July 24, 2025 Quick space linksCourtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Lockheed Martin is considering offering Orion for private manned commercial flights
The company would have to launch it on a different rocket, as no one except our spendthrift federal government can afford paying for an SLS launch. As Orion is overweight and very wide, it is not clear there is any other rocket available. I welcome my readers to chime in with their thoughts.
- On this day in 1950 the first rocket launch took place at Cape Canaveral
As the tweet notes, in the subsequent 75 years thousands of rockets have lifted off from there. And as I have noted repeatedly, these launches have done no measurable harm to environment, thus illustrating the utter absurdity of the heavy environmental red tape that the FAA and the federal government have imposed on new launch companies seeking to build launchpads.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Lockheed Martin is considering offering Orion for private manned commercial flights
The company would have to launch it on a different rocket, as no one except our spendthrift federal government can afford paying for an SLS launch. As Orion is overweight and very wide, it is not clear there is any other rocket available. I welcome my readers to chime in with their thoughts.
- On this day in 1950 the first rocket launch took place at Cape Canaveral
As the tweet notes, in the subsequent 75 years thousands of rockets have lifted off from there. And as I have noted repeatedly, these launches have done no measurable harm to environment, thus illustrating the utter absurdity of the heavy environmental red tape that the FAA and the federal government have imposed on new launch companies seeking to build launchpads.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
There is no way Orion can be used for commercial missions: too heavy, too bulky, and way too pricey.
And as Joe neglected to mention, it has reentry issues.
It would be nice to imagine, however, that Lockheed Martin could come up with a successor crew capsule that was both mission capable and price competitive. Thinking back to the 1970s, after a lot of kicking and screaming (and competition from Japan) the Big Three did manage to build and sell some smaller and more affordable cars, even if their hearts weren’t really in it. Today, of course, they hardly even build cars anymore, so maybe this isn’t such a great analogy. What would happen, though, if an Orion crew capsule were marketed as an SUV / Truck “built for space”?
To the delight of the domestic auto industry, American consumers will buy trucks and SUVs NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY COST or HOW MUCH IT COSTS TO FILL THEIR GAS TANKS. Lockheed Martin, take note! It’s all in the marketing.
Hummmm. A conundrum of sorts for Robert. While the US private sector — cf, Capitalism in Space — has clearly emerged in the global leader in producing innovative and affordable space hardware, its domestic auto industry much more resembles the Chinese pseudo-free market enterprises that are so much discussed in this forum. On the other hand, when it comes to making innovative, affordable CARS — and especially EVs — the Chinese Comrades have succeeded in making cheap, easy to own vehicles that *almost anyone can afford* — even Americans if they were allowed to purchase them.
There is probably a lesson here somewhere, but I am not sure what it might be.
Joe & Milt,
This “proposal” about Orion by LockMart seems to be one of those things that legacy primes occasionally run up the flagpole just to see it anyone of consequence salutes. Awhile back, NorGrum proposed the only marginally less ridiculous “Liberty” rocket that was to be, in essence, the first stage of its subsequently-cancelled OmegA rocket with an entire Ariane 5 – minus its own SRBs – as upper stages. One strongly suspects this new Orion proposal to meet with the same combination of stony silence and braying horse laughs that greeted the Liberty proposal. After which, of course, it will be politely buried out back in the dead of night and never referred to again.
One suspects the main reason for such a proposal being floated now is that – while the U.S. Congress has expressed at least preliminary intent to keep SLS, Orion and Gateway going, it remains the official policy of the Trump administration to cancel all three. Congress may well get its way – this year – but it is hardly a bulletproof assumption that the same will continue in subsequent years. Thus has been launched this trial balloon proposing a possible off-ramp for Orion from Artemis.
One should expect nothing to come of this.
Doesn’t Orion need the ESA service module or is that just for moon missions?
The Orion is too big and expensive to be competitive for LEO missions, and AFAIK yes it does need a service model for anything else. That and the heat shield problems. And the untried life-support system. Other than that, she’s ready to go!!
My immediate reaction is to assume that corporate drug abuse is far worse at the senior levels of Lockheed than I had thought possible, because it’s difficult to assume that Kirk Shireman is actually this dumb.
We know from NASA’s own OIG that a simple SLS/Orion mission — without any landing or other hardware — costs on the order of $4.1 billion. What private individual or organization can possibly afford such a price tag? In fact, come to that….what *national space agency* can afford it? I can only think of two, and one of them is already Orion’s sole current customer whilst the other is building its own lunar transportation system in earnest.
Oh, but wait, Shireman says they’re going to reduce the cost:
Skeptics may reasonably point out that NASA and its legacy primes have never managed significant production or operations cost reductions on the architecture of any program of record. And yet we are supposed to believe that Lockheed Martin will accomplish this now?
This feels like boob bait for the more gullible LockMart shareholders.
Shireman does not appear to suggest this in the Aerospace America article, though, so one does wonder.
