Griffin: Obama Space Policy = Drivel

I don't give any credence to a retro spam canner who claims a return to an obsolete method of space travel is progress. He also lied about the cost of this retro program and deserved to lose his job.

Mike;

You are right, President Bush's idea was a great one worthy of a great nation. You should have actually read it, and worked to it, and it was your job as the titular leader of the space program to politically garner the support from all the branches of government to make it happen.

An Apollo capsule approach - poor concept to start with; as it was being implemented with ocean splashdowns, throw away the hardware, a billion dollar Ares 1; really just dumb. You were required to develop commercial transportation services. Defining use of the SRB first and figuring out how you were going to carry the payload later - poor approach to systems management. As a PhD professor, you should be ashamed of yourself. Throw away ISS once its assembled - just plain stupid. Sortie missions to pick up where Apollo left off - was not the Vision plan. We were supposed to have been going back to set up a permanent base.

There was a lot right with the Vision and if you would have led the team to make it happen you could have been a hero. As it is, pretty much it was just a waste of time, money, careers; and you've really put the entire human space flight program in a very risky situation where we may never recover.

If you really had felt that the Vision was worthwhile, a major part of your effort should have gone into communicating the value and significance. It required political savvy and marketing strategy.

You and the program failed.

Griffin's comment on Commercial Crew “Some $6 billion are allocated in the president’s budget to develop commercial space flight," Griffin said. "I want this deal. I want somebody to give me billions of dollars up front for me to go and develop a transportation capability that does not exist, and when I get done developing it I still own it, and you, the government, have to come rent it from me. I want that deal. I don’t understand how it’s commercial, but I want it.”

Mike, didn't you just waste $9 billiion and all we got was the launch of leftover shuttle and ICBM missile parts?

Can someone help me remember...

Did Sean O'Keefe crave this much media attention after he left the Agency?

Or is it all about Griffin's ego and a legacy?

Editor's note; O'Keefe (and Goldin, Truly, Beggs) have all adhered to the unspoken tradition of not going public with their disagreements with their successor. Griffin has departed from that tradition)

As far as I can tell from a very short article, Dr Griffin is venting his spleen against the potential commercial crew service providers. He seems annoyed that several companies are going to be developing LEO crew taxis with only $6B of federal funding between them. Maybe he is jealous that they can do with $6B that he couldn't do with $30B?

There are flaws with the Obama Vision, the lack of a timeline for the restoration of US-indigenous crew launch for one. However, to call it 'drivel' is, IMHO at least, to fail to understand the objectives that its advocates claim to have.

It's an easy reaction to completely dismiss anything Dr. Griffin says as just sour grapes from being quietly dismissed as NASA administrator without the courtesy of a phone call or from having his exploration enterprise dismantled after a $10B investment. He clearly has motive for being negative to the Obama exploration plan but one has to keep in mind the salient points of his argument.

The new exploration proposal really is drivel. It is attributed to the findings of a commission composed of failed commercial space advocates (Augustine - Athena/Atlas V, Bejmuk - Sea Launch, Greason - Rotary Rocket), academicians, and astronauts. They concluded that commercial is the way to send humans into space with absolutely no idea of what a successful commercial space enterprise might look like. Chalk this aspect of the plan up as drivel.

The assertion that we can invent new technology very quickly, after what's been characterized by the BO space plan proponents as the biggest technology drought of all time, is equally perplexing. Levitation machines, space tethers, laser propulsion, and other non-retro ways of getting into space are a long, long way off and will not even show progress to the public in a decade. Support from congress will wane after a couple of years. Score: drivel 2, substance 0.

Then there's the improved NASA efficiency be removing a goal and letting the agency deteriorate into a bunch of tech sandboxes. I wonder what they teach Marines in leadership training regarding goal setting as a means to incite action. Maybe Gen. Bolden should review his texts in this area but I can't find a single text on effective management that supports this approach. Drivel 3, substance 0. Winner - Spock.

I can't say that I love the ESAS architecture. It's sure not elegant but there is nobody that can rightly claim it wouldn't work. Sure there is engineering sweat remaining but there is little invention left to get incredible launch capability. That leaves the invention for new EVA suits, landers, surface exploration habitats/vehicles, and all the "live off the land" technologies that will surely have terrestrial spin-offs. Constellation has spent $10M and many folks say that has yielded nothing. That's an outright lie because all one has to do is view the NASA exploration web sites. Progress has been made in all the areas needed for real exploration in addition to unprecedented launch capability. Much of it will be thrown away with the drivel BO plan. Congress should not allow this.

