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Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

So $200M/month is not for no launches - it's just for a low rate of launches.
Actually John Shannon was the one claiming that the shuttle could be extended indefinitely for a mere 200 million a month. He later clarified his statement saying that it costs 200 million a month if you assume NO launches each year.
Als Clark Lindsay is not "some blogger".

93143
Posts: 1142
Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2007 7:51 pm

Post by 93143 »

So would you call him a liar if it turned out it was $201M/month?

Launches are very cheap in the Shuttle program, compared to the cost of keeping the program going and the infrastructure maintained. He was establishing a baseline.

We're only paying about $230M/month right now, at six launches per year. That's almost within the error bars for his statement right there.
Skipjack wrote:Als Clark Lindsay is not "some blogger".
Compared to John Shannon, Lori Garver, Kay Bailey Hutchison, etc., yes he is.

Your link goes to what is essentially a blog post, containing an obviously facetious proposal which is not relevant to the argument.

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

http://marsblog.net/wp/2010/03/not-much ... extension/
While last year, the dome tooling was still mostly in place (a few of the mechanical assembly pedestals had been pulled up), most of the mechanical assembly area and associated material cribs have been cleared out, leaving behind only the more complicated tools used for NC machining of the SRB fittings.
You also understand that according to John Shannon himself, there would be a gap of at least two years before any new shuttle flights would commence. At a cost of 2.4 billion to simply keep the workforce employed, the extension would cost the tax payer 4.8 billion until the first new flight takes off.
This does not include any of the costs for reassemling and restarting any of the shuttle production lines.

So yeah it is possible to restart the shuttle programme if you are willing to throw out 4.8 billion for having the entire workforce sitting arround for two years.
Not a practical plan IMHO.
At <50 million per passenger, the US could buy almost 100(!) seats on Soyuz for the same price. You get that right?
Sorry, but restarting a very expensive shuttle programme to effectively fly it for maybe a couple of years (at a low flight rate for 2.8 billion a year) before the commercial replacements are in place, just does not make any sense.

93143
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Post by 93143 »

MarsBlog wrote:Today, all of the weld tools (domes, barrels, ogives, and major weld) had been mothballed and wrapped up, along with the large milling machines and lathes used to trim the various segments – it was like walking through a winter storage facility filled with shrink-wrapped boats.
Didn't I say it had been mothballed and not destroyed?
Skipjack wrote:So yeah it is possible to restart the shuttle programme if you are willing to throw out 4.8 billion for having the entire workforce sitting arround for two years.
Not a practical plan IMHO.
Wrong. See below.

(Besides, you don't save that $4.8B by shutting the program down. A lot of it has to be paid anyway, unless the facilities are left to rot. Which they won't be - even KSC will be "modernized" under the new budget, not abandoned...)
MarsBlog wrote:And if what I was told about spares is true, it may only be possible to manufacture two additional tanks, assuming at that that everything would go perfectly and none of the spare components on order or in house have unrepairable defects or damage. With the one flightworthy tank I’m told will be left over at the end of the Shuttle program, that means an extension of at most three flights before the supply chain would need to be restarted — at considerable expense and delay.
There are three part-built tanks, not two (which might explain the comment about "it may only be possible..."). Either way, between the leftover tank, the part-built tanks, and the old LWT that could be refurbished if necessary, that's four or five flights. Stretch the current manifest into 2011 and you've got three flights per year during that two-year tank production restart gap. That might be a bit optimistic, though - probably possible, but not a conservative schedule...

Two flights per year is more conservative and would probably be fine. Technically it probably isn't even necessary to restart tank production; an extra three or four flights past the current manifest might do the trick w.r.t. ISS. (Of course, if an SD-HLV is chosen, tank production will have to restart anyway...)

This isn't just me spouting off. Chris Bergin at nasaspaceflight may be a self-described Shuttle-hugger, but his inside information is second to none.

IntLibber
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Post by IntLibber »

93143 wrote:
They pooched it, its time to turn them back into the research agency they were as NACA, and leave space to business.
Not before the ISS is secure.

Even then, what makes you think there's a business case for opening the solar system to humanity? ULA doesn't even see profit in crew to LEO. SpaceX is a bit leaner, but even they won't start work on a LAS unless NASA funds it. Asteroid mining? Forget it.

The technology, scientific understanding, and knowhow are not in place for business to take over. "Grey" research on the ground is not going to change this enough on its own, barring Mach-effect thrusters or something...

