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The Upside of the NASA Budget
teeks99 writes "There are a lot of articles circulating about the new changes to the NASA budget, but this one goes into some of the details. From what I'm seeing, it looks great — cutting off the big, expensive, over-budget stuff and allowing a whole bunch of important and revolutionary programs to get going: commercial space transportation; keeping the ISS going (now that we've finally got it up and running); working on orbital propellant storage (so someday we can go off to the far flung places); automated rendezvous and docking (allowing multiple, smaller launches, which then form into one large spacecraft in orbit). Quoting: 'NASA is out of the business of putting people into low-earth orbit, and doesn't see getting back in to it. The Agency now sees its role as doing interesting things with people once they get there, hence its emphasis on in-orbit construction, heavy lift capabilities, and resource harvesting hardware. Given budgetary constraints and the real issues with the Constellation program, none of that is necessarily unreasonable.'"
There's also a pretty good article from space.com that talks about a couple of the different points
They go into some more detail about the commercial space transportation part paving the way for more "space tourist" like stuff. Obviously this will still be extremely expensive, but I hope that it could increase the total number of launches, and help bring some economies of scale.
This is also the reason I'm excited about the orbital propellant storage and automated rendezvous technology. These items will allow us to launch big (weight wise) missions by using a bunch of smaller launch vehicles, instead of one really huge (and really expensive) one.
This new program is far better than the old one. It is so very heartening to see in a NASA program a stated goal to reduce the cost of human spaceflight, along with R&D of enabling technologies (orbital refueling, etc). NASA is finally shifting its human spaceflight focus in the right direction. As I've heard said before, it's not NASA's job to put a man on Mars (or the moon). It's NASA's job to make it possible for National Geographic to put a man on Mars.
Now congress just has to not be a bunch of idiots and ruin it (possibly the greatest challenge to human spaceflight yet).
Personally I feel NASA's ongoing mission should be the distribution of people into outer space for permanent relocation. We should focus on saving humanity from the off chance we kill each other with nukes or get hit by an asteroid.
Well, Mexico did once send a killer whale to the moon for $200.
From the article:
allowing multiple, smaller launches, which then form into one large spacecraft in orbit
So NASA's building a version of Voltron?
rounding error with what the President proposed for FY2010. Considering they are spending an unheard of 40% over their income I guess we should feel damn lucky NASA got anything.
Being a geek I want NASA to receive funding an put people into space and on the moon. The space station comes off to me as a camper, someone looking for excitement and adventure but not wanting to commit to the log cabin in the mountains.
Being a cynic, this unabashed spending has got to stop. If it means shutting down the manned space program then please do so. Just cut everything else you can to get a budget down where my children dream of space and not how to pay off the debt of my generation. The cynic in me also says, we canceled all of this because Bush pushed for it and therefor it has to be wrong, and if not wrong, well damnit WE WON.
So NASA will become what? Beholden to corporate interest who may or may not sell services to it because of regulation? Is that the future? We no longer get to dream about going to the stars?
The ultimate cynic in me says, going to the moon and playing in space make for less votes than swimming pools named after Congressmen and schools named after Presidents.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Getting to LEO isn't rocket science, any more. We've been doing that for over 50 years, now.
By now it's rocket engineering, and appropriate for the private sector.
Keep NASA in the rocket science business - deep space, new technologies, etc. The goal here is for the private sector to do it faster and cheaper, enabling other things to piggyback on top - like even further out rocket science. Too much of NASA's attention is spent on that first 100-200 miles.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Any company that has the resources to make a manned space flight will have no problem either pulling the correct strings to get licensing, or simply finding their own island to do so.
OMG brilliant!
Build a cylindrical wall surrounding the launch complex and the outbound trajectory. Put a hefty airlock at the bottom, at ground level. Make the wall tall enough to poke out of the atmosphere. Install really big vacuum pumps.
Move the spacecraft into the wall through the airlock. Get everyone out of the walled area. Close the airlock and evacuate all the atmosphere from the walled region. (Pump it into the surrounding open air.)
When the walled in area is a hard vacuum, from ground to space, launch! The FAA has no say, because there's no atmosphere! The EPA has no say because there's no air!
The spacecraft never undergoes aerodynamic stress during launch and can be any dang shape you want! Spherical ship? No problem!
