The end of NASA

[YNM]

3 hours ago, Lisias said:

Problem with NASA funding is that, by being funded by politicians, such funding came with a lot of strings attached. 

Oh, you're going to love how ESA is funded.

[DerekL1963]

7 hours ago, Lisias said:

A lot of the Shuttle expenses, for example, are due the pork barrel. In exchanges for the funding, they had to produce things on some sub optimal places, rising costs.

[[Citation Needed]]

[Lisias]

39 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

[[Citation Needed]]

https://www.google.com.br/search?safe=off&q=space+shuttle+pork+barrel

4 hours ago, YNM said:

Oh, you're going to love how ESA is funded.

Never said it was exclusive. :-)

Edited October 21, 2018 by Lisias

[YNM]

58 minutes ago, Lisias said:

 Never said it was exclusive. :-)

They don't seem to have porkbarrels though. (or maybe the continual failure of their mars lander is an example ?)

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

https://www.google.com.br/search?safe=off&q=space+shuttle+pork+barrel

Do you know what a citation is?  It's a source providing support for a specific claim.  You made a specific claim, so provide a source supporting that specific claim.

[Lisias]

9 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

Do you know what a citation is?  It's a source providing support for a specific claim.  You made a specific claim, so provide a source supporting that specific claim.

Do you your own home work. There're plenty of citations on the Google, this is a already vastly known and debated subject. :-)

As was said by an eminent SciFy philosopher: "Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye."

 

[Lisias]

42 minutes ago, YNM said:

They don't seem to have porkbarrels though. (or maybe the continual failure of their mars lander is an example ?)

Without a lot of further studying, we can't tell. Space business are hard, we don't use the term "Rocket Science" for things extremely hard just because.

But "pork barrel" is a real issue on state funding companies and foundations, there're not too much arguing about anymore now that we have some decades of history from NASA and AirBus, to stick with entities still alive (the long dead British/Canadian aero and aerospace companies are also full of examples of direct and indirect government interference, see Avro and Arrow).

Edited October 21, 2018 by Lisias

[Cassel]

19 hours ago, Lisias said:

Not cost effective.

The first prototype had a cost of about 1 Billion USD (in nowadays currency). And they made another 2.

The first 50 production planes came at a cost of 260M each. As time goes by, the production cost dropped to about 85M each for the last delivered planes in 1963. But it took about 10 years 742 airplanes manufactured to get to his value.

 

The B-52 began around 1950, so you should add the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, space shuttles and everything that was after them, SLS. Such great engineers worked in the army in 1950, why NASA did not have such capable engineers? And could not develop a rocket that would serve them for 40-50 years if it was possible to develop an aircraft that has been used for over 65 years?

For me NASA's behavior is incomprehensible, that as several people have mentioned here, there has been no progress in the development of rocket engines and the engines from the Apollo program and space shuttles are still in use. Why, in that case, have they reinvented the wheel and exchanged rockets for space shuttles and now they are going back to rockets?
The space shuttle was not reusable as it seems, after each flight it required many hours of work and replacement of many parts. It wasn't cheaper than rockets either, so that doesn't makes sense.

 

11 hours ago, razark said:

It's all around you.  You have been given some of the many examples. 

[snip]

I got examples with engines, which only proves that NASA for 50 years did not make progress in the construction of the rocket engine.
Why did not NASA use rockets that were already tested? And instead, they threw money on something new, which did not lower the price of the flight into space anyway?


Where is the Apollo lander you mentioned? Who uses this technology?
Who uses space shuttle technology?
Even NASA no longer uses these solutions, abandoned them and reinvented the wheel, but this new wheel is supposed to be more round, yet not cheaper.

[Cassel]

Wiki says:
Saturn V - Cost per launch $185 million in 1969–1971 dollars[2] ($1.16 billion in 2016 value), Payload to LEO 140t
Space Shuttle - Cost per launch US$ 450 million (2011)[4] to 1.5 billion (2011), Payload to LEO 27,5t

So they went into more expensive technology? And then people are surprised that NASA had funds cut? :-)

edit:
SLS - The Space Review estimated the cost per launch at $5 billion, depending on the rate of launches.
HAHAHAHA, progress!

