Transterrestrial Musings

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Two minor nits and one big one. . .

(1) Our ability to extract lunar water in a practical manner remains unproven. Once it is demonstrated that lunar hydrogen is easily mined then, IMHO, a substantial lunar presence makes terrific sense.

Otherwise the moon may be more of a distraction.

(2) Launch costs are NOT $10,000 per pound.

SeaLaunch is way below that today and the most recent Proton sale approaches $1,000 per pound to LEO.

Orbiter may be $10,000 per pound to LEO but using orbiter for lift is just stupid.

Economy of scale for Delta IV is unproven and Boeing's ability to make enough EELV to sustain a robust exploration program as well as DoD needs is unclear. Besides, Boeing & Lockmart might well be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

BIG NIT - -

By using orbiter to finish ISS, the Bush plan is downright leisurely in getting us into the exploration phase of Constellation.

I say either cancel ISS/STS today and move immediately into EELV based Project Constellation = or = finish shuttle C and use SDV to complete ISS and then use SDV to throw larger payloads to moon.

Whether EELV will be cheaper than SDV in the long run is uncertain at best.

If ISS completion is cancelled today, then to cancel STS today and move to EELV does make sense to me. But to pay billions for STS and orbiter to finish ISS and then abandon STS infrastructure in 2010 or 2011 is just stupid.

Shuttle upgrades will cost almost a billion alone.

Why buy new tires for a car headed to the junkyard?

Posted by Bill White at April 2, 2004 01:50 PM

Shuttle upgrades will cost almost a billion alone

Aside from MEDS, what shuttle upgrades are still planned?

Posted by Duncan Young at April 2, 2004 02:07 PM

Rand,

Interesting testimony by Paul. Most of it was very insightful and accurate. The only nit I'd have to pick is that using lunar hydrogen for fuel seems like quite a waste. Lunar oxygen is plentiful, but the hydrogen should be reserved for more important uses. As it is, for LOX/LH2 systems, between 80-90% of the propellant mass is the LOX anyhow, so even if they didn't provide all the fuel, it could greatly simplify cis-lunar travel.

~Jon

Posted by Jonathan Goff at April 2, 2004 02:26 PM

Mea culpa - - 2/3rds of a billion dollars for shuttle return to flight

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_aerospacedaily_story.jsp?id=news/mil04024.xml

Big question - How is the orbiter going to fly 25 times between now and 2010 when we always need a 2nd orbiter ready to fly within 90 days to comply with CAIB?

Design an operational tempo consistent with 2 orbiters being flight ready at all times and then fly 25 times in 5 years. How?

What if something else breaks?

= = =

IMHO its either deploy SDV or cancel ISS or delay orbiter retirement.

Posted by Bill White at April 2, 2004 02:32 PM

Great speech. However, considering recent near-misses, it might have been productive if he'd mentioned that the more cis-lunar (and beyond) space infrastructure we have, the better prepared we'll be if we ever need to deflect/destroy an asteroid or comet impactor. (Coward that I am, this is sufficient reason unto itself to justify space infrastructure development.)

Posted by David A. Young at April 2, 2004 03:11 PM

Read the other witness testimonies at that hearing. There is some interesting stuff in there:

-Helium-3 may not exist in large quantities at all and may be very hard to mine.

-ice may not exist in large quantities and even if it does, may be hard to mine.

Overall, I thought that the witnesses threw some cold water on the subject of lunar resource utilization. But read their testimonies, which are all generally short.

Posted by Dwayne A. Day at April 2, 2004 03:26 PM

Design an operational tempo consistent with 2 orbiters being flight ready at all times and then fly 25 times in 5 years. How?
And factor in the seasonal limits on daytime launch windows - it seems that it's really is 25 launches in 2 to 3 years!

Somethings gotta give. I suggest the 2010 deadline - but conversion to shuttle-C is also a good idea.

Posted by Duncan Young at April 2, 2004 03:36 PM

Although - hell, if you have to have a shuttle on stand by at the end of a ISS launch season - they might as well have it prepped for a Hubble service mission...

