Building a True Spaceship - And Then Going Somewhere

"Next is why we should extend the life of the Shuttle program for a small number of additional flights."

Buzz is clearly NOT for the Obama plan in full then.

Yup, it's looking like the "Obama plan" combined with some sort of limited Space Shuttle extension will be the best way forwards on a number of levels.

Unless Shuttle gets a new extension, which is likely only financially responsible if something like a Shuttle based Jupiter or Shuttle C goes into development, then I suspect its too late.

The elements of this kind of a vehicle do exist and could be assembled into the kind of vehicle Buzz suggests. There is a cupola structural test article, there is a US Hab Module shell, essentially identical to the US Lab but never outfitted, and there will be a couple of MPLMs. Owing to their innovative modular architecture, they could easily be outfitted with racks of hardware that do whatever would be required. There is also the ICM that provides some independent control and chemical propulsion.

> We need a destination and a timetable

That is the "flags and footprints" paradigm, which will result in it being cancelled as soon as (or before) the destination is reached.

I think was we really need is a reason to have humans in space.

A destination and timetable promote short sighted efforts to achieve the tactical mission but not advance the strategic mission. If the the goal is "human settlement of the solar system", be up front and call it that. Then ask questions like, "What are some of the first steps I need to do to achieve that in the most optimal way?"

Something as grand a "settlement of the solar system" requires lots of steps. If you choose to solve your step 1 in the fashion that is as fast as possible, you may (will?) end up with a solution the consumes all the resources and prevents you from doing steps 2, 3, and so on.

> Buzz: Makes no sense to me when there are enough parts to fly the Shuttles for other two, three or four flights, say. By stretching out the remaining handful of flights, we can close the infamous space flight "gap"

Maintaining the huge workforce to maintain an on-going shuttle operation consumes resources needed for any replacement (Constellation, commercial, whatever). Each year you keep the shuttle program running pushes back the time any future solution can come online.

> Buzz: Exploration Module, or XM.

I've always liked the idea of a ship optimized for just space -- imagine a ship that just moves between Lunar and Earth orbits, then there would be ferries between Lunar orbit and Lunar surface just as is being done at Earth. With fuel depots proposed in the Obama budget, this makes even more sense.

Griffin didn't like the idea of a ship needing to re-enter Earth's orbit to transfer crew to a vehicle optimized for atmospheric entry.

Except that the "Obama plan" isn't what canceled the Shuttle program. Just a friendly reminder.

The notion of a "true spacecraft" - one that stays in space, never launching off a planet on its own power, is an attractive one. I still hope that the Shuttle program is extended, and I'm still glad that Ares/Orion were canceled (I work on Constellation, btw). I'm starting to give up hope that the Shuttle fleet will be refitted and enhanced, but who knows, even that might happen.

I still say that all of the technology we need to have crew orbit the moon (or Mars) already exists and could be flown within 2-4 years: Shuttle to get things and crew off the planet, ISS-derived modules (taken to orbit by the Shuttle) with different propulsion to get from one planetary body to the next. All the hardware that's left to design is a lander (a "shuttlecraft" if you will) to get us from our spacecraft to the planetary body in question. Is it really that simple? No, of course not. But given all of the problems there are to solve in interplanetary travel, why take problems that are solved and turn them into new problems?

I don't know why people insist on throwing away every bit of spacecraft knowledge and infrastructure that we have NOW (Shuttle and Station) in favor of something that's (overall) a functional step back (Constellation) - and then griping about how if they only had billions more dollars they could pull off an upsized version of something we did 40 years ago. Why not save the billions of dollars and do at least as much using what we've already got? We've learned plenty from Constellation, and we can apply a lot of it to the new mission (whatever it turns out to be) without hobbling ourselves with a capsule.

> the Obama plan

Where were you when Columbia was destroyed? When the CAIB report said foam shedding had to be stopped for shuttle to fly, and Griffin said it couldn't be stopped? When the CAIB report said NASA culture had to be fixed for shuttle to fly, and the BST report said it wasn't fixed? When the CAIB report said that if these things weren't fixed, there would be another accident? Where were you when the house and senate both voted to end the shuttle as soon as possible? Obama plan? Obama who?

> Stern said, "you need a specific destination"

I think it is pretty clear that the destination is Mars, but only when there is affordable technology to go there humanely. Thus the new plan for NASA.