This guy needs to crawl back under his bridge and stay there.

Thanks for your comments, BernieEOD. They'd be a bit more credible if you cited some evidence about Griffin "lying", and explained your own technical expertise.

Cognitive dissonance may be the only reason Griffin can live with himself. Is there any other explanation?

By now most people realize cost is the problem. No matter what you do with shuttle it is too expensive. Changing every piece of it hurts even more.

Space Brit:

"He seems annoyed that several companies are going to be developing LEO crew taxis with only $6B of federal funding between them. Maybe he is jealous that they can do with $6B that he couldn't do with $30B?"

The 6 billion of federal funding is to be the governments share of however much one or several contractors will spend developing crew capsules. The total, in other words, ought to run to more than 6 billion dollars, perhaps much more. The 30 billion Griffin planned to spend was for Ares I (crew and cargo to ISS) AND Ares V (the Moon).

You're comparing apples and oranges.

Ha...ha! Mike Griffin has become the Sarah Palin of the Space World. He had his time in the sun, blew it, and now just won't go away. It's like an old shoe that just keeps turning up, no matter how many times you throw it away. Ha!

Michael Griffin, proof positive that it takes someone who routinely deals with drivel to recognize drivel.
It's because of your "Drivel" Griffy-boy that the US manned space program is the poor boy beggar basket case it is now. Your 15 minute of ignominy are OVER. Get off the stage.

I'll say one thing for Dr. Griffin. You know where he stands on ObamaSpace and he isn't shy about letting you know it.

My question is: What is the motivation here for continually speaking out against ObamaSpace?

Anyone?

So Spock called Obama's "plan" or lack thereof drivel. Well you know what they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Drivvel....coming from the [DELETED] who blathered "not one thin dime from science". This guy just needs to go away.

Reasonable people can agree or disagree about Obama's space program (though if you are saying everything was great before and Obama destroyed it then the onus is on you to explain the almost half century of being limited to low earth orbit by both democrats and republicans).
For Griffin to call it drivel, however, after he turned in perhaps the poorest performance ever by a NASA administrator in being honest, seeking funds, and advancing NASA in science is the height of hypocrisy.

EarthShine: Motivation for speaking out against ObamaSpace....it is empty space and we are better than that.

"He seems annoyed that several companies are going to be developing LEO crew taxis with only $6B of federal funding between them. Maybe he is jealous that they can do with $6B that he couldn't do with $30B?"

If you like the deal the COTS players are getting, Mike, go put together yourself a COTS proposal, get a couple rich folks to back you (you have all the right degrees and experience) and lets see you get this bird airborne!

No doubt a real rocket engineer could do better than Mr. Musk.

While I initially found Dr. Griffin's comments to be out of place and elitist as time goes on and the Obama plan becomes less and less credible. I find if you turn down the shrillness at least Dr. Griffin has the courage of his convictions and he makes some salient points.As to all the posters who refer to the program of record as retro or of resurrecting obsolescent technology the laws of physics have not changed significantly in the past forty years so there are only so many solutions available to overcome the mass/energy requirements of a trans-lunar mission.The engineering requirements were daunting in the 1960's and are still quite formidable today even with materials science being an order of magnitude better.

Griffin or Bolden -- both "company men" except both play for a different company

My question is: What is the motivation here for continually speaking out against ObamaSpace?...

I dont know him personally so it is hard to gather if he is wrapped up in the anti Obama politics or he is just trying to defend his own legacy.

The most charitable thing that can be said is that it appears that Mike is caught up in trying to preserve the network and infrastructure that has since the Apollo landings successfully kept human spaceflight the sole domain of NASA and mostly JSC.

But now even Jay Barbee is starting to say that Obama's policies are firming up and are likely to go forward (something that some of us have said for a long time)

Robert G. Oler

Why is it that whenever Griffin deigns to speak the Obamanauts devolve into histrionic screeching? Pregnant with emotions and devoid of reason.

