[Space Race 2.0 ] The coming boom in low-cost to orbit. Hmmm..imagine all the new space junk!

Markets for commercial communications satellites, Earth observation spacecraft and their launchers, all remarkably unaffected by the global economic crisis, continue to soar toward yearly double digit growth, generating billions in annual revenues.

An artist's concept of the Intelsat 14 communications satellite that is scheduled to launch Nov. 14. Credit: Space Systems/Loral

Assessments by global market analysis firms are in close agreement about growth across 2008-2009, and for an upbeat picture to continue into 2010 and beyond. Companies out with new forecasts include Northern Sky Research, Euroconsult, Futron and Forecast International.

"No recession here," headlines a major Northern Sky Research assessment of commercial satellite supply and demand.

"Crisis, what crisis," Pacome Revillon, managing director of Euroconsult, said at a recent Paris conference on Earth imaging satellites. "There is no crisis in orbit," he proclaimed.

The latest payload numbers are being equaled on the launcher side. "The world market for expendable launch vehicles (ELVs) is [also] headed for a considerable market upturn," said John Edwards, senior analysts at Forecast International in comments about that firm's new payload forecast out to 2017.

American, European and Asian satellite and booster manufactures and their employees all have significant shares and a bright future in this growth.

But at Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center, very little of this new business will be launched from the world's foremost spaceport.

Without new Presidential direction on human space goals, KSC is seemingly "moon stuck," facing major layoffs as the shuttle program ends.

And the growth is also detouring around Cape Canaveral's expendable boosters because the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 and Delta 4 largely priced themselves out of the commercial market, now better satisfied by Europe's Ariane, the Russian Proton and Chinese boosters in emerging markets.

One example of what has happened to the Cape commercial payload traffic is next week's scheduled launch of the Intelsat 14 communications satellite on an Atlas 5. Planned for liftoff November 14, the launch of the 6-ton spacecraft marks the first time Intelsat has returned to the Cape for a launch in 11 years.

The Atlas and Delta programs are blessed, however, with U.S. military payloads, a stable sector expected over the next 10 years to require 161 U.S. launchers worth about $18 billion spread between the Cape and Vandenberg AFB, Calif., says Forecast International. The U.S. Air Force has just awarded ULA a $927.7 million contract for Atlas 5 and Delta 4 launch vehicles, the first time a single contract has been awarded for the two rocket systems since Boeing and Lockheed Martin merged rocket operations in Dec. 2006.

The Cape, however, is preparing for the new commercial ELV activity that SpaceX will bring starting in 2010 with its Falcon launcher.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk raised eyebrows in October at a major satcom conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, when he reminded satellite operators that his guaranteed launch service prices are openly published on the SpaceX web site. Such figures are held secret by competitors who use that secrecy to their advantage in deal making, an area where Musk wants far more openness than older entrenched companies desire.

Among three market areas surveyed, the civilian or dual civil/military use Earth-viewing satellite sector is experiencing the most dynamic growth. Thirty-four nations will be involved in satellite observation programs by 2018, compared with only eight in 1997.

Revenues have already reached a billion dollars in 2009 and could quadruple within a few years. "The sector is establishing itself as one of the principal boosts for re-launching global economic growth after the recession," says Euroconsult. About 260 new meteorological and terrestrial observation satellites will be launched in the next ten years. This is double the 128 satellites sent into orbit between 1998 and 2008. Growth to $27.4 billion is estimated for the decade to come, compared to the $20.4 billion in the last ten years. Profits of a billion dollars have been made from sales of data satellites alone in 2009 and the forecasts indicate that in 2018, profits deriving from the business in images will leap to $3.9 billion dollars, an increase of 16 percent every year.

This will also have an impact politically around the world where "green" related environmental monitoring and resource protection programs are increasingly important.

It is an encouraging situation that "reflects the development of a veritable commercial business based on terrestrial observation satellites, the growing number of governmental programmers concerned and an increase in investment in the programs already underway," comments Revillon at Euroconsult. "The growth in sales of commercial data will create earning opportunities for all the players involved: constructors, commercial operators, service providers and government agencies," says Euroconsult.

From the report it emerges that governments are the principal investors in the sector, with about 93 (non-meteorological) observation satellites from the world's principal space agencies headed to the launch pad in the near future. In the meantime, new players are also appearing on the scene.

"Governments have done the lion's share so far but from now on the number of projects either in the hands of private industry or as the result t of public-private partnerships will increase," claim Euroconsult specialists. In short, it is an attractive sector.

The images gathered by this huge number of satellites will find a wide variety of applications: primarily security and defense but also environmental applications, natural disaster management, climate change studies and virtual mapping.

In the communications satellite sector the picture is also bright.

Euroconsult expects the global market value of capacity used for the traditional fixed satellite service market to reach around $13.4 billion in 2018, or $16.8 billion including wholesale revenues from emerging BBS systems dedicated to satellite consumer broadband access. Industry consolidation, which will continue, will be offset by the emergence of new regional satellite systems backed by either private or public investors, says the firm.

Average revenue growth for "regular" capacity leasing of approximately 5 percent is still expected in the next five years, largely in line with previous forecasts as a slowdown in the economic cycle of the satellite sector was already anticipated due [not to the recession but rather] to the end of analog broadcasting in certain markets.

Futron, a U.S. based analysis firm finds with its new space competitiveness survey that the United States remains the leading space participant. But its advantages in all three major dimensions of space competitivenessÑgovernment, human capital, and industryÑcontinue to narrow as other nations build their investments in space policy, expertise and infrastructure.

"The 2009 Space Competitiveness Index is a tool," said Futron Chief Operating Officer Peggy Slye. "It offers decision-makers an ongoing benchmark to continuously re-assess the competitive landscape of space activityÑand to contemplate its implications for their respective governments, businesses and organizations."

For 2009 it has found that Asian space powers -- China, India and Japan -- are in close competition with one another, even as they challenge traditional leaders such as Europe, Russia and the U.S.

Japan posted the single largest gain in relative space competitiveness, due largely to new legislation and improved policy alignment.

Newer and smaller participants such as Brazil, Israel and South Korea maintain niche roles, but are joined -- and in some cases challenged -- by emerging space actors such as Australia, Iran, North Korea, Singapore, South Africa and others.

Japan posted the single largest gain in relative space competitiveness, in the Futron survey due largely to new legislation and improved policy alignment.

The market outlook in more specific areas of the communications, Earth imaging and launcher markets involve:

Current communications satellite production:

All analysts agreed that more than 30 large new satcoms worth a total of about $7.5 billion are in assembly presently with these missions sponsored by Intelsat, SES. Eutelsat and Telesat. Twenty new satellites have been launched in the last 18 months for terrestrial digital TV.

"Despite the economic crisis, the market in satellite data transmission from fixed networks intensified and grew by 10 percet in 2008," says Euroconsult. About 2,800 new satellite television channels appeared in 2008, bringing the total number of channels to 24,000. Above all, new markets such as Venezuela and Vietnam are emerging that led to a network increase of over 70 percent in 2008.

Overall ELV market:

Forecast International is projecting that over the next decade, launch vehicle providers worldwide will produce 636 expendable launch vehicles (ELVs) worth approximately $48 billion. The expendable launch vehicles to be produced will range in size from the smaller European Vega to the Heavy-Lift U.S. Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles.

Revenues for commercial launches have risen steadily since 2005, with Europe's Ariane garnering the lion's share of the global market at a rate about 5 times more than U. S. launchers annually, the Forecast International data shows.

The analysis projects that in terms of the countries producing these ELVs, the United States is expected to account for 161 units; Russian, Ukrainian, and Chinese production through 2017 should amount to approximately 306 units.

However, even at a nearly double unit output, Russian, Ukrainian and Chinese value of production will account for $15.9 billion, whereas U.S. production of 145 fewer units is expected to be valued at $17.9 billion. This disparity can be attributed to high-ticket ELVs in the U.S. -- the Atlas 5 and Delta 4.

Production coming from India, Japan and Israel will total approximately 73 units, and Europe is expected to roll out 92 ELVs during the same period.

BY CRAIG COVAULT
SPACEFLIGHT NOW

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ARES 1-Y TEST FLIGHT IS DEAD. BUT WE STILL HAVE A COOL VIDEO!

Ares 1-Y Flight Test is Toast

Pull the plug on Ares, editorial, Orlando Sentinel

"But even if the station gets a five-year extension, as it should, Ares I would be available to fly there for just three years under the best-case scenario envisioned by the Augustine committee. NASA has projected that developing Ares I and a crew capsule to accompany it will cost $35 billion, but the Government Accountability Office came up with an estimate of $49 billion. The Augustine committee predicted that the entire Constellation program, which includes Ares I, Ares V, the Orion capsule and the Altair lunar lander, will run $45 billion over budget."

NASA Blog: Constellation: Managers reevaluating Ares I-Y flight test

"Constellation program managers agreed to reevaluate the proposed Ares I-Y flight test during an Oct. 30 Control Board and plan to take the decision up the ladder to management at NASA Headquarters soon. The decision could result in the removal of the Ares I-Y flight from the manifest in order to better align test flights with evolving program objectives."

Keith's 29 October note: Given that the Constellation Program's Control Board decided last Friday to recommend canceling Ares 1-Y, reality seems to be descending upon the Ares 1 effort - despite the spin Jeff Hanley is trying to put on it.

NASA Drops Ares I-Y Flight-test, Aviation Week

"Hanley said on Nov. 3 he has recommended to NASA headquarters that the Ares I-Y test planned for March 2014 be canceled because the J-2X engine needed to propel the upper stage won't be ready in time to support that test date. The problem is money, he said. "Because of the cost-constrained environment that we've been in, I just cannot get an engine done on time.

- By Keith Cowling for NASAWATCH

"The final frontier has been postponed indefinitely" - Dr. Strangelove

Where will NASA's next giant step take us?

Where will NASA's next giant step take us?

As space agency rolls out a new rocket, its long-range mission remains unclear

By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 11:59 AM

It emerged just after midnight seven days ago, bolted down and gleaming under the floodlights. This was the biggest debut since King Kong, joked the aerospace folks. The Ares I-X is the world's tallest rocket, 327 feet high, and it began the long crawl toward the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center, where a planned launch Tuesday morning was scrubbed due to bad weather.

This is a test rocket, a crude approximation of the Ares I, the rocket that NASA has said will replace the aging commuter bus known as the space shuttle. But the Ares I may turn out to be a rocket to nowhere.

A blue-ribbon committee has said the Ares I is part of a NASA program that doesn't make sense given current and future budgets. The commission would like NASA to get out of the business of ferrying astronauts to low Earth orbit and let commercial companies handle that task. Now the Obama administration may try to kill the Ares I.

The space shuttle is old and unsafe and is supposed to be put out to pasture by the end of 2010. The United States will then find itself in the unfamiliar position of being incapable of launching humans into orbit. For five, six, seven years, American astronauts will probably have to buy a seat on a Russian spacecraft.

It's an awkward time for NASA. The most basic questions are on the table: Where to go? How to get there? And to what end?

There are billions of dollars at stake. The technological questions are complicated.

Um, yes, it's rocket science.

* * *

The whither-NASA issue was supposed to have been decided already. After the Columbia disaster of 2003, an investigative commission declared that NASA lacked clear direction and purpose. By early 2004 the Bush White House put together a sweeping blueprint for NASA that it called the "Vision for Space Exploration."

The plan called for returning astronauts to the moon for extended stays as preparation for what would someday be a manned mission to Mars. Under a new NASA administrator, Michael Griffin, the agency put together the Constellation program, which called for two new rockets, a new crew capsule, a lunar lander and a lunar habitat. Crew and cargo would no longer ride to orbit together in a huge space truck such as the shuttle. Instead, NASA would return to an Apollo-style architecture, with astronauts in a capsule on top of a rocket. The capsule would parachute into the sea at the end of the mission. NASA's new crew capsule, dubbed Orion, is being designed to ride atop the Ares I rocket to reach low Earth orbit, or LEO. A heavy-lift rocket called the Ares V, to be built later, could take Orion moonward.

It was an ambitious plan. Too ambitious, apparently.

Soon after President Obama took office, he appointed a 10-person committee, led by retired aerospace executive Norman Augustine, to eyeball the human spaceflight program. The Augustine panel declared that going back to the moon by 2020 was impossible. At the current pace and with current funding, the United States won't have a big moon rocket until the late 2020s, and even then won't have the hardware for a moon base, the committee said.

It's not Griffin's fault, Augustine said after a news conference Thursday; the budgetary foundation changed beneath his feet.

Griffin, who left NASA in January, thinks the Augustine review was unnecessary: "You cannot get anything useful out of the space program if you are going to conduct a sweeping review of its purpose, goals, strategy, plans, every four years."

The Vision isn't dead, entirely. Its essence was the need to get beyond LEO. But for budgetary reasons, the moon may get bumped as a near-term destination in favor of what the Augustine panel calls the Flexible Path. The idea would be to focus on building a heavy-lift rocket that could take astronauts to a variety of interesting destinations. Perhaps they would rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid, scores of which are discovered every year. They might circle the moon. They might make service calls to distant telescopes. Astronauts might even do a Mars fly-by, or alight on one of the tiny Martian moons. The Flexible Path saves enormous amounts of money and fuel by avoiding the descent and re-ascent of any significant gravity hills (the moon, Mars, etc.).

Griffin doesn't care for the Flexible Path: "They're just looking for something cheaper to do where they can claim to have a great space program without having a great space program."

* * *

As easy as it is to get lost in the weeds of this topic (did we mention that Ares I-X uses a four-segment solid rocket booster for its first stage, but the production-model Ares I will use a five-segment SRB?), it might be helpful to pull back for the view from 30,000 feet. Or maybe the view from Jupiter.

Doing anything in space, even going to low Earth orbit as the shuttle does, takes extraordinary planning and exquisite technology. Airless, pressureless, cold, saturated with lethal radiation and cosmic rays, space is a hostile environment for humans. It is also at the far end of a gravity hill. Getting payloads into space has remained surprisingly expensive. There are limits to what can be achieved with chemical rockets.

Thus, the innovation in spaceflight may come from a much more mundane direction: the contracts with aerospace companies. The traditional NASA contract is of the cost-plus variety, where there is relatively little incentive for the contractor to control costs. That's why the Augustine committee suggests a closer look at the commercial option or, more exactly, a "public-private" partnership.

The idea is that, rather than sticking with the traditional, bureaucratic method of building government-owned spaceships, astronauts would essentially buy a ticket to space as if they were flying US Airways to Atlanta. In the short run, the government would provide a big chunk of the money for developing the commercial rockets.

Which brings us to Elon Musk, who made his fortune as an Internet entrepreneur and now runs a start-up rocket company, SpaceX. He is one of the most colorful characters in the space business, dreaming of going to Mars, and promising at the very least a rocket to low Earth orbit. He says bluntly of the Ares I: "The average kid could look at the rocket and say there's something that doesn't look right about that thing. It's absurdly long given its diameter."

Musk hopes to test a rocket called the Falcon 9 in just a matter of months. It could launch a crew capsule called Dragon to the space station within two to three years, Musk says. But the commercial path could be a big gamble for NASA. SpaceX, for example, has so far managed to launch a grand total of one satellite. Musk has a reputation for overpromising.

There are other commercial outfits with a longer history, notably Orbital Sciences, based in Dulles, which has a 28-year track record of launching satellites on a variety of rockets. But Orbital hasn't launched any astronauts and doesn't have rockets that could do the trick. Orbital chairman and chief executive David W. Thompson said it takes four to five years to develop a workable rocket, and thus the commercial option wouldn't significantly close the gap in American spaceflight capability. And it doesn't sound like his firm needs to get into the astronaut game.

"Commercial space is bigger than a $100 billion business today, and it doesn't involve a single person in space," Thompson said.

Griffin thinks commercial operations aren't ready to take over the business of getting to LEO. He also raised the specter of an accident.

"That will work right up until there is the first accident. Then there will be a big government committee, a congressional investigation, and questions as to where was NASA and why was this allowed to happen," Griffin said.

Musk said there's no reason to think a commercial firm would tolerate more risk to astronauts: "It's incredibly bad business to kill your customers."

Also in the mix as possible Ares I replacements are the Atlas V and Delta IV rockets, made by United Launch Alliance. Both would have to be upgraded to be rated as safe for human flight. NASA's Orion capsule, currently being designed to fly either to LEO or on prolonged lunar missions, would need to be slimmed down and simplified.

One final option would be to delay the retirement of the space shuttle for a few more years. But the design of the shuttle is fatally flawed, because the orbiter (the spaceship proper) launches side by side with a fuel tank and two SRBs. This bunching of components means that the failure of one element can damage something adjacent. That has happened twice, killing the seven-person crew each time. With Challenger in 1986, a solid rocket booster sprang a fiery leak that ignited the adjacent fuel tank. With Columbia, foam fell from the fuel tank on liftoff and damaged a protective panel on the underside of the orbiter that is crucial for surviving the heat of reentry into the atmosphere.

The bottom line: NASA can't keep flying an old ship that was greenlighted by Richard Nixon.

Augustine said last week that everyone in the business seems to have a different idea about how to proceed.

"Human spaceflight is almost like a religion with many people," Augustine said. "The only problem is, they're all of a different religion."

Airborne View of ARES 1-X launch

NASA ARES 1-X Test = Success

ARES 1-X ROCKET LAUNCH - DELAYED ON WEATHER, VELCRO & ROGUE CARGO SHIP

LIVE VIDEO

(When launch resumes - estimated time 1AM EST)

Unfavorable weather scrubs Ares 1-X rocket launchClouds and winds have forced a delay in the first experimental test flight of the hardware NASA is developing to replace the space shuttle. The next try for the Ares 1-X rocket blastoff would be 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT) Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center's modified pad 39B.

MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates!

IMAGES: ARES 1-X ON EVE OF LAUNCH

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Nasa delays Ares 1-X rocket launch
guardian.co.uk - ‎14 minutes ago‎

NASA ARES 1-X 8am EST launch all systems go for now.

Ares 1-X test flight an engineer's delight! NASA has meticulously tailored Tuesday's Ares 1-X test launch as a learning exercise, using more than 700 high-fidelity sensors to collect gargantuan amounts of data during the booster's six-minute flight. Liftoff from Kennedy Space Center's modified pad 39B is targeted for Tuesday at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT). FULL STORY MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates and video! COUNTDOWN TIMELINE LAUNCH TIMELINE NASA'S PRESS KIT (.pdf download) STORE: ARES 1-X PATCH
Ares rocket test to occur under cloud of uncertainty Tuesday's test flight of the Ares 1 rocket will come days after an independent review board called NASA's moon program "unsustainable" because of budget and schedule woes, but NASA officials say the $445 million mission has robust engineering value applicable to a wide range of potential launch systems. FULL STORY
Risk and ingenuity cross paths on Ares 1-X test flight NASA plans to launch a one-of-a-kind suborbital test flight to validate the aerodynamic design of the agency's embattled Ares 1 rocket, a crew-carrying booster under development to replace the space shuttle. FULL STORY
VIDEO: MONDAY'S PRE-LAUNCH NEWS CONFERENCE PLAY LIVE FEED @ 8AM TUESDAY --> HERE

Watch the ARES 1-X TEST FLIGHT - Live this Tuesday

" So Ares I is not dead by a long shot." - Augustine Comission

NASA believes the Ares I could be ready to fly by 2015. The Augustine panel concluded it would take until at least 2017 to complete the work, coming on line too late to provide more than token support to the International Space Station. In the meantime, NASA will be forced to buy seats on Russian Soyuz rockets, at $50 million per ticket, to get U.S. astronauts to and from the lab complex.

The Augustine report also concluded that NASA will be unable to extend human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit without additional funding, suggesting an additional $3 billion per year, plus a hedge against inflation, to fund a realistic space exploration program.

The panel did not make recommendations, but members seem to favor a commercially developed launch system to get astronauts to low-Earth orbit and a government-developed heavy lift rocket to extend human exploration to the moon and beyond.

The so-called "flexible path" option presented by the Augustine panel would allow NASA to launch orbital moon missions and even flights around Mars or to its moons by the early to mid 2020s, while long-term development of landers and associated hardware is developed in parallel.

"The current plan focuses on going to the moon (with) the longer term goal of going to Mars," Augustine said. "There are a lot of things one could do along the way that are very interesting, that let you build up gradually to the immense undertaking of the Mars program.
"The sort of thing we're thinking of, one could fly circumlunar missions, you could circumnavigate Mars, you could land on an asteroid, a near-Earth object,

you could land on Phobos or Deimos, the martian moons, and do some very exciting science from there. It seems to us that is a more sensible program than to wait 15 years or so for the first major event."
Panel member Edward Crawley of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said the panel did not oppose the Constellation architecture per se or believe NASA faced any insurmountable technical hurdles.

But given the current budget environment, he said, Ares I was not the most cost-effective option for transportation to low-Earth orbit.

"We do not think there are any technical problems with the Ares I that NASA cannot overcome with time and budget," he said. "So we actually expect the Ares I-X flight to go off and be successful. That's really not the central question. The central question is not whether can NASA build the Ares I? Really, the question is, should NASA build the Ares I?"

At the time the Constellation architecture was initially developed, "it was a sound decision, it was a clever architecture combining the Ares I and the Ares V," Crawley said. "And under the cost assumptions and the correct perspective that crew safety in from launch to orbit was the premier criteria for design, it was a wise choice at the time.

"But times have changed," he said. "The budgetary environment has become much more tight and the understanding of the costs and schedule to develop the Ares I has matured. Under the best of circumstances, the Ares I and Orion would be available in 2017 ... the last few years of the ISS. It's a very capable vehicle, arguably too capable for use as a crew taxi to low-Earth orbit. Really, the question as framed by the committee is are there alternatives that would deliver a capability earlier and at lower cost but with the same criteria for safety?"

The Augustine committee concluded "the most likely alternative that would work would be to form a partnership between NASA and the commercial industry."
"This has the potential for producing a safe vehicle," he said. "It has the potential for significant cost savings."

A White House spokesman thanked the panel for its report, saying "the president has on numerous occasions confirmed his commitment to human space exploration, and the goal of ensuring that the nation is on a vigorous and sustainable path to achieving our boldest aspirations in space."
"Against a backdrop of serious challenges with the existing program, the Augustine committee has offered several key findings and a range of options for how the nation might improve its future human space flight activities," he said. "We will be reviewing the committee's analysis, and then ultimately the president will be making the final decisions."

John Logsdon, a space analyst at George Washington University, said "my crystal ball is that Obama will, at least for fiscal 2011, add a billion or so to the NASA budget - the key will be the out-year budget - and endorse something like the flexible path."

"There's no doubt that we're going to extend station (operations beyond 2015)," he said, "and I think there is little doubt that we're going to depend on what people are calling commercial providers to be the transport system for crew to station as soon as they're ready."

Watch the action live as NASA launches the next generation of spacecraft - Ares I-X. NASA's first test launch in more than 25 years!

The Ares I-X test launch will provide valuable design and performance data, critical next steps in the development of a new spacecraft and America's continuing exploration of space.

