Let me get this straight. A film about--well--Christ is considered too offensive to be show at a Christmas Festival?

An executive vice president with New Line Cinema, Christina Kounelias, said the studio's plan to spend $12,000 in Chicago was part of an advertising campaign around the country. Kounelias said that as far as she knew, the Chicago festival was the only instance where the studio was turned down.

Kounelias said she finds it hard to believe that non-Christians who attended something called Christkindlmarket would be surprised or offended by the presence of posters, brochures and other advertisements of the movie.

"One would assume that if (people) were to go to Christkindlmarket, they'd know it is about Christmas," she said.

Charlie Rangel spat on the soldiers again, this time on Fox News Sunday. Captain Ed has a dim view of this. So do I, of course. Along with Kerry's "botched joke", Rangel's remarks unveil the bigotry and hatred with which the modern Democrats view those who guard us while we sleep.

Taylor Dinerman has a largely positive appreciation of Mike Griffin, NASA Administrator and space visionary.

Griffin is not only technically qualified to lead NASA, but at least from the outside, one sees that he has the right people skills as well. Morale cannot be underestimated as an ingredient in any successful organization and NASA’s morale is generally as high as or higher than it ever has been in the last ten or fifteen years. He also has something that no other NASA administrator has ever had: an understanding of venture capital and startup business process. His time as head of In-Tel-Q, the CIA’s entrepreneurial technology fund, has given him an understanding of the way that risk capital and risk-taking businessmen work together. His gamble on the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract and his support for the NASA prizes is evidence that he understands the way the dynamic new economy works.

I have never been able to understand the appeal of "Deaf Culture", which seems to extend identity politics to an absurd area. Sure one can communicate by sign language if one is deaf, but I think something is lacking in one's quality of life if one can never enjoy Mozart, or O'Carolan, or Loreena McKennitt. Fortunately, a recent advance in ear implant technology may bring music and speech to those who are born not able to enjoy them.

When Robert Gates was chosen to replace Rumsfeld as SecDef, many in the chattering class hailed it as the triumph of the "realists" (i.e. people who don't do things like--well--fight terrorists.) Michael Barone thinks that these folks are in for a big disappointment.

When it is time to build the first space elevator (or what I call the "railroad to the stars"), the Otis Company stands ready to help. Via Stacy Bartley.

Ken Burns proposes to do for World War II what he once did for the Civil War. I am looking forward to it. He did, however, do something that thoroughly disappointed me.

Asked about the contrast between today's home front and World War II, Burns called the latter, "the greatest collective effort in the history of our country."

Common sacrifice is lacking today, he said.

"We now have a military class in this country that suffers apart and alone, whereas there wasn't a family on any street in America that wasn't in some way touched by the war," he said.

"When 9/11 happened what were you asked to do? Nothing. Go shopping. That's what we were told," Burns said. "Go shopping. It's ridiculous. Nobody said, 'This is a war born of oil, turn your thermostats down five degrees.' "

Sorry, but no, the current war was not born of oil. It was born mostly of Islamo-fascist rage at the West and at modernity. If there was not one drop of oil in the Middle East, the enemy would still hate us and try to kill us. Burns, who obviously knows a lot about history, should know better than that.

And "shared sacrifice" for it's own sake is not only stupid, but more than a little bit evil to suggest. I would much rather never again see the mistakes, of trying to appease enemies of civilization, made that made a war of the scale of World War Two necessary.

Progress on using new ceramics and alloys to extend the life of rocket engines. This is an important development for deep space exploration.

George Abbey, former Director of the Johnson Space Center and at one time the most feared and hated man at NASA, takes a dim view of the whole return to the Moon thing. Unlike other critics, he has a real simple solution. Keep the shuttle.

Meanwile, Mark Wade has some interesting comments about the way the Orion space craft will return to Earth.

Recently six Muslim Imans were ejected from an air liner for suspicious behavior. Some overwrought people are calling them the new Rosa Parks. Robert Spenser begs to differ.

