, to make us a truly space-faring nation.
As the Space Frontier Society says, "space is a place, not a program." We need to think about it in exactly the same way that we think about land, sea and air. We don't have a national Truck program. We don't have a national Ship program. We don't have a national Airplane program. It is just as nonsensical to have a national Launch Vehicle program.
I hope that everyone who has persevered to the end of this post will now understand that I am interested, even eager, to receive input as to how to solve this fundamental policy problem. I also hope that they understand that any comments, or emails, with ideas about what the next "national launch vehicle" should look like will be deleted with extreme prejudice.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:59 PMAs a follow up to today's rant over our "allies" in Europe, over at USS Clueless, Steven den Beste has an excellent disquisition on the fundamental differences between Europe and the U.S. They don't, and cannot, understand that the U.S. exists and thrives because it is the UnEurope, that it was built by people who left Europe (and other places) because they wanted freedom.
I say this not to offer simply a pale imitation of Steven's disquisition (which is the best I could do, at least tonight), but to explain why I spend so much time talking about space policy here. It's not (just) because I'm a space nut, or because I used to do it for a living, and so have some knowledge to disseminate. It's because it's important to me, and it should be important to everyone who is concerned about dynamism and liberty.
And the reason that it's important is because there may be a time in the future, perhaps not even the distant future, when the U.S. will no longer be a haven for those who seek sanctuary from oppressive government. The trends over the past several decades are not always encouraging, and as at least a social insurance policy, we may need a new frontier into which freedom can expand.
Half a millenium ago, Europe discovered a New World. Unfortunately for its inhabitants (who had discovered it previously), the Europeans had superior technology and social structures that allowed them to conquer it.
Now, in the last couple hundred years, we have discovered how vast our universe is, and in the last couple decades, we have discovered how rich in resources it is, given will and technology. As did the eastern seaboard of the present U.S. in the late eighteenth century, it offers mankind a fertile petri dish for new societal arrangements and experiments, and ultimately, an isolated frontier from which we will be able to escape from possible future terrestrial disasters, whether of natural or human origin.
If, as many unfortunately in this country seem to wish, freedom is constricted in the U.S., the last earthly abode of true libertarian principles, it may offer an ultimate safety valve for those of us who wish to continue the dream of the founders of this nation, sans slavery or native Americans--we can found it without the flawed circumstances of 1787.
That is why space, and particularly free-enterprise space, is important.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:24 PMFresh from the X-33 debacle, the iron triangle of the aerospace industry is coming up with a plan for a new round of corporate welfare, under the pretense of lowering launch costs.
Now don't get me wrong--no one wants to lower launch costs more than I do. It's been a personal crusade for more years than I like to think. My business plans and personal plans rely on it. But if a definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, expecting different results, then NASA and the Air Force have to be, at this point, certifiable.
The activity to bring NASA and the Air Force together is being led by a group, called the One Team, that is undertaking a four- month RLV assessment. The goal is to devise a program that would build on funding from both government departments and could see first flight of a prototype system around 2007.
"One Team," eh? 2007, eh? Well, five-year plans are in the best tradition of Lenin, Mao, etc. To heck with this competition nonsense. We don't need no stinkin' markets...
But finding a way to combine the civil space and military requirements won't be easy. Already, analysts assessing the two constituencies' needs are finding that they don't coalesce in several areas.
No kidding?
Once upon a time, there was a launch vehicle program. It was supposed to meet NASA's needs in space, to provide cheap transportation to the space station that they were going to launch once upon another time, and it was to be called the Space Shuttle. And it came to pass that the evil King wouldn't allot the funding for it unless it received the blessing of the knights of the realm (aka the Air Force). The knights wanted it to not only go into space, but to be able to carry 65,000 lbs. into space, and to have a landing cross range of a thousand miles. And so it grew. Then the various lords of the manor said, "but it must provide jobs for us in the fiefdom of Houston. And Huntsville. And Cape Canaveral." And the Duke of Rockwell North American said, "but we accepted the blame for the loss of Sir Apollo 1, in the deadly conflagration, the fault for which was rightfully NASA's, and so it must also provide us jobs in southern California."
And thus was born a vehicle designed by a committee, and it was good. Except it only flew a half dozen times a year, and cost over half a billion dollars a flight.
...
Well, there is one hopeful thing about the article. At least they are no longer deluding themselves that a single vehicle can satisfy both NASA and DoD requirements. However, they continue to delude themselves that one vehicle can satisfy DoD, and another one NASA. This is about 90% as foolish as the Shuttle "one-size-fits-all" assumption.
The problem is that we lock ourselves into failure with our assumptions.
The thinking goes something like this. Space vehicle development is very expensive. Therefore, we can only develop one vehicle. Therefore we have to make damn sure that we develop the right vehicle, so we have to do lots of studies, and have lots of government reviews, and make sure that the risk is minimized, and that we don't lose any vehicles. All this, of course, makes the vehicle very expensive to develop (and operate), and thus is the prophecy fulfilled.
And of course, since both agencies want to do such trivially few activities in space, there is no way to get the costs down, because there are no economies of scale.