As we saw Thursday and with the Ares X-1 test flight, Griffin's plan was well consider, well managed, and well executed - but poorly financed. Might I add, also the opinion of the Augustine panel.

Griffin's plan has a target (a permanent base on the Moon), and plan (Constellation), and a schedule (although tortured by poor funding). And the BO policy has NONE of these.

Space Brit, if you believe the commercial guys will get there with the $6B, you are not in touch with reality. Unless the human rating criteria are dramatically revised, $6B is a drop in the bucket. And even if those criteria are softened, $6B STILL won't be near enough. All this is is a re-direction of the funding, and it ain't enough.

Vision Systems -

Numbers, man, think of the numbers.

Rough 30% of the citizens of the USA, when asked by pollsters over the last 40 years, can be counted on to say that they support a space program (or even "the" space program). Ballpark, that's about 100 million people.

There are maybe six websites devoted to space programs that get much attention. My assumption, maybe too kind, is that these sites get visted by several thousand people per day, each. Perhaps one percent of those people choose to make comments, and most of them -- befitting the manners of our age -- are young, stupid, malicious, and troll-like.

These sites ain't the place to look for "credibility." They aren't the place where the nation's space policy is argued or determined. They're just the places where some of us hang out while looking for the real places to talk about space.

I didn't agree with Griffin's plan which I considered it horrible but I do have to agree with him that this new plan is drivel.

All I got from reading the slides was that we have to start all over once again with the help of the American tax payers.

I had been intending to let this pass:
"The new exploration proposal really is drivel. It is attributed to the findings of a commission composed of failed commercial space advocates (Augustine - Athena/Atlas V, Bejmuk - Sea Launch, Greason - Rotary Rocket), academicians, and astronauts. They concluded that commercial is the way to send humans into space with absolutely no idea of what a successful commercial space enterprise might look like. Chalk this aspect of the plan up as drivel."
Exploration Believer May 7, 2010 4:39 PM
They did :
"While the Committee found interim reliance on international crew transport services acceptable, it also found that an important part of sustained U.S. leadership in space is the operation of our own domestic crew launch capability. This closed out the first alternative."
(5.3.2 Alternatives to Government-Provided Crew Access to Low-Earth Orbit. p 69 Final Report)

To paraphrase: Yes the Russians can do it more cheaply and more efficiently and more safely but we would never get away with suggesting this commercial option as a safe, cost effective and long term solution to human access to space. American Exceptionalism demands it! Domestic Commercial will be WAY cheaper than Ares and even if ULA/ SpaceX/ Orbital/ whatever all fail to provide a system, the Russians will be cheaper once the Chinese Takeaway opens up! Who knows we might even go for an Indian. Mmmmm Poppadums!

"slandering, thoughtless, crude lashing out"
You said it!
Petard... own... hoisted...

Engineers killed it. They just don't understand Keep It Simple Stupid!

brobof,

Relying on any other entity besides the US government is risky for NASA. (I can hardly believe I even wrote that sentence, it seems to absurdly obvious.) For those who believe we can rely on our Russian friends for transport to the ISS, please allow me to refresh your memories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932010_Georgia%E2%80%93Russia_crisis

I also have a question, maybe a few questions. Please answer if you actually know the answer, as I can speculate as well as anyone. Do the international maritime laws of salvage apply to space? If so, when the US looses it's access to the ISS, what would stop the Russians from declaring a salvage title on the ISS? And if the Russians decided to re-invade Georgia, and we opposed them, what would stop them from just not selling us seats on a Soyuz? And if the Russians decided to then make the ISS a military facility, what would stop them since we would have no access to the vehicle? Remember that the Russian HAVE equipped a Salyut with a gun.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/almaz_ops2.html

All hypothetical and all within the realm of possibility.

Best regards,

Bill

Thanks for your comments, BernieEOD. They'd be a bit more credible if you cited some evidence about Griffin "lying", and explained your own technical expertise

How about this one. Dr. Griffin dismissed large solar electric propulsion systems by claiming that there was not enough Xenon in the world to support their use.

At the time we were working with NASA on the development of such a system. When he made the statement, I had a signed letter by the largest supplier of Xenon in the world that stated that with a 36 month lead time they could increase their production of Xenon by 50 tons per year, more than enough to support 120 tons of payload to the Moon per year from such a system.

