Don Peterson, Former Astronaut, has an editorial at SpaceRef, in which he criticizes the Orbital Space Plane project. Granted, there are many valid grounds for such criticism, but Mr. Peterson succeeds in avoiding the bulk of them, focusing instead on the fact that OSP is not (thank heavens) going to be another Shuttle.
I was disappointed by NASA’s latest plan for the enhancement of human space flight as described in an article on page 4A in the Houston Chronicle on Monday, September 1st, 2003 titled “NASA racing to complete light craft for space trips.”
“Enhancement of human space flight”? Sounds like Don’s been drinking the HR/PR Kool-Aid. I though OSP was to be a new means of ISS bailout, crew transfer, and crew transport for missions beyond LEO — a new capability, rather than an “enhancement”.
The article stated, “In just five years astronauts may journey to the space station (the International Space Station or ISS) in a stripped down four-seater instead of the mammoth – and aging – space shuttle.” The article states that NASA has budgeted 2.4 billion dollars for the craft design phase; but there were no estimates given for development, testing, and manufacture or for integrating the vehicle with an “off-the-shelf” booster in such a way ‘that the crew is assured safe escape and survival in all flight phases (one of the major requirements for future human flight vehicles).
Now, he does have a point here. Why does it need to cost so much for development, and why are the unofficial estimates for production so high (~$15B)? Oh, right. Here he has the chance to elaborate on a perfectly valid criticism of OSP, perhaps the most approachable one for the general public (those who will ultimately be asked to pony up the rumored billions), but he passes on the opportunity.
The article also says that plans for this craft were announced before the Columbia accident, but the tragedy added a “powerful incentive to find a cheaper, simpler and more dependable way to ferry astronauts between the space station and earth.” The article also states that the new vehicle, called the Orbital Space Plane (OSP), has been “applauded by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB).”
True. Someone finally realized that NASA’s days of fooling around with one stillborn-by-design “Shuttle replacement” were numbered, and that something had to be done. The Shuttle system is getting creaky, and it’s only a matter of time before something associated with aging (fatigue, corrosion, etc.) brings down an Orbiter.
Why was I disappointed? Frankly because, (1) other than crew transport, the Orbital Space Plane will not have a single capability that supports the goals, missions, current activities or future plans that make the Human Space Flight Program worthwhile,
OSP is not supposed to be a flying laboratory-cum-delivery van-cum-Winnebago. We (arguably) needed a vehicle with all of those capabilities when we didn’t have a space station and still thought combining long-duration “space science” missions with commercial satellite deployments was a keen idea. As far as humans in space, NASA doesn’t currently have any “goals, missions, current activities or future plans that make the Human Space Flight Program worthwhile.” If you like space science, well, that was the purpose the ISS was ostensibly built to serve, wasn’t it? Why do you need a free-flying, self-contained manned vehicle to do this when you already have ISS? OSP is only intended for crew rescue and transport, because that is precisely what is needed for ISS — Shuttle is not suited to the former and is overkill for the latter.
(2) it will not produce any new technology or materials,
Perhaps not, except around the margins (computer systems, reliability, hot-structure materials, MMOD, etc.). But that’s the whole point — OSP is not supposed to be a cutting-edge program loaded up with all sorts of whizbang new technology — NASA has tried that approach again and again and the only vehicle it ever managed to produce was the Shuttle itself…years late, billions over budget, and unable to live up to pre-development expectations. Do we really want to risk that happening again? Or should we instead build something simple and make continuous incremental improvements?
(3) it will fly too late to meet the most critical ISS needs,
Such as? Shuttle will complete the station (er, hypothetically) before OSP is (equally hypothetically) brought into service, but ISS is supposed to last until the late 2010’s at least. No doubt service will be extended beyond that point for many years. If OSP enters service in 2008-2010, that still gives it an ISS role for the bulk of a decade, at minimum, plus whatever extended life the ISS may be granted. I’m not sure what he considers “critical ISS needs”, but OSP was never intended to deliver modules to the station for its construction, and ongoing resupply and even ISPR deliveries could be more efficiently made by expendible or partially reusable vehicles — a potential entry point for launch entrepreneurs. But his argmuent here misses the other potential role for OSP, as the basis for a beyond-LEO vehicle analogous to the Apollo CSM. Who says ISS crew transfer is the end-all, be-all for OSP?
and (4) it will consume funds and workforce resources that could be much better used elsewhere.
