NASA Presidental Transition Action Item Log

Due on Dec. 1st? So much for the Thanksgiving holiday for these folks. Then again, it's probably normal that no one in DC gets a holiday during a presidential transition. I'm sure they'll be working Christmas and New Year's as well.

Possum-

Federal offices are open on Black Friday. Also, these are-I presume-questions that have already been asked, so the people working with the transition team have had some time to collect the answers, many of which should be in the transition library or the transition binder that were referenced before.

Well folks it appears that Obama intends to spread the wealth of NASA somewhere else. I just hope those within the agency that voted for him, thinking that it would get increased funding (something he proposed) will remember this the next time. I'm betting they won't.

This sounds like great news, but don't put too much faith on it. The Transition Team asked many different questions, along with the $ for accelerating development of Ares I.

However, I have the feeling that things don't bode well for Ares I. Good riddance, as far as I'm concerned. This fiasco has cost the nation too much dollars and schedule without showing anything in return.

Although many of us voted for Obama, it is hard to readjust to an environment of enlightened and intelligent leadership.

Note all these things would never have been floated pre-election.

Please NASA Watch, no more smiling Obama pictures with the NASA button on the lapel.

Someone who truly cares about NASA would never consider scaling back Orion.

Time to fight for it folks, this is unacceptable.

One word : YESS !!! Canning the Ares series of misfits and designing an implementation of VSE around existing and upcoming launch capability would actually mean we could get something sustainable and extendable this time around.

The worst thing that could happen for NASA is to stay the current course. The current Ares I/Orion concept will be the most expensive launcher to develop and operate that NASA has ever conceived. If we don't change course, human space flight will become a thing of the past. Too expensive and too dangerous for the return on what we are doing. NASA must get out of the business of developing launchers that are available commercially. We need to spend our money on that which is not available commercially, and that is a 100+ mT launch capability. We should do it using existing Shuttle hardware and use the lessons learned from 27+ years of experience launching the Shuttle to make it safer and cheaper. An inline Shuttle-C with 3 SSME's on the bottom of the ET and two 4-segment SRB's. We have too much testing invested in the SSME's to just get rid of them.

Someone who truly cares about NASA would never consider scaling back Orion.

Some people care more about our future in space than they care about NASA. It's quite foolish to think the two synonymous.

What I see from these questions, is an effort to create depth to our countries space program. So that the next time we have a launch failure, our manned space program doesn't virually shut down for years, or that we become dependent on a not so friendly foreign nation for manned space transport.

We have made a small start with the COTS program A-C. We should be funding at least 4 or 5 commercial companies for COTS D right NOW. maybe they should choose 2 winners of COTS D, that way we can alternate launches. If there is a problem with one launcher, then the other one takes over, until the problem is corrected.

Lets get real commercial competition going and create depth to America's space program.

How can people consider this a good thing. Yeah, ditch Ares for Ariane 5, H2A or an EELV. One has exlpoded more often then it actually has flown and is not man rated. One has never flown and is not designed to be man rated and the Delta's and Atlases would require years and billions of dollars to man rate. Down scaling Orion indicates that they are thinking about changing the mission to be ISS crew transport only. That completely destroys the mission of Constellation. the writing was on the wall from the beginning of Obama's campaign and that is one of the many reasons I did not vote for him and his endless lies. I guess we can all try to get jobs in China, India or Japan once he finishes dismantling our space program. For all the Direct fanboys out there - this does not mean he is going to jump on your band wagon, this means he is going to destroy the lunar program.

To the Editor: I guess you would have a reduced Nasa to try to embarrass and shame. I expect NASA funding to be drastically reduced to fund President-elect's social programs.

If we do not stay the course on VSE, then we should go back to the drawing board and start from a blank slate. Put everything on the table. We should start by considering what we actually want to do on the Moon and in space and what kind of launch system we need to do it. Then do real comparisons in terms of cost, safety, capability and flexibility for future missions.

Just because we have been on a road for years does not make it the right path.

I have no idea what would be the best launch system but it is pretty clear it is not Ares.

