NYT Editorial: NASA's Predicament

Link courtesy of http://www.nasawatch.com

The part that I found most interesting is the debate about whether
everything should go into the exploration program or should some funds be
used for a wider ranging program. This is not a new discussion, as we can
see by looking back 44 years:

http://klabs.org/history/monographs/no_37/appendix2.htm

Happy New Year!
-- rk

--------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/31/opinion/31sat1.html

NASA's Predicament

Published: December 31, 2005

NASA is headed into the next year with ambitious goals and no assurance that
it will get the money needed to carry them out. With large deficits looming
in the space shuttle accounts, there is some danger that the space agency
could work itself into a familiar corner by trying to do too much with too
little, a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

-- end excerpt --
--
rk, Just an OldEngineer
"The number of people having any connection with the project must be
restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people."
-- Kelly Johnson in Skunk Works

rk wrote:

"NASA's Predicament

Published: December 31, 2005
NASA is headed into the next year with ambitious goals and no
assurance that
it will get the money needed to carry them out. With large deficits
looming
in the space shuttle accounts, there is some danger that the space agency
could work itself into a familiar corner by trying to do too much with too
little, a sure-fire recipe for disaster."


If they intend to get the ball rolling on their new CEV and heavy lifter
programs then it behooves them to ditch the Shuttle and ISS ASAP;
although that may be politically impossible.

Pat

yeah but they dont want to ditch shuttle so will go along with a
crippled program, and do stupid things like cutting design cost a lot,
well CEV already did that

They will design a all up configuration.

Rather than test components they will design the entire vehicle, then
try fixing the troubles as they are found.

this happened in the shuttle program and caused the long delay for
first flight.

shuttle derived will help this a little, but leave us with too high
cost structure

Put out for bid, X pounds at X times to ISS, with X pounds X times for
beyond LEO.

put out for bid and let companies design and build, saving us upfront
design costs.

this wouldnt happen as shuttle derived costs too much, no payoff to
contractors

Pat Flannery wrote:
If they intend to get the ball rolling on their new CEV and heavy lifter
programs then it behooves them to ditch the Shuttle and ISS ASAP;
although that may be politically impossible.

So you want to spend billions to develop that CEV thing that will go to
the moon for short camping trips perhaps 5 or 6 times before people get
bored and then what ?

After the couple of camping trips to the moon to prove the USA can still
do it, CEV will be useless unless it can be used as a ferry to some
orbiting structure. CEV is useless to go to Mars.

So if you're going to spend billions and billions to develop a new
Apollo capsule, you'd want the ISS to remain usable because that is what
Apollo V2.0 will be used for after it's done its couple of camping trips
to the moon.

Like it or not, the ISS is far more worthy than CEV or Shuttle if the
goal is to go to Mars. This is the place where you can really test
systems to measure their reliability, MTBF, maintainability and how many
spare parts you'll need in a mars mission for each system. Neither
Shuttle nor CEV can help with those.


Like it or not, modules that have already been paid for are stored at
KSC waiting to be launched, and their value is far greater than the
value of operating the shuttle. It would be a much bigger waste of money
to leave them unused on the ground than to continue shuttle ops to
launch the modules that are already ready to be launched.

When americans found Apollo V1.0 to be limited, they set out to build a
vehicle that could do mo The shuttle. Now, the shuttle's reputation
has been stained and americans are returning to Apollo. Once they
realise how limined Apollo V2.0 will be, they will again want to design
a more versatile vehicle.

In the end, it would cost far less to build a new/improved shuttle right
away than to go back to Apollo only to come back to shuttle 10 years later.

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 12:31:03 -0500, John Doe wrote:

After the couple of camping trips to the moon to prove the USA can still
do it, CEV will be useless unless it can be used as a ferry to some
orbiting structure.

Really, Mezei? Have you read the following (courtesy of NASA Watch):

http://images.spaceref.com/news/2005/ESAS.REPORT.05.PDF

While the CEV design was sized for lunar missions carrying a crew
of four, the vehicle was also designed to be reconfigurable to
accommodate up to six crew for International Space Station (ISS)
and future Mars mission scenarios. The CEV can transfer and return
crew and cargo to the ISS and stay for 6 months in a quiescent
state for emergency crew return. The lunar CEV design has direct
applications to International Space Station (ISS) missions without
significant changes in the vehicle design. The lunar and ISS
configurations share the same Service Module (SM), but the ISS
mission has much lower delta-V requirements. Hence, the SM
propellant tanks can be loaded with additional propellant for
ISS missions to provide benefits in launch aborts, on-orbit
phasing, and ISS reboost. Other vehicle block derivatives
can deliver pressurized and unpressurized cargo to the ISS.

