Nasa 2017 budget

SpaceNut · 2016-02-13 11:06:42

A blast from the past when we discussed to coming years funding and what could be....

Obama Administration Proposes Smaller 2017 NASA Budget of $19 Billion with Big Exploration Cuts

Fiscal Year 2017 Budget to $19 billion by carving away significant funding for deep space exploration

This 2017 budget request amounts to almost $300 million less than the recently enacted NASA budget for 2016 and specifically stipulates deep funding cuts for deep space exploration programs involving both humans and robots, during President Obama’s final year in office.

Not much time right now but will add more later.... plus will find and fix the other years as well to help connect all the conversation of the past to the present....

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-02-14 12:26:36

Yep, Obama hates America, that is why he cut the Shuttle, and why he is cutting the budget, he wants to let the others catch up. As far as Obama is concerned, NASA is part of the Military, and he cuts the Military's budget as well. While technically civilian, NASA is highly symbolic of our nation, and Obama doesn't want it to succeed, so we are slowing down and waiting for Putin and China to catch up, that is what we are doing!

GW Johnson · 2016-02-14 13:34:37

As the bumper sticker says, "you are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts".

The decision to retire the shuttle was ultimately made by George W. Bush, not very long after the Columbia broke up (an event I watched from my yard, by the way). By the time Obama took office in 2009, that decision was far past unmaking.

Shuttle was getting very obsolete, and (much more importantly) very, very hard to maintain as flightworthy. It was a system that had some very severe risks built into it from the beginning, being a first-time attempt at a semi-reusable system. When you compound those built-in risks with decreasing flightworthiness potential, it's time for retirement.

Those technical facts would prevail eventually, no matter how good or bad the political decision making was. We don't need to try to scapegoat politicians for this in order to try scoring political points (which are really rather pointless actually), they are their own worst enemies anyway. We certainly don't need to be telling factual lies about it.

Read on ....

The budgetary problems this country suffers under are directly attributable to two things: (1) not saving surpluses and using them to reduce debt during good times, and (2) over $2 trillion worth of unbudgeted war in the middle east, that got financed by going further into debt. Those wars account for the bulk of the debt increase in recent years, although not all of it.

The first item numbered above traces directly to irresponsible, reprehensible, sometimes criminal behavior of elected politicians, from both parties (!!!!), for decades. They would not get away with behaving that way if we were still using the tools for good government (tar, feathers, guns, and ropes, as told to me by my grandfather, who turns out to have been right).

The second item numbered above traces to that same irresponsible, reprehensible behavior of politicians, but who actually do know that the only other option to run a deficit (inflating the currency), is and has been political suicide, ever since Carter did that in the late 1970's. (It was that PLUS the botched hostage raid that cost Carter re-election, not any stupid ideologies shouted by either party.)

(BTW, you do NOT want to reduce debt to zero, despite all the loud but silly propaganda otherwise. Without any government debt, there are no government bonds in which to invest. Without them, there isn't much left of a securities market that actually works reliably. Too much is too much, yes, but so also is too little!)

These two numbered problems are symptoms of a much bigger one: the slow, long morphing of our representative democracy into a giant corporate welfare state (which is not a democracy anymore, but still masquerades as one). THAT is the source of the lack of budget and the lack of political leadership to accomplish anything anymore, space travel or anything else. THAT is the source of most of the other troubles we face, as well. It has happened in many countries, the US is not unique in suffering from this.

And THAT is why I keep saying that if men go to Mars in our lifetimes, it will NOT be anybody's government who sends them there.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2016-02-14 13:47:37)

SpaceNut · 2016-02-14 18:20:30

The Shuttles if I recall correctly needed to go through a recertification process which was considered end of life.....for continued useage... We did talk about that and what it would take to reactivate the shuttle flight as well and late what we could do with them that was meaningfull.

Another thing that we now have is the elephant in the closet (senate /Congress) directing Nasa operations rather than its director....it was bad enough that the president to be could do so but now it is by far troubling....when the hands are being tired to an anchor...

I have been trying to find( and clean them up) the old budget talks to help with the chronological path that we are on.

Let the numbers control......

kbd512 · 2016-02-15 03:38:34

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

Yep, Obama hates America, that is why he cut the Shuttle, and why he is cutting the budget, he wants to let the others catch up. As far as Obama is concerned, NASA is part of the Military, and he cuts the Military's budget as well. While technically civilian, NASA is highly symbolic of our nation, and Obama doesn't want it to succeed, so we are slowing down and waiting for Putin and China to catch up, that is what we are doing!

Tom,

NASA wanted to shut down the STS program to fund the SLS (Ares) and Orion programs. President Obama had very little to do with NASA's desire to kill the STS program. NASA tried multiple times to end the STS program before Barrack Obama was ever a Senator or President. The notion that the STS program consumed available funding for a beyond LEO exploration program was and is entirely fictional and perpetrated by NASA, not any particular political administration.

NASA has basically thrown money into the wind, hoping that it will "stick" where it does the most to advance our innovation and exploration objectives. Somehow a lot of unrelated, nearly random, initiatives were supposed to coalesce into a cohesive program for human exploration of the moon or Mars.

You can't spend money on five different types of engines (F-1B, J-2X, RL-10, RS-25D, 5 segment SRB) when you don't even have one type of complete vehicle that can utilize any of those engines. Somehow we're supposed to save money on launch costs by throwing away the most expensive reusable flight hardware money can buy. Apart from the orbiter itself, every major component from the STS program is present in the SLS program.

