What is going happen to the US space program now

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nec208

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Obama has put a end to the program to the Orion spacecraft and going to the moon.Has put end to the Project Constellation and the Crew Exploration Vehicle.

There is some talk of extension of the Space Shuttle program for an additional five years while a replacement can be developed but this only talk. And Obama has put end to replacement Orion .

Well Obama wants to use that money on space probs and rocket research than use that money to go to the moon and developed a replacement .

What is going on with the government? They do not know what they are doing.
 
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pathfinder_01

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Currently the plan is to get private industry to pick up NASA’s job of LEO taxi. There are four companies that the government has contracted out to develop a replacement for the shuttle. NASA will select one or two of them to handle getting out astronauts into orbit. It is a big change from the past where government approved and owned vehicles sent men into orbit. Now NASA will seek a supplier for LEO transit.

I think this is a necessary step in order to go further into space. NASA in unable to drive down costs in the same way a private company can. NASA needs congressional approval to buy, build everything and congress likes to play pork politics with operations (i.e. there is little reason for JSC being in Texas). Imagine how much cheaper the shuttle would be if they had gotten funds to replace it in the 1990ies? Imagine what would have happened if the orbital space plane had been built?
 
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voyager4d

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nec208":1fikvc63 said:
Obama has put a end to the program to the Orion spacecraft and going to the moon.Has put end to the Project Constellation and the Crew Exploration Vehicle.
There is some talk of extension of the Space Shuttle program for an additional five years while a replacement can be developed but this only talk. And Obama has put end to replacement Orion .
Well Obama wants to use that money on space probs and rocket research than use that money to go to the moon and developed a replacement .
What is going on with the government? They do not know what they are doing.

Why are you only talking about the things that are canceled?
I can se so many positive things they are going to do enstead of the Constellation.
1. They are getting 2-4 private companies to build LEO spacecrafts to get people to LEO. And it's not only SpaceX (Dragon) it is also the DreamChaser and Orion Lite on Atlas 5 (Most likely candidates at the moment).
2. They are extending the ISS to at leaste 2020, and that means 2-6 cargo (from 2011) and 1-4 human (from 2014 or 2015) spaceflights pr. year to at leaste 2020.
3. They are going test a lot of real hardware in space like advanced populsion (Vasmir), inflatable ISS module, in-orbit probelant transfere and storage.
 
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vulture4

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The human spaceflight program is an express train heading for a cliff. To explain where we are going, let me try to explain where we have been.

Apollo was not a program of "exploration", it was a substitute for a perilous nuclear arms race. Kennedy announced its goal, "to send a man to the moon, and return him safely to the earth." Period. When Apollo 11 landed in the Pacific, the goal had been achieved. NASA was surprised when there was no public support for more moon flights. At the time I was aghast, but over the years I have realized that Nixon, and public opinion, were right. The geopolicial goal of Apollo had been achieved, and continuing to send people into space on huge expendable rockets was, and is, much too expensive to be of any practical value to America. Nixon gave NASA a choice. Reduce the cost of sending people into space to a level consistent with the actual value of the work they could do there (i.e. the Shuttle) or forget it.

During the building of the Shuttle, NASA made one major technical error. Previously aviation had been incremental; test each part, build a prototype, fly a little, learn a little, build another prototype. Finally, when it works well, build an operational aircraft. But during the Apollo program there was so little time that it was decided to design the final model of the huge rocket, all on paper, by the new method of "systems engineering", then build it and test all the parts at once. It worked, but only because they were lucky and because cost was completely irrelevant. We tried the same thing with the much more complex Shuttle, building the final design with no in-flight testing of any of the major components. It was amazing that it flew at all. It should not have been surprising that there were major unanticipated costs and unanticipated failure modes. It has taken all these years to finally straighten out the risks and begin to reduce the cost.

In the 1990's NASA understood this. That's why the X-33, X-34, X-37 and DC-X were funded, to develop and test the design elements for a new generation of shuttles that would be practical and safe. But Sean O'Keefe and Mike Griffin, despite being NASA administrators, had no idea why they were important, and canceled all these programs between 2000 and 2004. It was then, not in 1974, that NASA dropped the ball.

