NASA 2007 Budget

John Creighton · 2006-03-10 18:43:28

This seems like a change from the planatry societies earlier postion:

http://www.planetary.org/action/opinion … _1005.html

Commodore · 2006-03-10 18:58:22

Well, its really just a painfull transition period. Were going (trying) from a noneffective and unsustainable manned flight program to an affordable, flexable, and outword looking one. I'm sure that people would rather go to places themselves than send a probe.

But the engineering on a manned program is a lot more complicated and takes longer to net returns. When it does of course the returns are so much greater.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-03-10 19:51:00

earlier postion:

many other people have also changed their Shuttle stance.

If you want to ignore all the cost over-runs, ignore the near miss, forget poor management - then the Space Shuttle has been fantastic, it gave us the Hubble, launched payloads into space, lifted people up into LEO, launched probes to Jupiter and helped repair satellites.

They only had 2 probelms.

1 an O-ring problem that caused the Challenger disaster, 73 seconds into the flight Shuttle exploded in a fireball

2 Wing damage or damage to critical thermal protection tiles which caused Columbia disintegration during re-entry over Texas.

AfterColumbia Bush announced the VSE, get Shuttle back on track, do a trip to the Moon, land sample returns on Mars, finish the ISS, do JIMO, and land a manned mission to Mars.....and so forth.
Many people still believed Shuttle had only two problems,
in fact I had seen reports and been reading on this website discussions of how many time Shuttle would launch aagin, some said 21 times, others said it could fly 30 trips to the ISS and finish the station, some remarked Shuttle repair the Hubble and would lift-off another 25 times.

The Shuttle did make a little return during a 2005 test-flight as Discovery did a run to the ISS led by Eileen Collins, however the foam or debris problem had not been solved. Then when asked about the debris astronaut Andrew Thomas said "it's probably a bit dramatic to say that we dodged a bullet, although there's clearly some power in that metaphor " Astronaut Thomas might be right to say they dodge bullets because reports stated '16 pieces of foam' flew off the Discovery, it now seems clear that Shuttle may be scrapped just liek the Russians dumped their own Buran-Shuttle.

Rxke · 2006-03-11 02:40:47

They only had 2 probelms..

Quite the optimist, aren't we Calling these multi-billion loses of hardware and life 'problems'?

A problem is, IMHO, things like the extremely inefficient way they have to manually recheck all tiles and glue them back, etc... painstakingly, expensive, time-wasting...; stuff like the "reusability" of the boosters, that more often than not come down is a state of damage that makes it quite frankly uneconomical to refurbish; the way the orbiter was designed, making it neccesary to disassemble lots of parts, just to get to one part (bit like a laptop, heh) etc. etc.

That said, I loved the Shuttles, initially, but it was crazy to keep using them that long, they were clearly a flawed 1st generation design, more like engineering-test-vehicules. The last two built were a little bit better, having learned lessons from the first ones, but not by much, only marginally so (to be expected, given money-constraints, existing manuf. lines etc... These were no Shuttle Version2.0, more like V1.0.1...)

Rxke · 2006-03-11 02:45:33

Oh, another little 'problem':

I have lots of newspaper-clippings, from the 80's and all of them matter-of-factlly stating how shuttle will slash launchcosts tenfold.
All of them, as it was a fact.
Those claims kept being repeated even after the second or third launch.
People believed that nonsense, even the 'specialist'-science-reporters.

Now that's what I call a problem with those shuttles...

cIclops · 2006-03-11 07:24:34

What is amazing is not that there are problems developing extreme technology for the first time, or that it is late and over budget .... what is amazing is that any of it works at all! If you've ever tried to do even a simple project at home where you have full control, just see how many unexpected problems occur, how easy it is to under estimate the time it takes.

It's soooo easy to find fault and pick holes in anything, the more complex the project the more problems you can find. Projects like STS and ISS involve the management of tens of thousands of people all over the world, they are incredible engineering accomplishments!

Be critical sure, but be positive. If you know how to do it better then say. Stop all this bloody whining and complaining, it's boring and wastes time.

GCNRevenger · 2006-03-11 08:56:28

Yang Lewi said: "The ISS is a total mess and costs have over run,
however some good science might come out of it yet. Studies in material science, Microgravity experiments, investagation of long duration space flight, building a fully functional space station that we can use as a test bed for human Mars missions, there are plans for Multipurpose Labs and the Japanese Kibo module, the next astronaut/cosmonaut fom Brazil may be doing experiments in nano-tech."

That tired lie has been fed to us literally for decades, it would be so much easier and cheaper to force scientists to design their experiments to be totally automatic and launch them on an unmanned recoverable spacecraft, like the X-37 SMV on a low-ish cost rocket (Delta-II, Falcon-V). Then, you would only have as much science as you need, rather then building this huge station that will never, ever live up to its cost (especially in blood)... Or, if anything, scrap the wreched ISS and build a new space station from scratch: a single piece, an honestly really single piece station, launched by SDV and tended - not continuously - manned by CEV and Soyuz from South America. Gut the European and Japanese labs and put their bits in it instead.