A different rocket – probably a New Glen or a max configuration Vulcan VC6 – just might be able to do the job, but the task of integrating and testing it on such a launch vehicle would be far, far from trivial or cheap. But even if you did this, the more fundamental problem lurking is that such vehicles cannot get an Orion to anything beyond a low earth orbit, at least not without a separately launched transfer stage that would dock with it . . . which jacks up your mission cost even more. But if all you want is to get to low earth orbit, there’s this company based on Hawthorne CA that already has a crew vehicle that goes to orbit quite regularly, and it costs far less than an Orion could ever hope to do. Also, it’s proven capable of reentering without spalling off dangerous chunks of char from its heat shield.
It needs some kind of service module for maneuvering, power, and life support, and right now the ESA SM is the only one designed for it.
One other interesting development regarding SLS/Orion has taken place, however. Both Jeff Foust and Stephen Clark (quoted below) are reporting on the apparent unhappiness of certain House appropriators with the Exploration Upper Stage being developed by Boeing:
Clark notes that going back to the Delta IV cryogenic upper stage (called the Interim Crogenic Propulsion Stage, or ICPS) for SLS is no longer an option since ULA has shut down the production line, but notes again that his colleague Eric Berger has contended for the possibility of adapting the new Vulcan Centaur upper stage as an affordable (well, relatively!) substitute. Of course, an even better idea would be to just cancel SLS altogether, right?
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/07/lawmakers-writing-nasas-budget-want-a-cheaper-upper-stage-for-the-sls-rocket/
Richard M,
Sounds as though the pork-happy Congresscritters in the SLS-Orion boat are beginning to suspect that craft of losing buoyancy and some – the AL delegation – are beginning to contemplate perhaps tossing some of their erstwhile fellows overboard to lighten the load.
As you note, the only real alternative to EUS would be an extended, 4-engine version of Centaur V. That would add work at Decatur, keep SLS going so as to preserve MSFC and, as a side bonus, even produce an upper stage that could be tested, unmanned and at a reasonable price, on Vulcan before entrusting any astronaut’s lives to it on SLS. And all of this notional goodness could be had for the small, small price of just throwing Michoud under the bus.
It’s diabolical. And, compared to the current program of record, even I would cheer this alternative on the basis of safety alone.
It will be extremely interesting to see what emerges from conference.
“And as Joe neglected to mention, it has reentry issues.”
Some space related stories
“New fuel for nuclear power systems could enable missions to Mars and beyond”
“The Thermal Energy Conversion Branch at NASA’s Glenn Research Center and the University of Leicester have partnered to investigate Americium-241 as an alternative. This element could be an additional RPS heat source, powering future long-duration missions to destinations far beyond the Earth-moon system.”
Carlo Rubbia even proposed that element for Manned Mars Missions.
“Ground-based sensors can distinguish intact from fragmented meteoroid fireballs”
“The seismic signature of a fireball meteoroid event can be used to tell whether the fireball fragmented or remained intact as it fell through the atmosphere, according to new research published in Seismological Research Letters.”
There is work being done by “Dr. Patrick Suermann, a professor of construction science in the College of Architecture, a civil and environmental engineer and a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, whose passions combine at Texas A&M University.” He is looking at off world construction.
“High entropy alloy material could improve safety in nuclear reactors”
Researchers at the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) are studying a special type of metal called high entropy alloy (HEA), which is made by combining several different metals together.
“Nature-inspired process makes wood tougher than steel for structural use”
“A research team led by the University of the Basque Country (EHU), together with Wuhan University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (China), was inspired by naturally occurring processes that give rise to fossilized wood (known as ancient buried wood), to develop a wood material that offers remarkable structural performance (termed as “BioStrong Wood” by the authors). Using the adequate combination of mechanical, chemical and biological treatments, it has been possible to modify the internal structure of the wood, achieving a level of mechanical resistance that exceeds that of stainless steel.”
I am not sure I buy that.
It seems gamma ray lasers are becoming do able
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/solid-state-laser-news.9380/page-34#post-813904
My guys at Marshall have done work on Moon landings:
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-hazard-lunar.html
On depots
“NASA tests innovative technique for super-cold fuel storage”
In a first-of-its-kind demonstration, teams at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, are testing an innovative approach to achieve zero boiloff storage of liquid hydrogen using two stages of active cooling which could prevent the loss of valuable propellant.
“Technologies for reducing propellant loss must be implemented for successful long-duration missions to deep space like the moon and Mars,” said Kathy Henkel, acting manager of NASA’s Cryogenic Fluid Management Portfolio Project, based at NASA Marshall. “Two-stage cooling prevents propellant loss and successfully allows for long-term storage of propellants whether in transit or on the surface of a planetary body.”
“The new technique, known as “tube on tank” cooling, integrates two cryocoolers, or cooling devices, to keep propellant cold and thwart multiple heat sources. Helium, chilled to about -424°F, circulates through tubes attached to the outer wall of the propellant tank.”
Now isn’t that interesting–those who wanted to kill MSFC would have killed depot tech…