New Mars

Why yes, cutting your own leg off does make a pretty dramatic statement.

Your "plan" to finish the ISS actually does stipulate contractors: whoever owns Energia, Progress, and Pitchka. "Reducing the number of flights" between two different vehicles is twisting M. Griffin's words to suit your aims too.

Again, the ISS makes an awfully expensive life support test bed. Too expensive to possibly justify, even a one piece free-flier module on Ares-I or EELV with a CO2/H2O vapor tank to simulate human breath would be better. Put it in a CEV capsule with extended RCS tankage and be done with it.

Our arguing isn't going to drag the ISS out "forever," Shuttle will fly for four more years and then its done with. Then VSE will pick up steam.

I find it interesting, and perhaps dishonest, that you have suddenly morphed arguing over a crazy plan to spend large amounts of money on Russians to finish the ISS fast versus a year or so slower with Shuttle into the dread "NASA argues before projects, projects always die" bit.

I find it difficult to believe you fail to understand that deeply. It's more plausible to believe you're deliberately misleading those who read this.

The plan I laid out was to utilize capabilities of ISS partners to finish it quickly. NASA would pay ESA for ATV, nothing to Russia. You immediately jump to the conclusion that it's all American or America pays Russia. As I said, there are other countries in the world and other partners of ISS. Europe developed Ariane, and actually they have the majority of the commercial space business. Paying Europe to replace roughly 1 year of Shuttle (16 months if it flies 4 times a year) is not "paying Russia". Since Americans like you are so obsessed with this, I suggested getting Europe, Japan, and Brazil to help Russia pay for Energia. That wouldn't include any help for Ptichka.

You also said "Shuttle will fly for four more years and then its done with". Interesting. If we use Shuttle alone to complete ISS, all those missions currently scheduled for Shuttle, then it would take 7 years without any set-backs. Shuttle's record lately has not been good; I doubt it'll work that long without a set-back of some sort. But even if it does work smoothly, you claim it's just "four more years and then it's done with". Ah hah. So we would be left with an uncompleted space station, but VSE will not start until the space station is complete. If you try to give up and abandon the station, why do you believe congress would provide funds for VSE? Sounds like a dead end to me.

Meanwhile we're arguing again with only 3 days before the conference. Every time I suggested an alternative plan to complete ISS quickly you shoot it down. The result is extreme expense for a path that has no chance for success. VSE won't even begin.

Gee, it must be Sunday and raining outside, for you two to spend all that time indoors! My take on what's about to happen re. the ISS, is that the Space Shuttle is reliable enough to be trusted by the public at large, since the procedures now in place are capable of monitoring every aspect of each mission. The same goes for a Hubble service mission. The 2010 deadline is a polically-based decision only. Think of the orbiter as a DC-3 or an Electra, for example, obsolete sure, the air(ospace)frames essentially contain all-new bits and pieces each time they're adapted, but they keep on flying because the designs can't be bettered, timewise, costwise, reliabilitywise, for the jobs remaining to be done that require them. The Soyuz Program belongs in this catagory. When we have finally pulled our space-socks up, these old masterpieces of the last century can be relegated to the aerospace museums where they belong, but until then let's go for it with what we've got, guys!

= Standing against your "savior of chicken little" rhetorict about the sky is falling, and only you can save the day.
Why yes, because the Russians are broke. Where else will the billion or more come from for even your optimistic estimate? The Russians do not have this money, they can barely afford Soyuz/Progress, and beliefe otherwise is self-delusion. They will not be coming to your rescue no matter how much you worship them.

Building ATVs and Ariane-V rockets to make up for a Shuttle flight will also cost about one billion dollars, similar in cost to the single Shuttle flight they would be supplanting, and would take some time to build & fly. So instead of a billion going to American contractors, you have a billion going to French/Italian/German/etc contractors to do the same thing in about the same time frame. This accomplishes nothing, plus limits cargo items to the too-small 80cm Soyuz hatch.

