'Reclaiming America's proud destiny' in the heavens

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bernomatic
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#1 'Reclaiming America's proud destiny' in the heavens

Post by bernomatic »

Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian
Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian
national space council meeting.jpg (117.54 KiB) Viewed 3770 times
"When it comes to space, too often, for too many years, our dreams of exploration and discovery were really squandered by politics and bureaucracy," President Trump said yesterday as he announced his Administration's third Space Policy Directive. "We don't want China and Russia and other countries leading us. We've always led—we've gone way far afield for decades now."

As space becomes increasingly contested, the demand for the U.S. Department of Defense to focus on protecting American space assets and interests also increases. At the same time, the rapid commercialization of space requires a traffic management framework that protects U.S. interests and considers the private sector's needs.

The new directive builds on President Trump's efforts to reinstate the American leadership role in space. Last June, the President revived the National Space Council for the first time in 24 years. "This is a giant step toward inspiring future generations and toward reclaiming America's proud destiny in space," President Trump says.
The Trump Administration is achieving a safe and secure future in space.
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luke strawwalker
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#2 Re: 'Reclaiming America's proud destiny' in the heavens

Post by luke strawwalker »

That's good... Now they need to take a long hard look at what "businesses as usual" at NASA *really* means and what they're doing... What their plans are...

NASA has long been the poster child of what bloated bureaucracy and self serving politics and a cabal of a "government/ industrial complex" can do to an agency... The "shuttle mafia" kept the shuttle program alive and the money flowing into their pockets 25 years longer than it should have, and kept America beached in LEO for the last 45 years... And once it became clear that the shuttle was hopelessly outdated 40 year old technology that was super expensive and increasingly risky to fly (and grew more so with each passing year) which was punctuated by the loss of 2/5 of the fleet and the deaths of 13 American and one Israeli astronaut, the had no choice but to retire the thing (and good riddance IMHO). Unfortunately the "usual suspects" in the shuttle mafia are alive and well, and replaced the shuttle with an even more expensive, even more gargantuan project than shuttle.... First Ares I and Ares V under the Constellation Project, which fortunately was cancelled when it became abundantly clear to everybody that it was unworkable, but which they managed to "save" as SLS, the "Senate Launch System"... Supposedly to save time and development money, taking the most expensive and worst preexisting shuttle parts and grafting them together into a new super heavy lift rocket... Which of course they've been working on basically for 14 years and counting (since the shuttle retirement was announced in 2004, when all this began in earnest, though shuttle alternatives had been looked at off and on since the mid-80's...), or being generous, 8 years, since the cancellation of the Constellation Program and it's replacement with SLS... Remember that Saturn 5 only took about 6 years from blank slate to first flight with NO preexisting technology OR experience base to build on, unlike SLS which supposedly is better and faster and cheaper by using existing shuttle SRB's and SSME's for propulsion, and based on the existing ET as a starting point for the airframe...

And, IF SLS works "as advertised", what exactly will we be getting? A vehicle that will only fly once every 2-3 years, AT MOST, and which will make the shuttle's billion dollar per flight costs look like a bargain in comparison... Shuttles flew at a minimum 2 times a year and a maximum of 9 (IIRC) and therefore amortized its program and infrastructure costs over multiple flights, achieving some measure of "economies of scale" that will be utterly lacking with SLS... With only one SLS flight every 2-3 years, that means the per flight overhead and program costs just to keep SLS alive will be astronomical, with each flight costing billions in having to bear 2-3 years of support costs for the "standing army" required to support it as well as the overhead costs of the required infrastructure to sustain it... Granted the "standing army" for SLS is much smaller than it was for shuttle, but at a flight rate of even a paltry 2 per year, this meant each flight only bore the cost of half it's employees and infrastructure costs per year, and a fractionally smaller proportion as flight rates increased, on a per-flight basis... And costs were still about a billion dollars plus per flight over the life of the program... (Granted this includes "sustainment" program costs during the two shuttle stand-downs after the Challenger and Columbia disasters, which the SRB program costs alone in this period were around 400 million, even with ZERO flights...). SLS will have to bear 2-3 times the employee costs and infrastructure costs, since it will only fly once every 2-3 years, and people get paid whether they're flying rockets or polishing wrenches... And the lights STILL have to be kept on whether your flying or not that year...

For this reason alone SLS will be unsustainable... Nevermind the fact there are NO payloads for it and, other than test flights, NO missions for it, and NO money budgeted OR available from the existing budget to pay for such missions, let alone the hardware like mission modules or habs or landers that will be required to do anything meaningful with it... PLUS SLS is merely the "block 1" version, which will require the design, development, testing, and building of a dedicated in-space propulsion stage before it could even leave Earth orbit on anything but rudimentary test flights... Which will cost a billion dollars and take years to develop. The larger "block 2" design required for exploration missions will require all new disposable advanced composite SRB's and a new multi engine ascent upper stage (basically a second stage like the S-II) plus the in-space propulsion stage (new S-IVB) stage PLUS the necessary mission modules and equipment... This will cost BILLIONS more in development costs and take probably a decade or more considering NASA's current glacial pace which will be a VERY hard sell in Congress, plus the "sustainment costs" of keeping SLS alive during this entire time basically "doing nothing" while this other stuff is developed... Or at best, "stunt missions"...

I just don't see it...

Talk about a swamp needing drained, NASA is it... Until the "old guard" of shuttle mafia dilettantes is swept away or retired and some new blood takes over, NASA truly is "not about space anymore" and it won't be... It's been reduced to a gubmint corporate welfare distribution agency...

Later! OL J R
My MUNIFICENCE is BOUNDLESS, Mr. Bond...
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