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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."
Pork.
As an aside, replace "NASA" with "useful government program" of your choosing and the sentence still works.
"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
Why are Senators designing rockets?
My guess is that they are not designing rockets so much as they are designing pork.
I was unaware that the Senate had members who were NASA engineers.
...forces use of the solid rocket motors produced by Utah campaign donor ATK.
Maybe I'm just cynical, but that's how I read the last sentence.
This is the most brazen act of pork barrel politics since the Bridge to Nowhere. Actually, it *is* a bridge to nowhere.
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.
I agree Senators should stfu - but dictating a payload capacity is a requirement, not a design.
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and forces use of the solid rocket motors produced by Utah arms manufacturer ATK.
There is no such thing as a truly man rated solid booster. They can put on their manager hat instead of their engineer hat and ram it thru for political reasons, but that doesn't make it true or safe.
So, whats the technical solution?
Politicians are pretty stupid and/or they don't care as long as their Utah connection gets some dough. They don't really care about the technical needs. So I have occasionally daydreamed they should be hired to produce two giant smoke grenades, or something like that. They'd be a "safety system" since the "boosters" would be dead weight and if the actual rocket had a problem, it could eject the dead weight boosters to gain quite a bit of performance.
Or, rather than trying to generate net upward thrust, if they barely broke even with their own weight, maybe they'd be safer.
Its an interesting technical solution to a political problem.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
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.
No wait, not the pigs, just the pork.
I can't wait for all the interesting and new technology that would actually expand our capabilities to get canceled in favor of a appeasing a government contractor who wants us to keep doing what we've been doing and all the people who can't get past Size of Rocket = Size of Nation's Cock.
News flash for the space mid-life-crisis crowd: Big rockets are really impressive... if you live in the 70s! You want NASA to regain it's mojo and reclaim the lead in space? Shuttle 2.0 ain't gonna do it. Everything that will be scrapped in favor of the pork project would.
The enemies of Democracy are
They should therefore not be attempting to dictate the future of rocket science R/D in the appropriations bills. It's all fine and good to set lofty goals, but leave the nuts and bolts to the nuts and bolts people.
What saddens me is that they're talking about spending ridiculous amounts on human spaceflight, and a comparative pittance on sending up more 'bots. You don't need to look much further than Hayabusa or Spirit and Opportunity to see the potential for real Science to get done is staggering when you don't have to worry about sustaining all those pesky biological systems. IMHO, we should be devoting at least a fifth of the budget to non-human spaceflight and exploration.
Once we know what's up there, we can send the fleshbags.
"Do you think he's maybe compensating for something?" -- Shrek
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
> What else do you expect when the head of NASA says that his primary mission is to remind Muslims of all the contributions they made to science?
Oh geeze, not this again. He was talking about "foremost" in the context of the interview, not NASA as a whole. Administrator Bolden needs to learn how to speak more like a politician and choose his words more carefully, but you'd have to be retarded to believe that he honestly thinks that's the primary mission of NASA.
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.
Solid rockets are a good choice when you need to keep a rocket in storage for a while (like an ICBM hopefully), but for an active launch program it is a little less clear why you would go with solid fuel since they make lots more pollutants when you burn them.
I am absolutely sure that nobody in the industry has submitted research on this subject and the numbers are purely arbitrary.
Nobody on the Committee is from Utah, BTW. If this were a slaughterhouse order, it's more likely the big contracts would be proposed in New Mexico.
Is what will this be attached to? If it goes on its own, I would imagine Obama would give it the big red VETO
Do you honestly think some senators are demanding the use of a solid fuel booster made by a US arms contractor deep in Mormonland because of some Obamunist pro-muslim conspiracy?
Even Glenn Beck couldn't come up with a conspiracy theory looney enough to link those two phenomena...
Since when do a bunch of lawyers know dink about the best cost solution to any technical problem?
Want NASA to provide a heavy-lift capability? Give NASA a broad goal (say for example to get to the moon in ten years), get the hell out of the way and have NASA produce a design study showing cost-benefit trades for all options studied (including whatever the engineers think might be feasable / possible / affordable - who knows, maybe those engineers actually know a thing or two about what they do). If the projected costs come within the realm of feasibility, authorize a multi-year funding profile (with offramps for failed performace), and get the hell out of the way. Otherwise, any effort is doomed to failure as a political football.
- A Practicing Aerospace Engineer
PS: N(a)SA, the National Space Administration; lack of adequate funding has already killed any useful Aeronautics they might have once accomplished
Why not let the Senators do the designs too? After all, it's not like it's Rocket Science!
I'm surprised this didn't make it higher - but this article in addition to this one about NASA to strengthen ties with Muslim world - is NASA getting repurprosed?
Yeah, but "75mT"? It's nice to see US Senators trying to get to grips with this new fangled metric system when they specify their pork, but 75 milli-Tonnes would be 75KG. Perhaps NASA should fax their designated rocket motor supplier in Utah some of its own blueprints for a surface to air missile and just get on with whatever it is that NASA actually wants to do, which might actually be something useful.
