What If NASA Had Continued Its Lunar Program?

GW Johnson · 2016-04-24 10:25:41

I don't normally mess with "gee whiz what if history had been different" stuff, but I make an exception here.

The force behind the Apollo program was not JFK, it was LBJ. JFK needed something, anything, in order to compete with the Russians at the height of the Cold War. He didn't care what it was, and it didn’t even have to be about space. LBJ convinced him the race to the moon was it, that Mars was too far away for 1960 technology, and that anything in Earth orbit was too close to where we had already been "beaten".

The only reasons that Apollo sustained long enough to put men on the moon were that (1) LBJ became president, and (2) LBJ was a vicious-enough arm-twister in Congress to get the money for the crash program out of them. He was succeeded in 1969 by Nixon, but the identity of his successor didn't really matter, because nobody else was passionate about manned space. LBJ was unique in that passion. And that has been true ever since.

The Apollo program proceeded on its own momentum until Nixon killed it in the middle of the planned landings. Even with the rover cars and one geologist on the last mission, it was still 99+% “flags-and-footprints” Cold War nonsense. The science came later, and only partly from the moon rocks brought back to Earth. One has to conclude that "flags-and-footprints" thinking is inherently politically-driven, and, that politically-driven stunts ultimately lead nowhere.

The only reasons Nixon went for the shuttle after killing Apollo were (1) to fund the military-corporate-industrial base (corporate welfare for his political base actually), and (2) he mistakenly thought that shuttles and space stations were cheaper than moon shots and Mars shots. That was based on what NASA estimated; and NASA's cost estimates were notorious then, and still are today.

It's past time to quit injecting hyped politics into these threads, and you who have been doing it know who you are. So shut up about that already. You'll get another conversation shut down just because you cannot control yourselves. Simply do not use the words “Democrat” or “Republican” anymore, that’s what gets you into trouble. If you cannot say what you want without using those words, then what you want to say has no place on these forums. In effect, that’s the stated policy of these forums.

My point here with this posting is that Apollo would have died anyway, whether Nixon was elected or not! It would have died precisely because there was no LBJ to push it. Maybe there might have been another landing or two or three under a different president, but it would have made very little difference to the ultimate outcome, which was nearly nothing. No base, no colony, nothing. That is the proof of my thesis: we need a different motivational model for manned space exploration than any sort of international competition, because politically-driven “flags-and-footprints” stunts do not work.

The true evil that Nixon did was to kill all manned activities outside LEO, not just Apollo. That also killed the nascent designs for Mars missions, and it killed the nuclear power efforts that were preferred (with very good reasons) to push them. None of those things has ever really properly recovered. We still have idiotically-expensive half-$trillion Mars mission designs, and we still have no nuclear rockets.

I think the only reason to go back and look at all this history is to try to learn from it: what mistakes not to repeat. The most important is quite likely no more "flags-and-footprints" stuff, precisely because it is politically-driven and inevitably leads nowhere. Instead, look further back into history and try to understand what made cross-ocean colonization possible back then. There's the real lesson we can use for cross-space colonization today. I doubt we will learn that lesson.

Another lesson (that we refuse to learn) is that politicians in Congress are too damned stupid to be micromanaging the details of our various space programs. NASA should have a broad goal set by Congress (Mars, asteroid defense, whatever), Congress should give them stable and reliable funding not earmarked in detail, and then Congress should butt out and let the technical people accomplish the goals any way they can. That's what worked circa 1960, and it doesn’t have to be a crash program today.

Still another lesson (that we also refuse to learn) is not to let the bureaucracy we call NASA grow so large. Bureaucratic inertia is the death of accomplishment, as we all know. Split the agency up into pieces small enough to accomplish appropriate goals for each piece.

GW

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-24 11:56:22

GW Johnson wrote:

I don't normally mess with "gee whiz what if history had been different" stuff, but I make an exception here.
The force behind the Apollo program was not JFK, it was LBJ.

Are you related by any chance? I noticed you come from the same state and have the same last name.

JFK needed something, anything, in order to compete with the Russians at the height of the Cold War. He didn't care what it was, and it didn’t even have to be about space. LBJ convinced him the race to the moon was it, that Mars was too far away for 1960 technology, and that anything in Earth orbit was too close to where we had already been "beaten".
The only reasons that Apollo sustained long enough to put men on the moon were that (1) LBJ became president, and (2) LBJ was a vicious-enough arm-twister in Congress to get the money for the crash program out of them. He was succeeded in 1969 by Nixon, but the identity of his successor didn't really matter, because nobody else was passionate about manned space. LBJ was unique in that passion. And that has been true ever since.