It is, bluntly, high time that NASA accepts even the currently revised scaled-down Shuttle and ISS programs are a mortal threat to the continued survival of the agency and America's future in space. Shuttle doesn't have "just two things" wrong with it, Shuttle has failed in every respect of its originaly advertised abilities, it does nothing worthwhile that can't be far better done by specialized vehicles. The fact that Shuttle and ISS employ over ten thousand engineers isn't something to marvel at, its something to be horrified by. It takes about twenty people to launch Russia's Soyuz-II rocket.

I strongly disagree with one statement from the Planetary Society however, this business about international cooperation being vital; it is quite frankly not. International cooperation has provided little in the way of real bennefit. If not for "international cooperation," we probobly could have done away with Shuttle and the space station when it became clear that it could not possibly live up to expectations without the political fallout of "offending" our "partners" (even though we are contributing >90% of the total cost).

For all the money poured into the duo of debacles, we could be on our way to Mars!

No! Its not time to be positive, because this is insane! NASA is being forced to walk a tightrope for nothing, and Shuttle return-to-flight costs continue to spiral out of control!

Martian Republic · 2006-03-11 11:28:35

Before we decide what NASA Budget should be. We should decide what we want to accomplish in space and then budget it accordingly. We may get some science done and develop some new technologies with what we are doing right now, but generally we are marching in place and not getting anywhere or doing anything major in space. The shuttle is a great technological feat to build, but is a general in what we want to use it for and cost of operating it. The ISS wasn't very good plan either in the way it was laid out and what we supposedly wanted to accomplish. It wasn't realistic nor did that state what they were trying to accomplish. Even an attempt to redeem the ISS will cost tens of billions of dollar of what we have up there right now. Even sending one or two Bigelow habitat and an ion engine to ISS will only make the ISS a science lab, which is the best we can for, for using the ISS.

I even have reservation about the CEV and it taking over the Shuttle operation. Although the CEV is much cheaper than the Shuttle and could probably service the ISS once it completed and the CEV can have second roll of a manned exploration of the moon and possibly an expanded version for exploring Mars, it roll is very restricted as an exploration vehicle even is you send Bigelow habitat with it. Whether or not we could do this within the current budget is debatable, but it will still be just an exploration mission and nothing else and nor could it be anything else either and nor could it evolve into anything else. It will basically be an expanded Shuttle and ISS program. New it may be exciting that we landed on the moon again and we land on Mars for the first time, but that far as we can expect to go with the CEV program and will be over ten to twenty or possibly thirty year period.

With current technologies and current financing, we are pretty much with these two choices if we stay within these boundaries and it will never manifest itself into colonization program. Like not ever, because of it being technological, financial, Infrastructureally and cost deficiency.

If we want something better than that, then we will need to re-evaluate the entire NASA program and what programs that we have that will accomplish our new goals and the technologies that have to develop to get there from here. It will cost more than just sending explorers to the moon or mars for short stay, because you will have develop the technology, build the infrastructure finance the whole thing at a much higher level of spending or financing. Otherwise, we just running around in circle and getting dizzy and not getting anything done. The Kennedy Moon Mission is an example of mission oriented goal which we should have followed through on to colonization and then on to Mars.

Otherwise, why fund NASA at all?

Larry,

GCNRevenger · 2006-03-11 14:58:02

"It will basically be an expanded Shuttle and ISS program."

I don't think so, otherwise why would Griffin be so bent on making the mission so large? Double the men for double the time on the surface with at least double the payload is to get stuff done. Or, for Mars, the vehicles are concieved with room for six and the landers with enough payload to move some real hardware. If all we wanted to do was a flags and footprints arrangement, then this would be the wrong way to go about it.

What will happen is that we will land on the Moon to perform prospecting and technology testing for base and perhaps mining equipment. Then, if private industry wants to get into the mining business, the earlier NASA moon landings will radically reduce the risk and cost, because the technology will already be developed and sites scouted.

Mars is a little further off, but if we are going to study the red planet in any great detail, we will probobly need a Martian base. Such a base could be built from prepackaged componets and carried to Mars on the same landers, since we have rockets big enough to lift them. It will become like an antarctic research station, but from which private colonists could land at and build from.

GCNRevenger · 2006-03-11 16:55:44

More thoughts:

Remember, NASA is not in the business of colonization nor commercial enterprise, that has to be done privately or under some government ageis besides space exploration or space science. NASA, unless its told different, should not get into any of these businesses; however, it could and should spend its reasources to reduce the technical risk of either endeavour, so that when the time comes that we need Lunar PGMs or colonization starts to get politically and/or fiscally organized, then the way will be open and the cost minimized.

