Missile defense is a scam, always has been. It was Reagan’s present to the defense industry; free money forever. They rig a test every couple years to make it look like it will work but it is not going to stop any real attack by an adversary. It costs billions and is worthless. Like the Trump force. Exactly what it was designed to do- generate the maximum amount of revenue. You see, actually sending humans in harm’s way is a big expense that has always been a problem for the military industrial complex. They get very little ROI on infantry technology. It was why Rumsfeld lost his job; remember that? We were welding scrap metal on vehicles and spending billions on high tech and they busted him for it. He was fired and the troops were then riding around in MRAPs. Space Force needs a mission that is explicitly dangerous for it’s service members to merit the prestige and entitlements of a branch of the armed forces. That they presently do not is an insult to the military and all veterans…like me. It really was Trump’s way of giving the middle finger to the military that he considers suckers and losers. Commander Bone Spurs smiles everytime he thinks about the military service he created that does not have to fight- just like he did not have to. That can be fixed but nobody wants to do it because they are still terrified of Trump. Everyone is. He is the worst danger to the Republic since the civil war.
SpaceX fandom continues to shout the praises of reusability from the mountaintops so that all may bow before the glory of the great one. Except….the Vulcan Centaur is quoting a price not that different from F9 and simply expending everything.
How can that be?
SLS is a good example of why. Reusing the SRB’s on the SLS will not break even and because of the expense of creating an engine return module to make the RS25’s reusable, it is not worth doing it. The Falcon 9, if designed with a single large first stage engine and a simpler expendable structure, would cost about the same as the reusable version. That is why the Vulcan Centaur is going to cost about the same.
So reusability is not worth the trouble? I did not say that. Likely the most expensive part of the Falcon 9 is all of those engines. Reducing the number of engines to, for example, four (one large central engine and 3 small steering/landing engines), would bring the costs down and make it more profitable. Likewise, equipping the upper stage engine with a heat shield and parachute and some recovery technique would finally make the Falcon as reusable as the Space Shuttle, which only expended a big tank instead of an engine and tank like SpaceX. Using this philosophy the “Ultimate Falcon” would have had a single engine and a lift-off thrust in the 2 million pound thrust range and a second stage with a similar layout and some kind of engine return scheme, while expending only the upper stage tankage.
The logical progression would have been to continue the Saturn V and with each iteration make it more reusable. First returning the first stage engines in a return module with a variable thrust center landing engine in the five engine configuration, and also reusing the escape tower and capsule. Second doing the same with the second stage by using a single main engine and 3 or 4 steering/landing engines to return that module. Third would be upgrading to more powerful engines so the first stage tankage could be reused while also increasing payload. Fourth would have been to do what SpaceX is attempting now with the shiny and return the second stage tankage. The fifth iteration of the Saturn V would have been a 3rd stage engine return module that did a free return around the Moon and then reentered with a heat shield and parachute and was recovered. The 3rd stage itself being a wet workshop. NASA took a different course though. The logical progression would still be the best course; iterations of the SLS could do the same thing.
I actually corresponded with the B612 crew back in the day when they first started. You are correct…they are a big danger to the human race because they actually work extremely hard to keep what will save us- nuclear devices- from being used for deflection. In my view moving all nuclear weapons into deep space on human-crewed Spaceships is the best solution. I personally do not want robots flying around out there with nukes.
A single 80 mile diameter comet hits us and civilization ends, along with most of life on Earth. Not much chance of stopping it on short notice.
The solution is to move the nuclear arsenal into deep space on human-crewed “space boomers.” I would expect the first step would be to disband the Trump Force and reform and rename it on the same day as “Space Corps” or “Space Guard” or something like that.
Space Nuclear Strike Force (SNSF)?
These Spaceships would be perfectly capable of deflecting any impact threats with nukes. Any aliens observing us have likely already decided, since we should have had such a planetary defensive capability decades ago, that we are too stupid to survive.
If KBR smells money you know there is more on the way.
The new cold war with fortunes to be made for defense contractors.
And they thought space was going to be hard money. That was before smallsats and cheap launchers. What a mess.
For anyone unfamiliar with the way this works, the Trump Force now has the same budget as NASA and they are going to spend every penny of it because if they don’t, they cannot request more next year. And more the next year.
While NASA has been underfunded since the end of Apollo the Trump Force can always just scream “SUPPORT THE TROOPS!” and an avalanche of tax dollars will be directed their way. That is why it was created.
And KBR will make sure they get their cut.
Basing the nuclear deterrent MONTHS away in deep space would realize the over half a century old dream of a nuclear weapon free world and end the launch on warning scenario that has always been just minutes away from ending civilization. Such Spaceships, with guest scientists on board, could also do exploration missions to Ceres and eventually the moons of the gas and ice giants. And protect the planet from impact threats.
You move your business to someplace cheaper and they will eventually make it just as expensive as where you came from. Unless you go overseas to a country where a repressive government can keep your costs down. All part of that race to the bottom that is a key feature of Neoliberalism. At some point slave labor and even chattel slavery is the only way to “compete.” Absolute greed inevitably corrupts and corrodes any system it infects and brings it crashing down. This is the fundamental difference between the progressive economics of Imbedded Liberalism (The New Deal) and the zero regulation/taxation of Neoliberalism. While one seeks to prevent collapse and suffering the other just does not care about human beings, only profit.
