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It was an acronym frenzy  at Libery on the Rocks – DTC tonight. The PPC reportage was done by El Presidente, mostly via the People’s Press Twitter feed.

As with the big healthcare speech back in September (the occasion of the NPR incident), my commentary was delivered in the more transitory medium of live heckling of the teevee screen. This time around there wasn’t a neighboring table of kool-aid-guzzling Obama worshippers hissing and whining back at me, unfortunately, which took a bit of the fun out of it.

Apart from Fox’s amusing Drudge-like juxtapositions of lines from the speech with camera shots of topically-relevant politicians, there was only one thing that I liked about this SOTU: Mr. Obama’s promise to push for next-generation nuclear power in the U.S.. Of course, just like his promises to freeze (parts of) federal spending, expand government transparency, and usher in a new bipartisan civility, I realize that we are as likely to see any action on that promise as we are to see the National Mall host unicorn chariot races.

The rest of the speech was a nauseating stew of all-things-to-all-people statism and incongruous attempts to steal the fiscal responsibility and small government themes the Republicans are gearing up to campaign on in the fall, seasoned with the usual Democrat pathos and anger and garnished liberally with Mr. Obama’s trademark nose-high smugness. Noticeably absent yet again was any mention of NASA or space policy in general. “So what’s new?”, one might ask. Amid all the yammering about green energy trendy greenwashing scams and investment in taxpayer subsidization of (politcally sexy) science and technology, it’s still a little surprising that federal space policy didn’t merit a mention this time around, especially if the rumors are true that a change in that policy towards more climate monitoring (green!) and commercial services (jobs!) is imminent.

Posted on January 28th, 2010 under Constellation, Moon-Mars Plan, Orion, Space Commerce, Space Policy. Tags: Constellation, LOTR, nasa, NPR, Obama, PPC, SOTU, state of the union, TOTUS. Comments: 1

Since Keith put up his post last week announcing the imminent (and long anticipated) death of Ares I, I’ve been waiting for the obituaries to appear.

So far nothing official, although his subsequent Kremlin-watching post suggests the Congressional supporters of the Stick are getting out the paddles and adrenaline for heroic measures.

Reports suggest that the new NASA budget could cancel elements of Constellation and replace the ISS crew ferry missions with commercial vehicles, accelerated to flight by government funding.  Which is excellent news, overall, though it could make things very interesting on the job front in the near future should Orion be one of those elements.

While I’d much rather see commercial space services develop organically, to the extent that the new policy resembles the “Air Mail” scenario promoted by many commercial space advocates it’s at least a sizeable improvement over the NASA-centric program of record.

Posted on January 25th, 2010 under Constellation, Moon-Mars Plan, Orion, Space Policy. Tags: ares, budget, congress, Constellation, nasa, Orion. Comments: 2

Reading the fisking of Griffin over at Vision Restoration (via Rand Simberg), this little tidbit caught my attention:

… If no USG option to deliver cargo and crew to LEO is to be developed following the retirement of the Space Shuttle, the U.S. risks the failure to sustain and utilize a unique facility with a sunk cost of $55 billion on the U.S. side, and nearly $20 billion of international partner investment in addition.Why is Dr. Griffin so concerned about the ISS when he got rid of most of the ISS science and non-assembly engineering?

Why is he so concerned about the ISS when his exploration plan requires the ISS to be abandoned in 2016? If the commercial COTS cargo services do not get built, Griffin’s plan already leaves us with no ability to get cargo and crew to the ISS until 2017-2019, after the ISS is abandoned! Even if the ISS is kept until 2020, and funding appears out of the blue to both support ISS and develop Ares I/Orion at a “brisk” pace, having Ares I/Orion in, say, 2018 does not make that much a difference. Plus, let’s be clear: keeping that schedule is highly unlikely given the funding needs of the ISS.

The notion of abandoning the ISS just five years after completing it has been getting a lot of attention lately, but I have to wonder, what does “abandon” really mean? If the international partners wanted to continue funding and servicing and using it for…umm…whatever ISS is actually used for beyond being a self-licking lollipop, would NASA permit it?