Note to all slashbots: I am joking. Maybe.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
...but the major impediments to commercial space launches are still the FAA and the EPA.
Perhaps the most attractive point of the commercial swing is that it makes the FAA/EPA factor moot. A launch provider is a launch provider...if the payload sports an American flag on the delivery vehicle, so be it. If it is economically more feasible to hitch a ride into orbit on a Cold War R-7 out of Kazakhstan, that will be the commercial solution.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
That's weird, looks like SpaceX easily obtained permission to launch from Cape Canaveral. http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&um=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=spacex+canaveral+launch+falcon+9
Please stop the FUD. Approximately nothing of what you have said is true, cdrguru.
The FAA's office of Space Transportation (AST) has a mandate written in its authorizing law to both regulate and promote commercial space activities. They take both parts of that quite seriously.
Please do not spread FUD.
I am not aware of any commercial space activity which was denied an AST license or permit. There have been a few "Can't fly from this airport" snafu's from the aviation side, who are alternately happy and sad about rockets, but the AST crew are doing the "promote" thing quite seriously.
Is it always a completely smooth relationship? No. Is any of the startup companies spending most of their time (more than 10-20%) on paperwork? No. People are getting licenses and permits, they're flying.
From a reasonable standpoint, someone does need to be an external review to make sure we don't kill someone on the ground. If the industry neglected that, we'd eventually *really* get shut down when we did something neglegent. The reviews and regulation are appropriate to avoid dropping rockets on some poor family some day, which would be a tragedy both for the victims and for the industry.
EPA has no authority, the FAA has a standing environmental finding that there's no significant impact from the reusable rocket industry.
Am I personally flying rockets? No. Have I had to talk to AST about some proposed activities? Some. Do I know the people flying stuff now (Xcor, Armadillo, Masten, Unreasonable)? Yes, in most cases for decade-plus and personally. When we all get together, most of the griping is about operational lessons, and learning new things about rocket design, and high-fives for new successes. Only a small fraction of it is regulatory. It's there, but we know how to deal with it.
That's just an observation. It's not intended to be criticism of the plan. I have plenty of criticism of the old plan, but I don't yet know enough about the new one.
And between the FAA and EPA it is almost impossible to get a license in the US.
Don't forget OSHA. And that's a GOOD thing IMO. Note that it didn't stop Space Ship One from reaching space. What it will stop is unscrupulous corporations from using a poisonous propellant because it's cheaper than a nontoxic one, and having pieces of the blown-up rocket land on somebody's house. Let alone shortcuts that endanger workers.
When they made the Blues Brothers movie they had to do tests to get FAA approval to drop the Nazi's Pinto from a helicopter in Chicago in that one scene; they wanted to make sure it would drop straight down instead of sailing into a residential neighborhood. After dropping three pintos in the Salt Flats in Utah, the FAA granted permission.
The EPA, FAA, and OSHA protects YOU from corporations who don't care whether you live or die, whether you realize it or not. They're not protecting you from yourself, they're protecting you from ME. Any corporation rich enough to put people in space are rich enough to get EPA, FAA and OSHA approval.
If government went away tomorrow, you'd be wishing it was back the day after.
Free Martian Whores!
Better yet: Not any shape. Place it on a disk, that fits semi-loosely in your cylinder. (Tighter will get more wear, but be more efficient. There'll be a range of 'good' values here.)
Then you let the air back in from vents under the disk. It'll launch most of the way from air pressure alone.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
Shouldn't their whole mission be getting people and stuff into the air and/or into space?
No, that's the job of NAPSA, the National Aeronautic and People in Space Administration. I can see how you would get confused, though.
NASA's job is to look out for the USA's space-based interests. It's not clear what having people in space does for us at this point. Putting people in space was useful once, because it was the alternative to cold war: a space race is much better for development of technology than throwing the nation's money at arms manufacturers. Right now we would be better off developing better launch technologies, whether that's vehicles or stationary machines.
We're gonna need a whole body of laws to deal with space travel
...the development of which is a job for some group of nations, e.g. the U.N., not for NASA; NASA's job there is to advise the policy-makers, the people who actually sign treaties.
Leave science to scientists (lets face it, the current NASA is a quasi-military organization). Leave profit to corporations.
Wait, who's going to put stuff in space, again? Universities don't have that kind of money after paying all the administrative salaries.
