That Other Anniversary

Every space enthusiast seems to have some way of commemorating July 20th, the anniversary of when humans first walked on the surface of the moon. But few seem to mark that other anniversary: December 14, 1972, when humans last walked on the moon. For all of the jubilation on Apollo's success in landing a man on the moon before the decade was out, there is very little introspection on why Apollo gave us a tease of a space-faring future that has yet to come to fruition.

The success of Apollo can be credited to a well-run program packed with technical and management genius, flush with cash from a cold-war defense buildup. Conversely, the end of Apollo can be attributed to a decline in national will to continue the lunar effort, making it impossible to justify the human risk and national expenditures that were required to continue sending humans to the moon. Even after the risk was reduced and the development costs were sunk, a majority of Americans didn't want to keep cranking out Saturn rockets and launching them to further our understanding of our moon.

As NASA again embarks on the Apollo adventure, the questions of how we will sustain the lunar program have not been adequately addressed. If the cold war wasn't justification enough for a nationally-funded effort at sustained lunar missions, what is? I doubt that the use of NASA as a government jobs program can justify it alone. With regards to keeping people on the government payroll, sustained lunar missions don't have much advantage over, say, a sustained earth-orbital program such as the shuttle.

It's difficult to see Project Constellation sustaining itself beyond a few sortie missions, if it even achieves the lunar goal to begin with. Humans will only sustain a presence on the moon if a profit motive exists to do so. It doesn't matter if we're talking about the United States, Russia, China, or any other spacefaring world power. If the economic justification does not exist, the lunar landings will be an unsustainable stunt. Until a profitable reason to put humans on the moon exists, a sustained human presence on the moon will have to wait.

"Stages to Saturn" and Lessons from Saturn

I recently finished reading Stages to Saturn, Roger Bilstein's authoritative tome on the development of the Saturn rockets. The book was first written in 1979, with the perspective that Saturn-like rockets would soon be replaced with reusable launchers like the upcoming Shuttle. Perhaps Mr. Bilstein was surprised to see that, by the 2003 edition, his book could again be referenced by the designers of a new generation of launchers.

Philosopher George Santayana has been memorialized for his famous aphorism, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Naturally this begs the question, "How has today's NASA learned from history?" The major lessons from Apollo can be debatable, and NASA's implementation of those lessons is even more open to controversy.

When the Saturn A-I was still on the drawing boards in late 1959, there was debate as to what the upper stage would be. The cluster-tank first stage was already set, but various ICBM's were being eyed to form the second stage. While the Titan I first stage was preferred, it was rejected for numerous reasons (including structural limitations.) In Spring 1960, the Silverstein Committee convinced Wernher von Braun and his team to bite the fiscal bullet and develop an all-new, hydrogen-fueled upper stage.

During the Saturn program, NASA faced opportunities where existing hardware could have been used in a sub-optimal manner, but they instead invested in high-risk, high-payoff technologies that made Saturn a success (particularly the massive F-1 engine and the J-2 engine, which was a major impetus for the development of hydrogen as a rocket fuel.) The Ares rockets are shuttle-flavored, but not exactly shuttle-derived. The existing Shuttle SRB and Space Shuttle Main Engine were rejected because they couldn't meet mission requirements. But it's debatable whether a solid fuel first stage is necessary to begin with.

The Saturn rockets became astounding successes because they had ample development time and budgets. The Saturn program had the luxury of investing in new engines like F-1 and J-2 and all the challenges that accompanied them. By contrast, Ares I is being developed on a shoestring budget until the Shuttle is retired in 2010. The conflicting demand is that Ares I be operational as soon as possible, to minimize the loss of space launch capability between shuttle retirement and Ares I first flight.

Another reason for Saturn's spectacular success was the inherent design conservatism of the team at Marshall who developed the moon rockets. Wernher von Braun was skeptical of the low mass estimates that were given for the Apollo spacecraft and lunar module at the start of the program. He discreetly had his engineers design to much higher performance margins. Sure enough, von Braun was vindicated as spacecraft mass grew, particularly in the lunar module. The structural margins in all of the stages were such that mass could be removed from the S-II stage in order to increase the Saturn V's payload.

In designing Ares I, NASA quickly forgot the guidance of von Braun. The mass budgets for Ares I are so tight that Lockheed Martin was forced to scale back Orion to a "zero base" vehicle and add redundancy back in as vehicle performance improved. While there's still some performance margin, the margin between vehicle performance and payload mass should be much higher at such an early stage in the program's life (currently past Preliminary Design Review, with delta-PDR's remaining on issues like thrust oscillation damping.)

One lesson from the Saturn staging process could have averted the failure of Falcon I Flight 3. During a Saturn launch, the vehicle was allowed to coast for a period of time following stage burnout. When the stages separated, a series of retrorockets would create additional spacing between the upper and lower stages before the upper stage ignited. My guess is that Falcon I's designers omitted the retrorockets to squeeze extra payload mass into the design; the consequence is that some reliability is sacrificed.

The use of common bulkheads was key to Saturn's mass savings on stages 2&3. In both cases, the design of the bulkheads gave the contractors significant manufacturing challenges. Common bulkheads were rejected for the S-IC because of the density difference between liquid oxygen and kerosene (although this didn't stop its use in Atlas.) Because of the temperature difference between hydrogen and oxygen propellants, the bulkhead consisted of two thin skins separated by a precisely-shaped layer of insulation. The segments of the skins had to be welded together from individual gores. NASA and Boeing will hopefully be able to apply the same techniques when manufacturing the common bulkhead for the Ares I upper stages.

