Phil Plait has an opinion piece on Slate which asks the question is NASA's Orion crew vehicle really the right thing to do?
Phil Plait is the author of the Bad Astronomy blog, and in this article he argues that the funding and schedule problems with the Orion Launch vehicle, the Space Launch System (SLS), mean that Orion is the wrong design.
The problem isn’t NASA per se, but that it’s a government agency. It has to dance with both Congress and the White House, and they can be recalcitrant partners.
...
That seems to be the case with SLS now. Five years after the Augustine report, SLS is still not being funded at a sustainable level.
The alternative offered is to have private companies, such as SpaceX, supply launch vehicles, and scrap the SLS. However without the SLS then Orion itself would require a fundamental redesign.
As a result of this the article argues that scrapping the Orion/SLS project and redirecting the money would allow NASA to build and launch many more missions using private sector launch vehicles. This is the same argument in the (linked) earlier space.com article:
If SLS and Orion were scrapped and a fraction of their funds applied to the SpaceX or ULA launchers, NASA could use the resulting savings to produce needed technologies for deep-space exploration. The agency cannot currently develop those technologies because the SLS/Orion costs leave no money for these other projects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 10 2014, @08:14AM
The Russians might beat us to Mars!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 10 2014, @06:36PM
Therefore, the most logical thing would be for NASA to sponsor the Indian space program to get there first. It's cheaper and it makes more political sense than any other the other potential partners.
On the other hand, the point of NASA is to funnel money, and fund research, for the profit of the US companies (and to enhance military capabilities), so they can't slap their own sticker on the Indian rockets. They have to ask an American CEO to do that for them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday December 10 2014, @08:36AM
There will always be someone second guessing NASA.
But NASA (or some other nation-funded agency) has to take on the hard part, building heavy lift, building high endurance capsules, building a multitude of landing systems for mars. Everybody else is more or less practicing the science NASA developed.
There is no point in having NASA launching many more missions on private launch vehicles when all those guys are doing is using the same old stuff (other than Scaled Composites), using the same old dwindling supply of obsolete Russian engines. None of these guys is getting out of low earth orbit with anything bigger than a watermellon any time soon.
If you can't depend on funding, then you can't depend on private enterprise either. They don't have the pockets to weather a funding drought, and they won't be there if and when the money comes back.
Is Orion what we need for mars? Probably not. Nobody is going to spend a year in that tin can on the way to mars. It will go to the moon again. But a year long mission is going to require a much bigger living space just to keep them from killing each other. If the radiation did't get them first.
But it will do for a lot of the prep missions, and any moon missions. We really need NASA to build rockets, big ones. Lots of them.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday December 10 2014, @09:04AM
But NASA (or some other nation-funded agency) has to take on the hard part, building heavy lift, building high endurance capsules, building a multitude of landing systems for mars.
No. There are two problems with this assertion. First, it ignores the private world which does hard parts too. Second, it ignores that nation-funded agencies are notoriously incompetent at the above task. I include everyone, NASA, Russia, China, ESA, Japan, India, Brazil, etc. NASA is the worst of the lot with a unique combination of unparalleled funding (even in the wake of the Apollo program's demise!) and legendary squandering of that opportunity.
But NASA (or some other nation-funded agency) has to take on the hard part, building heavy lift, building high endurance capsules, building a multitude of landing systems for mars. Everybody else is more or less practicing the science NASA developed.
And discarded like an empty beer can throw out the window. We are indeed fortunately that a small portion of the research NASA has done has actually turned out to be useful. But it's not research that private businesses or non profits couldn't have done on their own.
There is no point in having NASA launching many more missions on private launch vehicles when all those guys are doing is using the same old stuff (other than Scaled Composites), using the same old dwindling supply of obsolete Russian engines. None of these guys is getting out of low earth orbit with anything bigger than a watermellon any time soon.
There are several huge problems with these assertions. First, that "watermelon" is multiple tons. Delta IV Heavy, the launch vehicle used in this test flight of the Orion capsule, can throw 8 metric tons to Mars transfer orbit in its largest configuration. It also doesn't use "obsolete" Russian engines (neither does SpaceX), which incidentally tend to be rather state of the art. Second, NASA has already demonstrated that launch vehicle development doesn't magically translate into a space program with the Space Shuttle, which to sum up the last forty years was a few years of new launch vehicle development followed by 30 years of "same old stuff" manned space flight in low Earth orbit (LEO).
