International Partners - Back to the Moon, On to Mars

I thought with the development of the ISS that it was generally viewed that
any major space initiative would have to be an international venture. I
didn't hear anything about Canada, Russia, Europe (China ??), etc being
invited to participate in this latest venture.

Money is going to be the driving force behind this latest manned Space
program. Wouldn't bringing in other countries as partners help spread the
costs and make this Program's chances for future funding more realistic ??
What about balancing risk vs. the overhead of co-coordinating another major
space initiative with multiple countries...., for example where would ISS be
today without Russia supplying crew transfer and re-supply ships ?? What
happens if the CEV has a major downtime a la the Space Shuttle, leaving a
manned Moon Base without a method for re-supply ??

Jeff Lerner

In article ogers.com,
Jeff Lerner wrote:
Money is going to be the driving force behind this latest manned Space
program. Wouldn't bringing in other countries as partners help spread the
costs and make this Program's chances for future funding more realistic ??

Not very likely, actually. Spreading a project across several nations
tends to considerably increase its costs, which would reduce or eliminate
any financial benefit to the US.

This is especially true if the US insists on doing all "critical path"
stuff itself, as it largely did on the station until politics brought the
Russians into the project (neither the Europeans nor the Japanese were
trusted with anything vital, even though both would almost certainly have
delivered...). When you've cut the project to the bone before it starts,
as is normal for big costly projects, there just isn't that much stuff
*off* the critical path.

What spreading the project out *does* do is make it harder to kill. For
example, Huygens basically saved Cassini. But even that is not to be
taken for granted for megaprojects with the US involved; the station
survived in Congress by the thinnest of margins.

And don't forget that if the US dumps the station to help pay for this
initiative, most of the station partners are likely to be too thoroughly
****ed off to sign up to kick Lucy's football yet again. "Fool me once,
shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

"Jeff Lerner" wrote in
le.rogers.com:

I thought with the development of the ISS that it was generally viewed
that any major space initiative would have to be an international
venture. I didn't hear anything about Canada, Russia, Europe (China
??), etc being invited to participate in this latest venture.

You weren't listening, then:

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/54868main_bush_trans.pdf

quote
We'll invite other nations to share the challenges and opportunities of
this new era of discovery. The vision I outline today is a journey, not a
race. And I call on other nations to join us on this journey, in the spirit
of cooperation and friendship.
/quote

Money is going to be the driving force behind this latest manned Space
program. Wouldn't bringing in other countries as partners help spread
the costs and make this Program's chances for future funding more
realistic ??

Not really. It certainly didn't for ISS.

What about balancing risk vs. the overhead of
co-coordinating another major space initiative with multiple
countries...., for example where would ISS be today without Russia
supplying crew transfer and re-supply ships ??

That has more to do with technical robustness than cost. That's the real
reason to have partners.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ogers.com,
Jeff Lerner wrote:
Money is going to be the driving force behind this latest manned Space
program. Wouldn't bringing in other countries as partners help spread the
costs and make this Program's chances for future funding more realistic ??

Not very likely, actually. Spreading a project across several nations
tends to considerably increase its costs, which would reduce or eliminate
any financial benefit to the US.

This is especially true if the US insists on doing all "critical path"
stuff itself, as it largely did on the station until politics brought the
Russians into the project (neither the Europeans nor the Japanese were
trusted with anything vital, even though both would almost certainly have
delivered...)

I wouldn't bet on it. I was there, remember? Sending 150 page
international faxes because "email was too complicated" was the norm for
our "international partners" at Alenia, for instance. (And yes, even in
1990 we had access to a T1 connection to the internet). The Japanese were
better at sending email but you haven't LIVED until you've tried to
understand mangled "Engrish" translations of requirements docs in a major
aerospace program. There are also tremendous practical problems with
spreading critical-path items across literally two-thirds of the world's
time zones. It's really fun scheduling international telecons (with
translators, too!) across a 14 hour time difference.

When you've cut the project to the bone before it starts,
as is normal for big costly projects, there just isn't that much stuff
*off* the critical path.

