NASA and the Private Sector - Page 107

On January 03 2017 07:14 micronesia wrote:
Yeah I wouldn't be ready for another 2 years anyway (end of military commitment unless I extend somehow). Also, I will need to use USAJobs either way :p

I'm not as familiar with what you are signing up for with the contractors if you go that direction.

On January 03 2017 07:47 JimmyJRaynor wrote:

i've been doing contract software development work off and on for the US Navy for the past 4 years and they pay well. i only work on projects have failed or the project is in grave danger of failing. I suspect with any first attempt of a new project the pay is "meh".

On January 03 2017 08:04 pmh wrote:
The more I think about it,the more I am convinced we will stay in this trial and error process for at least another 80 years without making any significant progress. Progress for manned space flight in the past 50 years has been minimal already. Almost 50 years ago we went to the moon,still didn't go back. There are not even commercial holidays into low orbit space.
Still using basicly the same rocket that von brown designed like 70 years ago. That design,it is at its limits of what is possible with it. The failure rate is high and will remain high. We have been using this rocket for decades and we still have a lot of failures. Can it get to mars? yes probably,at enormous cost and risks and without making any significant progress.

I have always been a big supporter of space exploration but I am beginning to have doubts about it all now. There is this series now on NGC called "mars" about a colony on mars. When you see that you realize how futile it all is and how little progress it gives. Mars will never be liveable, terraforming is impossible in a reasonable amount of time. What is the point of having a colony there? Even technologically it will barely bring us further if we still use the same rockets and technology that we have been using for decades now. Economically is not worth going to mars,nothing that we can do there that we cant do on earth. And it wont ever serve as a 2nd earth either so that mankind has a bigger chance of long term survival.
When you see that show,you realize how incredibly lucky we are to have earth. We would be much better of safing earth and its biological diversity then going to mars. Maybe in 200-300 year it will be more feasonable,(though still not economically desireable) to go to mars but not now. The only thing that really makes sense is to make a colony on a liveable surface, another planet like earth in another solar system.

But they will go to mars,maybe 40-50 years from now. Not a colony but a quick jump and back like we went to the moon. We could already do that now if we wanted but money has other prioritys atm.
Astroid mining is even much further away,if feasonable at all in the first place which seems only likely when they serve as a refill base for expeditions that go very far out. Maybe 300-400 years from now if not more. And only if we have a significant technological break through because the current propulsion system is at the absolute limits of its design.

On January 03 2017 08:29 Gorsameth wrote:

Yeah, ideally we want to build ships in space but to do that we need to make it easier to get there.
I also think it would become a lot more feasible if we didn't have to sit our payload/people on top of a giant bomb and hope everything goes right every time.

On January 03 2017 12:52 Simberto wrote:


Yes, but it is not like there are no other concepts for getting stuff into space than rockets. Sure, you need to invest a lot of energy to overcome gravity. But currently, we mostly invest a lot of energy into overcoming gravity for fuel to have energy to invest into overcoming gravity for fuel to have energy to invest into overcoming gravity.

At some point, we have to find a better solution if we want to do more stuff in space. And it is not theoretically impossible. It is just hard to do in practice.

To actually get any reasonable infrastructure going in space we need to shoot a lot of stuff up there. And a big problem is that there is not a lot of stuff in space. If you want to produce fuel in space, you need something to make it from. If you want to build ships in space, you need something to make them from. And to get all of that going, a gigantic investment is necessary. Once you actually produce fuel in space at some place that is reasonably easy to reach, stuff becomes a lot easier. But i think to get there we need something better than rockets.

NASA has tripled the number of flights awarded to SpaceX and Boeing Co. to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, giving Centennial-based United Launch Alliance four more manned missions to launch.

The Washington D.C.-based space agency’s Commercial Crew Program announced Tuesday that it has added four ISS flights each to SpaceX (also known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp.) and Boeing, bringing each company to six ISS missions scheduled to fly by 2024.

NASA has turned to the private companies to develop spacecraft to carry U.S. astronauts to the ISS, initially awarding two missions each to Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket, and to Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule. Each spacecraft is supposed to carry up to four astronauts and 220 pounds of cargo at a time to the ISS on missions starting in 2018.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner will launch atop an Atlas V rocket made by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp.

The SpaceX and Boeing capsules are months away from their first commercial crew test flights. NASA indicated that expanding the number of missions for each company now will help in the spacecraft development and in the logistics of staffing the ISS.

“Awarding these missions now will provide greater stability for the future space station crew rotation schedule, as well as reduce schedule and financial uncertainty for our providers,” said Phil McAlister, director, NASA’s commercial spaceflight development division. “The ability to turn on missions as needed to meet the needs of the space station program is an important aspect of the Commercial Crew Program.”

NASA has paid to fly astronauts to the ISS aboard Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft since the NASA space shuttle fleet was retired in 2011.

NASA wants the commercial crew program to return the U.S. to domestic launches of its astronauts.

Boeing’s Starliner is scheduled to fly an uncrewed flight test in July 2018, to be followed less than two months later by a test flight of another Starliner with astronauts aboard, NASA said. The CST-100 Starliner missions will launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Florida’s Space Coast.

SpaceX’s uncrewed flight test is slated for this coming November, with the Dragon capsule’s first crew flight test scheduled for May 2018.

SpaceX plans to use a launchpad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, next to Cape Canaveral, for its Dragon capsule launches.

Whether SpaceX can meet that schedule remains to be seen.

The Hawthorne, California-based company is trying to return Falcon 9 rockets to flight after grounding them to investigate a Sept. 1 launchpad explosion. An unmanned Falcon 9 blew up while being being fueled for a commercial satellite launch.

SpaceX said Monday it has identified the explosion’s cause and come up with fixes for the fueling problem. The company aims to launch a Falcon 9 carrying several Iridium communications satellites into orbit as soon as this Sunday.

ULA plans to phase out its Atlas V rockets starting in 2019, replacing it with a more affordable and versatile rocket it's designing, called Vulcan. The rocket is also what ULA plans to eventually use to launch CST-100 Starliner missions.