Re: ESAS - VSE article by Jeffery Bell

On Sun, 16 Apr 2006 13:55:13 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Jorge
R. Frank" <jrfrank@xxxxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

simberg.interglobal@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg) wrote in
news:44697c55.318740594@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2006 11:59:10 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Jorge
R. Frank" <jrfrank@xxxxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

I don't see it as a "flags and footsteps" issue so much as a flat
funding profile colliding with a 2020 deadline for return-to-the-moon;
the two are incompatible with an additional investment in a LEO
facility. Eliminate the deadline and a LEO assembly facility becomes
possible within the available funding. Allowing a funding "hump" would
also allow a LEO facility while keeping the 2020 deadline, but that's
a lot more iffy since the current government isn't allowed to commit a
future government to a particular level of spending (hence the flat
funding profile; it is the only politically realistic solution since
it essentially commits the US government only to support NASA at the
same level it's been doing for years anyway).

But even that's a commitment...

True, but it's a commitment within the level that past presidents and
congresses have agreed upon.

Right. The mistake here would be not an unwillingness to start over,
but NASA's stubborn insistence that the LEO CEV should be tied down to
the requirements for the lunar CEV. Or the lunar CEV to the Mars CEV -
the LOX/Methane issue being one example.

Methane is useful for reasons other than Mars extensibility. It's got
better performance than hypergolics, for one thing. It's not as
storable, but that's one of the problems we're going to have to solve
to become spacefaring anyway.

Yes, but *must* it be solved *now*, for the LEO CEV? Obviously not -
we've operated LEO spacecraft for decades without it - and it creates a
funding problem to attempt it now, rather than waiting until after 2010.

Well, actually, only if done business as usual. There are several
companies developing methane propulsion systems that NASA could figure
out a way to accelerate and use, should they choose to. But it's not
The NASA Way.

The real issue to me is that we should either have a policy that we're
going to open up space, or not. If so, we should be developing the
infrastructure required to make it affordable on a marginal-cost
basis, and make us truly space faring, even if it delays
implementation. Every single decision that NASA is making is exactly
counter to that philosophy.

That is only partially under NASA's control. The administration framed
the original VSE announcement in terms of specific vehicles,
destinations, and deadlines rather than infrastructure and capabilities.
There's obviously some wiggle room there - O'Keefe and Steidle had quite
different ideas about how to implement VSE than Griffin and Horowitz -
but if you base your vision on vehicles, destinations, and deadlines,
that's what you're going to get, and it's *all* you're going to get,
since you won't be able to afford the infrastructure and still meet the
deadline.

It still could have been done, but again, not BAU.

Griffin has compared ESAS to the Interstate Highway System, but it's
really exactly the opposite. ESAS is a very expensive high-capacity
all-terrain vehicle designed on the assumption that there's not going
to be a highway system. IMO, this is being driven by 1) need to
assuage the existing Shuttle/ISS constituencies and 2) the desire to
get the program far enough along as a fait accompli to make it too
hard to cancel at the end of Bush's term.

I doubt Griffin had 1) in mind when he decided to go with shuttle-
derived, since he was a fan of that architecture long before he was
selected as NASA administrator (CIP being the Planetary Society report he
co-authored) and he's self-admittedly not much of a politician.

OK, then make that factor 3) Griffin likes it.

If 2) were really a motivating factor, Griffin would have selected a non-
shuttle derived architecture with a test flight in 2008. The test flight
creates momentum for the new program prior to elections, and going non-
shuttle-derived would allow Griffin to cancel more shuttle contracts and
destroy production tooling even before the last shuttle flight, to make
the retirement of the old program irreversible.

Pehaps, but I meant as a political fait accompli, by cementing program
support for the existing Shuttle contractors. And I'm sure that there
was a fear that, if he proposed a new transportation node, everyone
would think "Oh, no, not another space station."

False lessons like that are why we will never make any progress in
space as long as it's driven by politics.
.

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