If I'm reading the Commission's charter correctly, they are not interested in listening to the opposing arguments of a couple of disputants. If anyone goes in effectively saying "here's my side of the story" then they have already lost.No. What needs to be done is for the presenters to line up all their ducks in a row and then show them off. Effectively saying "This is what we believe is the direction we should be going, this is why we believe that, and we think this approach best serves that direction". No mention of the "competition" because then you're wasting some of your precious 30 minutes talking about the other guy. Might as well hand it to them. The presenters need to carefully examine what they propose, break it down to the basics, remove all "someday we can do <this>", align their objectives with the very clear objectives of the Commission, make their case for pursuing HSF their way in as efficient and professional manner as possible, answer questions, thank them for their time and leave them with carefully choreographed and well documented material to digest. If I read it right, this 30 minutes doesn't decide much except help to prioritize which groups will receive follow-up attention. No decisions will be forthcoming from this 30 minutes. What this 30 minutes amounts to is the one chance to make a good first impression. Decisions will be made in conference meetings later. If the presenting team is lucky, they may be asked to return to discuss details of their proposal for the benefit of the Commission.
Heavy lift was a generic term. Sure, why not. Hey maybe the Wright brothers should have never tried to fly until the 747 was invented......
I am not suggesting Apollo v2.0, and if you actually read what I've posted, nor am I saying the current architecture is the best way to execute the program with today's budget, commercial capabililities and technilogical capabilities. However, saying we shouldn't do anything until we have better capabilities is foolish. For example:1. Who decided when those capabilities are "better" and it's now time to go somewhere?2. How develops those capabilities if we don't go anywhere with what are technology can offer today? They're not just going to grow on trees and there is absolutely no guarantee someone is just going to wake up one morning and say "ah, while I was sleeping it occurred to me how to build a SSTO that does not have to be all prop, can carry an actual payload, is incredibly easy to maintain and operate and is economical."This conversation has become really pointless so let the thread get back to the topic at hand.
Quote from: OV-106 on 06/04/2009 01:01 pm30 minutes??? Do you find that insulting?My understading is that everybody get 30 minutes. Having been in other panels, that is typical. But you get to leave behind written material.
30 minutes??? Do you find that insulting?
Quote from: jongoff on 06/04/2009 08:52 pmNow, for my personal opinion. I don't think he'd personally like DIRECT for many of the same reasons why I'm lukewarm. I think you could convince him that DIRECT is better than Ares, but I don't know if he'd buy that it really is the best direction for the country. I don't. It may be the best shuttle-derived direction, but that's a different story. That said, Jeff is a lot more pragmatic than I am. So who knows. Just saying that many of your standard arguments aren't likely to hold a lot of water with someone from my corner of the industry. ~JonWhat does that mean exactly? NASA (i.e. "the man") is keeping you down? Not to be rude that's just how it kind of came off.
Now, for my personal opinion. I don't think he'd personally like DIRECT for many of the same reasons why I'm lukewarm. I think you could convince him that DIRECT is better than Ares, but I don't know if he'd buy that it really is the best direction for the country. I don't. It may be the best shuttle-derived direction, but that's a different story. That said, Jeff is a lot more pragmatic than I am. So who knows. Just saying that many of your standard arguments aren't likely to hold a lot of water with someone from my corner of the industry. ~Jon
I don't really subscribe to the belief (yet) that private industry is ready to take on this role and NASA can just be abolished or downgraded to a pure R&D agency. I strongly believe there is still a role to play. Are there things NASA could do better to work with commercial space? Absolutely. I also think commercial space to some degree is trying to sprint before they have even crawled but with time and a creating a market I have no doubt it will get there and eventually NASA should turn all LEO ops over to private industry.
So for the purposes of the here and now, there needs to be a middle ground found where NASA relies on private industry more but private industry acknowledges they are not yet ready to run the show either.
Agree about getting DIRECT 3.0 material out.What I meant, was just.. Should they make a statement that useful(time and money saving) infrastructure is being removed weekly?And my hope was the commission would recommend.. a "cease-and-desist" I wasn't suggesting the DIRECT team should tell the commission what to do. I was more hoping the commission would figure that out on it's own.
The panel will discover that there is no emerging commercial HSF capability. Anything the nation wants, it will need to pay for itself.And before anyone says SpaceX, they are out of money. No Falcon 9 launches on the Florida range manifest (meaning deposits paid) to hold their place speaks volumes. And further COTS funding is contingent upon meeting milestones they are "miles" (pardon the pun) from meeting. The panel will see this in the NASA presentations, which I hope (per FACA rules) become public, although there are ways of communicating this sort of info in proprietary channels (since it involves the viability of a contractor).
NASA has a lot of capability to help promote and nurture the development of a truly spacefaring society.
Quote from: Danny Dot on 06/04/2009 02:30 pmThe Direct 3.0 video is a must.Play it during a break. As speakers, you guys can be there all day!
The Direct 3.0 video is a must.
