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(Repost reply to Robert:)
"Oh, the tired old dogma of throwing away multimillion dollar spacecraft with every mission. Lift mass isn't the only concern, do you know what the cost of a Soyuz launch vehicle is vs the Soyuz spacecraft? Last we discussed this they were about equal. I can't give you American numbers right now since America only flies the Shuttle. Do you really think an American CEV will cost less than Soyuz? It would be better to use a reusable mini-HL-20 space taxi to get up to LEO, then a reusable lunar vehicle to get to the Moon. Since the spacecraft is as expensive as a whole launch vehicle, how much do you think it would cost per mission for Delta 4-2 stage as an expendable TLI stage? How much for a LOX/LCH4 tank with manoeuvring thrusters to rendezvous with the LTV? Keep the expensive manned spacecraft.
Here's another perspective. You want to use Magnum to go to the Moon. That involves 2 SRBs, at least 3 SSMEs, and a modified ET. A pair of cargo Sticks would each have one SRB and one SSME, and a smaller tank for the upper stage. The mini-HL-20 would expend an ET but everything else is recovered. The absolute maximum launch cost is the same, possibly less for the reusable system, but the spacecraft is entirely reused so there is no spacecraft cost for the second and subsequent flights. That cuts mission cost for the second flight in half.
You're ignoring my plan to use Shuttle-C/Orbiter combination flights to complete ISS construction. It would work.
L1 is an unstable point; it's not like L4 or L5. Anything at L1 falls away from it as soon as it drifts just the tiniest bit from absolute centre. At L4 or L5 gravity would pull a drifting space station back.
As for a mission module: remember separation of cargo from crew? That applies to the Moon as well. Send a one-way cargo lander that doesn't return and doesn't have all the human safety gear. Send the Mars surface habitat on an unmanned cargo lander; this will be the lunar base. Prove Mars hardware on the Moon. Following the Mars Direct architecture, the LTV serves as the ERV and the one-way surface hab is sent with very minimal modification. The Moon has micrometeoroids and more radiation so the envelope must be sturdier."
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How much extra is a super Lunar tug, the one thats reliable enough for multiple manned trips going to cost to develop? One billion? Two billion? Three?
A Lunar lander is not that big or complex a piece of machinery, using about $10-15M worth of engines, another few million for the avionics... A one-use lander won't be all that expensive. Neither will an expendable TLI stage as you point out. And a service module won't be that bad if its just solar pannels, LSS tankage, and thrusters (the capsule having a too-cold equilibrium temp like Apollo), probobly ten or twenty million worth of parts. Oh, and we DO get the capsule back, you know... This nonsense about LEO taxi is not going to happen, so I don't see the point of discussing it any further.
If we're "saving" up to $100M of rocket hardware with each shot sounds nice, but if we're launching one or two expeditions per year, then you have to wait 5-10 years to save a single penny with your reuseable scheme. And thats development dollars NASA has to pay up front, that it doesn't have right now.
And the whole dry mass, ullage, and unit cost of that Methane tug goes completly to waste. Say, that Methane tug with refueling hardware isn't a whole lot less complex then the CEV service module (thrusters, avionics, fuel cells, docking guidence, fuel transfer gear...) but you aren't going to reuse it.
So you save the lander and the service module, at the expense of a Methane tug, higher development costs, and much lower surface payloads. Doesn't sound like much of a deal to me for a half-crippled spaceship. Now what were you saying about throwing things away?
"...remember separation of cargo from crew? That applies to the Moon as well. Send a one-way cargo lander that doesn't return and doesn't have all the human safety gear."
And I think that there is some kind of disconnect here about exactly what we will be doing on the Moon, and what payload configuration we need... Each flight will most likly be prospecting, hardware testing, and base/scope/comm tower site work. These things take time, no one-day Apollo flights here, and so the most efficent thing to do is make it big enough to hold four men for two weeks or so. This is going to be pretty big, particularly without zero-G, and not any of this dinky Soyuz orbital module sized stuff!