What if it was Ronald Reagan instead, and instead of him having inherited the Shuttle Program in 1981, he inherited the Apollo Program in 1969? I think if Ronald Reagan was President then, there would have been no Watergate, and the Vietnam War probably would have been won, because he would have cut taxes in the 1970s and he would have been very popular with the resulting double digit growth, and with things going swimmingly well with the economy, why cancel Apollo? Nixon was an incompetent economic manager, be believed in a mixed economy with big government programs and high taxes! No wonder the 1970s were so terrible!

The Apollo program proceeded on its own momentum until Nixon killed it in the middle of the planned landings. Even with the rover cars and one geologist on the last mission, it was still 99+% “flags-and-footprints” Cold War nonsense. The science came later, and only partly from the moon rocks brought back to Earth. One has to conclude that "flags-and-footprints" thinking is inherently politically-driven, and, that politically-driven stunts ultimately lead nowhere.

So you agree with Nixon then? Nixon wouldn't have had to cut the Apollo Program if the economy was doing what it was supposed to have done, that is grow! Nixon didn't cut taxes, so therefore the economy didn't grow as it should.

The only reasons Nixon went for the shuttle after killing Apollo were (1) to fund the military-corporate-industrial base (corporate welfare for his political base actually),

Actually the Saturn V rocket would have been useful in launching the ABM system that Ronald Reagan wanted. An ABM system of a sort was possible in the 1970s, and if Reagan had inherited the Saturn V rocket, he would have kept it around so he could launch SDI. Nixon wasn't an SDI person, he assumed the Russians were rational people and didn't want to die, so he figured the threat of nuclear retaliation was enough to stop the Russians.

and (2) he mistakenly thought that shuttles and space stations were cheaper than moon shots and Mars shots. That was based on what NASA estimated; and NASA's cost estimates were notorious then, and still are today.
It's past time to quit injecting hyped politics into these threads, and you who have been doing it know who you are. So shut up about that already. You'll get another conversation shut down just because you cannot control yourselves. Simply do not use the words “Democrat” or “Republican” anymore, that’s what gets you into trouble. If you cannot say what you want without using those words, then what you want to say has no place on these forums. In effect, that’s the stated policy of these forums.
My point here with this posting is that Apollo would have died anyway, whether Nixon was elected or not! It would have died precisely because there was no LBJ to push it. Maybe there might have been another landing or two or three under a different president, but it would have made very little difference to the ultimate outcome, which was nearly nothing. No base, no colony, nothing. That is the proof of my thesis: we need a different motivational model for manned space exploration than any sort of international competition, because politically-driven “flags-and-footprints” stunts do not work.
The true evil that Nixon did was to kill all manned activities outside LEO, not just Apollo. That also killed the nascent designs for Mars missions, and it killed the nuclear power efforts that were preferred (with very good reasons) to push them. None of those things has ever really properly recovered. We still have idiotically-expensive half-$trillion Mars mission designs, and we still have no nuclear rockets.

Actually Nixon had a Mars Initiative under Vice President Spiro Agnew, and it might have gone forward had the public not been distracted by Watergate. I'd say the true killer of the Apollo Program was the Watergate scandal, and the same lost Vietnam. Had it not been for Watergate, we probably could have continued Apollo and won the Vietnam War at the same time.

I think the only reason to go back and look at all this history is to try to learn from it: what mistakes not to repeat. The most important is quite likely no more "flags-and-footprints" stuff, precisely because it is politically-driven and inevitably leads nowhere.

The problem is big government led enterprises, Apollo should have been incorporated and privatized perhaps starting with public subsidies that gradually went away as Apollo shifted to operating on a for profit basis, by offering launch services with Saturn V rockets.

Instead, look further back into history and try to understand what made cross-ocean colonization possible back then. There's the real lesson we can use for cross-space colonization today. I doubt we will learn that lesson.
Another lesson (that we refuse to learn) is that politicians in Congress are too damned stupid to be micromanaging the details of our various space programs. NASA should have a broad goal set by Congress (Mars, asteroid defense, whatever), Congress should give them stable and reliable funding not earmarked in detail, and then Congress should butt out and let the technical people accomplish the goals any way they can. That's what worked circa 1960, and it doesn’t have to be a crash program today.

Not realistic to expect anything run by a government to run on anything other than politicians bringing home the bacon to their districts in exchange for their positive vote. Politicians want to know how the Apollo Program would get them reelected, and that usually means bringing home economic benefits (read jobs) to their home districts, and that is not an efficient way to run a space program.

Still another lesson (that we also refuse to learn) is not to let the bureaucracy we call NASA grow so large. Bureaucratic inertia is the death of accomplishment, as we all know. Split the agency up into pieces small enough to accomplish appropriate goals for each piece.
GW

GW Johnson · 2016-04-24 14:32:44

Tom:

No, I am not related to LBJ, not within about the last 6 or 7 centuries, anyway.