Now, that's what the document says. If you can state technically why this
is wrong, please do so. Your one arm waving argument is not a valid
technical rationale.

Happy New Year!


--
rk, Just an OldEngineer
"The number of people having any connection with the project must be
restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people."
-- Kelly Johnson in Skunk Works

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 12:31:03 -0500, John Doe wrote:

When americans found Apollo V1.0 to be limited, they set out to build a
vehicle that could do mo The shuttle.

Well, you know Mezei, Apollo wasn't that limited. Let's see, it did low
Earth orbit operations, went to the Moon for a bunch of landings,
rendezvous'd and docked with the USSR Soyuz, launched a space station of
considerable size and capability in a single launch, did an emergency major
repair of a space station, did ferry operations of crews to a space station,
provided CRV capabilities for a space station, and had emergency launch and
rescue capabilities for on-orbit operations (although that particular
feature was never used). And there were no shortage of studies showing
feasibility for use in asteroid and Mars missions.

Now, I don't know about you Professor, but while limited, I've seen worse
programs.

Perhaps you can explain the lack of limits and what happens to the Shuttle's
wings when it returns from the Moon? Or from a Mars mission?

Hope you had a great New Year!

--
rk, Just an OldEngineer
"The number of people having any connection with the project must be
restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people."
-- Kelly Johnson in Skunk Works

rk wrote:
Really, Mezei? Have you read the following (courtesy of NASA Watch):

If all you can do is insult people instead of learning how to read...


http://images.spaceref.com/news/2005/ESAS.REPORT.05.PDF

While the CEV design was sized for lunar missions carrying a crew
of four, the vehicle was also designed to be reconfigurable to
accommodate up to six crew for International Space Station (ISS)
and future Mars mission scenarios.


The argument made by someone else was to kill the ISS now to generate
funds to pay for CEV. My response, in fewer words so your brain can
understand is that if you kill the ISS, you kill the only purpose for
CEV after it has shown the USA can still go to the moon to plant a flag
and stay a few days.

In terms of pretending that CEV can participate in a Mars mission, this
is utter rubbish. All it would do is act as a crew ferry between earth
and the staging area in LEO where the mars ship would be assembled.

And I am not convinced that a capsule would be the best way to land on
mars. They will some vehicle to land properly so it can launch from mars
and rejoin the expedition ship. That vehicle might has well be carrying
the crew down as well. And such a vehicle would be quite different from
an apollo capsule.

This is not to say that the mars expedition ship might not be carrying a
CEV as an emergency escape pod.

John Doe wrote in :


In terms of pretending that CEV can participate in a Mars mission, this
is utter rubbish. All it would do is act as a crew ferry between earth
and the staging area in LEO where the mars ship would be assembled.

Incorrect. It will also serve as the reentry vehicle on the return trip.

And I am not convinced that a capsule would be the best way to land on
mars. They will some vehicle to land properly so it can launch from mars
and rejoin the expedition ship. That vehicle might has well be carrying
the crew down as well. And such a vehicle would be quite different from
an apollo capsule.

Why do you assume that NASA would be so stupid as to use a CEV as a Mars
lander? They are developing a separate lunar lander (LSAM) for the moon -
why wouldn't they do so for Mars as well?

This is not to say that the mars expedition ship might not be carrying a
CEV as an emergency escape pod.

If that's true we're up to three uses (not one) for the CEV for a Mars
mission, in case you're counting.

--
JRF

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

Now how about some real numbers!

Cost of all complete ISS modules currently waiting for launch from all
countries

Number of shuttle launches to get all these modules assembled, and
provision station.

shuttle is currently about 1.25 billion or so times say 20 launches

about 25 billion, more or less.

whats the cost of the modules?

they might make a nice display at NASM, like skylab is.

rk wrote:


Perhaps you can explain the lack of limits and what happens to the Shuttle's
wings when it returns from the Moon? Or from a Mars mission?


Hey! This is the perfect time to try one of those Dyna-Soar type skip
reentries!
We skip the returning Mars Shuttle off of the atmosphere- then, after
it's circled the Sun, we use the Moon in a reverse gravity assist to cut
its velocity and...
Okay, I'm still working on it.... :-)

Pat