NASA and Accelerating American Innovation

NASA Adminstrator, Charlie Bolden, Testifies before Congress

You can watch the entire March 2, 2011 of NASA administrator Charlie Bolden's testimony before Congress at:

http://science.house.gov/hearing/full-committee-hearing-0

The most interesting comment, IMO, by Bolden was the following:

"....it would not take us until 2030 to go to the Moon. If we decided that we wanted to go to the Moon and put humans there, you know that potentially could be done by the end of this present decade..." Charlie Bolden March 2, 2011

South Park's View of Obama's NASA Plan

NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden, Talks to the Press

The Future of America's Space Program

Credit NASA

by Marcel F. Williams


The US manned space program is the ultimate symbol of American progress and technological prominence. Unfortunately, the US is rapidly approaching a situation where Americans may have no domestic manned access to space for nearly decade! Meanwhile, China is expected to launch the first components of their military space station into orbit before the end of the year.

A year from now, many Americans who usually don't pay much attention to the manned space program are probably going to be shocked to discover that while Russia and China are launching their cosmonauts and taikonauts into space, the US will have to spend tax payer dollars to pay the Russians in order for our astronauts to reach the predominantly US funded International Space Station.

And this will probably also surprise a lot of people out side of the US. America is already perceived by growing numbers around the world as a declining political and economic  power. This perception will only be enhanced if the US has no domestic manned space flight capability for several years which will  further reduce America's prestige and influence around the world.


How the US reached this situation is both technological and political. In 1991, President   George H. W. Bush authorized a National Launch Systems (NLS) study to outline alternatives to the shuttle. One of the interesting options was a NLS 2 configuration which converted the space shuttle external tank into a rocket booster capable of launching 23 metric tonne manned and unmanned payloads to LEO.  A second concept, NLS 1,  added the space shuttles two 4-segment rocket boosters which would enable it to carry about 68 metric tonnes into orbit.  Today, the NLS 1 concept is currently known as the DIRECT concept and is one of the directly shuttle derived HLV concepts advocated by the Augustine commission.  Unfortunately,  President Bush senior's National Launch System was never acted upon.

In  1996, the highly complex SSTO  X-33 Venture Star was proposed as a  replacement for the current space shuttle program by the Clinton administration over an equally innovative but  much less complex SSTO Delta Clipper design. The Venture Star was also to operate through commercial means with NASA only purchasing launches through a commercial provider. Unfortunately, due the complexities of the design, construction of a Venture Star prototype was halted by the Clinton Administration in 1999 and finally canceled by the Bush administration in 2001. It was not until after 2004, when President George W. Bush  announced his Vision for Space Exploration, that  the Ares 1, was eventually proposed as another space shuttle successor.  However,  the Ares 1 was to be part of a larger program to return America to the Moon and would also require the development of a new heavy lift vehicle and lunar landing vehicle. This program was eventually named the  Constellation program.  

Now, six years later, when the current space shuttle fleet is scheduled to be decommissioned after 2010, there is some question as to the viability and expense of developing the Ares 1.  Additionally,   practically all of NASA's Constellation development money has gone into funding the Ares I and the the Orion-CEV while virtually no funds have been utilized for the development of the Constellation program's  heavy lift vehicle, EDS (Earth Departure Stage), or Altair lunar lander.

One  Augustine commission has suggestion is  that NASA should utilize its funds to focus on developing a heavy lift vehicle instead of the Ares I while-- simply-- allow the commercial industry to develop rockets and infrastructure for manned access to LEO.   The fact that there is currently no private commercial space flight industry in the US didn't seem to concern the commission. 

Currently only three government space agencies have the ability to launch and return humans to and from space: the US, Russia, and China. In America's  48 year history of human space flight, they have had 153 successful manned space flights and two fatal accidents [Space Shuttle Challenger (1986), Space Shuttle Columbia (2003)]. The Russians have had 120 successful space flights with  two fatal  accidents in 1967 and in 1971. China has been very cautious in its emerging manned space efforts-- only launching three manned flights into orbit since 2003.