I also had technical papers, written by NASA engineers regarding the amount of Xenon in the atmosphere (over 400 million tons), and that acquiring it is as simple as retrofitting the capture devices to existing liquid oxygen production. Another paper that I had, that was also done by NASA engineers and presented at the joint propulsion conference, was that NASA had already successfully experimented with substituting Krypton for Xenon in various percentages. The hit on performance is only 5%. There are also Bismuth thrusters with performance better than Xenon.

Krypton is 20 times more plentiful in the atmosphere than Xenon and Bismuith is over a 1000 times more plentiful. This information was sent to Dr. Griffin in the early days at the time when he cancelled ALL work on electric propulsion systems at the various NASA centers. This is also after successful test firings of Xenon fueled Hall thrusters at the 50 kiowatt level, the level needed for serious solar electric propulsion.

Dr. Griffin was given tours of the places where this work was being done at NASA and according to the engineers involved, he was completely dismissive and cut short his visit.

Dr. Griffin came to NASA with the agenda to build a big rocket and nothing was going to stand in his way of doing so.

Heavy lift is simply not needed to open the solar system for exploration, and indeed I would state that trying to recreate Apollo in both the Space Exploration Initiative and in the VSE has done more to destroy the exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond, than all the congressional poop that has happened.

Maybe in 1989-1992 large solar electric systems were not ready, but this has not been true since at least the year 2000. If you review the history of the late 1990's and exploration architectures (OASIS is an example) done at NASA, you will see just how little we really need heavy lift. It is fine and it is enabling if you get the money, the sustained money, to support it, but without that, we must get beyond this stupid idea that we must have a really big rocket to send humans beyond LEO.

Dr. Griffin either knew this and dismissed it for his big rocket or if he did not, he was incompetent in his job. There are no other choices.

"As to all the posters who refer to the program of record as retro or of resurrecting obsolescent technology"

What I find ironic is that the mass->orbit systems that many of them seem to like (e.g. Falcon, Atlas, etc) are even older kero-lox/etc technology.

Michael Griffin's central point is that the GW Bush admin decision taken to terminate the STS after 30 years was "the best space policy we've had since John Kennedy"; Griffin's point being that NASA's astronautics program consisting entirely of space shuttle/ISS had been stalled in LEO. The STS program should have been cancelled 20 years ago as soon as it was realized that it would never be capable of 50-60 launches/year, @ $1 billion/mission it made no sense. A much simplified human-rated launch program will free up resources allowing deep space missions to Moon/Mars & asteroids otherwise not possible.

If Nixon never cancelled the Saturn V but instead ordered up another 20 heavy-lift Saturn V rockets for the decade of the 70's that were both more capable and economical than the STS ever turned out being (--safer?), rather than the ultimate dead-end STS program NASA's human space accomplishments would have been much more impressive than what we can look back at today since the end of the Apollo era. This is why heavy-lift is so important it allows for flexibility. If the next admin decides to go back to the Moon, so long as new heavy lift capability is developed or on the drawing boards by 2015 it should be possible to return to the moon by 2019 for the 50th anniversary (recall Kennedy's May 25, 1961 decadal mission commitment accomplished by July 20, 1969 with all originally developed hardware and techniques).

And a base on the moon developing in situ resources (oxygen/water/aluminum/titanium) is a lot easier to maintain than a base/mission to Mars or the asteroid moons of Mars which would almost certainly require nuclear rockets to reach safely in any case. I've often thought that a fitting send off for the ISS (inconceivable that we would ever allow its orbit to decay Mir-like) would be to mount nuclear-electric ion rockets on it and thrust it to Mars orbit and set it down, well shielded, into Stickney crater on Phobos -- a pre-fab hab on station around Mars!

What I find ironic is that the mass->orbit systems that many of them seem to like (e.g. Falcon, Atlas, etc) are even older kero-lox/etc technology.

The USAF is right now testing a version of the T6 texan2 for close airsupport.

What at least I object to about Ares is that it uses technology that has demonstrated no cost control or containment whatsoever...NASA hsf is good at this...there really is no upper bound to the money that they will spend on things and people and hence things like Ares simply go out of sight in terms of their operational cost.

