Constelation program restart?

[Spacetraindriver]

As some of you might know, Obama basically threw NASA's manned spacecrafts out of the window. Including the Constellation program. Current Orion does not count as it is not manned YET. In fact I'm surprised NASA even has funding these days considering the war in the middle east. But presidential elections are coming soon, which means new decisions. Which might affect NASA. Hillary, I'm worried she might throw out NASA all together. Though I'm thinking about the one all over the news about his aggressive campaigns. I thinking he might just be the one to revive NASA. What do you think?

[Sampa]

you mean Trump? Yeah! He or some other Republican!

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But, this is NOT the place to be talking politics...

[Spacetraindriver]

Opps...

[Bill Phil]

Constellation wasn't even going to work. They had trouble with Ares1, and Ares V wasn't making much headway either. Not to mention that Altair practically didn't even exist as a well thought out design.

No, getting rid of Ares 1 and just using the heavy launcher portion was the right way to go.

[Alshain]

As some of you might know, Obama basically threw NASA's manned spacecrafts out of the window.

How so?

Including the Constellation program.

Constellation lacked focus. It was over budget and way behind schedule. Besides, it wasn't cancelled, it was really redirected into the SLS which is still in development.

Current Orion does not count as it is not manned YET.

You mean the SLS? What about the push for privatization, the Dragon, the CST-100, and the DreamChaser? Do those not count as manned space craft? Constellation wasn't manned yet either, it wasn't finished, and wasn't likely to ever be at the rate they were going.

I think the only one we have to worry about, Republican or Democrat is Ted Cruz. He has been anti-NASA for a very long time, and unfortunately he is currently in charge of NASA.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Alshain

[fredinno]

The question is, why? SLS is a overall better, more flexible, and cheaper design, why go back?

If NASA wanted to launch Orion to LEO, and do a lunar misson Constellation-style, and launch people to the ISS instead if CCDev, they would use Delta IV Heavy instead of Ares I in the new architecture. After all, the Delta-5 meter upper stage is near- identical to the ICPS, making Block I human-rating much easier and cheaper.

If more performace was needed, then you could use the human-rated Atlas rocket (but using a new 3-core heavy variant.

Altair was also a bad idea overall- it was too big, and Lunar orbital insertion was better done by a detachable upper stage (or a larger Ares V upper stage).

No, don't revive Constellation. Please.

[Nibb31]

I haven't seen anything indicating that Trump is pro-space or that Clinton is anti-space. Space policy is so way down on the agendas of both sides (and of the public opinion) that it doesn't even register. If anything, I would think that democrats would be pro-government spending (which would be good for NASA, right?), and republicans would be against it, but then logic rarely applies in politics. And unfortunately, we aren't allowed to discuss those topics here, so I'll stop at that.

Constellation was a flawed concept on many levels, and although there was a "Vision for Space Exploration", it was actually just cheap talk with no funding to back it up. Because of that, and because of some fundamental design decisions that were more based on pleasing some corporations rather than technical requirements, the whole thing was doomed from the start. It was basically set up as poison for the next administration who had no other option than to cancel it.

The same is true for SLS, which most people understand is unsustainable at the current funding levels and with no proper goal. The next administration will have to choose between one of the following options:

- Cancel SLS and concentrate on yet another vehicle development program. This would continue the trend of handing out money to the usual contractors regardless of whether it accomplishes anything (which is NASA's main purpose nowadays). However, it would basically gut the manned spaceflight program for another decade.

- Focus on Mars. At realistic budget levels, this would end up being a 20 year program to develop the vehicles. In the meantime, the SLS will sit around in a hangar costing billions to maintain and waiting for a payload. Realistically though, a lot of money will be spent on contractors (which will make Congress happy), and the whole thing will be cancelled with the next change of administration.

- Focus on returning to the Moon. IMO, this is the only achievable goal at current funding levels and the only way to leverage SLS and Orion. The only new hardware development that's needed is a lander. That will probably take 10 years to develop, but by that time the ISS will be ending and funds can then be diverted to a semi-permanent lunar outpost. Congress won't like this, because it means less money being poured into their constituencies, but NASA would actually achieve something.

Let's face it, Orion was designed to go to Moon, and that's pretty much all it can do. It will never be an interplanetary vehicle and there really isn't much else "Beyond Low-Earth Orbit" that it can actually be used for. It's useless for Mars and visiting Lagrange points or picking up pieces of asteroids gets old after you've done it once.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Nibb31

[montyben101]

Hmm. I have a feeling that if they cancelled NASA people would have a complete .... fit.

