The International Space Station has cost American taxpayers at least $31 billion so far, and that's a conservative estimate that doesn't include billions more in indirect costs.Let's hope the United States is not going to toss that investment away now that the orbiting laboratory is almost complete. There are finally enough people living on board to actually do science experiments. After all, that was the stated purpose of a space station.
In a little more than a year, NASA will have to buy rides from the Russians to get astronauts to and from the station. Politicians are raising a ruckus about that, saying it's unwise to rely on a tenuous ally in these tenuous times. They ought to be paying more attention to a more practical matter.
In reality, the bigger threat to the space station's viability is cargo delivery. The space shuttle hauls a lot of stuff to the space station each time it goes there. Think of it as a space "big rig."
Russians haul up food, water and supplies in their Progress cargo tug. Think of that as a U-haul trailer.
After 2010, however, the U.S. doesn't plan to be flying space shuttles or buying Progress cargo tugs.
Instead, NASA's plan is to send cargo to the space station aboard a pair of private spacecraft that are yet to fly and are both behind schedule.
While NASA's formal plans call for SpaceX and Orbital Sciences spacecraft to make deliveries as early as 2011, neither is on track to hit that mark.
If there are delays in 2010, NASA would have to significantly scale back science aboard the space station, according to the Government Accountability Office. If there are further delays in 2011, the GAO says, "NASA could no longer maintain a space station crew of six astronauts and its ability to conduct scientific research would be compromised."
The backup plan? There isn't one.
SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, using seed money provided by NASA and private investors, have made progress in the development of new launchers and spacecraft to fill the void between 2010 and 2015. But both are behind, at least months and perhaps years.
While SpaceX is slated to launch its Falcon 9 rocket this fall, the company still doesn't have permits and approval from the U.S. Air Force or the FAA to fly.
Until both agencies deem the Falcon 9 and SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft pose no threat to people and property near the launch site, the Falcon isn't going anywhere. That process is months behind and a launch this year looks unlikely. Orbital Sciences' cargo service is behind, too.
Between them, the two companies are being counted on to deliver about half of the cargo that the space station needs between 2010 and 2015. After that, NASA's new Orion spacecraft is scheduled to make its first visits to the space station (assuming, of course, that program is on track).
NASA's space station program managers understand the danger of relying so heavily on two new companies. They list delays in the new transportation systems as the top risk to the station program's success.
Buying more Russian ships may seem like a viable backup plan, but it takes anywhere from a year and a half to two years' lead time to build one of the automated space tugs.
Barring an unlikely reprieve of the space shuttle's retirement after eight more flights, the taxpayers' investment in the space station appears to be in great peril unless these two entrepreneurs NASA is betting on come through big time in the clutch.
We'll be watching carefully.
8 comments:
John knows what he is talking about! We obsess about getting people there but what is GOING to end station operations? Resupply. We will have some replacement units on board if all goes well but control moment gyros do fail, solar panels do fail, batteries do fail. We don't know when they will fail but we do know that they will. Those large items, and many others, you cannot take up in a Soyuz or an ATV! We can send up food, water, and stuff like that but we are totally abandoning the ability to bring up large items.
So true - thanks for your insights on this. And no one seems to be asking the tough questions, such as what will happen if our relations with the Soviets sour over some international incident and they 1) say they have no space available in their schedule for our astronauts or 2) jack the price up for each mission because they know they're the only game in town. I think the new idea being floated with the cargo ship using the existing tank and rocket is a great idea. At least we can send some larger items up to fix the station and keep it from falling into the hands of the other side.
Amazing! After all these years and all the money we are still not in a position to conduct real science on this orbiting albatross...and may never be! I don't see any large private entities clamoring for ISS time - maybe a few student programs but other than the overblown crystal growth stuff this thing has been a complete waste of time and money. Dump it! All we are doing is maintaining this "kludge".
"Until both agencies deem the Falcon 9 and SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft pose no threat to people and property near the launch site, the Falcon isn't going anywhere. That process is months behind and a launch this year looks unlikely. Orbital Sciences' cargo service is behind, too."