Commodore · 2006-03-11 19:56:00

The real question is how far should the NASA program go, and when commercial interests takes over. No NASA program will ever answer all the questions we are going to have on a particular body. That would take decades.

I think we need to decide before we start exactly were we stop. Failure to do so could result in the situation we are in now: spending far too much money to accomplish nothing in particular. As much as loath the term, we need an exit strategy, so that we can move on to other places. That list of worthy targets seems to be growing by the day.

I think that level should be something I call global surface access. Basically, to build up the surface and orbital installations to the point were we only have to land people at one or two central locations, and from there can get to any location via surface transportation. On the Moon, these locations would of course be the poles, at the most likely locations for rocket fuel to send people home. From there we'd have to decide the best range we can get out of a pressurized rover, and place additional locations accordingly at particualarly useful sites. These secondary sites don't have to terribly complex, just the equipment needed to top off volitiles and power reserves.

GCNRevenger · 2006-03-11 20:55:14

The surfaces comprise regions that I am sure are not very interesting, and it would still take some convincing to get any private company to figure out how to mine PGMs on the Moon on their own.

What NASA ought to do is to set up at least one (probobly only one given their cost) manned base on the Moon and Mars, to study both bodies more efficiently then intermitant visits, to set up fuel production facilities, and to design & test equipment for possible future mining and colonization (respectively). Perhaps also to provide workshop/staging space for others to come and start mining/colonization.

I disagree that we "won't get anything done," we have alot to learn about both worlds and the current NASA plans will deliver on the science beyond anything yet done on either world put together. However, there is a point of diminishing returns, and I doubt that long term studies of "every" point on either world would be worthwhile. This suggests to me that we ought not to have too many bases of any sort.

Martian Republic · 2006-03-11 22:05:32

That just it GCNRevenger, the CEV might be twice as big as Apollo, but it still not going to be big enough to even put together a large colonization colony even on the moon. Even if we launch four CEV a year we would still only have sixteen people on the moon. As you have knotted with other poster on this board, that going to be very expensive to do even that. Using the CEV is going to be like sending row boats to Antarctica every two and a half years to build and maintain it. You might b be able to do it, but not very well and it would be very expensive to do it too. Any idea that private enterprise is going to step in and save the day after NASA get there, that will not happen either, because it will be too expensive for them too. When everything is said and done, the only thing the CEV is good for is to get the American people and maybe do some exploration in process while we spend several tens of billions of dollars doing it. We may develop some new technologies in the process, but we are primarily taking technologies off the shelf from both the Apollo and shuttle program and matting them together to build the CEV. If that all we do or have plans to do, then all we will have is ISS Lunar style and we will still be discussing the failure of NASA.

Just remember that both the shuttle and ISS were programs looking for a mission instead of having a mission and then build the hardware that you have to have to accomplish that mission. We are falling back into that same logic when it comes to building the CEV that we had with building the Shuttle and the ISS. We are going to build the CEV and then find a mission for it. If all we want to do is explore thing and not do a whole lot of anything else and/or a small base, then the CEV is bird you want to buy. I have no argument with that.

But, if we decide our mission is a colonization mission, then the CEV will be too limited for our intended purposes. That just it, without giving NASA or some group of counties the power or the authority to setup a permanent base on the moon of sufficient size, then there no reason to develop the technology of future rocket past the CEV system. Why should you waste your money building some your not going to use or have a use for? It going to cost us tens of billions of dollars to develop those technologies. So why would we that if we only intend to explore the moon and not colonize it? The same goes for Mars too.

I would change NASA charter and give them the authority to build colony on the Moon and develop the technology that they need to get the job done too. To accomplish what our national would be then, the CEV would be way too limited in it capacity to do the job that we want done. So why would we spend billions of dollars developing something we need to design something else so we can accomplish stated goal. Now admittedly it might only cost us 5 to 10 billion dollars to design and build a CEV vs 30 billion dollars to build our more advance space so we can accomplish our stated goal. Off of that frame work, the private sector would jump into the battle with what ever improvement or where it would be logical to have them running the operation. But, it would have to be off NASA directed plan and direction.

Larry,

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-03-11 23:13:39

That just it GCNRevenger, the CEV might be twice as big as Apollo, but it still not going to be big enough to even put together a large colonization colony even on the moon.