Now, for prospecting you will need a little gear, preferably a pretty big drill, a Lunar rover or two, and siesmometers for explosive subsurface mapping, etc... Under ten tonnes, but more then Apollo LM could carry. Same with testing out a Lunar LOX pilot plant or Snow extractor. Setting up telescopes? A nice RTG-powerd 1-2m scope' shouldn't weigh but 5-10MT. Or perhaps a communications relay antenna set. Or a new bulldozer for a base. Or a nice roomy TransHAB module to put in the hole it makes...
...Anyway, the point is, that early expeditions probobly won't be to the same site, and that the payload they need to do worthwhile things is not heavy enough to justify a whole seperate cargo flight, which will itself cause severe duplicity of hardware. This is why seperating crew from LIGHT cargo for Lunar landers is infact a BAD thing, and is why the ultralight crew taxi is out of the question.
The plan is pretty simple... the big 120MT class SDV launches both the Lunar lander and TLI stage in one go into LEO, and The Stick launches the capsule CEV with its TEI/service module, mate together, and its off to the Moon... with up to 150MT of ship. None of that "two Delta-IV HLV!" 75MT nonsense. Perhaps if The Stick can hit 30MT, then CEV can carry a bit of gear or gas with it too.
"You're ignoring my plan to use Shuttle-C/Orbiter combination flights to complete ISS construction. It would work."
Thats because you plan is so idealistic and unrealistic in its scheduling as to be completly naieve, so of course I don't take it seriously. Probobly just about as bad as the mass of your Lunar taxi.
L1 isn't entirely stable, but if you can park a ship there for a few months with minimal automated stationkeeping, that shouldn't be too bad, and it has advantages over lower Lunar orbits for anywhere-access to the surface... perhaps some advantages for cargo coming in from Earth via low-energy trajectories.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Old thread seems ok but will continue here anyways.
Have been trying to read though the last few pages and have seen that we have developed three types of lunar landers. One to be manned with minimal consumable resources no matter what the crew size is, another as resupply of consumables or for experimentation equipment for exploration as well as mining robot carrier and another to bring a habitat to serve as a mini base camp for extended stay beyound the size of the manned lander.
It would appear that as each is required that a differing stackup for launch vehicle is required to get the job done for each increment of mass change. While the cargo and manned lander could fit within the diameters of current derivided vehicles with stretched lengths ok.
The Hab would not with its much large diameter and mass. Could this be constructed in LEO at the ISS, or possibly be made up by other means or construction techniques?
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(Robert says:)
"Actually the TLI stage still costs millions of dollars so it isn't cheap, but it's not nearly as expensive as the spacecraft. As for "not that expensive", realize NASA has a lot of space centers to run. It has a $16.3-16.5 billion budget (what did the politicians decide?) but roughly $4.5 billion of that goes to the Shuttle. I don't know off-hand how much goes to ISS and I'm too tired right now to look it up, but there are a lot of things that have to be funded. Don't through around money like you have the entire NASA budget at your disposal. And don't forget that Nixon slashed the NASA budget for political reasons. John Kerry almost got in at the last election and he doesn't care about space either. Eventually America will get a president who doesn't have an interest in space and doesn't have political capital tied to it; then NASA's budget will be slashed again. If you require expensive throw-away vehicles for every mission then those vehicles will be cancelled as thoroughly as Apollo was in 1972. Keep cost down or we won't make it to Mars.
I'm sure many people in the Mars Society would like to go directly to Mars and skip the Moon, actually I would as well, but the current president said "Moon and eventually Mars". Ok, we go to the Moon and use it as a stepping stone to Mars. Let's get it done and ensure lunar hardware prepares us for Mars and builds infrastructure for Mars. That means sending a surface habitat for Mars to the Moon. Whether you want to use the Mars Direct mission architecture or NASA Design Reference Mission 3, that includes a large surface habitat that doesn't come back. The ideal for a Moon mission is to send a Mars habitat. Once it's there you don't need to send another habitat. After all, if the point is to test a habitat on the Moon then you want to examine that habitat to see how it holds up. The first manned mission to the Moon won't include a 14 month surface stay. Mars Direct does and NASA DRM3 includes a 600 day surface stay. That means going back to the same lunar habitat to see how it holds up. That's why I talk about a little Lunar Transit Vehicle with as much interior space as a Soyuz descent module. Once on the Moon astronauts will get into the full-size habitat. This habitat will form a small simple lunar base.