The Europeans + Japan would balk at spending such a large fraction of their budget on Energia too, they are even more protective of domestic jobs than we are I think. Its politically untennable, and they don't care that much about the ISS either I imagine. NASA even considerd a buyout of their ISS interests if memory serves.
Sending a billion dollars or more overseas to foreigners without a good reason is something anybody ought to hesitate about. Why should we pay Europe? It won't be much cheaper nor faster than Shuttle.
By "finished" I mean the minimum number of flights to make Europe and Japan happy, not the original 1990's glossy poster version. Three and a half years of flights with four and a half flights anually gives us about 16 flights. Skipping the senseless PR stunt and astronomer/New York Times NASA-bashers appeasment of Hubble repair, and that would do the job by 2010. Three and a half, not seven.
No dear, VSE will start when Shuttle is gone, whether the ISS is "completly finished" or not. You obviously haven't been paying attention to how little support the ISS has with NASA these days.
They don't care that much now and NASA is only looking at ~16 fights, why will they suddenly care later?
Only in your "ISS is all important" dogmatic view.
Why yes, you waited until the very last second. This either makes you too foolish to sign on with or dishonest in trying to garner support without little annoyances like discussion. American's support with Congress no less, since you don't have any being a foreigner.
Expensive? If we've been able to afford it to date, then why can't we now? And the only currency changing hands here isn't the green kind, using foreign rockets is a huge political cost reguardless how much money it saves. By comparison, Shuttle is a dirt cheap politically speaking.

Anyway, to close I refer this to the above about your apocalyptic vision of spaceflight, and how we will all be saved and taken up in the air in a nirvana of Russian/European-rocket spaceflight, saved from the evil designs of LockMart, if we just follow you.

Edit: Oh, and I think NASA can complete 16 Shuttle flights to the ISS without undue risk, its "track reccord" should be good enough if the foam problem has been beaten, as it seems it has been. Energia on the other hand, has no track reccord in recent times at all.

I don't read you coming up with any solutions to complete ISS quickly.
Read what you just wrote. I said America doesn't pay the Russians anything, and you say America will because Russia is broke. What? Do you have a cognitive disorder?
It would cost about $1 billion for all 8 ATV flights, but that replaces 5 Shuttle flights. Simple elementary school arithmetic.
Ariane 5 can be launched at the same time as Shuttle. Not exactly the same day, but launched in the same month. Parallel launch schedules cut total construction time by the Shuttle flights they replace; if Shuttle launches 4 times a year and Ariane replaces 5 Shuttles, then it reduces total construction time by 16 months. The Ariane 5 launch vehicle is already operational, has flown several payloads, and development of ATV is well underway. Your "why should we pay Europe" shows ignorance of economics, and lack of understanding what an International Space Station is for.
Interesting; guys don't use the word "dear" when addressing other guys. I always assumed you were a guy, but you didn't fill in the gender check-box on your profile. Are you female? Doesn't make a difference, but would let me get the pronouns correct.
They care now. Did you forget they cancelled the US habitation module after NASA announced they'll replace it with TransHAB, but made that announcement after the metal hull of US Hab was complete? They're quite sensitive about how money is spent.
Completing a large, multi-year project and ensuring the success after spending close to a $100 billion is very important. Those who approve budgets do notice these things.
I talked about this on New Mars over a year ago, and brought it up again on the Mars Homestead general discussion list. I'm surprised so many people here are not subscribed there. It's generally the same community. It's only new to you. As for "foreigner", you really want to alienate all allies don't you? The Moon race only succeeded because NASA hired the Canadian Avro engineers. NASA wouldn't have completed in time without them. Even that was an international effort. Space is too vast and expensive an endeavour for one nation to go it alone, even the richest nation in the world. Oh wait, the US now has an $8.4 trillion debt, the per-capita federal debt is now double Canada's. As people on this board have noted, President Regan baited the Soviets into an arms race that collapsed their economy, but now America has fallen into its own trap. So the richest nation in the world isn't that rich any more, and is destined for financial collapse unless something drastic is done soon. And you want to cut off all international financial partnership for space endeavours. Right, that really makes sense.

