Delays for founding U.S.A. Space Flights to ISS

[Wad Cutter]

Commercial crew spaceships face likely delays
Commercial crew spaceships face likely delays | Spaceflight Now

[luke strawwalker]

It's shameful we've had to rely on the Russians for transport to ISS as long as we have. Exceedingly poor planning on the gubmint's part...

Every dollar spent on Russian transport for our astronauts to ISS is money that ISN'T being spent right here in the good old USA... it's money used to finance the Russian space complex instead, while ours here at home continues to wither and die. Wonderful use of our tax dollars!

Of course, NASA planning and rubber-stamp government "non-oversight" led to this fiasco... replacing the crew and cargo transport capabilities of the space shuttle, BEFORE the shuttle retirement, should ALWAYS have been the *FIRST* priority of the space program, once the shuttle retirement decision was announced way back in 2004. The plan announced was to create a basic crew transport capability to ISS via Ares I and Orion Block I, which would then be "upgraded" to lunar/deep space capable Orion Block II and the addition of Ares V for "exploration" missions. Of course, in actuality, the progress on Orion Block 1 was always hampered by the requirements of the Block 2 design (not wanting to have to "redesign" it later on for the Block 2 mission, but that meant LONG delays in the completion, essentially skipping over the Block 1 spacecraft in favor of the Block 2 design, making Orion essentially unavailable for the ISS crew transport job). Design and performance issues with Ares I, compounded by insufficient funding, pushed the availability of both Orion and Ares I out to the point that ISS would basically be ready to be splashed into the ocean before either one would be ready for crewed flights. As that situation developed, NASA SHOULD have made it a priority to pursue other avenues (like commercial crew) to get our astronauts to our well over $100 billion dollar ISS on US rockets/spacecraft, but they didn't-- it took the cancellation of the Constellation project and the shifting of gears in space policy from the White House to "push" NASA and Congress into finally doing what had already been plainly obvious all the way back in 2007-8... that NASA would be unable to fulfill that role of crew/cargo transport to ISS and needed a commercial solution to the problem they couldn't fix. NASA had at least gotten behind the commercial cargo effort that led to the COTS contracts under which SpaceX and Orbital Sciences (with their now disabled Antares rocket needing redesign and their grounded-for-lack-of-a-ride Cygnus resupply vehicle) have well fulfilled.

Congress has PERPETUALLY underfunded the commercial crew program efforts while NASA has had NO realistic chance of providing that service, and Congress knew it. Long before Ares I and Orion and Constellation was canceled, it was well known that Orion and Ares I were "too expensive to use for ISS crew transportation" and in fact the capability had been largely designed out of it (dropping from six seats for ISS to the exploration mission four had been baselined already). The schedule for Orion/Ares I availability had already slipped to at least 2017, with 2018 being much more likely, even before they were cancelled.

The inescapable fact is, for whatever reason, our own Congress would rather fund the Russian space program and rocket manufacturing complex than pay commercial companies to develop that capability using American workers and American manufacturing right here on our own soil. Like Alan Shepard said one time, "there's no huge pile of money sitting on the Moon-- every dollar spent on the space program went into the pockets of US companies and US workers doing the job and making the parts to make the missions possible, right here at home." Due to the multiplier effect, ever dollar spent on the space program not only creates jobs in the space program, but secondary and tertiary jobs in the communities supporting those space program workers and contractors-- from restaurants to dry cleaners, you name it...

Congress has willingly allowed the US space sector to wither on the vine, with the retirement of shuttle and the snail-paced Orion and SLS programs, and by refusing to correctly fund the commercial crew effort, they've not given those displaced space program workers proper alternatives. Instead we pay Russia to haul our astronauts and thus fund THEIR space program and supporting industries instead. And this while an increasingly militant Russia looks to reassert itself militarily and competes with us in the global launch market, while developing new space launchers... they "don't have the money" to support their own space program, but Russia doesn't seem to have any problems funding development of new ICBM's...

It's virtually traitorous how badly Congress has mishandled all of this...

Later! OL JR

[whulsey]

You summed that up fairly well. Guess I've just been watching it so long, that I'm numb and disgusted to the whole thing.

[luke strawwalker]

Originally Posted by whulsey

You summed that up fairly well. Guess I've just been watching it so long, that I'm numb and disgusted to the whole thing.

I hear ya...

I followed the entire shebang from about 2004 until awhile after shuttle retirement... I had a front-row seat on NSF forums during the entire Constellation debacle, until it was all canceled and then "revived" under SLS/Orion. It's all been on the "back burner" in a slow-roll ever since, with nothing much to keep my interest since then... I still follow it, but not day-to-day as the program proceeds at a glacial pace with NO goal or direction beyond vague hand-waving about missions DECADES from now...

I'm no huge fan of ISS either, but it is what it is... if we're going to keep the thing going and keep pouring money into the program, we should AT LEAST be getting the side-benefits of it right here in THIS country, instead of funding our enemy's space program and freeing up their funding to develop new ICBM's to point at us... It's just IDIOTIC...

But of course, that's how this country is run these days-- nothing much surprises me anymore, no matter how ludicrous or pathetic...

Later! OL JR