EELV Family
Posted on 02/08/2010 4:43:09 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The Pentagon is participating in an interagency integrated team convened to explore how best to sustain the rocket motor industrial base — a mandate made all the more urgent given NASA’s planned cancellation of the Constellation program, according to Brett Lambert, the Defense Dept.’s industrial policy director.
Each of NASA’s Ares V launchers would have required six RS-68 engines, which are common to the U.S. Air Force’s Delta IV Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV). Already, Air Force officials are seeing an uptick in the per-unit price of each EELV because procurement has slowed to keep pace with delayed satellite programs.
This trend is only getting worse with the NASA decision, according to Gary Payton, deputy under secretary of the Air Force for space. “We share an industrial base with NASA — on solids, liquids, range infrastructure and a workforce. So, with the cancellation of the Constellation program… we have got a lot of work to do with NASA to figure out how to maintain a minimum industrial base on liquid rocket engines and solid rocket motors,” Payton told reporters Feb. 4 during a luncheon roundtable.
Lambert says the Pentagon is preparing a report on this issue that will go to Congress in June. The Constellation departure “changes everything. That is a game changer,” he says.
Included in the team are representatives from the Defense Dept., the White House Office of the Science and Technology Policy and NASA, he adds.
(Excerpt) Read more at aviationweek.com ...
Stone knives and clubs...
Guess the DOD will just have to rely on China and hope for the best.
Something has got to give.
Obama hopes to eventually rent them from the Chinese...
Keep the industry alive, Rockets for Recreation!
If they make enough of them the price will come down
to something reasonable.
Is there a Chinese company that can help with this?
(A couple years ago my wife and I bought a pair of combat boots for a soldier in Iraq. They had to be mailed to him by us. The boots were made in China.)
Looks like I should have read ahead a little before posting my China joke.
Proposed NASA decision. Congress still hasn’t signed off on it and likely will not leave it as is.
So Obama’s going for a twofer here. Trash the space program (”...cede the Moon to China, the American Space Station to Russia, and assign liberty to the ages.” as former astronaut Schmitt put it. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2445788/posts )
And weaken our defense at the same time.
This is a matter of critical national defense — that by itself is reason to keep the moonbase program alive.
This is a no-brainer.
If you spend a trillion to develop a rocket, you’re going to lay that development cost into the per unit cost. The fewer units purchased, the higher the price.
Canceling the program isn’t saving us money because we’ll still buy the damn rockets for other things. Just not as many for a much higher price.
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