But NASA will continue to develop technologies, because when you're a technology hammer, all problems look like nails--never mind the fact that the problem of launch costs is not a technological one.
If they could take just one percent of the money that they plan to waste^H^H^H^H^Hspend on technology development on market research and analyses to figure out how to generate much larger traffic models, they'd be way ahead of the game.
But that won't provide jobs in Houston, Huntsville, Cocoa Beach, Canoga Park and Orange County.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:21 PMSixteen years ago today, I was sitting in a meeting at the Rockwell Space Transportation Systems Division in Downey, California. It was a status review meeting for a contract on which I was working, called the Space Transportation Architecture Study. It was a joint NASA/USAF contract, and its ostensible purpose was to determine what kind of new launch systems should replace or complement the Space Shuttle. Its real purpose was to try to get the Air Force and NASA Marshall to learn how to play together nicely and stop squabbling over turf and vehicle designs (it failed).
It was a large meeting, with many people in attendance from El Segundo and Colorado Springs (Air Force) and Houston, Huntsville and the Cape (NASA) as well as many Rockwell attendees.
As I sat there, waiting for the meeting to begin, one of my colleagues came running into the room, his face white as a freshly-bleached bedsheet. He leaned over and told me and others, in an insistent sotto voce, "I just saw the Challenger blow up."
We stared at him in momentary disbelief.
"I'm serious. I just came from the mission control center. It just exploded about a minute after launch."
One could actually see the news travel across the large meeting room as expressions of early-morning torpor transformed into incredulity and shock. More than most people, even with no more information than the above, we understood the implications. While there was speculation in the media all morning that the crew might be saved, we knew instantly that they were lost. We knew also that we had lost a quarter of the Shuttle fleet, with a replacement cost of a couple billion dollars and several years, and that there would be no flights for a long time, until we understood what had happened.
The ironic purpose of our meeting became at once more significant and utterly meaningless. Most of the NASA people immediately made arrangements to fly back to Houston, Huntsville and the Cape, and we held the session without them, in a perfunctory manner.
This was one of those events, like the more recent one in September, that is indelibly etched into memory--where you were, what you were doing, what you were feeling. I'm curious about any inputs from others, either in comments here or email.
Oh, and I should note that it's an easy date to remember for me--it was (and remains still) the anniversary of my date of birth...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:27 AMYou know, when I first saw this a few days ago, I didn't mention it, because I thought it was a joke. But when I went and did a search at Thomas, it turned out to be real. Dennis "the Menace" Kucinich (D-Ohio) actually introduced it. This is loonytunes squared.
Going against my normal posting style, in the interest of HTML simplicity, I'm going to italicize my comments from here on in, rather than the quoted text:
Space Preservation Act of 2001 (Introduced in the House)
HR 2977 IH
107th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 2977
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
October 2, 2001
Mr. KUCINICH introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Science, and in addition to the Committees on Armed Services, and International Relations, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To preserve the cooperative, peaceful uses of space for the benefit of all humankind by permanently prohibiting the basing of weapons in space by the United States, and to require the President to take action to adopt and implement a world treaty banning space-based weapons.
So, it's OK to have weapons pass through space (e.g., ballistic missiles), as long as we don't actually base them there? Yes, by all means, let's preserve space as a sanctuary for missiles. Let's go on, and see just how he defines "space-based," and "weapons."
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Space Preservation Act of 2001'.
SEC. 2. REAFFIRMATION OF POLICY ON THE PRESERVATION OF PEACE IN SPACE.
Congress reaffirms the policy expressed in section 102(a) of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 (42 U.S.C. 2451(a)), stating that it `is the policy of the United States that activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind.'.
SEC. 3. PERMANENT BAN ON BASING OF WEAPONS IN SPACE.
The President shall--
(1) implement a permanent ban on space-based weapons of the United States and remove from space any existing space-based weapons of the United States; and
(2) immediately order the permanent termination of research and development, testing, manufacturing, production, and deployment of all space-based weapons of the United States and their components.
Hmmmm...while this is a monumentally dumb concept to begin with (gun control?--that trick never works...), we'll have to get down to the definitions section (what's "space-based"? What's a "weapon"? What's a "space-based weapon"?) before we can really tear it to shreds, and demonstrate just how disastrous a policy it would be for anyone who hopes to develop space. Of course, one suspects that Mr. Kucinich and whatever other loons he found to co-sponsor don't actually care much about that...
SEC. 4. WORLD AGREEMENT BANNING SPACE-BASED WEAPONS.
The President shall direct the United States representatives to the United Nations and other international organizations to immediately work toward negotiating, adopting, and implementing a world agreement banning space-based weapons.
Yeah! That's it! A treaty!
Everyone always obeys treaties! And if anyone tries to cheat, and put any of those nasty "space-based weapons" up there, well, space isn't all that big--we'll find 'em...
SEC. 5. REPORT.
The President shall submit to Congress not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, and every 90 days thereafter, a report on--
(1) the implementation of the permanent ban on space-based weapons required by section 3; and
(2) progress toward negotiating, adopting, and implementing the agreement described in section 4.
