tater

NASA's budget has been remarkably constant, and they have facilities in FL, TX, CA, NY (are you seeing a pattern?). NASA doesn't lose substantial budget. Another way to look at it is that the SLS proponents are Republicans, and the Democrats never cut funding for anything, so who is going to cut it?

Note that I was not talking about myself, but the public at large. I think science is worth doing just for science. Manned Mars is sort of anti-science in the sense that even a minimal mission would use more resources than a far more capable robotic mission. That said, I also see the benefit in exploration by people in person in a far more nebulous way... you can't show direct benefit quantitatively, but I think that it matters to see people pushing the boundaries. To sound trite, "the human spirit" or something.

I get that it's complicated---my remark regarding signing the accountant's post-its wasn't a dig at accounting, it was me explicitly saying that I let specialists do their jobs . I also understand that you have to compare actual capability, but by the same token you need to make sure that the capability isn't only used because of that system. We designed a lot around using Shuttle, because that's what we had. SLS is sort of hoping for the same thing, I guess. "If I build it, they will come." LOL. So when they quote launch costs, what are they including? Do they only count the labor to stack it, launch it, then the 15 minutes until it's in orbit, then turn the payroll clock off? Or do they divide the annual expense by the number of launches, or perhaps a number of launches they could do (maximizing the workforce) theoretically?

Yeah, I wasn't even thinking of the employment to supply the military---and many contractors are also in fact space contractors, there's a lot of overlap there. People (like OP) all have their priorities. I'd imagine there are a lot of people who would rather see the bulk of the NASA budget go to something like cancer research, as a large % of people are impacted by cancer, and few will see any life-changing impact due to space exploration. I think the realistic route is to spend the money they have as efficiently as possible.

Yes, but discretionary spending is only about 1/3 of federal spending, the other 2/3 is social programs that are automatically funded. I don't know how regional government works elsewhere, but on top of US Federal spending, each US state has a substantial State budget, many of those budgets are in fact as large as national budgets in other countries. State budgets are almost entirely spent on education, other social programs and healthcare, BTW. Total State budgets are 1.6 trillion, compared to the ~4 T Federal budget. SO of total US government spending, state and local, about 75% is social programs, and about 13.5% is military. The US military spending is not just keeping people employed (though it is), it's also protecting places outside the US, reducing the cost for those countries to protect themselves. It's easy to spend less on the military if someone else is doing it for you...

Sorry if this is accounting 101 stuff, the following are real questions. Why is that figure not valuable as a comparison, as long as you use the same metrics for all systems you are comparing? If we have 2 possible programs, and one has a 200 B$ total cost over 30 years for launches, and another puts the same payloads into orbit over that same timespan, and the total program cost is 100 B$, isn't the latter cheaper? I think it has to do with the finite nature of the job in question being done. If it was like an airliner, where for this calculation you'd have effectively infinite flights (say 1000s), then the 200 B$ program could spend all the money on startup, with subsequent per-launch costs being tiny. The 2d example, could be the extreme opposite, where almost none is startup cost, and it's a huge, throwaway system that's 1B$ a launch for 100 launches. In that case, as long as both programs end with the same tonnage of payload in orbit, the latter is cheaper. If the program can continue into the future, the former starts becoming cheaper while the latter has the same price per launch, never getting cheaper. Serious question, BTW, is that what you are getting at (only with my example obviously being 2 extremes)? If that is so, then doesn't the cost comparison need to include thinking about the total lifespan of the program, and how many launches you might see? If it turns out to be something like Atlas, used for many decades, then yeah. If it turns out to be used only relatively few times, then I think it doesn't make sense to invest vast amounts in startup if there is another option (and again, NASA doesn't actually need an HLV). In the case of Shuttle, do we know the breakdown of costs, or was it largely the continuous staffing of several thousand people that made up the bulk of the cost? In that case, perhaps they could have launched many more times, and reduced the per-launch cost, right?