How safe and reliable private commercial manned space flight companies will be is still an unknown. Space X appears to be the only private company close to developing a manned space flight capability-- principally by emulating the basic space craft designs that government space programs achieved back in the 1960s.  So far it has a 60% success ratio as far as it unmanned launches. Still it has plans to attempt to launch humans into orbit sometime during the next decade. Boeing has recently announced that it will join the Bigelow aerospace company in attempting to build a manned space flight capability. How much money a company like Boeing is willing to risk in such a venture should be interesting.

Alternatively, directly shuttle derived rocket designs have once again been proposed that can function as dual purpose vehicles that can launch the new Orion vehicle to LEO or to the Moon with an EDS stage.  The Augustine commission has argued that developing the directly shuttle derived rocket boosters could also allow the current space shuttle program to be extended for at least another four years.

NASA is currently spending over $3.4 billion a year on the Constellation program. However, the Obama administration increased the NASA budget by over $900 million for the year 2010, which may perhaps allow $4.2 billion a year in Constellation funding. There are rumors that President Obama may raise the NASA budget an additional $1 billion after he finally announces his agenda for the the US manned space program. And this  could give the program $5.2 billion in annual development funding.

If the $3 billion a year Shuttle program is not canceled then that would leave the Constellation program with only $4.2 to $5.2 billion a year in funding.  There is the possibility, however, the continuing the shuttle program may only cost $2.5 billion a year.  An extra $500 million a year for the Constellation program wouldn't be something to sneeze at.  The Orion-CEV is going to cost  $1.8 billion a year for at least 5 years plus until it is completed. Program operations and integration may add an additional $1.5 billion annually during the same time period. That leaves only $900 million to $1.9 billion a year for other Constellation expenditures. However, if the Ares I development is canceled, then that leaves us with an additional $1.9 to $2.9 billion a year.

 NASA has argued that their directly shuttle derived HLV could be developed for $6.9 billion while proponents of the DIRECT concept have argued that their basic HLV would cost $8.3 billion. NASA has also determined that the cost to develop an EDS stage would cost $2.5 billion and the Altair lunar lander, $4.1 billion.  The development of a  DIRECT HLV plus EDS and Altair vehicle would therefore cost about $14.9 billion in total. At $1.9 billion a year, over $14.9 billion in funding would it would take nearly 8 years to completely fund such a program. At $2.9 billion a year, these other Constellation programs could be fully funded in less than 6 years. And if there are any delays in any component of the program, then an additional $4.2 to $5.2 billion would be available for every year that program development continues.

However, once the new space vehicles and infrastructure are fully developed, then NASA should have at least $7.2 to $8.2 billion to run its lunar base program plus $2 billion to runs its space station program.

Development of the Ares I/V architectures is much more expensive and takes a lot longer to develop since full funding for the Ares V, EDS, and Altair vehicles doesn't take place until Ares I development is completed.  However, by fully funding all the Constellation components simultaneously for the directly shuttle derived scenario, the new space vehicles and infrastructure could be ready in less than a decade.

So my advice to President Obama on his upcoming decision on the future of NASA is to:

1. Increase the NASA budget while keeping the Space Shuttle program going after 2010 until the successor shuttle craft is ready (It will be one of the best domestic and international political investments your administration has ever made!)

2. Cancel the Ares I/V program!  Its way too expensive and takes too long to develop

3. Continue the development of the Orion-CEV

4. Choose one of the Directly Shuttle derived concepts (Sidemount or DIRECT) that can be utilized for both the Orion missions to  LEO and the ISS  and Orion/Altair missions to the Moon.

5. Start fully funding  EDS and Altair development immediately along with lunar base modules and other lunar base components. Establishing the first permanent human presence on the surface of another world will be one of the most important developments in the history of humanity that will be remembered for centuries if not millennia by human civilizations both on the Earth and far beyond ! 

Links and References

National Launch System
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Launch_System#cite_note-lyons-2

Human Spaceflight Plans Committee Report
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/hsf/meetings/10_22_pressconference.html

Funding NASA's Future

Credits: NASA

by Marcel F. Williams

The Augustine Commission testified before the Senate and the House of Representatives last week and were greeted with both praise and criticism by some of the legislators. Ironically, the commission was not criticized for reaching the conclusion that NASA would require a $3 billion increase in its annual budget since the legislators already knew that since our civilian space program has been underfunded for years-- if not decades. But they were rather critical about was the rather nebulous elevations of the alternatives to the Ares 1/Ares V architecture to return the US to the Moon-- especially since the commission appeared to conclude that all of the alternatives were almost equally as expensive as the Ares 1/Ares V architecture.

