Would You Bring Back NGLT-or SLI?

Hello,

it has been my father to develope the first spaceplane more than 70 years ago. As a president of the International Astronautical Federation, 20 years later, he presented a viewgraph how spaceflight might go on. When I compare with today, we seem to have the end of all visions. Did we forget how to dream, how to enter the future?

Frank's note: Your dad (and Irene Brendt)'s Silverbird concept is the true father of the X-15 and the Space Shuttle. Reading about your dad and Brendt's collective work at Trauman research center (pardon my spelling!) inspired me to study the origins and evolution of winged spacecraft and rocketry more than a quarter century ago. You should be proud of all the work your father did to advance spaceflight. He was a true genius and every bit as bold as Von Braun. I am very glad to hear from you and wish you and your family well!

"were also dead-ends."

More accurately, NASA managed them in such a way as to insure the SSTO and other innovative technologies would fail. Classic NIH syndrome.

That ship has NOT sailed.

The X-33 contained a few too many ambitious tech advancements, and when one of them popped, they knew how to fix it; but the most promising bit of tech, the XRS-2200, was test-fired for whot, 240+ seconds? and performed like a champ. Those engines are revolutionary in their ability to offer reasonably consistent ISP from sea level to orbit, and yet ... they never got the chance to prove themselves.

The DC-X performed according to spec on 4 flights, and only at the last, because of a Human Error, was the vehicle lost.

The X-33, X-34, DC-Y and A deserve to have their chance at flight testing.

Nothing "stimulates" quite like watching another technological barrier get blown away in our quest for the conquest of space.

Aloha,

Michael.

Making access to space more affordable is still the greatest technological challenge and barrier facing human space flight. That's why many of us view VSE, especially the ESAS interpretation of it, as a big waste of resources. Without at least an order of magnitude reduction in launch costs (i.e., $10K to $1K per kg), everything that's on the books now will be unsustainable.

I recognize that it is not only a technology program. There is also the demand side of the problem. But government missions can help this, while the NASA workforce works the technology side of things, as government/university partnerships should.

It would be wonderful to revisit those and other abandoned efforts. Unfortunately NASA simply doesn't have the resources anymore. In fact I feel that the space agency is soon to be overwhelmed by a larger budget crisis in Washington, where the level of debt is completely unsustainable -- budgets will have to be slashed.

That will leave NASA with three options. First, pursue a dirt cheap Soyuz type system; second, abandon manned spaceflight and rely on buying seats on launchers of other countries; or just plain abandon manned spaceflight.

It's now very clear that the 90s efforts to develop a shuttle replacement should have received more resources and been given a higher priority. The legacy of that choice is now a severe burden for the agency.

Hard to be optimistic ...

As someone who worked SLI from the side and took part in the design reviews for DC-X, I remember it fondly. I personally thought it should have been the concept chosen over Lockheed's double-ogive concept which was trouble just waiting to happen. The DC-X actually had some flight test demonstration behind it whereas the competition was all paper based. But I knew well before the final selection DC-X would not be chosen. Boeing and MD were major players on ISS. They already had a big slice of the NASA contract pie. Rather than select what I considered the best technically, NASA went with the one that would spread the wealth around. It was not a wise move in my opinion.

Hello once more!

To be more accurate. Space transportation will always be a matter of reliability and efficiency. A single stage to orbit will not be possible within the next decades. A two stage will be. This can be something like ASLV, like MAKS or more progressive, like SAENGER. The guys at JHU and more places will know about. Give them a program and the will be able to realize future spaceflight.

I would like to think that the Augustine Commission will bring about a change and re direct what NASA is meant to do with amount of money it has or give it more money. It is that simple.

I cant help thinking if the DC-X program carried just for 12 months or so that we may have a fleet of Clippers going into space. Or if more money and time was given to the X-33 and X34 programs and put other programs on hold ie. Going back to the moon and Mars and concentrate on the first 100 miles of the journey into space then the rest of the programs will follow. The Orion Aries program is limited and wasting money. If NASA come up with a heat shield that can take a few knocks and bangs then a SSTO is the answer. Less G force for landing and returns to lunch site instead of the sea open areas of land. If NASA was allowed to develop technologies for the private sector or get some money back for all the things they have developed and therefore have more money to fund on research. NASA cant have successful long term programs when they have to fight for money every year with congress. If that is going to be the case then they should focus on research and development sell to the private sector and let them have the goals of going to the Moon and Mars. If the government want to control the programs they must have guarantee amounts of money for five or ten years and then re-evaluate what has taken place. My reason for this is that when a new car or airplane is developed a company has an x amount of year program with the amount of money to spend. Think of the amount of money they could save with not having to mess around with lawmakers every year!

One project that would set us above all the rest would be the Space Elevator! Why not take all that money being shoveled into the environmental Black/Gore hole, and put it into tether and advanced materials research?

Carl

In the realm of space access technology, perhaps the NACA model is most appropriate: let the govt labs push/conduct the individual pieces-parts research so that industry can exploit the breakthroughs as they field next-generation launch vehicles to meet the demand of ISS logistics, NASA exploration, DOD, and new industry avenues, including space tourism.

I agree with the sentiment above; the problem with those earlier programs wasn't the technology hurdles, it was the management structure and the unfortunate obsession with the near-impossible technical premise of SSTO.

What a shame that the STS wasn't treated as an evolutionary test-bed, wherein, for example, the SRBs were eventually replaced with liquid strap-ons, and then those with liquid-fly-back strap-ons, and ultimately the ET-strap-on combination with a full-up two-stage reusable configuration. But THAT boat has certainly sailed...decades ago.

Frank's note: Bob, you may be right about the NACA model-but is there any hope that today's NASA can restart this research-or should it be split off into a new agency and NASA refocused soley on exploration? Remember the great promises of IHPRPT? R.I.P.!!!!

Looking through the catalog of potential technologies, there's a huge amount of ideas that have generated a small amount of test hardware but have not been adequately tested in real flight conditions, which therefore means that any realistic program will never use them because the customer will never pay to be the first.

For example, ion propulsion. How long between when they cooked it up and ran vacuum chamber tests and when they actually flew it on DS-1?

Thus, a program, especially if there's an acceptable failure option... more like the X-3 and X-4 both flew and produced data but failed to achieve their goals and less like the X-33 and X-34 which never flew at all... would be good for expanding the set of technologies and techniques that could be used.

The problem is that you have to decouple technology development from replacing existing launch vehicles.

I believe the market will decide it when the demand is so high it will be in the launch providers best interest to do the R&D.

To increase the flight rates you need people in space for long enough terms that cargo needs to be launched.

NASA should be developing reusable space based ships and allow commercial firms to build the "pop & drop" astronaut launch services. They will allow astronauts to stay in space longer than the 2 weeks for shuttle flights. Everyone that goes up should be staying a mininum 180 days.

According to NASA it takes 67 pounds of consumables per day. If we can get 49 people a year ( 7 launches of 7 per launch) to stay 180 days you will need about 300 tons of cargo or 60 5 ton launches. It will be the cargo runs servicing people in space that will increase the flight rates, thus lowering costs.

IMO we need to create the infrastructure that allows people to stay in space once they get there and let the demand for cargo do the rest.

NASA engineers should be working on advanced technologies and contracting out the building of vehicles after the technology is developed. Or allow others to use the technology.

One of the problems is NASA has developed a concept of "NASA proprietary data." What happened to the days of NACA that airfoils were tested and the data published for the world to benefit from? My 1941 Taylorcraft is an example of this. It is 15 miles per hour faster than a Piper Cub due to using a NACA developed airfoil. Now NASA developed technology is kept secret for the use of NASA.

I think whatever NASA decides to do regarding rocket development will be irrelevant. Government agencies just don't seem to be positioned to develop launch vehicles that brings the cost down to the necessary levels for expanding public or private access to space. Call me cynical, but I think NASA will always kill efforts like DC-X, perhaps not intentionally, just by its bumbling bureaucratic way. The economics of doing a "patriotic" space program instead of a practical one don't make sense -- from flags & footsteps, to not-invented-here and cost-plus, politics and egos will always get in the way.

The best thing for NASA to do would be to step out of the way. Privatize the parts of NASA that want to keep working on technology, give them a nice chunk of change as start-up capital, give them generous tax incentives and grants to do technical research, and create a whole bunch of new companies from former NASA centers/programs, and let them be taken over by tech-billionaires. The remaining parts of NASA should be exploration and science focused, simply ordering science instruments, rockets, crew modules etc. from the catalogs of prime contractors and new space start-ups. Leave the prototypes on the shelf, use the mature technology. Fund prototype development and human factors research through a well-funded university grant system. Wouldn't that fit in rather well with Obama's emphasis on expanding STEM education programs?

Not if Steve Cooke were to run it like he did in giving us the ISTAR program.

Frank's note: So tell me who do YOU think within
the system will step forward? Gary Peyton?

I don't think NASA can do it.

Whenever a new ship is designed you always have a chorus saying their untested idea must surely be better, detractors that want your money for a new bridge somewhere, and politicians who care more about which state its being built in than how it works.

The only reason we're getting constellation now is because the shuttle delivered one big black eye to our elected leadership. Even at that they are looking for a way to tone things down.
Cost is not a factor (unless you can use it as a cudgel against your enemies) and exploration doesn't help to solicit votes (that blame sits with us).

The military seems to have a better handle on how to make things happen: Work on a keen idea through a private company in secret, hide the bills under a pile of golden hammers, and then unveil the final product at the most opportune time so the politicians have no choice but to cheer you on.

Making an RLV or low cost launch sausage is going to be an ugly process that is best done away from prying eyes. You cant do that with an "open doors" NASA.

Frank's note: So who's going to do it? Surely we can't count on the USAF-they took more than a decade to finally schedule a X-37B test flight!

NASA needs to get back to its original function (at least one of them, that is) and do research and development and let the companies do what they do best production and production level design and development. It worked when we originally went to space, didn't it?

There'll be very few companies or organizations that will take on the high risk research. NASA should be doing that. The results of that can then be fed to contractors or the business world to develop further.

With the current paradigm, it seems like aerospace development and research is just discovering the same old stuff over and over again. Without an organization that's willing to take the risk to look into truly novel ideas, we're going to end up with no more than we have now.

Frankly, I think part of NASA's money problem is that the public doesn't see NASA doing anything new or revolutionary. Recycling old ideas sure isn't going to inspire a lot of people.

Frank's comment: All too true-but how to shake loose money?

Mr. Deger

NASA and it's contractors currently labor under the burden of ITAR. "NASA Data" must be secured and only provided on a need to know basis. NASA research has pretty much been legislated into irrelevance in facilitating progress in the commercial sector. They aren't writing papers or doing as many presentations anymore because getting approval is near impossible and the consequences of an incorrect decision is the threat of going to jail and being poor and homeless for the rest of your life.

I agree with Bob Mahoney the NACA model is most appropriate. Govt push/conduct research so that industry (USA specifically) can exploit the breakthroughs. Appoint strong visionaries like Joseph Ames, Hugh Dryden, and George Lewis and give them resources (labs, engineers, techs) to do what they think is best.

Flying some X33 types of vehicles to get real flight experience in propulsion and materials. If it doesn't meet desired requirements, at least get to see something spectacular (instead of same ol' computer graphics and sci-fi effects) and have something snazzy for static display at airshows (instead of artwork).

I disagree privatizing NASA research will lead to new technologies (heck virtually all what NASA spends is on contracts!). NACA was created because private industry was not willing to spend money on cutting edge research (and these days they focus on quarterly reports).

Spacex? This is interesting but I wonder if it is or not something real or if it is a front for something else.

Modern launch vehicles that go to earth orbit (velocity of 25,000 fps required) have a mass fraction of 10% - that is at gross liftoff weight over 90% of the vehicle is fuel. Given that this is the case even with multiple stage rockets and strap on solid rockets, there is plenty of evidence that single stage to orbit concepts are not realizable given current rocket technology and materials. Configuration (DC-X, X-33, X-34 etc...) doesn't make a huge difference in achieving the mass fraction required to achieve orbit. The Atlas, designed in the 50s, is very close to a SSTO in that the basic Atlas has a very small first stage andit is worth pointing out that to achieve that efficiency, the structure is so lightweight that it must be pressurized to keep from collapsing.

SSTO achieved popularity because of the analogy to airplane operations and the belief that this would lead to operability and cost efficiency. Multi-stage solutions (like the saenger spaceplane)have the capability to actually make orbit with near aircraft operability. To do this however advanced propulsion, such as that pioneered by the X-43 is required so that the first stage, taking off like an aircraft, can achieve hypersonic velocities.

Frank's note: John my thanks and appreciation for sharing your thoughts-you are one of the few with practical, hands-on spaceplane test experience. What did you learn during those days at JSC that altered or changed or enhanced your design and development ideas about logistics spacecraft?

Manned systems demand launch technology that can safely lift a major payload into orbit. This combination pretty well negates a single stage space plane concept unless it is a hybrid design that uses rocket propulsion only after the craft has reached maximum jet (including ram jet) thrust altitudes. Ideally, launching from Earth for long, deep space missions seems to me to never be practical. An orbiting (L2 style) launch facility would seem to be a very practical approach for trips to Mars and other objects in our solar system. I could see a space plane shuttle service between Earth and an L2 launch facility as a workable concept. Lastly, time must be considered. Sure time to orbit is relatively short, but time to an L2 site would require some coasting to conserve fuel and, of course, control payload trade offs. Regardless, the biggest controlling factor is money.

Frank,

NASA would definitely need to be broken up, and per your other solicitation (I think it was yours) I suggested how. Aeronautics work gets swept into a NACA/FAA hybrid agency, earth resources stuff gets combined with NOAA, space science (astronomy, microgravity) falls under NSF, pure space technology development becomes its own entity a la DARPA (STARPA?), and the "going places" stuff (JPL, JSC, etc) becomes a National Space Exploration & Development Agency which makes use of what the STARPA produces.