With the money wasted on SLS, we could have simply re-built Saturn V with composite tanks and the F-1B (currently in development) and J-2X (already fully tested) engines. Then we'd have the 150t lift capability that every trade study NASA has conducted says is required for human exploration of Mars.

Heck, with the money wasted on Advanced Launch System, National Launch System, Ares, and now SLS, we could have built a more powerful version of Saturn V. The amount of money wasted on various unaffordable or unworkable super heavy lift rocket programs could have paid for human exploration of Mars using far simpler and less expensive heavy lift rockets. There's no specific technical problem that can explain why we're not on Mars already, even with the costs of the STS and ISS programs.

If it was within my power to do so, even at this late stage of development, I'd simply pull the plug on SLS development and direct NASA to rebuild Saturn V, refurbish and re-certify our Space Shuttles for future use, and cease development of Orion. There is no urgent requirement for four different types of commercial crew/cargo delivery vehicles, an Apollo stand-in, and equally unaffordable STS successor. There is an urgent requirement for a deep space habitat, lander, and an affordable super heavy lift rocket.

Let's go back and review the major STS program costs to determine why that program was so unaffordable:

There were three primary cost centers associated with the STS program:

1. Orbiter processing

After three decades of continuous operation, no robotic inspection and replacement mechanism was created to inspect and repair damaged TPS. The US Army Anniston Depot uses a robotically staffed inventory warehouse to provide parts for repair and refurbishment of the M1 tank. This should have been first priority to reduce cost.

2. Ground facilities maintenance

Willful neglect of the ground facilities and poor design is why we're now spending hundreds of millions to repair and upgrade the infrastructure required to launch. We simply can not launch without suitable facilities, no matter what program we're running. NASA has distributed its facilities throughout the country. This may garner wider political support, but it's terrible from a cost control standpoint. Quite frankly, innovation and exploration should not be politically motivated. We should decide that we want and need to innovate and explore or decide not to. Obviously the latter decision is extremely detrimental to our country, so we should choose the former. That said, the facilities need to be co-located whenever possible to drive down cost.

3. SRB recovery

Somehow the least expensive major component of STS ended up costing hundreds of millions every year. The SRB's were basically steel tubes loaded with propellant. There's no reason why we should spend hundreds of millions to refurbish components that only cost into the low tens of millions to purchase new.

NASA had the opportunity to develop expendable composite casings for the SRB's many moons ago. This should have been a top priority for the STS program to reduce manufacturing cost and component count and should be the first priority for the SLS program after vehicle testing has been completed. On that note, the SLS core stage should really use composite tanks for cryogen storage.

At least within the context of the SLS program there's no insane requirement to recover SRB's.

SpaceNut · 2016-02-15 22:04:59

Well here is a bit of information for the srb and why they cost so much. Also the original contrctor for the casing bowed out of business due to Nasa refurbishment process...and why the processing has changed hands....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shu … et_Booster

Over 5,000 parts were refurbished for reuse after each flight.
The prime contractor for most other components of the SRBs, as well as for the integration of all the components and retrieval of the spent SRBs, was USBI, a subsidiary of Pratt and Whitney. This contract was subsequently transitioned to United Space Alliance, a limited liability company joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Many other companies supplied various components for the SRBs:
Parker-Abex Corp. of Kalamazoo, Michigan (hydraulic pumps)
Aerojet of Redmond, Washington (hydrazine gas generators)
Arde Inc. of Mahwah, New Jersey (hydrazine fuel supply modules)
Arkwin Industries Inc. of Westbury, New York (hydraulic reservoirs)
Aydin Vector Division of Newtown, Pennsylvania (integrated electronic assemblies)
Bendix Corp. of Teterboro, New Jersey (integrated electronic assemblies)
Consolidated Controls Corp. of El Segundo, California (hydrazine)
Eldec Corp. of Lynnwood, Washington (integrated electronic assemblies)
Explosive Technology of Fairfield, California (CDF manifolds)
Gaco Western of Seattle, Washington (Hypalon Paint)
Lockheed Martin (formerly Martin Marietta) of Denver, Colorado (pyro initiator controllers)
Moog Inc. of East Aurora, New York (servoactuators, fuel isolation valves)
Motorola of Scottsdale, Arizona (range safety receivers)
Pioneer Parachute Company of Manchester, Connecticut (parachutes)
Sperry Rand Flight Systems of Phoenix, Arizona (multiplexers / demultiplexers)
Teledyne of Lewisburg, Tennessee (location aid transmitters)
ATK Launch Systems Corp. of Brigham City, Utah (separation motors)
Hamilton Sundstrand of Windsor Locks, Connecticut (auxiliary power units)
VACCO Industries of South El Monte, California (safe and arm device)
Voss Industries of Cleveland, Ohio (SRB Retention Bands)

https://pediaview.com/openpedia/Space_S … et_Booster

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi. … 080949.pdf

Filament wound casing meantion
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_hi … -26-04.pdf

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-02-17 12:21:51

SpaceNut wrote:

The Shuttles if I recall correctly needed to go through a recertification process which was considered end of life.....for continued useage... We did talk about that and what it would take to reactivate the shuttle flight as well and late what we could do with them that was meaningfull.
Another thing that we now have is the elephant in the closet (senate /Congress) directing Nasa operations rather than its director....it was bad enough that the president to be could do so but now it is by far troubling....when the hands are being tired to an anchor...
I have been trying to find( and clean them up) the old budget talks to help with the chronological path that we are on.
Let the numbers control......

