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I had thought that Kistler still had some contracts with NASA, such as one for supplying re-entry data (under the old Space Launch Initiative) and one for bringing payload to the ISS.
Kistler is involved with tSpace, and one doesn't have to look very far to see the K-1's influence in the design of the tSpace re-entry vehicle.
The announcement of "Team Lockmart" has a lot of surprises in it. The list is so long that it's daunting. Unfortunately, innovators like Orbital Sciences will probably be stifled now that they're working for Team Lockmart.
The supporters of internationalizing the VSE will take heart that the Eurpoean aerospace giant EADS is part of Team Lockmart. It's unknown if they will use their clout to get the ESA involved, but it at least makes sure that Europe has a financial stake in seeing this project succeed.
Despite the large size of Team Lockmart, I still consider them to be under-dogs compared to Boeing-NorthGrum. After all, which companies were the prime contractors on all of America's manned spacecraft?
McDonnell: Mercury, Gemini
North American Aviation: X-15, Apollo CSM, shuttle orbiter
Grumman: Apollo LEM
Boeing: X-20, Lunar Rover
With all that experience on the Boeing-NorthGrum team, they certainly have the upper hand.
I'm taking a "crawl, walk, run" view of SpaceX. Falcon I is their baby step. They certainly have a lot to prove, even before they get to the Falcon V inaugural launch. That being said, an incremental approach will eventually get them to the point where they can tackle the HLLV.
An HLLV operated and developed by private industry need not have a commercial market, aside from whatever launch contracts they can score from the Air Force and NASA. This is the business model I see for an SDV. I don't know if United Space Alliance would be willing to design and act as prime contractor for the SDV. If not, Boeing or LockMart would have to step in and take their place. I'd also like to see the total privatization of shuttle-related facilities at this point. If the launch processing can be streamlined (in a way that only private companies can get away with) there might be room to turn a decent profit with only USAF/NASA contracts.
Elon Musk has hinted that SpaceX might build a heavy-lifter. At this stage, he has yet to fly the Falcon I mini-sat launcher, yet alone the Delta II-class Falcon V. Once they can demonstrate their ability to fly large rockets (and make a business case for a heavy-lifter) I would totally support a privately-developed heavy-lifter for the VSE.
But I agree that an all-government funded HLLV is not the way to go. I don't have a problem with an SDV as long as NASA finds some way to get private funding for it.
The eight unfinished items include the toughest technological challenges made in the recommendations -- preventing the shedding of debris, strengthening the reinforced carbon panels, hardening the orbiter and repairing thermal protection tiles, according to the report by the Return to Flight Task Group.
The first of these recommendations is already done, IMHO. NASA has reached the limit of the amount of debris shedding they can prevent. Removing the bipod-ramp foam was an important step, but as long as there is any foam left there is the potential it will be shed.
I don't know how realistic the other goals are. NASA has already said that tile repair may not be flown on the first RTF mission. NASA and its partner MD Robotics deserve high praise, though, for getting the inspector boom ready in record time.
My guess is that NASA plans on flying anyways, even if eight recommendations haven't been met. NASA has resigned itself to the possibility of a debris strike during launch, and believes that the ISS safe haven is the best course of action.
The mission profile sounds like Phoenix will be Mars Polar Lander redux, albeit at the north pole instead of the south one. I hope the outcome is more successful.
I still think it's worthwhile to send Mars Recon Orbiter searching for MPL to see what condition it's in. The NASA people believe that it was killed by the shock of deploying the landing gear, while the imagery community thinks it landed intact and had a communications problem. Whichever is the case, it's is an important fix that must be made before Phoenix launches.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=15179]A preview of the CEV requirements
It seems like FAST (Flight Application of Spacecraft Technologies) will be a technology testbed rather than representative of the final CEV. New heat-shield technologies are supposedly in development, and will end up on board FAST. Autonomous rendezvous will probably be demonstrated, and perhaps new power systems and life support will get a chance to fly.
NASA will never be able to launch six missions per year again. The plan is for two orbiters to be in service and one in overhaul at all times. Right now Endeavour is in overhaul and Atlantis will be next. Realistically I only expect each orbiter to fly twice per year. If NASA wants to fly five missions or more per year they should have to prove their commitment to safety before they are cleared to do so.