Third, that "same old stuff" matters ]when it comes to launching stuff into space. The main obstructions to cheap space flight aren't technological, but rather economic. There isn't a launch system which ever existed, which couldn't benefit (in terms of cost per launch) from a higher launch frequency and more launches altogether. This includes the V-2 rocket and a variety of ICBMs which can be repurposed for orbital launch.
If you can't depend on funding, then you can't depend on private enterprise either. They don't have the pockets to weather a funding drought, and they won't be there if and when the money comes back.
Private enterprise can self-fund via profit from commercial activities.
But it will do for a lot of the prep missions, and any moon missions. We really need NASA to build rockets, big ones. Lots of them.
Because we want to repeat the last 40 years and build a launch platform so expensive that we can't fly it very often or do anything significant in space, even when we do fly it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 10 2014, @02:23PM
First, it ignores the private world which does hard parts too.
Very much so. NASA has not built most of its own rocket since the 50s. They contracted it out to Boeing, Lockheed, RocketDyne, etc.
Most of the space shuttle was Boeing with bits and pieces from different companies to appease particular senators. The shuttle was out of scope on everything it was supposed to do. Even the Air force stopped using it and basically had Boeing build what they really needed and asked for in the 70s. The shuttle was a massive compromise on every point. Almost every compromise was about money and power, not science. Or as the dad in a christmas story says 'that political slop'.
The hard problem NASA has is their boss is schizophrenic. Every 4 years the new guy tries to pull off a Kennedy moment and declare we are going to do something. Kennedy pulled it off for 3 reasons. One it was new and exciting, the Russians were actually doing it with front page newspaper spreads, and three he died. LBJ made sure the funding stayed up (despite his own party and Al Gore spearheading the lets kill it in favor of the shuttle). Nixon saw the political power of beating 'the ruskies' at their own game (he played to win). Ford and Carter both wanted to fart around with guided shooting things and appeasing weapons manufactures and had NASA build a shuttle. Regan was too busy playing with star wars (look at what most of the payload for the shuttle was 'weather satellites' and a few straight up 'secrete payloads'). Bush Sr tried to get a vision but could not get any support (the space station). Clinton the same way and changing direction no less than twice on NASA and finally picked the space station. Bush Jr was too busy with a war to bother and they built the station. Obama got a new rocket program going only because everyone was like 'hmm wait a second, our major supplier is bonkers and that ford/carter/gore shuttle idea is stupid expensive and opposite of what the senate from the 70s sold us'.
tl;dr NASA is a political thing not a rocket manufacture. They just happen to do science many times.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Wednesday December 10 2014, @02:51PM
I will tell you how I (as non USian and with little awareness of the politics surrounding spaceflight) I would summarize the above exchange:
Spaceflight should become more private because NASA let stuff be done by private companies and this turned out to be counterproductive.
Somehow, that does not sound very logical at all to me. It does however very well match with something I observed in various other countries: public funded initiatives can produce wonderful science (I have too little experience to know whether this also works for engineering). But as soon as public funding is used to set up contracts with industry, things go wrong. Industry just sees the public money it as a free source of money. Instead improving on the product, they will improve on getting more out of the contracts or getting more contracts.
Seems to me that NASA could do well enough on its own, as long as it focuses on the science, and does not contract out anything to companies (note, this does not mean you are not allowed to buy anything from companies).
(Score: 2) by emg on Wednesday December 10 2014, @04:12PM
"Spaceflight should become more private because NASA let stuff be done by private companies and this turned out to be counterproductive."
NASA is currently doing the equivalent of designing its own billion-dollar planes and paying Boeing to build them so it can fly a few employees between Florida and Houston once a year. Others are suggesting that it would be much cheaper and faster to just buy airline tickets instead.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 10 2014, @11:08PM
Spaceflight should become more private because NASA let stuff be done by private companies and this turned out to be counterproductive.
It's not a case of "let". NASA doesn't have this capability and never had it. It's just not their job. Further, if you pay someone to be horribly inefficient, whether private or public, and drive up the costs further with moves like bundling a dozen different experimental design innovations in each project or heavily modifying the project on a regular, but legally unanticipatable basis (eg, knowing that the requirements of the project are going to grow, but legally being unable to build critical aspects of the project to a greater scale than current), then you shouldn't be surprised by the consequences.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday December 10 2014, @04:37PM
If you can't depend on funding, then you can't depend on private enterprise either. They don't have the pockets to weather a funding drought, and they won't be there if and when the money comes back.
