PB666

And that philosophy is why NASA is now underperforming.

Sometimes it is and you have to suck it up

Go back to the 1920s and 1930s. I will address all of your comments in a second but I will address this specifically. The reason Air-travel is the safest per mile is a whole lot of things have to be correct before it takes off. You don't think of it now, but in the mid-1970s no one thought about vertical windsheer, in the mid to late 70s there were a few incidences where planes taking off and then engine loses power and it drops from the sky, nothing really wrong with the craft but people on the ground reported something about the air. Its was researched and found the aircraft was experiencing windsheer because the airport was close to a cell at the time the plane takes off. So they add windsheer detectors at the airport. There are other things, a plane flying across South America disappears, another pilot says geeze its interesting that I was 60 miles off course, and so high altitude winds become part of the weather estimates. This type of thing. But the shuttle or any spacecraft is no different, Apollo 13 was hit by cloud lightning, the shuttles seal failed because of excessive cold. And so by flying we learned more parameters that constitute good flight. And these things are context specific, bad weather for a blimp is not the same as bad weather for a Concorde or the same as bad weather for the shuttle. That is not disingenuine, its just the way humans learn. Many of the major pioneers of flight died while flying, dare to use the word hero, but of course if you are flying today your safety comes from lessons they taught us in their activities. This is what is, this is what happened. Of the 144 flights of the shuttle their was one upper atmospheric failure, so it was not common, the flaw was researched and it was found to be a judgement error, not specifically a vehicle malfunction. There is no rationalization of judgement errors, depending on how severe the error any system can be compromised . . . . from confusion about the trustability of pitot-tubes on AF447 to the downing of the commercial plane to the disappearance of MH370. The STS-51-L vehicle did perform as rated or more correctly it failed when performing outside of its predetermined rating. This is physics plain and simple. So engineer looked at the thermal expansion of a rubber ring in manifold and determined that if the temperature fell below X, its position may not be fixed and it may move, and during the flight this happened and there was a highly predictable accident. It was not clear that the orbiter would suffer catastrophic damage but it did and people died, it was not the orbiters fault, the boosters fault per-say or the engineers fault since its limitation was known. But in these accidents we still learn things that result in improvements, we ask questions about safety margins, etc. . . . . we learn. I am not questioning the concept you present I am wholy questioning your focus. The point is that the shuttle launched, other than the ISS living portions about a dozen science missions, including one it left in space and then retrieved to study the damage of space on a number of materials (the so called materials science test in KSP). OK, so we have to conceptualize what we are doing in a valid context, borrowing from above we ask the question what was the Wright brothers doing, it was certainly dangerous, but what was it. They are testing the engineering model as free standing aerodynamic system. The system is very crude, but we know very little about the dynamic, so that is OK, it is because they began the first serious model then today we have very safe models and we know magnitudes more about aerodynamics than they did. But that is what had to happen for us to have flight safety. Hubble was a model space telescope, it was found to be incorrect, the shuttle allowed us to test a repair, it worked, and more modifications were made and now Hubble is a historical science platform. This is the focus, so you know how to better use space you have to learn about space just like the writght borthers learned about aerodynamics 11. Rescue of the Solar Max Solar observation satellite. 13. Earth radiation budget satellite. 15. First retrieving and recycling of a satellite (2) Palapa B2 and Westar VI 16. First repair of a commercial satellite in space. 17. Microgravity experiments 22. Spacelab 29 Magellan Venus probe. ( September 19th 1990 - September 14, 1994) 31 Galileo Jupiter probe deployment ( 14 years in space and 8 years in the Jovian system ) 36 Ulysses intertial upper stage 38 ASTRO-1 observatory 39 Compton Gamma ray observatory <========" the heaviest astrophysical payload ever flown at that time at 17,000 kilograms " 43 Upper atmosphere research satellite 46 ATLAS-1 deployment 51 LAGEOS geodescic radar study. 54 ATLAS-2 deployment 66- Atlas-3 science platform 74 Japan flyer mission retrieved. 75 Tethered satellite testing 80 Wake shield testing, 80 Retrievable UV experiment launch 95 Chandra X-ray observatory 97 Shuttle radar topography mission 108 hubble servicing and performance upgrade 126- last hubble servicing and performance upgrade. 134 - alpha-magetic spectrometer So the abstract problem I have with you is that you think all risk is equal and so minimize risk no matter the other cost. So why Wright brothers take risk and why be benefit, to learn how for humans to fly. And why shuttle takes risk to learn how to do space in a different way an learn. If you can't understand that some risks are worth taking and some are not we have nothing to talk about. But I would say the Wright brothers would disagree with you, so would Galileo, so would Neil Armstrong, so would most of the astronauts. And that's the point, its their risk to take, not yours.