“An experiment planned by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) dubbed the Cislunar Highway Patrol System (CHPS) will investigate technologies to monitor the region of space between Earth and the moon.“
A fleet of Lunar Cyclers are likely the best way to “monitor” cislunar space. As described in my other comment, a massive water shielded crew compartment with artificial gravity is the basic prerequisite to maintaining a permanent human presence Beyond Low Earth Orbit (BLEO) and these “Fat Workshops” will probably be used in three forms as Space Stations, Spaceships. and Lunar Cyclers.
A Spaceship will necessarily be capable of missions Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit (BELO) into the outer solar system. Space Stations will likely no longer be found in LEO since there is really no justification for descending so deep into Earth’s gravity well.
“Beyond surveillance and tracking of objects, it’s not clear what else the Space Force might do in cislunar space.“
That is completely obvious: planetary protection with human-crewed Spaceships using nuclear pulse propulsion.
“-If successful, NASA’s return to the moon will lead to a permanent presence there and lay the groundwork for scientific research and commercial development.“
A human presence in space depends upon a specific set of problems being solved. I have written about this on my blog for several years and refer to it as the “Parker-Dyson-Spudis Continuum (PDSC).” The first problem, as described by Eugene Parker, is cosmic radiation. And the solution is a massive water shield. Dosing and debilitation is the twin problem that must be solved and as well as a massive water shield, artificial gravity will also be required. Chemical energy is largely useless for pushing this type of construct, containing thousands of tons of water and a robust spinning structure, likely on a tether, with loads providing one gravity. Tours of duty of over a year with little dosing and no debilitation would allow full careers in space and providing an environment that does not cause permanent damage is a prerequisite. I refer to this as a “Near Sea Level Radiation 1 Gravity environment (NSLR1G).”
“-$61 million for AFRL’s experiment and $70 million for a thermal nuclear propulsion demonstration-“
It is hard enough keeping chemical rockets from melting and Nuclear Thermal presumes to contain a reaction one million times more powerful. The result is, for huge expense, an engine with an Isp only about twice that of a chemical engine. For the time being there is only one technology available to push the mass required- Nuclear Pulse Propulsion. The first work was done on this concept by Freeman Dyson over half a century ago and there is still nothing comparable.
The only place to assemble, test, and launch such Spaceships is the vicinity of the Moon, which also has water that can be lifted into space with 20 to 23 times less energy than from Earth. The original work done on the ice on the Moon was performed by Paul Spudis. It follows that the Super Heavy Lift Vehicle with a double-hull upper stage “Fat Workshop” is the fundamental building block for any “permanent presence” in cislunar space. In my view robot landers that can derive water from lunar ice deposits and process some of this water into propellants to shuttle water into lunar orbit to workshops is the key technique to be perfected.
The only green initiative in space that is going to address climate change is Space Solar Power.
And the cult leader of the Ayn-Rand-in-Space mob said it is a stupid idea.
That 400,000 pounds of thrust and 12G’s getting the minimum mass of the capsule away from a disintegrating stack, 500 mph in 2 seconds for a pad abort, is hard to improve upon. After lift-off, max-Q, and staging, there is not much left that can go wrong so jettisoning it is a beautiful thing.
In my opinion it is actually as good as it gets and as close to “ideal” as possible. Sadly, it is viewed as a money-waster and not a moneymaker and that is where the hypergolic systems on the LEO taxis come from. They sacrificed some crew safety to Mammon. They are betting they can get away with it and that is not a good bet if you are an astronaut.
There is a reason to treat escape systems so seriously Ryan: at some point we are going to need nuclear energy to travel to the outer solar system and transporting that material into space, in my view, is going to require a capsule and escape tower and packaging it to survive the worst possible anomaly.
Perhaps “the key” is to see through the sophistry inherent in terms like “competitive public-private-partnerships.”
What must be understood is the two principal entities interacting- the public and private sectors. In Neoliberal ideology there is no “public” sector. The Market, like a god, decides all things. The god is money and the plan is profit and humans are incidental. This is the fundamental tenet. Truth is not on the list of articles of faith, rather, it is greed that is inherent in all matters. Possession of wealth is the only salvation and any form of redistribution is blasphemy. It really is a cult.
Through this lens ALL of these public private partnerships must be viewed. And the first thing that becomes crystal clear is it is NOT a partnership.
What you see is the private sector always, always, striving to destroy the public sector. One of the most time-honored methods is to infiltrate and wreck a public domain and then hold it up to the public (the enemy) as proof that only competition among profit-seekers can provide a service that is not corrupt and inefficient. This gambit was rather transparently displayed recently with the U.S. Postal Service. In all cases it is the public allowing representatives to steal and mismanage public activities that enable this kind of power-seeking.
Neoliberals consider this proof that they have a right to prey on us if we are so stupid we let them do it. Truth.
Ice on the Moon 