All they have been doing is pass continuing resolutions, because that is all Obama and the Democrats will let them pass, it is basically a repeat of the 2009 budget that was the only budget that was actually passed since Obama got elected, that budget includes funds for NASA, and those funds have been indexed to grow along with everything else, the only thing that has been cut has been the Military, the other programs simply had their automatic growth curtailed, that is more is still spend than last year on every budget item except the military, NASA technically is not a military program, and since Obama can't pass his own budget or allow Congress to pass theirs, the budget is just continued with CRs that have automatic increases built into them.

RobertDyck · 2016-02-17 15:00:24

Democrats bad, Republicans good! Tom, that's annoying. The US has attempted to introduce Healthcare since the "New Deal". Wikipedia talks about efforts in 1912. Obama actually got something passed. It's lame, cost per person is as high as Canada but coverage is a fraction. It's actually Mit Romney's plan, that he proposed when he was a state governor. I saw a press conference on TV where Obama complained that many Democrats won't be happy until they have Canada's healthcare system. Yet, Tea Party members of the Republican party brought how many votes to cancel Obama-care? CNN says 60. Now they actually scammed through a bill this year. Now Obama has to veto this bill.

America's military budget is way too high. Bill Clinton claimed surpluses in years 1998, 1999, and 2000. Reality is he raided the US federal government employee's pension fund. When you treat that as a debt that has to be repaid, the government was still in deficit in 1998 and 1999. In year 2000 he raided the pension fund again, but the surplus was greater. When you deduct what he took from the pension fund, the surplus was a lot smaller than Clinton claimed. In fact the surplus was so pitifully puny it was practically non-existent. However, it was a balanced budget. That was the last year America had a balanced budget. My argument is every budget has to be compared to that one. Because it was the last balanced budget. Military spending in year 2000 was $288 billion. Apply inflation to 2015 (inflation calculators don't go to 2016 yet), the result is $396.40 billion. However, military and national security spending for year 2008 was $700 billion, for 2009 it was $799 billion, and 2010 (first year passed by Obama) was $901 billion! No wonder America is broke. Nuclear weapons are not included in the military budget, it's the Department of Energy. That's why it's "military and national security". This year the military and national security budget is $625 billion. That's better, but it's still not $396.40 billion.

I saw a video on Facebook. Clip from a movie. An actor claimed the US military budget is greater than then next 26 countries combined, 25 of which are allies. I checked, based on this year's budget, it's greater than the next 14 countries combined. And that includes Russia and China, which I doubt are allies. When it was $799 billion, America's budget was greater than the next 28 countries combined, and North Korea is 25th (26th if you include America). The other 25 countries are actually allies. America's military budget is way, WAY, WAY too high. I saw a press conference on TV with Vladimir Putin, he said America complains about his foreign military bases, but Russia has 2 while America has over a hundred. I checked Wikipedia, there's a lot more than that. How many in NATO countries? The US created a number of bases in the UK during World War 2. There are still some there! I could understand bases in new members of NATO, former Warsaw Pact countries, but US bases in NATO countries in Western Europe should be closed.

If America reduced its budget to $396.40 billion, it would still be greater than Russia, China, and North Korea combined. According to the website "Global Firepower", China's budget for 2015 is $155.6 billion, Russia's $46.6 billion, and North Korea $7.5 billion. So America's budget would still be almost double all those combined.

So don't complain about Democrat spending until military spending is brought under control.

RobertDyck · 2016-02-17 15:06:59

I year 2000, I posted on this form a suggestion that America cut it's military budget further by 10%, give half to NASA and use the other half for tax cuts. NASA's budget that year was $13.428 billion, so that would double NASA's budget. I've also said this year's NASA budget is the same as NASA had, after adjusting for inflation, in years 1963, 1971, and 1972. However, adjusted to 2014 dollars, NASA's budget was double in 1966. Some have complained there isn't enough money for SLS. My assertion is NASA is getting enough. After all, Saturn V was developed from scratch, while SLS is built upon Saturn and Shuttle technology. However, if you double NASA's budget, then that would equal the maximum NASA ever had (adjusted for inflation). NASA could do great things with that!

Wikipedia: History of NASA's annual budget

::Edit:: NASA's budget request in year 2000 was $14.4 billion, but as approved was only $13.428 billion.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2016-02-17 20:19:23)

Terraformer · 2016-02-17 17:59:46

Veering into politics (well, for me at least)... America has to decide what it wants it's military for. If it's just for national defence, then the expenditure is way, way too high - and they have an army that they need to stand down (the original idea was for a militia, not a standing army). If, however, they want to be the global hegemon, then it's way, way to low (and they should be forcing other countries to pay for it, like every other empire before them).

The problem is, America enjoys being hegemon, whilst at the same time being embarrassed because it means they've sold out. So they don't want to do it, but they don't want to lose the position either - and right now, there's no-one to pass the baton to.

Unless Canada wants to have a stab at it, with the other Anglosphere Commonwealth countries. What do you say, Robert? I reckon Canada, Britain, and Australia could have a go at being a superpower. Maybe even add in some of the northern territories from the former United States...

RobertDyck · 2016-02-17 19:15:10

Terraformer wrote:

Maybe even add in some of the northern territories from the former United States...

