Three approaches, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. My new post up at Air&Space, for your consideration. Comment here, if desired.
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An excellent and thought provoking article as usual Dr. Spudis.
While unmanned space launches may be expensive, they are still very profitable. Global revenues for the satellite industry in 2015 was $208 billion while satellite manufacturing and launch revenues were only $17 billion. But I agree that the profitability for the satellite launch industry could be greatly enhanced if lunar water resources were utilized to refuel reusable orbital transfer vehicles and reusable landing vehicles.
While sending tourist into space can range in cost from as low as $20 million to as high as $40 million, there are still more than 50,000 people on our planet (individuals worth more than $100 million) wealthy enough to afford at least one flight to LEO. Attracting even a small percentage of the super wealth into spending money to travel into space could be very lucrative, IMO.
However, launch vehicles will have to be viewed by this group as reasonably safe!
NASA could substantially reduced its annual human spaceflight related cost if astronauts could remain healthy beyond the Earth a lot longer than just a few months. A lunar outpost that utilizes lunar resources for air, water, and food production should enable NASA to send humans to the lunar surface for stays lasting at least one to four years. This could also enable us to determine if low gravity environments are harmful to human health.
Similar long stays in orbit, however, will require habitats capable of producing some levels of simulated gravity— which is not hard to do, IMO, especially if you have heavy lift launch capability.
But I don’t think there’s going to be a— dramatic reduction— in the cost of traveling from the Earth’s surface to LEO for human passengers until the age of reusable single stage or two staged space planes arrives.
Marcel
“-revenues for the satellite industry in 2015 was $208 billion-”
Most of that is from GEO telecommunications. A few dozen large water shielded space stations replacing those hundreds of satellites would allow technicians to maintain and upgrade equipment and provide an order of magnitude better reliability and connectivity. You completely ignored any explanation of how the Moon would “enhance” those revenues Marcel.
“Attracting even a small percentage of the super wealth into spending money to travel into space could be very lucrative, IMO.”
The NewSpace movement is based on this ludicrous premise. Rich people and hobby rockets. The effect on public opinion has been the worst thing that has ever happened to space exploration. Worse than both shuttle disasters.
“-to determine if low gravity environments are harmful to human health.”
That has already been determined. The only near-term practical habitat allowing multi-year cislunar tours would be a bipolar wet workshops with a tether system. An astronaut could spend a couple years in the vicinity of the Moon on such a Moonwater-shielded space station. With near sea level radiation and one gravity they would suffer no significant dosing or debilitation. A lunar water industry would eventually allow fairly regular travel to and from the surface for exploration sorties.
“-until the age of reusable single stage or two staged space planes arrives.”
The only way around the rocket equation so far is beam propulsion and that requires a space solar power infrastructure as a “second stage.” Even if space solar became a major Panama canal type public works project- perhaps as a remedy for climate change- powering civilization on Earth from space would likely take a half a century or more to effect.
Excellent article and I agree on all counts.
As an interesting side note SpaceX now has competition in the reusable (at least partially) Earth Surface for LEO launcher market.
http://www.space.com/34034-blue-origin-new-glenn-rocket-for-satellites-people.html
The most interesting part of the article is the announcement of what appears to be Blue Origin’s three phase plan:
(1) New Shepard launcher (named after Alan Shepard) – Suborbital launcher.
(2) New Glenn launcher (named after John Glenn) – Orbital launcher.
(3) New Armstrong launcher (named after Neil Armstrong) – ??? launcher.
Not selling Blue Origin, but it is interesting speculation as to the proposed goal of the New Armstrong would be.
I notice Blue Origin makes use of methane in place of RP-1.
I wonder if the higher specific impulse can give their launcher higher performance.
At the very least, would it mean a cleaner burning rocket engine?
I note that in reference to the article that mentions carbon deposits from RP-1 burning engines.
I like Blue Origin’s low key approach too. Maybe it doesn’t really mean anything, but I don’t get a sense of hubris from them as I do from SpaceX.
In terms of performance:
(1) For an orbit-to-orbit engine Hydrogen/LOX is an easy winner (this would also apply to a lunar surface to orbit vehicle due to the Moon’s lesser gravity and lack of atmosphere).
(2) For a first stage engine Kerosene/LOX is an easy winner (the lesser specific impulse is over shadowed by Kerosene’s greater density – leading to smaller/lighter tankage etc.)
(3) Methane/LNG is a compromise between the two.
It is therefore likely that the cleaner burning engine was the principle motivator in the decision to use Methane, because the first stage is intended to be reusable. The Russians are similarly working on Methane engines for the same reason.
