Cancellation of Project Constellation - Likely Replacements

[Hiberniantears]

Everything coming out of Washington this week indicates that Project Constellation will be cancelled. Every leak in the news is saying that the Augustine Commission will lean heavily in favor of an architecture that focuses on a direct-to-Mars scenario. We'll know on Tuesday when the report comes out, but in the mean time, let the betting begin: What are the favorites to replace the Shuttle and Ares?

I'm betting on Direct 3.0 as the deep space component, with a human rated Dragon/Falcon 9 configuration purchased for LEO missions. Shuttle flights will be extended through 2013, and ISS participation will end as scheduled.

 

[Booban]

Direct to Mars? Wow, that's worse than direct to Moon really. Its something they can fudge and cancel and cut back forever. As such I don't consider it a real option, it's just a way to reduce funding to just 'planning' and be pushed off to be funded in the 'future' and then of course canceled when we get there. When administrations don't want to deal with something they just plan for it long into the future as a joke for the next administration. Just like Constellation.

Why's it called '3' for?

Though unsure of the moon bit, I actually liked Constellation, it seemed very safe and realistic. A little off timing with the ISS but it wasn't funded properly in the beginning. And I think ISS will continue to be funded longer anyways (till it falls apart), so Ares 1 would've had a role. ISS is a great place to spend just a little bit of money for status. Couldn't Ares 1 be used to launch satellites like other rockets do? Why has it no use without ISS?

Voted for 8 because Soyuz is a sure thing, the others are not.

 

[Hiberniantears]

Direct to Mars? Wow, that's worse than direct to Moon really. Its something they can fudge and cancel and cut back forever. As such I don't consider it a real option, it's just a way to reduce funding to just 'planning' and be pushed off to be funded in the 'future' and then of course canceled when we get there. When administrations don't want to deal with something they just plan for it long into the future as a joke for the next administration. Just like Constellation.

Why's it called '3' for?

Though unsure of the moon bit, I actually liked Constellation, it seemed very safe and realistic. A little off timing with the ISS but it wasn't funded properly in the beginning. And I think ISS will continue to be funded longer anyways (till it falls apart), so Ares 1 would've had a role. ISS is a great place to spend just a little bit of money for status. Couldn't Ares 1 be used to launch satellites like other rockets do? Why has it no use without ISS?

Voted for 8 because Soyuz is a sure thing, the others are not.

I completely agree with you. I think that "Direct to Mars" would effectively mean "Direct to near earth asteroids". We'd be saving the money to avoid the cost of developing infrastructure on the moon while developing a true deep space capability, without any concrete plan to actually go to Mars.

The more I think about it, the less important I think it is to back to the moon, and on to Mars at our current level of technology. Gravity and heatshields being what they are, humans are better off on asteroids than Mars or the moon, and the economic incentive to inhabit the asteroids is considerably greater than heading to the Mars or the moon. In this solar system, the only place that humans can get out of their ship and walk around without the threat of suffocation is here on Earth. So the long term problem is the cost of life support in space, and it costs more to support life on Mars or the moon, because of the cost associated with landing and leaving. These costs are eliminated on asteroids, which means more people can go there... many, many more people.

 

[neutrino78x]

Uh, guys: "Direct" in this context refers to the "Direct 3.0" plan to replace the shuttle, not Zubrin's "Mars Direct". :roll:

This is what "DIRECT 3.0" means:

DIRECT Launcher proposal version 3.0

This is what some of you guys were thinking of:

Dr. Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct Plan

I support the Mars Direct Plan, with the exception that I think solar power should be used, instead of nuclear, as Zubrin wanted. Though I would not scream and cry and protest if nuclear were used, as long as it is done safely.

If you do Mars Direct, you have to use a heavy launcher, so the same equipment could theoretically be used to go to an asteroid or the Moon. That would be the best way, in my opinion.

 

[Hiberniantears]

Uh, guys: "Direct" in this context refers to the "Direct 3.0" plan to replace the shuttle, not Zubrin's "Mars Direct". :roll:

This is what "DIRECT 3.0" means:

DIRECT Launcher proposal version 3.0

This is what some of you guys were thinking of:

Dr. Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct Plan

I support the Mars Direct Plan, with the exception that I think solar power should be used, instead of nuclear, as Zubrin wanted. Though I would not scream and cry and protest if nuclear were used, as long as it is done safely.