Mike G should follow the examples of the folks before him..and stay silent...but since he wants to go out into the 'spin zone' he should be tasked with answering the two major questions of the day...

What does Ares cost so much to develop...and why does it cost so much to operate...and safety is not the answer

Robert G. Oler

LH2 is a bitch.

Even worse now with all the government "Safety" requirements to even order it, let alone test something that uses it. You need a standing army of properly equipped and trained observers in a secure area with hazmat and rescue personnel standing by to dispense a thimbleful.

So, not only is LH2 a bitch to work with, you can't work with it because it's not "safe".

Got it?

Retro is the new way forward. Pretty soon well be fighting over the waterhole next to the cave.

..and the "retro" propulsion insults continue to be flung around.

I was thinking about how "retro" CxP's propulsion methods were (Chemical rocket propulsion? Shameful!) as I was driving around in my car this morning. Yeah, my car, you know...that device that's propelled by that same four-stroke cycle that was patented in 1861, if you believe Wikipedia. Hmm, that's pretty retro too, now that I think about it. Surely we've had some sort of "game-changing" revolution in automobile propulsion lately, right? Well, we do have hybrids nowadays, which do save in gas costs, but the resulting vehicles get a price hike thanks to increased complexity...for instance, the Prius is about $10k more expensive than traditionally-propelled vehicles in its class. And I'm sure I don't need to even discuss the $50,000+ Tesla Roadster.

Upshot: the "game-changing" technologies came, and most folks are still driving around the same ol' four-stroke engines. Not all that game changing, if you ask me. Sounds more like incremental improvement.

Perhaps I'll have more time to think about this retro propulsion issue when I fly to Florida to see the STS-132 launch later this week. I'm sure I'll have ample time to look out the window and contemplate the high-tech jet engines propelling the plane I'm riding on. You know, the jet engines based on a design that Frank Whittle patented in 1932...wait, now that I think about it, that sounds pretty retro, too! Sure, we've had the courage to increase the bypass ratio since then, but we're still driving those high BPRs with a Brayton cycle core. And, unlike cars, aircraft propulsion really doesn't have anything truly game-changing coming down the pipe anytime soon...well, not for passenger airliners, anyway. The most exciting stuff I've seen recently have been renewable jet fuels and lead-free fuels for prop engines (hey, there's that retro internal combustion engine again!).

In short, I welcome all the folks who complain that chemical combustion's too "retro" for their space program to continue to wait for their silver-bullet game-changing propulsion system to come along. In the meantime, I'd prefer to learn from history, and realize that incremental improvement is the name of the game and that technologies that propose to be "game-changing" tend to only be game-changing in the long run, not straight away. I'd prefer to use the propulsion technologies that here now, take advantage of the incremental improvements as they become available, and go and get some real work done...then I'll wave from afar to the folks back on Earth still waiting for their "game" to "change".

For those who believe we can rely on our American friends for transport to the ISS, please allow me to refresh your memories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster#Impact_on_space_programs
I think you will find that during the 'crisis' the Russians continued to live up to their obligations. Unlike the Americans who suddenly announced that they were dumping the program! In the Pacific.
As Gen Bolden himself admitted "If I were looking for a reliable partner..."

No. Don't be silly.
The accords are defined here as you well know.
http://www.spaceflight.esa.int/users/index.cfm?act=default.page&level=11&page=1980
As to the rest of the Cold War Pesski Russki nonsense =Drivel!

You made this old engineer proud! Great post.

To be fair, plasma propulsion has been studied for a long, long time, too (which I guess also arguably makes them "retro" as well). There's just been no real need for it. Now, arguably, we finally have reason to try them out on a larger scale.

As a result, I think the "retro" bit is a false dichotomy (and this goes to both you and your opponents). While we've never really used them before on this scale, non-chemical engines aren't really that new, and arguably of about the same complexity (albeit in different ways). It's not like we're talking about fusion or antimatter engines here.

Personally, the most egregiously "retro" feature of CxP, at least in my opinion, was it was still based on the concept that the spacecraft you take off in is the same spacecraft you go to the moon is the same spacecraft you re-enter and land in. However, to be fair, that's not truly retro since it's been the only game in town for pretty much the entire history of spaceflight. One of the things I've liked about the current plan is that it (in theory) is more oriented towards developing "dedicated" spacecraft that spend their whole lifetimes in orbit. I actually think that could drastically *reduce* complexity, since you only have to build for one environment (space) as opposed to several (launch, space, re-entry, landing).