Griffin was bored with Shuttle because it was doing the same thing over and over. He was nostalgic about Apollo and had no idea why it was canceled. He coined the term "exploration", i.e. human spaceflight that wasn't for science, tourism, or any practical purpose, but just to send people on dramatic flights to new celestial objects. He designed new rockets by sticking together graphics of existing stages from Shuttle and Saturn. Many people at NASA were similarly nostalgic for a "clear goal" and a blank check, and bored with trying to do practical work at low cost. The idea of America as tough and strong appealed to Bush, but not enough to add any money to the budget. So Griffin ordered Shuttle and Station canceled in 2010, not because they were unproductive, but because he found them boring.

Now, the first President Bush had also wanted to go to Mars. He asked for a plan, and a cost, for what was called the Human Spaceflight Initiative. I was involved in that study. NASA laid out a mission to Mars and a realistic pricetag, $400 billion. Bush I decided it was too high, and sensibly dropped the idea. So when Griffin proposed an even more ambitious plan "Moon, Mars, and Beyond .....", to the second Bush he was careful to mention no budget increase at all, and suggested it could be done "free" by getting rid of Shuttle and Station in 2010. Bush, who didn't like ISS because the hated Clinton had invited in the Russians, and wanted to be remembered for his "bold vision", jumped at the idea, and didn't question the ridiculously unrealistic cost.

This was the second point where NASA dropped the ball. Most NASA people I knew were enthusiastic about a "clear goal" (i.e. fly to Mars) and to this day look at me blankly when I try to explain that NASA should produce practical benefits for the taxpayers who fund us. They did not question Bush's lack of a realistic budget but became livid when Obama pointed out that absent a major tax increase there wasn't any money to go to the moon.

Of course the International Partners were up in arms over the utterly bizarre NASA policy idea of finishing the ISS and then abandoning it, after they had invested a great deal, so Constellation said it would also take over for Shuttle for a few years in supporting ISS, never mind that the capsule was completely inappropriate for that mission, just as expensive as the Shuttle to launch and carrying much less.

Obama, who doesn't consider himself an expert on space, appointed Augustine to find a new direction but got a laundry list. He properly pointed out that Constellation was unsustainable but had no concept of the importance of low-cost, reusable vehicles for human spaceflight. Augustine, like Griffin, assumes a goal for NASA means putting people on an object in space, and wasn't even definite on what it should be. Obama ordered Constellation canceled but chose the "flexible path" option, which seemed benign but is undefined.

Constellation was officially canceled, however it still has support in NASA management and demanded billions in "closeout" funds which it then applied to continuing expensive tests, planning five (5) "test" flights, including actually building and launching the Ares I and sending crewmen to the ISS!!! In order to do this they will of course be forced to demolish the Shuttle launch pad at LC-39B next month, driving a stake into the heart of the Shuttle program and the whole concept of reusable spacecraft and launch vehicles. The semi-stated goal is for Constellation to present itself as the only available way of reaching the Space Station (having destroyed the infrastructure needed for Shuttle) and therefore forcing its way back into the position of "program of record".

Meanwhile there is a furious battle in the press over whether SpaceX and ULA can launch people safely, or whether only NASA can do it. Both are wrong. The only NASA employees who put their hands on the Shuttle are the crew. The only workforce in the world that has person-centuries of experience actually maintaining reusable spacecraft, that has the "tribal knowledge" that can't be codified, that could avoid the problems of Shuttle in a new generation of reusable spaccraft, are the hundreds of contractor engineers and technicians, mostly with USA, who actually maintain the Space Shuttle. And they are the ones who are about to be fired.

Today, after nearly thirty years, the Shuttle is finally flying amazingly well. The problems that caused the loss of Challanger and Columbia were corrected, and the thermal protection system has been vastly improved. This was our first attempt to build a reusable spacecraft, and thousands of lessons have been learned that could make a new generation of reusable spacecraft and launch vehicles practical and safe, and the Shuttle could easily be kept flying safely until we have something better. Logically a new reusable program should be started in parallel, so personnel and knowledge can be shared between the programs. Then, when the new vehicle is operational, the old one can be gradually withdrawn with no gap in operations. Instead, while newspace entrepreneurs and NASA administrators fight over who knows how to launch safely, all the people with real experience in maintaining reusable spacecraft will be fired and dispersed forever, and for at least a generation.we will see the death of the dream many of us had of spaceflight, not as spectacular for a few, but rather as routine for many.
 