Tune in for a live Web cast Tuesday, Oct. 27,beginning at 6:00 a.m. EST at http://www.spaceflightnow.com/

The live Web cast, featuring veteran space broadcasters Miles O'Brien and David Waters, includes special appearances by:

Gerry Griffin, Coalition for Space Exploration Advisory Board Member and former Director of the NASA-Johnson Space Center
Dean Acosta, 2009 Chairman, Coalition for Space Exploration Visit http://spacecoalition.cmail3.com/t/y/l/urjytk/tijryhxj/j for more details.

NASA Panel votes to kill ARES on eve of luanch!

By KENNETH CHANG

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration should consider scrapping the rocket it has been developing to replace the space shuttles in favor of having private companies launch astronauts into orbit, a blue-ribbon panel reported Thursday.

In a 157-page report titled “Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation,” the 10-member panel described its findings as options instead of recommendations. The report does not provide many surprises beyond what was discussed during a series of hearings over the summer and the executive summary released last month, but it explains the panel’s decisions in greater detail.

Under NASA’s current plans, developed after the loss of the shuttle Columbia in 2003, the remaining three space shuttles are to be retired next year after completion of the International Space Station. A new series of rockets are supposed to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020.

A prototype of the first of the new rockets, the Ares I, is on the launching pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, scheduled to lift off on Tuesday morning. That test flight, with a less-powerful first stage and a dummy second stage, was devised to gather data to aid in refining the design.

But the full rocket, and the astronaut-carrying capsule on top, are not scheduled to begin operation until March 2015. Because of NASA’s budget constraints, the panel concluded that the date of the first flight would very likely slip two years.

The panel did not call Ares I an engineering failure but rather a victim of smaller-than-expected budgets and changing circumstances. “With time and sufficient funds, NASA could develop, build and fly the Ares I successfully,” the panel wrote. “The question is, should it?”

Because of the delays, the Ares I may be too late for one of its primary tasks, ferrying astronauts to and from the space station. Its defenders point to its simple design, arguing that it will be far safer than earlier rockets.

While agreeing that the Ares I’s simplicity was an asset, the panel was unconvinced that the rocket would be markedly safer than competing concepts that similarly consist of a reliable booster and a crew capsule with a launch escape system. Further, the planned launching rate for the Ares I is no more than two per year, “raising questions about the sustainability of safe operations,” the panel said.

The panel did not call for throwing away all of the development work for Ares I. Among other options explored, the panel was complimentary toward NASA’s developing the Ares V Lite. Currently, the Ares I is to complemented by a heavy-lift rocket, the Ares V. The Ares V Lite would be a smaller version, using the solid rocket booster developed from the Ares I.

The panel also discusses developing a heavy-lift rocket based on rockets currently used by the Air Force to lift satellites or one based more closely on the space shuttle design.

In turning away from the Ares I, the panel also makes a strong push for turning transportation to low-Earth orbit to private space companies. But perhaps its strongest point is that NASA needs additional financing of about $3 billion a year to accomplish much of anything.

“Its human spaceflight activities are nonetheless at a tipping point, primarily due to a mismatch of goals and resources,” the report said. “Either additional funds need to be made available or a far more modest program involving little or no exploration needs to be adopted.”

Making the case for NASA ARES/ CONSTELLATION...and SPACEX

Mr President, Why not ARES?

The case can be made that extra 3 billion dollars a year for NASA is no a lot of money when you consider the immediate local jobs and economic impact.
Remember we spent 1 trillion dollars on "junk assets" to bail out wayward finiancial instututions with very little ROI. That An extra 3 billion for NASA would do the following:

• 1. Create High Paying, Skilled jobs in depressed local economies
• 2. Spur American Technical Innovation
• 3. Keep America in the manned spaceflight business.
• 4. Fund Commercial Space companies like Spacex or Orbital
• 4. Inspire the next generation to inherit the stars.

So Mr President what's the hesitation?

Remember NASA has always been inefficient even during the Apollo days so this isn't an excuse.

[STRANGEFLASH ] ARES 1-X rocket makes its way to the launch pad...

ARES 1-X LAUNCH OCT 27 2009 EST.

CLIP :