Griffin on Loss of U.S. Space Leadership

IceBreaker was originally set to launch in 2002, with landing site
selected near Peary cater, based on Lunar Prospector data. Total
mission cost ~ $100Mil, with robot design done in CMU led by their
robotics legend William "Red" Whittaker himself.

For the cost of LRO and its followups, you could have probably launched
five IceBreakers to different sites far earlier.

-kert

On 18 Feb 2006 07:28:39 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Stephen
Horgan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

Most wouldn't view it that way. They're still in thrall to NASA--this
worship of the NASA manned spaceflight program is a holdover from
Apollo (another way in which that program was really a disaster in
terms of getting us seriously into space).

How on earth was Apollo a disaster?

By establishing a very expensive paradigm of how human spaceflight is
done.

The only problem was that it did not continue.

There was a good reason it didn't continue.

That may indeed be the case. Fortunately, others are more serious
about space--we don't have to rely on NASA.

The ESA is certainly catching up fast.

Not really.

On 18 Feb 2006 08:31:27 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Stephen
Horgan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

How on earth was Apollo a disaster?

By establishing a very expensive paradigm of how human spaceflight is
done.

If there is a much cheaper basic approach then it has escaped everyone,
national agencies and private companies, for decades.

It hasn't escaped *everyone* a number of people have been aware of
alternate approaches, even then (Shuttle was a fatally flawed attempt
to do it differently, from which we've drawn the wrong lessons). But
there's been little incentive on the part of the government to do it
any differently, and as for private companies, they just haven't
heretofore had the money to implement it, because there was until
recently a false perception that either the market didn't exist, or
the technology didn't exist, or both.

That may indeed be the case. Fortunately, others are more serious
about space--we don't have to rely on NASA.

The ESA is certainly catching up fast.

Not really.

The Chinese then?

No. No government is, or likely will.

Rand Simberg wrote:
On 18 Feb 2006 08:31:27 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Stephen
Horgan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

How on earth was Apollo a disaster?

By establishing a very expensive paradigm of how human spaceflight is
done.

If there is a much cheaper basic approach then it has escaped everyone,
national agencies and private companies, for decades.

It hasn't escaped *everyone* a number of people have been aware of
alternate approaches, even then (Shuttle was a fatally flawed attempt
to do it differently, from which we've drawn the wrong lessons). But
there's been little incentive on the part of the government to do it
any differently, and as for private companies, they just haven't
heretofore had the money to implement it, because there was until
recently a false perception that either the market didn't exist, or
the technology didn't exist, or both.

While manned spaceflight has been dominated by NASA, launch to orbit
now has a fair number of participants. There is a very active market in
payload to LEO. All of them have been incentivised to get the cost per
unit mass down, yet none has deviated from the multistage rocket model.


That may indeed be the case. Fortunately, others are more serious
about space--we don't have to rely on NASA.

The ESA is certainly catching up fast.

Not really.

The Chinese then?

No. No government is, or likely will.

I think the increase in purely private investment in space is a very
good thing, but improving access to space is still likely to be a
incremental process over a long period. The basic engineering problems
remain for SSTO models, and absent some radical new technology they are
tough ones.

On 18 Feb 2006 11:50:59 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Stephen
Horgan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

While manned spaceflight has been dominated by NASA, launch to orbit
now has a fair number of participants.

All of whom are pretty much satisfied with the status quo.

That may indeed be the case. Fortunately, others are more serious
about space--we don't have to rely on NASA.

The ESA is certainly catching up fast.

Not really.

The Chinese then?

No. No government is, or likely will.

I think the increase in purely private investment in space is a very
good thing, but improving access to space is still likely to be a
incremental process over a long period.

It will be incremental, but it won't be over that long a period, now
that they've gotten going.

The basic engineering problems
remain for SSTO models, and absent some radical new technology they are
tough ones.

Neither SSTO, or radical new technology is required to get much lower
launch costs than at present.

Ed Kyle wrote:

In my opinion, the only "leadership" that the U.S. currently
provides in space is in the unmanned science and exploration
efforts that Griffin is proposing to gut. The U.S. long ago lost
its leadership position in manned spaceflight to Russia, which
for the past several years has provided the only seat-rides to
orbit.

