Do We Have The Political Will To Support Bush's Moon/Mars Exploration Program?

James Nicoll ) wrote:
: In article QNfXe.5332$i86.4869@trndny01, Ray wrote:
:
: "Cardman" wrote in message
: .. .
: On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 09:57:03 -0400, wrote:
:
: Yes Or No?
:
: Yes...so far.
:
: President Bush seems strongly in favour, where he even made threats to
: the Senate if NASA's requested funding was not approved.
:
: The Senate recently approved a $16.4 billion budget for NASA by a vote
: of 91 to 4.
:
: Once the next President takes office, where large scale funding
: reductions will need to take place to pay back Bush's debts, then this
: strong support may quickly change.
:
: Time will tell.
:
: Cardman.
:
: Yes, because any other President who comes in after Bush will
: realize that NASA has one of two choices for directions now and into the
: future; moon, mars and beyond or getting rid of manned spaceflight because
: its a waste to simply orbit the earth for the next 30 years, so yes we will
: have the will to do one of these choices. I dont think the US, reguardless
: of who becomes President in the future, will be stupid enough to cancel
: manned spaceflight, so we will be going to moon, mars and beyond and
: supporting it in the future.
:
: The POTUS has to bear in mind the possible cost to his or her
: chances of re-election:


: Option Cost

: Moon and Mars Lots of $ at a time when the US is living off its credit,
: plus the potential to high-light gold old American Don't
: Know How. Burkina Faso managed to fly just as many space
: stations in the 1980s as the US and at a much lower cost.

: Cancel Program A million engineers crying out and then suddenly becoming
: unemployed. A passel of angry pork managers gunning for the
: POTUS.

: Same old same
: old Nothing that isn't already happening.

: Gentlemen, prepare your Power Point Presentations.


From astronauts to chart chimps!

: --
: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
: http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 00:47:35 +0000 (UTC), Sander Vesik
wrote:

A future congress might be indebted enough to cacnel it though.


Or a future Congress might want to bankroll it to show the US can do
some things right. Even then, I think the CEV capsule and booster
will be built because of the no-on-wants-to-kill-manned-spaceflight
rule. But the lunar missions and Martian missions are trickier.



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On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 16:20:30 GMT, Cardman wrote:

It is interesting to note that when NASA and Bush first put forwards
this Moon and beyond plan, then the expected budget increase would be
small, and where this one CEV would be EELV launched.

Naturally, some of us could soon spot issues with that plan. So this
early plan was just a deception.



Or they changed their minds. You will recall some months ago a lot of
booster ideas were kicked around, and shuttle-derived ones were
included. That's what they're going with.



These days, from my count, then NASA is now wanting all of five new
vehicles. This then creates an issue, when missing any of these five
vehicles then means that the Moon is not easily possible.


No, but OTOH, they're not going to build it all at once in one year.

This is certainly a nice collection, but at $25 to $30 billion to
build it is awfully expensive. The cost to operate this system also
remains to be seen.


Never know unless we do it.



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On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 12:20:22 -0400, Michael Gallagher
wrote:

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 16:20:30 GMT, Cardman wrote:

It is interesting to note that when NASA and Bush first put forwards
this Moon and beyond plan, then the expected budget increase would be
small, and where this one CEV would be EELV launched.

Naturally, some of us could soon spot issues with that plan. So this
early plan was just a deception.

Or they changed their minds. You will recall some months ago a lot of
booster ideas were kicked around, and shuttle-derived ones were
included. That's what they're going with.

I am quite sure that NASA already had a very good idea of what they
exactly needed long before President Bush made his "Moon and beyond"
speech.

To begin with they just specified a CEV to replace the Shuttle. Kind
of like a super CEV, flying across the solar system, or that was what
the general public was led to believe.

The key point here is that NASA now uses a step by step approach to
having their plans approved and funded. So they would certainly plan
to start off with something small to get the ball rolling.

And since they were not quite up to specify their need to build new
rockets at this point, then that is why they specified the EELVs to
launch their new CEV. This is why I say that the mentioned EELV launch
was a simple deception, and mostly now why NASA's CEV has more mass
than what the EELV can handle.

I said back then that they would need a HLV, where now we have the
SDHLV. Although it is true to say that more launches of a smaller
rocket may be better. All depends on just what method provides the
cheapest launch cost per kg?

Their Lunar Lander is the bigger clue yet that NASA is not telling us
the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And this is why I am quite
sure that their master plan has many more expensive aspects just
waiting for the right point in the time line to be exposed.

These days, from my count, then NASA is now wanting all of five new
vehicles. This then creates an issue, when missing any of these five
vehicles then means that the Moon is not easily possible.

No, but OTOH, they're not going to build it all at once in one year.

And that is the saving point of all this. NASA's longer term funding
will be somewhat increased though.

This is certainly a nice collection, but at $25 to $30 billion to
build it is awfully expensive. The cost to operate this system also
remains to be seen.

Never know unless we do it.

I have heard here that their SDHLV has a launch cost $500 million, but
this is naturally not including the higher cost of their ground
support.

Should SpaceX get their Falcon 5 and 9 flying, then these rockets will
still provide a cheaper cost to NASA's SDHLV. From my quick estimate,
then they should be about half the cost of the SDHLV to begin with.

NASA plans to use this SDHLV each 6 months to start with. However,
when they move to their base building stage, then the frequency of
their launches should largely increase. This would increase the launch
cost as a result, but the total cost of each launch should decrease.

I guess that the SDHLV could be the way to go, when this saves a lot
of messing about in orbit. There may be something in more frequent
launches on a smaller rocket, but there is also something to building
the bigger rocket.

All a question of the cheapest cost per kg.

Cardman.

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 19:20:30 GMT, Cardman wrote:

..... since they were not quite up to specify their need to build new
rockets at this point, then that is why they specified the EELVs to
launch their new CEV. This is why I say that the mentioned EELV launch
was a simple deception, and mostly now why NASA's CEV has more mass
than what the EELV can handle.


I guess my main point was the word "deception;" that implies
dishonesty and a dishonrable intent. You may be ready to saddle NASA
with that, but I'm not.

I prefer to think the plan is a "work in progress." When President
Bush called for the Moon mission, they didn't HAVE a Moon plan, just a
vauge idea of an "orbital space plane." From that to Moon Architecure
is like 0 to 60 in 1 second.

And WRT to thre SDHLV, this isn't the first idea. NASA had Shuttle-C
on it's wish for years; the Mard direct plan, IIRC, uses an SF vehicle
called Aeries.

Their Lunar Lander is the bigger clue yet that NASA is not telling us
the whole truth and nothing but the truth ....

Assuming they even had a lunar lander idea a year ago. Even then,
going for LOR gives the same advantage it did forty years ago --
landing a smaller spacecraft on the Moon.

Besides which, considering the duration of a Mars mission, I have a
hard time believing they'll wede six people into an uber Apollo
capsule for that much time. You'd want some kind of habitat module
they can move around in; the capsule would be used for Earth reentry.

..... And this is why I am quite
sure that their master plan has many more expensive aspects just
waiting for the right point in the time line to be exposed.


I agree more will come out later; I don't agree they already have it
all fleshed out and are waiting to spring it on us. Even the question
of international partners is open. No, the Moon plan doesn't alolow
for them, but neither did the Space station prior to 1993.



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