What spreading the project out *does* do is make it harder to kill. For
example, Huygens basically saved Cassini. But even that is not to be
taken for granted for megaprojects with the US involved; the station
survived in Congress by the thinnest of margins.

In 1992 it came down to a single vote on floor of the House; I believe the
margin on that vote was 218 for and 217 against. Most of the folks working
on the program that year were glued to C-SPAN watching the debates and the
vote. Just what NASA needed, too: 435 self-appointed program managers
voting on about a $50B budget bill (NASA, VA and all the independent
agencies lumped together), based entirely on their opinions concerning a
single program which at the time was only about a $1B per year.

And don't forget that if the US dumps the station to help pay for this
initiative, most of the station partners are likely to be too thoroughly
****ed off to sign up to kick Lucy's football yet again. "Fool me once,
shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

Can't blame them on that score.
--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
Remove invalid nonsense for email.

In article ,
Herb Schaltegger lid wrote:
... (neither the Europeans nor the Japanese were
trusted with anything vital, even though both would almost certainly have
delivered...)

I wouldn't bet on it. I was there, remember? Sending 150 page
international faxes because "email was too complicated" was the norm for
our "international partners" at Alenia, for instance...

And now Alenia *is* building critical-path elements of the station, as a
result of the Node 2/3 deal with ESA, and is delivering them as promised,
last I heard.

Note that I didn't say the process would have been easy or cheap, only that
the results would have been okay.

...The Japanese were
better at sending email but you haven't LIVED until you've tried to
understand mangled "Engrish" translations of requirements docs in a major
aerospace program...

Japan is the *only* station partner which has done everything it said it
would, as promised, without any changes of mind along the way.

See above comment about process vs. results.

...the station
survived in Congress by the thinnest of margins.

In 1992 it came down to a single vote on floor of the House; I believe the
margin on that vote was 218 for and 217 against...

The actual margin wasn't *quite* so small, because (I'm told) four of the
anti-station votes came from representatives from the US territories, and
under House rules their votes cannot decide such an issue. But a 5-vote
margin is still an awfully close call...
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

Are you that pathetically stupid, as in snookered, haven't you ever
heard of "dog wagging"?

"Moon Dirt isn't just Moon Dirt, it's absolutely Everything Dirt"

I have absolutely no doubts that once upon a time Mars had a
sufficient atmosphere, thereby a warmer and radiation protected
environment, possibly even long enough to have sustained either
natural evolution and/or of some well intended terraforming on behalf
of establishing some life similar to human.

Unfortunately, there are certain limits to which life and of it's
DNA/RNA as we know it can coexist within the confines of what Mars has
had to offer for the past few thousand years, and certainly things are
not getting any better.

The more the likes of Mars core cools itself off, the worse becomes
any opportunity for that planet to revive itself, short of receiving a
massive infusion of artificial energy, such as what 1000 terawatts per
year as derived from our lunar He3 might have to offer.

Some good readings: SADDAM HUSSEIN and The SAND PIRATES
http://mittymax.com/Archive/0085-Sad...andPirates.htm

The latest insults to this Mars/Moon injury:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-moon-02.htm

http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-gwb-moon.htm

http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-interplanetary.htm

http://guthvenus.tripod.com/moon-04.htm

Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
Herb Schaltegger lid
wrote:
... (neither the Europeans nor the Japanese were
trusted with anything vital, even though both would almost certainly
have delivered...)

I wouldn't bet on it. I was there, remember? Sending 150 page
international faxes because "email was too complicated" was the norm for
our "international partners" at Alenia, for instance...

And now Alenia *is* building critical-path elements of the station, as a
result of the Node 2/3 deal with ESA, and is delivering them as promised,
last I heard.

They are NOW - in the early 2000's, not in the mid-90's as origninally
planned (which was only for Columbus at the time, not the Nodes or MPLMs).
At the time, there was a good deal of concern that Columbus would be ready
for launch on time and (more importantly), that all critical interfaces
would be satisfied. Fortunately, the SSF core didn't depend on any
services FROM Columbus, but there was great worry that what was provided to
Columbus would be problematic. These concerns ranged from power/data to
structural interfaces to ECLSS interfaces (which was primarily what I was
concerned with at the time).