Recently some clever folks in Australia with time on their hands developed something called the Wearable Instrument Shirt, designed to make noise when one plays the air guitar. I explain why this is a very bad idea.

Jeff Foust has a post which should prove sobering to all of those who stayed home last election or even voted Democrat because they were mad at all the earmarking the Republicans indulged in. Between Hoyer as Majority Leader and Mollohan, a porkmeister without peer, as subcomittee chair dealing with NASA, you aint seen nothing yet.

Clark Lindsey posts a plea to contact the Senate to restore funding for the Centennial Challenges. I enthusiastically second that.

Robert Altman, RIP.

Yeah, I know he was a big lefty, but rather liked MASH and Nashville. For all of you space enthusiasts, he also did a film in the late 60s called Countdown, starring a couple of unknown actors named Robert Duval and James Caan, which depicted a Lunar Gemini mission. It was a kind of cheesy film, but of some historical interest IMHO.

Duval more recently starred as an astronaut in the film Deep Impact.

Jon Goff responds to some points made below.

Mark,
I had a few more comments I felt like making to your post about
dry-launch. I think you're misunderstanding some of what I'm saying.

1-I'm not talking about "three modified launchers". I'm talking about
using stock versions of the launchers. Falcon IX is being designed from
the ground up to be a man-rated booster. Which means that if it
actually makes it to market, it would not need any modifications
whatsoever for launching either crew, cargo, or propellants in order to
participate in a dry-launch scheme. Delta wouldn't require any
modifications to operate as a propellant or cargo delivery rocket
either. If they want to man-rate their Delta IV line (as Lockheed is
planning on doing anyway for their Atlas V line), they could, and that
would mean that what would then be stock Deltas could perform all three
missions. And once again, with the Atlas's, any upgrades become the
stock configuration. That means that whether it's flying NASA hardware,
DoD hardware, Bigelow passengers or cargo, propellants, comsats, or
whatever, it will be using the same hardware. I'm not talking about
huge grandiose multi-billion dollar hardware developments. What little
developments are involved are minor, relatively low-cost, and are
already being pursued by most of these companies at least partially on
their own dime.

Some points/questions:
(A) Falcon 9 is envisioned as the carrier for the Dragon space capsule under the COTS program. Does that mean that it would also--say--carry an Orion without any other modifications?

(B) Lockmart is not "planning to manrate the Atlas 5." It is currently studying the possibility of doing so as part of an arrangement with Bigelow.

(C) I'd like a definition of "minor, relatively low-cost." We've all heard that one before. One of the points made in one of the NASASpaceFlight forums is that proponents of alternative architectures seem to assume that their plans with not have unforeseen development problems, something that would be unique in the history of rocketry.

2-While an EELV/Falcon dry-launch architecture would likely start out
with barely enough capacity to match the planned ESAS mission tempo, it
would do so several years sooner. NASA could be flying ESAS class lunar
missions as soon as 2010-2012 using such a method, instead of waiting
till 2019. As that demand firmed up, and as more experience was gained
with such a system, capabilities could and would ramp up. The much
lower cost of the system would allow NASA to fly many more times a year,
and that would in turn drive up demand for cargo delivered to LEO. Most
of the current price issues with LEO access stems from the abysmally low
flight rate. Increase that dramatically and not only will you see
existing boosters get cheaper per flight, but you'll also see new
entrants coming to market. Long before some mythical COTS on the moon
comes about, NASA could be spurring on the investment of billions of
dollars of private money into a truly robust commercial space
transportation industry, but alas they'd rather play rocket boys.

That sounds very good, but once again it sounds like the scheme is promised not to have any unforeseen problems in the development phase. Maybe that would be the case. Maybe not. Also, while if it all works out, it would certainly mean more money in the corporate pockets of Lockmart, Boeing, and maybe SpaceX, what about other potential players. The whole idea of a "commercial space transportation industry" is that other players (R-P/Kistler?) can easily compete. I'm not sure I see how that is the case. Maybe Jon can enlighten us.

3-If you're smart about how you do the logistics, you don't need long
loiter times for the CEV on-orbit. For starters, you could just
preposition the propellant. Only launch the CEV once everything else is
ready to go. But the reality is that there are probably even better
ways than that.

