NASA Does Not Have a Post-Russia ISS Contingency Plan
Culberson Statement on NASA Budget Hearing
“Administrator Bolden made it clear in his answers that the Obama Administration has no contingency plan in place to send U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station if Russia chooses to end the current agreement that allows our astronauts to travel to the space station on board its Soyuz capsules.”
NASA’s chief confirms it: Without Russia, space station lost, Houston Chronicle
‘If Russia stops flying U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station, the U.S., lacking a backup plan, would have no choice but to abandon the multibillion dollar outpost to its own fate, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said Wednesday. “We would make an orderly evacuation,” Bolden said during a U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee hearing.”
Keith’s note: Culberson is not exaggerating. When asked, Bolden could not give a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to rather specific and repeated questions as to whether or not NASA has a post-Russia ISS contingency plan in place. Bolden stumbled for a bit before he started to talk about an orderly evacuation of the ISS. Culberson interrupted at one point and said “please tell me that you do”. Bolden also seemed to suggest that the U.S. can operate the ISS without Russian permission/cooperation.
If the Super Draco rockets on the Dragon 2 can be used to propulsively land and also eject the capsule in an emergency, how difficult would it be to use them to boost the ISS???
It would depend on the ability to attach in a location on ISS that was appropriate for reboosting. I do not know how much thrust they would be able to provide and whether it would be enough to raise the orbit of ISS enough to keep it from decaying.
The Super Dracos can (could) have enough fuel to execute a propulsive landing, but how far does that fuel load go when applied over the entire mass of ISS? I don’t have an answer to that question.
I was thinking the same thing. Use an extended trunk and put extra hydrazine tanks in there with an umbilical that feeds the Super Dracos. The Dragon V2 would be unmanned at launch so wouldn’t have to worry about using the Super Dracos for launch abort. If the Russians detached the Zarya it another IDA can be attached to PMA 1 for docking. I think it would make a perfectly good replacement for the Progress.
Way too much thrust. Super Draco would rip Dragon off the PMA.
The Dracos are throttlable, they”ll start low and throttle up as needed, just not sure of the duration needed.
Yup. Better to use Dracos and a longer burn or CST-100.
They’re designed for use in the atmosphere; they would need new nozzles to work effectively in space.
I’d imagine regular Draco engines plus fuel tanks in the trunk would work, but you’d have to run the numbers to see just how big it would need to be. Plus NASA would want to “man rate” the modifications, even if you flew it uncrewed (e.g. similar to ATV with quad-redundant propulsion systems).
You might need a Falcon Heavy to do this in one mission.
I’m guessing the only restriction would be fuel, not
enough of it to boost the ISS and reduce it’s speed to re-enter the
atmosphere at the end of it’s mission….but they could just install extra tanks for that …no?
The regular Dracos can provide the retro firing, as they do now.
All that planning for how to safely de-orbit ISS at some future date is now for naught, since we will have no Progress to provide the de-orbit burn. Back to square one.
As far as contingency in the near term, we have had no contingency capability for the last 4 years and we knew that for about the last 8 years, ever since we realized that Orion would not make its unrealistic but announced schedules. Where have these senators and congress critters been the last decade?
well, NASA could certainly ask for a fuel-only Progress, or Russia might even offer one as part of its plan to remove its modules from the ISS.
The International Space Station, perpetually replaced by newer components, could continue to live on as a “Ship of Theseus” with perhaps even the US and Russia passing on the torch of operations to up-and-coming space agencies that wish to participate.
That is if the funding and willpower to do so exist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
If NASA started a COTS-like effort to buy a commercial module to replace the essential functions of Zarya, it could easily be ready before 2024. The long-term purpose of the module would be to provide a foundation for multiple commercial space stations, moving the US into the post-ISS era with no break in space station operations. Using COTS rules could cut the cost to as little as a tenth what a FAR effort would cost. Of course, commercial crew transportation is a prerequisite.
Get Bigelow started now building more than BEAM
And, hopefully, get Bigelow a competitor.
There is one: Thin Red Line Aerospace of Canada. They actually built a many of Bigelow’s existing restraint layers and have worked with NASA on other expandable projects.
http://www.thin-red-line.com
Why? Far cheaper, far easier, and far more effective to just use the SLS tooling to build conventional rigid pressure modules, much like Skylab was build out of an SIVB very cost effectively. Besides, the vast majority of the cost to develop, launch, and operate a space station is not in the pressure vessel structures, but in all the other systems, for most of which Bigelow has little to no expertise or credible plans.