Agree on the hubris part, additionally thing like the use of Methane shows forethought and advanced planning not detected in SpaceX activity. I have taken a lot of flack as being anti-new ideas because of being skeptical of SpaceX. Been told I am against Commercial Space, but that is really not true. Truth is am just really skeptical of SpaceX.
“-likely that the cleaner burning engine was the principle motivator in the decision to use Methane-”
Maybe. Or maybe they are just after that higher Isp number. The problem is that methane is in a sense the worst of both kerosene and hydrogen. A key number being the cost of manufacturing the turbopump. Kerosene is easy (dense and easy to push) while a hydrogen turbopump has to be several times more powerful and is fiendishly difficult to design. Methane is in between in terms of density and Isp.
In my view the big advantage with methane is that lunar ice most likely has volatiles that allow methane to be produced. While making hydrogen out of lunar water sounds great methane is far easier to store and transfer and is the most appropriate fuel for cislunar spacecraft propulsion systems.
In any case we should know how they are doing on the BE-4 by spring.
Note that if the static test firing goes well the BE-4 is also slated to be the first stage engine for ULA’s Vulcan booster was well.
http://spacenews.com/decision-on-vulcan-engine-could-slip-to-2017/
“-the BE-4 is also slated to be the first stage engine for ULA’s Vulcan-”
Having worked in aviation for most of my military career and also being a World War 2 buff I am fascinated by how the huge role played by different aircraft engines is usually understated. People like the planes but do not seem to understand the engine is half of what makes or breaks it. An interesting connection to the space age is that several prominent future NASA engineers cut their teeth trying to make the Allison inline engine work right in WW2- and failed. It could never hold a candle to the Rolls Royce Merlin or the Daimler Benz entries.
The Pratt & Whitney R2800 was the outstanding radial engine but the B-29 bomber and several other planes suffered with less dependable Wright engines. In my arena I started working on late 1950’s era T-58 helicopter turboshafts which were not great and finished on T-700’s which were…absolutely wonderful powerplants.
Rocket engines of the appropriate thrust class and type and burning complementary propellants may be the difference between success and failure. The BE-4 is very under-powered compared to the mighty F-1A at 1.8 million pounds of thrust while being far too large for any lunar lander applications. I am not impressed.
“I am not impressed.”
Fortunately for Blue Origin, ULA is (to the tune of about $1 B).
Unfortunately for any Moon rocket or lunar lander project- as I said, the BE-4 is in the wrong thrust class for either of those applications.
“Unfortunately for any Moon rocket or lunar lander project- as I said, the BE-4 is in the wrong thrust class for either of those applications.”
ULA, which with the support of their CEO Tory Bruno is pushing their Cis-Lunar 1000 plan, wants the BE-4 for their Vulcan rocket which they say they would use in implementation of Cis-Lunar 1000.
They therefore disagree with you.
I realize that you believe you know exactly the only way to proceed and that is OK, just wish you would drop the condescending attitude towards anyone who dares to disagree with you.
After 40 years in the program, I am no longer convinced that the cost of NASA human space flight is based on what it takes to put people in space.
I think it goes back to Apollo.
At the beginning of Apollo, the President asked the Vice President what it would cost. The Vice President asked the NASA Administrator; the NASA Administrator asked the head of the manned space task force. Gilruth responded, that based on Mercury, which was running at $400,000 (total, not per year), he estimated Apollo would cost about $6 billion total. Webb, the Administrator, thought this might be low, so he just doubled the estimate and he told VP Johnson he estimated it would cost about $12 billion. Johnson thought this might be too low, so he doubled it and he told Kennedy he estimated the cost at about $24 billion. What did Apollo cost? $24 billion -not more-not less. Was it a real cost or just what was allocated?
Similarly, Shuttle cost about $3 billion per year for between 4-6 flights a year. Actually, at its peak, just before Challenger, it was closer to 10-12 flights per year. But the price was no higher. Still about $3 billion a year. The only time the Shuttle program budget had to go up (temporarily) was to pay for the replacement Orbiter, and that was even though most of the replacement parts had already been built as program spares.
Another thing about Shuttle-we never seemed to learn anything as the program went on for 3+ decades. Manpower never went down. We knew we had problems with fragile tiles, but never improved upon that. We knew we had problems with ice, but never tried to improve upon that. Shuttle was cumbersome and manpower intense to integrate every mission-cost, manpower and schedule remained constant; the real issue was the program could not handle getting new things on board in less than 2 or 3 months. Yet simultaneously, the commercially operated Spacehab, riding in the same Shuttle, was integrating the same sort of stuff: crew equipment, payloads, replacement parts for space stations, and Spacehab could handle virtually any change within a few days. That, to me, represents bureaucratic inertia and has nothing to do with the technical job or cost.
