Obama Speaks

[Donamy]

It is not a misguided plan. It's not perfect, but no plan is. Shuttle is simply too expensive. We can't continue to to run a manned launcher that requires 10,000 people. Besides, if congress thought Constellation was so great why didn't they fund it properly? They were just using it as a jobs program thats why. I watched the senate subcommity hearing today too and most of what Shelby and Hatch said was total BS.

What's wrong with people working ? I think you might be singing a different tune, if you were one of the 10,000 losing a job.

 

[Urwumpe]

What's wrong with people working ?

If 10000 people are employed working, where 2500 would be enough, you effectively steal 7500 people from the economy. With bad consequences for both sides.

You want to see people work effectively and not idle most of the year waiting for the next launch.

I think you might be singing a different tune, if you were one of the 10,000 losing a job.

When a tornado strikes a city and destroys only a single house out of many, you will be likely singing a different tune as well, if it was your house. Nobody will say "luckily it was my house and not all others".

Just like nobody will say "I lost my job, but the space program is saved."

 

[anemazoso]

What's wrong with people working ? I think you might be singing a different tune, if you were one of the 10,000 losing a job.

Sure, I prolly would. But that doesn't make it right to have a jobs program just for the sake of jobs. Our space program should be about space. Besides, if it costs less there stands a chance they can gain employment by the increase in volume of the cheaper alternative.

I've gotten laid-off with every ressesion during my working life. I was an aerospace welder when 9/11 happend and I was a construction inspector when "The Great Ressesion" happened. I know what it's like. As a matter of fact I'm 2000 mi away from my newborn baby, 5yr old and wife to work. So I have a lot of simpathy but thats the way stuff goes sometimes. You gotta adapt.

And it's not like they didn't know it was comming. They had time to plan.

 

[Andy44]

What's wrong with people working ? I think you might be singing a different tune, if you were one of the 10,000 losing a job.

It's the Broken Window Fallacy: the idea that if I throw a brick through a merchant's shop window it creates jobs for glaziers to fix his window.

Which it does, but at the loss of the merchant's savings, which he could be using to improve his business and hire another employee instead of wasting it on made-up work.

Keeping people around to staff a space program just to keep them employed doesn't create jobs for free, somebody somewhere loses out on the deal, and productive work isn't getting done.

That said, I was looking at a history book a little while ago and was comparing the costs of space shuttle to Apollo-Saturn. The average cost of a space shuttle launch (as of 2000 when the book was written) is less than a quarter of the average cost per Saturn launch, and the cost per pound to orbit on the shuttle is only a third of the cost per pound of Saturn.

So while the STS didn't live up to the hype of making space cheap, at least it made it cheaper. Which is something, I guess.

 

[Urwumpe]

So while the STS didn't live up to the hype of making space cheap, at least it made it cheaper. Which is something, I guess.

Exactly. and since launch costs are directly linked to the people needed for keeping things running, you can't get cheaper without also reducing the work force. The only alternative is getting a new job quickly - either yourself, after you got fired, or by your contractor, who gets new customers.

Nobody says that people need to work on the launchers, some more for R&D would also be nice. And if you would have more pads and more launch manifests, you could also employ more people, who would be used more effective and could actually be directly productive.

 

[Andy44]

Speaking as someone who works in the engineering field, if I had been an employee on the STS program, I would've started looking for a new job the day after the Columbia accident. Seriously, the ship may not have been sinking yet, but it was definitely headed for a shallow reef at that point.

Government workers and employees often live in this fantasy world where your job is secured for life and you will never need to move on. Auto manufacturer employees have a similar mindset. Everyone wants to sprout roots and stay where they are, especially by the time you are in your 40s, that's totally understandable. But you have to remain realistic and flexible. All things come to an end, including jobs, programs, and companies, and they often end before you do, so you need to think ahead.

 

[dougkeenan]

Andy ... Orbiter ... will come to an end?