Dear Congress:
Over the past ninety days, we talked to lots of countries, and made lots of progress in negotiating, adopting, and implementing the agreement.
Signed,
GW (space cowboy) Bush
repeat as necessary
SEC. 6. NON SPACE-BASED WEAPONS ACTIVITIES.
Nothing in this Act may be construed as prohibiting the use of funds for--
(1) space exploration;
(2) space research and development;
(3) testing, manufacturing, or production that is not related to space-based weapons or systems; or
(4) civil, commercial, or defense activities (including communications, navigation, surveillance, reconnaissance, early warning, or remote sensing) that are not related to space-based weapons or systems.
Well, that's a relief. Glad to know that they don't want to restrict exploration (which may result in the discovery of asteroids that could be diverted as "weapons"), or research and development (which might be applied to "space-based weapons"), or testing, manufacturing, or production that is not related to space-based weapons systems (wonder how they'll know?), or communications, navigation, surveillance, reconnaissance, early-warning, or remote sensing (that are all necessary in order to build or effectively use "weapons").
Now, for the truly fun part, for the lawyers among us...
SEC. 7. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) The term `space' means all space extending upward from an altitude greater than 60 kilometers above the surface of the earth and any celestial body in such space.
Hmmm..., where did they come up with that number? It used to be fifty miles to get astronaut's wings, and the international standard is a hundred kilometers (or approximately 62 statute miles). I wonder if someone screwed up their units, like NASA with the Mars probe?
(2)(A) The terms `weapon' and `weapons system' mean a device capable of any of the following:
(i) Damaging or destroying an object (whether in outer space, in the atmosphere, or on earth) by--
(I) firing one or more projectiles to collide with that object;
Like throwing a wrench from a space station?
(II) detonating one or more explosive devices in close proximity to that object;
Ya mean, like the propellant tanks of an orbital transfer stage?
(III) directing a source of energy (including molecular or atomic energy, subatomic particle beams, electromagnetic radiation, plasma, or extremely low frequency (ELF) or ultra low frequency (ULF) energy radiation) against that object; or
As in, e.g., beaming power from one platform to another, or to provide clean energy to the earth from orbit? Or by sending communications that could hack it and command some destructive activity?
(IV) any other unacknowledged or as yet undeveloped means.
Well, I guess they covered all their bases...
(ii) Inflicting death or injury on, or damaging or destroying, a person (or the biological life, bodily health, mental health, or physical and economic well-being of a person)--
(I) through the use of any of the means described in clause (i) or subparagraph (B);
(II) through the use of land-based, sea-based, or space-based systems using radiation, electromagnetic, psychotronic, sonic, laser, or other energies directed at individual persons or targeted populations for the purpose of information war, mood management, or mind control of such persons or populations; or
Psychotronic? Mood management? Mind control?
[cue theme from The Twilight Zone]
Doo, de, doo, doo, Doo, de, doo, doo, Doo, de, doo, doo, Doo, de, doo, doo...
(III) by expelling chemical or biological agents in the vicinity of a person.
Ummmm... you mean like rocket exhaust?
(B) Such terms include exotic weapons systems such as--
(i) electronic, psychotronic, or information weapons;
(ii) chemtrails;
Chemtrails? WTF are chemtrails?
(iii) high altitude ultra low frequency weapons systems;
(iv) plasma, electromagnetic, sonic, or ultrasonic weapons;
(v) laser weapons systems;
(vi) strategic, theater, tactical, or extraterrestrial weapons; and
(vii) chemical, biological, environmental, climate, or tectonic weapons.
Tectonic weapons?
Someone's paranoia engine was running in overdrive here.
(C) The term `exotic weapons systems' includes weapons designed to damage space or natural ecosystems (such as the ionosphere and upper atmosphere) or climate, weather, and tectonic systems with the purpose of inducing damage or destruction upon a target population or region on earth or in space.
I'm at a loss for words
Fortunately, I can't imagine this ever getting out of the Science Committee, with its present composition. But if the Dems take over the House this year, look out next year...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 07:38 PMAccording to Aviation Now, NASA is now focused on airbreathers, or to be more precise, Rocket-Based Combined Cycle (RBCC) propulsion for the next generations of space transport.
Although virtually all of the third-generation reusable launch vehicle (RLV) concepts currently being considered by NASA rely on some form of combined-cycle propulsion to get to orbit, the space agency is still not insisting on single-stage vehicles.
Well, it's nice that they're not insisting on SSTO, I guess...
Obviously, the RBCC hobby shop at Marshall is winning the bureaucratic turf war.
Here's a concept, guys. How about just putting out an RFQ for X pounds and Y people delivered to orbit, and let the market figure it out?
Nahhhh, that would mean the technology sandbox might get emptied...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 10:50 AMI previously missed this column by Jim Pinkerton at TechCentralStation from December 31st (thanks to Ralph Buttigieg for the link). Though he's generally a political commentator, he's a closet space enthusiast (I met him briefly at the Cato conference last spring). This is a general piece about space policy, some of which I agree with (though not his assessment of Dan Goldin), but I cite it because he expends quite a bit of it on the asteroid defense issue.
