Military rockets: Solution for NASA?

For more than three years, NASA chief Michael Griffin has maintained that the safest, most reliable and affordable way to return astronauts to the moon is on the Ares I, a rocket he helped design from parts of ...

[Opportunity Tax]

It's great when the Sentinel goes on a witch hunt. The politicos and writers are about as well equipped to address space and safe space travel as I am about how to turn around a dying newspaper business. Stick to hunting down football coaches. At least you can understand the business...knuckleheads.

[zona 16]

It seems to me the company that produces the solid rocket boosters needs to step up and cut costs.

[Thomas Lee Elifritz]

Opportunity Tax wrote:

It's great when the Sentinel

writes a long a thoughtful article and you come back with ... nothing. It would be extremely helpful if you have any actual comments on the context of the article, that you express them clearly.

[ouch]

NASA studied EELV's for human transport to the ISS over 5 years ago. The numbers ($ and performance) simply didn't add up. It was called the Orbital Space Plane (OSP), and much documentation exists from that work. It was dreamed up by business majors, not engineers.
Your approach to journalism has led me and many others on the Space Coast to cancel our subscription to what we call the "Orlando Slantinel". Your reporters and editors insist on kicking the home-team, NASA, in the crotch instead of celebrating victories. When you report on something that I know about, and it is completely wrong, I conclude that all your stories are likely wrong.

[DriveBy Poster]

"The prospect of large numbers of unemployed rocket scientists and engineers on the streets of Florida and Alabama poses a thorny political problem..."

Yeah - you know how they get. Roving bands of engineers, random acts of calculation, shameless displays of measuring, gratuitous precision...Something's gotta be done.

[Herb]

Opportunity Tax wrote:

It's great when the Sentinel goes on a witch hunt. The politicos and writers are about as well equipped to address space and safe space travel as I am about how to turn around a dying newspaper business.

"Opportunity Tax" raises a good point about these articles, namely, exactly what in the professional background of Robert Block and others who have been writing about the alleged failings of Micheal Griffin, Ares, Constellation, etc. makes them qualified to pass educated judgements on the mechanical problems of proposed space craft and space programs? After all, when I read magazines like "Popular Mechanics" or "Popular Science", I'm reasonably assure that whoever are writing the articles know their subjects inside and out. What assurance do we the consumers of this paper have that Mr. Block, et al, have even the minimal knowledge on the subject?

[Anon]

ouch wrote:

NASA studied EELV's for human transport to the ISS over 5 years ago. The numbers ($ and performance) simply didn't add up. It was called the Orbital Space Plane (OSP), and much documentation exists from that work. It was dreamed up by business majors, not engineers.
Your approach to journalism has led me and many others on the Space Coast to cancel our subscription to what we call the "Orlando Slantinel". Your reporters and editors insist on kicking the home-team, NASA, in the crotch instead of celebrating victories. When you report on something that I know about, and it is completely wrong, I conclude that all your stories are likely wrong.

Remember, he who pays for the study gets the results he wants.

[Thomas Lee Elifritz]

Herb wrote:

<quoted text>
"Opportunity Tax" raises a good point about these articles, namely, exactly what in the professional background of Robert Block and others who have been writing about the alleged failings of Micheal Griffin, Ares, Constellation, etc. makes them qualified to pass educated judgements on the mechanical problems of proposed space craft and space programs?

What makes them qualified is that they study the issues, and write about them. Credentialism is a failed paradigm in science and journalism if you haven't heard. Now what are your qualifications? Feel free to comment.

[RayGun]

We could get the Delta IV, Atlas V, Falcon 9, all flying astronauts to space for $10 BILLION. And, still have money left to build things we need when we get there. Griffin chose the most expensive choice. Keep up the pressure Orlando Sentinel.

[Sawgrass Willy]

Why not just mass produce one of the UFO's currently housed at Area 51?

[Ben the Space Brit]

Do you want a rocket system that is safer and with better performance than Ares? Do you want to save at least some of those jobs in Florida? Are you really serious about space exploration? Then you could do a LOT worse than DIRECT 2.0 - http://www.directlauncher.com/

Yes, Mr. Elifriz, it is an ELV and it launches a capsule reather than an RLV launching a space-plane. However, it is a real, workable solution that can be made to work without a decade-long manned spaceflight gap and billions of dollars in development cash that are not available.

[Obatala]

Great article. I do know a thing or two about rockets, Shuttle and Ares I and the technical and cost problems with the program. Hello! We cannot afford the Space Program we would want, so we have to pursue the one we can buy in today's USA.
Cancel Ares 1 and focus on Ares 5. Man-rate EELVs (and Falcon 9!!!) and GO!