My own criticism of the Augustine Commission preliminary report was their odd treatment of NASA's Sidemount-heavy lift vehicle (SD-HLV) concept and the DIRECT concept for returning America to the Moon. For some reason, the Augustine Commission lumped them both together as so called shuttle derived concepts even though they are two significantly different concepts as far as complexity, development timelines, and cost. The SD-HLV only requires 8 new system starts for its development while DIRECT requires 18 and the Ares 1/ Ares V requires 35 new vehicle structural development starts. Secondly, they extended shuttle flights for 5 years onto the cost the shuttle derived concepts. There's nothing wrong with that since it would eliminate the gap between the old shuttle and the new manned space launch system. But no such financial burden was added to the Ares 1/ Ares V which would have inflated the cost of the Ares programs even more. Then in their budget analysis of the shuttle derived concepts, they required NASA to pay currently nonexistent commercial space companies to transport NASA astronauts into orbit even though both the Sidemount and DIRECT concepts are capable of transporting an Orion spacecraft to LEO just as the Ares 1 is capable of doing. Why?

The Orion vehicle is currently being funded at about $1.4 billion a year, a budget that's supposed to be increased to approximately $2 billion on average during the course of its development over the next 5 or 6 years starting in 2011. The Ares 1 is currently receiving over a billion dollars in annual funding with a budget that is set to increase up to another billion on average during the course of its development. Program integration and operations is supposed to add an additional billion on average to the cost of the Ares 1/Orion development starting in 2011. That's about a $2.6 billion dollar increase in the annual NASA budget with no funding for the development of the Ares V or the Altair lunar landing vehicles until the Ares1 and Orion vehicles are completed in 2015 or 2017. So that would mean no Moon landings until after 2020.

The current shuttle program cost about $3 billion annually. So a $3 billion dollar increase might could fund the shuttle until the Orion/Ares 1 vehicle is ready. Unfortunately, the Orion/Ares 1 would still be underfunded by about $2.6 billion. So only by canceling the shuttle program and raising the NASA budget by $2.6 billion could we fund the Orion/Ares 1. But if the space shuttle is decommissioned after 2010, this could leave NASA without a manned space vehicle for up to 5 to 7 years.

But NASA has argued that the SD-HLV could be developed for just $6.9 billion dollars over 5 to 6 years. An EDS (Earth Departure Stage) would be required to transport payloads beyond LEO at an estimated cost of less than $2.5 billion. NASA estimates the cost of developing the Altair lunar landing vehicle to be less than $4.2 billion. So in total, the cost of developing the SD-HLV plus EDS and Altair vehicles should be less than $13.6 billion. Over a 6 year vehicle development period, that would be less than $2.3 billion per year. So if the NASA's annual budget was increased by $3 billion and the Ares 1 program was canceled, there would be at least $4 billion dollars in extra funds. $600 million a year of this on average would go to the Orion program to raise its total budget close to $2 billion annually. $2.3 billion a year would go for the development of the SD-HLV, EDS, and Altair. That would leave over $1 billion a year of increased funding for program integration and operations. If the DOD (Department of Defense) has some interest in a heavy lift vehicle for launching larger satellites into polar orbit and maybe in having their own manned launch vehicle, maybe Obama can get even more funds for Orion and SD-HLV development from the military.

The main advantage of the SD-HLV over the Ares 1/Ares V architecture is that the heavy lift vehicle would be developed immediately and would be utilized for both the manned Orion and unmanned Altair launches. Additionally, there should be enough money to fully fund the development of the Altair lunar lander starting in 2010 instead of waiting until 2015 to 2017 to begin developing a lunar lander as would be the case with the Ares 1/Ares V scenario.

