With the first test flight of a new NASA rocket just days away, a White House panel questioned its utility while singing the praises of commercial alternatives.
The panel, which reviewed NASA's human space flight plans at the White House's request, released its final report (pdf) on Thursday.
There were few surprises in the report itself, which offers the same five options for NASA's future that appeared in its summary report in September, including the so-called flexible path that would see astronauts visit asteroids and orbit Mars. (View a gallery illustrating the options.)
But in comments to the press on Thursday, panel chair Norman Augustine, former CEO of the aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, offered his sharpest criticism yet of the Ares I rocket that NASA is developing to replace the space shuttle, and came out in clear support of commercial alternatives.
Too late
Though Augustine said the rocket's technical problems were solvable, he said its first crewed flights would come too late to be much help in servicing the International Space Station (ISS).
"The issue that comes up under Ares I is whether the programme is useful," he said.
The rocket is set to make its first test flight on 27 October. But the committee believes the rocket will not be ready to loft crew to orbit until 2017, two years after the ISS is scheduled to be abandoned and hurled into the Pacific Ocean, Augustine said. Extending use of the space station to 2020 would not make much difference, since this would eat up funds available for Ares I and delay its first flight to 2018 or 2019, added committee member Edward Crawley of MIT.
Commercial rockets
Commercial launch vehicles could ferry crew to the ISS instead, Augustine said. "We think NASA would be better served to spend its money and its ability, which is immense, focusing on going beyond low-Earth orbit rather than running a trucking service to low-Earth orbit," he said.
United Launch Alliance's Atlas V and SpaceX's Falcon 9 are among the rockets that have been put forward by companies to perform this service.
Augustine also argued for making the NASA administrator more like the CEO of a company, with more authority to shift money around within the organisation as well as to transfer, cut, or add jobs at the various NASA centres around the country.
This would allow NASA to allocate funds more efficiently, he said. "You can either spend your money on fixed costs and overhead or you can spend them doing exciting exploration," he said.
Extra money
Now that the committee has submitted its final report, the White House must decide what it wants to do with NASA. The options that allow for exploration beyond low-Earth orbit require at least $3 billion more per year for NASA, according to the committee. Any such increase would have to be approved by Congress.
The White House has not said when it will decide on a path for NASA. White House spokesman Nick Shapiro issued a statement on Thursday calling the report "a thoughtful and comprehensive review ... against a backdrop of serious challenges with the existing program".
President Obama is committed to "ensuring that the nation is on a vigorous and sustainable path to achieving our boldest aspirations in space", the statement says, adding that the report will be reviewed and "ultimately the President will be making the final decisions".
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Have your say
There's already several other rockets in production NOW that duplicate or exceed the Ares I performance.
The Ares V on the other hand would be a useful rocket with a greater lift capacity than anything else in production.
White elephant to make Lockheed martin and Boeing rich using our money.
Give the money to small companies and let them lead innovation and we will be at mars and beyond decades faster than anything the big dinosaurs can manage.
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I have news for you Billy Bob.... .
THERE'S NO PRIVATE SPACE INDUSTRY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD....
And there never will be,.
And any claim that their will be is a sad case of freedumbnomics worship.
Your vision of couse is a kind of "private" space economy in which private enterprise does the money making with "Gubderment" doing all of the spending.
Which of course is the same non-private system you have now with the big aerospace corporations - who actually know what they are doing.
So instead of contracting with companies like Boeing who know what they are doing, and who have designs on the books, your choice is to pin the future of American space flight on popsqueek startups who have no products and who are generally behind where rocketry was 50 years ago, and who don't have the finances to do more than launching circus clowns into suborbital trajectories.
Good luck with that winning strategy.
Ares I Is A Waste
Sun Oct 25 05:57:16 GMT 2009 by Frank Glover
http://delphinus100.angelfire.com/link3.htm
"So instead of contracting with companies like Boeing who know what they are doing, and who have designs on the books, ..."
And are all too accustomed to suckling on the government cost-plus teat...
Fortunately, they *are* rather more flexible and imaginative (perhaps as much as the NewSpace guys) than given credit for, once that's not an option.
Until then, they're too comfortable with the status quo.
Ares I Is A Waste
Sun Oct 25 06:50:17 GMT 2009 by Frank Glover
http://delphinus100.angelfire.com/link3.htm
Even the United Launch Alliance (Boeing and Lockheed-Martin) can think in more efficient and imaginative terms when they have to...