Perhaps I need to put it in terms for self-centered Americans. Most of my American friends are not self-centered, but it appears GCNRevenger is.

It's been over a year since I calculated the price for Ariane. It would take some time to calculate again, but if I recall correctly the price for 8 missions of ATV launched by Ariane 5 was $1.8 billion. The Shuttle costs $755 million per launch, so 5 missions would cost $3.775 billion. The price to the American taxpayer is lower this way. Shuttle's per-launch cost was based on 6 launches per year, it's higher at 4 per year so the cost saving is greater. That counts on ESA continuing to pay for ATV development and the test flight of ATV. If Europe/Brazil/Japan/Russia pay for Energia, and Kazakhstan is told not to charge anything extra for Energia facilities at Baikonur, then that's 16 Shuttle flights that America doesn't pay for at all. Shifting the cost of launch from America to ISS partners will require something in return. I would ask America to confirm its commitment to fully complete ISS, including Node 3 and restore the metal hull US habitat module. How much of a cost saving is this for America?

Oh well thats simple, because there isn't a solution.
No, you only wish Americans wouldn't have to pay. I said that because Russia is broke, America would have to pay them to carry out your plan. Otherwise the plan wouldn't happen.
No, Ariane-V costs about $200M a flight now a days, and about $100M each for ATV, so that would cost about $2.4Bn. Eight ATVs would only carry 64 racks, while five Shuttle MPLMs would carry 80. You would need ten ATVs, which now runs about $3.0Bn, which is not a vast time nor money savings over Shuttle and its $800M-$1.0Bn flight cost, especially considering you get crew rotation plus Shuttle's excess water too.
= Give other countries lots of money instead of spending it here at home where it will bennefit our economy instead of theirs.
Sure they do, when they are intending to be condecending. I am male for the reccord by the way, I never botherd to update after the board switched software.
Says you. Where is your proof? NASA has announced publicly cutting the number of flights versus the "ideal," but there has been no call for Griffin's head on a platter.
Not when you are going to spend even more money on a project with no chance of living up to its advertised potential. Even if the ISS were totally completed to the glossy-poster configuration, it would still be a titantic failure and waste. Cutting the number of flights, modules, and so on is a sound mitigation of this disaster. Which is worse, stubbornly spending twenty billion or more you aren't required to for no bennefit or spending as little as you have to in order to avoid international hissy-fits. You are right, people do notice these things.
And then you bring this up out of the blue not three days prior and call for unconditional support for a very specific but not practical plan.
If these allies are like you, I do think that I will live.
Says you. Canuk propoganda. I have faith that my country in its greatness could have done without.
We don't have to do it all, only get it started. And that we can do.
Nonsense, people have an emotional attachment to big numbers just because they are big, reguardless of context. $8.4T is a vast sum, but not so vast in comparison to our economic strength. It is an affordable debt, we are not "destined for collapse" as the doom says preach.
Yep, because they've been almost nothing but trouble for the last two decades. If other countries want to barter non-critical systems for rides/data/etc then fine, but hardware nessesarry to getting to the Moon and Mars ought to be domestic.

Each ATV has exactly half the number of standard ISS racks as MPLM, however if you look at mass lift capability it's more than half. If you stuff equipment in the isle you can reduce the number of flights from 10 to 8. And that does include full water and propellant tanks as well.

Could have completed a trip to the Moon: Yes
Before the Russians: No

RobertDyck you are correct that the current direction of fiscal funding by Nasa and of its partners do leave the ISS in a short/ uncomplete and approaching its own death before it can be of any use for the big plans of science that it was trumpeted to be.

As for doing it by the numbers to the lowest company or country that can get the job done may be the only solution regardless as to who the funds get paid to.

Also lets not forget India's space capabilities are going in our same direction at this time.