But what if these NASA estimates are significantly underestimated during the course of the vehicle development? Well approximately $5 billion a year in total funds would be annually committed to the development of the Orion, Altair, SD-HLV and EDS and associated infrastructure. Since all of these vehicles would be simultaneously under development and if one or more vehicles weren't ready by 2015 or 2016 then an additional $5 billion dollars would be available every year afterwords until all the vehicles are ready. That's up to $20 billion dollars in additional development funds if the vehicles are delayed until 2020 (the date when NASA is supposed to return to the Moon). So developing all of the vehicles simultaneously has clear timeline and budgetary advantages.

So in my opinion, President Obama and new NASA administrator, Bolden, need to:

1. increase the annual NASA budget by $3 billion
2. cancel the Ares 1 program
3. choose NASA's SD-HLV program to launch the Orion and Altair vehicles
and
4. begin fully funding the development of the Altair lunar landing vehicle as soon 2010

After the Orion, Altair, SD-HLV and new EDS vehicles are finally developed (perhaps as early as 2016!), the current shuttle can finally be retired and its $3 billion a year budget transferred to Orion and Altair HLV operations. But what will NASA do with the extra $5 billion a year in extra funds? Hopefully some of these extra funds will to used to build a continuously growing settlement on the Moon. But the rest should be utilized to develop the next generation of space vehicles designed for sending humans and habitat structures to Mars to begin the settlement of the Martian surface and for the exploitation of the natural resources of the moons of Mars.


NASA Budget info

Obama's NASA Decision

NASA's Ares Alternative: The Sidemount Shuttle

The Ares V - Super Rocket

In my opinion, the development of the Ares V is NASA's most important project. The worse mistake the US ever made was decommissioning our only heavy lift vehicle (the Saturn V) back in the early 1970's. The Saturn V not only put men on the Moon but placed America's first space station (Skylab) into orbit. During the gap between the Apollo moon program and the Space shuttle program, we could have used the Saturn V to launch more Skylabs and the first large rotational simulated gravity space stations.




By the time the Space Shuttle program had begun, it would have already had a space station or stations to visit. Then we could have used the Saturn V in combination with the Space Shuttle to set up a permanent base on the Moon during the 1980s using reusable OTVs (orbital transfer vehicles) and reusable lunar landers. The 1980's could have been the greatest space era in American and world history.

With the development of the Ares V, America will once again have heavy lift capability again. The Ares V will enable us to launch over 180 tonnes into low earth orbit (Skylab only weighed 77 tonnes); 70 tonnes into lunar orbit; and between 15 to 20 tonnes on the lunar surface. The Ares V will give America the ability to begin the human colonization of the Moon and the ability to exploit the natural resources of the moons of Mars in order to make a lunar colony independent of the Earth's resources.


Unfortunately, we might not see the Ares V in operation until after the year 2020-- if ever-- thanks to the lack of proper funding for the project. Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin blamed the Bush administration for the lack of adequate funding for the Ares V program.

NASA's $19 billion a year budget (less than two months in Iraq) may not have enough money in it for the Ares V. The replacement for the Space Shuttle, the Ares 1, may cost over $40 billion dollars over the next 6 years. Our commitment to the International Space Station (the mission to nowhere) is going to cost over $2 billion a year.


If I were Charles Bolden, Obama's new NASA administrator, I would:

1. Prioritize funding for the Ares V in order to accelerate the its development.

2. I would change the Constellation lunar sortie program to a lunar base program with a prefabricated lunar facility already built and properly shielded by robots sent by the Ares V before the first astronauts arrived on the lunar surface.

3. I would ask Obama to add an extra $4 billion a year specifically to fund the Ares V and the lunar base program. And if he said that he couldn't raise the NASA budget then I'd recommend that the money come from reducing our commitment to the ISS and ending the development of the Ares 1 and replace it with the much cheaper man rating of one of the Delta Heavy vehicles.



It would be nice to have humans return to the Moon and to a permanent facility during the last year of the Obama administration in 2016. But I guess I'd be satisfied if America had a moon base at least before the year 2020. John Kennedy got us to the Moon in 8 years using primitive 1960's technology. So I would be extremely disappointed if it took America more than a decade to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon-- our closest celestial neighbor and the gateway to the solar system.


Links and References

1. Ares V (Wikipedia)
2. Constellation (Wikipedia)
3. Constellation (NASA)
4. Ares V (NASA)