... two completely different EELV's was not necessarily forever. Per the DoD in 2006, "for the foreseeable future", "because they are relatively new, unproven systems with limited flight experience", and "until the Department can certify assured access to space through reliance in a single vehicle".
That's interesting. I wonder whether DoD could ever truly "certify assured access to space through reliance in a single vehicle."
Never was a valid requirement. There was no backup for Titan IV and there is no backup for Delta IV Heavy
Are you really sure assured access isn't at least the official reason for keeping both Atlas V and Delta IV? I've heard the term "assured access" so many times....
I'd have thought the reason there was no back-up for Titan IV was that reliance on Titan at all from the mid-1980s on was more or less the back-up plan to using the Shuttle. The Shuttle failed to serve DoD's needs, so it went the Titan route. As for Delta IV Heavy having no back-up, I'd have guessed that was the result of a cost-benefit analysis: payloads for the Heavy are few and far between, so backing it up would be particularly expensive. These are just my guesses, of course.
Never was a valid requirement. There was no backup for Titan IV and there is no backup for Delta IV Heavy
So what, pray tell, is the justification for keeping both EELVs on line?
I'm guessing the main reason is Atlas can't duplciate D4H, but Atlas is probably potentially the better and more flexible LV? And easiest to man-rate.
I don't think DoD cares about human-rating -- that's NASA's problem.
With SpaceX's staffing now equivalent to ULA's why does anyone think that Falcon is cheaper to build and launch?
Doesn't ULA buy RL-10 engines for roughly $40M each, whereas the SpaceX staffing includes building their own engines? Even this one item could make ULA rockets noticeably more expensive than SpaceX ones, even with similar staff, and I suspect it's far from the only example.
When someone mentioned RL-10 prices a year ago, it was only $30M. There was no justification for that number then, and there is no justification for the number you've created now. Provide a reference that isn't some other post on a forum, please.
Only one company makes it, and only one buys it, and neither has the slightest self interest in disclosure (I suspect that if *was* published, ULA would be embarrassed by how much they pay, and P&W embarrassed by how much they are screwing their only customer.) So a solid reference is hard to find. But we know NASA said this:
"We know the list price on an RL-10. If you look at cost over time, a very large portion of the unit cost of the EELVs is attributable to the propulsion systems, and the RL-10 is a very old engine, and there's a lot of craftwork associated with its manufacture," says Dale Thomas, associate director of technical issues at NASA Marshall. "That's what this study will figure out, is it worthwhile to build an RL-10 replacement?" "
So if NASA, which is not very cost sensitive, thinks this is worthwhile to study, it's surely significant.
The benefit to ULA is that they get a sort of "launch customer" for improvements to their launchers. It's a golden opportunity to improve their competitive footing, boost the TRL level of new capabilities or improvements, without risking a class A payload.
Most the country would welcome this parallel, competitive development effort of the smaller, existing LV fleet, withthe approach outline here and in many other papers. It is clear that each of these would benefit from more NASA launch mass, as would the country. It would most certainly provide anytime access.
Flight rate would reduce the impact of the RL-10 costs dramatically, for example. Flight rate spurs many other technology improvements too numerous to list. Its ironic that ever study leads to smaller with higher flight rate, yet....
Just imagine what could be done with the cash redirected from the HLV programs. Would you rather scramble into action vehicle(s) flying 10 times a year or one every other for anytime access, especially after one, two, or three decades of operation?
Can you imagine having the option to top off the tanks to increase payload mass (provided the volume exists) to include in the mission(s) trade?
Over the decades, everyone has recognized the *few* that have little interest in space or science, instead creating massive programs that perpetuate directed cash flow, without competition.
golden indeed. SpaceX delivering ISS cargo, others providing propellant. and eventually crew.
1. Extra rehearsals could be satisfied by actual countdowns and launches. (Or incorporated in individual launch prices.) So could west coast pad sustainment.
2. No, "build it and they will come" happens all the time in the broader business world. That is almost the definition of entrepreneurial activity. Apple built a do-it-yourself "home computer," a windowed and mouse-driven personal computer, an iPod and an online music store, an iPhone smartphone and an online app store, and an iPad tablet, all before these markets existed.
3. The problem I see is that both ULA and DoD/NRO/NASA/etc need the EELVs to be trying out and incorporating improvements.