One other thing about Shuttle not represented in your essay-Shuttle was an extremely sophisticated and capable machine-not only for taking payloads into space, taking people (lots of them) into space, assembling,Stations in orbit. Its ‘payload capacity’ was 60000 pounds (less depending on inclination and altitude), but the entire Shuttle including its crew and life support systems was 200,000 pounds, so on a cost per pound basis, costs were a lot less than other rockets now carrying nothing but small payloads, but the program still cost the same: $3 billion per year.
Space Station has run, on average, about $3 billion a year. Twenty years ago, they were in the midst of DDT&E, and it was $3 billion a year. Ten years ago, DDT&E was over, but they were in the midst of assembly and Shuttle launches; Shuttle was paid for out of a separate $3 billion budget; and ISS still cost $3 billion/year. Today, there is little DDT&E, no assembly missions, no Shuttle, just a’low level of effort’, only a couple US crew members in orbit a year, science (what little there is) is no longer being paid for by the program, just a steady state level of effort with some minimal sustaining engineering that maintains a minimum level of technical expertise about the systems, and what does it cost? Still $3 billion per year.
When Station started in the early 1980s, then Administrator Beggs told Ronald Reagan that he thought NASA could design and build ISS, doing it at a rate based on budget, and it would cost no more than a small budget increase of about 2%, For that small increase, NASA would start building and orbiting components to build the Freedom station. But it didn’t happen that way. NASA and its contractor wanted, and got, $3 billion per year.
It is interesting that if you look at the Soviet and now Russian space program, they do operate according to an annual budget that maintains a certain level of workforce manpower, and they design and build hardware according to what they can afford, rather than itemizing by budget line items. The Russians seem to have figured out what NASA has not been able to do.
Currently, between SLS and Orion, those 2 programs are costing about $3 billion per year. I know the number of NASA people directly involved is a pretty small number. For some reason, for this price, we are getting about 1 SLS every 3 or 4 years and maybe not even that many Orions. I’ve looked at the Orion (as a past builder of human carrying spacecraft) and there is nothing that sophisticated about it. Nothing that requires the tens of thousands of man hours that Shuttles required for hand work. It is not a lot of new sophisticated technology. There are no Apollo fuel cells for instance. It is probably as simple a spacecraft as Mercury was in 1960. So I have to wonder why it is costing so much and taking so long?
So I wonder, is the $3 billion a year an amount that NASA or its contractors have determined is a minimum budget that they basically extort from Congress; if Congress won’t pay up, NASA and its contractors simply do not do the job?
I am not convinced that the price we are paying has anything to do with the actual cost.
Maybe commercial will be less because they seem to genuinely be aiming to move commerce into space..
Thank you for your comment. I have a few remarks in response.
I would be careful about quantifying the cost of Apollo in terms of actual spaceflight. A large fraction of the money budgeted between 1961 and 1970 was used to build agency infrastructure (launch pads, testing chambers, laboratories, space center buildings) and these facilities have been in constant use for all programs ever since.
The Shuttle was a learning experience in many ways, but I do not agree that we “never learned anything” as it went on. Both Shuttles that were lost were not lost through deliberate neglect. Challenger was lost because no one imagined that cold would cause the O-rings to fail to seat properly, causing a burn-through and loss of vehicle and crew. Columbia was lost because, although we knew about foam shedding from the ET, no one thought the foam was shed with sufficient force to damage or destroy the RCC leading edges or heat tiles. The CAIB was shocked when a simulation test shattered the RCC wing pieces. In both cases, it was not the expected failures but the unexpected ones that killed us (the always-expected failure was an engine explosion, which never occurred.)
The budget for human spaceflight hovers around a third of the agency budget and has done for the last 40 years. To me, that suggests that most of the money is being spent on fixed costs, which are predominantly personnel costs. One factor is the inevitable law of all bureaucracies that the proportion of productive to non-productive personnel decreases constantly with age. Perhaps this means that NASA will never recover, in which case it should be re-structured or abolished, as some have suggested.
You certainly have a point about Orion being somewhat “retro”. I note that such an appellation is also applicable to most of the New Space “accomplishments” as well — they are at the same stage as the agency was in the mid-1960s in terms of real spaceflight capability.
CM said: “Similarly, Shuttle cost about $3 billion per year for between 4-6 flights a year. Actually, at its peak, just before Challenger, it was closer to 10-12 flights per year. But the price was no higher.”
Spudis said: “To me, that suggests that most of the money is being spent on fixed costs….”