More interestingly, if NASA decides to terminate its own involvement with ISS, and a private company wants to make use of the station for space tourism or other commercial purposes, would NASA stand in the way? Or would it mulishly insist on deorbiting the station despite (or to spite) the offer of commercial utilization? After the fiasco with Mir, it’s a valid question.

Posted on September 13th, 2009 under Constellation, Economics, Space Commerce, Space Policy. Tags: almaz, bigelow, Constellation, COTS, deorbit, excalibur, international space station, ISS, mir, mircorp, nasa, space adventures, Space Commerce, spacex. Comments: 1

By NASASpaceFlight.com. At their subscription site.

Jon Goff has a few interesting details from his first look at the appendices:

Now, having seen some of what’s in them (I’ve mostly been focusing on the 300+ page appendix to Chapter 6, that details all of their launch vehicle related decisions), I can understand why some people might not want that data to see the light of day. I was hoping to get permission to post a screenshot or two and some direct quotes, but for now you’ll have to get a subscription and check it out yourself.

Some gems to look for when you get a chance, all within the first 40 pages:

• Exceptions given in the ground rules and assumptions on maximum dynamic pressures to In-line SRM based crew launch concepts that weren’t given to any other vehicles (without the exception, all of the five-segment Stick concepts would’ve been ruled out from the start).
• Unrealistically assuming a fixed LAS mass regardless of first stage characteristics (like T/W, max-Q, and whether you can shut them down or not).
• Inaccurate dry mass numbers for existing EELV upper stages (just as some of the guys on NASASpaceflight.com had been saying for years now).

Hmm… It’s almost as if the study was rigged to generate a particular outcome…

I can’t wait to see what other “gems” are buried in the full text. Of course, I will wait, since I’m not going to pay for a “level 2″ subscription at NSF to obtain copies of information that I’ve already paid for (that, and I’m not going to help support a site which I loathe for its constantly-flickering animated ads).

[hat tip to the vactioning-in-our-home-state Rand Simberg]

Posted on May 3rd, 2009 under Constellation, Moon-Mars Plan, Orion, Space Policy, Space Technology. Tags: altair, appendix, ares, Constellation, ESAS, launch vehicle, Mike Griffin, nasa, Orion. Comments: 2

One of the nice things of having few other temptations over the holidays (and spending a lot of time in airports and airplanes) was that there was time to read a few more chapters of Hayek’s Constitution of Freedom,  a project I’ve been working on in fits and starts since March 2003.

This passage on monopolies in Chapter 15, “Economic Policy and the Rule of Law”, struck me as applicable to NASA’s track record in spoiling earlier attempts to develop a private manned space industry:

In general, a free society demands not only that the government have the monopoly of coercion  but that it have the monopoly only of coercion and that in all other respects it operate on the same terms as everybody else.

…All these activities of government [ie: surveying, standardizing weights and measures, and other activities of government compatible with the "generality" attribute of the rule of law] are part of its effort to provide a favorable framework for individual decisions; they supply means which individuals can use for their own purposes.  Many other services of a more material kind fall into the same category.  Though government must  not use its power of coercion to reserve for itself activities which have nothing to do with the enforcement of the general rules of law, there is no violation of principle in its engaging in all sorts of activities on the same terms as the citizens.  If in the majority of fields there is no good reason why it should do so, there are fields in which the desirability of government action can hardly be questioned.

To this latter group belong all those services which are clearly desirable but which will not be provided by competetive enterprise because it would be either impossible or difficult to charge the individual beneficiary for them… And there are many other kinds of activity in which the government may legitimately wish to engage, in order perhaps to maintain secrecy in military preparations or to encourage the advancement of knowledge in certain fields.  But though government may at any moment be best qualified to take the lead in such fields, this provides no justification for assuming that this will always be so and therefore for giving it exclusive responsibility.  In most instances, moreover, it is by no means necessary that government engage in the actual management of such activities; the services in question can generally be provided, and more effectively provided, by the government’s assuming some or all of the financial responsibility but leaving the conduct of the affairs to independent and in some measure competitive agencies. [emphasis added]