Using cost plus, fixed fee, sole sourced, non competitely bid FAR contracting is not ever cheaper. History has shown that.
Bigelow has a broader capability than you give them credit for. Look a bit deeper into the company.
Bolden also noted that if Congress had funded commercial crew at the requested levels in the past, we would be nearly ready to fly astronauts aboard US spacecraft now rather than in 2017.
This is one of those gotchas that Congress is famous for. In this case withholding funds and then blaming an agency for failing to produce.
Or if the Obama administration had not gutted Orion, the phase I version would have already been flying to ISS by now. Or if the Bush administration had not set in motion the shuttle retirement, they would still be flying to ISS with a lower cost per crew & cargo delivered than any of the current or projected options. Or if the Clinton administration had not terminated all efforts to replace the shuttle before retirement got started, replacement could have been handled in an orderly way. And so on.
Hard pressed to think of anybody who does not deserve a large share of blame for the current situation.
at 1.1 billion a pop for a disposable, water landing, 4 person capsule, and toss in the 1.5 for SLS and it was insane to think a 650 million dollars per seat price to LEO was ever going to happen.
At the Kennedy speech the President requested a 6 billion dollar increase for NASA’s budget over 5 years to fully fund commercial crew.
If closing “the gap” was a REAL issue it would have been funding. It was more important to say refuse to fund it in the house and instead say “obama hates space” “Obama kills NASA”. “obama pays for rides from the russians”
On and on and one .. it was a cheap policial tactic once again illustrating how little space means to politicans.
US GNC MDMs and Russian TCs jointly control the GNC function. There are separate navigation and control devices operated by each GNC. Command and Control are similarly joined at the hip. Without US GNC the RS segment and ISS runs out of gas and without RS GNC the US segment and ISS saturates the control gyros resulting in loss of attitude control..
Well duh! Congress should look in the mirror if they want to see who’s at fault.
Worth noting, Russia doesn’t own Zarya.
I guess NASA’s strategy is the right one, even though it is not so easy to explain to the congress. The key point as many of you noted is money, not technology. First the probability for Russian to break the agreement with NASA is tiny if not zero. There is no need to hurry the preparation because that will cost money and congress is unwilling to provide. If Russian indeed breaks the agreement some time in the future, there is a good chance NASA will get what they paid for the trips back, which might help to hurry their preparation up. Even if the US choose to break the contract and NASA could not get refund from Russians, congress will likely to rain money on NASA because that’s how congress behaves in a war, cold or not.
This should surprise no one. When the Space Station Freedom program morphed into the International Space Station program, the US gave up on developing key pieces of the station and instead chose to rely on Russia. Commercial resupply and commercial crew can replace Progress and Soyuz, but that is only part of the problem. The bigger problem is the fact that Zvezda (the Russian Service Module) still provides key attitude control, debris avoidance, and orbital re-boost capabilities to ISS (i.e. it’s got all of the propulsion related capabilities).
This is absolutely key. I can imagine that it would take a significant investment to develop an analogous module with which to replace it. Perhaps the Russians will be satisfied with selling us the old one, leaving it in place, and using the dollars to fund the creation of a new station for themselves. It would make more sense for us, too, as the station will be old enough that it likely would not warrant the expenditure on a new module.
ATV could likely also do the job, but the last one has flown. I’d imagine a Cygnus module that has its pressurized section replaced with fuel tanks could do the job of propulsion. But, it would take time and money to design, certify, build, and fly.
I’ve always thought that decisions about crewed U.S. spaceflight are made in the White House, not by NASA. If this or any other president wanted NASA to have a post-Russia contingency plan for ISS, NASA would have such a plan. Getting Congress to fund it might be an issue, but they’d have a plan.
So, while technically accurate, the headline is misleading.
American leadership in human spaceflight depends on presidential leadership. No president since Apollo 11 has been remotely interested in providing that leadership.
True, but it is NASA’s job to advise the President in coming up with government policy in aerospace. The President is one person, who can’t possibly be expert in all fields of human endeavor in the modern world, which is why the executive branch employees agencies full of experts in their various fields. Of course that natural and proper order of things is disrupted when agency policy is set not by the career experts but by the (X)olden political hacks and / or ignored by Presidents too willing to override their paid experts in deference to their own off-the-cuff, I-slept-in-a-Holiday-Inn-Express-last-night innate genius for all things imaginable.
