Looking Backward - Not Forward

I agree that Congress should not cancel Constellation in favor of commercial crew delivery and a technology development program. The nation won't cheer when a commercial company launches astronauts into space, except lauding it for the first few times. Are we willing to accept the risk that the commercial crew launches may fail? What then happens to HSF? Commercial crew launch may be a possibility but not within 5 years, so it won't close the gap in NASA's domestic crew launch capability. Also, as a young engineer my excitement level tanked when Obama's 2011 NASA budget was released--hearing of the proposed cancellation of Constellation. Aside from sending people to Mars (which won't likely happen anytime soon), sending people to the South Pole of the Moon sounds like an awesome endeavor. The hope of that is what keeps me going as I conduct daily engineering tasks. Constellation may not be perfect, and no program is, but it was designed in response to the Columbia accident, which told us NASA needs a distinct vision and destination with a timeline. If they can build the Space Station for $100 billion we can certainly make an attempt to return to the Moon, because we should never have left it behind in the first place. Aside from a space station, it is the most logical next frontier to send humans to. I don't want to see commercial crew companies get rich "just because" that's the push. I'd much rather see astronauts moving around on the Moon, even on a more relaxed timescale. The other nations will go there, so it makes no sense to me why the US would not have a presence on the Moon.

"thinks of ways of how not to do things rather than how to do them"

The evidences are greatly to the contrary.....

A. Thomas Young, age 70, Director since April 17, 1995. Retired Executive Vice President, Lockheed Martin Corporation, an aerospace and defense company. Mr. Young is a graduate of the University of Virginia with bachelor degrees in aeronautical engineering and mechanical engineering, and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a master's degree in management. Mr. Young was with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from 1961 to 1982, serving in a number of management positions including Mission Director of the Project Viking Mars landing program and Director of the Goddard Space Flight Center. In 1982 he joined Martin Marietta as Vice President of Aerospace Research and Engineering, and later became Senior Vice President and President of Martin Marietta Electronics & Missiles Group and Executive Vice President. He became President and Chief Operating Officer in January 1990, Executive Vice President of Lockheed Martin Corporation in March 1995 and retired in July of that year. Mr. Young is a director of SAIC, Inc. Mr. Young is also a Fellow of the American Astronautical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Royal Aeronautical Society and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He was named as an Outstanding Director in 2005 by the Outstanding Directors Institute

I see a lot of confusion about what Constellation is and is not ... or was and was not. Constellation was not a replacement for the Shuttle even tho Ares I could have and would have function to lift people and cargo to the ISS ... if the ISS were still there by the time Ares I came online.

Neither Ares I nor the Falcon 9 has the heavy lift capability of the Shuttle to LEO. But with construction of the ISS nearly complete, the question is whether to spend the money maintain that lift capability. But as for supplies and people, the Falcon 9 will do the job and do it at a much lower cost.

Ares I is bloated, over-budget, and behind schedule. The Falcon 9 with a Dragon capsule can put more people in LEO than can Ares I ... and the Falcon 9 is sitting on the pad getting ready for a test flight. It's much further along in development at far less money.

It sounds like to me Tom Young is being realistic. Those people all gung ho for this commercial option are not seriously looking at all of the risks. This has not been done before and the chance of it taking longer than these optimistic predictions is very high.

What happens when in 2015 we are still waiting for US HSF capability and it looks like it might still be 2019 before it's ready?

Why do you think that 'commercial' providers would be any less, or more safe than a NASA-LM-ATK...vehicle ?

Why do you think that this NASA led vehicle would be ready and maintained available any sooner than the mutiple providers now working on the 'commercial' response ?

ISS did take $100 billion and so far 27 years.

Constellation was going to take 4 times that amount and probably at least as long, and with little assurance at any point during that period that it would be continued.

As Augustine reported, even if Orion and Ares 1 had been available tomorrow, they'd have to shut down the program because of an inability to pay for keeping it going.

Its time to start looking at alternatives. The Obama-Bolden plan is a good first cut.

While the expensive Ares I/V architecture should be canceled, our return to the Moon to set up a permanent lunar base using a faster and cheaper architecture should not be canceled.

But the tax payers and the Congress will not tolerate a $19 billion a year NASA budget to build nothing and to go nowhere!

