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Space Shuttle Endeavor left the Earth this morning under cover of darkness, as the 5th to last NASA Human Space Mission aboard the Shuttles lifted seamlessly toward the International Space Station. Just one week after Obama announced the cancellation of the Constellation program, the veteran shuttle took one of its last journeys into orbit. Endeavor will fly one last mission in July.


Of the three shuttles still in service, the Atlantis will fly one more mission and Discovery will fly two, ending the Space Transportation System in September 2010.


The last time that Americans were left grounded was a 6 year gap from 1975 to 1981 when Apollo/Saturn was fazed out in favor of the Space Shuttle.


The United States does not have a replacement human transportation system. However, by the end of 2010 we may see private industry hiring their own astronaut force in support of private space exploration.

Obama kills NASA's Human Arm - Private Sector Must Carry Torch

It is official. The American Space Program, a dream inspired by the likes of John F. Kennedy himself, has been killed today as a non-essential government expenditure. The Obama administration has announced that it will defund the Constellation Program, the follow-on Human Space Flight Program intended for lunar colonization. FoxNews reports:

The key elements of Constellation include the Orion crew capsule, its Ares 1 launcher, a larger rocket dubbed Ares 5 and the Altair lunar lander. Obama's top-line spending proposal for NASA is expected to increase slightly over the 2010 appropriation of $18.7 billion and would including some funding for an alternative means for transporting crews to and from the international space station

Facing a federal deficit of $1.26 trillion in 2011, Obama is proposing a three-year freeze on most non-defense discretionary spending, a move the president believes will save $250 billion over the next 10 years, Orszag said. In addition, the White House is proposing more than 120 program terminations, reductions and efficiencies that together are expected to save $20 billion in 2011, Orszag said.

While Obama is picking off major programs at $20 Billion a pop, he is still pushing an increased expenditure on the order of a trillion dollars. I digress.

As I stated in my previous post regarding the early reporting of this information, I applaud the cancelling of the NASA Human Space Flight division (though here I found it to be a bad idea). This is said as a former employee of Lockheed's Ares/Orion team. The program was a mess - extremely overbudget, attempting to make a horribly designed system work. We have Mike Griffin to thank for that - but we have NASA to thank for driving impossible requirements changes, making a state of the art system nothing more than a "larger Apollo" on an underpowered candlestick. We were heading the wrong direction... and instead of throwing money at a bad Government Problem - me, like any like minded fiscal conservative and libertarian should embrace the surrendering of a government agency to the free market.

Could Obama have simply directed the cancelling of Ares I and embrace Ares 5 as a multi-purpose Moon/Mars launch vehicle? Should he have? Or is this the motivation the private sector needs in order to begin the free market colonization of near and far space? Let's take a look at what is on the horizon:

1. Space X is within 1-3 months of the inaugural flight of the Falcon 9 - a private, green, and reusable launch vehicle built with the intention of human passengers. They are already in full scale production and have a launch manifest planned out to 2015 covering over 26 flights of varying payloads. SpaceX, owned by Google, has drastically reduced launch costs - estimated at a 90% cost savings over NASA programs, while focusing special attention on safety and reliability. This private sector innovator stands at the ready to take immediate ownership of NASA astronauts, and is slated to act as a launch platform for prefabbed/inflatable space infrastructure built by Bigelow Aerospace.

2. Virgin Galactic, though not able to attain full orbit, is nearing the end of their test flight phase for their sub-orbital commercial space vehicle. Private citizens, the first space tourists, can catch a ride on the ship for a mere $200,000. I am sure that full orbital trips will be just around the bend.

3. SpaceDev is working with Lockheed Martin and Boeing's United Launch Alliance in order to man-rate their Delta and Atlas launch vehicles. I wonder, however, if a collapse of NASA Humans Space Flight, if "man rating" will be a necessary regulation for future start-ups. This falls under the realm of "how congress reacts" - if a launch vehicle is safe, reliable, and has a great service record - what more do you need to 'over-engineer' the launch vehicle for human safety?

In short - this is the perfect opportunity for the private sector to shine. We can smack Obama around for cancelling the JFK Moon Dream, and chastise him for putting America behind the Chinese or the Russians (the only two countries in the world capable of currently launching humans to orbit - after our remaining three launches this year exhaust our Shuttle fleet). But what we are bearing witness to in our protest is the hypocrisy of our "cause" - that is, give up government bureaucracies - so long as you don't touch the things WE want you to keep. Obama should take notice of his own maneuver, and don't stop until Education, healthcare, identification and the like are off the payroll of the federal government.

We stand, dear readers, at the beginning of something grand. So long as private ventures see a profit or need in Human Exploration - it will be so. This is our opportunity to take the government to task and do it right! Instead of writing your congressmen, write the start-ups like SpaceX and ask what you can do to invest and help drive human space flight on a private level. In the mean-time, write your representatives and remind them to keep their regulatory paws out of what will be an explosion in private space exploration.

SUCCESS! Ares 1-X Successfully Test Launched by NASA! Space X Falcon 9 Ready to Steal the Show...

