Sen. Nelson Attempts To Formulate a Compromise

As we've seen with Cx to date, its the appropriations language that matters, not the authorization language.

Having said that, it seems like a reasonable approach.

And keep in mind that NASA gets its marching orders from President and funding from Congress, so the end result of their collective wisdom, codified in law, will often be something that drives the logical mind set of NASA crazy.

Just as I predicted a few days ago. Layoffs in September for "Cx" and hiring in November for HLV. Sorry government rocket haters and Cx haters. New program - more hiring. It is not hard to predict. Just read your history books.

The Nelson Gravy Train Retention Bill is another shot fired
at the Executive branch by the Legislative. I see no reason
for the Executive branch to play ball, unless congress has
something more to offer than a continuing resolution will
give the White House. The two sides need to get together
and work something out. In the end the point of the
Presidents 2011 budget request was to change the way NASA
does business. So congress needs to deal themselves into
the administrations plan not the other way around. Which
is the way it should be. Advice and consent doesn’t mean
an alternate executive authority. Congress can fund or
not fund what the president proposes.

The "sensible center" makes its voice heard. Thank goodness!!

After the strident cries from both extremes, its good to hear some more rational and balanced thinking.

Most of what Senator Nelson proposes, makes a lot of sense from what I know.

So there just maybe life for Human Spaceflight post Constellation...

... I have to say though that Constellation was an incredibly ill-conceived program -- "Apollo on steroids"?? Really?? More like a real life Dilbert cartoon. An architecture Wally could admire.

Seriously. Mike Griffin and Doc Horowitz apparently only had a rear view mirror when they "concocted" Constellation. We haven't learned anything in 40 years of spaceflight? There haven't been any notable advances in IT or robotics since Apollo? The best answer for launching CREW is giant solid rocket motors?

Good engineers will look back years from now and be amazed by all this nonsense, as well as the waste of time (5 years), money (~10 billion $$) and talented people.

We can certainly do better than Constellation...

Now that Nelson has thrown in the towel, I don't see how anyone can think that Constellation will somehow survive into FY2011.

And if HLV goes ahead next year as he proposes, it won't take long for the same NASA managers who screwed up Constellation to make a sick mess of HLV also, with spiraling costs, technical incompetence, and slipping schedules as before. The only question then will be how much will a NASA managed, almost useless HLV waste that could be spent on other programs before it is mercifully terminated.

thats why nasa hopes spacex can build first stage and 1 mil pound engines Merlin 2 for the new hlv..faster and cheaper..

J-2x will be for the upper stage...

Whilst I wouldn't put it as acidically as Gonzo, I do agree that the real enemy of any future NASA plan (and that incldues the President's FY2011 proposals) is the sick management culture in the agency. They can turn the simplest and most intuitative project into a swamp bordered by quicksand.

That said, I personally like a lot of things about Nelson's plan. So long as it is administered properly (and, yes, once again that puts us at the mercy of NASA civil service managers) it should work out...

Except...

Rumours abound that Jeff Hanley was reassigned for proposing to transfer 'Prime Contractor' status for CxP from MSFC to Boeing. To... commercialise their Ares-I/Ares-IV hybrid. Maybe NASA has come to terms with its own limitations and is willing to take action?

Overall, I suspect the next few weeks and months will be very interseting. No matter how they turn out, it will certainly set the tone, direction and philosophy for US human spaceflight for decades.

> its good to hear some more rational and balanced thinking.

Rational and balanced was Augustine and his committee members. Do you disagree?

Do you think it is rational and balanced for a guy from Florida to suggest building the biggest rocket in the world with the Shuttle workforce?

Rational to fly the backup Shuttle without a backup?

Rational to stop high tech R&D before it starts, and use old tech to build government hardware to put rocket entrepreneurs out of business?

Rational and balanced thinking for a politician.

Note that Nelson's proposal is very well aligned with the Augustine commission recommendations: LEO access for cargo and crew is left to commercial. NASA restarts significant R&D activities, as well as work on a new HLV (abandoning Ares).

It was Obama who proposed pushing HLV out to 2015, not Augustine. And while I personally think this would be a good idea (delay HLV work until 2015 when we'll have a much better idea of commercial space capabilities, as well as benefits from R&D advancements), I realize politically it could be unworkable.

And who says NASA is a jobs program ?

"Instructs NASA to initiate development of a heavy-lift rocket in 2011 that will be able to fly beyond low Earth orbit and as a “contingent capability to the ISS.”

Proposes that the new heavy-lift rocket and spaceship “leverage workforce, contracts, assets and capabilities of the Shuttle, Ares 1 and Orion.”"

