Who will be next to land people on the Moon?

[Nightside]

On 3/24/2019 at 7:03 AM, sevenperforce said:

Elon's transpiration cooling approach had me a little worried about margins for success, but with a metallic TPS as sacrificial fallback then it's much more viable. 

Even without actually landing Starship on the Moon, the ability to send 150 tonnes to LEO for unbelievably cheap enables virtually any lunar landing architecture anyone would want. 

I doubt we’ve heard the last iteration of the heat shield.

 

[tater]

35 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Presidents (and Vice Presidents) can say all they want, but budgets come from Congress.

The problem is not budget, it's that they also get told how to spend it. They must spend on SLS/Orion, because that money is earmarked. If the program is terribly managed, and wastes large sums? Doesn't matter, they'll get more next year (in perpetuity). Block 1 was supposed to be a 1-off to test Orion all-up (to save money, lol). Useless for anything else, hence only one mission. The 2 slightly more useful versions? Not happening any time soon.

 

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, Nightside said:

I doubt we’ve heard the last iteration of the heat shield.

Perhaps; perhaps not. One thing that SpaceX has proven, Elon Time be damned, is that they test as they fly. Once they have an architecture capable of performing the bare minimum they need, they fly it, and then they iterate. Once they have a heat shield that will do the job, they will fly with it, and they will make whatever modifications they need thereafter.

[mikegarrison]

2 hours ago, tater said:

The problem is not budget, it's that they also get told how to spend it.

That's what budget means, actually. A budget is the sum of money allocated for a particular purpose and the summary of intended expenditures along with proposals for how to meet them.

Quote

Project budget – a prediction of the costs associated with a particular company project. These costs include labour, materials, and other related expenses. The project budget is often broken down into specific tasks, with task budgets assigned to each.

A grant or a gift is "here's some money, spend it how you see fit". A budget is "here's some money to spend doing this, and some money to spend doing that, and some money to spend doing this other thing...."

Congress sets NASA's budget, and they can be as specific as they want to be about exactly what money is spent on what items.

Edited March 27, 2019 by mikegarrison

[MaverickSawyer]

Financial micromanagement in aviation, such as in a corporate flight department, is a nightmare to be avoided whenever possible. There's a reason why most such operations are their own companies that simply bill the "parent" company for everything... keeps the shareholders from "helping" with the finances.

 

I can imagine all too well just how much of a nightmare NASA can get to be with the Congresscritters sticking their fingers into the pie. 

[Starstruck69]

9 hours ago, tater said:

NASA's budget is not going to largely increase. The human spaceflight program is maxed out. SLS + Orion + ISS doesn't even leave anything for Gateway, much less a lander.

I don't like the idea of sacrificing ISS for Gateway as proposed for the simple reason that Gateway can only possibly be used for a couple weeks a year, though I'd happily deorbit ISS in 2024 in return for something that will also have crew aboard 100% of the time.

If the competition look like they are within reach of landing on the moon, we may see this budget increased. The US budget is massively weighted for military purposes and the moon could well be of strategic importance in the future. That might be where we see the change budget wise with regards to space exploration. Either way it pushes innovation which had got to be a good thing for our future generations. Will it be in our lifetime? I certainly hope so...

[tater]

8 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Congress sets NASA's budget, and they can be as specific as they want to be about exactly what money is spent on what items.

Self-evidently true, but that's not the point. Many people talk about NASA as if they have a choice about how they spend money, and they don't. I was clarifying (for any under this delusion) that it's not the total amount of NASA's budget that matters, it's also what they are told it must be spent on.

[Ol’ Musky Boi]

4 hours ago, tater said:

Self-evidently true, but that's not the point. Many people talk about NASA as if they have a choice about how they spend money, and they don't. I was clarifying (for any under this delusion) that it's not the total amount of NASA's budget that matters, it's also what they are told it must be spent on.

I do agree with you, but the initial budget proposal does come from the President - Congress just has to decide wether they approve of it or not. So it's quite likely that with enough support from congress we could see the replacement of SLS / LOP-G in favour of a more practical approach (i.e utilising commercial launch vehicles).

[tater]

21 minutes ago, Ol’ Musky Boi said:

I do agree with you, but the initial budget proposal does come from the President - Congress just has to decide wether they approve of it or not. So it's quite likely that with enough support from congress we could see the replacement of SLS / LOP-G in favour of a more practical approach (i.e utilising commercial launch vehicles).