A massive program like Saturn cannot survive without effective management. This became an issue during North American Aviation's manufacturing of the S-II stage, and it appeared that NAA was overextended between the S-II and Apollo spacecraft. This becomes a bigger problem for Project Constellation because there are fewer aerospace contractors left who can manage the production of a major component, like the spacecraft or a rocket stage. Will LockMart or Boeing be able to produce the Ares V core in addition to the Orion Spacecraft or Ares I upper stage? What about production of the Earth Departure Stage or Altair lander?

While Project Constellation is fairly young, logistics is a challenge that deserves serious consideration at this stage of the program. Apollo neglected logistics longer than it should have, but innovative solutions were found through the use of river barges and "Pregnant Guppies" for transport of large rocket stages. The logistics problem for Constellation takes on an added dimension because the Ares V core will be the largest rocket stage ever produced. I don't know if NASA has seriously looked into what it will take to produce the Ares V core and transport it from Michoud to the Cape. It's an open question of whether the existing facilities and vehicles are up to the challenge.

Most importantly, the Saturn rockets succeeded because of ample supplies of genius and luck. People like George Low, Werner von Braun, Sam Phillips, and George Mueller were instrumental to the program's success. One of von Braun's biggest virtues was not his own ideas, but his ability to support other people's ideas when they conflicted with his own (ideas like all-up testing and lunar orbit rendezvous.) Many of the leaders in the Apollo effort took large gambles; the biggest gamble of all was all-up testing for Saturn V. The fact that all three stages of Saturn V worked properly on the first launch (Apollo 4) is testament to the geniuses and methodical managers and meticulous technicians who got it correct on the first try. The same could be said about Apollo 8, launched around the moon prior to an earth-orbit test of the Apollo spacecraft aboard the Saturn V. Only time will tell if the same genius is currently at play with NASA.

One small launch for a rocket, one giant leap for newspace

My hat goes off to SpaceX for successfully achieving orbit on the fourth launch of Falcon I. I'm sure a lot of observers of this industry, and a lot of space enthusiasts feel the same way. It's been a rocky road to get to this point, and the road will be even bumpier from here out. But with that being said, this is a brief moment for SpaceX to bask in the glory of achieving orbit with a privately-developed vehicle.

The only concern I have from watching the launch video feed is all of the debris that seemed to hang around the second stage nozzle. With that being said, I thought that separation was much cleaner than on the previous flights.

While Falcon I has found success, Falcon IX will be a much tougher challenge. With nine Merlin engines on the first stage and a single Merlin on stage 2, it's a much more complex vehicle than Falcon I and its pairing of one Merlin with one Kestrel.

Another factor worth considering is the long-term profitability of SpaceX. The Pegasus launcher is case-in-point. Also developed with private funds, the Pegasus program was launched with claims of low cost per each kilogram of payload to orbit. Due to a lack of missions and a low launch rate, Pegasus prices skyrocketed beyond what was initially projected. SpaceX hopes that Falcon IX will have a high flight rate thanks to COTS and space tourism missions. But if these goals aren't met, Falcon IX will turn into little more than another fairly-expensive EELV-class rocket like Delta or Atlas.

With all that being said, today is a very encouraging day. The accomplishments of SpaceX leading up to today's launch may be more important than the other government-funded space stunts of this past week, at least in terms of advancing humanity's permanent presence in space.

The Intolerable Gap

As I'm typing this entry, Russia is invading the sovereign, democratic nation of Georgia. This brazen act of war should be offensive to the shared values of the American people. The US government should be using all elements of the nation's soft power to force Russia's retreat from Georgia.

Throughout the course of the space age, spaceflight programs have been viewed as a form of soft power for spacefairing nations. It logically follows that the US should be using space as a means of compelling a Russian withdrawal from Georgia. The easiest way to do so would be to temporarily withdraw from the International Space Station until the Russians went to the peace table. But that's much easier said than done. A mixed Russian-American crew is currently aboard the station, with no way of evacuating the American contingient without getting the Russians involved.

Regardless of how long the Georgia crisis drags on, it represents a disturbing long-term trend. As long as the Putin regime is running the show in Russia, that nation will continue to intimidate and coerce former Soviet clients and breakaway republics to prevent them from forming close ties with the US and western Europe. As long as this status-quo remains true, America cannot in good conscience cooperate with the Russians in space endeavors or purchase Soyuz spacecraft under an exemption to the Iran Nonproliferation Act.

The Space Shuttle's imminent retirement and the wait until 2015 until the first crewed Orion mission should give America reason to pause. Its astronauts will be hostage to a mafia-run bully-state for at least five years. This frightening reality should make Congress, the President, and NASA more willing to consider accelerating the SpaceX Dragon program, flying Orion on a Delta IV or DIRECT, or even extending the shuttle program. As a last resort, American astronauts can stay grounded, as they did during the 1975-81 gap. But the alternative of sponsoring a rogue hegemon like Russia should be morally repugnant.

It Can Happen Here

After reading Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, I am starting to see how his arguments apply to the business of manned spaceflight and space launch. America's space program was born from the Cold War defense establishment, and for the foreseeable future it will remain a "fascist" space program.

Jonah Goldberg points out that most "fascist" societies share common traits: the mobilization of society under "the moral equivalent of war," the "coordination" of government and corporate power, and most importantly, "the religion of the state." All three traits are systemic to America's space program.

