Washington Matters
NASA Defenders Getting Creative
Congress aims to save the Constellation rocket, despite Obama's opposition.
By Richard Sammon, Senior Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter
April 28, 2010
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Space exploration champions in Congress aren’t about to let the sun go down on NASA’s deep space Constellation rocket program, even though the Obama administration wants to put the costly project in a deep freeze.
Count on NASA backers using several creative arguments in coming months to keep more than $1 billion a year in funding alive for the rocket program. And as an ace in the hole, they’ll use the national security card, insisting the program is vital to the nation’s defense. In Washington, raising national security flags is often a good way to save any federal program from budget cuts. It’ll be true with the Constellation, too, which could ultimately cost $150 billion over 25 years and provide years of work to dozens of aerospace contractors in many states.
The Obama administration wants to scrap Constellation, intended to replace the 30-year old space shuttle program, and let commercial space companies begin taking responsibility for lifting humans and heavy cargo into space. The administration also wants to cancel the related Moon-Mars mission, saying costs could be prohibitive and the scientific benefits minimal.
But the White House argument isn’t getting off the ground very well. Too many in Congress with vested interests in keeping Constellation alive call the Obama plan shortsighted and say it’s the equivalent of ceding space work and upcoming deep space exploration to Europe, Russia, India, China and South America. They also say the U.S. commercial space industry is still in its infancy and won’t be ready for many years to perform the heavy lift functions that NASA currently does.
There’s some truth in that. There are only about a dozen fairly small U.S. commercial space companies, such as Orbital Sciences Corp., Rocketplane Kistler, SpaceX, Space Systems/Loral and PlanetSpace, and they have limited experience in launching satellites and other small cargoes into space. Counting on them to quickly ramp up their capabilities and be able to safely lift something as big as a space telescope or heavy cargo for the International Space Station is a stretch. It could be 15 years before that’s realistic.
That would add a decade to the “shuttle gap,” the dark time between when the remaining shuttles are mothballed sometime next year to when a new program is ready. In the interim, the U.S. will have to rely entirely on Russia for heavy lift space transport. Waiting that long adds geopolitical wrinkles to canceling Constellation, especially if U.S.-Russian relations are strained in coming years.
About $8 billion has already been spent on the Constellation program. That’ll be another argument by program defenders, such as Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) Richard Shelby (R-AL), Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA). Canceling the project now could be applauded as helping to cut the deficit, but it would also be wasting all of what’s already been spent.
Boxer, who may have a difficult reelection campaign, will trumpet Constellation funding in her campaign, calling it a jobs program for California’s large aerospace industry. About 100,000 jobs are directly related to Constellation, especially in Florida, Alabama, California and Utah. An estimated 60,000 other jobs are indirectly linked to the program.
The national security argument program defenders that will use is especially creative. They’ll say work on the rocket, called the Ares 1-X, which is the pillar of the Constellation program, is central to future U.S. dominance in missile and rocket technology, including future missiles, and possibly even space based defenses, that may be critical to national defense. Look for Congress to order some joint technical work on the rocket between the Defense Department and NASA as one more way to preserve the program.
Constellation supporters have strong odds of rebuffing Obama later this year when annual budget bills are considered. Senate budget planners are already showing their intention to preserve funding. A draft Senate budget resolution -- a blueprint for the next fiscal year -- adds about $1 billion to Obama’s $19 billion budget proposal for NASA, with all of the extra money set aside for Constellation. The budget resolution doesn’t have the force of law, but it is often closely followed as annual spending bills are fashioned later in the year.
Another advantage Constellation has -- highly influential lawmakers in each party who represent states and districts where NASA contracting, testing and development are widespread, including California, Florida, Texas, Maryland, Alabama and Utah. Delegations like these, acting in concert to save a program under fire, can be politically potent. All in all, work on Constellation is performed in 44 states in varying degree.
A possible veto showdown? It will be talked about as Congress prepares to face down the administration on NASA. But it’s doubtful. Obama will probably show some late hour flexibility, agreeing to let Constellation and all the rocket work move forward for now, while pledging to trim costs elsewhere. He’s not likely to go to the mat against Constellation and risk an embarrassing veto override on a comparatively small annual funding bill that Democrats can portray as important to jobs and security -- and right before the midterm election.