Very true, the mission isn't about setting up a lunar settlement its about marking the flag planting anniversary of Armstrong and Aldrin. The advantages of a livable Lunar site is that it may take a lot less launches than Mars, a heap of nations have gone to the Moon with robots, communication delay to Earth is almost none, the USA has landed people there, and emergency supplies can quickly reach a Moon colony from Earth. A real Moon base camp and permanent human habitation will require a lot more than Apollo or 'Apollo-on-steroid'. First before we make a base a lunar site must be chosen, robotic craft like ESA's Smart-1 are scanning the chemical make-up of the Moon, and NASA's robotic LRO is due to take off in 2008. The CaLVs or AresHeavy or Magnums will be a start but it won't be enough - setting up the first Moon-base might require a lander and astronauts on the Moon plus a heap of equipment, oxygen, diggers, fuel, Moon-buggy, water, food, dumpers, lunar vehicles.....
CaLV or Ares Heavy isn't a magic wand, its power is comparable to Energia or Saturn-V, it could also be compared to designs like Angara100, the failed N1, ChangZheng-5, Ariane-6 ( Ariane-M ?)

The most any of the original Apollo missions stayed on the Moon were only a few hours or days at max, even with a mission like 'Apollo on steroids' astronauts won't be able to stay on the Moon for long ( perhaps only 2 weeks to pick up the rocks and plant the flags after that they may begin running out of important things like air, electricity, fuel and food ).

Even the smallest of lunar bases will need

4 Ares Magnums or 4 CaLV's
http://www.safesimplesoon.com/assets/im … inline.jpg

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/sys … pic1-s.gif
http://www.safesimplesoon.com/assets/im … Inline.jpg

+ 1 CEV launch
http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d … oon_01.jpg
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18023

http://www.bbc.co.uk/spanish/specials/i … _gal10.jpg
Astronuats will need to stay record durations of time in Space and on the Moon, it will be very difficult to launch many CaLV's in rapid sucession for maxium benefit, however we know astronuats can't work 24/7 during their trip to the Moon, they are likely to find small problems in setting up the site or will need to be re-supplied with fuel or food, or will need new expeditions with updated equipment and new astronauts.

more likely the smallest of Lunar sites will require at least

11 CaLVs/Ares or 11 Magnum

Plus 4 CEV ( CLVs )

The first lunar site may not totally depend on the CaLVs, there may be other possible launchers designed like Angara-100, LongMarch5, Ariane-M ( Ariane6 ? )

John Creighton · 2006-03-12 00:26:57

Why do you think they can only stay for a week? The case for mars shows how to bring food for 2 years or so. Oxygen and water can be recycled or perhaps even harvested from the moon.

EuroLauncher · 2006-03-12 00:34:48

That just it GCNRevenger, the CEV might be twice as big as Apollo, but it still not going to be big enough to even put together a large colonization colony even on the moon.
Very true, the mission isn't about setting up a lunar settlement its about marking the flag planting anniversary of Armstrong and Aldrin. The advantages of a livable Lunar site is that it may take a lot less launches than Mars, a heap of nations have gone to the Moon with robots, communication delay to Earth is almost none, the USA has landed people there, and emergency supplies can quickly reach a Moon colony from Earth. A real Moon base camp and permanent human habitation will require a lot more than Apollo or 'Apollo-on-steroid'. First before we make a base a lunar site must be chosen, robotic craft like ESA's Smart-1 are scanning the chemical make-up of the Moon, and NASA's robotic LRO is due to take off in 2008. The CaLVs or AresHeavy or Magnums will be a start but it won't be enough - setting up the first Moon-base might require a lander and astronauts on the Moon plus a heap of equipment, oxygen, diggers, fuel, Moon-buggy, water, food, dumpers, lunar vehicles.....
CaLV or Ares Heavy isn't a magic wand, its power is comparable to Energia or Saturn-V, it could also be compared to designs like Angara100, the failed N1, ChangZheng-5, Ariane-6 ( Ariane-M ?)
The most any of the original Apollo missions stayed on the Moon were only a few hours or days at max, even with a mission like 'Apollo on steroids' astronauts won't be able to stay on the Moon for long ( perhaps only 2 weeks to pick up the rocks and plant the flags after that they may begin running out of important things like air, electricity, fuel and food ).
Even the smallest of lunar bases will need
4 Ares Magnums or 4 CaLV's
http://www.safesimplesoon.com/assets/im … inline.jpg

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/sys … pic1-s.gif
http://www.safesimplesoon.com/assets/im … Inline.jpg
+ 1 CEV launch
http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d … oon_01.jpg
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18023

http://www.bbc.co.uk/spanish/specials/i … _gal10.jpg
Astronuats will need to stay record durations of time in Space and on the Moon, it will be very difficult to launch many CaLV's in rapid sucession for maxium benefit, however we know astronuats can't work 24/7 during their trip to the Moon, they are likely to find small problems in setting up the site or will need to be re-supplied with fuel or food, or will need new expeditions with updated equipment and new astronauts.
more likely the smallest of Lunar sites will require at least
11 CaLVs/Ares or 11 Magnum
Plus 4 CEV ( CLVs )

The first lunar site may not totally depend on the CaLVs, there may be other possible launchers designed like Angara-100, LongMarch5, Ariane-M ( Ariane6 ? )

Eleven Cargo Launches ? That's a lot !

