I was hoping I’d be back in California in time to attend the AIAA meeting this coming week in Pasadena, because it looks like it will have some very interesting (and perhaps politically explosive) technical papers. As Clark Lindsey notes, the United Launch Alliance has apparently been spending a lot of IR&D on some (up to now) politically incorrect ideas. They’ve developed a complete lunar architecture concept that uses only EELVs and derivatives of them for depots and landers (though they note that other launchers could complement it as well).
As Clark did, I’m going to repeat the introduction from Frank Zegler’s paper, in particular:
The present ESAS architecture for lunar exploration is dependent on a large launcher. It has been assumed that either the ARES V or something similar, such as the proposed Jupiter “Direct” lifters are mandatory for serious lunar exploration. These launch vehicles require extensive development with costs ranging into the tens of billions of dollars and with first flight likely most of a decade away. In the end they will mimic the Saturn V programmatically: a single-purpose lifter with a single user who must bear all costs. This programmatic structure has not been shown to be effective in the long term. It is characterized by low demonstrated reliability, ballooning costs and a glacial pace of improvements.
The use of smaller, commercial launchers coupled with orbital depots eliminates the need for a large launch vehicle. Much is made of the need for more launches- this is perceived as a detriment. However since 75% of all the mass lifted to low earth orbit is merely propellant with no intrinsic value it represents the optimal cargo for low-cost, strictly commercial launch operations. These commercial launch vehicles, lifting a simple payload to a repeatable location, can be operated on regular, predictable schedules. Relieved of the burden of hauling propellants, the mass of the Altair and Orion vehicles for a lunar mission is very small and can also be easily carried on existing launch vehicles. This strategy leads to high infrastructure utilization, economic production rates, high demonstrated reliability and the lowest possible costs.
This architecture encourages the exploration of the moon to be conducted not in single, disconnected missions, but in a continuous process which builds orbital and surface resources year by year. The architecture and vehicles themselves are directly applicable to Near Earth Object and Mars exploration and the establishment of a functioning depot at earth-moon L2 provides a gateway for future high-mass spacecraft venturing to the rest of the solar system.
Frank would probably never have been able to publish a paper like this when he was at Lockheed, which still has a major stake in Orion, and the Boeing people are similarly constrained for now, as long as they hold out hope for continuation of their upper-stage work on Ares I. But Frank is at ULA now, and ULA owes NASA nothing, particularly after having their launchers spurned when Griffin came in. That, combined with the fact that Ares’, and indeed Constellation itself’s blood is in the water means that they can come out boldly with the kind of innovation that NASA has been avoiding for over four years, and kick Constellation while it’s down. If we get back to the moon with a NASA program, it’s going to look a lot more like this than the current plans.
[Update a few minutes later]
Chris Bergen also has an extensive summary of the proposal.
For this price, NASA could do both the flexible path and the moon.
But if the going gets hard, would this default to flag and footprints?
What is the incorporated plan for getting resources off the moon and selling them? Where is the long term business model?
“What is the incorporated plan for getting resources off the moon and selling them? Where is the long term business model?”
If that’s to happen, it’ll be up to businesses, not NASA. But they’ll be starting with a transportation architecture that would lend itself to their needs (and more modifiable, where it doesn’t) better than Constellation as currently planned, possibly could.
(However, the Chris Bergen link doesn’t seem to work…)
Yes by all means please unleash ULA! They have put forth some very creative commercial based concepts that demonstrate we can do much more than what the short sighted ISS, LEO oriented, tunnel vision A-panel has put forth.
This link works:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/09/ula-claim-gap-reducing-solution-via-eelv-exploration-master-plan/
LEO is not such a bad place – low radiation, good communication easy to get to, easy to get back from. It is a fairly ideal place for space base camps.
Imagine if NASA had 10,000 people living and working in LEO by now, ~million dollars per person per year equivalent on their current budget – sufficient I would think.
Space settlement is somewhat destination and even insitu resource independent (though insitu resources would be nice). So maybe the focus should be on just doing it.
An interesting number: A US citizen uses enough hydrocarbons in 3 months to put them in orbit (assuming propellant only, world average is ~12 months). If they had to bring a self sufficient home with them, maybe this would go up to five years worth of carbon – still, five years till a zero carbon footprint is not that bad. And with insitu resources this could be much less.