"Former" United States? Why? Are you expecting America to break up the way the Soviet Union did? That would be ironic. Ronald Regan baited the Soviet Union into over-spending on the military. That caused their economy to collapse. And just as Mikhail Gorbachev was trying to introduce Perestroika and Glasnost. Ronald Regan believed the US economy could withstand that level of over-spending longer. It worked, better than anyone could have expected. But even President Regan knew the US couldn't sustain that level of spending indefinitely. It took years to reduce spending to something sustainable. Unfortunately George W. pushed military spending back up, effectively falling into the trap that Ronald Regan set. So America fell into it's own trap. There was worry foreign powers would control the US through debt, so Congress wanted to fund the deficit domestically. But US banks ran out of money. Congress established laws in 1929 to prevent another stock market crash like that. To prevent another Great Depression. They started dismantling those laws the following year. That process was slow, but under George W. it became rapid. Congress pressured banks to find a creative way to finance the federal government's deficit. They did: junk mortgages. The result was the economic melt-down of 2008. Obama nationalized the banking system. He had to, otherwise the entire banking system would have collapsed. But the US federal government hasn't learned. They're now running deficits larger than ever before. There appears to be an economic recovery, but with debt growing this large, as soon as foreigners stop investing in treasury bonds, the US will suffer another economic collapse as bad as 2008. I don't know what will look like, or when it will happen, but it will happen. The only way to prevent it is to balance the budget. Start paying down the debt.

Canada was paying down our debt. We had our economic crisis in the 1980s and early 1990s. Finance Minister Paul Martin reduce government spending, created a surplus to pay down the debt. We were doing well. Some members of the Liberal Party wanted to increase spending, so this created problems within the party. The Conservatives got elected in 2006, ran up spending, and ran us back into deficit. The debt is now larger than ever before. So we're not doing well either. Most of the Conservative ministers were from Alberta, which has been called Texas with snow. Oil and cattle. They focussed on oil at the expense of manufacturing. Now that oil prices have tanked, we're in deep trouble. The Liberal Party got elected again, but they did so on a very left-wing campaign, spend-and-deficit. I found that ironic considering it was Conservatives who ran up spending, put us back in deficit. So far they're sticking to election promises. If the stick to their platform completely, we could be in really deep trouble.

Hegemon? That doesn't sound Canadian. The British Commonwealth hasn't done anything in decades. Many people ignore it, because it hasn't been effective at anything in a very long time. Perhaps we could get them to try to establish peace. But not dominate, not a hegemon, instead international respect and diplomacy. Vladimir Putin said he's willing to be part of a new world order, but it has to be something that doesn't establish a new empire against Russia's interest. Perhaps.

And several Caribean countries have expressed interest at joining Canada. I lived in Miami, Florida, for 10 months. I loved the weather, but would like to remain in Canada. In the 1970s, Grenada talked about joining. Canada said no, because the Canadian government at the time was worried that other countries would see Canada as expansionist. Didn't want that. As a result Grenada separated from Britian, because an independent country, the former governor became president, then became as corrupt as many citizens of Grenada feared he would. It took years for them to get rid of him. When they did, the new guy was just as bad. So they eventually held an armed revolution. They brought guns on a cruise ship from Cuba. Ronald Regan didn't like that, so invaded in 1983. The US Senate at the time forbade that, but President Regan sent in troops anyway. It was all over before the Senate could stop him. Regan asked Canada to participate, but if Canada had let them join us then none of that would have happened. We were not going to invade a country that we rejected. If we wanted a say in how they run their country, we would have let them join us. So Canada sent the RCMP (Canadian federal police) to clean up the mess after US troops left. Recently Turks and Caicos wanted to join, but Canada equivocated. Eventually they returned to being a colony of Britain. In 1949 Bermuda expressed interest in joining Canada. In 1884 and 1952, Barbados. In the late 1800s, Jamaica. In 1952, West Indies, now know as Belize. I keep thinking America has Hawaii, so why can't Canada have a Caribbean island? Next time some Caribbean country wants to join, I would like to say yes. Just please don't let it be Haiti. Their economy is shot.

Is that too chest thumpy?

SpaceNut · 2016-02-17 20:12:50

Terraformer you should know not to veer into politics in a none political conversation but RobertDyck less following but to continue the topic.

I posted over in the senate launch system that if a funding was to be kept in underfunding mode that not only would it have an impact on EM-1 demostrator to the moon and back but for further delaying design of EM-2 for human use of which EM-1 has no life support systems within it.

Nasa needs to get off the pot and get its contractors moving or do not issue out any further work to them.....

kbd512 · 2016-02-17 22:33:46

We can do human exploration of Mars with current funding levels for NASA. There's no requirement for more funding. There is a requirement to decide what the funding priorities are.

NASA can:

1. Develop a new super heavy lift launch vehicle (SLS)

2. Develop a new super heavy spacecraft (Orion)

3. Develop a high power Solar Electric Propulsion engine for a Cargo Transfer Vehicles (SEP-CTV)

4. Develop a Mars Transfer Vehicle (MTV)

5. Develop closed-loop life support (CL-ECLSS)

6. Develop planetary In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) capabilities

7. Develop a Mechanical Counter-Pressure (MCP) space suit for use on planetary bodies with significant gravity

NASA can't do all of those things at the same time given current levels of funding. There are two enormously expensive development programs running in parallel right now, namely SLS and Orion. Neither is required to send humans to Mars and the combination of the two is, in point of fact, consuming all available funding for all the other development programs that are actually required to send humans to Mars. A super heavy lift rocket and a super heavy capsule is an extravagance that's simply not required for that purpose.

If the SLS and Orion programs are more important than sending humans to Mars, or whatever other destination NASA or a political administration desires to go to, then there will be no funding for sending humans to Mars or anywhere else but LEO. It really is that simple.

RobertDyck · 2016-02-18 01:09:06

SpaceNut wrote:

Nasa needs to get off the pot and get its contractors moving or do not issue out any further work to them.....