I don’t agree with that statement at all. Congress holds the purse, and the budget is in fact law. Trust me, we get lectures all the time at NASA about how we have to follow the congressional guidelines or find ourselves in jail. So yes, technically NASA is an executive agency under the authority of the President, but in reality it legally must follow the funded mandates set by Congress, not the President. The latter is only supposed to act as a middle manager. And history shows quite clearly that its pretty much irrelevant what the President, whoever they may be, or NASA wants, Congress happily rewrites the agency directives through the power of the line item.
Under a former NASA administrator whose name rhymes with Bolden, when he testified before Congress on the relationship with the Russians, he was asked point blank if the Russian Hardware was on the critical path of ISS. His response NO. Then people wonder why NASA doesn’t have the full faith of Congress and why Congress doesn’t fully fund NASA. Is Charlie B. repeating history?
ISS was always more a tool of multilateral diplomacy than of science. It should have been in the State Department’s budget, not NASA’s.
It’s true that it was a diplomacy/defense project (the selling point about Russian engineers), but was that a bad thing? Is a LEO Babylon 5 fundamentally a bad thing? While we all have our own pet project that we’d like NASA to fund. I think the ISS was and is deserving of funding.
One audacious option would be to turn over the ISS to SpaceX and Bigelow. If these corporations are in control of the ISS, Im confident they would have crew transport to/from as SpaceX has already started with cargo. Having a couple of US companies utilize the ISS is better then loosing it entirely.
Alas, the cost of operating the ISS is probably not very attractive.
Sorry but this is a ridicules suggestion. Neither SpaceX nor Bigelow know anything at all about running or maintaining the ISS. Boeing has that contract and NASA is the only organisation which can handle overall coordination.
Cheers
And the funding for said objects of fanboy adulation to operate ISS is going to come from where? The one place we can count on it not coming from is their own pockets.
You know your threatening some government funded group every time the term “fanboy” comes up. Why so threatened Bernardo?
I’ve always read that missing a reentry angle can cause a vehicle to bounce off the atmosphere and head off to who knows where. I’d like to see that. Let’s get the spam out of the can, spend money on real missions, and send the ISS skipping over the ocean like a stone.
NASA (or the US in general) does not have a credible post ISS human space flight plan period.
There is no credible near term commercial ISS replacement market and no credible sustained commitment of commercial capital to ISS replacement more than a decade or so out. Nobody has a credible Mars human space flight plan that has any hope of getting funded in our lifetimes. It’s an open question if the Orion & SLS remnants of Cx can survive the remaining months of the Obama administration’s lunar phobia well enough to recover, let alone ever make more than a handful of flights spaced years apart. The CCDev / COTS players have no credible market or funding beyond the end of ISS and on current schedules are going to barely get going in time for the end of ISS. The most optimistic possible scenario for ARM is that it might some far off day make one flight.
It took about 25 years to develop and fully build ISS and officially it has less than 10 years left to go and realistically has little practical prospect for extension much beyond that.
If NASA doesn’t start very, very soon developing an ISS replacement, aside from 5 minute hops to peek above the clouds by the Virgin Galactic / Blue Origin / Xcor types, ten years from now there will be no US human space flight in the sense of actual flying of humans in space.
The really unfair part is that all the self-declared geniuses that are setting up the coming generations for failure will be enjoying their retirement by the time their seeds of failure have fully bloomed in another half decade. Thanks for nothing. If they really cared, they’d let the folks that are still going to be around have a say in the policy decisions driving their future.
Gerstinmeier stated NASA would obtain commercial services for LEO and not build a new station.
Renting a commercially built spacestation costs money. NASA just needs to employ fewer managers and controllers.
While NASA does need to cut the administrative and non-technical fat, paying for commercial service, like a Bigelow habitat, should cost significantly less than the equivalent ISS cost.
Putting 12 people with exclusive use and no station housingkeeping chores on a Bigelow Alpha – (2 BA330s with 2/3 the pressurized volume of ISS) for one year including transportation and supplies, costs less than $1.5 billion.
The ISS is 3 people in less volume for $4 billion.
lol. has anyone considered that Putin can shut down the space station by simply returning his cosmonauts and not flying back? the space station is more national pride than it is needed research, and it would be a major loss of face for us to have to beg to keep it up.