Edited October 21, 2018 by Cassel

[Lisias]

37 minutes ago, Cassel said:

The B-52 began around 1950, so you should add the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, space shuttles and everything that was after them, SLS. Such great engineers worked in the army in 1950, why NASA did not have such capable engineers? And could not develop a rocket that would serve them for 40-50 years if it was possible to develop an aircraft that has been used for over 65 years?

In the original arguing, the guy was comparing the Militar Ways, citing the B-52, with the NASA ways (and I cited the Space Shuttle). It was not meant to be a full, definitive history of expenses.  

What I did is to take the whole program history of the B-52, and did a half baked comparison with the Space Shuttle program - where I could not do properly due lack of public data about the break-down costs from NASA, and the lack of the effective operating costs from Pentagon about the B-52 (ok, we know how much a hour of flying costed, but how many hours the B-52 flew until the moment?).

There're a HUGE difference, however, on both projects. NASA built six Space Shuttles (including the prototype). The Military built 745 B-52, and that's the only reason the B-52 is still operational nowadays - they built it in so large numbers that they could store some of them to replace the ones that would reach End Of Life by material fatigue. Every single plane was born with a pre-determined number of flyable hours in his history, and once these hours if used, the plane is ditched and that's it.

The amount of stress a spacecraft has to endure both on begin kicked out of the planet and coming back limits a lot the flyable hours of the craft. But yet, some of us are still building it as the Military does:

1. they draw specifications;
2. invite a lot of people to present proposals;
3. pay for the development of some of them;
4. choose the one that is better, given some criteria
5. this guy builds a finite quantity of such crafts
6. then shutdown everything, archive the plans and dismantle the shop
   1. you will never be able to built another one

This work fine to the Military, because once a project reach its end of life, they need something new from scratch or they will be behind the hypothetical enemies tomorrow. But for a business sustainable space program, we need something more cost effective - as SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and others appears to be doing.

 

37 minutes ago, Cassel said:

For me NASA's behavior is incomprehensible, that as several people have mentioned here, there has been no progress in the development of rocket engines and the engines from the Apollo program and space shuttles are still in use. Why, in that case, have they reinvented the wheel and exchanged rockets for space shuttles and now they are going back to rockets?
The space shuttle was not reusable as it seems, after each flight it required many hours of work and replacement of many parts. It wasn't cheaper than rockets either, so that doesn't makes sense.

For me, it's just natural. They are funded more or less as the Military are. So they have the same bottlenecks (but also same of the benefits - that model works, otherwise it would not being used anymore).

By studying the airplanes that the Military created in the past, you will find that sometimes a good idea reveals itself impracticable on the real life. The Valkyrie was one of these projects, they built the best supersonic bomber in history. But then ICBMs came, and nobody needed such a bomber anymore.

B1 Lancer "survived" because they found it specially useful on a niche that it was not designed for, but by "luck" succeed there. So it's still used.

Things like that also happens on NASA and Space Programs of every nation and private company. But on state funded enterprises, the huge amount of "beneficial side effects" created by such a program could be considered more important that the direct results of the program itself, and then a "bad idea" is kept in use, besides being a bad idea. With the last Space Shuttle disaster, they could not "hide" anymore that it was a bad idea, then it was shutdown.

But… By had been shutdown by political decisions instead of technicals ones, they were shutdown prematurely, rendering NASA without a proper replacement. And now the ISS is at risk, because they depends heavily of a single service provider that, well, sometimes fails as anybody else. And eventually will have to shutdown that service, because the competition is mining their incoming.

My personal opinion? A bad idea that works is better than a good idea that will work God knows when. The Shuttle Program should had been kept for a few more years, even if by a slower pace. The Space Shuttle was dangerous and inefficient, but it fulfilled a role that are still needed, and currently nobody is able to fulfill. People that needs Hubble wold be happier too.

21 minutes ago, Cassel said:

Wiki says:
Saturn V - Cost per launch $185 million in 1969–1971 dollars[2] ($1.16 billion in 2016 value), Payload to LEO 140t
Space Shuttle - Cost per launch US$ 450 million (2011)[4] to 1.5 billion (2011), Payload to LEO 27,5t

So they went into more expensive technology? And then people are surprised that NASA had funds cut? :-)

Yes. Because nobody needs a 140t payload nowadays. A Launch is more than the cost of the launching. You need to account the cost of keeping the facilities (fabrics, storage, transportation - the launch pad is just the tip of the iceberg).

