MAIN ARTICLE: Should NASA use Military Rockets for Astronaut launches?
(NOTE: this was scheduled to run yesterday but it was bumped for the NASA story on Columbia.)
Poll Results: Yesterday's poll was the strongest turnout to date.
Star Trek: In the News. What does Adam McDowell want to see in the New Year? Scroll down to read the latest, click subscribe for the news.
Yesterday's Comments: "No Bill Shatner in the new movie Guess he pissed off people (several many too many) times. Leonard Nimoy is in it." - algebrateacher
Today's Poll: Should NASA have it's own LEO launch system.
This is the corrected version of the scratched opinion poll ran on Dec. 29th.
As Jan. 20th draws near the debate within and outside of NASA has been intensifing. If NASA Chief Administrator, Dr. Michael Griffin, is not asked to stay on by President Elect Obama, he will be gone. If he is not asked to stay on, it may just be a sign that his legacy program, Contellation, may be gone as well. At least half of it, the crew launch system called Ares I.
Yesterday the Space Editor for the Orlando Sentinel, Robert Block, ran a story about alternative rocket launch systems:
"CAPE CANAVERAL - 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 the space shuttle. Alternatives, he insisted, such as modified military rockets, were simply not capable of carrying humans to the moon and beyond.
But interviews, as well as documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel, indicate that military rockets can lift astronauts safely into space -- and to the moon -- for billions less and possibly sooner than NASA's current designs.
While it's not clear how the next administration wants to proceed with NASA's lunar ambitions, one aerospace-industry official confirmed that NASA recently asked Kennedy Space Center to start examining the impacts of scrapping NASA's own Ares I rocket design and switching to modified versions of the military's Atlas V and Delta IV rockets as the agency's next-generation human spaceships.
Already, Atlas V and Delta IV -- also known as Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles, or EELVs -- successfully blast NASA probes to Mars and beyond and put top secret multibillion-dollar military spy satellites into clandestine orbits from launchpads in Florida and California several times a year. There have been a total of 21 EELV flights since the first Atlas V and Delta IV launches occurred in 2002."
This is not the first article that the Sentinel has recently ran about NASA's current plans. These were covered ( see "U.S. aerospace urges Obama to keep its flame bright", 'Americans in Space', Dec 13, 2008) including the disagreement Lori Garver and NASA Chief Griffin "didn't have" ( see "NASA's Griffin denies tension with Obama's transition team", 'Americans in Space', Dec 12, 2008)
In past articles the Sentinel would briefly touch on the alternatives but in this article they seem to suggest that alternatives are getting a strong second look:
"According to documents presented to Obama's transition team three weeks ago -- including internal studies by the rockets' manufacturer, United Launch Alliance -- upgraded human-rated versions of the military EELVs would have enough power to take NASA's fully loaded Orion crew capsule into orbit. In fact, the studies say some configurations of the rockets can lift up to 6 metric tons more than NASA requires.
According to spokesman Mike Rein, ULA representatives were invited by the Obama space transition team to brief them about how the alliance "supports the space program."
"We are aware of the public discussion of alternatives to Ares I and speculation about the use of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle," Rein said. "ULA is not involved in this debate."
Documents presented to the transition team three weeks ago say that upgraded EELV rockets could be built and ready for astronauts to ride by 2013 -- two years earlier than Ares I -- and for as much as $3.4 billion less than the NASA design, which is projected to cost more than $10 billion by the time of its earliest"
The EELV and Orion could be ready to go two years faster then Ares I and at a savings of 3.4 billion. I believe Dr. Griffin is in for a rough ride on Jan 20th.
Lockheed Martin had a signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Bigelow Aerospace for commercial Astronaut launch services right after they won development of NASA's Orion crew capsule and apparently Mike Griffin saw this as a threat. Several commentators pointed this out on Jeff Foust's Space Politics blog:
Ares 1, EELV, and a conference presentation
"Jeff,
I can actually corroborate somewhat the Orlando Sentinel story above (about NASA’s overreaction to the presentation). I was speaking with a friend at ULA a few months ago about some ideas I’ve been working on, and he specifically mentioned the blowback they had gotten over Jeff’s presentation. He was extra skittish about doing anything NASA could possibly contrive as attacking Constellation, because they were getting blowback even though, as he put it, they were intentionally "pulling their punches". Unprofessional behavior coming from a federal agency, IMO. ~Jon"
This was followed up by Rand Simburg "This has been a problem going back over two years, when Bigelow first announced that he was working with Lockmart/ULA. Lockmart upper management apparently got an angry call from NASA about that, too, particularly since it was right after Orion had been awarded to them"
Space Dev Corporation, which was recently bought out, had been working on the "DreamChaser" as a vehicle for the Atlas V. ( pictured at the left) That has not made any news since they made the first announcement.
Lockheed Martin did a make a little noise with there recent launches. Only they were not launches made with Lockheed's own rockets but they were using Up Aerospace's sounding rockets to test fly a model. Leonard David, special correspondent for Space.Com wrote:
"Lockheed Martin has tested a prototype reusable launch system by flying a sub-scale flight demonstrator from the site of New Mexico's proposed Spaceport America.
