Paul Spudis wonders what might have been for the VSE. My biggest problem with it is this:
Ten years ago, we took a critical turn on the road to our future in space. We now have a reliable, sustainable launch system based on Shuttle hardware. We have no need to pay foreign countries to carry our crews into orbit.
Any launch system based on Shuttle hardware is not going to be sustainable, because it has too high a fixed operating cost. Also, there is no explanation of how our crews are getting into orbit. The only thing he talks about in terms of US launch capability is this:
As Shuttle was completing its final ISS missions, the reliable Shuttle hardware was simultaneously being developed into the new Neptune launch vehicle – an affordable Shuttle side-mount rocket that we now depend on to regularly and reliably supply our space efforts. This heavy lift vehicle, with almost 80 metric tons of capacity, has proven to be more than adequate in supplying the needs of lunar return. Since Neptune was developed entirely with existing Shuttle pieces, we were able to use the manufacturing facilities at Michoud and the vehicle-processing infrastructure at the Cape without making significant modifications. More than any other early effort of the VSE, the development of Shuttle side-mount Neptune (versus the development of a wholly new launch system) was the key decision that advanced our return to the Moon. Because Neptune was developed in parallel with the completion and retirement of the Space Shuttle, we experienced an interval of less than a year when our civil program could not send people into space.
But the link doesn’t say anything about “Neptune,” and there is no discussion of how crew gets to orbit. On Neptune? In what crew module? And does that mean you have to launch eighty tons every time you want to launch a crew? The only discussion of a “Neptune” rocket I can find is the proposal by Interorbital Systems, which certainly isn’t Shuttle derived. Why no mention of EELV? Or SpaceX? Or commercial cargo and crew?
So I find the piece a real head scratcher.
Spudis claims that two CE&R called industry alliances ( led by LockMart and Boeing) competing for original CEV design and intending to do a flyoff on top of EELVs in 2008 never existed. Enter Neptune.
Paul Spudis links to an earlier piece which itself refers to the SDHLV, a variation on Shuttle-C, which he dubbed Neptune for storytelling purposes. The crew capsule would be inside a faring atop the sidemount,
So the only way for Americans to get to orbit on an American vehicle would be with 70+ tons of payload, at a cost of over a billion per flight? I’m sure that the CAIB would be appalled.
It’s weird that these folks’ imaginations are so enslaved to the Shuttle stack. The development of manned spacecraft is too inconsequential to worry about, it’s just a thing that’ll happen naturally if you have a big launcher around. Meanwhile even a decade ago we had launchers that would work just fine for launching crew to orbit, but they had no relation to Shuttle hardware (EELV/Delta IV/Atlas V). No sane person would launch a crew on a Shuttle-C when they could just slap a capsule on an Atlas V.
But there’s no killing the intoxicating drug of the promise of the Shuttle system, despite the abundant proof from hundreds of billions of dollars spent and decades of unnecessary operation proving those promises to be at best optimistic and at worst lies. Yet somehow it makes sense that we can take the leftover components of a system that was never simple, never inexpensive, never reliable, and never safe and magically spin that hay into gold. Somehow a system that throws away the most expensive parts of the Shuttle stack, the SSMEs, every flight would be cheaper than the actual Shuttle. And somehow there is a magical advantage to keeping around a handful of SRBs and LOX/LH2 engines that were developed in the ’70s. Oh, and a fuel tank too. Because in the time since then we’ve been utterly incapable of doing better. Because somehow there’s something special and unique about the Shuttle’s ET.
This despite the fact that Boeing/MD developed a new LOX/LH2 vehicle that is pretty much superior to the Shuttle stack in every way (most especially because it doesn’t need SRBs to get off the pad). And, of course, despite the development of many other high quality launchers over the past decade that weren’t dependent on a cache of leftover components (SpaceX being the standout example of this). What is it that causes these folks to indulge in magical thinking when it comes to Shuttle components?
We can make super heavy lift launchers if we want, it’s been done successfully several times already (Saturn V, Energia, STS). But in every case they’ve proved to be extremely expensive and they become quickly abandoned once they no longer have a payload that requires their use. More importantly, they’ve never proven effective at increasing access to space compared to smaller, more conventional launchers.
