U.S. manned space program is in great shape

http://www.space.com/12350-private-s...-nasa-shuttle-
retirement.html

I don't understand why everyone's yelling that the U.S. space program
is in dire straits now that Shuttle has retired. Sure, there's going to
be a gap between Shuttle and new manned space systems coming online,
but OTOH there's something beautiful at the end of the tunnel:
commercial space aviation!

Yes, people will mourn the demise of the spacious Shuttle with its
proper toilet, whereas the Orion / Dragon astronauts will have to do
their thing in a diaper (I'm pretty sure we'll see fewer women
astronauts flying because of this). But in reality Shuttle was an
unsafe death trap costing almost a billion dollars per flight and
gobbling up a large percentage of NASA's budget.

If we look at the commercial space companies in the race it looks like
most of them have a viable system for LEO flights. Boeing was forced
into developing CST-100 (by cheaper rival SpaceX) and may even pay for
its integration with Atlas V out of its own pocket. But I'm afraid that
subsequent flights will still be expensive (I estimate $200 million a
flight minimum). SpaceX could fly at much cheaper rates but the company
hasn't got many supporters (read: paid cronies) in Congress and may
still lose the contract for ferrying astronauts to the ISS to Boeing.
It's clear to me that Boeing is clearly doing everything it can to push
SpaceX out of the market by blocking most venues where the company can
have the greatest financial impact. It pushed its supporters to
legislate the SLS (compare to SpaceX's $3 billion Falcon XX) and MPCV
and will now probably do the same thing for crew ferrying to ISS. That
would leave only the satellite business for SpaceX which Boeing already
more or less ceded to foreign competitors (except for national security
payloads). If I understood correctly it was Elon Musk's goal to shake
up the manned space program, but there's a fair chance he'll be stuck
with launching only satellites against budget prices. If he doesn't act
decisively his impact on manned space exploration will be minimal. He's
also taking big business risks as most of his contracts with NASA are
fixed-price whilst Boeing is able to negotiate cost-plus for its
already grossly overpriced gear and services. If one of his flights
ends up badly he'll be risking his entire company.

On Jul 21, 3:39*pm, Anonymous wrote:
http://www.space.com/12350-private-s...-nasa-shuttle-
retirement.html

I don't understand why everyone's yelling that the U.S. space program
is in dire straits now that Shuttle has retired. Sure, there's going to
be a gap between Shuttle and new manned space systems coming online,
but OTOH there's something beautiful at the end of the tunnel:
commercial space aviation!

Yes, people will mourn the demise of the spacious Shuttle with its
proper toilet, whereas the Orion / Dragon astronauts will have to do
their thing in a diaper (I'm pretty sure we'll see fewer women
astronauts flying because of this). But in reality Shuttle was an
unsafe death trap costing almost a billion dollars per flight and
gobbling up a large percentage of NASA's budget.

If we look at the commercial space companies in the race it looks like
most of them have a viable system for LEO flights. Boeing was forced
into developing CST-100 (by cheaper rival SpaceX) and may even pay for
its integration with Atlas V out of its own pocket. But I'm afraid that
subsequent flights will still be expensive (I estimate $200 million a
flight minimum). SpaceX could fly at much cheaper rates but the company
hasn't got many supporters (read: paid cronies) in Congress and may
still lose the contract for ferrying astronauts to the ISS to Boeing.
It's clear to me that Boeing is clearly doing everything it can to push
SpaceX out of the market by blocking most venues where the company can
have the greatest financial impact. It pushed its supporters to
legislate the SLS (compare to SpaceX's $3 billion Falcon XX) and MPCV
and will now probably do the same thing for crew ferrying to ISS. That
would leave only the satellite business for SpaceX which Boeing already
more or less ceded to foreign competitors (except for national security
payloads). If I understood correctly it was Elon Musk's goal to shake
up the manned space program, but there's a fair chance he'll be stuck
with launching only satellites against budget prices. If he doesn't act
decisively his impact on manned space exploration will be minimal. He's
also taking big business risks as most of his contracts with NASA are
fixed-price whilst Boeing is able to negotiate cost-plus for its
already grossly overpriced gear and services. If one of his flights
ends up badly he'll be risking his entire company.