Most colonies, biodomes, hydroponic farms etc aren't going to be totally effective or self sufficient

Why do you think they can only stay for a week? The case for mars shows how to bring food for 2 years or so. Oxygen and water can be recycled or perhaps even harvested from the moon.

Martian colony or Mars bio-sphere could be easier. Yet some Mars-fans and Moon-fans think Moon bases need to be bigger and plans like Mars-Direct has minor flaws, then others say Zubrin's HAB and the ERV are too small.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-03-12 01:42:13

I think it boils down to this

What do they want out of the 'return to the Moon' ?

1
Build a Lunar settlement, use multiple launches for construction of a real moon-base, build a small colony for people on the Moon, build your power-supply or reactor or set up hyro-farms. Your lunar-site would be rather large - not as big as a soccer pitch or NFL field but the Lunar-site would be very big and the equipment, food supplies and solar panels and landers all added up might weigh a huge bulk so you'll maybe need a lift of 600,000 Kgs or 500 ton to LEO
Once the colony is finished - then do your science and experiments.
or

2
Do a few science missions, flag planting missions, collect rock samples, but never build a colony and send less food supply to the Moon however astronauts will spend long durations on the lunar surface
- this might be easy compared to Lunar-site-1 and if your astronauts complain about not having enough room or enough food you can always tell the Moon crew to "Shut up and deal with it" or "Suck it up soldier" like NASA did to Sharipov and American Leroy Chiao when the SpaceStation was running out of supplies.

GCNRevenger · 2006-03-12 07:46:50

Martian Republic said:

"the CEV might be twice as big as Apollo, but it still not going to be big enough to even put together a large colonization colony even on the moon."

Well no kidding, Sherlock! The CEV isn't a colony ship, obviously. Again! NASA isn't in the colonization business, that is going to be left to somebody else unless Congress orders NASA to change its mission. Colonization isn't exploration, which is NASA's cheif purpose.

"Any idea that private enterprise is going to step in and save the day after NASA get there, that will not happen either, because it will be too expensive for them too."

It doesn't have to be private, but I bet it probobly will need some private involvement, besides that though the point is that exploration isn't colonization, which is outside of NASA's jurisdiction.

After we have our Mars bases, it will then probobly make sense to build (or hopefully buy) a real live honest to goodness "no really, we're not kidding this time!" Shuttle-II to reduce the cost of operating bases and to enable the SEI-sized missions beyond Mars. Then we can talk about colonization, and not a single hour of a single day before.

As far as building Shuttle-II now instead of CEV, hush and listen for a minute: NASA is balencing on the edge of a knife, if it can't get VSE started in earnest it is very probable that what little credibility the agency has will evaporate, and manned spaceflight will die with the ISS. It is absolutely imperitive, life or death, that NASA accomplish VSE in a timely fasion. Any Shuttle-II vehicle is going to be expensive, and there is just no way that NASA is going to get that kind of money while doing Shuttle/ISS simultainiously. Just to explore and set up bases doesn't need a super RLV either, and can be done just fine with a heavy lifter and the CEV, they are the obvious choice.

Lunar mining is a little different, in that there is never going to be a large presence on the Moon. Ever. Not even with PGM mining... in such a case, you don't need ultra-cheap launch quite so badly, and Elon's Falcon-IX or Pioneers' newly aquired KH-1 would perhaps be sufficient.

Yang Leiwi said:

"Very true, the mission isn't about setting up a lunar settlement its about marking the flag planting anniversary of Armstrong and Aldrin."

You are apparently having trouble understanding, NASA is going to explore this time unlike Apollo, which was just a mad dash to show up to Communists on television and newspapers, and not about science. One of new Moon landings will gather more data about the Moon then all the Apollo missions put together.

If you had been paying attention, you would also have noticed that one of the items in the VSE technology development list is a liquid oxygen generator for the Moon. Now, if all we were going to do was land for a day, plant flags and take pictures, why would we be doing that? NASA is still putting money into its nuclear reactor program, which would serve no purpose at all if we were just going to visit for a week. One of the cheif tenants of VSE is to return to the Moon, but this time its to stay.

Infact, NASA has already started to think about such a base, and seems to point to about half a dozen heavy lifter launches would be enough to build it. In the Shuttle heyday, eight launches of a much more complicated vehicle were accomplished, so six heavy lifters should be practical to do over a short time frame. Again, its not a "settlement," its a manned research & prospecting camp, with the potential to be a "beach head" for mining ventures.

