The waste of Apollo redux

At the President's direction NASA has chosen to essentially repeat the
one-off stunt first done forty years ago in the Apollo program. A far
better use of public money would be to build demonstration Solar power
stations in Earth orbit that use microwaves to send pollution free
electric power down to the surface. This would help develop a
lower-cost privately-owned space travel infrastucture, which could then
be used for other purposes including a permanent return to the Moon, and
jumpstart the wholesale replacement of fossil fuel power stations to
help address global warming.

"richard schumacher" wrote in message
...
At the President's direction NASA has chosen to essentially repeat the
one-off stunt first done forty years ago in the Apollo program. A far
better use of public money would be to build demonstration Solar power
stations in Earth orbit that use microwaves to send pollution free
electric power down to the surface. This would help develop a
lower-cost privately-owned space travel infrastucture, which could then
be used for other purposes including a permanent return to the Moon, and
jumpstart the wholesale replacement of fossil fuel power stations to
help address global warming.

You're putting the cart before the horse. The best thing to focus on would
be reduction of launch costs. Instead of spending $10 to $15 to develop the
stick and the SDHLLV, spend that money on developing a dozen or so
X-vehicles, each aimed at one aspect of reducing launch costs.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

Jeff Findley wrote:
"richard schumacher" wrote in message
...
At the President's direction NASA has chosen to essentially repeat the
one-off stunt first done forty years ago in the Apollo program. A far
better use of public money would be to build demonstration Solar power
stations in Earth orbit that use microwaves to send pollution free
electric power down to the surface. This would help develop a
lower-cost privately-owned space travel infrastucture, which could then
be used for other purposes including a permanent return to the Moon, and
jumpstart the wholesale replacement of fossil fuel power stations to
help address global warming.

You're putting the cart before the horse. The best thing to focus on would
be reduction of launch costs. Instead of spending $10 to $15 to develop the
stick and the SDHLLV, spend that money on developing a dozen or so
X-vehicles, each aimed at one aspect of reducing launch costs.

Didn't that approach fail during the 1990s, with
X-30, X-33, X-34, X-37, X-38, X-40, etc.?

- Ed Kyle

"Ed Kyle" wrote in message
oups.com...

Jeff Findley wrote:
You're putting the cart before the horse. The best thing to focus on
would
be reduction of launch costs. Instead of spending $10 to $15 to develop
the
stick and the SDHLLV, spend that money on developing a dozen or so
X-vehicles, each aimed at one aspect of reducing launch costs.

Didn't that approach fail during the 1990s, with
X-30, X-33, X-34, X-37, X-38, X-40, etc.?

Those programs were done when NASA was still spending the bulk of its money
on shuttle/ISS. Take that away in 2010, and not replace it with anything
else, and I'll bet those X programs will not only succeed, but will rapidly
progress to the point where NASA starts to propose all sorts of vehicles
based on their success.

I suppose I forgot to add that I'd completely ban NASA from ever developing
any new launch vehicle (earth to LEO). They'd have to buy launches from
private industry.

Griffin pays lip service to commercial launch by saying NASA would like to
use it for ISS resupply, but everyone knows ISS is on the way out. The
*real* money will continue to be spent on the stick and SDHLV. Even if the
flight rate is low (two missions per year is what he said is baselined),
you're still paying overhead costs, which dominate the overall launch costs
when your flight rate is to sticks and two SDHLV's per year.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

On 20 Sep 2005 13:07:58 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

You're putting the cart before the horse. The best thing to focus on would
be reduction of launch costs. Instead of spending $10 to $15 to develop the
stick and the SDHLLV, spend that money on developing a dozen or so
X-vehicles, each aimed at one aspect of reducing launch costs.

Didn't that approach fail during the 1990s, with
X-30, X-33, X-34, X-37, X-38, X-40, etc.?

There's a simple solution to that. Don't put NASA in charge...

Cheap launch? That's what they said about the shuttle. So, these guys
have no credibility.