NASA is not flying the backup shuttle without a backup; the backup is only needed to return the personnel from ISS if the Shuttle is disabled, which it will not be since the problem that caused the damage was of course fixed before the next flight, and which could easily be accomplished with a couple of extra Soyuz flights. What Nelson is proposing is a political compromise that does nothing useful.

What doesn't make sense is shuttling down the Shuttle when it is actually working extremely well and we have nothing, even on the drawing boards, that can match its capabilities. What's silly is to put billions into "developing" an HLV when a big ELV requires no new technology and ULA and SpaceX both have designs that could be put into service if they had customers for such payloads.

NASA has to either focus on reusable launch vehicles or expendable ones, and the lesson of Apollo is that for human spaceflight, expendable systems are too expensive to be practical.

What doesn't make sense is shuttling down the Shuttle when it is actually working extremely well and we have nothing, even on the drawing boards, that can match its capabilities.

This reminds me of something Jeffrey Bell wrote:

Even if we can’t get the Space Station millstone lifted from NASA’s back, we can at least get it off the present suicidal course of flying the decaying Shuttles around in circles until they have all crashed.

And as was pointed out in another forum, we could fund SpaceX's COTS-D option for a little more than one month of Shuttle extension. We could fund a whole new SpaceX for every two months of Shuttle extension.

Who on Earth would direct NASA to start building a HLV next year, after what they have done with Ares and Constellation? A commission should look into this whole Ares/Constellation mess.

It just cost us around 10 billion dollars and counting for Ares 1, we should NOT just say "here take another $100 billion, try again next year with a HLV."

There was just an article on Space.com, about it costing between 4.5-7 billion dollars just to build an Orion lifeboat. SpaceX just built a company from scratch, two different rockets (that have both reached orbit), developed 3 different rocket engines and have the Dragon (cargo) capsule that is almost built for just $500 million.

IMO, NASA needs a complete revamp, before they are directed to take on any other large project. If these are the best prices we can get by working through NASA, then we CANNOT afford HSF.

> Who on Earth would direct NASA to start building a HLV next year, after what they have done with Ares and Constellation? A commission should look into this whole Ares/Constellation mess.

I agree, but the studies have been done. Augustine and the GAO have already said NASA is in the crapper.

a compromise jobs program, side mount with a ACES carrier and ACES upper stage.Cargo only!use 4 segment SRB

With very low funding finish the 5 segment SRB.Kill Ares 1.

Develop the hydrocarbon engine, but it must serve the entire space community.It will power the side mount block II,EELV,NO SSME or J2X unless EELV commercial/DOD can use it economically.

Humans beyond LEO go on human rated EELV.Human rated EELV paves(pays!) the way for commercial human EELV to ISS/LEO. It is the same modular launcher eh?

Side mount is to be transitory,it will give way to a super EELV/and or fuel depot.unless...............

the side mount cargo and human EELV beyond LEO to be run by united launch alliance with commercialization incentives in the contract.The contract will have to be rebid after 10 years meaning that side mount will have to compete for costs against a all EELV architecture.

Lagrange, lunar orbit, asteroid, Phobos shall be the goal. lander subject to international cooperation.

thats why nasa hopes spacex can build first stage and 1 mil pound engines Merlin 2 for the new hlv..faster and cheaper..

J-2x will be for the upper stage...

I agree about J2-X, not one word has been mentioned that despite the current mandate leading to Contellation cuts, NASA supports continuing with J2-X and it is not part of it.

However, I disagree SpaceX would make the first stage. SpaceX will have their hands full just trying to supply cargo to LEO and later thinking about human rating (which no doubt is going to be a long messy effort given that NASA needs to make up requirements). First stage could still be RS-68 or shuttle derived.

"Do you think it is rational and balanced for a guy from Florida to suggest building the biggest rocket in the world with the Shuttle workforce?"

-They are the most experienced workforce for the job and won't be doing too much real soon.

"Rational to fly the backup Shuttle without a backup?"

-It flew that way for decades.

"Rational to stop high tech R&D before it starts, and use old tech to build government hardware to put rocket entrepreneurs out of business?"

-Optimizing taxpayer return on investment on billions in hardware research, development, and utilization is irrational? Shuttle hardware might not be sexy or star in Iron Man 2, but it works and its here NOW. As I've stated before, if there is no market, than there is no money to be made and therefore no business case. If there was a valid business case than money could be made with NASA still flying astronauts. Case in point, no country has "privatized/commercialized" their military, but Blackwater has found a way to make money at it.