Quote from: MP99 on 03/11/2010 12:50 pmQuote from: Lonestar1 on 03/11/2010 06:38 amQuote from: kraisee on 03/11/2010 03:25 amThere is absolutely nothing in the US now, or currently planned (including Falcon-9 and Falcon-9 Heavy), which even hopes to get launch costs down below that level. You're obviously not familar with the full range of plans that are out there. Falcon 9 is not the only concept, and it's certainly not the cheapest. Capsules and expendable rockets are not the only way to get into space. They're a stop-gap at best, a dead-end at worst. Is this hush-hush, or should I have heard of this project?How far along are they?I think that he's referring (initially) to DreamChaser and (ultimately) to hypothetical fantasy RLVs. They are all entirely pretty PowerPoint illustrations and, on occasion, full-scale carbon-fiber mock-ups.Ten years away, minimum.
Quote from: Lonestar1 on 03/11/2010 06:38 amQuote from: kraisee on 03/11/2010 03:25 amThere is absolutely nothing in the US now, or currently planned (including Falcon-9 and Falcon-9 Heavy), which even hopes to get launch costs down below that level. You're obviously not familar with the full range of plans that are out there. Falcon 9 is not the only concept, and it's certainly not the cheapest. Capsules and expendable rockets are not the only way to get into space. They're a stop-gap at best, a dead-end at worst. Is this hush-hush, or should I have heard of this project?How far along are they?
Quote from: kraisee on 03/11/2010 03:25 amThere is absolutely nothing in the US now, or currently planned (including Falcon-9 and Falcon-9 Heavy), which even hopes to get launch costs down below that level. You're obviously not familar with the full range of plans that are out there. Falcon 9 is not the only concept, and it's certainly not the cheapest. Capsules and expendable rockets are not the only way to get into space. They're a stop-gap at best, a dead-end at worst.
There is absolutely nothing in the US now, or currently planned (including Falcon-9 and Falcon-9 Heavy), which even hopes to get launch costs down below that level.
Kosmas and Posey Introduce Bill to Minimize Human Spaceflight Gap http://www.kosmas.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=269&Itemid=1March 10, 2010Bipartisan Legislation Would Help Maintain U.S. Leadership in Space
As 51D Mascot has implied earlier, this bill may just be a placeholder for a larger appropriations bill that will include this and what Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison submitted on the Senate side.
Quote from: OV-106 on 03/11/2010 07:56 amWhy is it not very hard to do? Give me specifics. Define "more cost effective". Seems fairly subjective to me. No, cost effectiveness is not "fairly subjective". It's objective and quantifiable. Someone "working in this business" should know that. Sorry to be blunt, but since you elected to insult me and others, I don't feel inclined to give you a remedial class in engineering economics. As I used to tell students, I'm not here to do your homework. It isn't hard to be more cost-effective than the Plan of Record because the cost of the PoR is so high and the results so low that almost any plan would score higher. Even simply continuing to fly the Shuttle. Quote from: OV-106 on 03/11/2010 07:56 amDefine game-changing technology. Define polite request, or did you miss the class on common courtesy as well? If you don't know what game-changing technology is, I don't think I can tell you. I could give you the game-theoretic definition, but that would be like telling you the color blue is between 4100 and 4900 angstroms. If you can't see it for yourself, you'll never really know. It's "the vision thing." Reading Clayton Christenson's book, "The Innovator's Dilemma," might be some help. As for who decides which technologies are game-changing, the answer is Major General Charles Bolden, or those he delegates the responsibility to. Quote from: OV-106 on 03/11/2010 07:56 amYou are a program manager and it your job to go make "game-changing" technology. Where do you start? What are your objectives? How long will it take before you have results? What will your needed budget profile be for how many years in order to make it "game-changing"? Once it is invented, how long will you require to validate it, transfer it to another entity so that it can be used in an operational state? That's not exactly my job, but you are very close. Beyond that -- I'm sorry, but there is no "cookbook approach." Every case is different. That's what makes it so challenging. Quote from: OV-106 on 03/11/2010 07:56 amFor the rest of that paragraph, where exactly do you get all of that? There is no documentation except the budget, which is a proprosal from the Administration and uses only some of what you mention above as "possible examples". It specifically states that. There are no contracts for any of this and therefore you cannot say any of that will happen.Just because you haven't seen a document doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just because something isn't written down doesn't mean it hasn't been decided, and just because something is in writing doesn't always mean it's true. I learn a lot more from talking to people than gets printed in the funny papers. I didn't say any of that was going to happen -- the old guard and ther special interests could screw it all up -- but that's the vision, and it's a vision worth fighting for.
