Author Topic: Augustine Review: October summit set to reveal forward path - Main Thread 2  (Read 106294 times)

Offline Robotbeat

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I think this religious obsession that management folk have with Apollo has to die. That methane-lox wasn't used on Apollo is NOT a reason to not use it!

And we don't need to do five stages (Saturn IC, Saturn II, Saturn IV, Service module, descent engine, ascent engine). That's expensive and unsustainable and seems unsafe to me. If it makes sense to do methane-LOX with pre-positioned propellant depots, then DO IT. It isn't at the edge of materials science, so you aren't going to get stuck in a VentureStar position. On-orbit refueling should be demonstrated as soon as possible, because otherwise we are stuck with an unsustainable 5-stage lunar architecture. Every time you stage, you're throwing away aerospace-quality hardware that costs around $500/kg (which is the same as a 747). So, stage as little as you can and leverage as many advantages as you can, such as SEP-pre-positioned LLO fuel depots and commercially-refueled LEO depots. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
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 nooneofconsequence

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Ares and Altair are ONLY required if your only interest is to make CxP's precise ESAS-derived solution.

To produce the same mission capabilities you do NOT have to use those specific vehicles.   You must first, however, be willing to step outside of the one, single box as as been defined by CxP.

There are a number of viable alternatives both to replicate the same mission capabilities (Lunar First), or a different set of acceptable Exploration capabilities (Flexible Path).

Ross.
Unlike post ESAS and VSE, the situation now is more fluid. The driving consideration then was having a post Shuttle vision that didn't look like Stiedel's OSP, which had been discredited. Get an approach together that closed out the Shuttle (and ISS) to get budget, had ATK products directed at the moon with the indefinite (unfunded) promise of Mars, and stay locked to one vision with pay-as-you-go.

POR is in trouble because we can't pay-as-we-go an ATK product on the Shuttle timelines. POR also doesn't jive with the reality of ISS timelines, which both ISS and Shuttle lifetimes have always needed much more life than the past administration wanted to admit to. VSE is in serious trouble too, since we could never afford it before, it also was too naive to begin with as well (ironically, why the Stiedel plan was attacked too), and now as China pushes the US out of pole position as the dominate world economy, we can't afford to a greater degree.

Not to mention Congress wanting to be in denial (Augustine why did you bother to consider such stupid alternatives thy say) because budgetary quid pro quo's are blowing up right and left, a President in a tight box who wants to be an even bigger visionary than his predecessor but budget squeezed and extremely wary of aerospace overreach, yet needing to expand IP activity throttled down unpleasantly also by predecessor.

Everything is on the table now (and supposedly transparent this time). Rahm gets to rehash dozens of "red state" deals otherwise broken with POR's current awkwardness - it doesn't suit. Clearly there is a international game, a domestic game, a vision game, a commercial game ... which are all different.

The international game is all about the ISS, with a near term Shuttle dependency and a long term dependence on an emerging commercial presence in LEO (the commercial game). Everyone wants a finger in this pie. Shuttle and ISS have to be extended somehow, commercial/IP shoulders the load long term, and the difficulty is in how to structure this as a contemporaneous activity where it was supposed to terminate well before the next program geared up. Clear bifurcation.

The domestic game is all about apportionment of budget and who becomes the driving force in choosing direction for the beyond LEO story - who inherits the post Shuttle budget largesse.  Signs of acceptance of massive layoffs are present - so reality is starting to bite here irregardless of political accommodations that have broken down. SDLV as a means of going between present and future becomes complicated - where before you were cutting out Shuttle support early now you have to keep it alive. Or consider EELV for beyond LEO and give up on SDLV futures.

The vision game is about the competitive positioning of the US national imperative - what do you want the landscape to look like? We already see LEO being an IP/commercial game only, so similarly both can act in a supporting role for national leadership "beyond LEO".

If you follow some kind of VSE derivative, you'll have to cut out portions for IP's, and given this path follow the SSF->ISS history - very expensive, slow, and fragile (plus while Russia had stations too, only the US has gone beyond with HSF). If you do flexible path, you get back to more manageable cost/partnerships/capability, at the cost of seeming to be inconclusive in your objective (which we can't afford anyways but people are used to as 'objective setting' done in the past viz. Kennedy).

