There are some interesting comments over at this NASA Watch thread about the impending death of Ares 1. This one was particularly sad, but jibes with my experience over the years, and talking to others who have worked for and with Marshall:
I left MSFC last year after dedicating many years of my life to our nations space program (9 years contractor and 9 years civil servant). I consider that time completely squandered. I would never recommend an aerospace career to any bright young person.
The general mood at MSFC is pure apathy tempered only by greed. Keep in mind a GS-13 civil servant (anyone with 10 yrs experience) is knocking down $90K plus per year, 3-4 weeks vacation per year, great benefits, and near total job security. Needless to say – not very many of them are going to rock the boat. In this kind of environment, managers pretty much do what they want since few of the working troops will challenge them and hold them accountable. The primary promotion criterea at the center is how well you “obey” (ie kiss butt). The resulting incompetence at all levels of management is beyond belief.
Ares I is a perfect example of what this environment produces. Remember what ESAS said was “off-the-shelf” 4 segment SRBs and J-2. How that vehicle could ever meet requirements when the upgraded 5 segment SRB and new turbopump J-2 equipped vehicle barely meets requirements is a question some investigation board should ask. But I can already tell you why that vehicle was recommended. Because the top dog said so. And when the top dog says do it then pesky little things like physics or economics matter not to MSFC/NASA management.
I’ve told family for years “If the American people knew how bad things were at NASA – they would shut it down”. There is no solution for NASA. You can’t salvage it. You can’t fix it. It’s over. The cancer that is politics has ravaged our once great space agency enough. Be humane and put it out of its misery.
That’s unlikely to happen, of course, for political reasons, but the Aldridge recommendation to convert the centers to FFRDCs was an attempt to fix some of those problems.
On another topic, a frequent commenter who calls himself “Ben the Space Brit” has some mistaken thoughts on propellant depots:
Propellent depot-based architecture requires a huge commitment to a sustained LEO infrastructure. To the uninitiated, that means building, maintaining and continually refilling specially-designed satellites that act as ‘gas stations in the sky’.
Right now, there is no reason to do this except to have an EELV-based lunar archetecture and to express commitment to a hazy concept of commercial HSF. Simply put, no politician would right now be willing to commit money to such an open-ended venture. The advantage of a HLLV is that it is something that you spend a big amount on once and then operate at a reduced cost. Depots are something that you have to spend on and then keep spending to keep them operational.
Now, it is true that, in the long run, a depot-based architecture will be key to keeping an early-stage lunar outpost operational. However, just as money for commercial Earth-to-LEO developments only became seriously available when there was a destination (ISS), I do not consider it likely that money for depots and other LEO infrastructure of its type will become available until after the outpost is operational, thus creating a clear target for the investment.
IMHO, depots will never be politically acceptable as a precursor to a lunar mission, only as an investment to bring down maintenance and logistics costs for it once in place. You will still need an HLLV to put the outpost in place and also act as the LV for the precursor survey missions.
This makes no sense whatsoever to me. Where is the evidence that an HLLV will “operate at a reduced cost”? The only example we have is Saturn. It did not have low operational costs. There is no reason to believe that an Ares V, or any other wet dream of the heavy lifter fetishists will do so, either. Why does he think that heavy lifters aren’t “something that you have to spend on and then keep spending to keep them operational”? That is an excellent description of a heavy lifter, and the heavier the lifter, the lower the flight rate, which means that you never get your average costs down to anything reasonable.
Depots, on the other hand, shouldn’t require much in the way of ongoing costs, once in place, except perhaps replacing them every few years. Their cost of use should be quite low, and they allow the cost of propellants (the vast bulk of mass that has to be delivered for missions beyond LEO) to drop by encouraging competition among providers. And such an architecture is much more robust, particularly with multiple redundant depots. If a depot fails, you switch over to another one. If a launch system fails, you switch over to another one. But if you only have a single heavy lifter (and does anyone imagine that we’re going to develop two?) and it has a stand down (and don’t say that it won’t), you’re out of business until you get it running again.
There may be good arguments against a depot-based architecture, but I haven’t heard any yet. They always seem to be rationalizations to defend an irrational devotion to big rockets.
[Update a few minutes later]
One of the subtitles (or themes) of my piece at The New Atlantis (which will be on line Real Soon Now) could be “BFRs? We don’t need no stinkin’ BFRs.”