Of course it will never happen since it will likely entail closing down some NASA facilities, and that idea gets whomped every time it's brought up. We all know the US govt doesn't operate without constituent economics in play. If only we could work out some sort of facilities/campus sharing scheme amongst the new focused agencies...

If that ship has indeed sailed, torpedo it. Ares is repetitive junk. Use the money for the development of NGLT and more advanced deep space propulsion systems like VASIMIR and toss some of money in the direction of a more robust COTs program to insure near-term U.S. access to the ISS and LEO. And if NASA can't manage a shuttle replacement program, which the Ares-Orion projects clearly demonstrate, farm out new technology to private companies like Space X and Bigelow, so they could fully exploit any new developments. It doesn't matter if the Chinese beat us back to the Moon. After all, they will have been the first people to do it a second time.

"SLI gave rise to the X-33 and X-34 technology demonstrator programs."

You fail to note that X-34 was a pet project of Mike Griffin, who was Chief Technology Officer of OSC at the time. He got over $100 million from NASA to build a reusable suborbital vehicle and failed.

Burt Rutan got $25 million from Paul Allen and succeeded.

After the failures of X-33, X-34, etc., Sean O'Keefe and Mike Griffin decided NASA had "proved" that reusable vehicles were impossible and all that was left for NASA -- "the only thing we know that works" -- was to try to relive the glory days of Apollo.

Hence, the talk about Orion as an "American Soyuz" which will be "the way NASA astronauts go into space for the next 40 years." As if 40 years of no progress is a good thing.

The problem is, NASA goes from one extreme to the other. Either it tries to dominate and control reusable vehicle development (as it did in the X-33/X-34 era), or it publicly declares reusable vehicles to be impossible. Either way, it drives investors away from the industry.

What we need is a middle course, where NASA seeks to assist and promote but not control or direct. Just as the NACA did for aviation. Spending some money on basic R&D would help, but purchasing low-cost launch services would help more. Restoring funding for Centennial Challenges would be good first step.

"How to shake loose money" is a non-issue. This approach would cost less than developing Shuttle-C or DIRECT or whatever the latest great white hope for a Shuttle replacement is. All NASA needs to do to afford it is *not* build a Shuttle replacement.

I wish someone could explain why it's Politically Correct to spend tens of billions of dollars developing a new rocket that will increase the cost of space transportation but Not Politically Correct to spend a fraction of that in ways that would reduce the cost of space transportation.

Frank's note: My answer is sadly the current political climate demands results in the form of a physical machine, not the intangible benefits of pure technology research...watching an engine static test doesn't attract politicians like a launch...

"To do this however advanced propulsion, such as that pioneered by the X-43 is required so that the first stage, taking off like an aircraft, can achieve hypersonic velocities."

Scramjets like X-43 are cruisers. They're optimized to cruise at a constant velocity and lose efficiency above or below that velocity. They are useless for getting to orbit, which is an accelerator mission.

Scramjets can reduce the gross takeoff weight of a vehicle, but they do that primarily by eliminating the mass of LOX. The dry weight of the vehicle goes up, compared to an equivalent rocket. (Contrary to popular belief, a scramjet does not get its oxygen "for free, it pays for it through drag, and the scramjet needs to carry extra fuel to overcome that drag.) LOX is dirt cheap on Earth; aerospace hardware is very expensive.

It makes no sense to increase the amount of hardware that has to be developed merely to save the cost of buying a little LOX.

Point of correction -- X-33 and X-34 preceded NGLT and SLI. NGLT and SLI were formulated in the aftermath of X-33 and after the conintued inability of Code M and Code R to agree on a path to replacing the Shuttle.

Frank's note: yo are correct-my syntax should not have suggested chronologically. There was also the goals, stated for each propulsion segment such as Earth-to-orbit, booster, upper stage, in-space, etc-of the IHPRPT program-you remember IHPRT-the program nobody wanted to actually fubd....

"So who's going to do it? Surely we can't count on the USAF-they took more than a decade to finally schedule a X-37B test flight!"

Ahem! Frank, did you forget that X-37 began as a NASA project?

X-37 is a reentry demonstrator, but to minimize development risk, Boeing and NASA based it on the Shuttle planform. So, the only thing X-37 will really prove is that a vehicle based on the Shuttle planform can reenter the atmosphere. That has already been proved, over 100 times. So, why is it surprising that the Air Force isn't in a rush to do it again?

Given the almost nonexistent budget the Air Force has for military space plane development, compared to the money lavished on Constellation, it's ludicrous for NASA Watch to criticize the Air Force for not doing more. (Did the Bush Vision of Space Exploration even mention military space plane?)

That said, the Air Force does have competing priorities and is probably not the ideal place for military spaceplane development. I think a strong case could be made for an independent Military Space Plane Agency, at the same level as DARPA or the Missile Defense Agency. Without a political commitment to fund military space plane development, the question of where to put it is moot, however.

Frank's note: I'm not criticizing anybody but merely trying to point out this program-the X-37B-isn't much of a USAF priority. Spaceplanes were eliminated as a research program within NASA in the rush towards SLI, and later the OSP and then of course Constellation. Remember Dan Goldin's prediction of "darkening the skies with X vehicles"? I guess they had a change of heart...

@Frank:
True... but a spaceflight was still scheduled after technical challenges, runway mishaps, and an endless number of missed deadlines.
Doesn't that count for something?

I don't know who should get the responsibility for building alternative spacecraft. I do know that if it stays exposed within NASA the chances of success grow slimmer every year. There's no longer a Vaun Braun or Kennedy to put his foot down in our defense.

Hidden inside the massive military budget and covered by a pile of golden hammers might be a very slow path to development, but you'll get there.
It would have been a safer situation for something like the X-33, which was bound to have its share of dark days before coming to fruition.

Frank's note: My point was to ask about general technology research not necessarily aimed at specific vehicle designs but at improvements that would in later iterations drive new proposals. Example: maturing the Aerospike engine as a technology testbed, not attached to the X-33 and VentureStar projects, much like STME could have been used in several different types of vehicles..

Good point above about aerospike. The other way to change the rocket equation is through nanotech, but that won't be ready for integration into an operational system without a lot more research. There's not a lot else that can be done with the physics.

Bring the techs at KSC into fundamental design like Boeing did the 777 with flight attendants, ramp guys, maintenance techs etc. Stop mandating designs from the 9th floor of the E Street Circus.

Cutting edge technologies aren't going to fix NASA. Cheaper, fail-safe, simpler, less labor intensive ones will. Design systems that require a lot of people due to HIGH FLIGHT RATE not lots of care and feeding.

And if you can't design a reusable system that beats an expendable one on cost, use the expendable one. That was the idea behind OSP on Atlas/Delta. Give good rockets a higher, steady demand and watch how the unit costs drop.

@ Frank.

Thank you very much for your kind words! Yes, it’s a shame that our pioneers ideas did not became true. That today’s spaceflight administrations are not any longer capable to handle advanced and sometimes even actual projects. It’s the same in Europe still on a lower level. I do not believe that this is a problem of engineering and science. This seems rather a problem of our society, of the way large structures are handled. Might there be any way to get new impulses?

Hartmut http://www.raumfahrt-concret.de/cms/front_content.php?idcat=1

Frank's note: Somebody must see that R&D programs have merit as much as operational system goals...BTW, where is your father's papers? Are they accessible to researchers?

Ah... yes it does matter if the Chinese, or anyone else, beat us back to the Moon.

NASA should be funding, at a much higher level, propulsion concepts outlined in a new AIP book (Frontiers of Propulsion Science).

Also... resurrect the NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts.

>How would you revitalize spaceplane research? And would any >of you remove funding from existing NASA programs such as >exploration to fund research in advanced launch technologies?

It would be time for NASA to focus on R&D such as the ones you've mentioned. Cancel the human exploration part of NASA's budget; it doesn't advance technology. It's a mere repetition of what was accomplished 40 years ago. No need to reinvent the same wheel. We need new ones.

Ignoring political arguments as counterproductive and sticking with technology:

I have come to think "bleeding edge" engineering has led us down something of a blind alley. Winged shuttles and SSTOs are all very nice, nicely futuristic and all, but I wonder if Von Braun with his gigantic, low-tech 3STO "shuttles" wasn't on the right track back in the late 1940s, after all. Brooklyn Bridge engineering.

Here are two proposals (both put up as COTS candidates) that fit the requirement of getting launch costs down. The Kistler K-1 (accepted for COTS, failed due to lack of $$$) was a TSTO RLV which eschewed the complexities of wings and cryogenics. It was fueled with kerolox, and recovered by a combination of TPS, parachutes, and airbags. Once proven, it could have led to larger successor vehicles. The other was t\Space's airlaunch concept, which involved recovering the expensive bits, and making the expendable bits (the hybrid rocket stages) as cheap as possible. While not so easily size-scalable, it would have been flight-rate scalable. One of its virtues was, it didn't require a LAS for the manned capsule (because the the rocket part remained inert until at altitude and "liftoff" was via a conventional aircraft).

Those sorts of ideas are a place to look other than more "magic spaceships" involving engineering we don't already possess.

There is an appalling tendency to kill a program that either fails during the research, or goes over budget, or even worse, results in unexpected findings. Most recently, we have seen this in the craziness over rocket oscillation at certain times during ascent: some have actually regarded this developmental glitch as terminal.

In my view, these programs deserve a steady hand– a hand that will push the ideas to a logical limit, a hand that recognizes the inherent danger of intermediate failure.

We will be watching soon as the escape system and then the new ARES rockets are tested. What happens if there is failure during an initial launch? If experience is a guide, the popular and technical press will be all over NASA.

Fortunately we have an example of a clear-headed leader– Elon Musk– a man who didn't fear the inevitable failures. For whatever reasons, the public, and indeed the technical press, supported Musk, but that very same press has been quite severe with respect to NASA.

IMO, low-cost launch is one of the most important objectives for our space program. Without it, human space exploration is hardly sustainable.

The punchline to an old joke has a fellow stating that he was "too busy cutting down trees" to have time to sharpen his axe. Perhaps we're in too much of a rush -- assembling the spacecraft that can take us to Mars -- to realize that there's a larger, more important prize.

One of the numerous problems with the Ares approach to implementing a part of the Vision for Space Exploration is that it doesn't even attempt to solve the space access cost problem. I'd cancel that approach, and the rest of the ESAS-derived transportation system. After Shuttle retirement, that would free about $6-10B/year, depending on the year and how much you count accounts like Cross-Agency Support related to that system. This considerable amount of funding could be used like this:

- COTS-D or a COTS-like competition - This would be for multiple independent commercial transportation systems for ISS access (using EELVs, Falcons, etc .... whatever wins the competition). It would encourage new, low-cost space access systems, or shared costs (and thus reduced costs per flight) for existing space access systems.

- more Space Station use - This would include use of ISS, DragonLabs, Bigelow stations, and others if/as they become available. Some of the funds might go towards experiments. Others might go towards making the ISS more robust (spares, etc). Any such ISS use would provide a greater markets for, and thus encourage, space access businesses. Any use of commercial labs/stations would not only provide a greater space access market, but would also tend to increase the chance of success for the commercial labs/stations that, if successful, would provide even more of a space access market. Some Space Stations funds might also go towards micro-reentry vehicles to provide frequent sample return from space stations. Such systems would encourage work on Earth re-entry technology, which would be helpful for reusable space access vehicles.

- more robotic lunar science, engineering, and operations demos - These would need to be launched, and thus would be an additional encouragement to space access providers. If the destination for human spaceflight changes, the destination for these could change, too, but the basic idea would remain the same.

- more Earth observation - The Earth Science Decadal Survey recommended 15 new NASA satellites, plus there's a need for OCO2 and DSCVR launch. I'd fund all of this, and also make a much greater push for the new Venture-class Earth observers (smallsats, suborbital science, and instruments hosted on commercial satellites). All of this will encourage the space access field, from commercial suborbital rockets, to traditional sounding rockets, to smallsat-sized launchers, to mainstream-sized launchers.

- more Planetary Science and Heliophysics missions - Again, these would provide a market for, and thus encourage, a variety of classes of launchers. I'd stay away from ambitious and expensive missions. Instead of a $3B Europa Orbiter, I might go for a Europa Ice Clipper or 2 plus a few Discovery, New Millenium, or Explorer missions using that level of funding instead. If a rover is put on a planetary surface, once the pathfinder succeeds I'd probably go for a series of 5-10 copies in different locations (perhaps with minor upgrades and instrument switches). All of this would tend to steer funding towards lots of launches rather than lots of spacecraft development, thus encouraging the space access market more.

- more funding for "small" areas - This includes use of commercial reusable suborbital rockets, balloons, high-altitude planes, parabolic flights, and traditional sounding rockets for various purposes, such as science, engineering, and astronaut training. It also includes Centennial Challenge prize competitions, NASA Education, small business partnerships, and advanced studies like NIAC. The suborbital rocket part of this would encourage traditional sounding rockets and the reusable suborbital rocket market, an entire new industry segment that's trying to gradually tackle the space access problem in diverse, commercially-oriented ways. In addition to gradually improving space access using the reusable suborbital rockets themselves, these vehicles could be used for engineering tests related to space access. Some of the Centennial Challenges, NIAC efforts, small business partnerships, and Education efforts could also be directed at various space access problems.

- more Aeronautics funding - Some of the aeronautics funding would be used for small, focused X Plane type demonstrations to chip away at the space access problem.

- space infrastructure - This would go towards infrastructure that tends to encourage space access efforts, like launcher-neutral orbital propellant depots. Dennis Wingo has argued here that space access is a difficult problem to solve, and that we can lower space costs in other, easier ways. In that spirit, this would also go towards space infrastructure like reusable tugs, reusable lunar landers, and reusable orbit-to-orbit spacecraft to lower the cost of in-space operations.

- satellite and spacecraft servicing - This would fund capabilities to inspect satellites and spacecraft, replace instruments and other components, refueling, and the like, including the servicing and serviceability sides. It could leverage the space infrastructure elements just mentioned. The fuel and components to do this servicing would encourage more space access efforts.