So, yes. The Space Shuttle can be better than Saturn V due that. If all I need is to kick 20tons to space, it's better to pay 1500USD for kilo for that launch, that paying 1000USD for each kilogram but have to pay 140-20 = 120tons more because I have to pay for the whole thing, not only the tonnage I need.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Lisias
tyops, as usulla.

[Cassel]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

In the original arguing, the guy was comparing the Militar Ways, citing the B-52, with the NASA ways (and I cited the Space Shuttle). It was not meant to be a full, definitive history of expenses.

I'm not saying that you should compare the production cost of one B-52 with one space shuttle, but I'm talking about the way technology is developed. Development of a project that will be for years and then improvement of small elements, as it was done with the B-52. The B-52 costs would be higher if the bomber were reinvented every 30 years.

Quote

Things like that also happens on NASA and Space Programs of every nation and private company. But on state funded enterprises, the huge amount of "beneficial side effects" created by such a program could be considered more important that the direct results of the program itself, and then a "bad idea" is kept in use, besides being a bad idea. With the last Space Shuttle disaster, they could not "hide" anymore that it was a bad idea, then it was shutdown.

But… By had been shutdown by political decisions instead of technicals ones, they were shutdown prematurely, rendering NASA without a proper replacement. And now the ISS is at risk, because they depends heavily of a single service provider that, well, sometimes fails as anybody else. And eventually will have to shutdown that service, because the competition is mining their incoming.

The fact that they are building SLS now, not space shuttle 2.0, indicates that this program is a mistake from a technological point of view.

For all fans of the sentence "but space shuttles were necessary to place the ISS", how will Lunar Space Gateway be sent without space shuttles? Can you do it with the help of rockets?
 

Quote

Yes. Because nobody needs a 140t payload nowadays. A Launch is more than the cost of the launching. You need to account the cost of keeping the facilities (fabrics, storage, transportation - the launch pad is just the tip of the iceberg).

So, yes. The Space Shuttle can be better than Saturn V due that. If all I need is to kick 20tons to space, it's better to pay 1500USD for kilo for that launch, that paying 1000USD for each kilogram but have to pay 140-20 = 120tons more because I have to pay for the whole thing, not only the tonnage I need.

Saturn is the whole family of rockets, not just Saturn V. If they needed something that could reach 20t why did not they use Saturn IB?

"In 1972, the cost of a Saturn IB including launch was US$55,000,000 (equivalent to $322,000,000 in 2017)." <- fraction of space shuttle launch cost? And they already had this technology, they did not have to invest in inventing space shuttles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_IB
 

Edited October 21, 2018 by Cassel

[YNM]

3 hours ago, Lisias said:

see Avro and Arrow

The largest one is actually Rolls-Royce itself. If it hadn't been nationalized and given funding straight from gov't it really wouldn't exist today.

But yeah, Avro becomes part of BAe, which now doesn't really exist.

[Lisias]

21 minutes ago, YNM said:

The largest one is actually Rolls-Royce itself. If it hadn't been nationalized and given funding straight from gov't it really wouldn't exist today.

I'm not saying necessarily that government funding is a bad thing. Like everything else, can be a blessing - or  a curse!  

 

2 hours ago, Cassel said:

I'm not saying that you should compare the production cost of one B-52 with one space shuttle, but I'm talking about the way technology is developed. Development of a project that will be for years and then improvement of small elements, as it was done with the B-52. The B-52 costs would be higher if the bomber were reinvented every 30 years.

You are getting it completely wrong. There will be never a new B-52 being kicked out of the production line. Every single B-52 that could be possibly be built it's already built. You can refurbish the ones that are salvable, but that's all.

The way you say technology is developed is not the only way. I'm describing how technology is developed by the Military, that happened to be also the way NASA used to develop he Space Shuttle Program. The comparison stops there, with me trying to somehow use the known budget from both projects to compare costs - what appears not to be too distant from the other (something that I can't effectively demonstrate because the B-52 budget is not publicly available).