The glory days of NASA covered the period from Project Mercury in 1959 through the end of Project Apollo in 1975. As Tom Wolfe wrote in The Right Stuff, every manned spaceflight represented a round of "single combat" with the Soviets. It was the moral equivalent of war. Project Apollo served to mobilize American industry in a way that was surpassed only by the Manhattan Project.

Through Project Apollo, America dealt a severe blow to the Soviet Union in the greater Cold War. But in order to beat the Soviets, America had to become like the Soviet Union and beat them at their own game. Apollo was a crash program with no commercial application or opportunity for private-sector investment. Its goals were largely centered on national pride, or the religion of the state. After appeasing the gods of statolatry, Apollo was allowed to wither and die.

Fascism continues into the shuttle era. In order to justify the enormous expense of the space shuttle borne by the American taxpayers, and to get the flight rate up to levels which would make the vehicle economical, the shuttle was used to launch commercial payloads during its early years. The thought of a government-funded, government-operated vehicle launching commercial payloads should be anathema to freedom-loving Americans. But the shuttle served its need as "the moral equivalent of war." After all, the Russian efforts to duplicate the shuttle capabilities with Energia-Buran helped to bankrupt the Soviet Union. And the shuttle & space station continue to serve as symbols of national pride, promoting the religion of the state.

As the shuttle program winds down, Fascism will survive well into Project Constellation and possibly make its way to the moon again. The Ares-Orion stack is a prime example of "coordination" between the government and an oligarchy of large corporations. Every surviving aerospace giant gets a piece from the pork barrel. The worst offender is ATK, who is being paid hand-over-fist to produce an all-new solid booster that is the cornerstone of a horribly-suboptimized crew launcher. The line separating NASA and ATK grows fuzzier on a daily basis, as figures like Scott Horowitz continue to pass back-and-forth through the revolving door. Even Orbital Sciences gets a big handout in the form of a COTS prize to develop what's supposed to be a commercial launcher, Taurus II. And the official "state religion" within NASA is the dogma of Mike Griffin's "infallible, genius plan" for getting us back to the moon.

I'm not saying that these examples of fascism within the space program are all bad. For instance, the government subsidies of Atlas & Delta, and the eventual merger of their production, were necessary evils for ensuring DoD's continued space access. But unless there is a clear national-defense rationale, it's really hard to justify the continuing fascism within America's space efforts.

The writing is on the wall for the fascist space program. The news coming from Project Constellation is a continuing stream of schedule slips and budget shortfalls. The patience of Congress will not be infinite. At the same time, firms like SpaceX and Bigelow continue to develop not only commercial space vehicles, but commercial applications for said space vehicles. In time, the American space program will transition from fascism to freedom. And while freedom might not get us to the moon in the course of a decade, it can sustain itself much longer than six landings.

Learning the Wrong Lessons

Over the course of this week, America remembers its most visible and most profound space disasters. The sacrifices of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia will not be in vain if we choose to be smart and learn the correct lessons. But the brave astronauts who perished will have done so needlessly if we take the easy way out and embrace the wrong lessons from the tragedies which are seared in our minds.

Apollo 1 was a case where an immature spacecraft was rushed to the launch pad, under poorly-designed test conditions, and after proper quality controls were neglected. While the fire claimed the lives of three prominent astronauts and delayed Project Apollo by approximately 20 months, the result was a dramatically improved spacecraft that brought all of her crews home safely.

The Columbia disaster resulted from a broken safety culture which largely ignored a known defect in the Space Shuttle System: the liberation of ET foam and the risk it posed to the fragile thermal protection system. The reasoning was that because the foam had never caused a problem before, it was not a significant threat to crew safety. Columbia disproved this belief in tragic fashion. Fortunately for the program, NASA management has been judicious in trying to mitigate the shuttle system's inherent design flaw, and even more judicious in assessing damage from the foam strikes that still do occur.

Unfortunately, I think that the correct lessons of Challenger are being buried in the false ones. Challenger demonstrated that the shuttle was a finicky and complex system that could never achieve the fictitious flight rates that were promised at the program's outset.

Moreover, the Challenger disaster was the result of grossly-negligent decisions by middle managers within both NASA and Morton-Thiokol. The flight rules prohibited a launch in the conditions that existed on January 28, 1986. The Thiokol engineers had plenty of evidence to justify the reasoning behind those flight rules. Nevertheless, the launch wasn't stopped by the people who had the power to do the right thing.

When a person's gross negligence results in people getting killed, those people are often sent to jail. When Challenger was lost, nobody went to jail. In fact, NASA was REWARDED for its negligence when Congress funded construction of a replacement orbiter, and when President Reagan and the national leadership supported the continuation of the Space Shuttle Program.

The aftermath of the Challenger disaster is a dramatic example of the difference between the government and the private sector. Government endeavors will continue as long as Congress funds them, regardless of their success or failure. In the private sector, success means generating a profit for the stakeholders. If a private venture fails in that regard, the stakeholders will pull the rug out from under the failing effort. Twenty-two years after Challenger was lost, the American taxpayers still toss roughly $7 billion per year at a manned space program that can't accomplish much more than space station housekeeping and three shuttle flights per year. NASA is still in the business of flying the dangerous and finicky shuttle, and ATK (successor to Morton-Thiokol) is still getting paid hand-over-fist for both the existing SRB's, and for the new solids that will fuel the next generation of big-government pork-launchers.

NASA management's most enduring lesson from Challenger is the flawed mantra of "Crew must be kept separate from cargo." While such flawed logic is enough to trick Congress into funding the development of two very different launchers, it doesn't always hold true. If a launcher can be made safe enough for a human crew, there's no reason why it can't be trusted with carrying a reasonable amount of cargo at the same time.