At this point in the game, Alenia is benefitting from what is a ten-year old
structural design for the Node and MPLM (and yes, I realize that the Node
design has been stretched, but that was under consideration ten years ago,
too, and it had gotten as far as preliminary finite-element analysysis of a
stretched structure to see if it was feasible or not. But aside from
bending the metal, a lot of the tough parts - especially including
designing and qualifying the the waffle grid structure and (very
importantly) implementing the manufacturing processes to build a
pressurized element this way - had already been done.

Note that I didn't say the process would have been easy or cheap, only
that the results would have been okay.

I'm not convinved that they would have been okay AT THE TIME.

...The Japanese were
better at sending email but you haven't LIVED until you've tried to
understand mangled "Engrish" translations of requirements docs in a major
aerospace program...

Japan is the *only* station partner which has done everything it said it
would, as promised, without any changes of mind along the way.

See above comment about process vs. results.

...the station
survived in Congress by the thinnest of margins.

In 1992 it came down to a single vote on floor of the House; I believe the
margin on that vote was 218 for and 217 against...

The actual margin wasn't *quite* so small, because (I'm told) four of the
anti-station votes came from representatives from the US territories, and
under House rules their votes cannot decide such an issue. But a 5-vote
margin is still an awfully close call...

I don't recall it that way but I don't have the time right now to dig out
the Congressional record to see one way or the other. Either way, as you
point out, it was awfully close and too close for comfort for many. The
absurdity of a floor vote on a $50B appropriations bill turning on the
political palatability of a program requiring 2% of that money is manifest.


Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
Remove invalid nonsense for email.

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 08:11:41 -0600, Herb Schaltegger
lid wrote:

In 1992 it came down to a single vote on floor of the House; I believe the
margin on that vote was 218 for and 217 against. Most of the folks working
on the program that year were glued to C-SPAN watching the debates and the
vote. Just what NASA needed, too: 435 self-appointed program managers
voting on about a $50B budget bill (NASA, VA and all the independent
agencies lumped together), based entirely on their opinions concerning a
single program which at the time was only about a $1B per year.


I remember that; IIRC --- feel free to correct me on the details --- a
House committee chaired by Robert Traxler made a deal with NASA that
if they did one more redesign of the station, they would fund it.
Well, NASA did the redesign, but Traxler broke his word and the
committee (or subcomittee) voted to axe it, and that lead to the
debate on the House floor. Another thing I seem to recall is that one
of my senators, Charles Schumer (D - NY), was in the kill the station
camp. I still haven't forgiven him for that.

According to AVIATION WEEK, the reason there was a big push to kill
the station was because with that year's budget, the program would
begin building the actual hardware, making it harder to kill. So for
the opponents, 1992 was "now or never."

Michael Gallagher wrote:

According to AVIATION WEEK, the reason there was a big push to kill
the station was because with that year's budget, the program would
begin building the actual hardware, making it harder to kill. So for
the opponents, 1992 was "now or never."

Yep; in early 1993 (March or April, I think it was) I handled the technical
end of the procurement process for all the little bits and pieces necessary
to go from flow charts and "Mac'd up" charts detailed packaging design. I
mean, flow charts and boxes look fine in technical presentations but they
don't vent the CO2 overboard from the CDRA or connect the TCCS to the THC
Cabin Air Return lines, you know? ;-)

LOTS of the subs were beginning fabrication of qual and even flight parts by
FY93. Some of the subs already had qual units under construction by the
previous year. Boeing itself was getting ready to build the Node 1 flight
article (the STA was finishing up, IIRC, for pressure and dynamic load
tests which were to be done in '93 or thereabouts).

Then came the SSF -- Space Station Alpha -- ISS morph and all schedules
went to hell.

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
Remove invalid nonsense for email.

In article ,
rk wrote:
Japan is the *only* station partner which has done everything
it said it would, as promised...

I thought they cut the capability of the centrifuge way back as they
were having trouble meeting spec. I don't follow this that closely
so apply caveats as required.

My impression was that they were behind schedule but still hoping to be on
spec at the end. However, I don't follow it closely either.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |