HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Subject: Re: Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity of DCX?
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Destructive Testing Systems
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 17:29:53 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.212100.18194@iti.org> aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>In article <STEINLY.92Dec23121415@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
>>Really, did Boeing pay for the development of winglets (those little
>>dinky wingtip things the latest models have)? ...
>
>Look, if your trying to say that research has been done in the past and
>that research should be treated as a sunk cost, then you are partly
>correct. The concept is correct but the word is 'depreciated'.
>
>Sure there is lots of depreciated costs going into airliner development.
>Much of that does come from government funded research. I have no problem
>with that. You will note that I didn't say the money used to build the
>X-24, an important vehicle for Shuttle, should be charged to Shuttle.
>
>The fact remains however that we did spend $34 billion to develop Shuttle
>and that cost should be accounted for. If we are going to pick and choose
>what costs we include and which we don't then why not say Shuttle is
>free?
>
>>for the development costs of the basic jetliner airbody designs
>>or did they sink it to military contracts? 
>
>To some extent I'm sure they did. This happens all the time however
>in the civilian world. The first signal processing chips where built
>for customers willing to pay development. They where then sold to
>whoever. The point is that unlike Shuttle, all costs where accounted
>for.

Shuttle's costs were all accounted for too. The customer, the US
taxpayer, wanted R&D done to develop a reusable spacecraft. NASA
did it, and that public domain database of technologies is what
the taxpayer got for his money, not bent metal. NASA's prime mission 
is R&D. The customer wanted an operational vehicle, and NASA contracted 
to have them built. NASA is not supposed to be in the fabrication business.
The Orbiters only cost the bent metal cost, administrative overhead, 
and contractor profit, Rockwell says that's $1.5 billion per each.

Gary

-- 
Gary Coffman KE4ZV          |    You make it,     | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems |    we break it.     | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way             |    Guaranteed!      | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary      
Lawrenceville, GA 30244     |                     | emory!ke4zv!gary@gatech.edu
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space
From: rbw3q@rayleigh.mech.Virginia.EDU (Brad Whitehurst)
Subject: Re: Justification for the Space Program
Organization: University of Virginia
Distribution: usa, world
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 14:31:59 GMT

In article <1992Dec22.020021.7541@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
>In article <21DEC199218250184@judy.uh.edu> wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes:
>>In article <1992Dec21.163942.17983@cs.rochester.edu>, dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes...
>
> >of technologies as justifications for the program. A serious considered look
> >at the problems of pollution, population, and wealth generation from a 
> >systems perspective clearly show the advantage of increasing the resource
> >base upon which mankind must draw for survival and prosperity.
>
>Blah, blah, blah.  This is all vacuous mouthings.  Please present
>*specific* things which we can judge.
>
> > must press forward without Von Braun. Your arguments within the narrow
> > context of your statements may by true. What you are forgetting is
> > that there is much more to this world than your perspective and your
> > view.
>
>I'm willing to be convinced by facts.  Just what convinced you, if
>not facts?
>
	Well, Paul, I won't even try to convince you with facts.  We'd
still have flat-earthers if somebody hadn't run out to the "edge" and
tried jumping off, despite all the great Greek geometry.  Humans seem
to need to expand to keep a society vibrant.  We're starting to run
out of physical and psychic room to expand on Earth.  Now, one could
either make more room here (nuking back into the Middle Ages was the
preferred technique up until recently) or look for more room
elsewhere.  Frontiersmen have never been a large fraction of the
population, but I submit that they have an impact on society out of
proportion with their number.  So, no numbers, no proof, just another
opinion why we as a whole should fund the fortunate few who get to go
out and jump off the "edge".

-- 

Brad Whitehurst    |   Aerospace Research Lab
rbw3q@Virginia.EDU |   We like it hot...and fast.
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: chris@chrism.demon.co.uk (Chris Marriott)
Subject: How many flights are Orbiters designed for?
Distribution: world
Organization: None
Reply-To: chris@chrism.demon.co.uk
X-Mailer: Simple NEWS 1.90 (ka9q DIS 1.19)
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 20:49:25 +0000

What is the design lifetime of a shuttle orbiter?  ie, how many times is
it designed to be reused?

Chris
-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Chris Marriott                           | chris@chrism.demon.co.uk    |
| Warrington, UK                           | BIX: cmarriott              |
| (Still awaiting inspiration              | CIX: cmarriott              |
|  for a witty .sig .... )                 | CompuServe: 100113,1140     |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Space List Flame Wars
Date: 31 Dec 92 03:06:52 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology formerly National Bureau of Standards
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU


-From: KitchenRN@ssd0.laafb.af.mil
-Newsgroups: sci.space
-Subject: Space List Flame Wars
-Date: 30 Dec 92 17:06:42 GMT

-I subscribed to this list in order to try to inform myself about the latest 
-news about US and other coutnries' space programs.  I thought that this would 
-be a list of technical discussions, not a religious debate that has turned 
-into ad hominem attacks and flame wars as virulent as any I've seen in the 
-religious news groups.  

-Such political ranting belongs in the alt.talk.politics or alt.religion 
-groups.  Could we please take them out of the space list?

Amen!

-In addition, there is much too much signal to noise ratio in the flame wars 
-and the ad hominem attacks.  Could we move them out of the list and into 
-private emails?  There is too much heat and not enough light coming out 
-of them.

There are at least four problems with some of the current posts:
 1) Being unnecessarily nasty. Obviously, nobody who's still participating
    in the debates is going to be swayed by heat alone. (It brings to
    mind the Eddorians in the Lensman series - they gave up fighting one
    another only when they realized that all the Eddorians that were left
    were too tough to be killed.)
 2) The attitude of "I could come up with a good argument to counter your
    claims, but you're too stupid to appreciate it, so I'll save the effort
    and post a poor argument instead". There are some awfully poor arguments
    being used to support otherwise good points, and of course this attitude
    is self-perpetuating.
 3) Arguing at cross-purposes. Sometimes both participants have good
    arguments, but they're aiming at different topics, so the debate never
    comes to a resolution, and confusion results.
 4) Arguments in which all the participants basically agree with one another -
    they just haven't noticed it yet. :-) These usually degenerate into
    recriminations over who said what and when they said it - and the variable
    delay of the net adds fuel to the fire.

-I know that I have now left myself wide open to being attacked from all 
-sides, but I just thought that, considering the size of the mailings that I'm 
-getting, there is too much of this stuff to wade through to get to anything 
-worth reading.

More important - some of us are too busy wading through the flames to get
around to posting as much worthwhile stuff as we would like to.

Don't despair - flame wars are usually cyclic. There are often long intervals
with very few flames.

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Moon Dust For Sale
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 21:03:35 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <30DEC199217541542@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov> baalke@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes:
>...2 inch piece of transparent tape which has some Moon dust on it.  This is
>the first time that Moon dust is being offered for sale.   The Moon dust
>was collected by a NASA technician from the spacesuit of astronaut Dave Scott
>after his Apollo 15 trip to the Moon in July, 1971.  It is guarantteed
>to be genuine by Superior Galleries and is expected to be sold
>in the price range of $75,000 to $100,000...

For anyone with $100k to spare who's feeling interested :-), note that
unless things have changed recently, the ownership of this Moon dust is
best described as "disputed".  NASA's position is that all, repeat all,
lunar material returned by Apollo is US government property, and any
offered for private sale is stolen goods.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space
From: russ@pmafire.inel.gov (Russ Brown)
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 92 15:50:19 GMT
Organization: WINCO
Subject: Re: Government-run programs  Was: Re: Justification for the Space Program
Summary: 
Followup-To: 
Organization: WINCO
Keywords: 

In article <C00w78.H6E@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>In article <1992Dec29.011735.16300@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec28.223226.12849@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> Dr. Norman J. LaFave <lafave@ial4.jsc.nasa.gov> writes:
>
>>> My arguement has the benefit of centuries of historical precedent
>>> which is more than your "There will never be benefits worth the
>>> expense" arguement you are spouting which can be
>>> easily argued against using the same historical
>>> information. Can I prove my assertion?
>>> No. However, neither can you prove the contrary.
>
>			........................
>
>>The track record so far in space is that some limited automated
>>applications are useful, or profitable (comsats are profitable, at
>>least for the moment; the others are government-run, so we don't know
>>if they really would be profitable.)  Space resources?  We went
>>to the moon and found... very little of practical value.  Space
>>manufacturing?  Endlessly hyped with little to show for it.
>>Microgravity research?  Impartial scientific review says it isn't
>>worth much.
>
>>You advance the straw man argument that I am arguing that there will
>>never be any benefits.  As you say, we can't know that.  But lack of
>>certainty doesn't mean we are absolved from the need to make decisions
>>on how scarce funds are expended.  You can't just say "you can't prove
>>me wrong, so gimme."  At least, not with a straight face.
>
>Your argument is extremely similar to that of Marx that innovation will
>be made when it should be by governments.  Right now the government has
>an essential monopoly on space activities, and has also obtained almost
>this position in many branches of scientific research.  THIS is the 
>problem; as Lee Iacocca stated, "In this business, you lead, follow,
>or get out of the way."  Governments have amply shown that they cannot
>lead or follow.  And unfortunately, they refuse to get out of the way.
>
>Progress cannot be made when the Luddites are running the show.  It is
>only perceived threats to the country which can get reasonable action
>by any government.  Where would astronomy be if the attitude of such as
>Paul Dietz prevailed?  Our benefits from astronomy are very few indeed.
>Any society which tries to prevent people from climbing mountains is
>oppressive, and the same goes for space exploration.
>-- 
>Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399

Ah, but the real question is not, "should research be done?", but "how
much?" and "to what end?" and "who pays?".  

We do get long-term benefits from exploration and research.
We cannot predict all of those benefits.

But would anyone care to provide $10E9 for flat-earth studies?  I
believe that we need to discriminate.

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: 52kaiser@sol.cs.wmich.edu (Matthew Kaiser)
Subject: Re: Justification for the Space Program
Organization: Western Michigan Univ. Comp. Sci. Dept.
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 15:12:55 GMT

seems a kinda silly thing to think about to me..

it's like asking if i should leave my dorm room, or state
for any particular reason..

so much out there..
so many new things

my $0.02

matthew
52kaiser@sol.cs.wmich.edu
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: neff@iaiowa.physics.uiowa.edu (John S. Neff)
Subject: Re: Comparative $/lb to LEO (Was: Stupid Shuttle Cost Arguments)
Organization: The University of Iowa
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 15:37:14 GMT