LEO is not such a bad place – low radiation, good communication easy to get to, easy to get back from.
I’ve never understood the whole “LEO is a dump” meme. As far as I can tell, *none* of the people who go around crying “we’ve been stuck in LEO for decades” and “we need to go someplace [cooler]” have *ever* been in LEO, much less stuck there for decades.
Of course, suborbital is even easier — and the meme is even more condescending toward that.
It seems that the easier a place is to get to, the less they like it. We refuse to reduce the cost of space and choose to go to the Moon instead, not because it is easy but because it is hard.
But if you believe that, wouldn’t it make sense to skip the Moon and just head straight to Alpha Centauri? That would be much, much harder.
But if you believe that, wouldn’t it make sense to skip the Moon and just head straight to Alpha Centauri? That would be much, much harder.
Besides that’s the only peaceful way to win the game. Protip: once you’re on route to Alpha Centauri maximize your food production and switch all your scientists to entertainers. That’ll boost your final score.
Of course, suborbital is even easier — and the meme is even more condescending toward that.
LEO is kind of the minimum condition for space settlement, though suborbital is a useful step in that direction.
Edward, this is just a quibble, but some shuttle astronauts say “we’ve been stuck in LEO for decades.” And then there is Buzz Aldrin, who also says it, and says we should skip going back to the moon too. And yet, Aldrin isn’t against off-earth settlements – he just says people should settle Mars. (And for that matter, Aldrin co-authored a novel about traveling to Alpha Centauri too, so maybe you’re on to something.)
Edward, this is just a quibble, but some shuttle astronauts say “we’ve been stuck in LEO for decades.
Well, I know Jerry Linenger wrote a book whining about his trip to Mir, but he’s the only one I can think of. Most of them come back talking about how wonderful space is.
And then there is Buzz Aldrin, who also says it, and says we should skip going back to the moon too.
Buzz has never told me that I should skip the Moon. Of course, no one has offered me trip to the Moon — and besides, I’ve never been to the Moon, so I can’t go “back” there. 🙂
And yet, Aldrin isn’t against off-earth settlements – he just says people should settle Mars.
Publicly, yes, but he was also one of the first people who told me about what’s now called “the flexible path.” It’s sometimes hard to figure out how Buzz’s various views and statements fit together.
Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that astronauts didn’t enjoy LEO (other than, as you say, perhaps their experience with Mir.) I was just quibbling, in that many astronauts who enjoyed LEO have said they are more than ready for NASA to send people elsewhere. But I’m sure LEO would be lots of fun.
I spent all evening reading these papers, and let me say I’m impressed. It’s the first well-thought-out, well-explained near-term depot architecture I’ve seen that presents compelling arguments that override every one of the drawbacks that easily spotted.
I don’t buy the assumed ease and lack of weight penalty for systems that enable docking multiple different ACES /competitor stages to a single ACES depot, but it’s a fairly minor point.
The clincher for me is the fact that the ACES is being built anyway.
The double clincher is that the fuel depots are the same as the upper stage ACES is the same as the EDS is the same as the TEI stage.
The triple clincher is the “excess” performance of the ACES for TLI providing additional fuel in L2 for the next trip.
And the thing that kept running through my head as I read it was, “you know, this actually sounds like it would be pretty safe…and pretty simple… and available pretty soon.”
Knock this one out of the park, ULA
(sigh)
And Ed and Rand, you were right…
I suspect it is not so much where you go as what you do when you get there that matters.
That we have not accomplished reasonable space settlement growth in LEO probably makes it even less likely that we would accomplish it on the Moon or Mars.
Space settlement is probably most easily started in LEO. Being close to Earth is probably far more important for initial space settlement developments – large mostly self sufficient habitats with all their associated systems need developing – big job, lots of people. Extra terrestrial resources can come later – maybe just robotic extra terrestrial resource fetching ships.
The ISS is no more a data point for LEO space settlement than the shuttle is for low cost access to space. The LEO launches required for a sustained lunar base could sustain a much much larger space settlement in LEO that actually developed the great many things that first need to be developed before we can sensibly go elsewhere. What could the ULA similarly accomplish in an LEO base camp?