Why is it not very hard to do? Give me specifics. Define "more cost effective". Seems fairly subjective to me.
Define game-changing technology.
You are a program manager and it your job to go make "game-changing" technology. Where do you start? What are your objectives? How long will it take before you have results? What will your needed budget profile be for how many years in order to make it "game-changing"? Once it is invented, how long will you require to validate it, transfer it to another entity so that it can be used in an operational state?
For the rest of that paragraph, where exactly do you get all of that? There is no documentation except the budget, which is a proprosal from the Administration and uses only some of what you mention above as "possible examples". It specifically states that. There are no contracts for any of this and therefore you cannot say any of that will happen.
I agree with some of your sentiments, but let's get the facts straight:The original Iridium program bankrupted itself after reportedly spending in excess of $5B lofting satellites. A group of private investors bought the remnants for the aforementioned $25M. Good deal for them.It would be rather interesting if after NASA and the ESA spending $100B+ on the ISS, a private investment group could eventually offer to take over operations for a few billion instead of having it be deorbited.I'm a big fan of Burt Rutan's accomplishments with the SpaceShipOne program. The rumored cost of the program was $20M. Some NASA employees down the highway at DFRC supposedly said "Heh. For $20M we would have delivered a feasibility study that said it wasn't possible!" But the price tag for Virgin Galactic's commercial venture is $200k/ride. And that's just for a sub-orbital flight. Call me a pessimist. I believe it's going to years - decades - before private industry will loft a viable man-rated orbital spacecraft. And certainly not without some - er - casualties along the way. Men on Mars? Probably not in my lifetime (I'm 36). There's just no political will, and therefore no money, to accomplish that. I hope to be proven wrong...
John Shannon wrote @ March 10th, 2010 at 11:04 pmI would like to address a few of the comments on this forum.First of all, it sounds like most of you were unable to see the entire press conference on Tuesday. NASA has a “Program Overview” press conference with the Program Managers prior to each flight. Reporters take this opportunity to ask questions about the future direction of the Space Shuttle and ISS programs. This is followed by mission briefings by the Flight Directors, the EVA team, and finally the Crew. I also understand that the audio of the reporter’s questions was not being aired so you may have missed what was being asked. Bill Harwood has a more complete write-up on SpaceflightNow.com if you are interested in seeing a more complete account of the discussion. This should answer the “Why was Shannon talking to reporters” comments.One of the first questions I was asked concerned the proposed Senate Bill from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and whether the proposed shuttle extension was feasible. I explained that we had kicked-off a vendor study to verify that our vendors could support the actions outlined in the bill. This study has shown that bringing vendors back would not be an issue. As you can imagine, at our current flight rate we maintain close contact with current and previous vendors to make sure that they are available in the event of any issues (for testing, manufacturing expertise, replacement parts, etc). So, from a vendor standpoint it is technically feasible to restart production for a shuttle extension.However, even though the vendors would be available, I have also been on record as opposing extension for the following three reasons:1.) The Space Shuttle is “overqualified” for the task of simply taking logistics and crews to the ISS. The Space Shuttle has unique capabilities and I have said many times that “once the ISS is completed, and the last HST servicing mission is complete, the Space Shuttle has completed its mission”.2.) As I said to Dr. Sally Ride during our Augustine discussions – do not make me re-hire workers that have been laid-off in order to work for three years and build six tanks. The production layoffs have been brutal emotional events. Hiring workers back so that we could go through the whole cycle again in two years is completely wrong (In fact- I described it as “having to rip the band-aid off twice). However – if we could use that workforce/contracts/infrastructure in a follow-on Heavy-lift program it would be a reasonable investment. Without that follow-on program I would strongly counsel against extension.3.) Money. There is a base cost with flying the shuttle. I described it as $200 million a month, in reality that is for more than two flights a year and we could accomplish the flight rate in the Congressional bill for less than that, but if you only fly two flights per year the “per flight” cost is high. This fiscal year (2010) we are flying six flights for about $2.8B, or a little less than $500 million per flight. A pretty decent deal. However, we are upside down on fixed versus variable costs due to our unique infrastructure requirements (ever try to rent an arcjet?), so taking total budget divided by number of flights is very misleading. I have often said that the first flight of the shuttle in any given year is $3 billion, all of the rest are free. That is about as accurate as any other method.I understand completely both sides of the discussion on whether to extend or not. On