How NASA spends our public money

[OverTheTop]

I have to say that, for the last several years, I've been reading story after story about all the incredible things China is doing and wondering why it's not The USA anymore.
And I'm not just talking about space. It's constantly China just built the biggest this or the tallest that, or the first something else.
Maybe it's no ones fault. Maybe it's just hard to compete with a country that has that many more people than we do. And smart people. A lot of the things we think of as western inventions, were invented in China, first, hundreds of years before. But I think we could be doing a lot better than we are. I think it's leadership from the politicians and not necessarily leadership at NASA. We need someone like John F. Kennedy, without the improprieties.

Don't forget India too. They are doing great things with their quite capable launch vehicles. The development cost for one of their vehicles cost less than it cost the USA to make the movie "Gravity". Nice to see some other countries getting into the mix. Even New Zealand beat Australia back into space.

 

[KilroySmith]

SpaceX has been designed to go Low Earth Orbit,

I don't think you've been following SpaceX closely. Yes, the Falcon 9 (and Falcon Heavy) are intended mostly for orbital ops, recognizing that ALL orbits are within reach of a Falcon 9 (5500 kg to GTO, heck they even advertise 4000 kg to Mars!). If you've got a spectacularly heavy satellite, the Falcon Heavy will get it there, whether you want it to orbit Earth or the Moon.

But the whole purpose of the company, from the day it was founded, was to get to Mars - and not just get there, but get there in sufficient quantity to set up a human colony there. The Starship/Super Heavy are sized to launch 100 people at a time, or 100,000 kg of payload, to Mars, and do it a hundred or more times during a launch window. It's an absolutely crazy idea; completely bonkers, can't possibly work.

But what they're capable of today has nothing to do with what they expect to be capable of in 10 years. Remember that just 12 years ago Tesla was retrofitting laptop batteries into rolling Lotus Elise chassis one at a time. 12 years ago, SpaceX had just launched their very first successful Falcon 1 rocket (after 3 not-so-successful attempts), and since then has developed 5 generations of Falcon 9 and two successful state-of-the-art rocket engines (Merlin and Raptor), have launched over 100 payloads to orbit, have successfully delivered astronauts to the ISS (and got permission to do it in the future on re-used boosters and capsules), and have launched the worlds fastest and highest water tower, built in an open field in Texas. If anyone can build and launch a Mars-capable spaceship in the next few years, it's gonna be Elon Musk.

I don't agree with you that they have different missions; SpaceX is simply more laser-focused and far more efficient at executing the mission. Are they less safe in doing so than SLS/Orion? I think that's a great topic to discuss over beers, because I don't think there's unequivocal data either way.

 

[OverTheTop]

I don't think you've been following SpaceX closely. Yes, the Falcon 9 (and Falcon Heavy) are intended mostly for orbital ops, recognizing that ALL orbits are within reach of a Falcon 9 (5500 kg to GTO, heck they even advertise 4000 kg to Mars!). If you've got a spectacularly heavy satellite, the Falcon Heavy will get it there, whether you want it to orbit Earth or the Moon.

But the whole purpose of the company, from the day it was founded, was to get to Mars - and not just get there, but get there in sufficient quantity to set up a human colony there. The Starship/Super Heavy are sized to launch 100 people at a time, or 100,000 kg of payload, to Mars, and do it a hundred or more times during a launch window. It's an absolutely crazy idea; completely bonkers, can't possibly work.

But what they're capable of today has nothing to do with what they expect to be capable of in 10 years. Remember that just 12 years ago Tesla was retrofitting laptop batteries into rolling Lotus Elise chassis one at a time. 12 years ago, SpaceX had just launched their very first successful Falcon 1 rocket (after 3 not-so-successful attempts), and since then has developed 5 generations of Falcon 9 and two successful state-of-the-art rocket engines (Merlin and Raptor), have launched over 100 payloads to orbit, have successfully delivered astronauts to the ISS (and got permission to do it in the future on re-used boosters and capsules), and have launched the worlds fastest and highest water tower, built in an open field in Texas. If anyone can build and launch a Mars-capable spaceship in the next few years, it's gonna be Elon Musk.