One interesting line near the end of the “Atlas and Delta Capabilities to Launch Crew to Low Earth Orbit” paper is a reference to both vehicles being used to launch humans into space.
“Though we assume Orion on Delta IV, and commercial crew capsules on Atlas, the difference in human rating is intrinsic to the launch vehicles, and not to assumed differences in human rating requirements.”
I really really really like this part of their proposal. I don’t like putting all our eggs into one basket, and too many Big Government programs do that. Having two different launchers ensures that if one type is grounded after an accident, as the Shuttle was after Challenger and Columbia, the other can keep flying to support ongoing operations.
(Hell, if there had been two different launchers proposed for Orion, the Stick and an EELV, then the five-segment solid would have been abandoned two years ago when engineers realized the damned thing wasn’t going to work as planned. But the Stick was a case of “too early to tell, but too late to change” …)
I like the rest of their proposal, too.
One thing that caught my eye was the discussion of how suborbital vehicles are useful for providing several minutes of microgravity for testbeds of zero gee cryogen handling technology.
An interesting number: A US citizen uses enough hydrocarbons in 3 months to put them in orbit (assuming propellant only, world average is ~12 months).
And the last I checked, the per capita rate of primary energy use in the US is around 10 kilowatts. This is roughly 2e13 joules over someone’s life. If we assign a person a mass of 100 kilograms, that’s enough energy to accelerate them to several tenths of a percent of the speed of light. Of course much more mass is needed besides that of bodies, but it shows that “generation ship” interstellar travel is not too outrageously expensive from an energy point of view.
LEO boring….don’t get me wrong I would love to travel to LEO, sub-orbital even a ride in the now defunct SST. However I was there on X-mas eve back in the sixties watching BW TV Apollo 8. The “Earth Rise” photo I think speaks for itself. Those who experienced that mission live know what I’m referring to. Nothing that we’ve done in space since 72 can convey those feelings of spiritual destiny. While I applaud the logic of the space program ULA has outlined. What I’m truly referring to goes well beyond the mechanics, science or politics of it all. Those who where to young sadly missed out. I all can say is deep space is where it’s truly at…the human presence out there beyond LEO is uniquely transcending.
LEO boring….don’t get me wrong I would love to travel to LEO, sub-orbital even a ride in the now defunct SST. However I was there on X-mas eve back in the sixties watching BW TV Apollo 8. The “Earth Rise” photo I think speaks for itself. Those who experienced that mission live know what I’m referring to. Nothing that we’ve done in space since 72 can convey those feelings of spiritual destiny,
That’s exactly what I mean. You compare *going into space* with watching teevee and looking at pictures of the Moon! That’s like saying going to Yellowstone won’t fulfill your spiritual destiny as much as staying home and watching a Travel Channel documentary about Africa.
Those who where to young sadly missed out. Those who where to young sadly missed out. I all can say is deep space is where it’s truly at…the human presence out there beyond LEO is uniquely transcending.
But you aren’t talking about presence beyond LEO. You’re talking about an experience you had while sitting in your living room.
As for the young “missing out” — how so? They probably watch more television than you did. With DVDs and the Internet, they can watch Apollo astronauts any time they like.
What they’re missing out on is not the chance to watch television programs about space, it’s the chance to *go* into space — the same thing the Apollo generation missed out on.
If space travel is not important and all we care about is watching pictures on television, NASA doesn’t need to build any rockets for that. CGI works just fine.
Edward, I’m not dismissing your point about personally going to space. However, when you dismiss Doug’s comment, you’re discounting the experience of knowing what you are watching on TV is live and real. I think those two aspects of a broadcast are independently meaningful to most people. I think you could make your perfectly good argument sharper by avoiding a dismissal of people’s satisfaction with each of those aspects.
Also, similar to the chickenhawk fallacy, there is nothing wrong with Joe Blow supporting activities in which people voluntarily do beneficial things that Joe would rather watch on TV (because Joe is scared of getting killed.)
you’re discounting the experience of knowing what you are watching on TV is live and real. I think those two aspects of a broadcast are independently meaningful to most people.
