Remember a few weeks ago, when the Ares huggers were seizing on comments by Gary Payton that cancelling Ares would double costs for the Pentagon’s solid motors? It never made any economic sense, but it was used as cudgel, however dull, in the battle over the new policy. Well now he’s saying that not only will the effect be trivial, but that it actually benefits the DoD to have more users of the EELVs:
Q. What does the cancellation of Constellation mean for the Air Force?
A. If there are increases to the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) annual launch rate, that’s a good sign. Right now, we have a plan for United Launch Alliance to do eight launches a year, notionally five for the Air Force, two for the National Reconnaissance Office and one for NASA. So if we can increase that one for NASA up to two or three per year, that would be great for everybody, because we would be buying more rocket engines per year and flying more rockets per year, and that helps with the proficiency of the launch crews…
Q. Are you concerned about the Constellation decision’s impact on the solid-rocket motor industrial base?
A. We’ve come to find out that it has a trivial impact on space launch because we don’t use the big 3½-meter segmented solids on our EELVs; we use solids that are about 1½ meters in diameter.
Well, pardon me, but DUH.
I could never understand why the Pentagon went along with Constellation in the first place.
[Via Parabolic Arc]
I could never understand why the Pentagon went along with Constellation in the first place.
To keep NASA out of their hair?
To keep NASA out of their hair?
I’d say the opposite — three decades of habit. When you’ve been in a (forced) marriage for that long it’s hard to leave even if you know the relationship is bad for you.
MARKETS DON’T WORK! . . . oh wait, BUT ONLY IN THIS WAY!
Dunno, maybe it has something with the attempt to integrate the “lessons learned” from Apollo and Shuttle.
So the word comes down to “go back to the Moon.” Well, how did we get there the last time around? We built this big (fine) rocket and used lunar orbit rendezvous (i.e. a LEM, oops, a LM — Excursion sounds too frivolous). Hence the Ares V.
But wait a minute. We had two fatal accidents over the years, and those accidents had something to do with the trip from the ground up to orbit. Yeah, yeah, the second accident was on reentry, but that was on account of something coming loose on the way up. So we are going to put the crew on a much smaller rocket, a much safer rocket, using everything we know about the accidents we had.
So we are going to use a solid rocket first stage, and hey we have had lots of flight experience with that kind of thing. Bam, Ares I. We are going to use only one solid — it either lights or it doesn’t. And yeah, we had that problem with the O-rings, but the solid stage is not going to be next to anything, we we are good to go. And we are going to use an LH2-LO2 stage to reach orbit — plenty of experience with that, and maybe we power that stage with a single SSME, and then have a solid rocket abort stage and so on and so forth. And then we put the crew in a “capsule” (er I mean, spacecraft) on the tippy top so that any debris coming off the rocket won’t crack the heat shield. What could possible go wrong?
You all know what went wrong. Guess what people, an SSME is really complicated, and it has this fancy multi-second start sequence when it light it on the ground. OK, we once had this rocket engine we started in flight called a J-2, just dust off the ol’ blueprints. Um, a J-2 has less less power and specific impulse than an SSME, a lot less. No problemo, let’s just “stretch” the solid to 5 segments.
And then we ended up with the shaking flying spaghetti noodle. Only Harrison Schmidt gave me his assurance that the shaking problem could be solved when I asked about it, in the manner that NASA has worked through every other problem that has come up.
Paul,
[[[And then we ended up with the shaking flying spaghetti noodle.]]]
You do know that the test flight of the Ares 1-X showed there was no shaking problem. It basically showed that the computer predictions on it were completely wrong.
It only showed that the problem for the four-segment solid, with a dummy upper stage, wasn’t as great as feared. It didn’t tell us much about an actual Ares I, which is still many billion dollars away.
Rand,
It invalided the computer program that was saying there would be a problem, which is why you do test flights, to see if your computer programs are valid.
It invalided the computer program that was saying there would be a problem, which is why you do test flights, to see if your computer programs are valid.
You need to work on your logic, here (among other things, the problem with proving a negative). I’m not even sure that what you’re saying is true, but even if it is, invalidating a program that says that there is a problem doesn’t mean there’s no problem. The original concern didn’t derive from a computer program.
And your comment doesn’t even make sense. You claim (again, I don’t necessarily accept it — other than for the sake of the argument) that the purpose of a test flight is to validate a program. But you also claim that the test flight invalidated it. So by your lights, the test was a failure.
Rand,
I know you really want to spin the Ares 1-X test flight as a failure.
But the reality is that is showed that vibrations were a LOT less then the computer program predicted, demonstrating that the computer program over estimated what the vibrations should, showing its predictions of a vibration problem where invalid. And yes, that is exactly what test flights do, provide real world data to compare predictions against.
In short it showed one problem with Ares 1 that opponents claim existed probably doesn’t exist.
I know you really want to spin the Ares 1-X test flight as a failure.