1. No, the rehearsals are for the spacecraft teams. Adding the cost to individual launch prices still means the DOD pays for it from the same pot of money as the sustainment funds. There are no "extra" spacecraft that need west coast launches (or east coast) to provide the sustainment. No one is going to pay for a launch without a payload on an existing launcher no matter what the tanks are made of. There is no engineering reason to do such a launch
No, the manifest games exist no matter what the vehicle is.
2. Not really, those are just evolving modifications of existing concepts that were marketed differently.
3. What do you called common avionics, common RL-10, common factory, common practices, etc?
With SpaceX's staffing now equivalent to ULA's why does anyone think that Falcon is cheaper to build and launch?
Doesn't ULA buy RL-10 engines for roughly $40M each, whereas the SpaceX staffing includes building their own engines? Even this one item could make ULA rockets noticeably more expensive than SpaceX ones, even with similar staff, and I suspect it's far from the only example.
When someone mentioned RL-10 prices a year ago, it was only $30M. There was no justification for that number then, and there is no justification for the number you've created now. Provide a reference that isn't some other post on a forum, please.
Only one company makes it, and only one buys it, and neither has the slightest self interest in disclosure (I suspect that if *was* published, ULA would be embarrassed by how much they pay, and P&W embarrassed by how much they are screwing their only customer.) So a solid reference is hard to find. But we know NASA said this:
"We know the list price on an RL-10. If you look at cost over time, a very large portion of the unit cost of the EELVs is attributable to the propulsion systems, and the RL-10 is a very old engine, and there's a lot of craftwork associated with its manufacture," says Dale Thomas, associate director of technical issues at NASA Marshall. "That's what this study will figure out, is it worthwhile to build an RL-10 replacement?" "
So if NASA, which is not very cost sensitive, thinks this is worthwhile to study, it's surely significant.
Your quote is still not justification for the number Xplor stated. RL-10 is not the only propulsion system on the EELV's. And your definition of significant may be different than NASA's.
When did Dale Thomas make that quote? What was the outcome of the study? There's been a lot of talk about RL-10 replacements, but what has been determined? Developing a new LOX/LH2 engine from scratch isn't going to be cheap or easy. If the price of an RL-10 isn't as much as this forum thinks it is, then it's a lot harder to justify the development costs for a new design.
"We know the list price on an RL-10. If you look at cost over time, a very large portion of the unit cost of the EELVs is attributable to the propulsion systems, and the RL-10 is a very old engine, and there's a lot of craftwork associated with its manufacture," says Dale Thomas, associate director of technical issues at NASA Marshall. "That's what this study will figure out, is it worthwhile to build an RL-10 replacement?" "
So if NASA, which is not very cost sensitive, thinks this is worthwhile to study, it's surely significant.
Your quote is still not justification for the number Xplor stated. RL-10 is not the only propulsion system on the EELV's. And your definition of significant may be different than NASA's.
When did Dale Thomas make that quote? What was the outcome of the study? There's been a lot of talk about RL-10 replacements, but what has been determined? Developing a new LOX/LH2 engine from scratch isn't going to be cheap or easy. If the price of an RL-10 isn't as much as this forum thinks it is, then it's a lot harder to justify the development costs for a new design.
The statement appears to have been made in April, 2012, so almost surely the study is not out yet.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/nasa-us-air-force-to-study-joint-rocket-engine-370660/
So I'm thinking that upgrade would make more sense than AVH with current Centaur. And it would be a next gen upper stage will all the cool tech ULA's been tinkering with for the last several years. It wouldn't require any pad modifications either I don't think, as AVH would for the two outboard CCB's.
The $M (or $B?) question is where is the money going to come from to fund such changes? DOD is focused on cost control, and that will likely continue for the foreseeable future. Boeing and LM don't appear to be interested--or maybe they are and they have a plan which we haven't seen indications of?
Well the USAF would need to initiate this with a desire to retire the Delta line, then upgrading Atlas to WBC in order to retain D4H's capability. My guess is ULA would have no problem with this if directed by USAF/DoD to do so, and they'd come up with a proposal stating they'd need X amount of money to develop WBC, but launch costs to the government woudl go down over time by Y if ULA doesn't need to staff and operate LC-37 and SLC-6, as well as whatever other accociated costs there are to the Delta IV hardware specifically. And that proposal would have to show enough savings over the long run vs. keeping the current status quo in order to get USAF/DoD to approve the investment.