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Reader Comments (15)
Posted by: J. Wilson at 04/28/2010 01:37:14 PM
President Obama is getting too much flak over the Constellation pork-project and not enough credit for his big-picture goals for NASA. Yes, he's against the wasteful Constellation project, but that's only 1B of the 19 Billion that he is signing off on for NASA, not the least of which includes a truly audacious Mission to Mars component. The fact of the matter is that the U.S. DOES have fiscal restraints. There must be a limit at some point, as well as legitimate efforts to pay down our astronomical debt. Something has to give, regardless of who's in the White House.
Posted by: Fin Woo at 04/28/2010 05:52:33 PM
I think it should be kept in tact until something is built that can replace it.
Posted by: stu at 04/28/2010 06:11:30 PM
NASA is a money Pit...private corp can do this fo cheap.
Posted by: ClippinWings at 04/28/2010 06:14:45 PM
Sorry J Wilson, but the mission to Mars can't happen without a heavy lift rocket to get the equipment out of earths atmosphere. Cutting Constellation = cutting the Mars mission.
Posted by: Drew J at 04/28/2010 06:43:37 PM
I agree with J. Wilson. I would also like to point out that scraping the constellation project in no way means that all that research and funding simply went to waste. The research and discoveries made due to the time already spent on the project can be applied to heavy-lift rocket designs.
Posted by: Coastal Ron at 04/28/2010 08:05:15 PM
The author stated: "The Obama administration wants to scrap Constellation, intended to replace the 30-year old space shuttle program...". There is no replacement for the Shuttle at this point, and the Constellation program was ultimately "Apollo on steroids" (a return to the Moon). The GAO estimated it would cost $100B by 2020, and development of the Ares V heavy-lift launcher would still not be completed. It was sucking the life out of other NASA programs, and Congress never fully funded it. If Bush was not going to fully support it, why should Obama? "Theres some truth in that. There are only about a dozen fairly small U.S. commercial space companies,...". You neglected to mention that the most experienced aerospace companies in the world, Boeing and Lockheed, who through their ULA joint-venture operate two proven launchers. ULA has stated that both the Atlas V and Delta IV can be man-rated within about 4 years, and their capabilities are the same as the Ares I, but at a far smaller cost. The Ares I duplicates existing capability and costs more - why should the U.S. taxpayer want to fund it? "About $8 billion has already been spent on the Constellation program. Thatll be another argument by program defenders". Is Senator Shelby going to say that the Constellation program is too big to fail? Constellation was turning into another over-budget, low achieving program, and the Augustine Commission, plus the GAO, recognized that it was better to stop it now, and start with a new approach. The Constellation programs budget was going to force the ISS to be dumped into the ocean in 2015, so where was the Ares I going to fly to while the Ares V was being developed? Under the old program, U.S. astronauts would be stuck in space with nowhere to go. With the new plan, the ISS continues to be vibrant destination for our astronaut corp, requiring a constant stream of new personnel, and a testing ground for new technologies. And why a Republican Senator doesn't want free market competition is beyond me - unless pork politics are the reason... ;-)
Posted by: Clark Lindsey at 04/28/2010 08:57:49 PM
"There are only about a dozen fairly small U.S. commercial space companies..." You should not fall for this extremely misleading tactic used by opponents of the NASA changes. They deliberately ignore the Boeing Delta 4 and Lockheed-Martin Atlas V rockets when discussing commercial crew launch options. These rockets, which are operated by the United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Boeing and L-M, routinely and reliably launch billion dollar spacecraft for the military and other govt programs. They also launch commercial satellites. The previous NASA administrator rejected them for Constellation because he wanted a bigger rocket that could carry the overly big and heavy Orion capsule, which he thought would one day be a major component in a Mars mission. However, before becoming administrator he testified in a Congressional hearing (see www.thespacereview.com/article/339/1 ) that there was nothing you would do extra for launching humans on these rockets that you would not have done already for launching extremely expensive spacecraft. (A capsule on the rocket would, of course, have a launch escape system as a final backup in case of an abort.) "adds about $1 billion to Obamas $19 billion budget proposal for NASA, with all of the extra money set aside for Constellation." The Augustine panel determined that NASA would need an extra $6B per year to support both Constellation and the ISS through 2020 with a lunar landing in the early 2020s. The scenario you describe means that Constellation becomes just a zombie program that will keep people employed and looking busy at NASA centers while hardware development stretches out forever. Such nonsensical budgeting is conceivable with a Congress that does things like expand farm subsidies during a time of record food prices. I doubt, though, that it will survive more than a year or two as the deficit/debt crisis grows and the search intensifies for the easiest places to cut.