There is considerable justification for the distrust with which business looks on all state enterprise.  There is great difficulty in ensuring that such enterprise will be conducted on the same terms as private enterprise; and it is only if this condition is satisfied that it is not objectionable in principle.  So long as government uses any of its coercive powers, and particularly its power of taxation, in order to assist its enterprises, it can always turn their position into one of actual monopoly.  To prevent this, it would be necessary that any special advantages, including subsidies, which government gives to its own enterprises in any field, should also be made available to competing private agencies.  There is no need to emphasize that it would be exceedingly difficult for government to satisfy these conditions and that the general presumption against state enterprise is thereby considerably strengthened.

In application to NASA, this suggests that its role (particularly as NACA) in developing basic knowledge for the general benefit, without a particular end use or user in mind, is a legitimate undertaking.  While private companies or privately-funded institutes could develop wing profiles or new materials, for example, Hayek’s view here would find nothing wrong with NACA/NASA doing it, so long as they did not use their privileged position as a government agency to limit or prevent other players from providing the same services.

What is particularly interesting, though, is the treatment of the ongoing appropriateness of the government providing a service.  Where initially the government may be the only entity willing or able to provide a particular service, this can’t be assumed to always be the case…technology changes over time, making it possible for private entities to profitably provide a particular service, and the earlier actions of the government entity itself can “bootstrap” a new (private) industry into being.

The question is, how does one persuade the government agency, when the time comes, to give up the monopoly role it has enjoyed to-date and share a particular undertaking with a nascent private industry?  Especially (in the case of NASA’s manned space program) when the identity and prestige of the agency is so intertwined with the undertaking in question.

Posted on January 9th, 2009 under Space Policy. Tags: coercion, Constitution of Freedom, Hayek, monopoly, NACA, nasa. Comments Off

…and he wants his schtick back.

I’d hazard a guess that Mike Griffin senses his days as NASA Administrator (and Ares I’s as the Orion launch vehicle) are numbered.

Posted on December 11th, 2008 under Constellation, Space Policy. Comments: 2

Well, unless one claims Shuttle heritage from the stillborn ASRM program – I must have missed this bit of news when it first emerged in August, but I was busy at the time with the Democrat convention:

Cook would like to get industry involved as early as possible. He stated that a point of departure design has been identified, along with key technology areas, such as a composite case booster. He noted that lessons learned from the Ares 1 vehicle integration are being applied, as well as from previous contract constructs.

The fact that NASA is learning from the Ares 1 experience and applying those lessons to Ares V shouldn’t be surprising, and in fact should be encouraging in a way. The question is whether they’re learning the right lessons from Ares 1. Given NASA’s desire to build an über-launcher, and the problems experienced with Ares 1′s solid first stage, perhaps there are other, more cost-effective ways to hit Ares V’s intended performance targets besides developing largely from scratch yet another solid rocket that merely looks like Shuttle’s to use as a booster.

Recalling that the ASRM program spent about $2B in early 1990s dollars before being scrapped (without ever entering production), the additional cost to Constellation of the change to a composite motor case should re-open the trade space to those Shuttle-derived booster concepts which entail large liquid engines but use truly Shuttle-heritage SRBs (or no SRBs at all). (For comparison, per Dwayne Day the estimated cost of the F-1 engine development program in 1991 dollars was $1.7B.) So, if building a big booster is what NASA wants to do for Constellation, and the new administration sustains that approach in its space policy, the cost associated with the apparent need to change to a composite SRB casing ought to motivate some re-thinking about exactly what that big booster should look like.

This discussion was also interesting:

He stated that the contracting approach includes maintaining NASA ownership of overall Ares V vehicle system architecture and key discipline areas; there will be government led contractor teams acquired through dedicated contract activity; the contracted work will involve severable entities with clear evaluation criteria so NASA can go elsewhere if needed; 5 work packages are being considered; and the request for proposal is in development with an aim to release it mid-December. He noted that when the NASA civil servants feel ownership of the products, the morale, excitement, and quality goes up dramatically.