...

IIRC, at least one of the extension bills recommended letting unspent money in NASA's budget carry over to the next fiscal year. Think about that for a moment.

I say we at least try to fix NASA before nuking it back to the propeller age...
1) ULA is the ACORN of the space biz. They're a jobs and corporate welfare program with a cost-plus contract and guarantee never to lose a dollar agreement with USAF. Of COURSE they don't see a profit in ANYTHING that they aren't able to talk Uncle Sugar into forking over tens of billions for with no guarantee of delivery. Politely worded, they are space profiteers.

2) Elon's asking for LAS money from NASA because he's pretty sure he can get the money. He's never said he is incapable of getting it done himself on his own dime, but like any smart businessman, when your competition is on a corporate welfare gravy train, it doesn't hurt to ask for money when there's an idiot with a well known predeliction for writing blank checks out there who may just give you the money. If NASA stiffs him on LAS money and tells him to capitalize it himself, I am sure he'll do just that, then keep the price for Dragon seats slightly below the Soyuz pricing to maximize profit so he can pay back wherever that capital comes from for the LAS.

3) as for technology and knowhow "Not being in place" for business to take over... excuse me? Who the hell do you think provides all that to NASA? And when NASA lays off their own staff, where do you think the best and brightest will wind up? They'll be working for private businesses at private rates and without the cushy government employee union benefits and work hours. Those that are worth their snuff will do well, and the dead wood will go someplace else.

4) Unspent money? How much unspent money is there and where is it? Furthermore, since congress still won't give the nasa administrator CEO power to close unneeded facilities, I frankly could give a crap about the idea of "fixing" NASA. Until and unless congress gives up the reins, that aint even gonna start happening. They were supposed to fix NASA back in the early 1990's, and again in the late 1990's, and again in the oughties.

The only thing that would fix NASA is spinning it off as a publicly traded corporation and letting the corporate raiders go through it with a flamethrower.

93143
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Post by 93143 »

IntLibber wrote: 1) ULA is the ACORN of the space biz. They're a jobs and corporate welfare program with a cost-plus contract and guarantee never to lose a dollar agreement with USAF. Of COURSE they don't see a profit in ANYTHING that they aren't able to talk Uncle Sugar into forking over tens of billions for with no guarantee of delivery. Politely worded, they are space profiteers.

2) Elon's asking for LAS money from NASA because he's pretty sure he can get the money. He's never said he is incapable of getting it done himself on his own dime, but like any smart businessman, when your competition is on a corporate welfare gravy train, it doesn't hurt to ask for money when there's an idiot with a well known predeliction for writing blank checks out there who may just give you the money. If NASA stiffs him on LAS money and tells him to capitalize it himself, I am sure he'll do just that, then keep the price for Dragon seats slightly below the Soyuz pricing to maximize profit so he can pay back wherever that capital comes from for the LAS.
Your biases are showing.

I don't disagree with you, but we'll see what happens...
3) as for technology and knowhow "Not being in place" for business to take over... excuse me? Who the hell do you think provides all that to NASA? And when NASA lays off their own staff, where do you think the best and brightest will wind up? They'll be working for private businesses at private rates and without the cushy government employee union benefits and work hours. Those that are worth their snuff will do well, and the dead wood will go someplace else.
What are you talking about? You need to read more carefully.

Private enterprise can barely make money launching comsats. Expanding into the solar system is right out. We need an organization to do the hard stuff, the stuff that won't make money right away, without regard for the fact that it isn't making money. That's NASA.

Downsizing NASA and relegating it to a ground-bound research role would retard development of space, because you can't learn how to do something nearly as effectively without actually trying to do it. Manned exploration missions can be considered to be technology demonstrator missions as well as science missions. (Also, what about the SMD? Would a corporation have launched Cassini? How about Dawn?)

That's assuming a smooth technology development curve, of course. If high-thrust Mach-effect thrusters become available, NASA can leave development of the solar system to the corporations almost right away and start working on a warp drive. Operating in space won't be particularly expensive, which is good in case of something going wrong with said warp drive...

Also (to address your point), the commercial operators cannot possibly accomodate all of the NASA and contractor personnel that will be fired. There are too many. You can rant all you like about how most of them are dead wood, but I doubt it's true, and anyway SpaceX has apparently signalled that they don't want to hire any NASA personnel, which sounds distressingly arrogant to me...
4) Unspent money? How much unspent money is there and where is it?
There is no unspent money because they wouldn't get to keep it anyway, and any unspent money would be seen as an excuse to cut the budget next year. So the incentive is to try to spend it all.

