Wrong again. What success since Jupiter/Saturn I?

Arsenal method is old school, its time has passed and no longer needed and it is too expensive.

Atlas, Titan, Thor, shuttle, the lunar module, and every other spacecraft have been built by contractors.

Police and fire departments don't build their own equipment.

They just use tax-payer money to pay for it.

Yes, just as the military uses taxpayer money to buy their equipment. The equipment is built by contractors, not the military. This is the same for every other government agency I can think of. Why should NASA be the exception? They are bloated and inefficient at building things. If NASA had a track record of delivering large projects on time and budget, you could have a point. They don't. Their track record is dismal in that regard.

1. Wrong again. Any fool can see those are public services. Space launch is not a public service.

It is not anti-govt to want to have the gov't stay out of the market place. It is not anti-govt to want to have the gov't not duplicate capabilities that exist in the industry.

2. Incorrect again. Any fool would see that ULA wouldn't do things unilaterally since they wouldn't get paid if they did. A fool would thing they would run things. Just as it does for unmanned spacecraft, NASA determines the requirements and the contractors meet them. ULA doesn't dictate anything to NASA.

No, the point was NASA is using weasel words to develop its own launcher when commercial ones are available

Huh? Now you are talking nonsense. Ares I-X was closer to Little Joe and was nowhere near Saturn I. NASA should be ashamed of the 5 years. EELV's did things quicker.
Ares I-X was nothing but a PR stunt

Tha't just your opinion Jim. D-IV heavy undershot on its first mission and also had no useful payload. NASA has nothing to be ashamed of.

"What success since Jupiter/Saturn I?" Those were pretty good rockets and keeping things in house is a plus

"Space launch is not a public service. " Wrong again--it is the ultimate public service

"Any fool would see that ULA wouldn't do things unilaterally since they wouldn't get paid if they did." Like they don't try to influence what gets built. Naturally they are going to hawk their products and they want NASA to fit its mission to ULAs rocket. Only a fool doubts that, Jim

Oh come on, now you're just being ridiculous. D-IVH was an all-up test of a fully functioning vehicle. D-IV undershot? You fail to realize the level of complexity a full-fledged mission profile imposes and how many risks a successful flight retires all at once. Of course problems are more likely if your test scope is wider but that certainly doesn't diminish the success of the approach. Say you have a vehicle design with 10 critical things that have to be demonstrated and verified in flight. Delta IV H then tested and passed 9/10. Ares I-X only tested 3 out of 10. Which flight was a more successful engineering test??? Claiming D-IVH was any less successful a flight than this sham test is nothing short of ignorant.

Need I remind you that the very next flight of the D-IV Heavy carried a very valuable government satellite successfully to orbit, instead of flying another test flight only this time with a live upper stage. What's the next Ares I test flight going to carry? Some more upper stage simulators?

Limited Ares I-X test scope as it is, they still managed to fumble it on several accounts - cables weren't properly cut, USS tumbled immediately after sep and parachute system practically failed so I wouldn't even say it passed all those "3" objectives, but I'll let that one pass.

Ares I-X is/was nothing but a scrounge job on various components not resembling Ares I config in basically anything but the outer mold line. Atlas V avionics, Shuttle SRB and stacked tuna cans for ballast. Not even the stage separation plane resembled actual Ares I staging.

It's interesting you keep bringing up Saturn I incremental approach, but conveniently forget about Saturn V which introduced this all-up approach that basically everyone has been using since. Hell, even "rookies" SpaceX will be flying a fully functional F9 vehicle instead of wasting money on 2 minute suborbital joyrides that prove next to nothing. In fact, I'll go on record saying that Falcon 1 2nd flight FAILURE was a more successful systems test of the entire vehicle than what Ares I-X did to validate the Ares I concept.

1: It certainly wasn't evident from the wording of your post. In any case, I think the "build" and "buy" distinction is pertinent: competence in operation does not necessarily transfer to construction, or vice versa, which is at least part of the reason why transportation operators typically do not build their equipment, be it aircraft, ships, locomotives, or trucks.