I agree. Please do. I've said before, but I'll say it again. Exploration Mission 1 (EM1) is currently scheduled for November 2018, but I want to see it happen in November of this year. Yes, I said this year. That's unmanned, Orion launched on SLS block 1 to lunar orbit, and return to Earth and splash down safely. And EM2 is scheduled for some time 2021-2023, but I want to see it happen in November of 2018. Yup, I want EM2 to happen on the date currently scheduled for EM1. EM2 is with crew, Orion launched on SLS block 1B to lunar orbit, and return safely to Earth.

kbd512 wrote:

3. Develop a high power Solar Electric Propulsion engine for a Cargo Transfer Vehicles (SEP-CTV)

There you go again. Robert Zubrin demonstrated we don't need any advanced propulsion. In fact, he gave a number of speeches in which he pointed out there is no free return trajectory for electric propulsion. Impulsive propulsion is anything that gives a short burst of high thrust, such as chemical rocket or nuclear thermal rocket. With impulsive propulsion, a free return trajectory gives you 6 month transit. So SEP is for cargo only, not crew. We can use SLS block 2B, and the only TMI stage necessary is the Exploration Upper Stage.

Congress provided funding for NASA to develop SLS, Orion, and a deep space habitat. All at once, in the current budget. Of course the problem is the deep space habitat will not use artificial gravity, so is highly questionable for any deep space mission. It isn't a Mars Transit Vehicle.

I doubt Congress will cancel Orion. They are too politically vested in it. We could do the job with Dragon or CST-100, Dragon would need to replace its trunk with an actual service module with enough propellant for TEI, CST-100 would need a larger service module for the same purpose. So we don't need Orion. But ain't gonna happ'n. Let's focus on what we can actually accomplish.

kbd512 · 2016-02-18 05:29:58

RobertDyck wrote:

There you go again. Robert Zubrin demonstrated we don't need any advanced propulsion. In fact, he gave a number of speeches in which he pointed out there is no free return trajectory for electric propulsion. Impulsive propulsion is anything that gives a short burst of high thrust, such as chemical rocket or nuclear thermal rocket. With impulsive propulsion, a free return trajectory gives you 6 month transit. So SEP is for cargo only, not crew. We can use SLS block 2B, and the only TMI stage necessary is the Exploration Upper Stage.

You really do keep after this idea of using SEP for sending humans to Mars. It's something I've never proposed and it's rather tiring to keep responding with what I actually proposed. We're getting SEP-CTV's whether required or not, so we might as well use that capability to deliver heavier payloads for less cost.

* I have proposed sending surface habitats, ground vehicles, and chemical kick stages to L1 and Mars using SEP-CTV's. That's all cargo and no humans are strapped to any of that cargo.

* I have proposed sending a DSH/MTV and chemical kick stage to L1 using a SEP-CTV, again with no humans aboard.

* I have proposed sending a Dragon aboard a Falcon Heavy to dock with the DSH/MTV for crew transfer after the DSH/MTV has been mated to a TMI kick stage at L1.

* I have proposed spiraling in to LMO on the outbound trip and spiraling in to L1 on the inbound trip. You lose 60 days on the surface. Is there some aspect of a 500 day surface stay that's remarkably different from a 440 day surface stay? Nice round number? What's the objection? That free return nonsense is still just nonsense to me. Name an emergency or mission abort scenario that an extra six months of space flight to return to Earth will resolve.

* I have proposed sending another Dragon aboard another Falcon Heavy to dock with the DSH/MTV for crew transfer and return to Earth.

* I have proposed using a SEP-CTV to return the DSH/MTV to ISS for refurbishment.

The payload masses / dimensions stay within the lift capability (well within, for most payloads) / payload fairing volume of Falcon Heavy, Atlas V, or Vulcan commodity rockets and I have run numbers (NASA's numbers, not numbers I made up in my head) to determine that that is the case. None of that requires super heavy lift rockets or super heavy spacecraft. Starting a Mars mission in LEO induces a severe dV penalty that only super heavy lift rockets can make up for. Since NASA can't afford to launch enough of those super heavy lift rockets to deliver the tonnage required, the options are not executing the mission or using more efficient propulsion technology.

Unfortunately, even America can't afford to deliver the tonnage required using super heavy lift rockets. The development program costs too much and the rockets cost too much. Not that it will make any difference to someone fixated on running a Mars exploration mission the same way the lunar exploration missions were run, but solar electric propulsion really does work and it really can deliver a lot more tonnage for a lot less cost.

RobertDyck wrote:

Congress provided funding for NASA to develop SLS, Orion, and a deep space habitat. All at once, in the current budget. Of course the problem is the deep space habitat will not use artificial gravity, so is highly questionable for any deep space mission. It isn't a Mars Transit Vehicle.

The DSH can be a MTV if you strap a chemical propellant kick stage to it. Whether you sling it around in circles to generate AG is entirely a function of how difficult it is to de-spin and how much the tether weighs. I think it should be tested, at the very least.

RobertDyck wrote:

I doubt Congress will cancel Orion. They are too politically vested in it. We could do the job with Dragon or CST-100, Dragon would need to replace its trunk with an actual service module with enough propellant for TEI, CST-100 would need a larger service module for the same purpose. So we don't need Orion. But ain't gonna happ'n. Let's focus on what we can actually accomplish.

Congress needs to cancel SLS and Orion if it actually wants to have a human space exploration program.