A significant Mars plan was the Boeing-von Braun plan from 1968 and later adopted by NASA under the nickname "Mars One." The basic gist is that two separate, identical spacecraft, consiting of several nuclear-thermal rocket stages, would fly to Mars, stay for 30 days in their Apollo-like Mars Excursion Module, and return to earth via Venus flyby.
Rob, you've hit the nail on the head. Methane or kerosene or propane coul be brought from earth to use as rocket fuel for the ascent from Mars. I have no desire to extract hydrogen from it, and no desire to run the Sabatier reaction.
Of course, if the numbers justify Zubrin's propellant production scheme, I will gladly support it. But I got the idea from a NASA study on sample return, which would make LOX from the CO2 atmosphere and bring propane fuel from earth to use for the fligh back home.
I had read somewhere that a Saturn V launch, in today's dollars, was just as expensive as a shuttle launch. So much for getting your money's worth.
The prospects for SDV improve if it can be marketed commercially. Few, if any, payloads require the 80 MT lift capacity of the SDV, but multiple payloads could be launched at one time.
The same idea was supposed to be tried with the shuttle, which could only thrive economically if it replaced all U.S. ELV's at the time it was conceived. Fortunately, the Air Force never trusted the shuttle to deliver, and kept its ELV's in production.
I hope that an SDV, operated by a private contractor for NASA, will inspire the industry to "think big" and come up with payloads to take advantage of its enormou size. If a decent flight rate is achieved, the development cost can be justified and America can be back in the heavy-lift business.
There is also the nagging question if NASA could "kick the habit" and radically reduce per-flight costs of the Shuttle Stack + engine pod over Shuttles' mindboggling $1.1Bn/flight, and do it in such a fasion that Shuttle-C would be better then building a "light" clean sheet launcher.
The shuttle's standing army is both a blessing and a curse. The army provides political clout to keep the program going, but it also adds to the cost and prevents us from doing anything cool with the NASA budget.
The price of a shuttle mission is estimated anywhere between $500 mil and over $1 Bil per flight. This is mainly a function of flight rate, as the standing army eats up a lot of the costs, while the price of a new ET and propellant is relatively small.
If an SDV is adopted, the standing army will take a hit, as most of the orbiter-related people (except the engine and payload people) will probably be released or reassigned. The marginal cost of an SDV launch should drop compared to the shuttle (especially if they launch 8 or more missions per year, now possible with the unmanned SDV,) but the standing army will not take the layoffs very well.
If my last post was misunderstood, I apologize.
The hydrogen would still be used as feedstock, while the hydrocarbon fuel would be a fuel. The tradeoff is CH4/LOX (produced on Mars, including the H2 feedstock) versus the LOX/Hydrocarbon reaction which would make LOX from Mars's atmosphere and bring the hydroarbon fuel from earth.
Many people on this forum have said things to the tune of "people love Hubble" or "Hubble is an icon." If you check on nasawatch.com's section for commenting on Sean O'Keefe, it's clear that a lot of people hate Sean because of his Hubble decision. Yet I fail to see the massive groundswell of support for the telescope from people who aren't space afficianados. I just don't think that an aging telescope gets the kind of attention that, say, a Mars rover would get. The public relations end of Hubble is not big enough to risk another superfluous shuttle mission that could potentially end the program.
The new administrator should throw a bone to the Hubble huggers by proposing a new "Hubble II." It would use the instruments intended for the Hubble servicing mission, get launched on a Delta IV heavy, and orbit higher than Hubble to avoid atmospheric drag. The robot mission should also continue, to attach the deorbit motor and replace the gyroscopes, and to push robotic technologies that will be useful during moon and Mars exploration.
How dangerous would silane and borane be when compared with methane or kerosene? I get the impression that these are very nasty fuels.
Methane / LOX initially looks like the best fuel combination, but appearances can be deceiving. What if you were to haul kerosene or methane or propane to Mars, instead of hydrogen? Less fuel would boil off, and more fuel could be stored in smaller tanks. The oxidizer would come from electrolyzed carbon dioxide. The idea is worth a trade study.
Let the Russians devote their space program to orbital tourism, with ISS as a space hotel.
I know this is a political non-starter. But the plug needs to be pulled on ISS if we want to free up money for the moon and beyond. Authorizing ISS was a mistake in '93. Since then we've been throwing good money after bad.
David S.F. Portree has written such a book. I think the short title is "Humans to Mars" and it may still be available, for the cost of postage, from the government printing office.