[Another update a few minutes later]
There’s an interesting discussion in comments over at Selenian Boondocks about the politics of selling propellant depots.
They always seem to be rationalizations to defend an irrational devotion to big rockets.
Sometimes there are hidden (but obvious) economic motivations, sometimes there’s the idea (mistaken IMO) that BFRs are either necessary or sufficient for “Mars in my lifetime” and sometimes people just like big rockets. Ben’s a good guy and I think he falls into the last category.
Google “Baby got Back” to find examples of this emotional argument in a different context. And in a musical context I suspect you don’t like. 😉
The “we need a destination first” argument seems completely fallacious to me. It applies equally to depots and BFRs. And depots are likely to be part of a mature cis-lunar transport infrastructure (and even beyond) whereas BFRs are not. Maybe people are counting on a statement becoming true (or at least being believed) if you repeat it often enough.
The “we need a destination first” argument seems completely fallacious to me. It applies equally to depots and BFRs.
It does. It’s another non argument.
The technological arguments are irrelevant if there is no one in a insider position willing to fight for EELV only + propellant depot architecture.
Given the first NASA Watch comment quoted above and given allegations that those NASA insiders who have openly supported DIRECT were transferred to remote assignments the odds of a NASA cabal fighting for EELV only augmented by propellant depots strikes me as remote, trending towards utterly impossible.
Therefore, unless Jeff Greason or someone else “filibusters” the Augustine Commission (or vocally dissents) to demand that propellant depot architectures are included in their report, the EELV+prop depot proposals will remain noise that is never actually received by the decision makers.
Perhaps the A-Team will surprise us, but has there been any significant propellant depot input, thus far?
OTOH, The Direct people have at least openly acknowledged the leverage that comes from using depots. DIRECT augmented with propellant depots will permit deployment of a robust logistical pipeline to the lunar surface so we can do the things Paul Spudis and Dennis Wingo want us to do.
= = =
Plan B? What if NASA refuses to do propellant depots or if the NASA human spaceflight budget is gutted?
Proton/Soyuz augmented with propellant depots would be comparable in performance with EELV augmented with propellant depots.
I think that Jon Goff’s white paper will be “significant propellant depot input.” So will my upcoming piece at The New Atlantis.
What if NASA refuses to do propellant depots or if the NASA human spaceflight budget is gutted?
Then Elon and Bob Bigelow, and Jeff Bezos, and others will. And probably beat NASA back to the moon.
DIRECT’s limited enthusiasm for depots will count for nothing, even if it is genuine. The same political forces that want to preserve the Shuttle stack now, will want to preserve it once NASA reaches the moon, if that ever happens. Depots will remain a threat to the Shuttle stack. Once commercial depots are operational, they will become unstoppable. Unfortunately, that will take a while.
I think that Jon Goff’s white paper will be “significant propellant depot input.” So will my upcoming piece at The New Atlantis.
Good luck and God Speed! Seriously.
Those two documents could provide the foundation for a dedicated website that explains the advantages of this architecture and advocate for its adoption.
Setting aside opinions about the technical merits of DIRECT, I hope we can all agree they have assembled a team that has successfully interjected itself into the debate over the active opposition of top NASA management. The YouTube video showing the transition from shuttle orbiter stack to the J-130 is one example along with the various presentations and graphics that have been prepared.
Although your content is different, there have been both good and bad advocacy ideas employed by TeamDirect and if propellant depot advocates examine and perhaps copy the better ideas they employed perhaps you can better advocate this architecture to the decision makers.
> Google “Baby got Back” to find examples of this emotional argument in a different context. And in a musical context I suspect you don’t like.
This is quite possibly the only time I’ve ever literally laughed out loud while reading the comments here. 😉
Personally, I prefer Jonathan Coulton’s cover of that song, which is rather more melodic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gW6yQZyx5w
(Sorry about getting off-topic 🙂
The first NASA Watch commenter that Rand quotes is mistaken. The original plan was 4-seg with air-start SSME *NOT* J-2.
NASA contended that when air-start SSME was a no go, the 5-seg booster with a J-2X would make up for the performance loss from ditching the SSME. It does not.
My preference for big rockets is SO not based on compensating for my own physical deficiencies.