[Nibb31]

Hmm. I have a feeling that if they cancelled NASA people would have a complete .... fit.

I doubt you could actually shut down NASA. After all, NASA does much more than manned spaceflight. There is all the unmanned exploration, the aeronautical research, and the international cooperation, that is all necessary.

But you can cancel programs and if NASA was reduced to those missions and just complete the ISS program, I don't think the public opinion would care much.

However, there is a lot to think about before you do cancel a major program. You need to think about the consequences and to provide an alternative for the people who worked on those programs. When you put 10000 aerospace engineers out of work, you risk losing the technological edge and your technical capability as a nation. NASA pays contractors, contractors pay workers, workers pay taxes, buy stuff, and keep the economy afloat. Government spending is never wasted. Having unemployed engineers sitting around seeking jobs elsewhere is bad for everyone.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Nibb31

[Kryten]

Hillary, I'm worried she might throw out NASA all together.

That'd require repealing the NASA creation act-an act of congress-the POTUS doesn't have that authority. Do you not have civics classes where you are?

[_Augustus_]

Didn't Congress sign a bill to make the SLS un-cancellable?

Also, it's our own fault that we have such bureaucracy and why all of our young people don't even know about 3/4 of our space program and think that the whole Saturn V landed on the moon, and why we have senators thinking that there are flags planted on Mars. We never bothered to educate Gen X and millennials in these things, but those people are now running our nation and are too rigid to re-learn anything. They don't care unless they get to go to Mars themselves, that's why everyone likes Mars One but not NASA or SpaceX. NASA is trying with Gen Y, but they're all still under 16 and will probably be told by their parents to work at McDonald's or a prison instead of the aerospace industry or NASA.

The aerospace industry itself is pretty bloated, the only reason we have HLLV's is because satellite producers refuse to innovate and keep making ridiculous 5-ton satellites that could probably be compacted down to half that mass. While the SLS is certainly a good rocket, it's almost as expensive as making completely new hardware and is really just an excuse to keep the Shuttle contractors in business. The DOD is going to be sold SLS rockets to use to launch spy satellites, no joke. Boeing has actually made a deal to do that already.

Meanwhile, even though NASA is struggling to get 20 billion dollars a year, we give out hundreds of billions of dollars like candy to other nations.

China is having issues and they could collapse before they plant a flag on the moon.

Russia is biting more than they can chew lately, and Angara is a terrible design, they only like it because it's cheap unlike Energia. They could literally go to the Moon with minimal new technology but instead they want to build Clustermax Xtreme and the Orionski.

India has hope, but they're decades away from doing anything beyond LEO.

Iran thinks that they can get a guy in space, but if that ever happens before I'm dead then you can give me a punch in the nose.

Forget Europe. The EU is just going to fall apart anyway, there's no way Europe will have a manned spacecraft of it's own.

If we get one of the two oddball non-politican Republican candidates elected, though, NASA has hope.

Carson is a scientist, he naturally would give a boost to NASA and other scientific administrations, right? And Trump, in his own words, "wants America to do things again". That probably includes going to the Moon and Mars..

Not talking politics, just saying.

Also why are so many people saying NASA is dead?

Edited September 8, 2015 by _Augustus_

[shynung]

However, there is a lot to think about before you do cancel a major program. You need to think about the consequences and to provide an alternative for the people who worked on those programs. When you put 10000 aerospace engineers out of work, you risk losing the technological edge and your technical capability as a nation. NASA pays contractors, contractors pay workers, workers pay taxes, buy stuff, and keep the economy afloat. Government spending is never wasted. Having unemployed engineers sitting around seeking jobs elsewhere is bad for everyone.

So basically, it doesn't really matter whether some NASA program was making progress or not. It's just to keep them busy, so to speak.

[Nibb31]

So basically, it doesn't really matter whether some NASA program was making progress or not. It's just to keep them busy, so to speak.

Explains a lot, doesn't it...

[shynung]

Explains a lot, doesn't it...

I was afraid something like this was going to happen. Sad to know it has happened for a very long time, but nothing I can do from here.

At least my copy of KSP hasn't failed on me yet.

[MinimumSky5]

Don't write off Europe yet, despite what our PM likes to say, it's too good of an idea for everyone to throw their hands up and call it quits. Also, ESA has a much better method of fundraising than NASA, as it gets X% of the money that the EU raises in taxes (I don't know the actual percentage), which is handed to them with no tags attached (So rather than being told "This money is for this probe, and this money is for the ISS" they get a fat wad of cash and spend it as they see fit, so random politics can't derail their programs.)