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Polishguy

Guest
voyager4d":1hjvj0x9 said:
nec208":1hjvj0x9 said:
Obama has put a end to the program to the Orion spacecraft and going to the moon.Has put end to the Project Constellation and the Crew Exploration Vehicle.
There is some talk of extension of the Space Shuttle program for an additional five years while a replacement can be developed but this only talk. And Obama has put end to replacement Orion .
Well Obama wants to use that money on space probs and rocket research than use that money to go to the moon and developed a replacement .
What is going on with the government? They do not know what they are doing.

Why are you only talking about the things that are canceled?
I can se so many positive things they are going to do enstead of the Constellation.
1. They are getting 2-4 private companies to build LEO spacecrafts to get people to LEO. And it's not only SpaceX (Dragon) it is also the DreamChaser and Orion Lite on Atlas 5 (Most likely candidates at the moment).
2. They are extending the ISS to at leaste 2020, and that means 2-6 cargo (from 2011) and 1-4 human (from 2014 or 2015) spaceflights pr. year to at leaste 2020.
3. They are going test a lot of real hardware in space like advanced populsion (Vasmir), inflatable ISS module, in-orbit probelant transfere and storage.

That's the problem. It's all only for LEO, with no thought to expansion beyond, to places we can actually colonize (Moon, Mars). The VASIMR isn't as useful as something like NERVA. To get that 39 day flight to Mars, you'd need 660 tonnes of material in LEO at the start of the mission! That's either 4 Ares V, or 22 Falcon 9 Heavy. The Bigelow Inflatables would be developed whether NASA went on with Constellation or not. The on-orbit propellants make no sense whatsoever. To have a depot in a useable place, you'd need to put it in high orbit, and climb from LEO just to get fuel. It would be easier to fly directly to your destination. I'm all for outsourcing LEO access, but NASA should have kept the Orion as a Lunar and Asteroid Only capsule, and the Ares V for missions to Moon and Asteroids.
 
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voyager4d

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Polishguy":a3z1shdb said:
That's the problem. It's all only for LEO, with no thought to expansion beyond, to places we can actually colonize (Moon, Mars). The VASIMR isn't as useful as something like NERVA. To get that 39 day flight to Mars, you'd need 660 tonnes of material in LEO at the start of the mission! That's either 4 Ares V, or 22 Falcon 9 Heavy. The Bigelow Inflatables would be developed whether NASA went on with Constellation or not. The on-orbit propellants make no sense whatsoever. To have a depot in a useable place, you'd need to put it in high orbit, and climb from LEO just to get fuel. It would be easier to fly directly to your destination. I'm all for outsourcing LEO access, but NASA should have kept the Orion as a Lunar and Asteroid Only capsule, and the Ares V for missions to Moon and Asteroids.

Well we need to learn how to walk before we can run. Meaning we need to make access for humans to LEO cheaper, before going deeper into space. On way of doing that, is let commercial companies build multiple options and then use the most viable one. When we have those, the next step would be to make a bigger version, that can be launched on Altas 5 heavy or Falcon 9 heavy.

I havn't said that Vasmir was the answer for all our dreams, and yes the 39 days trip to Mars dosn't seem pratically useful. But Vasmir can still be usefull for other things, like tugboats and orbital reboost, so we need to test it.

I dont think heavy lift (>100mT) rockets will be economically viable in the near future (next 10 years), so fuel depoit are the only way we can get out of LEO for now.
 
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vulture4

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Before we try to figure out how to get out of LEO we need a practical way to get in to LEO. Expendable rockets are too expensive to be practical for human spaceflight. Right now the Shuttle is the only reusable spacecraft we have ever had. Abandoning reusable spacecraft now and going back to expendables makes no more sense than flying only the Wright Flyer until 1932, and then deciding heavier-than-air flight is impractical and going back to balloons. DOD is sufficiently concerned with cost to be pursuing reusables, having picked up the X-37 when NASA abandoned it.
 
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WannabeRocketScientist

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I feel that this is a real crossroads, and that its about time NASA started fostering commercial spaceflight a little more.

NASA can busy themselves on more important things than LEO, where we have been stuck for YEARS. And now capitalism can take over and make "cheap" access for communications, experimentation, etc. in LEO feasible. We are at a time when you can launch 1kg into space for $250. Why should NASA busy themselves with LEO when they can have willing companies do the engineering for a new freighter to the ISS for them?

NASA will continue to launch new probes in the name of science, rather than these big "lets all work together on big dramatic, but not overly useful, space project" mentality projects.

Allowing commercial companies to take over LEO will also help the U.S. become the leader of commercial spaceflight, and possibly corner the commercial space market for at least a decade or more.