He claims that it is not a NASA responsibility, but a DoD one. I agree, with the caveat that it shouldn't even be viewed as planetary defense per se. The DoD should definitely be in charge of defending us against willful agents (i.e., bug-eyed monsters from Zeta Reticula, or Marvin the Martian and his disintegrator ray), but not natural events.
No, the natural terrestrial analogue for asteroid management is flood control, or fire control. Thus, I believe that it should be made the responsibility of the Corps of Engineers. When the populace lies in a flood plain, they build dams to mitigate the danger. When earth lies in the path of potential planet-busting objects, they should land things on them to divert them. Taking NASA out of the picture would have the effect of forcing an emphasis on more practical solutions, rather than "science," or "international cooperation," or endless "technology development" that only feeds sandboxes in Huntsville or Hampton.
Also, as Ralph points out, it would provide NASA with some useful and much-needed competition.
This needs to be thrown into the space policy mix with which Sean O'Keefe is grappling right now.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 12:17 PMMy, it's a red-letter day. I'm compelled to disagree with Iain Murray twice in a single day, on two different subjects.
The Professor is worried about asteroids on InstaPundit.Com. I take his point that he's not worried about this particular rock, but Steve Milloy's point on JunkScience.com is important here:
Gasp! Shock, horror! Er... hang on. Doesn't this particular rock cross the orbits of Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury (twice) every 1,321 days (3.6 Earth years)? And hasn't it been doing so for millions of years? Wow! That was a close call alright...
Mr. Milloy is indulging in a fallacy here, similar to the one of the man who jumps off the building, and calls out as he passes every floor, "Doing fine so far!"
It was a very close call in astronomical terms. And in fact it doesn't "cross the orbits" of those planets with any regularity--space is three dimensional. There is no way to know for how many millions of years that particular object has been avoiding hitting planets (it may be a chunk broken off from a larger one that did, in fact, collide with some planet, such as our own Moon).
Of course we shouldn't lie awake now sweating over the fear that this particular object will hit us the next time around the carousel. The point is that it's a reminder that many such objects are out there, some of them have our number on them eventually (as evidenced by past extinctions, and the cratered surface of the Moon, which didn't get that way from too many sweets during adolescence), and that now that we have a civilization worth saving, and the technical means to save it, we should be thinking about it and devoting appropriate resources toward that end.
Of course we must colonize whatever worlds we can, but at the moment that's beyond us. So let's just keep on with our lives until we have the technology. Until then it's best for us to treat this as the interplanetary equivalent of crossing the road. Look both ways, don't build a bridge.
I'm not sure what Iain's point is here. It is not, in fact, beyond us to colonize other worlds now--we simply choose not to. Will it be more affordable in the future? Of course. But that rationale can also be used to put off forever the decision to buy a new computer.
When he says, "just keep on with our lives until we have the technology," one might infer from that that acquiring this magical "technology" is a passive act, like receiving manna from heaven, or cargo from the airplanes and control towers built from palm fronds. Technology is something that we develop (active voice), in response to some perceived need. Glenn and I point this little event out as a reminder that there might be reasons to develop space technology sooner rather than later.
How much we should devote to such an endeavor depends on the expected value of it (i.e., the probability of a catastrophic extraterrestrial event times the cost of it should it occur). I haven't done that computation, partly because I don't know the probabilities (because we aren't even spending the trivial amounts necessary to adequately fund the sky surveys to gather the data with which to do so). But it's certainly not zero, which is approximately how much we're currently spending on it.
And as for "...Look both ways, don't build a bridge," I have no idea what this means in the context of the discussion. The point of the article was that even if we "look both ways" (right now, as I said, we are barely looking at all) we currently have no policy options if we see the car is bearing down on us--bridges are entirely beside the point.
[Update at 10 PM PST]
A reader who calls him/herself "skeptic" asks:
What is the probability and how was it calculated? If it is based on known events and conditions, that is fine. But what is it?
As I pointed out, we don't know, because we haven't even spent the money needed to gather the data necessary to do the calculation. The known events are many (e.g., in 1910 a meteor or comet known as the "Tonguska Event" hit a remote region of Siberia. Had it occurred in a populated area today, it would have caused billions of dollars in damage, and thousands, perhaps millions, of lives).
If it is based on what we don't know, that is *not* fine. I don?t care what it is; it is speculation.
So we should ignore it if it's based on willful ignorance?
What can we do about it? It would take a massive, massive amount of energy to alter the orbit of anything substantial.
Do you have some calculations to back up this claim? In fact, the amount of energy required to divert an object from its path sufficiently to prevent a collision with earth is quite small.
Hydrogen Bombs would be insignificant.
Ummm... no. Do you have any idea whatsoever what you're talking about?
Even if we could amass the required energy, how would it be delivered?
By landing a small probe on the body, setting up a solar-powered or nuclear de-vice that could utilize its own mass as a rocket to divert it the few meters per second that would be required to prevent the catastrophe.
