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  #1  
Old 08-16-2009, 04:55 PM
Rocket Doctor Rocket Doctor is offline
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Default A Return To The Moon ?????

This is an artilce that was published in the Saturday Augsut 15,2009 issue of The Herald Newspaper, Rock Hill SC.

Space panel casts dim light on return to the Moon


By Mark K. Matthews and Robert Block
The Orlando (Fla) Sentinel

WASHINGTON - When President Barack Obama named a panel to review NASA's manned space program, his aides said privately they were hoping the group would recommend scrapping NASA's troubled Ares I rocket program and finding another cheaper way to get humans to the moon.

But the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee came to a troubling conclusion this week. NASA's budget offers no hope of sending humans past the International Space Station for 20 years or more.

And that confronts the administration with an enourmous dilemma"How , in an era of trillion-dollar deficits, to find money to reinvigorate human space exploration and avoid pulling the plug on a program that just celebrated the 40th anniversary of its first luanr landing.

The public was promised a Cadillac or at least a Buick , "said one administration science official not authorized to speak for the White House. "There is some concern we could end up with an Edsel".

Shaping the future of America's space program began on Friday, when members of the committee presented their preliminary findings to NASA chief Charlie Bolden and White House officials. Initial reports indicated the group agreed to retire the space shuttle in 2011, extend the space station until 2020 and use more commercial rockets.

They also like the idea of exploring deep space-rather than landing on the Moon.
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  #2  
Old 08-16-2009, 05:17 PM
stefanj stefanj is offline
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Between an "easy" interplanetary mission and a return to the moon, I'd take the former.

A mission to a nearby asteroid would be a brand-new venture. They could have a "landing" of sorts that doesn't require a large amount of delta-V.

The R&D required would be the same as for a Mars mission. Life support systems, efficient restartable rocket motors, that sort of thing.
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Old 08-16-2009, 06:49 PM
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People are so short sighted. A huge amount of technology was a direct result of the space program and was part of the reason why the US was a world leader. I am sure I don't have to list all the new technology here, since most of you are well aware. Our failure to fund a viable space program will cause us to lose our technological edge. We have decreased funding since Apollo to the point where after the shuttle we will have NO manned space vehicle for years and will depend on other just to get to the ISS which we paid and will continue to pay most of the bills. I thought we would at least be putting a colony on Mars by now, instead we are now arguing about going back to the moon 40 years later! **** I am mad!
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Old 08-16-2009, 08:21 PM
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This is pure politics. We need an outpost.
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Old 08-16-2009, 10:48 PM
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I have been reading Michael Neufeld's biography on von Braun. Did you know the Saturn program was almost replaced by a Titan based system? It is likely that the thing thing that put the Saturn system back in the running was a string of Soviet triumphs. Unfortunately the US Space Program is very, very political. If it was during the 1960's, it is even more so now. During the 1950's and 1960's, von Braun was well known through the Collier's magazine and the Disney TV spots. He kept selling the American public that space flight was possible. By the early 1960's, most Americans thought space travel to be possible.

Fast forward to today, I carry the biography around and the people I have lunch with say, "Who's he?"

Greg
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Old 08-17-2009, 12:19 AM
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I've been following the absolute disaster NASA has made of the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), announced by then-President Bush, for the last several years. I have watched this debacle unfold and have commented several times that it was following the same course as the last major space initiative which was announced by President Bush's father when he was President back in the 90's. That program was called the "Space Exploration Initiative", or SEI.

When the history of this failed program is written, it will be virtually verbatim what occurred during the SEI era, under then NASA Administrator Richard Truly. The Senior President Bush announced the SEI as a grand plan for the eventual exploration of the moon and Mars through a gradual development program which would develop necessary technologies and capabilities culminating in a manned Mars landing. The purpose was handed to NASA which was charged with coming up with the plan to implement it. NASA came back with a grandiose plan to develop a whole new fleet of spacecraft, operating out of a huge new space station hangar serviced by the space shuttle, going to and from the moon and establishing bases there, with the ultimate development and construction of nuclear powered interplanetary craft built in orbit and launched after refuelling from moon bases and setting off on their journeys. The plan was rediculously expensive and time consuming, and Bush and the Congress balked, and asked NASA to "revise it's plans and try again". The next SEI iteration was more lavish, grandiose, and expensive than the first, and as it worked it's way through the iterations and costing analysis, it became known as "Battlestar Galactica" for it's huge interplanetary spaceship constructed in orbit for the Mars trip, and the program ultimately topped out at a whopping $450 BILLION dollars. It was laughed out of the halls of Congress who had NO intention of spending that kind of money, and NASA was left piddling about with space shuttles, looking for an excuse to keep them going, which was quickly provided by the soon to be launched first segments of the International Space Station by the Russians and the US, which has been primarily constructed by and serviced by the Space Shuttles.