"several years", Ed? How about one year -- 2004. NASA launched more
people to orbit than Russia did in 2003, 2005, and every other year
since 1987. In most years that was a *lot* more. It takes only one
Shuttle flight a year to launch as much cargo and more people to the
ISS than Russia can manage at full capacity.

The International Space Station itself is built around a
Russian core.

One piddly module. OK, two, counting Docking Compartment 1. Compared
to the one Canadian and nine American modules*, that's hardly space
leadership.

It seems to me that Griffin's plans will simply eliminate U.S.
unmanned space science leadership for the return of only
getting NASA back on a par with the Russians in manned
flight.

The Russians are landing on the moon? Wow! I completely missed that.

* American: The FGB, Node 1, the Z-1 truss, the P-6 truss, the U.S. Lab,
the Joint Airlock Module, the S-0 truss, the S-1 truss, and the P-1 truss

Canadian: The SSRMS

Mike

-----
Michael Kent Apple II Forever!!
St. Peters, MO

Rand Simberg wrote:

Neither SSTO, or radical new technology is required to get much lower
launch costs than at present.

How is this the case?

Rand Simberg wrote:
On 19 Feb 2006 02:00:29 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Stephen
Horgan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:


Rand Simberg wrote:

Neither SSTO, or radical new technology is required to get much lower
launch costs than at present.

How is this the case?

How is it the case otherwise? You made a claim that these things are
necessary. Where is the case for that?

This is the case because we haven't developed low-cost transports
(which need not be single stage), not because we cannot.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/6/simberg.htm

Interesting article; however, it does seem to assume that the US is the
only nation on the planet, or at least the only one interested in
space. Neither is true, and allowing that the argument that the current
costs of launch to LEO are a function of US government policy is
weakened somewhat. If there was another much simpler and cheaper way to
get mass to orbit then what is stopping everyone else?

Michael Kent wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:

In my opinion, the only "leadership" that the U.S. currently
provides in space is in the unmanned science and exploration
efforts that Griffin is proposing to gut. The U.S. long ago lost
its leadership position in manned spaceflight to Russia, which
for the past several years has provided the only seat-rides to
orbit.

"several years", Ed? How about one year -- 2004. NASA launched more
people to orbit than Russia did in 2003, 2005, and every other year
since 1987. In most years that was a *lot* more. It takes only one
Shuttle flight a year to launch as much cargo and more people to the
ISS than Russia can manage at full capacity.

Russia has launched and returned from orbit an 18 seat
capacity (some unoccupied on six manned flights during
2003-2005, as well as launching 11 separate Progress
supply missions. The U.S. managed only one semi-successful
mission during the same period carrying six astronauts. I hate
to say it, but we cannot ignore the fact that the U.S. shuttle
killed all of the astronauts it launched in 2003 - more astronauts
in one accident than have ever died in all Russian space
disasters combined.

The fact is that the U.S. space shuttle is a flawed system
that has failed to maintain a U.S. human presence in space,
in stark contrast to Russia's Soyuz system.


The International Space Station itself is built around a
Russian core.

One piddly module. OK, two, counting Docking Compartment 1. Compared
to the one Canadian and nine American modules*, that's hardly space
leadership.

Zvezda is the core propulsion module, the engine, for ISS.
It, along with Russia's Progress ships, provide the bulk of
the station's Delta-V.

It seems to me that Griffin's plans will simply eliminate U.S.
unmanned space science leadership for the return of only
getting NASA back on a par with the Russians in manned
flight.

The Russians are landing on the moon? Wow! I completely missed that.

And the Americans are? I see some planning for a new CEV and
launch vehicle for it, but for lunar landings I see only unrealistic
budgets and Powerpoint presentations describing something that
might happen more than a decade from now. It wouldn't surprise
me to see Russian's circumnavigating the moon before NASA.

- Ed Kyle

On 19 Feb 2006 02:00:29 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Stephen
Horgan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:


Rand Simberg wrote:

Neither SSTO, or radical new technology is required to get much lower
launch costs than at present.

How is this the case?

How is it the case otherwise? You made a claim that these things are
necessary. Where is the case for that?

This is the case because we haven't developed low-cost transports
(which need not be single stage), not because we cannot.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/6/simberg.htm