White House Decides to Outsource NASA Work
It will be interesting to what the "eventually deeper into the solar system" in the following exerpt will entail:
I'm torn on this. I think it's time for commercial to take over LEO launch operations (although god knows there are some operations contractors that may have bitten off more than they can chew in certain arenas) but I'm uncertain about deep space operations outside of NASA right now.
Sure, human rated EELVs and Falcon 9 could get astronauts out to ISS and LEO, but who's going to build the heavy (> 75mT) launcher that seems to be recommended by the Augustine Commission to get beyond? Or is the administration placing hopes on VASIMR and assembly of it in LEO via EELV launches?The goal is to set up a multiyear, multi-billion-dollar initiative allowing private firms, including some start-ups, to compete to build and operate spacecraft capable of ferrying U.S. astronauts into orbit—and eventually deeper into the solar system.
I'm torn on this. I think it's time for commercial to take over LEO launch operations (although god knows there are some operations contractors that may have bitten off more than they can chew in certain arenas) but I'm uncertain about deep space operations outside of NASA right now.
If I was king, and I wanted to increase the involvement of private industry in space exploration, I'd order my covert ops people to build an impressive-yet-enigmatic phony alien artifact and plant it on some asteroid, moon or planet, so that it just happens to be seen by the sensors of a passing exploration craft. A 21st century gold rush, the gold in this case being "alien" technology. As a side benefit, my psy ops people could use that in the leadup to a fake alien invasion, if such theater became necessary to maintain control.
Agreed, this is really good news! I am excited!Hnh! An Obama initiative that might actually be good. Actually pay free market companies for actual services. What a concept!
Less government and more privatization is always good.
I think that once the competition heats up, we will see more progress in a decade, than what we have seen in the last 40 years.
The story has already been written:DeltaV wrote:If I was king, and I wanted to increase the involvement of private industry in space exploration, I'd order my covert ops people to build an impressive-yet-enigmatic phony alien artifact and plant it on some asteroid, moon or planet, so that it just happens to be seen by the sensors of a passing exploration craft. A 21st century gold rush, the gold in this case being "alien" technology. As a side benefit, my psy ops people could use that in the leadup to a fake alien invasion, if such theater became necessary to maintain control.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... s-inc.html
Sadly almost all the artifacts mentioned in the story are now available in mass quantity.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
This is just some journalist spouting off on COTS-D or some such. It's only bad news for the Shaft. For heavy lift and deep space operations, Jupiter has essentially won (well, the Stretched Heavy variant, but the 5-seg is necessary to appease ATK). NASA is being friendly, Shelby has caved/seen the light, and Giffords appears to be the last holdout for the PoR.
If you read carefully, even the article notes that effort could be redirected from Ares I to "a future larger, more-powerful NASA family of rockets".
Besides, commercial crew transport to LEO was in DIRECT's plan all along. They deliberately de-emphasized nerfed EELV-class versions of the Jupiter (such as the JS-120, which turned out to be a >40 mT launcher anyway) so as to avoid competing with commercial rockets. The J(S)-140SH has a LEO throw weight of about 100 mT (pretty good for no upper stage, eh?), so if it's used for ISS at any point it will be bringing up serious cargo...
Skipjack and I had a bit of a fight over this a while back. He thinks commercial is better for everything; I think that commercial heavy lift (heavy lift being, IMO, necessary for exploration, which I want to get started on ASAP) is too much of a risk at this time. Besides, the politics are delicate enough as it is; scrapping NASA's heavy lift workforce would probably just cause the political support for human exploration in deep space to evaporate... one guess what would happen to NASA's HSF budget if all those jobs were no longer at stake...
EDIT: fixed J-140SH throw weight. Current estimate is 101.4 mT.
If you read carefully, even the article notes that effort could be redirected from Ares I to "a future larger, more-powerful NASA family of rockets".
Besides, commercial crew transport to LEO was in DIRECT's plan all along. They deliberately de-emphasized nerfed EELV-class versions of the Jupiter (such as the JS-120, which turned out to be a >40 mT launcher anyway) so as to avoid competing with commercial rockets. The J(S)-140SH has a LEO throw weight of about 100 mT (pretty good for no upper stage, eh?), so if it's used for ISS at any point it will be bringing up serious cargo...
Skipjack and I had a bit of a fight over this a while back. He thinks commercial is better for everything; I think that commercial heavy lift (heavy lift being, IMO, necessary for exploration, which I want to get started on ASAP) is too much of a risk at this time. Besides, the politics are delicate enough as it is; scrapping NASA's heavy lift workforce would probably just cause the political support for human exploration in deep space to evaporate... one guess what would happen to NASA's HSF budget if all those jobs were no longer at stake...