Concur. That's the major problem with NASA's culture. It is a technological culture driven by coming up with the next cool, game changing technology instead of developing vehicles and technology that is standardized, simple to operate and design for low cost operations, i.e. an operational culture.

It cost's so much to operate because NASA culture isn't interested in achieving true operational vehicles and systems. Instead they are so focused on technology, especially technology invented by them, that they design for every degree of complexity and capability instead of simplicity and low cost of operations. Development costs are high because HSF technology is still not mature, development is hard and requires experienced knowledgable leaders to successfully execute them and NASA unfotunately has no plan to develop personnel capable of leading large development programs. So they personnel that set up and manage the development are inexperienced and untrained and not unexpected, they make costly mistakes. Same thing will happen for whatever follows Constellation.

Simple..Griffin stated that if we only scrap the shuttle and allocate the money to his retro spam can, he could go to the Moon. He assured everybody that a return to a tried and proven method of going into space would have little or no teething problems.
When problems did come up, he then claimed this tried and proven system was now a an entirely new system and was bound to have problems. When The Obama Administration wanted to look "Under his Hood"
He arrogantly claimed that if they didn't believe what he was telling him, they were calling him a liar. The Augustine commission proved Griffin is a liar. He led about the cost, he lied about progress.

I think that many here are getting caught up in the wrong definition of what those that call the ESAS architecture "retro". No one serious is really claiming that chemical propulsion is retro. We are absolutely stuck with it in getting from the ground to LEO. The "retro" part is the whole architecture whereby you need a Saturn V class launch vehicle to throw massive ground integrated payloads beyond LEO. If we are EVER to move beyond flags and footprints we must get beyond that obsolete idea.

What do we want for the exploration and development of space? I would argue that ubiquitous operations within the region of the Earth to the asteroid belt is the first true step toward being a spacefaring civilization. This is what the flexible path is supposed to be, no matter how poorly the idea was rolled out.

How do we achieve that? The ESAS architecture was never going to get us there. The last DRM that I saw for an ESAS mission to Mars required 6 to 7 Ares VI launches (they could not do it with the Ares V), along with an Ares 1 launch. The price of this single mission would be truly astronomical, on the order of $20 billion dollars per flight. Does anyone reading this want to make an argument that this is cost effective or sustainable? The whole reason for talking about flights to NEO's or to Phobos was to get this number down to two or three heavy launches.

This was not significantly improved for the lunar missions. The Lunar DRM's suffered from a non use of locally derived materials and propellants as well. It still amazes me that someone in NASA would actually declare ISRU is a non starter because it was not proven yet! This was while at the same time they were several tons short of the mass to Trans Lunar Injection that was required to make the retro architecture work.

The simple fact is that as long as we are bound to an architecture that requires that everything that will be used at the destination, including the fuel to get there and back has to be built on the Earth or launched from there, is a recipe for failure. You have to look no farther than the much desired Mars sample return mission and how it is having to be stretched out because using chemical only systems, you cannot pay for it within the Science Mission Directorate Budget (SMD) budget.

These are simple cold facts of rocket science and yet there are people seriously arguing that this architecture had even the slightest chance of success. Retro is the right word, but it is not the rocket engine, it was the whole architecture that suffered from this malady.

Here we go again! These shuttle hating spam canners talking about the "Good old reliable Saturn 5"
While serving in the Deep submergence project, worked with engineers who once worked on Apollo.
"Good old reliable" Was not one of the things used to describe the Saturn 5. "The Saturn 5 minute" Was the phrase used by those who worked with that system.
Evolutions that would take only a minute for any previous rocket would take hours or even days. Everything about the Saturn 5 was huge. A comparable valve used on any previous rocket which could be held in one hand would have to be lifted by a fork lift on the Saturn 5. In fact, one of the things which made the Shuttle fail to achieve its cost goals was the fact that it uses the Saturn 5's infrastructure. There was nothing efficient or cost effective about the VAB, crawler, and other parts of the system. It would have been interesting to see how the Vandenburg Shuttle support system would have worked compared to LC-39. There is a reason for not getting much larger than the Saturn 1B class booster, you reach the point of diminished returns. The cost of the Saturn 5 was simply not sustainable. Had the Moon mission been proposed to use a larger LEM and having one mission consist of a Saturn 5 and Saturn 1B Launch, it would have been vetoed even back then. As it was, LC-39 is less than half the size it was originally envisioned. It was to have 5 pads with one being for the canceled NOVA Rocket.
In this age of trillion dollar deficits and a 20 trillion dollar debt, we should not do what we refused to do even back then.