I am all in favor of space exploration. But I am not big on tax-funded research: who gets to set priorities? Politicians ? I hope not. Speculators ? I hope not. Scientists - How do we choose?
I said nothing about tax-funded research. Presumably we would choose based on who would do the best job of providing results.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 05:33 PM
It was an improbable-looking harbinger of a new age in space.
Tiny, white, at the east end of the Mojave Airport runway, it looked fragile and miniscule next to the support truck, and surrounded by busy ground crew, readying it for its upcoming public debut. Finally, they moved away, leaving the pilot, Dick Rutan, in the cockpit. The Long-EZ chase plane approached it from the rear at a couple hundred feet, and we could see the sudden shimmering of heat in the cool desert air over the craft as two toggle switches were flicked in the cramped cockpit, and twin engines of the XCOR Aerospace EZ-Rocket were lit.
It took it no time at all to start heading west into the gusting wind, its long wings wobbling tentatively as it was buffeted by the ever-shifting forces of the invisible medium in which it was about to take flight. About the time it was almost level with us, a few seconds after we first heard the roar of its engines, Rutan rotated the nose, and it almost leaped off the runway. The sound was similar to that of a jet, of which there are many in Mojave, and loud, though not as loud as, say, a fighter on afterburners.
It started to climb, more rapidly than I've ever seen any Long-EZ ascend--the chase plane couldn't keep up with it. It made a slow turn to the left, still climbing at a seemingly-impossible, ever-steeper angle as the propellant load rapidly decreased and its acceleration increased, until it finally leveled out at what appeared to be several thousand feet, and the chase plane eventually caught up with it, albeit at a lower altitude.
There were some scattered clouds at altitude, and we occasionally lost the planes in them. But they were scattered only, and we eventually reacquired the object of our momentary devotion. As it headed back west over our heads, we could hear the engines start to sputter as they became starved for oxygen, and then a sudden eerie silence as the rocket engines were shut down, and the altitude was too great to hear the faithful pistons of the chase plane.
The two planes made slow, beautiful circles over the airport, gently spiraling down over a period of several minutes until, finally, as they approached the east end of the runway, they dropped gear, made a final sharp left bank, lined up and gently touched down, buffeted once more by the capricious gusting winds. The Long-EZ braked and taxied back over to the viewing area, and the EZ-Rocket slowed to a stop at the end of the runway, to be towed back to the waiting crowd.
OK, I know. You're asking, why is this a big deal? We are (literally) in a war to save western civilization. Millions are starving in the world. Millions (often the same millions) live in depradation and slavery. An airplane just crashed in Queens, and we don't know why. So just why am I wasting bandwidth talking about a home-built airplane that has a couple little (400-lbf thrust each) lox-alcohol rocket engines installed where the pusher prop used to be?
To ask that question is, to me, akin to asking, what was the big deal about the fact that a couple bicycle mechanics in Dayton, Ohio put a crude gasoline engine and propeller on a big kite, and managed to controllably get it off the ground, for a shorter distance than the wing span of a Boeing 747, almost a hundred years ago?
First of all, I think that space is important, for lots of reasons, but primarily for its potential for future human freedom. But I'm not going to argue that here--I'll just assume that people who read this weblog agree.
As I pointed out in my recent disquisition on the wrong-headed Economist editorial of a couple of weeks ago, what is keeping us from getting into space in the way that many of us want is its unaffordability to any but governments. And what is keeping it unaffordable is the fact that only governments do it, and they don't do very much of it, and when you don't do very much of something, the unit costs get very high.
While we need technology development, we don't need it in the way that NASA likes to think (with billion-dollar failures like X-33, to develop unobtainium, and fancy new propulsion systems). The only technology that we need is to integrate what we have in hand into actual vehicles, and learn how it works, and what doesn't work, and fly it, day in and day out, and accumulate hours on engines and airframes, just the way we do with airplanes.
XCOR Aerospace is doing just that.
And, I should add, our need for technology development is nowhere as intense as our need for market development, and sensible FAA regulations, and a rational (as opposed to the "Right Stuff") approach to space operations. What XCOR Aerospace (and other companies--I don't mean to slight anyone, but I am writing about the XCOR rollout here) is doing will contribute to that also, in a way that NASA is not, and cannot.
While EZ-Rocket doesn't fly high, or fast--unlike NASA's reusable rocket programs--it actually flies. And in fact, though it doesn't fly particularly high, or fast, it is a testament to the neglect of this field that, had XCOR bothered to call the appropriate French certification agency to have them witness today's flight, they would have simultaneously awarded it the new world's records for height, speed, and time to climb for a rocket plane.
It not only flies, but it can, given small amounts of money (equivalent to just a fraction of the overruns on programs like X-34 and X-33), fly every day, or twice a day, for mere hundreds of dollars per flight. And the experience developed from it can lead to bigger, faster rocket planes, that can also fly every day, or twice or thrice a day, and teach us how to fly rocket planes, and by selling experiment time, or even (heaven forfend!) rides to wealthy people who want a thrill, make a little money while doing it. We may have rocket racing competitions, sponsored by ESPN, or the Xtreme Sports Channel, or Pratt & Whitney.