There isn't ever going to be any colony on the Moon, ever, and teams of temporary miners can be fed & supported from Earth just fine if there is LOX available on the surface. There aren't going to be big hydroponic farms. There probobly isn't going to be big fields of solar arrays either. Just a camp, powerd by a nuclear reactor, with supplies regularly deliverd from Earth via medium rocket.

EuroLauncher said:

"Yet some Mars-fans and Moon-fans think Moon bases need to be bigger and plans like Mars-Direct has minor flaws, then others say Zubrin's HAB and the ERV are too small."

Now THERES an understatement... every single one of the major componets of MarsDirect - the HAB, the ERV, the rover, the nuclear reactor, the science package - basically all of them, are all assumed to work with much too small of a mass budget.

I honestly think that the currently proposed MarsDirect is infact a fraud, and Zubrin knows full well it can't possibly work, unless... Unless the Ares launch vehicle were fitted with a nuclear rocket upper stage. Zubrin, being a nuclear engineer by trade, would likly be biased tward such an option to make is plan doable.

He just didn't feel it prudent to tell the rest of the world... the basic non-nuclear Ares MarsDirect is a lie, just like Bob lied about O'Keefe and distorted Griffins Lunar plans. He did this so the project, with its deceptively small price tag and launch mass, would be adopted by the pricetag-sensitive congress, who would believe NASA's argument that it isn't big enough wouldn't be credible after the SEI red herring. Also, being chemically powerd, MarsDirect would be much more palatable to the environmentalists.

So a few years into the MarsDirect program, it is "determined" that MarsDirect will not be big enough, and it will be blamed on regular old aerospace weight and requirement creep. Since so much has been invested already in the arcitecture, some means of fixing it rather then disguarding it will be sought, and viola', Bob will show up with his glossy for a nuclear upper stage to solve all the problems.

There are just a few problems with this...
1: It still won't be big enough to get much done, four people and a tiny science package is a waste of time.

2: A nuclear upper stage will be fired before reaching orbit, and hence presents a risk that it will reenter and kill tens of thousands. Even me, the nuclear fan boy, hates this idea.

3: It will have to be a big engine with lots of thrust probobly to hold down reactor mass, which will be expensive. We have the facilities to build and test small RL-10 class engines, but brand new ones would be needed for a J-2/SSME class engine.

cIclops · 2006-03-12 14:53:38

And another excellent little speech (PDF 34KB) from Mike Griffin to Space Shuttle Suppliers, March 7 - who writes these gems?

Now let me be realistic with you. We cannot require the same industrial base for the new Exploration systems as we need today to operate the Space Shuttle. The simplicity of the design for the CEV and its launch systems does not, should not, must not require the industrial footprint of the shuttle. If we are to carry out missions to the Moon, Mars, and the near-Earth asteroids, our resources – your time and effort – must be directed to re-tooling our industrial capabilities for the CEV, the CLV, the heavy-lift launch vehicle, and human landers.

Martian Republic · 2006-03-12 16:28:37

As far as a Mars base, even a little one is virtually impossible using the CEV and would be almost as bad as the Marsdirect program in trying to making it happen. By the time we send two or three or more buster up for our first Mars mission along supply problem and other things, it will more likely look like and extended Apollo program strung out over a two or three year period. But, even if we did get a small base on Mars, it would have little to no impact over whether we choose to build a second generation shuttle. Why would you build second generation shuttle to send people into space for going to Mars, when you could only use it once or twice every two and a half years or so? Without building a major space station and/or Lunar base which requires large numbers of people going into space every month, then there is reason to build a second generation shuttle. A need for a new Earth shuttle to space would only support primarily the local access to space whether is be a big space station or big Lunar base and any Mars benefit for getting people to Mars, would take advantage of the infrastructure that already in place. Even if we add a nuclear rocket to this mex and use the CEV to get to it, we would still have a problem putting a permanent base on Mars without a second generation shuttle in place to carry the people out to it. Not counting all the other problems that we would run into.

About the only thing that the CEV does for us is:
1. Keep the hope alive for future colonization at some time in the future going by keeping NASA alive to do it by putting it front of the American as a worth while goal to accomplish. We are basically, just hanging on by the fingernails to keep thing going, but not having a long term plan to work with.
2. We can also use those buster to carry Bigelow habitat's and things like that to the moon to start the process how ever limited, but the human population will be very limited until an affordable shuttle can be built to reduce the cost to get into space.
3. Service the ISS or any other space station that we might have orbiting the Earth or the Moon.