RobertDyck · 2016-02-18 08:37:08

If Congress cancels both SLS and Orion, they won't be replaced with anything. Not SEP, not anything else. Just cancelled. Period. No humans to Mars, no humans to the Moon, no humans anywhere.

SEP is not needed. Anywhere. We can go to Mars with existing technology, we don't need SEP. Your idea of sending many small payloads to Mars is not a good idea.

Let's step back and take the larger view. Every major space project that has been started, has been cancelled by the next president. JFK started Apollo. LBJ was his vice president so he completed what JFK started. Nixon cancelled Apollo and slashed NASA's budget. Nixon was not only the other political party, he was the first president who wasn't part of JFK's team. In 1968 NASA had started a project to build a space shuttle with lifting body orbiter, piloted fly-back booster, fully reusable TSTO, able to fly 50 times per year. Nixon cancelled that too, all we got as a partially reusable Shuttle that could only fly at most 6 times per year. Clinton/Gore started a project to build a new shuttle to replace it, VentureStar. George W. cancelled it. There were cost overruns and problems with the primary contractor refusing to comply with the terms of the contract, but bottom line is Shuttle was cancelled and so was its replacement. George W. started Constellation, Obama cancelled it. Congress revived SLS/Orion, but if they're cancelled, they won't be replaced with anything. There have been calls to decommission/de-orbit ISS. The same members of Congress who defend SLS/Orion are defending ISS. If ISS is cancelled, it won't be replaced by anything.

Right now commercial space is just starting. There are companies flying cargo to resupply ISS. If ISS is cancelled, there won't be anything that commercial space can do. They certainly can't jump straight to the Moon or Mars from nothing. The aircraft industry didn't jump straight from the Wright Flyer to the 707. There were many steps in between. Right now commercial space is growing, is starting, is supplying ISS. The next step is for commercial space to fly crew to ISS.

kbd512 · 2016-02-18 18:53:35

RobertDyck wrote:

If Congress cancels both SLS and Orion, they won't be replaced with anything. Not SEP, not anything else. Just cancelled. Period. No humans to Mars, no humans to the Moon, no humans anywhere.

SLS and Orion don't need to be replaced with anything. Neither are required for human exploration of Mars, at all, ever. NASA an Congress' attempt to relive the Apollo Program, as if somehow that was in any way required for beyond LEO space exploration, is more proof they're both still stuck in the past.

RobertDyck wrote:

SEP is not needed. Anywhere. We can go to Mars with existing technology, we don't need SEP. Your idea of sending many small payloads to Mars is not a good idea.

So we have another highly efficient propulsion technology ready to take its place? You can do a flags and footprints mission to Mars without SEP and that's it. We can't afford the rocket, the good-for-nothing spacecraft, and all the other technology development programs required to do anything other type of mission to Mars with humans. The rockets cost too damn much. NASA's not getting more funding.

NASA has screwed around for more than three decades with new launch vehicle technology. There's nothing to show for it. SLS is merely another incarnation of NLS / ALS / Ares for another political administration to cancel. We've been here before. We know how it ends. Just accept that Saturn V was the end of the developmental line for mega rockets and move on. We couldn't afford them then and we can't afford them now. That aspect of mega rockets hasn't changed. The Russians learned that lesson and moved on. We should, too.

My idea of sending "small" payloads to Mars depends on your definition of small. No version of SLS with any variant of any non-existent upper stage will deliver a heavier payload to Mars than two Falcon Heavy rockets would deliver for a fraction of the cost using SEP-CTV's.

RobertDyck wrote:

Let's step back and take the larger view. Every major space project that has been started, has been cancelled by the next president. JFK started Apollo. LBJ was his vice president so he completed what JFK started. Nixon cancelled Apollo and slashed NASA's budget. Nixon was not only the other political party, he was the first president who wasn't part of JFK's team. In 1968 NASA had started a project to build a space shuttle with lifting body orbiter, piloted fly-back booster, fully reusable TSTO, able to fly 50 times per year. Nixon cancelled that too, all we got as a partially reusable Shuttle that could only fly at most 6 times per year. Clinton/Gore started a project to build a new shuttle to replace it, VentureStar. George W. cancelled it. There were cost overruns and problems with the primary contractor refusing to comply with the terms of the contract, but bottom line is Shuttle was cancelled and so was its replacement. George W. started Constellation, Obama cancelled it. Congress revived SLS/Orion, but if they're cancelled, they won't be replaced with anything. There have been calls to decommission/de-orbit ISS. The same members of Congress who defend SLS/Orion are defending ISS. If ISS is cancelled, it won't be replaced by anything.

Then let's realize that SLS and Orion will be terminated for lack of progress and exorbitant cost. In point of fact, President Obama tried to kill SLS because there's simply no available funding left for all the other technology development actually required for the manned space exploration. Possession of a giant, unaffordable rocket and nothing else is not an indicator of a successful space exploration program.

RobertDyck wrote:

Right now commercial space is just starting. There are companies flying cargo to resupply ISS. If ISS is cancelled, there won't be anything that commercial space can do. They certainly can't jump straight to the Moon or Mars from nothing. The aircraft industry didn't jump straight from the Wright Flyer to the 707. There were many steps in between. Right now commercial space is growing, is starting, is supplying ISS. The next step is for commercial space to fly crew to ISS.

Let's nurture that fledgling industry with contracts for launch services and space craft that they can provide at reasonable cost. The Wright Flyer / 707 analogy is hardly an accurate comparison to make with respect to the commercial space industry. SpaceX has launched multiple spacecraft to ISS, brought them back to Earth in one piece, and has managed to bring the first stage of a rocket back in one piece, which is something that neither NASA nor their favorite contractors have never done. Your argument is hyperbole.