 

[Mogeley]

Seems short sighted to me. The previous plan of heading back to the moon and finding a way to live permanently on the moon, is a much better goal, that can lead to better long term goals.
1) It doesn't cost as much
2) the moon is closer
3) You can abort a mission to the moon.
4) if they can learn to live and get fuel from the moon then they can do the same for Mars
5) Mars is a logistical nightmare alone and much more technically challenging

Building a HLV is an obvious thing as we need something to replace the shuttle. But by 2015 LOL! No way that will happen, and be human certified. If you begin now maybe 2025 is more realistic. I know engineers that work on the shuttles engines, Atlas V boosters, missile defense systems, and much more. I'm not pulling this out of my hat, but is based on real experience in the space industry.

Honestly, I don't expect we will reach any of those goals. As Neil Armstrong and Buz Aldrin have expressed this plan lacks a lot of details of how these goals will be accomplished.

 

[anemazoso]

Seems short sighted to me. The previous plan of heading back to the moon and finding a way to live permanently on the moon, is a much better goal, that can lead to better long term goals.
1) It doesn't cost as much
2) the moon is closer
3) You can abort a mission to the moon.
4) if they can learn to live and get fuel from the moon then they can do the same for Mars
5) Mars is a logistical nightmare alone and much more technically challenging

Building a HLV is an obvious thing as we need something to replace the shuttle. But by 2015 LOL! No way that will happen, and be human certified. If you begin now maybe 2025 is more realistic. I know engineers that work on the shuttles engines, Atlas V boosters, missile defense systems, and much more. I'm not pulling this out of my hat, but is based on real experience in the space industry.

Honestly, I don't expect we will reach any of those goals. As Neil Armstrong and Buz Aldrin have expressed this plan lacks a lot of details of how these goals will be accomplished.

Ya Constellation AS ORIGINALY INTENDED would have been nice but Griffin stripped everything usefull out of the program to build his pretty launchers. It was not methodical, it was brute force apollo era nonsence that didn't work. Look at the facts. Also we need a new way of doing things. No cost-plus, no NASA design bureau. Commecial is the only way we will truely become a space fairing spieces and not a space visiting one. I agree though that the HLV should be put on a fast track and the funds proposed to be allocated are inadiquate, hopefully we will have a compromise in congress but I doubt it. Congress sucks weather the (R)s or (D)s are in charge. They only look out for there own intrests and a lean mean NASA is not in there intrests.

 

[SiberianTiger]

That said, I was looking at a history book a little while ago and was comparing the costs of space shuttle to Apollo-Saturn. The average cost of a space shuttle launch (as of 2000 when the book was written) is less than a quarter of the average cost per Saturn launch, and the cost per pound to orbit on the shuttle is only a third of the cost per pound of Saturn.

So while the STS didn't live up to the hype of making space cheap, at least it made it cheaper. Which is something, I guess.

Which could be quite the other way out, if Saturn V had performed 130 launches, while an STS had flown just 13 times. Making a product in big series makes it cheaper! Thats not even a talk about other advantages of utilizing > 100 of true heavy lifters.

 

[Andy44]

Well, that's kind of the point, Sib Tig, we just don't have enough large payloads to justify 10 heavy launches each year. If we did, then the payloads would be very expensive and what you save in rocketry you pay for in cargo and mission. Building a 2001-style base on the moon would indeed make the cost of the HLV look very small, but it would raise the overall cost of the space program to unrealistic levels.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Well, that's kind of the point, Sib Tig, we just don't have enough large payloads to justify 10 heavy launches each year. If we did, then the payloads would be very expensive and what you save in rocketry you pay for in cargo and mission. Building a 2001-style base on the moon would indeed make the cost of the HLV look very small, but it would raise the overall cost of the space program to unrealistic levels.

Just 5 more Saturn V's could build a Mir class orbital station (or even much better, because it would consist of Skylab-sized modules) in the early 80's. A ten more might be enough for a Mars expeditionary cruiser. Your DOD could be seduced to use some more brutal orbiting spysats on a regular schedule. Clustered launches might be introduced 20 years before they actually were. But the priorities shifted and we all know how it eventually ended.