Private enterprise can self-fund via profit from commercial activities.
I am afraid that commercial activities would lull us into lacking ambition. Profitable space travel is dumping satellites into orbit. While NASA should integrate private operators whenever possible, we need an organization that can perform moon shots for the sake of getting to the moon. I don't see private space enterprises successfully sending humans to other celestial bodies, no matter what CEO's may claim their dreams are.
(Score: 2) by emg on Wednesday December 10 2014, @04:50PM
"we need an organization that can perform moon shots for the sake of getting to the moon."
Why?
OK, you spend billions of dollars so a few civil servants can plant flags on the Moon. What's the point?
If you want to see people back on the Moon, you need to reduce the cost of going to the Moon, not build rockets that will cost billions of dollars per flight because they only launch every couple of years.
"I don't see private space enterprises successfully sending humans to other celestial bodies"
I believe at least one company has been offering a Soyuz flight around the Moon for a few years. Just not a lot of demand for it when it will cost a couple of hundred million dollars. Get it down to a couple of million, and you'll be seeing people doing it every week or two.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 11 2014, @12:02AM
I am afraid that commercial activities would lull us into lacking ambition.
I'm sorry but inculcating a lack of ambition is one area where government services excel. It's been forty years since any government agency has done "moon shots" and they don't seem bent out of shape over that.
I don't see private space enterprises successfully sending humans to other celestial bodies, no matter what CEO's may claim their dreams are.
Case in point. Just sending humans to other celestial bodies is supposed to be ambitious? Especially when no one actually ever does anything to further that goal?
Sure, you don't see this, but I don't find your perception to be very relevant to the discussion. When it comes to actual results rather than imaginary ambitions, the private world trounces the public one. For example, SpaceX developed several rockets and launched a number of them for a cost that was estimated by NASA [transterrestrial.com] (including access to SpaceX's financial data) to be a tenth what NASA would cost the contract for (with actual cost being somewhat greater, of course, due to the usual inflation of NASA contracts).
(Score: 2) by Foobar Bazbot on Wednesday December 10 2014, @04:29PM
khallow already hit most of my points, including the Delta IV Heavy's capability, but I'd like to point out a couple items from SpaceX's plans. (I'm going to assume that "LEO" was a misspeak for "Earth orbit" (including e.g. GTO), since the statement as written is beyond absurd.)
First, the Falcon Heavy, planned to launch next year. The current Falcon 9 has an escape payload of about 3t (again, that's a pretty big watermelon). Falcon Heavy will have a first stage made of three Falcon 9 cores side-by-side (like the Delta IV Medium -> Delta IV Heavy relationship), but with propellant crossfeed (which the Delta IV Heavy doesn't have) so the main core can be fully fueled at strap-on core separation. This efficient half-staging allows a payload roughly 4x the Falcon 9 -- 53t to LEO, 19t to GTO, or 13.6t to escape.
But SpaceX's goal is to make Mars colonization a reality, and Falcon 9 Heavy isn't enough for that. On the timeframe of perhaps a decade, SpaceX plans to develop the MCT (Mars Colonial Transporter). Where the Falcon 9 has a 3.7m diameter core with 9 Merlin engines (650kN each), and a second stage with a single Merlin, the MCT's launch vehicle* will have a 10m diameter core with 9 Raptor engines (6900 kN each), and a second stage with a single Raptor. (Like Falcon 9 -> Falcon Heavy, a three-core version is also expected, but I'll only address the single-core model.) It's officially announced that it will land 100t of cargo on Mars -- but it's not entirely clear (to me -- but I haven't researched this deeply, and it may have been clarified) whether that's for a 1-core or 3-core, whether in reusable or expendable mode (or e.g. 1st-stage reuse, 2nd-stage expend), or whether it includes on-orbit refueling. At this point, numbers are mostly speculation, based on released Raptor specifications, but it looks like at least 40t escape payload, with all stages reused.
Again, that's something like 10 years out, which is arguably not "any time soon", but it's IMO significant.
*MCT refers to the spacecraft. SpaceX has not announced the official name of the launch vehicle, so it is commonly known as BFR (Big Falcon Rocket in polite company) or "the MCT rocket".
(Score: 1) by fritsd on Wednesday December 10 2014, @09:19PM
IANARocket Scientist, but indulge this amateur's idea:
You said that the Falcon Heavy is planned to lift 53 tonnes to LEO orbit.
