RTTM VI Day 2

07/22/05 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

p. We're starting with Chris Shank from NASA HQ. The idea was originally to have Chris talk about the 60 day report here for the first time after it was released. But given the launch push back and timing that may or may not be the case. If he says anything interesting you'll hear it here first.

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Right now Chris is talking about the planing behind the Lewis and Clark expedition and comparing it to managing and planning the VSE so it really sounds like there's not going to be any news here. But he could do something toward the end. The first slide did have a picture of Magnum and the Stick.

p. He's showing a slide now that shows the first human lunar landing in 2018, CEV Development done in 2012, Lunar lander, lunar heavy lift, earth departure development all start in 2010.

p. He just said that commercial crew/cargo service is considered a 'backup' service. That caused a little bit of a stir Correction: CEV is considered the backup, not the commercial provider. As Mike said its “leader/follower”.

p. Quote, “This is not your father's Apollo program”. He does seem to be responding to the criticism that this is Apollo Redux by saying that while physics hasn't changed, the costs have through technological advancement and procurement changes. For example, they assume a minimum of 2 lunar flights/year and a base at the south pole by 2020.

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Q&A How does Griffin plan on dealing with congress members who want to keep Shuttle around past 2010? Answer: we have worked out a compromise.

Given the shock of the recent JWST cost overrun, how will the plan deal with future 'shocks' of cost overruns? He now goes into the JWST situation which wasn't the question. Wingo corrects his question and Shank responds by saying we're being very conservative. They assume a 64% confidence level in their cost estimates. So its an issue of managing expectations and not doing “business as usual”.

Question: if your first lunar landing looks to much like Apollo then the public and congress won't be very impressed that it took 50 years to do what we already did. Answer: we have had that debate but we're not ready to do that planning.

p. Now we're on the “What will we do on the Moon? (Commercial) panel with Dennis Wingo (SkyCorp), David Gump (t/space), Hugh Arif (Cisco), David Livingston (The Space Show). So far we've heard about lunar oxygen production and transport, polar ice, lunar telecommunications. The Cisco view is nice since they have a space systems division but their views have never been expressed to a forum like this.

p. My session is next so obviously I won't be able to blog that one. Ok, I'm back. The session went well but was cut short due to time constraints. We may continue it during the upcoming break. The comments I heard afterward ws that a "speed dating” type session was very useful to give a snapshot of the industry without having to give everyone an entire hour.

p. Now we are on the “Legal Regulatory Policy” panel with Tim Huddleston, Jim Muncy (Polispace), Marc Schlather (ProSpace), George Whitesides (NSS). Our network has been flakey so I'm going to write an overview of this later.

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Brant Sponberg is prizes and announced a new Challenge for space suit gloves (and even mentioned Rand Simberg's original article on the topic). Its managed by Alanz Aerospace. Aha! he's introducing something called Innovative Programs which includes Centennial Challenges. This slide should be interesting. The types of projects are “Suborbital Launch”, “Low cost ETO launch, Proximity Operations, Reenty, Crew Transport, In-space propellant provisioning, small lunar transport. They're going to be putting out requests under FAR part 12 for microgravity research from suborbital providers. May offer altitude prize to get suborbital.

Moving to ETO he mentions ISS resuply, they're interested in presurized and unpressurized. They specifically want unpressurized due to the mass savings. Moving on to ISS proximity and working with industry on making sure that can happen. That should make CSI happy. Moving on to re-entry and be able to get to the ISS and CEV downmass. May offer a prize for re-entry to make sure they don't miss a provider.

Now its Crew Transport which would be done similarly to re-entry. And will be getting to in space propellant provisioning and small lunar transport. Both done with prizes now. Specifically they're looking at a small soft lunar lander prize once they get the authority.

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