[Kryten]

Russia is biting more than they can chew lately, and Angara is a terrible design, they only like it because it's cheap unlike Energia. They could literally go to the Moon with minimal new technology but instead they want to build Clustermax Xtreme and the Orionski.

Angara is an excellent design for what it's designed to do; replace the various ICBM-conversion small launchers for small Russian government payloads and Proton for large GSO ones, while using 'green' propellants to keep the Kazakhs happy. Complaining it isn't in the same class as SLS is like complaining a combine harvester can't hit 60.

[Spacetraindriver]

How so?

Constellation lacked focus. It was over budget and way behind schedule. Besides, it wasn't cancelled, it was really redirected into the SLS which is still in development.

You mean the SLS? What about the push for privatization, the Dragon, the CST-100, and the DreamChaser? Do those not count as manned space craft? Constellation wasn't manned yet either, it wasn't finished, and wasn't likely to ever be at the rate they were going.

I think the only one we have to worry about, Republican or Democrat is Ted Cruz. He has been anti-NASA for a very long time, and unfortunately he is currently in charge of NASA.

Those are by private compainies sooooooo

[Nibb31]

Those are by private compainies sooooooo

Just like every US spacecraft in the past, CST-100 and Dragon are funded by NASA and built by private sector contractors.

The only difference is in the way the contracts are structured, but Commercial Crew is fundamentally a government program for launching NASA astronauts into space.

[tater]

NASA won't be cancelled, and their budget will remain as it is. It has been very consistent in the long term in constant dollars since Apollo. NASA, like military bases, national labs, etc, is not going anywhere since it was intentionally spread among as many districts as possible (including 3 high electoral vote states). This has been true since the Washington Administration's frigate building program.

Constellation wasn't going to work. People need to give up on the "apollo" model, it's not a thing any more unless we have a new "Cold War," to generate a new Space Race. If the chinese start claiming they own real estate on the Moon, perhaps, and claim large chunks as sovereign territory. Short of that, NASA will plug along, forced to buy what Congress wants (because the right people make hay from the pork). Never forget that Apollo was the biggest porkbarrel ever.

[fredinno]

A Lunar return is not the only mission plan that'd actually be achievable within current funding levels.

Orion can visit Earth-Moon langrage points with no extra hardware (albeit such a thing would be pointless, and a useful mission would require a HAB module to test long duration spaceflight. (can be based off ISS modules, 'dry workshop' of SLS EUS, or an infltable Bigelow space station (though tge latter would need more development dollars)) The HAB technology could also be extended to Mars and Venus Flybys, and by sending a ARM-derived lander first(whuch would be docked to) to NEOs and Mars' moons. Then, you could build a self-sustaining astrodial base off of this hardware, with the basic habitat module being based off the L2 HAB. Use this base to study the NEO, along with mining techniques.

Lunar landers don't really have anything to do with existing tehnology-Altair didn't ever really get off the drawing board, and this mission proposal fits the 'flexible path' climate in NASA today (though this is admittedly subject to change).

[fredinno]

Didn't Congress sign a bill to make the SLS un-cancellable?

Yes. Even if they didn't, cancelling SLS would be even more unpopular than cancelling Constellation, as it's way farther in development than Constellation, and there is no space shuttle backup program to keep manned spaceflight running in case things don't go well. The latter is probably one of the primary reason the shuttle was developed. But I digress.

They don't care unless they get to go to Mars themselves, that's why everyone likes Mars One but not NASA or SpaceX. NASA is trying with Gen Y, but they're all still under 16 and will probably be told by their parents to work at McDonald's or a prison instead of the aerospace industry or NASA.

I'd dispute that.

Most people don't care about space travel in my opinion, because it is going very slowly. It's not very exciting (to most) when it takes over 40 years to send men to another celestial object like we did in the '70s.

The aerospace industry itself is pretty bloated, the only reason we have HLLV's is because satellite producers refuse to innovate and keep making ridiculous 5-ton satellites that could probably be compacted down to half that mass.

Nah. Ion drive space tugs would fix the problem better and obsolete HLV for anything else than government launches.

While the SLS is certainly a good rocket, it's almost as expensive as making completely new hardware and is really just an excuse to keep the Shuttle contractors in business.

So, the Ares V, with (largely) completely new hardware, was better than SLS, with it's Shuttle-derived infrastructure? (I know it's not that simple, but still) Tell that to the people who made Jupiter DIRECT, who are a major reason for SLS being as it is. BTW, NASA could probably hire the same contractors to make a completely new rocket design.

