Hyperbola is launching to the Oort cloud for a week's R&R from today and will be returning via Daejeon, Korea from the 12 October. In Daejeon Hyperbola will be blogging from the International Astronautical Congress, where the world's space community meets. And yes there may even be Virgin Galactic news there...
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Much of the media coverage (linked too here and here) about the Government Accountability Office report on NASA's Constellation programme has focused on the funding angle and cost estimates but Hyperbola found buried on page nine the following:
"We have reported on several occasions that within NASA's acquisition framework, the preliminary design/non-advocate review--the hurdle marking transition from program formulation to program implementation--is the point at which development projects should have a sound business case in hand. NASA's Systems Engineering Policy states that the preliminary design review demonstrates that the preliminary design meets all system requirements with acceptable risk and within the cost and schedule constraints. NASA realized that the Orion project was not ready to complete the preliminary design review process as planned and delayed its initiation from summer 2008 to summer 2009. Furthermore, although NASA officially closed the Ares I preliminary design review process in September 2008, it deferred resolution of the thrust oscillation issue until the Constellation program preliminary design review in March 2010."
And the GAO report's conclusion says "the failure to establish a sound business case has placed the program in a poor risk posture to proceed into implementation as planned in 2010."
This journalist's question for NASA was, "why did the Constellation programme think that it could close its vehicles' PDR processes when so much remaining technical uncertainty meant that by other government definitions the space agency could not claim to have mitigated enough risk to confidently plan for the programme's next stages so they could meet budget and first flight targets?"
Flightglobal's story on this can be found here. Click through to the extended portion of this blog post to see NASA's full answer
Continue reading GAO says NASA should never have passed Orion, Ares PDRs.
What people are saying about nasa_hsf
_Baylink: @NASA_HSF "Out there. Thataway." If you prefer, "second star to the right, straight on 'til morning". While practical, NASA's about dreams.
About 4 hours ago
Whateyupey: RT @NASA_HSF We leave you today with this image and a question. Where do you see NASA going from here? http://tinyurl.com/inspirat...
About 6 hours ago
Whateyupey: RT @NASA_HSF We will inform you when documents and video from this week's public meetings go online.
About 6 hours ago
Whateyupey: RT @NASA_HSF Thank you everyone for following along today. We will be in Washington, DC on August 5th.
About 6 hours ago
genejm29: RT @NASA_HSF: We leave you today w/ this image & question. Where do you see NASA going from here? http://tinyurl.com/...
About 6 hours ago
jimhillhouse: #NASA_HSF I hope General Lyles didn't hold the view, "Preeminence does not mean dominance." as an Air Force officer. Defeat != loss? Wrong.
About 6 hours ago
stratocumulus: RT @NASA_HSF We leave U today with this image & a question. Where do U see NASA going from here? http://tinyurl.com/...
About 6 hours ago
AmericaSpace: #NASA_HSF General Lyles comment, "Preeminence does not mean dominance." goes a long way in explaining what's wrong with our Space program.
About 6 hours ago
drewmanchu: Heh... RT @NASA_HSF: "Big dumb rocket" comment from the current public speaker referring to Ares rocket.
About 6 hours ago
genejm29: RT @CatherineQ: Catching up on @NASA_HSF Committee meeting Public meetings have been recorded are posted to http://hsf.nasa.gov
About 6 hours ago
jimhillhouse: #NASA_HSF General Lyles comment, "Preeminence does not mean dominance." goes a long way in explaining what's wrong with our Space program.
About 6 hours ago
stratocumulus: RT @NASA_HSF We will inform you when documents and video from this week's public meetings go online.
About 6 hours ago
genejm29: RT @NASA_HSF: We will inform you when documents and video from this week's public meetings go online.
About 6 hours ago
It was a simple question, given rhetorically by then president John Fitzgerald Kennedy on 12 September 1962 in the baking heat of Rice University in Houston, Texas and its simplicity understated its significance
The answer, no doubt, is that they play because it is a challenge
And it is the challenge of the unknown, of being ready to seek what is over the next hill, to overcome the difficult environment that maybe there, and to persist; that is the simple explanation for why the technical achievement that was Project Apollo was undertaken and accomplished
Humanity had wanted to go for millenia and that manifested itself in myth and legend, books and film, and in the earliest days of the moving picture too. It just took a race between super powers to realise it
The challenge is still there, to go and stay and not just at the Moon. Mars looms large in peoples' imaginations and space agencies see it as the greater goal. Humanity will go back to the Moon and do the other thing
The simple question that remains is, will the nation that leads that great endeavour speak of Rice playing Texas or Shanghai playing Beijing or Delhi playing Mumbai?
The answer, no doubt, is that they play because it is a challenge
And it is the challenge of the unknown, of being ready to seek what is over the next hill, to overcome the difficult environment that maybe there, and to persist; that is the simple explanation for why the technical achievement that was Project Apollo was undertaken and accomplished
Humanity had wanted to go for millenia and that manifested itself in myth and legend, books and film, and in the earliest days of the moving picture too. It just took a race between super powers to realise it
The challenge is still there, to go and stay and not just at the Moon. Mars looms large in peoples' imaginations and space agencies see it as the greater goal. Humanity will go back to the Moon and do the other thing
The simple question that remains is, will the nation that leads that great endeavour speak of Rice playing Texas or Shanghai playing Beijing or Delhi playing Mumbai?