- astronaut exploration - This would be funded at a much lower level than the ESAS-derived transport system. That being the case, it would be obliged to use the capabilities outlined above, and commercial services like space access, rather than duplicating and competing against commercial systems. As such, it would be another market that would encourage lower-cost space access services.

Unlike the ESAS-derived approach, each of the above areas encourages the development of economical space access services in a competitive environment. Some of them also push space access on the R&D side. However, also unlike the ESAS-derived approach, they are not centered around building rockets. Each one is a useful element quite aside from any space access benefits. It should also be noted that failure of any individual element doesn't bring the whole thing to a halt, unlike a failure of part of the Ares-based transport system. It's not a brittle "architecture"; it's a broad, gradual push to explore, use, and develop space.

Aside from chipping away at space access costs, if you consider the amount of funding that would be available (~600-900M/year for each area), it's clear that huge improvements could be made in many of the above areas. Consider what this level of increased funding could do for COTS, or Aeronautics, or small areas like suborbital rocket use and Centennial Challenges, or space infrastructure, or lunar robotics. The only reduced area would be astronaut exploration, but leveraging the other areas, commercial space in general, and international participation, I contend that prospects for astronaut exploration would actually be much improved in this scenario.

NGLT and SLI served a single useful purpose. to exercise the engineering and test operations at America's propulsion houses. all the lessons learn in developing those propulsion systems are being employed on current programs. that is the value in those efforts. The primes do enough hardware work that they're always ready to build something. the three remaining propulsions houses are all low enough on work that large new programs present reaction problems for them.

And why does this group of commenters always come back to some kind of stipulation that SpaceX or bigelow (ROTFLMAO)is going to provide all the CoTS answers or the replacement for Astronaut delivery to station??? they've done nothing other than bloviate about how clever they are to prove it. every failure they've had would have been thoroughly anticipated by the old launch business. that's why Atlas V and Delta IV didn't blow up on their maden flights and they didn't bang into the upper stage on ensuing flights. 1 for 4 with 50 years of available data earned the hard way by the "old" launch business to build off. pretty weak I'd say...

IMHO, the time has come to surgically seperate the R&D and space ops sides of NASA. The two sides of the organisation have too incompatible needs.

Think of it this way: The R&D side of NASA, by its very nature, wants to conduct blue sky thinking and use money on concepts that might work after exhaustive development, debugging and testing. The space ops side of NASA, rightly, wants a launch and space flight system that works, does so reliably and does so from very early on in the program. The two goals are exclusive. Innovation is the enemy of reliability and the need for early reliability is the enemy of innovation. This is illustrated by the CxP architecture - it is a very conservative design, one that was initially driven by a need for quick deployment and as few reliability question-marks as possible.

NASA should be turned back into a pure R&D organisation, purely for developing blue-sky innovations in aeronautics and astronautics. These can then be taken up whatever civil or military applications could most effectively use them.

A new agency, call it the National Space Exploration Authority (NSXA) will be responsible for deploying and operating space flight technology developed both by NASA, academia and industry as fits with its current objectives. NSXA will be permitted to select whatever launch and flight system that offers the best performance, reliability (predicted or proven), cost and schedule. This means that NSXA should not be required or expected to use NASA-developed systems. It could just as easily use something developed by big aerospace (i.e. DreamChaser/Atlas-V), new-space (i.e. Dragon-D/Falcon-9) or even international partners. NSXA would select the technology it needs and, if it is not already available off-the-shelf, contract through proper government bidding processes to the appropriate companies to assemble the tools and infrastructure it needs.

Yes, that would mean NSXA would be using pedestrian, proven technology more often than not. However, it would give NASA the freedom to develop something astonishingly good because they have the luxury to debug without $100-million payloads being on the line. That debugged wonder machine then replaces the pedestrian, proven technology because it offers massive performance improvements and is now far more reliable.

FWIW: I'm sticking with my DC-X/TSTO idea. Give the Clipper a reusable lower stage (SSME-powered?) to boost its payload-to-LEO. Vertical descent means that it could have the easier-to-operate nose rendezvous hatch and would give that runway at KSC something useful to do.

Frank's note: Generally, I'm attracted to your concept of separate agencies. NASA tends to want to stay in the ops business, though, when it should get out of it entirely-as the 2004 Presidential commission recommended...

I do not know enough about how far along any of the SSTO projects really were towards success of a first prototype.

But, the goal was the right one.

If we cannot come up with an affordable, sustainable way to get into space, with launches occurring at will, frequently, and regularly, then nothing else, like Constellation and a return to the moon or missions to mars, really matters. There is no rationale for expending billions to reach space on an infrequent basis, and there is no reason for the American taxpayer to support a multibillion dollar a year effort to send a handful of people into space.

It appears that the escalating development costs and ever increasing schedule delays of Orion and Aries are already reflecting the technical failure of the project. Maybe the Augustine panel will apply the official seal of failure in a couple months ?

But regardless of the technical capability to develop an Orion-Aries, the architecture and strategy of an Apollo repeat using expendable, ocean-splashing vehicles, especially one that could not be launched with already available rockets, and which would cost a billion dollars a mission, with a mission once a year, was never affordable or sustainable.

Actually, would it ever be possible to maintain a program with less than a few billion dollars a year budget - what ISS, Constellation or Shuttle are now costing ? If the program is costing that much, you'd best be launching every few weeks, and launching lots of people and payload. Orion will require a continuous assembly line production with a new vehicle coming off the line every few weeks. Highly unrealistic.

The above group of comments demonstrate the core problem: no one in the "space movement" can agree on what really needs to be done. One group wants SSTO, another wants TSTO, another wants COTS, the Mars Sciety wants to go to Mars (and think that all else is a waste of time), the lunar societies want to return to the moon, the NSS wants to do whatever NASA is doing at the moment and the Panetary Society wants to do just science (of course, it too thinks all else is a waste of time). As President Harry Truman used to say, lets look at the record:
1. Gathering evidence seems to indicate we are probably looking at 4 more years of Executive Branch neglect of the American space program, and possibly 8 years.
2. Congress appears to be in no mood to provide more funding to NASA.
3. Given the lack of support (ergo 1 and 2 above) no extra funding is going to be provided for any programs outside of Ares/Orion and NASA's science/aeronautical commitments.
3. The STS will be retired in 2010 (I watched them cut the LOX bonnet off of Complex 39 the other day to get it ready for conversion, so retirement is already happening).
4. Exercises in dreaming, wishful thinking and future programs aside, the U.S. has no choice but to build a replacement launch system to assure access, at the earliest possible date, to orbit and the ISS (and perhaps the moon, but the moon looks like a long shot given 1. above).
4. In the absence of a consensus by the American People (that means us, the folks in the space movement) the present administration and congress will simply let the program limp along. DECIDE on what we are to support; if it be SSTO, TSTO, COTS, lunar return, Mars, etc., so be it, but choose one program and then get behind it. The Mars Society then needs to put aside its ambitions (for the short run anyway), the Planetary Society needs to stop medeling in the political background, the lunar societies need to stop importuning for private enterprise to take over the civil space program and all of us agree on an affordable push forward. Otherwise, all of these organizations need to admit that they have devolved into what the British Interplanetary Society became: just another debating society.

Frank's note: You may be right, but I'm not gonna hold my breath waiting for those guys to sing Kumbaya around the fire...

Fund neither ... they're just a waste of money. Putting wings on a spacecraft, while looking cool, nearly triples the launch mass/unit payload compared to parachutes.

1) Priority #1: Complete Orion in it's current form. Fine, leave it at 4 seats for now. At least there's enough remaining volume for growth later on either to add more seats or some cargo for human repair missions.

2) Priority #2A: I'm still not going to give up on Ares-1 until I see proof on it's supposed shortcomings. No offense, but it will take more than the word of a few Aerospace Corp contractors and DoD personnel I've met in person, who immediately pander for their EELV as a solution. I'm not buying this argument about each Ares-1 launch being $500 million when a Shuttle mission is costing just about the same.

3) Priority #2B: If you're really intent on scrapping Ares-1 no matter what at least replace it with expendable launch vehicle with decent engines instead of downsizing Orion so it fits on a human rated Delta or Atlas. We need a decent H2/O2 engine to replace the cluster of RS-68 engines with a single engine and simpler subsystems. I believe 40 years after SSME, and it's expendable version the RS-68, it's time for the U.S. to develop a new engine.

4) Priority #3: Keep an eye on Ariane, they're already starting to talk about what could become "Ariane-VI". It will be quite embarrasing, and ironic, if after Western Europe developed the largest commercial aircraft (which has already reduced the 747 backlock to a trickle) they also end up with the largest commercial rocket, and even moreso if it is economically viable internationally unlike the EELV.

I'm sorry for being cynical, but it just gets to me when after all this talk about not being able to afford an expanded Human Exploration program now suddenly there is money to waste on other programs. Sure, expendable rockets and capsules with parachuts look 'old', and a far cry from the futuristic 21'st century spaceplanes we all dreamed of, but they are realiable and do the job well.

P.S. Quick clarification on the issue of mass ratios and margins: Yes, the structural/payload ratio to fuel on a rocket is typically 10% but that's for rockets with stages. If you want to pursue a SSTO then it goes down to 4%, which is what failed on the X-33 once their composite cryogenic tank and the aerospike engine didn't work as expected.

Frank's note: There were new engines in development, both LOX/Kerosine hydrocarbons and cryos, too. But COBRA and STME were canceled when the funding stopped. to develop the new engine you suggest, do we propose restarting these programs, picking up where they left off a decade ago-or something else. Improvements to the Ariane's Vulcain engine were all funded by ESA and not Arianespace...

A useful question...

I think the right answer is: "yes and no"...

Yes, there is a critical need for a renewed emphasis on technology research and development -- leading to focused demonstrations that make possible timely and affordable systems projects. Yes, these R&D efforts must be focused on future space capabilities that will transform how we utilize, explore and eventually settle space.

However, there are a range of capabilities that are needed -- all things that we take for granted in air travel, and in society in general. The capabilities that are needed include, but are not limited to:

• Low-cost Earth-to-orbit transportation;
• Affordable in-space transportation (Earth orbit, Moon, and inner Solar System);
• Large-scale, affordable solar power in space;
• In-space Refueling, wherever needed (including, LEO, GEO, Moon, Mars, etc.)
• Low-cost space assembly, maintenance and servicing;
• In-Space resources utilization (Moon, asteroids, Mars);
• Safe and self-sufficient human habitats in space;
• Fully-autonomous space systems / operations;
• And others....

Each of these capabilities could be developed through focused R&D-to-demonstration projects that are just as clear and schedule driven as any destination-focused effort... And the existence of these capabilities would completely change what we can accomplish in space.

The Next Generation Launch Technology (NGLT) program was too much focused on avoiding the ambitious goals of the Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) R&D efforts of the mid- to late- 1990s; perhaps because those programs did not turn out well. The space transportation goals of the 1980s and 1990 are still the right ones, in my view: we need to re-establish the goal of "low cost launch" as a purpose of NASA -- as well as the other capabilities that I mentioned above -- but probably not the specific content that comprised NGLT. The Space Launch Initiative (SLI) was better, but did not have a sufficiently integrated strategic plan for space launch (i.e., RLVs and ELVs), and it pushed too far out into the future the real objectives of getting high-reliability (i.e., greater than 99%) and low cost (i.e., less than $1000 per kilogram to LEO) launch to space...by whatever means.

Bottom-line: NASA provides its best value to our country when it does great things AND develops future space capabilities that can assure US preeminence in space while benefiting people the world around.

Best regards,

- John

Frank's note: Well said-and food for thought.

I hear many of the concepts I've stated before on this, such as a space-based infrastructure. But again, getting there is half the battle.

From my (very) limited experience & research, DC-X was indeed human error, but everything else worked. By now the technology is advanced to the point that DC-X as well as other programs could use a revisit. Check the TRL & SRL levels of the candidate technologies and existing systems that can bring more than one of those candidate programs to TRL-7 or 8 in the shortest timeframe.

Getting NASA out of the picture is unfortunately a good part of such an effort; its original goals now seem to be buried under so much management & political infighting that it's dangerously close to being Too Big To Fail.

Getting JHU deeper into the effort is definitely part of the solution. STARPA? It's been needed for quite a while.

A major killer (ref political infighting) is such an effort's susceptibility to goal deviation from the Beltway. I can't help but think that when the VSE was announced and Constellation began to take "shape", some at high levels within NASA were dumbfounded at the "logic" of boldly marching back to the Apollo drawing board era rather than concentrating on an STS replacement that advanced from lessons learned into a better reusable system.

It's really easy from the sidelines for anyone to say "Well, let's get started", but there's so much existing talent & intellect out there on how SSTO _could_ be started, let alone get done, that I feel the Augustine commission should add SSTO to their efforts if they haven't already. (And if they have, then my apologies.)

Comment on ITAR: This is indeed a big restriction to putting launch vehicle data out to the world. But, it is not a restriction to giving launch vehicle technology to US companies.

What I was talking about was the developing concept in NASA that it is competing with industry and it keeps it data hidden for proprietary reasons. For example, can you imagine NASA helping ULA man rate an EELV for commercial use at this time? I don't think so. There is defiantly a culture at NASA that it wants something in return for the release of its data to industry.

Danny Deger

Life cycle costs must be given high priority in the development of space access systems. Given that aerospace flight systems are long-lived (DC-3, B-52, Shuttle, Soyuz), we must assume that the next space access system after Shuttle will have a similar decades-long lifespan. It was therefore foolhardy to commit to a high-cost Ares I system after a 60 day study that couldn't properly evaluate life cycle costs of alternate technologies, and could not plan for technology developments that could save tens of billions of dollars over the long haul.

NASA has been successful in the past bringing technologies to commercial application, from airfoils to electric propulsion, and I agree with the comments that NASA's proper role in launch systems is technology development. I believe that NASA could afford both manned space flight and launch system technology development if the latter were funded through an enhanced SBIR/STTR program that would undertake component and sub-scale vehicle development.