Posted by: Robert A. at 04/29/2010 01:42:34 AM
People need to realize that advances in technology come from innovation and research. Let's go ahead and lay off highly skilled technicians and engineers just so we can become road workers. You want to talk about pork projects start looking at all the money we keep throwing at welfare.
Posted by: Robert Horning at 04/29/2010 07:00:49 AM
As has been mentioned in several space conferences and elsewhere, the Democrats don't think capitalism works under the atmosphere, and the Republicans don't think it works above it. I seriously have to do a double take to see who is in favor of a massive concentrations of capital, increased taxes, and of foolish government largess done strictly to gain political favors for just a few special vocal congressmen. Those defending the Constellation program are only in it to buy votes in their own districts at the expense of the rest of the country, and willing to kill off an entire industry in the USA to accomplish that goal. For those who are reading this..... it is the Obama administration that thinks perhaps after decades of throwing money down the rat hole of government space programs with only dozens of failed government space projects to show for it, that perhaps we ought to give the opportunity to private commercial companies a chance to see if they have "the right stuff" to get a private spacecraft built and put into space. Keep in mind, when talking about private spaceflight, what we are talking about is not commercial companies that happen to build hardware for the government in a typical procurement contract like is done with most military hardware, often called a cost-plus contract which are prone to massive cost overruns, but straight old fashioned entrepreneurial competition where payment is given for results and a check won't be cut by the government until the service is provided. I'm talking something like how most ordinary people purchase stuff from Wal-mart or McDonalds, where you obtain the merchandise or service and then pay for it.... not the other way around. This is perhaps more like how FedEx and UPS work on shipping cargo around the world, where those companies don't charge their customers for developing the planes and training personnel for a decade before delivering the cargo to the destination.... they simply have a cost for how much it is to deliver the cargo to the destination and that is the price you pay for it. That is all these commercial companies are asking here of NASA and what the COTS program is really about in terms of supplying the International Space Station. I hope this is mentioned elsewhere, but it isn't just SpaceX that is getting involved here with providing commercial services for spaceflight transportation to low earth orbit. In addition to SpaceX there is Orbital Sciences that is within a year of launching their own rocket called the Taurus II, Boeing with the Delta IV, Lockheed-Martin with Atlas V, and as a long-shot even Northrup-Grumman with several future projects that could be developed in the next decade and Northrup is getting into commercial spaceflight anyway with the White Knight/Spaceship Two being built by Burt Rutan (Scaled Composites is now a Northrup-Grumman subsidiary). In fact the only major aerospace player not involved here is Alliant Techsystems, the builders of the Ares rockets. Presumably the only reason ATK isn't participating in this endeavor is precisely because the rockets they are building are uneconomical to operate. Is that a reason to mortgage the future of NASA and the American space industry... just so several congressmen in bed with ATK can get re-elected? Presumably, even ATK could get into the game here, but their company executives are so entrenched into government cost-plus contracts that they simply can't imagine paying for these rockets in any other way.
Posted by: red at 04/29/2010 07:24:37 AM
Let's take a look at what the 2011 NASA budget proposal contains instead of Constellation, and with the $6B budget increase over 5 years. I'm leaving out those things that would be there with or without Constellation (although with Constellation some of those things like NASA science and Aeronautics may be threatened by potential Constellation budget overruns; many NASA programs have already been sacrificed for Constellation). Here's what the budget has instead of Constellation: - making sure the Shuttle finishes building the space station ($600M) - demonstrations of essential exploration techologies like in-orbit propellant transfer, inflatable modules, closed-loop life support, using space resources to "live off the land", in-space propulsion, automated rendezvous and docking, and more ... so when we explore, we do it in a way that is affordable and returns benefits to the taxpayer ($7.8B over 5 years) - robotic precursors (as opposed to robotic science missions) to search for resources and assess hazards to astronauts at various destinations (eg: local resource use demo at the Moon or an asteroid, Moon surface telerobotics) ($3B over 5 years) - research and development for heavy lift rockets, in-space engine technology development and demos, and basic propulsion research ($3.1B over 5 years) - a 42% increase in the human research program ($215M per year for 5 years) - fully using the space station (with Constellation the U.S. can barely afford to use its facilities) - extending the space station to 2020+ instead of the Constellation plan to dump it in the ocean in 2016 - expanding space station capabilities (eg: adding a centrifuge) (all these space station increases amount to over $2B over the next 5 years) - modernize the Kennedy Space Center to make it more efficient and to reduce launch costs (almost $2B over 5 years) - incentives for U.S. commercial operators to create services to transport astronauts to the space station ($5.8B over 5 years). Note that the commercial operators would also pitch in funding and would strive to offer their services outside NASA, so there would be more jobs and a dynamic new U.S commercial industry could result. Also note that Ares I/Orion would cost about $45B for similar capabilities, would arrive later, would be drastically more expensive