Return to moon: EELV or HLV? Let the market decide (or at least the buyers).

Edward Wright wrote:

"Dholmes" wrote in message .. .

It is not the routine that I worry about is the long chain that worries me.
I do not want to see it turn in to mutiple years of launching stuff before
you are done.

Why not? When the Dutch settled New Amsterdam, they never worried that
it might require multiple years of launching stuff before the city was
"done." After all these years, stuff is still arriving in New York
City every single day. The city still isn't "done."

Saying everything should be sent on one large ship so you can be
"done" means you don't want to do anything very ambitious.

We are talking about putting 4 men on the Moon for extended periods.

You're talking about trivia, then.

They did not have to worry about congress playing with the funding before
the outpost reaches critical mass. If the Dutch had just dumped one
barrel full of stuff over the side every month, Manhattan would still be a
tree covered island. Heavy lift does have one thing going for it, the
faster stuff is in place, the less time folks have to get in the way.
The cost of delays and program stretches can make all the other costs
trivial.

(Alex Terrell) wrote in message . com...

I think this would distort the market too much. Probably better to
have a seperate program to fund HLV start up programs - Cash grants
for the research, some contribution to development. The same could
apply to "novel" launch methods.

How is this "letting the market decide"? What you're describing is
nothing more than a return to the Space Launch Initiative.

3) I would not allow one company to win all the bidding and would want to
encourage even the smallest companies like SpaceX. A special fund for
startup launchers could even be set up.

I would allow one company to win all the bidding for the 2 - 3 year
period. Smaller companies would probably go for the 2 year ISS
resupply and recrew contract, that woulod involve 10 tons to LEO.

In other words, give the small companies something, but not enough
that anyone can actually be successful. The old "Alt Access" ploy. :-)

Once they've done one of those, they could bid.

Except that they just "happened" to go out of business in the
meantime.

Eric Pederson deZ to respond wrote in message ...
Edward Wright wrote:

"Dholmes" wrote in message .. .

It is not the routine that I worry about is the long chain that worries me.
I do not want to see it turn in to mutiple years of launching stuff before
you are done.

Why not? When the Dutch settled New Amsterdam, they never worried that
it might require multiple years of launching stuff before the city was
"done." After all these years, stuff is still arriving in New York
City every single day. The city still isn't "done."

Saying everything should be sent on one large ship so you can be
"done" means you don't want to do anything very ambitious.

We are talking about putting 4 men on the Moon for extended periods.

You're talking about trivia, then.

They did not have to worry about congress playing with the funding before
the outpost reaches critical mass. If the Dutch had just dumped one
barrel full of stuff over the side every month, Manhattan would still be a
tree covered island.

No - but they'd all speak Spanish. Perhaps the analogous question here
is will the inhabitants of the colonies speak American or Chinese?

Heavy lift does have one thing going for it, the
faster stuff is in place, the less time folks have to get in the way.
The cost of delays and program stretches can make all the other costs
trivial.

No more than then a higher flight rate of medium lift. We're arguing
over 12 times 20 tons per year or 4 times 60 tons per year.

Eric Pederson deZ to respond wrote in message ...

It is not the routine that I worry about is the long chain that
worries me.
I do not want to see it turn in to mutiple years of launching
stuff before
you are done.

Why not? When the Dutch settled New Amsterdam, they never worried
that
it might require multiple years of launching stuff before the city
was
"done." After all these years, stuff is still arriving in New York
City every single day. The city still isn't "done."

Saying everything should be sent on one large ship so you can be
"done" means you don't want to do anything very ambitious.

We are talking about putting 4 men on the Moon for extended
periods.

You're talking about trivia, then.

They did not have to worry about congress playing with the funding before
the outpost reaches critical mass.

Perhaps because it was done by the Dutch West India Company, not
Congress? And the Dutch had developed CATS (Cheap Access To Sea)
before they attempted to settle the New World?

(Implications for the Moon are left as an exercise to the student.)

If the Dutch had just dumped one barrel full of stuff over the side every month, Manhattan would still be a
tree covered island. Heavy lift does have one thing going for it, the
faster stuff is in place, the less time folks have to get in the way.

So, it doesn't matter that 4 people on the Moon aren't enough to do
anything useful, just get them up there before anyone notices that?

"Edward Wright" wrote in message
om...
"Dholmes" wrote in message
.. .