Opportunity Tax wrote:

It's great when the Sentinel goes on a witch hunt. The politicos and writers are about as well equipped to address space and safe space travel as I am about how to turn around a dying newspaper business. Stick to hunting down football coaches. At least you can understand the business...knuckleheads.

[Thomas Lee Elifritz]

Ben the Space Brit wrote:

Yes, Mr. Elifriz, it is an ELV and it launches a capsule reather than an RLV launching a space-plane. However, it is a real, workable solution that can be made to work without a decade-long manned spaceflight gap and billions of dollars in development cash that are not available.

If the Ares V was reengined with SSMEs such that the core stage can achieve orbit, where those engines could be recovered, I might even support that. My problem is entirely with the incompetence of people who want to damage our ability to perform future rocket science with the SSMEs. The EELV solution was a no brainer way back in 2003 when Columbia crashed.

[Outta touch]

I don't get it .. Canceling the shuttle before there is a replacement. Kinda like ,,honey I'm getting rid of the car tomorrow,, I don't know when we'll get another one ,,maybe in a few years. Sounds like business as usual.

[Bill Hensley]

The problem with making "saving jobs in Florida" your primary goal is that it guarantees an unsustainably expensive launcher. The reason Shuttle is so expensive is the huge numbers of people it takes to operate it. Any replacement system that is substantially more efficient and more economical will mean substantially fewer jobs. But in the long run it is still the best choice. Higher efficiency in the aerospace industry will help to ensure a robust industry, which will ultimately generate new jobs. It doesn't guarantee a new job to everyone who is working today at the Cape but it maximizes the common good (for both aerospace workers and taxpayers).

[shutle this]

ohmy

[James Bond]

How's paying the bill??

[James Bond]

Sorry that's Who's

[BuckStripes]

All this esoteric, technocratic BlahBlahBlah obfuscates the primary question which (as usual) is still being steadfastly ignored:
Why are we condemned to spend even more (wasted) billions on another (redundant) moon landing? What's the point? What's the purpose? One step toward Mars? Why do we keep insisting that we have to go to Mars?
The Space Program has had its day of romantic, exploration fantasies. The Real World now seems to be teetering on the edge of the Dooms Day abyss. The monumentally expensive NASA Jobs Program begs to be cut down to practical size. Let The Brains with the Right Stuff go to work on the Real Stuff. Before it's too late...

[Robert Horning]

BuckStripes wrote:

All this esoteric, technocratic BlahBlahBlah obfuscates the primary question which (as usual) is still being steadfastly ignored:
Why are we condemned to spend even more (wasted) billions on another (redundant) moon landing? What's the point? What's the purpose? One step toward Mars? Why do we keep insisting that we have to go to Mars?

We don't have to go to Mars. That is merely a goal to set what kind of standard of vehicles need to eventually get built. It is important to note that there is no vehicle or even development program beyond a few insignificant paper studies that are doing anything about going to Mars.

But it is important to point out that we need to be in space as a society and country. Space has natural resources in more abundance than you can possibly imagine, and energy so critical to modern industrialized society in such abundance that to ignore developing those resources in space is at the peril of the future of any country who ignores those resources.

The future of humanity is in space, and it is important for us to decide if that is going to be a future with or without America leading what will happen in space. China and India are certainly going to get there in a big way... and already are going into space. Russia has been in space for a long, long time and there is no reason to suspect they are going to quit. Europe is even getting their act together in terms of independent spaceflight operations and even talking about an independently operated manned spaceflight program of vehicles designed and manufactured in Europe.

America used to be the leader in spaceflight and literally set the standards by which all of the other countries of the world have compared themselves to in this industry. They have also seen the incredible economic and social benefits that have come from being able to have a strong presence in space, both manned and unmanned. Abandoning that leadership is ultimately going to be a sign that America is no longer fit to even be a nation.... perhaps that is the point.

I'll also be blunt, there is no possible societal issue today, from global warming, war, disease, famine, natural disasters, alternate energy sources, and more that hasn't been impacted from the development of spaceflight. Mankind and Americans specifically have more money, live longer, are safer, have a healthier environment (by nearly all measures), less likely to be attacked militarily, and have found more ways to protect this planet as a whole due to current and future planned spaceflight activities than from almost any other kind of activity that you can think of. If you want to live a lifestyle like it was in the 1930's before spaceflight became common place, I think you have a mistaken notion of what your life has been like and what it would be without having regular trips into space by fellow Americans.

The debate shouldn't be if we should be going into space, but who and using what vehicles. It is also over what is the best kind of vehicle to get the job done, and even defining what tasks need to be done.