to operate, and would only be a single system (and thus not robust in the face of problems). - incentives for existing commercial cargo development efforts for the space station to add capabilities or tests (in light of the expected increase in the use of the space station) ($312M) - a general space technology program (about $4.9B over 5 years - this includes some existing programs but they are much smaller than this). - a graduate student fellowship program in space technology for 500 U.S. citizens per year with tuition, a stipend, a NASA advisor, NASA summer internships, and lab equipment - an increase in Earth observation missions (about $2B over 5 years) - a pretty good increase in robotic planetary science missions (but modest compared to the ones above) - There is also new funding to support NASA planetary science in the DOE budget. - a big increase in NASA Aeronautics (eg: new programs for fuel efficiency, unmanned aerial vehicles, aviation security and safety) - Constellation close-out costs ($2.5B - The thing is expensive even to close down!) There is also the recent addition of the Orion "super-lite" crew return vehicle and baseline for future exploration technology, which will perturb some of the above figures when it's added to the budget. With all of these increases in the right areas, including major new programs in human spaceflight and exploration, as well as increased funding in many down-to-Earth technologies and applications with practical benefits, this is a long-overdue reform of NASA that should make it healthy. It will also do wonders for the military and intelligence agencies by sharing costs with the rockets they use (currently not used nearly to capacity), by developing new rockets they can use, by developing lots of space technologies these agencies can use, and by flying lots of robotic missions (i.e. more Earth observerers, technology demonstrations, and human spaceflight robotic precursors) that share an industrial base with military and intelligence satellites.
Posted by: red at 04/29/2010 07:48:22 AM
I'd change the title of the article. Constellation defenders aren't NASA defenders; they're simply Constellation defenders. Constellation has already done lots of harm to the rest of NASA: the space station, general space technology, aeronautics, Earth observations, exploration technology development, space sciences, robotic precursor missions intended to scout for astronauts, etc. "they’ll use the national security card, insisting the program is vital to the nation’s defense." I think you're correct, but their argument is weak. National security doesn't need Ares I/Ares V solid rockets, they need missiles and ICBMs. Those are totally different. The new plan does the same sort of thing as the Ares plan but on a more useful scale by using the solids on Taurus II, Athena II, etc. Also keep in mind that the Ares rockets wouldn't actually start flying for many many years, whereas these are almost ready now, comparatively speaking. At any rate, the solid rocket base impact is small since the NASA and military rockets are different. The military and intelligence agencies will benefit on a much larger scale from various other items in the new NASA approach (i.e. shared use of rockets, shared technology base for satellites, dual-use technology development by NASA, etc). "They also say the U.S. commercial space industry is still in its infancy and won’t be ready for many years to perform the heavy lift functions that NASA currently does." NASA will probably use United Launch Alliance EELVs as a base for heavy lift. ULA has more experience than NASA. At any rate, the Augustine Committee found that NASA wouldn't be able to run the heavy-lift Ares V until 2028, and wouldn't have a payload for it until 2035 or so. ULA could have a more modest and affordable heavy lift ready in a few years. Also, with NASA's new approach, we might not even need heavy lift if we get propellant depots working. "equivalent of ceding space work and upcoming deep space exploration to Europe, Russia, India, China and South America." A lot of Constellation supporters say the new plan makes us depend on Russia. That's not true. The Constellation plan relies on the Russian Soyuz from 2011-2019. The new plan shrinks that to 2011-2016 at the latest, according to the Aerospace Corporation independent assessment and the Augustine Committee. Meanwhile, the new plan also gets U.S. production of Pu-238 and gets a U.S. RD-180 rocket engine equivalent built, so we don't have to depend on Russia for those items. As for the general space exploration approach, it doesn't cede space work to Europe or China or anyone else. The new plan gets us working and exploring much sooner than Constellation. The new plan starts beyond-LEO test flights by ~2020, whereas Constellation would start around 2035 according to Augustine. "There are only about a dozen fairly small U.S. commercial space companies, such as Orbital Sciences Corp., Rocketplane Kistler, SpaceX, Space Systems/Loral and PlanetSpace, and they have limited experience in launching satellites and other small cargoes into space. Counting on them to quickly ramp up their capabilities and be able to safely lift something as big as a space telescope or heavy cargo for the International Space Station is a stretch. It could be 15 years before that’s realistic." Some of those companies have quite a lot of experience (eg: Orbital, Loral). Orbital just bought the General Dynamics satellite division, for example. They've launched rockets for decades. At any rate, there are 2 issues here. One is launching astronauts. NASA's "Marchant 7" includes Orbital, SpaceX, Boeing, ULA, Paragon, Sierra Nevada, and Blue Origin (the CCDEV and COTS winners). Other companies could also compete for the crew business. We are covered there. For heavy lift ... NASA isn't even going to decide on a heavy lifter for 5 years. There is no hurry or great need for that. By the time that happens, we should still have Atlas V and Delta IV, we should have Falcon 9 and Taurus II, and maybe some other commercial crew rocket, to start the heavy lift rocket work if it's needed. NASA will also have 5 years of heavy lift R&D to build upon by then.