Without USAF/DoD approving it and funding the development costs for the promise of future per launch savings, yea, I don't think ULA will do that change on their own. And they don't have to. USAF/DoD is currently funding their business model. Unless that changes, why -would-d they change their business model? They are currently meeting their customer's demands, and nothing will probably change unles there are new demands.
(Jim can correct this if I'm incorrect on my assumptions).
With SpaceX's staffing now equivalent to ULA's why does anyone think that Falcon is cheaper to build and launch?
While I think that SpaceX takes vertical integration too far, and worry about their growing headcount, I'm not sure this is a fair apples to apples comparison. Sure, SpaceX's staff is almost as high as ULA's, I'm pretty sure that doesn't include all of the people working at major subcontractors/vendors for ULA (such as those working full-time at Rocketdyne building engines for ULA's vehicles). Also, as others have noted the SpaceX total includes all of those working on and supporting Dragon and DragonRider. Because SpaceX is also selling cargo/crew delivery as well as normal satellite launches, some of the fixed cost of those people can be covered by higher priced crew and cargo missions.
Not saying that SpaceX's prices won't start increasing over time (they've already increased quite a bit just for Falcon 9), just that comparing their staff to ULA's staff isn't an apples-to-apples comparison.
~Jon
I think that's a fair assessment. In addition, SpaceX, as a new company (which allpies to any new company competing against legacy veterans for a market share) doesn't have all of the legacy liabilities they do. Part of the reason Southwest Airlines has usually been profitable even in years when the larger legacy airlines were loosing money and struggling. They don't have a bunch of retiries on pensions, entrenched union oblicatiosn to meet, etc. etc. I've heard the single most expensive part of a new car built by US car companies is labor includes all of the retirees still getting pensions and healthcare benefits that that the unions got for them decades ago.
Without getting into a debate on unions, I just mean the fact is, that legacy union companies usually have much greater current cost, adn legacy liabilities. I beleive SpaceX is not union, and since they are new, their current clabor costs are more moderate, and they don't have an army of retirees collecting beenfits for the rest of their lives on the books. So their labor costs could be WAY down from ULA's, even if their cost of facilties and materials are on par with ULA's.
1. Extra rehearsals could be satisfied by actual countdowns and launches. (Or incorporated in individual launch prices.) So could west coast pad sustainment.
1a. No, the rehearsals are for the spacecraft teams.
A billion dollars should pay quite a large spacecraft team for one year. My suspicion is still that this is like a celebrity divorce case, where one party says the settlement money is paying the other to sit around and do nothing, and the other party says it's paltry reimbursement for all the trouble they've had to put up with.
1b. No one is going to pay for a launch without a payload on an existing launcher no matter what the tanks are made of. There is no engineering reason to do such a launch
The customer, budget origin, and reasoning have all been specified. There IS an engineering reason, but it is about manufacturing engineering rather than design engineering. Beyond that, there are obvious benefits toward retiring programmatic risk.
2. No, "build it and they will come" happens all the time in the broader business world. That is almost the definition of entrepreneurial activity. Apple built a do-it-yourself "home computer," a windowed and mouse-driven personal computer, an iPod and an online music store, an iPhone smartphone and an online app store, and an iPad tablet, all before these markets existed.
2a. Not really,
2a. Yes, really. Apple built an online music store before any online music store had generated income, with their own funding.
2b. those are just evolving modifications of existing concepts that were marketed differently.
2b. This is so nebulous it could dismiss something like the electric light bulb (an evolving modification of the existing concept of a lamp that was marketed differently). More importantly, it has nothing to do with 2a: "if you build it, they will come" is not about innovation, but about shouldering risk and paying up-front costs. Your contention was that companies do not assume risk and build things in anticipation of markets opening up. Some do. Even ULA is getting dangerously near to taking such a risk with the Emergency Detection System (although Boeing could potentially have provided some guarantees).
3. The problem I see is that both ULA and DoD/NRO/NASA/etc need the EELVs to be trying out and incorporating improvements.
3. What do you called common avionics, common RL-10, common factory, common practices, etc?
Does the GM J-body or T-body ring a bell? More seriously, I respect the work that has gone into those results, but I can't put my finger on what sort of substantial improvement those have been _for the customer_. In theory they would result in lower prices, but that hasn't happened.
A billion dollars should pay quite a large spacecraft team for one year.
To make that comment means you don't understand how a launch campaign works. Also, it is a childish statement, when you know it is not for just that.