Oh let me guess, instead of a full-size Mars Direct habitat that stays permanently on the Moon with a lunar taxi, you want to send a full double-story 8-metre diameter surface habitat and a separate Earth return vehicle with every mission. Well I have news for you, not going to happen. Do you want to send a separate rover with every mission as well? No, we really need a big base with lots of equipment and, yes, a dinky lunar taxi to deliver crew to/from the Moon. The habitat will take one of those big in-line SDV launch vehicles. Did you know that Caterpillar got a contract from NASA to develop a lunar vehicle to scoop regolith to feed an oxygen generation system? I would like to see that lunar Cat on the Moon as well as a lunar rover, and oxygen generation, and a full-size science lab. Need a pretty big drill for your prospecting? Ok. All that stuff will take a second launch of the big SDV, separate from the habitat. That costs money, so all that stuff must be used for more than one mission. The dinky lunar taxi will carry crew to/from this lunar base.
By the way, the LTV full of fuel and with its TLI stage will fit on a single Shuttle-C. You don't need to send the CEV separately. That's why I said a mini-HL-20 crew taxi that's left parked at ISS until they come back. Two launches of Delta IV Heavy or The Stick are for subsequent missions. Another thing, Delta IV Heavy can lift 25.8 tonnes to 185 km orbit, not 75MT to ISS.
One last thing: how long do you think it'll take to do all this stuff? President George W. Bush is in his second term, he isn't allowed to run for re-election again. That means there will be a new president elected in November 2008. What's to keep him from canceling VSE in January 2009, the way Nixon cancelled Apollo? If you want manned space exploration to proceed there will have to be a lot of momentum by November 2008. If NASA doesn't have the ISS completed and a working crew vehicle by then, you seriously risk the next president canceling VSE just as Bush cancelled VentureStar. Do I have to remind you that the US has commitments with its partners so it can't abandon ISS?"
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"realize NASA has a lot of space centers to run"
That, quite frankly, is something that NASA will have to learn to deal with any which way... if they can't kick the make-work habit, then none of this matters, you'll never have enough money even for your dinky operations much less Mars stuff.
"I'm too tired right now to look it up, but there are a lot of things that have to be funded. Don't through around money like you have the entire NASA budget at your disposal"
About $1.5Bn/yr... and NASA very well will need every penny at its disposal, thats all there is to it. If Congress isn't going to support VSE with reasonably steady funding, again, what is the point of bothering to try? Furthermore, if you are planning on big budget cuts, then you are just begging to get cut.
"If you require expensive throw-away vehicles for every mission then those vehicles will be cancelled as thoroughly as Apollo was in 1972. Keep cost down or we won't make it to Mars."
Your plan requires throwing away two pretty expensive rockets, a third for crew probobly, the Methane/supply tanker, and the independant TLI stage. You save the service module and lander hardware between missions. The "standard" mission throws away a somewhat bigger but "dumb" TLI stage, the service module, and the lander launched on one HLLV (which costs the same as two Delta-IV HLV) and one Stick/EELV-Medium. The capsule is reused for the next CEV... Oh, and the standard mission plan has double the payload.
Aproximatly double the payload, access all over Luna and not just restricted to base camp, much lower development costs (no independant TLI stage, no reuseability, no Methane tanker), and higher reliability (brand new hardware every time save capsule)... Frankly, I hate your plan Robert. It jacks up the development costs when NASA needs them lowest most and wrecks the supposed savings of your reuseability. If you save $100M but have to pay $1Bn extra development, then you just aren't saving much money, and you have to pay that $1Bn up front. Its a bad deal!