My congratulations to my former team mates on the Ares and Orion program. This morning marks the first successful major milestone in returning Americans to Solar System exploration. Though I have been critical of the Ares 1 concept and an open advocate for the Falcon 9, Jupiter or Ares 5 system, this success will provide a great amount of data allowing a more focused and better defined Orion program, and will serve to answer a number of necessary questions regarding the capabilities of the plagued design.




The Candlestick, as Ares 1 is nicknamed, is a solid first stage booster with a liquid second stage and human capsule. The Ares 1-X was intended to test the feasibility of such a design as Americans desperately scramble to replace the Shuttle after the 2003 Columbia accident.

Ares/Orion is not alone in their success, nor in their quest to become the launch platform for American Space Flight. Space X is a private venture vying for a new direction in American Space Travel, where NASA and Ares/Orion (Constellation Program) is government run through subcontracts (Lockheed Martin).

Space X has successfully launched the Falcon 1, proving the key technologies necessary to propel their full size Falcon 9 launch vehicle into the running as America's next human launch vehicle. Flight testing is scheduled to be on the tails of today's Ares 1-X flight, sometime in the next few months. A successful Falcon 9 flight could divert attention and funding away from Ares, as the private venture is currently ready for full scale operations and regular flights. The Ares vehicles are not slated to test fly again until 2012, as current cuts to testing schedule are keeping the system on the ground.


Space X has also designed the Dragon, an automated/crew less cargo supply ship specializing in ISS resupply. The Dragon could easily be modified to carry human passengers, and is ready to be operational in mid 2010... a full 4-6 years before the Orion/Ares system is slated to be operational.



The government option, Ares/Orion, is extremely toxic for the environment, has been changed from a reusable system to a one time use "Apollo" system, is grossly over budget, and is horribly behind schedule... like any good government run program.

The Space X private venture is less expensive, cleaner burning fuel, mostly reusable, on schedule, and relatively on budget... evil capitalists!

My congratulations go out to the Ares 1-X team, many of whom are my personal friends and past co-workers (yes, I am a rocket scientist). However large of a hurdle the Ares 1-X launch was for NASA, it was an overdue milestone that is far behind the private sector's competition for ISS resupply, Human Space Flight, and Extra-planetary exploration.

I am always the advocate for further space development and exploration, but if I had to pick a winner in this race, it would be the Private Sector...

Congratulations nonetheless!

Barack Obama a Space Cadet on Space Issues

Our friends over at Spacepolitics.com have written an article about Barack Obama, and his plan to fund his socialized education plan by cutting the very thing that would drive innovation in science and technology, the US Human Spaceflight Programs. That is right! Barack Obama wants to stop sending US Astronauts to the ISS, the Moon, or any research for Mars. Well, at least until the end of his second term, and then some. He has suggested the transfer of all but $500 million (the cost to mothball the manufacturing capabilities) of NASA's manned space flight budget to his socialized education plan.

What he does not realize is that I would lose my job, as I work on Project Orion (the crew portion of the Constellation Program). As well, many aerospace companies who have invested hundreds of millions, if not billions, will be out of business and unable to just maintain a holding pattern until 2020. Business does not work that way... perhaps NASA could survive... but by that time we lose any hope of gaining technical expertise from any Apollo era engineers or astronauts, which has been a saving grace for the Constellation program thus far. To pick up the pieces in 2020 would mean that the US will be unable to launch a man into space for 10-15 years. We would not make it back to the moon before 2030-2040. And we will never make it to Mars.

If I needed one more reason to vehemently oppose Barack Obama as President, well, here it is!

A man with no foresight when it comes to the importance of the technological sector of the economy is little more than a buffoon.

Read the article below:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama released today the
education plan he would enact if elected. The full 15-page plan includes a variety of proposals, including reforming early education programs. The last section of the plan, titled “A Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility” explains how he would pay for these initiatives. The passage of relevance here: “The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years,” among other steps. According to MSNBC, Obama would leave in place $500 million/year for Constellation’s “manufacturing and technology base”, but would otherwise transfer the funding to the education effort. None of the campaign’s official statements or other media reports indicate any alternative measures the campaign would take to address what, on its face, would appear to be a five-year delay in the introduction of Ares 1, Orion, and the other main components of NASA’s current exploration
architecture.

(A potentially ironic item, depending on your opinion on the importance of Constellation: one other section of the Obama education plan is titled “Make Math and Science Education a National Priority”.)

The Republican National Committee has criticized the move to delay Constellation, The Hill reports, quoting RNC spokesman Danny Diaz: “It is ironic that Barack
Obama’s plan to help our children reach for the stars is financed in part by
slashing a program that helps us learn about those very same stars.”

This would spell disaster for the leader in world space exploration. And though there is a push for privatizing space, the industry has been held back so long that we are not able to pick up the pieces and send man to space privately right away. This would still leave the US without the means to send man to space.

This may seem like small potatoes, but when China and India are preparing for moon missions by 2020, we cannot delay our own efforts.

The problem with America is the lack of drive to speak out until it is too late... This is a case where it will be too little too late.

Write your local congressman, call Barack's campaign, call a talk radio show. Get the message out that sacrificing the Human Space Program is not an option.