Posted by: Roga at 04/29/2010 12:38:55 PM
A few major inaccuracies in this article: Please add to your list of relatively small, inexperienced companies "Boeing" and "Lockheed," who between them have only designed and build every single manned space vehicle this country has ever produced. They are the controlling interests in ULA, which has successfully launched over 20 national security payloads to orbit on their Atlas 5 and Delta IV rockets. Since those rockets are the current frontrunners for NASA's commercial crew initiative, it is strange that you did not mention them. I have no idea where you got your 15 years to launching a space telescope. Atlas and Delta are currently the heaviest lifters in the American arsenal, and they launch huge telecom and military satellites several times a year. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was purpose-built for an ongoing NASA contract to deliver cargo to ISS, and it's currently sitting on the pad for its first test launch. Ares I was already postponed to crew-carrying status until 2017 at the earliest, and probably more like 2019-2020. SpaceX and ULA have both stated it would take 3 years to get humans to orbit. Let's say they're off by a factor of 3. They're still not extending the gap any more than Constellation was going to do. This "15 years" statement basically jumped the gap from "uninformed" to "making stuff up." The Falcon 9 and Ares 1 programs started at about the same time, and they are at their first test launch within 7 months of each other. The only differences, which you failed to mention, is that Falcon 9 cost approximately 1 TENTH as much to develop, and unlike Ares 1-X which launched last October, SpaceX managed to get the flight version of their rocket on the pad. Let's return to the cost issue though. The Ares 1-X FLIGHT, which again was not even the final rocket and could not have reached orbit, cost as much ($500M) as ALL OF FALCON 9 DEVELOPMENT to test launch of the ACTUAL FLIGHT ARTICLE. I don't understand why that particularly important fact didn't find its way into your article. If you did a little footwork, you would find that ULA's development of Atlas 5 and Delta IV was similarly a fraction of the cost of Constellation. Finally, I found it interesting that you mentioned the $1B that those other lawmakers want to add to the bill, but did not mention to other facts. First, that $1B is about 1/7th what constellation currently gets, so it's not exactly saving the day. Second, that the budget is already a $1B boost over last year's NASA appropriation. Most of your "facts" appear to have been lifted off of congressional boilerplate from opponents of this plan. It is amazing how foolish some stories become when you base them in reality.
Posted by: Robert Horning at 04/29/2010 05:28:21 PM
"The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was purpose-built for an ongoing NASA contract to deliver cargo to ISS, " Replying to the message left by Roga and often repeated elsewhere, the Falcon 9 was not built for NASA or with the intention that it was going to get to the International Space Station. As a matter of fact, the Falcon 9 started as the Falcon 5, but potential customers (mainly telecom satellite developers) were insisting that they needed more power in order to get their payloads to orbit. This is also why the Falcon 1 is now going through an upgrade to become the "Falcon 1e" rocket. Elon Musk was also interested in building a rocket that would be reliable enough to carry passengers into orbit, with the assumption that something safe enough to carry passengers would also be safe enough to carry multi-billion dollar payloads. For those who are drinking the kool-aide that somehow manned spaceflight is special and requires extra precautions, if flies smack into the face of these incredibly expensive cargo missions that also require incredibly reliable vehicles in order to get into space. If anything, the safety record for the Delta IV and the Atlas V rockets are much better than the Space Shuttle and can be documented with a proven flight history. Getting back to the Falcon 9: Development of this vehicle, as well as the Dragon capsule, was started well before it was even hinted that government money was going to be used for that vehicle. The attitude for SpaceX is more like if it is raining money, why not stick out your hat to pick some up? That Mr. Musk may seem prescient to have developed these vehicles before they were asked for by NASA may be true, but it really isn't all that unusual either. I'm quite certain that using the ISS as a broad engineering goal for delivering manned vehicles was discussed even when the Falcon 9 was being specified simply because it is a tangible thing for engineers to grasp. That is how engineers think, and it certainly is an engineering task that is comparatively easy to grasp. For NASA to come along afterward and say "do you have something that might reach the ISS" and to have SpaceX answer "yeah, we've been working on this for a couple of years, are you interested" doesn't seem so far fetched as it might before. The important thing to note is that SpaceX is not intending to have NASA as its only customer for the Falcon 9. ATK is, however, intending NASA to be the only customer for the Ares I and Ares V vehicles.