How many tanker flights would it take to top of a CEV? If more than one, will this involve the CEV docking with several fuel modules or will there be one common one that the refuelingt flights top off from which the CEV subsequently refuels?

4-Yes, commercial purchases still would have to pay their share of
upgrades, but those development costs will be spread out among all
customers, and will be largely (if not entirely) offset by higher
performance, and lower marginal costs due to higher flight rate. With
Ares I/V, NASA has to pay the full development cost up front, then the
full fixed cost every year, then the full marginal cost for every
flight. With say encouraging Atlas V to develop the Phase I upper stage
(the WBC I've been talking about), NASA doesn't pay the full development
cost or fixed cost. It pays the marginal cost, plus its share of the
other costs. Which will be cheaper than if it developed it in-house.
Higher flight rates for Atlas/Delta would also eliminate the need for
subsidies that DoD is having to chip in every year.

So, it is envisioned that the expansion of EELV (and presumably Falcon 9) infrastructure would also mean the addition of more customers to share the cost. This might be true, if we assume a high flight rate causing less cost per flight. The cheaper that something is, the more it will be used. But I would like to see some kind of marketing study to back this up.

5-No, they wouldn't share launch facilities. They're different
launchers, have different processing styles, and are different sizes.
However, they were all designed for much higher flight rates than will
exist without dry-launch, and they all developed their fixed
infrastructure for less than a billion or two. If there's enough demand
for them to justify adding another pad, or another processing building,
or another mobile transporter, or whatever, they'll do it. And they'll
do it as affordably as they can manage, because they're for-profit
enterprises. Even if NASA paid for the infrastructure upgrades out of
pocket to allow for a massive flight rate, you'd still only be talking
about $1-1.5B tops. Far less than they're going to have to blow
completely overhauling their LC-39 infrastructure for the Stick and Ares
V. But once again, these are commercial boosters. If they have enough
demand, they'll decide to upgrade their infrastructure.

Sounds great, but again I'd like to see a more detailed analysis.

6-We have firm numbers on how much it cost to develop and field Atlas V
and Delta IV, including developing the RS-68, developing multiple
classes of boosters, developing the factories capable of building over
30 vehicles per year, and both teams setting up launch facilities on
both coasts. The total amount came to around $2.5B IIRC. Period.
Full-stop. When you compare those hard, real, existing numbers to
adding a few extra pieces of hardware, or finishing the upgraded upper
stage they've been developing for several years, I just have a hard time
where you imagine that another $19B is going to come up. When you
actually compare what they spent delivering what they did, it's
perfectly reasonable to believe that for the cost of adding some extra
pad facilities at their Cape Canaveral facilities, and in the case of
Atlas V, finish the development of their Phase I upper stage, I really
have a hard time believing it will cost even as much as it took to field
the vehicles in the first place.

Call it a wild guess, but a slight upgrade usually doesn't cost multiple
times as much as the original.

Yes, they cost more than originally billed, but as you point out flight
rate has a huge part in that. They built their factories and launch
pads for 12-24 flights per year *each*, and are only getting 2-3 flights
per year each. They were basing their prices on what they thought was a
conservative 6-8 flights each. Anybody with a lick of sense who was
given that data would come to the conclusion that a large part of the
price increase comes from having to support fixed-costs over a much
smaller number of flights.

By comparison, the Shaft (if you include the fixed costs as EELVs do)
will cost at least $370M per flight, and that's before adding any of the
CEV hardware. And that's using the most optimistic NASA numbers I've
seen. I'm sorry, but if *that's* their typical wildly optimistic
low-ball estimate, I'd hate to see what the real numbers come in at.

Lockheed/Boeing may sometimes act like NASA-lite, but I'll take
NASA-lite to NASA-thick-and-heavy any day of the week.

Again, sounds great, but I'd like to see a more detailed analysis of compared development/operational cost.