Other than that, the CEV has no other purpose and it will not justify building a second generation shuttle, because of the price to develop it if we are figuring it on just cost value alone. Without a stated goal by an American President along with NASA to build a base on the moon of several hundred people to a thousand or more people on the moon, then there would be no reason to build a second generation shuttle. As far as the cost go, the CEV would serve our needs just fine thank you, that we would choose not to build the second generation. GCNRevenger you say they would keep it small and simple on the moon with a small population, because of cost factors, but if we follow that logic to it logical conclusion, then we would also choose not to build second generation shuttles for the same reason, because we would not have a use them or have a use that would justify building them. You mention that NASA in trouble and we could lose NASA, which is true. But, when you under the gun like that, you don’t make good decision. When you have no goal to achieve and your money is defused or dedicated to something else and/or maybe insufficient funds for what you want to do, then your in a bad situation. Whether you like it or not, the CEV is just such a program that being billed as cheap access to the moon. So was the Shuttle and it was billed to give us cheap access to space. So was the ISS and it was billed to give us a laboratory in space with a shared cost with other nations.

Most people mis understand the real porpoise of the Apollo program. Was the Apollo used during the cold war between the United States and Russia by Kennedy? Yes, absolutely. But, it was Ike that started this process and not Kennedy and the primary reason that it was done was for the science driving capacity of going into space and the technological thrust it would have on the American economy. John F. Kennedy also understood that principle of a science driven economy too and that why he had other projects stacked up behind the Apollo mission like going to Mars afterwards with fission and/or fusion power. The moon mission was the only one that he mentioned or was pushing real hard on. The CEV is a little more advanced and can be used to get some of the beginning infrastructure on the moon that we need to continue this process. But, that just what the CEV is a more advanced Apollo for a season, but we don’t want to see still here in twenty to thirty years or our space program has stagnated like the shuttle has stagnated the current space efforts. The CEV is still basically just a compromise as to what we should be trying to build, because of cost factors and it will never be anything more than that.

Larry,

Martian Republic · 2006-03-12 16:42:54

I think it boils down to this
What do they want out of the 'return to the Moon' ?
1
Build a Lunar settlement, use multiple launches for construction of a real moon-base, build a small colony for people on the Moon, build your power-supply or reactor or set up hyro-farms. Your lunar-site would be rather large - not as big as a soccer pitch or NFL field but the Lunar-site would be very big and the equipment, food supplies and solar panels and landers all added up might weigh a huge bulk so you'll maybe need a lift of 600,000 Kgs or 500 ton to LEO
Once the colony is finished - then do your science and experiments.
or
2
Do a few science missions, flag planting missions, collect rock samples, but never build a colony and send less food supply to the Moon however astronauts will spend long durations on the lunar surface
- this might be easy compared to Lunar-site-1 and if your astronauts complain about not having enough room or enough food you can always tell the Moon crew to "Shut up and deal with it" or "Suck it up soldier" like NASA did to Sharipov and American Leroy Chiao when the SpaceStation was running out of supplies.

And whether or not we are going to allocate the money that needed to finance that project.

If we not willing to allocate that money for the project, then we are just blowing smoke rings in the air that will soon disappear.

Larry,

Commodore · 2006-03-12 17:35:17

Remember the sole purpose of the CEV is a cheap, safe way to get 6 people in and out of LEO. The since the Moon is only 3 days away, it can also support 4 people for the 6 total days it takes to get there and back. To get from LEO to LMO, they have a transit craft.

Larger capsules will likely follow before we have a full blown space liner. But the CEV does what we need it to do for the immediate future.

I too want to see more long term planning. But the more pretty pictures you show the Congresscritters, the more dollar signs they see, and the more they balk. Perhapes there is a method to NASA apparent shortsided madness.

EuroLauncher · 2006-03-13 02:55:40

The NASA Science Missions Getting Cut

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish … ml?1132006

Following are some of the areas that would be affected:
- Research and analysis: 15% across-the-board cuts in grants for research, ($350 to $400 million over the next five years) with some retroactive to 2006. An official at NASA Headquarters said he wasn't aware that any notices of specific research cuts have been issued at this time.
- Astrobiology research alone will have 50% of funding slashed.
- Astronomy and astrophysics at NASA cut by 20% over 5 years
- Aeronautics: cut by 18.1%, down to $724.4 million

Additional Programs Affected
Two Mars Scout missions planned for after 2011 were removed from the four year planning budget. These missions may have included airborne vehicles such as airplanes or balloons and small landers.
The Explorer Program, which launches small spacecraft to study areas such as Heliophysics and Astrophysics would be cut drastically with the earliest launch coming in 2014.
Beyond Einstein would be delayed indefinitely. These are missions such as Constellation -X and LISA that would attempt to answer questions about the Big Bang, Black Holes and Dark Matter.
The Associated Press has reported that a long list of satellites orbiting Earth are under threat of being delayed, downsized or cancelled. Scientists have warned that decreasing funding for these satellites will jeopardize the capability for forecasting weather and monitoring environmental issues.
The list includes:
Landsat: delay in launch of satellite to replace and upgrade Landsat 7, launched in 1999.
Earth Observing System: If cut, satellites such as Aqua (2002) and Terra (1999) would not be replaced when they fail.
Global Precipitation Measuring Mission: The launch of GPMM has been pushed back to 2012. GPMM will replace and upgrade the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, which was supposed to be decommissioned in 2004.
Deep Space Climate Observatory: cancelled. An Earth observing satellite placed at the L-1 Point to determine cloud and radiation properties of the atmosphere. The spacecraft is already built, but would cost $60-100 million to launch and operate.
National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System: Under review. Will monitor global environmental conditions, and collect and disseminate data related to weather, atmosphere, oceans and land, and is a cooperative effort between NASA, NOAA, the Department of Defense and the Department of Commerce.