SpaceX and ULA can provide launch services. They're competent and capable.

SpaceNut · 2016-02-18 18:59:10

Well here are the estimated budgets for 2016 and more to follow...
FY 2016 PRESIDENT’S BUDGET REQUEST SUMMARY with page 5 giving the Exploration Systems Development lines in the budget.

page 10 Table 1: NASA’s FY2017 Budget Request and Congressional Action (in $ millions, see notes below) with page3 containing Table 3: House NASA Authorization Act for 2016 and 2017 (H.R. 2039)

This one relates
National Science Foundation Summary Table FY 2016 Request to Congress

SpaceNut · 2016-02-24 21:17:26

Hearing: The Space Leadership Preservation Act and the Need for Stability at NASA
Category: Aeronautics and Astronautics
Event Format: Hearing
Date: Thursday, February 25, 2016
Location: 2318 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, US
10:00 a.m.
Full Committee Hearing

H.R. 2093, Space Leadership Preservation Act of 2015 bill pdf file

Hearing Charter

SpaceNut · 2016-02-25 20:10:41

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/ … no-budget/

To bring stability, Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), has proposed legislation (HR 2093) that he says would make NASA more professional and less political. The bill would appoint a NASA administrator for 10 years instead of having him or her serving at the behest of the president. It would also reduce the influence of the White House Office of Management and Budget on space policy by having NASA’s board of directors submit a budget request directly to Congress.
During the hearing on Thursday, Culberson noted that NASA has spent $20 billion on canceled spaceflight programs and that this has proved very damaging to morale at Johnson Space Center in Houston as well as other field centers. “We need to ensure that we take the politics out of science and provide NASA with clear direction and guidance that outlasts the political whims of any one presidential administration—and the political whims of Congress,” Culberson said

Congress wants to make it harder for the president to change NASA's long-term plans
A bill could give Congress more direct power over NASA

GW Johnson · 2016-02-26 09:29:27

Congress assuming micromanagerial power over NASA has been going on for a long time. It is precisely why the shuttle evolved from a two-stage airplane to a boosted aircraft semi-reusable kluge that killed two crews. The more control over NASA that Congress takes, the less NASA will get done. Congress will kill the ISS and the planetary probe programs, just to take the money so they can play politics with it. Those are the last two program areas NASA has that have done anything useful at all.

GW

kbd512 · 2016-02-26 20:53:21

GW Johnson wrote:

Congress assuming micromanagerial power over NASA has been going on for a long time. It is precisely why the shuttle evolved from a two-stage airplane to a boosted aircraft semi-reusable kluge that killed two crews. The more control over NASA that Congress takes, the less NASA will get done. Congress will kill the ISS and the planetary probe programs, just to take the money so they can play politics with it. Those are the last two program areas NASA has that have done anything useful at all.
GW

GW,

The two orbiters lost during the STS program were the results of ignoring the good advice of their contractors (Challenger) and refusing to inspect vehicles struck by debris (Columbia). That cultural problem had nothing at all to do with Congress. I'm no great fan of our legislators, but give credit where credit is due.

The STS program would have had a perfect safety record, with respect to Class A mishaps, if NASA had exercised due diligence. When two billion dollars of flight hardware and seven lives are at stake, test all assumptions and perform all required inspections.

GW Johnson · 2016-02-27 10:53:35

kbd512:

What you say is true. I would add to it that the side-mounted orbiter centered with solid boosters on a fuel tank is the result of Congress putting limits on any year's budget during the 70's when this bird was designed. The bird shrank around a payload bay mandated by USAF, until the orbiter ended up with a side-mounted tank, yet engines still in the orbiter. If you come loose from the tank before the engines shut down, as Challenger did, the off-cg thrust line pitches you violent up, broadside to the air, which immediately breaks you up. No airframe can fly sideways at high speed. In the original two-stage airplane concept, that accident cannot happen. The budget constraints forced them into this.

I quite agree with you that NASA management culture caused both accidents. NASA did not then (and still does not today) know anything about solid motor design. If they did, they'd built those motors themselves. But like some other government agencies, there is an unjustified technical arrogance at NASA. It was NASA who insisted on a two-O-ring joint in the original SRB, which provided the failure mode for Challenger's proximate cause, when combined with NASA flying cold when Thiokol told them not to.

They compounded this by insisting on 3 O-rings in the revised SRB design. No reputable motor manufacturer would ever propose more than one O-ring. Solid motor gas is dirty, unlike anything NASA has ever had any experience with. If you pressure leak check the whole motor, with only one O-ring in the joints, it automatically drives the O-ring to correct side of the O-ring groove, avoiding the shock of driving it there upon the sudden transient of motor ignition. If the O-ring doesn't leak at 2-20 psi, it won't leak at 2000 psi, assuming you did your design correctly. That get's checked on your first ground tests, long before production begins. And you just completely eliminated the Challenger mode of failure.

Do it NASA's way with 2 or 3 O-rings, and pressure leak check between O-rings the way they did, and you will drive the upstream O-ring to the wrong side of the O-ring groove every single time, thus setting up the Challenger failure mode with every single launch. Launch cold, and the O-ring will snap when it gets violently pushed to the other side of the groove on ignition.

Now compound the error by putting putty or non-cured RTV in all the insulation joints, obstructing the gas pressurization path to the O-ring down in the case joint. NASA insisted on this, despite the fact that a static gas column is the best of all possible insulators. What happens is the gas wormholes its way through the soft putty at one single point, thus concentrating all the force moving the O-ring at one single point when it first gets through. No wonder that a cold O-ring snaps!