I'd trust Boeing and L-M over anything Lord Musk has. They've been
around the block a long time, and they know what they're doing. Space
X is starting from scratch.

In article 6c410aa9-6dce-4560-bb07-814f5bf22b96@
28g2000pry.googlegroups.com, says...

I'd trust Boeing and L-M over anything Lord Musk has. They've been
around the block a long time, and they know what they're doing. Space
X is starting from scratch.

As a company they're starting from scratch, but they did hire quite a
few engineers who *do* know what they're doing. They didn't hire just
newly graduated engineers with zero experience. That would be awfully
dumb of Musk.

Still, I know it will be an uphill battle for SpaceX as many of the
entrenched conservatives in the business (engineers, contractors, and
NASA) won't "trust them" due to their lack of a track record. The
conservative culture in this business insures that the Not Invented Here
syndrome looms large.

There is currently a bit of a discussion on the ARocket email list about
how NASA is overly conservative with manned spaceflight and how the
astronaut office goes right along with them. There is great fear by
astronauts that if they're outspoken in any way (i.e. not parroting what
the rest of NASA management is saying) that they simply won't get a
flight assignment.

The same can be said of NASA contractors. If they become too outspoken,
they simply won't get the contracts they need to survive. This is a
huge feedback loop which results in overly conservative approaches which
risk little and consequently gain little.

Jeff
--
" Solids are a branch of fireworks, not rocketry. :-) :-) ", Henry
Spencer 1/28/2011

"Matt Wiser" wrote in message news:6c410aa9-
...
On Jul 21, 3:39 pm, Anonymous wrote:
http://www.space.com/12350-private-s...-nasa-shuttle-
retirement.html

I don't understand why everyone's yelling that the U.S. space program
is in dire straits now that Shuttle has retired. Sure, there's going to
be a gap between Shuttle and new manned space systems coming online,
but OTOH there's something beautiful at the end of the tunnel:
commercial space aviation!

Yes, people will mourn the demise of the spacious Shuttle with its
proper toilet, whereas the Orion / Dragon astronauts will have to do
their thing in a diaper (I'm pretty sure we'll see fewer women
astronauts flying because of this). But in reality Shuttle was an
unsafe death trap costing almost a billion dollars per flight and
gobbling up a large percentage of NASA's budget.

If we look at the commercial space companies in the race it looks like
most of them have a viable system for LEO flights. Boeing was forced
into developing CST-100 (by cheaper rival SpaceX) and may even pay for
its integration with Atlas V out of its own pocket. But I'm afraid that
subsequent flights will still be expensive (I estimate $200 million a
flight minimum). SpaceX could fly at much cheaper rates but the company
hasn't got many supporters (read: paid cronies) in Congress and may
still lose the contract for ferrying astronauts to the ISS to Boeing.
It's clear to me that Boeing is clearly doing everything it can to push
SpaceX out of the market by blocking most venues where the company can
have the greatest financial impact. It pushed its supporters to
legislate the SLS (compare to SpaceX's $3 billion Falcon XX) and MPCV
and will now probably do the same thing for crew ferrying to ISS. That
would leave only the satellite business for SpaceX which Boeing already
more or less ceded to foreign competitors (except for national security
payloads). If I understood correctly it was Elon Musk's goal to shake
up the manned space program, but there's a fair chance he'll be stuck
with launching only satellites against budget prices. If he doesn't act
decisively his impact on manned space exploration will be minimal. He's
also taking big business risks as most of his contracts with NASA are
fixed-price whilst Boeing is able to negotiate cost-plus for its
already grossly overpriced gear and services. If one of his flights
ends up badly he'll be risking his entire company.

I'd trust Boeing and L-M over anything Lord Musk has. They've been
around the block a long time, and they know what they're doing. Space
X is starting from scratch.