NASA doesn’t have a post Russia contingency plan? Good. The bottom of the Pacific is where a Space Station, first orbited in the late 1990s (with parts fabricated long before that) belongs.
Of course, were we speaking factually about the ISS, there would be no problem with deorbiting it in 2024. After all, the original expiration date was 2018. Six more years is a bonus. That’s great right?
Oh that’s right because the ISS was never about the science or the actual utility of the ISS, which lets be clear ceased doing anything that actually prepared NASA for missions Beyond Low Earth Orbit the second construction of it was completed. The ISS at this point is about keeping the lights on so that it’s constituency keeps their jobs. It’s about keeping proprietors of 3rd rate ISS Rack science in business (racks that Orion, nor a conjectural Gateway station, would have). It’s about offering a destination to commercial space given that Bigelow is years behind schedule.
The ISS is the answer to the biggest question regarding the future of NASA. How does NASA pay for payloads to launch on the SLS? It’s quite simple. In 2025, don’t pay for a parallel manned space program. De-orbit the ISS, and suddenly at least $3 billion dollars can be moved to SLS programs. Or anything else. Just not an antique space station’s whose only legacy is being built.
A end date of 2024 should be acceptable. But just you watch. The ISS fiefdom will push for 2028 and spin some nonsense about it helping us push out further into the solar system (it won’t). And come 2026, they’ll be talking about 2032. And by that point they’ll make the argument that it’s “aging well and there is no reason we cant keep it for 50 years, just like an Aircraft Carrier!”.
Hopefully NASA leadership has the wisdom to pull the plug on this before we’re saddled with decades more of a space station that’s accomplished basically nothing, and only acts as a $3 billion drain on the budget. Imagine what $3 billion a year could do for Commercial Space, for SLS payloads, or for Planetary Science. You could build that Uranus orbiter and send it the direct route with an SLS. You can actually launch that Titan lander or fund a mid 2020s Mars Rover not based on heritage Curiosity hardware.
Or we can pretend that keeping humans in space 24/7/52 for years on end is actually an accomplishment, which would be the first time in history perfect attendance was defined as progress with investment on such a scale.
small problem with your comment – NASA’s budget isn’t simply a fixed number. if the ISS is deorbited, then the $3 billion that was supporting it would simply be gone – a line item crossed out of the budget – so the money would not be available for other programs.
I would imagine they will lease space from Bigelow and once SLS is axed it should free up about 4 billion for competitively bid hardware.
Same problem as the previous comment, but hey, we can dream, I guess. As long as you realize it’s a dream!
I see you recall as I do the end of the VietNam war when we brought 500,000 troops home from SE Asia. Everybody talked about a ‘peace bonus’. Never happened.
That missing peace bonus is why money should be available if SLS and/or ISS is gone.Roughly $18 billion is the sacred amount of the budget for use by the Iron Triangle of Congressional committees, Industry, and Agency. That will be available and spent plus or minus a few billion on something space related.
The DoD/Armed services Committees/Defense contractors simply redirected the Peace Bonus cash to other programs for the New Threats.
In the space biz, Boeing and LH may take some lumps, but other players will be happy to take the cash. The net should still be about the same.
Its not by coincidence (or just physics) where SpaceX is rapidly building facilities and is turning into a monster political contribution machine.
In DC, Money Talks and BS Walks.
Seems pretty hopeless
Thus must of NASA’s money is wasted big on dead beat programs.
if SLS is cancelled, any funds will be reallocated to other non-NASA programs. You are delusional to think that it will stay in NASA’s budget. Get on the bus with SLS & Orion if you want to have any sort of manned space program for the next 20-30 years. There is no viable (politically) “Plan B”.
Venture star was canceled, Space Shuttle was canceled, Constellation was canceled.. yet NASA budget has stay pretty even over time. The thing that will be different this time is that the commercial replacement will already being flying .. it will not have to go through a COTS type replacement or even a space station development process. It will be a very fast turn over to commercial services because they will already be in place and no lag time.
There is no viable (politically) “Plan B”
Currently. But things change in politics.
Calling people delusional is not nice.
Has anyone tested the propulsion module for the Bigelow spacestation? To ensure that it can station keep. Both thrust and navigation.