ISS has been it's own odyssey into inefficient waste of money, resources, and time. ISS would not exist in it's present form without the space shuttle, and space shuttles would have found themselves increasingly outliving their usefulness without ISS. They are co-dependent in an unhealthy way. ISS has been a BREATHTAKINGLY expensive waste of time and resources that could have been accomplished MUCH quicker, easier, and more efficiently and for FAR less cost had it been a NATIONAL program rather than an international one, and if it had been based on fewer but larger modules launched by a heavy lift rocket (which the US foolishly threw away at the end of Apollo, and failed to build anew in the intervening years) Now ISS has become a 2 billion dollar a year anchor around NASA's neck, that has taken TWELVE YEARS to "finish" (not really finished as envisioned, but pared back to what we could realistically accomplish before shuttle retirement, since the modules cannot be launched on anything but shuttles) and which is tentatively planned, much to the chagrin of the international partners, to be abandoned and de-orbited in 2016, ONLY SIX YEARS AFTER "COMPLETION"!!! Most likely NASA is going to be "forced" to continue with ISS operation until 2020, as the international partners want to recoup their investment in it, though like the Russian MIR space station, it will grow increasingly decrepit with it's age-- in 2020 the first Russian Modules on which the station is based will have been in orbit for 22 YEARS! ISS WILL NOT last forever, but there will be enormous pressure to utilize it to the extent possible, and NASA will be paying the bills to continue operating it, to the tune of 2 billion a year that could be spent developing our own national space capabilities. All this to basically repeat the same microgravity research that the Soviets (later Russians) had been doing on their Salyut and Mir space stations since the early 1970's.

The Challenger disaster drove the point home that the space shuttle would never be the vaunted 'airliner to space' that it was advertised to be when NASA sought funding for it. It's necessary complexity and massive touch labor requirements made it's grandiose plans for 50 flights a year and costs to orbit of about $300 per pound, an order of magnitude less than previous rockets, promises which were used to "sell" the vehicle to Congress and the Nixon Administration, were obvious pipedreams with NO basis in anything approaching reality. The perceived "need" to service satellites in space (Hubble notwithstanding-- it's been determined it would have been basically no more expensive to simply launch a new space telescope every time instead of sending a shuttle mission to service Hubble) and failing that, to return them to Earth for repair and relaunch on subsequent shuttle missions, was never a need that materialized into an actual requirement. Shuttle flights turned out to be SO expensive it was cheaper to simply launch a NEW satellite rather than 'repair' the old one, and especially considering if the satellite had to be returned to Earth and relaunched again. Satellites that had performed their useful service life were usually rapidly passed by the state of the art, and repairing an old satellite was a huge expense that could be applied to launching a new state-of-the-art satellite that could perform FAR more powerfully than the old satellite it would be replacing. Challenger ended once and for all the dream of shuttle paying it's own way using a manned spacecraft to launch and repair satellites (except for Hubble as previously noted, and ISS, it's codependent alter ego) The folly of risking human life to launch and repair satellites became apparent.

The Columbia tragedy drove the point home of shuttle's inherent weaknesses and safety shortcomings, and it's advancing age. Shuttle was intended, back before it's first flight, to be retired by a replacement system IN THE EARLY NINETIES. Of course developing a replacement system is enormously expensive and Congress never wanted to pay the bill so long as shuttles were 'operational'. The Columbia Investigation Board, CAIB, rightly identified the primary shortcomings and false premises upon which the shuttle paradigm was built-- the false assumption that using a manned spacecraft to launch satellites would EVER be cheaper than unmanned rockets, and the folly of risking human life for such menial tasks was evident after Challenger, and even the "forced retirement" of all the expendable rocket alternatives before Challenger led to the Air Force and US Intelligence having to scrounge for expendable launchers for national security satellites in the standdown after Challenger was already apparent, as it had driven most US satellite launches overseas to cheaper expendable rockets launched by foriegn space launch providers. The most important point the CAIB made was that risking human life should occur on TWO important bases, and the shuttle paradigm didn't fit either: 1) that human life should only be risked on the safest launcher we could realistically achieve, which shuttle cannot be with no realistic abort options, that cargo should be seperated from the crew's ability to escape and survive a disaster (which shuttle cannot do) and 2) that human life should be risked in pursuits only worthy of that risk of loss of life-- IE performing menial tasks repeating research done for the last 40 years in low Earth orbit isn't a worthy task for the risk of human life, unlike more broad exploration of the moon, Mars, and solar system would be, out exploring the frontier. Hence the drive to 1) retire shuttle and replace it with a new system, and 2) get back to exploration beyond low earth orbit. Hence the Constellation program.

