Author Topic: HEFT review and spiral development  (Read 58647 times)

Offline alexw

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Re: HEFT review and spiral development
« Reply #140 on: 09/27/2010 11:34 pm »
It's NASA's job to explore not permanently subsidize industry when they can't find real business models.
If it's NASA's job to explore, then why is it developing launch vehicles?
None big enough for the job off the shelf. It also did the job very successfully first time round.
      Yes and no. The last three Apollo landing missions were canceled and the HLLV mothballed despite the hardware already being built because  a) the operating costs were too high for the politically-sustainable budget, despite the Cold War, and b) the safety margins required to make the lunar payload fit on a single 120mT-to-LEO HLLV were sufficiently thin that eventual LOC was regarded as unacceptably probable.
       Saturn V/Apollo was an amazing rapid scale-up, but never sustainable. Many have argued that it set sustainable long-term space development back by decades.
            -Alex


Offline Namechange User

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Re: HEFT review and spiral development
« Reply #141 on: 09/27/2010 11:49 pm »
It's NASA's job to explore not permanently subsidize industry when they can't find real business models.
If it's NASA's job to explore, then why is it developing launch vehicles?

EDIT:That it's a so-called "political reality" that it's NASA's job to develop an SDHLV is partially related to the idea that ATK ought to be subsidized.

It is not a subsidy when it is a government procurement for the expressed use by the government in some role.  Just like technically speaking Lockheed Martin is not "subsidized" for the F-35.

When you are talking about commercial, and these companies own their products etc, and NASA is intended to be just a user like anyone else and these companies require NASA funding to "close the business case" then that is a subsidy or if a commercial company seeks NASA funding to expedite, etc then that is a subsidy. 
Enjoying viewing the forum a little better now by filtering certain users.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: HEFT review and spiral development
« Reply #142 on: 09/28/2010 12:01 am »
It's NASA's job to explore not permanently subsidize industry when they can't find real business models.
If it's NASA's job to explore, then why is it developing launch vehicles?

EDIT:That it's a so-called "political reality" that it's NASA's job to develop an SDHLV is partially related to the idea that ATK ought to be subsidized.

It is not a subsidy when it is a government procurement for the expressed use by the government in some role.  Just like technically speaking Lockheed Martin is not "subsidized" for the F-35.

When you are talking about commercial, and these companies own their products etc, and NASA is intended to be just a user like anyone else and these companies require NASA funding to "close the business case" then that is a subsidy or if a commercial company seeks NASA funding to expedite, etc then that is a subsidy. 
But if it makes fiscal sense for NASA, what's wrong with the idea that it helps the business case for something else close? Isn't that actually a good thing?  (Remember, the context for this discussion is HEFT and their exclusion of lots of commercial launches--in other words EELVs or similar--on the basis that it would be an "excessive" number of launches.)

Besides, nobody here is saying that, for instance, EELVs are dependent on NASA funding for their existence (they aren't), but extra EELV flights for NASA wouldn't hurt!

And finally, the question is: Why are a lot of commercial launches seen as "excessive" in the HEFT review?
« Last Edit: 09/28/2010 12:04 am by Robotbeat »
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline Will

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Re: HEFT review and spiral development
« Reply #143 on: 09/28/2010 12:02 am »
So how many times do these rockets go up when originally scheduled ? It would be a nightmare trying to coordinate so many DoD and NASA launches in an interleaved fashion if there were numerous delays. Thankfully it's not going to happen ;).

In 2009, there were 14 different flights to ISS, in addition to all the other launches by those nations. If it was a coordination nightmare it was concealed well.

As another data point, consider that in 1962, the US launched 38 Thor based orbital missions, and another 16 on Atlas, and there were a lot of suborbital missions on top of that.

Offline Ronsmytheiii

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Re: HEFT review and spiral development
« Reply #144 on: 09/28/2010 12:07 am »
This is not a debate thread on HLV versus commercial spaceflight, get back on topic (ie mention the contents of the HEFT study)
« Last Edit: 09/28/2010 12:09 am by Ronsmytheiii »

Offline Namechange User

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Re: HEFT review and spiral development
« Reply #145 on: 09/28/2010 12:23 am »
It's NASA's job to explore not permanently subsidize industry when they can't find real business models.
If it's NASA's job to explore, then why is it developing launch vehicles?

EDIT:That it's a so-called "political reality" that it's NASA's job to develop an SDHLV is partially related to the idea that ATK ought to be subsidized.

It is not a subsidy when it is a government procurement for the expressed use by the government in some role.  Just like technically speaking Lockheed Martin is not "subsidized" for the F-35.

When you are talking about commercial, and these companies own their products etc, and NASA is intended to be just a user like anyone else and these companies require NASA funding to "close the business case" then that is a subsidy or if a commercial company seeks NASA funding to expedite, etc then that is a subsidy. 
But if it makes fiscal sense for NASA, what's wrong with the idea that it helps the business case for something else close? Isn't that actually a good thing?  (Remember, the context for this discussion is HEFT and their exclusion of lots of commercial launches--in other words EELVs or similar--on the basis that it would be an "excessive" number of launches.)

Besides, nobody here is saying that, for instance, EELVs are dependent on NASA funding for their existence (they aren't), but extra EELV flights for NASA wouldn't hurt!

And finally, the question is: Why are a lot of commercial launches seen as "excessive" in the HEFT review?

Out of respect for Ron's comment, this is all I will say.  Look at your "edit" and then this latest response.  See the double standard and a bit of hypocracy.  I was simply providing a definition to your attempted thrashing of a corporation and their contracted product to a NASA procurement for NASA purposes. 

Enjoying viewing the forum a little better now by filtering certain users.

Online Chris Bergin

Re: HEFT review and spiral development
« Reply #146 on: 09/28/2010 12:48 am »
I think we should lock this. Moderator Ron has tried to keep it under control, and I assume everyone has said what they wanted to. Big big week, so we're best not to allow this section to get out of control ahead of the big kick off.
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