 

[Donamy]

If 10000 people are employed working, where 2500 would be enough, you effectively steal 7500 people from the economy. With bad consequences for both sides.

what economy ?

You want to see people work effectively and not idle most of the year waiting for the next launch.

That's a planning problem. You have the people, use them.

When a tornado strikes a city and destroys only a single house out of many, you will be likely singing a different tune as well, if it was your house. Nobody will say "luckily it was my house and not all others".

I tend to look at the bright side, and be thankful to be alive.

Just like nobody will say "I lost my job, but the space program is saved."

What space program ?

 

[AirSimming]

What's wrong with people working?

NASAs job-creation measure and structure sucks up budget and resources like a black hole I think. It swallowed 9 billion USD and would have swallowed another 50 billion USD for something that was not going to fly anytime soon. At least they created a few new jobs and did some amazing 3D videos to blind people (like me).

I think what's wrong is that the manned business of NASA is in deep ****, and not just since the cancellation of Constellation. But this time it is for sure. Obama just makes it sound nice. If NASA does not get restructured, we have to be satisfied with SpaceX in future, which actually might be a wiser progress than big NASA solo efforts, unsustainable in the long term, for the sake of government-run jobs and votes.

I think you might be singing a different tune, if you were one of the 10,000 losing a job.

Social equity is one thing (and definable in various ways...), efficiency is another one, especially if you were a manager and would have to decide a few things. I would prefer an efficient space program, sustainable in the long term, rather than a big government-run job industry that causes exorbitant costs.

 

[Urwumpe]

what economy ?

The US one - which includes you, not me, them...

For how many NASA employees do you want to work today? If the NASA employees just sit around being in a overpriced welfare program, it is you and the rest of the country, who pay for them, without returns. And that strikes back - one engineer being employed too much means more people being unemployed because you and the others who pay for his life of fortune and fame will not be able to consume goods as much as without and thus mean that workers for other branches have to get unemployed only for keeping a single NASA/USA engineer employed. I doubt you would cry a tear about 10000 breakfast cereal workers, only because you and all other tax payers decide to save a dollar every month.

And in reality, the damage is far more out of proportion: A single engineer is already binding resources for 8 less qualified workers. 10000 NASA engineers employed without reason mean 80,000 people who are unemployed because of the resources allocated there. Not as bad as for finance managers, who can easily each steal 25,000 people of their economic resources, if they are kept employed despite bad performance.

That's a planning problem. You have the people, use them.

These people also want a salary for buying food and stuff. And they get a serious salary compared to other US unemployed, who are not so lucky of having a idle job in a space program

I tend to look at the bright side, and be thankful to be alive.

Only to be alive does not mean to enjoy life.

What space program ?

The US one. Which still seems to run pretty good, and could be better, if you just would not abuse it as "engineer welfare program".

 

[anemazoso]

Bobby Braun, NASA's Chief Technologist presented a clarified and expanded program of potential advanced technology research for the FY2011 budget yesterday in Washington D.C.

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=...WMtNGM0OC00NDhlLTkyNzEtMzlkNTRhYThlOGMw&hl=en

If you read this I think you will be very excited at the possibility of actually addressing the very serious show stoppers involved in deep space exploration. Even you Ares huggers should agree, we need this tech to go anywhere beyond the Moon and a big expesive HLV in the Ares V isn't the only thing we need if at all.

Remember, the VSE was about "Moon, Mars and Beyond" not "Moon, Moon and Moon" Somehow Griffen forgot that while building his pretty launchers.

 

[Interceptor]

Can't download the PDF,I keep getting a message about the download band being used too much.

 

[anemazoso]

Can't download the PDF,I keep getting a message about the download band being used too much.

It's working again. As of this post at least.

 

[Interceptor]

Thanks Anemazoso.