I don't agree with you that they have different missions; SpaceX is simply more laser-focused and far more efficient at executing the mission. Are they less safe in doing so than SLS/Orion? I think that's a great topic to discuss over beers, because I don't think there's unequivocal data either way.

+1. Thanks for that. You just saved me a lot of typing. I am sitting here wearing a Falcon Heavy T-shirt BTW .

Also, don't underestimate the finesse of the Raptor. It is a full-flow staged-combustion engine, essentially the top of the tree as far as combustion cycles for rocket engines go.

Here is an interesting comparison of various engines:

 

[Cape Byron]

Something I didn't know until watching YouTube the other night (I'll look for the link) was that closed cycle engine was developed for the Soviet N-1 program. So, the N-1 may have been less than stellar (nyuk, nyuk) in its success, but it gave us some very significant advancements in technology.

If I've been mislead about this, feel free to correct me.

 

[OverTheTop]

If you are interested in more detail on the Soviet rocket development, check out "Rockets and People" by Boris Chertok. He was an apprentice electrician who became control system engineer for the R7 "Semyorka" rocket. What we call the Soyuz today. Very well written. Four books in the series. Available for free from NASA.

Here's the first:
https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/rockets_people_vol1_detail.html

 

[pollux]

I just feel like NASA is going the way of the USPS and it pains me to see it.

Going the way of the USPS? You mean providing a core needed public service funded entirely by sales at a low price while simultaneously funding out its pension program for 75 years to take care of its workers?

The USPS is great. It provides a public service that no private company would ever do, while still beating the private sector in price and service at the jobs that do overlap.

Also: Yeah it’s be great if National politics didn’t control NASA, but they do. And blaming NASA for than is just whinging.

 

[Fishhead]

According to one of my sources, it didn't work very well!

Only because of that stop at the Intergalactic White Castle.

 

[OverTheTop]

Something I didn't know until watching YouTube the other night (I'll look for the link) was that closed cycle engine was developed for the Soviet N-1 program

The NK-33 was designed by Nikolay Kuznetsov and was such a good engine it has even been used in some USA-developed launch vehicles. Rocket Plane Kistler K-1 and Antares I think used or were going to use that engine.

 

[tab28682]

BNSW said: And oh yes....Boeing...those fine folks who gave us the 737 Max jetliner....Was NASA the folks who gave Boeing the contract for the Orion?

Boeing = Starliner, Lockheed Martin = Orion.

 

[Rocket501]

Also, keep in mind that SpaceX would be nothing without NASA. The NASA commercial contracts were a massive part of early SpaceX funding and why they could even afford to develop the Falcon 9. The Merlin engine was heavily based on NASA's fastrac engine and utilized contractors who could utilize experience, equipment and modifications of work done on NASA's dime. Even the alloys used for the tanks and the manufacturing processes to work for them are mostly all NASA. SpaceX used quite a bit of NASA launch hardware and pads, which saved them from having to develop it from scratch.

In many ways the Falcon 9 was the launch vehicle that NASA wanted, but couldn't get under bush. If you look into the politics, basically under Obama, there was something called the Augustine commission that viewed the constellation program under Bush as basically a failed project. In the end, sadly, pork intervened and was kept on life support, but the commercial space funding that led to SpaceX was also the result as well.

While the president has some say, they are also highly limited by congresses pork projects, which is worth keeping in mind. What the president wants is not always what the president gets.

Effectively speaking, under bush we got the Constellation program (focus on moon than mars). Under Obama we got commercial contracts from crew and cargo and SLS. Obama had basically no interest in manned missions going back to the moon and wanted NASA to go to Mars. Under the Trump administration, they liked the commercial crew programs and kept it going, but realized that their was no realistic way to go to Mars in the next 8 years, so they instead decided on the Artemis program to the moon. They also wanted to cut some earth observation programs, but congress blocked that. Now under Biden, we have a lot of unknowns. The commercial crew program with SpaceX's crew dragon is an obvious success, so that will almost certainly keep official Biden administration approval. I suspect that Artemis program will continue as well. All in all, I suspect we'll see some admin shuffling around, but overall, most things staying pretty much the same.