No reputable solid motor maker would EVER propose obstructing in any way the gas pressurization path to an O-ring seal. It was NASA's technical arrogance (spelled ignorance) that insisted on such bad design. We saw it with USN on the Tartar-Terrier gas generator devices: holding too tight a fit tolerance on the cap to cylinder joint obstructed the pressurization path the O-ring seal. Loosening that tolerance significantly ended forever the high-probability explosions of these units in testing. It was USN who had set that tolerance too tight, thinking in their ignorance that they were doing a good thing.

NASA's bad decision-making was bad enough; what Congress does is far worse still.

GW

RobertDyck · 2016-02-27 12:37:43

GW Johnson: You obviously know more about SRB engineering than I do. However, as I recall announcements from NASA at the time, what happened was a little different. It wasn't just budget. NASA said putting solids on a Shuttle was not safe; for one thing they can't be shut down in case of problems. And nothing but a rubber O-ring beside a liquid hydrogen tank was not safe. NASA knew this, but a senator from Utah was on the appropriations committee. He said he has a company in his state that makes segmented solid rocket motors for Titan III missiles, where are you going to put the segmented solid rocket motors on your new Shuttle? When NASA objected, he said no SRBs, no Shuttle. He wouldn't authorize one single penny for Shuttle if there were no SRBs. So this went beyond budget constraints. And NASA knew the Challenger accident would happen before Shuttle was even designed.

GW Johnson · 2016-02-28 11:24:51

The Utah senator is just one small example of mismanagement and micromanagement from Congress. Which has been going on, and drastically increasing, since about 1970.

I also remember NASA trying to cover up how Challenger was really destroyed during the Rogers Commission hearings. Management CYA stuff, pure and simple, and quite egregious. It was Richard Feynman who blew that cover-up wide open with his stunt on TV with the piece of O-ring soaked in his glass of ice water.

All the structural analyses they had presented assumed even pressurization all around the O-ring. But the real situation was pressurizing jets wormholing through the insulation-joint pooky at a single concentrated point. And concentrating the force at a single point is what snaps a cold-stiffened O-ring. Feynman did that with his fingers at 45 F, the typical water temperature in a glass of ice water sitting on a table. Wasn't even as cold as Challenger's 29 F O-rings.

Even when not cold, there is still the jet-at-one-point problem. As I said, the gas in a solid is very dirty. There's lots of solid carbon soot, and lots of semi-solid aluminum oxide "sand". All this is created at chamber temperatures (around 5500 F or so). It gets carried along in the very-rapidly expanding jet of gas rushing toward that O-ring, but unlike the gas, being incompressible, it does not cool off. You hit that rubber O-ring with a 5000 F supersonic sand blast stream and OF COURSE you cut a circular-segment bite out of it.

NASA saw this routinely upon disassembling SRB joints. It's the hard evidence of just how bad that NASA-mandated joint design really was. With a single O-ring and a wide-open. unobstructed insulation joint, they would never, ever have seen this effect, not even once. Abu Ali Taha at Thiokol tried to point this out at the time. NASA with the aid of top Thiokol management made sure he never worked as an aerospace engineer again. CYA behavior can be extremely vicious.

As for safe solids, there is no technical reason one cannot make a really safe and reliable solid motor. But it's also easy to screw that up and make it unsafe, especially out of ignorance, which was the point of my tale about the shuttle SRB joints.

As for "knowing the Challenger accident would happen", how many JATO bottles blew up and downed the overweight aircraft they were launching? How many ZLL boosters blew up and downed the F-100 Super Sabres they flung into the air without a takeoff roll? How many Bomarc-B's flew without a booster explosion? See what I mean about designing a safe solid? It can be done, but not by amateurs.

But as you say, once lit, they cannot be shut off. That's the price you must knowingly pay for the convenience and extreme frontal thrust density of the solid. Shutdown capability takes a liquid, or a properly-designed hybrid. The trouble with hybrids is a tendency by companies to achieve burn rate by adding oxidizer to the solid fuel, which destroys any capability to actually shut off the motor.

The really serious risk with shuttle was actually the windscreen on re-entry, even more than lost tiles. As a grad student back in 1972-1973, I tested shuttle nose sections in a Mach 5 wind tunnel. It really didn't matter which shape we used, there was a very narrow range of attitude angles in which the entry heating would not fail the windscreen.

20<AOA<40 degrees was "safe". Lower, and you get a direct slipstream blast right into the windscreen. Higher, and the combination of side vortex effects plus the Coanda effect put a slipstream-speed jet right over the nose, again, into the windscreen. We didn't test yaw, but the effect is similar.

That's what happened to Columbia: as her wing came off and she tumbled, the windscreen caved in, in a second or two, followed by loss of the flight deck roof, and wind blast tearing the 4 flight deck occupants out from under their belts in pieces. This happened over the TX-NM border at Mach 12 about 30 miles up. The cooked (but not burned) body parts came down between Dallas and Tyler, TX.

The 3 mid-deckers survived until the cabin crushed under airloads at about Mach 1, at about 20,000 feet, near Tyler. I had originally thought they died on impact, but a contact in NASA told be about the max-q crush.

BTW, speaking of the Coanda Effect, did you know that it was Henri Coanda himself, who accidentally (!!!) flew the world's first jet aircraft in 1910 (!!!) but crashed? Fragile little biplane powered by an afterburning ducted fan. The remaining example is still in a museum outside Paris.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2016-02-28 11:50:04)

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