Posted by Duncan Young at April 2, 2004 03:43 PM

What struck me about the testimony were the political implications. If lunar water ice (if it exists at all) is locked up in only a few impact craters, and the productive number is further limited by the existance of constant sunlight, then we are talking about a very limited number of ideal sites (I have only found mention of six presently identified sites).

What this means is that we may be doing a pretty good job of not advertising the next space race. As much as Bush and O'Keefe may want to refer to exploration as a "journey" (and rightfully so from the international/public relations perspective), the fact is that we will be setting precedents for how to deal with celestial resources. While scientists are skipping along on their journey of peaceful exploration "for the benefit of all mankind", private interets will be racing to position themselves within what may be a very limited market.

Previously lunar resources have been discussed in a general sense that gave the listener the impression that one could just set down anywhere on the surface, stake out a claim, and start reaping the rewards of lunar living. It will be very interesting to see how policymakers, both domestically and internationally, start responding if it becomes clear that control over the lunar oases will be necessary to make lunar activities economically viable.

Posted by Nathan Horsley at April 2, 2004 03:54 PM

Duncan - my thoughts are to use shuttle B (which is exactly like C only with RS-68 engines) to carry 2 ISS payloads per flight. Loft multiple shuttle B missions into stable orbit not too close and noit too far from ISS.

Then send up one orbiter and have it shuttle back and forth delivering ISS componets for assembly. Maybe five ISS components get delivered and installed per orbiter flight.

The money we will save by NOT extending the 2010 deadline will offset the R&D for shuttle B. 8 shuttle B flights + 8 orbiter flights = 24 ISS
payload deliveries. If you can park 2 shuttle B in LEO and then send a 3rd shuttle B with one orbiter for "last mile" delivery you save even more missions.

Spend exactly what President Bush proposes yet come 2010, you have a proven SDV sytem with multiple flights under its belt.

Posted by Bill White at April 2, 2004 03:58 PM

Other witnesses differ as to availability of lunar water.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/April04/Campbell.testimony.deb.html

= = =

However, Campbell told the committee, "While perhaps unlikely, the possibility still exists that there are thick ice deposits in the bottoms of some shaded impact craters at the lunar poles." There are definitely higher concentrations of hydrogen at the lunar poles compared with other areas of the moon, he said, "but both its origin -- and its current form -- hydrogen, ice or hydrated minerals -- is a topic of considerable discussion in the relevant scientific community."

He warned that "before we spend too much time making plans for exploiting water resources on the moon, we should determine whether there are any recoverable deposits of water, in what form -- distributed at low concentrations in the lunar soil or in concentrated deposits -- of what type -- ice or hydrated minerals -- and how accessible."

= = =

Mars has huge proven reserves of ice. ;-)

Posted by Bill White at April 2, 2004 05:39 PM

Mr. Goff noted that "The only nit I'd have to pick is that using lunar hydrogen for fuel seems like quite a waste. Lunar oxygen is plentiful, but the hydrogen should be reserved for more important uses. As it is, for LOX/LH2 systems, between 80-90% of the propellant mass is the LOX anyhow, so even if they didn't provide all the fuel, it could greatly simplify cis-lunar travel."

The Congressional testimonies had estimates on the amount that included 10 billion tons of water and 2 billion tons of hydrogen.

Assuming that we extract one billion tons of hydrogen over the next 100 years for use, that would require (with a wee allowance for leakage) about 27,000 tons average recovered per day every day for the next 100 years. If we haven't figured out how to tap the asteroids 50 years from now for hydrogen then we're pretty hopeless. The CEV design has to incorporate such factors as short trips to asteroids, perhaps from EML-1, but certainly trans-LEO.

If you exclude the use of hydrogen for rocket fuel, then you exclude a significant interest group from your efforts. Keeping it solely for lunar base water and scientific samples is not a good strategy - allowing its use as rocket fuel is a huge enabler for cislunar development.