It never ceases to amaze me how seemingly intelligent people, some of them posters here, have no memory or education of history. There are many technical writings out there describing the development of the Saturn launch vehicles and the problems that those boosters had to overcome, some them "show stoppers" and yes it cost a ton of money. The "Constellation" program has been in existence a little over three years and already there are those that think it best to start over? Where are you going to get the money and what makes you think that somehow the time schedule would remain the same or even be shortened? Amazing.

Go read Wayne Hale's blog on the reason for not using any of the current stable of EELV's. One of the best "non-technical/technical" articles on the subject that I've read in some time. Everyone who can't stand Ares wants to ignore the amount of money needed to get one of them to work. Amazing.

Someone said, "I have no idea what would be the best launch system but it is pretty clear it is not Ares." Really? One says they have no idea and somehow ignorance qualifies one to determine the way we're going is wrong? Amazing.

I agree with one poster that said that Obama is not going to jump on your bandwagon and I'll go one step further, you can bet he doesn't care a whit about space exploration or NASA and we'll still be having these "debates" four or eight years from now and wondering why the goals have moved to 2025 or later. Amazing.

Over the past 40 years I've witnessed a once proud engineering organization sell out itself one little piece at a time. The sad part now is that NASA personel are willing to see a moon program and eventually a presence in LEO evaportate just so they can say "I told you so." If NASA personel don't fight for "Constellation" now, there won't be a tomorrow. To me it's just amazing.

There are many technical writings out there describing the development of the Saturn launch vehicles and the problems that those boosters had to overcome, some them "show stoppers" and yes it cost a ton of money.

NASA doesn't have a "ton of money" as it did during Apollo, and Mike Griffin knew that when he picked this technically flawed concept, and decided to develop an unnecessary new launch system that wasn't in the budget. We have to figure out how to make do within the budget he had, and the waste of time and money over the past three years don't make the challenge any easier.

Mike, "Writing",

Stop spreading lies about the EELV fleet and other existing rockets. It will not require billions to man-rate (add health monitoring and controls) to the Atlas and Delta vehicles - at most it is a hundred million or so per design. Adding these capabilities have been designed into the products, IIRC, Lockheed-Martin even has the parts picked out for what would be needed to add a generic capsule to the Atlas, be it Dragon, Orion or the proposed Bigelow can. Proposed upgrades to the fleet are truly impressive, providing the desired HLV that NASA has insisted on since Von Braun using the same components they would use to build normal 20ton rockets, ganged together.

On top of this, Soyuz, Proton and Ariane were designed from the start with putting crew on top (Soyuz capsules, TKS-VA ferry or Hermes).

These are existing capabilities or very near-term ones that NASA has refused to utilize so that they could design and build their own rockets instead of focusing on what they do well: building and flying deep-space components.

Suggestion: step back from your political desire and look at the situation objectively. None of the propose ESAS payloads needs HLV if they are designed for fuelling in orbit - added advantage being that those craft (Artemis and EDS) can then be reusable from day one.

The VSE and ESAS have nothing in common at this point.

I think it is very premature to toll the bell for Ares/Orion. From what I've learned of the political process in D.C., gathering this data may just be due diligence toward selling the cost of the program to a new congress. I've learned that appearances can be deceiving and what appears like bad news may counterintuitively be good news for Ares/Orion. Remember they are just gathering data. Obama knows he'll need the support of large states with spaceflight interests like Florida, Texas, California, Maryland, etc. if he wants to be relected in 2012.

So this may not be bad. On the other hand, I'm glad I have a position on the Shuttle Team!

@Writing was on the wall

Seconded. Scaling down Orion would put it in direct competition with Dragon et al.

I strongly doubt Orion on an EELV could beat Dragon on cost anyway. The EELV alone will probably cost more than a Dragon mission.

To Writing and Mike: like Mr. Hale, you clearly don't know what you are talking about when it comes to EELVs. Please stop making Cassandra comments. Learn SDLV and EELV without bias as some of us have, then make an informed decision and commentary.

And to those transition team members out there: EELV should be modified as little as possible (in my book, nothing beyond advanced health monitoring) to realize the cost synergy. This "billions to manrate" is nonsense. Don't let MSFC gold plate it.

