Justin Kugler eviscerates his latest.
I find particularly bizarre the argument that we should be using the NASA budget to subsidize the Pentagon, but many supposed “conservatives” make it with a straight face.
19 thoughts on “Fisking Taylor Dinerman”
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Yes, I have heard conservatives make the exact argument that it is vital for NASA to keep using large SRBs, because the military needs them.
Except that the military never has used SRBs as big as the ones on the Shuttle. The biggest they ever used were the ones on the now-discontinued Titan IV. The solid fueled engines used on ICBMs and SLBMs are considerably smaller and it seems unlikely they’ll be building missiles larger than the Minuteman or Trident any time soon. The Peacekeeper missiles were all deactivated years ago. If they do need a larger missile, then let the DoD pay for the development.
There is exactly *one* piece of the solid rocket industrial base which needs financial support in the absence of Shuttle SRB production in order to be ready to handle future ICBM programs — supply of ammonium perchlorate. There’s a legitimate debate to have about just which agency or agencies should support that. But it is clear that that one element can be supported at a far lower price than continuing Shuttle SRB production.
Aerojet has demonstrated the ability to keep fairly substantial solid rockets (the strap-ons for Atlas V) in production without anywhere near the size of the facilities and workforce which ATK has maintained. Other than ammonium perchlorate, the other elements unique to the Shuttle SRB (PBAN, steel casings, segmented solids, and the fiber used to wind the nozzle) are unique because they are now obsolete and would not likely be used in a new solid, for military or civil use.
If the issue is support of the industrial base, pay to keep the AP in production or to keep the ability to quickly expand the production rate, stop making Shuttle SRB’s, and if there is need for new solids, compete them openly and fairly.
I don’t know about conservatives or not, but I’ve heard plenty of reputable people point out that the Shuttle program was paying for much of the LH2 industrial base and now the DoD, through ULA, is going to have to pick up the slack. I don’t debate the facts on that one.. the question is: why was NASA subsidizing DoD in the first place? Should it have been the other way around?! No wonder NASA can’t get anything done.
What exactly needs subsidizing in the liquid hydrogen industry? Hydrogen production itself occurs on a massive scale, so it would have to be the cryogenic part. But there are commercial users there as well — I sometimes see LH2 trucks on the road far from any NASA facility.
Paul D.,
I’m with you. The closest I’ve heard is that P&WR claimed that with the Shuttle shutting down they were going to have to have the RL-10 and RS-68 lines carry more of the industrial base costs…but how much of that is inherent to LOX/LH2 engines, and how much of it is P&WR choosing to let ULA take the pain rather than actually restructure operations to be more cost competitive (knowing full well that ULA is a captive customer right now with no alternatives).
~Jon
Trent —
There wasn’t any subsidy. ATK had two customers, and was splitting its costs between them. Without NASA, all the costs now get charged to DoD.
mike, what does DoD buy from ATK that had shared costs with the SRBs?
Trent –
Beats me. “Aerospace Systems” covers a multitude of sins. ATK has a product catalog on their website of better than a 100 pages; how much covers stuff actually being produced and used and how much is marketing for stuff ATK would be happy to design and sell to you escapes me.
That said, ATK seems to have half a dozen Utah plants that manufacture “aerospace systems” of whatever description, mostly military. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if NASA provided more than half that division’s income, however, so losing the Shuttle business would be a wrench.
So why did you make a definite statement if you don’t even have an argument to back it up? At least try and tell me that the GEMs might share some costs with the SRBs so I can point out how dissimilar they are.. did you hear this cost sharing theory somewhere and just accept it as fact, or did you think it up yourself?
I appreciate your honesty, but I would have much preferred or good argument, or – failing that – silence.
The Shuttle program, together with the Ares I/Liberty rocket has been considered a huge customer for Ammonium Perchlorate. About the only other significant application for this material is in the production of ICBMs, for which this chemical is nearly an ideal solution when you have a missile sitting in a silo for years or even decades and has to be fired at a moment’s notice… preferably without having to go through the step of loading the fuel first.
For some reason, that just doesn’t fit the design envelope of what is needed for a commercial cargo system to LEO, as you can take your sweet time fueling a commercial launcher but it doesn’t have to sit around for weeks or years on the launch pad.
The problem right now is that there isn’t any ICBM production going on at the moment, and therefore the factories producing this chemical are only being used essentially just for SRB production at the moment, at least by American chemical manufacturers. Small amounts are being used for air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, but those quantities are by comparison miniscule. There are some companies in China that are willing to take up the slack, however….