one hand it is important to reinvigorate the nation’s R&D base, it has been neglected for too long. On the other – we have a significant investment in infrastructure and corporate knowledge that will be very difficult to rebuild/recapture down the road. One of the most compelling arguments to keep ISS was that we had invested a lot to get our current capability, it would be a crime to walk away from it. There is a parallel there…The Administration wants to reinvigorate the R&D base and encourage commercial development of Space – how do you argue against that? Congress wants to maintain our current leadership in Space and get the most out of our current investments – also a worthy point of view. I definitely feel caught in the middle…As Bill said in his article: “Shannon did not say whether he personally favored an extension, telling reporters “we just provide the data, and we’ll let the nation go off and decide what they would like this team to go do.” This is really true. I feel it is very important to just provide the facts. We were asked by different members of Congress for data, and we provide them to the best of our ability. As you can tell, I have mixed emotions about the pros and cons of this discussion.The other comment that struck me as interesting was the “took taxpayer money to start designing sidemount”. This is not true. We were asked during the transition team meetings to provide alternative crewed and uncrewed options that had been studied over the years – and there have been a lot of them. We did update the design, costs and schedules for a modified Shuttle-C to the transition team. When the Augustine committee asked for a similar study – we all debated who would go up and talk about the alternatives. I encourage you to go back and listen to those briefings- Mike Hawes stated that this was a study that we were asked for, and I started out the discussion by stating that I supported Constellation, however we were aware that it had not been funded properly and that we were pulling together previous studies to provide alternatives. (My personal opinion is that we should have done a “Shuttle-C” early in the program, because we could have tested new technologies on an uncrewed vehicle and hence made the entire system safer. We also could have debated the merits of manned vs. unmanned for each mission to make a conscious decision on whether a mission was worth the crew risk).So, I will continue to provide requested data while our elected leadership debates options. There has been no discussion of quashing or disciplining anyone over providing this data. I think the NASA leadership has been very open and responsive to all of these requests, and I am proud to be part of the team.The last point I would clarify is what we will do as a shuttle team if there is no extension. As I told the reporters Tuesday: “But it’s a money discussion,” he said. “If we don’t have the resources to do that (extend) and to continue to logistically supply the space station (with shuttle), then I understand that, it’s the path we’ve been on and we’ll take this team and try our hardest to seed them out to either the commercial sector or into whatever NASA is going to do next to bring those lessons learned … to try and make the next program as successful as possible.”
John Shannon wrote @ March 11th, 2010 at 12:14 amWhat was reported on this blog was the following:‘Could we extend the shuttle?’” Garver said in response to a question on the subject. “I was told by the entire shuttle NASA folks that, in fact, that time had come and gone. It was not an issue of money at that point, it was an issue of second-tier suppliers, there would be at least a two-year gap between our last flight and the next one, et cetera.” That situation, she said, was a result a previous policies: “We inherited what we inherited.”I believe if you read this again, Lori was stating that you could not have an uninterrupted extension of the shuttle, which is exactly right.To bring people back on contract, to get the suppliers spooled up will result in a two year delay in getting new hardware to the launch pad. Throwing lots of money at it would not accelerate the hardware delivery. I don’t see the contradiction you see.When I was asked if we could support the proposal from Sen. Hutchison, i addressed that there were no technical reasons we could not, however there is no money in the budget for it and we would have a two year gap unless we spread out the flights. Where is the contradiction?regarding your last paragraph – I would say that there is disagreement in the space community on those goals and aspirations and that is why all of this data is being requested. I am just trying to stick to the facts…
“SOMD believes that if the nation told us to extend the space shuttle, we could do it technically,” he said. “But the reality is that we can do anything if we’re given enough money and enough workforce.” He said that “enough money” would be “well over $2.5 billion a year” to keep flying the shuttle. “That additional money would probably have to come from their directorates,” he said, referring to his fellow panelists. “It’s highly unlikely in the budget environment that we’re in that we’re going to get additional dollars.”... “If we’re directed to do so, and if the money actaully shows up, and if we bring the workforce and the suppliers onboard that we need to move forward, there would still be a two- to three-year gap between the last flight and the new additional flights,” he concluded. “That’s just the way it is, folks, that’s the way it is because it takes us that long to build an external tank.”