And it just cripples payload completly. This last point is especially important, because you wouldn't need seperate cargo flights to sites away from Lunar base camp. Hows that for saving money? The Moon is a big place, and we will definatly want to send missions to sites all over its surface, which is an expensive proposition if we have to send a seperate cargo flight to each site... if it gets there on-target at all.
"That's why I talk about a little Lunar Transit Vehicle with as much interior space as a Soyuz descent module."
Again, higher development costs, lower performance, trivial per-sortie savings. Say you want to make regular visits to that surface HAB? Then you might want to bring along something to do, and probobly some supplies and maintenance equipment, which you will need a little payload for. Payload your taxi won't have.
"Oh let me guess, instead of a full-size Mars Direct habitat that stays permanently on the Moon with a lunar taxi, you want to send a full double-story 8-metre diameter surface habitat and a separate Earth return vehicle with every mission"
No, but you do need a little more room for a two-week telescope construction mission to the dark side, or for core sampling various impact sites spread over an area, or finding snow at the poles or whatnot. Something the size of Soyuz just isn't big enough in the presence of gravity. The lander itself, being Hydrogen powerd and its payload dumped, should be able to relight its engines and remate with the CEV for the return trip.
"Do you want to send a separate rover with every mission as well? ...No, we really need a big base with lots of equipment and, yes, a dinky lunar taxi to deliver crew to/from the Moon."
If you want to go to a site hundreds of kilometers from the basecamp: yep. Same deal with the drilling rig or whatever else you want to carry. A modest secondary payload carried by a bigger-then-Apollo LM lander is the way to go. Since there isn't all that much to do on the Moon in a small area, I don't think we need a BIG base either, a modest one will do. And since your mission plan doesn't leverage future LOX supplies, it too will be more expensive then it has to be. A base is just a foothold, and nothing more.
"...and a full-size science lab. Need a pretty big drill for your prospecting? Ok. All that stuff will take a second launch of the big SDV, separate from the habitat."
Say, a full ISS-Hab sized TransHab module should just about fit as the secondary payload of a Boeing-class lander. Convienant, no? And what good is having a drill if its confined to the area around base camp? I doubt that a modest drill will be all that big/heavy (DRM science manifest), so it would probobly fit in the secondary payload too. Also convienant.
"LTV full of fuel and with its TLI stage will fit on a single Shuttle-C. You don't need to send the CEV separately. That's why I said a mini-HL-20 crew taxi that's left parked at ISS until they come back."
Your taxi isn't going to happen because the ISS isn't important enough, and the ISS should be left out of this, because it isn't going to be around much longer. By the time we get to the Moon, it will have exceeded safe lifespan and will be well on its way to becomming Mir-II. Oh, and then there is the payload penalty.
"Another thing, Delta IV Heavy can lift 25.8 tonnes to 185 km orbit, not 75MT to ISS."
Yes Robert, I happen to know that. I am speaking of the total stack mass of the Lunar vehicle sent to Earth orbit, which is half what it could be versus one HLLV.
"...there will be a new president elected in November 2008. What's to keep him from canceling VSE in January 2009, the way Nixon cancelled Apollo? If you want manned space exploration to proceed there will have to be a lot of momentum by November 2008. If NASA doesn't have the ISS completed and a working crew vehicle by then, you seriously risk the next president canceling VSE just as Bush cancelled VentureStar. Do I have to remind you that the US has commitments with its partners so it can't abandon ISS?"
Because if this new president (Gulliani in 08'!) cancels VSE, then NASA is doomed. I don't think that any president would like to be the one who killed NASA. Killing VentureStar isn't the same thing, because it isn't the last hope for NASA's future.
Edit: And speaking of momentum, in order to build momentum you would want to minimize development costs, right? In which case, you should oppose your own plan because it would cost more to accomplish anything.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Another thought or two:
Shuttle-C: So you want to put your vehicle and TLI rocket on Shuttle-C? Well goodie, but now you've gone and wasted developing that SDV, because it can't carry a Mars-sized HAB module thanks to diameter limitations.
