The Space President?

Oldfart1939 · 2017-02-22 18:13:32

Back to the Moon? I just saw this on YouTube:

GW Johnson · 2017-02-22 19:50:06

Dunno who "nextnews" is. CBS, NBC, and PBS have nothing reported like this. Lots of fake news out there on that internet. Not to mention a nearly-100% fact-free Trump administration.

AIAA "Daily Launch" hints that there might be something like this in the works, although they usually overstate their case and claims. Their story says Trump wants a crewed EM-1 around the moon, instead of no crew. No landing, no orbiting, just a flyby, which is all SLS Block 1 and Orion can do. If that.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-02-22 19:52:54)

Oldfart1939 · 2017-02-22 19:53:57

Next News Network is actually the #1 ranked "alternative news" site on the Internet; the most actual views per week, better than CNN and Fox combined. They aren't prone to BS.

Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2017-02-22 19:54:33)

SpaceNut · 2017-02-22 20:14:48

He is only looking to speed it up and to save about 15 billion in doing so with in his first term of office....
Nasa is the one that needs to pull a rabbit out of the hat...to which its not ready to do....
They are no longer single project oriented as they were during the Apollo era....

Oldfart1939 · 2017-02-25 10:19:28

GW-

Here's a more mainstream story.

http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-co … 04x723.jpg

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-02-25 12:21:42

Make America Great Again!
I remember first learning about Apollo when it was over and done with, I just missed it, the President that made this happen was Lyndon B Johnson, the very next Democrat in the Oval Office was a huge disappointment, that would be Jimmy Carter! Jimmy Carter it seemed did not want to make America Great Again, he refused to go back to the Moon as we did with Johnson and Nixon, he was just a muddle through President, who sought not to achieve greatness at all! It was during his Administration that Skylab crashed down around Australia. There were delays and delays with the Shuttle.

RobertDyck · 2017-02-25 13:17:01

Apollo was accomplished by John F Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Apollo was killed by Nixon. Nixon called Apollo a ridiculous stunt.

In 1968, NASA intended to build a space shuttle as a lifting body. Fully reusable with a piloted fly-back booster. It would lift 7 astronauts plus 11 metric tonnes of supplies to an international space station at 400km altitude and 50° inclination. Today ISS is at 400km altitude ±10km and 51.6° inclination, the same orbit. And the Shuttle wouldn't be used for construction, Saturn 1B would do that.

Nixon wouldn't let NASA build the shuttle, he slashed NASA's budget to give the money to the military for Vietnam. The military had it's own expendable launch vehicle, but Nixon said NASA and the military couldn't have separate launchers, they had to share one. So the cargo hold of shuttle was enlarged to accommodate military spy satellites, and the orbiter was changed from a lifting body to delta wing so it could return from polar orbit. Ironically, Shuttle never flew polar orbit. Delta wing with fuselage is significantly heavier than a lifting body, but it can glide farther. There are no airports at the poles, so Shuttle had to glide far enough to get to the nearest airport. With a larger and more expensive orbiter, and drastically slashed budget, NASA didn't have the funds for the piloted fly-back booster. So they replaced it with a "drop tank", to use an air force term. Then one senator from Utah said he has a company in his state that makes segmented solid rockets for the Titan III rocket, the military launch vehicle that Nixon said the military can't use any more. So the senator demanded NASA put segmented solid rockets on the Shuttle.

Nixon is responsible for cancelling Apollo. And Nixon is responsible for the Shuttle. Don't give credit to the very guy who slashed NASA and created the mess we're trying to dig out of.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2017-03-29 09:02:24)

GW Johnson · 2017-02-25 15:29:03

Historically, LBJ was the space enthusiast, more so than JFK. JFK just wanted something public he could do to upstage the Russians.

The comments just above about Nixon are true. He would have killed NASA entirely to finance Vietnam, if he could have gotten away with it. As it was, he had to OK the shuttle, but he and subsequent presidents starved the NASA budget so badly that the reusable 2-stage airplane got abandoned in favor of the cluster-f**k we ended up with, that was both very expensive, and dangerous enough to kill two crews in 125 flights. I'm amazed more crews were not lost, and I worked on the thing as a grad student.

Nobody since has been serious enough as president to do anything toward traveling beyond LEO or at most the moon. Even SLS/Orion is nothing but a moon rocket (and flawed at that), not a Mars rocket. BIG difference between the two! Especially when you really don't need or want a giant rocket specifically to go to Mars.