If you do Mars Direct, you have to use a heavy launcher, so the same equipment could theoretically be used to go to an asteroid or the Moon. That would be the best way, in my opinion.

Good clarification. I was talking about the DIRECT 3.0. Personally, I love Zubrin's plan, but I haven't seen anything to indicate it is in play. If it is, we're in a far better place because that is the only viable and affordable plan I have seen for sending humans to Mars.

 

[Booban]

Oh. Well I didn't realize that.

Hmm, well, apparently everything to do with LEO has a fairly short span of time left due to the station and people seem to want to close the book entirely on it. The best way to do that is rely on the systems already there, russian soyuz and that european cargo carrier. Why invest any more in it, whether by NASA or private contractors to NASA?

And in that case Direct 3 is the logical choice, since Ares V is only there because of Ares 1 which we don't care about anymore.

Having said that I still vote for option 8 because even if Direct 3 is the most logical, it probably won't happen because I don't think we are going beyond LEO any time soon. Which is why I think its a shame that Constellation family of rockets is getting canceled because we are going to end up needing Ares 1.

 

[radarredux]

Everything coming out of Washington this week indicates that Project Constellation will be cancelled. Every leak in the news is saying that the Augustine Commission will lean heavily in favor of an architecture that focuses on a direct-to-Mars scenario.

Technically, the Augustine Commission is developing "options" not "recommendations"; however, since they are scoring the options, that does sound an awful lot like recommendations to me.

But... as the Aldridge Commission discovered several years ago, what should be done to maximize the space program's effectiveness and what will be done are entirely different things. Political posturing, job preservation in congressional districts, and budget realities are powerful forces that cannot be ignored. I think it would be silly to assume that people, companies, and members of Congress who benefit from the existing plan (i.e., Ares I) are going to quietly accept the Augustine Commission's findings.

By the way, here is a video ridiculing the idea of going with commercial rockets.

 

[neutrino78x]

By the way, here is a video ridiculing the idea of going with commercial rockets.

Well, the idea of using commercial rockets does have the advantage of stimulating the commercial development of space, which is what many of us want. If you want the future depicted in Star Trek, Star Wars, Firefly etc., all those things depict a future where space is exploited by private actors. The Navy doesn't operate merchant ships for Chevron; they are private merchant vessels.

Also, in theory, it should save money to develop orion, and the capability to go to the Moon with Orion + Altair, and use commercial rockets to launch them. Orion is just a crew capsule that can go on top of any rocket, be it provided by a company or by NASA.

Having said that, in an ideal world, I would want NASA to have its own rocket that operates independently of commercial ones and can be used to rescue civilian crews in space, etc., instead of the other way around.

But right now, we have a lot of financial problems in this country. When we get them fixed, maybe we can concentrate on the space program again.

--Brian

 

[Booban]

By the way, here is a video ridiculing the idea of going with commercial rockets.

Well, the idea of using commercial rockets does have the advantage of stimulating the commercial development of space, which is what many of us want. If you want the future depicted in Star Trek, Star Wars, Firefly etc., all those things depict a future where space is exploited by private actors. The Navy doesn't operate merchant ships for Chevron; they are private merchant vessels.

Also, in theory, it should save money to develop orion, and the capability to go to the Moon with Orion + Altair, and use commercial rockets to launch them. Orion is just a crew capsule that can go on top of any rocket, be it provided by a company or by NASA.

Having said that, in an ideal world, I would want NASA to have its own rocket that operates independently of commercial ones and can be used to rescue civilian crews in space, etc., instead of the other way around.

But right now, we have a lot of financial problems in this country. When we get them fixed, maybe we can concentrate on the space program again.

--Brian

I don't believe at all that private enterprise is the savior of the Space Program, not at this stage.

Its just desperation because NASA and the space program is looking so troubled that one thinks something new can save it. It will not stimulate the commercial development of space. This is a government contract, the environment is not competitive, this is just a fat cash cow payed by the tax payer.

Believe it or not private companies can be just as incompetent as government bureaucracies. Even if it looks bad know, NASA knows how to make rockets and run a space program better than anybody, private companies will not do this better, but they will charge more and dangerously cut costs because they want to make a profit, pure and simple.