Doing Ares V lite makes it seem like you really didn't change POR, just jumped ahead. And you can do a fan dance, slowly turning it into Jupiter to save face. But you are still exposed having funded a useless Ares I, with that near term test highlighting your incompetence e.g. building a prototype for something that could never be used.

Not Shuttle-C gives you a way to combine the elements into a whole cloth again, making it seem like you are retreating from building a new LV (you're not of course) to just a similar project that addresses the new activity. It's more like what MSFC has been doing for years in rehashing Shuttle systems - a staffer might pitch it this way.

What you aren't hearing is about the total picture - the programs, the lifesystems, the science product, the landers etc. A larger portion of ongoing budget than LV's. If no one settles the long term picture, we are just as mutable as past attempts to set a new direction - one VSE is as good as another ... 

Oh, and on the fuels controversy, the only reason for keeping with Apollo dogma is if you wish to get there fast and you don't want to add unknown risk. If you are taking your time, you'll have the risk anyways, so you invest in longer term solutions like PD's and LOX/CH4.
« Last Edit: 09/30/2009 09:22 pm by nooneofconsequence »
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato

Online jongoff

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If you talk with Gary Hudson of HMX, you will find that propane has some sticky operational thermal issues that methane does not have.  For chemical rocket based lunar or Mars landers, I vote for methane/LOX and so does the NASA/JSC propulsion folks, provided they have a say in the matter that is.

It's more complicated than that.  His issues involved trying to run LOX/Propane as a Vapak system.  If you're doing subcooled propane with a separate pressurization system or with pumps, you avoid those problems entirely, and get a pretty nice propellant combination too.

For Vapak though, LOX/Methane definitely sounds like a better deal (as both Gary and Armadillo can attest).

~Jon

Offline rsp1202

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I vote for methane.  Line up 1,000,000 cattle and have them all burp into bottles to capture the methane so it doesn't destroy the planet via global warming. 

Danny, <whispers>the bottles go on the opposite end.

Online jongoff

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The problem with that method of methane capture is separating out all the mercaptans...

...ooh...I just figured out where to assign NASA people that you can't fire but wish you could..."Time to clean out the mercaptan filter again boys!"

~Jon

Offline psloss

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Not sure exactly where to put this, so feel free to move (or delete if it's redundant)...SpacePolitics blog entry with an overview of Senator Shelby's speech on the Senate floor on Monday:
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/10/07/shelby-augustine-report-unsatisfactory-and-disappointing/

A link is provided to the (prepared) text of the speech in the blog; reproduced here:
http://shelby.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Speeches&ContentRecord_id=29c3144c-802a-23ad-41ca-2a2b75c6f687

Online DigitalMan

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Wow, what a contradiction with reality.

Not sure exactly where to put this, so feel free to move (or delete if it's redundant)...SpacePolitics blog entry with an overview of Senator Shelby's speech on the Senate floor on Monday:
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/10/07/shelby-augustine-report-unsatisfactory-and-disappointing/

A link is provided to the (prepared) text of the speech in the blog; reproduced here:
http://shelby.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Speeches&ContentRecord_id=29c3144c-802a-23ad-41ca-2a2b75c6f687


Offline randomly

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The problem with that method of methane capture is separating out all the mercaptans...
People add the mercaptans to methane, the cows don't. And it's only about 1 lb. per million cubic feet stp. Stinky stuff. Long ago to the horror of my high school I found out you could make any alcohol into a mercaptan by running it along with hydrogen sulfide into a heated reaction chamber with a Thorium oxide catalyst.

Offline iamlucky13

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Wow, what a contradiction with reality.

Not sure exactly where to put this, so feel free to move (or delete if it's redundant)...SpacePolitics blog entry with an overview of Senator Shelby's speech on the Senate floor on Monday:
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/10/07/shelby-augustine-report-unsatisfactory-and-disappointing/

A link is provided to the (prepared) text of the speech in the blog; reproduced here:
http://shelby.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Speeches&ContentRecord_id=29c3144c-802a-23ad-41ca-2a2b75c6f687


He's talking like a politician. Important political realities, like the fact that Cx was supported by both Republican and Democrat-majority congresses, are different than important technical or even economic realities. Which of the latter two Congress understands less I've stopped feeling certain of over the last year or so.

It's encouraging that he strongly supports human spaceflight, but at the same time he either thinks he's in a position to challenge the commissions findings, or somehow missed the part about how much money the status quo will take to execute.

