LIVE: Congressional Hearings into Obama's NASA Budget FY2011 - Feb 24-25 Part 2

[marsavian]

Anyone else spot Jeff Bingham behind Vitter ?

[Cog_in_the_machine]

When President Reagan first announced Space Station Freedom, it was supposed to be completed sometime during the 1990's, correct?  As is usually the case, we didn't meet the initial target date, and the program was completely reconfigured to become ISS.  But what if Reagan had instead announced, "Rather than commit to building a space station, we're going to perform the R&D into new technologies that might allow us to build a space station more easily at some future date" - does anyone here think we'd have a space station in LEO today?

I see your point, but if they're going to come up with a date for a Moon landing for example, they need to know what parts of the budget will be approved and then estimate what will happen with all the R&D in the coming years so they can come up with a date that has a chance of being even slightly accurate. That takes time and the budget proposal as Bolden said was rushed. They can't just pull a number out of the air. Remember Bolden said that even if Obama ordered NASA to go to Mars by the end of the decade, he's not sure he can make that happen. Granted it doesn't have to be exactly that goal in that time frame, but without knowing what tech will be available it doesn't matter what date you target, it will most likely slip.

[Chris Bergin]

Isn't it already too late to extend the shuttle due to ET/SSME production/refurbishment being shut down?

No. Not sure how you came to that conclusion, unless you missed all the NASA documentation on L2 and the several articles I've written about this.

Sorry... I guess the sheer volume of information on this site is sometimes a bit much to be able to digest it all.

My fault actually, as I always overreact to that "it's too late" comment from everyone I wasn't being objective.

In summary, it's not too late, but you'd need to stretch the manifest to four (current), 135 (ET-122) and then three more via spare tanks. Additional flight tanks will not be ready until mid 2012 (right now). SSMEs - no problem there at all. SRBs, probably the main problem, but ATK aren't shut down on the hardware, they were just moving to five seg.

So yes, we're in a potential small gap between additional flights past around STS-137/138. That's why 2012 with seven to eight flights from now is most viable.

Oh and money, but if they can find 2.5 billion just to shut CxP down and another six billion for Commercial, not to mention the money it's going to cost to hire Soyuz seats....

[spacedem]

But what if Reagan had instead announced, "Rather than commit to building a space station, we're going to perform the R&D into new technologies that might allow us to build a space station more easily at some future date" - does anyone here think we'd have a space station in LEO today?

Not sure I get you.  When did Obama make an announcement to that effect?  I must have missed it. :-)

[psloss]

Interesting choice of comments in the press release from the committee:
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=fdff3de6-3eec-4674-9239-34b8db5969f2

[northanger]

Hopefully it will get us more than mere flags and footprints.

But thus far there's nothing to back that up.  It's nothing more than hope...

imho, NASA corners the market on hope, now it needs to do the same with change (literally & figuratively). And they can back up both with confidence.

[clongton]

"You don't want seventh graders thinking about Mars? I don't agree with that." Vitter.

Bolden disagrees. Cites about them not caring about the LV.

Emphasis mine. I don't know many seventh graders who build models of the ISS but I literally know hundreds who build and fly model rockets. It's the rockets that grab their attention, not the photo-ops inside a station.

[northanger]

Isn't it already too late to extend the shuttle due to ET/SSME production/refurbishment being shut down?

No. Not sure how you came to that conclusion, unless you missed all the NASA documentation on L2 and the several articles I've written about this.

Sorry... I guess the sheer volume of information on this site is sometimes a bit much to be able to digest it all.

My fault actually, as I always overreact to that "it's too late" comment from everyone I wasn't being objective.

In summary, it's not too late, but you'd need to stretch the manifest to four (current), 135 (ET-122) and then three more via spare tanks. Additional flight tanks will not be ready until mid 2012 (right now). SSMEs - no problem there at all. SRBs, probably the main problem, but ATK aren't shut down on the hardware, they were just moving to five seg.

So yes, we're in a potential small gap between additional flights past around STS-137/138. That's why 2012 with seven to eight flights from now is most viable.

Oh and money, but if they can find 2.5 billion just to shut CxP down and another six billion for Commercial, not to mention the money it's going to cost to hire Soyuz seats....

Seems kind of fitting to end Return to Flight, extending SSP with ____________ (fill in the blank).

[Chris Bergin]

"You don't want seventh graders thinking about Mars? I don't agree with that." Vitter.

