IntLibber wrote:Sorry, but you're dead wrong about the commercial providers. Elon has said many times that their SpaceX' most pessimistic schedule has Dragon capsule being human rated by 2013, three years earlier than the overoptimistic and under funded claims of NASA's Ares I program.
I'm really sick of hearing all this BS pessimism about commercial space launch providers. Who the hell makes most of the launches in the US each year? *Commercial launch providers* (note, the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 programs are NOT NASA programs, and beyond ULA you have Orbital Sciences and SpaceX with successful launches under their belts).
The ONLY thing that Dragon needs at this point to be man rated is a launch abort system, (Same for Atlas) according to NASA's shiney new man rating standards, which, btw, Shuttle doesn't meet. There is no LAS on Shuttle, so technically, NASA doesn't have a qualified manned launcher either, right now.
Cyncism about SpaceX meeting their milestones is rather laughable, given NASA hasn't met a single one of their own on Constellation. Original first launch of Ares 1 was to be in 2008 (and not a fake Ares I-X which was just a four segment SRB with a dummy fifth segment and the worlds largest plastic model on top simulating an upper stage and orion capsule).
Try holding NASA to the same cynical standards you're holding SpaceX to.
Falcon 9/Dragon is years behind schedule already, and I doubt it's done slipping.
Ares I [*spit*] is irrelevant to the argument, which is
not an ideological argument, but rather an acute logistics problem. Read more carefully.
First (to get this out of the way), I'm all for commercial LEO access. Even the SDLV I'm advocating would be commercially developed and operated. With the Shuttle program ending, the IP and infrastructure would have been turned over to the contractors to build and operate an inline SD-HLV. I believe a short Shuttle extension was planned to minimize the capability gap. The contractors, NASA officials, and even Congress were all on board with this plan before Obama threw a monkey wrench in it.
It's also worth noting that the current Shuttle contractors claimed they could operate Shuttle commercially for about 60% of what it costs now, simply by deleting the NASA admin/oversight layer...
Second, the new "plan" includes full utilization of the ISS to 2020. This is a good thing, but there's a problem. The current support plan, including Shuttle through 2010, Progress, ATV, HTV, Dragon, and Cygnus, was designed under the assumption of 40-something % utilization to 2015 followed by deorbit. Ten Shuttle flights (including construction flights, if I'm not mistaken) were de-manifested because they weren't needed.
NASA
doesn't even know how much extra logistical support (upmass, downmass, ORUs, spares) is required to keep the station at full throttle to 2020, never mind 2028. And Congress knows that NASA doesn't know...
We have a capability gap right now that could seriously impede the full utilization of the station. Commercial cannot come online and ramp up soon enough to solve it, even if they hit all their milestones.
The fact that the new budget doesn't even acknowledge this issue, never mind try to solve it, makes me suspect that the rest of it is just as poorly thought out. For instance, I don't think they actually have any real idea of what could possibly constitute "game-changing" HLV technology that would be high-confidence enough to justify scrapping the HLV we've virtually already got...
MirariNefas wrote:Anyay, I'm not sure what the problem is. The shuttle had a crappy payload anyway. Falcon 9 is about equivalent (except it won't do the big payload + crew at the same time). Other rockets in current existence aren't so far behind that, so I expect most big parts could be replaced if need be.
You expect wrong.
(And what's this about a "crappy payload"? The Shuttle can carry more than 230% of the total LEO payload of the Falcon 9, or more than 400% of Dragon's total cargo capacity to LEO. Shuttle is about even with the largest existing expendable (Delta IV Heavy) payload-wise, costs about as much per launch, and provides the flexibility of a large manned spacecraft with payload support and downmass capabilities into the bargain.)
a) Just because a rocket can lob something into orbit doesn't mean it can bring it to the ISS. You need a spaceship. The only existing or projected spaceship (besides Shuttle) that can haul big enough pieces is the HTV, and we'd have to pay Japan a
lot of money to get them to expand their manifest that much - if they could do it at all.
b) What about downmass? The only existing or projected spaceship (besides Shuttle) that can bring
anything substantial down from orbit safely is cargo Dragon, which isn't flying yet, could still slip, and is probably too little, too late to support full utilization properly even if it doesn't. (For perspective, the Shuttle's downmass per flight is about 50% more than the total LEO payload of a Falcon 9, or
five times Dragon's downmass capability.)
Current and expected capabilities, without Shuttle, will be overstretched as it is just keeping the station alive and semi-functional to 2015. Saying "we'll figure something out" while refusing to keep the one system we already know can do the job
right now is grossly irresponsible.