The Space Shuttle would be higher if it would be reinvented each 30 years too. But… We choose to ditch the whole concept before having something able to replace it. Space Shuttle was a bad step, as it appears. But shutting it down without a working replacement was another one - and now we have two bad steps to live with.

2 hours ago, Cassel said:

Saturn is the whole family of rockets, not just Saturn V. If they needed something that could reach 20t why did not they use Saturn IB?

I think you will need to ask them.  

 

 

2 hours ago, Cassel said:

"In 1972, the cost of a Saturn IB including launch was US$55,000,000 (equivalent to $322,000,000 in 2017)." <- fraction of space shuttle launch cost? And they already had this technology, they did not have to invest in inventing space shuttles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_IB
 

But I can guess. The payload of the Saturn B is about 21t., more or less the Space Shuttle.

But the Space Shuttle could piggyback 27tons of cargo, and also a full crew for working into space - what would need two launches of the Saturn B to accomplish.

With a cost of (nowadays USD) 322M per launch, you would spend 644M USD to the a job Space Shuttle does by 450.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Lisias

[YNM]

2 hours ago, Cassel said:

cost of a Saturn IB including launch was US$55,000,000 (equivalent to $322,000,000 in 2017)

 

19 minutes ago, Lisias said:

But the Space Shuttle could piggyback 27tons of cargo, and also a full crew for working into space

Plus the Space Shuttle Orbiter itself. Every space shuttle launch is launching the equivalent of a 737 airplane into space. You're not getting that off Saturn IB, heck you're barely doing it with Saturn V (the orbiter itself is 69 t, with 27 t on top that's ~100 t).

Edited October 21, 2018 by YNM

[Lisias]

47 minutes ago, YNM said:

[CUT BY LISIAS]

You are ignoring the numbers that you don't like.  

NO, I CROSSED WIRES!! I ANSWERED THE WRONG GUY! Really sorry, @YNM. I'll pay more attention in the future, my apologies.

-------------

The mass you have to kick into space to do the job is meaningless. What's matter is payload and cost. And that's all what matters.

As Elon Musk says, "Fuel is cheap. Hardware is expensive".

If it's cheaper to kick 120 tons of hardware to get a useful payload of 20, so everybody will kick 120 tons of hardware into space.

It's all about money. It's always about money. Its better to spend 450M to put 27tons of hardware and a crew to assemble the damn thing over there, than to do two launches at 322M each to accomplish the same result - no matter how "efficient" is that second solution.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Lisias

[Cassel]

39 minutes ago, Lisias said:

But I can guess. The payload of the Saturn B is about 21t., more or less the Space Shuttle.

But the Space Shuttle could piggyback 27tons of cargo, and also a full crew for working into space - what would need two launches of the Saturn B to accomplish.

With a cost of (nowadays USD) 322M per launch, you would spend 644M USD to the a job Space Shuttle does by 450.

$644M yes, $450M wrong, space shuttle cost was $1.5 billion, almost 3 times as much as two Saturn B

[Lisias]

11 minutes ago, Cassel said:

$644M yes, $450M wrong, space shuttle cost was $1.5 billion, almost 3 times as much as two Saturn B

Columbia flew into space 28 times. Each Saturn B did it only a single one. Do your math.

— POST-EDIT --

And each time Columbia flew into space, it did the job of two Saturn B launches!

Edited October 21, 2018 by Lisias
bad grammars. X(

[Cassel]

23 minutes ago, YNM said:

 

Plus the Space Shuttle Orbiter itself. Every space shuttle launch is launching the equivalent of a 737 airplane into space. You're not getting that off Saturn IB, heck you're barely doing it with Saturn V (the orbiter itself is 69 t, with 27 t on top that's ~100 t).

And? Does that adds anything? I don't need to send Apollo capsule (15t) + some service module 5t with one Saturn IB and in second rocket launch you send 20t payload. Result is same as with space shuttle only 3 times cheaper and you wouldn't have spend money on developing shuttles in first place you could use that money to upgrade Saturn B and Apollo capsule.

1 minute ago, Lisias said:

Columbia flew into space 28 times. Each Saturn B did it only a single one. Do your math.