You proport a solution, and you are pushing thats what I understand. If that booster were the same distance from the failing of the seal to the bottom of the Soyuz capsule everyone on the soyuz capsule would have died also and no-one would of escaped. There are two risk management logics here> 1. That the defense department should not have been trying to stick a launch time on a civilian space craft (the person who made this decision should have been prosecuted). 2. That the failing of the SRBs, its potential weaknesses,the fact that its ISP was low and really was not economically recyclable should have seen an opting for a more safe and effective booster. I know, for fact, for instance if there is a complete engine failure (such as an ash cloud passing or a flock of ducks) shortly after a 747 takes off, it will unlikely land safely, thats a risk you take when you fly. The same was more so true for a Concorde. My suggestion here is if you want to do risky stuff in risky space, you have to crawl out of your momma's bossom a bit. If the SLS would ever get a crew in space (next 5 years) we can discuss that. IF wishes were horses beggars would ride.

I would not use SRBs above max Q, it seems like a waste. Wishful thinking, think 90,000 feet and explosive decompression and followed by at least complete loss of consciousness in 15 seconds. The logic here is that if the orbiter had survived structurally . . . . .x, y, z could have happened. Orbiter did not survive. Enough said. Using a system intentionally outside its rating is a primary error of negligence. Revisionist history is such an entertaining sport. The boosters, as I mentioned in the other post would not survive my redesign, and certainly I would not let DoD officials tinker in my launch safety timing, that was stupid.

LOX does not neccesarily autocombust carbon. Remember that diesel explodes in the presence of compressed air at STP. but that is not true for unsubstituted aeromatics, the have 4n+2 stabilization, thats why octane (and at one time, tetra-ethyl lead) to improve performance in gasoline, too much benzene. The more of these connected in the ground structure, the more stable they are and the less energy they generate on combustion. Its the reason coal burns so slowly and produces so much energy relative to other fuels. There are things that you can do to the surface of carbon fiber in excess of what is innate to prevent the explosion danger. The critical ingredient is that you need something with the same thermal expansion rate as the carbon fiber (or a little less since it is inside the tank), that is inert to oxygen. Certain forms of silicon (like the silicon you use on the screen of your iPhones) that a very thin and very durable. And alternative is to have a slightly different carbon fiber layer on the inside and the outside. The question I might ask, if you could make it safe . . . .why wouldn't you use a carbon fiber tank on a reusable launch vehicle? Thats probably another 5 to 10 kT of PL to orbit right there. (you need less fuel to retro back to the pad, thats for certain the tanks are a significant part of the empty mass). This mean more dV to craft and a greater velocity tolerance to return to launch pad. The concept of space travel in its very nature is such that the process you are involved in produce huge sums of specific energy that in any other context would be as dangerous as hell. There is no reason to say we'll take a risk this direction, but not that direction. You have to parallel those risk and individually mitigate them. The safety issue you ignore will be the one that gets you. Why do they spray water at the launch ejecta, or sparkle under the engines, or use launch clamps. All of these things are varied system stabilizations. The other thing is that some of you guys think the Orion interplanetary drive system could be a thing . . . . that's a huge risk, so many risks would have to be mitigated to make that work. If you are worried about carbon fiber tanks constituitively autocombusting, best to keep the feet on the ground. The question is how much pressure.