The problem with this approach is of course that NASA views such technological innovation as a threat to its core vertical rocket programs.

There are many good comments here, and I've only had time to skim over them. I'll have to read them more thoroughly when I get the chance. I do believe that this is a critical area of research that NASA must lead. Leaving it to the private sector to perform this sort of work while NASA becomes an operator of proven technology systems is getting things backward, imo. So yes, I would like to see a revival of programs like SLI.

Compared to Ares family, or Shuttle, ANYTHING is a bargain. However, the idea that NASA or any other civilian goverment entity should be operating space launch vehicles is silly. Well, maybe not anymore, as govrenment is running Government Motors too now ...

Dear Frank,

the archive of my parents is accessible at the Deutsche Museum in Munich. Two years ago I published a book with contemporary reports at Stedinger Verlag, Lemwerder to line out my parents work and live. Unfortunately it is not yet translated to the English language. Furthermore we are just planning an exhibition about this work at Speyer next to a Buran and a BOR5 test vehicle. The exhibitors will also look for a shuttle, but I fear that there are not enough to satisfy all wishes.

Very best regards from Germany

Hartmut

@Frank

Thanks for your encouragemente on the engines (I was starting to feel lonely on the engine issue!). I definitively think this should be a NASA-sponsored design, like ESA did with Vulcain. This is the only realistic 'cost reduction' option I see.

Also, people need to understand that short of a major redefinition of our understanding in physics (fusion power plants, gravitic propulsion, etc.) any cost reduction is going to be limited to trying to shave a few percentage points here and there to reduce losses in the combustion of cryogenic propellants. We're definitively NOT going to see an 'order of magnitude' reduction in launch costs, like some people seem to think is feasible, by putting lots of money into R&D. The problem is not engineering, but plain physics. Also, other fancy concepts like slingshooting payloads from suborbital altitude via tethers, space elevators, or electromagnetic catapults are non-starters.

So, I'm hoping, with a new engine maybe we can see a single engine ELV (with 2 shorter SRB's) for smaller payloads / Orion, and maybe a heavy launcher with 2-3 engines and longer SRB's is still possible by 2018.

Please lets leave the right wing anti-government rhetoric out of this discussion. The issue isn't whether NASA could develop a SSTO - its whether they put in enough money to make it happen. Its almost always the case that big aerospace systems with major new technology cost $40 to $50 BILLION to develop (in current dollars); this is true for systems as disparate as Concorde and the Saturn V to the B-2 Stealth bomber. Yet, when NASA was pushing SLI, they were ponying up about $10B at most and for X-33 & NASP they sought to put in even less & arm wave that the private sector would come up with the rest.

Launch is a cost of doing business in space and public agencies are funded on an annual basis; long term life cycle costs mean nada - its all tied to this years' appropriation. Unless and until their is a national consensus that cheap access to space is a major national priority - accompanied by adequate major funding - then we are just wasting time even thinking about SSTO.

Forget SSTO's (TSTOs are actually currently operational Zenit or Atlas - for example 2 stages and you you are in orbit) and RLV's and stick wings up your arse together with X-33, DC-whatever and all that other crap that never flew orbital; until any of the above captures a slice of commercial orbital market I and others will be sceptical.

Best of luck.

As well as getting the cost of Earth to LEO down NASA needs to get the cost of LEO to elsewhere down. Currently the main elsewhere (GEO, lunar orbit, Mars orbit) costs are (a) developing the new vehicles and (b) lifting the Earth Departure and return fuel.

Long lifecycles means that the Mars Transfer Vehicle will have the same design as the Lunar Transfer Vehicle. We may be able to afford to stretch the fuel tank and add extra solar reflectors but that is about it.

> Sure, expendable rockets and capsules with parachuts [sic] look 'old', [...] but they are realiable [sic] and do the job well.

They are also expensive and exclusive to the government, and do nothing to foster commercial space flight development. Who can afford the US Navy to pick up their capsules?

COMMERCIAL development is the reason good things happen in america.

NASA needs to spend its money on technical expertise and development, paying for uncountable iterations of private sector x-craft and x-prizes. Just like with Apollo, NASA is at its best when trying to do the impossible.

General Motors meanwhile was at its best trying to capitalize on what was already done.

NASA only wins when the private sector doesn't play the game.

(PS: All the talk of making work to keep NASA staff busy is disgustingly socialist. Government does not exist to weaken the country by spending money on blue collar deadbeats.)

Perhaps it is true that the traditional capsule-and-parachute landing is the least expensive method of space flight, all things considered.

The blunt body is known to be the easiest shape for reentry into the atmosphere, and it has been used by all the space powers.

Regarding the parachute, even in ordinary flight, a ram-air parachute (for para-gliding) is the lightest, and least expensive "aircraft" there is. It costs about $1000, and fits in a backpack.

If the only role is to guide a payload safely to the ground, perhaps the same logic applies to returning space capsules.

Frank's note: Yes of course they work-but a capsule-and-booster system won't necessarily be any cheaper tha existing Shuttle launch systems-and won't lead to exploitable technologies that can reduce space transportation costs significantly enough to open space up to new uses and players. At $85m a launch (Delta II) not much will be done in LEO at that rate. Only Elon Musk-to my knowledge-is aiming at truly order of magnitude reductions in space access costs..and the jury is still out on whether he will succeed....

Please allow some comment. It was quite interesting for me to read a lot of opinions. Myself, I learned a little bit about this topic, when we had the possibility to run a hypersonic research program for ten years and good friends as for example Paul Waltrup or Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky told more about. What I learned what we can do today, is an airlaunch system with a big plane as a first stage and an orbiter with an additional tank as a second stage. The operating costs will drop. What we can do tomorrow is a airlaunch system with a hypersonic plane as a first stage and an orbiter as a second stage. What we can do the day after tomorrow. No one yet knows. P.S. Real large payloads are annother topic.

Some heavy hitters on this thread... good to read their views!



I am surprised that folks blew past Spaceboy's point: "It would be wonderful to revisit those and other abandoned efforts. Unfortunately NASA simply doesn't have the resources anymore. In fact I feel that the space agency is soon to be overwhelmed by a larger budget crisis in Washington, where the level of debt is completely unsustainable -- budgets will have to be slashed."



This is the reality that will come home to roost within 9 to 12 months. We are going to have only the option of picking manned spaceflight OR robotic/satellite missions. Aeronautics will be gone and NASA Centers will have to be closed.



IMHO JSC will go for the jugular and try to define the Agency as JSC... the brawl will be on. GSFC/JPL Vs JSC In the On Deck Circle: MSFC/Stennis on the Waiver list Dryden/Wallops/LaRC/GRC/Ames KSC might be merged into CCAFS.



Nearly $2 TRILLION deficit for FY09, Folks, "The Times They Are A Changin!" We all need to listen up, and prepare backup plans!

"Fund neither ... they're just a waste of money. Putting wings on a spacecraft, while looking cool, nearly triples the launch mass/unit payload compared to parachutes."

You lost a decimal place somewhere. Wings add about 20% to the weight of a design, not 200%.

The question is, what's the proper figure of merit? Why is weight more important than cost and reliability?

Even if you don't care about cost, what about safety? Contrary to the numbers Mike Griffin claims, capsules have a safety record that's even worse than the Shuttle. Not much worse, but slightly. Reusable vehicles, on the other hand, can be designed for much higher reliability.

From an ethical point of view, how do you justify spending tens of billions of tax dollars to build a system that will not only increase the cost of space transportation but kill at least 1% of the astronauts who ride it?

Granted, this approach will make NASA human spaceflight so rare that the 1% chance might never bite you. But just because you dodge a bullet a few times does not mean dodging bullets is a good idea.

"1) Priority #1: Complete Orion in it's current form. Fine, leave it at 4 seats for now. At least there's enough remaining volume for growth later on either to add more seats or some cargo for human repair missions."

Repair what??? There's nothing in space you could repair that's worth the cost of an Orion launch.

All of your "priorities" can be summed up in three words: "Keep Space Expensive." You're making the same mistake Von Braun did: believing the taxpayers should fund your program regardless of cost merely because it's what you won't. They won't do that forever.

"Sure, expendable rockets and capsules with parachuts look 'old', and a far cry from the futuristic 21'st century spaceplanes we all dreamed of, but they are realiable and do the job well."

Just calling something "reliable" does not make it reliable. A system that ends in catastrophic failure and death for >1% of all flights is NOT reliable.

If you want to understand what reliability means, go out to your local airport and count the number of planes that take off. If airplanes were as "reliable" as ELVs and space capsules, you would see planes crashing several times a day. Some of the crews would eject in time. Some of those who ejected would make it safely back to Earth, but a lot more would suffer significant injuries or death because escape systems are not as reliable as Mike Griffin thinks they are.

"P.S. Quick clarification on the issue of mass ratios and margins: Yes, the structural/payload ratio to fuel on a rocket is typically 10% but that's for rockets with stages. If you want to pursue a SSTO then it goes down to 4%, which is what failed on the X-33 once their composite cryogenic tank and the aerospike engine didn't work as expected."

No, you're misunderstand numbers you saw somewhere. A LOX/LH2 SSTO would have a mass fraction of about 10%. A LOX/hydrocarbon SSTO would have a mass fraction of around 4%, but that's because the fuel is heavier so the mass of the propellant goes up while the volume (hence, weight) of the propellant tanks goes down. So, even though it has a smaller mass fraction, the LOX/hydrocarbon vehicle is actually easier to build.

Re: "...We're definitively NOT going to see an 'order of magnitude' reduction in launch costs.... The problem is...plain physics...."

I don't agree. The main problem is achieving a large increase in first stage specific impulse. While I agree that tethers, space elevators, and electromagnetic catapults are not practical, high specific impulse air breathers are practical to Mach 3-5, and can lower launch costs a factor of 3-10 using known technological concepts.

Of course I would being them back! That Nasa wants to replace shuttle missions with conventional rockets is going backwards! NGLT was advancing technology. Now we're just sitting idle, about to go backwards.

"Frank's note: My answer is sadly the current political climate demands results in the form of a physical machine, not the intangible benefits of pure technology research...watching an engine static test doesn't attract politicians like a launch..."

Frank, how many "physical machines" has the current approach produced? How many Ares, Orions, Shuttle IIs, NASPs, X-33s, X-34s, X-38s, etc. are darkening the skies?

If believe what you say, then the Politically Correct thing to advocate would be putting a capsule on an existing rocket like Delta, Atlas, Ariane, etc. Or just buying Soyuzes.

As Burt Rutan said, "If all you want to do is go back to the Moon in a capsule, why not do it next Tuesday?" I have yet to hear anyone even attempt an answer to that question.

On the other hand, if you think existing rockets are not good enough, why not spend the money in a way that might lead to the development of something better, instead of something worse?

"Frank's note: I'm not criticizing anybody but merely trying to point out this program-the X-37B-isn't much of a USAF priority. Spaceplanes were eliminated as a research program within NASA in the rush towards SLI, and later the OSP and then of course Constellation. Remember Dan Goldin's prediction of "darkening the skies with X vehicles"? I guess they had a change of heart..."

Remember the X-15, DynaSoar, MOL, X-24, etc.? Every time the military tried to do its own independent manned space program, it got slapped down hard. Then it got roped into the Space Shuttle program with NASA, and when Shuttle failed to live up to expectations, NASA told them it wasn't there fault, manned spaceflight was just inherently expensive and hard. Much of the Air Force still believes that. Between that and the political problems, they've given up on manned space and gone to the UAV approach, which ironically turns out to be even harder.

Goldin boasted of darkening the skies with X-planes because he was embarrassed when DoD upstaged NASA with DC-X, not because he believed in (or even understood) X programs. Just as be announced Faster Better Cheaper when DoD upstaged him with Clementine.

For DoD to start making progress on military spaceplane, two things need to happen. One is adequate funding (which doesn't necessarily mean as much as Constellation but does mean a lot more than they're currently getting). The other is a clear mission policy (including an end to the unofficial unwritten policy against DoD doing manned space).

During the Bush space policy review was going on, was there every any consideration was given to making USAF the lead agency, instead of NASA? Or at least *a* lead agency? If not, why not? If so, why was that option rejected? Either way, you can't blame the military for a decision that was made by their political masters.

Frank's note II: To my knowledge it was never a consideration to make DoD lead for spaceflight. Yes, none f the approaches you mentioned yielded a new vehicle. What I am asking, though, is should NASA fund research specifically aimed at reducing the cost of space transportation-without necessarily being wedded to a specific vehicle type or vehicle architecture. New LOX/Kerosene engines, new cryo engines, new types of vehicle structures and improved performance goals in say ISP-research whose fruits can be utilized by entrepreneurs or the big companies-or DoD in EELV II, for that matter...

Yes Frank!

NASA needs a major shakeup and while they need to maintain some operational capability to utilize the ISS to it's fullest most of their efforts should be turned to research and development. As others have said, a NACA style model, a return to their roots if you will.

As for "And would any of you remove funding from existing NASA programs such as exploration to fund research in advanced launch technologies?"

This is exploration. This is the heart and soul of exploration. An X-plane developmental program for low cost access to LEO is absolutely necessary for any sustainable exploration effort. NOT to develop the next operational system, but rather to explore as many possible alternatives to LEO access as possible.

I would take all of the CxP budget and redirect it into such a program. The only money that should be spent in exploration outside of this program would be for ongoing exploration research on the ISS (life support systems, radiation mitigation, and low g mitigation) and robotic exploration of our immediate exploration goals. (Moon and/or NEO)

We will never develop an SSTO until there is a market to support it. If you want to continue to waste money on NASA SSTO efforts go right ahead.

What we need to be doing is incentivizing the development of space markets. ISS incentivized the space tourist market. Zero G Zero Tax will incentivize space industrialization.

We have been beating our heads against this SSTO brick wall for more than 20 years. It hurts just as much now as ever, and gets about as much accomplished.