The DOD is going to be sold SLS rockets to use to launch spy satellites, no joke. Boeing has actually made a deal to do that already.

Source?

There are 2 things I can think of where SLS would be useful fro DOD-

1. Manned Reconnaissance (not happening, due to the fact that it would be better done by unmanned spacecraft).

2. Kinetic Bombardment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment

This could technically be done by launching the 9T rods proposed with EELVs, though this would require a LOT of launches I'm not exactly sure would be economical. 10 rods in a launcher like the one shown in a polar orbit, would probably require a Block II SLS.

As a bonus, each one would be impossible to shoot down (Mach 10 speed) and would cause about as much damage as a small nuclear warhead.

I think that new facilities would be required though, with current proposed infrastructure only allowing for up to 2 launches per year, that would be a pretty major bottleneck for the deploying of such a system. It would also require a new launch pad for SLS polar orbital launches. SLC-6E anyone?

Russia is biting more than they can chew lately, and Angara is a terrible design, they only like it because it's cheap unlike Energia. They could literally go to the Moon with minimal new technology but instead they want to build Clustermax Xtreme and the Orionski.

No, reviving Energia would be like reviving Saturn V. It's too old to be done economically.

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Constellation wasn't going to work. People need to give up on the "apollo" model, it's not a thing any more unless we have a new "Cold War," to generate a new Space Race. If the chinese start claiming they own real estate on the Moon, perhaps, and claim large chunks as sovereign territory. Short of that, NASA will plug along, forced to buy what Congress wants (because the right people make hay from the pork). Never forget that Apollo was the biggest porkbarrel ever.

Claiming territory on other worlds is illegal anyways:P.

[shynung]

NASA won't be cancelled, and their budget will remain as it is. It has been very consistent in the long term in constant dollars since Apollo. NASA, like military bases, national labs, etc, is not going anywhere since it was intentionally spread among as many districts as possible (including 3 high electoral vote states). This has been true since the Washington Administration's frigate building program.

Of course it won't. NASA is an agency, not a program; agencies cannot be 'cancelled'.

What's more likely to happen, given the current situation as I see it, is that NASA is going to be told to do things that may not actually bring any meaningful progress. The SLS program, for instance, might get cancelled the moment they are flight-ready, and get replaced by some other program to keep the engineers busy, so those engineers will pay taxes, buy stuff (=boost economy), and vote. The SLS itself may never get the chance to show their full capabilities; maybe a few test flights to (try to) convince people that all that hard work finally paid off, but no actual missions planned for it.

[fredinno]

Of course it won't. NASA is an agency, not a program; agencies cannot be 'cancelled'.

What's more likely to happen, given the current situation as I see it, is that NASA is going to be told to do things that may not actually bring any meaningful progress. The SLS program, for instance, might get cancelled the moment they are flight-ready, and get replaced by some other program to keep the engineers busy, so those engineers will pay taxes, buy stuff (=boost economy), and vote. The SLS itself may never get the chance to show their full capabilities; maybe a few test flights to (try to) convince people that all that hard work finally paid off, but no actual missions planned for it.

But would they? Look at the Shuttle, they had themselves scrambling for meaningful payloads much of the time after Challenger until ISS construction, and it existed for 30 years despite never achieving what it set out to do, and overall being an expensive detour. The only program post-space race I can think that ended like how you proposed SLS would end, was Energia-Buran, which was because the Soviet Union was dying, and was practically unable to fund it.

[Motokid600]

I'd like to think by time SLS is ready to fly there would be at least one payload in development. A lot can happen in three years. For better or worse.

I'm thinking Space X is going to pull the rug out from under everyone.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Motokid600

[Ten Key]

Political dysfunction isn't a new phenomenon-- certainly, the 1950's and '60's were not a time of great political stability. And yet, somehow we managed. And we will continue to manage. . .sometimes ya'll can be so negative it's depressing.

NASA does a lot more than manned spaceflight. A lot more. And if SLS is just pork barrel spending with no mission (and it is) it at least gives NASA a bit of a head start should something interesting happen. Breakout capability, if you will.

I would very much like for us to go to Mars. ISRU makes more sense on Mars, it takes less energy to get there and I think Mars has more to teach us about spaceflight and interplanetary exploration. But the hardware currently under development is certainly more suited for a return to the Moon, and if nothing else it would be very interesting to see how the human body reacts to long duration exposure to lunar gravity. If Europe decides to get serious about a research outpost on the Moon once the ISS is over and done with, I think that would be a good thing for NASA to participate in.

But no, NASA is not "dying". The states of Florida, Texas and California would never let that happen.