Doubtful. Freeing up funds from one NASA program doesn’t automatically mean they will be available for any of the others — if the funds are appropriated for one specific program, cancelling that program means those funds go away. Conversely, if Congress chooses to fund OSP, it will likely have to do so via an increase to NASA’s budget, as it can’t raid Shuttle in the near-term (not with all the attention being paid to RTF and CAIB-directed improvements, and the still-fresh memory of Columbia), nor can it easily raid the popular and productive planetary science without impact to en-route missions and long-lead future planning, and other pots of money at NASA are likely to be insufficiently large and difficult to raid due to pork politics. While an R&D focus on Mars, say, could be accommodated within current resources (as it would mostly entail the establishment of goals, rather than an additional, separate program), it is doubtful something like OSP could.
If he were correct in his zero-sum argument, where would he choose to spend those limited funds and manpower? On maintenance of an aging Orbiter fleet, or on the design and construction of a new spacecraft? Which will be most beneficial to our national aerospace capabilities, and our confidence in our ability to continue — and thrive — as a spacefaring nation?
Lack of Capability
The OSP will have extremely limited volume and weight capacity to carry payloads to and from orbit (a few hundred pounds and a cubic yard or so) and it will have no airlock, no cargo bay, and no RMS (Remote Manipulator System, like those now used by the Shuttle and the ISS for external cargo and module handling and by the Shuttle for satellite capture).
Exactly right. As noted, OSP is not intended to be a Shuttle. It is not intended to fill the Shuttle role, as the capabilites of Shuttle are increasingly less needed in a world of relatively cheap expendible launchers and a space station capable of filling the Orbiters’ science and habitation roles more capably than the Orbiters themselves. It has no airlock because there is no need for its occupants to make frequent EVAs. It has no cargo bay, because it is not intended to deliver cargo. It has no RMS, because it is not intended to deliver cargo or capture satellites.
In truth, there are a number of ways a crew-transfer OSP could carry cargo to ISS, if the capability is needed and the payload capability of the launcher is sufficient. The simplest is to fly an OSP with cargo in place of the crew — design the seats to be replacable with cargo racks. There could also be a cargo-only variant of OSP, analogous to the Soyuz-derived Progress spacecraft. Both options would inherently permit a sizeable (though admittedly not Shuttle-equivalent) amount of down-mass. Alternatively, an OSP could be launched with an expendible logistics module in a fairing beneath it, analogous to the Apollo RM.
So it cannot carry large modules or replacement equipment (including new experiment packages to replace completed experiments) or big cargo items to the ISS,
That’s because, unlike this and this and this and this and this, OSP is strictly a small crew vehicle, not intended to carry large amounts of cargo, ISPRs, or ISS modules.
or return completed ISS experiment packages intact to earth for detailed analysis,
But it can do this, so long as an entire ISPR doesn’t have to come with it. And that is just a matter of proper equipment design — make your experiment products fit into a canister small enough to fit through the OSP docking adapter. For that matter, a cargo-variant OSP could be fitted with a berthing adapter rather than a docking adapter, allowing full ISPRs to be transported up and down.
or carry satellites to orbit
That’s not OSP’s job.
and check them out on board prior to deploying them,
That’s not its job.
or handle cargo on orbit,
That’s not its job.
or support Extra Vehicular Activity (also called EVA or ‘spacewalking’),
Why not? OSP isn’t intended to support EVAs, but there’s nothing to say that it can’t do so. An Orbiter- or ISS-type airlock is not required for EVA, especially in a small-volume, brief-occupancy vehicle. Gemini and Apollo and Soyuz all support/ed EVAs, just by dumping the atmosphere and opening the hatch.
or capture free flying malfunctioning satellites and take them on board for repair or return to earth,
And Shuttle has returned satellites how many times? What was the last satellite plucked from space and returned to Earth in an Orbiter — LDEF? As for repairs, an OSP be adapted for checkout and repair of satellites anywhere from LEO to GEO. Sure, the Orbiters can rendezvous with damaged or malfunctioning satellites and repair them…if they’re within a certain range of inclinations in LEO. And since all future Shuttle missions will be to ISS, and the fleet having already been reduced by one-quarter, who will be able to convince NASA to send an Orbiter on a repair mission — let alone afford one?
or support the kind of scientific missions that require an onboard laboratory (like SpaceHab).