Cosmic radiation is pretty much something you just have to live with as a "cost of business." Clearly solar protons are more complex than LOS from the sun, even during flare events, but in the latter case it's closer to a LOS thing than not. Honestly, if you have enough water/supplies to make a shelter that is direction-agnostic, why not?

The solar wind, and increases in same during higher energy events are not isotropic. The usual solar wind spirals, but during flare events it's more of wave. Found a cool gif:

I'm not an accountant, I'll take your word for it, I just sign where the "sign here" post it notes are placed (used to be placed, everything is electronic now, lol). Regardless, I think the bottom line number is the total cost of creating and maintaining the program, divided by launches. If NASA says it's 500 M$ a launch, but they are ignoring 90 billion in other costs that if not incurred would result in no launch, then I think that's nonsense. I'm not particularly concerned with the specifics of the accounting, just that that's what the cost is at the end of the day. The Shuttle program cost 209 billion over 30 years. They flew 135 times.

Preach it, brotha'! Look at my avatar

BTW, regarding radiation safety, it's actually not characterized terribly well for sub-acute exposures as I understand it. For large, single doses, there is some good data (mostly from the Soviets, as they managed to have rather more naval accidents than the USN did). But the "cumulative" nature of lifetime dosing is not at all clear in terms of outcomes.

Yeah, SLS might be a gift to Bigelow, as they could make a hab that could need SLS, but still be pretty cheap. For SLS, a billion dollar payload is cheap.

Solar flares are a problem that all mission planning deals with, even if it's just hiding in a shadowed area of the ship. For most designs, you can simply point the engines radially towards the sun, that's going to put the maximum mass between you and the threat. For cosmic rays, there's nothing to do, really, short of using plastics (inflatables) with low interaction cross-sections to avoid cascades. It;s just a hazard of the job to deal with that. http://srag.jsc.nasa.gov/Publications/TM104782/techmemo.htm https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/1_NAC_HEO_SMD_Committee_Mars_Radiation_Intro_2015April7_Final_TAGGED.pdf TL, DR: NASA accepts that for long missions like Mars they will accept an increased lifetime risk of cancers as a cost of doing the mission. "Mars Missions May Expose Crews To Levels Of Radiation Beyond Those Permitted By The Current LEO Cancer Risk Limit (≤ 3% REID, 95% C.I.)" Example given: "If 100 astronauts were exposed to the Mars mission space radiation, in a worst case (95% confidence) 5 to 7 would die of cancer, later in life, attributable to their radiation exposure and their life expectancy would be reduced by an average on the order of 15 years." On the topic of the minimal mission "flyby," I'm still entirely against it, it's a waste of time and money. The science returns are not worth it (and more could be done for far less money by probes), and it's not even good from an excitement/PR value point of view. An orbital flight is another matter, that can have at least some good photo ops, and a reasonable duration mission would allow for real-time control of robotic assets on the surface to leverage what they can do (they can drive substantially faster, for example, and cover more ground). If learning about the medical effects of long duration flight outside LEO is a goal, cislunar is better, IMO. You could also tether a hab and get data on long-term exposure to different g levels. All just a few days from him if there is a problem.

If I had to pick an era for KSP for me... That video is it check this site out: http://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/?m=1

That wasn't directed at you

^^Also, instead of him just making stuff up regarding occupational exposures, you can just look at NASA's own policy on the subject. they have career dosage guidelines based on age and sex of the astronauts posted, and their Mars mission planning includes this (both in design, and candidate selection should it ever actually happen). Basically after Mars you get a desk job.

Maybe they did, I have no idea. Spaceplane stuff certainly is, meanwhile, rockets look like junk heaps.

Don't think of it as something official, think of it as a poll about which would win, the Enterprise, or the Death Star.

How is Mercury and junk looking parts "near future?" I don't think the base KSP rocket aesthetic is "near future" at all, it screams 1960s to me.