And the records will get faster, and higher, and the revenues will grow, until we are offering rides to orbit, and people (with fortunes less than Bill Gates and Larry Ellison) are buying. And then some crazy fool will develop a space suit, and haul up enough parts to build a space hotel, and we'll offer week-long stays, instead of barn-storming joy rides. And someone else will actually rent space in the hotel and perhaps do some research, or figure out how to build something bigger, like a Mars mission vehicle, that can be afforded by the Planetary Society, or the Mars Society, or even the (renamed?) National Geographic Society.
Why isn't NASA doing this? They are institutionally incapable of it. NASA gets its funding, unfortunately, not to get us into space, but to maintain the jobs base in places like Houston, and Huntsville, and Cocoa Beach, and Huntington Beach. And even if NASA wanted to do something like this, and the Congress agreed to fund it, they still couldn't--there are too many government procurement regulations, and budget cycles, and fragile ricebowls to be protected. NASA can't do this because...well, because, as Hayek and others have pointed out, socialism doesn't work. Capitalism does.
There are two fundamental drivers to progress--greed and fear. Because we initiated our space activities in the middle of a struggle between fundamentally-incompatible ideologies, almost four-and-a-half decades ago, the focus was on the fear. We made some progress, but ultimately, and in a most politically-incorrect (but traditionally American) manner, we must now harness greed. XCOR has figured this out, and their efforts, as well as those who emulate their philosophy, will ultimately open up the space frontier for all.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 08:17 PMWe've said it before, and we'll say it again: sending people into space is pointless.
They say this as though it's a fact, rather than an opinion, and a rather uninformed opinion at that.
It is dangerous, costly and scientifically useless.
Yes, human spaceflight is currently dangerous and costly, but to read this sentence, and the rest of the piece, one would infer that these are intrinsic features of space, rather than contingent properties of the way that we've chosen to go about it for the past four and a half decades. To say that it's scientifically useless is flat-out wrong. It may not currently provide scientific value commensurate with the cost in dollars and risk, but its value is certainly not zero. And the statement itself betrays a common and damaging misperception among journalists and policy makers alike--that science is the raison d'etre of space.
But this clearly can't be the case, because if the purpose of space is science and science alone, NASA, even the unmanned bits, would never be able to justify the money that it gets. Just compare NASA's space science budget (leave out Shuttle and station for the moment) to the National Science Foundation's budget. It dwarfs it. Add the manned portions back in and it becomes much worse. If one were to measure only by federal expenditure, space science would be more important than all other types of science combined, if the purpose of space spending were for science. But we know that it's not--it is for national prestige, foreign relations, jobs in favored congressional districts, national security, etc. Science is a very low priority, but it makes for a more idealistic and lofty-sounding motive than the real ones. To continue with the editorial...
Most of these crises have been budgetary (the combined cost of the International Space Station and the fleet of space shuttles needed to service it is almost $5 1/2 billion a year). But even the explosion of a shuttle in the mid 1980s, which killed its crew and a civilian passenger, was not enough to close down the manned-spaceflight programme.
They write this as though it's surprising, as though.. "of course, we should quit doing something simply because we have a setback and a few people die." People die every day, in lots of ways. Vehicles have accidents and are destroyed by the dozens. Yet we continue to fly, to drive, to ride bicycles, to...well, get out of bed. They don't explain why we should treat human spaceflight differently than other human endeavors, and give it up in the face of a little adversity; they simply seem perplexed that we don't. Well, so much for the first paragraph. On to the next.
At the moment, this is kept alive by three things. The first is showmanship. NASA feels (correctly) that it has to keep the taxpayers on its side, and also (more dubiously) that manned flights are the way to do that.
I should stop here to point out that if this is true, that NASA is probably in violation of the spirit, if not letter, of the law. Federal agencies are not supposed to lobby or drum up support for themselves among the populace or the policy makers. Of course, if this were a crime, most agencies would be doing hard time...
Second, the space station helps diplomatic relations with Russia, the number-two partner in the enterprise, and also keeps lots of Russian rocket scientists out of the pay of countries such as Iraq and North Korea.
Well, that's the theory. But not the effect, based on the evidence. Ask Congressman Weldon, and he will be pleased to show you unclassified evidence that brand-new IMU's from Russian ICBMs have been showing up in Iranian (and probably Iraqi) missile technology.
Also, I suspect that ESA, Japan and Canada will be a little miffed to find out that Russia is the "number-two partner," particularly since the Russians have had trouble coming up with the money for their end (quite a bit of it, including the US contribution that was supposed to go to hardware, somehow got diverted to Mercedes sedans, summer dachas, yachts, Cayman accounts, and whatnot).
They also (perhaps because they're a pseudo-European publication) fail to mention the fact that by involving ESA and Japan in the ISS, we minimize the (already quite low) probability that they will go off on their own and actually doing something useful or interesting in manned space--it keeps them on the reservation, as well as the Russians.