That is a key point to be kept in mind for any transportation system whether it is a rocket, an airplane, a railroad, or a bus.
For each there is a fixed cost just to have the ability to work at all.
Therefore the shuttle cost about $3 B/year if it flew 12 times or even if even if it did not fly at all. The marginal cost per flight raised the total cost, but by an amount so relatively small that is was lost in the rounding error when discussed.
That is equally true for any other rocket (plane, train, bus). That means the only way to significantly reduce cost/flight is to have a paying market that requires a significant number of uses/year. That is true whether the rocket is expendable or reusable (though for a truly efficient reusable system the cost/flight reduction should be greater).
Part of the promise of Lunar ISRU development is that it could help create a market demand for more launches and thus encourage significant cost/flight reduction.
http://www.space.com/34062-nasa-chief-talks-international-spaceflight-cooperation.html
There is no market; the only significant revenue generating activity in space is GEO satellites. No international cooperation is going to pour anything close to that revenue into space.
The U.S. military is actually the best bet to pay for a cislunar infrastructure. All this blah blah blah about market demand and NASA babbling about cooperation is meaningless.
That was the reason I said that Lunar ISRU development “could help create a market”, the key word there being “create”.
In another posting you complain that others do no really absorb the intent of you comments, but only look for ways to misinterpret you (it is at September 13, 2016 at 5:58 pm).
Perhaps you should consider doing others the same courtesy you ask for yourself.
Yes Joe, saying it will “help create” does not say what to create and so is essentially meaningless. Like I said.
What market is ISRU going to create? Dr. Spudis has allowed me to explain my views on this for years- water shielded GEO space stations to replace the telecom satellite network.
What is your pitch besides “help create”?
“Yes Joe, saying it will “help create” does not say what to create and so is essentially meaningless. Like I said.
What market is ISRU going to create? Dr. Spudis has allowed me to explain my views on this for years- water shielded GEO space stations to replace the telecom satellite network.
What is your pitch besides “help create”?”
We actually do not disagree by all that much as to long term goals. If you have any more need to know why Lunar ISRU development is essential to achieving those goals and thus creating a market, you could review Dr. Spudis’s plans for Lunar development.
I realize you believe you know the exact one and only way to proceed in detail and reject any variation (however small) from your plan, would just be nice if you would show the same tolerance for other views (many of which are not all that different from your) that you demand for yourself.
While I don’t completely disagree with your comments I don’t think Dr. Spudis has identified the important issue.
“A large fraction of the money between 1961 and 1970 was used to build agency infrastructure …that have been in constant use
Yes, however the people who have been operating the flight systems have shortchanged those who have to maintain the infrastructure, which is why many of the facilities are in such decrepit condition.
Unfortunately one of NASA HSF’s problems and the reason why their costs are unreasonably expensive, has been (and its gotten worse in the last 15 years) that the people in charge, who mainly come out of flight operations, feel that they always need more of the resources for flight operations and everyone else can do with less. Several years ago, the former flight operations people, now the Program Manager, took all the money that had been going into science. Now on ISS they are wondering why there is so little useful science to fly. The KSC and JSC institutions can barely afford to keep the grass mowed, let alone maintain assembly buildings and launch pads. Mission control (operated by flight operations) is OK though. They’ve built triple the number of flight control rooms as what they actually need.
In many respects getting rid of this self-sanctimonious attitude is the key to making spaceflight affordable; it is the key to reducing the cost of NASA HSF-quite honestly, if we are not launching rockets, sending up 35 crew members a year, not flying a vehicle (ISS is more facility than vehicle), the next vehicle does not come on-lne for 5-10 years, then they should not be maintaining the workforce so that in 5-10 years they can begin learning how to fly.
“Shuttle was a learning experience in many ways”
The problem was not that we learned nothing, the problem was that none of that learning went back into modifying or upgrading the vehicle. The Shuttle that flew five years ago, with only one real exception-its control panel-(the part that was the focus of flight operations) -was the same vehicle that first flew in 1981. How many USAF aircraft or commercial airliners never upgraded over a 35 year flight history? None.
People like Bob Thompson, a design engineer who also had some operations experience, ran the program until the Shuttle began to fly. Then Flight Operations took over. I think every program manager that followed was an ex Flight Director. They never made upgrades, never made improvements to the system or to the processes. As you point out, the CAIB ‘felt’ that falling insulation probably wouldn’t do damage. If they’d been design engineers, if they knew insulation and ice was falling (and they did know) then they would have studied and corrected the issue before they killed a crew. Reality was the Flight Operations management had eliminated the JSC engineering organization, eliminated the subsystem managers who might have known something about the characteristics of foam and RCC. It was more important to have multiple sets of flight operators who would be able to read checklists and throw switches. Hard engineering was no longer important.
These self sanctimonious flight operator managers eliminated the engineering. They were able to put more money into their operations organization that way. The program is there for a couple decades. They have a short term horizon. They viewed their job as simply to go fly. They failed to preserve the long term design and development capability that had been their earlier heritage.
How might they have corrected the issue that downed Columbia? Maybe an ET with insulation on the interior (as was done on 2 of the 3 Saturn V stages). Maybe a change to the insulation chemistry. The fact was the people in charge, all out of flight operations in 2003, decided it was simply easier to do nothing, throw the Shuttle away. Now let me ask you after the fantastic job they did in the 1970s was it best to throw away that knowledge and capability and hope to start over, or to try to understand how to improve upon what they already had?
They never even thought about making changes-I suspect the managers were scared to make changes because none of them had ever designed or built anything.
It is the same reason the Orion has been such a screwed up design and development process right from the start, 10 years ago, and why it is taking so long and costing so much. The good thing is that a new group of engineers are learning design and development but the bad thing is the people now learning that design and development will be gone-retired or deceased-by the time the next design and development job comes along.
You might be right-maybe money is spent on “fixed costs”, but not on the right ones. We should be aiming to make vehicles operating on the moon and especially Mars more self sufficient; We should not be maintaining and building a larger flight operations team, which is where a lot of the money has been going. In Apollo there was a reason why we had people on the ground monitoring and operating all the systems. It was because computers had only barely been invented and did not have the capability. In Apollo, the crew in flight was totally dependent on telemetry being sent to the ground and flight “controllers” deciding how to operate it. Today computers can provide computational and control capabilities. The computers can provide untiring devotion to systems and control capabilities. Instead the flight operations organization is trying to hang onto their heroic age of the 1960s.
Thanks for your thoughts on this — an interesting perspective.
Now let me ask you after the fantastic job they did in the 1970s was it best to throw away that knowledge and capability and hope to start over, or to try to understand how to improve upon what they already had?
I think a lot of people now see that the decision to terminate the Shuttle program was a mistake. The problem was how to move beyond LEO with Shuttle in place — it was thought that removing the high fixed costs to maintain Shuttle would create a “wedge” that would permit development of new flight systems. In retrospect, too many miracles were asked for.
Now, we have a retro spacecraft design that won’t be ready to fly for years, a launch vehicle with some considerable capability but no mission, and a delusional agency that thinks it’s going to Mars. A fine mess indeed.
Sidemount was the lost opportunity. As I always say- I still get depressed when I think about it.
“Now let me ask you after the fantastic job they did in the 1970s was it best to throw away that knowledge and capability and hope to start over, or to try to understand how to improve upon what they already had?”
We do not actually disagree on that point.
The same thing could be said for the Apollo/Saturn hardware at the end of the Apollo Program. The attempt to throw away the Shuttle hardware was simply (for a lot of reasons (including politics beyond NASA’s control) repeating the same mistake.
For the record I was a supporter of the Shuttle “Gold Team’s” Architecture.
The high costs of operating the Shuttle were the result of a political attempt to minimize the development costs for the Shuttle. Those in charge at the time did not care how high the operational costs would be, which crippled the space program for 2 generations. On the other hand, the current space entrepreneurs, now masters of their own designs, do care very much about operational costs, and the result is clear, they are coming down.
I agree that all 3 cost reduction methods should and will be used to reduce costs. Wide boosters are not absolutely required for lunar operations since the moon has no atmosphere and so we do not need really wide vehicles to land on it. However, a combination of a large wide booster that is also reusable would make it cheaper for both lunar and Mars operations. We should also not forget that reusable spacecraft are a key part of the concept.
It will cost money to set up a lunar polar mining base, develop the equipment and begin propellant production. That implies that reducing those costs will reduce the eventual cost of propellant produced there. Once a supply of propellant is available in LEO or at L1, all 3 cost reduction components will be in place. The existence of a continuing market for lunar propellant to support Mars operations would tend to guarantee the continued operation of the lunar mining base and would allow continuing scientific access to the lunar surface. Lunar propellant may eventually be used throughout cis-lunar space.
“The high costs of operating the Shuttle were the result of a political attempt to minimize the development costs for the Shuttle.”
I don’t think this is true. Its only true if the budget for human space flight was never constrained-and that was total not the case. Remember one argument in 1970 was simply to keep human space flight alive. The other was to be given enough money to do anything-Nixon said between 1/2 and 1% of GDP was enough to spend on a program with no certain benefits. The description was that “this was just low enough that the taxpayers wouldn’t figure it was going to break the bank.”
First Shuttle came in slightly behind schedule and very slightly over its development budget-actually the budget was supposed to have had a margin for unknown costs that were not given at first. Given the advanced state of technology on the vehiucle, it was a remarkable development job that was never adequately recognized. The cost was constrained by the Nixon Administration and OMB and was carefully balanced against other aspects of NASA’s mission and DOD plans. Later, NASA was fortunate that Carter did not cancel human space flight entirely, which he was predisposed to do based on his statements prior to the election.
Yes, there were discussions of a winged fly-back booster and setting up an entirely new manned spacecraft center in Huntsville-MSFC loved the idea.But it was difficult enough to maintain an Orbiter the size of a DC-9 or 737, with its tiles and 3 SSME’s; it took tremendous effort to light those 3 SSME’s on every launch. The winged flyback booster would have been the size of a 747, also would have had some type of surface insulation, also would have suffered from ice and would have required between 9 and 12 SSMEs and maybe jet pods too. Talk about operational costs, not to mention the development costs for a booster the size of a 747 several times the size and far more complex than the Shuttle Orbiter itself.
As it was, Fletcher and Low fully anticipated that Nixon was going to approve a smaller Shuttle with a 12 ft diameter, 45 ft long payload bay, which they had said was the minimum required to carry Station modules, and they were genuinely surprised when Nixon (Cap Weinberger) gave a go ahead to the Shuttle that was developed.
Good list of the challenges involved in producing a fly-back first stage for the shuttle. To those add meeting the mass fraction to allow the whole system to work.
Had the opportunity to attend a talk by Bob Thompson (the Rockwell engineer who headed the shuttle development program). One of the things he said that his design team commented when they received the fly-back booster concept from the advanced planning team was – “What have these guys been smoking?”
I also had the opportunity to look at some of the other alternate concepts, including one using the smaller orbiter to which you refer. A couple of interesting points:
(1) The smaller orbiter would had a separable crew cabin that would have served as an escape pod.
(2) It would have been vertically mounted on a first stage booster intended for down range recovery and reuse. This booster could also have served as the first stage for an HLV.
Do not know if it could have been made to work, but it was an interesting possibility.
My understanding is that it was rejected because of an Air Force requirement for the larger payload/cargo bay chosen for the orbiter.
Bob Thompson was the NASA Program Manager from inception through the first couple Shuttle flights. Previously he had served as the Program Manager that got the Apollo Applications (which became Skylab) program started. After Shuttle he retired and joined McDac to head up their Station effort.
Thanks for the correction.
The talk I attended was years after the fact (did not get out of college and join the program until 1982), the details of his history must have gotten garbled.
But what he said was not. Basically that he did not believe the TSTO Shuttle configuration (with fly-back booster) was practical with the technology available at the time.
“-an Air Force requirement for the larger payload/cargo bay-”
The rumor, which I happen to believe, is the Air Force wanted to be able to kidnap a Russian satellite and land immediately. Thus the cargo bay and cross-range performance that made the shuttle such a problematic design.
“The rumor, which I happen to believe, is the Air Force wanted to be able to kidnap a Russian satellite and land immediately.”
Yes, and this was mentioned in those MIT OCW videos. Though I think it was more about a quick launch of a satellite where Shuttle launches from Vandenberg, deploys satellite once in space, then re-enters and land back at Vandenberg. In 90 minutes, Vandenberg will “move” 1500 miles which this became requirement for cross range. NASA wanted 15 ft diameter because any less would be too cramped for a space station module, but USAF wanted 60 ft because that’s length of their recon satellites. That extra length of cargo bay made the orbiter much more difficult vehicle to build. Also intent was each orbiter will have a two-week turnaround (really! it’s presented in a NASA SP publication from 1970s) and ***all*** satellites will be launched with Shuttle (this decimated expendable launch vehicle market which Ariane cornered the market from the US). Of course Shuttle can retrieve satellites so obviously the Soviets were really upset as this capability gives opportunity to steal their satellites.
Another fascinating aspect described in those MIT videos is orbiter goes through 15 different flight regimes during entry from Mach 25 to landing (lots of luck of an astronaut manually piloting vehicle through all those). And vehicle had problems of pitch during some of these flight profiles so a few tons of lead had to be added to the aft section to allow orbiter to pitch up during some of the hypersonic regimes. Yep, several tons of lead were taken to orbit and back again.
Getting back to “low cost spaceflight” which I think is as elusive as “low cost helicopters.” Perhaps it will never happen. I think we have to see which space vehicle plan can scale up.