Bolden disagrees. Cites about them not caring about the LV.

Emphasis mine. I don't know many seventh graders who build models of the ISS but I literally know hundreds who build and fly model rockets. It's the rockets that grab their attention, not the photo-ops inside a station.

Rewatching the event and Bolden made some very poor remarks at times.

This one is amazing:

"No one will know how an astronaut got to the ISS 10 years from now. No one will know what vehicle they went on. Nor will they care."

And this is the guy that wants kids to be inspired....just don't give a crap about the engineering, the processing, the launch vehicle, the launch event etc. And I suppose we can include the testing, the test flights.

Very poor remark from the head of NASA.

[MP99]

So yes, we're in a potential small gap between additional flights past around STS-137/138. That's why 2012 with seven to eight flights from now is most viable.

Oh and money, but if they can find 2.5 billion just to shut CxP down and another six billion for Commercial, not to mention the money it's going to cost to hire Soyuz seats....

Not sure if I'm mis-reading that. Is the money committed to Soyuz (ie contract signed)?

Martin

[imcub]

"You don't want seventh graders thinking about Mars? I don't agree with that." Vitter.

Bolden disagrees. Cites about them not caring about the LV.

Emphasis mine. I don't know many seventh graders who build models of the ISS but I literally know hundreds who build and fly model rockets. It's the rockets that grab their attention, not the photo-ops inside a station.

Rewatching the event and Bolden made some very poor remarks at times.

This one is amazing:

"No one will know how an astronaut got to the ISS 10 years from now. No one will know what vehicle they went on. Nor will they care."

And this is the guy that wants kids to be inspired....just don't give a crap about the engineering, the processing, the launch vehicle, the launch event etc. And I suppose we can include the testing, the test flights.

Very poor remark from the head of NASA.

Ya know ... I remember watching a big rocket launch a couple guys towards the moon on TV a few decade ago.  But the name of that rocket and the names of the spacecraft that took them to/from the moon seems to escape me at the moment.  I guess I don't care ... the important thing is that Neal somebody, Buzz what's his face, and Michael in the command thingy made history.

Edit for grammar.

[Chris Bergin]

So yes, we're in a potential small gap between additional flights past around STS-137/138. That's why 2012 with seven to eight flights from now is most viable.

Oh and money, but if they can find 2.5 billion just to shut CxP down and another six billion for Commercial, not to mention the money it's going to cost to hire Soyuz seats....

Not sure if I'm mis-reading that. Is the money committed to Soyuz (ie contract signed)?

Martin

Executable contract, so the deal is in place, but a check to Russia hasn't been posted, as far as I know. Will be on execution.

[Chris Bergin]

"You don't want seventh graders thinking about Mars? I don't agree with that." Vitter.

Bolden disagrees. Cites about them not caring about the LV.

Emphasis mine. I don't know many seventh graders who build models of the ISS but I literally know hundreds who build and fly model rockets. It's the rockets that grab their attention, not the photo-ops inside a station.

Rewatching the event and Bolden made some very poor remarks at times.

This one is amazing:

"No one will know how an astronaut got to the ISS 10 years from now. No one will know what vehicle they went on. Nor will they care."

And this is the guy that wants kids to be inspired....just don't give a crap about the engineering, the processing, the launch vehicle, the launch event etc. And I suppose we can include the testing, the test flights.

Very poor remark from the head of NASA.

Ya know ... I remember watching a big rocket launch a couple guys towards the moon on TV a few decade ago.  But the name of that rocket and the names of the spacecraft that took them to/from the moon seems to escape me at the moment.  I guess I don't care ... the important thing is that Neal somebody, Buzz what's his face, and Michael in the command thingy made history.

Edit for grammar.

I tried to find an excuse for his comment, such as Joe Public, but even Joe Public tend to know what a shuttle is.

Those exhibitions with retired orbiters are going to be in trouble by 2020, with masses of people asking "what's that?"

[northanger]

Bolden reminds Vitter he told him about two radical groups -- he strives for the middle.

Great screenshots

oh hai! thanx that was fun!

[nooneofconsequence]

Oh and money, but if they can find 2.5 billion just to shut CxP down and another six billion for Commercial, not to mention the money it's going to cost to hire Soyuz seats....

This is all about the money and the future.

