NASA studies new booster (UPI)

Michael Gallagher wrote in message . ..

So? I repeat, I would have no trouble finding people to do the job. My
company is more than willing to train them.

Only if your company has an expert diver to do it!

Which isn't nearly as hard as you imply.

And even then, what's the most cost-effective way to put an oil
drilling rig in position, assemble it all at once in a ship yard and
tow it out, or have commercial divers assemble it peice-by-piece on
site from hardware brought out on small boats? That the oil industry
has done the former for quite some time should be a clue.

Not really. The oil industry doesn't need a $500 million "expendable
launch vehicle" to get a rig out of the shipyard. If they did, they
would build it elsewhere.

I don't understand why you insist on making decisions based on faulty
analogies instead of economics.

..... I want to make space construction routine
and economical, not an exotic, expensive activity only engaged in by
elite government forces like the Navy Seals.

I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with the idea
that we should wait until that just happens before we go to Mars.

It doesn't matter what you have a problem with. No one's going to Mars
until it becomes affordable, whether you have a problem with that or
not.

As far as exploration goes, if we can go now, or if
we have most of the building blocks for beginning now, then we should
begin now, not procrastinate.

That's nonsense. I can go explore Australia, but if I want to begin
the trip today, I'll have to pay $6,000 for a round-trip ticket.
Exploring Australia is not worth $6,000 to me, so if I decide to go,
I'll "procrastinate" by purchasing an advance purchase ticket for
$1400. Putting off a trip until the price goes down is a perfectly
reasonble option. There's no law that says if you want to go to Pluto
or Mars or Australia, you have to start the trip today, no matter how
much it costs.

(ed kyle) wrote in message . com...

As a result, Apollo was unsustainable and cancelled after just a
few
flights.

Apollo/Saturn V was no more unsustainable than a
Saturn I/EOR/Apollo effort would have been under the same
Vietnam/social unrest/budget-crunch conditions.

Speculation. You don't know that for a fact. We do know that the
Apollo/Saturn V approach was too expensive to sustain. Whether the
Saturn I would have been sufficiently cheaper to make the program
sustainable is unknown.

A small-Saturn EOR effort would have required the same type
of massive expenditures that Apollo finally did.

Based on what? Your fixed idea that smaller rockets always have to be
more expensive?

For example, the 1959 Project Horizon plan required an average
of 5.3 Saturn launches per month (even using the more
powerful beyond-EELV-Heavy-class 32 ton to LEO "Saturn II")
from an equatorial launch site equipped with no less than
eight launch pads.

So? Real people measure costs in units called "dollars," not
"launches."

The early small-Saturn EOR plans fell by the wayside
because the best rocket team ever assembled found a
better way to solve the problem.

No, it fell by the wayside because cost was not a priority, but time
was. Any other claim is merely historical revisionism.

EOR had a better chance of succeeding when performed with fewer launches
of bigger rockets.

I don't know where you get that idea. Gemini successfully performed
Earth Orbit Rendezvous without using very big rockets. Adding more
launches simply means performing the same steps over again.

In 1969, Armstrong/Aldrin proved that their understanding
of the problem (that bigger was better) had been anything
but foolish.

First of all, I don't think Armstrong and Aldrin had any input into
the booster decision.

Second, the fact that something worked does not "prove" it was the
best approach. Wing warping and fabric-covered airframes worked, too.
That doesn't mean that Orville and Wilbur had come up with the optimal
way to build an airplane.

Third, I believe you're speaking for Ed Kyle here, not Armstrong and
Aldrin. Even if we assume that Armstrong and Aldrin are the ultimate
authorities on launch vehicle design, they aren't the ones making
these claims -- you are.

Michael Gallagher wrote in message . ..

No, very little. One World War II airbase required more mass than
Skylab, and we built a lot of airbases in the South Pacific during
World War II, hauling the supplies in on DC-3's -- not Saturn V's.

But how quickly could we have built those air bases hauling the
supplies in bi-planes? If it is better to use smaller boosters and
lots of on-oribt assembly, surely it would have been better to cram
supplies into the rear seats of bi-planes and haul it out that way?

