Quote from: Robotbeat on 03/10/2011 12:55 amQuote from: OV-106 on 03/10/2011 12:41 am...There are the financial resources availabe. It is commitment that is required. Care to share where those financial resources are?We have already discussed this in the commercial Shuttle thread. In any event, I am not sure there is any point in debating this since the decision has already been made to not extend Shuttle. Neither Congress nor NASA supports extending the Shuttle.
Quote from: OV-106 on 03/10/2011 12:41 am...There are the financial resources availabe. It is commitment that is required. Care to share where those financial resources are?
...There are the financial resources availabe. It is commitment that is required.
Quote from: yg1968 on 03/10/2011 01:00 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 03/10/2011 12:55 amQuote from: OV-106 on 03/10/2011 12:41 am...There are the financial resources availabe. It is commitment that is required. Care to share where those financial resources are?We have already discussed this in the commercial Shuttle thread. In any event, I am not sure there is any point in debating this since the decision has already been made to not extend Shuttle. Neither Congress nor NASA supports extending the Shuttle. This is not a NASA extension. Can you say for certain that neither Congress nor NASA supports the idea of this proposal?
Quote from: OV-106 on 03/10/2011 01:02 amQuote from: yg1968 on 03/10/2011 01:00 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 03/10/2011 12:55 amQuote from: OV-106 on 03/10/2011 12:41 am...There are the financial resources availabe. It is commitment that is required. Care to share where those financial resources are?We have already discussed this in the commercial Shuttle thread. In any event, I am not sure there is any point in debating this since the decision has already been made to not extend Shuttle. Neither Congress nor NASA supports extending the Shuttle. This is not a NASA extension. Can you say for certain that neither Congress nor NASA supports the idea of this proposal?It wasn't even mentionned at the House hearing by either Bolden or any Representive on the House Space and Science committee. That speaks volume. It's also not in the NASA Authorization bill or in the NASA FY2012 Budget.
The data is in the proposal...$1.3 billion for two flights a year. 650 million dollars per launch for crew transportation. How can you not consider that to be wasteful of tax payers money?
Quote from: yg1968 on 03/10/2011 01:23 amQuote from: OV-106 on 03/10/2011 01:02 amQuote from: yg1968 on 03/10/2011 01:00 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 03/10/2011 12:55 amQuote from: OV-106 on 03/10/2011 12:41 am...There are the financial resources availabe. It is commitment that is required. Care to share where those financial resources are?We have already discussed this in the commercial Shuttle thread. In any event, I am not sure there is any point in debating this since the decision has already been made to not extend Shuttle. Neither Congress nor NASA supports extending the Shuttle. This is not a NASA extension. Can you say for certain that neither Congress nor NASA supports the idea of this proposal?It wasn't even mentionned at the House hearing by either Bolden or any Representative on the House Space and Science committee. That speaks volume. It's also not in the NASA Authorization bill or in the NASA FY2012 Budget. No it doesn't. We all know Bolden's position!
Quote from: OV-106 on 03/10/2011 01:02 amQuote from: yg1968 on 03/10/2011 01:00 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 03/10/2011 12:55 amQuote from: OV-106 on 03/10/2011 12:41 am...There are the financial resources availabe. It is commitment that is required. Care to share where those financial resources are?We have already discussed this in the commercial Shuttle thread. In any event, I am not sure there is any point in debating this since the decision has already been made to not extend Shuttle. Neither Congress nor NASA supports extending the Shuttle. This is not a NASA extension. Can you say for certain that neither Congress nor NASA supports the idea of this proposal?It wasn't even mentionned at the House hearing by either Bolden or any Representative on the House Space and Science committee. That speaks volume. It's also not in the NASA Authorization bill or in the NASA FY2012 Budget.
Quote from: Paul Howard on 03/10/2011 01:25 amQuote from: yg1968 on 03/10/2011 01:23 amQuote from: OV-106 on 03/10/2011 01:02 amQuote from: yg1968 on 03/10/2011 01:00 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 03/10/2011 12:55 amQuote from: OV-106 on 03/10/2011 12:41 am...There are the financial resources availabe. It is commitment that is required. Care to share where those financial resources are?We have already discussed this in the commercial Shuttle thread. In any event, I am not sure there is any point in debating this since the decision has already been made to not extend Shuttle. Neither Congress nor NASA supports extending the Shuttle. This is not a NASA extension. Can you say for certain that neither Congress nor NASA supports the idea of this proposal?It wasn't even mentionned at the House hearing by either Bolden or any Representative on the House Space and Science committee. That speaks volume. It's also not in the NASA Authorization bill or in the NASA FY2012 Budget. No it doesn't. We all know Bolden's position!Exactly. Senator Hutchison also fought for it but lost out to other Senators that disagreed with her. Her proposal suggested adding $2 Billion per year to the NASA budget to pay for it. The compromise that come out of all this is that Shuttle would be extended to 2011 and STS-135 would be added.