The attitude control and reboost engines in Zarya were permanently physically disabled after Zvezda took over propulsion. I believe that Zarya’s tanks are still used for fuel storage (for Zvezda), but Zarya’s engines quite simply cannot be used anymore.
This is not about Russia and if they do or do not want to stay with the ISS after some date. This is about those inside NASA who don’t want an ISS because they want to get going to Mars with SLS, and who don’t even want to hear about a post 2024 ISS plan because any talk like a smaller, or privatized, or commercial ISS would still require some NASA funds. That would mean, again, less funds freed up to move to Mars and exploration post 2024.
The Russia news is just being used as a red herring by some in NASA.
I can not imagine that NASA would give on LEO totally. They will beable to keep a contingent at a Bigelow Facility for less than the ISS. Once SLS/Orion is canceled it will free up billlions for NASA for actual hardware.
Not all the billions are necessarily freed up with the end of the ISS, in the scenario of a complete end, a de-orbit and end of program, and perhaps very little if any funding will be freed up in the case of shift to using a Bigelow like station.
First, look at the ISS budget lines. There are 4, totaling $3,900M in 2015. The ISS Ops per se really cover mission ops and control at JSC. Most of that could conceivably move to exploration scenarios, Mars plans, but is not really likely to be freed up dollars as far as procurement dollars for new hardware for a Mars campaign. Some portion of this that goes to ISS parts and that supply chain may free up, but that’s the lesser part of this. Most of this resource just becomes available to Mars missions, for this function only, but not as money for new Mars hardware.
This leaves the real money freed up as ISS R&D, cargo transport, and crew transport, about $2,700M. Now, switching to the Bigelow scenario, we would still likely support such a station, perhaps under some anchor tenancy or partnering, paying into getting our crew members up there (among others non-NASA), which would mean some cargo, a crew ride here and there, and some R&D (again). Suppose we off-load half the prior expense, just as a starting point, by being able to buy-by-the-yard to have a few crew at Bigelow (the rest of the Bigelow crew being private sector, manufacturing, etc.) Then that means freeing up half the $2,700M, or ONLY $1,350M of actual freed up funds for new Mars hardware (per year).
Take a last assumption of declining purchase power at NASA, by 2024, as arguably has been seen since the 90’s. Now the $1,350M dollars a year above freed up post-ISS goes negative, meaning you are actually in a hole as regards real purchasing power. Negative funds freed up.
The talk about funds falling from the sky, once ISS falls from the sky, resolving all Mars campaign issues, has to get real. The only way for NASA to stay in the exploration business is to change so much as to get ahead of the curve dramatically, by lowering costs across many areas, and increasing productivity of flight rate. One strategy may be through enabling space industrialization. Then the notions of buying-by-the-yard for all services, cheaply, and well towards L2 or the Moon, will leave enough real money to make the remaining steps, NASA Mars missions, possible.
Bigelow is saying 26 million for a ride to a BA facility and two months food and water. He stated it would be 3 million for each additional month so a six month stay would be 38 million or 76 million to keep 1 nasa personal on orbit year round with a six month mission each. Bigelow is advertising a 1/3 of a BA 330 for 25 million for 2 months or 150 million for a year. So for 226 million a year NASA could have a 1/3 of a BA 330 manned year round. I do not believe it will be very hard for NASA to start small at a BA facility and slowly increase as more funds become available. Less than 10% of the ISS funding.
What is the future plan for the US government for the relationship to Russia? Russia will provide the service for as long as there is no big change in the relations. There is no benefit for them stopping the service to the space station. A future looking like a few batallions of US military fight in Ukraine soon might end the cooperation. Even in the cold war the Soviet Union was a stable trade partner, the money is more important.
Somebody dust off the ICM…
All the more reason to fast track Commercial Crew, we did it for Apollo, we can do it again.
The shuttle could carry additional hardware outside the MPLM in the cargo bay such as replacement hardware that I believe even Dragon can’t carry.
The shuttle and the MPLM are in a totally different class than the small taxi class of the Cargo and Crew Dragons.
The reusable Falcon Heavy with its 50+ ton payload capacity would the launch platform with some type of hypothetical Dragon 18-Wheeler class cargo ship.
STS-128 had a total cargo weight of about 28,000 lbs. MPLM and unpressurized cargo.
Not even going into the merits of your statement, what does that have to do with crew access and post Russian participation plans for the ISS? I’ll tell you… nothing.
