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Apollo Inspires New Moon Rockets, two teams at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are studying booster rocket design concepts.
One team, assembled by the space agency's Exploration Directorate, has been examining rocket designs from the top down, according to Michael Lembeck, who heads the directorate's Requirements Division.
Second team at NASA's Launch Services group is conducting a bottoms-up review, meaning the services group, which purchases launch vehicles for NASA missions and payloads, is accumulating background on and analyses of all available U.S. boosters and their capabilities.
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Items that can change a good working model into an ineffective or non operative one.
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Fixing culture may be toughest task
http://www.flatoday.com/news....URE.htm
Snipet:
On the spring day when Discovery sits out there on its launch pad waiting to return to space, saying "go" or "no go" for launch won't be so hard.
Wayne Hale, a veteran shuttle flight director, is accustomed to making tough choices on the spot. Instead, for Hale, the stuff to sweat over includes the countless wrenching decisions that must be made during this two-plus years between the last shuttle flight and the next one.
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No rubber stamps
http://www.flatoday.com/news....TLE.htm
Snipet:
T-minus seven months and counting, or so NASA hopes.
The agency continues to press for a March or April liftoff of the first post-Columbia shuttle flight, which must go without a hitch for its manned spaceflight program to regain traction and credibility with the public.
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Nasa appears unwilling to share the space knowledge it has gained from that era and the many years that have followed under the cloak of national security and of fear.
Nasa has shown time and time again that it can do better than what they are doing with the examples of there space probes but they have floundered since there last trip to the moon so many years ago.
But can we wait forever for Nasa to get the sufficient funding to start the cev?
So lets look at what is needed by private industry to get to space since it would be developing it from scratch.
1 cryrogenic fuels and oxidizers facilities
2 solid fuels or other fuels for initial stage boost
3 machining capability to create the tanks for the fuel
4 launch pad and support infrastruture
5 rocket assembly an construction buildings
6 licencing documents
7 funding
I sure this list is much longer than I have but it highlights some of the difficulties in front of the private companies to come.
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NASA is perfectly willing to share technology and such, in fact i'm sure they would give you designs for SSMEs and such if you had a project going, the thing is that NASA neither can nor will provide much in the way of reasources to private corperations beyond technology.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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So from the cheap heavy lift thread one can now based on the quantity of engines per stage also be of poor or over kill in design. Also if the destination only requires a limit amount of payload then a much larger or capable one is also over kill. Both senerios are at best poor for profit making but also may mean a bad business model as well.
Unless the rocket is built with varying stages lengths with all the same base diameter this style of rocket choices are not good business.
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Thanks Bwhite for the info in the other CEV post with a SDV business plan.
Quote:
A Thiokol 5 segment RSRM with an LH2/LOX upper stage could throw 35K to 40K (pounds) to LEO far cheaper than any other potential USA booster.
4 segment RSRM cost $30 million (a well established price based on sales for the STS program)
Add a handful of RL-10s or Musk's Merlin or the RL-10 follow on and you are in LEO at $1500 per pound or less.
An awesome light-medium shuttle derived option.
Going with shuttle C & follow on SDV with a BIG cryogenic upper stage gives a wide range of options.
5 segment RSRM plus liquid upper for about $50 to $60 million;
Shuttle C - - 2 RSRM + ET + RS-68 with cargo carrier with total RS-68 depending on payload.
Various sized ETs?
Then inline SDV with 2 5 segment RSRM and a big liquid upper stage for 150 - 200 MT payloads.
= = =
Thiokol RSRMs have a 99.5% success rate and 100% post Challenger success rate. Why start from scratch?
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Lets wrap up the figures that we have so far on a normal Shuttle flight.
External tank $40 Million
SRMs 4 segment $30 Million ea
newer 5 Segment in the 40 to 50 million tops
Refurbish repacked with fuel 4 or 5 segments cost I would only hope to be lower otherwise keep buying new.
On the need list which is not all that important for the exact numbers.
orbiter construction
fuel and oxidizer per launch
refurb crew cost
launch crew cost
With these number we can see why a Shuttle fails the cost per flight test even being reusuable. On the expendable side of the equation fuel, refurb and external tank. It is the refurb cost that get the shuttle into the red when it comes to budgets.
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Well with the most recent posts and new topic generation under SRB use and of SDV for CEV and other catogories. It appears we have a best model winner on cost for use of the Shuttle components at this time.
Now Nasa lets get a move on and build what is needed already within the funding you have.
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