The customer, budget origin, and reasoning have all been specified. There IS an engineering reason, but it is about manufacturing engineering rather than design engineering. Beyond that, there are obvious benefits toward retiring programmatic risk.
No, you have not. Budget can not be from the sustainment moneys. Manufacturing engineering is not a valid reason for flight testing.
3. What do you called common avionics, common RL-10, common factory, common practices, etc?
Does the GM J-body or T-body ring a bell? More seriously, I respect the work that has gone into those results, but I can't put my finger on what sort of substantial improvement those have been _for the customer_. In theory they would result in lower prices, but that hasn't happened.
Not the same thing. Also have you heard about common booster core?
The things I listed will save more than your ideas.
The list in the the reserve order of implementation. The first two haven't even been through all the design reviews yet. The fact that you don't know this, along with positive impacts of the these items, means you don't know what you are talking about and just pontificating about fuzzy ideas vs dealing with real world hardware.
Common avionics is a big deal. One guidance computer supplier, one IMU supplier, one set of flight program software, one SIL, one set of launch control hardware and software, etc
After reading many of Jim’s posts, and gleaning what I can from his terse style, it seems to be the answer to the question that I started this thread with is, “ULA’s business model will change going forward when needed to continually suit the requirements by USAF/DoD..”.
ULA is a political/legal compromise formed for the specific purpose of providing assured access to space via the new EELV’s for the government to replace their other ELV’s of the class (primarily Titan). It was thought those EELV’s would get significant commercial business to help cost share with the government, but that never materialized so the government, up to this point, has chosen to adequately fund ULA to maintain both of their EELV’s in a status that meets all the complex needs and requirements by the government.
And that IS their business model. And they probably see little reason to change that until the government decides they no longer need both EELV’s maintained, and decided to only provide enough funding for one. This would have to be a decision discussed with ULA well ahead of time so they can decide how to do it and still secure reliable access to space with just one of the two EELV’s. And would be phased in over an adequate period of time for ULA to make the changes.
And this is what most of the rest of us aren’t quite seeing, or getting our heads wrapped around. We keep looking at ULA like a private company competing for commercial market in a free and open market. And through that prism, it seemed they do things pretty inefficiently. But they provide the services they do for a single customer that’s willing to pay for it. And as long as that single customer is willing to pay for it, and the primary reason they were formed is to service that customer, they will continue to do just that, in exactly the way they’ve been doing it. Until the customer says otherwise.
Maybe it’s a little like that show, “American Chopper” on the Discovery Channel. Orange County Choppers makes custom bikes that cost a ton of money. They don’t make bikes very quickly or efficiently, but they can make exactly what the customer wants for a price. OCC (with the help of the publicity from the show I’m sure) had been very successful by making these low volume, high cost bikes, rather than a much more streamlined mass-produced pike using all kids of common off-the-shelf components. They are making money and doing well. And they probably won’t change that business model until people with unique needs and deep pockets stop paying them to do it, and decide they’d be ok with a more standard, common, off-the-shelf bike.
We seem to look at OCC and say, “hey, they’ve carved out a niche market and are doing well in it, that’s good business!”. But we look at ULA doing the same thing and view it as onerous and inefficient. (Of course, some of that might have to do with it being our tax dollars paying for ULA’s operation. And if it were government departments buying these expensive, unique choppers, we might start asking why they can’t go with standard bikes instead? Heheheh)
There are other custom chopper companies out there, but OCC has so far done well, probably based on their history and reliability that they’ll deliver the goods and make the customer happy. Or those companies don’t make quite as crazy and unique bikes. Whatever. But, until something starts eating into their current business model, they’ll probably go on the as they have been.
ULA’s primary concern is servicing the government. And the services they provide are geared towards that. I’d guess in this business anyway, it’s hard to also offer a “budget” launch service for the more economically minded commercial sector. Afterall, they have to use the same hardware and launch facilities they do for the government, and ULA can only build Atlas and Delta and their derivatives, so they don’t have a choice. OCC could probably make a chopper a –little- cheaper than their big flashy ones, but it’d still be a lot more money that a production line brand, because they are a labor and overhead intensive custom job shop, not a production line. All of those cool gadgets they have in their shop, and all of the high-talent machinists and artists and designers still need paid regardless of if they are trying to make a chopper look like a jet aircraft, or just make it look like a simple motorcycle.