Whether the quality, etc. goes up depends at how far down in the details “ownership of the products” goes, and how stable, clear, and predictable the working relationship is between the civil servant “owners” of a product and the contractors doing the work. Speaking from experience on a number of programs, having a constantly-shuffling team of masters adversarially challenging details whose background they are unfamiliar with, repeatedly demanding answers to questions already answered for others with whom they haven’t communicated, issuing vague and shifting requirements, and mandating significant changes and unstudied “improvements” is not a recipe for contractor morale, regardless of the benefits to the morale of the civil servants involved. In contrast, a clearly-defined “ownership” relationship between the agency and its contractors, stability in the requirements and processes and leaders in the program, and good communications and cooperative, non-adversarial relationships among the people involved at the working level go a long way towards improving morale, excitement, and quality all around. It’s natural that a customer should have involvement in a project they are after all paying for, but the nature and extent of that involvement is also important to the end result.

Posted on December 7th, 2008 under Constellation, Space Policy. Comments Off

I hope so. It’s some change we need, at any rate:

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s NASA transition team is asking U.S. space agency officials to quantify how much money could be saved by canceling the Ares 1 rocket and scaling back the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle next year.

Obama pledged during his campaign to inject an additional $2 billion into NASA aimed in part at narrowing the gap between the space shuttle’s retirement and the introduction of a successor system.

While NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and his senior managers are adamant that Ares and Orion are the right vehicles to fill that role,  Obama did not endorse either system by name during his campaign.

If that omission was enough to raise doubts about the incoming administration’s commitment to a rocket some believe will prove much tougher to field than NASA is ready to admit, the five-page list of questions Obama’s NASA transition team sent to the agency Nov. 24 probably will not make Ares supporters feel any better.

The questionnaire, “NASA Presidential Transition Team Requests for Information,” asks agency officials to provide the latest information on Ares 1, Orion and the planned Ares 5 heavy-lift cargo launcher, and to calculate the near-term close-out costs and longer-term savings associated with canceling those programs.

The questionnaire also contemplates a scenario where Ares 1 would be canceled but development of the Ares 5 would continue.

Who knows? But Griffin and the ATK guy both sound like they’re whistling past the graveyard…

Posted on December 2nd, 2008 under Constellation, Orion, Space Policy. Comments Off

The crew of Shenzhou 7 returns (already?!) from China’s first spacewalking mission.

SpaceX gets a Falcon 1 (finally) to orbit. Good. Hopefully this is the first of many successful launches, and helps to drop the “giggle factor” regarding commercial access to space down another big notch.

That has to irk the Chinese a little, their own achievement being overshadowed by the success of an American private company. Heh. (But admittedly only a little, since the two events are apples and oranges.) But I suppose it’s too much to ask for Musk not to let this successful launch make him cocky:

“This is one of the greatest days of my life,” Musk said. Clearly buoyed by the huge win tonight, he also talked about their Falcon 9 rocket development program, “We are going to be taking over for the Space Shuttle when it retires.” You could hear the pride at the huge accomplishment of a U.S. company getting to the point where they could say that. [emphasis added]

It depends on what capabilities currently provided by the Shuttle he means, of course. It’s probably too much to expect the manned version of Dragon to be completed and tested to NASA’s satisfaction by 2010 (assuming that’s when Shuttle actually gets retired), and likewise for it’s launcher, the Falcon 9. It’s not that SpaceX couldn’t finish the hardware in that time, for Bigelow perhaps, it’s that it’s expecting an awful lot from NASA to upend its culture in only two years and allow its astronauts to actually fly on a non-NASA vehicle.

And speaking of NASA, one can’t help but wonder what sort of pressure, if any, this will put on Constellation. SpaceX has probably spent less getting this far than NASA plans to pay for the development and initial procurement of the Ares I instrument unit alone. With all the Ares I dirty laundry in the news and the blogs in the past couple of weeks, surely someone in Congress has to be asking how SpaceX seems to be doing on the cheap what NASA can’t seem to get done with a budget an order of magnitude larger.

Posted on September 29th, 2008 under Chinese Space, Constellation, Space Commerce, Space Policy. Comments: 1