And five years after you would have the same thing on a shuttle already in space. Siiting there watching the DIV launch the other day I could not help but note the QC in their prelaunch setup. This is mostly oxymoronic. IF we needed, the problem is since the shuttle what we have are not trustable entities and particularly reserved for the highest dollar players. In fact the whole discussion here is rather oxymoronic in the abstract. The point is functionality, either you are improving or you are not you cant call the shuttle an improvement vampire. That improvement can come in two ways you are either increasing performance or lowering cost. The problem is the STS spawns do neither. . . .so who the hell is going to buy into these systems . . . . and so we have a bunch of companies now saying . . . I can do that (true) . . .and do more of that (maybe) . . . . and I/we will have more customers (likely). If you tell me . . . . .I can get 60 kT into LEO bbbbuuuuttttttt its going to cost you 2 billion dollars only US pork can pay for that and thats it, that is a closed market. If you tell me . . . . I can get 60 kT into LEO but its going to cost you 300 million, then that market expands, but then your competitor comes back and says . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .I can get 60 kT into LEO for the same price that ^he^ can do for 22 kT . . . . And then you have a market and people can start doing things. The second oxymoronic statements surround the faux debate. First that the shuttle was old and it was great back then, but became a space Vampire sucking the blood out of everything, and the reason we are so far behind now because while the shuttle was building the ISS it was sucking the blood out of space (other than it extended the life of hubble by 15-20 years the most productive scientific experiment in the history of science, but that has very little value to the wanted ignorant). Space doesn't have blood and shuttle has no control of ESA and RSA or Japanese space agency. Their economies together are double the size of US, so why aren't they offering cheap or modernesque alternatives. OK so SpaceX comes in and revolutionizes the economy, but SpaceX success was also not crushed by shuttle, SX has been in development for many years and had many problems to overcome while the shuttle was still flying and after it stopped flying. SpaceX proves the point, these agencies have rampant inefficiencies in their procurement. Independent of the Shuttle, SX was showing the dis-economies in both Shuttle industries and post-shuttle industries. The fact that these persisted despite the fact the shuttle was gone is notable. So part of it was not that shuttles were inefficient, but that NASA and US Govt does a poor job managing contractors and cost overruns. This has always been true in the defense industry, and Harry Truman probably would have never been president had he not repeatedly pointed this out. So that part in and of itself is a Space vampire. Likewise this is going on in Europe and I'm sure Japan. RSA simply lacks resources but we can see corruption there in the innovation. One can look at it a different way, given the rapidly falling budget and the inefficient procurement system we were damn lucky to get 132 shuttle missions to space and back again. The third sort of oxymoronic comes out of the second and the fact the budget from NASA/gdp had been almost half of that 15 years previous, the budget was falling, and this was the biggest black eye because they are looking at the contractors and wondering why NASA couldn't negotiate contracts better when it was the US Gov't that built the inefficient military procurement system. OK so the big red-tanked vampire was sucking the blood out of NASA R&D budget. While there is a grain of truth, if the administration was asking the proper question it would be 'while understanding the need for a shuttle to complete ISS, how are we going to revolutionize and improve PL and naut to Orbit functionality while retaining the best part. There is nothing about Shuttle being a Space Vampire that would have stopped any administration from insisting on progress reports toward this (at the time of the addition of the unity module) that NASA extend itself into the study of functional replacements. In sports this is called an unforced error. That's what is is, the guidance of NASA did not do its job. . . . that's why we don't have a crew carrier, that's why we can't fix the Hubble. . . .no evil shuttle Vampires needed to explain this. We keep acting here like the structure of the Shuttle and its function are tied at the hip, they are not, shuttle should have evolved and could have been significantly replaced, the fact that it wasn't done appropriately was an error, plain and simple. While the shuttle was overpriced, IMHO, it was better to have it than replacements lacking in performance.