However, if they used the DC-3, then maybe there was a reaon for that?

Because the Army Air Forces weren't fantasizing like you, Mike. Using
biplanes was never an option. The options considered were developing a
new heavy airlifter and using the DC-3, which most experts considered
too small to do the job. Most of the experts turned out to be wrong.

So the lesson is that government funded technolgies can ultimateltly
be used by the private sector. We have seen that in the commercial
communications satellite industry. Can we see it in the area of
manned flight? Perhaps.

That depends on how much "we" have been drinking. The US government
has spent approximately one trillion dollars on spaceflight. I still
don't see any manned (or womanned) spaceflight industry. Do you?

For instance, NASA could, working towards a
Mars flight, develop a space suit that private operators could use
later.

Perhaps, if those operators are willing to spend tens of millions of
dollars on one suit. Most people care about how much things cost.

On the other hand, waiting around for the private sector to just up
and develop the vehicles needed for Moon/Mars seems to be a sure fire
way to insure we never go.

As opposed you all the times you've gone to the Moon and Mars on
government vehicles? How many times have you been to the Moon and
Mars, Mike? How many times has *anyone* been? We've seen the results
of doing it your way. Time to try something else.

History shows that out of all the firms
that got started in the '80s, only one, OSC, has successfully launched
and orbital booster, and even then, IIRC, they don't count because of
the sin of taking government money. But what have the "pure" private
firms produced? Nothing so far.

Take off your blinders, Mike. You'll see Burt Rutan and others
beginning to fly suborbital vehicles, Space-X about to make its first
launch -- like it or not, it's happening right now. You can't live in
the 80's forever, Mike.

The efforts towards a space tourism business through private developed suborbital vehicles are exciting, but that
is a long way from Mars.

No further than those old Saturn V movies you're basing your dreams
on.

So? When did I advocate using the Shuttle?

You didn't; you have advocated eschewing heavy lifters in favor of
smaller boosters and lots of on-orbit assembly. I mentioned the
shuttle only because it has been used for on-orbit assembly of the
space station.

So, if I mentioned cars, I guess you would mention Yugos -- and assume
that because the Yugo had problems, all cars must have the same
problem?

Is that a trick question? Orbital assembly, of course ....

Has it worked for the station? Well?

Yes, it has. Every module delivered to the space station has been
successfully attached. There have been delays in delivering some
modules, for a variety of reasons, but orbital assembly has worked.

..... Whatever that's supposed to mean. When Lunar Gemini was cut
in favor
of Apollo, it made a difference ....

Only because they didn't want Gemini to compete with Apollo.

Non sequitar. How does that prove your claim that "history shows
cancelling space projects doesn't make a difference"?

..... When Dyna-Soar was cut in favor of
MOL and MOL was cut in favor of unmanned satellites, it made a
difference ....

In what way? In any case, I was referring to arguments that space
funding should be cut to fund SOCIAL programs. That has never done
anything to solve social problems, IMHO.

You're setting up a strawman here. When I talked about cancelling
programs, I said nothing about funding social programs.

..... You can argue about whether those differences were
positive or negative, but each choice made a difference, whatever
your
version of history shows.

I don't want to. I haven't advocated using Pegasus, and I haven't
advocated using Shuttle. Please stop creating strawmen.

I did not hear of Elon Musk until about a week ago, sorry. I asssumed
from what I read in Space News that his booster is in the same class
as Pegasus. My bad if it's not.

Why not do a bit of research instead of assuming? At least look at his
company web site. (And last week is certainly not the first time he's
been mentioned in Space News.)

But at least you admit it's not a good idea to assemble the station
from lots and lots of small peices.

I admit nothing of the kind. It depends on how much the pieces
(including freight charges) cost.

The fact that something is uneconomical using Pegasus does not prove
it can't be done economically with a reasonable launch vehicle.

Ok ......

The question, then, is what is "reasonable" for a manned mission
beyond LEO, to the Moon and Mars? As I noted above, the military did
not use biplanes do deliver supplies to the bases it was constructing,
nor did it simply wait for the private sector to produce something we
could use.