Frank's note: Dennis, why can't we invest in advanced launch technologies aimed at reducing the cost of space transportation without being married to development programs for specific vehicles-or types of vehicles? None of this needs to be about SSTOs or TSTOs or even spaceplanes...but about new green engines say, or in-space propulsion systems, or truly advanced designs like the VASIMR...

If NASA could change the cost overrun culture which has plagued it for the past few decades then it would be seen as a much more credible agency; why should any government plough *more* cash into a black hole which demonstrably just sucks money down into a bottomless pit? NASA's woes are very much the result of NASA's previous bad performance. Yes, I realise that the US is now pumping money into several other black holes as well - but GM and banks at least used to turn a profit!

(sigh)

Bob Shaw

I've been running a pole on the same subject for a few days now on the Daily Kos: What space vehicle should NASA invest in to transport humans to and from low Earth orbit?

You can cast your votes on the subject and add your comments at:

http://www.dailykos.com/user/newpapyrus

The DC-X program was never seriously funded. And the irony of Al Gore choosing the Venturestar over the DC-X was that they argued that the DC-X wasn't technologically challenging enough for NASA and the aerospace industry????

Yeah, right!

What does "back in the day" mean anyway? It is a totally useless phrase.

Frank's note: In common usage today, it generally means in times past...as in "back in the day (when we were doing xxx").we built sailing ships blah blah...it's merely a phrase intended to suggest, in this case, the area of advanced launch research programs of the 1990s...

would be a big mistake to go back down this road why do we need wings ? this would close the door to the moon and back to going around in endless circils .
the orion command module is the correct way forward it keep's the door open for a return to the moon

Robert

Marcel, putting a poll on the Daily Kos on this subject is a waste of time. Might as well post it on TMZ as the readership is much more enlightened.

As for Al Gore, please spare us all…he's a politician for crying out loud. My grandma knows more about areospace tech than he does and she's been dead for 75 years or better. Pour out the Kool Aid, buddy!

Now Robert Law…you see that that the Orion capsule is the only thing that makes it back to Earth, save the recoverable SRBs and it most likely will land in water. Lots of stuff gets thrown away, tot to be reused and the Orion capsule is some bigger than the Apollo. How is this better?

At least with something with wings it could be made bigger and land on tarmac. Get it? Land on land. Be made bigger. Haul more stuff and people and that's good for missions and stuff and is an advance in design.

Orion is Apollo II. How is that better?

Maybe there's something I just don't get but if some one would explain how an Apollo rerun is better perhaps I would understand.

I think the last comment by Robert Law brings into sharp focus a very important point, which I think contradicts what he says.

Technologically speaking, wings on any Earth-to-LEO access solution DO NOT preclude exploration beyond LEO. A very important historical reality that's hiding amongst all the references here is that the shuttle was originally designed as only one segment of an entire solar system exploration architecture. Even today, conceptually (assuming unlimited $$$) it would be TECHNICALLY feasible to mount a return to the Moon (or a NEO asteroid sortie) by launching it in pieces on perhaps 3 or 4 shuttle missions. Rendezvous and in-space assembly are certainly technologies & operations that we have mastered.

While the reality of limited budgets prevents such an operation with current hardware, one shouldn't automatically couple Earth-to-LEO access TECHNICALLY with those transportation systems that will get you from LEO to further destinations. This, I think most will concur, is the heart of the issue with the current Constellation architecture when it is set against the much grander vista mapped out by the original VSE.

The two transportation legs (more than two, really) should be tackled separately because their technical hurdles are so vastly different (which I suppose is what prompted Frank's original solicitation). Just because Constellation chose to lump them together (for myriad reasons) shouldn't constrain any of our thinking here.

The greatest challenge, obviously, is to work out a means to pursue advancement in both transportation realms (since both need improvement) with the limited money available.

While there are a number of good comments here, most miss a fundamental point: launcher development is not a primary goal of space exploration; it is a secondary consequence of program requirements. Why was the F1-powered Saturn V developed? because a reliable, heavy-lift vehicle was required in order to get manned lunar landing hardware to the moon.

It is for precisely this reason that rail, shipping, and air transport technologies have changed little since WWII: evolutionary changes in materials and motive power have led to evolutionary changes, but no fundamental transportation technology changes have been required in order to shift from hauling quarter-inch reel-to-reel decks across the ocean to hauling iPods. We use diesel-electric trains whose technological roots go to the turn of the 19th century; we use container ships, which have in theirs in the Liberty and Victory ships of WWII; and all jet-powered transports have the drag-reducing swept-wing design developed by Betz., et al., in Germany in the 1930's.

Were there other technologies which could've been used? Sure, but there always are. The main thing we must responsibly do is keep the bureaucrats focused on results, not methods.

John Muratore's comments are right on the money, so let's not waste time energy and political capital worrying over the equivalent of a bigger and better truck and let's NOT waste any more time one engineering boondoggles like SSTO which are the equivalent of trying to put a flat-bed on the back of a Ferrari. I wish SSTO were practical, but sentiment doesn't affect physics & engineering, only politics.

What the country needs is cheep, reliable access to space and whether that takes the form of Robert Truax's Big dumb Booster designs or "Direct 2.0" or Ares V who cares!? There's no need to do a ground-up reinvention of booster technology until the Mugwumps in Washington start providing real money to the program; until then, let's spend our money on PAYLOADS and simply go with a truck that's good enough to haul them. Ekranoplans, anyone?

I just did some further fact-checking on myself; in the context of this debate, four words: Robert Truax "Sea Dragon":

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/searagon.htm

FYI: Apparently, the misspelling the the URL is correct.

Following up on my earlier point about capsule-and-parachute versus winged vehicles:

I understand that Blue Origin, which had been designing a DC-X type vehicle with powered descent, has changed the design to a parachute landing. Clearly they found powered descent to be technically difficult in some way. First flight is now scheduled for 2012.

The Chinese believe that the Space Shuttle program was a waste of resources. By looking at things from a financial perspective,they believe that focussing on technologies that worked, like expendables, capsules and parachutes, resulted in more resources for payloads. Since the flight rate will NEVER be very high (only a few per year), the traditional technologies are the way to go with limited resources.

Its emotionally jarring to come to the conclusion that the space program has been "barking up the wrong tree" for three decades. All of the futuristic designs are needlessly expensive and the space program was "right the first time" regarding the capsule-and-parachute design.

Robert Pickar

"We will never develop an SSTO until there is a market to support it. If you want to continue to waste money on NASA SSTO efforts go right ahead."

You miss the point, Dennis. If NASA agreed to buy commercial launches instead of spending tens of billion to develop Shuttle B/C/D/whatever, there would *be* a market.

Why should we waste money on *any* new NASA launch vehicle?

"What we need to be doing is incentivizing the development of space markets. ISS incentivized the space tourist market. Zero G Zero Tax will incentivize space industrialization."

Good idea. Unfortunately, for the past several years, space policy has been controlled by Moonies and Marsies who say anything in zero g is too boring to bother with. Are you guys finally ready to accept an incremental approach instead of a immediate Moon Rush?

"We have been beating our heads against this SSTO brick wall for more than 20 years. It hurts just as much now as ever, and gets about as much accomplished."

Longer than that, Dennis. Heinemann made a serious proposal to build an SSTO back in 1949, and you're always telling me how smart the Germans are. :-)

SSTO is irrelevant. Whether it's a good idea or not, Goldin so poisoned the water that no one's going to try it anytime soon. Fortunately, there are many other things that can be tried.

"What the country needs is cheep, reliable access to space and whether that takes the form of Robert Truax's Big dumb Booster designs or "Direct 2.0" or Ares V who cares!? "

The people who have to pay the bills. None of those are cheap or reliable.

A mature ("cheap") transportation system is one that operates at roughly three times fuel costs, not hundreds of times fuel cost.

Reliable vehicles return safely, with crew, cargo, and airframe intact, 99.999% of the time. Systems that that loses the crew and cargo on >1% of all flights (and the airframe on every flight) are not reliable by any reasonable definition of the word.

We need vehicles that are reliable and cheap, not just vehicles NASA chooses to *call* reliable and cheap.

One final anecdote regarding the success of old Apollo-era technology versus newer reusable launch vehicle technology:

NASA held a competition for the heat shield for the Orion spacecraft. The competitors were Avcoat 5026-39 (the Apollo material, and PICA (a 1990's material used on the Stardust spacecraft).

Apparently Avcoat won hands down! Rather than update the Apollo material, they went back to the original. Now they have to recover the lost manufacturing technologies used to make Avcoat 5026-39 in the 1960's!

Check this article: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/apr/HQ_09-080_Orion_Heat_Shield.html

Robert Pickar

Hello,

what I still miss are some fundamental thoughts about the Ares Concept. Each solid booster begins to oscillate when burning comes to an end. This is not only a problem for passengers but for every payload. Solid boosters will contaminate air with toxic gases. Is it a good time to start such developments? For the Ares central stage is too week, Orion has to land in the ocean. This is more expensive than every shuttles landing! Perhaps it is time to think about new launcher concepts – not only for research!

Here's some reading from The Space Review I'd recommend on the subject (space access policy):

The Vision for Space Exploration and the retirement of the Baby Boomers (3 parts) - Jeff Foust and Charles Miller

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1106/1

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1121/1

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1152/1

"... we made the case that the current plan to achieve the Vision for Space Exploration may well be unsustainable and unaffordable in the face of huge financial pressures created by the coming retirement of the baby boomers. ...

We know of one strategic direction—the pursuit of Cheap & Reliable Access to Space (CRATS)—that will allow us to effectively sell and continue executing the VSE, and to continue pursuing everything else, in an era of declining budgets.

CRATS makes our entire national space agenda, including the VSE, both politically supportable and economically sustainable. CRATS clearly and directly addresses all three of the fundamental objectives as repeatedly stated by presidential science advisor Dr. John Marburger—as it provides major benefits in “national security”, “economics”, and “science”.

CRATS is the key to incorporating the Solar System into our economic sphere."

They are already back.

NASA however will not be building or flying these as owners/pilots rather Science will be conducted by NASA.
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/advisory_committee/meeting_news/media/JDavis.ppt

http://www.spaceportamerica.com/

Cheers for the NASA, DOD and FAA!

WOW!! What a hornet's nest this question has kicked up. But what it shows is that there is a lot of interest and dedication out there.

One question is what kind of flight rate can we foresee? A couple of launches each year justifies only an expendable, while 50 flights just about dictates an economical reusable. During the Shuttle proposal days, I was all but run out of many a meeting when I asked the question: "If we have a two week turnaround, where are all those payloads coming from?" The acceptable story was that if we build it, they will come. Nothing's changed in that respect - we need a mission model that we can hang our hats on.

Also, don't forget that the Shuttle was/is a first of its kind and that it's done it's job very, very well. Expensive, yes, but that's partly the price one pays for doing something new and innovative. We've learned from that experience and now it's time to capitalize on that.

For SSTO to become real and to make sense, we need high energy-density propellants to minimize the structural mass fraction and do it without all kinds of airbreathing claptrap that has to operate in a truly rotten environment and yet be "easily" maintained.

FYI: X-34 never had a chance to fail - NASA never delivered the engines as promised, for whatever reason. X-33 (the Venturestar version) was doomed to failure as an SSTO because of all the structural penalties they paid with side-by-side-tank/aeroshell concept that they adopted.

"Since the flight rate will NEVER be very high (only a few per year), the traditional technologies are the way to go with limited resources."

You just hit the nail on the head, Robert. If you think human spaceflight should be limited to "only a few per year," then you have picked a technology that will ensure that.

On the other hand, some of us disagree with you. We think spaceflight is important and should be done at a non-trivial level.

Please explain why you think human spaceflight should be limited to "only a few [flights] per year."

If you think spaceflight is a bad thing, shouldn't we eliminate it entirely? On the other hand, if it's a good thing, shouldn't we do it often?

"Its emotionally jarring to come to the conclusion that the space program has been "barking up the wrong tree" for three decades. All of the futuristic designs are needlessly expensive and the space program was 'right the first time' regarding the capsule-and-parachute design."

It's not jarring, just highly misinformed. Reusable vehicles can be orders of magnitude cheaper than spam in a can.

If capsules "resulted in more resources for payloads," you wouldn't be talking about limiting payloads to "a few per year."

"The Chinese believe that the Space Shuttle program was a waste of resources."

First, no one here is defending the Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle is not a reusable vehicle. It's rebuildable, at best.

Second, not all Chinese living on this planet would agree with you. Not even all of those who work for the Communist Chinese government, which is probably what you meant. China is building capsules, yes, but they're also working on "Divine Dragon," a reusable military space plane.

Third, the Communist Chinese government is not infallible. Even if they agree with you, that does not prove you are right.

Mr. E. Wright... Your earlier statement of "...X-34 was a pet project of Mike Griffin, who was Chief Technology Officer of OSC at the time. He got over $100 million from NASA to build a reusable suborbital vehicle and failed."

That is COMPLETELY inaccurate.

Mike was not even involved in the X-34 program in the beginning (circa 1995) nor was he a significant influence in the Design or Production. Also, the vehicle may not have flown under its own power but technically, it was not a failure.

If OSC would have been allowed to use the originally intended engine (and not some underpowered MSFC engine) it would have flown and provided years of research. Instead, NASA couldn't fathom putting a non U.S. engine in one of their new Research Vehicles so what did they (MSFC) do??? Along comes the MSFC money-sucking machine to create the so-called FasTrac engine (on X-34's budget) which never had the performance necessary to reach stated objectives. The result? Now over-budget and without an engine it was no shocker to those of us Designing/Building it what would happen next.

OSC completed 2 airframes, one with all systems installed, and both are now rotting out at Edwards AFB. Such a shame to see years of labor, sweat, blood, tears be cancelled at the whim of an outgoing Government appointee.

I'm afraid history is repeating itself on ORION.

Fund NASA to do R&D of all sorts while running expeditions to interesting places. Leave the first mile (LEO access) to commercial providers, same with the vast majority of expedition hardware (space suits, habitats, engines). Provide technology to industry and academia and push to new horizons while building up the commercial human-access sector.