Additionally, the ESAS architecture could potentially create the same schedule pressures that led to the Challenger launch decision. Because the EDS and lander can only loiter in orbit for 14 days, it creates conditions where NASA management could be tempted to launch the manned Ares I and Orion spacecraft in spite of borderline launch conditions. Managers may be willing to assume more risk if the alternative is throwing away multi-million-dollar hardware that's already in orbit, and missing the launch window for a lunar mission.

As NASA carries out Project Constellation, the agency has no incentives to hold to its schedule, budget, or performance claims as long as Congress funds NASA unconditionally. What the agency really needs is a set of safety and performance benchmarks that must be achieved in order to justify further funding. And if NASA fails to meet those benchmarks, the agency should be thrown under the tires in favor of SpaceX or Scaled Composites (or any other firm with the potential to clear the hurdles of putting humans in orbit.)

While the Challenger disaster fades into becoming a painful memory, its legacy is open to all who choose to seek it. We all have a duty to act in the interests of safety. And when we fail to do so, there should be serious ramifications.

Athena Rising

The most exciting story of the day (coming just one day before the SpaceShipTwo design unveiling) is the announcement of a new Delta II-class rocket, informally known as Athena III. Brought to you by the team of PlanetSpace, ATK and Lockheed Martin, it's a strong contender for the Commercial Orbital Transportation System contract.

The design challenges posed by "Athena III" are interesting to speculate on. Stage 1 consists of 2.5 segments from the Shuttle SRB. Stage 2 is a Castor 120 (the link to the old Athena I/II rockets.) Stage 3 is the Castor 30, a new development from ATK. Topping it all off is an Orbital Assist Module from Lockheed (and probably an Atlas-heritage payload fairing.)

The 2.5 segment SRB reminds me of the 3-segment SRB proposed for the "Stumpy"crew launcher. As the industry knows well, changing the length of a solid rocket is no trivial matter. Perhaps ATK is willing to settle for the change in thrust profile and burn rate that will accompany the shortened SRB. Or perhaps ATK has been working on this new SRB for a while in secret. Most interesting will be ATK's plans for the SRB casings and nozzles. Will they build new casings and nozzles that will be expended? If the casings are new, will ATK go with a composite material instead of the steel casings of the old SRB?

I don't know too much about Castor 30, but I start to suspect that it will also serve as the upper stage for Orbital's proposed "Taurus II" launcher. The Castor 120 is a known quantity, which should increase our confidence in "Athena III."

Overall, the design appears to be fairly low-risk. This is a drastic (but fortunate) change for PlanetSpace, which had previously backed the Canadian Arrow suborbital rocket and the "Silver Dart" lifting body. In search of a COTS profit, the company is turning to low-risk, short-term solutions. Hopefully any profits from Athena III will continue to push the development of Silver Dart.

In the battle to replace Delta II, the fight between Taurus II and Athena III will be a stiff one. While Orbital has deliberately designed a rocket to minimize operational costs, it remains to be seen how well the company will adapt to the largest liquid-fueled rocket it has ever dealt with. A longer-range issue is what the company will do once it's stockpile of Russian-built NK-33 engines is depleted. Athena III is at a cost disadvantage (solid propellants don't come cheap,) but it has the potential to be highly reliable. Moreover, the SRB-derived nature of Athena III will probably gain NASA's support if it means trickle-down benefits for the Ares launchers.

Engineering a Spacefaring Society

The goal of Project Constellation is to take humanity to the moon, Mars and beyond. That is a noble step on humanity's drive to spread out beyond the earth, explore the universe, and preserve our society beyond the Earth's inevitable death. But it's also clear that there's a massive gap between Constellation's goals (a small moon base and Mars sortie mission) and our eventual goal of spreading out beyond earth. The end-state is what I like to call a "spacefaring society."

In some ways, I think that Project Constellation ignores the technological needs of a spacefaring society in the name of budgetary and schedule expediency. Transportation to the moon and beyond will be achieved with brute-force, by launching large rockets from the earth. But if Constellation is truly a marathon (rather than a sprint,) it should focus on the long-term development of the essential technologies which will enable human exploration of the solar system.

My "technologies for a spacefaring society" list is nothing new. Many of the all-time great visionaries in the space business have said the same things that I'm saying here. Nonetheless, the admission of things that require development is an admission that humanity is not ready to truly leave the cradle for good.

The following is a list of eight technologies that I feel are essential to human exploration of our own solar system. Rather than a "moon-first" focus, I'm beginning to feel that Constellation should be redirected towards developing these technologies before we return to the moon.

1) Space Nuclear Power
Albeit a controversial technology, portable nuclear reactors have the capability to make bases on the moon and Mars sustainable without being hostage to the sun (or Martian weather.) While they would require periodic replenishment from earth, space surface reactors are the way to truly power long-term human bases on other bodies of our solar system.

2) Large-Scale Electric Propulsion
This is not a prerequisite for lunar travel, but they certainly make for a more fuel-efficient cruise to Mars, asteroids or beyond. Current electric thrusters have put out very tiny amounts of thrust. We need much larger thrusters for human interplanetary missions.

While solar power is a possible power source for electric propulsion units, the large array size needed to drive the electric thrusters would make a spacecraft more vulnerable to micrometeoroid impacts. For human missions, nuclear reactors are the preferred power source for driving electric rockets.