More to come... OL JR
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Old 08-17-2009, 01:14 AM
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So now we come to Constellation and how this all ties together.

NASA had a golden opportunity with the VSE (Vision for SPace Exploration) that it had not had for over ten years since the quiet death of SEI (Space Exploration Initiative). The Congress and Administration, having seen the lessons learned by the CAIB investigation recommendations, took them to heart and hence the VSE was announced and NASA was directed to 1) retire the shuttles and 2) replace them with a new system to explore the moon, Mars, and beyond. Now it starts following a similar path to failure that occured with SEI.

First off, after some study, the path NASA originally chose was to use the EELV rockets, expendable rockets developed in the wake of Challenger to provide a redundant capability to launch national security satellites in the event of another shuttle disaster, and also allowing greater capabilities at reduced costs over a manned spacecraft like shuttle, to go into a 'spiral development' program to provide for the launch capabilities for spacecraft needed to fulfill the VSE. Soon it became apparent that with the retirement of shuttle, that the existing 'standing army' servicing the shuttles and contractors providing solid rocket boosters and other lucrative parts for shuttle missions would be all out of work, and shuttle had learned well the lessons of Apollo, that being, 'spread the wealth' and have parts coming from "all over" so if the program is contemplating being cancelled, there is a much broader base of support from areas all over the country not wanting to 'lose their jobs' when the program was shut down. SO, Congressmen and Senators started getting bombarded with demands that the existing 'standing army' working on shuttle not lose their jobs after shuttle retirement, and the readily apparent method to achieve that was to demand the replacement shuttle system be 'shuttle derived' and use as much shuttle infrastructure and parts as possible. This flew in the face of the EELV plan, which would have religated all the shuttle parts to museum pieces after shuttle retirement and focused on new expendable launchers, since intervening studies over the years have proven it would actually be cheaper to launch expendable rockets than pay the massive repair and refurbishment expenses required to reuse the space shuttle. SO, the plan became "shuttle derived" and the NASA Administrator was let go since he didn't believe in the "shuttle derived" paradigm and was replaced with Michael Griffin, who was a staunch supporter of "shuttle derived". There was a hastily called 90 day study, ESAS, which miraculously 'proved' the 'chosen path' of shuttle derived, in the iteration of a 1.5 launch solution consisting of a small manned crew booster, and a huge unmanned cargo rocket. This new manned booster would use a shuttle SRB topped with a new liquid stage using a space shuttle main engine (SSME) lofting a capsule (CEV, later called Orion) and would put all the cargo on a second massive cargo launcher consisting of a pair of SRB's from shuttle strapped to a modified shuttle External Tank (ET) equipped with 5 SSME's underneath it and topped by a J-2S powered upperstage capable of sending the LSAM lunar lander (later called Altair) and Orion to the Moon, or lofting huge spacecraft modules to be assembled in orbit for flights to Mars later on. The idea of using two nearly identical launchers, thereby only requiring ONE new rocket be developed instead of TWO, was shot down as 'less efficient' and EELV's as "requiring too many launches, too expensive, and too complicated". It's been all downhill from there.