After each flight, they had to exchange many elements of the space shuttle. Each start was expensive $1.5 bln, so you could send around 130 of Saturn B rockets.

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, Cassel said:

And? Does that adds anything? I don't need to send Apollo capsule (15t) + some service module 5t with one Saturn IB and in second rocket launch you send 20t payload. Result is same as with space shuttle only 3 times cheaper and you wouldn't have spend money on developing shuttles in first place you could use that money to upgrade Saturn B and Apollo capsule.

After each flight, they had to exchange many elements of the space shuttle. Each start was expensive $1.5 bln, so you could send around 130 of Saturn B rockets.

Sorry, pal. You are pulling numbers from your… whatever.  

The WHOLE Space Shuttle program had cost about 196 Billion USD. We had 135 missions on that program, what by your numbers would had cost 135 * (1.5 + .45) = 263.25B USD only on hardware, maintenance and launches. Obviously, these numbers don't match.

There's no point of arguing with someone that invent numbers just to keep arguing. I'm done with you. [the guy is misguided, just it. I withdrawn this phrase, with apologies to @Cassel]

Edited October 21, 2018 by Lisias
tyops, as usulla.

[YNM]

24 minutes ago, Lisias said:

The mass you have to kick into space to do the job is meaningless. What's matter is payload and cost.

18 minutes ago, Cassel said:

Does that adds anything?

Yes, namely the ability to keep a (practically) space station without actually having one orbiting out there.

Not very cost effective ? Yes. Cool as heck ? Yes.

Tradeoffs, tradeoffs. As silly as it sounds, that's what they went for.

[Cassel]

10 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Sorry, pal. You are pulling numbers from your… whatever.  

The WHOLE Space Shuttle program had cost about 196 Billion USD. We had 135 missions on that program, what by your numbers would had cost 135 * (1.5 + .45) = 263.25B USD only on hardware, maintenance and launches. Obviously, these numbers don't match.

There's no point of arguing with someone that invent numbers just to keep arguing. I'm finished with you.

"I estimate that U.S. taxpayers have

spent about $170 billion (in 2008 dol

-

lars) on the shuttle program since its

inception, at an average cost per flight

approaching $1.5 billion."

https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2656-2008.18.pdf
 

What is this .45 in your equation?

$196 bln / 135 (flights) = $1,451 bln pretty close to $1.5 bln per flight?
(Saturn IB $0.322 bln,
Saturn V $1.16 bln,
SLS $5 bln per flight!)

4 minutes ago, YNM said:

Yes, namely the ability to keep a (practically) space station without actually having one orbiting out there.

Not very cost effective ? Yes. Cool as heck ? Yes.

Tradeoffs, tradeoffs. As silly as it sounds, that's what they went for.

I like the look of space shuttles, but I say they were totally overpaid toy.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Cassel

[Lisias]

1 minute ago, YNM said:

[]

In time, @YNM, I answered wrongly to you (see above). Sorry for that.

[YNM]

1 hour ago, Cassel said:

I like the look of space shuttles, but I say they were totally overpaid toy.

Damn sure as hell it is.

Heck, Spaceflight is a rich man country's overpaid playground. No way a third-world country like the one I'm living in can afford anything so flashy as that.

Which is why I don't really care if NASA is to be chopped off.

But then NASA gives a lot of scientific research data that otherwise we wouldn't have anything on otherwise... so I have to give a damn to your overpriced playground ! Ah !

Edited October 21, 2018 by YNM

[Lisias]

On 10/21/2018 at 11:17 AM, Cassel said:

What is this .45 in your equation?

$196 bln / 135 (flights) = $1,451 bln pretty close to $1.5 bln per flight?

The cost of each launch. 450M USD.

 

Edited January 29, 2019 by Lisias
updating images URL

[Cassel]

6 minutes ago, Lisias said:

The cost of each launch. 450M USD.

Read further than just a headline:
"With 135 missions, and the total cost of US$192 billion (in 2010 dollars), this gives approximately $1.5 billion per launch over the life of the shuttle program."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Budget

Compare this with:
Saturn IB $0.322 bln
Saturn V $1.16 bln
SLS $5 bln per flight! <- my new favourite, I am sure it will get funds and will fly :-)

 

Edited October 21, 2018 by Cassel