In article <n1351t@ofa123.fidonet.org> Wales.Larrison@ofa123.fidonet.org writes:
>From: Wales.Larrison@ofa123.fidonet.org
>Subject: Re: Comparative $/lb to LEO (Was: Stupid Shuttle Cost Arguments)
>Date: 28 Dec 92  15:44:58
>David Anderman writes:
>>The Space Shuttle is simply the highest cost (per pound) launch
>>vehicle ever operated.
>  
>    ** Sigh **  This seems to have become a net legend --
>unfortunately it does not seem to be supported by fact.  I've seen
>this statement made numerous times over the past year or so in
>sci.space, but based upon a little bit of research, it seems to be
>wrong.
>   To repeat what I posted about a month ago....
>  
>    David could you provide some data to support this statement?
>For example, Pegasus costs about $14.5 M to put about 950 lbs in 150
>nmi circular 28.5 deg LEO orbit (Cost from the price for the SCD-1
>launch, planned for 1st quarter 1993, performance from the Pegasus
>Users Manual).  That's about $15,000/lb.
>    In comparison, Shuttle costs (depending on your source) about
>$350-500 M per launch. (As a check on this cost/flight range, the FY
>1992 NASA budget numbers for shuttle operating costs came to about $
>3.2 B, and there were a total of 8 flights flown in 1992, which
>gives about $ 400 M/flt, which is within the cost band I'm using).
>For a 50,000 lb shuttle payload delivered to 150 nmi 28.5 deg
>circular orbit, that's about $7000 -10,000 /lb.  (Note: shuttle
>fleet average performance to 150 nmi, 28.5 deg circ orbit is
>actually about 56,000 lbs -- so, again I'm being conservative about
>shuttle cost $/lb)
>   Titan IV, capable of putting about 32,000 lbs to the same orbit
>(note the T-IV performance is corrected to put payloads into 150 nmi
>28.5 deg circular orbits) is currently running about $360 M per unit
>(Cost data from the Oct 92 DoD Selected Acquisition Reports), which
>yields about $11,200 /lb.
>   From these data points, I think the statement "the most expensive
>per pound in orbit of all current launch vehicles" is incorrect.
>  
>   If you have better data, I would greatly appreciate it if you
>could post it.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Wales Larrison                         Space Technology Investor
>  
>
>--- Maximus 2.01wb
It is common for the shuttle to fly without a full cargo. In your calculation
you assumed that the payload was the maximum for the orbit. You figures are
the lower limit to the cost per pound for the shuttle. 

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Terminal Velocity of DCX? (was Re: Shuttle ...)
Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 04:23:58 GMT

In article <1992Dec25.002926.4218@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:

>>Nonsense. The Russians have no problems building space stations without
>>their Shuttle.

>Nonsense. The Russians have built no space stations 

Please Gary, don't quibble and address the issue. Every space station which
has ever existed was deployed wihtout the Shuttle. The space station which
needs the Shuttle not only doesn't exist but is way over budget and is
slipping schedule. 

You can obscure the issue by quibbling about Russians vs USSR but the
fact ramains that Shuttle wasn't needed to deploy Mir (or Salyut or
Skylab).

>and are having
>trouble raising the funds to operate the one they inherited from 
>the Soviet Union. 

Think of how much harder it would be on them if they insisted (as we
do) on spending three times more than they need to for launches.

    Allen

PS. A merry Christmas to you all.

-- 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  aws@iti.org     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------121 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+
Xref: sparky sci.space:18315 talk.politics.space:1618
From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.politics.space
Subject: Re: Justification for the Space Program
Date: 28 Dec 92 20:42:43 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester

In article <1992Dec28.193940.10495@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> Dr. Norman J. LaFave <lafave@ial4.jsc.nasa.gov> writes:

> Since the whole arguement is based on unforeseen long-term benefits,
> which may or may not be animal, mineral, or vegetable,
> this "difference" is neither valid nor pertanent to Herman's point.


Since your reasoning seems inherently incapable of being disproved,
even if wrong, I don't see that it has any value.  Theories have to be
falsifiable to be useful.  In practice, you *will* have to argue that
a project has specific benefits or it will not be funded (or, rather,
you won't get funded for your *next* project, as with Apollo).

You mention comsats, etc.: yes, but that has little to do with the
Club of Rome/wild schemes of space resource exploitation that started
this thread.  Moreover, these benefits were not unpredicted: Clarke
forecast geostationary communication relays in 1947.

	Paul F. Dietz
	dietz@cs.rochester.edu
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity of DCX?
Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 13:28:24 GMT

In article <9gt204c@rpi.edu> strider@clotho.acm.rpi.edu (Greg Moore) writes:

>	I thought you said that McDac or SDIO was going to treat
>development costs of DC-1 as sunk costs.  Or is that just DC-X (in
>which case, what exactly does that mean?).  

DCX and DCY are proof of concept vehicles which the government is paying
for. Nither are operational vehicles. DC-1 will likely be a very different
sort of craft altogether. It will incorporate lessons learned on DCY, it
may have a much larger payload and be a larger vehicle. DC-1s delta v on
orbit and crossrange will depend on market requirements. It will in effect
be a whole new development effort.