Alternatively, they could just claim to be catering to their stated directive about "reaching out to Muslims" and tell the not-so-honorable Senator from Utah "We don't do pork anymore as it might offend Muslims."
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I'd like to see better orbital insertion technologies pursued. Like a mag-lev cannon or something. Rockets CANNOT be the most efficient way to orbit. Especially Heavy lift rockets. Grrrr
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Yeah, but "75mT"?
Hmm, I just realized that article linked in the summary didn't include a reference on the 75mt/mT/whatever requirement. Here's one that does:
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100710/NEWS02/7100318/1007/Funding+may+alter+NASA+s+spaceflight+direction
While saying it was not the committee's place to design rockets, Nelson said the giant launcher -- capable of lifting at least 75 metric tons -- should be largely derived from shuttle systems and likely would use solid rocket boosters, like the Constellation program's
Ares I and Ares V rockets.
The "mT" thing is technically deprecated if I understand correctly, but for whatever reason is still quite common in aerospace circles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonne
T and mT and mt (especially in the combination mmt for million metric tons compare to Mt for megatonne) are also occasionally used, but all of these are deprecated since they conflict with internationally agreed SI symbols.
The NASA I grew up with is truly dead and gone. NASA was about going somewhere; we could go to the moon, I can't wait to see what's next. It's so hard looking at the pictures at the Apollo Archive without feeling melancholy about what NASA was, back in the 60s, and has never been since.
I wonder what Neil, Buzz and Michael are doing for fun these days.
Did y'all already forget... Last week NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told Al Jazeera one of his top priorities from President Obama is to reach out to Muslim countries. If Obama won't allow NASA to stay on-focus, the Senate should cut the funding.
Even Glenn Beck couldn't come up with a conspiracy theory looney enough to link those two phenomena...
Sure he could.
"Obama is having his tools in the Senate demand that they use this particular contractor as a way to undermine support for Christianity by making them servants of the liberal academic elite, imposing unwanted big government on the God-fearing citizens of Utah."
I am officially gone from
What I noticed was that the article is against the new spending bill and that all the quoted sources in the article benefit from the current spending plan.
Every single one of the named sources is attached to and gets money from commercial space interests in some way.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Charles Bolden did make these comments. You can google it, it's out there. However the White House has made a statement stating that his comments were out of line and they had asked of him no such thing. They also stated they would be in touch with him about his comments. My guess is a bit of hand slapping went on.
Heck, I have a friend who is/was an engineer on the Ares rocket / Orion spacecraft; and he WANTS Ares to die. He would prefer that NASA get out of the rocket design and LEO-transport businesses. He really wants to work on experimental stuff. He feels that THAT is what NASA should do. Leave the LEO stuff to private businesses. (Obviously, with the caveat that NASA buys the use of them when needed.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I'm sorry, he was talking about the mission of NASA. I thought the mission of NASA should be something to do with space exploration. What does reaching out to muslim nations have to do whith NASA? That sounds more like a State Department job to me. The other things he listed in that particular quote as part of the mission of NASA didn't sound like they belonged on NASA's agenda either.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Apparently I mis-calibrated my sarcasm.
I was attempting to satirize the fact that any sort of government spending on social programs tends to fall victim to the backlash against the terrifying(but largely unverified) "Welfare Queen"(which, again regardless of statistics, is an explicitly racially identified character); while even the most transparently pointless dicking around with porky corporate contracts does not arouse the same ire.
Somehow, as long as the government spending results in some sort of corporate product(even if it is wholly ill-suited, grossly over budget, or simply canceled partway through) it avoids the dread stigma of being "welfare"(for some reason, farm subsidies also seem to escape this). On the other hand, if there is some chance that a poor person of the colored persuasion might get their hands on a thin slice, it instantly becomes "welfare", which is self-evidently an unsustainable "entitlement program" that is destroying America's moral fiber even as it wrecks its finances.
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.
The Internet has no garbage collection
and if the CCCP was still around then we may of been on mars by now!
they could just claim to be catering to their stated directive about "reaching out to Muslims"
- well, if the requirement is 75Kg and they are reaching out to Muslims, then I am assuming they are going to rich out to Muslims with a 75Kg warhead of some sort.
You can't handle the truth.
If only it was the capitalization... Also - so many people writing about SI, etc.; nobody putting the damn space between values and units.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Far be it from me to defend an institution that P.J. O'Rourke famously called the Parliament of Whores... but you need to re-examine your own "science be damned" statement. Because NASA is not science, and never has been. NASA was an inherently political creation for an inherently political goal: beating the Soviets in the space race. And NASA was born with big, fat, servings of pork to all the necessary states.
Science is, and always has been, a minor sideshow at NASA. If your main concern is science, then NASA is the wrong place to put all your hopes and dreams in. NASA, having served its purpose (Soviet Union, RIP) should be quietly put to death, and its job broken up amongst various existing agencies.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Seems a waste to develop a new rocket when 75 milliTeslas (75 mT) of magnetic flux density in the form of a neodymium magnet doesn't weigh much.