And your notes were historical nonsense. The military did end up
relying on the civilian-developed DC3, for all kinds of things.

I am all for commercial space activities, believe it or not. I'd love
to see private manned missions into space as much as you. But I also
want to see manned flights back to Moon and on to Mars. I do not
think it would be wise to simply wait for the private sector to
produce something that can be used before going. That is
procrastination, in my view.

A strange view. It takes the private sector 2-5 years to develop a new
airplane. It takes the government 20 years. Why do you assume that if
you want something, you'll have to wait longer for the private sector
to produce it than the government?

Especially as while government-funded technologies have helped the private sector, "pure" private space
entrpenuers haven't produced anything capable of getting people to LEO
yet, never mind the Moon or Mars.

What government technologies are currently capable of getting people
to LEO? None in the US -- the Space Shuttle is broken right now, and
no one seriously thinks the Shuttle will play any role in getting
people to the Moon or Mars.

And I do not see why NASA can not move ahead with Constellation and
its related booster while Congress passes legislation helping the
private secotr along. The two do not have to be mutlally exclusive
unless we want them to be.

Congress *has* passed legislation to help the private sector. It's
called the Launch Services Purchase Act. What good does it do to pass
legislation and then ignore it?

Columbus used tiny ships because they were cheap and readily
available. They were small even by 16th Century standards, not
much
larger than today's commercial fishing boats ....

The key words are "readily available." He used what already existed.
He did not say, "Well, I'll wait until someone just happens to produce
a boat I can use and then I'll try and raise money for a voyage."

Contracting to buy rides on a commercial vehicle is hardly the same as
waiting around and hoping someone will build something. Why must you
mistate and trivialize everything?

.....we don't need heavy lifters today, and by the time we do, we
will have much better technology ....

Will we? Developed by whom? Paid for by whom?

By the people who build and operate launch vehicles.

.... There's no need to bankrupt NASA by trying to build one now
.....

You don't have to bankrupt anybody to build Shuttle-C, just replace
the oribter with a cargo vehicle that doesn't have to come back. Or
an upper stage.

"Just replace the orbiter...." It's one thing to say that. It's
another to actually do it. You can't just use any old "cargo vehicle"
you have lying around.

You praised Columbus for using "readily available" ships. Well,
Shuttle-C/a shuttle-derived booster is as close to as readily
available as you can get!

Using a very strange definition of "available." If you're going to
call something that would cost a couple billion dollars to develop
"available," then there are many, many, many things that are
"available."

We do not have to design or test all new engines

Which might be an advantage if Shuttle engines were cheap. They are
not. There are many other existing engines that could be used to build
a new rocket. It isn't obvious that the Shuttle main engine is the
best choice.

Shuttle-C is appealing becuase it would require the least
modifications to the lauch site, IMHO.

Why is that appealing? The Shuttle launch site is not exactly cheap to
operate. As someone else said, it would be cheaper to build new pads.

On the other hand, the hypothetical boosters you want to use, built
and operated entirely with private money, don't exist yet.

Oh, bog. How many times are you going to make me say it? You are
wrong. Maybe you only heard about Elon Musk last week, but you did
hear about Elon Musk last week, so you know you are wrong. Why do you
have to keep repeating something you know is wrong?

And if you define an "available" vehicle as one that could be
developed for a couple billion dollars, as you do with Shuttle-C, then
there are lots of "available" commercial vehicles.

THIS is what we should pin our hopes for a manned Mars mission on!?

Way I see it, Shuttle-C wins the readily available concept.

Why is a government vehicle that will cost a couple billion dollars to
develop "readily available" while a private vehicle that could be
developed in less time for less money is "not available"?

It is government funded, but so was Columbus, so no points there.

Oh, bog! Do you want me to tell you the truth about Columbus? He was a
nut. Every educated person in Columbus's day knew the world was round.
Not only that, but they knew to a fair degree of accuracy what its
diameter was. Everyone, that is, except Columbus. He had his own
calculations, which "proved" the circumference was only 16,000 miles.
Everyone else who had studied the problem knew it was 24,000 and
Columbus was wrong, but the guy wouldn't shut up. If he hadn't run
into a new continent he didn't expect, by sheer chance, he would have
run out food and water and died.