7-When it comes to space exploration, what matters most is how much
you're able to do, not how you get there. If you can send twice as many
Mars missions for half the price, who cares if it takes 30, 40, or even
150 flights per mission? Taxpayers don't give the government fractions
of a launch vehicle flight. They give them dollars. What matters is,
with the limited money that NASA has, what allows them to accomplish the
most exploration and the most impact for good in space development? Not
how many flights it took per mission to do that. I think there's a
solid case that can be made that not developing HLVs, and investing that
money instead in buying lots of flights and fielding the technologies
need for *real* space exploration (not the round-off error known
erroneously as "Apollo on Steroids"), will allow for more exploration to
be done for less money, and sooner.

Here I think was the real show stopping for the EELV option, even given every other consideration. NASA has concluded that Mars is going to require heavy lift, which to them means the Ares 5. Since the money is not in the budget to start developing that vehicle until after the shuttle is retired, something has to be done to keep the expertise for doing Ares 5 employed and functional until then. That means Ares 1, which has some bits in common with its future big sister (the 5 segment SRB, the J 2S, and so on.)

Taking tens of flights just to set up each Mars expedition is crazy, IMHO, if one has a simpler alternative. It would be sort of like suggesting that every flight across the Atlantic has to involve tens of in flight refueling operarions.

What matters mostly in the end is results, not merely how those results
are achieved. And quite frankly, the pitiful amount of results that
NASA expects to be given $70B+ over the next decade for aren't worth
it. I wouldn't be opposing Apollo on Sterroids if they were only going
to spend $5B over a few years, and get us back on a reasonable schedule,
but somehow I'm supposed to be supportive of a plan that costs more,
delivers less, takes longer, and wastes countless opportunities to
really change the status quo?

I'm afraid that Jon simply has not proven his case that his approach is the better one. Oh, it might be, but for reasons stated, I doubt it. He's made some back of the enevlope claims about cost and schedule that may or may not be true, given a lack of a detailed study. Mind, I would encourage him and others to keep working on their ideas. It's not going to change NASA's mind. But, with future advancements in technology, some of these ideas might prove the basis of a true commercial cis lunar transportation system when lunar commercial markets open up. For better or ill, the Ares train has left the station. I know that the memo from Jeff Hanley and the subsequent interview in Space News got some noses out of joint for its tone. But there was one very good point in it. One can argue endlessly over the best way to get back to the Moon (and Jon's is not the only one. There are almost a dozen that I've seen by last count) or one can get back to the Moon. Ares is going to work, I suspect, if only because NASA will make it work.

Of course, one could continue to tilt at the windmill of opposing "Apollo on steroids" and making grandiose statements about how it's on the point of collapse and is bound to fail. Of course, that doesn't look like it is the case. I think that the critics took a credibility hit recently when, having claimed that Ares 1 was not making weight, discovered that in fact that it was. (Assuming of course that there is not some kind of conspiracy to "hide the truth" involving top NASA management.)

I do however think that there are more productive uses of ones time. Stopping James Oberstar from destroying the space tourism industry might be one idea. Getting more funding for X prizes might be another. Just a thought.

This is a fascinating idea that I'm inclined to agree with, so long as it is not done in public and frightens the horses. Via Stacy Bartley.

Apparently Charlie Rangel's plot to bring back the draft is too rich even for our other new Democrat overlords.

Looks like NASA is taking some of the blogosphere carping over the Ares seriously enough to allow certain managers to be interviewed in Space News. Their explanation for rumors about Ares 1 not making weight are very illuminating.

Will James Oberstar Kill the Space Tourism Industry? It could happen, unless he is stopped.

Jon Goff, in my humble opinion, continues to beat the dead horse of using "six to twelve" (Twelve?!) launches of modified EELVs to do a lunar mission rather than the current Ares architecture of two launches. The idea is that the vehicles would be launched "dry" (sans LOX) on two modified EELVs. The other four to eight launches would be tanker flights to fill to fuel tanks. As Jon states:

Upon a little thought, you realize that the only failures that can cause a loss of mission are failures on hardware flights. A lost propellant flight doesn't cost you the mission, since you can easily fly a replacement. Only a failure involving the docking or launch of one of the hardware flights actually eliminates something unique that you needed for the mission.