This is not the way to stimulate commercializing space, this is just feeding the parasitic industrial base.

 

[radarredux]

NASA knows how to make rockets and run a space program better than anybody

When was the last time NASA designed, built, and flew a new rocket?

I suspect ESA, Lockheed, Boeing, and SpaceX can make an argument for having built more new rockets lately than NASA in the last quarter century.

 

[Booban]

touché.

Well, they should be, and none of the others have a human rated rocket although they would love you to pay them to make one.

 

[Hiberniantears]

By the way, here is a video ridiculing the idea of going with commercial rockets.

I don't believe at all that private enterprise is the savior of the Space Program, not at this stage.

Its just desperation because NASA and the space program is looking so troubled that one thinks something new can save it. It will not stimulate the commercial development of space. This is a government contract, the environment is not competitive, this is just a fat cash cow payed by the tax payer.

Believe it or not private companies can be just as incompetent as government bureaucracies. Even if it looks bad know, NASA knows how to make rockets and run a space program better than anybody, private companies will not do this better, but they will charge more and dangerously cut costs because they want to make a profit, pure and simple.

This is not the way to stimulate commercializing space, this is just feeding the parasitic industrial base.

I suppose the most important thing we should know about commercial access will be whether or not SpaceX (and others) is freely permitted to launch a manned Dragon or Orion Lite for any paying customer. Otherwise, this really would be no different than any other NASA launch. NASA didn't build the Space Shuttle, after all... a private company did.

This means that if Richard Branson wants to buy a ride on a Dragon, SpaceX would have to have in place the infrastructure not just to launch a rocket, but to recover it as well. I can't imagine tax payers would be supportive of a private ability to access space if that does not also include a private ability to recover, rather than sending the Navy out to pick up every private Dragon flight not on a mission for the US government.

 

[radarredux]

I suppose the most important thing we should know about commercial access will be whether or not SpaceX (and others) is freely permitted to launch a manned Dragon or Orion Lite for any paying customer. Otherwise, this really would be no different than any other NASA launch. NASA didn't build the Space Shuttle, after all... a private company did.

The difference is the "buy model". If the commercial takes on most of the financial risk in developing a new rocket or spacecraft, then NASA is simply one of many potential customers. However, if NASA pays most of the development costs (and potentially designs it too), then they are effectively the owner.

For example, while SpaceX has received a relatively small amount of COTS money from NASA, most of its development has been funded internally (Elon Musk's now less-than-considerable fortune, other private investors, and soon profits from early launches of Falcon 1). The developing suborbital market (which NASA will probably be a customer too) is also being developed at private investors' risk. And Bigelow's orbital platform is being developed at private investor risk.

In all these cases, NASA is just a customer and cannot dictate what the company can do with its space vehicles. One implication is that since there are multiple customers, development costs are spread across them so in theory NASA's costs will be less. Another implication is that private citizens and corporations (with enough money) can enjoy using these services.

But a very important implication is that NASA has to adjust its mission to what the commercial market makes available to it. In Constellation NASA defined its mission (perhaps somewhat arbitrarily) saying things like:

* 4 astronauts to the Moon's surface (not 2 or 3, but 4)
* X tons of cargo to the Moon's surface
* loiter time of 6 months in Lunar orbit
* direct abort to Earth (no aerobreaking)

And then built its rockets and spacecraft accordingly. Now NASA has to say, "This is what the market has available for us to use, lets shape a mission that takes advantage of it."

 

[radarredux]

NASA didn't build the Space Shuttle, after all... a private company did.

Although NASA wrote the proposal (with much feedback from various constituencies), secured the funding, designed much of it, and then paid the contractors to build it.

One sad part of the Shuttle's history is that they apparently needed the military's support in order to win CBO and Congressional support for the Shuttle, so the down cargo capability and considerable wingspan for cross range capability were designed in large part to support the concept of capturing satellites and bringing them back to Earth.

I often wonder how the history of the Shuttle would have been different if it didn't have such requirements.

 

[Hiberniantears]

Well, the Augustin Commission released their executive summary today. No surprises in it, but it is a little more vanilla than I expected. Regardless, I think we can safely say that we have seen the end of Ares I.