Electric propulsion isn't useful for human travel to the moon due to their low thrust. My preferred lunar transport architecture uses nuclear-thermal rockets. Without losing too much thrust over chemical engines, they offer almost twice the specific impulse of hydrogen-oxygen rockets.

3) Artificial Gravity
While we don't understand everything there is to know about long-term exposure to weightlessness, we've seen enough to realize that zero-G is largely detrimental to the human body. We still don't fully understand what rotation rates the human body can tolerate while subjected to an artificial-G system. We also need lightweight materials that can build strong structures for artificial-G spacecraft. An open question is whether it's better to subject a person to a slow, constant spin on a large-diameter wheel spaceship, or if an astronaut could spend short periods of time in a very fast centrifuge to counteract the effects of weightlessness.

4) On-Orbit Fueling
On-Orbit refueling has so much to offer for spacefaring societies. It allows us to launch massive spacecraft from earth into orbit, as long as those craft are launched with empty propellant tanks and refueled on-orbit. Propellant stocks make for cheap payloads and increase the demand for earth-to-orbit transportation.

Beyond their use in earth orbit, propellant depots on the moon and Mars will enable reusable transportation to ferry astronauts between space transportation hubs and the lunar/Martian surface. Whether it's a space station at EML1/2 or on the Moons of Mars, it will serve as a useful staging ground for landings and for inbound or earthbound astronauts.

5) In-Situ Resource Utilization
The ability to make propellant on the moon or Mars will save the expense of launching so much propellant mass into earth orbit. The Sabatier reaction and electrolysis on Mars can produce methane, oxygen, and water by simply using Martian atmosphere combined with hydrogen feedstock. Future missions can make use of water and other substances we find on the moon and Mars.

If astronauts are to survive with little or no resupply from earth, they will need to adopt a "live off the land" philosophy. Just as the pioneers of the American frontier learned how to be resourceful with the things they found in the lands where they settled, so too will the astronauts who settle the moon, Mars and beyond.

6) Closed-Loop Life Support Systems
Unless astronauts can carry massive amounts of consumables with them for long space voyages, they will need to close the life-support loop. Practially everything will need to be recycled. That even means having to find a way to recycle the astronauts' poop. It's a dirty job, but NASA or somebody will need to develop a "biodome" capable of sustaining life with a minimum of mass that will need to be replaced.

7) Aerobraking & aerocapture
The ability to use the atmosphere of Earth or Mars to brake large payloads will save much propellant mass in an earth-Mars transportation system. It's essentially like getting a free ride, as long as we can build heat shields and guidance systems that can make aerobraking effective.

8) Reliable, routine transport to earth orbit
This is a major sticking point for a lot of the space pundits. Many people can't get past the idea that expendible rockets are so wasteful. But it's also true that reusable launchers are more expensive to develop and more expensive to operate. In the current paradigm, the best way to provide human transportation for earth to orbit is with simple, throwaway rockets and simple capsules.

As we build simpler rockets and capsules that can reliably increase the demand and ability to put humans in orbit, we'll get closer to the launch rates that will make reusable rockets cost-effective. It may take 50 or more launches per year to make economic sense of a reusable spacecraft. That day may not come in my lifetime, but it eventually will come.

My current thinking on reusable launchers is that a scramjet-powered first stage would be required for a manned spaceship. It would need an assist from the upper stage's rocket engines for takeoff, but it would then accelerate to Mach 12 (approximately) before releasing its "spaceliner" upper stage. The scramjet-powered mothership would be capable of airliner-like operations, as opposed to the relatively maintenance-intensive upper stage. In the system I envision, there would actually be fewer motherships than spaceliners in order to meet the demand for spaceflights.

Epilogue--Growing Up in the Cradle
As Tsiolkovsky wrote, "Earth is the cradle of mankind, but man cannot remain in the cradle forever." While his words still ring true today, it's clear to me that we are still mere babies in this wide universe. We're trying to stick our hands out of the cradle, but we just don't have the strength to pull ourselves up and out. We will only grow up when we invest time, money, brainpower, willpower, and patience (most importantly) in the tools that will make us strong enough to rise from the cradle.

Delaying the Vision

Depending on the direction the political winds blow in 2008, Project Constellation may face a delay of the political kind. The armchair astronauts have been wrapped up in debating the technical merits of the program, and the political merits are now open to debate as well. (I have argued about the technical merits from the perspective of what's politically acceptable, favoring cheaper development and lifecycle costs in order to make Constellation invulnerable to budget cuts like Apollo was.)

The way Constellation is structured, there are many forms that a potential delay can take. While many pundits have jumped to the conclusion that "Barack is going to extend the US spaceflight gap to 2020," that's not necessarily the case. There are three possible forms that a five-year delay could take:
1. Delay the development of Orion and Ares I. This is the worst option, as it would delay the shuttle's successor to 2020. It would force America to rely on Russia (possibly China and India too) for manned spaceflight, at least until SpaceX can get Dragon working.
2. Develop Orion as planned and delay the development of Ares rockets and lunar hardware. This option would still see the gap extending into 2013-2015, but would fly Orion on the already-developed Delta IV Heavy. A future president would be able to resurrect the lunar program at a later date, although this would appear to be unlikely.
3. Develop Orion and Ares I, while delaying Ares V and lunar hardware. Let's face it: Ares I is neither safe, simple, nor soon. Its major purpose is to justify the early development of the J-2X engine and five-segment SRB's. If Ares V is delayed, at least some of its major elements will already be in production. If a future administration authorizes Ares V and lunar missions, it will "only" require development of the super-transporters, launch pads, servicing structure, EDS, 10m core, and fairing. At least the post-shuttle gap would not grow under this option.