Ummmm…isn’t that what we have ISS for? Hello?
Furthermore, it will apparently have no autonomous on orbit inspection and repair capability
No less than Shuttle does now.
nor any capability to rescue the crew of a sister ship in distress on orbit.
Like we can do that with Shuttle. Unless there are multiple OSPs in orbit at the same time, in orbits mutually accessible given the limits of their propulsion systems, this isn’t a relevant criticism. If someday circumstances allow multiple OSPs on orbit, and they are capable of rendezvous, is there any reason why they couldn’t be provided with docking capabilities? Note that until the Shuttle/MIR project, Shuttle had no docking capabilities at all — why not plan to add that capability as it becomes relevant?
In short, the OSP will be totally dependent on other vehicles to provide the capabilities, accommodations, and tools needed to continue or extend the current array of activities in space that make human flight valuable.
As noted above, the situation has changed from, say, 1981, and these shortcomings are not valid arguments against OSP.
The Shuttle and the ISS now meet those needs,
And in the case of Shuttle, by overkill.
but by the time the OSP vehicle is ready to fly, the Shuttle and the ISS will be within a few years of their respective “end of service life” and “recertification” (required by the CAIB for the Shuttle at the end of this decade) may or may not be economically feasible.
Shuttle, certainly possible, but what is the alternative with ISS? Considering that it took around fifteen years and a hundred billion dollars or more to design and launch ISS, it’s highly unlikely that NASA will simply junk the station at the end of its nominal design life — after all, what will NASA replace it with? It would probably be less economically feasible to junk the station and start over than it would be to repair and replace elements of it on an ongoing basis for another decade. Note that MIR survived well beyond its planned service life, and could have survived several more years but for the politics involved.
Without replacements for them, human activities in space will cease altogether when the “aging Shuttle and ISS” reach their end of service life.
Baloney. Institutional inertia within NASA and the pork trough in Congress are too great to allow that to happen.
(On the other hand, if NASA did give up manned space activities, maybe that would make room for private initiatives. Hmm….)
There are apparently no budgeted programs to develop new vehicles with the necessary capabilities.
Right, because those “necessary capabilities” you describe aren’t.
No New Technology or Materials
The OSP program will contribute little or nothing to the development of new materials and technology.
How little is “little”? The idea is to build OSP without the exotic materials and technologies whose development has sunk every spacecraft project since the Shuttle, in order to actually get the thing built. Who knows if the Shuttle program itself would have reached fruition had the agency not been coasting on its Apollo-era aura of competence, or whether the materials and technology development would have sunk the program. It makes little sense to build a new vehicle around the desire to develop and implement new materials and technologies, as this puts an emphasis on something (an expensive, time-consuming, and possibly program-fatal something) which isn’t required to achieve the stated mission of the program.
In fact the Chronicle article quotes the program manager, Dennis Smith of the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), as saying “We’re doing everything we can to get it up by 2008.” The key to meeting this schedule, according to Smith, is the use of existing technology and existing materials, avoiding unnecessary bells and whistles and not holding out for “some material like ‘unattainium’ [sic] that isn’t in existence.” So no new technology or materials can be expected from the OSP Program.
Exactly right. But then, the point of the OSP program is not to develop new technology, but to develop new hardware and put it into use. The premise beneath his argument is apparently that OSP isn’t worth doing because it doesn’t use lots of newfangled stuff, developed specifically for the vehicle. But what precisely is new and what is old? Would it count, in Mr. Peterson’s opinion, if NASA developed a given technology years ago, but never had a way of implementing it until now? Would it be acceptable to him if OSP was built, in its entirety, using technology which had never before flown but which had been developed to a high TRL many years ago? Or do technologies need to be developed from scratch, specifically for OSP, to be considered truly “new”?