Maybe it’s a resistance to admitting that the Shuttle program was a huge set back for manned spaceflight in the US. If they can imagine some core of the Shuttle program being used to make something that is, at least in their fantasy world, actually good and opens up space exploration then that provides a sort of mental pressure release valve that prevents accepting that reality.
But the Shuttle looks pretty!
Robin, you are right on target here. You’d think that the “intoxicating drug” of the Shuttle system is the least likely candidate for worship by some folks. But I guess the notion of “it’s flown in some form, it was an ‘official’ national _NASA_ project” just makes some people lose their reasoning ability.
This is particularly ironic when you go back to the Shuttle’s design history. It was basically a kludge put together under repeated pressure of budget cuts to the prospective program from Nixon’s Office of Management and Budget. Really, that any form of it got approved was more a testimony to Nixon’s desire to ensure he won California in ’72 than anything else.
Charles, you sound like Barack Obama. Everything that goes wrong can be blamed on George W. Bush — or in your case, the Space Shuttle.
You still don’t get it. The problem isn’t simply the rocket. It’s institutional. You can design a rocket any way you like. It doesn’t matter if it’s based on STS or EELV or PDQ. As soon as Congress and NASA get their hands on it, the design will start changing. Remember X-33? All the hopes you had for it? Do you remember how it turned out?
You can say that BVSE wasn’t Constellation, which isn’t SLS — but BVSE turned into Constellation, as surely as Saturday turned into Sunday.
Similarly, CCDev is evolving from a competitive fixed-price procurement under Space Act Agreements to a cost-plus monopoly under a single contractor. A few years from now, everyone at “NewSpace” will be looking at NASA’s new “commercial” launch vehicle and wondering why it isn’t cheap anymore.
Ten years ago, “NewSpace” was presented with two visions of space exploration. One was George W. Bush’s. The other was Burt Rutan’s. You chose to support Apollo again.
Suppose “NewSpace” had listened to Burt instead? Remember when you guys used to say “government should not pick winners and losers” — even if the winners are companies you like? What if you meant it? What if you had come out for prizes, tax credits, and similar incentives, which don’t interfere with markets or require NASA to pick winners and losers?
Would NASA be any farther from the Moon than it is right now? Would “Alpha Town” be any less of a reality? Would you be any worse off, any more discouraged than you are today?
If you don’t like where things are headed, it’s not too late to choose a different path.
Edward Wright wrote: “The problem isn’t simply the rocket. It’s institutional.”
Kennedy’s moon speech set the course for NASA for a decade, and once the goal outlined in the speech was accomplished a change in focus was necessary. Unfortunately, instead of downsizing dramatically and focusing on retiring R&D risk for industry like NACA, we got what we have today.
Governments will continue to be involved in space for various applications for the foreseeable future. The problem here lies with the very different mindsets required for cutting-edge research and day-to-day operations. NASA could be refocused on R&D and downsized dramatically if there was another government agency to take over the bulk of the mundane aspects of government space policy. NASA doesn’t need to spend money on launch pad facilities or downrange security (for instance) if that is the responsibility of the Space Guard.
The smaller and more focused NASA becomes, the more it would need to rely on COTS-like milestone contracts. And the pork would gravitate to the Space Guard.
But, who’s going to bell the cat?
We already have other government agencies that deal with space. DoD, AST, NSF, NOAA, NRO… Probably easier to deal with an existing agency than try to convince Congress to create a new one.
Most launch pads are owned by USAF, not NASA. NASA has the two big Shuttle pads. It’s currently trying to unload one of them.
Or we could just design launch vehicles that don’t need all that expensive government infrastructure, as Harry Stine recommended. (“Old space” heresy, I know. 🙂
If I won three or four RS-25D’s in the Mega jackpot, dropping them to the bottom of the Atlantic would not be my first thought. I would sell them to NASA, who would then drop them to the bottom of the Atlantic. You can’t have cheap spaceflight if you throw away a quarter billion dollars worth of engines on every flight. Either use really cheap engines or don’t throw the engines away.
