1. Good question. I exclude Atlas and Delta when I say commercial boys.2. Paper rockets are ones that have put 1,000 lbs into orbit but they say they will fairly soon put manned spacecraft into orbit. 3. Not sure they understand how hard that is to do.
I exclude Atlas and Delta when I say commercial boys.
Quote from: dks13827 on 04/24/2010 01:44 pmDidnt anyone watch all of Augustine as I did ?1. Nasa was building a booster 10 times safer than Shuttle.2. Gary Pulliam said the Delta IVH would take 5.5 to 7 years to man rate. 3. I wish they would proceed !He also didnt want to get into the PRA of it.4. The commercial boys at this stage still have paper rockets, I hope very much that they do succeed.You are wrong again1. So what. The other vehicles are safer than the shuttle2. He is not the end all expert. Also Aerospace was given bogus requirements. Other NASA groups have said it would be quicker3. NASA would have to pay for it4. No, ULA is part of the commercial boys and Delta IV and Atlas are not paper rockets. Neither is Falcon 9, which is more real than Ares I.
Didnt anyone watch all of Augustine as I did ?1. Nasa was building a booster 10 times safer than Shuttle.2. Gary Pulliam said the Delta IVH would take 5.5 to 7 years to man rate. 3. I wish they would proceed !He also didnt want to get into the PRA of it.4. The commercial boys at this stage still have paper rockets, I hope very much that they do succeed.
Ed Kyle has an interesting post on one way to do a sustainable manned program here:http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/moonslo.htmlUsing a storable earth departure stage requires more mass in LEO than LH, but you can use existing EELVs and avoid the huge fixed cost of a dedicated NASA-owned HLV.With low boiloff LH storage you can avoid the performance hit of storable propellant, and that technology is baselined for Mars in NASA's latest study. Low boiloff methane propulsion is also baselined for Mars. But even if these technologies prove difficult, a storable stage can work as a fallback. Although Ed would probably prefer to go to the moon first, a big storable stage is also an enabler for asteroid missions.Long duration deep space habitats, which we also need for Mars in any case, are another enabler for a sustainable program. They would allow conjunction-class asteroid missions, which would allow a lot more science return than a sprint mission. They would be needed for a Phobos mission.They would also allow a more cost-effective lunar program, since a two-year mission costs much less than four six month missions.
Paper rockets are ones that have put 1,000 lbs into orbit but they say they will fairly soon put manned spacecraft into orbit. Not sure they understand how hard that is to do.
...So what. The other vehicles are safer than the shuttle...
,,,You may not be the total expert that you think you are....
Since the thread original was about definitions, here's my view on what those mean.
"Affordable" is subjective. The US could afford to spend ten times what it currently does on NASA, but it doesn't choose to spend that much. My view is that "affordable" really means that a serious attempt is made to get more for the money (from the point of view of the speaker).
"Sustainable" probably is just as subjective. I see it as meaning either that the project would remain in the absence of government spending or that the project is so important that it's funding is protected from cuts. For example, unsubsidized and profitable commercial satellites would be sustainable since they don't depend on government funding and hence, would not be threatened by a cut in such funding. For another example, the nuclear launch detection infrastructure is sustainable since the US will continue to need such services to protect itself against a first strike possibility.
My view is that most of NASA's activities simply aren't "sustainable". It is elective spending that Congress chooses to continue to fund and may well fund throughout the rest of this century. They are "affordable" in that Congress pays for them and hence, can afford them.
This constant refrain of needing goals such as “man on the Moon”, “man on Mars” and schedules such as “by 2020”, “by 2030” is ultimately futile within the available funds, it is setting the Agency up for failure.
In my opinion the problem is that the goals are a combination of three things: grandiose, far out and too precisely dated. I'd be in favour of less ambitious but nearer term initial goals, something like beyond LEO (even if that just means the lower van Allen belt) within 5 years, combined with less precise longer term goals like beyond GEO within 10-15 years and either Phobos or the moon within 15-25 years.
I would suggest that sustainable means that “the project” continues from Administration to Administration, Congress to Congress.
I would further suggest that the concept of “the project” has served NASA human space flight poorly... these programs paid lip service to the overarching goal of exploration but they each quickly became sole focus of human space flight efforts with little effort to insure their contribution to an overall exploration strategy....
I would agree with the cravat “as they are currently formulated”....
That is what I found so hopeful about the President’s proposal. By changing the model from some massive program to a series of technologic goals and limited capabilities tests within an overarching human space exploration strategy we have the possibility of not only sustainability but affordability as well...
The major problem with this model is that it is going to take time and for some reason NASA and NASA supporters seem to think BIG things should happen now...