Let the new NSA give us a path to the stars,
Oh, the space elevator? Why didn't you say so? Regulations are the opposite of a path, they're obstacles, however justified.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Depends on the type of license. The manned reusable license is actually pretty well thought out. (Scaled was easily able to get such a license). The FAA is more than reasonable about that. You might want to actually research that.
Mexico is not really an option as American companies - or companies with primary American ownership/staff - are still subject to US laws. Space and associated technologies are too close to arms proliferation and the laws are written with that in mind.
The reality is that US companies can, and do, get all the necessary licenses.
What is difficult is the reverse engineering of existing technologies. Almost everything NASA paid for in X programs the last 30 years is still owned exclusively by the company whom they contracted the work. The Linear Aerospike engines that were tested for X-33 has been sitting on shelf at LockMart for almost 10 years, so other companies wanting to explore the concept have to rebuild the design. The only real design in the last decade to come out of NASA itself without outside contracts has been TransHab. (Which they promptly signed a sole-source distribution contract with Bigelow to handle).
And therein lies the problem with NASA. Their R&D programs are not like the old NACA development programs. The technology is not moving to off-the-shelf. They are on-the-shelf technologies because that is primarily where they stay. Any company that wants to build a small orbital vehicle will have to do that from scratch or with whatever they can leverage.
Much needed overhaul of a partially moribund manned program.
Putting science first will create a much more meaningful space
program in the long run, one in which a manned presence is
essential.
Even more brilliant... collect atmospheric C02 and use it to pump the platform up. When the platform clears, keep pumping that evil C02 into space.
It's the pneumatic space elevator of global warming stopping!
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Being a cynic, this unabashed spending has got to stop
The spending is going crazy because entitlements are out of control. The feds promise that everyone who is this or that is entitled to a federal zennie, and now there's more of them as baby boomers get old. What was supposed to happen was that entitlements would be pretty cheap and there would be lots of kids to share the costs of the old people. Now, neither has happened.
Bottom line is, if you want the spending to stop, you have to withhold care for the elderly and handicapped on some level and let them die. If you don't want to do that, then you to pay more in taxes to stem the budget bleeding. In all reality, the only political thing that could happen is that some old people will get cut out and some people will pay more in taxes. But all of the discretionary spending doesn't matter one whit, compared to the mandatory entitlement spending.
This is my sig.
You really have no sense of where government money goes, do you? TANF (federally-funded welfare) is $16.5B. By contrast, the latest Pentagon budget request is $768.2B.
Welfare is a really tiny portion of our total expenses.
I'll BUILD someone to replace you. Some kind of gamma-powered monster, with a heart as black as coal!
Somebody explain to me how this helps them go to mars in my lifetime. I may have 50 years left on the planet. I would like to see us go to mars.
http://wwww.zerospeaks.com
The current budget is a far cry from a "little for space research." The United States of America leads the world in raw spending for space exploration. I would argue that we are spending about as much as the rest of the world combined. I am in NO way saying we are the best, or we haven't had our fair share of failures, but to say that NASA's budget is a "little" amount is simply wrong.
$17.2 billion - National Aeronautics and Space Administration (United States of America GDP: $14.25 trillion (2009 est.)
$5.4 billion - European Space Agency (European Union GDP: $14.52 trillion [2009 est.])
$2.4 billion - Russian Federal Space Agency (Russian GDP: $2.103 trillion [2009 est.])
$2.15 billion - Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Japan's GDP: $4.141 trillion [2009 est.])
$2.0 billion - China (Chinese GDP: $8.767 trillion [2009 est.])
$1.01 billion - Indian Space Research Organization (Indian GDP: $3.548 trillion [2009 est.])
We can care about space AND make sure people aren't being kicked out of their homes because of a recession. I would hate to lose our edge on space, but at the same time... I would rather live with less poverty.
There's $3 billion in the budget starting immediately to develope a heavy lift capability, considering that Ares V developement wasn't suposed to start for several years yet. Whatever solution they come up with should be delivered earlier than the Ares V would have been.
So, NASA's jumping on the same bandwagon as private companies now - outsourcing everything they can get away with. I'm not totally anti-outsourcing, but I do think it goes way too far. Executives love the idea of having as few things in-house as possible, especially when a business partner can do it cheaper. The problem is that they don't care how the partner manages to do it cheaper! This happens in every field. Outsource manufacturing, and you get poor product quality. Outsource software development, and you get crappy code that has to be rewritten anyway. Outsource IT, and satisfaction levels go down as the people who knew what was happening get replaced by the cheapest people they can find. How would this apply to space travel?