Further, airlines certainly have some say, but not to the extent that Howard Hughes and TWA had in the design of the CV-880. Boeing or Airbus will shop around a proposal, and get feedback as part of their market research. The airframers will, of course, take common concerns under advisement, but major configurational issues like number of engines (unless the aircraft is exceptionally large, like the A380, they'll get two), where the engines are located (on the wings, which will be low), runway requirements (one of the reasons for the relative lack of sales success for the VC-10 was its design was uneconomical because one of the launch customers demanded the capability to operate off very short runways), constructional details (even the 787 is a fairly conventional stiffened monocoque), location of control surfaces (you won't get a canard, a three-surface aircraft, tandem wings, or a flying wing), or dozens of other features will not be negotiable.

In any case, expertise takes time to develop.

1. no, it is the truth. Ares I-X was kludge, like Little Joe was. It only simulated Ares I shape and nothing else. Saturn I actually was the first stage and had the operational guidance system.

2. There is no plus, everything is a minus. especially higher costs. Also two successes don't outweigh the many more successes by the contractor method.

3. Get real. Based on what? That is a space cadet response and not based on any reality. The general public would disagree. You have nothing to base your claim on. It is just asinine to say that.

4. Again, you have no clue about what you are talking about. This is just more of the alternate reality that you live and is not base on any facts or information. ULA builts the rockets to NASA and USAF specs. So what NASA wants, it gets. Anyways, any claim (real or imagined) you have against ULA is applicable to ATK. And ATK is more suspect since they have more to lose. ATK is the evil empire and not ULA.

5. Only a fool believes it and posts it. This has been proven over and over.

It is not pertinent to the point because the govt is not suppose to do neither.

It wasn't a nitpick. I couldn't figure it out from context. I still can't parse it, but never mind.

I think you confuse de facto and de jure. The possibility of corruption is not the issue since it can affect either the open market or a subsidized market.

The long-term subsidy might be appropriate in space endeavors due to the long-term ROI. I don't think we disagree too much on the basics, but more about where to draw the line.

Why do you specify American cities?

You're looking only at the cost of ridership, not the savings from fewer people on the roads. Without mass transit, more people might be in cars, perhaps less-well maintained cars, there would be more traffic, more accidents, more need for emergency services on those roads and general policing, more spending to expand roads, then there are issues of pollution and global warming, etc. The people who pay taxes for mass transit and who also do not use it still gain from it. You really do need to look at the Total Cost of such things.

Also, if you want a better calculation for subsidy, consider all the subsidies that support the motorist: public roads and their maintenance, public parking lots, meter maids, automaker bailouts, wars for fuel, foreign aid for fuel, grants for fuel alternative R&D, cash for clunkers, tax rebates for green cars, High School Driver's Education classes, tax incentives for business developments that include parking lots or require extra driving, not to mention the government paid costs for people injured in automobile collisions or who develop illnesses from automobile-related pollution, etc.

Sure, it's appropriate if the people say so. IIRC, the military does perform it's own logistics operations in the field and even domestically.

__________________
"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

A quick note: It'd be easier if you could keep these all to a single post. The BBcode isn't that hard to learn and enter manually.
I thought that the Space Shuttle was supposed to be used to take some commercial sats to orbit. Maybe I heard wrong.

I'm not dismissing your point, but I'm not sure you see mine. Frankly, I don't have a dog in the fight WRT NASA/Ares or other groups and launchers. I'm saying that it is a valid argument if they, the government, decides to make it (for reasons of national security or treaty obligations or whatever).

You mean like Con Air, the Air Mobility Command, and the many fleets of government owned aircraft used for various purposes?

I'm discussing subsidies with Larry Jack, are you more focussed on the legitimacy aspect of it than cost?

Well, I was assuming that the payload module would be it's own self-propelled module/separate stage, but I'm not sure I feel the need to make that distinction.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I just don't see it that way. I think of an infrastructure more broadly than merely fixed installations. Perhaps you could help clarify the meaning by telling me if you would consider a space elevator to be infrastructure. How about a space-station? And why not the pad?

For the purposes of this discussion, that would be considered anti-government.

__________________
"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

And where do they get the aircraft from?

