Defeatist, Anti-Commercial Thinking at the Space Foundation

"Given the scale of investment required, and financial and technical risk that must be assumed, the markets for these systems need to be global, as they are with the commercial aircraft industry, to enable a reasonable return on investment."

This guy is very sure of himself. Modern day Nostradamus right here.

Which is better, one monolithic approach ("on steroids") with no Plan B, or one that utilizes a variety of approaches, from multiple sources in a synergistic, flexible, adaptable arena?

Doesn't the answer to that question depend on your goal? If you want crew transportation ready as soon as possible, then throwing out an existing design already in the testing phase to pursue alternatives not yet out of the proposal stage makes little sense. If you want crew transportation ready with the least amount of government investment, then pursuing "multiple sources" isn't very cost effective. If you want crew transportation ready with the least amount of risk, then hiring commercial companies with zero experience in designing and flying human rated space vehicles isn't very smart.

Your "multiple sources" argument is COTS. NASA has supplied funding and support for COTS for quite a while now. That's why SpaceX has their Dragon. COTS starts with cargo transport and eventually phases in crewed transport as commercial companies gain experience. Meanwhile, NASA pursues its own vehicle. Eliminating Orion and moving straight to an unproven commercial industry is exactly the "No plan B" you deplore.

You are just as guilty of one-sided thinking as those you criticize. If the commercial industry were to make a profit, and NASA was the only customer of the commercial industry, then all of that profit has to come from NASA -- thus NASA saves little (if any) money and absorbs significant risk in the process. The commercial industry needs other customers for it to make financial sense for NASA to purchase seats. Look at the launch vehicle market. There are hundreds of customers that purchase flights on ELVs. If NASA was the only one launching satellites, do you think ELVs would be as cheap as they are?

Once NASA's strict requirements descend on the Merchant 7 (to ensure safety, etc), I wonder just how much the "new" way is going to differ from the old. Trust me, I'm no fan of the steroids architecture, but the "dinosaur" has some valid points.

Well, at least we didn't here the usual: "we need to do so much more research - especially into the stuff we endlessly researched before, but came to conclusions that actually require us to get on with it and do something!"

thanks for the Information...

I don't get the problem with this. He's right on all his points. And it's not anti-commercial thinking. The government wasn't building Orion, Lockheed was. So instead of the government paying Lockheed and other companies to build a rocket, you want them to pay other companies. Whatever. Lockheed is an American business and was doing fine with the development of Orion until Obama came in.

Which approach is better? The shortest path between two points is a straight line. And no the road is not out, the path has been proven before. Sure we'll need "game changing technologies" to get to Mars but that's not the stage we are at now. As Bolden admitted at the hearing, we'll probably have to go to the Moon first. And we'll need an Ares-V to do it.

Oh, I dunno. Elliott seems to have made a more measured plea here than you are giving him credit for. He seems to have as much confidence as anyone else that the commercial guys will eventually be able to provide access to LEO. I think we're all concerned; right path or not, at least we had a mission. Now, we have nothing but empty promises about amorphous plans to do....something... later.

If you want crew transportation ready as soon as possible, then throwing out an existing design already in the testing phase to pursue alternatives not yet out of the proposal stage makes little sense.

An existing design already in the testing phase?

I take it that you're a fan of the Air Force's X-37B/Atlas V, which is scheduled for launch this April 19:

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=ac45e07e-3a53-47aa-9892-fe87c756e28e&

Prototype Unmanned Vehicle Arrives At Cape Canaveral

The USAF X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle arrived in Florida this week to begin processing in anticipation of an April 19 launch aboard an Atlas V rocket. ...

The 29 ft long, 15 ft wide X-37B is scheduled to land at at Vandenberg AFB in CA with Edwards AFB acting as the backup landing site. ...

"Which is better, one monolithic approach ("on steroids") with no Plan B, or one that utilizes a variety of approaches, from multiple sources in a synergistic, flexible, adaptable arena?"

Plan B? Neither option has a Plan B. At least CxP had a Plan A.

@Keith

'Which is better, one monolithic approach ("on steroids") with no Plan B, or one that utilizes a variety of approaches, from multiple sources in a synergistic, flexible, adaptable arena?'

The previous direction (which included Constellation) already included having a bunch of NewSpace companies doing launches for NASA, in addition to the NASA-directed program.

It also had the benefit of allowing NewSpace companies to walk before they have to run - which seems wise, given that almost every rocket ever built has suffered catastrophic failures in the development process. (Except Saturn, not sure of any others - and even Saturn has some significant issues, just not catastrophic failures.)

Anyway, from the news, it now sounds like the new direction is going to be somewhat different from the Garver/Holdren 'plan', so stand by for a (likely lengthy) period of turbulence while all the stakeholders work out what to do next, for real.

(One wonders if this wasn't the plan all along, and the first 'plan' wasn't intended as a throw-away, designed to stir up the pond.)

"One wonders if this wasn't the plan all along, and the first 'plan' wasn't intended as a throw-away, designed to stir up the pond."

I doubt it. It looks more like inexperience in running an organization and program than anything planned.

As a believer that the OMB decision process is governed mostly by a zero-sum game philosophy, I suggest that the Administration's decision was based on the lack of interest in providing NASA with the $2-4 billion/year needed in the short term to meet CxP's logic. The Augustine panel was quite right to point out that if CxP's funding levels could not be supported, then there was an obvious schedule mismatch. The schedule mismatch was with ISS support requirements. The range of initial Ares/Orion LEO human support capabilities was understood to be no earlier than 2015, with a reasonable chance of being 1-2 years later. The ROI for the opportunity of supporting the ISS is impossible to calculate, given the uncertainty over ISS lifetime.

The maintainability and sustainability requirements of the ISS are not well understood, thus the expected usable lifetime of the ISS is uncertain. With the removal of the Space Shuttle from the supply and EVA support capability, the ISS is particularly vulnerable. We have, of course, no replacement plan for the ISS, so where is it that humans are going to go in terms of Earth-orbital facilities with an Ares-1 class launcher?

However, the Orion/Ares-5 development logic is predicated on the success of the former. It doesn't make sense to delay the Ares-5 if that is a primary consideration in the ROI calculation, rather than the uncertain benefit from ISS support. Bottom line: both needed to be developed in a sequence, preferentially one that leverages the development workforce. That's where the big bucks discussion comes into play. And, to put it mildly, unless there is a strong national security benefit to be yielded, the expenditure of those additional funds is hard to justify.

My personal view on the best argument for Ares-5 is that there is substantial national security benefit from a capability to support the electrical energy requirements of U.S. defense/intelligence spacecraft, forward troop bases on the ground and locales experiencing loss of power supply infrastructure. John Mankins would quickly deduce that I support fielding a U.S. space-based solar power supply system. An HLLV is essential for that to become a reality. Now that would be a winning argument with OMB on a national needs basis for developing CxP.

> I support fielding a U.S. space-based solar power supply system. An HLLV is essential for that to become a reality. Now that would be a winning argument with OMB on a national needs basis for developing CxP.

That is not a winning argument at all. The fiscal fantasy people are living in is shocking.

"The ... fantasy people are living in is shocking."

'Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.'