Ed: Some perspective about where I'm coming from. I've followed the reusable versus expendable discussion for 25 years or more. I designed an RLV based upon lighter than air technologies that passed technical review and I filed some initial patent work.

I want nothing more than high flight-rate, low cost space access.

But these RLVs rely on a market that will use many thousands of tons of repeated payloads sent to space. There is only one such market -- tourism.

But for orbital tourism to take hold, people have to get used to the price levels of sub-orbital tourism and work up from there.

Without the robust market to provide the flight rate and revenue stream for the orbital RLV, the whole thing will end up never getting funded, or being a spectacular boondoggle.

People with the resources to do this (Elon Musk especially, Jeff Bezos, Chinese government, Indian government) and have serious technical input have come back to capsule-and-parachute.

Robert

@Frank:

How about something like this: If we defined an ARCHITECTURE to settle the Solar System (or to do anything) that requires an SSTO then I am all for it. (Remember something like Shuttle and space station as a way point to the Solar System?).

As it stands today I do not believe there is such an architecture designed anywhere; I mean an entire system of systems.

So how about we get NASA a "new" directorate where people work at innovative approaches to settle the Solar System. Requirements and such. I am not saying a one shot to the Moon or Mars. I am saying the real McCoy. This directorate would be something like a *thinking* tank that would help research the necessary technologies, existing or to come. They would come up with a flexible system, say based on capsules ab initio and then show how we go forward. A modular system that can replace existing components with new ones when they come to be. I am not talking LVs alone but rather LVs and space stationS (with an "S") and facilities and so on. Some entity would compile the whole shebang to answer the VSE. See what I mean?

But SSTOs for the sake of it? To do what? At what cost?

"But these RLVs rely on a market that will use many thousands of tons of repeated payloads sent to space. There is only one such market -- tourism."

So do airliners. What's your point?

"Without the robust market to provide the flight rate and revenue stream for the orbital RLV, the whole thing will end up never getting funded, or being a spectacular boondoggle."

Again, what's your point? I never said there shouldn't be a robust market. Developing a robust market is the reason why we should *not* repeat the mistakes of the last 50 years.

"People with the resources to do this (Elon Musk especially, Jeff Bezos, Chinese government, Indian government) and have serious technical input have come back to capsule-and-parachute."

And those parachutes have worked out swell for Elon, haven't they? Has he successfully recovered a single stage?

Of course, that doesn't matter much to Elon because his goal is to send Bob Zubrin to Mars, not to reduce the cost of space transportation per se. He only needs minor cost reductions for that.

Do some reading and find out why the Air Force stopped developing escape capsules for its airplanes. Do you think there was no technical input behind that decision?

As for the Chinese government, why should I care what they think? I don't consider them infallible. I didn't believe they were right about Tienamin Square, and I don't think they're right about capsules, either. (And you continue to ignore the fact that the Chinese military is developing a reusable spaceplane.)

We shouldn't do something stupid just because another country is doing it. Remember the words of Captain Fluellen: "If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also be an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb?"

First let me say that the comments from Mr. Sanger are welcome as his father started all of this.
But: according to the "X-Planes Scrapbook" by Jenkins and Landis- the NASA was not foolish- when the programs ended, both the X-34 aircraft were put in the North Edwards AFB Hangar along with the Fast trac engine. And The X-33 remains were put into the finished X-33 launch complex also at Edwards.
While a lot of funding would have to go to re-starting these up. The majority of the development is done, so most new funding would go to completion and flight test. They aren't that old- so it isn't going to far backwards to complete these and flight test them.

Mr. Busby... The X-34's are there, yes but ask anyone who worked on or was involved with the program where the flight computers are and you will receive a deer in the headlights gaze. This is just speculation but the last I heard NASA signed them over to the air force and no one's seen them since.

Full Static Loads and systems tests would have to be completely re-done. With the exception of the fuel tanks, X-34 was a completely composite vehicle, an engineering masterpiece actually, and it would not surprise me if UV exposure has degraded the epoxy.

But these RLVs rely on a market that will use many thousands of tons of repeated payloads sent to space. There is only one such market -- tourism."

So do airliners. What's your point?

----> Ed: My points, in general, are ones with an eye to finance as well as technology. In order to receive financing for an RLV, you would have to convince the financiers that there would be a revenue stream that would make it worth their while, considering the risks.

Tourism is the only *theoretical* thing that there is. But you can't just snap your fingers and have a space tourism industry. It will take many years of successful suborbital flights, making it part of the culture, getting over accidents, lowering the price, etc.

Airliners also rely on tourism and human travellers, but those people need not have any interest at all in aviation. It's only about going place to place, visiting relatives, etc. So it's *their* interest, shared by nearly all people on earth. It is a necessity, not a luxury. Space tourism is very much a luxury. If there were many deaths in accidents, it could easily dry up the market.

"Without the robust market to provide the flight rate and revenue stream for the orbital RLV, the whole thing will end up never getting funded, or being a spectacular boondoggle."

Again, what's your point? I never said there shouldn't be a robust market. Developing a robust market is the reason why we should *not* repeat the mistakes of the last 50 years.

---> The point is that the financiers would want to see the market before they would fund the RLV, not fund the RLV and expect that the tourists would come afterward. That's not the way the world works.

"People with the resources to do this (Elon Musk especially, Jeff Bezos, Chinese government, Indian government) and have serious technical input have come back to capsule-and-parachute."

And those parachutes have worked out swell for Elon, haven't they? Has he successfully recovered a single stage?

----> Elon hasn't tried yet, but ask yourself this question, Ed. Elon is right now doing what many of us dream about. He has the funding, and he has the desire to build a space transportation system. He and his team have gone through all the potential choices, and they've put effort into design studies. They have decided to go ahead with rocket stages recoved by parachute in the water. After splashdown, it inflates a kind of raft so that it floats, and it's towed to shore. It sounds like a pretty good, simple idea to me.

Why would Elon go that route it he didn't believe that it was the best way to go? His team is all about designing for mininmum cost. He made his decision.

Why did Blue Origin decide to go with parachute descent for his DC-X type vehicle? It was because his engineering studies and experiments showed technical problems with powered landing that neither of us know right now.

Of course, that doesn't matter much to Elon because his goal is to send Bob Zubrin to Mars, not to reduce the cost of space transportation per se. He only needs minor cost reductions for that.

---> I don't understand this comment. Elon wants to reduce the cost of launch and works for minimum cost.

Do some reading and find out why the Air Force stopped developing escape capsules for its airplanes. Do you think there was no technical input behind that decision?

---> this isnt really related to the issue of cost for recovery from orbit.

As for the Chinese government, why should I care what they think? I don't consider them infallible. I didn't believe they were right about Tienamin Square, and I don't think they're right about capsules, either. (And you continue to ignore the fact that the Chinese military is developing a reusable spaceplane.)

----> the Chinese reusable spaceplane is not to lower costs. I guess they want to achieve some military capability in space, but it's unrelated to the issue of lowering cost.

We shouldn't do something stupid just because another country is doing it. Remember the words of Captain Fluellen: "If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also be an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb?"

----> We're more than capable of doing foolish things all by ourselves.

Robert

"Tourism is the only *theoretical* thing that there is. But you can't just snap your fingers and have a space tourism industry. It will take many years of successful suborbital flights, making it part of the culture, getting over accidents, lowering the price, etc."

And why is that worse than another 50 years of no progress, while NASA launches a few more capsules???

"Airliners also rely on tourism and human travellers, but those people need not have any interest at all in aviation. It's only about going place to place, visiting relatives, etc."

Read up on the history of aviation some time. Uncle Orville and Uncle Wilbur didn't start out flying Aunt Matilda to her nephew's. It took many years of development to reach that point. In the beginning, it was all sport aviation, then military aviation got started, then airmail...

Do you think the United States should have abandoned the development of airplanes and created a program to shoot government "aeronauts" out of cannons? The United States would no longer exist if we had done that. We need to develop the capability to use space for economic and military purposes, not just as a circus stunt.

"The point is that the financiers would want to see the market before they would fund the RLV, not fund the RLV and expect that the tourists would come afterward."

You're arguing in circles, Rob. If NASA agreed to buy commercial launches, there would be a market.

Do you think there were millions of airline passengers before the first airliner was built? That is *not* how the world works.

"Elon hasn't tried yet, but ask yourself this question, Ed. Elon is right now doing what many of us dream about."

Elon has tried four times now, and despite those "reliable" parachutes, he has yet to recover a single stage. Search and rescue operations at sea are never easy. If you don't believe that, ask anyone who's served in the Navy.

I'll admit, I've also dreamed of sending Bob Zubrin to Mars -- but probably for different reasons than Elon has. :-)

"He and his team have gone through all the potential choices, and they've put effort into design studies. They have decided to go ahead with rocket stages recoved by parachute in the water."

Um, Rob. Elon recently said that he wants to replace his current approach with flyback stages. Why would he say that if he believed crash-landing in the ocean was a better approach?

"Why would Elon go that route it he didn't believe that it was the best way to go? His team is all about designing for mininmum cost."

No, they're not. They're about getting to Mars in the shortest period of time. If you ever talked to Elon, you would know that.

And besides, the infallible Elon no longer agrees with you. :-)

Instead of using argument by authority, how about facts and figures? If you want to claim capsules are cheap and reliable, talk about costs and accident rates.

"[the Air Force experience with escape capsules] isnt really related to the issue of cost for recovery from orbit."

Really? You don't think killing pilots and destroying hardware costs money???

"the Chinese reusable spaceplane is not to lower costs. I guess they want to achieve some military capability in space, but it's unrelated to the issue of lowering cost."

Rob, does that statement actually make sense to you? No one can achieve a military capability in space if they can't *afford* a military capability in space. For the military, the cost of a sortie is critical. Whoever gets there "firstest with the mostest" has the upper hand.

IMHO, the whole debate lacks a decisive aspect.

I fully agree that space transportation is the most important and fundamental step to actually do ANYTHING in space. I also agree that it is a fascinating topic with countless impressive achievements by great engineers and researchers, some of them sharing their thoughts at this very forum.

I do NOT agree that a reduction of transportation costs by an order of magnitude will change anything.

Launch costs are not the major cost driver of spaceflight. For every space mission, manned or unmanned, transportation cost is a fraction of 10 to 30 %, depending on the delta-v requirements (the "distance" to be covered).

To give a few examples (in current $, numbers vary by source, but the order of magnitude is always the same):

- Apollo: Program cost 105 bn $, Saturn development and flight costs 15 bn $
- Skylab: Program cost 12 bn $, launch cost 1.1 bn $
- New Horizons: Program cost 700 m $, launch cost 205 m $
- Mars Phoenix: Program cost 400 m $, launch cost 65 m $
- MSL: Program cost 1.8 bn $, launch cost 200 m $
- LRO: Program cost 600 m $, launch cost 136 m $
- World View I: Program cost about 500 m $, launch cost 65 m $
- ...

The ratios at the commercial communication satellite market are similar, with launch costs less than a third of the total satellite mission costs.

Lower launch costs will not significantly reduce the mission costs, because (1) transportation costs are a small fraction of mission costs, and (2) development and manufacturing costs for space hardware and the costs of operations in space are independent of low launch costs!

Lower launch costs will not significantly reduce the mission costs, because (1) transportation costs are a small fraction of mission costs, and (2) development and manufacturing costs for space hardware and the costs of operations in space are independent of low launch costs!

Markus, you're making a fundamental mistake. Your figures include only *direct* launch costs.

Numerous studies performed over the last 40 years show that transportation costs are a major driver for all other costs. Because transportation costs are so high, we cannot assemble or maintain payloads in orbit, for example. Thus, extreme engineering efforts are needed to make the payload as light as possible (so they can be launched on a single rocket) and capable of operating for long periods of time without maintenance or spare parts.

If you look at equipment designed for the deep oceans (an environment as extreme in space, in every way other than transportation cost), it does not cost nearly as much as space hardware.

Skylab cost may have cost $12 billion, but that doesn't mean that every space station has to cost that much. Just look at Bob Bigelow's Sundancer and Genesis. Bigelow can't launch his low-cost space stations, however, until the cost of crew transportation comes down.

As another example, Dennis Wingo had some great ideas for assembling low-cost communication satellites in orbit. He could never try his ideas out, however, because he couldn't afford to get to ISS.

And why is that worse than another 50 years of no progress, while NASA launches a few more capsules???

--> I don't think you're understanding where I'm coming from. I *want* RLVs with high volume flight and low launch cost very much. I spent time doing design work on this.

But as of 2009, the markets and finance are not such that they support it. I think that the best hope is if Richard Branson and Burt Rutan succeed with Space Ship Two, and after a number of years of success and market development, then they could introduce orbital flight with Space Ship Three. This would be a reusable RLV, and it might, perhaps, be 10-25 years down the road. But many things have to happen for that day.

Read up on the history of aviation some time. Uncle Orville and Uncle Wilbur didn't start out flying Aunt Matilda to her nephew's. It took many years of development to reach that point. In the beginning, it was all sport aviation, then military aviation got started, then airmail...

--> The cost of building the Wright Flyer was manageable and sustainable by two bicycle mechanics. The cost of an RLV is not. The analogy doesnt work here.

If wealthy amateurs could experiment with an orbital RLV, then that would world. Unfortunately, it's not the case.

Do you think the United States should have abandoned the development of airplanes and created a program to shoot government "aeronauts" out of cannons? The United States would no longer exist if we had done that. We need to develop the capability to use space for economic and military purposes, not just as a circus stunt.

---> Again, let's try to get the right analogy, here. RLVs for low launch cost have technical/financial barriers. It's not enough that you can design a plausible RLV. The life cycle cost must make it worthwhile.

"The point is that the financiers would want to see the market before they would fund the RLV, not fund the RLV and expect that the tourists would come afterward."

You're arguing in circles, Rob. If NASA agreed to buy commercial launches, there would be a market.

---> There would be a small market, yes. Presumably that's what COTS is about, and it's also a hot political issue. I support the maximum transfer of resources possible to the private, lower cost space launch sector.