I'm not certain which NASA Jon imagines would do that. I suspect that if a tanker flight were to fail for some unknown reason (or even a known reason), NASA would stand down to try to figure out and correct the problem. And I think we all know how much time NASA takes doing that.

Indeed, even a small, entrepreneurial company like SpaceX has spent many months after a launch failure which it had a very good understanding of.

A number of questions come to mind:

(1) How long will it take to launch six to twelve modified EELVs using the current infrastructure?

The short answer I suspect is too long. The LSAM/EDS is designed to loiter in orbit up to a month waiting for the Orion with the crew to dock. How much longer will it have to wait to also get tanked up?

And that leads to a second, related question:

(2) If the Orion is being launched dry, then how long does the crew wait in LEO to await being fueled? And, if the mission failure scenario take place, will it have enough fuel to deorbit and land?

Again, I suspect that the answer is, too long. And that's without even considering the extra consumables necessary to sustain the crew while they wait for the fuel rockets.

OK, so we build more infrastructure (that means pads, processing facilities, and so on) to enable us to launch the modified EELVs in a shorter period of time.

The problem is, that costs money, on top of the money it will take to modify and man rate the EELVs. I can see that cost rapidly eating up whatever savings one might get by canceling Ares 1 and Ares 5.

And let's not forget that without something like Ares 5, Mars becomes a lot tougher. As it is, NASA estimates four launches of an Ares 5 to put together a Mars mission.

Addendum: Jon responds:

Hey Mark,
I want to avoid getting into a tit-for-tat on my blog, so I'll just post some comments here if you want to put them on your blog. Your comments are in italics.

I'm not certain which NASA Jon imagines would do that. I suspect that if a tanker flight were to fail for some unknown reason (or even a known reason), NASA would stand down to try to figure out and correct the problem. And I think we all know how much time NASA takes doing that.

Exactly. And that is why a multiple launcher system is more robust. So what if NASA stands down the Atlas line, so long as the Delta line and the Falcon line, and other lines are still working. If the stick suffers a failure, you are out a multi-billion dollar lunar payload. Period. If one of the two or three or four commercial companies launching your propellant fails, you can keep on going while you solve the problem. It's called redundancy. It's a good thing.

(So we're going to modify not one by three different launch systems. I'd love to see the cost of doing that. I suspect it involves just a little more than sticking a tank full of LOX on top of a booster and letting fly.)

(1) How long will it take to launch six to twelve modified EELVs using the current infrastructure?

The short answer I suspect is too long. The LSAM/EDS is designed to loiter in orbit up to a month waiting for the Orion with the crew to dock. How much longer will it have to wait to also get tanked up?

Actually, they're designing the LSAM/EDS to survive a 6-month loiter, not just a one month wait. That way they can handle any delays on the Stick. As for how long it would take for six to twelve, I don't have numbers for Delta, and I can't seem to dig up the reference at the second for Atlas, but what I remember reading was that Atlas could handle 12+ flights per year without any new infrastructure, and that by adding a second set of some of the infrastructure, they could push to 30 flights a year without requiring massive changes in how they do things.

If you assume 12 EELV Medium flights per lunar mission, we're still talking about being able to do the same mission operations tempo with EELVs without infrastructure improvements as we are for the theoretical Ares I/V vehicles. With some simple infrastructure upgrades, you could increase the op-tempo even further to double or triple the planned flight rate. If others like Kistler, SpaceX, or newer players also join in, you could have a much higher flight rate than what is even theoretically possible with Ares I/V.

(My Impression was that NASA would like to do at least two lunar missions a year. I suspect accomodating that with "commercially available" but radically modified EELVs would not be trivial.)

(2) If the Orion is being launched dry, then how long does the crew wait in LEO to await being fueled? And, if the mission failure scenario take place, will it have enough fuel to deorbit and land?

Again, I suspect that the answer is, too long. And that's without even considering the extra consumables necessary to sustain the crew while they wait for the fuel rockets.