They buy them. Commercially.

Nope, they use commercial planes to take troops and hardware to Iraq.

1. By law, it can't now. It was a foolish decision to do it in the first place.

2. They buy the aircraft. They don't design and build them. Also the military is not part of this discussion. We are talking civilian.

3. Propulsion systems for orbit adjustment and attitude control are not "stages" but integral parts of the spacecraft.

4. Space elevator is scifi. A space station is not infrastructure, there is a commercial provider available,(the ISS is probably the last NASA managed space station). At this time, pads are not "public" infrastructure. They are unique to the launch vehicle and not a shared resource. That is why I excluded them.

And if I remember correctly, the military uses *far more now than ever* commercially-provided logistics such as meals, laundry, water 'filtration', and lots more stuff that it used to do exclusively. I was pretty surprised when I read the extent that the 'overseas deployment units' depend on contractors...but these services are not quite comparable to the original vein of the thread, but does show how 'government' uses contractors for many 'services', per se

And, Jim, you beat me to the comment-bit about ATK being more of the 'evil empire' than ULA, though I am using 'evil' rather loosely here. Probably better to say it as 'influential-empire', 'eh? And didn't ATK imply that if their SRB's were 'canceled' (ie Ares future productions) the price of the other boosters they make (defense-based things) would go up *significantly*? No hint of ATK trying to influence things here, not at all, LOL But that is only one example and not trying to make a big issue of it in regards to ULA...

Alex

The US Air Force has only a few hundred transport planes (C-5s and C-17s) capable of carrying heavy equipment like tanks. Even then, a C-17 can only carry a single M-1 tank at a time. A C-5 can carry 2 over short ranges. For heavy transport, most stuff is moved by ship and a lot of that is by commercial freighter. Very little of the heavy lifting is via the military transport planes except within theater. Within the US, most things are transported via commercial railroad. You'll sometimes see a military truck carrying equipment but most often that's to support exercises. The truck drivers need training, too. My office overlooks the airfield at Peterson AFB, CO. I see civilian airliners coming into PAFB regularly to carry Fort Carson soldiers to and from the theater. Even 90% of the satellite communications bandwidth in the theater of operations is via leased commercial services.

It's simply cost prohibitive for the military to own all of the transport capability it needs to support a war all of the time. And to restate the case yet again, the military doesn't build its own equipment. It issues the specifications and contracts with commercial contractors like Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. Why should NASA be the exception? They've done nothing to prove themselves worthy of that kind of trust.

That's what you say--not everyone agrees

I have already proved that with Hopkins on words and other peer-revied links as per depots costing more than existing LV flights per rube-Goldberg EELV assembly.

ULA built to USAF specs Ares is built to NASA specs. They should not be slave to ULA.

Space is the ultimate public service, despite what Jim said here to words to that effect
And D-IV heavy undershot by thousands of miles.

There's that word again--But I guess you are an expert on it.

There you go again, comparing a total, all-up system test to a... well, Ares I-X.

9/10 vs. 2/10 of complete, final system design tested. So which of the two is a better use for several hundred million $?

It's not? Is this specifically NASA or does this extend to other, much more highly funded, government agencies?

1. Hopkins is only one. The others were not peer reviews.

2. How is that slave to ULA? You have an unbased bias against ULA. Anyways, NASA is slave to ATK, which is worse.

3. Based on what warped logic? Here is your word, that is asinine. Space not a public service. Space is a destination. If there were no manned space flight, the world not be worse off. There is no guarantee that it would improve life on earth

"Hopkins is only one."
Not the only one. If we are to take your figure of 350 mil per D-IV heavy, then we have 40-46 or so tons to orbit with two D-IV heavies at 700 million--about the same as Ares V at 900 million with the same number of RS-68s, but with 120-140 tons depending on how things work out. That is a clear cost saving

"You have an unbased bias against ULA." And you have a bias against MSFC.