The Shuttle stack is a very odd configuration. We sort of meandered into it because of cost constraints and performance requirements. There’s no need here to rehash the strange saga of the development of the Shuttle, since we’re all so familiar with it. The only way a Shuttle-C made sense was if it was being shuffled up amongst the regular Shuttle flights, so it would be using the same processes and facilities we were already running for the Shuttle, so the program wouldn’t have a huge cost impact on ongoing operations. As a stand alone program, it doesn’t make much sense to use such an odd configuration, especially when the components are horrendously expensive. If nothing else, they should at least put its engines in a detachable pod capable of re-entry.
Anyway, I think this all points to the inherent flaws in the way government approaches things, and the way we think when we start out with the premise of having a “space program” – singular. There are dozens of wildly different applications for crewed space vehicles and launch systems, just in the near term, but we tend to fall into the trap of thinking that meeting a dozen different applications with a dozen different vehicles is wasteful duplication, and that we should just design one vehicle that can do everything. In the early days of the Shuttle program NASA even wanted to phase out all our expendable launchers to establish a domestic space launch monopoly for their one vehicle design, to boost its flight rate.
In a thriving, competitive marketplace, you don’t end up with one overpriced vehicle, you end up with a wide array of cheap vehicles, each tailored and optimized for a niche, or taking a different approach to the same niche.
But ISS isn’t “a thriving, competitive marketplace,” even if NewSpace calls it “Alpha Town.”
ISS 2 on the Moon won’t be, either, but “NewSpace” hasn’t learned from experience. The stuff I’m hearing now about a “Lunar Port Authority” is the same stuff I heard 20 years ago. Only the location has changed.
Similarly, the billion dollar program to develop a “big lander” isn’t described. I suppose in Spudis’ reality, humans ride to the surface of the Moon on repurposed robotic landers, but that implies a multi-billion dollar annual budget for robotic precursor missions. Presumably that’s coming out of planetary science which is dead and buried. The Mars Exploration Rover program may have gotten its first mission extension in 2004, but it certainly wouldn’t have gotten five. MRO and Curiosity clearly never happened. Meanwhile, human spaceflight is all-government-all-the-time, with NASA failing to engage commercial providers. The “international” space station is almost 100% US run, with Russia unable to hold up their side of the agreement without US contributions – this could still happen, btw.
Given the gaping chasm between what the Shuttle was supposed to cost and what it actually cost, and the gulf between what the Shuttle actually cost and what SpaceX’s Falcon costs, it’s not the alternative history I’d write.
Sorry, that wasn’t actually in reply to Trent.
Well if you’re going to write your own alternative history, don’t skip over the part where you become an Internet billionaire a dump Charlize Theron for Jennifer Lawrence, because that’s what’s going to sell most of the books and get you a spot on alternate Oprah, where she might, at best, ask you one question about your manned space program.
Hard science fiction – but with more squee…
“The only way a Shuttle-C made sense was if it was being shuffled up amongst the regular Shuttle flights, ”
Spot-on. Shuttle-C only made sense in the context of flying it alongside the Orbiter to minimize any infrastructure and logistics concerns. It was growth-limited to aroudn 90 tons.
You should be able to get 70+ tons out of a Falcon Heavy Crossfeed with a Hydralox upper if you really want to go there.
Frankly, my guess for Elon to take the next step will be a two-stage single-core methalox system that is fully reusable and can put around 50MT, basically replicating the performance of the expendable version of the current Falcon Heavy crossfeed, in orbit and he will not sink money into putting a hydralonx upper stage on the Falcon Heavy. I get the impression that he REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wants to avoid Hydrogen the way MacArthur wanted to avoid Japanese strong points in the South Pacific.
Build the best damn Methalox booster ever and build it agressively. That is my guess as to the first move in his MCT plans.
I wonder if the power and ISP of a cluster of Raptors and a stretched 1st stage for the MCT could produce a robust SSTO RLV with a useable payload in the 5-10MT range as a side-project? Hmmm…….. That would kind of kick the whole Skylon concept in the nuts wouldn’t it?
