Category: NASA

Why NASA Is Screwed Up

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And why the first step of of the Obama administration should be to fire NASA administrator Michael Griffin.

He’s still lobbying aggressively for his pet project the Ares launcher, claiming that keeping the shuttle flying will cost $3 billion per year and have a one in 8 risk of another fatal accident, so we need to accelerate the Ares.

The fact is that there is a man-rated system that can meet the needs of space station servicing, the Russian Soyuz, in the interim, and not withstanding his arguments that the atmospherics of relying on a foreign system somehow or other diminish US prestige, this has been the sort of self destructive behavior that has characterized NASA since the shuttle, where they decimated existing capabilities in order to insure that there was no viable alternative.

Obama should be announcing a replacement for Griffin sooner, not later.

Obama Getting Rolled by Pentagon and NASA?

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It now appears that people in the Pentagon and in NASA are feedinb Obama and his transition team scare stories about a Chinese manned program to the moon:

President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S.’s civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China.

The argument is that the Chinese will be able to put a man back on the moon before the US’s goal of 2020.

It should be noted that planting a flag on the moon means nothing.

That China is making strides in space development is true, and the military implications are a legitimate concern, and the idea of replacing NASA’s Ares vehicles with existing vehicles, which means military launchers because NASA has meticulously destroyed the opposition on their end, is a good thing.

But this whole “race to the moon” thing is 6 pounds of sh%$ in a 5 pound bag.

If Obama and his team believe this, I have some ballots in Florida for them to count.

Fire Michael Griffin

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Seriously, the current NASA administrator’s activities with regard to the transition are insubordination.

We now have reports that he is now pimping out his wife to support his continued tenure at NASA by having her send out an email begging people to sign an online petition supporting him.

It gets even better, as it appears that Griffin spent $57,000 to print and bind copies of his speeches, and then sending copies to Obama.

Note that this is in addition to his refusing to cooperate with the Obama transition team.

Of course, even if Michael Griffin weren’t nuts, the fact is that he is doing a lousy job of managing the next generation of NASA missions and vehicles, particularly his beloved Ares I and Ares V launchers, which show every indications of escalating costs and technical problems (like shaking the astronauts to death during launch, which was resolved with a performance hit because of the additional weight).

There are increasing calls for NASA to use the Orion Capsule on an existing launcher, though, in all fairness a study just reported that the early analysis indicates that man-rating a Atlas V or Delta IV would be more expensive than the Ares.

Personally, I’m inclined to doubt this, because the costs of man-rating these systems is a known quantity, while the Ares is still being developed, and costs are likely to escalate.

Also, Griffin’s refusal to provide data on Ares to the transition team (see the refusing to cooperate link) raises concerns that the study was based on data that was cherry picked by Griffin and NASA.

OK, This Might Explain why NASA is so Dysfunctional

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It appears that the relationship between Mike Griffin, NASA Administrator, and Lori Garver, head of Obama’s space transition team are not going well.

More accurately, the relationship between the current NASA Administrator, and the , a former NASA associate administrator now working for Obama, has gone completely pear shaped, and it appears to be Griffin’s doing:

In a heated 40-minute conversation last week with Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator who heads the space transition team, a red-faced Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama, according to witnesses.

In addition, Griffin is scripting NASA employees and civilian contractors on what they can tell the transition team and has warned aerospace executives not to criticize the agency’s moon program, sources said.

This is completely whack…..You have a program that you want to continue, and you proceed to piss off the transition team, and institute gag orders, when you cannot help but know that this will insure your rapid exit in January.

This is more than nuts, this is “Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich” nuts.

Son of Hyper-X Approaches Flight Ready Status

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The X-43A was a rather crude demonstrator, relying on a large, heavy copper heat sink and burning hydrogen, but the X-51a is much more advance, and much more viable technologymuch lighter, and being actively cooled by its own hydrocarbon fuel, and the flight ready SJX61-2 scramjet has finished ground test

It will start on ethylene, and than sustain thrust with JP-7, the fuel used by the SR-71, and should have a powered endurance in the 300 second range, following launch at 50,000 feet by a B-52 and a boost to supersonic speed by a booster derived from the ATACMS missile.

I think that if this transitions to anything in the near term, it would be some sort of missile, and if they can get 300s thrust at mach 5 or so, you would be looking at a total range on the order of 600+km.

One of the things that would change is that you would see a lot less metal, and a lot more composite.

Picture Pr0n below:


SJX61-2 Engine in Hypersonic Wind Tunnel


Titanium nozzle for SJX61-2


The fuel tank is integral to the structure.

The NASA Clown Show

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I am, of course referring to NASA’s Ares manned vehicle, which has hit yet another snag.

First, the rocket was not powerful enough, then it threatened to shake its occupants to death, and now it appears that the interface with the tower is such that it could hit or significantly the launch gantry tower (launch drift).

A fix to the launch pad configuration would take over a year and require money not in the budget.

Jeebus, what a clusterf%$#….Guys, it’s not like this is rocket science…Oh, wait…It IS rocket science, isn’t it?

The real lesson from all this is just how much damage was done to NASA by the space shuttle. It’s been hollowed out as an organization.

Neat Tech: Fiber Optic

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NASA is using Fiber-optic stress and strain gauges to evaluate dynamic loads on wings and other aerodynamic surfaces. (paid subscription required)

In addition to being lower profile than conventional strain gauges (see pictures) the technology looks likely to be small enough, light enough, and unobtrusive enough so it would be embedded in aircraft for real time structural health reporting.

It could also be used as a part of a wing that actively changes its camber, a “son of the mission adaptive wing” that NASA tested on the F-111 over a decade ago.

I Don’t Know About You, But I Just Love Aviation Pr0n

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No women, just aircraft, though I’m not sure how I would classify aircraft nose art.

In any case, this is about NASA cutting contacts with aviation manufacturers to set its aeronautics agenda for the next few decades. (paid subscription required)

What gets my blood going are the concepts, whether SSTs, that look like they came out of the Thunderbirds classic TV show:

Open rotor engines:

And new configurations:


New engine congfigurations


Lowspeed high efficiency aircraft with externally braced wings

Well, That Prevents the Space Station from Becoming an Expensive Door Stop.

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Or more accurately, it prevents it from becoming a marginally less productive doorstop from where it is now.

Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator, is now saying that he is not seeing excessive Congressional opposition to the continued purchase of Soyuz flights to support the space station.

I’m of a mixed mind. This makes it easier to shut down the Shuttle, which is easily the most self destructive program that NASA has ever embarked on, but the Space Station is a pretty useless and expensive boondoggle too.

The Sad, Twisted Tale NASA’s Ares rockets

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Well, it appears that, much like the shuttle, NASA’s Ares rockets are proving difficult to develop.

Originally intended to rely heavily on existing equipment, largely based on the Shuttle, nothing is going that way:

Beyond the much publicised CLV solid-rocket motor oscillation problem, other issues for Ares I include pocket buckling in its upper-stage liquid hydrogen (LH2) tank, an immature first-stage forward skirt avionics box design, protection for parachutes against the interstage’s shaped linear charge separation system and first-stage thrust vector control (TVC) changes.

I expect this to be both behind schedule and over budget, again.

NASA to Test Vasimr On Space Station

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NASA will test the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) plasma engine on their space station

It promises something in excess of 40 times the specific impulse (fuel efficiency) of chemical rockets, and its thrust is a lot higher than alternate technologies, something on the order of about 10N (around 2 lbs) as opposed to the millinewton thrust levels of ion engines.

It should be interesting.

Previous posts here.