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Senators Want Big Rocket Instead of New Tech, Commercial Transportation
FleaPlus writes "Members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation are drafting a bill (due this week) which slashes NASA technology development/demonstrations, commercial space transportation, and new robotic missions to a small fraction of what the White House proposed earlier this year. The bill would instead redirect NASA funds to 'immediate' development of a government-designed heavy lift rocket, although it's still unclear if NASA can afford a heavy lifter in the long term or if (with the new technology the Senators seek to cut, like in-space refueling) it actually needs such a rocket. The Senators' rocket design dictates a payload of 75mT to orbit, uses the existing Ares contracts and Shuttle infrastructure as much as possible, and forces use of the solid rocket motors produced by Utah arms manufacturer ATK."
Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ATK, and the United Space Alliance on track once again to spend over $50 million for lobbying efforts in 2010, including educational activities like treating Congressmen to luxury box Springsteen tickets.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Why can't congress just leave NASA the fuck alone and let it actually do something. Or barring that at least give it a mission and not micromanage a government agency of which congress cannot adequately manage. Since we will never elect a majority of rocket scientists for our representatives, what gives them the right to think that they should determine what an agency that deals with rocket science does. Do they micromanage the FBI, NSA, CIA? Do they think that they have the right much less the ability to tell people that know what they are doing what they should be doing. This is like a badly run business that has an accountant running the IT department. Shucks guys but microsoft gave us a deal on server products so we scrapped the linux boxes because our balance sheets told us its better.
Why would you man-rate your heavy lift rocket? It would be a stupid requirement. Big grunty rocket to lift mass, small safe rocket to lift people.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I can see why DoD would want to keep the solid rocket companies in business, because those same companies also build and replace ICBMs. But surely DoD can figure out a way to pay to keep those companies in business without forcing NASA to go with solid rocket boosters.
I agree. I think it's quite bizarre that much of the hubbub in Congress has been about how NASA would no longer subsidizing ICBM motor production under the new plans, and that NASA using commercial liquid-based rockets instead would be disastrous for our strategic deterrence capability. I'd argue that it should be the DOD's responsibility to maintain ICBM production capability, not NASA's. A quote from an article providing some context from those unfamiliar with the situation:
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4543976&c=AME&s=SEA
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., insisted again March 17 that the cost of solid rocket motors that the U.S. military needs for its intercontinental ballistic missiles will double if President Barack Obama gets his way.
Vitter blames Obama's space strategy, as spelled out in the 2011 budget, which would cancel NASA's Constellation program. ...
While others praise Obama's plan to invest in commercial space companies, Vitter worries that one of the real losers in all this will be the U.S. military.
His logic: NASA is the nation's biggest customer for solid rocket motors, so if NASA drops out of the market, prices for everyone else will double. The military needs solid rocket motors for Minuteman ballistic missiles, submarine-based Trident ballistic missiles, missile interceptors and all sorts of tactical missiles.
The Navy, which has studied the matter, says prices will probably rise, but they won't double.
During a Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee hearing, Rear Adm. Stephen Johnson, said he expects solid rocket motor prices to rise 10 to 20 percent. He assured Vitter that 100 percent price growth is not likely. Johnson heads Navy strategic systems programs.
Vitter, who has been sounding this alarm since the 2011 budget was unveiled Feb. 1, seemed unconvinced.
NASA provides 70 percent of the business that sustains the solid rocket motor industry, he said. If that vanishes, costs for other customers must increase more than 20 percent.
Not so, said Johnson. NASA's requirements are so different from the military's - think size and weight - that eliminating NASA's demand will not cause military rocket costs to double.
"It's a valid concern," Johnson told Vitter. And costs may rise, possibly 20 percent. But they won't double.
man-rate = reliable. There are some other specifically man-rating features aside from reliability like abort modes, that probably don't matter for payloads with no emergency recovery system.
But to a first approximation, I claim man-rate = reliable.
Booster cost scales slower with mass than payload costs. After all, communication satellite microwave transmitters are much more expensive than "big fuel tanks".
So, I also claim heavy lift = expensive payload.
So, use the least reliable engine technology that is available to lift your most expensive payloads. What could possibly go wrong?
I'd also claim if a person generates a $1M of economic activity over the course of their life, making a bad engineering decision that "wastes" $500M on a fireworks show, is morally equivalent to killing 500 people, because it wasted their entire life's work. Men with guns had to extort that money out of the population, for nothing. More practically you have thousands of guys literally spending a decade of their life to get "something" into orbit, so turning it into a fireworks show is about the same thing as destroying hundreds of folks life works.
I'll admit you caught me thinking "shuttle". That bad solid booster design cost us one vehicle and one crew. Making the same engineering decision, even if just launching a non-sentient box of rocks, is emotionally distasteful. Last time we tried this we killed seven people, so lets try it again!
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
There are some good people at NASA still. Take JPL for example.... Though, I had a friend there who said it gets mismanaged at the top. He got laid off after one of his projects was launch delayed, so Congress apparently fired the entire design team with the idea that they will just be able to hire random engineers off the street to pick up a project they didn't build six years from now when it can launch again. Slightly off topic, although still relevant to the sad state of scientific endeavors in the US, he couldn't find a job after JPL laid him off with a PhD in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech with a thesis in deep space exploration. So, he ultimately had to go back to live with his family in the Philippines and found some sort of teaching job there.
This potential bill means congressional support behind a Direct version of a shuttle replacement or something close enough not to matter. Direct is a design to replace the space shuttle with a rocket that puts the cargo and capsule on top of the tank, and moves the shuttle engines on the bottom of the tank. Without having to lift the load of the space shuttle itself, the rocket gets 77mT of cargo to orbit.
Re-using all the major shuttle components provides the cheapest possible option for a Heavy Lift Vehicle, not to mention the quickest, as a Direct design could be flying by 2013. The current plan from the administration doesn't even decide on a HLV design until 2015, let alone start the process of building and testing it. This is not a barrel of pork. Yes, somebody will make some money, but this is the cheapest option at the moment to keep a US heavy lift capability in the near future, and it will be built here in the US.
Current US lift capability stops at only 25mT in the Shuttle cargo bay to Low Earth Orbit. By funding a Direct style vehicle, we get a minimum of 75 mT to orbit without a second stage. This a very good thing. With further development of a second stage, the payload capacity increases to 115mT+. Not only that, but by putting the payload on top of the vehicle, a direct style rocket can support a payload as wide as 12m across (shuttle can only do 5m). So we get the ability to send more per launch and save over the life of a large project. For example, five flights of Direct would have been sufficient to build the ISS, versus the 40 shuttle launches it actually took.
By re-using the same engines and boosters as the space shuttle, we save billions (maybe $10 billion over time) in research and launch facility changes necessary for other designs (Ares would have required 2 new pad designs and new crawlers at a $1 billion a pop). The cost per launch for Direct will be less expensive as well. For comparison, recovery of the shuttle SRB's, refurbishment of the shuttle and launch costs per launch have averaged out to about $1.3 billion per launch. A Direct will cost somewhere north of $200 million for the launch vehicle, plus operating costs, but won't include refurbishment or recovery operations. For the immediate future NASA says it will launch the last shuttle in 2011, and after we'll be paying the Russians $20-30 million per seat for rides in a Soyuz
We save time in that we can have an un-manned cargo version of the vehicle doing test flights by 2013, whereas the engine testing alone for a liquid-fueled booster would take 5 years by the current plan. as all the parts are already man-rated (save for the modified ET), we could be launching Orion capsules on a Direct as soon as the Orions finish development in 2015 or so.
If this passes, I'll be one very happy space fan.
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