It is not the routine that I worry about is the long chain that worries
me.
I do not want to see it turn in to mutiple years of launching stuff
before
you are done.

Why not? When the Dutch settled New Amsterdam, they never worried that
it might require multiple years of launching stuff before the city was
"done." After all these years, stuff is still arriving in New York
City every single day. The city still isn't "done."

The first outpost was probably set up within a year.
Later on it developed into a settlement.


Saying everything should be sent on one large ship so you can be
"done" means you don't want to do anything very ambitious.

I have seen no one suggest one ship.
What most people including myself seem to be trying to do is find the right
size.
You do not use a kayak when a clipper is called for.


We are talking about putting 4 men on the Moon for extended periods.

You're talking about trivia, then.

No just what the president has suggested we do before 2020.
Personally I would love to see a lot more.

"Edward Wright" wrote in message
om...
Eric Pederson deZ to respond wrote in
message ...

It is not the routine that I worry about is the long chain that
worries me.
I do not want to see it turn in to mutiple years of launching
stuff before
you are done.

Why not? When the Dutch settled New Amsterdam, they never worried
that
it might require multiple years of launching stuff before the city
was
"done." After all these years, stuff is still arriving in New York
City every single day. The city still isn't "done."

Saying everything should be sent on one large ship so you can be
"done" means you don't want to do anything very ambitious.

We are talking about putting 4 men on the Moon for extended
periods.

You're talking about trivia, then.

They did not have to worry about congress playing with the funding
before
the outpost reaches critical mass.

Perhaps because it was done by the Dutch West India Company, not
Congress? And the Dutch had developed CATS (Cheap Access To Sea)
before they attempted to settle the New World?

(Implications for the Moon are left as an exercise to the student.)

If the Dutch had just dumped one barrel full of stuff over the side
every month, Manhattan would still be a
tree covered island. Heavy lift does have one thing going for it, the
faster stuff is in place, the less time folks have to get in the way.

So, it doesn't matter that 4 people on the Moon aren't enough to do
anything useful, just get them up there before anyone notices that?

Apollo had 6 Moon landings of 2 people each all less then 3 days or a total
of about 166 man hours according to one source.
So one landing of 3-9 days would allow as much exploration of the Moon as
all of Apollo and that is just the first mission.
Beyond that oxygen and or water mining can be set up depending on other
findings.

"Alex Terrell" wrote in message
om...
Eric Pederson deZ to respond wrote in
message ...
Edward Wright wrote:

"Dholmes" wrote in message
.. .

It is not the routine that I worry about is the long chain that
worries me.
I do not want to see it turn in to mutiple years of launching stuff
before
you are done.

Why not? When the Dutch settled New Amsterdam, they never worried that
it might require multiple years of launching stuff before the city was
"done." After all these years, stuff is still arriving in New York
City every single day. The city still isn't "done."

Saying everything should be sent on one large ship so you can be
"done" means you don't want to do anything very ambitious.

We are talking about putting 4 men on the Moon for extended periods.

You're talking about trivia, then.

They did not have to worry about congress playing with the funding
before
the outpost reaches critical mass. If the Dutch had just dumped one
barrel full of stuff over the side every month, Manhattan would still be
a
tree covered island.

No - but they'd all speak Spanish. Perhaps the analogous question here
is will the inhabitants of the colonies speak American or Chinese?

Heavy lift does have one thing going for it, the
faster stuff is in place, the less time folks have to get in the way.
The cost of delays and program stretches can make all the other costs
trivial.

No more than then a higher flight rate of medium lift. We're arguing
over 12 times 20 tons per year or 4 times 60 tons per year.

I think it is more then that.
24 launchs of three rockets each is 72.

Beyond this is where heavy lift starts to become better.
Under this smaller wins.

Eric Pederson dez to respond wrote:

They did not have to worry about congress playing with the funding before
the outpost reaches critical mass. If the Dutch had just dumped one

So you wantb to claim that the Netherlandish settlers had access to a guranteed
stream of money to accomplish settlement? I don't think so.

barrel full of stuff over the side every month, Manhattan would still be a
tree covered island. Heavy lift does have one thing going for it, the
faster stuff is in place, the less time folks have to get in the way.
The cost of delays and program stretches can make all the other costs
trivial.

The more anything costs, the more likely is it to have its funsing pulled or
reduced.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

(Alex Terrell) wrote
[... gov't contract "termination for convenience"
clause..] I suppose this is used by Government officials to
justify paying $5,000 for a fully flexible, refundable airline
ticket instead of a $100 non changable ticket.