Of course, all of this stuff is obvious to everyone except NASA/congress. It’s crazy how people insist on falling prey to the biggest mistakes of past manned space exploration, such as using super heavy lift rockets.
Look at the Apollo stack, for example, it wasn’t monolithic, it was actually 5 components (CM, SM, LM ascent/descent stage, SIVB) with by far the most mass taken up by the propellants. If NASA actually cared about manned spaceflight they would have long since funded a demonstration mission for orbital fuel depots. It’s the sort of thing that can be done with a small satellite in LEO just using ullage motors to pump liquid nitrogen back and forth between tanks, while also monitoring long term boil off rates. Insulated tanks, sun shades, and even active cryogenic coolers are all fairly straightforward technology. If you can do that with LN2 then you can do the same with LOX and LCH4, which have even higher boiling points.
A valuable datapoint here is the operation of the WISE IR space telescope, operating in LEO (525 km altitude). After the primary coolant for the telescope ran out it operated in passive cooling mode, at which point the telescope’s optics warmed up to 74K. Lower than the temperature needed to maintain LN2 and much lower than needed to maintain LOX or LCH4.
It’s not hard to imagine a propellant depot system where the refueling component is entirely reusable, which would enable propellant deliveries to orbit at costs of $1M/tonne or less, and end-to-end costs of propellant delivered to assembled spacecraft of only a small multiple of that. Meaning that for $1 billion you could have at least 500 tonnes of propellant usable for a manned spacecraft, which is enough to send a 200+ tonne spacecraft to Mars, much larger than anything even remotely conceivable with a single launcher. Which gives you a huge degree of flexibility in terms of mission architecture and so on. Compare that to SLS or Shuttle-C which gives you maybe 20-40 tonnes towards Mars per launch at a cost of several billion dollars.
It seems that Musk is going to build a BFR but one on his own terms. i am wondering if there is a way to leverage the 1st stage into a SSTO
It also seems to this non Aerospace Engineer that if you can develop a practical SSTO, the most mass efficient payload for the given structure would be residual propellant as all you would really need is stretched tanks. No building heavy payload interfacy bits on top of the stage, just some way to interface to it and pump the prop and oxidizer out and into the depot or a transfer vehicle.
It would seem prop and SSTO might go together like peas n carrots a Forrest Gump would say.
There would have to be enough extra mass considered for the heat shield or some other heat mitigation technology and the Landing Gear would have to be beefed-up handle the extra stage mass but perhaps, it might not be a bridge too far.
I have a sneaking supsicion that this guy Dimitri has hit pretty close to the mark as this is almost exactly what i had floating in my mind’s eye. A bigger, fatter Falcon 9.
http://s020.radikal.ru/i716/1312/6a/f039ca09e8cd.png
Now stretch the 1st stage!
Oh, and as long as the structure can handle it, prop don’t give a damn about high g loading either! Unlike people or some fancy gizmo.
Spudis himself has said (in another article) that heavy lift is “not the long term solution.”
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1334
So, he wants the US to invest billions in developing this side-mount monsters, which it will use for… how long?
Of course the article, from 2009, contains the usual nonsense about the “futility” of developing reusable launch vehicles.
Ed, of course I blame the institutions, I can’t count the number of ways and times I’ve said that. Have I not said enough times that NASA was made as an Apollo cold-war competition machine, and we’ve been living with the “rump” of the institutional momentum screwing up things ever since? Or the equivalent.
25 or more yrs ago I said that the solution to the problem of space access was 90% psychology, 10% technology. And NASA, the contractors and pols who eat its pork are the perpetrators of the useless psychology. Not that they had to do much along those lines after Apollo burned the wrong psychology into inter/national consciousness neigh on 50 years ago.
You are really seeing shadows on the wall Ed, but they’re not mine.
Then, why spend so much time and energy trying to micromanage NASA’s launch programs?
You seem to recognize that CCDev is headed for a train wreck (as Wayne Hale predicted), but your newsletter is devoted mainly to bemoaning the fact that Congress isn’t putting enough coal on the fire. At some point, doesn’t it make sense to start thinking about Track B?