Too Late To Meet Critical ISS Needs
It isn’t at all clear that a new crew vehicle built and tested under considerable schedule pressure with existing materials and technology (most of which have never been proven in a crewed space vehicle) and mated with an “off-the-shelf” booster, will be much, if any, safer or more dependable or cheaper to operate than the Shuttle.
NASA successfully built and tested and flew several new manned spacecraft in the 1960’s, under considerable schedule pressure — having started with much less. The criticism of EELV is valid, though he frames it incorrectly — for what it will cost to achieve the desired level of reliability and availability for use with crewed vehicles, the rockets will have to be significantly redesigned, adding to program cost and schedule and tossing out the already-limited experience base established with the current designs. They will not be off-the-shelf boosters. Whether it will be cheaper than Shuttle is open to debate, and depends on such things as how much it will cost to develop OSP and modify EELVs to launch it, the per-launch cost of suitably-modified EELVs, how many flights per year OSP sees, how many additional flights (or additional applications) it enables, how many are built and whether they’re sold outside of NASA, etc. One can do a cocktail-napkin calculation using a few reasonable assumptions, but it’s difficult to be sure whether or not it will be cheaper overall than Shuttle without a more detailed analysis, and possibly even without the lessons learned in actually flying the thing once it gets built.
Nor is it apparent that a vehicle with such limited mission capabilities will be an asset to human space flight. However, even if it is, it will not be available soon enough to meet the critical needs of the ISS.
Exactly what are these “critical needs”? In its planned primary configurations, OSP will serve first as a lifeboat, and second as a crew transfer vehicle — both of which are, I’d think, critical to the functioning of ISS. The first allows station occupancy to grow to the planned seven, and the second allows rotations of crew without need for a dedicated Shuttle mission. The first makes us less dependent on the Russians, and the second makes us less dependent on Shuttle. OSP could be an asset to human space flight by serving as the basis for a spacecraft to travel beyond LEO, something Shuttle cannot do — if we plan to go back to the Moon or on to Mars, that is an asset indeed.
The Space Station has been widely proclaimed to be a valuable research facility which will produce unique, important scientific and medical discoveries. Currently it is not living up to that promise, and if it continues to fail to do so over a period of two or three years NASA could be harshly criticized at a time when the agency’s image is already tarnished by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report. The ISS desperately needs to begin producing meaningful research results now.
Now. Um, you notice there aren’t any Shuttle missions between today and, oh, next July? There’s going to be a lot of catching up to do, it seems.
And wouldn’t indulging this “desperate need” to produce results contribute to the same sort of environment that enabled the Challenger accident?
Three things must be done as quickly as possible to make the ISS a capable research facility: (1) its assembly must be completed with an adequate life support system and a full complement of research equipment installed,
Right…
(2) the capability must be provided to return completed ISS experiment packages intact to earth for detailed analysis and replace them with new experiments,
…right…see above…
and (3) the number of on board crewmembers (which is presently limited by a lack of rescue capability and life support capacity) must be increased sufficiently to conduct the desired regimen of research.
…right…see above.
The OSP will not be available soon enough to support any of these requirements.
Well, we (sorta) have the Shuttle for these things now and can continue using it in the interim, particularly for the assembly of ISS. Aside from (1), these “musts” can be met with OSP in the 2008-2010 timeframe — this isn’t “now”, but neither is it “never”.
Consequently, the timely achievement of these ISS research goals depends upon the Shuttle and the Soyuz. The Shuttle is the only currently available vehicle that can deliver large modules, new equipment (augmentation for the life support system for example), replacements for malfunctioning equipment, and needed quantities of expendables.
And if we don’t start developing an alternative to Shuttle and Soyuz now, this same argument will be made after the next Orbiter bites it.
The Shuttle is also essential to ferry ISS experiments intact to and from orbit.
In the short term. See above.