I assume you don’t mean Jimmy Carter, whose background was in STEM, but Mr. Obama. Obama has no real love for HSF (particularly while having to bring the nation back from economic disaster) but he does support science. With a totally starvation budget available to him he has worked to:
Rebuilding the various National Labs has been very important to him.
Promoting STEM in lower and higher education is another priority,
Funding science R&D:
http://www.nature.com/news/…
I’m sure that the ISS Program Office is already at work on various contingency plans. Whether one gets approved and funded is TBD.
“Where’s the “science” POTUS been?” Consistently requesting funding for commercial crew, requests which congress has always slashed in the actual budget. I know that space isn’t exactly the president’s priority, but you really don’t get to blame him for this one.
So, what good does leadership do when Congress reduces funding for the project the leader champions and increases it for their own pet projects that benefit their state or district? I’m sorry… the current administration has tried very hard on commercial cargo and crew and Congress has been the stumbling block. You dog just won’t hunt.
I think it’s unlikely that Russia will pull their modules and turn them into Mir-2. Not that they wouldn’t like to, they have talked about it for several years. But the sad reality is that Russia has not been able to do much more than tread water for the past decade or so. I realize that the U.S. space program can’t do a lot of boasting lately either, however with a few exceptions the U.S. and other partners did complete the primary modules that they planned for ISS. Whereas Russia pretty much stalled out after their two primary modules fifteen years ago (which the U.S. subsidized at least indirectly).
Russia’s grandiose plans for laboratory and power module additions to ISS never materialized, although officially they always seemed to be “in work”. All they have added in the ensuing decade and a half are a couple of airlocks and docking ports. To be fair the U.S. hasn’t contributed any modules after Destiny in 2001, however the U.S. did contribute the sizable truss and solar array structures over the next several years. I am not belittling Russia’s contribution, I am just saying that they, like the U.S., are unlikely to do anything of significance in terms of space station development in this decade or maybe even the next (I am referring to U.S. government not private). I realize Russia has new modules scheduled, but those modules have dragged on for years and I just don’t think they have the money to actually complete them. I hope I’m wrong but I am not holding my breath.
To the point of this article I also think it’s unlikely that Russia will suddenly stop flying U.S. astronauts to ISS. For one thing they would lose the income, and they would also lose the bragging rights that they currently have due to our current dependence on them. Bragging rights which by the way I don’t begrudge them, credit where credit is due they can launch humans into space at the moment and we can’t. Also since I assume that they can’t operate ISS alone, if they stopped launching U.S. astronauts they would then have to abandon their modules. However per my first point they aren’t in a position to go it alone any more than the U.S. is.
Now if they surprise everyone and launch new modules and pull out their existing modules from ISS and connect them to a new Russian space station, then Culberson’s fears are justified. But I just don’t see that as a likely scenario.
At the moment the end of the Shuttle program was announced in 2004 the US ceased to have a post-Russia plan for ISS. In fact, at that time the plan was for the US to drop support of ISS altogether when the Shuttle was retired. The Bush Administration did not propose or support any continued US access to low earth orbit. Although the COTS-D program was initiated during the Bush administration, no attempt was made to accelerate it to actually provide continuous ISS access. Later the Orion/Ares I was proposed for ISS support although there was no way to make it available on a reasonable timeframe.
At present as others have stated the only option is to accelerate commercial crew, which could be done by simply fully funding the administration request. I have to wonder if Mr. Culbertson even wants to solve this problem, however, as he spends most of his time attacking Mr. Obama for a decision, terminating Shuttle without a replacement, made quite consciously by Mr. Bush.
Public support for manned spaceflight isn’t very strong. Going round and round in LEO on ISS isn’t terribly impressive to the public. Is it any surprise that the Administration’s support mirrors the public’s opinion?
Congress should know how Russia has the US in a bad position when it comes to ISS. With the trouble Russia has been stirring up over the past few years, they should have known to fund commercial crew and commercial cargo at least at the levels the Administration has been requesting.
You can’t blame the Administration here. They’ve put out their budget requests and Congress has not been forthcoming with the funds necessary.
Cant he get more done where he is? Isn’t he about to lead most of NASA anyway.
Would you rather he save NASA or the world?
Wouldn’t putting him in charge of NASA make any of his dreams impossible to accomplish?
“lead most of NASA”?
What specifically constitutes “most of NASA”, and how is Musk going to lead that?