I'd like to see Energiya brought back--by non-NASA fund. I think the oil states should invest in this.

Wasn't there a suggestion from the State Dept. urging Boeing to go on a fact finding trip?

(They were too busy selling Delta IV).

Back in july Space tourist 'Dice-K' prepares to blast off

But it looks like Daisuke Enomoto the Japanese space tourist is grounded after failing medical test

This leaves The First Female Space Tourist? U.S. Entrepreneur Determined to Reach Orbit

Anousheh Ansari is paying $20 million for a 10-day roundtrip to the orbital laboratory currently set to launch on Sept. 14.


What does that make now for visiting the ISS via the Russian Soyuz....

Well here we go again for why the shuttle just might be only put into mothballs rather than fully retired.

Controllers turn off spinning gyroscope because it was vibrating excessively.

Space station's pointing gyroscope shut down




Station gyro off line; impact on shuttle flight assessed

The 2010 Space Shuttle time limit was arbitrarily based upon the number of missions to complete the ISS--as well as reiability concerns, since resolved by the proven onboard inspection/repair procedures capable of being carried out during each mission. So, WHY NOT carry on with the Space Shuttle Program, beyond 2010, for as long as it takes the follow-on space transportation system to be developed, proven and placed in production?

Because it costs a lot of money, even if they were mothballed.

NASA's plans don't allow this, currently.

No! Shuttle is really the millstone around NASA's neck, if NASA is to have a future, any future at all, the Shuttle has got to go and go soon. The ISS has a limited lifespan, and unless NASA is well on its way to doing something else before the ISS debacle draws to a close, then NASA is doomed. It will take several years to build this momentum, therefore it is nessesarry to start as soon as is practical.

NASA can't do alot without money, and as long as the Shuttle is pressed into service, this money will not come. The only way to get this money is to get rid of Shuttle. Also, NASA cannot afford to lose a third Shuttle, the damage to its credibility would be fatal. Presently, I think it is entirely fair to label Shuttle's safety, despite all the improvements and repair techniques, as "borderline unacceptable." There are just so many ways for something to go terribly wrong, and so few ways to survive. The sooner we have a safe, reliable rocket like Ares-I topped with the far more surviveable Orion, the better.

I find the knee-jerk anti-Americanisms on this forum very interesting, especially considering that the only option any true space exploration fan has is to have faith in, and support, the US -the only nation with the know-how, spirit, and not least guts to get the job done, not just talking about it like the Russians or endlessly having conferences about it hoping the US will eventually pick up the bill, like the Europeans.

If the Shuttle is of no use, don't use it. If the ISS is of no value, don't spend money on it (or spend as little as is politically possible). The same goes for Hubble. Move on!

Don't nitpick or find faults, let's savour the moment and rejoice: we have an American President who have a will to explore and has put some (hopefully enough initial) money to this end in a realistic plan. We have a strong US economy and improved technology. This might happen. Isn't that what everybody on this forum wants, or am I mistaken? This is good news. Treat it as such. Show some respect. Be happy. Be creative.

Welcome Heimdall. Nice to see someone new, the same arguments get tiresome.

Interesting name, in old Norse mythology Heimdall is the guardian of the gods who will blow the Gjallarhorn if danger approaches Asgard. He's guardian of the Bifröst Bridge, the bridge leading from the realm of mortals, Midgard, to the realm of the gods, Asgard. His hall was called Himinbjörg (Sky Mountain). An interesting name for a space fan talking about human access to space and the ISS. Do you live in a Norse country?

You have to be careful of quick assessments of old arguments. When suggestions have been raised to utilize non-American space assets, some Americans claim anything American is good, anything non-American is bad. The obvious reaction to this may appear anti-American if you haven't read the anti-everyone-else rhetoric. Many of us would like to just "get along", but nationalistic arrogance appears to be a problem that just won't go away.

...And in the meantime, regardless of costs, have to depend 100% upon the Russians to minimally "crew" the ISS?