In light of our mandate to “…ensure the Nation is pursuing the best trajectory for the future of human space flight—one that is safe, innovative, affordable, and sustainable…,” what do the defenders of Constellation think is “innovative” about it?
[Monday morning update]
Clark Lindsey has a summary of Augustine results to date, and some thoughts on their validity, particularly on the Ride subcommittee, which which I agree. They are comparing apples to eggs when they use a standard cost-plus industry analysis of Falcon 9 or a manned Atlas.
[Update mid morning]
John Kelly has some thoughts on what the Augustine options will include:
Yet another bid to replace the space shuttles appears doomed to cancellation.
This happens every time America tries to replace the shuttles. Past tries fell short technically, or blew the budget, or both. Ares is technically feasible. It’s closer to budget than earlier candidates. Still, it’s on political life support.
Panel members are frustrated because changing course means tossing aside time and money invested so far. They say there must be an overwhelming reason to kill it. Then, they keep citing a compelling reason: NASA’s budget can’t field the system on time. Not even close. Orion might not fly with people until 2017 at best. A moon landing? 2028.
Moreover, those dates are only possible if the shuttle is retired in 2010 and the station is forsaken in 2016. Sticking with Ares means a longer — and growing — space flight gap.
The panel is leaning toward a combination of launch systems, maybe including Ares V. The Ares I crew launcher is unlikely to be listed as an option that meets Obama’s goals.
And of course, Ares V makes no economic sense if there’s no Ares I, because much of the Ares I development costs were supposed to be a “down payment” on Ares V and, sans Ares I, it will have to be charged the full development costs on its own, making its cost even more insane. By the time the decision is made to go ahead with its very expensive development, it’s quite likely that private activities will have shown the way to becoming spacefaring, sans heavy lifter.
The reason that every attempt to replace Shuttle has failed is because the very notion of replacing Shuttle is flawed, as I pointed out five years ago in The Path Not Taken:
The chief problem with the Bush vision for NASA is not its technical approach, but its programmatic approach—or, at an even deeper level, its fundamental philosophy. This is not simply a Bush problem, but a NASA problem: When government takes an approach, it is an approach, not a variety of approaches. Proposals are invited, the potential contractors study and compete, the government evaluates, but ultimately, a single solution is chosen with a contractor to build it. There has been some talk of a “fly-off” for the Crew Exploration Vehicle, in which two competing designs will actually fly to determine which is the best. But in the end, there will still be only one. Likewise, if we decide to build a powerful new rocket, there will almost certainly be only one, since it will be enough of a challenge to get the funds for that one, let alone two.
Biologists teach us that monocultures are fragile. They are subject to catastrophic failure (think of the Irish potato famine). This is just as true with technological monocultures, and we’ve seen it twice now in the last two decades: after each shuttle accident, the U.S. manned spaceflight program was stalled for years. Without Russian assistance, we cannot presently reach our (one and only) space station, because our (one and only) way of getting to it has been shut down since the Columbia accident.
Even ignoring the fact that there will never be another Shuttle in the sense of a vehicle that meets all of its requirements, we have to stop thinking in terms of closing the dreaded “gap” with a NASA-developed vehicle with no redundancy. Every attempt to do so will suffer the same failure as the Shuttle itself. If it is to have a robust program, and one that is more than just a jobs program, NASA simply must learn to rely on the private sector for its human transportation at least to LEO, if not beyond, just as it does for unmanned payloads. This should be a prime lesson of the history of the past forty years since Apollo XI.
So you’re saying zero out of four ain’t bad? Er… sumptin like that? 😉
I’ll play Devil’s Advocate…
The solar-panels on Orion are somewhat innovative, considering they’re on a manned, Apollo-derivative.
Also, the unmanned, four-on-the-moon Lunar Orion is innovative, when compared to the Apollo model.
Unlike those old “results oriented” folks of the Apollo era, the Constellation era folks are “process oriented”, and that is an innovation that makes all the difference.