The problems readily started to surface. Ares I, the new small crew launcher, was originally intended to use a shuttle four-segment SRB first stage with a liquid hydrogen upperstage powered by a SSME engine. Only problem, glossed over in ESAS, was that SSME's are NOT designed to be air-started on a second stage-- they require large ground support equipment to start them on the launch pad; airstarting would be a HUGE development program and HUGELY expensive, and would be a virtual re-design (requiring total requalification of the engine). SO, SSME was off the table. Strike one. The only viable replacement engine for SSME was J-2S, which WAS designed to be airstarted on upperstages, but it has only a fraction of the required thrust, and lower ISP (fuel economy) than the SSME, requiring larger upperstage fuel tanks, which makes it heavier, requiring a larger first stage. The four segment booster was then replaced with a five-segment booster design, which turns out to basically be a redesign of the solid rocket booster, despite assertions to the contrary. Additionally, the solid rocket motor doesn't really burn long enough to get to a speed and altitude for efficient staging, putting too much work on the upperstage, requiring it to get bigger, which really then calls for a more powerful engine, hence J-2X program replacing J-2S. J-2X is STILL only a little over half the thrust of the SSME and lower in ISP, and staging early means more gravity losses where thrust levels are very important, so the Ares I's performance is weak and paltry. The EELV advocates had still been making noise during ESAS about selecting EELV for the crew launcher, and NASA wanting to justify 'shuttle derived' made the Orion 5.5 meters wide and "too heavy" to be launched on EELV without requiring a new upperstage design program and qualification tests for manrating the launchers, and lamented unsafe 'black zones' in the trajectories (which for unmanned EELV's were optimized for cargo launches; the problem was rapidly addressed by adjusting the trajectories for a manned vehicle but NASA refused to listen since it went against what they wanted) but it was argued that Orion COULD NOT be downsized without crippling the program's capabilities. Of course as Ares I encounted more troubles, growing and yet getting weaker in performance, it was 'discovered' that Orion could be reduced to 5.0 meters in size and still perform the mission. Ares I development kept uncovering 'gotchas' and the problems of solid rocket motor thrust oscillation possibly shaking the rocket, spacecraft, and astronauts apart came to light, requiring expensive, sophisticated, and HEAVY damping systems to reduce the vibration, which is handled through the unique shuttle layout of two solids BESIDE the tank, but which was not possible with the liquid stage on top of the solid for Ares I. Additionally, performance problems were plaguing Ares I and Orion was forced to strip out everything not ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for the mission, because Ares I simply COULD NOT LIFT IT. Interestingly enough, EELV's COULD lift the capsule even before the weight scrubs, but again, NASA refused to listen because it didn't fit their golden plan. First to go was the land-landing capabilities of Orion, which relied on heavy 'landing bags' to cushion the landing. Reverting to ocean splashdowns like Apollo would make reusing the capsule after salt-water dunking quite problematical due to corrosion problems, etc. Redundant safety systems were stripped out, and the problems continued, and finally in desperation the 6 crew capability demanded of Orion, considered sacrosanct by NASA, was dropped to only 4 crew as that's the only way they could get the capsule any lighter. Orion has been hobbled in it's development by having to constantly go strip out capabilities so it can be lifted by the 'chosen launcher (Ares I)" despite two more capable EXISTING ROCKETS being available to launch it, requiring only a development program to 'manrate' them to NASA's satisfaction at FAR less cost that developing the entirely new Ares I rocket, with it's new liquid upperstage and J-2X engine, and basically entirely new first stage five-segment SRB. The program has hence spiralled out of control in cost and the schedule has slipped so badly already that the "replacement ISS launcher" won't be ready until well after the 2016 'retirement date' for ISS, and sadly it cannot even lift a lunar capable Orion with it's service module fuel tanks full for a lunar mission (the low earth orbit missions to ISS only launch with SM tanks half full). A cost of $16 BILLION for a rocket that isn't even as capable as the EXISTING EELV rockets, whose main sin is they "don't fit the plan".

But, it's worse yet. The "1.5 launch solution" requires a MASSIVE cargo rocket to carry everything for the mission, since Ares I cannot lift ANY cargo to speak of. Enter Ares V. Ares V is basically still in the early design iterations and has had no end of problems of it's own, because they keep having to make it bigger trying to make up for lost performance on the Ares I, among other things. First off, with the SSME airstart issue proving to be 'insurmoutable' and requiring a switch to J-2X on Ares I, this required Ares V to follow suit. This meant TWO J-2X's to replace a single upperstage SSME motor on Ares V, requiring a larger stage, making it heavier, and requiring Ares V to grow to lift the larger stage. With SSME commonality out othe window, SSME was scrapped from the entire Ares program and replaced with RS-68 engines from Delta IV on Ares V's core stage. This was a quick perfomance boost, since RS-68's produce half again as much thrust as SSME's do, though as much lower ISP, requiring SUBSTANTIALLY LARGER fuel tanks for the core. This necessitated switching from the 27.5 foot diameter shuttle ET tanks as the basis for the core to a 33 foot tank like the S-IC Saturn V first stage for the Ares V core stage. This would require all new tooling to make the larger diameter tanks.