ISS: So, you want to spend billions to prop up the ISS for years more, incur the substantial inclination penalty to your already razor-thin margins, and increase mission complexity with an additional rendezvous/docking operation... So you can save having to add one-month loitering capability to your crew taxi?
I want to re-emphasize that since restricting Lunar missions to the vicinity of the base camp is unacceptable, that the most efficent thing to do it make the manned lander overkill, so that it can carry useful payloads to sites all over the surface without needing a seperate cargo launch and trying to rendezvous on the surface.
In the longer term reuseability should be a goal, particularly when we have a nuclear powerd base and plentiful LOX supplies, but not yet, not now.
Edit: Independant TLI stage (or Methane tanker sans main engine): fuel cell power, control computers, attitude sensors, rendezvous beacon, two-way link to ground control... Dumb TLI stage: none of the above, shared with lander.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Is there another alternative to the SDV concept beyong the
Usual 2 versions?
In an effort to lower costs/per mission on the 110MT version
one can ask:
Is there a way to use 4 Upgraded larger SRB's around a Reinforced ET with only two Main Engines at the bottom of the ET's. Saves the cost of 2 LOX engines. You don't need
to extend the ET size too much.
I guess it's just a matter of the payload not being damaged
by: 4 SRB's starting up, being shaken to death, and not
getting squashed by the G's it's gonna be pulling within a minute or so.
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Thats pretty much the issue, Adm. Ritt... and a pair of simplified SSME engines cost less then a pair of SRBs refurbishings actually.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Because if this new president (Gulliani in 08'!) cancels VSE, then NASA is doomed. I don't think that any president would like to be the one who killed NASA. Killing VentureStar isn't the same thing, because it isn't the last hope for NASA's future.
Ore of the terrific things about Michael Griffin (IMHO) as NASA administrator is that he seems to have many friends on both sides of the aisle in the Senate. In an ideal world (IMHO) Congress will give Griffin $16 - $18 billion per year and then leave him the hell alone.
Griffin's political tests will come in keeping Hutchinson, Mikulski and Nelson happy, for example. If he can do that then the White House (whether GOP or Democrat) can only lose by interfering. SRB CEV is obviously a way to squeeze carrier rocket development into the current STS/ISS budget and culling the shuttle army without openly firing everyone is another.
Concerning the ISS, only the President has sufficient political firepower to tell our international partners to go pound sand. While I wish he would do exactly that, I do not predict that will happen.
Griffin appears to see that ISS cancellation is above his pay grade and therefore he needs to be circumspect about ISS-bashing.
In the meantime, we at newmars can pick up that slack.
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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NASAs]http://space.com/spacenews/050704_business_monday.html]NASA's Moon Plans Shift into High Gear
All apologies if SpaceNut beat me to this (our resident journalist for all things space)
Griffin said in the interview that NASA likely would be ready to go public with its exploration plans around mid-July after coordinating with other parts of the U.S. government and with industry. Initial coordination briefings were set to begin the week of July 4.
“In the past we’ve often been accused of bringing in the solution with no other options and I am trying hard to get away from that,” Griffin said. “There are numerous stakeholders and I want to play fair with all of them. I’m not going to go out with an uncoordinated NASA position.”
Nevertheless, NASA gave a small group of outside experts an update on the Exploration Systems Architecture Study the week of June 27 and, according to a Washington-based source who had been briefed in turn, laid out a lunar exploration architecture that includes as many as six flights a year to the Moon.
According to this source, key elements of the lunar exploration architecture are coming into focus. For example:
The CEV would be a reusable capsule capable of carrying four passengers to the Moon.
NASA would use a three-person version of the CEV capsule to ferry astronauts to and from the international space station three times a year.
An unmanned version of the CEV would be used as a cargo carrier, conducting three space station resupply missions a year.
Both the CEV launcher and the heavy-lifter would be shuttle-derived and cost about $3 billion a year once in service.