Texas is a big state, some 800 miles across, both N-S and E-W. It now has a population well over 20 million. Chances are getting good for two people here to share the same surname. They were good back then, actually, at 9-10 million.

There was no "winning" in Vietnam, any more than there is "winning" to be had in either Iraq or Afghanistan or any of those other putrid cesspit-examples of "civilization" in which we have sacrificed our young. I am a Vietnam-era vet, and I understand what went wrong in SE Asia, even though I did not serve in-theater there. I saw that idiocy first-hand, every single day.

I will say the Vietnamese have made significant progress toward being more civilized since we left. It only took them 4 decades or so. None of the middle eastern cesspits can make that claim. None of them has been worth anything since the end of the Moors about 12 centuries ago.

As for LBJ, like all men, whether they serve as president or not, he had his good points and bad points. We are all mixtures of the light and dark sides; that is the fundamental nature of being human. At the time, I liked him for his basic sense of humanity and decency. I still do. Although I disagreed quite strongly with what he did about Vietnam. Even so, may he R.I.P.

Even McNamara has come to agree with my viewpoint about Vietnam, although he took decades longer than me to see the truth, and I have always despised him for that lack (plus a number of other of his sins as head of the Defense Dept). Can't help it, I'm just human. But I do not suffer fools gladly.

As I said, it would not have made any significant difference who LBJ's successor was to the outcome of the Apollo program. There are two big reasons for that: (1) none of the politicians since, not even Reagan, were passionate about space the way LBJ was, and (2) when you do "flag-and-footprints", there is no lasting return on the investment of resources and effort.

I still see "flag-and-footprints" in almost everything NASA proposes about Mars. Whether this is driven by them, or by the ULA monopoly they have supported for so long, or both together, is moot. It cannot lead anywhere. Wrong model.

GW

SpaceNut · 2016-04-24 17:24:26

I hope all understand that with the continued politics that there are only a few choices a mod can do 1 close topic, 2 move it to politics and neither are giving any outcome that makes a continued lunar program worth beans....

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-25 01:00:44

GW Johnson wrote:

Tom:
No, I am not related to LBJ, not within about the last 6 or 7 centuries, anyway.
Texas is a big state, some 800 miles across, both N-S and E-W. It now has a population well over 20 million. Chances are getting good for two people here to share the same surname. They were good back then, actually, at 9-10 million.
There was no "winning" in Vietnam, any more than there is "winning" to be had in either Iraq or Afghanistan or any of those other putrid cesspit-examples of "civilization" in which we have sacrificed our young. I am a Vietnam-era vet, and I understand what went wrong in SE Asia, even though I did not serve in-theater there. I saw that idiocy first-hand, every single day.
I will say the Vietnamese have made significant progress toward being more civilized since we left. It only took them 4 decades or so. None of the middle eastern cesspits can make that claim. None of them has been worth anything since the end of the Moors about 12 centuries ago.
As for LBJ, like all men, whether they serve as president or not, he had his good points and bad points. We are all mixtures of the light and dark sides; that is the fundamental nature of being human. At the time, I liked him for his basic sense of humanity and decency. I still do. Although I disagreed quite strongly with what he did about Vietnam. Even so, may he R.I.P.
Even McNamara has come to agree with my viewpoint about Vietnam, although he took decades longer than me to see the truth, and I have always despised him for that lack (plus a number of other of his sins as head of the Defense Dept). Can't help it, I'm just human. But I do not suffer fools gladly.
As I said, it would not have made any significant difference who LBJ's successor was to the outcome of the Apollo program. There are two big reasons for that: (1) none of the politicians since, not even Reagan, were passionate about space the way LBJ was, and (2) when you do "flag-and-footprints", there is no lasting return on the investment of resources and effort.
I still see "flag-and-footprints" in almost everything NASA proposes about Mars. Whether this is driven by them, or by the ULA monopoly they have supported for so long, or both together, is moot. It cannot lead anywhere. Wrong model.
GW

To properly reply to this, I will do so in Politics, but I will say here, the longer NASA drags its feet, the more likely a private initiative will continue what NASA started. SpaceX is reducing costs to get to space, soon we will be entering a different era of space flight, one that is not so dominated by government space agencies.

SpaceNut · 2016-04-25 18:39:36

With the most advanced levels of SLS the performance abilities are approaching that of the Saturn V and Apollo era and is on par with the inflationary numbers of the past for the Saturn V...I am still hopefully that the war horse mentality will change and allow the civilian force to once more make space possible with Saturn V performance levels....

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-26 09:35:36

The Russian leader is the War Horse on this planet, no one else wants his war but him. What we do is in reaction to him. We don't need this annoying former superpower buzzing our Destroyers with his warplanes. If Putin or Russia decides to get along, and join the World community as one of its members, we would welcome him and Russia.

