When West Orange County Rep. Dana Rohrabacher challenged NASA on their “monster rocket” plans, OC180NEWS wanted to understand the issues. Yesterday we received some answers to our questions from NASA.
The central issue of concern relates to a comparative analysis supposedly done by NASA on alternatives to the heavy lift, “monster rocket,” design they selected for the next generation of manned space travel. In a letter dated September 6, 2011, Rohrabacher made his second request of NASA Administrator Charles Bolden for a copy of their analysis.
Since We thought Rohrabacher’s questions were interesting, and since NASA had not provided Rohrabacher With the analysis, OC180NEWS asked NASA about it. Specifically, we asked:
“When should Rep. Dana Rohrabacher expect a response to his September 6, 2011 letter to Administrator Bolden re July 12, 2011 House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Hearing?”
NASA answer:
“NASA is currently working to provide a thorough response to the Congressman’s letter in a timely manner.”
Rep. Rohrabacher certainly does not need OC180NEWS to do his bidding, but we wanted to see what kind of answers we could get from NASA. During Administrator Bolden’s July 12 appearance before the House committee, he clearly indicated NASA was analyzing alternative approaches and carefully considering costs expectations. Further, there is an expectation of at least some level of transparency in NASA’s decision making process.
Thus, if NASA has already done the analysis and compared alternatives, as they have said, it seems reasonable that obtaining such information should not be insurmountable. Nevertheless, NASA is not exactly tripping all over themselves to provide the information.
We asked NASA:
“Is the comparative analysis of various alternatives to the accepted design for the SLS documented, and if yes, is such documentation available to the public?”
NASA answer:
“No, the analysis is pre-decisional and not available to the public. Some information on options has been provided publically in the Section 309 of the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-267), in which NASA reported to Congress and the public on the status of the Agency’s plans for the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) and Space Launch System (SLS). This report, which includes a discussion of SLS configuration options, is available online.”
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/510449main_SLS_MPCV_90-day_Report.pdf
Here at OC180NEWS, we are not entirely sure what “pre-decisional” means, but it sure doesn’t sound very transparent. If NASA has in fact done a thorough comparison of different approaches, why shouldn’t they make that public?
In his challenge of NASA/industry status quo, Rep. Rohrabacher seems to think an alternative approach involving on orbit fuel depots could be part of future manned spaceflight designs. In an extract from his September 6, 2011 letter to NASA Administrator Bolden, Rohrabacher writes:
“It seems that a proper, in-depth look at this question – comparing the costs of super-heavy-lift exploration architectures against that of propellant depots and commercial launch vehicles – would be an appropriate and critical step..” Continuing, “a depot-architecture could create a large new market for delivering propellant to orbit, which will significantly increase flight rates leading to much lower commercial launch costs with benefits to national security and commercial industry, whereas a super-heavy-lift vehicle has no obvious market-enabling possibilities.”
Sounds interesting, so we asked NASA about it:
“Specifically, has there been a documented analysis of the relative cost of using the technology of on-orbit propellant depots instead of relying on new large, heavy-lift launch vehicles?”
NASA answer:
“NASA has done some studies, but we are continuing to study the concept. The technology maturity for a on-orbit propellant depot is relatively low and not viable at this time to be in the mission’s critical path. Any on-orbit propellant depot doesn’t help you get large payloads out of Earth’s gravity well, one still needs a large launch vehicle to get mass to space.”
We will continue to follow this issue. If Rep. Rohrabacher is right and nearly everybody else is wrong, it could be a huge mistake for our nation.
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About Dolores Barr, Publisher
Dolores Barr has lived in Rossmoor since 1992 and has created this site to provide local news for the people of Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Leisure World, Sunset Beach, and Surfside, California. My husband and I have had two students graduate from the Los Alamitos Unified School District and currently our Grandson, Ricky Apodaca, grade 3 at Weaver Elementary, is actively involved in youth baseball through LAYB and youth football through FNL.
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