The strategy is to design an infrastructure that works for all interests, commercial as well as scientific. Storing water at EML-1 will allow for much for frequent travel to GEO, which is just where we're putting our next Sun Watcher, as well as have a large number of commercial satellites and over 600 metric tonnes of dead junk just waiting to be cleaned up. Storing hydrogen at EML-1 will allow for quick trips to passing asteroids of interest. It must be made available for fuel.

Not doing so will slowly strangle the space program before it can truly develop, even if there is hydrogen on Mars. That's one supply line I certainly wouldn't trust for the near future. Why go all the way to Mars for it when it's right here in our backyard?

The resources of space are for everyone, not just scientists. They're just going to have to make room in the sandbox for other folks as well. The most resource-rich sandbox that humanity has ever known.

Posted by ken murphy at April 2, 2004 06:25 PM

Bill: Re: shuttle-B
Intriguing idea - but I'm not sure the orbiter has that much delta-vee (especially once you factor in the now mandatory flight-round), and a lot of those components require orbiter systems for thermal control en route to the station.

Posted by Duncan Young at April 2, 2004 07:39 PM

Duncan, I agree there are problems and issues.

Perhaps a shuttle B/C on Pad 39A and an orbiter on Pad 39B is the best we can do if payloads cannot be left on orbit for weeks or months. But 1 B/C plus 1 orbiter still saves orbiter missions at what - - $500 million to $1 billion each?

Via google and chats on other forums, I believe B/C could carry 2 ISS payloads by volume and 3 ISS payloads by mass or weight. The trusses are a problem due to volume, those need to go one at a time but two ESA modules (for example) fit nicely in a B/C cargo bay.

B/C carries two hab modules and the orbiter carries a truss. Three payloads per orbiter mission.

IF the various modules need support (thermal and electrical) add the needed systems to the B/C cargo module to support the ISS payloads and IF the orbiter isnt powerful enough for a short hop to recover B/C and drag to ISS then add OMS engines to the B/C to assist in transit to ISS.

Remember that the B/C payload module would be built on the existing orbiter tooling so it will be very much like the orbiter, just disposable and less expensive. And given the high cost of every orbiter mission we have a big budget to play within.

The orbiter tooling all exists today and complete engineering and a full mock up has already been completed. SDV is NOT starting from scratch.

8 B/C missions means 16 less orbiter missions. 16! Those savings can be applied to pay for lots and lots of better stuff.

If we fly 3 joint missions (B/C plus orbiter) in 2007, 2008 and 2009 that means 27 ISS payload deliveries before 2010 with each orbiter flying only once per year.

If worthwhile, the OMS engines on B/C can be recovered, along with the payload bay support hardware and landed in orbiter payload bay.

Also, the extra mass capability on B/C allows significant extra supplies (food, water, batteries, clean laundry, etc. . .) to be carried along with the 2 ISS payloads.

= = =

Here is an even more wild idea!

Take an orbiter and swap out the attitude control jets for a re-fillable cold gas system (like X-38) or something else that can last on orbit for years, not weeks. Replace the battery system with something space hardened and add a re-fueling pipe to the OMS fuel tank.

Strip off all the tiles and landing gear and clip the wings. Send her up, never to come down, except into the south Pacific.

Shuttle B/C could easily carry extra fuel for the orbiter OMS engines and spare parts and cold gas re-charges and then we leave a space hardened orbiter attached to ISS for as long as it can function.

Better than the Smithsonian, IMHO.

Posted by Bill White at April 2, 2004 08:08 PM

Teh $500 million to 1Bn per Orbiter flight estimate you give is misleading. You are basically dividing the programatic costs by the number of flights.

It is going to cost us over $1BN per orbiter this year just to keep them on the ground.

The cost of flight is basically the fuel/ET and SRB sets. I think Rand once said that is like $50 to $75 million per flight.

So it costs say $3BN per year to leave them in the Hangar keeping everyone on the payroll and $3.3BN to actually fly them 4 or 5 times per year.

Posted by Mike Puckett at April 2, 2004 08:28 PM

Whether it's a highly-paid Mercenary or a uniformed grunt getting his hazard pay cut, the death of any American citizen in a foreign conflict touches us all. We should agree on this.