If unspent money carried over, the first reason would disappear, creating an incentive to save, and introducing the possibility of multi-year project load balancing. The second reason would still be a problem, but locked-in multi-year budgets (as proposed by some), rather than "projections" that never materialize, would help solve that...
Furthermore, since congress still won't give the nasa administrator CEO power to close unneeded facilities, I frankly could give a crap about the idea of "fixing" NASA. Until and unless congress gives up the reins, that aint even gonna start happening. They were supposed to fix NASA back in the early 1990's, and again in the late 1990's, and again in the oughties.

The only thing that would fix NASA is spinning it off as a publicly traded corporation and letting the corporate raiders go through it with a flamethrower.
That's just rampant pessimism. Also, your second paragraph is inconsistent with your first. If NASA is unfixable, how is Congress to blame for not fixing it?

I suspect a lot of the problem with NASA stems from funding constraints - being asked to do too much with too little. There's a reason NASA's ratio of paper studies to actual completed projects is so high. Single-year budgets, cost-plus contracting, and the inability of politicians to leave the goalposts alone for more than five years are also issues. The combination of chronic underfunding and virtually-guaranteed project cancellation creates a culture of failure, and I'm not as sure as you seem to be that Congress isn't starting to realize this...


Anyway, this is becoming more of an ideological debate, which wasn't my intent, so I'll suggest that we try to wind this down...

Betruger
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Post by Betruger »

the inability of politicians to leave the goalposts alone for more than five years are also issues.
That's an understatement right there.

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

Private enterprise can barely make money launching comsats. Expanding into the solar system is right out. We need an organization to do the hard stuff, the stuff that won't make money right away, without regard for the fact that it isn't making money. That's NASA.
Uhm, SpaceX business plan is to make a good living launching all sorts of payloads. Ariane Space is doing good business also and I am pretty sure that Orbital is making good profit.
There are others with simillar goals. The ULA of course is not the greatest highlight of space business. I would not take them as a measure for anything.

93143
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Post by 93143 »

Skipjack wrote:
Private enterprise can barely make money launching comsats. Expanding into the solar system is right out. We need an organization to do the hard stuff, the stuff that won't make money right away, without regard for the fact that it isn't making money. That's NASA.
Uhm, SpaceX business plan is to make a good living launching all sorts of payloads. Ariane Space is doing good business also and I am pretty sure that Orbital is making good profit.
There are others with simillar goals. The ULA of course is not the greatest highlight of space business. I would not take them as a measure for anything.
ULA doesn't even compete in the global satellite market; they're too expensive. ArianeSpace needed heavy subsidies to get off the ground. Sea Launch couldn't hack it even with dirt-cheap Russian launch vehicles; the market is saturated as it is.

My point was, the market in question is for payloads to Earth orbit, generally satellites. Nothing else makes business sense right now.

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

ULA doesn't even compete in the global satellite market; they're too expensive.
Exactly, but they were already part of the discussion, that is why I put them into my response.
ArianeSpace needed heavy subsidies to get off the ground.
That depends on how you define "subsidiaries to get of the ground". They were actually profitable every single year of their existance until 2000, then they wrote net losses for 3 years until 2003. Ever since 2003 they have been profitable again.
My point was, the market in question is for payloads to Earth orbit, generally satellites. Nothing else makes business sense right now.
Elon Musk does not seem to share your opinion. If he did, he would not have invested millions of USD of HIS OWN money (not government money) into the development of the Dragon capsule.
Sea Launch couldn't hack it even with dirt-cheap Russian launch vehicles; the market is saturated as it is.
The market is saturated for launches at the current price point. I think that there is a much bigger market, if he price is lower.
There is a very small market for 70000 Euro Plasma TVs. Once the price had come down, the market suddenly exploded.