104 billion dollars? The US doesn't have the money now, with the Bush
tax cuts, the Iraqi war, and Katrina. It's a luxury we can't afford.


Jeff Findley wrote:
"richard schumacher" wrote in message
...

At the President's direction NASA has chosen to essentially repeat the
one-off stunt first done forty years ago in the Apollo program. A far
better use of public money would be to build demonstration Solar power
stations in Earth orbit that use microwaves to send pollution free
electric power down to the surface. This would help develop a
lower-cost privately-owned space travel infrastucture, which could then
be used for other purposes including a permanent return to the Moon, and
jumpstart the wholesale replacement of fossil fuel power stations to
help address global warming.


You're putting the cart before the horse. The best thing to focus on would
be reduction of launch costs. Instead of spending $10 to $15 to develop the
stick and the SDHLLV, spend that money on developing a dozen or so
X-vehicles, each aimed at one aspect of reducing launch costs.

Jeff

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:49:43 -0400, in a place far, far away, PagCal
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:

Cheap launch? That's what they said about the shuttle. So, these guys
have no credibility.

Yet another logic-challenged person who thinks that we can draw
general conclusions from a single data point.

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:49:43 -0400, in a place far, far away, PagCal
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:


Cheap launch? That's what they said about the shuttle. So, these guys
have no credibility.


Yet another logic-challenged person who thinks that we can draw
general conclusions from a single data point.

It costs over 100k$ per pound to lift with the shuttle. They promised
10k$ per pound but never got close.

Meanwhile, Burt Rutan gets into space and only spent, what, under 4 mil?

His design used an aircraft/rocket combination. The aircraft would lift
the rocket to 60k feet, then the rocket would take over.

NASA proposes what? Just another rocket, and probably over 100k$ per pound.

On 2005-09-22, PagCal wrote:

Yet another logic-challenged person who thinks that we can draw
general conclusions from a single data point.

It costs over 100k$ per pound to lift with the shuttle. They promised
10k$ per pound but never got close.

A more plausible figure for current (well, current in 2002) costs - well
above those originally estimated - is around $5,000/lb, give or take a
couple of thousand depending on how finely you fiddle the numbers.

This is not to say the Shuttle is cheap - it's far from it - but you may
want to try connecting your figures to reality occasionally. The
original estimates for the Shuttle were closer to $100/lb marginal
costs than $10,000/lb!

(Bizzarely, the Shuttle was not that much more expensive than commercial
launches, on a marginal-cost per-pound basis - but very few commercial
customers need 65,000lbs in orbit, which tended to ruin things a bit on
the efficiency scale)

Meanwhile, Burt Rutan gets into space and only spent, what, under 4 mil?

His design used an aircraft/rocket combination. The aircraft would lift
the rocket to 60k feet, then the rocket would take over.

Mr. Rutan spent an undisclosed amount of money - plausibly $25m? - to
construct a very high-performance aircraft utterly incapable of doing
anything more complex than flying a brief high-altitude joyride and
getting nowhere near orbit.

Wonderful achievement, but there's a *reason* NASA isn't doing that.

--
-Andrew Gray

In article ,
"Jeff Findley" wrote:

At the President's direction NASA has chosen to essentially repeat the
one-off stunt first done forty years ago in the Apollo program. A far
better use of public money would be to build demonstration Solar power
stations in Earth orbit that use microwaves to send pollution free
electric power down to the surface. This would help develop a
lower-cost privately-owned space travel infrastucture, which could then
be used for other purposes including a permanent return to the Moon, and
jumpstart the wholesale replacement of fossil fuel power stations to
help address global warming.

You're putting the cart before the horse. The best thing to focus on would
be reduction of launch costs. Instead of spending $10 to $15 to develop the
stick and the SDHLLV, spend that money on developing a dozen or so
X-vehicles, each aimed at one aspect of reducing launch costs.

True, that would be the best place to start. Doing it in the context of
a project might make it easier to sell, but maybe not.