NASA Can't Build a Heavy Lift Launcher

So sayth director Bolden.

By "can't" he's saying he's being prevented from doing so, not that engineers are incapable.

How would a heavy lift booster benefit Muslims?

He also says its "not necessary," so clearly there's no plans for us to leave LEO (assuming we'll still even be able to get to LEO).

This guy is a nothing but a damn mouthpiece for the White House.

Can't believe he used to be an astronaut.

Fine, if he doesn't think it can be done, then fire his ass and hire someone that has the creativity as well as the ability to work with the collective group of morons and idiots in the White House and Congress.

Of course it's not necessary. What purpose would it serve? The Fed has given NASA no real mission. It lacks vision. So build a heavy lifter. Then what?

Well done America!

How much could the Saturn V and Shuttle lift?

The Saturn V could lift up to 285,000 lbs. (140 tons roughly) to LEO though its largest payload ever was the Skylab space station which IIRC was just less than 160,000 lbs.

The space shuttle orbiters could lift up to 55,000 lbs. to LEO though most payloads were not remotely close to this.

IIRC, the heaviest payloads ever lofted by the shuttles were the Hubble Space Telescope and one other which I can't recall the name of.

The orbiters were heavily restrained by the maximum landing weight of the orbiters in case of emergency which IIRC again meant a payload in the bay of no more than about 30,000 lbs.

Total political bullshit. Can't build a heavy lift launcher? Come on...with the technology we have today as compared to the 60s when Saturn V was built? Please...

Obama just wants to dump the $$ into social welfare programs. Idiot.

This is one of the manufacturing areas in which I would think our capabilities supercede the rest of the worlds'. You're dead right though: Obama hates the space program. It doesn't buy the right kind of votes.

That may well be true, and I'd rather NASA not take, and not waste taxpayer dollars on a task they cannot complete.

Are you so ignorant of history and industry that you think we cannot build a heavy lift launcher?? It's a question of money and materials not actual "figuring it out."


We did it once, in an age where computers took entire rooms! Imagine what we could do today.

Apostle is correct...O'bama doesn't see the space program as a vote getter because his base only wants one thing. Something for nothing.

By all means share your knowledge. Can NASA build a heavy lift launcher?

What's stopping them, if not funding? How were they able to build shit before?

Take all of Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, hand that money to NASA, and see if they don't build some big ass rocket ships.

Better yet, return that money to the taxpayers and let them choose to privately fund a space program.

I'm in!

The Russians just dramatically increased their charge for US astronauts riding with them.

:|

It's not a matter of money or ability; it's a matter of will.

Frankly, we haven't a president or Congress with any vision since the 1960's.

Proverbs 29:18a:

Absolutely they can. They built the Saturn V in four years from nothing. You really think they CAN'T build one? Come on sparky...

Just more of Barak Obama's intentional, planned deconstruction of American economic/industrial/military/aerospace capability.

How we got Skylab was due in part us having all this Apollo hardware laying about that Nixon wouldn't let us use to go to the Moon. Many people complained that there was a bit of circular logic to the space shuttle and the ISS. We had the space shuttle to build the ISS and we had the ISS to give the space shuttle something to do.

If we don't have the HLV, we can't go anywhere. If we have the HLV, then we might as well go somewhere, since we've got the hardware.

Partially true. Even before Nixon took office, NASA could see they were going to have substantial amounts of Apollo hardware left over after the program had certainly run its course, so they began what IIRC was called the "Apollo Applications Program" to use the existing Apollo hardware in LEO.

For what its worth, if NASA managers had their way, the U.S. would've developed a space stations BEFORE going to the moon. That was Von Braun's preference.

But of course that approach was abandoned in order to get the U.S. to the moon before the Russians.

IMHO heavy lifters should be used to build a large spacious ship in LEO, comparable to two or three of the larger ISS modules bolted together, and use this to go to the moon and serve, once it got there, as a command station in lunar orbit.

Something a lot bigger than the little apollo CSM in other words. Something that can serve as a long term control centre for many moon missions. Somewhere that people can evacuate to quickly from the moon should anything go tits up on the surface.

Whether you want to send up another huge rocket and its fuel to get said structure on a high speed trajectory that takes it to the moon in three or so days, or whether you want to use an array of VASIMR or similar engines with nuke plants powering them, and work your way to the moon over a couple of months is your choice.

The guy is a lying dick. They can't build one that blasts off from the ground with fanfare and a big show like a rocket, but one that slowly builds speed is possible. The space shuttle was piggybacked on a 747. why could the shuttle not have separated at the max speed of a 747 and then blasted off? The inertia of taking off from 0 speed at the ground takes a lot of power. The idea of this taking place at 5 miles high and no fan fare is absurd to guys like this. I think all PR people should be pushed out of windows on the 10th floor.

It would blow up the 747 and then quickly run out of fuel cuz it lacks an external fuel tank.

What do you think this is? Moonraker?

The max altitute and speed (40,000 feet or so at about 600mph) of a 747 doesn't really help a shuttle much. For starters the altitude doesn't help much since it gains that altitude in about 30 seconds anyway. The majority of the shuttle's climb involves thrusting more horizontally than vertically to build speed to gain orbit. Even if the 747 was flying along the intended orbit ground track, its subsonic speed would only marginally benefit a craft that must reach mach 22.

Also there is no plane on earth that could carry a fully assembled and fueled shuttle stack.

Depends which way you point it...

Yes but you are still thinking rocket. Why must the craft reach mach 22? That is all Nasa brain washing. The earth is spinning at a certain speed and so are we and so is anything that leaves the earth's surface. The satellites for our TVs are also traveling at that speed to maintain orbit. Nothing says they have to attain their height above earth in a hurry but Nasa. A steady climb is feasible and doable and takes less energy. Speed takes power. Fighting against the earths atmosphere takes power. We need a slow moving ship not a speed boat.