As usual, Doug Cooke defends ESAS:
The “direct” variation fails to meet NASA’s needs on several grounds. It is vastly over-capacity and too costly to service the International Space Station, but worse, its lift capacity would not be enough for NASA to maintain a sustained presence on the moon.
Advocates for the “direct” variation are touting unrealistic development costs and schedules. A fundamental difference is that the Ares I and Orion probability of crew survival is at least two times better than all of the other concepts evaluated, including “direct”-like concepts.
Also as usual, he provides no evidence for his assertions. We are simply supposed to accept them because Doug Cooke says so. Have we ever seen the actual report that came out of the sixty-day study, with a description of methodology and assumptions? I haven’t.
I’m not necessarily a big fan of “Direct,” but his statement raises more issues than it answers. Why doesn’t the “lift capacity allow a sustained presence on the moon” in a way that ESAS does? Why should it be assumed that NASA’s new launch system will service space station? I thought that this was what COTS was for? What are the marginal costs of an additional Jupiter launch versus Ares 1?
Give us some numbers, and provide a basis for them, and we might take this seriously.
[Wednesday morning update]
More thoughts and comments at NASA Watch, and from Chair Force Engineer.
So, basically, this lifelong NASA guy is saying, “Shut up, we know what we are doing.”
Lovely. Absolutely lovely.
The idea that it’s so much safer to put humans atop a giant solid rocket booster with significant untested design changes is, well, laughable on its face.
“The “direct” variation fails to meet NASA’s needs on several grounds. It is vastly over-capacity and too costly to service the International Space Station,…”
Holy smokes! And what of the Ares I? Talk about over-capacity and too costly to service the ISS!
It is the Church of NASA. When the Pope of all things spaceflight says it is so. Then, it is ordained that we should follow in his wise word.
And what of the Ares I? Talk about over-capacity and too costly to service the ISS!
What part of Ares I is “over-capacity” besides the hardware necessary to offset thrust oscillation?
One thing that has always confused me is the “overcapacity for servicing the ISS” comment. The space shuttle has way more capacity than needed to ferry people up and down from the ISS. That extra capacity is used to bring needed cargo to the ISS. The alternative is to use separate cargo flights like the Russians have to do.
If we used the DIRECT approach for servicing the ISS, we would be in the position to bring along needed cargo on each mission. This would save a corresponding separate cargo flight. That seems workable to me. Am I missing something here?
If it is cheaper to own and operate an F-250 than it is a Civic, overcapacity trumps overbudget and undercapacity.
Am I missing something here?
Yes, you’re missing the valuable “lesson” learned from Shuttle–don’t mix crew and cargo. Never mind that that’s a foolish lesson to have learned, but Shuttle and station have taught us many false lessons, of which that’s only one.
The overwhelming majority of the time, there’s no need to send humans into space to launch a satellite. Not only is it an unnecessary risk, it’s prohibitively expensive.
Send humans into space when it is appropriate to do so. As the Russians and more recently ESA have shown, you can send cargo to the ISS using unmanned vehicles.
The overwhelming majority of the time, there’s no need to send humans into space to launch a satellite. Not only is it an unnecessary risk, it’s prohibitively expensive.
We weren’t talking about launching satellites. I’m not sure what your point is.
Send humans into space when it is appropriate to do so.
Who said otherwise?
As the Russians and more recently ESA have shown, you can send cargo to the ISS using unmanned vehicles.
Yes, you can. I’m not sure what the relevance of this comment is to the discussion, though.
“Rand Simberg wrote:
Am I missing something here?
Yes, you’re missing the valuable “lesson” learned from Shuttle–don’t mix crew and cargo. Never mind that that’s a foolish lesson to have learned, but Shuttle and station have taught us many false lessons, of which that’s only one.”
The true and false lessons of the STS/ISS programs.
Sounds like thats an article begging to come out of you Rand, assuming you haven’t already written it and it escaped my notice.
Larry J wrote:
The overwhelming majority of the time, there’s no need to send humans into the air to deliver mail. Not only is it an unnecessary risk, it’s prohibitively expensive.
Send humans into the air only when it is appropriate to do so. As the Russians and more recently Europeans have shown, you can send packages to the International Airport using unmanned drones.
Or at least, that’s what he might have written in 1920. 🙂
Yet, flying fools from Charles Lindbergh to the Federal Express have ignored NASA and Larry’s warning. They not only allow crew on cargo flights, they *require* them, and oddly enough, piloted systems have not turned out to be “prohibitively expensive.” They have proven to be far more economical and orders of magnitude more reliable than the guided missile paradigm.
Can anyone tell me or point me at what Direct is? I have seen a variety of counter-proposals to the Orion and whatever, but I am curious as to what the current configuration of Direct has been proposed.
We weren’t talking about launching satellites. I’m not sure what your point is.
I was addressing your assertion that
Yes, you’re missing the valuable “lesson” learned from Shuttle–don’t mix crew and cargo.