The main problem is that once the zombie of Constellation is finally killed once and for all and if ATK can’t find a commercial niche for their Liberty rocket, the American factories producing this chemical will have to be “mothballed” and the technicians producing this chemical are going to be terminated… potentially losing a valuable set of skills that our country genuinely does need. So as a national security issue, how can American consume this chemical in some other way that doesn’t have to impact the NASA budget? Do we mind being dependent upon the Chinese in order to be able to build missiles that will be used perhaps….against the Chinese?
There is a non trivial amount of work going on in making new Trident II stages and re-manufacturing Minuteman III stages. If you want to preserve the industrial base for ICBMs – build some ICBMs (or SLBMs).
If you are worried about volume or skills, make and test more Trident II. SRBs don’t help that much with that.
The problem is that NASA contracts have been a profit cow for many contractors. Hence the cost difference between the NASA way, the “more commercial way” and SpaceX…..
The biggest they ever used were the ones on the now-discontinued Titan IV.
Didn’t Titan use 7 segment SRBs?
I have a solution to keep all those important jobs. We just keep adding segments and never actually ignite any of them. This should keep people busy for a long time. With enough segments we can eventually just crawl up the outside right into orbit. Completely reusable since we never actually use it. Sort of like the skyscrapers in ‘Idiocracy’… we just keep adding segments.
MPM Says:
August 4th, 2011 at 6:43 am
The biggest they ever used were the ones on the now-discontinued Titan IV.
Didn’t Titan use 7 segment SRBs?
According to this article, yes it had 7 segments, at least for the initial vesion. The linked article states that the updated version had 3 segments.
Titan IV Solid Rocket Motor (SRM)
Two types of Titan IV systems are defined based on the Solid Rocket Motor (SRM) configuration used for the Launch Vehicles’ Stage 0. The first type, Titan IVA, employs two standard seven segment Solid Rocket Motors (SRMs) by Chemical Systems Division (CSD) of United Technologies Corporation. The second type, Titan IVB, employs three segment Solid Rocket Motor Upgrades (SRMUs) by Alliant, Inc. for the Stage 0.
Solid Rocket Motor (SRM)
Length: 113ft
Diameter: 10ft
Propellant: 84% PBAN
Thrust: 1,600,000lbs (7.0 MN) Vac
ISP: 271.6sec Vac
Total Impulse: 160.52×10^6lbs-sec
TVC: N2O4 Liquid Injection
Solid Rocket Motor Upgrade (SRMU)
Length: 112ft
Diameter: 11ft
Propellant: 88% HTPB
Thrust: 1,700,000lbs (7.5 MN) Vac
ISP: 285.6sec Vac
Total Impulse: 196.69×10^6lbs-sec
TVC: Gimballed Nozzle
CHARACTERISTICS: The three segment SRMU assemblies are mounted to the Titan IV Core in an arrangement similar to the Titan IV Type I SRM configuration. The SRMU is about 112 ft long and has about a 11 ft nominal inside core diameter. The total nominal weight of each SRMU is 770,673 lbs, of which 688,853 lbs is propellant.
Maybe it’s the field joint / factory joint thing? The factory joint joins two “half-segments”, so Shuttle’s 4 segment refers to 4 full segments or 8 half ones. Maybe Titan used 7 half-segments?
I don’t think ammonium perchlorate is a critical item, since phase stabilized ammonium nitrate (AN with about 2% ZnO) can deliver about 90% of ammonium perchlorate’s ISP, while not producing any dangerous chlorine compounds in the exhaust.
There is a non trivial amount of work going on in making new Trident II stages and re-manufacturing Minuteman III stages. If you want to preserve the industrial base for ICBMs – build some ICBMs (or SLBMs).
Or, perhaps keep building the solid fuel strap-on rockets for the EELVs. As this article about the Atlas V states:
Solid motors give Atlas 5 a boost
Giving the rocket an added kick off the launch pad are five solid-propellant boosters made by Aerojet. Considered the world’s longest monolithic — or single-segment — solid boosters, the motors provide the extra thrust needed to increase the Atlas 5’s payload-carrying capacity.
Each booster stands 67 feet tall, has a diameter of just over five feet and weighs 102,000 pounds at launch. The slender white rockets have a lightweight graphite epoxy casing with an erosion-resistant insulation. The solid fuel is high-performance class 1.3 HTPB propellant.
Atop the booster is an aerodynamically-shaped graphite epoxy nose fairing. Each motor has forward and aft attachment structures to the Atlas 5’s first stage. The motor nozzle is carbon-phenolic.
The motor burns for 90 seconds, producing a maximum thrust of approximately 400,000 pounds and an average of 280,000 pounds.
That’s more than big enough for an ICBM first stage.
This particular piece and others that Dinerman has written make clear that he is a right-wing propagandist rather than critical conservative thinker.