I'll finish in part III... OL JR
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Old 08-17-2009, 02:05 AM
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SO, Ares V has continued to grow exponentially-- the greater lift requirements have necessitated 5.5 segment SRB's, again eliminating commonality with Ares I and requiring another expensive and time-consuming development and qualification program, and still performance is lacking and even six-segment SRB's have been proposed, as well as filament-spun casings to replace the shuttle steel casings currently in use, which would have to be expendable, so the SRB's wouldn't be recovered, which would make them MUCH more expensive. The core stage has grown even more, requiring a switch from 5 RS-68 engines to 6, with 7 even being contemplated, attempting to get the 13 tons of additonal performance needed for the rocket to do it's designed job. This has required the core stage to grow again to hold the extra fuel for all those engines, and an 11 meter core stage, over three feet wider than the Saturn V first stage, is being contemplated. Packing seven ablatively-cooled RS-68 engines under a huge fuel tank flanked by a pair of SRB's has led to the discovery of another huge problem-- the base heating of such a vehicle from recirculating exhaust gases will get the engines SO hot they'll fail in flight. This is requiring the Ares V to switch to an entirely redesigned Rs-68 engine using regenerative cooling like SSME's. RS-68's were originally based on work to create a cheap expendable engine with roughly the same capabilities as SSME. RS-68 has considerably higher thrust, which is good for a core stage, but at SUBSTANTIALLY LOWER ISP, requiring a lot more fuel to do the same work, hence larger, heavier tanks. As a cheap expendable engine, RS-68 passed over the complicated and expensive to produce regeneratively (recirculating fuel) cooled combustion chamber and nozzle in favor of a cheaper and easier to produce one-time use ablatively cooled nozzle. Switching to a regen-cooled now requires, you guessed it, basically a whole new engine development program, just like the J-2S to J-2X switch, which is a WHOLE lot more money. Turns out that simply throwing away SSME's wouldn't be much higher once you figure in development costs for RS-68 regens, and with a small optimization program to make expendable SSME's (eliminate stuff that make them reusable and go with cheaper single-use components, eliminate checkout and refurbishment capabilites, etc.) the SSME would cost about the same as RS-68 regens and would be available NOW, not in the distant future. SSME's greater ISP would allow smaller tanks and less fuel, and allow the launcher to shrink a bit, saving some money there. NASA isn't interested-- they want the Godzilla 7 as Ares V is being jokingly referred to. Sad thing is, even with ALL THIS going on, Ares V is STILL 13 tons short of it's performance targets and no realistic way to make up the shortfall is available. Additionally, Ares V's budget, which up to this point has been 'projections' but now it's at the point where it has to become a 'line item' in the budget and REAL numbers used, has proven to be as much as SEVEN TIMES more costly than the rosy projections it's been operating under up to this point. If Ares V is ever built, it will be THE SINGLE MOST EXPENSIVE ROCKET EVER CONCEIVED, and the most expensive to operate ever. Shuttle has been found to be more expensive than if Saturn V's had continued to be built and launched. Shuttle is already generally accepted to be unacceptably high-priced, just as Saturn V was in it's time, and if built, Ares V promises to be about TWICE as expensive PER FLIGHT as the space shuttle is now, which will leave NASA too broke to do anything with it!