Offline Retired Downrange

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I vote for methane.  Line up 1,000,000 cattle and have them all burp into bottles to capture the methane so it doesn't destroy the planet via global warming. 

Danny, <whispers>the bottles go on the opposite end.

Actually Danny had the bottles on the correct end....


http://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/methane-cow.htm

Cows emit a massive amount of methane through belching, with a lesser amount through flatulence.

To understand why cows produce methane, it's important to know a bit more about how they work. Cows, goats, sheep and several other animals belong to a class of animals called ruminants. Ruminants have four stomachs and digest their food in their stomachs instead of in their intestines, as humans do. Ruminants eat food, regurgitate it as cud and eat it again. The stomachs are filled with bacteria that aid in digestion, but also produce methane.

Online DigitalMan

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The contradiction with his position is that he refuses to cede leadership yet insists on supporting the most expensive, least flexible option.  The statistics are not on our side in this case.

As far as political support, the Democratic and Republicans in congress both recognized the need for more funding years ago when they offered more of it to Administrator Griffin.  His hands were tied however and could not accept the offer and that was the end of that. 

As far as I can tell, "refuse to cede leadership" is only a visual and not an actual plan.

It wouldn't bother me to this degree if it wasn't my own party that dropped the ball.

Wow, what a contradiction with reality.

Not sure exactly where to put this, so feel free to move (or delete if it's redundant)...SpacePolitics blog entry with an overview of Senator Shelby's speech on the Senate floor on Monday:
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/10/07/shelby-augustine-report-unsatisfactory-and-disappointing/

A link is provided to the (prepared) text of the speech in the blog; reproduced here:
http://shelby.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Speeches&ContentRecord_id=29c3144c-802a-23ad-41ca-2a2b75c6f687


He's talking like a politician. Important political realities, like the fact that Cx was supported by both Republican and Democrat-majority congresses, are different than important technical or even economic realities. Which of the latter two Congress understands less I've stopped feeling certain of over the last year or so.

It's encouraging that he strongly supports human spaceflight, but at the same time he either thinks he's in a position to challenge the commissions findings, or somehow missed the part about how much money the status quo will take to execute.

Offline Jeff Bingham

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The contradiction with his position is that he refuses to cede leadership yet insists on supporting the most expensive, least flexible option.  The statistics are not on our side in this case.

As far as political support, the Democratic and Republicans in congress both recognized the need for more funding years ago when they offered more of it to Administrator Griffin.  His hands were tied however and could not accept the offer and that was the end of that. 

As far as I can tell, "refuse to cede leadership" is only a visual and not an actual plan.

It wouldn't bother me to this degree if it wasn't my own party that dropped the ball.

Wow, what a contradiction with reality.

Not sure exactly where to put this, so feel free to move (or delete if it's redundant)...SpacePolitics blog entry with an overview of Senator Shelby's speech on the Senate floor on Monday:
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/10/07/shelby-augustine-report-unsatisfactory-and-disappointing/

A link is provided to the (prepared) text of the speech in the blog; reproduced here:
http://shelby.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Speeches&ContentRecord_id=29c3144c-802a-23ad-41ca-2a2b75c6f687


He's talking like a politician. Important political realities, like the fact that Cx was supported by both Republican and Democrat-majority congresses, are different than important technical or even economic realities. Which of the latter two Congress understands less I've stopped feeling certain of over the last year or so.

It's encouraging that he strongly supports human spaceflight, but at the same time he either thinks he's in a position to challenge the commissions findings, or somehow missed the part about how much money the status quo will take to execute.

For the past three years, NASA has been authorized by the Congress (in the 2005 NASA Authorization Act, for FY 2007 and 2008, and in the 2008 NASA Authorization Act for FY 2009) to spend funding at the levels for Cx that were projected in the original FY 2005 Budget request--the funding levels that would have gone a long way towards avoiding the present situation, as the Augustine panel noted.

However, those funding levels were never REQUESTED by the Bush Administration in their budget submissions for those fiscal years, as the record shows.

The Appropriations committees, at the subcommittee level where such things are addressed, never saw fit to appropriate funding that was not REQUESTED, even though it was clearly

a) Authorized, and
b) NEEDED to keep Cx on track.

Senator Shelby was Chairman of NASA's Appropriations Subcommittee in 2005-2006, and Ranking Republican on that subcommittee since 2007. No one would have been in a better position than him to argue for increased funding to the levels needed to preserve the program.