PS: The failures of government are many and they stare you in the face every day as the uneducated kids from broken schools, the taxes for broken programs, and the 4 years of Constellation that never actually finished anything. Stop looking to government to solve your problems and fulfill your dreams.

The best you can get is quick plans that government can finish before they fail. Again, thus the new NASA plan.

It's easy to sit in front of a computer and make one after another political potshot; however ankle biting is not what NASA needs. NASA needs to demonstrate adaptability, flexibility, and a willingness to examine all sorts of ideas. Staying locked in one mode of thinking and doing things has not helped NASA at all.

If nothing else, Buzz is thinking outside the box. Everyone should try it. Sure his idea won't fly with the current plans for the Shuttle, but one idea can evolve into one that will. This happens all the time in science. Spend time in a research lab. One think in a lab is not productive and neither is it for NASA's future.

So maybe it'd be better to let go of the political tit for tat and instead focus on what NASA can possibly do.

I'm worried about this approach for having capabilities drive a mission instead of a mission driving innovation. Ideally that'd be the way to go but, alas, we've had nuclear propulsion (Nerva) and ion-electric (Deep Space 1) programs before and that didn't spur any new missions to take advantage of this technology.

As for the hydrocarbon-cryogenic engine, are we sure that's the way to go? Wouldn't this technology make more sense if there was also an external combustion engine that could adapt the varying pressures between Sea Level and Vacuum? I'm concerned about losing efficiency in terms of nozzle overpressure whatever gains there are in having a dual propellant engine.

Quick question, is this what the new Angara launcher will use? I remember the Russians having invested quite a bit in this but don't know how far it got into actual implementation. Thanks.

The Russian Angara launcher uses unobtaineum, just like Kliper and all of the other we-can-build-it-if-someone-else-pays-for-it-in Americanski-dollars-please.
(Sorry, i just couldn't resist)

Though I agree with some of Buzz's sentiments, there are alternative, better ways to make this work, given present circumstances.

It costs almost as much to keep the Shuttle (and workforce) around as it does to fly it. If we retain Shuttle, there's no money for other development, and that's critical if we're going to use something like XM. I do think we need to be concentrating on building human S/C that stay in space (indeed, that's the biggest win from orbital fuel deports). But you can ferry these types components up with EELVs, Protons, or Ariane V. We Canadians have a system on-orbit at ISS for allowing assembly. Yes, we don't have anything that can accept the physical size of many of the present shells, but we can certainly take ATV-sized systems up. We can also use Russian components, and HTV-derived systems. As the new budget says - it's important to get inflatables rolling, so we're not limited by the diameter of the launchers we use. Once we have good in-space propulsion and in-space refuel, we can use the fact that an EELV throws the same order of magnitude mass to LEO that an HLV can throw to C3=0.

It's using our 1930s-style launch propulsion systems as direct in-space propulsion, that's killing us all financially, and sucking capability.

Shuttle could help us put the first system up, but it would also gobble up the funds to put up that system, and/or make it a good system. Going the way described in yesterday's budget details would let us have a sustainable way to keep build new in-orbit S/C. Sustainability has to be the focus here.

There is the Human aspect of wanting to explore,then there is what space flight is really all about today.

BANG FOR THE BUCK.

Cadetone posted:"I think what we really need is a reason to have humans in space."

Making a launch system profitable is where this Obama plan is heading. That's what commercial means.

For Space flight be it human or unmanned to survive into the next century it has have a sustainable profit.Be it through better technology or one hell of a drop in the price of fuel.

Is this the direction to go? We will see.

I know NO ONE I talk to who lives in Florida is happy about paying (estimated 51-60 million)the Russians per seat for a ride to LEO.

RC, exactly. It is easy to cancel one big program that sucks up all of NASAs money. It is extremely difficult to cancel dozens upon dozens of programs that each combined create a robust space program. Once the technologies are developed, then, it doesn't take much more to put them together and pick your destination.

> The Russian Angara launcher uses unobtaineum

Pandora, here we come!

//I think was we really need is a reason to have humans in space. ... If the the goal is "human settlement of the solar system", be up front and call it that. ... Something as grand a "settlement of the solar system" requires lots of steps.//

Leonardo da Vinci was interested in flying machines - most of us have probably seen his drawings related to flight. Needless to say, 400 years of science and technology progress had to take place before the dream became reality. Would it have been worth it for the rulers of the day to fund a massive program to build flying machines? Unlikely. Even small steps wouldn't be worth funding at that point in history - the rulers did well enough, given the state of society, science, and technology, to fund universities that allowed people like Galileo and Newton to advance science in general.