The point is that NASA doesn't pick. On top of that, there is the fact that different centers (with different patrons in Congress or the WH) have different goals. Most of NASA could be against SLS, but Marshall and Michoud are all for it, etc. It's public money, so by definition the expenses are nothing but political.

I should add that most Presidential budgets are DOA in Congress (though the NASA part usually gets included pretty close to what is asked for since while political, it's generally not as partisan).

[magnemoe]

46 minutes ago, tater said:

The point is that NASA doesn't pick. On top of that, there is the fact that different centers (with different patrons in Congress or the WH) have different goals. Most of NASA could be against SLS, but Marshall and Michoud are all for it, etc. It's public money, so by definition the expenses are nothing but political.

I should add that most Presidential budgets are DOA in Congress (though the NASA part usually gets included pretty close to what is asked for since while political, it's generally not as partisan).

Now add that its an party and president switch every 8 year, clockwork since Kennedy except Carter who had messed up / had bad luck so only got one term and Reagan won the cold war or was just president at the end of it so we got Bush the elder as an bonus republican then back to standard. 
 

[tater]

The Space Council meeting was sort of interesting. One, NASA seems pretty POed at Boeing. While they said they have to still to EM-1 with SLS, the fact they threw it out there they were open to commercial was probably less serious, and more of a shot across the bow of Boeing.

Pence also said effectively that they want to go to the Moon by 2024 by any means, where that was a reference to new space, IMO. Ie: if Starship starts flying, they're open to that. Or if Blue decides to build a lunar lander, or a refillable upper stage (they've been talking about US reuse in space), that could be on the table. Up to this point, these vehicles have been pretty much ignored until they are operational (ie: F9/FH), while the old-space vehicles that have yet to exist (Ares V/SLS/Vulcan) manage to find themselves in future mission architectures long before they are near flying.

The latest Mars architecture is what, DRA 5.0 from 2009? That assumes Ares V as the HLV (188t LEO), and has 2 sub classes of mission, chemical propulsion, and NTR. So they assumed what is now SLS Block 2 (which is grossly less capable than Ares V), some 11-12 years before crappy block 1 will fly, and at least 15-20 before the cargo version will ever exist. Seems like a current DRA for Mars (or the Moon) should have variants for NG, Vulcan, and Starship all included. There's a non-trivial probability Starship actually flies before SLS (which is astonishing to me).

Dunno, it's pretty interesting. I'd love to see a more contractual statement that says that anyone offering capability X to NASA (say landing on the Moon with crew to a certain standard of safety) will have a couple missions purchased for Y amount each (where that's enough to make it worthwhile to try).

[Ol’ Musky Boi]

40 minutes ago, tater said:

Dunno, it's pretty interesting. I'd love to see a more contractual statement that says that anyone offering capability X to NASA (say landing on the Moon with crew to a certain standard of safety) will have a couple missions purchased for Y amount each (where that's enough to make it worthwhile to try).

So essentially commercial crew / cargo but for the moon, that would be great! Commercial lunar landers are already a reality (yay SpaceIL!), I wonder if they would continue building landers if there was governmental interest...

[tater]

30 minutes ago, Ol’ Musky Boi said:

So essentially commercial crew / cargo but for the moon, that would be great! Commercial lunar landers are already a reality (yay SpaceIL!), I wonder if they would continue building landers if there was governmental interest...

They were given money up front for commercial crew and cargo (though not much for the former LATTER just a few hundred million). In return, NASA also had/has constant oversight. I mean no oversight, just a desire to buy a particular service (X tons on the surface, whatever).

Nothing up front at all. Cash on delivery.

Edited March 28, 2019 by tater

[MaverickSawyer]

5 minutes ago, tater said:

They were given money up front for commercial crew and cargo (though not much for the former, just a few hundred million). In return, NASA also had/has constant oversight. I mean no oversight, just a desire to buy a particular service (X tons on the surface, whatever).

Nothing up front at all. Cash on delivery.

NASA would never spring for that, and we all know it.

[tater]

Edited my previous. I ordered them wrong. Cargo was first, and only 360M, crew was a few billion.

[tater]

Here's a reason to go:

[DDE]

7 hours ago, tater said:

Slow condensation

Damn interesting. I know the theory of chinks of ice falling out of the sky was never worth consideration...

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

It has seas. It must have water.