---->I'm really referring here to Wall Street-type, venture capital type funding here, not Government.

---->Zubrin had a concept where the government was the "investor of last resort" which made me laugh out loud.

Do you think there were millions of airline passengers before the first airliner was built? That is *not* how the world works.

----> Airplanes were scalable down to low cost, where middle class people could afford to design one. RLVs arent that way.

"Elon hasn't tried yet, but ask yourself this question, Ed. Elon is right now doing what many of us dream about."

Elon has tried four times now, and despite those "reliable" parachutes, he has yet to recover a single stage. Search and rescue operations at sea are never easy. If you don't believe that, ask anyone who's served in the Navy.

----> I didn't know if he had started with parachute recovery or not. I thought that he hadnt started yet.

I'll admit, I've also dreamed of sending Bob Zubrin to Mars -- but probably for different reasons than Elon has. :-)

----> I met him personally 10 years ago and we both managed to irritate each other ;-) He got me to meet with Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI) in Wisconsin, and Sensenbrenner irritated me and I irritated him. Everybody was irritated with irritated with everybody else. Maybe because everybody was irritated and irritating (except for me, of course.)

"He and his team have gone through all the potential choices, and they've put effort into design studies. They have decided to go ahead with rocket stages recoved by parachute in the water."

Um, Rob. Elon recently said that he wants to replace his current approach with flyback stages. Why would he say that if he believed crash-landing in the ocean was a better approach?

---> I didn't know this. This was new to me.

"Why would Elon go that route it he didn't believe that it was the best way to go? His team is all about designing for mininmum cost."

No, they're not. They're about getting to Mars in the shortest period of time. If you ever talked to Elon, you would know that.
----> They are about designing for minimum cost. I know that Elon talks about Mars and has larger visions that has motivated his engineering. But I dont think they should be taken seriously until the day comes when they are technically and financially feasible.

And besides, the infallible Elon no longer agrees with you. :-)

Instead of using argument by authority, how about facts and figures? If you want to claim capsules are cheap and reliable, talk about costs and accident rates.

----> Argument by authority is really all we, the two of us, can do by just reading media reports and using logic and common sense. We arent inside the technical meetings and we arent inside the financial meetings.

---->Regarding costs and accident rates, why do you believe that winged RLVs will have lower accident rates than traditional stacked rockets? Why should they be different? What is different is that the escape tower method of ejection has been proven, so that if the worst should happen, you can save lives, so than you can fly another day.

"[the Air Force experience with escape capsules] isnt really related to the issue of cost for recovery from orbit."

Really? You don't think killing pilots and destroying hardware costs money???

---> I'll restate: Air Force experience with escape capsules isnt related to recovered capsules from space. Space capsule recovery has a nearly 50 year history and has a (nearly) perfect record (Soyuz 1 and 11 excepted).

"the Chinese reusable spaceplane is not to lower costs. I guess they want to achieve some military capability in space, but it's unrelated to the issue of lowering cost."

Rob, does that statement actually make sense to you? No one can achieve a military capability in space if they can't *afford* a military capability in space. For the military, the cost of a sortie is critical. Whoever gets there "firstest with the mostest" has the upper hand.

---> The finance issue is not related to why the Chinese are making a military spaceplane. It for technological development purposes, and perceived military utility.

The US has noted that the Chinese are seeing space power in the same naive way that the US did in the 1980s. The US stopped visions of manned warfighting in space, and now sees it for information purposes (communications, spying, in other world, *data*). China still thinks about space as the "high ground" in traditional military terms.

"I *want* RLVs with high volume flight and low launch cost very much. I spent time doing design work on this.

But as of 2009, the markets and finance are not such that they support it."

Rob, your statement does not make sense. I don't know what RLVs you worked on, but there are orbital RLV concepts that could be developed for under a billion dollars (and suborbital concepts that can be developed for much less than that).

Ares and Orion will cost tens of billions. Shuttle-C and DIRECT are *slightly* cheaper, on paper, but NASA hasn't started development work on them yet. The designs will inevitably morph into something more expensive, just as Ares has.

How can the markets and finance be too small to support the development of a launcher that costs a billion dollars but large enough to support the development of one that costs tens of billions? Mathematically, that does not make sense.

"The cost of building the Wright Flyer was manageable and sustainable by two bicycle mechanics. The cost of an RLV is not. The analogy doesnt work here."

They weren't just bicycle mechanics. They were newspaper publishers also. The cost of a suborbital RLV is manageable by a videogame developer (existance proof: John Carmac), so a newspaper publisher could probably manage it also.

"They are about designing for minimum cost. I know that Elon talks about Mars and has larger visions that has motivated his engineering. But I dont think they should be taken seriously until the day comes when they are technically and financially feasible."

Whether they should be taken seriously or not is irrelevant. The point is that Elon takes it seriously. He has never made any secret of this.

"----> Argument by authority is really all we, the two of us, can do by just reading media reports and using logic and common sense. We arent inside the technical meetings and we arent inside the financial meetings."

What makes you think I don't attend technical or financial meetings?

"Regarding costs and accident rates, why do you believe that winged RLVs will have lower accident rates than traditional stacked rockets?"

Because they always have. General Dynamics and USAF studies showed that in the 1960's.

Costs always decrease and reliability improves as flight rate increases. It's a function of the "learning curve."

"What is different is that the escape tower method of ejection has been proven, so that if the worst should happen, you can save lives, so than you can fly another day."

That's what the missile mafia says. They believe that because they don't have a lot of operational experience. Talk to people in aviation who live with ejection systems everyday, and you will hear a different story. They don't believe ejection systems are a magic bullet that eliminates any need to design for safety. Pilots call ejection "attempted suicide to avoid certain death." A large percentage of "successful" ejections result in serious, often career-ending injuries. Less successful ejections often result in death. And that's with ejection seats, which have a much better record than capsules.

"I'll restate: Air Force experience with escape capsules isnt related to recovered capsules from space. Space capsule recovery has a nearly 50 year history and has a (nearly) perfect record (Soyuz 1 and 11 excepted)."

You mean, "excepting all the data doesn't support by conclusion"?

Even then, you're incorrect. Apollo 1 killed its crew before it ever left the ground. Apollo 12 landed so hard that equipment came lose and struck an astronaut in the head. Soyuz capsules frequently land on their sides. One Soyuz capsule nearly got dragged off the edge of a cliff; it was only saved because the parachute got caught up in some trees.

Capsules and expendable rockets have killed more than 1% of their "occupants." That's not "nearly perfect." That's an accident rate that makes professional bullriding look very safe by comparison.

To put it another way, the death rate for the first 400 people to travel into space is about the same as the rate for the first 400 people to fly in airplanes. That won't improve until we can move down the learning curve, and that won't happen as long as spaceflight remains an expensive, rare event.

As for excluding Air Force data, if a capsule can't reliably return a human from 60,000 feet, what makes you think it can reliably do it from 600,000 feet?

"The US has noted that the Chinese are seeing space power in the same naive way that the US did in the 1980s. The US stopped visions of manned warfighting in space, and now sees it for information purposes (communications, spying, in other world, *data*). China still thinks about space as the "high ground" in traditional military terms."

That's exactly why they're interested in reusable vehicles, and why they're so dangerous.

I can assure you, there are still many warfighters in the US military who still think in what you call "naive" traditional military terms. (Thank God for that!)

The communication and spy sat programs you mention have gone badly over budget, and they get very little respect in the warfighter community. One general said to me, "When has Space Command ever killed anyone who wasn't on our side?"

When the Chinese start deploying spaceplanes that can sink a US aircraft carrier anywhere in the world, I want the US to be able to do more than take pictures of it!

Rob, your statement does not make sense. I don't know what RLVs you worked on, but there are orbital RLV concepts that could be developed for under a billion dollars (and suborbital concepts that can be developed for much less than that).

Ares and Orion will cost tens of billions. Shuttle-C and DIRECT are *slightly* cheaper, on paper, but NASA hasn't started development work on them yet. The designs will inevitably morph into something more expensive, just as Ares has.

How can the markets and finance be too small to support the development of a launcher that costs a billion dollars but large enough to support the development of one that costs tens of billions? Mathematically, that does not make sense.

---> Ed: First, developing winged orbital RLVs for under a billion dollars is not, I think, realistic. Unrealistically low figures are frequently given out and debunked.

----> You are referring to government funding (NASA and Air Force) and I'm referring to funding from a private individual or Wall Street. Also, as I've said before, government decides what it wants to do. There is a place in the Federal Budget for space vehicle development for national priorities and these are the programs that we know and dislike (Space Shuttle, etc) They lie outside the realm of ordinary economics. They are for national security, maintenance of the space infrastructure, pork to Congressional districts, etc.

"The cost of building the Wright Flyer was manageable and sustainable by two bicycle mechanics. The cost of an RLV is not. The analogy doesnt work here."

They weren't just bicycle mechanics. They were newspaper publishers also. The cost of a suborbital RLV is manageable by a videogame developer (existance proof: John Carmac), so a newspaper publisher could probably manage it also.

---> I agree that a winged orbital RLV could grow out of the existing sub-orbital work, but it's years down the road.

"Regarding costs and accident rates, why do you believe that winged RLVs will have lower accident rates than traditional stacked rockets?"

Because they always have. General Dynamics and USAF studies showed that in the 1960's.

----> I have never heard of this. With the stresses and dynamics of launch and landing, why should anything be magically different with an RLV? If an engine blows up, if launch orientation is lost, if one stage strikes another, the vehicle is lost. Why should winged RLVs be different? Again, the escape tower allows escape in bad circumstances, better than a winged RLV with nothing at all.

Costs always decrease and reliability improves as flight rate increases. It's a function of the "learning curve."

----> Seriously Ed: Without orbital tourism, just what is the winged RLV going to launch, time after time? Communications satellites? Materials processing of materials that arent worth the cost of launch, and can be made on Earth anyway? Solar power satellites that sell power than isnt worth the cost of launch? The economics of space is a conundrum. Markets come first, and that's why I cant see winged RLVs until after a suborbital and orbital tourism market is developed.

"What is different is that the escape tower method of ejection has been proven, so that if the worst should happen, you can save lives, so than you can fly another day."

That's what the missile mafia says. They believe that because they don't have a lot of operational experience. Talk to people in aviation who live with ejection systems everyday, and you will hear a different story. They don't believe ejection systems are a magic bullet that eliminates any need to design for safety. Pilots call ejection "attempted suicide to avoid certain death." A large percentage of "successful" ejections result in serious, often career-ending injuries. Less successful ejections often result in death. And that's with ejection seats, which have a much better record than capsules.

----> Like there's a choice? What are you proposing for a RLV abort when the vehicle flies out over the water?

"I'll restate: Air Force experience with escape capsules isnt related to recovered capsules from space. Space capsule recovery has a nearly 50 year history and has a (nearly) perfect record (Soyuz 1 and 11 excepted)."

You mean, "excepting all the data doesn't support by conclusion"?

Even then, you're incorrect. Apollo 1 killed its crew before it ever left the ground. Apollo 12 landed so hard that equipment came lose and struck an astronaut in the head. Soyuz capsules frequently land on their sides. One Soyuz capsule nearly got dragged off the edge of a cliff; it was only saved because the parachute got caught up in some trees.

Capsules and expendable rockets have killed more than 1% of their "occupants." That's not "nearly perfect." That's an accident rate that makes professional bullriding look very safe by comparison.

To put it another way, the death rate for the first 400 people to travel into space is about the same as the rate for the first 400 people to fly in airplanes. That won't improve until we can move down the learning curve, and that won't happen as long as spaceflight remains an expensive, rare event.

As for excluding Air Force data, if a capsule can't reliably return a human from 60,000 feet, what makes you think it can reliably do it from 600,000 feet?

----> Like there's a choice? What is the winged RLV bringing to the table that changes the picture about safety?

"The US has noted that the Chinese are seeing space power in the same naive way that the US did in the 1980s. The US stopped visions of manned warfighting in space, and now sees it for information purposes (communications, spying, in other words, *data*). China still thinks about space as the "high ground" in traditional military terms."

That's exactly why they're interested in reusable vehicles, and why they're so dangerous.

---> Maybe the US got wise to the fact that a lot of these analogies are ridiculous. If you want to destroy a satellite, use an anti-satellite weapon. There's no need for a manned spaceplane for it. Besides, the US comes out worse if there are attacks on satellites in space.

I can assure you, there are still many warfighters in the US military who still think in what you call "naive" traditional military terms. (Thank God for that!)

The communication and spy sat programs you mention have gone badly over budget, and they get very little respect in the warfighter community. One general said to me, "When has Space Command ever killed anyone who wasn't on our side?"

----> How about providing real-time intelligence? The general's comment is hard to understand.

When the Chinese start deploying spaceplanes that can sink a US aircraft carrier anywhere in the world, I want the US to be able to do more than take pictures of it!

----> Spaceplanes dont add anything to the picture here, regarding sinking US aircraft carriers. Unmanned ballistic missiles and cruise missiles are more relevant here. Here is an excellent article on that. http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/

> First, developing winged orbital RLVs for under a billion dollars is not, I think, realistic."

So? Please show your calculations.

And where did I say an RLV had to be "winged"?

> I agree that a winged orbital RLV could grow out of the existing sub-orbital work, but it's years down the road."

Again, what's your point? Ares and Orion are also years down the road. Decades, in fact, if you're talking about lunar missions.

>> Because they always have. General Dynamics and USAF studies showed that in the 1960's.

> I have never heard of this. With the stresses and dynamics of launch and landing, why should anything be magically different with an RLV?

Nothing is "magically different." Reusable vehicles are more reliable than unmanned missiles in the subsonic regime, in the supersonic regime, and GD found the same is true in the hypersonic regime. You're the one who's postulating that they are magically different, Rob.

> If an engine blows up, if launch orientation is lost, if one stage strikes another, the vehicle is lost. Why should winged RLVs be different?