Now that we've talked about delays, let's talk about the way politics and acquisition work in the real world. In a best-case scenario, we're talking about major cost growth on Project Constellation, once the costs of maintaining Constellation facilities, hardware and personnel during the five idle years is factored in.

The most likely scenario is that a politically-imposed delay of more than a year will probably spell the end of the Project Constellation. When Congress delays a program indefinitely, it's simply a more gentle way of killing it. (Just think of the way Milton is fired in Office Space.) The Navalized F-22 was killed in this fashion, as have many other aerospace projects.

The only aerospace project I can think of to survive a politically-mandated, multi-year delay was the B-1 Lancer. In 1977, President Carter terminated the B-1 production contract but still allowed the B-1 test program to proceed. Candidate Reagan used the B-1 as a campaign issue in the 1980 election, and authorized production of the improved B-1B when he became president the following year. Of course, this was the height of the Cold War, and a program such as the B-1 could be justified on national security grounds. If some future president should try to campaign on resurrecting Project Constellation in the 2012 election, he or she probably wouldn't find too many sympathetic ears.

Say It Isn't So

If all goes according to plan, NASA will soon re-award roughly $175 mil that was originally supposed to fund Rocketplane-Kistler's COTS entry. The loss of this contract is likely to leave RpK in dire financial straits.

On the flip side of the coin, Jeff Foust reports that RpK is redesigning its XP space tourism vehicle to make it more competitive in the suborbital marketplace. The logic behind the change is sound. But the fact that RpK could make that change indicates to me that they were never as far along in the development of XP as they publicly claimed. I haven't seen much info on the engine that the team plans on using (which is allegedly based on the old Atlas sustainer.) It's also been stated that many of the team's personnel, like the legendary David Urie, have been released due to the company's focus on keeping the COTS program alive.

It's been pointed out that, during the late 90's, the Kistler K-1 essentially killed the original Rocketplane (the Pioneer Pathfinder) by winning a key investment by Northrop Grumman. Ironically, the Rocketplane company and its current rocketplane may be killed by their acquisition of the Kistler albatross.

RpK is currently fighting tooth-and-nail with legal appealsl, hoping that NASA will reconsider its decision to re-award the COTS contract. I don't blame the company, but I think a smarter way ahead would be to drop K-1 entirely and try to turn a profit with XP. The K-1 hardware could be sold, although I'm not completely certain who'd be interested in buying it. Orbital Sciences might be interested in buying the NK-33 engines that RpK owns, for use on their upcoming "Taurus II" rocket (hopefully there will be a better name for it soon.)

At one time, I was very enthusiastic about the K-1 concept. By now I realize the the project has been a costly money-pit. I look at the "Launch Assist Platform" first stage and realize that the propulsive return to the launch site is a waste of propellant mass. While the lessons of K-1 could eventually help RpK to build a smaller reusable spacecraft (utilizing a rocketplane first stage and a ballistic second stage,) it has become an albatross that weighed down and sank a once-promising newspace firm.

Fly Away Home

One of the challenges in building a fully reusable launcher is the recovery of the spacecraft's lower stage (or stages.) Analytically, it's easily demonstrated that a reusable launcher will probably have two or three stages. (A single-stage vehicle would place a horribly tiny fraction of its liftoff mass into orbit, and probably isn't even feasible with contemporary structures and propulsion technology.) But the booster recovery problem is much more difficult than it initially seems.

The most mechanically simple technique is to recover the boosters with parachutes. They'd either splash down in the ocean, or make an airbag-assisted landing on terra firma. The space shuttle SRB's have demonstrated this technique over a hundred times. Our operational experience with this method has taught us much about why we need to find an alternative. The cost of the recovery fleet is considerable. So is the cost of tearing each booster down between flights, shipping it to Utah and back, and reassembling it.

Parachute recovery shouldn't be completely rejected, although there's admittedly a lot riding against it. Rocketplane-Kistler hopes to avoid a lot of the shuttle SRB's problems by bringing the first stage of their K-1 to a landing on dry ground. Assuming that you have a large, open area in your predicted drop zone, I can see the Kistler approach working fairly well. Instead of relying on NASA's SRB recovery flotilla, Kistler could lift the booster with mobile cranes and haul it away on a flatbed truck. It also solves the problems associated with protecting the delicate parts of a liquid-fuel rocket from corrosive seawater.

The next best approach is the flyback booster. Buzz Aldrin's company, Starcraft Boosters Inc, has done a lot of work in this field. One of their important conclusions is that a booster staging at speeds under Mach 3.3 has enough energy to glide back to the launch site; a booster burning out at Mach 6 would require turbofan engines to return to base, but its aluminum heat-sink airframe could survive the expected heating.

In the 1960's, Max Faget's "DC-3 Shuttle" concept made use of a single, very large, winged booster. His proposed craft would have a manned crew, and retractable turbofan engines. The booster would exceed Mach 10 before burning out and falling away. It would have required heavy heat shielding based on its mission profile. The booster could be recovered downrange, then refueled with kerosene and flown back to the launch site like a conventional aircraft.

One idea I've been toying with is a very large booster with a very high staging velocity. How high, you ask? Well, high enough to fly an "Abort Once Around" trajectory and return to the launch site after a single revolution of the earth. The structural requirements and payload inefficiencies of such a booster would be nearly as bad as for a rocket that went to orbit with a single stage. The associated second stage/orbiter would be very tiny in comparison to the orbiter. Yet it has some operational advantages, such as the ability to land without turbines.