The CEV would launch atop a single solid-rocket booster whose design is virtually the same as those that help lift the space shuttle off the launch pad.
The heavy-lift vehicle initially would be sized to lift 100 metric tons into orbit for Moon missions but could evolve to loft 120 metric tons for Mars missions.
So, 3 billion a year to operate... isn't that the current operation rate of the Shuttle army? No savings.
We're looking at 6 flights a year, either to ISS, or to the Moon. That's about the usual flight rate of our exsisting Shuttle fleet (prior to the Columbia and Challenger).
3 people on a CEV to ISS, but four to the Moon?
This is a complete mess. Someone explain to me how any of this is a good idea.
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No need to apologize. we have all done this before and no I had referenced the same link in the moon direct but was just now getting to it for this one.
NASA is set to begin rolling out the results of a landmark space exploration architecture study that calls for building an Apollo-like astronaut capsule and conducting up to six lunar sorties per year using rocket hardware derived from the space shuttle.
Sixty days in the making, the Exploration Systems Architecture Study will go a long way toward defining the approach and the hardware NASA will use to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020, and eventually go on to Mars.
Oh and he is looking to squeeze from the budget aproximate $200 to $300 million a year to have the CEV stick ready and waiting for 2010.
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Three billion a year, if that includes a big chunk of launch vehicle expenses, actually sounds like a pretty good deal.
The only thing in here that jumps out at me is "NO WAY!" is this nonsense about a seperate capsule version for ISS sorties flying six times anually. Where do you see six flights to the Moon, clark?
"In an interview with Space News, he estimated development costs for a human-rated CEV launch vehicle based on the shuttle solid rocket booster at $1 billion to $1.5 billion, a figure that does not include the CEV itself.
“Probably NASA could spend $200 [million] to $300 million a year and this thing could be sitting on the pad by 2010 and ready to put people on top"
Should make Bill happy... doesn't sound too bad to me either.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
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Nevertheless, NASA gave a small group of outside experts an update on the Exploration Systems Architecture Study the week of June 27 and, according to a Washington-based source who had been briefed in turn, laid out a lunar exploration architecture that includes as many as six flights a year to the Moon.
In bold, text was included in the previous post.
3 manned CEV's to ISS, 3 unmanned CEV's to ISS per year is the current estimate.
3 Billion is the operating costs, not the actual launch costs. At least the way I've been reading things.
And besides, the estimates are just that, estimates.
How do they pay for this and CEV development?
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Thats an awful lot of Lunar flights... what in the world for? Unless some of them are pretty small, and dedicated to supplies/fuel/equipment.
$3Bn/yr just for operating costs is right out, it must be less then this if launch vehicle expenses aren't included.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
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A single stick can ferry crew or cargo to ISS. Two sticks, one for crew and one for cargo can replace an orbiter ferry mission for substantially less than the cost to launch and process an orbiter.
= = =
The origins of the "mess" lie in a refusal to abandon ISS today and ground orbiter today. And with the fact that no one has the political capital to simply tell Kay Bailey Hutchison no, we will experience a gap in human spaceflight capability.
An SRB CEV simply is the best chance to fly crew at about the same time the orbiter is gronded for good.
Of course, these same issues existed from the very moment President Bush spoke in January 2004.
= = =
The $3 billion figure is ambiguous, at least until a hard budget is released.
= = =
Might a cargo only stick launched CEV be large enough to carry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_% … le%29]this?
For example?
Use the new CEV last mile guidance systems for delivery to ISS. If the SRB carrier rocket were rated at 30MT (the mass Griffin wants for CEV) a cargo version should be able to carry at least some of the ISS components.
Edited By BWhite on 1120586329
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The $3 billion figure is ambiguous, at least until a hard budget is released.
Yeah, put a bow on that smell... :laugh:
That nevrvous feeling, the one that makes you all start rationalizing and justifying and explaining away- that's called "knowing a mistake" when you see it.
Bush didn't do this. Bush made the call to retire the shuttle when it needed to be retired.