Most of NASA is the part of NASA that claims its going to Mars.
Musk is leading the effort to Make us a multi planet species not NASA
I recall Bolden saying how important commercial crew is to going to Mars? He said this ecause he knows SLS and Orion are a porky joke and he knows by 2030 or sooner Musk will have a vehicle that can get to mars. By creating that affordable transportation system, public will follow his lead.
So NASA IS going to Mars!!!
How exactly do you measure the part of NASA that claims it’s going to Mars? The budget doesn’t reflect that most of NASA claims it’s going to Mars, and I haven’t seen a poll of NASA employees and administrators that shows a majority claims NASA is going to Mars.
Since MCT isn’t flight worthy yet and Musk has yet to even release his plans for his proposed Mars mission, it seems pretty premature to claim he’s leading anyone to Mars.
He’s accomplished a lot and had great success with SpaceX. It hardly seems necessary to give him credit for things he hasn’t done.
Would you prefer I say “part” instead of “most”? Yes I know that NASA does many wonderful other things including supporting making Space flight more affordable.
I’m not giving Musk credit for
Things he hasn’t done. Just guessing the future which in general is pretty Obvious.
In a few weeks or months I’ll do a selfey in front a rocket on a barge and I’ll know we’ll be off this rock soon. 🙂
What SpaceX claims is not that it is on a Path to Mars. It says it is going to Mars. It is working on relevant technologies, and plans to release some kind of clean page outline this year. They talk of boots on the ground in maybe 12-15 years – actually giving targets less than the BS “in 20 years”, never arriving future target.
They describe themselves as: “…The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.”
Their logo shows a terraforming Mars (which I don’t necessarily argree with).
Whether SpaceX fails in marshalling the resources or capabilities to get there, they are the only (realistic) organization – government, NGO, or private, that has the goal speciffically in their sights. Win or lose, they are “leading … to Mars”.
That’s their plan for now. 12-15 years is a long time, time enough for plans to change or things to go wrong.
I’ll keep my hopes and guesses about what Musk might do restrained.
As I said, Whether SpaceX fails in marshalling the resources or capabilities to get there, they are the only (realistic) organization – government, NGO, or private, that has the goal speciffically in their sights. Win or lose, they are “leading … to Mars”.
SpaceX will change direction. That is a hallmark of their operation.
That’s great if all we want are fictional solutions to NASA’s issues.
We are always wiser in hindsight, and the Shuttle should have been replaced with a new system probably in the early 1990s – a smaller reusable spaceplane for transporting crew, and either expendable or reusable boosters for cargo. I think that would have been the ideal capability mix, especially if operated by commercial space operators, letting NASA focus on exploration and developing new spacecraft technologies. Instead, NASA became a bus company for too long, with an unsafe and outdated vehicle and struggling with swingeing budget cuts that left it nowhere to go in terms of future vehicles. Let’s be clear, NONE of the Administrations really since Nixon have been ready to fund NASA at the required level to sustain progress on space access and exploration. That’s why Orion and SLS are really a step backwards that I think is taking NASA in the wrong direction.
Let the commercial companies do the access to LEO, and even GEO or Cislunar. Let NASA focus on deep space exploration and developing new spacecraft technologies that make space travel for humans cheaper, quicker and safer and more efficient. NASA should not be a trucking company.
ironic… it’s like you don’t know your history…. the EELV (Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle) program started in 1995. the X-33 spaceplane program started in 1996, though that turned into a terrible fiasco.
NASA was, in fact, doing exactly what you think they should have been doing…
But failed to pull it off.
even so… the irony!! people need to learn their history.
Yeah and EELV wasn’t NASA right? Even though they were doing X-33 and stopped, they should have continued and finished something like that.
I would guess they would have made a lot f money by now if they had??
imagine if they had a few of them before shuttle was canceled and during.
oh oh ill stop, shouldn’t use my imagination or consider what if’s 🙂
Not with the X-33. that program was a mess. virtually everything that can go wrong with an aerospace project went wrong with the X-33. a poor design, badly overweight, rampant micromanaging, over budget, way behind schedule with technology development, etc.
