RE: Ted cruz to oversee nasa?!
January 16, 2015 at 2:51 pm
(This post was last modified: January 16, 2015 at 3:01 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Neither do I, honestly (with the ROI). It's space, alot of it is single use, you end up leaving alot out there, it's exceedingly expensive even when it's cheap...and it isn't like we don't have the money. We spend more on liquor than we do on the entirety of our space program, our government spends more on discontinued weapons platforms that are still receiving funds despite no hope of actual delivery or deployment, in addition to spnding more on propping up aging weapons platform with no practical or conceptual use on a modern battlefield. Money is the least of our issues when it comes to space exploration and research. It's a manufactured issue, more appropriately. Proceeds from NASA patents, btw...haven't even stayed at NASA, so the game is already rigged when it comes to sustainability.
About the SLS Project.
We retired a working vehicle and we're now bumming rides from other agencies, in part, so that funds could be freed up to pursue other ventures (arguably rightfully freed...the Shuttle was not fiscally sound). However, part (a huge part) of the sales pitch of our new pod is that it's a step forward toward the stars-to turn a phrase- with a return to the moon and a future mission to mars being pitstops along the way. In addition to this, it's going to do what the space shuttle could already do "someday". Block 1 SLS will have a proposed 70t payload (compared to the shuttles 25) to LEO (low earth orbit). In order to achieve this they're basically stacking the retired shuttles SRBs (in a non-recoverable configuration...hello atlantic ocean debris) and attaching them to the sides of their modifed RS25 core engines...which just began testing this month (and are in fact, the engines used by the shuttle). The upper stage (jn exploration config..not lifting config) is an R10 - a Saturn upper stage engine. That's the plan. They hope to have an actual vehicle system by 2018, to do what the shuttle could already do, using the same tech the shuttle used - but...on balance, they'll be able to lift more per launch to LEO - keep this in mind nearer the end.
The Block 2 variant is supposed to be the (lifting) equivalent of an old Saturn V, that's right, you heard me, the next step......if they get the first step working right and the money doesn't run out, is the equivalent of a system flown back in '66 (just like the upper stage is now). Plenty of problems on that count, not the least of which that they have to essentially redesign a Saturn V. Neither the core engine or the boosters called for in this variant actually exist, at present. The upper stage will rely on "advanced boosters" and the renamed EUS core (which is a cluster of Rl10s, a Saturn favorite, first developed in the US as a system in the '50s...seeing a pattern?). The earliest projected mission for this system in toto, is 2021, more likely sometime in the 2030's...at which point we could send a manned expedition with payload to the moon (or LEO, or PO, or GTO). A much, much larger payload than ever before, again, on balance.
All of that said...consider that even with the projected payloads of each stage and ignoring the fact that all we have in operation as of yet, and only barely, is the damned Pod - very credible organizations (folks like Sagan's Planetary Society - people largely engaged in lobbying the gov for -more- funding for space) have run the numbers assuming the sweetheart projections and see no decrease in current launch costs. This prompted them to call for cancellation of the project (you may not recall the ruckus, but even though our betters didn't do shit for the shuttle they fell on a grenade for the as-yet fictional SLS).
It appears as though the whole program may have been designed to revitalize contract opportunities the Shuttle could not, after having lost it's luster due to being long in the tooth and, of course, the disastrous flights we all remember. The SLS is, at present, less than a reskinned shuttle. In a few years it will actually -be- a reskinned shuttle. In a decade or more, it will be a reskinned Saturn V - if they ever get around to figuring out how to do that again.....but more than anything, during this entire time, it will be a PR vehicle for pork. This isn;t the narrative we hear, is it. We'd be forgiven if we thought that this system had already been realized..because they just "shook the bugs out" with a real flight..... riiiiight? Wrong. PR.
Get this.....they actually got -more- money than the Obama admin asked for in our budget....and that's pretty much heathen magic, in the current climate. Que the Senate Launch System.