Because if the vehicle design is as shoddy as you suggest, the vehicle won't be reusable. By definition.

Reusable vehicles need to be designed like aircraft, not missiles, with enough margin and redundancy to survive most mishaps. Those happen all the time in aviation. When SpaceShip One lost orientation, Mike Melvill didn't eject. He brought it back under control. The idea that you can avoid thinking about safety and just eject the crew at the first sign of trouble has got to go.

> Without orbital tourism, just what is the winged RLV going to launch, time after time?

Why are you asking me silly questions? I never said anything should be done "without orbital tourism."

You might as well ask, what is Southwest Airlines going to launch without passengers? I'm not going to waste my time thinking about goofy things.

> The economics of space is a conundrum. Markets come first

Rob, you're proposing that NASA spend tens (if not hundreds) of billions of dollars on space transportation. Spending that kind of money will *create* a market.

Now, I'm waiting for you to explain why it's better to spend all that money on something increases the cost of space transportation rather than spending it in a way that reduces the cost of space transportation.

> Like there's a choice? What are you proposing for a RLV abort when the vehicle flies out over the water?

Of course there's a choice, Rob. Do you think no one has ever designed a vehicle that flies over water? American Airlines doesn't tell their pilots to eject at the first sign of trouble. They don't even have ejection seats. Ask a naval aviator what he does when he has a mechanical failure at night in bad weather over water. The answer is almost never "eject" -- and landing back on a carrier deck is more challenging than anything an RLV is likely to do.

> Maybe the US got wise to the fact that a lot of these analogies are ridiculous. If you want to destroy a satellite, use an anti-satellite weapon. There's no need for a manned spaceplane for it. Besides, the US comes out worse if there are attacks on satellites in space.

That's exactly why we prepare for war, Rob: to prevent wars. Weakness will not stop enemies from attacking us in space or anywhere else.

Expensive anti-satellite weapons will be useless if the Chinese develop the ability to quickly and cheaply replace their satellites.

Furthermore, political considerations are unlikely to allow the use of antisatellite weapons in most scenarios. Destroying a satellite is like hitting an ant with a sledgehammer. Manned spacecraft would give the military many options that don't risk escalation to total war the way using an ASAT would. Being able to park a jammer near a satellite, shield its solar panels, paint over lens cap, etc. are useful military capabilities.

> How about providing real-time intelligence? The general's comment is hard to understand.

You saw "Patriot Games," right? Unfortunately, real-time satellite intelligence only exists in Hollywood. Current spysats do not have that capability. Developing such capabilities is a major goal of the Responsive Space program.

> Spaceplanes dont add anything to the picture here, regarding sinking US aircraft carriers. Unmanned ballistic missiles and cruise missiles are more relevant here. Here is an excellent article on that.

You need to read better informed articles. Cruise missiles are an old threat, and the Navy has a lot of time and money developing defenses against them.

> First, developing winged orbital RLVs for under a billion dollars is not, I think, realistic."

So? Please show your calculations.

---> Space Ship Two will cost the better part of $500 million to develop for passengers for suborbital flight. Even the Eclipse Jet was nearly $500 million as well. The cost estimates of space enthusiasts are rife with BS. An orbital RLV will be well over a Billion dollars.

And where did I say an RLV had to be "winged"?

---> I thought that was the real point of discussion, here.
Winged versus capsule-and-parachute.

> I agree that a winged orbital RLV could grow out of the existing sub-orbital work, but it's years down the road."

Again, what's your point? Ares and Orion are also years down the road. Decades, in fact, if you're talking about lunar missions.

The original point of discussion from Frank Sietzen was whether the winged RLVs of the 1990s and 2000s should be revived. I think that maybe not, for now. The private space people might pick up the slack after a convincing, robust, space tourism industry is established. If, at that time, the government wants to contribute with technology development then that might be possible.

>> Because they always have. General Dynamics and USAF studies showed that in the 1960's.

> I have never heard of this. With the stresses and dynamics of launch and landing, why should anything be magically different with an RLV?

Nothing is "magically different." Reusable vehicles are more reliable than unmanned missiles in the subsonic regime, in the supersonic regime, and GD found the same is true in the hypersonic regime. You're the one who's postulating that they are magically different, Rob.

---> What I'm really getting at here is that there is a big difference between the reliability projected by engineering studies, and reality. I remember Elon Musk speaking at Caltech about his engineering studies for the Falcon rocket, showing 99%+ reliability, and we know what happened. Same of course with the Shuttle. The real point here is that orbital rockets, with much higher energy levels and tighter structural requirements, operate at the hairy edge and run the risk of destruction every time. It's very different than a commercial jet, for example.

> If an engine blows up, if launch orientation is lost, if one stage strikes another, the vehicle is lost. Why should winged RLVs be different?

Because if the vehicle design is as shoddy as you suggest, the vehicle won't be reusable. By definition.

Reusable vehicles need to be designed like aircraft, not missiles, with enough margin and redundancy to survive most mishaps. Those happen all the time in aviation. When SpaceShip One lost orientation, Mike Melvill didn't eject. He brought it back under control. The idea that you can avoid thinking about safety and just eject the crew at the first sign of trouble has got to go.

---> The comment about Mike Melvill is a good one. Fortunately the roll problem was small and fixable. Of course, he might have caused it himself by stepping on the rudder peddle!

---> Coming back to what I said earlier, orbital rockets suffer great stress on the way to orbit and margins of error are far smaller than for regular aircraft, even if it looks like an aircraft.

> Without orbital tourism, just what is the winged RLV going to launch, time after time?

Why are you asking me silly questions? I never said anything should be done "without orbital tourism."

You might as well ask, what is Southwest Airlines going to launch without passengers? I'm not going to waste my time thinking about goofy things.

---> Ed: The goofy things that I have asked you are precisely, and I mean precisely the point of this discussion.

--->I began as an engineer with an interest in space, and was frustrated by all the things that *didn't* happen. This is an old story. It was by studying markets and money that I better understood why things are the way they are. I ultimately went into technical marketing and now I'm an investor and work with finance. I still follow space as a guilty pleasure ;-).

> The economics of space is a conundrum. Markets come first

Rob, you're proposing that NASA spend tens (if not hundreds) of billions of dollars on space transportation. Spending that kind of money will *create* a market.

Now, I'm waiting for you to explain why it's better to spend all that money on something increases the cost of space transportation rather than spending it in a way that reduces the cost of space transportation.

---> I'm not proposing that NASA spend tens or hundreds of billions. They simply wont do it. That ship truly has sailed. Rather, it's about private industry funding the reusable RLV for tourism, and when and if that might happen. As far as "creating a market" goes for orbital tourism by creating the orbital RLV, that really isnt the way that modern aerospace markets have developed, those of the past 40 years or so. Boeing and Airbus are very careful and disciplined about letting the market dictate the engineering, and not the reverse. Boeing proposed the Sonic Cruiser, then stomped on it after it became apparent that it's not what the customers wanted. Concorde is a good example of a cool, futuristic technology that had an anemic market and was ended. It's only after space tourism shows itself, proves itself, even coming back after an accident, or a rash of accidents, that financiers will fund orbital tourism.

That why the question I asked you, about the orbital tourism market being developed, is not a goofy question. It's the central question. Southwest Airlines is not the same because all they do is serve something that people want anyway -- transportation. If it wasnt Southwest, it would be the train, car, horse, or on foot. Orbital tourism might prove to be popular, or unpopular. We just don't know. And wealthy people wont fork over funds for something that they dont know. Without funds, there is no orbital RLV. QED.

> Even the Eclipse Jet was nearly $500 million as well.

The Eclipse Jet cost nearly $500 million to *certificate*. Type certification is typically several times development costs. That's one of the reasons why there is no type certification for spacecraft.

If you don't understand the difference, that explains your statements about development cost.

>> And where did I say an RLV had to be "winged"?

> I thought that was the real point of discussion, here.
Winged versus capsule-and-parachute.

No, the point of discussion is *reusable* versus capsules and parachutes (and expendable missiles). Reusable vehicles may or may not be winged.

>> Again, what's your point? Ares and Orion are also years down the road. Decades, in fact, if you're talking about lunar missions.

> The original point of discussion from Frank Sietzen was whether the winged RLVs of the 1990s
> and 2000s should be revived. I think that maybe not, for now.

I know you think that. You just haven't done a very good job of defending it. :-)

You say that reusable vehicles are "years down the road." So instead, we should squander a hundred billion dollars on Ares and Orion, which are at least as far down the road? How does that make any sense? How much do you think those "capsules and parachutes" cost?

> The private space people might pick up the slack after a convincing, robust, space tourism industry is established.

You can't "establish a convincing, robust tourism industry" without affordable transportation.

> What I'm really getting at here is that there is a big difference between the reliability
> projected by engineering studies, and reality. I remember Elon Musk speaking at Caltech about
> his engineering studies for the Falcon rocket, showing 99%+ reliability, and we know what happened.

Yes, we do. Elon picked a lousy design for reliability. He is not infallible. So what? Samuel Langley tried to build an airplane, and we know what happened. Do you think that means no one else should ever try to build an airplane?

> Same of course with the Shuttle. The real point here is that orbital rockets, with much higher
> energy levels and tighter structural requirements, operate at the hairy edge and run the
> risk of destruction every time. It's very different than a commercial jet, for example.

First of all, the energy required to put a payload into orbit is about the same as that required to fly the same payload atmospherically from the US to Australia.

Second, the "risk of destruction" is not a function of "energy levels." It's a function of margin, redundancy, and good design.

> Coming back to what I said earlier, orbital rockets suffer great stress on the way
> to orbit and margins of error are far smaller than for regular aircraft, even if it
> looks like an aircraft.

I'm sorry, Rob, but that statement is simply not true. Aerobatic and combat aircraft see stresses far exceeding those a rocket encounters on its way to orbit. Yet, they are far more reliable.

Aerobatic and combat aircraft are stressed for forces far higher than those any RLV will see on launch or reentry. They are also orders of magnitude more reliable.

> I began as an engineer with an interest in space, and was frustrated by all the things that
> *didn't* happen. This is an old story. It was by studying markets and money that I better
> understood why things are the way they are. I ultimately went into technical marketing and
> now I'm an investor and work with finance.

I suggest you read some of the books and articles by the late G. Harry Stine. He followed a very similar career path, and he spent much of his later life refuting many of the arguments you are making.

> I'm not proposing that NASA spend tens or hundreds of billions. They simply wont do it.

They are doing it, Rob. Right now.

> That ship truly has sailed. Rather, it's about private industry funding the reusable RLV
> for tourism, and when and if that might happen.

Huh??? That's what you've been arguing against. For example: "All of the futuristic designs are needlessly expensive and the space program was 'right the first time' regarding the capsule-and-parachute design."

> As far as "creating a market" goes for orbital tourism by creating the orbital RLV, that
> really isnt the way that modern aerospace markets have developed, those of the past 40
> years or so. Boeing and Airbus are very careful and disciplined about letting the
> market dictate the engineering, and not the reverse.

Laugh. Airbus just spent a fortune on an airplane that's too big for any market, out of pure ego. Boeing is struggling right now to develop a new subsonic airliner, something they've been doing for nearly a century. Those are not standards to aspire to.

> It's only after space tourism shows itself, proves itself, even coming back after
> an accident, or a rash of accidents, that financiers will fund orbital tourism.

That is a good argument for building suborbital RLVs, Rob. It is not an argument for the "capsule-and-parachute design" you've been advocating.

Great comments here

I agree with Wirehead and Robin Seibel... we need to further develop and prove some of these amazing technologies to remove the entry barrier for their use on prime time applications! This is a NASA objective, please fund it.

Start doing more Aerospike R&D. I don't care what we'll put it on in the future! It rocks, get it done and make it a proven technology. There is no doubt it would be used.

Continue the natural progression of X-43 scramjet research. That little air-breathing thing flew at Mach 10 or something ridiculous! Make them bigger, make them fly longer, make them more durable. Also develop combo jet/ramjet/scramjet in one engine or vehicle tech to cover the velocity range better. Again, prove the tech.

If the Delta Clipper, DC-X showed any promise for any applications, orbital or suborbital, then get that going again in some capacity. As john muratore noted, SSTO probably isn't happening anytime soon due to the current realities of rocket mass requirements. However there are other reasons it is useful. It's probably worth pursuing just for the VTVL tech development as well. Having the ability of making a rocket craft that can take off and land where you want autonomously and reliably is pretty awesome. Perhaps there is an application where we can send up a fleet of small Clippers in a larger heavy lift vehicle and release them into the wild in orbit where they can fly around performing various tasks (think Mitex or space junk removal) and when they get to a certain point in fuel, deorbit and fly back home to a safe landing to be refitted and fueled for their next assignment. Another thing you could do is attach some cheap boosters to it and then you don't have SSTO but you have a nice little craft that can fly often and affordably.

Continue VASIMR research with Chang-Diaz and his Ad Astra company.

Now for the vital issue, money... I have the same attitude toward these projects as I do towards what the Department of Energy National Labs work on. It's extremely valuable research. I think these are more valuable than returning to the moon. Do the National Labs need wide public support to get funding? Most people don't even know about them much less what they do. So why can't NASA centers work on some projects in the same nurturing atmosphere? If that's just not possible then I guess going to the moon might get some more support and funding for other newer ideas.

I've enjoyed following this discussion over the past week and have two cents to add.

First, volumetric efficiency is one of the most important parameters driving RLV design, it is the square footage of structure and heatshield required to enclose payload volume (see Will Hankey's papers). Because wings significantly increase the square footage of structure and heatshield without increasing the amount of payload volume they are a very inefficient recovery system in comparison to deployable parachutes.

Second cent, it's important to recognize that SSTO capability is possible with existing technology and does not require significant technology development, at this point in time it's a system integration problem. NASA's Access to Space Studies considered an SSTO built from the existing Space Shuttle hardware, 3 Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) attached to the base of an external tank (SLWT). This hardware is currently manufactured so the performance capability has been well characterized and the costs are known. The SSTO challenge is not technical, it's economic and political.