And so it begins the UK government public relations machine whirrs into action and canny science and innovation (and space!) minister Lord Drayson dangles the space agency carrot by not denying it could be announced next week
On 22 July in London there is to be a press conference about the new European Space Agency facility that is to be located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Centre, also home to the now privatised UK Atomic Energy Authority. The facility, for robotics, is supposed to herald a new level of investment by the UK in the European agency's activities
On 22 July in London there is to be a press conference about the new European Space Agency facility that is to be located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Centre, also home to the now privatised UK Atomic Energy Authority. The facility, for robotics, is supposed to herald a new level of investment by the UK in the European agency's activities
Continue reading Will 22 July become UK space agency day?.
credit NASA / caption: will it ever be crewed?
Flightglobal recently interviewed Space Shuttle Programme manager John Shannon about the Heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV). He gave a presentation about it to the Review of US human spaceflight plans commitee on 17 June. The Flightglobal article about HLV can be found here and also below and in the extended portion of this blog post are the notes from that interview that have information excluded from the article - due to reasons of word count limits for the web site's sister print title Flight International
The Shuttle-C separated from the External Tank (ET), the HLV doesn't. Industry looked at side mount for two years, 2004, 2005
A deployable fairing was added by the SSP HLV team, which added payload capability
Learnt from SSME about life cycle costs. "Reusability is a myth in my opinion" because of the parts that have to be replaced and associated costs with keeping the supply chain in place to keep the engines maintained
The cargo carrier boat tail is permanently attached to the ET while the avionics are at the front of it
I wish we had done Shuttle-C in 1980s and 1990s we could have tested upgrades, developments that could then be rolled into the Shuttle-Orbiter stack
The HLV block one will use existing Shuttle flight software, but would not use the full suite used on the Orbiter
The aerodynamics between the ET and the orbiter are complex, acoustic models, structural models, loads, trajectory models need to be done for the cargo carrier and crewed version
If you used a cargo carrier that has the same or similar mould line as shuttle stack has now you already have that history/data
Continue reading Shuttle derived Heavy Lift Vehicle: interview notes.
First Briton in space Helen Sharman spoke to Hyperbola after being awarded the first silver astronaut pin by the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) on 3 July 2009. Sharman flew to the Mir space station in May 1991. Called Project Juno the mission had been initiated by London based Moscow Narodny Bank, a subsidiary of the Soviet Union's Vnesheconombanka bank, that thought it could organise private funding to send a foreign citizen to the Mir space station
Deciding to conduct this commercial venture in the UK adverts were placed in 1989 for applicants and over 13,000 were received. Managed by Brunel University's Institute for Bio-Engineering Sharman, a chemist working in the food industry at the time, was selected and with a British Army air corps Major as her backup crew man went through 18 months of cosmonaut training. Launched on Soyuz TM-12 on 18 May her mission lasted eight-days
The BIS also awarded a silver pin to British born US citizen Richard Garriott, the sixth spaceflight participant to go to the International Space Station. Garriott, the son of NASA Skylab and Space Shuttle astronaut Owen Garriott, made his money in the computer game industry. The BIS plans to award British born NASA astronauts Michael Foale, Piers Sellers and Nick Patrick silver pins in the near future
Despite reports in 1991 and since that Project Juno was a private mission, and even Sharman herself refers to it as a commercial mission, the Soviet bank failed to raise any private financing and the entire mission was paid for by the Soviet government. It went ahead with the approval of then Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev. Hyperbola investigated the background to Juno a while back and spoke to the UK organisers about the realities of Project Juno
credit ESA / caption: (L-R) Luca Parmitano, Alexander Gerst, Andreas Mogensen, Samantha Cristoforetti, Tim Peake, Thomas Pesquet
At the Paris air show Hyperbola got to interview three of the European Space Agency's new astronauts, Tim Peake, Andy Mogensen and Samantha Cristoforetti. Go here to listen to the astronaut podcast
Peake is the UK's first ESA astronaut, Mogensen is the first Dane and Cristoforetti the first Italian woman, and second woman to be selected to the ESA astronaut corps. The other three ESA astronaut candidates are Italy's Luca Parmitano, Germany's Alexander Gerst and France's Thomas Pesquet
Danish born Mogensen revealed himself to be a bit of a Hyperbola fan, listen here as he talks about how he hoped Hyperbola would get the astro scoop of the year and reveal the names of those selected. Oddly Hyperbola had predicted that a Dane could be among those selected and also this blog expected a women to be among the finalists
And so for this blog's next prediction it will say, Cristoforetti should be the first of the new astronauts to fly. While officially the national agencies do not have a say in who flies when Italy has a bilateral relationship with NASA for International Space Station and that gives it its own opportunities for ISS exploitation, shall we say. And Italian Space Agency commissioner Enrico Saggese told Flightglobal that he would like Cristoforetti to fly as soon as possible
From 15-17 June Hyperbola will be coming from Le Bourget where the 100th Paris air show will be launching into full swing - and there may even be reportage on breaking news over the weekend (yes I've got to work Saturday and Sunday...). Expect multimedia coverage (when I have the time to upload it) of the space industry that camps out in the Parisian suburb for the first half of next week along with tweets from the European Space Agency and Russian Federal Space Agency press conferences, at least. C'est magnifique!
Utilisez Google traduire, en haut à gauche, à lire le blog au-dessus de l'affichage en français
Go here to find out more about how you can follow all the tweet action from the Flightglobal team working this week at the Le Bourget Paris Salon de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (that's aeronautics and space to the anglais only readers out there) as the air show is also known
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