“Yes, and this was mentioned in those MIT OCW videos. Though I think it was more about a quick launch of a satellite where Shuttle launches from Vandenberg,-”
And thus my earlier point: “-it has been my experience if anyone reads such comments they do not remember the content except to morph it into things I never said.”
“Remember one argument in 1970 was simply to keep human space flight alive.”
A fascinating lecture by Dale Myers, first of 15 MIT Open Courseware videos, where he mentions in those early days it seemed Skylab 3 would be the last time US will put people into space (Apollo Soyuz was not scheduled then). Lots good stuff here from someone who was there. Other lectures include Aaron Cohen, Tom Moser, Chris Kraft, and others. Very insightful. I’d love to hear from those involved with ISS and why it came about as it did, along with newer programs (but highly unlikely for commercial space because private companies are very protective of their business plans).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiYhQtGpRhc
Dr. Spudis: Keep up with promoting the Moon as only other notable person that talks about that place is Dennis Wingo. Everybody else only talks about Mars (which will always be 20 years away).
“Dr. Spudis: Keep up with promoting the Moon as only other notable person that talks about that place is Dennis Wingo. Everybody else only talks about Mars (which will always be 20 years away).”
On a positive note while Dr. Spudis may have been a “voice crying in the wilderness” for quite a while, the “wilderness” is getting a little more crowded. Including ULA (lead by it’s president Tory Bruno).
https://www.spacenewsmag.com/feature/ulas-lunar-vision/
It would be interesting to see ULA’s lunar vision implemented.
Not so sure about the aspect of 1000 people working and living in cislunar space in 30 years. Might be more like 100 or less.
Amen to that! Voyage to Mars – 20 years away and always will be!
I agree with your other point. Though I’m encourage by growth and activity in the “cislunar community” in recent years, our host and Mr. Wingo stand out for promoting Moon activities. Obviously, they each come from their own perspective and I don’t speak for either of them. But for my money, I’m grateful for their grasp of the hard collision between science, engineering and money that is needed to bring cislunar space into our economic sphere.
The SpaceX infomercial plays on.
“-current space entrepreneurs, now masters of their own designs, do care very much about operational costs, and the result is clear,-”
The result is not clear at all. The hobby rocket has now blown up twice. Though nobody seems to have the guts to say it, NASA will most likely never allow astronauts on that vehicle. SpaceX is out of the human space flight business and might as well junk their dragon tooling.
“-reusable spacecraft are a key part of the concept.”
No….a key part of NewSpace dogma that has yet to be proven.
“-a continuing market for lunar propellant to support Mars operations would tend to guarantee the continued operation of the lunar mining base-”
Mars is a dead end and the Moon is not going to change that.
I have to disagree with Dr. Spudis on several of his points. But we both agree on lunar ice as the critical enabling resource. I could write long winded comments like those above to explain my position but it has been my experience if anyone reads such comments they do not remember the content except to morph it into things I never said.
I will state that in my view the Super Heavy Lift Vehicle is the only way to build a cislunar infrastructure. Years of endless NewSpace demonization have made this stance extremely unpopular. Oh well. Further, the key missing technology is the pressure fed ocean recovered booster originally proposed for the shuttle. This is also missing from anything anyone is writing about in the popular space media. Oh well. And lastly, there is no cheap and “lowering the cost” is….a counterproductive subject in itself. The only path forward is increasing the Human Space Flight budget by a few billion dollars a year. By the way, LEO is not space flight.
A most fascinating article.
Perhaps an approach of all three methods is also a possibility. I.E, a phased approach, if you will.
Basically, we start with HLVs to establish the use of lunar based propellant. Afterwards, we start to focus more on making use of reusable rockets.
Just a possibility.
“In the case of the Shuttle, reusability was not an asset, but an anchor—the continuing high costs to maintain and operate the Shuttle system left little funding for anything else the agency wanted to pursue, like human missions beyond LEO.”
The Shuttle Orbiter was not designed to go Beyond Low Earth Orbit (BLEO). In my view the space station to nowhere was to give it something to do since it was essentially useless as designed. Sadly, with solar panels and extra life support pallets- and minor mods- it could have done 6 month missions and been the ultimate spyplane (and that 150 billion for the ISS could have gone to a cargo version). For BLEO missions a cargo version was required- the Shuttle C which was never funded. A few less cold war toys and we could have been exploring the Moon with robots with a cargo version. We would doubtless have discovered the ice in the late-80’s and been back on the Moon by the turn of the century. Oh well.