But that was more of a congressional issue, not a NASA issue. NASA's budget was not spectacularly high, in fact toward the end it was low compared to GDP. At least I agree with this, but not simply that all functions. The shuttle was experimental technology made operational with largely 1970s technologies and could have been redone far more efficiently preserving most of its capability after the ISS was finished even excluding the possibility that we can launch another Hubble. The problem is that over time the contractors serving NASA were not become more efficient and there is no guarantee that a recyclable vehicle would have saved that much money if it was engineered. Here is the basic problem with engineering. . . . we have to consider an overriding feature of the shuttle was the sheer size of its equipment bay (4.6 by 18 m) this made an ideal carrier for scientific satellites which were often bulky because of the nature of the equipment. Even so with a PL to LEO of 27 kT you are sitting at the very high end of capability, that has to be added, on top to the ability to carry up to 11 astronauts back to Earth. It would be my opinion based on the types of problems needed to solve for deep space flight that a larger volume payload would be better, not smaller. Its ability to pack and unpack stuff from payload bay make ideal for carrying bulky solar arrays (not for ISS) that can be used for interplanetary missions. For example, with current technology, the only vessel capable of building an interplanetary space tug would be the Shuttle, only the shuttle has the extendable arm and a payload bay long enough to carry the types of panels required for such a mission AND can assist and astronaut crew capable of assembly. Without a tug getting stuff back and forth from Mars is going to be prohibitive, IMO. And I know we are going to here this argument about the DSG, the problem with DSG and like-systems . . . vaporware. In my experience if something is doable and feasible its going to be execute within sizable completion in 5 years . . . . its not happening. STS evolution So its not only what the space shuttle has done, but what it could do in the future. Another problem that I see is the complaint about the Engines. So somethings I would point out that I would change. 1. SFRBs . . . .no really efficient launch vehicle really uses these anymore, and the ones that do use small ones, just enough to get to close to MAX Q. These should have been replaced with F9 like returnable rockets. The SFRB recycling was a boondoggle, and SpaceX demonstrates how it should be done. 2. Payload bay could be widened without necessarily effecting overall performance. I would have been nice to have a shuttle with a wider bay. The future of deep space until a efficient fusion reactor can be designed is bulky structures. Length I don't think I would mess with. 3. The RS-25s unfortunately, and I say this very cautiously, required to much maintenance per cycle, the production cost, trivial compared to the number of missions, I wouldn't touch that be there needs to be a way to allow them to operate for hours without significant maintenance. 4. Complete avionics flight control replacement, complete overhaul of extended duration life support capabilities. 5. The big red fuel tank, seriously there could have been structural adaptations to prevent icing, for the fact you are launching next to a beach next to the gulf stream, it carries heat from the gulf = moisture. This problem could have been dealt with removable plastics that could have been separated prior to launch. There were solutions available. The idiocy of this is that oxygen is produced on site for the shuttle . . .this means, guess what so is nitrogen its simply toss away, it could have been used to keep the exterior of the shuttle dry simply excluding moist air. 6. Ablation tiles . . .again these have been shown to be obsolete both in design and structure. Replacement First off the Orion system IMHO is too specialized, it looks back to the Apollo era and not forward and it has taken too long to design and has proven to be rather expensive. So I don't see Orion as a comparable replacement but as a tangential system. More and more it looks like a boondoggle. There is no need for a vehicle to be able to go to Mars and whereever and also reenter the earths atmosphere. These capabilities can be taken care simply by crew transfers, The orion reentry capability is kind of a waste of function capabilities. The SpaceX Crew transport system is very utilitarian and does fill in a gap that the US has been lacking and is likely to be a cost reduction over the shuttle, obviously this, if it works will be required . . .no doubt..But expect glitches. Missing: is an in space repair capability outside of the ISS elliptical. Missing: is an in space assembly facility (a factory) or the means to build it. Im not saying that the shuttle is best for doing this, but its a magnitude better than the next best thing . . . . . Deep space ventures and tugs will require this. Bulk cargo carrying capacity . . . . .compromised . . . .I don't see a future for DIV heavy. Maybe space X or the Russian rockets can pick up the slack. Extended range multipurpose vehicle. Obviously the vertical range limited the shuttle, and its looks like SpaceX is working toward in space refueling (currently they cannot handle LH2. This needs to be a thing. a. First its hard to imagine a mars resupply and sample return without a dedicated (i.e. Earth MEO or GTO to Mars ) shuttle, the refueling needs at Mars are pretty significant and we can't expect Mars to be big fuel producer. There needs to be a way to get some sort of equipment carrier up to MEO that either it or something else assembles> b. of course the assembly may require its own specialized and dedicated facility (once it is built) c. some ability for the shuttle/replacement to be refueled in space. If spaceX is cheaper at getting m ->LEO then why not let them do it in spades. There are many pieces here that need to be replaced, not just manned to orbit if your are looking future. As stated in other thread ISRU is mid to far future, most of the things I mention need to already be a thing for stable and expansive deep space presence. Its not about the shuttle or its design, its about extending functionality into space up to a point where this idea of fabricating interplanetary vehicles with Earth return capability is routine and something more evolved than Hayabusa (the Odysseus of the spaceflight saga). It is sad for NASA that not only did they loss what they had, but since then progress has been virtually frozen. And in terms of the cost NASA is a victim of greed as well as their own inefficiency, so the point needs to be made that NASA needs funding to handle near future progress. This is an artificial argument, why the first two minutes. And what exactly does the Soyuz do that SpaceX will not be able to do cheaper, the capabilities are not moderness, they are basically primative.

