Interesting how a number of the "ISS-Centric -- Defund SLS/Orion, and move all funds to an ISS-centric approach to BEO Exploration" votes are from the same IP address. Someone's been busy setting up lots of accounts here.Poll removed to allow the thread to continue.
Quote from: Andy USA on 10/06/2013 01:53 amInteresting how a number of the "ISS-Centric -- Defund SLS/Orion, and move all funds to an ISS-centric approach to BEO Exploration" votes are from the same IP address. Someone's been busy setting up lots of accounts here.Poll removed to allow the thread to continue.Someone actually had the nerve of pulling such a stunt? Hmmm... What's the forum penalty for cheating?
Firstly I'd like to say a few words to the person who set up those dummy accounts to try and game the system.
And BTW my comment of a "Slow motion death march."SLS started in 2011 and is expecting first flight by 2017. But SLS is a continuation of Ares V, which started in 2004.
In the real world of mission prioritization, does anybody think, with so many billions of dolalrs at stake, that our manned and unmanned mission prioritizations are not gamed by corporate insiders?
I continue to think that a track record of actual accomplishment in the construction of an LV would result in far less funding uncertainty. I flat out do not understand the silence which accompanies my observation. Apparently, all these rocket scientists are on board with that slow motion march.
I did raise an eyebrow over the number of votes cast for ISS over SLS. Turns out the "election" had been rigged by that person. Who didn't even have a financial stake in the outcome of this poll.
SLS was still over half the vote, despite the rig to bring it down.
To be honest, I'm really surprised that the "keep up the status quo even though the budget is much less" approach seemed to be the hands-down winner.
I prefer a version of option 3I would rather see SLS cancelled, retention of Orion, retention of ISS, a commitment to developing orbital fuel transfer technology, and a shift to support and reliance on commercial lift for a BEO program. Spacex developed F9 for less than 1/10 of what NASA estimate it would have cost, we need to leverage that level of commercial efficiency to have an effective BEO program with the funding limitations we are looking at.
As far as I can discern NASA’s SLS/MPCV architecture, it seems to fall within the parameters we studied on the Committee. An architecture like that needed something like $12B/year for human spaceflight in order to actually do exploration missions within NASA’s traditional cost structure. Right now it looks like the budget available will be more like $9B or even $8B/year. ... I’m not saying that SLS can’t be built — only that if it is built, the cost of keeping it operating will be so high that NASA’s budget won’t support developing, for example, planetary landers that would be needed to make it useful. ... If NASA had a top-line budget of $25B/year and that could be sustained, this might be an executable approach. At $18B/year or less, I don’t think it is....The Committee found that while our existing 25-ton launch vehicles were too small or fly too infrequently for a robust human exploration program, 70 tons was ample. We did not thoroughly explore sizes in between but from what I learned there, my opinion is that 35- to 50-ton vehicles, if low cost and scalable to a reasonable flight rate, are probably sufficient. Doing an Apollo-class mission takes two or three launches of 50- to 70-ton vehicles, and with launchers that size propellant depots aren’t mandatory but it really does help to simply transfer propellant between spacecraft. It is tractable in the near term to do missions that way.The U.S. can have 50- 70-ton vehicles that come from the same industrial base as existing launch vehicles — Atlas 5 Phase II and Falcon Heavy. NASA could fund both of those vehicles for a total of about $3-$4B, comfortably — a small fraction of SLS development costs. And the annual cost to keep the vehicles flying would probably be under $0.5B/year because they come from the same production lines as other, smaller launchers that have other customers. It is hard to say what SLS will cost to keep operating but based on what I saw on the Committee I would expect more than $2B/year. It would be far cheaper to launch two of the alternative vehicles than one SLS, so I cannot see how SLS offers good value compared to the alternatives.The capsule picture is a lot more complicated and it is hard to say what makes a good capsule strategy without clear mission requirements. I can envision some architectures under which MPCV might be a good tool in the toolbox.
Missed the poll along with this whole thread, man I need to keep an better eye on you folks Not that it matters much but as far as I can see Option-1 is the default "political" position and most likely outcome, but Clongton's post pretty much floored me given his normal postion on the subject but I very much have to agree with his argument and say I'd favor the Option-3 outcome. Having said that I have to point out that there IS a serious disconnect with the idea that "Orion" is somehow required for BLEO operations and people want to "keep" it even if launched on an EELV. I don't think people quite realize that "Orion" is simply the ultimate embodyment of the "Apollo," "flags-and-footprints" sortie mission paradigm with all the short-comings that entails. "Orion" is "required" only if your "program" requires having a capsule that astronauts "live" in all the way from launch to landing, and therefore you plan on throwing all the REST of the equipment away piece by piece with every mission.
Quote from: RanulfC on 10/10/2013 08:47 pmMissed the poll along with this whole thread, man I need to keep an better eye on you folks Not that it matters much but as far as I can see Option-1 is the default "political" position and most likely outcome, but Clongton's post pretty much floored me given his normal postion on the subject but I very much have to agree with his argument and say I'd favor the Option-3 outcome. Having said that I have to point out that there IS a serious disconnect with the idea that "Orion" is somehow required for BLEO operations and people want to "keep" it even if launched on an EELV. I don't think people quite realize that "Orion" is simply the ultimate embodyment of the "Apollo," "flags-and-footprints" sortie mission paradigm with all the short-comings that entails. "Orion" is "required" only if your "program" requires having a capsule that astronauts "live" in all the way from launch to landing, and therefore you plan on throwing all the REST of the equipment away piece by piece with every mission.Wishing we had a +1 button. The good news is that there are some promising technologies on the horizon that should allow us to completely break the Apollo paradigm. I'm hoping that 10yrs from now people look at that approach as being as anachronistic as poodle skirts and record players.~Jon