The Air Force may end up selecting the Atlas V exclusively while NASA could go exclusively with Delta IV. The Air Force is miffed about Boeing's misdeeds, while LockMart has seemingly neglected NASA. If the two agencies pick separate launchers, there will be no competition between the two. Of course, the possibility of dropping one launcher in favor of the other will still inspire the contractors to perform at their best.
LockMart's secrecy doesn't surprise me. This is the company that gave us Kelly Johnson, Ben Rich, and the Skunk Works. When the time is right they will show their cards. Not a word will be spoken until then.
I'm assuming that the booster's acronym is "CEVLV," or Crew Exploration Vehicle Launch Vehicle. Under the RFP guidelines, it would be possible to launch the CEV on the CEVLV while launching the EDS and LSAM together on a heavy-lifter like the Shuttle-C.
Lockheed Martin's people are no fools. They have a plan for the Atlas, but they're being secretive about it. After the suspension of Boeing in July 2003, Lockheed Martin decided to proceed with an Atlas V pad at Vandenberg and with a heavy version of the Atlas V.
The lifting cone may still be in contention, but most of Lockheed's artwork for VSE shows a stubby, truncated cone (which I call "circumcised Gemini") atop a service module with solar panels.
What does the future hold for the Atlas V? Perhaps an upgrade to the RD-171 engine, or two RD-180's, or four RD-191's. Maybe a 5m core, if they want to build a new infrastructure. More powerful upper stages are a given. Lockheed Martin's published (although uninspiring) plan for the VSE calls for a 70 MT booster, so one must assume that this booster is in the works.
Military officers can be excellent managers but they are terrible leaders, and yes, there is a difference between a manager and a leader.
Dook, if you take the time to experience what real military officer training is about, they explicitly stress leadership over management. That's not to say that some officers don't become managers due to their personal weaknesses, but all officers are taught to motivate and to lead from the front. I'm sorry if I sound a bit testy, but you've struck a personal cord, and I think your understanding of the situation is bass-ackwards.
For what it's worth, I think Admiral Craig Steidle should become the next Administrator. He's ably lead Project Constellation, so he's guaranteed to support it and understand it. Former shuttle astronauts should be excluded from consideration unless they are willing to make the hard decisions in order to retire the shuttle on time and transition to the CEV. This includes pulling the plug on Hubble and cutting back ISS.
Return to the moon to stay? Why would anyone want to?
To mine the moon, exploit its precious metals, set up a base for thrill-seekers, and collect solar power for the earth--that's why we need to stay on the moon.
http://transformspace.com/Background.htm]tSpace has some exciting ideas about creating a sustainable means of returning to the moon to stay.
Check out their website; they have a good presentation to show off. I like the "flotilla" idea; von Braun had a similar concept for his Mars mission. I also like the tankers, as they create the infrastructure for greater reusaility and in-situ resource utilization.
My biggest complaint is the sheer number of launches needed per mission. Sixteen S1 tankers will have to be launched for each S2 tanker. And each mission requires two S2 tankers, two S2 CEV's, and multiple C1 CXV's. So there will be a lot of launches.
The tSpace philiosophy is that an air-launch system (using a carrier airplane and an expenable rocket) or the Kistler K1 will be able to fly so many times that the number of launches will be moot; I am very skeptical. I much prefer using fewer launches of a Shuttle/Atlas/Delta-derived rocket.
NASA's administrator should be a manager first and a space entusiast second. James Webb certainly wasn't a rocket scientist, but he succeeded in getting Apollo the resources from Congress so it could make it to the moon. Perhaps we will think of Sean O'Keefe in the same way if VSE gets off the ground.
I have cooled towards the idea of astronauts as administrators ever since I understood the Dick Truly situation in 1989-1992. Truly loved his shuttle too much and didn't want anything as "silly" as going to the moon and Mars to getting in between him and his damned space albatross.
If NASA must have an astronaut as an administrator, they should go back to Buzz Aldrin or another Apollo veteran (even somebody who was a manager back then) to lead the way. Somebody who remembers how great it was to get to the moon can get us back there with gusto.
The VSE plan was to pass the FY2005 budget with a $900 mil increase over FY2004 to $16.2B, followed by yearly increases only to match inflation. So it's doubtful we will see another increase this big betwwen now and 2020.