And by the way guys, there's no such thing as a "rocket scientist." They're called engineers.
Third, and most disgracefully, it puts billions of dollars into the pockets of aerospace companies like Boeing. It is, in other words, a disguised industrial subsidy.
Well, sure. This is true, as far as it goes. But they neglect to mention the billions of dollars that also go into the various empires, fiefdoms, and duchies at the major NASA centers, like JSC, Marshall and the Cape, which also keeps various congresspeople and Senators on key appropriation and authorization committees happy.
So, OK, they've gotten some of this part right.
There is now a chance to change direction. In the past few days both Daniel Goldin, the agency's boss, and Joseph Rothenberg, the man in charge of the space station and the shuttle programme, have resigned. New brooms can therefore sweep. And, during his time, Mr. Goldin pointed the direction in which they should be sweeping. He conceived, and delivered, "faster, better, cheaper" unmanned scientific missions. In the old days, a mission could cost up to $1 billion. Now, stuff gets done for a fraction of that sum. Mars Odyssey, which has just gone into orbit around its intended target, is regarded as expensive at $300M
Well, let's see if I understand the logic here. Mr. Goldin, champion of "betterfastercheaper" is leaving, therefore now is the time to implement FBC. Huh?
And notice, again the emphasis on science, as though there's nothing else in space worth doing. Newsflash, guys. Science is not very important.
NASA knows, even if The Economist doesn't seem to, that if they tried to justify what they are doing on the basis of science, they'd get almost no budget at all, as already discussed.
Also, while I actually do like the idea of launching planetary probes cheaper and more often, it's a little simplistic to compare Mars Odyssey to, say, Galileo. One has to look at bang for the buck as well--the expensive battlestar galacticas really did provide a lot of science, when they worked. Also, we must take into consideration the fact that many of Goldin's FBC missions were total failures (because, f'rinstance, someone forgot to convert from nautical miles to kilometers, and so they had controlled flight into terrain). But at least NASA can fail much more cheaply these days...
"Faster, better, cheaper" is a hard philosophy to apply to the manned side of the agency's remit.
More unsubstantiated and unsubstantiable opinion masquerading as fact.
How do they know this? Has NASA ever actually tried to do FBC manned spaceflight? Noooooo, because it doesn't need to be fast, or good, or cheap--as already described, it just has to provide jobs in Texas, Alabama and Florida, and midnight basketball for the Russians, and in fact it does those things better if it's slower, worse and more expensive. Or do they mean that it's hard precisely for those political, as opposed to technical and economic, reasons? They don't say, but they should, because the two cases require entirely different policy prescriptions.
First, therefore, America should kill the space station.
Meaning what? Abandon it to the elements (to eventually fall on our heads)? Put it on the auction block? Cut it up into pieces and return it in the Shuttle? This is a very vague recommendation.
That would upset Russians and the aerospace industry, but would have a negligible impact on science.
And that's OK, because science is the only thing of any value, right?
And if all those Russian rocket scientists are still seen as a threat, a liberal showering of American work permits ought to disperse it.
Sure, as long as the "rocket scientists" (I hate that stupid phrase) aren't competing for jobs with those good ol' boy engineers down in Texas and Alabama and Florida and California, and their congressmen don't get accordingly upset. Midnight basketball for the Russians in Russia is entirely a different matter than the same thing in the US.
Second, a plan for phasing out the shuttle fleet should be devised. Throway rockets can do the job perfectly adequately.
Well, that begs the question: What is "the job"? To read the last paragraph of the editorial, which waxes eloquent about what wonderful things NASA could do in space science if they weren't distracted by all that yucky shuttle and space station stuff (and which I won't include to attempt to stay out of "fair use" trouble), "the job" is science uber alles, and anything that anyone else wants to do in space be damned. And no need to come up with anything better than Shuttles--expensive expendables are good enough, for now and into the foreseeable future, as long as Congress comes to its senses and gives the planetary scientists all the taxpayers' money that they need to fly on them.
And finally, leaving aside the Simon Legree management style, the lack of accounting and accountability, the clinically-diagnosable schizophrenia, the War against The Worm, letting George Abbey run the agency into the ground, and the annual lies to Congress, the real problem with Dan Goldin was that he had the same mind set as the editorial writers at the Economist. His goals for NASA weren't to reduce the cost of access, or to allow ordinary people and companies into space (as evidenced by his manic vendetta against Dennis Tito's flight) or to use space to solve earthly problems. No, in his strategic plan, his long-term goals were to look for planets in other star systems, and search for life, or meaning. Rather than get serious about whether or not cheap access to space could exist, he was more interested in if God exists, or if ET exists.