EDIT: fixed J-140SH throw weight. Current estimate is 101.4 mT.
Last edited by 93143 on Mon Feb 15, 2010 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Firstly,.getting.rid.of.the.10k.man.standing.army.is.an.absolute.necessity.for.reforming.
NASA.and.reducing.the.cost.of.space.flight..I.am.extremely.happy.to.see.Obama.taking.this.
first.step..NASA.can.now.get.a.LOT.more.science.for.the.dollar.in.both.human.and.robotic.
space.exploration..
I.predict.here.that.private.ventures.will.take.us.to.the.moon.sooner.than.NASA's.plan.would.have.
NASA.and.reducing.the.cost.of.space.flight..I.am.extremely.happy.to.see.Obama.taking.this.
first.step..NASA.can.now.get.a.LOT.more.science.for.the.dollar.in.both.human.and.robotic.
space.exploration..
I.predict.here.that.private.ventures.will.take.us.to.the.moon.sooner.than.NASA's.plan.would.have.
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CaptainBeowulf
- Posts: 498
- Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2009 12:35 am
Yeah, I agree with 93143, nothing's really changed here.
Ares I was a waste of resources from the start. Why replicate a capability you have with EELVs? And, of course, Falcon 9 is looking more and more likely to work.
The article itself says that NASA's budget is staying at $18b+ for the time being. With Ares I out of the way that can be refocused into a rational shuttle derived heavy launch vehicle; IE. a vehicle that doesn't need new infrastructure to launch. The 5 segment SRBs are a sop to ATK. While you're at it, might as well stretch the tank a bit; the barge has space for a longer tank and so does the vehicle assembly building. That's it.
I fully support opening up HLV to competition when the commercial sector gets there. However, it's a huge step from Delta-IV Heavy or Falcon 9 to a JS-246SH type thing. This is the correct pathway: NASA should focus on heavy lift to support exploration. Once commercial has enough experience with medium lift they'll catch up. Then NASA should focus only on exploration vehicles, not earth-to-orbit at all (except as a regulatory agency).
Ares I was a waste of resources from the start. Why replicate a capability you have with EELVs? And, of course, Falcon 9 is looking more and more likely to work.
The article itself says that NASA's budget is staying at $18b+ for the time being. With Ares I out of the way that can be refocused into a rational shuttle derived heavy launch vehicle; IE. a vehicle that doesn't need new infrastructure to launch. The 5 segment SRBs are a sop to ATK. While you're at it, might as well stretch the tank a bit; the barge has space for a longer tank and so does the vehicle assembly building. That's it.
I fully support opening up HLV to competition when the commercial sector gets there. However, it's a huge step from Delta-IV Heavy or Falcon 9 to a JS-246SH type thing. This is the correct pathway: NASA should focus on heavy lift to support exploration. Once commercial has enough experience with medium lift they'll catch up. Then NASA should focus only on exploration vehicles, not earth-to-orbit at all (except as a regulatory agency).
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kunkmiester
- Posts: 892
- Joined: Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:51 pm
- Contact:
Half the reason for this I understand is a predeliction for monolithic construction--the whole blinking thing is put together on earth, then shot up into space in one piece. So, you have to have a rocket that will get it to the desired orbit or trajectory in one shot.but who's going to build the heavy (> 75mT) launcher that seems to be recommended by the Augustine Commission to get beyond?
If you built it in pieces, and had it assemble itself in orbit, you'd need a much smaller rocket, though more launches.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the FAA has a better record of reasonable regulation. NASA is a science agency, and should do just that. Even then, an academic alliance like I proposed somewhere else would probably do a better job.Then NASA should focus only on exploration vehicles, not earth-to-orbit at all (except as a regulatory agency).
Evil is evil, no matter how small
The FAA already has most of the infrastructure and paper work rqmts. and flows in hand.Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the FAA has a better record of reasonable regulation.
It would also allow for parts commonality between aircraft and rockets.
A two system set up makes no sense. It adds complexity without any gain. And the FAA already does man rated eqpt.
I might let NASA do cargo. As a sop to them.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
As.I've.said.previously...I.spilled.water.on.my.keyboard.a.few.days.ago,.have.not.been.able.to.stop.by.Frye's.yet.to.get.a.replacement...The.space.bar.is.hosed...KitemanSA wrote:Is there a particular reason you put a period between each word rather than a space?IntLibber wrote:Firstly,.getting.rid.of.the.10k.man.standing.army.
Piecing things together on orbit is all very well if you don't have any other option, but it has substantial costs in terms of mission preparation time, reliability concerns and dead weight tied up in docking mechanisms, not to mention volume limitations. And of course there are things that you really do have to launch in one piece regardless of other considerations (eg: nuclear reactors).