It isn’t.
Honest.
Seriously. I am SO not hung up on it.
*rimshot*
It seems to me there is a back door to fuel depots if we ever start thinking of building spaceships (not designed to go below orbit.) Each should have standardized hardware for fuel transfer (both to and from) which makes every spaceship a potential depot. If you don’t have depots before this occurs you would soon have them after. A spaceship is not only a potential depot, but it’s also a space station (a destination in itself.)
Is there a market? A modular design of a spaceship (where the habitat can be put into orbit first and an engine module can be designed to be easily attached later) could have enough customers wanting to spend time in Earth orbit at a cost of perhaps $5m each (six at a time by Dragon module) to be profitable. SpaceX seems to have removed pricing from it’s website.
Danny Deger over on NASAspaceflight.com has suggested using inflight refueling as a precursor to full depots. I personally like the idea of a fully reusable lander that can also serve as a makeshift EDS for rare large payloads, as a cis and trans lunar crew shuttle, as a makeshift depot or as a makeshift mini space station. It could be the space shuttle of the future: a jack of all trades and a master of only one: being a lander. For the beginning of a new exploration program that would not be a bad thing.
There are three advantages to heavy lift. First, there are some economies of scale to larger vehicle size given a fixed launch rate, at least at current technology. Second, you have a larger fairing size for similar tweaking of your vehicle’s aerodynamic profile. Finally, bigger chunks means less assembly work in space.
However, I support propellant depots over HLV. I don’t consider these advantages sufficiently compelling.
Why would a fixed launch rate be a good assumption?
While the general rule of “increased production rate = reduced cost” is accurate in economics and even in barely competent government manufacturing, it really is a rule of thumb, not an infinite law.
Just as there is a market activity level below which this rule doesn’t function, there are other market rules:
-increasing production rates at lower cost requires high-cost upfront production investment and takes time.
-there is a significant time lag between opening of a new technological market and significant action of this rule
-There are diminishing returns as production rates are increased.
-multiple funding sources(govt and commercial) are required if the vagaries of demand or politics are not to kill market players over time.
-any market dominated by the government is prone to rapid consolidation and eventual monopoly due to political vagaries
Having done some math on this, the market activity level required to significantly reduce the launch price is significantly above that of the existing launch market. In addition, since multiple competitors are required for law this to operate, and there is a high investment cost barrier to entry of the market, the rule will operate much slower until other demand increases. Good luck keeping political consistency over that timeframe.
Having done some math on this, the market activity level required to significantly reduce the launch price is significantly above that of the existing launch market.
A moon program will likely need 400mt to 500mT a year at a minimum. There may not be the money for more than that, but that would require a much higher launch rate than the one we have today.
Having done some math on this, the market activity level required to significantly reduce the launch price is significantly above that of the existing launch market.
Surely you don’t think we’re unaware of that?
I’ve written several papers on the subject over the past twenty years.
Why would a fixed launch rate be a good assumption?
It’s not an assumption, just a claim about the partial derivative of cost per ton of payload along launch vehicle payload size. As you’ve already pointed out, any real launch environment is constrained more or less by total payload per year (which isn’t going to change much until you get to really small or really large payloads). That means a fixed launch rate would be a terrible assumption.
There are some other advantages, none of which justify HLV in my opinion. If you rendez-vous in a higher-energy orbit than LEO, you have easier rendez-vous and no complications due to precession of your orbital plane. If you launch payload and EDS together, they don’t have to loiter. But with the ISS as a staging node, that’s not too much of a problem.
Man can I relate to that burned out ex-NASA guy. I was at JSC in the Early 80’s and even the astronauts had to constantly kiss butt to keep from being slapped down. The whole space station Freedom program office that became such a mess NASA quietly turned the program over to Boeing to run and salvage. NASA HQ… I over heard two senior civil servant in the office of space access technology. One commented that if we reduced the cost to orbit a lot, the launch demand would explode. The other laughed and said we were already launching everything anyone wanted to launch – there was nothing else.
As to the statements that of course you need a big booster to get to moon and Mars. Does no one remember shuttle was built to launch and assemble such things in smaller parts?
After the space station I certainly understand the headaches of building up a big object out of parts – but with Constellation talking about 160 ton lift being required to shove Altair to the moon – what else is there?