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| Re: GAO recommends against NASA's Ares I launcher (507423) | |||
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Re: GAO recommends against NASA's Ares I launcher |
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Posted by WillD on Wed Oct 7 01:49:13 2009, in response to Re: GAO recommends against NASA's Ares I launcher, posted by Olog-hai on Tue Oct 6 23:24:08 2009. Again I'm forced to ask where exactly that could be read into anything I wrote. It is clear that NASA's current plans to return to the Moon, or even develop a sustainable Shuttle follow-on for a manned presence in LEO were poorly conceived and even more poorly executed. We're facing the prospect of spending the entire budget on the capsule and the two launchers, with no money for the actual missions to land on the moon, or the lunar lander itself. That this is an acceptable course of action to anyone in either Washington or Houston only serves to underscore just how mismanaged the space program has become.No part of the Direct proposal relies upon components developed or constructed by any European, unless there are outsourced components in the Orion capsule or the Altair lander. The two SRBs will continue to come from ATK in Utah, the SSMEs will come from Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne in California, the core boosters will come from the Michoud assembly plant in Louisiana. The later Jupiter Upper Stage will use J-2X or RL-10 engines, also from Rocketdyne, and likely be assembled alongside the Jupiter core boosters at Michoud. Indeed, the Direct proposal mirrors the existing plant, but with a slightly scaled down cargo launch vehicle with a scaled up crew launcher. By getting us back into manned spaceflight faster the Direct launcher ensures we do not fall behind the ESA's or JAXO's attempts to turn their current ATV and H-II into manned capsules. The Ares I's 7 year downtime could result in us falling far behind the ESA's crewed capsule. If you want a proposal that could be heavily involved in the ESA it'd be United Launch Alliance's Delta IV/Atlas V HLV concepts. The launch components would be as American as the other alternatives, but the mission architecture calls for propellant depots in low Earth orbit or at the second Earth/Moon lagrange point. Those propellant depots could be filled by any nation with medium lift space launch capability. Thus the ESA could actually help us reach the moon in return for money or crew to the moon. Given this and the recent news that NASA may need to take on international partners if they insist on sticking with their current plan a staunch xenophobe such as yourself should be waving the Direct banner as your last hope of a Moon return where the mission patch does not feature an EU banner on it. |
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