How do we proceed with the development of an RLV from here? I think that the StarHawk concept from Starcraft Boosters is a logical first step. The Air Force, under the banner of "Responsive Space Access," should take the lead on this program. While Aldrin's company doesn't have the ability to take lead in building the booster, the Air Force should keep them onboard in a consulting role, and contract the detail design and construction of the booster to the established aerospace firms. StarHawk should even be designated as an "X-Plane."

Building a modest flyback booster like StarHawk will give the US government and industry a lot of experience in designing, building, and operating a reusable lower stage booster. That experience can be shared with the industry and leveraged to build even bigger flyback boosters for rockets that will truly open the space frontier.

Running Down a Dream

Benson Space and SpaceDev have unveiled the third design for their "Dream Chaser" manned spacecraft since the concept was announced in 2004. First they started with a clone of the X-34, as recommended in a paper by Marti Sarigul-Klijn. In November 2005 they changed to the HL-20, which was better suited for orbital spaceflights. They even went as far as negotiations with United Launch Alliance for use of the Atlas V 431 rocket. Yesterday, they unveiled this version of Dream Chaser, based on the X-1 and X-15 rocket planes.

I must say I was a bit disappointed to see the HL-20 design discarded. To be honest, I think Benson/SpaceDev's current design would be better for suborbital space missions, but the HL-20 clone would be better for orbital flights. If Benson Space succeeds in breaking into the suborbital tourism business, they should commission SpaceDev to design an all-new craft by the time they're ready to get into the orbital spaceflight market.

It's all a question of what direction Benson Space wants to go with its space tourism efforts. Do they want to go suborbital first, then get into orbital flights as the technology improves? Or do they want to leapfrog over the competition and go straight to orbit? While the latter strategy could play out in the long run, it would appear that the jump straight to orbital flights would be "a bridge too far" for most new-space companies.

In a way, the decisions facing the New-Space firms are similar to the choices made by US and Soviet space officials in the late 50's. The US committed to a brief suborbital program using the Mercury Redstone. The Soviets had planned on suborbital manned flights with a V-2 variant, but cancelled that program based on the success of the R-7 and Vostok rockets.

Solid Support?

In announcing its memorandum of understanding with United Launch Alliance, SpaceDev revealed that it's willing to fly as many as three solid rocket boosters on the Atlas V that could possibly take the Dream Chaser spacecraft to orbit.

SpaceDev is not the first firm to advocate the use of an Atlas V with solid rocket boosters for manned spaceflight. TeamVision also proposed an Atlas V with four SRB's as a booster for the Orion spacecraft, eliminating the need for an expensive Ares I development program.

Lockheed Martin seemed to have ruled out the use of SRB's when conducting its man-rated Atlas V study. The reasoning was that NASA's specs for safety factors in human spaceflight were exceeded when the additional thrust and impulse of the SRB's was accounted for. Lockheed Martin concluded that only the single-core Atlas V's were suited for manned spaceflight.

The SpaceDev vehicle gets around the NASA safety regulations because it's developed and operated by a private entity. It remains to be seen whether the FAA will hold an orbital space tourism firm to the same standards as NASA.

At the same time, the NASA safety factors should be open to debate. As the TeamVision report argues, the safety factors on an Atlas V 551 were sufficient for an expensive, unmanned spacecraft like New Horizons. Is there any reason why a manned spacecraft with a robust abort system couldn't fly on the same launch vehicle? I suspect that the Redstone, Atlas and Titan II rockets would not have met NASA's current safety standards, either. Yet they worked well when they were employed in a total of sixteen manned spaceflights.

Spaceplanes of Gossamer Wings?

About a month ago, beloved space-pundit Jeff Bell predicted disastrous safety problems for upcoming space tourist craft like SpaceShipTwo and Rocketplane XP. I will be the first to admit that rocket powered aircraft traveling into the exosphere will almost certainly be more dangerous than conventional aircraft. That being said, I also think that Jeff Bell overestimates the dangers of suborbital spaceplanes.

Most of the problems noted in Dr. Bell's analysis of the data show that engine problems accounted for a vast majority of catastrophic rocketplane incidents. Four of these were attributed to the use of ullmer leather, incompatible with liquid oxygen. The second X-15 had an in-flight engine failure, and the third X-15 had an engine explode on the ground. While this is a problem inherent in all rocketplane projects, it must be noted that the X-15 program was conducted at a time when large liquid rockets, especially complex ones like the XLR-99, were in their infancy. As time has progressed, rocket engines have become more reliable. Spaceplane engines need not be any different.

It should also be noted that all of the projects cited by Dr. Bell were research programs that "pushed the leading edge" of flight research. The X-15A-2 suffered structural damage during a high-speed run, the X-2 was lost due to inertial coupling, and the third X-15A spun out of control during re-entry. Flights of commercial spaceplanes will avoid these problems by flying well within the type's flight envelope instead of shooting for extreme speeds and maneuvers that are the norm in a flight research program. I especially think highly of SpaceShipTwo's "feather" maneuver, which takes much of the risk out of reentry.

Dr. Bell mentions the grounding of three X-1 series aircraft due to fatigue in the tankage. This is a problem that cannot be dismissed, but it's not a show-stopper either. Propellant tanks have to be designed to withstand a certain number of pressurization cycles, and they have to be inspected thoroughly between flights. Fortunately, our ability to inspect for microcracks in these tanks is much better today than it was in the 1950's.