Just sayin'........
Offering only my own views and experience as a long-time "Space Cadet."

Online DigitalMan

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I appreciate your post.  Depressing as it is for those interested in space exploration to watch all this unfold over the years.

The contradiction with his position is that he refuses to cede leadership yet insists on supporting the most expensive, least flexible option.  The statistics are not on our side in this case.

As far as political support, the Democratic and Republicans in congress both recognized the need for more funding years ago when they offered more of it to Administrator Griffin.  His hands were tied however and could not accept the offer and that was the end of that. 

As far as I can tell, "refuse to cede leadership" is only a visual and not an actual plan.

It wouldn't bother me to this degree if it wasn't my own party that dropped the ball.

Wow, what a contradiction with reality.

Not sure exactly where to put this, so feel free to move (or delete if it's redundant)...SpacePolitics blog entry with an overview of Senator Shelby's speech on the Senate floor on Monday:
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/10/07/shelby-augustine-report-unsatisfactory-and-disappointing/

A link is provided to the (prepared) text of the speech in the blog; reproduced here:
http://shelby.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Speeches&ContentRecord_id=29c3144c-802a-23ad-41ca-2a2b75c6f687


He's talking like a politician. Important political realities, like the fact that Cx was supported by both Republican and Democrat-majority congresses, are different than important technical or even economic realities. Which of the latter two Congress understands less I've stopped feeling certain of over the last year or so.

It's encouraging that he strongly supports human spaceflight, but at the same time he either thinks he's in a position to challenge the commissions findings, or somehow missed the part about how much money the status quo will take to execute.

For the past three years, NASA has been authorized by the Congress (in the 2005 NASA Authorization Act, for FY 2007 and 2008, and in the 2008 NASA Authorization Act for FY 2009) to spend funding at the levels for Cx that were projected in the original FY 2005 Budget request--the funding levels that would have gone a long way towards avoiding the present situation, as the Augustine panel noted.

However, those funding levels were never REQUESTED by the Bush Administration in their budget submissions for those fiscal years, as the record shows.

The Appropriations committees, at the subcommittee level where such things are addressed, never saw fit to appropriate funding that was not REQUESTED, even though it was clearly

a) Authorized, and
b) NEEDED to keep Cx on track.

Senator Shelby was Chairman of NASA's Appropriations Subcommittee in 2005-2006, and Ranking Republican on that subcommittee since 2007. No one would have been in a better position than him to argue for increased funding to the levels needed to preserve the program.

Just sayin'........

Offline rsp1202

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I vote for methane.  Line up 1,000,000 cattle and have them all burp into bottles to capture the methane so it doesn't destroy the planet via global warming. 

Danny, <whispers>the bottles go on the opposite end.

Actually Danny had the bottles on the correct end....

LOL. Thanks for the compass heading. Will steer (!) clear of all farm-related subjects in future.

Online robertross

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Senator Shelby was Chairman of NASA's Appropriations Subcommittee in 2005-2006, and Ranking Republican on that subcommittee since 2007. No one would have been in a better position than him to argue for increased funding to the levels needed to preserve the program.

Just sayin'........

Just like calling the kettle black. But now that Shelby sees things in peril, he's fighting back. Of course when he makes false statements like this:

“This program is built on a foundation of proven technologies, using existing capabilities and infrastructure.”

...you have to roll your eyes. Just plain political words. However, at least he backs up and makes his point very clearly:

“Mr. President, I will not support any future NASA budget request that does not have a robust human exploration program.”

Let's see what the appropriations committee comes up with (after the WH has put forward their plan). Many months later...

Offline Avron

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I vote for methane.  Line up 1,000,000 cattle and have them all burp into bottles to capture the methane so it doesn't destroy the planet via global warming. 

Danny, <whispers>the bottles go on the opposite end.

Actually Danny had the bottles on the correct end....

LOL. Thanks for the compass heading. Will steer (!) clear of all farm-related subjects in future.

I vote launch the cows, put out a contract.

Then have it canceled. Pay the termination fees. Then request more money to look after the cows in 5 star accommodation..  with zero oversight and a public who is blind.. anything is open..

How are the Russians and Chinese doing, looks like their kids jobs are not getting outsourced.. and they can launch human LV...  401k did not go to zero either..

Oh, neither has a panel members... never mind

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