==========================================

That's what Boeing will always yell: 'We put a man on the Moon!" But
it's a nonsense argument. Most of the knowledge and experience of
putting men into space or the Moon is freely available and engineers
are mobile so Musk will have experienced Apollo engineers at his
disposal even though his company doesn't have a track record (yet).
SpaceX has already exceeded everyone's (including Boeing's)
expectations and Boeing only last year started making moves against
SpaceX with CST-100 and SLS. Before that they assumed that Musk would
simply trip up and things would take care of themselves.

But one way or another, Musk will have to get involved with manned
rocketry, sending up satellites is simply not going to cut it.
Eventually he could start some sort of Moon-flyby tour which could
bring in big bucks. He could partner up with Bigelow to start a chain
of space-hotels. Eventually even a commercially funded manned Mars
flyby could be feasible. Just think what the TV broadcast rights could
be worth? That would certainly run in the billions!

On Jul 22, 6:31*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article 6c410aa9-6dce-4560-bb07-814f5bf22b96@
28g2000pry.googlegroups.com, says...



I'd trust Boeing and L-M over anything Lord Musk has. They've been
around the block a long time, and they know what they're doing. Space
X is starting from scratch.

As a company they're starting from scratch, but they did hire quite a
few engineers who *do* know what they're doing. *They didn't hire just
newly graduated engineers with zero experience. *That would be awfully
dumb of Musk. *

Still, I know it will be an uphill battle for SpaceX as many of the
entrenched conservatives in the business (engineers, contractors, and
NASA) won't "trust them" due to their lack of a track record. *The
conservative culture in this business insures that the Not Invented Here
syndrome looms large.

There is currently a bit of a discussion on the ARocket email list about
how NASA is overly conservative with manned spaceflight and how the
astronaut office goes right along with them. *There is great fear by
astronauts that if they're outspoken in any way (i.e. not parroting what
the rest of NASA management is saying) that they simply won't get a
flight assignment. *

The same can be said of NASA contractors. *If they become too outspoken,
they simply won't get the contracts they need to survive. *This is a
huge feedback loop which results in overly conservative approaches which
risk little and consequently gain little.

Jeff
--
" Solids are a branch of fireworks, not rocketry. :-) :-) ", Henry
Spencer 1/28/2011

Until Musk shows up on The Hill (and Rep. Hall, who's Chair of House
Science and Technology Committee, has said he wants to have Musk as a
witness), he's going to be viewed as a "rocket boy" or a "rocket
hobbyist" by skeptics. Musk hasn't helped his cause any by saying that
he'd retire on Mars. What he needs to do is shut up and let his
rockets do the talking. Success is what will convince the doubters
that Commercial Crew and cargo services will work. Not wild-eyed
prounouncements from the CEO. But try telling that to the SpaceX
worshipers/Commercial Space Fanboys/ObamaSpace worshipers over on
spacepolitics.com....when it's pointed out that Congress has to
approve Commercial crew and cargo funds from NASA, they either ignore
it or assume Congress will fund it "as it's the right thing to do."

The Commercial Spaceflight Foundation had a symposium a year or so
ago, where this issue did come up, and the consensus was, according to
Space News, "We need to stop talking and start flying."

"Anonymous Remailer (austria)" wrote in
message


But one way or another, Musk will have to get involved with manned
rocketry, sending up satellites is simply not going to cut it.
Eventually he could start some sort of Moon-flyby tour which could
bring in big bucks. He could partner up with Bigelow to start a chain
of space-hotels. Eventually even a commercially funded manned Mars
flyby could be feasible. Just think what the TV broadcast rights could
be worth? That would certainly run in the billions!


I'm not sure I understand the logic here. I mean how many pictures
of Mars do you want right now? Here's one link alone to155,000.
http://marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/all/opportunity.html

We can do better than just another 'reality' show, but from orbit.
Space tourism will become the 'Concorde' of commercial space flight.
If not the Titantic. Those first few flights will be risky and expensive, so
also loaded with the rich-and-famous.

We have to stop thinking in terms of what we can or should DO
in space...mining or colonies or tourism. And start thinking
about what kind of commodity that space offers us which
we badly need. Stop exploring and start exploiting.