Well, you wouldn't launch Orion 100% dry. You'd keep enough propellants on board to cover all of your bases abort wise. As for the crew wait issues, there are so many ways you could skin that cat that I'm not too worried about it. But here's two simple ideas. First, you could buy a Sundancer module from Bigelow or use ISS as a staging area for the assembly. That way crew wait times aren't a problem, and by having people in the loop, rendezvous and docking reliability goes way up. Second, you could launch the propellants for Orion before launching Orion. You could possibly combine the two if you wanted to.

Yes, this stuff takes a little thought, but is by no means impossible, or even that unreasonable.

(I wouldn't want an Orion crew loitering around LEO, even in a Bigelow (more cost) module (ISS is in the wrong orbit) while their muscles atrophe and the calcium leaches from their bones unless they really have to.)

OK, so we build more infrastructure (that means pads, processing facilities, and so on) to enable us to launch the modified EELVs in a shorter period of time.

Who is this "we"? Lockheed or Boeing can opt to build more infrastructure if they need it to meet the flight rates. Remember, you are *commercially* purchasing propellants delivered FOB orbit. That means that how they meet those requirements is up to them, and is on their tab. And the EELVs while "modified" compared to their current state will at that point be *standard* EELVs. Lockheed already stated that if it goes with WBC, or if it man-rates Atlas V, that *every single Atlas V flight* after that point will use that upgraded software and hardware. Which means that instead of launching custom designs every time, you end up launching dozens of the *exact same stock booster*. That makes a huge difference in cost and reliability.

Another point to remember is that both EELV teams designed their current boosters, and built all the infrastructure for supporting 12-24 flights per year each, for less than 1/4 of what NASA intends to spend on just developing Ares I. I think they can probably upgrade their infrastructure pretty cost effectively. Remember, if they're doing this commercially, they have to make sure they do it in a cost effective manner. I'd be surprised if the infrastructure modifications Lockheed would need to up their rate to 30/year would cost them more than $250-500M.

(I'd be surprised if it didn't cost more. Claiming "commercial purchase" only means that the cost of new infrastructure is included in the price. We pay one way or the other. Another question. Would the same pad and processing facility accomodate an Atlas V, a Delta IV, and a Falcon 9. Or would they need seperate infrastructure? And even if all three vehicles could be stacked and launched in the same facility, I could see lots of reasons why Elon Musk would not want the boys at United Launch Alliance to get too close a look at his rocket.)

The problem is, that costs money, on top of the money it will take to modify and man rate the EELVs. I can see that cost rapidly eating up whatever savings one might get by canceling Ares 1 and Ares 5.

Not really. Boeing and Lockheed have shown that they can do things a lot more affordably than NASA can. It still isn't the most cost effective in the world, but when you compare it to nearly $30-50B over the next decade, it's really hard to beat. I'd be surprised if all of the upgrade costs came to more than $1B between the two of them--if they were doing it on their own dime and selling commercial flights to NASA, instead of NASA insisting on running the show.

(In what universe does this take place? My observation is that Lockmart and Boeing are like little NASAs, mostly because in dealing with NASA they have to be. What was the difference between the launch price of an EELV when first proposed and the current price? I know, launch rates are all, but still...

I would like to see a more exhaustive cost analysis on Jon's scheme than what appear to these tired, old eyes as guesses. No offense.)

And let's not forget that without something like Ares 5, Mars becomes a lot tougher. As it is, NASA estimates four launches of an Ares 5 to put together a Mars mission.

Which means 1-2 years worth of perfectly flawless launches on the Ares V per Mars mission. It just isn't realistic. Get used to on-orbit assembly and on-orbit propellant transfer and everything gets a lot easier. With that much demand (we're talking hundreds of thousands of pounds of propellant), that would provide enough launch demand for multiple RLVs in addition to existing boosters. You might actually be cost effective and sustainable at that point.

(As opposed to how many launches of an EELV in the same period? Thirty? Forty? Fifty? I'm sorry, but fewer is better in this case.)

~Jon