I share Dr. Bell's concern with the SpaceShipTwo propulsion system. I studied hybrids for a lengthy period in college. In my mind, the supposed safety benefits never seemed that great, and they never seemed to outweigh their poor performance when compared with liquid systems (or even all-solid rockets, which usually have better specific impulse than N2O-HTPB hybrids.)

Noticeably absent from Jeff Bell's data is any mention of the Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket. This research aircraft flew 313 times using three airframes. None of the aircraft were lost during the highly-successful program. The program even racked up a remarkable aviation achievement: the first Mach 2 flight in history was achieved by Scott Crossfield in the D-558-II on November 20, 1953.

Of the 313 flights, three different propulsion schemes were employed: turbojet-only, turbojet + rocket, and rocket-only with launch from a B-29 mothership. Admittedly, the turbojet-only flights should be tossed out of this safety record, because they're no different from conventional aircraft. Nonetheless, the Skyrocket demonstrated that there's nothing inherently unsafe about mounting a rocket engine with a winged airframe.

As space tourism reaches the suborbital frontier, rocket-powered aircraft will lead the way. Flying in such craft will undoubtedly carry risks, but safe practices and smart engineering can bring risks down to acceptable levels. The passengers of such spaceplanes should go into their adventures with full awareness of those risks, and a belief that their space experience will outweigh any potential hazards.

Comeback Kids

Watching the Falcon I launch makes me very proud of the SpaceX team. The two aborts that were so disappointing to watch were at least a validation of the robustness that was built into the rocket when it was redesigned over the past year.

At this point I've lost video feed and I'm anxiously awaiting word on what the mission's status is. I noticed the less-than-nominal staging event and I noticed the second stage engine gyrating a bit too wildly for my tastes before the video cut out.

Before the launch, my prediction was that stage 1 would work as planned, but there would be a problem between stage separation and orbital insertion. I don't take any pride in the fact that my educated guess is probably the case today. Then again, I promised my coworkers that I'd buy them beers if SpaceX actually achieved orbit.

Regardless of whether this Falcon I shot successfully achieved orbit, the SpaceX team should be proud of how far they've come, and confident that the next launch will be a success.

Getting out of the Business

Does NASA still need to participate in the manned spaceflight business?

NASA was formed in 1958, a unique child of the cold war. The United States had been caught unprepared by the October 1957 launch of Sputnik. While the US had the potential to co-opt the Soviets for first satellite in space, the US space program was divided and flailing. The Army, Navy and Air Force had maintained separate space programs. The nation was frightened by the implications of Sputnik, and the government believed that only a unified space effort (NASA) could ensure American technical dominance on "the high frontier" of space.

In those earlier years, the Soviets clearly had an edge in the field of launch vehicles (the story was completely reversed in the field of ballistic missiles, but that truth was suppressed in the political climate of 1960.) NASA's primary success came from establishing American dominace in the fields of manned spaceflight (arguably beginning with the Gemini 4 mission) and launch vehicles. One could argue that NASA had fulfilled its mission and reason for existence with the first moon landing in 1969.

In the post-Apollo era, NASA struggled to find direction. The shuttle program was conceived for political reasons that make little sense, even today. The space station, as proposed by President Reagan in 1984, was primarily motivated by a desire to achieve parity with the Soviet space station program and bolster unity with America's cold war allies. When the cold war ended, NASA's human spaceflight program was re-cast as a bridge between former enemies; hence, we got the shuttle-Mir program and the ISS.

Are the taxpayers being well-served by their government-administered, socialist space program? A majority of people probably don't think that the $7B spent on human spaceflight by NASA every year isn't being well-spent on a dangerous shuttle and a space station that doesn't do enough science to justify the investment.

What if there was another way to access space? What if some real-life Dagny Taggart came up with a "John Galt Spaceline" to open the space frontier to the common man? The way ahead might not be too far off. Sir Richard Branson and others are temptingly close to offering suborbital spaceflights. Some enterprising figure like Elon Musk or George French might launch a manned, orbital mission by the end of this decade. Robert Bigelow is pushing ahead with a realistic plan to build a space hotel, and even has the audacity to talk of building a lunar base.

"Space for all" used to be a fantasy. Now it's more like a waking dream, and it will shortly be a reality. Between 2010 and 2014 there will be a gap where NASA has no manned spaceflight capability and a space station of questionable value; at the same time, the private sector might have an orbital manned spacecraft and a space hotel. If the private sector has the ability to surpass NASA, why do we even bother paying NASA to launch men into space? With each passing day, it appears that the money being spent on NASA's lunar return plans would be better spent on COTS and other programs which encourage private-sector spaceflight.

A socialist space program like NASA sometimes buys us faster schedules (like getting to the moon by 1969,) at the cost of great expenditures. NASA was a necessity during the cold war, when it became necessary to match the Soviets in a "war by other means." Now that the cold war is over, NASA has been reduced to a doddering relic. Even with a new and exciting mission like returning to the moon, there's little hope that NASA will be able to meet its budget and schedule targets. The private sector will take even longer than NASA to reach the moon, but it will be assured of reaching the moon once there is a market for the moon.

The launch of the first private orbital spacecraft will be the first nail in the coffin for NASA's manned spaceflight program, as it should be. Socialist space programs should be a thing of the past. NASA will have to focus on basic aeronautical research (as it did in the old NACA days) and space sciences, including unmanned planetary probes. Spaceflight will no longer be the realm of government-appointed demigods (including the occasional homicidal astronaut.) It will be open to an ever-expanding mass of people who want to go into space not for some lofty ideal of science, but to pursue the self-interests ingrained in the human spirit.