Divert funds from Constellation/Space Shuttle to RLV

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rockett

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Hmmm, let's see.

NASA's advertised cost per launch of 4 remaining shuttle flights at 450 million each = 1.8 billion.
Plus $0 left for Constellation in the Obama administration's budget.
Equals 1.8 billion, or less than one third the cost for Boeing to develop the 777 without any re-entry capability.
Minus about a billion in bureacracy and cost overruns.

Sorry, don't think the math will work, not in NASA's business model anyway.
 
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marcel_leonard

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rockett":j8x115c4 said:
Hmmm, let's see.

NASA's advertised cost per launch of 4 remaining shuttle flights at 450 million each = 1.8 billion.
Plus $0 left for Constellation in the Obama administration's budget.
Equals 1.8 billion, or less than one third the cost for Boeing to develop the 777 without any re-entry capability.
Minus about a billion in bureacracy and cost overruns.

Sorry, don't think the math will work, not in NASA's business model anyway.


We give twice that to the Russians just to send Soyuz capsule up to collect and empty garbage bags on the ISS.... :lol:

No my friend were there is a will there is a way...........after all what better green technology could this administration hope for than a completely green ISS laboratory to enhance solar fuel cell technology, and fully funding R/D to develop low cost space delivery systems relying heavily on the private sector???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XieRkM5 ... re=related
 
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marcel_leonard

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I recently watched a web-cast at SDC where congressional meeting on the hill were to announce that the Bush Administration's Constellation program was being scrapped by the Obama Administration; for a more streamline approach to space exploration, by concentrating the limited NASA resources into more cost effective space delivery system...

Although a lot of people are crying foul; I see this a blessing in disguise; due to the fact we can achieve the goals of space exploration, and bring down the cost of transportation by simply concentrating our efforts to making space travel more affordable and space exploration more cost effective...

After all where is it written in stone that all big science projects have to cost big money. If we can just get a reliable RLV of the ground and land safely back on the tarmac that is an automatic 90% reduction in the cost of exploring our solar system...
 
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edkyle99

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marcel_leonard":3uiiaehi said:
Although a lot of people are crying foul; I see this a blessing in disguise; due to the fact we can achieve the goals of space exploration, and bring down the cost of transportation by simply concentrating our efforts to making space travel more affordable and space exploration more cost effective...

The proposal gives billions more to NASA over the next few years, but for substantially less capability! How is that cost effective?

- Ed Kyle
 
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vulture4

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NASA's budget has been increased under Obama and the useless Constellation program has been canceled, pending pork battles. NASA is still planning to spend $2.5B to "close out" Constellation, which is an extraordinary waste and should be stopped; this alone is probably more than the total ever spent on advanced RLV development. But even so, absent Shuttle and Constellation the money is there. Of course we might have to forgo spending hundreds of billions on a new HLV, but we could just order one from ULA if it's ever needed. Without a fully reusable launch vehicle there is no way to make human spaceflight practical.

The challenge would be to let the contractors (Scaled, Orbital, SpaceX, maybe even ULA?) take their RLV ideas to the test flight stage as unmanned demonstration vehicles without NASA loading them up with unnecessary requirements that would triple the weight and cost. And we have to do this before the current excess money in the budget gets vacuumed up into overhead.
 
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fatjoe

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vulture4":3sghpomc said:
NASA's budget has been increased under Obama and the useless Constellation program has been canceled, pending pork battles. NASA is still planning to spend $2.5B to "close out" Constellation, which is an extraordinary waste and should be stopped; this alone is probably more than the total ever spent on advanced RLV development. But even so, absent Shuttle and Constellation the money is there. Of course we might have to forgo spending hundreds of billions on a new HLV, but we could just order one from ULA if it's ever needed. Without a fully reusable launch vehicle there is no way to make human spaceflight practical.

The challenge would be to let the contractors (Scaled, Orbital, SpaceX, maybe even ULA?) take their RLV ideas to the test flight stage as unmanned demonstration vehicles without NASA loading them up with unnecessary requirements that would triple the weight and cost. And we have to do this before the current excess money in the budget gets vacuumed up into overhead.

Why not have Uncle Sam give matching funds to the X-Prize first place winners at 1/20 odds...this should speed up development of RLV.
 
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vulture4

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Why not have Uncle Sam give matching funds to the X-Prize first place winners at 1/20 odds...this should speed up development of RLV.

This could work at a small scale vehicles where individual companies and universities could sponsor the effort. Like the lunar lander contest, they could serve to train engineers and develop technologies with small, low-altitude prototypes. But for anything capable of going over about 5km altitude the cost is too great. Spaceship One a unique case, with $20 million in private capital. The attempt to finance major RLV programs with private capital resulted in the collapse of the X-33 and X-34 programs. So we need NASA to put money into an array of autonomous RLV concepts at small and medium scale, say 5-10m length and 10-20km altitude capability, both horizontal take-off and landing, vertical takeoff/horizontal landing, and vertical takeoff/vertical landing. This could probably be done by university/industry teams worth some NASA support for less than $10M per concept. It is essential to get real experience with GN&C, flight cycles, reliability, and maintenance cost before trying to jump to orbital flight. Testing of thermal protection is entirely possible at this scale given that almost all the actual damage to TPS occurs at subsonic speeds.
 
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