(if it wasn't immediately apparent, I'm all for the SLS.....lets throw money at it....but I see no sense in pretending that it's something that it's not, or that it isn't something that it is, eh? Way I see it, if we're upfront about it, everytime some jackass wants to reduce the funding and lays all of this out we can look them right in the eye and say "Okay, you're right...but......do you want -your- pork or not? Shut your fucking mouth and sit down".)
About the SLS Project.
We retired a working vehicle and we're now bumming rides from other agencies, in part, so that funds could be freed up to pursue other ventures (arguably rightfully freed...the Shuttle was not fiscally sound). However, part (a huge part) of the sales pitch of our new pod is that it's a step forward toward the stars-to turn a phrase- with a return to the moon and a future mission to mars being pitstops along the way. In addition to this, it's going to do what the space shuttle could already do "someday". Block 1 SLS will have a proposed 70t payload (compared to the shuttles 25) to LEO (low earth orbit). In order to achieve this they're basically stacking the retired shuttles SRBs (in a non-recoverable configuration...hello atlantic ocean debris) and attaching them to the sides of their modifed RS25 core engines...which just began testing this month (and are in fact, the engines used by the shuttle). The upper stage (jn exploration config..not lifting config) is an R10 - a Saturn upper stage engine. That's the plan. They hope to have an actual vehicle system by 2018, to do what the shuttle could already do, using the same tech the shuttle used - but...on balance, they'll be able to lift more per launch to LEO - keep this in mind nearer the end.
The Block 2 variant is supposed to be the (lifting) equivalent of an old Saturn V, that's right, you heard me, the next step......if they get the first step working right and the money doesn't run out, is the equivalent of a system flown back in '66 (just like the upper stage is now). Plenty of problems on that count, not the least of which that they have to essentially redesign a Saturn V. Neither the core engine or the boosters called for in this variant actually exist, at present. The upper stage will rely on "advanced boosters" and the renamed EUS core (which is a cluster of Rl10s, a Saturn favorite, first developed in the US as a system in the '50s...seeing a pattern?). The earliest projected mission for this system in toto, is 2021, more likely sometime in the 2030's...at which point we could send a manned expedition with payload to the moon (or LEO, or PO, or GTO). A much, much larger payload than ever before, again, on balance.
All of that said...consider that even with the projected payloads of each stage and ignoring the fact that all we have in operation as of yet, and only barely, is the damned Pod - very credible organizations (folks like Sagan's Planetary Society - people largely engaged in lobbying the gov for -more- funding for space) have run the numbers assuming the sweetheart projections and see no decrease in current launch costs. This prompted them to call for cancellation of the project (you may not recall the ruckus, but even though our betters didn't do shit for the shuttle they fell on a grenade for the as-yet fictional SLS).
It appears as though the whole program may have been designed to revitalize contract opportunities the Shuttle could not, after having lost it's luster due to being long in the tooth and, of course, the disastrous flights we all remember. The SLS is, at present, less than a reskinned shuttle. In a few years it will actually -be- a reskinned shuttle. In a decade or more, it will be a reskinned Saturn V - if they ever get around to figuring out how to do that again.....but more than anything, during this entire time, it will be a PR vehicle for pork. This isn;t the narrative we hear, is it. We'd be forgiven if we thought that this system had already been realized..because they just "shook the bugs out" with a real flight..... riiiiight? Wrong. PR.
Get this.....they actually got -more- money than the Obama admin asked for in our budget....and that's pretty much heathen magic, in the current climate. Que the Senate Launch System.
(if it wasn't immediately apparent, I'm all for the SLS.....lets throw money at it....but I see no sense in pretending that it's something that it's not, or that it isn't something that it is, eh? Way I see it, if we're upfront about it, everytime some jackass wants to reduce the funding and lays all of this out we can look them right in the eye and say "Okay, you're right...but......do you want -your- pork or not? Shut your fucking mouth and sit down".)
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