You're starting to remind me of Columbus. :-)

If Kerry wins in November, yes. No argument there. Heck, if Kerry
wins, I wouldn't be surprised if all of NASA becomes a footnote and we
think about maybe putting our astronauts on Russian Soyuzs.

Elon Musk isn't the only think you've missed in Space News. NASA is
putting astronauts on Russian Soyuzes right now.

Michael Gallagher wrote in message . ..

We haven't sent any MANNED spacecraft to Mars yet. You think we can
lauch it all on a Titant 3 or a Delta 2, fine,

No, I don't. I never said the mission had to be done with a single
launch, nor did I mention Delta 2 or Titant (sic) 3. Will you *please*
stop making things up and attributing them to me?

but I don't think that will work. For one thing, it would be very
cramped ....

It doesn't have to be cramped at all. Someone invented inflatible
structures.

.... We aren't talking about launches that are scheduled for today,
so it
doesn't matter if a commercial service is available today -- only if
the service can be available when it's needed .....

You can not plan a project on whether something will be there IF it's
needed if you know it will be needed. Just waiting for the private
sector to cough up what we need and then deciding that's the time to
go will not work because there's no guaruntee the private secotr will
produce it on its own!

Yawn. This is becoming very tiresome, Mike. Do you really think
government programs are "guaranteed"?

Who's providing this "guarantee" you keep mentioning? The same people
who guaranteed NASP, VentureStar, X-34, X-37, and 2nd Generation RLV?

We know the mission requirements for a manned flight to Mars. We
could have done it twenty years ago!

Who is this mythical "we"? I certainly didn't have the means to fly to
Mars 20 years ago -- and I doubt you did, either.

We have almost all the
technology we need; most of the unknowns relate to long durations of
weightlessness and the effects of living in low gravity on the crew.
But we do not have to wait for the private sector to maybe, someday,
come up with some new launchers or spacecraft when we can do it now.

Again, who is this mythical "we," and why are "we" able to "come up"
with new launchers or spacecraft when the private sector supposedly
can't? What magic powers do "we" have?

..... Elon Musk, at least, is closer to launching than any of
NASA's
Constellation concepts ....

I don't know how long Elon Musk has been doing what he is doing, but I
bet he has been working at it longer than NASA has on Constellation,
which was announced just last month.

You better stay away from Vegas. The name Constellation may have been
announced last month, but NASA's been working on it under other names
(Orbital Space Plane, Crew Exploration Vehicle, Crew Escape Vehicle,
Crew Rescue and Return Vehicle, X-38, etc.) for years.

So OF COURSE Constellation is
nowhere near launching. Nor was Mr. Musk one month after cenceiving
his vehicle, I imagine.

Interesting. You think NASA's only been working on Constellation for
one month, yet you've already decided it will be successful? Falcon,
on the other hand, is too much of a wild card, because it isn't a
government project?

If you can GUARUNTEE that the private sector will produce the hardware
needed for a Mars mission without the govenment intervening at all,
cool. Othwerwise, nope, sorry, no point in waiting except to just
wait. I was 8 years old when the last astronauts walked on the Moon;
I want to see them go back while I'm still alive. Hoping the private
sector will provide what we need on its own will not achieve that.
Sorry.

Do you think the government has not intervened in space since you were
eight? NASA's spent hundreds of billions of dollars since the last
astronaut walked on the Moon. What's the result?

Albert Einstein said insanity is doing the same thing over and over
again, but expecting a different result. Has it occured to you that it
might be better to try something *different* from what's been done in
the past?

(Edward Wright) wrote in message . com...
(ed kyle) wrote in message . com...

As a result, Apollo was unsustainable and cancelled after just a
few flights.

Apollo/Saturn V was no more unsustainable than a
Saturn I/EOR/Apollo effort would have been under the same
Vietnam/social unrest/budget-crunch conditions.

Speculation. You don't know that for a fact. ...