Also, here's another thought. In not too many years, China, India or one of the other developing economies is going to be the dominant country on Earth. It's just a fact - they have governments who pursue growth at all costs, and we've decided to stop trying to stay ahead. One of the things that kept the US and the Soviet Union on their toes during the Cold War was the run-up in their space programs. The US push to be first on the moon was basically a government mandate, along with the massive amount of funding that it took. Let's say we wanted to do something like that again - maybe to prove a point to China or something. Now, instead of using unlimited money and power to make things happen, NASA has to go beg/bribe 500 subcontractors to do the job instead of hiring the scientists and engineering staff themselves.
This morning NASA Administrator Charles Bolden had a press conference where he gave more details on NASA's plans and announced the initial contracts for the $50 million commercial crew development contracts (was supposed to be $200 million, but most funding was diverted by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Al) towards Constellation). Mind that this is just for the first year, as the budget hasn't passed yet -- once the budget passes, future contracts will award a total of a few billion spread over a number of years. The video link is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9YvIESqDUk
Here's my notes on the press conference:
(sorry about the heinous formatting)
Charles Bolden takes a moment to thank the Constellation team for their years of dedicated service
"We want to explore new worlds, we want to develop more innovative technologies, we want to foster new industries, and we want to increase our understanding of Earth, the solar system, and the universe."
"each awardee also proposed significant investment from other sources to leverage taxpayer investment"
Blue Origin
o $3.7 million award to fund "risk mitigation activities related to its development of pusher launch escape system, and to develop a composite crew module for structural testing."
Boeing
o $18 million for space transportation system which includes a 7-person capsule to launch on medium-lift expendable launch systems
Paragon
o small business
o has directly supported more than 70 spaceflight missions
o $1.4 million for a development unit of environmental control and lift support air revitalization system
Sierra Nevada
o $20 million for Dream Chaser, 7-person spacecraft to be launched on Atlas V-402 vehicle
ULA
o $6.7 million for emergency detection system to monitor vehicle health of Atlas V and Delta IV rockets
they are the vanguard; certainly adding to this group in the near future
comments from presidents/reps
o ULA
EDS work for commercial crew and making sure products are more reliable for all customers
o Blue Origin
pusher escape system, at back of capsule to avoid jettison event, not consumed on nominal launch so it lowers operating costs
composite capsule will improve durability over conventional technology and lower weight
o Boeing
principal teammate Bigelow Aerospace
Bigelow represents most probable near-term market for crew transportation to LEO other than NASA
want to satisfy both Bigelow's needs and NASA's
parallel with Bill Boeing's young company and airmail to delivering cargo and crew to ISS
o Paragon
developing air revitalization system
first of its kind: a turn-key system, usable on pretty much any spacecraft
had very first commercial experiment on ISS
o Sierra Nevada
developed under unfunded Space Act agreement for past two years
based on NASA's HL-20 from 20 years ago
o Orbital Sciences (ongoing COTS contract)
um, talked for quite a while
o SpaceX (ongoing COTS contract)
spoke about collaborations with NASA
Q&A
o Do you have a destination and timetable?
tiger teams working on destinations and putting together timetables now
o in-orbit refueling?
Your assumption appears to be that the Blues Brothers fx team never thought about wind or aerodynamic effects, rather than they were competent and confident and the FAA just made them jump through a bunch of bureaucratic hoops to arrive at what people in the industry already knew.
Actually, I think the premise here is that it would be really fucking stupid to assume one way or the other. The FAA needs proof, or are you going to argue that because one group of people might have done right without the FAA requiring proof, the FAA should just let anyone do it whether they've put any thought into these effects or not? Or are they just supposed to psychically divine which people will do it responsibly and which won't? Or, even less plausibly, simply take their word for it, since people are basically both competent and honest?
Can I come live in your fantasy world? I'm more than happy to grant that government could be a lot less intrusive and expensive in it, and it would be a great place to live, if it were real...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
The US government is putting its manned access to space in the hands of private entities. When those entities go broke, will they be deemed "to important to fail"?