Look, I'm more than aware this is far from a done deal. That said, does it not make sense? Can any of you point out where I went wrong or where my logic is flawed on the other thread?And, again, can any of you tell me for sure that NASA or Congress do not support this concept/proposal/potential beyond just saying it wasn't mentioned in a hearing?
FWIW, if NEW money is found to fund a shuttle extension (i.e. not at the expense of other projects), I would support it fully and call my Congress folk to tell them to support it.
Quote from: Calorspace on 03/10/2011 12:13 amThe data is in the proposal...$1.3 billion for two flights a year. 650 million dollars per launch for crew transportation. How can you not consider that to be wasteful of tax payers money?The shuttle is very expensive, but not in proportion to its capabilities. It carries large payload in addition to crew, and can return payload to earth. Nothing comes close to its spectrum of capabilities when they are fully used.
Quote from: pummuf on 03/10/2011 12:26 amQuote from: Calorspace on 03/10/2011 12:13 amThe data is in the proposal...$1.3 billion for two flights a year. 650 million dollars per launch for crew transportation. How can you not consider that to be wasteful of tax payers money?The shuttle is very expensive, but not in proportion to its capabilities. It carries large payload in addition to crew, and can return payload to earth. Nothing comes close to its spectrum of capabilities when they are fully used. This looks as good as any post to tag something onto Shuttle can also carry payloads to ISS that NO OTHER vehicle currently can:looking back at one of my posts from a ways back:http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=22381.msg637847#msg637847ATA: 79"x46"x55" @ 1120 lbs dry mass + 640 lbs NH3NTA: 64"x36"x30" @ 460 lbs dry (not filled mass found as of yet)EEATCS (radiator ORU w/8 panels): 11.2ft W x ~115"L (collapsed) @2475 lbsSABB (solar aray blanket box): 20" (~square)x15ft long @ more than 2400 lbs. And a special note about the solar arrays that I wrote:The SAWs (solar array wings) only have a life expectancy of 15 years (and I am assuming that is on orbit), which means the first set will have reashed the end of its life by Nov 2015 (+/-). The second set Nov 2017.So if we want the ISS to provide science to say 2028, we're goona need something.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 03/10/2011 01:48 amFWIW, if NEW money is found to fund a shuttle extension (i.e. not at the expense of other projects), I would support it fully and call my Congress folk to tell them to support it.The smart thing to do, would be to do this in parallel with a J-130 spec SLS development program -- the lowest cost SLS option. The reality is that Congress are pushing for SLS and its already stipulated by law. That discussion is already over. That program is going to have to maintain most of this infrastructure ANYWAY. So commercial Shuttle would actually be a very good way to get some real value out of the infrastructure we're already going to pay for, while we wait for SLS to start flying.The two programs would share the vast majority of the infrastructure costs -- and that would result in good economies for each program, not to mention a smoother transition for the entire workforce (a very big political issue).Even better still, if we could turn the development of a Shuttle-Derived SLS over to a commercial conglomeration (B/LM/PWR/ATK/USA), that would get it for the best possible price too. As long as the work is all still done in Alabama/Texas/Florida/Utah/California/Louisiana, the politics would all still align behind it correctly.I may have mentioned that idea before... Of course, the remaining hurdle is that "smart" and "politics" have a habit of only very rarely sharing the same sentence... Ross.
This thread has morphed from discussion of "CCDev-2 Finalists" to "Keep the Shuttle", "2012 budget negotiations", and "Direct thread 4". The CCDev-2 finalists have been mentioned only a handful of times in the last hundred posts. We should either rename the thread or split that discussion off for those who wish to keep going at it.
Quote from: Comga on 03/10/2011 02:43 amThis thread has morphed from discussion of "CCDev-2 Finalists" to "Keep the Shuttle", "2012 budget negotiations", and "Direct thread 4". The CCDev-2 finalists have been mentioned only a handful of times in the last hundred posts. We should either rename the thread or split that discussion off for those who wish to keep going at it.Time to split the discussion. Shuttle has a number of suitable threads. Let's just return this one to the original title i.e. CCDev-2 Finalists, and discuss aspects of that topic.Now my understanding is that this month will see the awards or maybe a short-listing. There's now 10 applicants with the last being ATK Liberty that I know of. Is that correct?