The Hab & Lab modules for the Block II Orion might be innovative (or is that Orion + other CEV modules, not sure on the nomenclature here.) Regardless of nomenclature, it is easiest to imagine innovation for the least specified part of the project. 🙂
in⋅no⋅vate
/ˈɪnəˌveɪt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [in-uh-veyt] verb, -vat⋅ed, -vat⋅ing.
1. to introduce something new; make changes in anything established.
OK, that’s not hard to do with Constellation. In that Constellation isn’t something old and established, at least in the specifics of the architecture.
Although it’s a ball one can’t really run with, the point is a valid one, that Constellation is, in general, a hand-me-down.
I guess if they did a new paint job on Shuttle, we’d have to call it innovative as well. It’s a cheap word, like so many cheap words.
Also, the unmanned, four-on-the-moon Lunar Orion is innovative, when compared to the Apollo model.
NASA did unmanned lunar landers in the 1960’s. See “Surveyor.”
Hmmm, I always thought extra mass needed for dampers on the Ares I for shock absorption from solid rocket booster to keep the crew alive was a neat innovation. The Redstone, Titan, Saturn IB or Saturn V didn’t have that, now did they?
Ed, I think he’s referring to leaving Orion untended in lunar orbit while the crew is on the surface.
“The Hab & Lab modules for the Block II Orion might be innovative…”
The what? Block 2 is the Lunar Sortie configuration. It’s pretty much the same as the Block 1 version (ISS), the most obvious difference being 4 crew instead of 6.
The what? Block 2 is the …
T.L. James, Specifically, I was referring to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(spacecraft)#Stage_II which says
“Under Stage II, a new Block II CEV would be developed, suitable for interplanetary flight. The report states that the new CEV should keep the same mold lines as the Block I, making the selection of an appropriate Block I CEV extremely important to the successful implementation of the plan. The report states that the Block II CEV would need to have capability to conduct interplanetary cruises of at least several months in duration. It suggests the development of other modules, specifically modules called “Hab”, “Lab”, “Propulsion”, and “Consumables” to support longer-duration flights, possibly to be carried onboard Ares V to LEO for Orion to pick-up. The use of ISS module derivatives for the Hab and Lab modules is suggested but not explicitly endorsed.”
Now that I look closer, I see that the source for the article was the study conducted for the Planetary Society co-written by Michael Griffin in 2004 titled “Extending Human Presence into the Solar System” (you can google it).
So, that vision of Block II was pre-Project Constellation. I’m sure Rand and others here can better explain the relationship between Griffin’s report, ESAS, and Project Constellation.
So never mind the name “Block II”. Generally, my question is “If Orion is going to used beyond the moon, to NEOs, to Phobos, and to Mars, where is the crew going to live on the trip out?” Some kind of habitation module is planned, right?
“Innovative” is just one of the relatively new buzzwords, like “transformative”, “creative”, and “progressive”.
I guess I found my answer on slide 21 of this presentation:
Into the Beyond: A Crewed Mission to a Near-Earth Object
ti.arc.nasa.gov/projects/neo_study/pdf/IAC-07-slides.pdf
The slide shows the “mars transfer vehicle” — a booster, a habitat can, and an orion on the end. I suppose this is the least innovative way to do it – less innovative than a vehicle with habitats that spin for artificial gravity, like the Aldrin cycler pictured here: http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archive/Spotlights/2006/index2006-07-01.html
NASA simply must learn to rely on the private sector for its human transportation at least to LEO
A corollary presents itself
The private sector & NewSpace must learn to stop relying on NASA for funding its plans for LEO access.
It seems to me that times are changing. In the past the failures to replace the shuttles once dead, offered us no alternative. This time, if Ares fails the “clock” remains ticking because of companies like SpaceX. Assuming SpaceX continues to make progress there will come a day when NASA has to argue over new systems, their cost, and their timetable to operability, with news segments running in the background of people aboard rockets headed to private destinations. If that kind of glaring juxtaposition doesn’t move mountains (NASA) then nothing will.