There is only one commodity in low Earth orbit which makes
any business sense at all. Space Solar Power! And the
difference between the space tourism market, and the scale
of the world-wide energy market, is on order of some
five or six...zeros.

Connect commercial space to energy, the second /largest/
and most important market on Earth, behind only food.
If you want to grease the wheels for commercial space
activity, it takes the kind of massive financing associated
with things like nuclear power plants. Not jets.

I think manned flight is really only justifiable for the military
and the ISS. The pace of technology means robots can do
just about anything else.

And lowering costs to orbit means, first of all, unmanned.

"Matt Wiser" wrote in message news:6c410aa9-
...
On Jul 21, 3:39 pm, Anonymous wrote:
http://www.space.com/12350-private-s...-nasa-shuttle-
retirement.html

I don't understand why everyone's yelling that the U.S. space program
is in dire straits now that Shuttle has retired. Sure, there's going to
be a gap between Shuttle and new manned space systems coming online,
but OTOH there's something beautiful at the end of the tunnel:
commercial space aviation!

Yes, people will mourn the demise of the spacious Shuttle with its
proper toilet, whereas the Orion / Dragon astronauts will have to do
their thing in a diaper (I'm pretty sure we'll see fewer women
astronauts flying because of this). But in reality Shuttle was an
unsafe death trap costing almost a billion dollars per flight and
gobbling up a large percentage of NASA's budget.

If we look at the commercial space companies in the race it looks like
most of them have a viable system for LEO flights. Boeing was forced
into developing CST-100 (by cheaper rival SpaceX) and may even pay for
its integration with Atlas V out of its own pocket. But I'm afraid that
subsequent flights will still be expensive (I estimate $200 million a
flight minimum). SpaceX could fly at much cheaper rates but the company
hasn't got many supporters (read: paid cronies) in Congress and may
still lose the contract for ferrying astronauts to the ISS to Boeing.
It's clear to me that Boeing is clearly doing everything it can to push
SpaceX out of the market by blocking most venues where the company can
have the greatest financial impact. It pushed its supporters to
legislate the SLS (compare to SpaceX's $3 billion Falcon XX) and MPCV
and will now probably do the same thing for crew ferrying to ISS. That
would leave only the satellite business for SpaceX which Boeing already
more or less ceded to foreign competitors (except for national security
payloads). If I understood correctly it was Elon Musk's goal to shake
up the manned space program, but there's a fair chance he'll be stuck
with launching only satellites against budget prices. If he doesn't act
decisively his impact on manned space exploration will be minimal. He's
also taking big business risks as most of his contracts with NASA are
fixed-price whilst Boeing is able to negotiate cost-plus for its
already grossly overpriced gear and services. If one of his flights
ends up badly he'll be risking his entire company.

I'd trust Boeing and L-M over anything Lord Musk has. They've been
around the block a long time, and they know what they're doing. Space
X is starting from scratch.

==========================================

That's what Boeing will always yell: 'We put a man on the Moon!" But
it's a nonsense argument. Most of the knowledge and experience of
putting men into space or the Moon is freely available and engineers
are mobile so Musk will have experienced Apollo engineers at his
disposal even though his company doesn't have a track record (yet).
SpaceX has already exceeded everyone's (including Boeing's)
expectations and Boeing only last year started making moves against
SpaceX with CST-100 and SLS. Before that they assumed that Musk would
simply trip up and things would take care of themselves.

But one way or another, Musk will have to get involved with manned
rocketry, sending up satellites is simply not going to cut it.
Eventually he could start some sort of Moon-flyby tour which could
bring in big bucks. He could partner up with Bigelow to start a chain
of space-hotels. Eventually even a commercially funded manned Mars
flyby could be feasible. Just think what the TV broadcast rights could
be worth? That would certainly run in the billions!

Le 23/07/11 04:32, Jonathan a écrit :

We have to stop thinking in terms of what we can or should DO
in space...mining or colonies or tourism. And start thinking
about what kind of commodity that space offers us which
we badly need. Stop exploring and start exploiting.