Other than the fact it might be forever until we go back to the moon, and I may be in my late 60s by the time we have a man on Mars, I think this is a pretty good thing.
 
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voyager4d

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vulture4":2fpfdzl7 said:
Before we try to figure out how to get out of LEO we need a practical way to get in to LEO. Expendable rockets are too expensive to be practical for human spaceflight. Right now the Shuttle is the only reusable spacecraft we have ever had. Abandoning reusable spacecraft now and going back to expendables makes no more sense than flying only the Wright Flyer until 1932, and then deciding heavier-than-air flight is impractical and going back to balloons. DOD is sufficiently concerned with cost to be pursuing reusables, having picked up the X-37 when NASA abandoned it.

It is pretty easy (even tho' it's rocket science) to make a expendable system more economicaly viable than the space shuttle. RLV's only start to become viable when they have a high flyrate. And that is the usal chicken and egg question, will we get high demand when we have RLV's or will high demand require RLV's?
 
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SpacexULA

Guest
What Obama is proposing is a NASA equilibrium of the EELV program under the DOD.

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/sp97/eelv.html

Under the new reality DOD can focus on in space payloads instead of the launchers.

NASA has been launcher centric since it's inception, that has to change. All programs being offered "focus on LEO" in the next 5 years because, well we have assets in LEO that need serviceing, and for most missions we will likely do some form of docking in LEO before activating a EDS.

ALL HLV are going to require a significant check from Congress to get off the ground, and congress doesn't seem interested in giving NASA a double digit budget increase (1.7 billion or more) during a budget freeze.
 
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daveklingler

Guest
The "STS" in shuttle mission naming stands for "Space Transportation System". It needs to be understood that "Space Transportation System", as originally envisioned, included:

Reusable shuttles to take people and cargo up to LEO
Multiple space stations with propellant depots
Nuclear tugs for lunar and interplanetary missions
Continuing Saturn availability, including the Saturn S-N

If the "multiple space stations" part sounds wild, remember that Saturn S-N could deliver an estimated 350,000 pounds to LEO. The NERVA program, by 1968, had completed a few years of successful testing and was considered to be out of the technology development stage and ready for use in vehicle engineering. Mars missions were being proposed for 1978 (albeit with a lot of necessary long-duration habitat research that hadn't been done yet).

Fiscal conservatives at the time saw space exploration (at 5% of the nation's budget) as a huge boondoggle that was threatening to get bigger. Manned exploration was part of the Democratic National Party platform, making it all that much more insidious. The one enabling technology that made manned exploration possible was the NERVA program, and budget hawks saw, correctly, that the easiest way to kill manned exploration was to kill NERVA. NERVA's budget was heavily cut in the 1969 budget to preempt flight testing, then again for a few more years until the Nixon administration axed it entirely, along with the Saturn production line. The NY Times at the time opined that someone needed to go up to the Moon just to grind Nixon's name off the plaques.

We've been stuck in LEO ever since. Realistically, propellant depots aren't a solution for getting out of LEO (with anything but tiny cargoes) without higher specific impulses, and for now, that means nuclear thermal rockets. ISPs of around 1000 get us lunar bases (remember the logistics) and small Mars missions, ISPs of 1500 get us better Mars missions, and ISPs of 2000-2500 make us into a spacefaring species. A 1968 75,000-pound-thrust NERVA rocket is twice as efficient as an RL-10 or SSME, and power densities were generally considered at the time to be capable of being at least about triple what NERVA got. Run durations were tested at 60 minutes by December 1968.

Forty years later, we still need all the parts of a true Space Transportation System. The FY2011 Obama plan has money for ion and nuclear thermal rockets, but we need a shuttle replacement, propellant depots and more stations. Luckily, Bigelow Aerospace picked up TransHab after NASA was forced to cancel it, and the X-37B and HL-20 still seem to be alive and kicking. Elon Musk has shaken up the transportation industry quite badly, but whether he's able to stay afloat for the long haul remains to be seen. If the Obama space plan is allowed to go forward, we might have the best space policy ever put into place since the launch of Sputnik.
 
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nec208

Guest
I get the idea that the US will like to get out of human space flight not do away with it but put it in the private sector.The US wil not design ,test and built but contracted out.

Well unfortunately state run stuff does not work has good has capitalism unless there is cold ware.No incentive to make better ,take more people up ,more cargo , biggger rooms ,do more, so on.