From Astronautix.com:

"1962 Jul 11 ... Selection of LOR as Apollo Mission Mode ...
Following a long controversy NASA selected Lunar Orbit
Rendezvous (LOR) as the fastest, cheapest, and safest mode
to accomplish the Apollo mission. ... Studies indicated
LOR would allow landing 6-8 months earlier and cost
$9.2 billion vs $ 10.6 billion for EOR or direct. ..."

The early small-Saturn EOR plans fell by the wayside
because the best rocket team ever assembled found a
better way to solve the problem.

No, it fell by the wayside because cost was not a priority, but time
was. Any other claim is merely historical revisionism.


They fell by the wayside even before Kennedy's 1961
desicion made time a priority. The Silverstein Committee,
in December 1959, defined a new set of bigger Saturn designs
that were more powerful than von Braun's original Saturns.
These could perform the EOR mission with fewer launches
than von Braun origionally contemplated.

EOR had a better chance of succeeding when performed with fewer launches
of bigger rockets.

I don't know where you get that idea. Gemini successfully performed
Earth Orbit Rendezvous without using very big rockets. Adding more
launches simply means performing the same steps over again.


Clearly those Gemini missions would have had a greater
chance of failure if the Agenas had been launched in
pieces that somehow docked themselves together in orbit
(by more launches of rockets smaller than Atlas). As it
was, two Gemini/Agena target missions had to be cancelled
when their Atlas/Agena launches failed.

Adding more launches increases the probability of mission
failure. If the launch vehicles are 95% reliable, two
launches gives a 90% mission success probability. Three
launches gives 86%. Four, 81%. Five, 77%. And so on.

- Ed Kyle

(ed kyle) wrote in message news:

Apollo/Saturn V was no more unsustainable than a
Saturn I/EOR/Apollo effort would have been under the same
Vietnam/social unrest/budget-crunch conditions.

Speculation. You don't know that for a fact. ...

From Astronautix.com:

"1962 Jul 11 ... Selection of LOR as Apollo Mission Mode ...

Which is irrelevant to the subject at hand and does not make your
speculation anything but speculation.
We know the Saturn approach was unsustainable because it was tried. We
don't know whether the Saturn I approach would have been sustainable
because it wasn't tried.

EOR had a better chance of succeeding when performed with fewer
launches
of bigger rockets.

I don't know where you get that idea. Gemini successfully performed
Earth Orbit Rendezvous without using very big rockets. Adding more
launches simply means performing the same steps over again.

Clearly those Gemini missions would have had a greater
chance of failure if the Agenas had been launched in
pieces that somehow docked themselves together in orbit

Obviously, since Agena wasn't capable of doing that. What does this
loonie strawman prove, other than your ability to come up with loonie
strawmen?

Adding more launches increases the probability of mission
failure. If the launch vehicles are 95% reliable, two
launches gives a 90% mission success probability. Three
launches gives 86%. Four, 81%. Five, 77%. And so on.

No, it doesn't. Your numbers assume it's impossible to replace a
failed vehicle, which is obviously not correct. Having more launches
makes the effect of any one single launch failure smaller, making it
easier to have backups and replacements. This was explained before.
Why repeat arguments you know are wrong?

On 11 Mar 2004 23:45:40 -0800, (Edward
Wright) wrote:

Michael Gallagher wrote in message . ..

We haven't sent any MANNED spacecraft to Mars yet. You think we can
lauch it all on a Titant 3 or a Delta 2, fine,

No, I don't. I never said the mission had to be done with a single
launch, nor did I mention Delta 2 or Titant (sic) 3. Will you *please*
stop making things up and attributing them to me?


I am not makiing anything up. We had the following exchange: I
wrote:

"Something like the Atlas V could work for LEO missions and zipping
up
to the station, sure. You start talking serious Mars hardware, that's
another matter."


You replied:

"Nonsense. How do you think every piece of US hardware on Mars got
there."


The answer to your questions(assuming, for the sake of argument, it
wasn't purely rhetorical) is Vikings were sent on Titan 3s; the
rovers we've sent since 1997 were Delta 2s.

..... This is becoming very tiresome, Mike. Do you really think
government programs are "guaranteed"?


