This Week in Space With Miles O'Brien

1. Nasa TV would be more entertaining like that..
2. Let Methuselah (STS) going quietly into the night. Its served us well. Can the shuttle go beyond LEO? no. that for me is the biggest reason to say farewell to sts.
3. I'm not confident in SPACE X till they get a few launches under their belt.
4. I agree with canceling constellation it was way over budget and I got a " I swear its gonna work" vibe from everyone I talk to at NASA and JSC.
5. America needs to find some sort of new propulsion system beyond chemical rockets. Lets face it NASA 1950's tech isn't getting it anymore. No Major advancement in rocketry in 60 years? Chemical Rockets might get you to LEO or a quick trip to the moon. Beyond LEO needs New Ideas and innovative thinking, not Rehashed Chemical systems.

"America needs to find some sort of new propulsion system beyond chemical rockets"

In the next Administrator speach you will hear "We are proud to say that we are reaching strides in our new warp drive capability. The outside looks really cool, bold and game changing. The only problem is we don't know what to put on the inside"

The new NASA paradigm: Its better not to do anything. Why explore when you only have chemical engines to use?

http://www.spacearchitect.org/pubs/IAC-02-IAA.8.2.04.pdf

Page 12 of this article tells how we developed the design of the nodes. Pages 13-15 talks about the evolution of the cupola requirements, concept and design.

Just to correct some misinformation
1. Constellation was on budget. Bolden even admitted to that in a press conference.
2. Ares I-X proved the concept would work dispite the " I swear its gonna work" vibe.

@ Fred Sanford

"constellation it was way over budget"

No. It was underfunded.

Big difference.

Guys, Cx never got the money that they needed based on the 2005 budget.

It was both under funded and over budget depending on your perspective. It was under funded because the budgets 2006 onward were lower than they were initially expecting (in 2005). It was over budget because they had to bleed the rest of NASA dry to get the funding to continue at a reasonable timeline. This shows that it was politically untenable. From the very beginning, from the 2006 budget onward.

The whole plan was contingent on the 2005 budget (and projections) actually being fulfilled.

The new direction should not be so weak, since it links commercial development so tightly, NASA can drop a probe here or there (which tends to be the first thing to go) and the overall manned space flight program will not be hurt one iota, because commercial space will continue on its merry way.

cessnadriver, joshcryer, rat;

The Vision laid out:
(1) first and most important near term goal, replace Shuttle with minimum gap; Orion/Ares was touted as 'safe, simple, soon'.
(2) NASA gets a $1 billion increase in FY2005, and stable, not increasing budgets after; total HSF budget had been about $2b for ISS + $3b for Shuttle.

ESAS and the Griffin architecture:

(1) totally missed the schedule.

(2) totally missed the budget; ESAS/Orion/Ares needed $2b from ISS after 2015, + $3b from Shuttle after 2010, + $3b more. The Administration had laid out, from the outset, that HSF would not get this. So you are all correct: Constellation/Ares/Orion was underfunded; NASA had been told from the outset they would never get that kind of money.

(3) was totally mismanaged; the important near term goal was replacing Shuttle; Griffin went off half cocked trying to build a Mars capsule first. Houston was so busy trying to take over the future of all spaceflight, not just HSF, and wasting money on things that were decades off like rovers and moon suits, and they lost the focus on the first step, so now they have nothing and we get to start over after having wasted five years.

If Orion and Ares were close to flying within a year or two, likely these would not have been cancelled. Because they are close to a decade away now, there is no reason to keep them. Other alternatives are available that can be faster and much less expensive.

More stories, more myths, more made up stuff.

"It was over budget because they had to bleed the rest of NASA dry to get the funding to continue at a reasonable timeline. This shows that it was politically untenable."

This is false, Constellation was not bleeding the rest of NASA dry. The 2010 budget had $4.4B to Science, $3.7B to Exploration, $4.8B to Operations, and $3B to Cross Angency support. So Exploration was at the bottom of the list and they were managing budgets to get to LEO as soon as possible. In the 2011 budget, commercial crew gets almost nothing compared to the total budget.

"the overall manned space flight program will not be hurt one iota, because commercial space will continue on its merry way"

This is false. Commercial space won't get humans to LEO in the near term and the Exploration budget is smaller. HSF to LEO is threatened.

"Griffin went off half cocked trying to build a Mars capsule first"

This is false, Griffin was an engineer and knew what he was doing. Orion had a 3 block upgrade plan. The first block being executed was to ISS.

"and wasting money on things that were decades off like rovers and moon suits"

This is false, the money going to those items was a small fraction of any spending in Exploration.

"so now they have nothing"

This is false. If Constellation is cancelled there are no contracts in existence that get us to HSF to LEO and there is no proof that we will get there in the near future.

"Because they are close to a decade away now, there is no reason to keep them"

Total fabrication. Orion would have flown to LEO in 2014/2015. No one else has a plan on paper or the money to get there sooner.

The Augustine commission said thus....

Given the funding originally expected, the Constellation Program was a reasonable
architecture for human exploration. However, even when it was announced, its budget depended on
funds becoming available from the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2010 and the
decommissioning of ISS in early 2016. Since then, as a result of technical and budgetary issues, the
development schedules of Ares I and Orion have slipped, and work on Ares V and Altair has been
delayed.
Most major vehicle-development programs face technical challenges as a normal part of the
process, and Constellation is no exception. While significant, these are engineering problems, and
the Committee expects that they can be solved. But these solutions may add to the program’s cost
and/or delay its schedule.....