And unfortunately going to the moon or mars is a status has we do not have the technology to live their ,do work their or mind.

The space program is like this.

-exploration and science ( can be done by probs and rovers) ( only some times a human may have to go where a prob and rover can not do .
-space mining and extracting new energy ( unfortunately we do not have the technology and not profitable now)
-space colony ( people living on the moon , mars or beyond) Not even the craziest engineer dreams of that happing in 100 years or 150 years from now that is how crude the technology we have.

The technology to do space mining,extracting new energy ,space colony is like middle ages with medecine and the medecine we have now.


- space tourism is now startng to look like potential for the wealthy ( sorry middle class people)


-- space tourism to go to the moon or mars or beyond ( still a log way off )

Besically are space program we are ants learning how to get up their and stay their for x number of weeks or months.Now and than we may hop in a raft to go to moon to put up a flag and get back ASAP and may be in 20 or 30 years hop in raft to go to mars and do the same thing.

So besically are space program is doomed .

What they should be doing is populsion research and advanced rocket research !! Than may be



-exploration and science
-space mining and extracting new energy
-space colony
-space tourism

Will be posable .
 
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rgrogers

Guest
Turning over the task of lifting men and equipment to LEO to commercial firms is a good idea. It should allow NASA the opportunity to focus it's resources on endeavours that push the envelope instead of the "been there, done that" stuff. I fear that the path President Obama has choosen is one that just "kicks the can down the road". By not committing to any major goal the attention of the American public will wane even further than it has so when this country's financial burdens necessitate further cuts the space program will be easier to cut. Commercial ventures will be able to lift our commercial satellites into orbit so NASA's ventures will be a luxury we cannot afford. Social security, medicare, medicaid and interest on the national debt will put more and more of a strain on America's finances, perhaps to the point where cuts in defense spending will be necessary. The space program will go first.

I fear that the space program will die a long, slow death. The Obama administration has only delayed that outcome until after they leave office.
 
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nec208

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I fear that the space program will die a long, slow death. The Obama administration has only delayed that outcome until after they leave office.

The space problem came to a slow death after the cold war and now it is doomed. If the private sector cannot pull it off than it is doomed.

The US and Russia space program is joke now .The European space agency is only interested in sending up probes and China gets even less than the European space agency for money and will crawl its way into space.And China is known to say alot of things and cancel programs.

Russia has no plans for new rocket they are happy with their old very old rocket .
 
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rockett

Guest
vulture4":1arkqcy2 said:
Before we try to figure out how to get out of LEO we need a practical way to get in to LEO. Expendable rockets are too expensive to be practical for human spaceflight. Right now the Shuttle is the only reusable spacecraft we have ever had. Abandoning reusable spacecraft now and going back to expendables makes no more sense than flying only the Wright Flyer until 1932, and then deciding heavier-than-air flight is impractical and going back to balloons. DOD is sufficiently concerned with cost to be pursuing reusables, having picked up the X-37 when NASA abandoned it.
Very good point. I often wonder what would have happened if we had continued with programs like the X15, and it's possible decendents to LEO instead of "spam in a can". The shuttle is at the peak of it's development, and taking a step back instead of an evolutionary path is sheer lunacy.
 
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rockett

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I suspect that the only thing that will give the US space program a focus again, and get it moving, is when one of the newer players on the block set up camp on the moon. Visions of nukes in lunar silos should get the adrenalin pumping...
 
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vulture4

Guest
rockett":33b8qpby said:
I suspect that the only thing that will give the US space program a focus again, and get it moving, is when one of the newer players on the block set up camp on the moon. Visions of nukes in lunar silos should get the adrenalin pumping...

We cannot spend tax dollars just because something gets our adrenalin pumping. If someone in this group has $100B in their pocket, have at it. But if we want the government to finance technology development or operational human spaceflight, we cannot do it just because we would be irritated if China landed on the moon 50 years after we did.

Moreover, a new moon race would be of no benefit to China. If they lost, they would look incompetent. If they won, they would irritate their largest customer. China's goals in space are to advertise their civil aerospace industrial capability and demonstrate domestically that they are in the first rank of industrialized countries. Their preferred approach is to be invited to join the ISS program, to prove they are "in the club" rather than to show they have a superior ideology. In fact, their ideology is as capitalist as ours. They want a stable trade relationship that will maximize long-term economic growth, not a confrontation.