"Space not a public service. Space is a destination. If there were no manned space flight, the world not be worse off. There is no guarantee that it would improve life on earth"

Not with that attitude. Bill Nye saddened me when he said the find of water on the Moon was not justification for a moon base of any kind (this on Rachel Maddow) but not everyone agrees with him. McKay and other scientists want Ares V even if manned spaceflight never comes for reasons in the many links provided in favor of Ares V science missions--but that is old ground. Needless to say, it there were no manned spaceflight, ULA would suffer as its plans for multiple EELV launches would be threatened by any anti-human spaceflight agenda.

Tell me this, Jim: If all that was ever done was the launching of an occasional probe, andweathersat/milsat/comsats, do you think that is all humanity deserves?

1. It is not a bias. It is a well founded distaste for a center that wastes money and manpower and poorly manages projects. Also it is the center that is responsible for every shuttle crew death.

2. What humanity deserves has nothing to do with space nor is spaceflight a reward for humanity.

Bullseye - twice Very well put on #1, and #2 has some 'wiggle room', but true none-the-less, IMO

Alex

IMHO, NASA should be the proving grounds for ideas that may not be immediately profitable, but are still worth while from a technical and scientific stand point. Basically they should provide what you might call research capital, getting things done that no sane investor would provide the start-up funding for, yet would be willing to get in once the ideas have been proven somewhat practical.
That's my idea anyway.

__________________

And I tend to agree with you, ravens cry. NASA should provide funds for R&D and perhaps certain facilities that are too expensive for individual companies to afford. Back in the NACA days, they operated a series of wind tunnels, not only to test their own work such as airfoils but also for industry. Companies large and small contracted for wind tunnel analysis of their designs without the expense of owning the tunnels themselves. NACA was quite successful in stimulating aviation development and they didn't build their own planes except for some test articles, nor did they try to operate an airline.

If NASA used the NACA model, it would own and lease engine test stands, perhaps some launch facilities, and fund development of technologies like experimental rocket engines, satellite and crewed vehicle systems, etc.

since private companies have a hard time gaining the investment for space related projects, the government should make it even harder by increasing there minimum investment requirement via increase taxation to finance NASA...
o wait if the gov's justification of NASA is the lack of private entrepreneurship in the field, the least the gov' should do is stop discouraging entrepreneurship in the field.

so first thing first: space industries should have NASA's percent of the budget (at the very least) removed from there taxes.

thats being said, a lot of what has being said above is true: space does not offer short-term returns, and the reality is our economical structure isn't very good at encouraging long term thinking.

I.E if a bank (with 10% interest) today offered a loan for a 50B$ private company wanting to look for water on mars and the business plan set a goal to build a mars-based water company that would start producing in 2059 for an expected return of 10B$ a year (based on coordinated plans of other companies to sand colonies), then the bank won't see the return & profit until 2134 in which time the it needs to gamble that its engineering will work, that they will find water of a certain amount relative to a certain demand requiring the bank to also gamble on all the companies that might set colonization plans which requires that other banks will gamble on those companies... but more importantly: it needs to gamble that there will be less then 25% inflation in 125 years, which is impossible.

so yes, unfortunately right now, due to government intervention (federal reserves, banking insurance laws etc'), long-term investments are not something our economy is designed to handle, because unfortunately it is just that: designed.

what we need is a breakthrough technology. think about this: most of the services we get online where possible before. what stopped someone from using letters and printed press to come up with wikipedia? the answer is money, but the internet changed all of that.
we need the same thing, for space.

More like BS. Cold weather and insulation problems were not invented by MSFC. Jim called that a "socialist" center, and has said a bunch of crap against that institution and I'm calling him on it.

So if a Delta II upper stage falls on some folks in Africa--I guess that makes Delta II handlers responsible for their deaths then too, right? http://search.space.com/news/raining...rs_000510.html

You are so totally wrong. You have no idea about what you are talking about. You have just have completely discredited yourself.

1. You have to be fricking kidding. You are completely clueless. It is not BS, it is the truth. MSFC was 100% responsible for Challenger. They gave the go for launch in spite of the weather. MSFC is responsible for the ET and its foam and hence Columbia was happened on their watch

2. And you are clueless. Yes, they are responsible.

It is a socialist center. It is doing work than should be done by industry and not the gov't.