No, of course not. Programs are changed and cancelled all the time.
So a government effort to build a shuttle-dervied booster can be
scrapped, no question.

However, private ventures can also suffer dire fates. Companies can
lose backing, go bankrupt, and their vehicles don't get built either.
So it is all risky.

Right now, depsite the work by Messrs Rutan, Musk, et al, we are not
in a position to contract for the spacecraft Moon/Mars would require
for the simple reason they have not built anything we can use. They
may, someday, but can you tell me how long that will be? Five years,
ten, twenty? If you can't, then the position, "We should wait until
the private sector spontaneously produces affordable spacecraft
without any government intervention before going to Mars" sounds to me
like a recipe for canceling the Mars mission without sounding like
you're canceling it. Granted, from your posts, it doesn't sound like
you are against Mars missions in principle, but holding out for CATS
hardware to come along with no idea when or if that will be doesn't
help move things along in accordance with the president's time table.

Now, if there was some way to help speed up Cats development, that
would be another thing. Or create a public/private partnership of
some sort, which would engage the private sector in the Moon/Mars
effort in such a way that a manned (or womanned) space industry is
created in the process of fulfilling the president's goals could work.
There are government corporations (
http://www.firstgov.gov/Agencies/Fed...ependent.shtml ) that
could serve as a model. Anything that could ensure you get the
affordable space you want and a Mars landing.

But I do not want to WAIT. I do not think we should. And if my only
two options now for a heavy lifter are to hope that someday, maybe, if
market conditions allow, Rutan or Musk just happens to build a needed
booster; or to go with a god-awful expesnive peice of hardware whose
main virtue is we know we can do it within the next few years, the
latter wins. Sorry. You give me a way for Musk and Rutan to be
"guarunteed" to produce needed boosters when NASA wants them and still
be affordable, objection removed. Otherwise, Shuttle-C wins.


Who is this mythical "we"? .....

All of us, via the plans NASA had under consideration in the late
'60s. von Braun (whom you've lauded several times in this thread for
wanting to do EOR with Saturn 1s) had plans for a landing in the early
'80s. The crew would have stayed '60 days, then made a flyby of Venus
for a gravityy assist on the way home.

..... I certainly didn't have the means to fly to
Mars 20 years ago -- and I doubt you did, either.


Because said plans were scrapped in the early '70s.


..... The name Constellation may have been
announced last month, but NASA's been working on it under other names
(Orbital Space Plane, Crew Exploration Vehicle, Crew Escape Vehicle,
Crew Rescue and Return Vehicle, X-38, etc.) for years.


I know.


Interesting. You think NASA's only been working on Constellation for
one month, yet you've already decided it will be successful?....

I was responding to you; did you say anything about success higher in
the thread? No, you said Falcon is closer to lauch than
Constellation. My point is they are at different stages in the
devlopment cycle, so of COURSE Falcon is closer to launch! Got it
now?

.... Falcon,
on the other hand, is too much of a wild card, because it isn't a
government project?


Falcon may succeed; it may blow up on the pad. It may cost as much as
Musk predicts, or it may end up vosting more. I do not know. But
AFAIK, Falcon IS a small booster in the same class as Pegasus and
Scout. This is not a heavy lifet option, assembling something 150
lbs at a time!

God help Mr. Musk down the road if he ever starts musing about a heavy
lifter; you'll come down on him like a ton of bricks!

Do you think the government has not intervened in space since you were
eight? .....

Yes, but we still have not returned to the Moon and gone on to Mars,
because as noted, those plans were scrapped. Congress and the White
House had no interest in doing it. At least now we have ONE president
who is behind it, and that is why I plan to vote for him in November.

..... Albert Einstein said insanity is doing the same thing over and over
again, but expecting a different result. Has it occured to you that it
might be better to try something *different* from what's been done in
the past?

If it involves the phrase "We whould wait until _________________,"
then no, I am not interested. The line between "reasonabl delay" and
procrastination is just a line.




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On 11 Mar 2004 16:32:57 -0800, (Edward
Wright) wrote:

Michael Gallagher wrote in message . ..