Big just helps lower unit cost to orbit, where you do the assembly to go to Mars and elsewhere beyond the moon. Except that SLS doesn't even do that (lower cost). Call a spade a spade; in this case, a gigantic multi-decade corporate-welfare giveaway to Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-02-25 15:33:37)

SpaceNut · 2017-02-25 20:54:35

It was the early 90's that Goldin the administrator at nasa wanted to go back to the more using shuttle parts to make it happen under the First lunar outpost.
Summary Description of Previous Studies

Design Reference mission

http://www.nss.org/settlement/moon/FLO.html
http://www.nss.org/settlement/moon/LUNOX.html

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-02-26 08:24:19

Just so you know, Donald Trump is not Nixon. Unlike Nixon, Trump would know better than to try what Nixon did. Nixon thought he could get away with the same shenanigans that John F. Kennedy did, he assumed the Media was fair and impartial, so he thought to play by the same rules that JFK did, he was wrong, he got caught, and he resigned before Congress could impeach him. Trump, on the other hands knows from the outset, that he is dealing with a hostile press, he is a fairly intelligent man, I don't think he will make the same mistake that Nixon did. Unlike most other Presidents, Trump wears his ego on his sleeve, a return to the Moon would put him on par with JFK, so why wouldn't he do that?

SpaceNut · 2017-02-26 09:49:42

To all I do not think that this topic was intended to be more political rhetoric, propoganda, Alternative facts or anything of the sorts and if it continues to be so it will be moved.

So what do we know about Nasa and space is that each president either choses to use it or guts it as a pet project to spend for greater glory or for politacallt contrite reasons..

Now if this president is listening to the people and not yes men then he is hearing that we want to get out of LEO and actually back to getting something for the money that we are spending. That the commercial market needs to stop waiting for contract plus requests and starts to create what nasa and others want instead.

As a person that wants to be able to do trips into space we can not look at it as being for the elite rich and that will only change once the price drops such as to yield a price that does not take a man 2 decades and more to earn the funds to go.

For a common person to become part of the space jobs market we will need to change how we pay to get into the work that we are doing as these are jobs that need to be made available to the average man. I am sure that a space janitor will be needed.

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-02-26 10:04:37

Capitalism is the key, if we can reuse the vehicles that get us into space, that will bring down the costs to that of fuel and maintenance of the ships. SpaceX made a start by landing its boosters, if the boosters can be reused, that the company the cost of manufacturing a new booster, this will allow SpaceX to reap huge profits thus drawing in competitors, once competitors are in the market they will bid down the cost of travel into space.

SpaceNut · 2017-02-26 10:29:09

yes launch market is coming and its a start but you need destination to go to that can support the people going and we are not there yet as that market is still not being created. Bigelow has the inflatable, ATK/orbital has the cygnus, Japan has the HTV and Eu had the ATV but none are trying to assemble any sort of second science lab or hotel or any other such commercial activity that would drive that next market.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-02-26 11:54:14

I never intended this thread to become political, and just picked up the "Space President" moniker from another website--cannot remember which one anymore. It was asked in a somewhat rhetorical manner.
Encouraged by the fact that he's been in very close contact with Elon Musk. That bodes well for space enthusiasts such as those in this group. Hasn't anyone else figured it out yet? They are BOTH Wharton School of Business graduates, so maybe the "Good Old Boy" network is working in favor of space? I believe there is also the contact with Peter Thiel, another significant technology player (PayPal, and major investor in SpaceX).
As we've been discussing on another thread, NASA needs a real shakeup; get some of the "Christmas Tree Ornament" projects laid to rest. Focus. Focus. Focus!

Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2017-02-26 11:55:07)

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-02-28 12:23:26

Maybe if people would stop attacking Trump it wouldn't be!

GW Johnson · 2017-02-28 18:49:20

Tom's misguided defense of Trump notwithstanding, capitalism really is the key to reduced spaceflight costs, but it's not as simple as he says. NO ONE has yet reused anything going to LEO (at $27,000+/lb, partly/minimally-reusable shuttle is a bad example), except one Gemini capsule decades ago (the one and only Gemini-B flight on a Manned Orbiting Laboratory mission, flown unmanned).

Reuse has absolutely nothing to do with the reductions in cost to LEO that we have seen so far.

What has reduced those costs is twofold, two different effects, and they are quite real: (1) simplifying and reducing the logisical tail required to build and fly launch vehicles, and (2) the breaking of the ULA monopoly on launch services here inside the US. IF reusability will have an effect on this, it has yet to appear. It should, but it remains to be seen.

Those two things I listed are related, but not quite the way most folks think. Spacex figured out how to build launchers and fly them with a logistical tail about the size of a smaller US city, instead of the NYC-plus-sized logistical tail common to NASA and its favored contractors, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. THAT is what got Atlas-5 costs down to the same $2500/pound as Spacex, nothing else. And in turn THAT is what got Spacex into the USAF spy satellite launch business out of Vandenburg, breaking the ULA monopoly.

For proof, look at the foreign competition, who learned the same low-price lesson faster than ULA, just to stay in business, even with their overt government support. Meanwhile, look at ULA, who decades ago were close to two dozen competing companies, not just two who got together to create a monopoly. Statistical sampling is like free competition: you don't have it without nominally 22+ in your sample size. Smaller, and it just AIN'T random!

Now that we have come down from ~$4000-8000/lb to $2500/lb via small logistical tails, lets see what reusability will really do.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-02-28 18:53:33)

Oldfart1939 · 2017-02-28 19:02:36

GW-

Even the specter of reusability scares the s**t out of ULA! We'll see how successful SpaceX is later on in March, when they re-fly one of their boosters.