FYI, John Shannon (Space Shuttle Program Manager) made the following comment on Shuttle extension yesterday over at Jeff Foust's Space Politics blog:
Mr. Shannon's Band-Aid analogy fails. Many injuries, especially the larger ones, require the first band-aid to be ripped off, the wound cleaned, and a second one to be applied, only to be ripped off in it's turn.It would be rough indeed, to take a three year job, but if you knew in advance that the job was likely to have only a three year duration, you could begin to plan for that eventuality. It is not an unheard of situation, and could be well used regarding the tank issue.I like the analogy of the first shuttle costing $3B and you get the rest for free. Mr. Shannon tries to spin this into an argument for non-extension, and fails again.Not only that, but his "overqualified" example also fails. It's the only American vehicle that does what it does. Therefore we should use it until we have a proven vehicle that can replace all of it's functions, for less money. Until then, it's the only "qualified" vehicle, and as such, and as long as it is used, it can't be "over" qualified.Clearly, the shuttle should be extended. It is affordable and proven.
Now if we could only hear from Mike Suffredini about ISS utilization and resupply. I seem to remember that that the last time Shuttle's went to a hard stop the station had to go to 2 crew. I find it extremely hard to believe with simply the addition of HTV and ATV with a promise of Falcon 9 that we can maintain 6 crew and science.
I fully expect one or more of the commercial manned launch companies to go down the same path. That's why, as opposed to the indelicate OV, I have no problem with NASA feeding these companies some money to get them operational, and then backing off and letting the free market have its way. The viable ones will survive; the others will enter Chapter 11 and either get reorganized free of debt or will sell off their flying assets to other players. Regardless, the machines they built will still be flying, and flying with lower costs due to their chaotic financial path.
I find it extremely hard to believe with simply the addition of HTV and ATV with a promise of Falcon 9 that we can maintain 6 crew and science.
Now if we could only hear from Mike Suffredini about ISS utilization and resupply. I seem to remember that that the last time Shuttle's went to a hard stop the station had to go to 2 crew.
Quote from: Pheogh on 03/11/2010 05:22 pmNow if we could only hear from Mike Suffredini about ISS utilization and resupply. I seem to remember that that the last time Shuttle's went to a hard stop the station had to go to 2 crew. I find it extremely hard to believe with simply the addition of HTV and ATV with a promise of Falcon 9 that we can maintain 6 crew and science.Yes, it was during Columbia when we had no way to reach ISS for an undetermined amount of time. This is the perfect analogy to use for a Shuttle extension until those "commercial" providers come online.HTV and ATV are there now but the Station is also much more complex, more labs and has a crew of 5 or 6. HTV, ATV and Progress were always meant to be suppliments to Shuttle. If more are required because we have taken the main cog out of the works, guess where more American tax dollars go? Oversees because those governments are not going to pick up the tab for a decision we have unilaterally made.
If you recall it took a phone call from Clinton to make the financiers back down from their threat to de-orbit the satellites.
Quote from: shuttlefanatic on 03/11/2010 09:12 am...Call me a pessimist. I believe it's going to years - decades - before private industry will loft a viable man-rated orbital spacecraft. And certainly not without some - er - casualties along the way. Men on Mars? Probably not in my lifetime (I'm 36). There's just no political will, and therefore no money, to accomplish that. I hope to be proven wrong......As far as your pessimistic prediction of decades before a private manned spacecraft orbits, you're simply wrong. Don't forget that Boeing is in this game, and they have a long track record of making this stuff happen. You'll see at least one company beat the Ares 1/Orion operational date of 2017; the financial incentive to be first with men to orbit is that great.
...Call me a pessimist. I believe it's going to years - decades - before private industry will loft a viable man-rated orbital spacecraft. And certainly not without some - er - casualties along the way. Men on Mars? Probably not in my lifetime (I'm 36). There's just no political will, and therefore no money, to accomplish that. I hope to be proven wrong...
Quote from: Pheogh on 03/11/2010 05:22 pmI find it extremely hard to believe with simply the addition of HTV and ATV with a promise of Falcon 9 that we can maintain 6 crew and science.*cough* Taurus II / Cygnus *cough*QuoteNow if we could only hear from Mike Suffredini about ISS utilization and resupply. I seem to remember that that the last time Shuttle's went to a hard stop the station had to go to 2 crew.Don't forget that the budget anticipates increased utilisation of ISS.Martin