So? I repeat, I would have no trouble finding people to do the job. My
company is more than willing to train them.

Only if your company has an expert diver to do it!

Which isn't nearly as hard as you imply.

And even then, what's the most cost-effective way to put an oil
drilling rig in position, assemble it all at once in a ship yard and
tow it out, or have commercial divers assemble it peice-by-piece on
site from hardware brought out on small boats? That the oil industry
has done the former for quite some time should be a clue.

Not really. The oil industry doesn't need a $500 million "expendable
launch vehicle" to get a rig out of the shipyard. If they did, they
would build it elsewhere.

I don't understand why you insist on making decisions based on faulty
analogies instead of economics.


You have eschewed the idea of a heavy lifter, saying it would be
cheaper to assemble on site. You said Falcon is a reasonable option,
even though it is a small booster. The analogh, then, is what is
cheaper for the oil industry, to build it all at once in a shipyard,
or have divers assemble it one SMALL peice at a time? The former,
apparently, because that is the way they've done it.

If it works for the oil industry to assmeble it all at once, why not
for a Mars mission, assemble on the ground and launch with one or two
flights. The dollar amounts differ; the principle is the same.


It doesn't matter what you have a problem with. No one's going to Mars
until it becomes affordable, whether you have a problem with that or
not.



What I have a problem is saying we will WAIT until it is affordable to
go. I do not want to wait. Yes, it will cost more, and be
controversial, but given the choice between beginning now for an arm
and a leg and waiting for it to be affordable, with no idea of when
that will be, you know what? I don't want to wait. YOU have a
problem with that? Tough.


That's nonsense. I can go explore Australia, but if I want to begin
the trip today, I'll have to pay $6,000 for a round-trip ticket.
Exploring Australia is not worth $6,000 to me, so if I decide to go,
I'll "procrastinate" by purchasing an advance purchase ticket for
$1400 .....

The price isn't going down because there's been a change in the
technology to get you there, the price goes down because airlines want
to put as much bums on seats as possible. (It's also why you can get
really cheap tickets at the last minute, but you have drop everything
and go where they want to take you.)

...... Putting off a trip until the price goes down is a perfectly
reasonble option ....

Up to a point. It's one thing for a private citizen like you or me to
plan a big trip months in advance, and thereby get a realtively cheap
airline ticket. It is another to make a whole damn country wait an
unknown number of years for spaceflight to be "affordable" before we
go to Mars.

Tell me, Ed, can you tell me when we will have CATS? Can you give me
a date, five years from now, ten? Something we can all plan on? Can
you say give even a rough estimate as to when the private sector will
cough up an "affordable" manned space vehicle? A range will do,
2010-2015? Can you suggest what the government can do, perhspas
through legislation, perhaps through a puvlic-private partnership, to
not only help industry along but INSURE that the vheicle will be
available by a set date? Well?

If you CAN'T, then I do not want to rely on that. I do not want the
United States (which includes me, born and bread) to wait 50, 100, or
200 years when we can go now because we're waiting for the private
sector to prodcue an "affordable" launcher. If we can go now, we
SHOULD go now. You don't like the high costs, well, you seem to be in
good comopany. But I do not want to wait.





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On 11 Mar 2004 18:07:34 -0800, (Edward
Wright) wrote:

...... Using
biplanes was never an option. The options considered were developing a
new heavy airlifter and using the DC-3, which most experts considered
too small to do the job. Most of the experts turned out to be wrong.


Yes, but you said that the Falcon -- which, if I am not mistaken, is a
SMALL booster -- is a heavy lif option by using a lot of on orbit
assembly. A LOT. The comparison is using a biplane to build an air
base. You agree the biplane is too small for hauling supplies to an
air base. Why isn't Falcon too small for LEO EOR?


..... That depends on how much "we" have been drinking .....

Not that you care, but my father was an alcoholic; as a result, I
don't drink. So even though your comment was produced in ignorance,
it is still insulting.

..... The US government
has spent approximately one trillion dollars on spaceflight. I still
don't see any manned (or womanned) spaceflight industry. Do you?