And we should remember the fallen - all of the fallen, be they Soldier or Soldier of Fortune.

But I ask only this:

Please remember that some of the fallen first took a solemn vow to defend our Constitution and our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They sacrificed their lives and their sacred honor for us. Think of that when you're tying a yellow ribbon around the tree.

For all the rest, use a green ribbon.

Posted by sun zoo at April 2, 2004 11:40 PM

SUN ZOO,

You posted the wrong thread.

Posted by Mike Puckett at April 3, 2004 07:12 AM

Fair enough, Mike. Shuttle cost accounting is damn tricky, ;-)

So, what would the incremental cost difference be to fly 9 B/C missions plus 9 orbiter missions instead of 27 orbiter missions?

Posted by Bill White at April 3, 2004 08:43 AM

Bill,

I believe the shuttle B/C/Z/Whatever needs to be developed for future missions but other than a massive re-supply/re-boost transfer vehicle role, I don't see how you could use it to deploy current ISS modules as they are so closely integrated into the orbiter and must be man assembled to the station.

Like a previous poster stated, I don't think an orbiter could loiter long enough to hook up three modules not to mention the work load on the shuttle crew to integrate so many parts in a short time frame.

Posted by Mike Puckett at April 3, 2004 11:06 AM

QUICK!!! Somebody call Jeff Bell!!!! The debris of Deth is back and crinkling against the ISS at PRECISELY the same spot as its sibling hit several months ago!

I say its Zeta Reticulan Gremlins crusing beer cans on the hull myself!

http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/stories/2004a/spacestoryN0403ISS.htm

Posted by Mike Puckett at April 3, 2004 11:13 AM

Mike, just so you know I am not an obsessed SDV fanatic, let me admit that you might very well be correct. Perhaps it would be impossible to deliver ISS paylaods via shuttle B/C for reasons of payload management and the ability of the orbiter to remain "on orbit" long enough to install three modules per mission.

I just don't know, except to say that shuttle C was designed to closely mimic the orbiter payload bay and the ISS does have its own robotic arm, correct?

And, shuttle B/C is a necessary evolutionary step towards adding a cryogenic upper stage and Ares class HLLV.

= = =

If you are correct, then the original question stands unanswered - - how the heck are we going to finish ISS by 2010 or 2011 only with orbiter and with CAIB requirements for limited launch windows and having 2 orbiters flight ready for all missions?

Suppose we extend STS operations by a few years - - how much will that cost? And that will include ALL the fixed overhead as well as actual flight costs. A few billion for each year of STS extension, correct?

I say lets give shuttle B/C a good close look to help finish ISS before 2010 before tossing the idea.

In the alternative, lets re-visit scrapping the whole thing - - STS & ISS - - effective immediately and discharge the entire standing army effective January 2005, and turn to EELV.

One scenario: This is exactly what Bush & O'Keefe intend, only they do it AFTER the election.

= = =

X-38 is looking mighty sweet as an alternate safe haven. Suppose an X-38 were magically attached to ISS by December 2004.

There would be NO need for a 2nd orbiter to be flight ready to comply with CAIB. If an orbiter arrived at ISS and needed to be abandoned, a crew of six could return to Earth via X-38.

This would allow orbiter operational tempos to NOT be constrained by the need for having TWO orbiters flight ready. If we knock an entire year off ISS completion (by being able to fly as less restricted flight schedule) that would save more than enough money to deploy X-38 with hundreds of millions of dollars left over.

Posted by Bill White at April 3, 2004 01:12 PM

Except the only X-38 is a mothballed 80% sub scale prototype and cannot carry a full shuttle crew.

I think we could easily finish ISS in 5 years with the orbiters if we shift crew transfer to ISS and some cargo functions to the ESA ATV and private providers.

Remember, the second orbiter on standby can also be configured to have an ISS cargo on board and take its turn next in the que if it is not needed as a rescue mission. It has to got to go (proabally got to ISS) anyway if there is a problem.

In that case it stands down on the pad until Orbiter Three is moved to the pad and ready to standby orbiter 2.