I don't think I've seen that – you'll usually get a 30 day notice or
something like that to shut down things. Plus, the government is a
big enough market that they usually get some pretty good prices on
commodities like airline tickets to standard destinations. If you're
buying 10,000 tickets a week, you can usually get good prices I've
noticed... Which isn't to say an airline wouldn't squawk if the
government suddenly cancelled a thousand tickets the day before they
were to be used... and I think that price would probably go up when
the contract was renewed.

Two potential ways around this:
1. If the contract is cancelled, it becomes a cost plus
contract and NASA pays for work up to the point of
cancellation.
2. NASA buys options for launches - but the option price is
pretty close to the launch "price", and the actual launch
"price" is then set quite low.

On the first, that's what termination liability really is. However,
for a major fixed cost procurement which is probably multi-year, you
have to budget the money in the annual budget so its available when/if
you need it. So each year, the Congress hopefully passes
appropriation and authorization for some amount to cover their
termination liabilities. The idea isn't to make a contractor wealthy
for work they did of appropriate quality and scope, when the
government cancels – but to give them recovery of costs they incurred
in good faith. As pointed out elsewhere, another way of doing this is
progress payments – closing out the government's liability
periodically by paying down the accumulated liability as they complete
some amount of work – rather than a lump sum at the completion of the
contract.

As an example of "termination for convenience" I've noticed the
Comanche helicopter program termination seems to be proceeding pretty
orderly (it wasn't a fixed price on delivery contract though). But
there can still be issues – the A-12 debacle is still going on in the
courts and involves billions of claims on both the government and
contractor sides.

I'm not sure why NASA would pay out money for the options in the
second case. Typically an option is just that – given that you want
another launch in the future, within some constraints (you order
within a year of the last order, it's another copy of the same
product, etc...) the option just sets a future price. It doesn't
involve any pre-payment, unless there are some strange conditions on
the option (such as requiring the supplier to have the launch ready to
go in 30 days, for example).

[ ... ]

Or as you point out, progress payments can be made, with a
rebate to NASA in event of launch failure.

Hmm.. I haven't really seen rebates to the government for launch
failure, although I've seen that in commercial contracts. In the USAF
MELV II launch contract, I seem to recall there was a clause about the
price for the launches, and cancellation of the entire program if the
failures exceeded a certain level. If memory serves, and it's been
years since I looked at this, the deal was something like if they
failed one launch they provided a replacement at their cost to the
government, and if they failed 2, they lost all profits on all
launches, and if they failed 3, the government could immediately
cancel the contract. (Which actually would leave the contractor
holding the bag for at least $10's of millions in incurred expenses
for the future launches since those vehicles had to be partially
completed by that point). It wasn't a "rebate", and I recall this was
considered a pretty sporty proposition for the contractor since the
risk (around $40 M/ launch in payment I believe) was outside the
return for such a modified vehicle (guestimating $8-15 M profit per
launch, at a 20-40% gross operational margin after sinking a fairly
sizeable chunk of contractor investment -- $100 M? – to develop that
version of the launcher). If all 20 or so vehicles succeeded you did
pretty well ($60-200 M net return on $100 M investment after 5 years).
If you lost one, you did not so well ($35- $170M net return after
five years), and if you lost 2 you were probably out $100 M or so.

In commercial launch contracts I've seen sort of a rebate required –
called a "rebooking fee", where the launch provider has to provide a
fee to the launch purchaser in case they have to rebook the launch on
another vehicle at higher cost. Usually though (and terms are highly
negotiable) they'll offer a relaunch at their cost and preferential
place in the build queue to provide one. If it's a package deal
including satellite procurement, launch services, payload integration,
and on orbit operations for a constellation, there will usually also
be a ground spare at least partially completed of the payload to be
launched and also an appropriate insurance package to cover any
losses.

"Dholmes" wrote in message ...

So, it doesn't matter that 4 people on the Moon aren't enough to do
anything useful, just get them up there before anyone notices that?

Apollo had 6 Moon landings of 2 people each all less then 3 days or a total
of about 166 man hours according to one source.

Apollo was a mistake of historic proportions. Wjy do you want to
repeat past mistakes?

So one landing of 3-9 days would allow as much exploration of the Moon as
all of Apollo and that is just the first mission.

Yawn.