I see a multi-billion dollar communications satellite industry that
gre from technology developed by the government, so yes, some of the
$1 trillion has lead to one private industry. CAN a private manned
industry benefit from Moon/Mars expenditures? I think so.

As opposed you all the times you've gone to the Moon and Mars on
government vehicles? How many times have you been to the Moon and
Mars, Mike? How many times has *anyone* been? We've seen the results
of doing it your way. Time to try something else.


And when will Elon Musk or anyone develop a Moon vehicle entirely with
private funding? Can you give me the launch date? No, you can't.
When will Burt Rutan be ready to launch to Mars? Um, sorry, he isn't.

Give me a figure, five years, ten years, that you can bank on, when
the private sector will produce the "affordable" hardware you talk
about, and I'll shut up. I want a date, so that a mission to Mars can
be planned on. If you can't, if it's anybody's guess, then I do not
want to wait.


So, if I mentioned cars .....

I'd ask what you had and be happy to talk about my zippy Vibe.

..... When I talked about cancelling
programs, I said nothing about funding social programs.


IOW, we misunderstood each other. Issue dropped.


...... What government technologies are currently capable of getting people
to LEO? None in the US -- the Space Shuttle is broken right now, and
no one seriously thinks the Shuttle will play any role in getting
people to the Moon or Mars.


And what does the private sector have to get us to LEO? Nothing.
When will we have something that does so "affordably"? You can't tell
me.

.... Contracting to buy rides on a commercial vehicle is hardly the same as
waiting around and hoping someone will build something. Why must you
mistate and trivialize everything?


Are there commercial manned spacecraft capable of going to the Moon
and Mars? No. When will they be available? You can't say. If you
can, I'll shut up, but you can't.


On the other hand, the hypothetical boosters you want to use, built
and operated entirely with private money, don't exist yet.

Oh, bog. How many times are you going to make me say it? You are
wrong. Maybe you only heard about Elon Musk last week, but you did
hear about Elon Musk last week, so you know you are wrong. Why do you
have to keep repeating something you know is wrong?


So he has man-rated rockets we can use for Moon/mars missions?
Please, tell me; I don't want to be wrong again.


Why is a government vehicle that will cost a couple billion dollars to
develop "readily available" while a private vehicle that could be
developed in less time for less money is "not available"?


Because you can not tell me when Elon Musk or anybody will produce
what we need. I want a firm date. I do not want to wait who knows
how long for them to produce and buy contracts. If there is a way to
ensure a set date when these vehicles will be available, no problem.
But I will not wait and unknown amount of time for something we HOPE
will happen.


Oh, bog! Do you want me to tell you the truth about Columbus? He was a
nut. Every educated person in Columbus's day knew the world was round.
Not only that, but they knew to a fair degree of accuracy what its
diameter was. Everyone, that is, except Columbus. He had his own
calculations, which "proved" the circumference was only 16,000 miles.
Everyone else who had studied the problem knew it was 24,000 and
Columbus was wrong, but the guy wouldn't shut up. If he hadn't run
into a new continent he didn't expect, by sheer chance, he would have
run out food and water and died.


I know all that, including that he went to his grave insisting he had
found India, but you left something else: Who, in the end, bankrolled
Columbus? The Spanish GOVERNMENT! And they did so for political
reasons. He'd struck out with Portugal, but Queen Isabella funded
him, even though (I think) a committee had said the voyage was too
dangerous.

Columbus was government funded. Period.


NASA is
putting astronauts on Russian Soyuzes right now.

Yes, I know. We have for a few years. But I want to see them on US
vehicles, too.




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On 11 Mar 2004 16:55:13 -0800, (Edward
Wright) wrote:

Speculation. You don't know that for a fact .....

IIRC, the politcs of both the decision to go to the Moon and the
ultimate gutting of Apollo have been documented for some years now.

.... Gemini successfully performed
Earth Orbit Rendezvous without using very big rockets. Adding more
launches simply means performing the same steps over again.


Gemini was two guys "in the front seat of a Volkswagen" performing
missions needed to pave the way for Apollo. They did EOR with Agena
and between two Geminis not to do EOR but to prove the techniques for
LOR.





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