WOW


What mentality. Happily there is nothing to exploit in space
(that's why the programs are shut down)


And no, space solar power makes no sense since
using solar power on the suface of the earth is much better
economically that putting your arrays in space and have
all kind of problems that you can avoid.

On 7/24/2011 12:55 AM, jacob navia wrote:

And no, space solar power makes no sense since
using solar power on the suface of the earth is much better
economically that putting your arrays in space and have
all kind of problems that you can avoid.

For starters, doing it on Earth's surface is a lot easier and cheaper to
do maintenance and repair on, particularly compared to a system deployed
up in GEO, where you would have the radiation of solar storms to deal
with. That not only would endanger any people working on them, but cause
the solar cells to deteriorate with time.

Pat

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
On 7/24/2011 12:55 AM, jacob navia wrote:

And no, space solar power makes no sense since
using solar power on the suface of the earth is much better
economically that putting your arrays in space and have
all kind of problems that you can avoid.

For starters, doing it on Earth's surface is a lot easier and cheaper to
do maintenance and repair on, particularly compared to a system deployed
up in GEO, where you would have the radiation of solar storms to deal
with. That not only would endanger any people working on them, but cause
the solar cells to deteriorate with time.

Pat


It's completely illogical to compare terrestrial solar
to space solar. The large number of limitations of
ground based solar provide an equal number of
opportunities for space solar. They are complimentary
not competitors, Space Solar Power can have all kinds of
market niches ...all to itself.

So it can charge what it needs to, it doesn't have
to compete cost wise with any other source.

Terrestrial solar can't....but Space Solar can....

Add power directly to an existing grid.
Work at night or in bad weather.
Be stored easily.
Be transmitted long distances.
Work far from the equator.
Work in poor rural third world regions.
Power disaster areas
Power troops in the field
Power satellites in orbit
Power colonies on the Moon.

Terrestrial solar has another limitation much like that
of burning biomass.As we build more and more
ground based solar panels, we cover more and more
very expensive land. Crops can be grown under a rectenna
however.

Terrestrial solar isn't truly green or unlimited in potential
as a result.

Ask yourself, what was the reason AC power was
such a huge advance over DC? It was simply out
of the reason that AC could ...travel so much better.

AC power transformed the planet. It directly benefited
billions of people.

That's the huge advantage Space Solar has over
conventional sources. It can supply power to any place
on Earth regardless of how temporary, rural, poor
or isolated. 24/7. If the choice is no power or Space Solar
Power, what do you think the response will be?

And with laser transmission to the ground the one
drawback of rectennas, their size, would also
go away. Even NASA speculated a rectenna might
someday be as small as the size of a ...car (hint).

There is no other source of energy that is entirely clean
unlimited in potential and in application. Only
Space Solar Power can do all those things, making
it the /only competitor/ in the race for a long-term
energy solution for the entire planet.

And once a Space Solar Power satellite is up and
running, what are the costs of operation from that
day forward?

Does it need to have to pay for a constant stream of coal,
gas or oil to keep operating? Which require hundreds of miles
of roads and rail roads. Does it have operating costs which
may triple in months every time some dictatorship falls apart?
Does it require billions to take care of the nuclear waste
once the power plant is worn out?

All those advantages, yet everyone just says the
obvious, it'll be more expensive....at first.
So what? The first ANYTHING is always
more expensive. Your criticism is a given.

All that, while everyone at NASA and around here
keeps moaning and groaning...

"What are we going to do with our space program now"!
"How are we going to reduce costs to orbit?"
"What's the future for commercial space activity?"

Sheez!

I feel like I'm watching people groping hopelessly
around in the dark for the light switch.

IT'S OVER THERE ..

Connect space activity to a market place where it can
compete for trillions of dollars per/year, and win.
While transforming the planet into a civilized place
(sustainable = civilized)

Space energy Inc

But don't listen to me, listen to these guys, experts
from your own field. Scroll down to technical advisors
http://spaceenergy.com/About/Advisors.htm




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