This editorial is breathtaking in its narrow-minded naivety. Editorial writers, like much of the public, seem to operate under a set of false assumptions. Some of them are:
Here's the scoop folks. Space is expensive and dangerous because it's done by the government, for governmental reasons. And it's done by the government not because it's too expensive for anyone else to do it, but because we simply fell into that rut in 1958, after Sputnik, when rather than being viewed as a new sphere of economic activity, to be developed in the time-honored American free-enterprise manner, it instead became a propaganda battlefield in the Cold War, to be developed in a socialistic way to demonstrate not that capitalism was better than socialism, but rather, that democracy was better than totalitarianism. We didn't set it up as a competition of economic systems, because we wanted to keep the AFL-CIO and UAW on board at home, and the Eurosocialists on board abroad--both would have been offended at a brazen display of capitalism, but were comfortable with NASA as a democratic-socialist state enterprise. And after we won the Space Race, and even after we won the Cold War, we remain stuck with a socialistic space program.
Yes, we probably need to figure out how to make lemonade from Shuttle and station (notice that the editorial writers don't get into any of the messy details about how one "kills" it). But what we really need to do is get people to stop equating NASA with space, and start identifying and quantifying markets, and putting together business plans, and building infrastructure to satisfy them, and to rearrange federal policy to encourage, rather than discourage, capitalists from doing these things, because the reason that space is expensive is, simply put, because we hardly do any of it. If Ford spent a billion dollars developing the Mustang (which is a reasonable approximation of what it costs to develop a new car model), and only built half a dozen of them, even Bill Gates wouldn't buy one. But NASA would.
Once we drive down access costs by increasing space activities, The Economist's (and Dan Goldin's) sacred space science will become cheap and abundant as well. I used to have a sig on my emails, and it still applies: NASA's job is not to send a man to Mars. NASA's (and the rest of the federal government's) job is to make it possible for the National Geographic Society to send a man (and woman) to Mars.
Posted by Rand Simberg at 02:25 PMNow, what to make of Dr. Bob Zubrin?
Not being a current Space News subscriber, I haven't read the opinion piece that he wrote a few days ago, though I saw the following excerpt at Keith Cowing's NASA Watch web site:
With the [Islamic] fundamentalist takeover, the most glorious civilization humanity had ever known was turned into a dung heap of misery, mental slavery, degradation and ignorance. A quarter of the world has turned into a graveyard of the mind, which for the past 700 years has not produced a single significant scientific advance.
If I am informed correctly, Bob proposes that we really spite and put it to those scientifically-ignorant medieval towel heads by colonizing Mars. Now is that in your face, or what?
What with calls for new gun control, increased wiretapping, airline and hospitality industry bailouts, more handouts for the national strategic peanut industry, etc., I probably would have been shocked if Bob hadn't also figured out a way to hijack last month's atrocities for his own narrow political agenda. But even for Bob (again, assuming that it's true--I'd appreciate being emailed a copy of the editorial if anyone has it), [Update about noon PDT on Sunday, someone posted a URL on s.s.p. It can be found here], it's almost breathtaking in its verve and audacity.
Unfortunately for Bob and humanity's near-term future on subdividing the Red Planet, I suspect that the political establishment will find his call to arms less than compelling. Even if it were viewed as an effective tactic for ending terrorism ("Take that, Osama, you unscientific infidel"), the time frame involved in implementing his solution to terrorism would likely strain the patience of the American people, who, if we are to believe the polls, are willing to wait a few weeks or months to see some concrete action, but probably not decades.
Apparently the National Space Society and the Mars Society (at least the Canadian branch) have disavowed his comments, and made clear that he spoke for himself alone. But the little imbroglio did get me to thinking. Is there some way to hijack^H^H^H^H^H^H assist in the War on Terrorism (still need a better name) that can also advance the cause of space development? Doing well by doing good, so to speak?
A week or two ago, I started a thread on sci.space.policy entitled "Lunar Palestine." The thread quickly drifted off to the topics of single-stage-to-orbit, and gun control, and what asses various members of the newsgroup are (no, I'm not going to name names) as threads on s.s.p are wont to do, and we never really resolved the issue of whether or not, assuming that we did make the Moon at least as habitable as, say, circa-1982 Beirut, the Palestinians could be persuaded to move there in their own homeland.
But thinking some more, I now have a better solution. In a discussion with Jim Bennett, it was pointed out that the Zionists (being socialists, and largely atheistic) were originally not even seeking to live in what is today Israel--they were looking at places like Madagascar and Siberia. The Holy Land only became the favored destination after they joined forces with the Orthodox Jews already living there (who were actually opposed to a Jewish state, but eventually went along, as long as it would be in ancient Judea, and be a real Jewish state). This marriage of convenience resulted in modern Israel, with all its quirks, contradictions, and violence.
Perhaps, with what's been going on the past few years (you know, intifadas and stuff), the Zionists could be persuaded to say, "To hell with it!", pull up stakes, and move to Luna. A space colony is actually pretty well suited to a kibbutz social model, and they could get back to their socialist roots. They're already used to living places that are short of water--they'd figure out how to make do. That would be a form of socialism that I could probably get behind, because it might save us more money in reduced oil prices than it would cost, and it would push the development of the technology, making it affordable for us capitalists to do stuff in space as well.
Obviously, this idea is just in the formative stages, and it's possible that there are some implications that haven't yet occurred to me. But I'm sure that I'll get abundant feedback on just how stupid an idea this is...
Posted by Rand Simberg at 09:46 AM