Those "marginal" costs grossly exceeded the "launch" costs. All those people have to stay on the payroll, all the time. This is not piece work. All that matters is total program cost/launches. Any other numbers are just nonsense. SLS is on track to cost substantial more per launch than shuttle unless they run it for 30 years at 3-4 launches per year (then it actually beats shuttle in cost/launch, and substantially in cost/kg to LEO, assuming we're not counting the orbiter itself as payload). 3-4 launches per year, OTOH, is utter fantasy. NASA has settled on 1 per year because they are forced to have the system, and it costs about as much to use it once as to not and just pay the overhead. Twice is money they don't have, and payloads they don't have. If they needed a HLV, and needed such a thing multiple times per year, then it's a different story---but they don't need one.

This is simply not true given their task. If the US did not exist as a military power, someone would need to invent a replacement with ports in both the Pacific and Atlantic. The US is in a unique, geopolitical position. We also end up shouldering a lot of the defense expense for the entire western world, even as they hate us for it. Go figure. Someone has to have a credible strategic deterrence force, even now (and it was bought back when the requirement was far more easy to see). Someone needs to have naval and air forces, well, everywhere. We can argue about the cost, and I agree it could be cheaper, but it's not all spent on overpriced "stuff," even though a lot is certainly overpriced. The military would love to dump many bases, they try all the time, then Congress pairs it back to whichever delegation can't trade the right votes. It's less about profits (which are a small %), and more about total spending/jobs. The same is true of NASA, and always has been. There is a reason why military bases and contractors have always been spread around the country, it's the same reason Johnson Space Flight Center is in Houston, TX, and launches are mostly in FL (then CA). Then Marshall, JPL, Ames, Goddard, White Sands, etc. The launch site is physics/safety-dominated. The rest is spreading the pork around.

That's not true. More like every 3 weeks. NASA employs over 18,000 people. Given their average salary, that's about 1.4 B$. Call overhead (employer tax contributions, health insurance, etc) 18%. That's 1.652 B$. The total number of people employed by the DoD is about 4 million (military and civilians combined). If the average total compensation is $40,000 (vs NASA's 77k), that's 160 billion in payroll. Add overhead, and it's 188.8 B$. That's about 40% of the DoD budget. Cutting the military cuts those jobs. On top of that, the DoD actually WANTS to cut their expenses. They try to close bases all the time, but they don't get to decide. Everyone agrees we have too many bases, but you can be sure that the base in any particular congressional district is "vital to national security." You could likely double NASA's budget just by killing bases the Pentagon doesn't actually want---but that will never make it out of congress.

Shuttle didn't cost 450 M$ per launch, it cost closer to 1.5 B$ each (cost of program/135 launches) at an average of 4.5 launches per year (135/30). SLS/Orion will not cost 500 M$ per launch, either. The two are slated for ~4 billion this year. Shuttle averaged 6.96 B$/yr (209 B$/30 years). If their claim of 35B$ total to 2025 is correct, and they launch in 2018, the 1 per year, that's 8 launches. So the cost will be 4.475 B$ per launch. If the nominal cost to have the program in service, plus 1 launch a year is 500 M$ (it isn't), then even at 100 launches the dev cost is still 350 M$ per launch in addition to that. There is no possible way to do the math so that SLS makes sense.

About 2/3 of US Federal spending is "programmatic" spending. The military, NASA, and everything else is within the 1/3 of spending called the "discretionary" budget. When people say "half the budget goes to the Pentagon" they mean half the discretionary budget. "Programmatic" is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The military budget is not really that huge, and is in fact comprised of a high % of labor and related costs such as healthcare. On top of this, we are still deficit spending, which results in debt service becoming a larger % of total spending. Increasing the NASA budget is not going to happen. On top of that, the military you want cut is also a player in space on multiple levels. The AF as an actual space-faring entity, and the other branches as "customers" for launches.

^^^Exactly. The issue with any "shuttle" design is that it make some sense as long as the point is bringing up people, and perhaps pressurized cargo (food, etc, for resupply). The open "cargo bay" of the Shuttle as built pretty much wrecked it.