This makes no sense. The Air Force is considering banning the test flight of Ares I-X because they consider it a danger to southern Florida. It looks like Ares I may end up being even more behind schedule than it is now and it costs billions versus the mere millions of the SpaceX vehicle.
The Ares 1-X that is currently waiting to fly is merely an experimental demonstration vehicle. The Falcon 9 vehicle that will hopefully launch this fall will be the production version of that vehicle. So in reality, the Ares 1 is behind the Falcon 9 as far as development is concerned.
The backup plan? There isn't one.
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that will deliver cargo to the ISS was originally designed to be a manned spacecraft. Once the Falcon 9 has proven itself, the only thing needed to make the Falcon 9/Dragon system man-rated is an estimated $400 million for the emergency escape system.
You don't have to take my word for any of this. Go to the SpaceX website for the details.
Sorry. I was in a hurry and read too fast what Kelly wrote. I was talking about a backup plan for the manned system, when Kelly was talking about a backup for cargo.
None-the-less, we've contracted enough cargo missions with the Russians for a breathing space of time while Orbital and SpaceX come online. Both companies have experienced space personnel who came from mainstream aerospace companies and NASA. There is no reason why they won't succeed, even if there are a few problems while they get there.
There's an amazingly unreal double standard going on here as often happens when NASA costs are discussed.
NASA over four years will contribute about $275M to SpaceX for the Falcon 9/Dragon program and about $200M to Orbital for the Taurus II/Cygnus.
Meanwhile, NASA plans to spend at least $35B for Ares I/Orion over about 10 years. That means for the first 35 flights, the cost will be at least a billion dollars a launch BEFORE including operational costs, which could easily be in the $300M-$400M/flight range. And this is for a design that Griffin claimed was "safe, simple, and soon".
SpaceX and Orbital could have overruns of several hundred per cent and still be incredible bargains in the NASA budget universe, barely reaching the cost of a single Ares I/Orion launch. Of course, SpaceX and Orbital won't have such overruns because they are on strict fix-price, milestone driven contracts, which will lead to cancellation if they are not met. Meanwhile, NASA's Ares/Orion contractors continue on with their cost-plus money regardless of delays and overruns.
One contract, with Rocketplane-Kistler, was in fact canceled but for failing to raise enough private funds, not for technical shortcomings. (This could be the final chapter on their fully reusable K-1 vehicle, which was designed by several famous Apollo era engineers including George Mueller and Max Faget. While NASA was spending several billion dollars on the OSP and SLI programs without bending a single sheet of metal, a 70% built K-1 sat in a warehouse waiting a few hundred million dollars to be finished. Again we see how NASA ignores orders of magnitude differences in costs.)
Ares/Orion is years behind schedule while you are claiming that it is a major failing of COTS that the F9 and Taurus II are a few months behind.
You also imply that the COTS guys are the amateurs while NASA is the expert that could be doing this by itself if some external force was not forcing it to use these guys. The facts say otherwise. NASA has not gotten a new rocket design of its own to orbit since the development of the Shuttle in the 1970s. Orbital has successfully designed and launched several orbital rocket vehicles in the past 20 years and even young SpaceX has gotten a new vehicle to orbit once this Century. (Yes, an F1 may go into the ocean tonight but this fact still holds true.) Furthermore, the F9/Dragon and Taurus II/Cygnus are passing the same sort of design reviews as NASA vehicles must undergo.
Yes, there are risks involved with the COTS vehicle development but the risks are quite reasonable as rocket projects go. If the COTS money had instead disappeared into the great Ares/Orion maw, it would have not made but the slightest difference in its delivery date.
There is in fact a backup plan - the European ATV cargo craft has already flown successfully and is due to supply the station again in 2010 (it can lift much more cargo than the Russian craft) and then there's the Japanese cargo vessel HTV that is due to make it's first flight to the ISS in about 2 months from now. The ISS is not entirely dependent on SpaceX and Orbital for cargo resupply once the Shuttle stops flying.
Well, there are European and Japanese cargo vehicles that could fill some of the gap. These don't seem to be mentioned here.
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