RobertDyck · 2016-04-26 10:28:29

Tom, that's politics again. I respond to that claim before, and won't do it here. Please put that stuff in the Politics thread.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-26 13:33:22

RobertDyck wrote:

Tom, that's politics again. I respond to that claim before, and won't do it here. Please put that stuff in the Politics thread.

Just did, please see Politics for the reply.

GW Johnson · 2016-04-26 14:03:06

Spacenut:

I stand by my post 26 above as a non-political item. It discusses the leaders who started, maintained, and killed Apollo, and exactly what it was that they each did. Public figures in powerful positions do have that sort of effect on things. I never once used the names of political parties or movements. It was not about their politics, it was about their attitudes and preferences as individuals.

I'm not at all sure that SLS with Orion really can do what Saturn-5 / Apollo once did. There seems to be a shortfall in the service module delta-vee, and the lunar lander for this design is missing entirely, having been cancelled. The US service module design seems to have been cancelled and replaced by a smaller EU design of lower capability.

This thing seems capable of reaching cis-lunar space on elongated orbits, but seems not to have the delta-vee to do what Apollo 8 did. I could be wrong: with at least two growth versions planned, maybe it can eventually reprise Apollo 8. Add a lander, and maybe it can reprise the landings, too. Nobody is truly working on a lander, to the best of my knowledge, though.

I think this derives from erratic leadership and direction over the last few administrations. Nothing new about that: we've seen this problem ever since Nixon killed Apollo. There's that personalities-in-powerful-positions thing in action again!

The last 3 paragraphs in my post 28 above are spot-on-topic for this thread, and I stand by them as truth. The rest perhaps could be construed as politically-tainted, although that's not what I was trying to do (I was simply trying to answer Tom's question). If I stepped on your toes with that, I apologize.

I'm not at all sure that reprising Saturn-5 / Apollo is what we really want to do. That entire program was driven by a "flags-and-footprints" stunt approach to competing with the Russians. We don't need stunts to "compete" with the Russians. If relations deteriorate further, we need no artificial competitions to demonstrate that we do more good than bad in this world, compared to them. Let them prove what they are to the world all by themselves, same for the Chinese.

I hope it doesn't come to that, because it's a waste to spend resources on it.

Here's what I think might possibly have happened if Apollo had been allowed to complete all its planned missions:

We might have built some more Saturns, or possibly built a minimal Nova. NASA would have attempted an Apollo-like "flags-and-footprints" mission to Mars by about 1989 or so. This would have been without enough living space, no radiation shielding, inadequate food, and no spin gravity, because we spent not enough time weightless to learn about all those problems, here in LEO.

The crew might have reached Mars, but would died somewhere along the way home, if not by mischance on the surface. Certainly 12-15 gees free return Earth entry at faster-than-escape speed would have killed a severely debilitated crew (just as it would today). We just didn't know about all that back then.

Loss of the Mars crew would just about have destroyed NASA as we know it. Because it would show up in the inquest that we attempted the shot before we knew enough to keep it from being a suicide mission. Simple as that.

Anyhow, that's what I think might have happened, at the outside, most-expensive extreme. And rather unlikely to have happened at all.

I actually believe it would have been more likely that we never attempted the Mars shot. I think heavy space spending was more-or-less destined to dry up after the moon landings, anyway.

The defense spending spree that collapsed the Soviet Union was more focused on weapons than spaceflight, and I think that would have been the case regardless of how far we got with Apollo.

GW

SpaceNut · 2016-04-26 14:36:17

Actually you post GW was the least political in nature and more fact filled about the "past Public figures in powerful positions, their attitudes and preferences as individuals which was exactly what it was that they each did".

So now back to Apollo and Saturn V as it was when the events of shuttle occord that led to is cancellation many suggested to go back to using them but the excuses were that the drawings were either not avaialbe or to far out of date, that we as artisans could not reproduce what we once were able to do, plus not baring to they actual parts no longer being made were amoung the excuses used.....

So constellation was started as a new rocket design with some existing frankenstien assembly required which then was cancelled and a newer version was then restarted that was considered to be less so frankstiened in nature....

So here we are lamenting on what we had and what we could have done if only had we continued doing it what what we did have.....

GW Johnson · 2016-04-27 09:46:57

Thanks, Spacenut.

As indicated, I think the real lessons of Apollo are more about what not to do, that what we should be doing. Going to the moon really does not require gigantic rockets anymore, if you stage out of LEO. That process can lay out along the lines of the lunar shuttle depicted in Kubrick's flick "2001". Doing it that way with vehicles flown again and again is far better bang for the buck, and a more sustainable program.