Actually ‘Hug Doug’ of course I am aware of the EELV and X-33. The reason I did not mention those is because they never amounted to an operational launch system. My post actually referred to the lack of planning in terms of what types of systems should have replaced the shuttle, with the planning that should have begun in the 1980s. My argument is that rather than invest in a very-high technology SSTO like X-33 / Venture Star, a lower tech solution could have been considered – something along the scale of a Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser or a bit bigger that could be launched on a recoverable booster. Because NASA failed to examine a lower-tech solution, it had to invest everything in X-33 / Venture Star, which failed. That left NASA with the Shuttle which was proven to be a flawed designed in 2004. Why did it not consider a variety of Shuttle replacements in the 1980s?
There also should have been greater investment in reusable boosters for transporting bulk cargo from an earlier period – the 1980s. Instead, we placed all our poker chips in the Shuttle on the assumption that it could do it all.
So my point is, this is poor planning on NASA’s part – they should have anticipate a need for new approaches that were more cost effective than the Shuttle as it should have been quickly clear that the Shuttle would not be the low-cost space truck that NASA originally envisaged it to be.
well, the EELV program is still going, though those Launchers rather stopped Evolving, lol.
there was the HL-20, of course you know about that, late 1980s-early 1990s. which you also ignored because “it didn’t go anywhere” right?
so yes, NASA has considered shuttle replacements. why not follow through with them in the 80s? because the Shuttle program had just barely started then, obviously.
i don’t think a reusable booster program would have been a practicable effort until the mid 1990s. the DC-X would have made a nice start to a reusable first stage program, but one was never started. the X-33 program SSTO concept was pursued instead, and you know how that turned out, it was a disaster. so NASA had to start from square one, which meant continued use of the Shuttle.
to conclude – NASA had actually done the things you complain that it should have done. if you really want things to get rolling, i suggest you call your congressperson and tell them to provide NASA with more funding for such programs.
Well they could have made something like Dream Chaser by now, right? If not the 80s, then 90s or 00s. It seems to me that Malcolm was thinking of a completed working system, which NASA didn’t actually do. No need to be condescending. I think this idea is that they need to have a human spaceflight development program running at the same time as the operations program independently to some degree so we either make significant improvements to the current system or are working on a new one or both. That would make it more sustainable so that we don’t end one program without another one ready to go, with no HSF (or even cargo to ISS) capability, and all the negative effects on workforce. If one development path fails, start a new one.
i don’t think you realized it, but you really nailed the issue in your comment. it’s just that the “replacement” development programs have all failed while the Shuttle kept on going. they “could have” had something else by now but for the failed programs. the X-30 (NASP) in the late 80s, the HL-20 in the early 90s, the X-33 in the late 90s, and Constellation in the 00s.
i’m not trying to be condescending. what you are both saying you “wish had happened” is what actually happened – development programs for a Shuttle replacement during the Shuttle program.
Yeah pretty much, but I’m thinking completed to the point that it was actually used (didn’t happen). If every single one failed, then that can happen and it’s definitely too bad. But I’m pretty sure they could’ve made one work out of those if they stuck with it such as HL-20/Dream Chaser idea. The failures aren’t all technical and they made Shuttle work for goodness sake. I think it comes down to commitment that’s needed from everybody. James Webb Space Telescope is ambitious, doing lots of new things, is way over budget, and still looks like it will be completed. I can imagine it looks ridiculous to an outsider to end up without a working HSF system after they’ve proven they can do it many times.
well, we’re actually working on 3 US human space flight projects. SpaceX’s Dragon, Boeing’s CST-100, and NASA’s Orion. the first manned flight test for the Commercial Crew program is tentatively scheduled for October 2016. this would result in a gap of July 2011 – October 2016, 5 years 4 months.
keep in mind the gap between Apollo and the Shuttle was nearly the same duration! July 1975 – April 1981, 5 years 8 months 19 days. we think it’s such a terrible thing, but it has happened before.
Yeah understood. And I am all for the new HSF efforts for sure. We are probably doing mostly the right thing for these at this point. It will be interesting to see how it evolves.
You’ve got some serious anger issues but having seen your posts over the years I don’t think that’s news to anyone.
As for Bush, his administration never made any real effort to obtain the budget required for the program he had Griffin create. The Obama administration has tried to reign in Constellation and promote commercial cargo and crew but Congress pushed back, underfunded the commercial enterprises and forced this SLS idiocy on NASA.
You can scream and whine all you want about Obama but he’s not the problem (in this particular case).
Is anyone here going to talk about decisions like ISS as they would happen in the real world, what could conceivably happen, and how to best act where possible in light of probable reality?