One can only assume that the authors wished to express the SI related unit of 75 tonnes (75 t) or 75000 kg. Even in the US this unit is denoted by "t"
"Metric System of Measurement: Interpretation of the International System of Units for the United States" (PDF). Federal Register 63 (144): 40333–40340. July 28, 1998. 63 FR 40333.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
It's hardly surprising to see Utah fighting to keep the original contracts. There are entire cities whose fate is tied to ATK launch systems. In a representative government, you have to represent the interests of your constituents; or at least pretend to. If a decision is made that will send entire cities into unemployment, your job is to represent and fight for those who face unemployment.
The senators and congressmen of other states may not care what happens to thousands of people in Utah, it's not their job. On the other hand, you can't really fault the senators and congressmen of Utah for doing their job and fighting for the livelihood of thousands of their constituents.
I'm sure the situation is the same for other Ares contractors.
There's something to be said for honoring the contracts that have been signed for the constellation program. Otherwise, we end up with the same political patronage that plagued the presidencies of the early 1800's; states that favored the current president gets jobs, and states that didn't have jobs taken away. Whether justified or not (I bet it's not), one accusation being leveled against the Obama administration is that the decision was made to hurt states that didn't vote for him.
The fact is that the Constellation program, while having NASA/government oversight, was designed by commercial entities, under contract. I just don't see how a rocket built designed and built by ATK & Boeing is "government", while SpaceX or Orbital is "commercial." They are both rockets designed and built by a corporation, and delivered to the government according to a contract.
There actually is a commercial market for unmanned spaceflight. There is a market for sattelite launch.
Manned spaceflight is a different matter entirely. There isn't a commercial reason to go to space - no untold fortunes to be had from resource collection (like metals or Helium-3), no riches to be had in exploring Mars or the moon... No interplanetary transportation of people between colonies, no transport of scientists to zero-g labs, etc. There are a few joy riders willing to spend a bit more than the launch cost, but that's not enough to justify the billions in investment. Truly "commercial" manned spaceflight shouldn't be completely dependent on the US Government. Sadly, that's all Oribal and SpaceX have for manned spaceflight. Trying to say they are somehow different from Boeing, Lockheed, or ATK is obfuscating the truth: That they are contractors to the government. Without the a government paying for manned spaceflight, SpaceX and Orbital have no way to turn a profit with manned spaceflight -- and neither does anybody else, for that matter.
The SpaceX and Orbital are latecomers to the shuttle replacement game; they want a do-over because they were still exploding on the launch pad when the Ares contracts were given out. It seems to me that there's a lot of lobbying by SpaceX and Orbital to get government contracts taken from their competition, and reassigned to them. It's a money grab by SpaceX and Orbital, and a transparent one at that.
If you weren't ready in time for the bidding, that's too bad; maybe next time.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
I definitely fail to see how the VA's mission could be done better by the private sector
Easily. You set performance targets and financially penalize organizations who fail to meet those targets. I'd consider it similar to how the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation works with grants.
Its revolting that this country doesn't really DO anything anymore. We will never get back to the moon. Hell, I bet we never get anything rebuilt on the twin tower's site.
They'll probably build a mosque there.
The only country that seems to be really doing anything significant any more is China. Everyone else is just fumbling around, especially the US.
Apart from the pork angle there's another thing: Even the original Bush plan for the Moon and Mars looked as if it were designed to get a heavy launcher at all costs. Now this. Really, building launchers at all is not something you need to be the US or Soviet Russia for. Every country not being exactly a developing country can do that now. Even private companies can do that.
Building something able to launch really big payloads though is different. This is hard and expensive and has so few uses that nobody even tries. It has one really good use though: Fscking big military optical and radar spysats. If you want to have an optical spysat in GSO you need more than a few thousand pounds up there. And if you want to have radar spysats with high resolution you also need some serious power and antennas up there.
Being able to launch 70 or more metric tons is something you can rely on nobody else that easily to repeat. And I think this was the real reason for Ares V and now for this. Having some really big eyes in the sky staring down hard day and night, *this* would make a difference. Everyone with half a brain can now time his operations so that no spysat is in the right place when he wants to get some things done without being seen.
What trade studies were done that decided a 75mT payload capacity was needed as opposed to a 50 or 60mT? Is there a linear increase in cost vs. payload capacity? Is 75mT some sort of optimum, balancing cost vs. development time vs. existing hardware capabilities?
Or is it a number pulled out of someone's ass?
Arguing requirement vs. design is mostly semantics at this point. What matters is where the number came from and what sort of analysis went into it (if any).
I thought it had more to do with the fact that the closer to the equator you get, the easier it is to launch into orbit.
I love how 'mercenaries' has been replaced by 'private contractors' in the minds of people, it's just really scary how Orwell knew the workings of language.
Please remain calm, there is no reason to pani... wait, where are you all going?