If you’re talking about carrying cargo (for human consumption) along with humans to the ISS, there’s a limited need to do so. The Shuttle was designed to be a truck capable of carrying 50,000 pounds along with humans. That’s grossly more than necessary for most manned missions. Funny how the Russians have managed to launch satellites, resupply missions, and even space station modules over the last 50 years without once having to send humans along.
,i>Edward Wright wrote:
The overwhelming majority of the time, there’s no need to send humans into the air to deliver mail. Not only is it an unnecessary risk, it’s prohibitively expensive.
And of course, Ed Wright completely misses the point once again while lying about what I actually said. Big surprise there.
Leland asked, “What part of Ares I is “over-capacity” [to service ISS] besides the hardware necessary to offset thrust oscillation?”
Well since you asked:-)
Why is The Ares I launch vehicle + Orion Spacecraft grossly overcapacity for providing service to the ISS?
The primary requirement of the Ares/Orion when servicing the ISS is to provide transportation for three crew to the ISS. Yet the Ares I could supposedly lift over 22,000 kg to an ISS orbit! That’s more payload than the big Proton rocket, you know the same launch vehicle which boosted entire Russian ISS modules into orbit.
Cargo isn’t an issue. True enough the Shuttle has been lifting large amounts of cargo to the ISS recently, but that won’t be neccessary once the ISS construction is complete. So you don’t need a behemoth like the Ares I just to provide cargo support for the ISS!
Why is the Ares I so damned big?
The Ares I is oversized for the ISS mission for two main reasons. First off the Orion spacecraft itself is supersized, the crew capsule alone massing more than an entire Soyuz TM spacecraft. You don’t need the big Orion six man capsule for a three man ISS mission!
The second reason the Ares I is oversized is it’s designed for the 4 man lunar mission, not the ISS mission. The Ares I not only has to lift to orbit the oversized Orion capsule but also has to lift the even greater mass of the Orion’s rocket propellant which the Orion needs for the Trans-Earth-Injection burn of a lunar mission. You don’t need the 5,000 fps delta-V of the Orion spacecraft for an ISS mission!
I hope that clarifies things.
Oops! I did not intend to post anonymously. The Ares I post was by me, Brad.
I know I am beginning (maybe more than that?) to sound like a paranoid obsessive on this subject, but:
Assume that everything that NASA has done since Apollo has been expressly designed for and aimed towards keeping humans out of space (at least in numbers large enough to actually make any difference); and then everything done by them since Apollo has made perfect sense.
No, Larry/Brad/Anonymous, *you* miss the point.
Yes, “the Russians managed to launch satellites, resupply missions, and even space station modules over the last 50 years” — at enormous cost.
They spent the cost of a small war just to launch some radio towers and a few guys in tin cans. Just like NASA did.
The point you miss is that not everyone *wants* another 50 years of almost no progress.
No successful transportation system has ever “separated crew from cargo,” because crewed vehicles are *cheaper* and *more reliable.* Or throws away expensive stages on every flight. No successful transportation system operates at hundreds of times fuel costs or calls a 1% accident rate “highly reliable.”
Those are characteristics of a failed transportation system.
Ed, leave me out of your p*ss*ng contest.
Paul Milenkovic this is their main site. And also a lot of discussion is centered around this thread at NASAspaceflight.com .
The over capacity for ISS servicing is the weakest excuses I have ever heard.
If anything being more capable then whats needed for the task is a good thing much better then being marginal.
Doug Cooke must live in his own little world.
Ares I is under performing to launch Orion and even the COTS vehicles may not be able to carry all the payload needed for ISS resupply.
The Jupiter 120 doesn’t have the still unsolved oscillation issue the Ares I has and doesn’t require the J2X.
It also does not replicate the already existing and much lower cost capability in the EELVs and soon Falcon 9.
Ares V has become even larger then the Saturn V by a good margin and may prove too expensive to operate.
Changes the Ares V mean changes to Ares I since the two must use a common SRB and upper stage.
It just makes a lot more sense you use the SRBs and ET tooling as is unchanged and launch the lunar missions as two 100ton launches then as one 22ton launch and one now 150ton launch.
Even though the J-120 hardware might cost more then Ares I per mission it’s fixed costs and dev costs are a lot lower then Ares.
As we seen with the shuttle it’s these fixed costs that kill you.
The shuttle’s hardware cost per mission is only 60 million USD but the fixed cost wither you fly it or not is 3.7B a year.
On the over capacity the robotic exploration people can make use of Jupiter’s 50 ton payload and larger fairing for missions like JIMO , a mars sample return and next generation space telescopes.
It also would reduce costs and risk of missions like Cassini by eliminating planetary flybys which take time and cost in ground support.
Lastly since the Direct CLV and cargo vehicle have so much in common it makes the lunar program a lot more economically and politically robust.
If Ares V gets canceled then all the money spent on Ares I ends up wasted money.
While the only difference between the J120 and J232 is a third engine and upper stage.
Plus you can still do some interesting mass reduced lunar missions with just the J-120 while with just Ares I you cannot go beyond LEO.
Doug Cooke just has to go since he is making some very unsound decisions and cannot back them with numbers and facts.