Marcel F. Williams

I agree with the above comment and I must add though I didn't like the Constellation program, seeing it as little more than an Apollo retread, I dislike this new Obama plan even more.
Sure, commercialization of space has its place and is a good thing, but to depend solely on this method as this nation's space faring ability goes beyond madness and folly.
As there were and are great sea faring nations, so it is with the final frontier and it is up to us if other nations wrestle that from us or we give it to them.
So say we all.

ya see folks, the above demonstrates the typical CxP worker that CornDogRocket described on another thread elsewhere

geesh, what part of rocketizing solids DON'T WORK do you not understand?

military already tried it, twice I think & failed, and apparently passed it off to NASA - wouldn't ya think that with their big budgets, a new rocketizing solids concept would be developed for less risky UNMANNED programs and/or the cheaper-better-faster-safer-simpler-sooner COMMERCIAL programs for a proof of concept demo, huh??

Thomas Young is correct too, the commercial Merchant 7 won't get it done right either.

in the beginning, everybody in the Shuttle workforce was completely jazzed about the Concept of going to the moon, but then CxP happened....... and now Merchant7 happened.......

@Marcel Williams, You're correct. While Constellation was poor plan ... at least it was a plan. Now we have no plan to get back to the Moon or Mars.

I support turning LEO over to private enterprise. I don't support NASA pulling back from HSF beyond LEO.

I wrote a pretty long blog about this. You can either read it from a link on my profile or go here.

> But the tax payers and the Congress will not tolerate a $19 billion a year NASA budget to build nothing and to go nowhere!

Well, congress is arguing about spending $9B for one year of more people sitting around at home not working. (OK: extending unemployment benefits.)

"Ares I is bloated, over-budget, and behind schedule."

Correction. Ares I is on schedule for its funding profile and currently running on budget. Enough with the BS talking points already.

"The Falcon 9 with a Dragon capsule can put more people in LEO than can Ares I"

Prove it. I guess if Obama gives Elon another $3 billion than you're right. But for $3 billion I can build a Saturn IB.

".. and the Falcon 9 is sitting on the pad getting ready for a test flight."

Yes, an unqualified vehicle currently running 15 parallel qual programs to prepare for launch. Have I mentioned they burned down the PAD when they started work at SLC40? Easy to tuck bad PR under the rug when you are on the Air Force side of the center.

If the Falcon 9 tests doesn't work before the Pres comes down, Space X is screwed.

"If the Falcon 9 tests doesn't work before the Pres comes down, Space X is screwed"

Hopefully the flight is a success. Knowing how spaceflight is and how optimistic companies wanting work can be, to not expect delays and launch failures is unrealistic.

This reminds me of the Mars MSL mission and how its original budget compares to the current one and how its schedule has been delayed. Spaceflight is currently a complicated arena and that's one reason for cost plus type contracts. To think we understand it all and can do it quick and cheap (aka SpaceX claims) is just setting us up for disaster or at least disappointment.

Kind of like all of the claims for the shuttle, how routine it was going to be and then reality kicked in and people realized, this is hard stuff. People (here and in government) need to get realistic.

"The Falcon 9 with a Dragon capsule can put more people in LEO than can Ares I ..."

Problem is that NASA doesn't need to put seven people into orbit for ISS missions. We only need to put 3 to 4 people per vehicle since the other 2 to 3 per ISS crew will come up via the Russians. So the fact Dragon can launch more is a specious argument.

"Ares I is bloated, over-budget, and behind schedule."

Ah, you've sat in on the Garver sound bite brainwahing sessions.

It is NOT over budget. No matter how ofter you repeat something, that does not make it true. Behind schedule? Yep, due to underfunding. Bloated? What is that actually supposed to mean?

"The Falcon 9 with a Dragon capsule can put more people in LEO than can Ares I"

Oh yeah? How do you know what the Dragon will be able to do? Do you have the detailed design and mass properties? Have you run the performance calculations?

The fun thing about working for the "commercial" companies is that you're not held accountable for any of the PR oriented BS claims you make. Well, not until the serious govenment subsidiztion starts. THEN there are going to be some fun ASAP and GAO reports about how the taxpayers money is being used.

I think it's fair to say that Aries 1 slips are not solely due to underfunding. Unless "underfunding" is defined to mean "extra money to fix the original design when it became clear that it would not work."

"I think it's fair to say that Aries 1 slips are not solely due to underfunding"

True. The Ares-1X launch was delayed due to shuttle delays in the Hubble repair mission, including the Hubble computer failure.