Competition to Build the Space Shuttle's Successor

Neil Halelamien writes "The competition for the prime contract to build the Crew Exploration Vehicle, the successor to the Space Shuttle, is ramping up. Currently, 11 different companies are creating preliminary designs for systems and vehicles which could be useful in implementing NASA's Vision for Space Exploration. By the end of the year, NASA will select two teams to independently develop and build a CEV design. The two teams will launch competing unmanned prototypes in 2008, at which point NASA will award a final winning contract. Aerospace giants Boeing and Northrop Grumman have formed one team. Another "all-star" team, announced a couple of days ago, is headed by Lockheed Martin. A third team in the running is underdog t/Space, a company with a free enterprise approach to space exploration, which includes notable figures from the commercial spaceflight arena, such as Burt Rutan and Gary Hudson. There is concern that a NASA budget boost to help pay for the exploration program could draw some opposition, as most other government programs are anticipating budget cuts."

Comments

Re:Where's the money going?

[I confirm I'm not a]

I guess the other side of the coin is the German's saying Mars by 2009. *shrug* I guess when you have nothing substantial in your space program in the past, you've got nothing to lose with ridiculous goals for the future?

Uh, Wernher von Braun ring any bells?
From Wikipedia: "In the United States, he is regarded as a hero of the space program."

Re:Common sense prevails at last!

[stevelinton]

SpaceShipOne was NOT an LEO vehicle. It got to 100km, which is the easy part
but didn't make any attempt to get to orbital velocity, which is what takes most of the fuel, and imposes most of the mass restrictions. Boosting a set of wings and an undercarriage up to orbital velocity just so you can slow them down again and then land on a runway consumes an insane amount of fuel for too little purpose. Until we find a lauch fuel significantly more energy dense than LH2 and LO2 then the dry mass cost of wings and wheels will always be too high.

The Scaled Composites people are involved in one of the bids and they are not proposing a space plane.

The Rutan plan

[Anonymous Coward]

For a good overview of the Rutan proposal, check this pdf at their website. It's a heckuva read...they advocate building a real frontier which ultimately generates tax revenues. They want to use flotillas of vehicles for redundancy, and keep it simple...eg., to land on the moon, just burn more fuel and land the whole vehicle, instead of just a separate lander. Less development time, less to go wrong, and for the first 20 to 40 flights it's cheaper that way. They also ding NASA for micromanaging...they say engineers should question everything, and you can't do that if you have to justify every deviation from the written plan to NASA's managers.

Re:Common sense prevails at last!

[Radar Guy]

Whoa - how is this insightful? Not to nitpick too much, but to say "Defense is excluded" isn't entirely accurate. A quick google search of 'budget cuts defense department' returns this Washington Post article as the *first* hit. The short of it - $55 billion in cuts over 6 years (same timeframe as the $300 billion in cuts the parent mentions), including $5 billion from missile defense.

That might not be a huge chunk of the $300 billion, but during time of war I'd say that's definately more than "excluding" the DoD.

Re:Benefits

[ultranova]

What I've never understood: what are the benefits of space exploration? Sure it gives information about space, but what's the use?

• Asteroid mining.

• Build really big solar energy collectors, put them into space, and beam the energy to Earth with microwaves.

  Or just use a giant collector mirror and convert to electricity on Earth - such a design could also be used as orbital beam-weapon.

• Self-sufficient space colonies - survival of the species in case of a large meteor strike or something similar is a benefit.
• Zero-g manufacturing - I've heard that it's possibly to build some materials only in zero-g, because gravity distorts the forming crystal structure. Does someone know more about this ?

• Inspiration. People need something to look up to. They need heroes. Currently, movie- rock- and sports stars are fulfulling this role, and of course this leads to a culture completely obsessed with entertainment - it's not the only reason for this problem, but it is a contributing factor.

  It's a bit like politicians starting wars to drown their problems under the flood of patriotism, but channeled with a positive goal, rather than negative.