For the life of me, I have never understood why anyone would think reprising the throwaway Saturn/Apollo with shuttle engine and booster technology is in the least a desirable thing to do. I thought it was wrong when they called it Constellation, and I think it's wrong today under the name SLS. It's a giant rocket built only to be a giant rocket, not to satisfy any specific mission, except perhaps flying one-shot throw-away to the moon. Maybe. If they upgrade it.

We have rockets today that can fling 10-to-20 tons to LEO at a single shot. One of them just might have a reusable first stage eventually, if you cut down payload weight by 40% (which raises unit costs 40% if the same launch price is used). We know how to dock such payloads together to create very large structures in orbit. Point is, these can be stations or they can be ships! All that is missing is large-scale refueling on-orbit with cryogens. (Storables is already being done small scale at ISS.)

So, most of the tinkertoys are already in place to make a cost-effective lunar shuttle system possible. If it proves feasible to make propellants for it on the moon, then it becomes very sustainable indeed!

So why go back to the Apollo flag-and-footprints concepts with throwaway giant rockets?

GW

SpaceNut · 2016-04-27 17:08:57

With Apollo we had the F1 and J2 engines plus rl-10 on the LM. With SLS we have the simular performance in the SRB, newly brained Rs-25 recycled engines and rl-10 upper stage all with nothing being reused or a LM. All the while nasa is working on the expendable rs-25..not sure what it will be labeled but its cost I am sure will still be in the same ball park with no LM... Seems like Nasa is playing catch up....

http://www.universetoday.com/123580/nas … rs-rocket/

The newly awarded RS-25 engine contract to Sacramento, California based Aerojet Rocketdyne is valued at 1.16 Billion and aims to “modernize the space shuttle heritage engine to make it more affordable and expendable for SLS,” NASA announced on Nov. 23. NASA can also procure up to six new flight worthy engines for later launches.
The lead time is approximately 5 or 6 years to build and certify the first new RS-25 engine, Van Kleek told Universe Today in an interview. Therefore NASA needed to award the contract to Aerojet Rocketdyne now so that its ready when needed.

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files … 312015.pdf

Can not say that I am very impressed with the turn around time.....

RobertDyck · 2016-04-27 17:36:18

SpaceNut wrote:

With Apollo we had the F1 and J2 engines plus rl-10 on the LM.

Um, what? Apollo Lunar Module used "Descent Propulsion System" for the descent stage, which became TR-201 used for upper stage of Delta launch vehicles. Apollo ascent stage used "Ascent Propulsion System" aka "Lunar Module Ascent Engine", based on Bell Aerosystems engines 8096 and 8247. Both engines used Aerozine 50 and N2O4. In 2008 in was brought out of retirement, becoming RS-18 for NASA Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS). RS-18 was to use Liquid Methane and LOX, non-throttleable.

RL-10 used LH2/LOX, the upper stage of Saturn 1 used 6 of them. Not Saturn 1B, the earlier Saturn 1. Also used for upper stages of Atlas family, Titan, and Delta IV. And 4 RL-10A-5 engines used on DC-X and DC-XA. Delta IV uses a single RL-10B-2 engine for its "Delta Cryogenic Upper Stage". Exploration Upper Stage for SLS will use 4 RL-10B-2 engines.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2016-04-27 17:37:14)

SpaceNut · 2016-04-27 20:24:14

Thanks RobertDyck for finishing up the Apollo Saturn V rocket comparison to what we have so far for SLS....Apollo had a lot more going for it that SLS does not even have on the drawing boards yet.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-27 21:18:07

GW Johnson wrote:

Thanks, Spacenut.
As indicated, I think the real lessons of Apollo are more about what not to do, that what we should be doing. Going to the moon really does not require gigantic rockets anymore, if you stage out of LEO. That process can lay out along the lines of the lunar shuttle depicted in Kubrick's flick "2001". Doing it that way with vehicles flown again and again is far better bang for the buck, and a more sustainable program.
For the life of me, I have never understood why anyone would think reprising the throwaway Saturn/Apollo with shuttle engine and booster technology is in the least a desirable thing to do. I thought it was wrong when they called it Constellation, and I think it's wrong today under the name SLS. It's a giant rocket built only to be a giant rocket, not to satisfy any specific mission, except perhaps flying one-shot throw-away to the moon. Maybe. If they upgrade it.
We have rockets today that can fling 10-to-20 tons to LEO at a single shot. One of them just might have a reusable first stage eventually, if you cut down payload weight by 40% (which raises unit costs 40% if the same launch price is used). We know how to dock such payloads together to create very large structures in orbit. Point is, these can be stations or they can be ships! All that is missing is large-scale refueling on-orbit with cryogens. (Storables is already being done small scale at ISS.)
So, most of the tinkertoys are already in place to make a cost-effective lunar shuttle system possible. If it proves feasible to make propellants for it on the moon, then it becomes very sustainable indeed!
So why go back to the Apollo flag-and-footprints concepts with throwaway giant rockets?
GW