First off you are fabricating a problem that the shuttles track record suggest really does not exist, Soyuz had two loss of crew events, the shuttle had two loss of crew events, both used markedly different systems. You know, space is not for the feeble at heart, neither is cutting edge science by the way. I spent many an afternoon with a geiger counter sitting next to me pinned to the right; and on another day I might be diluting the highest concentration of the most poisonous stuff known to man. If you want an argument solely about minimizing risk to zero, you have already lost I don't listen to you and I don't care. The functionality was and is always more important. Certainly absolute risk minimization not an argument the DoD uses. The problem you are creating is a artificially problem. Although it put 140 flights into space, and brought home all but one. It was a flying brick, but being a flying brick did not bring the one return failure, it was the sort of careless attitude about tile damage. This is something that occurs at 50km. Soyuz also had a problem at high altitude, the sprung a leak in their capsule, everyone died. That's space, you get the glory, you take the risk. Who are you taking the risk for, hopefully science, sometimes for the DoD, and sometimes other stuff. I have to add to this that at least the shuttle had a runway suitable to its needs, that's a luxury that the concorde did not have and yet it was allowed to fly for 20+ years before that was realized. If you think the space shuttle is a risky afair, then by the logic humans have NO business going back to the moon or mars, or trying to start a colony. All of these things are a magnitude more risky than the shuttle. Essentially that argument crops NASA to LEO ISS runs, completely unacceptable restriction. Let me make my position clear, its not about the shuttle, I don't care if it looked pretty at launched or was unsafe on occasion or whatever . . . . we lost functionality that should not have been allowed to lapse. THe argument has been made that other systems could/can do what the shuttle can . . . . Ok where are they, I see alot of expensive systems that can't do a third of what the shuttle did and still we are two years from a manned US based launch system . . . that is if you trust the contractors. . .all of whom are notorious for delays. The shuttle function replacements have been all but a complete failure. No in space repair, no manned capability, no satellite return capability, no capacity to assemble space stations . . . . . . Thats what it is, NASA intended replacement of the shuttle has not worked except for the rather blind luck of having SpaceX step up and want to start batting for them. And it looks like SpaceX will be sending crews to the ISS before the Orion contractors are ready to launch there trial run of the complete module. At the rate they are building these things we would be lucky to see a complete deep space module one per 3 years. Unacceptable.