You seem to “know” lots of things that are untrue. I’ve never said, or “spun” that it was a failure (though it certainly had a chute failure). I’m simply pointing out that it didn’t do what its proponents claim it did (and the claims on the other side, that it “proved” that Ares I will work, or even more ridiculously, that it was a “test flight” of Ares I, are much more outrageous than simply calling it what it was). And as I said, I was just using your definition of “success” — that it validated a computer model.
In short it showed one problem with Ares 1 that opponents claim existed probably doesn’t exist.
Whether it did that or not (it remains disputable, sorry), it didn’t resolve all of the problems with Ares I, as many of its foolish proponents claim.
Rand,
[[[(though it certainly had a chute failure)]]]
Which were no different then the occasional chute failures on SRB, since it wasn’t testing the chutes for Ares 1, those are still being developed and tested at Yuma. And so far those tests seem to be going well, setting new records for airdropped recovery by parachute. But that is not news worthy I guess for opponents to Ares.
[[[it didn’t resolve all of the problems with Ares I, as many of its foolish proponents claim.]]]
No, it didn’t resolve ALL the problems, merely showed that one of them that opponents used against it, vibration, is not likely to be a major one.
Oh, and you still don’t get it.
…the reality is that is showed that vibrations were a LOT less then the computer program predicted, demonstrating that the computer program over estimated what the vibrations should, showing its predictions of a vibration problem where invalid. And yes, that is exactly what test flights do, provide real world data to compare predictions against.
In other words, as you originally said, they invalidated their computer model. Thus they don’t have a computer model they can rely on, and can have no confidence in predicting the vibration environment of the actual Ares I, which will have different vibration characteristics than Ares I-X (hint: the original vibration concerns did not derive from a computer model). As I said, work on your logic.
BTW, if anyone is interested, here is a video of the Ares I chute test last month.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whPBctYHtNg&feature=related
Sorry Rand, I am not buying your spin. The evidence to date shows vibrations are not likely to be a major issue with the Ares I. The same concerns for the Ares 1 also applied to Ares 1-X and the vibrations expect just didn’t appear. Accept it.
The evidence to date shows vibrations are not likely to be a major issue with the Ares I.
Thomas, whether that’s true or not, I. Don’t. Care.
I was just pointing out your illogic. Vibration issues, even if they exist (and I have no opinion on, or interest in the matter) are the least of that program’s problems.
Ares is a system in which “success” is still guaranteed to be an economic failure. It’s incredible that anyone would thinking continuing the program was a good idea.
Ah well, economics is irrelevant when you’re spending someone else’s money, right?
Paul D. wrote:
Ah well, economics is irrelevant when you’re spending someone else’s money, right?
Even on that count Ares is a failure. Since it is spending so much of someone else’s money it can’t accomplish the program’s primary objective (a manned mission to the moon) when, without Ares, spending someone else’s money more effectively would accomplish the program’s primary objective.
Mike
Total development cost Ares 1 $30B-$50B
Total development cost Atlas V <$3B (Cost to AF $500M)
Total development cost Delta IV <$3B (Cost to AF $500M)
Total cost to NASA to develop Falcon 9 $278M
Total cost to NASA to develop Taurus II $171M
Just to put the economics of the Constellation program into perspective, take any cost related to it, and divide it by $6,000/lb, which is about what Delta IV Heavy costs for cargo. Delta IV Heavy was projected by the ULA CEO to cost $300M to launch Orion to LEO, so I’m using that price. For even more fun, use the LEO launch costs for Falcon 9 Heavy, which would be around $2,150/lb.
For instance, the price of an Ares I-X test was $445M (from Wikipedia). That would pay for 74,167 lbs of mass into LEO with Delta IV Heavy. For Falcon 9 Heavy, it would pay for 207,000 lbs of mass into LEO.
In other forums, it has been suggested that Ares I development will be a total of $16B. Some say this is way too low, but let’s use it as a comparison of what we could have done with that money had commercial launchers been used instead of either Ares I, or even Ares V.
For Delta IV Heavy, $16B will pay for 2,666,667 lbs of mass. That’s 2.6 Million Pounds. Wow.
For Falcon 9 Heavy, which may not come online until 2015 or so, $16B will pay for 7.4 Million Pounds. That’s enough for 7+ fully assembled ISS.
If the ISS has shown us anything, is that you can build really complex structures in space using a Shuttle constriction of 5m in diameter, and 50,000 lb or less. Modular construction is not the most efficient way to build spacecraft, but the trade off is that you build them quicker and cheaper. You have to overcome their added mass with more fuel, but with a robust commercial launch industry, fuel becomes a commodity item – not necessarily cheap, but plentiful.
Bottom line – with Constellation, $100B gets you a bunch of non-reusable Moon expeditions. Give me $100B, and using commercial launchers, ISS technology, and near-term technology like the LM ACES-41 system, and I’ll build a reusable space transportation system, and land astronauts on the Moon with reusable space systems. Oh, and we’ll do it quicker too.
Ron, that’s the elephant in the room. We’re just going to have to ignore your well said points and focus on the minutia.