Bigelow's been trying to encourage a commercial crew capability for many years. Progress has been very slow.It's only now that NASA is doing the same, that serious progress is being made. If NASA drop out, I don't know if Bigelow alone is enough to keep any of the projects going. Undoubtedly, the pace would fall off again.
Gerst was talking about USA's CCDev-2 proposal. He expects the decision on CCDev-2 to be made in a month. A CCDev-2 announcement is unlikely to be made until the FY 2011 appropriation process is settled. In any event, even if USA was selected for CCDev-2, it doesn't mean Shuttle extension will happen. The opposite is also true. Even if USA isn't selected for CCDev-2 doesn't mean that commercial Shuttle cannot happen. But as some point a decision has to be made. My personal view is that this time has already passed as it would have had to be included in the NASA Authorization bill. Extending Shuttle at this point would mean amending the NASA Authorization bill. Not impossible but not very likely. I am sure that some in Congress (perhaps Senator Hutchison) are favourable to such an amendment but I doubt that they will be able to convince other Senators and Representatives to go along with this.
Quote from: yg1968 on 03/10/2011 03:52 amGerst was talking about USA's CCDev-2 proposal. He expects the decision on CCDev-2 to be made in a month. A CCDev-2 announcement is unlikely to be made until the FY 2011 appropriation process is settled. In any event, even if USA was selected for CCDev-2, it doesn't mean Shuttle extension will happen. The opposite is also true. Even if USA isn't selected for CCDev-2 doesn't mean that commercial Shuttle cannot happen. But as some point a decision has to be made. My personal view is that this time has already passed as it would have had to be included in the NASA Authorization bill. Extending Shuttle at this point would mean amending the NASA Authorization bill. Not impossible but not very likely. I am sure that some in Congress (perhaps Senator Hutchison) are favourable to such an amendment but I doubt that they will be able to convince other Senators and Representatives to go along with this. Again, this is not a NASA extension.Does the Authorization bill talk about Boeing? Does it talk about SpaceX? Does it talk about Sierra Nevada? Does it talk about ULA? Does it talk about Orbital? Does it talk about Blue Orign? Does it talk about ATK?
Quote from: OV-106 on 03/10/2011 04:07 amQuote from: yg1968 on 03/10/2011 03:52 amGerst was talking about USA's CCDev-2 proposal. He expects the decision on CCDev-2 to be made in a month. A CCDev-2 announcement is unlikely to be made until the FY 2011 appropriation process is settled. In any event, even if USA was selected for CCDev-2, it doesn't mean Shuttle extension will happen. The opposite is also true. Even if USA isn't selected for CCDev-2 doesn't mean that commercial Shuttle cannot happen. But as some point a decision has to be made. My personal view is that this time has already passed as it would have had to be included in the NASA Authorization bill. Extending Shuttle at this point would mean amending the NASA Authorization bill. Not impossible but not very likely. I am sure that some in Congress (perhaps Senator Hutchison) are favourable to such an amendment but I doubt that they will be able to convince other Senators and Representatives to go along with this. Again, this is not a NASA extension.Does the Authorization bill talk about Boeing? Does it talk about SpaceX? Does it talk about Sierra Nevada? Does it talk about ULA? Does it talk about Orbital? Does it talk about Blue Orign? Does it talk about ATK?Commercial crew includes all these companies. I am not convinced that commercial crew includes commercial Shuttle. It would be a stretch to include Shuttle with the rest of the commercial crew providers. In any event USA's CCDev-2 proposal is only for a study.
Quote from: Calorspace on 03/10/2011 12:13 amThe data is in the proposal...$1.3 billion for two flights a year. 650 million dollars per launch for crew transportation. How can you not consider that to be wasteful of tax payers money?I'm a big fan of Space-X, but I'm an even bigger fan of the truth. So lets really compare like-with-like here...Space-X won a $1.6 billion CRS contract to deliver 20,000kg to ISS over a 12 flight/5-year period. That averages out to a cost of $80,000 for every kilogram delivered to ISS.The commercial Shuttle solution that USA are proposing here, would deliver over 16,000kg to ISS twice a year for $650m each (160,000kg delivered in the same 5 year period). This solution results in a cost of $40,625 per kilogram delivered to ISS -- roughly half the cost of the CRS contract, and results in a lot more payload delivered every year too. And lets not forget the 14 crew that will also fly each year as part of this price.Ross.