The bulk of the shuttles thrust was provided by LH2LOX and three very efficient engines, so it was relatively more efficient than FH would be, someday, maybe, if it can standup strait for more than a few hours. I think the positing of scientific and in-space operation capabilities, unfortunately, goes on largely deaf ears here.

They could do the dirty work for NASA or the Russian, clearing bases flattening surfaces, getting rid of moon dust, mining out occupation bunkers underground. Less romantic but more valuable. Lots of good comments and critiques.

That say alot right there. I don't see the shuttle as particularly dangerous, it was expensive, but then again so are the current gov't sponsored launch system. You saw the budget, where are all the post shuttle savings, in the last 10 years of shuttle operation the budget was at its lowest cost since 1961. It basically built the ISS (at least the habitable portion) . I would feel safer in the shuttle than in a cessna in bad weather. The shuttle had two incidences, the first incidence can almost intirely attributed to the DoDs push for its PL delivery, which forced a launch on a morning that was too cold. The second was a risk they had known about but failed to deal with, but alas we forget 140 missions with 6 to 7 astronauts onboard. That is alot of people. I don't mind that the soviets were delivering people to the ISS, but if you have an evolving space program, the manned space program should be more than that, and it should never be in a state where you are dependent on a potential competitor.

That has got to be one of the . . . . . only wish they had showed the docking monitor in better detail

Why bring up an issue again that is contentious that very strongly held positions are repeated over again?

Why bring this up, it killed the other thread. You are offering an opinion that I disagree with, which is at the heart of the conflict that killed the other thead. SHuttle was dropped in 2010, the budget did not change markedly, but we lost capability, that is for certain. Some not all of the capability, and after 10 years that is the worst planned replacement ever. The computer system was obsolete, true, that the vehicle was over built for its current responsibility, true, but I would have like to have seen one retained full size shuttle, I'de like to see another Hubble go up. But anyway that's a luxury, manned space-flight capability is not, a 'mobile' working space platform is not.

Boca chica is not being used, if you don't mind sea-gull excrement and sand crabs. Just make a cheapo landing site that is made say of soft sand. (Boca chica for instance) you could theoretically just land in the surf at say 4 feet of water. The way I see it is that these types of failures are built into the system. So for instance the break burn is at a slight angle, so that if it doesn't ignite then it crashes in simple terrain. Aside from that completely, they expect failure so the cost is built into the system. Musk if anything is very tolerant of errors, as long as they launch improvements. Having said that, I don't see full model testing this year.

It means you can hardly trust here-say information unless you have some other information about the validity context and reliability of the source. The context is what are his rights to full disclosure and what are is access to full truthful disclosure. If he got his briefing from an aid who talked to another aid, or heard from an ex-aid . . . .its not a reliable source. If he has made such public disclosures in the past, then his sources may be actively manipulated (for example one such president getting information from a Neo-pedant extremist living in another country). Again you should be using the propaganda tools you learned (if you learned) in grade school to filter comments made in the public space. To be properly informed...... the US polity is polarized to the extreme, this is not to say one side or the other side is more extreme, but either side can compromise the state for the sake of ideology without great concern of the public good. Knowing this and having dealt with the Wikileaks fiasco twice one has to question the validity of passed information that is further from the source than Wikileaks sources because greater protections obviously now are in place. The misconception is that someone is disclosing a failure of X as a public information service by leaking the potential may or may not be providing a service to the public, there is no assumption of reliability, and there is no assumption that he had, to begin with, accurate information. So the construct is If [Source was close enough to problem to accurately describe] and if [the public source is reliable] and if [he has full motivation for disclosing framed information] then it could be another point of support.