I would oppose having the government pay for the development of DC-1 but
would encourage government purchase of DC launch services. My estimates
indicate that DC-1 can pay its own development costs, build and operate
vehicles and still offer major cost reductions over Shuttle and even over
commercial expendables. It is the first launch vehicle which can make this
claim.

A small number of DC's could provide for the entire current launch market
and still have excess capacity available at very small incrimental costs.

>If this is teh case, than
>you have to treat the shuttle development costs as sunk costs.

I have no problem treating the research vehicles which supported
Shuttle (like X-24) being treated as sunk costs but I don't think
development costs should be. That simply makes commercial development
that much harder.

>As for amortization of the orbiter, the same rule applies to that
>as any aircraft or spacecraft, including, DC-1.  The more you
>fly it, the less this matter.  

Correct. But Shuttle is now flying at or very near its maximum rate.
A working DC (if it works) will have much higher flight rates and can
thus amoritze over more flights.

>Right now, if you stopped all flights,
>you could argue this cost (excluding interest) is about $150 million
>a flight. (10 flights/orbiter, $1.5 Billion per orbiter).

You left out the $34 billion (in 86 $$) development costs which must
be amortized.

>	As for interest based on the national debt, that's a slippery
>one what I won't touch.  

It is still a cost. All projects must include the cost of money.

>One question I have though, will you treat
>any government financing for DC-X,Y the same way, i.e. consider
>interested on national debt?)

Even worse. I want DC-1 to be built with private funds which will need
to pay even higher interest rates.

  Allen

-- 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  aws@iti.org     |  nothing undone"                                       |
+----------------------122 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+
From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: ASTM, Saturn and MOL (Was Re: MOL)
Date: 22 Dec 1992 14:15 CST
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: judy.uh.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <BzMwJK.KKG@zoo.toronto.edu>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes...
>In article <1h2egpINNmk9@mirror.digex.com> prb@access.digex.com (Pat) writes:
>>>>You heard wrong.  One MOL flew (unmanned).
>>>Could somebody provide data ?
>>
>>According to a friend of mine who was a MOL engineer.  One MOL flew
>>Manned.  only it was called ASTP.  
> 
>He's pulling your leg.  ASTP involved one Apollo, one Soyuz, and a docking
>module.  The docking module might perhaps have inherited a bit of technology
>from MOL, but no way was it a MOL.  For one thing, it was a fraction of the
>size.
>-- 

I think the poster is talking about  the ASTM (Apollo Space Telescope Mount)
From what I remember reading about the Skylab construction, some MOL elements
were used for the ASTM.

Also I have been doing some sleuthing and have found a few details abou the
Saturn I series. There is actually three distinct vehicles in the Saturn I
series. The Saturn C-1 was basically a 2 stage vehicle that used the Centaur
first generation as its second stage. I do not know yet whether this is the
six engine configuration Henry talked about or not. 

Then there is the Saturn 1. This beast had several changes relative to the C-1.
This including adding the fins that you see on the televised Saturn 1 launches.
This vehicle had the stage mentioned before, whether a six engine centaur or 
whatever, and the Command and service module as the payload to to a suborbital
trajectory. This combination was unable to boost the 45,000 lbs CSM to orbit.

Finally there is the famous Saturn 1B that carried the manned Apollo CSM/LM to
orbit. This configuration also carried the Saturn V, SIVB stage, which is the
third stage of full up Saturn V. This combination was able to boost the
full Saturn V payload to LEO altitude of 105 nautical miles. This is the booster
that was used for the Apollo 7 mission. I forget whether it was used for 
Apollo 9 or whether that was a full up Saturn V. All of the Skylab Apollo manned
craft and the Apollo Soyuz Test Project used the Full up Saturn 1B. Remember
that the ASTP mission carried a Apollo CSM (45,000 lbs), the docking module
(15,000 lbs?) into the 51 degree Soyuz orbit. Not bad, Titan IV today could not
do that. Environmentally friendly too, relative to the Titan SRB's.

I will post more information as I get it or dig it up

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville.