NASA announcing a return of manned space flight today.

[Fern]

Rumour is they are going with Boeing over SpaceX

CNN says they both got contracts: http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/16/news/companies/nasa-boeing-space-x/index.html

Fern

 

[olds]

"NASA announcing a return of manned space flight today."
WTF, NASA sent men into space today and this is the first we hear of it?!

 

[Fern]

Um, the decision to end the Space Shuttle program was made during the Bush administration.

I'm going to assume you're just trolling though and not actually a moron.

Bush had planned to replace the shuttle with the Crew Exploration Vehicle.

http://history.nasa.gov/Bush SEP.htm

IIRC, then Obama decided to switch to private contractors etc.

Fern

 

[Ruptga]

Is this a response to Russia being an asshole nation?

That's true to an extent, but a huge oversimplification. What happened today is just an outgrowth of stuff that has been in the works for years, as in, since before the shuttles were decommissioned. Also note that there are no plans for these contracts to deliver any crewed flights until 2017.

 

[K1052]

CNN says they both got contracts: http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/16/news/companies/nasa-boeing-space-x/index.html

Fern

Which is perhaps more important news than the projects themselves. They finally got wise that they shouldn't be at the mercy of one contractor and that it could help hold down costs, particularly since the government has gotten so thoroughly bent over by Lockheed in recent years.

 

[RampantAndroid]

Yeah $18.4B is chump change According to this the total since 1958 is over $555B. What have we got out of it besides bragging rights and pretty pictures?

Forgetting the PLETHORA of advances that NASA precipitated (and advances on existing technology they made - such as fuel cells)...one of the points made is that the Apollo 8 earthrise photo was monumental in changing how people looked at the world; a point Neil DeGrasse Tyson recently made is that before that photo, media always pictured the earth without clouds...after the photo, people always put clouds in. It made people realize that the world isn't divided up by borders...it's also one of the most published photos. Ever. (according to some people, it IS the most published photo of all time.)

Yeah, other than GPS, weather observations, global communications, total war domination and velcro, what did space ever do for us?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

This. The list is bigger if you include things they helped advance. To again reference Tyson, "NASA is a force of nature like none other."

 

[Dari]

That's true to an extent, but a huge oversimplification. What happened today is just an outgrowth of stuff that has been in the works for years, as in, since before the shuttles were decommissioned. Also note that there are no plans for these contracts to deliver any crewed flights until 2017.

Ok, so what were the plans after the shuttle was decommissioned other than relying on Russia? Also, I read that Russia was charging $70m/seat-trip and Administration officials felt it was grossly expensive.

 

[Thebobo]

Ok, so what were the plans after the shuttle was decommissioned other than relying on Russia? Also, I read that Russia was charging $70m/seat-trip and Administration officials felt it was grossly expensive.

Constellation program

Ares 1 & 2 Canceled - only thing left is the capsule called the Orion spacecraft

 

[sa7an1]

what ever happened with the group that was redesigning the Saturn V's F1 engines using modern tooling? thought they were getting ridiculous thrust out of them.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/

I would make a trip to see a heavy lift platform akin to the Saturn V with those F-1's tearing up the sky, people say the sound/concussion from shuttle launches were a joke compared to them.

 

[Dari]

Constellation program

Ares 1 & 2 Canceled - only thing left is the capsule called the Orion spacecraft

But those are not reusable. I honestly don't really know what the Russians use but I grew up with the shuttle program and its reusability was what set it apart, economically, from other space ships.

BTW, off-topic but here's a fascinating story of a little-known Soviet rescue mission:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014...oviet-mission-to-rescue-a-dead-space-station/

 

[Ruptga]

Constellation program

Ares 1 & 2 Canceled - only thing left is the capsule called the Orion spacecraft

Yep, which led directly to the contracts that were officially awarded today. Even though Constellation was cancelled the plan was to be reliant on foreign space agencies for as short a time as possible, and that's still the goal with these contracts. The decision to scrap Constellation was made because of budgeting, development, and political issues, not because we suddenly decided that the Soyuz program is good enough.

Arguably, the strategy shifted from Constellation (in-house development) to private programs specifically because Constellation was supposed to be ready a few years before the space shuttles were retired, but it turned out that Constellation wasn't going to be ready until several years after the decommissionings.

Also, the shuttles weren't nearly as reusable as we thought they'd be when we started development in the 70s. Given the costs and time involved in their turnaround, it turns out that we're generally better off using expendable rockets. However, one of SpaceX's big projects is a reusable and self-landing first stage, and it has already completed some trials successfully.

 

[Dari]

Yep, which led directly to the contracts that were officially awarded today. Even though Constellation was cancelled the plan was to be reliant on foreign space agencies for as short a time as possible, and that's still the goal with these contracts. The decision to scrap Constellation was made because of budgeting, development, and political issues, not because we suddenly decided that the Soyuz program is good enough.

Arguably, the strategy shifted from Constellation (in-house development) to private programs specifically because Constellation was supposed to be ready a few years before the space shuttles were retired, but it turned out that Constellation wasn't going to be ready until several years after the decommissionings.

I see. Thanks. When the shuttle program was cancelled years ago it was never reported like this.

 

[tynopik]

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014...getting-nasa-money-for-manned-space-launches/

interesting comment at bottom

> Boeing is getting $4.2B while SpaceX is getting $2.6B.


Not because Boeing is preferred but because they are more expensive. Cost was just one of the selection criteria, and the winners were awarded exactly what they bid. SpaceX bid a lot lower than Boeing.

 

[bradly1101]

Some rockets into space help us with satellites, communications, etc. but manned space flight never made much sense to me. We seemingly sent men to the moon to beat Russia there, but what did that get us? By the end of that program they were hitting golf balls up there. Such wisdom gained.

Now we can't stand that we're dependant on Russia to ferry humans to the space station. But what are we learning up there? How to survive long term space flight for a trip to Mars? What's that going to get us? I say use that money to pay teachers more.

 

[tynopik]

Some rockets into space help us with satellites, communications, etc. but manned space flight never made much sense to me.

'Manned' appeared nowhere in your original post. That's a tremendously different argument to make.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

It's too bad not everyone is engineer and thus can't see the benefits that trickle down to everyone over time when certain feats are accomplished by NASA. Like the money spent sending a rover to Mars which landed in what looked like some physically impossible manner to will end benefit humanity so much more in the long run than building another a fighter jet.

 

[OutHouse]

Some rockets into space help us with satellites, communications, etc. but manned space flight never made much sense to me. We seemingly sent men to the moon to beat Russia there, but what did that get us? By the end of that program they were hitting golf balls up there. Such wisdom gained.

Now we can't stand that we're dependant on Russia to ferry humans to the space station. But what are we learning up there? How to survive long term space flight for a trip to Mars? What's that going to get us? I say use that money to pay teachers more.

absolute fail.

 

[Gibsons]

Seriously. The space shuttle was cool and all, but it failed its mission miserably.

Like a failure in every single metric and met almost none of its design goals.

I think it met cargo size, and maybe mass (?).

But the whole "cheap and fast turnaround" thing... woo. Major fail.

 

[RampantAndroid]

Some rockets into space help us with satellites, communications, etc. but manned space flight never made much sense to me. We seemingly sent men to the moon to beat Russia there, but what did that get us? By the end of that program they were hitting golf balls up there. Such wisdom gained.

Now we can't stand that we're dependant on Russia to ferry humans to the space station. But what are we learning up there? How to survive long term space flight for a trip to Mars? What's that going to get us? I say use that money to pay teachers more.

Again, in the course of going to space NASA ended up either directly coming up with new ideas and technologies, or they helped to shape new ones by setting requirements. If we had not attempted manned travel, there are many things we would not have ended up with technology wise.


For example, the Apollo program was one of the very first applications of a computer built solely out of ICs (integrated circuits - individual chips containing one or two NOR gates. A NOR gate is made using 4 transistors.) Prior to this use of ICs, computers were made using individual transistors. In essence, by using ICs the number of required chips was divided by 4. The Apollo program was a serious driving force behind this advancement of computers. It pushed computers to become smaller, faster, more reliable and consume less power. It was a direct injection of cash into the development of new computers when the computers were in their infancy.


The point I'm making here is that even if you dismiss what we learned by having astronauts walk around on the moon and collect samples, the technological advances that were precipitated or accelerated by the push to reach the moon became invaluable in our path to where we are today.


And then there's the less tangible: how many people were inspired to enter the fields of aerospace, computer engineering, etc that have affected our world in a very positive way with new discoveries, inventions or simply being productive members of society? The vision of the world of tomorrow that NASA inspired, the realization that if we can put a man on the moon that we can aspire to do so much more...that's invaluable to our entire race...and that's a priceless benefit to be had from our efforts to put man in space and on the moon. And if you don't believe me, I suggest you look up the events surrounding Apollo 13; it wasn't just the US that wanted to see Lovell, Swigert and Haise safely return to the earth. It was the world the USSR included - to the point where the USSR (and China) offered help to the US.


And then there's the data gleaned by actually putting people in space - getting real samples from the moon, experiments, placing sensors and so forth.

Going forward, manned travel promises us things such as mining an asteroid for diminishing resources on earth, and to additionally understand the makeup of the celestial bodies surrounding us.