[snip] The disclosure may support a point if you understand the motive for saying as such, you also understand that he is privy to valid information, and that his motives and the public motive are shared. We can apply the logic to the code-breakers of the Enigma machine, lets say that for a day or two it failed to generate transcription and some politician saw it of value to say, look the machine does not work so that I will publicly disclose it. In that case the secrecy of the code breaking IS AS IMPORTANT as the code breaking machine itself if not more so. because once it is disclosed then so it is also the case that the Enigma users will convert those machines to some other behavior. The reason it is more-so is because your enemy now sees a weakness in your system. So if he can figure out what he did to break the machine for 2 days, he can send all real documents via the break and send false information in the previous state. Of course it is largely believed that the secrecy of the Enigma code-breaking machine was the most important weapon the Allies had in WWII. Alternatively it could have become the most valuable weapon the Axis had once they find that an error in its operation was reported. EDIT: I should point out that the more a person is willing to offer conspicuously unsolicited information (such as making themselves available to the media) for brief and less then informed comments, the more often they do so usually implies that they are trying to extract some political value (to themselves or their party) out of that 'disclosure'.

And I, in the case of the moon, not a training exercise but in term the economy of physics can this be proven. If it can be proven to be true then why aren't we doing it. Again I don't think they have added anything that makes this case true. NASA doesn't seem to think at the moment that ISRU is economical, just as nuclear/decay power is not economical in space, but sometimes you have no choice but to use it. Under those circumstances you minimize the use by economization (such as shutting down instruments on voyager).

Yes but at what stage, a shell with some standard rocket components. I guess the appearance of progress at times is just as important as progress. He also wants to earn some money this year I suspect so he will need to devote resources to tending contracts.

Who preliminarily briefed him, the DoD or his ex-intern (adding plausibly [who just happens to be a Russian spy]) The point about hype is that once you dive into it you can't control its direction. Its best not to dive in.

That's like saying that the BFR is going to land on Mars in 2033. I keep have to reminding everyone here proof of the pudding is in the eating. This would not need to be done so often if you would just keep in mind the failure rate of planned systems for use in space. Its not a triviality to argue that nothing 'having to deal with space' is set until the rocket is on its way. We dont have to be that critical, but synopsis are easy to write, I saw one awhile back where we are going to use lasers to beam spacecraft to alpha centuri, its a great idea!!!!! but only when it happens. Yes DeltaIV and Atlas are a thing, but they are not a sustainable thing despite haveing very valuable components. The atlas has been around for ages, which any observer would ask the question why hasn't its cost per inflation gone considerably down. I would argue that its probably never going to compete. And a moon based ISRU system, if it needs anything, it needs sustainability. Your cost per 6 month rotations are going to be extremely expensive (not just warm bodies, but food, fuel, air, medical suppies, reentry vehicles), so how do you trade ISRU based fuels to get that cost down and cheaper than SX basically transporting fuel with FH to MOI or whatever transfer system. You cannot at least not without both SX and government(s) cooperation on many sides. This is where the problem falls in, why would many government support the same unitary goal of having an ISRU base on the moon, if not why would they share the output. Something even close to a proof is warranted. It needs to be revised, but I would have trepidations regarding the unintended consequences. Currently there is a static logic for space fairing countries to apply (or stealth around) which bounds the obeyance. If you opened the treaty the natural flow would be to retest those boundaries again. I think that for military function the bounds will be tested sooner (than exploration) rather than later.

The secrecy of a mission may have as much or more residual value as the function of a mission. [snip]

OMB if fed is budget, the are charged with making sure the government spends its money according to law (Sort of, in extreme political environments its really the opposition party that states the case, and if they are weak or abdicate their responsibility then . . .)

If a nozzle never leaves that atmosphere it can be quite small and do the job. This can be deceiving but you have to look at the area of the nozzle inlet.