Edit: A final comment; Dr. Zubrin states in his books that the biggest product Lockheed-Martin and Boeing have to sell is OVERHEAD, in the cost-plus contracts.

Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2017-02-28 19:04:59)

SpaceNut · 2017-03-16 18:49:31

NASA budget supports deep space exploration

The administration is proposing $19.1 billion for NASA in its fiscal 2018 budget blueprint, a 0.8 percent decrease from 2017 funding levels, focusing on deep space exploration, both human and robotic, and increased public-private partnerships to lower costs and encourage private sector innovation.

Ok so basically a little less than flat line funding...

This budget blueprint terminates four Earth-science research missions, eliminates NASA’s Office of Education, discards the agency’s Asteroid Redirect Mission and makes no mention of human missions to Mars. $102 million by eliminating four Earth science missions and reducing funding for Earth science research grants. Eliminate NASA’s Office of Education, saving another $110 million.

So cutting projects that are 1% of the budget dollars given.

The proposal includes $3.7 billion to continue development of NASA’s Orion crew capsule and the huge Space Launch System heavy-lift booster needed for deep space missions to the moon or beyond.

But with the Administration wanting to change the timeline for first use of the SLS being crewed.

The 2018 budget proposal includes $1.9 billion for robotic space exploration, including continued support for a probe that will repeatedly fly by Jupiter’s moon Europa, which may harbor a sub-surface ocean habitat, and a mission in 2020 to send another nuclear-powered rover to Mars. Work to develop a multi-billion-dollar mission to land on Europa would be terminated.

Smacks of looking at flagship mission project cuttings to create money for the other pork filled projects.

Hopefully Nasa will put these projects into mothballs but that does not mean to put the hardware out doors to root as we have already spent quite a bit of funds already for all of this.

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-03-29 07:33:03

Congress has not yet had its say about this, what Trump has put out are proposals, Congress can change them!

Oldfart1939 · 2017-03-29 07:56:31

If we only get back to the Moon, it'll be better than the previous 7 administrations all combined. I'm all for the public-private partnerships getting us out of LEO.

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-03-29 08:42:02

The Moon would be good enough for this Administration. SpaceX was hoping for government funding, and was disappointed. The point of SLS is of a baseline rocket for SpaceX to compete with, it will get us to the Moon, if we don't put all our eggs in the Falcon basket. SpaceX funding comes from the launches it sells and the boosters it recovers and reuses.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-03-29 10:06:01

We're seeing increased sophistication of all the hardware through the private companies--not NASA. Going to the Moon again with an upgraded capability will translate to Mars in just a few more years. It's no longer the option game of "The Moon OR Mars," but the Moon "On the way to Mars."

GW Johnson · 2017-03-30 17:41:05

My guess is that NASA is (or should be) just as scared of Spacex and reusability as ULA is (or should be).

Even without already flying men in crew Dragon (because their contract with NASA precludes doing so ahead of schedule), I think the booster recovery thing has embarrassed everybody else. Plus there's Blue Origin recovering and reflying the same suborbital booster something like 5 times now.

GW

Oldfart1939 · 2017-03-30 17:50:57

SpaceX again amazes the industry by re-flying a Falcon 9 to launch SES-10, while again recovering the once-used first stage. Go, SpaceX!

SpaceNut · 2017-03-30 18:01:38

There is something that is said by designing for being tough and dependable versus cutting edge extreme capability...Only one can hope is they do not do as the auto industry did to make cars cheap via using inferior materials that do not stand up to use....

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2017-02-22 18:13:32

The Space President?

#2 2017-02-22 19:50:06

Re: The Space President?

#3 2017-02-22 19:53:57

Re: The Space President?

#4 2017-02-22 20:14:48

Re: The Space President?

#5 2017-02-25 10:19:28

Re: The Space President?

#6 2017-02-25 12:21:42

Re: The Space President?

#7 2017-02-25 13:17:01

Re: The Space President?

#8 2017-02-25 15:29:03

Re: The Space President?

#9 2017-02-25 20:54:35

Re: The Space President?

#10 2017-02-26 08:24:19

Re: The Space President?

#11 2017-02-26 09:49:42

Re: The Space President?

#12 2017-02-26 10:04:37

Re: The Space President?

#13 2017-02-26 10:29:09

Re: The Space President?

#14 2017-02-26 11:54:14

Re: The Space President?

#15 2017-02-28 12:23:26

Re: The Space President?

#16 2017-02-28 18:49:20

Re: The Space President?

#17 2017-02-28 19:02:36

Re: The Space President?

#18 2017-03-16 18:49:31

Re: The Space President?

#19 2017-03-29 07:33:03

Re: The Space President?

#20 2017-03-29 07:56:31

Re: The Space President?

#21 2017-03-29 08:42:02

Re: The Space President?

#22 2017-03-29 10:06:01

Re: The Space President?

#23 2017-03-30 17:41:05

Re: The Space President?

#24 2017-03-30 17:50:57

Re: The Space President?

#25 2017-03-30 18:01:38

Re: The Space President?

Board footer