Anyway, that’s what I –think- I’ve gleaned from this whole conversations.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that ULA probably does have a “Plan B”, for a time when the government decides they can live with less assured access to space, they can live with less stringent integration and processing requirements and can go with something more “industry standard”, and they can live with a bit more launch risk. And they’ll only pay X dollars for a launch of Y capability. At that time there will probably be a long sit-down with ULA, deciding what reduced red-tape the government can live with, and what ULA’s cost estimates would be various degrees of reduction of those requirements and red-tape. And the government would then decide on their new launch-requirement model, and create a phase in for both themselves, and ULA over a multi-year time frame. ULA probably has some proposals in their back pocket for such an event. What they might be, we can only speculate. But probably eliminating the more expensive Delta IV line and it’s launch facilities would be one. And streamlining processing and operations to a more “industry standard” level as well. (again, all guesses here).
In such a circumstance SpaceX would probably then be in a much better situation to compete for that work, as it would be closer to their commercial work and they wouldn’t need to venture so far from –their- business model to get that government work. But then ULA would probably be more competitive in the commercial market, so SpaceX might have to watch their backsides as well. Which I think would be a pretty ironic circumstance.
The customer, budget origin, and reasoning have all been specified. There IS an engineering reason, but it is about manufacturing engineering rather than design engineering. Beyond that, there are obvious benefits toward retiring programmatic risk.
No, you have not. Budget can not be from the sustainment moneys. Manufacturing engineering is not a valid reason for flight testing.
It is a childish statement, when you know it is not just that. Why did Delta IV Heavy launch without a commercial payload? There are valid, and valuable, engineering reasons for doing such tests. True, such reasons are normally not enough to justify the cost of a flight test, and any sensible company will try to sell that space even if at cost, but there are circumstances where it may be worth it. And there are enormous risk, retirement of risk, and perception of risk issues. Some of the risk may be viewed as an engineering issue, and some of it is "political" or "perceptual."
The problem I see is that ULA is waiting for a launch customer, some science/military program that can only be successful using for example an ACES upper stage (as an example of some new capability), which is willing to fund its completion, and to risk launching on its first implementation: a cost-plus contract for ACES, including a launch. Such a program would eat most of the risk associated with the development. But, at the same time, normally no such program can arise (with very rare exceptions like the reported NRO : RS-68A connection), because any sane manager with alternatives would pick something safer than depending on an as-yet-undeveloped launch capability. Even for upgrades that seem like a sure bet, the time table may be prohibitive and the costs will usually outweigh the benefits any one program can get from the upgrade.
So programs will design payloads for the existing launcher, and the existing launcher will continue largely unchanged to provide the lowest risk for programs.
Occasionally, ".gov" steps in and funds specific capability upgrades (e.g. the RS-68A). The idea I was proposing was to view this as part of sustainment, which I think it ultimately is, and plan to do it regularly and push projects all the way to TRL 7-9. (Recall that virtually all DoD launches wanted a Class A launcher.) I was probably proposing far too many, too quickly--maybe one project every five years is more appropriate--but the concept should be as sacred as not eating the seed corn. ULA (and Jim) object to pulling that money from the blank check they currently get. I understand that. My feeling was that budgets are tight (and more ominously that corporate pseudo-welfare might be producing a culture of dependency and a lack of risk-taking and initiative), but maybe DoD is flush enough for additional funding.
Ideally, USAF/DoD would convene something like NASA's Decadal Survey groups but for suggested launch vehicle improvements, representing every group that schedules government launch buys. I think ULA (and perhaps SpaceX and others too) should be allowed to market planned upgrades to these customers, to seed the ideas and let people visualize what different upgrades might mean for future projects, and then the group votes on decadal launch vehicle upgrade priorities (given budgets for each of course). The highest priority(s) inside the funding space gets funded through launch or on-orbit demo.
None of this prevents ULA from funding and finishing internal improvements, of course. Nor does it prevent agencies like the NRO or USAF from funding their own high-priority needs, like making sure a certain heavy-lift capacity is present, or secret somethings like the X-42 are developed, or oddities like the OTV which might be viewed as part launch vehicle / part payload.
Instead, it's an attempt to make sure the launch services capabilities continue to evolve to meet the needs of its launch customers, who need those capabilities to be tested and proven before they propose to use them.
