Re: Griffin Wants Inline SDLV and 5 Segment SRB/CEV



Rand Simberg wrote:
> On Sat, 02 Jul 2005 15:56:06 -0500, in a place far, far away, Brian
> Thorn <bthorn64@xxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
> a way as to indicate that:
>
> >Actually, it looks like Congress wants *both*. Move CEV up to 2012 and
> >extend Shuttle ops through 2011 or 2012. That's not such a bad idea,
> >really. That artificial "the Station has to be finished by 2010"
> >schedule pressure is exactly what led to the Columbia disaster. Lift
> >the mandatory retirement *date* and instead retire the Shuttle after
> >STS-141 is home (or -142 if they reinstate Hubble SM4.) In the
> >meantime, there's less pressure to get a quick-and-dirty CEV to the
> >pad and less chance for design errors slipping through in the name of
> >expediency.
>
> Well, since Griffin is determined to maintain the Shuttle
> infrastructure, there's now no forcing function to retire the Orbiter,
> since production will continue on ETs and SRBs ad infinitum. Had they
> only procured enough for the final STS flights, ending it at that date
> (or at least after that number of flights) would have been a
> certainty.

griffen does appear determined to keep the shuttle infrastructure going
for now--which probably has more to do with Griffen's political acumen
than his technical judgment. The shuttle infrastructure was going to
'keep going' until Congress thought the CEV was ready anyway, and if
there had been any slip-ups in CEV schedule, it would have been a
justification for maintaining the full shuttle architecture. This gives
Congressmen and women something positive to take back to their
constituents. Instead of "we're cutting your program to pay for the
VSE", it's "we're using your program to get the VSE done," which will
make constituents happy and be more likely to open Congress's purse and
prevent cancellation or downscaling in the out years.

Look, the reality is no matter what scheme NASA chose, EELV based or
SDLV, it was not going to 'sustainable.' That's the nature of
government programs. The US Navy's been running McMurdo in Antarctica
for years. It's a huge installation, it'll continue to operate for the
next century probably, and it WILL NEVER EVER BE SUSTAINABLE. That's
not the point. The point of the VSE is to act as the 'icebreakers' to
get humanity into space on a regular basis. As long as no
Antarctic-like treaty is agreed to, commercial exploration and
exploitation of off world resources will take over when it is
financially feasible.

cuddihy

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