 

[Markbnj]

I think it met cargo size, and maybe mass (?).

But the whole "cheap and fast turnaround" thing... woo. Major fail.

It was humankind's first reusable space vehicle, so of course decades later everyone knows how it should have been done .

 

[Markbnj]

Not because Boeing is preferred but because they are more expensive. Cost was just one of the selection criteria, and the winners were awarded exactly what they bid. SpaceX bid a lot lower than Boeing.

That sounds like a lack of experience with government contracts. I can see the scene with the Boeing rep and the Space-X rep in the Quality Inn bar, late one night. "Son, you silly-con valley boys don't have a clue. You went and left two billion dollars right on the goddamn table, and you know what they're going to do with that money, boy? Spend it researchin' chicken anuses. I ain't kiddin' a bit."

 

[destrekor]

But those are not reusable. I honestly don't really know what the Russians use but I grew up with the shuttle program and its reusability was what set it apart, economically, from other space ships.

BTW, off-topic but here's a fascinating story of a little-known Soviet rescue mission:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014...oviet-mission-to-rescue-a-dead-space-station/

Orion is reusable, much like the Space Shuttle.

Sure, we lose reusable solid rocket boosters, but the refits and work that had to be done didn't exactly save a significant sum.

The bigger change was the reusable engines on the orbiter itself, which, sure, is beneficial... but the orbiter design is not capable of, well, really all that much. It is no longer necessary to really use an orbiter to launch satellites or ferry equipment to the ISS, nor was it was relied upon 100% to deliver to the ISS - the Russians continued to make their own support runs to the ISS with capsule-style systems.

With Orion on the Space Launch System (I was actually not aware the Ares program was scrapped... kind of a bummer), the module is reusable. The engines and rockets needing replaced isn't going to add significant cost compared to everything else.

Especially when the long-term involves far more cargo capacity, and, more importantly, more propellant to push a decent cargo amount and/or the Orion vehicle out to further distances than the Orbiter could ever dream.

Their is a reason the Russians got spies to get the technical details of the Orbiter, built two clones that I think they even improved upon, and let them collect rust because they found them worthless as orbital weapons platforms, and even more worthless for anything else in space.

I think NASA got stuck with them for more political reasons, as opposed to matters of practicality.

 

[olds]

Some rockets into space help us with satellites, communications, etc. but manned space flight never made much sense to me. We seemingly sent men to the moon to beat Russia there, but what did that get us? By the end of that program they were hitting golf balls up there. Such wisdom gained.

Now we can't stand that we're dependant on Russia to ferry humans to the space station. But what are we learning up there? How to survive long term space flight for a trip to Mars? What's that going to get us? I say use that money to pay teachers more.

You can't possibly be serious.

 

[RampantAndroid]

But those are not reusable. I honestly don't really know what the Russians use but I grew up with the shuttle program and its reusability was what set it apart, economically, from other space ships.

BTW, off-topic but here's a fascinating story of a little-known Soviet rescue mission:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014...oviet-mission-to-rescue-a-dead-space-station/

The Saturn V's first stage never exited the atmosphere and NASA was looking into reusing it (sadly they never got there with the limited number of Saturn V launches (IIRC, that number is 13 were actually launched: Apollo 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, Skylab. The two remaining rockets were never launched, and remain display pieces to this day.)

 

[Brovane]

That sounds like a lack of experience with government contracts. I can see the scene with the Boeing rep and the Space-X rep in the Quality Inn bar, late one night. "Son, you silly-con valley boys don't have a clue. You went and left two billion dollars right on the goddamn table, and you know what they're going to do with that money, boy? Spend it researchin' chicken anuses. I ain't kiddin' a bit."

I don't really see it that way. SpaceX for the Commercial Cargo Contract also was significantly lower than Orbital. Remember that this contract also includes launch vehicle costs. So the ULA Atlas-V for the Boeing Capsule runs around 200 Million per launch the Falcon 9v1.1 runs around 60 Million per launch. This isn't even taking into account that SpaceX is working on re-usability and by 2017 they could be re-using the 1st on the Falcon 9. I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX is going to take home some significant profit out of this. Also the SpaceX Crew Capsules are going to be re-usable. So this means that SpaceX could also be getting out of this up to 7 used Dragonv2 capsules that could be sent up into space again on other commercial contracts. From SpaceX's standpoint this is a solid win. Also as part of that conversation at the bar I would ask the Boeing Rep how many launch contract's has ULA's sold for commercial companies?

Also consider this if Congress cut's back funding and tells NASA to go down to one commercial crew provider. Who will have a big target painted on there back because of there pricing?