The successful test flight of the proprietary vehicle took place in December and was only recently disclosed. A company official said Lockheed Martin is planning more tests using ever-larger vehicles.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems teamed with launch provider UP Aerospace of Highlands Ranch, Colo., Dec. 19 to conduct a small demonstration launch at Spaceport America in southern New Mexico to evaluate proprietary technology the company currently has under development." - Space.Com
Robert Bigelow, of Bigelow Aerospace, has commited almost one billion dollars for any launch provider that can bring passengers and cargo to his Space Stations. There is a misconception about Bigelow's Stations. They are not "space hotels" as they are constantly being reported as in the press. Bigelow will lease a module or half module for a yearly price. The firm that rents that module is then free to use it for whatever purpose then choose. From a space hotel to a space manufacturing facility. Bigelow only plans to build and service them and let commercial space use the modules for various projects.
I am a strong supporter of using these rockets but I do not believe they should be somehow tagged a special case and then given a green light for open ended cost plus contracts for passenger launches for NASA.
Instead they should have to compete through an open COTS-D award. They should be launching open commercial astronaut flights to the ISS and Bigelow Aerospace Stations.
PAGE 2:
Deal Sets Space Tourist Flights from New Mexico
"The company planning to take tourists into space, Virgin Galactic, and the State of New Mexico announced today that they have signed a 20-year lease agreement – a deal which firmly plants the spaceline operator's world headquarters in New Mexico to make use of Spaceport America.
The inland Spaceport America is billed as the nation's first purposely built commercial spaceport.
Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic firm will make use of the WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo launch system – now under development at Scaled Composites in Mojave, California – to loft paying customers at $200,000 a seat on suborbital treks departing from Spaceport America.
The WhiteKnightTwo mothership, the craft that will haul SpaceShipTwo to release altitude, made its maiden flight on Dec. 21 at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. Both the carrier plane and the two pilot, six passenger SpaceShipTwo are to undergo significant testing prior to commercial operation.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson – recently nominated by President-elect Barack Obama as Secretary of Commerce – has been a champion of the spaceport, and a strong advocate for private space commerce.
"The signing of this agreement is a momentous day for our state and has cemented New Mexico as the home of commercial space travel," Richardson said in a statement. "I want to thank Virgin Galactic for partnering with us to create a whole new industry that is going to transform the economy of Southern New Mexico – creating thousands of jobs, generating money for education, boosting tourism and attracting other companies and economic opportunities to the area."
SpacePort America was recently given a go by the FAA and there has already been some launches taking place at the spaceport. ( see "Richardson gets a GREEN light:", 'Americans in Space', Dec 21, 2008)
POLL RESULTS:
Yesterday's poll set a record for the number of DKOS members taking part in a poll. The question was whether to keep flying the space shuttle past the scheduled retirement date of late 2010:
"Space Shuttle: keep flying past 2010 or be retired as planned."
What did members want to see the most?
58% thought the Shuttle was getting a little long in the tooth and should be retired. 35% wanted to keep flying the Space Shuttle until the new replacement is actually flying. Only five percent expressed no opinion.
STAR TREK: In the News.
Adam McDowell: Hello, 2009! No Doubt, Dead Sea Scrolls, Star Trek and other things I'm looking forward to
"• (May) J.J. Abrams's Star Trek. Because the franchise badly needs a boost, and it looks like it's getting one.
• (May) Vermeer, Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art: Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum, at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Because a trip to the Netherlands is probably out of the question for most of us next year.
• (June) Dead Sea Scrolls at the Royal Ontario Museum. Because we want to see what all the fuss is about. And before that, in January, the Schad Gallery of Biodiversity promises the debut of a living coral reef right in the museum."
YESTERDAY'S COMMENTS:
A tip of the hat to homogenius for the comment on spaceship design:
"No bucks, no Buck Rogers!
That's an interesting topic. I grew up in the spacefaring '60s. Both our space program and sci fi were redolent with "sexy" vehicles. It was the future of 2001, A Space Odyssey, not the grittier "lived-in" space of Star Wars, etc.
Our country's biggest push into space is wedded to the culture of the period. And the sell job to the American people is plenty important.
No, I don't judge our spacecraft on sexiness--I judge them on safety and reliability and the ability to accomplish the mission. But this is not the 1960s and we don't have the magic of JFK putting the goal before us in a post-war, can-do, pre-cynicism era.
I'm infinitely more concerned about the processes at NASA that are being used to select the next generation of spacecraft--they have been criminally compromised by the Bushies and anything that results from the current NASA pipeline is automatically suspect in my view.
But I wouldn't mind a ship that looked cool"
The above comment came after the following exchange:
"Constellation = not as cool as the Shuttle It's ugly and uninspiring. Virgin Galactic has sexy spacecraft. :)" - The Dead Man
"And that is the criteria we judge our space craft on? Sexiness? - Something the Dog Said
"Sure At least one of them. Capsules are soooo 1960 Apollo style.
I would keep the Ares V for a heavy lifter and build a next generation space plane that can take off and land horizontally." - Ed in Montana
TODAY'S POLL:
This is a redo of the Dec. 29th poll: "Should NASA have it's own LEO launch system." it was laid up incorrectly and with today's main article still on point for this poll, it will be run again.
American Commercial Launch Services have come a long way in the last 50 years and is there really a need for NASA to have it's own independant launch system for getting Astronauts into Low Earth Orbit. NASA astronauts traveling 3000 miles from coast to coast just buy a ticket on commercial airlines. Is a routine trip 200 miles vertically any different?