(long URL - click here)
...but only when it appears their 'business as usual' way of doing things might go away.
Agreed. Also: The FAA doesn't have an airplane program, why does NASA need a rocket program?
Why does the failed American state need a space program?
Ares I Is A Waste
Sun Oct 25 06:25:08 GMT 2009 by Frank Glover
http://delphinus100.angelfire.com/link3.htm
To be fair, the FAA is also not a research and development agency. NASA is nothing but that.
What's important is that NASA realize that there are some things that it *once* had to pioneer, that are now considered off-the-shelf (which is how it was supposed to be, after all...) that it should not have to do anymore, and it should be able to rely on others to provide for it (flight at Mach 2 was once the realm of Right Stuff test pilots in experimental rocket planes...but when the Concorde was operating...anyone could do it, thanks to the findings of those programs.), as it does greater, more pioneering things in basic research and technological development...and to realize when when that time has come.
After all, when they send researchers to Antarctica to look for meteorites, or do other relevant research, they don't design and build transportation for this purpose, they use existing, mature transportation to get there (as do some tourists, BTW)...
Ares I Is A Waste
Sun Oct 25 06:38:47 GMT 2009 by Frank Glover
http://delphinus100.angelfire.com/link3.htm
Assuming your mission / traffic models *require* lifting a lot of stuff at one time (and this can be a lot of small stuff, and/or a smaller number of big things that can't be broken down for re-assembly on-site) to to enough specific orbits or orbital destinations to be worth it.
(Remember, we have wide-bodied jets only because there's enough demand on enough routes, to fill a big aircraft to the break-even point, enough of the time. Until then, one is better off with more, smaller aircraft. [and obtain the economies of scale with that] We're still at the latter point in space launch. Multiple launch of smaller payloads and orbital assembly from them [and obtain the economies of scale with that], is more efficient than a 'heavy-lift' launcher that's not flown enough times to be economically worth its development...)
My Very Special Comment
Fri Oct 23 01:24:20 BST 2009 by David Nagel
http://campustechnology.com
Love the crack about NASA becoming an LEO trucking service. Hate the suggestion that the NASA administrator should be more like a CEO. Only a CEO would want anyone to be like a CEO. Everyone else wants their CEOs to go away, preferably in the most painful way possible. Okay, not everyone. You guys at NewScientist have an awesome one. But other than you, everyone hates their CEOs. Okay, I don't. My CEO is really awesome and is probably in the process of doubling my salary even as I'm typing this. But besides us, everyone hates their CEOs. And their CEOs' lackeys. (Not me.)
The private rocket developers keep arguing they can do it better and that ARES I is a waste of money. Yet I think they are worried that NASA will come up with something better than the private companies can do.
Essentially the private companies want to sell rides to the space station at government expense so either way private or public the taxpayers will pay for it.
Also the private companies need some competition from NASA in order that they not be the only way to space.
The US has to have its own rocket to space, even if they do end up hiring private rockets to do the mundane trips to the space station, for national security purposes and for rescue missions that may come up.
The more various types of rockets capable of making the trip to orbit and beyond the better we are all going to be served.
I agree that the more options we have the better.
However, purchasing launch services from the private sector will likely be significantly cheaper than developing a rocket in a cost plus environment.
Private firms have strong incentive to minimize cost. This isn't true in a government-only environment where Congress is only interested in pulling in money for its state. (Just look at what the Alabama Congressmen are saying about the Augustine Commission. Its repulsive)
"However, purchasing launch services from the private sector will likely be significantly cheaper than developing a rocket in a cost plus environment."
Because when private companies develop a new rocket there is no cost.
Obviously.
"Private firms have strong incentive to minimize cost." - Andrew.
How much were those private military contractors charging again for their $1200 toilet seats?
I need a refresher in American Freedumbnomics.
"The more various types of rockets capable of making the trip to orbit and beyond the better we are all going to be served." - Ralph Propst
Yes.. That thinking worked well for the U.S. nuclear industry. The U.S. needs as many incompatible rocket and reactor designs as possible to keep the costs down and the inherent reliability up.
Who can argue with such a successful strategy?
If the US military has a pressing need for a large solid propellant launcher, then they should be the ones picking up the tab for Ares1.
Otherwise, the sensible course is to go with Jupiter/Direct/ Ares 3.
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