Is "human settlement of the solar system" a serious goal to consider in 2010? It seems rather dubious, so we definitely need more modest and concrete goals, and if such goals don't exist, that money should be spent on other types of R&D until the time is right for the big push.

When the number of "steps" is so large that the big push is too far into the future, a multi-billion dollar government R&D program focused on one single area simply cannot be justified.

Firstly, I'm glad Aldrin is out there saying these things.
We do need the runway lander--maybe an HL-42 incarnation.

The moon cycler can make sense, if you just decide to use some orbital lab-time in a trip around the moon. You might as well if a crew is going to be in space for weeks.
Benefits could be:
-Real-time remote control of a lunar rover.
-Human assisted deployment of an experimental solar-sail (they're tricky to open out). From the vantage point of trans-lunar speed, and with lunar slingshot, a reasonable amount of thrust might be enough to push a lightweight sail into solar orbit, where it could just drift outward.
-Space tourism to help finance it all.

There should be useful missions for the Shuttle, and not just ISS servicing--perhaps satellite servicing and recovery.

I agree with some of the comments here that what we launch it on is something of a red herring - but the idea of putting up a LEO-to-whereever base vehicle ASAP would be great for a few reasons - gets something going soon and stops the idea of NASA being just a study organization. Regardless of where we're going, we know we need to go there and we'll need a LEO-to-whereever craft. Even just for morale and PR purposes, it'd be great to have a system that we could dock at ISS and use to experiment with LEO-to-moon flight or test flights whereever. The system could be a great testbed for progressively longer manned travel, etc. as well as giving an incremental improvement in capability.

Since there is no development plan and the commercial guys are only going to get a relatively tiny amount of money ($1.2 billion a year), there's plenty of money to keep the space shuttle going until something is ready.

And if the Congress raised the NASA budget by $3 billion, as recommended by the Augustine Commission,then that gives NASA plenty of money to develop Buzz's space plane and an HLV.

Marcel F. Williams

I could write a story myself and say that the best way to go is to develop warp drive and get to other galaxies faster, but just because I say it doesn't make it true.

First of all, no spaceflight research talk means anything until we can guarantee access to space. The budget details recently released indicate that they will focus on 4 or so key suppliers at the end of the CCDev assessements and then competitively bid on commercial crew companies. Let's see, end of CCDev is Dec 2010, new competition uses up most of 2011. The details also say that they will award contracts based on "available funds." Even if they have the full $1.4 B and 2012 and award 2 contracts that is only $700 M per contractor to develop both a launch vehicle and a crew vehicle. There is no clear path to getting any vehicle on-line until at least 2015 and even then, with those numbers there is no assurance fo safety or capability.

Therefore, there is no US access to space in the next half decade or more. At this point, I could care less about vehicles to anywhere as long as this plan has no clear contract to develop assured US access to space. Soyuz had several near failures on entry with crew aboard. That can't be the most robust path.

NASA needs to say now that they are going to procure a safe crew vehicle to ensure acccess to space and they need to pay for it to get it done on time. They can look at alternate commercial options as much as they want in parallel. The "cheap" commercial options will not have the energy and life support systems to change orbits significantly and be flexible enough to provide rescue or anything else should something go wrong. And for those of you that point the CCDev and the Merchant 7, the 40 million dollars awarded so far to Boeing and Sierra Nevada for crew studies won't get is any closer to that.

eep says "I don't know why people insist on throwing away every bit of spacecraft knowledge and infrastructure that we have NOW"
" and do at least as much using what we've already got"

Hmm, the Constellation architecture utilized Shuttle SRB's, reusable segments, existing launch infrastructure, and Ares 5 would have used shuttle tank technology, SRBs and engines, but according to everyone here, that was a flawed architecture.

Granted, I don't support the fact that the schedule was slipping way out and the program was underfunded, but the reality is that these things cost money and the current plan gets us nowhere unless NASA stops putting all of its money toward mythical commercial markets and giving up on US access to LEO. Without that, all the money towards "true" spaceships will be wasted.

R&D gets us nowhere. If there was just a clear, assured path to US access to LEO, I could get excited about the other stuff, but until then these concepts are more vaporware than anything else discussed.