During all this, some engineers within NASA and interested individuals in the contractors and space community have been working on alternatives to this massive waste of time, effort, and money. Using the existing shuttle parts as-is to the extent possible and building on that as a basis, they have proposed developing a launcher that would be somewhat less powerful than Ares V, but FAR less expensive to develop, build, and operate, but which could perform the mission requirements using two of these rockets, instead of a seperate small crew launcher with no cargo, which necessitates a HUGE cargo rocket to lift everything else. This is the "Direct" plan and the rocket it proposes, the Jupiter, would use two four segment SRB's identical to the existing shuttle SRB's flown today, flanking a core stage based directly on the ET fuel tanks, with a new thrust structure at the base of the tank between the SRB's using 3 existing (later modified for cheaper throw-away capabilities to reduce cost) SSME engines (on the single-stage vehicle, or 4 SSME's on the two-stage variant). This rocket, without the shuttle orbiter on the side, but with the new Orion capsule on top, could fly missions to the ISS by 2015 for less cost than shuttle, yet capable of carrying more cargo under the capsule in a fairing than the shuttle could carry today, if desired. This core stage would be topped by an EDS second stage like Ares V for lunar and Mars missions, powered by either J-2X (if it's developed) or 6 existing RL10 engines arranged like they were on the first Saturn I two-stage rocket, using the S-IV upperstage. Two of these rockets, which would eliminate the costs of having to develop a little and a large rocket both behing completely different from one another, could lift more cargo to the moon than the AresI/Ares V combination could. This "Jupiter" rocket has been thought of before, and actually was under development after Challenger as the National Launch System, a possible replacement for shuttle back then when it was unclear if the shuttle would continue. After it became apparent shuttles WOULD continue to fly, it was proposed as an adjunct to the shuttle, lifting heavy payloads too big for the shuttle to carry (like Skylab-sized space station modules--imagine how much easier and more efficient it would have been to build a station the size of ISS with 5 or 6 launches with Skylab size modules instead of nearly 30 launches of mini-modules in the shuttle payload bay) but Congress decided they didn't want to pay for shuttle and NLS, one or the other but not both. NLS actually was further along in it's development than Ares I and Ares V is now, and was coming along smoothly when it was cancelled and put in the file cabinet. NASA refuses to listen because they want the super-duper uber-booster, Ares V, and nothing else will do.

NASA seems SO wedded to their own plans, regardless of fiscal, budgetary reality, that they come up with these grandiose plans that are simply unaffordable. Instead of listening to the Congress and Administration when they say "come up with something cheaper" they retread the same grandiose plan in a new report shuffled about a bit and demand they get it or 'we can't do anything'. This is a VERY poor plan of action as it ends up with the whole thing being cancelled. SEI went down this path, and now Constellation has been trodding down this same path for the last four years. Now the time has come to pay the piper, and instead of choosing something that would fit the budget, NASA sits down and pouts and says "if we can't have more money we can't do anything". The Augustine Commission, formed by President Obama to look at the situation and suggest an alternative, has instead decided to offer a few equally expensive alternatives, swapping moon landings for Mars missions or rather pointless "deep space" missions with no landing capabilities (makes REAL good sense to fly 150 million miles to Mars, and stop 100 miles up in orbit with no way to get to the surface, after having endured 6 months of deep space radiation to get there, or going to orbit Venus that we have NO realistic capability of performing a manned landing on (why would we anyway) and enduring DOUBLE the solar radiation dose to orbit a dead hellish planet and look at the sulfuric acid clouds below). The Augustine Commission's main point seems to be trying to "force" the Administration and Congress to pony up more money for spaceflight by offering no alternative but stagnation and decline. This is a retread of the same failed methods NASA has been using to try to strongarm Congress for the last 30-years on everything from Space Station Freedom, the National Aerospace Plane, X-33/Venturestar, SEI, and now VSE in it's present Constellation program iteration.

When faced with the choice of giving NASA a blank check or cancelling the program in question, it's always been 'cancel it'. NASA may find itself, at best, left to wither on the vine and dither away it's money on projects leading to nowhere because they won't face reality and come up with alternatives we can afford, instead of wasting time and money and effort screaming about what they "HAVE TO HAVE IF WE WANT TO DO ANYTHING!"

I mean, that's what we ALL must do in life... when I was in high school I wanted a brand-new car to drive-- I got to use the secondhand farm pickup. Most of us would ALL love to live in a brand new mansion, have a luxurious car or top of the line sports car, a seven figure plus bank account, and a supermodel girlfriend, but reality is usually somewhere a LOT lower, and we have to make do with what we have, and what we can afford. That's reality, that's life.

Until NASA can change it's leadership's blind childish demands for the keys to the candy store and a blank check to boot, the only place it's heading for is obscurity. What NASA needs is a good dose of REALITY.

JMHO! OL JR
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Old 08-17-2009, 05:33 AM
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Don't pull your punches, JR. Tell us what you really think.

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Old 08-17-2009, 06:19 AM
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While all of what JR said may be true, it doesn't change the desire to go into space. And, we are still in human infancy when it comes to space flight. All or most of that crap needs to be gone through until we get it right.

Just like the 1960s on to Skylab, the shuttle and ISS are stepping stones we need to cut our teeth on. So long as there are people willing to train as astronauts, they are the ones deciding it is worth the risk to learn and explore.

As for me, I say we should put more effort into landing on comets. And later, as some suggest, learning to guide them. Partially to make sure we can steer Near Earth objects and, mostly, to send a few to Mars. A few well placed comets and bingo, instant atmosphere!
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