3. What do you called common avionics, common RL-10, common factory, common practices, etc?
Does the GM J-body or T-body ring a bell? More seriously, I respect the work that has gone into those results, but I can't put my finger on what sort of substantial improvement those have been _for the customer_. In theory they would result in lower prices, but that hasn't happened.
Not the same thing. Also have you heard about common booster core?
The things I listed will save more than your ideas.
The list in the the reserve order of implementation. The first two haven't even been through all the design reviews yet. The fact that you don't know this, along with positive impacts of the these items, means you don't know what you are talking about and just pontificating about fuzzy ideas vs dealing with real world hardware.
Common avionics is a big deal. One guidance computer supplier, one IMU supplier, one set of flight program software, one SIL, one set of launch control hardware and software, etc
Oh, I agreed those are a big deal for ULA. I think most of the ideas I tossed out (from various ULA conf papers) were capability upgrades, so of course the things you listed will save more. And, to be honest, if you had said saving was more important than capability upgrades, I'd probably have to agree with you...as long as the benefits accrue to the customer.
The point of the reference to the J-body and T-body was a cautionary tale: the disparate brands of GM worldwide standardized on these platforms, but the benefits of all that commonality accrued to GM and not so much the customer. Whereas before the customer got customized crap from each brand, they now got the same homogenized crap from all the brands, with bonus extra problems from the new platform and the guarantee that switching to another GM brand would not help (since the platform was standardized). Furthermore, while that work was taking place, not much in terms of innovation for the customer happened. Meanwhile, non-traditional competitors had sprung up, they listened to the customers and gave them neat new ideas with a rapid product cycle and rigorous quality control.
Granted, that was a harsh analogy; the Atlas V and Delta IV are fantastic, reliable launchers, if a bit pricey. Very far from crap. The reliability is of course a huge and important difference for this industry. But standardization means nothing to the customer until the price tag reflects savings. Otherwise, it's just a fuzzy analogy, I doubt any parallels to the current situation with real world hardware can be drawn.
The programs you describe are process and standardization improvements. I'll take them as evidence that ULA is working to become more competitive: fantastic.
I still think there is room yet for *.gov to regularly, methodically fund capability improvements. Those improvements could eventually apply to SpaceX or Orbital just as easily as ULA, but right now it seems the other potential competitors are pretty stretched in just delivering what they've committed. And, the priority for capability upgrades right now would have to go to the company which has handled all of the DoD launches so far.
1. It is a childish statement, when you know it is not just that. Why did Delta IV Heavy launch without a commercial payload?
2. Occasionally, ".gov" steps in and funds specific capability upgrades (e.g. the RS-68A). The idea I was proposing was to view this as part of sustainment.....
3. Ideally, USAF/DoD would convene something like NASA's Decadal Survey groups but for suggested launch vehicle improvements,
1. Wrong again. Delta IV Heavy Demo launch was for design validation and not manufacturing validation. Big difference.
2. Then it would be a different pot of money. the sustainment money isn't for design side of the house, it is for operations side. New hardware doesn't keep launch site techs employed.
3. Completely unnecessary and unmanageable. When the DOD or NASA needs a capability, it pays for it. No need to spend money on unneeded capabilities from multiple contractors. Anything done for one contractor in a certain vehicle class has to be done for all of them in the same class.
A child would know the difference.
I know it's a big and onerous request but, just for a week or so, could you try
not gratuitously insulting people every time you turn around?
Jim, a few years ago at a campfire I had a friend who is a shrink turn to friends kid and say your going to be a serial killer someday. Well, it really stuck with him, so much that last summer we where around the campfire and he began bugging same shrink about why he thought that. The shrink was in total horror at the thought, since he had said it as a joke many years before.
My point being, yeah, not everyone who posts in NSF is able to completely differentiate between real spaceflight, and the flights of fancy like propelant depots, rlv's, SPS, colonies on mars, ect. Brutally crushing them results in them not wanting to pursue this. Meaning, we know they will not make the next mars colony, but it may discourage them from making real advancements towards understanding real spaceflight and what can be done and maybe helping on the edge advance some part of it.
That said, I work with an engineer I would love to duct tape inside the nozzle of the next space bound rocket
My point being, yeah, not everyone who posts in NSF is able to completely differentiate between real spaceflight, and the flights of fancy like propelant depots, rlv's, SPS, colonies on mars, ect. Brutally crushing them results in them not wanting to pursue this.
If that were true, that would probably begin with less responses here. It sure looks like the trend remains pointed in the other direction.