If Nixon never cancelled the Saturn V but instead ordered up another 20 heavy-lift Saturn V rockets for the decade of the 70's that were both more capable and economical than the STS ever turned out being (--safer?)
(Quote)

It was never going to be economical. One of the original plans was to use a smaller ET on the Shuttle and the S-1C as the first stage. Even with having the first stage splash down for re use, Having to buy 5 new F-1 engines every time you fly would have made this configuration too expensive.
One Saturn 5 launch would cost 2 billion.

To extend the Shuttle, it would cost 2.2 billion a year and it wouldn't matter if you did 2 flights a year or ten, the cost would be the same. Only if you went over ten flights a year would the cost rise and only a little like...2.4 Billion.

As far as safer is concerned...Nothing is safe when operated by a management who tells someone "Take off your engineers hat and put on your managers hat!"

BernieEOD: I don't know what your arguing here, that we have no need for heavy lift rockets?

Assuming your cost estimates for the Saturn V are correct @ $2 billion per mission (I have no ready means for either establishing or refuting that figure, but for sake of argument I'll accept it); since the Saturn V can boost over 100 tons to LEO and the STS only about 25 tons costing $1 billion per launch, that accounting still seems to favor the Saturn V by 2:1 ratio ($20k per LEO kg vs $40k per LEO kg on shuttle) which is a significant cost improvement. Just two Saturn V missions -- no strain on infrastructure or personnel -- would put up enough payload to rival the STS' best operational record of 8 launches/year (in push leading up to Challenger disaster).

Mike

If you look under the hood it means that you do not trust me?

LOL

have fun in Huntspatch!

Actually, due to its re usability, the cost of the Shuttle program is 2.2 billion a year. The number of flights per year does not matter. It only gets above 2.2 billion if you exceed 10 flights per year. So. weather you do two flights or ten flights, the cost remains about the same.

As it is, the Ares 1 was estimated to cost at least 1 billion per flight with only half the Shuttles crew and none of its cargo.

Shuttle C AKA side mount HLV allowing both the shuttle and heavy lift to use the same infrastructure appears to be the viable option.
As far as a cheaper way to put just people in orbit, Benson Space already has the answer. Just give them the money they need to speed up thier program. (By the way, Bensen Space did recieve the lions share of Obama's seed money)

BernieEOD:

NASA's budgeted astronautics "manned space" program is usually given as ~$6 billion per annum (between shuttle, ISS, & flight support line items). Granted, most of this is fixed personnel and infrastructure costs, however the STS still managed to average only about 6 flights a year, which would be a significant under-utilization of capital if what you say is correct (4 sorties/year actually forsaken?). For example, why wouldn't NASA just use those 4 "spare capacity" launches to launch mission payloads slated otherwise for Titan or Delta if NASA's STS workers were otherwise just sitting around drinking coffee? On the contrary, NASA engineers and technicians were probably working at full capacity to keep the launch schedule such as it was.

I don't know why Aries I would cost so much per launch since it is basically a 5/6 stack SRB, about half of STS launch requirements, and no SSME or orbiter or ET; where does this cost estimate come from? I think a lot of the controversy over Aries I is due to a lot fewer people being needed for its operation, which after all is how launch costs are brought down and isn't that a major goal?

I have nothing against STS workers, my objection is that the Space Shuttle orbiter itself is wasted effort that could be better employed on something like the proposed heavy-lift Jupiter family of boosters.

The original raison d'etre of the STS was to achieve mission economies by combining the cargo and astronauts in one re-usable launch system. There would be no need for "obsolescent" Titans, and Atlases, etc which would be fazed out. But STS was never able to achieve its promised rate of launches; and fixed program costs made it MORE expensive to operate than the old "big dumb" rockets of yore.