93143
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Post by 93143 »

Skipjack wrote:
ArianeSpace needed heavy subsidies to get off the ground.
That depends on how you define "subsidiaries to get of the ground". They were actually profitable every single year of their existance until 2000, then they wrote net losses for 3 years until 2003. Ever since 2003 they have been profitable again.
Didn't the ESA pay for development of the launcher? It was something like $7B, and there have been less than 50 successful launches so far. By my calculations, they may not even have recouped the development cost yet...
My point was, the market in question is for payloads to Earth orbit, generally satellites. Nothing else makes business sense right now.
Elon Musk does not seem to share your opinion. If he did, he would not have invested millions of USD of HIS OWN money (not government money) into the development of the Dragon capsule.
Dragon is a LEO-only capsule, and therefore its existence is entirely consistent with my point. Also, while Elon may be a space nut, I very much doubt even he could manage BEO exploration missions at a profit. If he does something like that without the government paying for it, I will be very surprised and pleased, and if he makes money at it (without said money coming from the government) I will eat my hat (figuratively speaking...).
Sea Launch couldn't hack it even with dirt-cheap Russian launch vehicles; the market is saturated as it is.
The market is saturated for launches at the current price point. I think that there is a much bigger market, if he price is lower.
There is a very small market for 70000 Euro Plasma TVs. Once the price had come down, the market suddenly exploded.
Exactly. It's a chicken-and-egg problem, and no commercial entity wants to stick its neck out and be the first one to try to break the deadlock. We're still working on cost to Earth orbit, and it will be a long time before that's cheap enough that anyone cares to go beyond.

In fact, it may never happen, left to the free market. There's such a large capital and technology gap between comsats and asteroid mining that I don't think it's reasonable to expect commercial concerns to ever bridge it on their own.

Can you imagine the terraforming of Mars happening purely commercially? I can't...

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

Dragon is a LEO-only capsule, and therefore its existence is entirely consistent with my point.
As far as I know, it was built with capabilities beyond LEO in mind. E.g. the TPS is the same the Apollo capsule used. So it can widthstand the greater stresses it would be exposed to if it was on a return trajectory from the moon.
Didn't the ESA pay for development of the launcher? It was something like $7B, and there have been less than 50 successful launches so far. By my calculations, they may not even have recouped the development cost yet...
I dont have those numbers at hand, sorry. All I know is that Arianespace is making profit. I would have to look the rest up first.
Also, while Elon may be a space nut, I very much doubt even he could manage BEO exploration missions at a profit. If he does something like that without the government paying for it, I will be very surprised and pleased, and if he makes money at it (without said money coming from the government) I will eat my hat (figuratively speaking...).
I dont know about BEO, but LEO will work just fine, even manned LEO should be fine.

I agree that the cost to LEO needs to come down first. For this we need new LVs. To develop new, better LVs, we will need enabling tech. That tech is what NASA will hopefully research in the new programme.

93143
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Post by 93143 »

Skipjack wrote:As far as I know, it was built with capabilities beyond LEO in mind. E.g. the TPS is the same the Apollo capsule used. So it can widthstand the greater stresses it would be exposed to if it was on a return trajectory from the moon.
Not without beefing up the heat shield substantially (and probably rewriting the FC software, and maybe adding rad shielding, and maybe other stuff I haven't thought of). Lunar return capability is a waste of mass on a LEO capsule. The same is true of Soyuz; it was designed to be lunar-capable, but I'm pretty sure the heat shield for the capsules they actually make is LEO-only.

Funny how Soyuz, the most sustainable spacecraft known to man, has never actually left LEO with a crew...
I dont know about BEO, but LEO will work just fine, even manned LEO should be fine.

I agree that the cost to LEO needs to come down first. For this we need new LVs. To develop new, better LVs, we will need enabling tech. That tech is what NASA will hopefully research in the new programme.
It's not just about the launch vehicle. And spacecraft are not way more expensive than their launchers just because the launchers are expensive. BEO capabilities need NASA-type research too, and for a lot of this stuff you can't just test it on the ground; you have to actually go out and learn how to live and move around in space.

At the very least, stuff like VASIMR and centrifuges and zero-gee medicine need something like the ISS to systematically test. Wouldn't it be a shame if the ISS degraded before it could really be utilized?

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

I only found this doing a quick search. I will look up more tomorrow:
http://hobbyspace.com/nucleus/?itemid=10943

93143
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Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2007 7:51 pm

Post by 93143 »

Skipjack wrote:I only found this doing a quick search. I will look up more tomorrow:
http://hobbyspace.com/nucleus/?itemid=10943
All that says is that it's using a particular chemical formulation. It's ablative; that means it gets expended during reentry. You need a lot more of it for a lunar return than you do for reentry from low Earth orbit.

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