Posted by Mike Puckett at April 3, 2004 01:33 PM

Make that buy more Soyuz for crew xfers which NASA is discussing.

Posted by Mike Puckett at April 3, 2004 01:34 PM

Mike, you write:

"I think we could easily finish ISS in 5 years with the orbiters if we shift crew transfer to ISS and some cargo functions to the ESA ATV and private providers."

You may well be correct. Yet I have always favored the adage "Hope for the best, plan for the worst."

It would be a shame to lose an orbiter - - or face another long stand down - - after say another 11 flights (with 14 to go) and then we give up on ISS in 2008 or 2009 after spending many billions more to only partially finish the thing.

Buying more Soyuz is necessary, as you say.

This recent tourist thing with the next few Soyuz flights and the plans for an ESA astronaut to perhaps replace a NASA astronaut tells me Putin and Chirac are now playing some hardball with NASA.

Posted by Bill White at April 3, 2004 01:46 PM

True, but with the new safety measures in place, I would say the odds of losing another orbiter in the next 25 flights is very low.

Posted by Mike Puckett at April 3, 2004 02:35 PM

[Note: This is in response to Ken's reply to my
comment earlier.]

Ken,

First a clarification, then some further thoughts. I wasn't thinking about reserving the hydrogen for use with "science only". I was just figuring that lunar hydrogen was going to be in great demand for all sorts of commercial lunar processes--cracking oxygen out of the regolith, used for water in growing plants, put into different chemicals for various manufacturing processes, etc. Actually, my main focus regarding the moon *is* trying to get useful commercial enterprises going--the pure science stuff just really doesn't get me going. I just figured that providing the LUNOX (which would be ~80-90% of the required propellant mas in LEO for sending satellites to GEO and such) would be a big enough win at the start to make it worthwhile even if you had to still ship the hydrogen up from the earth.

That said, you have a valid point that even at a rate of 27,000tons per day of hydrogen it would take over a century to tap even half the lunar hydrogen, and long before then better sources will be available. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if better sources of hydrogen were available within 10-20 years. And 27,000 tons per day is actually a lot more than I thought the number would be. I should've done the math. Not to mention, with Spudis mentioning that the equivalence of the Great Salt Lake worth of water should've meant something to me since I live only about 1hr south of there.......

Ok, mea culpea. Using lunar hydrogen actually seems to make plenty of sense. Long before we'll ever be using 27 Mlbs of H2 a day (which come to about 200 Mlbs of total propellent per day), we'll have a better source, so better get as much leverage early on as you can instead of being miserly with it.

~Jonathan Goff

Posted by at April 5, 2004 09:10 AM

On the subject of space shuttle flight rate (from an earlier post of mine to spacepolitics.com):

The amount of money it takes to be completely assured of a safe shuttle mission is somewhere less than infinity and greater than the current budget (evidently).

It's just a thought, but I wonder if NASA has considered adapting the shuttle for unmanned launch of the remaining ISS components. The astronauts would launch on Soyuz until CEV was available, and rendezvous in the proximity of ISS to fine maneuver the shuttle into position and perform the on-orbit assembly. To land the shuttle, they would only need to risk one person - that's it - the rest would return by Soyuz/CEV.

This way, only the orbiter needs to be man-rated, and it can be inspected on-orbit using Soyuz/CEV before re-entry. For the same level of risk, the ground-handling would become more affordable, and perhaps the flight rate would go up sufficiently to finish ISS before re-certification. You'd expect to lose one or two more shuttles before ISS is complete, but nobody would be on board, and there would be no need to waste money on the Shuttle-C.

I see two drawbacks with this approach: One is that (if I remember correctly) the early ISS modules will still be in need of replacement by the time ISS is complete. The other is that launching payloads on the Shuttle and personnel on Soyuz could be highly embarrassing to NASA. It would be an interesting and perhaps cruel test of "new NASA" to see if they could put cost and mission success ahead of institutional humiliation. In any case, stage management of such things appears to be a fine art these days, so perhaps it's a non-issue after all.

Posted by Kevin Parkin at April 6, 2004 12:47 AM

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