“First, you can lower the cost of launching stuff-”
As I commented, lowering cost is secondary to bumping the Human Space Flight budget up several more billion dollars a year. Part of that would be abandoning LEO and classifying it as not-really-spaceflight. The DOD budget is proof that we can double or triple the HSF budget and it would actually be just a blip. NewSpace dogma is based on the NASA budget being fixed and proponents will always scream bloody murder at any suggestion it could go up. It can.
“A second approach to lowering cost is to launch large quantities of material at one time.”
Bingo! The Saturn V was really the very minimum vehicle and something with about twice the lift-off thrust should have been the next iteration. That has not changed. The next iteration of SLS should be much more powerful and use those reusable pressure-fed ocean recovered boosters originally specified for the shuttle.
“Reusability makes the most sense for space-based assets, like cislunar transfer stages, refueling depots, and reusable landers for the Moon and Mars.”
And this is where I differ with Dr. Spudis. I favor semi-expendable robot lunar water harvesters that make their own fuel from lunar ice and ferry water up to wet workshops in lunar orbit- until they wear out. Those water shielded stages then transit back across the cislunar sea to GEO to be used as manned telecom platforms. No depots and no Mars.
“Perhaps this means that NASA will never recover, in which case it should be re-structured or abolished, as some have suggested”:
“Provide the People of the United States of America, as national security and economic interests demand, with the necessary infrastructure, entrepreneurial partnerships, and human and robotic operational capability to settle the Moon, utilize lunar resources, scientifically explore and settle Mars and other deep space destinations, and, if necessary, divert significant Earth-impacting objects.”
I like the idea of NSEA except for “settle the Moon” and “settle Mars” parts.
Being a follower of O’Neill I do not subscribe to any natural body as being suitable for colonization. However, using lunar material to build miles-in-diameter artificial hollow spinning moons could be construed as a kind of lunar “settlement.” Mars is not a candidate.
I especially like the idea of diverting objects with nuclear weapons. The magic wand for the billions necessary to create a cislunar infrastructure will most likely be a military program. Such a project might start in GEO with Moonwater-shielded manned platforms.
http://www.voanews.com/a/nasa-asteroid-redirect/3509285.html?utm_source=Today%27s+Deep+Space+Extra%2C+Thursday%2C+September+15%2C+2016&utm_campaign=dailycsextra&utm_medium=email
“Bolden says that third phase is so close he can taste it. And if the timeline stays on target and the expected $1.4 billion worth of funding gets approved, we might have a new rocky neighbor orbiting the moon within a decade.”
Wow, “so close he can taste it.”
Close to what? This kind of stuff just leaves me completely discouraged.
The linked article says the size of the sample to be recovered is 20 (presumably metric) tons.
I believe the project started out with an intended recovered mass of 500 metric tons.
Not an expert on density of the various categories of asteroids, but I wonder if someone (perhaps Dr. Spudis) who is could say how big this” new rocky neighbor” would be.
Assuming that it’s a typical stony meteorite, it would be slightly smaller than this one.
Thanks.
Since the total mass that would have to be delivered to LEO would be more than 20 Metric Tons, this does not seem much like a good mining prospect.
I note the article calls the mission “audacious”.
Just sad.
And it also mentions the manned mission would take place in the 2030s?
Long time to wait to visit a boulder.
Wasn’t the ARM mission set to be defunded anyway?
I seem to recall hearing about that.
billgamesh says:
September 14, 2016 at 9:38 pm
“Such a project might start in GEO with Moonwater-shielded manned platforms.”
Billgamesh, Lunar iron seems to be a better shielding material than water.
“For a given thickness, iron outperforms lead by a factor of 5 and hydrogenous materials on average by a factor of 20, making it the shielding material of choice for neutrons above 20 MeV.”
From: Page 76 of ‘Cosmic Ray Interactions in Shielding Materials PNNL-20693 Prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830’ By E Aguayo, RT Kouzes, AS Ankney, JL Orrell, TJ Berguson, and MD Troy July 2011
At: http://www.pnnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-20693.pdf
Lunar iron shielding for GEO and LEO satellite electronics might allow them to last longer and present fewer issues with 24/7 operation.
Lunar aluminum could burn pretty good as an ISRU propellant. Time will tell on that one.
As for artificial gravity, I like trains going around and around in circles and shielded from Galactic Cosmic Radiation by lots of dirt on the Moon, Mars, Ceres, and any other place we want to visit or
live. Why? Maybe because my brothers and I had a train set when I was quite young. That train rolled and rolled. I’ve also enjoyed riding trains for very long distances.
Yep, artificial spinning worlds will also eventually be built.
And large pressure fed boosters could probably be quite useful in reducing Lunar mission launch risks and costs.