My guess is, your the sort, who likes to construct a ship in a bottle, rather than cut the bottle open, place the ship inside and then weld it shut, because that would be cheating! You like to use itty bitty rockets to build massive things in orbit with 100 launches, does that sound about right? How many Shuttle launches did the ISS take, and was it worth it? Maybe it would be if we used "Moonraker Shuttles" instead of the real ones. I think Zubrin had it right, you build the ship on the ground and you launch it with giant rockets in as few pieces as possible. and with reusability, it might make sense to use the larger boosters, as you can use them several times to defray the greater cost in making them.

Terraformer · 2016-04-28 09:27:44

You then have to pay both development costs and fixed operating costs for a giant booster that you're going to use maybe once or twice a year if you're lucky. Good luck getting low costs with that.

I'm guessing your the sort of person who would pay thousands of dollars to weld a glass bottle back together because you find it too fiddly to put the ship in the bottle the correct way.

GW Johnson · 2016-04-28 09:30:11

Alright, here's the "put up or shut up" numbers, Tom.

The launch cost for an SLS is estimated by various observers to be around 0.5 to 1.0 $B. In its final form many years from now, it can send 100 tons to LEO. Let's pick 100 tons of "something" that we want up there. It'll cost 0.5 to 1.0 $B plus whatever the construction and testing costs were for that "something".

Now, you can put that same 100 tons to LEO in smaller chunks with smaller rockets. If you go with 12.5 ton chunks, you can fling your 100 tons up there with 8 13 ton-capable Falcon-9's at $85M per rocket. Plus one extra shot to send a crew up there in a Dragon v2 on a Falcon-9, to dock the things together. That's 9 Falcon-9 shots for $765M, plus the same construction and testing budget, so that's a wash.

Comparison: one-shot with SLS delivers 100 tons to LEO for something somewhere between $500M and $1000M, depending upon whose cost estimates you believe. 9-shot Falcon-9 sends the same 100 tons to LEO for a traceable public cost of $765M. It's just about the same.

In the old days when shuttle was flying, you could send 15 tons to the ISS orbit, perhaps 20 tons to 23.5 degree LEO. Each launch ended up costing $1.5B. It would have taken 5 such shots to fling the 100 tons, with a crew on board to do the docking. That would have been a total of $7.5B = $7500M to put that same 100 ton "something" up there. Same construction and testing costs for the "something", so that's still a wash.

Given how notorious NASA has been for underestimating costs over the decades, I'd favor the 1.0 $B per launch figure for SLS. That puts SLS delivery of our 100 ton "something" at closer to $1000M than $500M.

Now look at Atlas-5 HLV, capable of 20 tons to LEO for around $180M per shot. We'll need 5 of those, plus one Falcon-9/Dragon v2 crew shot to dock it all together. That's about $985M to put our 100 ton "something" up there. Construction/test = wash.

And soon Falcon-Heavy will fly, with 53 ton capability for a published price of about $110M each. It'll take two of those, plus one Falcon-9/Dragon v2 crew to dock it together. That's $305M to put our 100 ton "something" up there. Construction/test = wash.

To summarize overall for 100 ton "something" in 23.5 deg eastward LEO:

Shuttle: $7500M (no longer flying)

SLS: $500 to $1000M, with $1000M more probable (not flying for many years yet in 100 ton capability)

All Falcon-9 (9 shots): $765M (can do next year when Dragon v2 flies manned)

Atlas-5 HLV (5 shots) + 1 Falcon-9 Dragon v2 crew: $985M (can do next year when Dragon v2 flies manned)

Falcon-Heavy (2 shots) plus Falcon-9 Dragon v2 crew: $305M (can do in two years when both Dragon v2 and -Heavy have flown)

Conclusions:

1. piecemeal launch is both cheaper and available sooner, almost no matter how it is done
2. yes, there really is an economy of scale with bigger rockets, startlingly apparent with Falcon-Heavy
3. SLS will never deliver on that economy-of-scale with the bigger rockets

So what was that insulting nonsense about building the ship in the bottle?

GW

SpaceNut · 2016-04-28 19:23:52

Now I hope thats done....

Nice number run down....I know that the Boeing is coming about with the streamliner capsule but there numbers are still a bit fuzzy....the Atlas V heavy while is on paper is a capble target but costing more that the falcon 9 heavy....