If I'm reading the Commission's charter correctly, they are not interested in listening to the opposing arguments of a couple of disputants. If anyone goes in effectively saying "here's my side of the story" then they have already lost....No mention of the "competition" because then you're wasting some of your precious 30 minutes talking about the other guy. Might as well hand it to them.
Quote from: mars.is.wet on 06/04/2009 02:36 pmQuote from: Danny Dot on 06/04/2009 02:30 pmThe Direct 3.0 video is a must.Play it during a break. As speakers, you guys can be there all day!Okay, further insight on this comment...Items to consider:1) hand-outs, not just for each panel member, but table copies, ECT? Best approach for hand-out format (booklet, bound, stapled...) 2) The playing of videos/ppt presentations in these times, and the typical timeframes available before and after (though no doubt this is fluid at the moment).3) Sound system: Bring your own lapel mic, rather than rely on a hand-held mic, so you have your hands free to manipulate models.4) AV system: they would obviously have one, but is this self directed, or auto-timed, or other?
Quote from: OV-106 on 06/04/2009 09:11 pmQuote from: jongoff on 06/04/2009 08:52 pmNow, for my personal opinion. I don't think he'd personally like DIRECT for many of the same reasons why I'm lukewarm. I think you could convince him that DIRECT is better than Ares, but I don't know if he'd buy that it really is the best direction for the country. I don't. It may be the best shuttle-derived direction, but that's a different story. That said, Jeff is a lot more pragmatic than I am. So who knows. Just saying that many of your standard arguments aren't likely to hold a lot of water with someone from my corner of the industry. ~JonWhat does that mean exactly? NASA (i.e. "the man") is keeping you down? Not to be rude that's just how it kind of came off. I wasn't trying to come off that way at all. I guess I was just saying that based on having talked with or listened to Jeff on many occasions, my guess is that he'd be more inclined to the view that NASA shouldn't be building and operating new launch systems now that the commercial sector (which includes ULA) are capable of launching stuff. That they should focus on in-space systems, and doing the R&D necessary to really open up space for commercial development.Not "NASA is keeping me down" at all, just that NASA's HSF program hasn't been operating in a way that provides a very good ROI for the American people.QuoteI don't really subscribe to the belief (yet) that private industry is ready to take on this role and NASA can just be abolished or downgraded to a pure R&D agency. I strongly believe there is still a role to play. Are there things NASA could do better to work with commercial space? Absolutely. I also think commercial space to some degree is trying to sprint before they have even crawled but with time and a creating a market I have no doubt it will get there and eventually NASA should turn all LEO ops over to private industry.Hey, I actually agree with you (and I'm sure Jeff would as well). I *used* to wish NASA would just go away. I grew out of it. I still think that the way NASA does things is often almost orthogonal to what it ought to be doing, but that doesn't mean I think it doesn't have an important role it *could* and *should* play if it were willing to.The point is that NASA should be focusing on helping strengthen and promote the industry, so it can get out of the way and focus on stuff even further out. Industry can now launch satellites? Great, help them get the capability of flying people and cargo to/from space. While they're doing that, buy those services from them, and focus your efforts on the in-space stuff that's beyond their reach at the moment. Also work on developing the technologies to enable more commercial involvement down the road (stuff like depots, tugs, etc). Then, once private industry is to that next level, start helping them take the next steps while moving to your own next step.QuoteSo for the purposes of the here and now, there needs to be a middle ground found where NASA relies on private industry more but private industry acknowledges they are not yet ready to run the show either. No disagreement. I think Jeff wouldn't disagree either.~Jon
Any others?
The problem was that because of the way Griffin ran COTS, several rather qualified commercial companies (such as ULA, Boeing, etc) never really got a fair shake. This whole idea that SpaceX is the sum total of commercial space has got to be galling to the guys who have been launching satellites on a commercial basis for most of my lifetime.It is true that the government may have to pay to help prime the pump of commercial HSF capabilities. The question is, is it better to spend a smaller sum promoting and strengthening a whole new industry? Or throw all the money into yet another NASA-only solution?NASA has a lot of capability to help promote and nurture the development of a truly spacefaring society. The reason to promote commercial space isn't that NASA's a bunch of incompetent screwups, or that commercial space guys are supergeniuses or so much more talented. It's because in the long run, without commercial space, 20 years from now there will still only be a half dozen people living off planet at any time. If that level of space activity is what Griffin wants to call "spacefaring", that's his choice. Some of us would like to see better results out of the next $100B+ of taxpayer money funneled into NASA HSF work than we got out of the last $100B...~Jon
(and given there are no depots at this point, and to the best of my knowledge none on the drawing board or in development for near term deployment by private industry).
The DIRECT option is the best that the Augustine Commission is going to find. They have their own concerns and considerations that will probably produce an outcome that nobody likes, however. As for NASA's direction, yeah, well, there's always things they should be doing but aren't. But their bottom line is still a good one - if you're going to send people out into space, make sure it's spectacular. Space-faring civilization will happen, but it needs government as an anchor tenant. Something like the ISS today.
Without the STS skillset, there's going to be a long period of nothing happening in HSF. Engineers make rocket ships, they can't do that when they're selling cars. That's probably the biggest argument for "staying the course."