From this page:
http://suzymchale.com/ruspace/mars500.html [suzymchale.com]
I gather that the Mars-500 simulation experiment had an assembly of 4 modules bolted together, weighing 500 tonnes ("initial weight of MEK in orbit is 500 tonnes")
So if that could be split into:
2 launches x module 1 (technical-medical module)
3 launches x module 2 (living quarters)
1 launch x module 3 (Mars landing module)
4 launches x module 4 (freezer, food storage, gym, greenhouse and bathroom)
that's split in 10 so with any luck each of the parts would be under 50 tonnes.
Plus an unspecified number of launches with fuel tanks for the main spaceship and for the landing module.
And one or more launches for the solar panels.
After assembly at the ISS, launch the crew on 2 Soyuz launches.
Sounds bloody expensive but I bet that 20 Falcon Heavy launches is still cheaper than "One Giant Penis Mars Rocket that's Too Big to Fail and Too Expensive to De-fund".
Six people (all men, for some unclear reason) have spent 500 days inside a spaceship configuration such as this. Don't waste that immensely valuable experiment.
The advantage of launch from LEO orbit is, that if I interpret this figure correctly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Delta-Vs_for_inner_Solar_System.svg [wikipedia.org]
the delta-V needed for Earth surface to LEO is approximately equal to the delta-V needed for LEO to Mars surface.
LEO is half-way out of the gravity well?
Can anyone who is smarter or who has studied rocketry tell if that means that the amount of the final rocket's fuel is reduced by e ^ 0.5 = 1.65 (39% reduction), compared to launch from sea level?
(Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Wednesday December 10 2014, @04:55PM
Those old Russian engines are about 20% more efficient than anything America has ever produced. Interesting things really, they use a closed cycle that puts the exhaust from the turbopump into the combustion chamber essentially turning it into a pre-burner. Awesome discovery episode about the nk-33 and rd-180 on YouTube,
The Engines That Came In From The Cold - And how …: http://youtu.be/TMbl_ofF3AM [youtu.be]
(Score: 2) by emg on Wednesday December 10 2014, @04:59PM
The space shuttle also used a closed cycle engine. Efficiency is much less important than cost, because fuel and tanks are cheap, while engines are expensive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 13 2014, @02:40AM
that would seem unlikely, since the first RD-180 was brought to the US to attempt to prove the russian claims false... the Americans were ultimately shocked, which subsequently led to USAF purchases of the Russian motors
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zeigerpuppy on Wednesday December 10 2014, @11:47AM
Outsourcing the F-35 has been a total disaster, for instance. Outsourcing nuclear reactors hasn't played out much better.
A private company has no reason to return a project on budget when they have you by the balls.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 10 2014, @01:52PM
Outsourcing the F-35 has been a total disaster, for instance. Outsourcing nuclear reactors hasn't played out much better.
So what? Doesn't mean that it'd be cheaper if the US government did it. Given that the US government has never made anything like the F-35, I really don't see the point of claiming that they could make it cheaper.
A private company has no reason to return a project on budget when they have you by the balls.
Then don't make that sort of contract. As I understand it, the "cost plus" contract (that pays the costs incurred or manufactured by a project up to a certain point plus some profit) that is so popular these days was almost never used by the US government before the Second World War. And where it was used, it didn't work very well. But it's all over the place afterward (a particular example being the F-35 contract). It still doesn't work well.
In the private world, the only place that consistently produces cost plus contracts is the legal field. And you really want your interaction with your contractors to be as efficient as the workings of a typical US courtroom? Everyone else uses contracts that pay out for outcome, often with penalties in place, if you can't meet the schedule. It's not that hard to produce a contract that doesn't have you by the balls.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Wednesday December 10 2014, @03:07PM
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 10 2014, @03:39PM
We're going to give you the contract, but refuse to fund you adequately. Then when you fail to deliver, we point at you and say, "See, they were incompetent to begin with and we shouldn't have funded them in the first place."
ARGH! Just give them their damn funds already! For fuck's sake, how many barely millions is this compared to the eleventy frooglepoopillion dollars we spend on the military who *doesn't even want it*?!
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 10 2014, @03:41PM
I would guess that it's Sour Grapes Logic again...whichever party didn't have enough votes to shoot down the program decided that they're going to sabotage it after it's begun because that's the next best thing.
Because Us "winning" is more important that getting anything done, apparently.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by paulej72 on Wednesday December 10 2014, @05:15PM
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 13 2014, @02:44AM
they've likely already conceded that russian hardware will do most of the work