The Committee found no compelling evidence that the current design will not be
acceptable for its wide variety of tasks in the exploration program.

And I also believe they said that it was not mismanaged by NASA.

This is about properly funding such endeavors.

I got news for some of you folks....

Private industry is going to have the same problems, probably worse.

Delays, failures, re-designs, lack of proper funding, all the normal stuff.

If you think this is not the case, your living in a fantasy world. Which apparantly is where much of the Obama plan lives.

jcspace:
"so now they have nothing"

This is false. If Constellation is cancelled there are no contracts in existence that get us to HSF to LEO and there is no proof that we will get there in the near future.

I think that is what I said. We are now starting from square one.

"Because they are close to a decade away now, there is no reason to keep them"

Total fabrication. Orion would have flown to LEO in 2014/2015. No one else has a plan on paper or the money to get there sooner.

Interesting we keep hearing from people like yourself that Orion was nearly ready to fly. Geyer told Augustine, six months ago, 'we can fly by 2015' with adequate funding. Augustine, Sally Ride and Aerospace Corp all studied the situation and said maybe 2017, 2019 much more likely, assuming $3 billion extra a year. How do you folks keep coming up with better [different] information ?

That depends on whether you consider technologies like nuclear fission-powered electric propulsion (as was planned for the JIMO mission) and VASIMR to be in the same category as "warp drives." These are the sorts of technologies which ended up having their research funding suppressed when Constellation started going overbudget.

"And I also believe they said that it was not mismanaged by NASA."

No, they never said this. In fact Augustine pointed out several ways in which the management of Constellation exacerbated technical problems.

Please provide a quote from Augustine in which he said anything positive about the management of the program.

Augustine did say that given adequate time and money the system could eventually be brought on line, though not likely before 2019, and the late availability date was primary rationale for why Orion/Ares likely would not be needed, since ISS would only go another year beyond this date.

Maybe you are right about other private industry having similar problems, but most new manned spacecraft in the past have gone from program inception to flight in five years or less.

For LEO transport, we do not need to reinvent the wheel. I am not certain why anything new needs to take 10-15 years to develop.

A 2019 flight date of Orion/Ares meant a 15 year development. It was not that complicated a vehicle; it was in large measure based on existing hardware. Why did it need to take this long ?

OK, I will would like to make a correction to my previous comment.. In fact through research I have discovered Cx wasn't over-budget. It was within its set budget but R & D was behind my mistake. So they got the money they just dropped the ball as far as results and the schedule they were given. On the Warp drive comment? Hardy har har But lets face it will all our advancements in almost every other field we are using the same 60 year old tech to get to freaking LEO.I understand how hard it is to get to LEO its not easy still today. Astronaut is still the most dangerous profession ever, I get all of this.Its almost like Apollo really set the bar high for NASA ( not taking anything away from ISS which is a technical marvel). If we return to the Moon the John Q public says " yeah so we been there before". You tell someone hey the shuttle is launching today! John Q public says " yeah so they do all the time" There is a huge feeling of indifference for NASA right now. The weak Economy combined with an administration that is aware of its historical significance that really wants to have a good showing..In times like these NASA is the redheaded stepchild of the US. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

@jcspace

Space science was getting reduced budget growth under Griffin, that's no secret. Programs were cancelled. When asked about science losing 2 billion from their projected budgets Griffin said:

"Yep, that's right,", "I wish we hadn't had to do it, I didn't want to, but that's what we needed to do."

You may believe that such a direction is acceptable or proper but you can't deny it was a reality.

Well, I see now why people back Cx, they're living in a mass delusion. Seriously. Read The Augustine Commission. That is reality.

joshcryer

Constellation was doable. Augustine commission said this. THAT is reality. There were no technical show stoppers, and had the budgets been applied as originally planned, we would be much farther along. That isn't NASA or Constelltions fault!

What do you think a commission like Augustine would think of the Obama plan to accomplish anything even close to VSE goals ? LOL

Of course, Obama will not allow that kind of examination. He just blew off Augustine recommendations too. People seem to forget that one.

CessnaDriver, you seem to have left out the part where the Augustine Committee also said that the Constellation program of record "offers little or no apparent value," despite a cost of tens of billions of dollars. If you throw even more money at it you start seeing results sometime in the 2030s, but the cost/benefit ratio is atrocious.

No need to speculate, Norman Augustine already issued a statement supporting the new plan. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=33369

"The plan released with the President's FY 2011 budget does appear to respond to the primary concerns highlighted in our committee's report. By extending the ISS to 2020, NASA and our many international partners will be able to capitalize on the full capability of this unique orbiting laboratory. By making a significant investment in creating commercial capabilities to take humans and cargo to low- Earth-orbit, overseen from a safety-standpoint by NASA, will drive competition, lower costs, open new markets and make space more accessible. Similarly, by allocating the technology resources highlighted in our report as being necessary, it will be possible to lay the foundation for travel beyond low-Earth-orbit, including destinations such as the asteroids, the Lagrangian points, Mars' moons and Mars"

I never liked the Constellation program, but to cut it out like that with the finger pointing seemed to me just more of this administration's Blame Bush.
This "new direction" is something we could have had in tandem with a lunar program.