Posted by: red at 04/29/2010 08:18:08 PM
Roga: "Falcon 9 cost approximately 1 TENTH as much to develop..." If you're going to compare Falcon 9 and Ares I development costs, the important cost to consider in this discussion is the cost to NASA (and the taxpayer). SpaceX gets $278M from NASA for developing its cargo service for the space station. That includes Falcon 9 and the Dragon spacecraft that goes to the station. Estimates vary depending on whole you're asking (GAO, NASA, etc) and even NASA doesn't know for sure, but Ares I rocket and Orion spacecraft development would be in the ballpark of $45B to get to the space station. (Getting to the Moon's surface is something else entirely - that requires Orion upgrades and whole new systems like Ares V heavy lifter and Altair lunar lander, which will probably cost many $10's of billions). $45B is way more than 10 times the cost to NASA of Falcon 9/Dragon. It's way more than 100 times the cost of Falcon 9/Dragon to NASA. To be fair, Ares I/Orion are intended to get astronauts there, and (although SpaceX has their eyes on commercial crew transport with Falcon 9/Dragon) the commercial cargo contract is just for cargo. For another comparison, Orbital Sciences is getting considerably less than SpaceX for their ISS cargo service development (Taurus II rocket and Cygnus spacecraft). Ares I/Orion development looks even more expensive compared to Taurus II/Cygnus. NASA thinks a couple commercial crew transport systems that meet their safety requirements will cost $5.8B - or at least that's what's in the NASA budget proposal. That's roughly a factor of 10x cheaper than Ares I/Orion, the Augustine Committee thinks they will be ready sooner, they are more useful because they are private and thus allowed to service other markets (thus growing the economy and building our nation's space capabilities more than a NASA-only system), they are expected to be much cheaper to operate, and they will most likely have a huge safety advantage over Ares I/Orion: considerable use in non-astronaut business (i.e. the rockets will launch satellites and/or ISS cargo most of the time) so if a problem does happen, it likely will happen without crew on board. Roga: "unlike Ares 1-X which launched last October, SpaceX managed to get the flight version of their rocket on the pad..." I'd like to expand on this. The Falcon 9 on the pad is a real rocket intended to reach orbit and production. Although as the first of its kind it may very well not make it to orbit, we can expect the 2nd or 3rd or 4th to make it. The Ares I-X, which Congresspeople like to point to and say "Ares I is read"y, was a 4-segment first stage (i.e. an existing Shuttle component, not an Ares I 5-segment stage), a dummy upper stage (scaffolding for sensors to hang on to, not a rocket stage), a dummy Orion spacecraft payload, and software from existing rockets. There was no Ares I there, because Ares I is still early in its design. There is a debate about whether or not Ares I-X was a useful or cost-effective or successful test, and I'll leave it to rocket engineers to have that debate. I just want to make it really clear that Ares I isn't about to be launched any time soon just because of the Ares 1-X test. Roga: "[Ares 1-X test] cost as much ($500M) as ALL OF FALCON 9 DEVELOPMENT to test launch of the ACTUAL FLIGHT ARTICLE." The NASA COTS cargo development costs for not just Falcon 9, but Falcon 9, Dragon, Taurus II, and Cygnus (i.e. 2 totally separate and new rocket/spacecraft pairs through complete development including test flights to the space station) is $500M, so you're being way too generous to Ares 1-X (although I read that Ares I-X was more like $450M). Ares I-X was just a suborbital test article for 1 rocket and no spacecraft, and it was just the general shape of Ares I, not something close to an Ares I.
Posted by: C L at 04/30/2010 10:46:05 AM
When you have to borrow for food, you don't build rockets on the side. Simple.