To the EELV and anti-Ares crowd, you're correct that NASA doesn't have a ton of money and I too don't believe that it would take billions to man-rate some in the stable BUT at this point Obama and others in Congress are looking to NASA for funds for their next "spread the wealth" programs.

My point is that if you all don't get behind Ares you can kiss everything goodbye and it won't matter how hard you wish upon a star. Consider this for a moment, the ones in power are the ones driving the program. If you don't have the power to get the program changed to your liking, all you're really doing is giving the politician and the anti-manned spaceflight people the reasons for canceling your dreams of the moon and eventually anything manned in LEO. We went through this exercise with Nixon in '69 and we're doing it again. The last time we barely made it out alive with the Space Shuttle. With all the noise against Ares and the "my way is better" crowd, I'm not so optimistic this time.

I'm sorry but sometimes one has to shut up and do what the boss says. I'll be doing alot of that this week at my engineering job but hey, that's life.

Thanks Keith for letting me rant. I'm finished and much better now.

My point is that if you all don't get behind Ares you can kiss everything goodbye and it won't matter how hard you wish upon a star.

If that was your point, we continue to wait for you to make a rational case for it.

I'm sorry but sometimes one has to shut up and do what the boss says.

What does this mean? If by "the boss" you mean Mike Griffin, he's already essentially history. And he's about the only high-level person still pushing this catastrophe of an architecture (other than a few congresspeople to whom it represents pork).

My point is that if you all don't get behind Ares you can kiss everything goodbye and it won't matter how hard you wish upon a star.

Spoken like a true Bush apologist. After all, this is the line of reasoning that the soon-to-be-defunct Administration used to rally support for all of its failed programs.

No thanks. It's time to call ESA's bluff, and bring this travesty to a close. Dumping billions of dollars into a Rube Goldberg ETO scheme is not my idea of responsible engineering. Let's fix the important problem at hand, namely replacing the Shuttle safely and affordably, and spurring commercialization of space transportation.

I'm gonna retract my last post. It would be perfectly useful for NASA to have a "Big Gemini"; a good sized LEO-bound capsule like the Dragon, even with Dragon present, even if it costs more than Dragon.

Seeing how things went down every time a Shuttle broke up, and the grounding of the F-15C fleet, it would be fantastically useful for us to have at least two options for space access.

Dragon might flop. SpaceX might go under. A Dragon might bone itself, with or without crew inside. They might be _late_. The same can happen to the NASA capsule, and it would be fantastic to have a fallback for crew access.

(Note; I'm aware Orbital has a COTS competitor too, but it's not intended to launch crew.)

So a scaled down Orion with low delta-v put up on an EELV would still be fantastically useful.

I dunno if it'd help close the gap; the extra time spent rejigging Orion might push it out further than the Ares I would. But you never know, and it'd definitely save money and solve some problems.

So howabout the Moon?

Obviously the small capsule and small launchers are incompatible with the Apollo style lunar architecture.

What would a lunar architecture built around a small capsule look like? Is that workable, practical and sellable to Washington?

@ Frapster

> What would a lunar architecture built around a small
> capsule look like? Is that workable, practical and
> sellable to Washington?

I saw a NASA guesstimate of how the Chinese are going to launch a man to the Moon with their current launcher (check on NASASpaceflight.com, I think it was there). That launcher has about the same performance as the Delta-4 Heavy. The estimate was for something like SIX launches (three of which were just to put the lunar lander and Earth return booster stage into Low Lunar Orbit). That pretty much kills the 'economic' argument for EELV for anything other than LEO/ISS access.

I think that there is a good chance that development of the Ares-V, or some reduced-cost version of it, will continue for this reason. This will also allow Washington to claim that it is maintaining aerospace jobs during the economic downturn. However, if this program runs into problems too, you can expect the whole beyond-LEO element of the shuttle replacement program to be quietly canned.

If you want a back-up for Spacex, then you need to fund 5 different companies to compete for COTS D. Then you choose 2 winners that will alternate flights. We need to get America's commercial companies competing against each other in an open market.