The television networks don’t seem to believe that’s important (unless you consider “reality” shows to be real). Live television is almost dead.
there is nothing wrong with Joe Blow supporting activities in which people voluntarily do beneficial things that Joe would rather watch on TV
That’s true, as long as Joe Blow pays for his own entertainment, but does the government have an obligation to spend billions of dollars on Joe’s entertainment? And if so, isn’t that the job of PBS, rather than NASA?
isn’t that the job of PBS, rather than NASA? nope, the job of PBS is giving sinecures to socialists who can’t hack a 9 to 5.
Watching the Apollo reruns are actually depressing for me as was my recent trip to the Cape “abandon in place”. Apollo go for ” TLI” was an “in the moment experience” that phrase still gives me chills. When I look up at the moon now I imagine the deserted landing sites, the empty footprints and I sense a destiny unfulfilled. A generation that failed to get err done…mine!
Perhaps the lure of LEO experience is different for current generations. Now I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to go. But I think I would find myself peering out at the moon more than looking back at the earth. For those who sensed and shared in the deep space experience of the past LEO is a hollow slap in the face.
Now I agree I was not physically there on Apollo…however at the time I knew my turn was not far off. I would soon be out there beyond LEO with others working and exploring…..well forty years later I’m still waiting and I know time is running out for me. I could however at least “kick the bucket” knowing my grandchildren and the rest of humanity will have the opportunity I missed. Knowing we have not lost the urge and the will to explore to go outward.
When I see what ULA is purposing I get that feeling again, very much like peering into the old “view-master” project Apollo images back in the early sixties I sense something could be brewing. It’s been a long time maybe now at long last….humanity GO FOR TLI!
For those who sensed and shared in the deep space experience of the past LEO is a hollow slap in the face.
That may be true, but the handful of Apollo astronauts who shared that experience do not constitute a significant voting block, or even a representative cross-section of America. (That’s something that I think Buzz tends to forget.)
Now I agree I was not physically there on Apollo…however at the time I knew my turn was not far off. I would soon be out there beyond LEO with others working and exploring…..
Exactly. That was the problem. NASA gave people the impression that they were working to bring that about — and they weren’t.
Nor is ULA. I don’t want to sound too critical, because there architecture is an *enormous* improvement over Constellation. Even if it fails, it has far less potential to do harm, and it’s much more likely to succeed. Nevertheless, capsules and ELVs are still, as Jerry Pournelle once elloquently put it, “a g-d d–m dead end.”
What will make it possible for you to go beyond LEO is not what ULA’s proposing, it’s the reusable vehicles that Moonies and Marsies will no doubt continue to scorn because they’re only suborbital and do not yet have the Warp Five engine.
ULA’s proposal looks very good to me. The Earth to LEO part may not be reusable but the rest mostly is – upper stages perhaps would be (stages, depot tanks, habitat space).
It would build a higher flight rate market, which will be good for reusable launch vehicles. It would slow the payload growth of launch vehicles, that keeps putting markets out of the reach of small reusable vehicles. It is an architecture that can somewhat smoothly build and transition to reusable launch vehicles.
The ULA proposal would seem to well bridge the launcher gap between expendable and reusable space programs. Personally, I would also like to see a similar approach taken for LEO, perhaps growing along side their LEO depots – but I am not sure I would trust NASA to fund that. Too much ISS and shuttle history there – my hopes for LEO are with the commercial sector.
Perhaps the more benign requirements of in-space vehicles (vs. launch vehicles) will be a foot in the door for private companies. They can solve a subset of the problems facing RLVs while doing profitable business, and tackle the remaining problems of launch from Earth’s surface further down the line.
Of course they need a ride, but at least there’s SpaceX.
What will make it possible for you to go beyond LEO is not what ULA’s proposing, it’s the reusable vehicles that Moonies and Marsies will no doubt continue to scorn because they’re only suborbital and do not yet have the Warp Five engine.
Talk about overstatement.
I’ll bet you a twelvepack of InBev’s finest that whenever the first manned commercial SSTO is born it uses an engine with an ISP greater than 1000s.
I just don’t see a realistic scenario where a 300 or even 450s engine can get a vehicle with significant payload to orbit, especially if it has to survive reentry…and especially if it doesn’t have unlimited governement budgets for development.
Reusability does not necessitate SSTO.
It is quite unlikely a reusable launch vehicle would be a SSTO – while technically possible it is not economically optimal. SSTO is just not necessary, and is a waste of rocket.