What I'd like to see is not blowing more $ done the hole. Cx impressed me with nothing so much as the ability to demonstrate the inability to get acceptable results with an acceptable plan with acceptable review.

If you publish a plan, or leave a opening for a govt launcher/RV ... it will be used to extract budget from science/commercial/other. So this is the right approach to changing the game.

If you want Shuttle extension or HLV experimentation program, you'll have to get fresh budget from somewhere other than NASA. Unlike Challenger RTF, where all the programs were raided to get another Shuttle operational.

The problem with funding any HLV now is that it defacto overtly defines a plan ... one where all the Cx projects now can be argued back into existence again. Much as I've appreciated Jupiter and wished for it's alternate instead of Ares, the risk of reviving Cx is not worth it.

Shuttle is a similar story - much as I'd like to see Shuttle run until a qualified replacement (or three) has proven itself, that does not seem possible given budget constraints. Much as I'd prefer than sanity would have governed NASA HSF post Saturn V, it never has and likely never will. Including now.

The game of "launch vehicle chicken", where we kill off one before starting another is standard fair - many administrations have done this to force a direction.

It is very reasonable to doubt the current admin bringing off commercial space. Or even that could be a "head fake" with R&D projects.

But what I like from today is Bolden talking of Mars as a true goal, and Nelson goading Obama to do same.

Second best is Bolden genuinely sharing that why Obama doesn't is because there are too many missing parts for him to do so.

Unlike JFK , Obama doesn't have the go-go 60's economy and the Soviet Union threat to motivate an Apollo program to fill in the blanks as we go along.

He has a cranky public who want's a detailed plan with an organization who hasn't done squat with a post Shuttle future given more than 9B.

Going commercial is long overdue.

[MP99]

Worst participant: Vitter, the guy who says HSF would be ended, completely ignoring the 16bn to a national space laboratory in the next 5 years

And after that? For me, the question is "to where will they be flying in 2021, 2022, 2023...?"

If the answer to "why no HLV" today is "no payloads", then surely the answer to "why no HSF" in 2021 is "no destination".

If NASA has to bankroll the taxi providers to get that service running, might they also need to bankroll Bigelow just to provide a replacement destination? (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=20214.msg530315;topicseen#msg530315).

Martin

[nooneofconsequence]

This one is amazing:

"No one will know how an astronaut got to the ISS 10 years from now. No one will know what vehicle they went on. Nor will they care."

And this is the guy that wants kids to be inspired....just don't give a crap about the engineering, the processing, the launch vehicle, the launch event etc. And I suppose we can include the testing, the test flights.

Very poor remark from the head of NASA.

Disagree - NASA is about science not capsules.

[Bill White]

If NASA is about science, then robots only offer a much better value.

I happen to believe NASA should be about more than science even if science is part of the mix and launchers do matter.

United States needs a prestigious launcher AND we need robust commercial as well.

It's not "either / or" rather it's "both"

This one is amazing:

"No one will know how an astronaut got to the ISS 10 years from now. No one will know what vehicle they went on. Nor will they care."

And this is the guy that wants kids to be inspired....just don't give a crap about the engineering, the processing, the launch vehicle, the launch event etc. And I suppose we can include the testing, the test flights.

Very poor remark from the head of NASA.

Disagree - NASA is about science not capsules.

[jongoff]

"You don't want seventh graders thinking about Mars? I don't agree with that." Vitter.

Bolden disagrees. Cites about them not caring about the LV.

Emphasis mine. I don't know many seventh graders who build models of the ISS but I literally know hundreds who build and fly model rockets. It's the rockets that grab their attention, not the photo-ops inside a station.

So, what do you think people will be flying on if we use commercial LEO taxis?  Giant balloons?  Huge rubber bands?  No it'll be rockets just the same.  Sure, DIRECT is bigger than Falcon 9 or Atlas V, but quite frankly I doubt most people outside of the hard core rocket nerds give a darn what shape the rocket is in that puts the people up.

~Jon

[mmeijeri]

Sure, DIRECT is bigger than Falcon 9 or Atlas V, but quite frankly I doubt most people outside of the hard core rocket nerds give a darn what shape the rocket is in that puts the people up.

They might care about the crew vehicle though. The Orbiter is easily the most lovable part of the Shuttle stack. And the Dream Chaser looks much cooler than a boring old capsule. The little spaceplane that could. It even has a lot of NASA and even some Shuttle heritage.