The private sector & NewSpace must learn to stop relying on NASA for funding its plans for LEO access.
The notion that it does so is a myth.
They have never relied on NASA for funding their plans for LEO access (SpaceX would still be under development without COTS, and XCOR doesn’t need NASA as a customer for the Lynx), but they could get there a lot faster if NASA would stop wasting its money toward that end and just be a good customer.
I’d like to see the alternative universe where we didn’t build the shuttle and stuck with Apollo and the Saturn-class boosters (for a while, anyway). Though I’d prefer any number of scenarios–including one where the private sector controlled most access to space–surely skipping the shuttle program would’ve allowed us to make far more progress in manned spaceflight than we have.
Pro Libertate writes: “I’d like to see the alternative universe where we didn’t build the shuttle and stuck with Apollo and the Saturn-class boosters (for a while, anyway).”
I don’t think your “alternate universe” goes far enough back. What if we’d continued the X-15 program to orbit? What if we’d chosen a more robust space-borne infrastructure than the “throw it all away and get there fast” approach that we took? Of course these “what if’s” make for great alternate fiction, but the fact is we are stuck with reality as it is now and hope that the right lessons are learned and applied to future paths.
Ares is technically feasible. It’s closer to budget than earlier candidates. Still, it’s on political life support.
Where in the hell did Kelly get that from? VentureStar was cancelled after being much less over budget than Ares I!
Steve A,
Good point. I just read something along those lines in A Man on the Moon, which was based on something Armstrong said in reference to his X-15 days. Before Dyna-Soar died, Armstrong viewed the X-15 program and its projected evolution–not Mercury–as the odds-on favorite to get America into space.
Here’s what Astronautix.com has to say about the idea of putting an X-15 into orbit. If the article is accurate, it would’ve been little more than a minimalist stunt.
Storms’ X-15B was a ‘stripped’ X-15A with an empty mass of 4500 kg. The launch vehicle consisted of 4 x G-26 Navaho booster stages plus the X-15B’s own XLR-99 engine. These would allow the X-15B to achieve a single orbit with an apogee of 120 km and a perigee of 75 km. Due to the low perigee and aerodynamics of the X-15, no retrorocket was required, although the X-15’s restartable engine could be used if necessary. Using its cross range capability of about 800 to 1,000 km, the X-15 would ditch in the Gulf of Mexico. The heat shield would consist of beryllium oxide and Rene 41 alloy. The pilot would eject and land by parachute, with the aircraft being lost. The spacecraft had a ballistic coefficient (W/CdA) of 250 kg per square meter. It was expected that a first manned orbital flight could be achieved 30 months after a go-ahead at a cost of $ 120 million.
…
Note
The notes of NACA engineer Clarence A. Syvertson from this meeting indicate that four Navaho G-26 boosters would be used. The biography of Harrison Storms indicates that G-38 boosters were proposed. A quick calculation showed that four G-26 boosters could not get the X-15 into orbit; G-38 boosters just about could. So in this case physics and the memory of Storms trump the contemporaneous notes. It was likely in any case that the boosters proposed were derived from, but not identical to the G-26 or G-38 boosters.
The idea was for the X-15 to be replaced by Dyna-Soar, I believe.
Staying with the “alternate universe” thought experiment Pro Libertate started with, a “natural” evolution of X-15, without the geo-political pressures of the “space race” could, emphasis on “could”, have resulted in a much different path and perhaps a much more robust space infrastructure. Of course, quite possibly, it could have foundered on the vine due to a lack of clarity of purpose. Say what you will aobut the “space race,” but it did jump start the process. Unfortunately, (to mix a metaphor)once the fuel from the primer was spent, it seems the engine coughed and sputtered for the next forty years.
Larry J, by the way, great link on Astronautix. I had not heard that tidbit of X-15 history before. I found this particular sentence very ironic in light of the present day: “The BMD itself had its sights set on Project Lunex, a long term plan to establish an Air Force base on the moon before 1970.” Oh, if only…