But what is still not happening is developement beyond cargo and crew aside from the cygnus cargo can which can be altered for modules which the others do not have. So when weill we get a lunar lander or a deepspace habitat other than bigelow....

kbd512 · 2016-04-28 21:32:10

I cringe every time someone proposes a new BFR or insists that a BFR is required for "X". BLEO space exploration is overwhelmingly about the capability of the spacecraft delivered. Massive all-new rockets simply aren't required to for this, but significantly detract from the funding available to design, build, and test spacecraft with the feature set that makes interplanetary space exploration possible.

Put another way, if the amount of money that was dumped into Orion and SLS was dumped into high output solar cells, high storage capacity batteries, CL-ECLSS, landers, and better space suits, we'd already be ready to go to Mars by now.

Falcon Heavy and Vulcan are going to happen. Both of those rockets are more than sufficient to send pairs of explorers to other worlds in the inner solar system. BFR's may be required for colonization or exploration of the outer solar system, but you have to prove you can get to where you're going, live there, and come back before you're ready to colonize other worlds.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-04-29 02:29:40

I see SLS as an "insurance policy" in case Elon Musk screws up, his company goes bankrupt etc, it also keeps NASA busy and disinterested in what Elon is doing. For Elon's part, it provides competition for his Falcon Heavy. I've seen so many mirages before, independent businessmen who wanted to build rockets for cheap travel into space, and it all amounted to nothing but a pipe dream. If Elon is really successful with his Falcon Heavy, the SLS might just be canceled, or sold to a private firm for further development perhaps I would want to see the Falcon Heavy launched successfully a few times before we put all our eggs in that basket. Governments are well know for wasting money, their is no guarantee that building an expensive space probe wouldn't prove just as wasteful, SpaceX could probably build space probes cheaper. I can imagine Corporate Astronauts colonizing Mars in the future, building a new society without government interference.

GW Johnson · 2016-04-29 08:26:46

Kdb512 also gets my point (first sentence post 45). Except for relatively-small one way probes, one mission/one launch is the wrong conceptual model.

Arthur Clarke had it right when he laid out an orbit-based transportation system for Kubrick's flick 2001. Clarke was not the only one who came to this conclusion. Von Braun did, too. And a whole lot of other folks.

Look at the 1950's proposals for interplanetary trips, and see the orbit-to-orbit based transport based out of LEO, even if the projected propulsion technology is wrong by today's reckoning. Every one of them was assembled in LEO, and carried landers of some kind for destination.

Although, we know today that the landers can be sent ahead, for rendezvous in destination orbit. All sorts of things can be sent that way.

That does beg the question of getting to Earth orbit. The launch rockets used in commercial satellite business are now far cheaper than shuttle or any of the old government-contract rockets. They are also more reliable. And are likely to get cheaper still, whether we ever successfully re-use stages or not.

Flown full, the current fleet is is the vicinity of $2500/pound of delivered payload, versus $27,000+ for shuttle at 23.5 degrees, and far higher at ISS inclination. That factor of 10+ alone should tell you that the next space stations should be far less expensive to build than was ISS. A part of that is the difference in mass of the returning vehicle as a fraction of launch mass: always far higher for any possible spaceplane design.

Because of that, I do think spaceplanes have a real function and a role to play, but in sizes far smaller than was shuttle. Big cargoes will always ride the launch rocket, because it's a far cheaper way to do it, even if expendable. That picture won't change until we have something far better than chemical propulsion available.

We pretty well have the launch-to-LEO tinkertoys in place. We pretty well have orbital assembly in place. We lack large-scale on-orbit propellant transfer capability (especially cryogens). We lack a permanent on-orbit assembly and repair facility protected from the temperature extremes of sunlight and darkness in vacuum (which need not be pressurized, just enclosed and controllably lit).

The next logical step is to start building moon shuttles and interplanetary spaceships in LEO, and fly them from there. Let the mission needs size these things, not the payload capability of this or that rocket. It is a far more flexible and adaptable approach, as was forseen over half a century ago.

GW

SpaceNut · 2016-04-29 19:12:27

Recent news SpaceX undercut ULA rocket launch pricing by 40 percent: U.S. Air Force

The Air Force on Wednesday awarded SpaceX an $83 million contract to launch the satellite, breaking the monopoly that ULA partners Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co had held on military space launches for more than a decade.
ULA is responding to competition from SpaceX and other startups by slashing costs and overhauling its lineup of rockets. The venture is upgrading its workhorse Atlas 5 rocket, cutting launch prices to less than $100 million per flight, and dropping its costly Delta 4 rocket line, ULA executives have said.
The Air Force had relied solely on United Launch Alliance to launch satellites for the past decade, but decided to open up competition for a series of nine satellite launches to be awarded by 2018.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-05-02 06:55:08

GW Johnson wrote:

Kdb512 also gets my point (first sentence post 45). Except for relatively-small one way probes, one mission/one launch is the wrong conceptual model.
Arthur Clarke had it right when he laid out an orbit-based transportation system for Kubrick's flick 2001. Clarke was not the only one who came to this conclusion. Von Braun did, too. And a whole lot of other folks.