The use of additional Soyuz vehicles is the only quick way to provide an adequate rescue capability to support an increase in crew size.
He makes this statement without clear reference to the time frame he has in mind. Short term, he has a point — Soyuz exists, and is in ongoing production, so we can pay the Russians to build more over a longer schedule. But mid- to long-term (5 to 15 years, say), an OSP could be brought into service, both as rescue vehicle and as a crew transport.
And note, please, that Soyuz doesn’t have the capability to handle complete, intact experimental packages either (at least not those requiring an ISPR), but like the regular OSP can return to Earth with the results of completed experiments.
Better Use Of Resources
Total cost of the OSP, including integration with the booster, will likely exceed six billion dollars, and the overall effort will require hundreds of thousands of workforce hours. I believe there are several higher priority efforts that could better use these resources.
For the immediate future NASA should give the highest priority to making the ISS a viable research facility by: (1) focusing its resources on whatever modifications and procedural changes are necessary to return the Shuttle to flight status as soon as possible so it can provide the needed ISS support
Consider it done.
and (2) making arrangements to fully man the ISS by obtaining an exception to the Iran Non-Proliferation Act so that NASA can immediately acquire additional Soyuz vehicles (either as a Russian or European or Japanese contribution or by direct purchase) to provide the necessary rescue capability.
Okay, that covers ISS crew rescue for a few more years. Then what? Should we continue doing so indefinitely? And if we are going to have rescue boats parked at ISS, each rotated every six months, why should we pay the Russians to do it? Why not keep the money, jobs, and skills here?
NASA should then turn to creating and testing new technology and materials that will be needed to develop a true Shuttle replacement system (crew and cargo carriers, booster, etc.) that can provide the capabilities, accommodations, and tools to support the goals, missions, current activities, and future plans that make human space flight valuable.
What do you think NASA has been frittering away time and money on for the past twenty years? Exactly how much “new technology and materials” do we need to develop before we can build a Shuttle replacement? It’s already become an endless exercise in tail-chasing — we can’t replace Shuttle because we don’t have “enabling” technologies, so we develop all sorts of new technologies for reusable launch vehicles, but we still can’t replace Shuttle because we don’t have this or that other enabling-technology-du-jour. Admittedly, this is a great arrangement if you’re in the technology development business, but it gets us no closer to a Shuttle replacement if the new knowledge is never allowed to be put to use because some other “promising” “enabling technology” is “just around the corner”.
NASA should also initiate the development and testing of technology and systems that will be needed to someday resume human exploration of the solar system beyond low earth orbit.
I agree, except with the “someday” part — stick a deadline on it, or it’ll never get done.
One suggestion is the creation of a special ISS module that would serve as a prototype “Deep Space Vehicle.” where integrated of systems, technology, and procedures to support deep space human flights (e.g., water and atmosphere recycling, onboard food production, extended onboard medical treatment including animal experimentation to verify zero gravity medical techniques, counter measures to preclude zero gravity deconditioning, improved solar power systems and thermal radiators, and so forth) could be conducted in the actual space environment.
Seems to me that such a thing was already well into development. Oh, but that was five years ago, so we’ll have to junk that whole concept and start from scratch with “new technologies and materials”, I suppose.
An isolated ISS module dedicated to this task would capitalize on the capabilities provided by the station and constitute an ideal facility for this preparatory work. And this requires an all-up, fully manned ISS.
In Conclusion
The NASA workforce is the most talented, dedicated, ingenuous, industrious group of people I have ever known in my 43 years of aerospace experience. Surely, with this unparalleled resource, NASA management can find some better way to spend five or more years and billions of dollars than the creation of nothing more than a “Super-Sized” Soyuz. That’s a dead-end street.
Unlike Shuttle? Or a “Mini-Me” Shuttle? Soyuz seems to have served the Soviets/Russians very well over the past thirty years — imagine what we might have been able to do in space had we stuck with and incrementally upgraded our Apollo hardware over the past three decades instead of throwing it all away in favor of the flying money pit that is Shuttle. If not yet a dead-end street, Shuttle has certainly proven itself to be a wrong turn.