From the US point of view a moon race would also be entirely counterproductive. Where would we get the money? Borrow it from China? It would leave us deeper in debt and provide no practical benefits.

Sustainable human spaceflight requires new reusable technologies to reduce cost, not another expensive symbolic race. Even if we won, we would be out of money and have to cancel further flights, just as in 1974. What possible practical benefits would come from it? Unfortunately the idea of a moon race with China is just another fanciful myth, like "the moon will solve our energy problems", or "the moon is the military high ground". If there is any practical benefit to Constellation, with its expensive thow-away rockets and tiny capsules, I have yet to see it. But I would be happy to discuss any ideas anyone may have.
 
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rockett

Guest
vulture4":30um2ruf said:
Sustainable human spaceflight requires new reusable technologies to reduce cost, not another expensive symbolic race. Even if we won, we would be out of money and have to cancel further flights, just as in 1974. What possible practical benefits would come from it? Unfortunately the idea of a moon race with China is just another fanciful myth, like "the moon will solve our energy problems", or "the moon is the military high ground". If there is any practical benefit to Constellation, with its expensive thow-away rockets and tiny capsules, I have yet to see it. But I would be happy to discuss any ideas anyone may have.
I don't disagree with you at all. Personally, I support the idea of keeping our space truck flying until we have something better to replace it. At least we could keep the ability to loft large assemblies for construction. Considering what it has done for the ISS, I have no doubt it could lift parts for a fuel depot, a deep space craft to be assembled and refueled in orbit, or any number of other options to continue and promote exploration.

My frustration with the whole "new" direction comes from, one more time we are halfway there, and we quit. Instead of an evolutionary reusable path, we take a step back. Instead of using the ISS for a construction shack to assemble interplanetary or translunar craft, we quit (and even talk about junking it!).

But if history is any example, wholehearted support for human space flight in this country only seems to be there when the motivator is a visceral, not a practical one. That's why I brought up the China on the moon example.
 
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kelvinzero

Guest
I don't think we were nearly half way there. It just was not working.

I was initially enthusiastic about constellation when it was about a permanent base. The technology to get there seemed old, but that wasn't the technology that interested me.

If we had a permanent base, then we would have had to put effort into surviving away from earth. The ISS didn't seem to be doing this: It seemed more a justification for shuttle launches when really it should be all about finding ways of being as self sufficient as possible, mastering closed loop life support to avoid needing shuttle launches.

If we had a lunar base, we would not have been dropping our rubbish and slightly old technology back to earth. We would have been thinking of ways to exploit these resources instead of just sending spare parts and tv dinners from home. It is this sort of self sufficiency that will actually conquer space.

But when the money got short talk of a permanent base became talk of sorties, culminating in the flexible path we have now. It became clear to me that the real motivation of constellation was not about going anywhere or doing anything but in assuring that the money that had been flowing into the shuttle kept flowing to the same businesses and people, even if this left none for any new research.

What is more, I now discover that our lunar architecture never needed to be held hostage to the development of Ares 1 or Ares 5. We could have put our effort into Orion and Altair immediately. Fuel Depots would have allowed us to launch all components on existing american rockets. I think large numbers of launches of a rocket category that already has a market could really see interesting things happen. Perhaps a flyback or boostback first stage such has recently been suggested: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... cepts.html
 
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rockett

Guest
Had NASA taken an evolutionary approach to reusables, instead of Aries, we would have seen the approach the Air Force seems to be pursuing.

Here is some information on RLVs that they are interested in developing.

This is a very interesting paper by a student at the Air Force Institute of Technology, evidently for his advanced degree for TSTO concepts:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...tpDdCg&usg=AFQjCNGqpFpOdLar7rODcJnnF4ip2PypMg

And just for good measure article from the Space Review on TSTO:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1129/1

This is the RFP for the Air Force Pathfinder project mentioned in the previous post:
https://www.fbo.gov/download/3bd/3b...thfinder_Pre-solicitation_Notice-20100405.doc
 
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kelvinzero

Guest
"evolutionary approach to reusables" is definitely going to be one of my catch-cries from now on :)

I think fuel depots will also really help with this, Large amounts of noncritical flights are good for evolution, for training and gaining a high confidence in the rocket before risking people.
 
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nec208

Guest
NASA should be put in jail for phasing out the shuttle with out a replacement.You just do not go and phase out the only way of getting up into space with out a replacement.

What was NASA thinking .No replacement. And by the time a replacement comes out it be 10 or 15 years before a replacement.
 
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