GCNRevenger · 2006-03-14 20:37:46

"...even a little one is virtually impossible using the CEV and would be almost as bad as the Marsdirect program in trying to making it happen... But, even if we did get a small base on Mars, it would have little to no impact over whether we choose to build a second generation shuttle."

The CEV itself is obviously too small to go to Mars with, I am talking about a mission arcitecture like NASA's DRM-III, which I think is big enough to build a small base. The common lander design will be able to haul 40MT to the Martian surface roughly, and a half dozen such flights would add up very quickly. One for power plant and jumbo ISRU, one for water drilling rig and digging equipment, two for HABs/Labs/Greenhouses, one for vehicles, and one for misc. and workshop space... Room for 12-16 with a supply of rocket fuel. Thats all I'm talking about.

Supplies would be sent from Earth by either TheStick/Delta-IV HLV or perhaps Falcon-IX/Kistler KH-1 rather then a mega HLLV shot, and each crew rotation would require about one mega HLLV for fuel and supplies... NASA can do this using expendable rockets.

But not by a whole lot. If NASA is tending a Lunar and a Mars base and trying to do unmanned science elsewhere, there won't be enough left over for a manned push beyond Mars. Here is where a reuseable vehicle comes in, its ability to radically decrease the cost of launch will also radically reduce the cost of operating Moon/Mars bases, make beyond Mars missions affordable, and hopefully by then the technology would be ready to make an RLV "easy." Thats why NASA will need a Shuttle-II.

Furthermore, if Lunar mining or Mars colonization are ever going to be really practical, a true RLV is probobly going to be nessesarry. Even Elon's cheap Falcon rockets may be too expensive to support Lunar mining, and are definatly too expensive for colony work, so if anyone ever intends to do anything besides science on the Moon/Mars, Shuttle-II is the way to go (barring a space elevator of course). These things combined with NASA's need for cheap launch, perhaps combined with the military desire for hypersonic jets, will make enough demand for Shuttle-II for it to happen.

The CEV is being billed as lowish-cost access to the Moon, and as a cog in the machine for a future Mars program, and it is so. NASA needs a cheap way to get VSE started, and the CEV is it. Yes, NASA will need Shuttle-II down the road to afford to continue exploring, but not for at least twenty years. If NASA can't get VSE started, and started soon, NASA will not survive that long. So, CEV it is.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2006-03-19 05:34:27

more murder on science

The carnage continues in the NASA science program. A few weeks ago, the NuStar X-ray mission was cancelled, and now the Dawn asteroid mission has been axed only a year from launch (this decision is apparently under review). This follows a couple years of delays in selecting new small missions. These missions had been approved for development and weren't suffering from major problems (well, in Dawn's case I hear different stories from different people) - their cancellation seems to be purely for budgetary reasons. They are being sacrificed to pay for the Exploration initiative and for other science programs which have run into trouble. Rare editorial: this is a bad idea; we really need a wide portfolio of small science missions for the health of NASA's science program. Having only a few large flagship missions eat the whole budget is not a smart way to go, however wonderful they are. My impression is that the current plan gives a larger fraction of the astrophysics budget to my good (and well-deserving but more professionally flexible) friends at the large aerospace contractors, and a smaller fraction to pay the salaries of astrophysicists, who have no other source of funding to turn to. By the time the budget recovers, our reservoir of world-class expertise will have left science for other careers.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/
Let me be clear: the problem is both an external one - other pressures on the US federal budget, and pressures to fund the human spaceflight program - and an internal systemic one: the astronomical community's process for recommending priorities to NASA, which used to work well, now is widely perceived as disconnected from much of the community and as effectively broken in the current budgetary context. The process builds in 'undercosting' at all levels of the system, ensures that flagship missions are emphasized above all else, and guarantees that the budget will be hugely overrun. The recent cuts to NASA's astrophysics program are ill-advised and unfair to the hard-working scientists who dedicate their lives to these missions. But until we astronomers get our own house in order again, it's going to be hard to convince Mike Griffin and Mary Cleave (the NASA boss and head of science, respectively) that we deserve different treatment.

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