Griffin is the new Shuttle Army White Knight willing to compromise with anyone in Congress to see his own pet dream from the Planetary Society come to fruition.
It will cost NASA most of the science it now does, and will probably result in an abandonment of lunar or martian long term goals/timelines to meet near term objectives of ISS capability.
Watch, wait, worry. This is a mistake.
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No need to apologize. we have all done this before and no I had referenced the same link in the moon direct but was just now getting to it for this one.
NASA is set to begin rolling out the results of a landmark space exploration architecture study that calls for building an Apollo-like astronaut capsule and conducting up to six lunar sorties per year using rocket hardware derived from the space shuttle.
Sixty days in the making, the Exploration Systems Architecture Study will go a long way toward defining the approach and the hardware NASA will use to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020, and eventually go on to Mars.
Oh and he is looking to squeeze from the budget aproximate $200 to $300 million a year to have the CEV stick ready and waiting for 2010.
Having the stick ready by 2010 is mission critical to getting the Senators to allow orbiter to be grounded. As has been mentioned many times, GWB will be gone before then.
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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The $3 billion figure is ambiguous, at least until a hard budget is released.
Yeah, put a bow on that smell... :laugh:
That nevrvous feeling, the one that makes you all start rationalizing and justifying and explaining away- that's called "knowing a mistake" when you see it.
Bush didn't do this. Bush made the call to retire the shuttle when it needed to be retired.
Griffin is the new Shuttle Army White Knight willing to compromise with anyone in Congress to see his own pet dream from the Planetary Society come to fruition.
It will cost NASA most of the science it now does, and will probably result in an abandonment of lunar or martian long term goals/timelines to meet near term objectives of ISS capability.
Watch, wait, worry. This is a mistake.
The other choice?
Complete ISS and then in 2010 start from scratch with the entire previous investment thrown away.
Cancel ISS/STS today (better yet in January 2004) and start from scratch does make sense. Spending 6 years doing less than nothing and then starting from scratch doesn't.
= = =
Besides, Pad 37 all by itself cannot sortie suffiicent mass to do anything useful.
Edited By BWhite on 1120586738
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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Having the stick ready by 2010 is mission critical to getting the Senators to allow orbiter to be grounded. As has been mentioned many times, GWB will be gone before then.
Give me a break. The Senators are not some big boogey man. The Senators will allow Orbiter to be grounded because they don't want to pay more for it, and they still want their earmarks. It's a bunch of hot air.
Complete ISS and then in 2010 start from scratch with the entire previous investment thrown away.
OR... go EELV and buy what you need instead of paying the overhead of maintaining your own systems.
How is T/space ever going to compete (or any other provider) when NASA has their own ride and a built in jobs program to protect? This merely enshrines the old model of how NASA does business for yet another generation.
Cancel ISS/STS today (beter yet in January 2004) and start from scratch does make sense. Spending 6 years doing less than nothing and then starting from scratch doesn't.
Cancel ISS/STS today? Sure, so much for international commitments. Space is an avenue of soft power and you want to relinquish it? Come on Bill.
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A political observation:
Mike Griffin was co-leader on the Planetary Society report issued in the summer of 2004. He appears to be following that blueprint rather closely. Scott Horowitz (now employed by Thiokol) presented the stick concept at the Chicago Mars Society convention after Thiokol's Kahn made a Spring 2004 presentation to Congress
Griffin is working from a long and well prepared script.
Is it a good plan? I believe so. clark and I and others have their opinions and we argue, incessantly. But remember this:
Griffin's plan was in the public domain long before he was ever nominated or confirmed as NASA administrator. His previous testimony to Congress has been consistent with his views. Remember his statement that we can certainly "do the Moon without HLLV but it would be silly"?
Okay, both the Administration and the Senate had full access to this public record before Griffin was confirmed and now that he is implementing this plan, NO ONE (at least within the higher reaches of the Beltway) is complaining.
This means either
(a) the Administration failed to properly research Griffin's record;
or
(b) they tacitly condone his new direction.
Any argument with the above observations?