@neuronexmachina

'it's looking like the "Obama plan" combined with some sort of limited Space Shuttle extension will be the best way forwards'

This is so unrealistic, when looking at the realities of the political world.

In the last 10 years, how many times has the NASA budget been passed on time? (I.e. before October.) Maybe one? Now, this year, Congress is totally wrapped around the axle on major items like health care, etc, etc. If anyone thinks the NASA budget will get any attention before the end of this year, I have bridge to sell you.

So probably they run on CR's until, like, January. A CR by definition can't fund a new program, so nothing new can even start for almost a year - and that's the best case.

Of course, by then, there may be a change-over in control of Congress, and you can bet an Obama plan for anything is not exactly going to be a shoo-in in such a Congress. And, once again, they'll have bigger fish to fry, so getting Congressional agreement on a new fundamental direction in space is going to take a totally unknown (and unknowable) asmount of time. Maybe two years? Who knows.

All of which just shows what amateurs the crew in charge now are - springing a major change in direction on Congress like this, totally blind-siding them, without working it out in advance with them, is just asking for trouble.

So don't expect any of this 'new stuff' y'all are all so excited about to even get started for at least a year - and I'm betting it will be considerably more than that. This isn't Apollo, there is no national consensus on the need to do anything in space.

And that's assuming Congress doesn't simply cut the whole thing in an attempt to save money. (Like I said, remember the Super-Conducting Super-Collider... that could well be coming soon to a space agency near you.) Hey, Obama will take the political heat for 'throwing away the US manned space program' - most everyone in Peoria doesn't understand that the announcement of the new direction was just that - an announcement; they probably all think it's a done deal.

When Congress cuts those R+D program y'all are so enthusiastic about to the bone, it will be just them cutting a bunch of money wasted on slackers who are star-gazing (or navel-gazing) while sucking on the Federal teat.

And between now and October (at the least), the Shuttle program will continue to wind down, suppliers will continue to be terminated, personnel will continue to be laid off, etc, etc.

If it is restarted sometime next year, the cost will be horrendous - look for that to cut into funding all over the Agency (space science, R+D, you name it).

I think this plan is as politically untenable as the constellation program was allegedly financially untenable. Massive spending with no clear goal is not a popular idea in government realms. The first time that money is needed for some terrestrial endeavor, congress or the then acting president will point out that NASA is spending billions with no clear goal. Once that is realized, the tech. development programs underway will be cancelled again leaving the U.S. Space community in a lurch. I think this is only setting us up to have another program cancelled in either 3 or 7 years when Obama leaves office.
Also every time I read some article such as Alan Sterns I hear about VASIMR. First off all i am pretty sure it is an unfair and illegal business act for Bolden to push VASIMR as the top propulsion funding priority due to his close personal relationship with Chang-Diaz. I think the funding priorities must be vetted through a panel of experts before NASA allocates funding, in order to avoid any legalities. If this does happen I think any panel of experts will look at VASIMR and realize how ridiculous the idea is. I say that because 8 independent reviews by the Air Force, NASA and other organization have made the same finding. People keep mentioning how advanced solar arrays (that have only been tested in a laboratory environment) will provide an alpha of 2 kW/kg. However, they seem to not mention that this alpha does not include structural support which change the alpha by an order of magnitude for the worst. It also does not mention that their is only 1.43 kW/m^2 of solar power at earth to be captured of which we can only seem to muster 300 W/m^2, so you do the math on the size of hte arrays, regardless of their mass. Diaz also keeps mentioning that nuclear power is required for these mythical 39 day trips to Mars. However, it is doubtful that a rector can be made for an alpha anywhere what VASIMR needs to work.
When ARIES-I was funded many people stated the problems with solid boosters as a primary engine for a first stage and NASA went ahead and did it anyway. The delays and budget increases required to solve the vibration problems were a big factor in killing the program. If they had used the tried and tested (and better performing I might add) liquid first stage, the budget increases would not have been necessary. Ironically I see NASA making the same mistake with VASIMR. It is a ridiculous idea under the current state of technology and better known technologies such as nuclear thermal propulsion seem to be going un-noticed

Marcel has it right with regard to the Shuttle. Unfortunately for Buzz's plan, any additional Shuttle flights would be dedicated to ISS spares and supplies. Tugs and cyclers are critical elements for manned exploration and utilization of space, along with fuel depots. However, chemical propulsion is a dead end for these applications. Something like VASMIR is desperately needed to make this practical (and economical).