There is also Atlas 5 and Delta 4. One of them could possibly be upgraded for crew transfer. We don't need NASA in direct competition with America's commercial companies for LEO. It is NASA's job to push the frontiers of space. A downsized Orion that is not good for much more than LEO, will only lock us into LEO for many more decades to come.

NASA needs to concentrate on development of advanced rocket engines and deep space missions.

"The estimate was for something like SIX launches"

That's what I was thinking... I saw something like a seven launch proposal for doing it with off the shelf Russian hardware and a hypothetical lander.

I don't understand why space advocates would cheer the possibility of an Obama Ares I program cancellation. It seems apparent to me that an Ares I cancellation means no U.S. manned lunar exploration. If there isn't money for Ares, there won't be money for alternatives.

Ares/Orion isn't perfect, but it is the plan for returning U.S. astronauts to the Moon. It has been strenuously opposed by certain armchair engineers who believed they had a better idea. I fear that their opposition, heavily publicized by certain news outlets, has contributed to what will end up being a disheartening retreat by the U.S. from space exploration.

- Ed Kyle

Use a 27mT RS-68B Delta IV Heavy and you can start scaling Orion back up, not down, with useful features like default land landings :). The path ahead, without a thumbs on scale Emperor no longer forcing everyone to push a recalcitrant elephant uphill is clear, Delta IV Heavy for Orion, Jupiter-120 for Orion and Heavy Cargo to ISS and two Jupiter-232s for the Moon. To all the doom and gloom merchants with selective recall, one of the options specifically mentioned NASA concentrating on a Moon Rocket so no-one is thinking of cancelling the Moon. Obama was influenced greatly by the original, I'm sure he would like his kids to see the sequel now it's in his power to do so.

It seems apparent to me that an Ares I cancellation means no U.S. manned lunar exploration.

Well, just because it is apparent to you doesn't make it apparent to anyone else. We (or at least I) need a more convincing argument than that it is "apparent" to you.

Having a big launcher makes perfect sense to me. Wouldn't we need something to build the Mars transfer vehicle, or to lift the lunar lander and EDS or Earth Return Stage?

Let's imagine for a moment they dump Ares I in favor of the EELV or similar, shrinking the Orion into a low-delta-v LEO-bound vessel.

But they keep building a big launcher.

Since the delta-v for Earth return has been moved off Orion, obviously that would add an Earth Return Stage to the other launcher's payload. I dunno if you could really bulk up the Ares V enough to make that work.

But what about that Ares IV? Shrink it a bit into the Ares IV, which IIRC uses the already-partially-done Ares I's upper stage, and the already-partially-done 5 segment boosters, etc.

Then flog two of those to put up the lander, EDS and return stage.

The capsule would go up on an EELV (or similar) in a 3 total launch setup.

Is that workable?

(Someone also mentioned setups involving refuelable components in orbit, but refuelling an EDS seems silly to me; is there anything on the EDS that wouldn't simply be replicated in any refuelling hardware? It's just docking hardware and orbital maneuvering right?)

@ Frapster

As I understand it, the Delta-4H would actually be able to launch a HEAVIER Orion than Ares-I (~27mt for D4H, ~23-25mt for Ares-I). So it is possible that a Delta-launched Orion would have more reserve propellant for the lunar mission. I have always disliked the idea of using the Altair for the Lunar Orbit Insertion burn for some reason anyway.

One of the few remaining justifications for Ares-I is that it will retain NASA jobs. Canning Ares-I and focussing NASA's R&D power on Ares-V (a rocket for which there is no commercial requirement and, therefore, is unlikely to have any commercial competitors) would probably be a better idea from a purely budgetary standpoint.

Having a big launcher makes perfect sense to me. Wouldn't we need something to build the Mars transfer vehicle, or to lift the lunar lander and EDS or Earth Return Stage?

The vast amount of mass that is needed to lift for moon or Mars is propellant. The vehicles themselves don't weigh that much. Propellant can be lifted in small quantities. The need for heavy lift is a false myth. And if you want human planetary missions to be affordable, it's a deadly one.