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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I personally believe that once t/Space successfully flies (NASA won't pay for development because David Gump wants to keep the intellectual property proprietary) Griffin will contract out all of the ISS crew transfer flights.
And for cargo only, a big HLLV with TWO launch pads can sortie the mass needed to do useful things.
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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Numbers contained here:
Appropriation Summary: Exploration Capabilities to answer what goes to shuttle versus the ISS question.
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Damn your logic!
I will offer © though:
Griffin makes a great front man and he is doing his part to get VSE accepted by Congress. Yes, Griffin has his own pet ideas, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing in the white house. Remember, Griffin has not stopped working for Bush (his boss).
The determination for EELV versus SDV is not Griffin’s- it is Bush’s. When all is said and done, Griffin will be charged with implementing the directives of Bush. That means Griffin can say whatever he wants to Congress to get the 2006-2010 budget passed.
It ain’t over till the fat lady has sung.
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I haven't seen any mention of an efficient way to get lunar PGM's from the moon to the earth.
Maybe some kind of reusable and automated heavy lift cylinder that assumes lunar orbit then docks with an orbiting booster (manned?) which sends it off to earth orbit? Maybe the orbiting booster module could be attached to the ISS then every month or so it would detach and fly off to the moon to catch a cylinder of PGM's and bring it back to earth orbit. Then the booster would return to the ISS.
Maybe the space shuttle could then catch the orbiting PGM cylinder and bring it down in it's cargo bay? It's cargo capacity is 63.5 thousand pounds but I believe that is launch capacity, not sure if that is re-entry capacity as well.
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I haven't seen any mention of an efficient way to get lunar PGM's from the moon to the earth.
Maybe some kind of reusable and automated heavy lift cylinder that assumes lunar orbit then docks with an orbiting booster (manned?) which sends it off to earth orbit? Maybe the orbiting booster module could be attached to the ISS then every month or so it would detach and fly off to the moon to catch a cylinder of PGM's and bring it back to earth orbit. Then the booster would return to the ISS.
Maybe the space shuttle could then catch the orbiting PGM cylinder and bring it down in it's cargo bay? It's cargo capacity is 63.5 thousand pounds but I believe that is launch capacity, not sure if that is re-entry capacity as well.
No no no no no!
NO ISS
NO Shuttle
...and no NASA
For Lunar PGM/He3 mining to be profitable, we'll need even cheaper ways of getting cargo there and back then best-case-senario Shuttle-derived launch vehicles, even with Lunar LOX. This is where private spaceflight comes in, NASA won't ever be able to haul supplies that cheaply for a long time (without Shuttle-II anyway). Maybe NASA could sell CEV seats to miners down the road, but private industry will have to make cheap Lunar cargo happen.
A major point of NASA going to the Moon to stay is to make a foothold and test technology for the future, that is, to lower the initial cost and risk for private mining companies, not to seriously mine anything itself.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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I haven't seen any mention of an efficient way to get lunar PGM's from the moon to the earth.
Maybe some kind of reusable and automated heavy lift cylinder that assumes lunar orbit then docks with an orbiting booster (manned?) which sends it off to earth orbit? Maybe the orbiting booster module could be attached to the ISS then every month or so it would detach and fly off to the moon to catch a cylinder of PGM's and bring it back to earth orbit. Then the booster would return to the ISS.
Maybe the space shuttle could then catch the orbiting PGM cylinder and bring it down in it's cargo bay? It's cargo capacity is 63.5 thousand pounds but I believe that is launch capacity, not sure if that is re-entry capacity as well.
A single HLV can send up dozens of single use heat shields and parachute packages. These are attached at whatever station is in LEO at the time. Then we just aim them at a desert.
"Yes, I was going to give this astronaut selection my best shot, I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses."
---Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane
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Probobly the best way is for a large or small business to come up with the money to make a real live no kidding RLV, probobly DC-X based, maybe a spaceplane. The RLV brings up Hydrogen, Methane, or Carbon black and brings down PGM/He3 payloads.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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