The Soyuz had several ballistic reentries. They were not "Near failures" in any way, shape or form. No manned spacecraft has ever proven to be as reliable as the Soyuz system so if you think that's not a robust path (regardless of the merit of using that path) I don't think anyone can help you.

With regard to the Shuttle heritage hardware in Constellation, there really wasn't much there. The physical SRB segment shells are the same but everything else is different. Shuttle tank technology can be applied to any vehicle. Everything else was new... if you can call the J2-X and "Apollo on Steroids" new.

There is a clear assured path to LEO. It's called the Shuttle. It's time we bite the bullet and spent the money to keep it flying safely for the next three to five years while commercial systems are stood up.

"Soyuz had several near failures on entry with crew aboard. That can't be the most robust path."

"the current plan gets us nowhere unless NASA stops putting all of its money toward mythical commercial markets"

"R&D gets us nowhere."

Another day, another set of choice quotes. Keeping America strong, one wrong statement at a time!

"I think this plan is as politically untenable as the constellation program was allegedly financially untenable."

Actually, Constellation had already spent and was planning to spend more than any prior program had ever spent to develop, build or fly hardware.

Think about it: a half billion dollars to launch one off-the-shelf SRB ? a billion dollars for every planned Orion/Ares launch ? Five years and $10 billion so far, and it will be about $14 billion before its ended, and so far almost no real hardware; most of it is not past PDR.

As Augustine said, even if we were to go ahead with Constellation and started flying it in another 8 years, after having spent another $35 billion, we'd have to immediately cancel it because we would not be able to afford to fly it.

There was something very wrong with what was going on there.

A lot of us have designed, built and flown space hardware for a lot less money, and in a lot less time.

When this is over, and probably before, there needs to be some serious investigation into what was going wrong in Constellation.

Why not turn over the Shuttles to commercial space and let them develop a new, larger first stage vehicle that will use the Shuttle in an unmanned capacity to bring up large cargo items...items which will not be possible anymore once Shuttle is terminated.

One could argue that this was the vary reason that NERVA was always such a political football and in constant danger of cancellation. Many politicians and those in the OMB (and it predecessor) feared that should NERVA succeed it would be the thin edge of the wedge for an expensive Mars program.

'It is easy to cancel one big program that sucks up all of NASAs money. It is extremely difficult to cancel dozens upon dozens of [small] programs'

You've got it exactly backwards; it's easier to kill small programs since fewer people are affected by each one. Divide and conquer.

moonman I beg to differ. If you adjust the dollars spent on the Saturn V and the dollars spent on ARIES-I for inflation, then you will find that the annual expenses for the combined SATURN I and SATURN V family of vehicles was nearly 60 % greater than the combination of ARIES-I and ARIES-V thus far into the program. Dont get me wrong, I still think that ARIES-I was a colossal mistake due to the fact that solids should never be used as a core first stage. And as far as those who allegedly have designed hardware in less time, please show me who they are. I have suspicions that you are talking about people who have completed paper designs and have actually never built or flown anything. I am getting sick of people who present view graphs and present them as if they can built the designs on view graphs better and cheaper than people who have actually built stuff. Viewgraphs can always be made to look better than real hardware, but when you get into the nuts and bolts of taking viewgraphs to real hardware it becomes apparent why programs like Constellation take so long and are so expensive to build, it is just the nature of the game.

'Massive spending with no clear goal is not a popular idea in government realms. The first time that money is needed for some terrestrial endeavor, congress or the then acting president will point out that NASA is spending billions with no clear goal. Once that is realized, the tech. development programs underway will be cancelled'

Exactly. In fact, I wonder if that wasn't the plan all along:

- Phase one, kill current HSF program, only sweeten the medicine with increased funding for NASA, so it doesn't look like an anti-NASA move; make sure all the money (cancellation, plus new) gets spent on lots of small programs with no clear goal.

- Phase two, come along and kill off the small programs in the out-years; much easier to do than killing a big program and replacing it with nothing.

A VASMIR based drive would be best for such a craft. I have proposed a VASMIR based drive assembly with a nuclear power source that would stay up in space and travel to destinations, returning to earth for refueling etc. Then whatever we want can simply be attached to that power unit for hauling to wherever. The power unit would have a long life, capable of hundreds of trips to/from Mars for example. The only thing we need heavy lift capability for is to get stuff up to LEO.