My Option to the Augustine Commision
Here is the option I promoted to the Augustine Commission:
NASA pay Boeing or SpaceX to send crew to the ISS until 2015, upon which they hand over the station to Boeing, pleasing scientists, taxpayers, international partners, and dreamers everywhere.
NASA cut the shuttle in early 2011
NASA ask Russia or Europe to build heavy launch vehicles to loft surface system elements
NASA build planetary surface elements
NASA sends people and surface systems to Mars, with people launched on commercial vehicles and systems launched on International Partner rockets.
Now it’s your turn.
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KC on August 25th, 2009
Why would we turn over a $100 billion worth in hardware over to a private company for free? And how do you think our international partners will feel about that?
John Benac on August 26th, 2009
government owner, contractor-operated (GOCO) labs, such as Los Alamos, have been a reality for some time now.
Our international partners would be happy to work with a company with which they are already used to working on the ISS
Rolando Quintanilla on August 27th, 2009
KC, the current plan is to throw the ISS away.
I am for holding a competition for ownership rights, to whoever can best operate it profitably at their own expense.
KC on August 27th, 2009
Yes I am perfectly aware that the current plan is to throw it away – which of course is idiotic.
I’m playing devil’s advocate here. I think any future plan for the ISS should be mindful of the fact that $100 million of US taxpayer and international partner’s money was spent to build it.
dden on October 13th, 2009
The airframes of the space shuttle orbiters are certified for 400 flights each, so the existing fleet could fly more than 1000 times before they had to be retired.
The orbiters are magnificent vehicles with untapped potential. The only problems they have ever had are due to the cumbersome and dangerous way they are launched. Faulty boosters and debris hitting the vehicles during launch account for all of its failures.
If an orbiter were mounted on top of the new Ares V booster, no debris would hit it during launch. Since the planned Ares V is the most powerful rocket ever designed, it could launch a shuttle orbiter into earth orbit without the orbiter having to use its main engines.
If large fuel tanks were installed in the payload bay, and the main engines were modified so that they could be started in space, a shuttle orbiter could be placed in earth orbit with the capability to perform a trans-lunar injection burn with its main engines and reach lunar orbit, where it could rendezvous with the planned Altair lunar lander, which would be launched separately.
After lunar operations were concluded, the orbiter would fire its engines again and return to Earth, where it would reenter earth orbit by performing a multiple pass aerobraking maneuver, in which the orbiter would skim through the upper atmosphere and slow down enough to go back into space and enter an elliptical orbit which would automatically bring it around for another pass through the atmosphere. The orbiter would make several passes, never getting hot enough to exceed the limits of the thermal protection system.
After two or three passes, the orbiter would enter a standard orbit around Earth and dock with the International Space Station.
This would be the achievement of an extremely sophisticated Earth-Lunar flight capability and would tie all of the threads of the space program, the X-series rocket plane program, the Apollo program, the Shuttle program and the Space Station, into a unified structure that would look as if it had been coherently planned.
Humanity would be inspired to see that the achievements and knowledge gained from past programs have not been wasted, but have all been woven into an elegant and sophisticated consolidation of our hard won victories in near Earth space.
I have a graphic of a shuttle orbiter mounted on the Ares V and will send it to you if you give me an address.