You cannot build a plausible Mars mission out of 20-ton chunks, not with current technology and launch vehicles. A recent Phobos mission study (ie: no lander) involved fifteen HLV launches (it was opposition-class. A conjunction-class mission would have required five or so, which is still something like 30 EELVs, assuming you could do it at all). Even with moon missions, if you want more than one per year, Jupiter is cheaper than EELV, and the difference only grows with mission rate.
There are economies of scale to be had with larger launchers; a J-246SH launches roughly five times the mass and ten times the volume of an EELV Heavy, but it doesn't cost anywhere near five times as much to launch. I don't think it even costs twice as much to launch. The development and production costs for a modern rocket stage using existing engines are not a strong function of the size of the stage.
If we're going to do robust exploration beyond LEO, we need heavy lift. The Augustine Commission had a number of members that went in thinking EELV-class was fine; they all changed their minds (and remember, these are the guys that ended up all but recommending Flexible Path, so the mass and volume requirements for a Mars landing aren't what convinced them).
It's not only crewed exploration missions either; the science community wants big monolithic space telescopes, and the DoD wants... something that needs a 12 m fairing and as much length as possible. Our current capacity is decent, but it's not "as big as we'll ever need". Having true heavy lift (>100 mT lift capacity with 10-14 m fairings) enables a lot of things that would be difficult or impossible with what we have now. And it just so happens that one of the things we have now is not too difficult to modify into a true heavy lifter, while leaving enough room in the budget to do some of the cool things we want it for in the first place.
Even if we had Skylon, I'd still support heavy lift, because there are things that are simply too big and/or heavy to launch on one (and the Skylon design is already about as big as it can plausibly get). Hopefully by that time SpaceX is ready with Merlin-2 and whatever it is they plan to put it under...
If we had Polywell... well, I've been messing with ideas, and it seems to me that you save a lot on shield mass if you use a cluster of the most powerful cores you can build. Say eight 6 GW reactors, in two rows of four. If you skimp on the shielding except in front (the direction of the crew/payload), the shielding should weigh roughly 1000 mT. It might be possible to build a fully reusable single-stage spaceplane around this powerplant that could put a three-figure payload on the surface of the moon. But if you try to make it smaller, the shielding mass kills your performance in a hurry.
Heavy lift. There's really no substitute...
You cannot build a plausible Mars mission out of 20-ton chunks, not with current technology and launch vehicles. A recent Phobos mission study (ie: no lander) involved fifteen HLV launches (it was opposition-class. A conjunction-class mission would have required five or so, which is still something like 30 EELVs, assuming you could do it at all). Even with moon missions, if you want more than one per year, Jupiter is cheaper than EELV, and the difference only grows with mission rate.
There are economies of scale to be had with larger launchers; a J-246SH launches roughly five times the mass and ten times the volume of an EELV Heavy, but it doesn't cost anywhere near five times as much to launch. I don't think it even costs twice as much to launch. The development and production costs for a modern rocket stage using existing engines are not a strong function of the size of the stage.
If we're going to do robust exploration beyond LEO, we need heavy lift. The Augustine Commission had a number of members that went in thinking EELV-class was fine; they all changed their minds (and remember, these are the guys that ended up all but recommending Flexible Path, so the mass and volume requirements for a Mars landing aren't what convinced them).
It's not only crewed exploration missions either; the science community wants big monolithic space telescopes, and the DoD wants... something that needs a 12 m fairing and as much length as possible. Our current capacity is decent, but it's not "as big as we'll ever need". Having true heavy lift (>100 mT lift capacity with 10-14 m fairings) enables a lot of things that would be difficult or impossible with what we have now. And it just so happens that one of the things we have now is not too difficult to modify into a true heavy lifter, while leaving enough room in the budget to do some of the cool things we want it for in the first place.
Even if we had Skylon, I'd still support heavy lift, because there are things that are simply too big and/or heavy to launch on one (and the Skylon design is already about as big as it can plausibly get). Hopefully by that time SpaceX is ready with Merlin-2 and whatever it is they plan to put it under...
If we had Polywell... well, I've been messing with ideas, and it seems to me that you save a lot on shield mass if you use a cluster of the most powerful cores you can build. Say eight 6 GW reactors, in two rows of four. If you skimp on the shielding except in front (the direction of the crew/payload), the shielding should weigh roughly 1000 mT. It might be possible to build a fully reusable single-stage spaceplane around this powerplant that could put a three-figure payload on the surface of the moon. But if you try to make it smaller, the shielding mass kills your performance in a hurry.
Heavy lift. There's really no substitute...