Do you remember the opening scene of 2001 after the apes? An Orion Shuttle with just one man being transported in it, a sure sign of a deep-pocketed big spending government! I read the book too, there is a further description of that shuttle, it appears to be launched by a track on the ground, it is propelled by some kind of ramjet I suppose with a minimum takeoff speed which is way greater than that which a runway will allow. So a rail accelerates the shuttle to ramjet speed and the Orion takes off, goes to a certain altitude and speed and then fires its rockets to reach orbit. That twin-ringed space station is huge, I doubt we need to build that before going to Mars, and the Moon Base is enormous. Just think about it, in the movie the Lunar shuttle lands, and is lowered on an elevator to an underground hangar, in the book, it is met by a pressurized rover with a docking port.

Look at the 1950's proposals for interplanetary trips, and see the orbit-to-orbit based transport based out of LEO, even if the projected propulsion technology is wrong by today's reckoning. Every one of them was assembled in LEO, and carried landers of some kind for destination.

A jobs program for astroworkers, and excuse for sending "hard hats" into space?
One thing about medium-sized launchers, if one of them goes wrong, that really throws off the schedule, just think about it, you are trying to put together an interplanetary spaceship in time for the launch window which occurs when the planets align just so. The launch facility can handle only so much traffic, and it has other things to do, such as launch communications satellites and the like, the crawler is slow, and the Vehicle Assembly building is busy. Now the one thing those small launches do is keep the launch facilities very busy. Now lets say you got half a spaceship already in orbit, and one of the launches carrying a vital component goes wrong, and the hardware that was supposed to be launched is destroyed. Now NASA either has to scramble to find another rocket and build another copy of that component or cancel the mission and waste all that was launched into low Earth orbit thus far. Maybe it will be ready for the next launch window in another two years, but then you would have to lift additional fuel and check the craft for damage due to orbital space debis. I'd say having fewer payloads has advantages.

Although, we know today that the landers can be sent ahead, for rendezvous in destination orbit. All sorts of things can be sent that way.
That does beg the question of getting to Earth orbit. The launch rockets used in commercial satellite business are now far cheaper than shuttle or any of the old government-contract rockets. They are also more reliable. And are likely to get cheaper still, whether we ever successfully re-use stages or not.
Flown full, the current fleet is is the vicinity of $2500/pound of delivered payload, versus $27,000+ for shuttle at 23.5 degrees, and far higher at ISS inclination. That factor of 10+ alone should tell you that the next space stations should be far less expensive to build than was ISS. A part of that is the difference in mass of the returning vehicle as a fraction of launch mass: always far higher for any possible spaceplane design.
Because of that, I do think spaceplanes have a real function and a role to play, but in sizes far smaller than was shuttle. Big cargoes will always ride the launch rocket, because it's a far cheaper way to do it, even if expendable. That picture won't change until we have something far better than chemical propulsion available.
We pretty well have the launch-to-LEO tinkertoys in place. We pretty well have orbital assembly in place. We lack large-scale on-orbit propellant transfer capability (especially cryogens). We lack a permanent on-orbit assembly and repair facility protected from the temperature extremes of sunlight and darkness in vacuum (which need not be pressurized, just enclosed and controllably lit).
The next logical step is to start building moon shuttles and interplanetary spaceships in LEO, and fly them from there. Let the mission needs size these things, not the payload capability of this or that rocket. It is a far more flexible and adaptable approach, as was forseen over half a century ago.
GW

RobertDyck · 2016-05-02 09:14:55

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

2001...Orion Shuttle... appears to be launched by a track on the ground, it is propelled by some kind of ramjet I suppose with a minimum takeoff speed which is way greater than that which a runway will allow. So a rail accelerates the shuttle to ramjet speed and the Orion takes off, goes to a certain altitude and speed and then fires its rockets to reach orbit.

There's a group within NASA that was working on that. The idea was a magnetic linear accelerator would throw the craft in the air at mach 1, minimum speed to start a RAM jet engine. It would then have a Rocket Based Combined Cycle engine (RBCC). That engine would start as RAM jet, transition to SCRAM jet, then close off intake and add LOX to become LH2/LOX rocket. Boeing had the contract to develop the engine. GW Johnson argued against such an engine, but NASA had a tiny budget for a group to study it.

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

and the Moon Base is enormous. Just think about it, in the movie the Lunar shuttle lands, and is lowered on an elevator to an underground hangar, in the book, it is met by a pressurized rover with a docking port.

Sounds like Moon Base Alpha, from the 1970s TV show named "Space 1999".

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