"Well, just because it is apparent to you doesn't make it apparent to anyone else. We (or at least I) need a more convincing argument than that it is "apparent" to you.
Posted by: Rand Simberg at December 1, 2008 4:31 PM "

No Ares I means no big solid booster, no J-2X, and no Instrument Unit contract, which means no new vacuum test stand at Stennis, no big vibration test stand at Marshall, and outright abandonment of vital facilities and personnel at Michoud and Kennedy Space Center. There is no Ares V without these assets.

Many think that Obama will replace Ares V with something better. He won't. He has been my representative in the U.S. Senate for the past four years. I have watched him pay little to no attention to the loss of government science infrastructure and jobs in his own state at Fermilab and Argonne Labs, among other places. He isn't interested in science. I don't know why we should expect him to be interested in space. He has other priorities.

If he cancels Ares I, there is no reason to expect him to pour more money into NASA to start up an entirely new, even more costly launch vehicle development program. What we are seeing IMO is the beginning of an Obama scale-back of U.S. manned space exploration capability.

- Ed Kyle

>>>The estimate was for something like SIX launches. That pretty much kills the 'economic' argument for EELV for anything other than LEO/ISS access.

So how many 20MT EELV launches could you buy for Ares I/Ares V total development cost ? Buying bulk is cheaper, btw.
And you get programmatic failure tolerance if you design your payloads to be launched by either Atlas, Delta or Ariane. Grounding of a launcher wont ground your program any more.

"I have always disliked the idea of using the Altair for the Lunar Orbit Insertion burn for some reason anyway."

That's so you can send cargo to the Moon unmanned without the need for an Orion to tag along.

Would they be able to make the refuelling hardware cost effective? I know there are some bloody cheap launchers like the Dnepr rockets, but I've been told only a smaller portion of the cost is launch anyway.

The EDS would also need to store fuels for a long time while being refuelled. Maybe it would make sense to have a sort of refuelling station with all the cryogenic storage hardware, and maybe a Canadarm so they can cheap up the refuelling pods by not having them need to dock. Then when it's full, the lighter EDS takes it all in and blasts off.

Is this workable or is this a pipe dream?

Having the Moon program double as a make-work program for on-orbit refuelling infrastructure seems pretty useful to me.

I don't quite understand people suggesting programs to "save NASA jobs". This is something that really rubbed the wrong way with me regarding DIRECT.

NASA has a fixed budget every year, and it pretty much all goes to people one way or another. i.e. Machines don't get payed, people get payed to make machines.

They'll get the same budget even if program X costs half as much. Surely they'd just do other things with it?

It seems to me NASA has an incredibly long list of things they'd _like_ to do from scramjets to men on Callisto.

I can't imagine NASA having a shortage of things for people to do just because one program is shrunk. NASA does a plethora of interesting things that all require people.

What am I missing? (Not a rhetorical question; I'm a curious outsider.)

Frapster, yes, that's workable. That's the general gist of what people want to do. We don't need a heavy lift vehicle.

(And I'd personally prefer such an architecture even if it were somewhat more expensive, due to the failure tolerance kert mentioned and due to the flexibility such an architecture would provide.)

No Ares I means no big solid booster, no J-2X, and no Instrument Unit contract, which means no new vacuum test stand at Stennis, no big vibration test stand at Marshall, and outright abandonment of vital facilities and personnel at Michoud and Kennedy Space Center. There is no Ares V without these assets.

We don't need Ares V, or heavy lift at all. Particularly given how much it will cost to develop and operate, and how little it will fly.

He has been my representative in the U.S. Senate for the past four years. I have watched him pay little to no attention to the loss of government science infrastructure and jobs in his own state at Fermilab and Argonne Labs, among other places. He isn't interested in science.

This has little to do with science. One of the reasons that space policy is so screwed up is the myth that it's about science. It is about jobs, prestige, and inspiration. If Obama is about anything, it is the latter.

I don't know why we should expect him to be interested in space. He has other priorities.

It won't be his highest priority, but it doesn't mean that he'll have no interest. He has talked about how inspired he was by Apollo as a child, and how he wants to restore that kind of feeling. He's put together a good team of people for the transition.