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To cull some more useful bits of this article:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/spacetra … l-05v.html
First, the Orbital Space Plane. During the Clinton administration, NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas had begun a program called X-38 to develop a crew capsule that could launch astronauts to orbit atop a medium lift launch vehicle, thereby allowing space station crews to be rotated at much lower cost than is required for a shuttle flight.
Since the Johnson Space Center is the primary NASA center with expertise in crewed flight systems, it made sense for the project to be assigned there. But apparently for political reasons, Mr. O'Keefe decided to move the program to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Claiming the X-38's estimated price tag of $1.6 billion was too high, he cancelled that program in midstream and set up the Orbital Space Plane program in Alabama in its place.
The actual expertise of the Marshall Space Flight Center is in launch vehicles, however, and without the necessary experience, costs rapidly escalated out of control, with the estimated program budget growing to over $15 billion by the fall of 2003.
Congress balked at funding this boondoggle, and the program collapsed with nothing accomplished and close to a billion dollars of the taxpayer's money down the drain.
So my state bears some blame--thank Dennis Smith and Dan Dumbacher for that.
NEP bites:
"...JIMO would almost certainly fail before it reached the planet. Furthermore, as a result of the weight and the huge mass of the 150 kilowatt reactor and xenon propellant, the spacecraft couldn't be launched into space on any existing rocket."
The overcomplex moon plan:
Spiral 2: Begin short duration lunar missions. To achieve this objective, the plan proposes the following design for a transportation system.
First, NASA must develop a Lunar Surface Ascent Module (LSAM) to carry astronauts to and from the Moon's surface, a medium lift vehicle (MLV) capable of launching it, and an Earth Departure Stage (EDS) capable of delivering either the CEV or the LSAM separately from low Earth orbit to low lunar orbit.
Carrying out a mission would require four separate launches—one MLV for the CEV, one for the LSAM, and one for each of two EDS vehicles.
These four components would all be put into low Earth orbit. The manned CEV would then rendezvous with one EDS, and the empty LSAM would rendezvous with the other EDS, and each would be driven separately from the Earth's orbit to lunar orbit.
The CEV would then rendezvous with the LSAM in low lunar orbit, after which the crew would transfer to the LSAM for an excursion to the Lunar surface of 4 to 14 days.
The crew would then ascend in the LSAM to rendezvous with the CEV in lunar orbit, transfer back to the CEV, and come back to Earth. (If this all sounds terribly complex, that's because it is. More on the implications of that complexity in a moment.)
Wait for it...
The ESMD plan requires a plethora of additional recurring costs and mission risks for the sole purpose of avoiding the development cost of a big new rocket—a heavy lift vehicle (HLV). Yet, since one goal of the Vision for Space Exploration is to get humans to Mars, an HLV will need to be developed anyway.
So on a cost basis, the ESMD plan will lose twice over, since it requires new hardware for Spirals 2 and 3, and then even more new hardware for Spirals 4 and 5.
Furthermore, in addition to imposing maximum mission risk for lunar explorers through its own excessive complexity, the ESMD plan will also increase the risk to Mars explorers, because the ESMD lunar plan will not test the Mars mission hardware.
Rather than enable human Mars exploration, the plan as presently defined would be a massive and costly detour; it would delay such missions for many decades.
The wind-up:
The plan's fourth major flaw is that it is fundamentally technically unsound. It goes to great lengths to avoid the necessity of developing a heavy lift vehicle, employing (as described above) an astonishingly complicated mission architecture involving four rocket launches and four space rendezvous for each lunar mission—what we might call a "quadruple launch, quadruple rendezvous" (QQ) mission architecture.
Using some reasonable estimates based upon the masses of the primary components of the Apollo mission, it can be shown that it is technically possible that a QQ mission could be launched on four medium launch vehicles. But is it technically wise? Note the following factors:
i. Each mission requires four MLV launches.
Ii. Those four launches must be done quickly, since the EDS and LSAM vehicles are carrying cryogenic liquid oxygen and hydrogen, and the manned CEV is launched last.
Iii. Each mission requires four critical rendezvous operations.
Iv. The crew flies to the Moon separate from the lunar module.
Point i speaks to the cost of the program. Using multiple MLVs to launch what could be a single HLV payload is not cost-effective. It is a basic feature of rocket economics that larger boosters are more economic than smaller boosters. The larger the launch vehicle, the less it costs to put each kilogram into orbit.
And the pitch...
"Fortunately, the way to solve this problem is simple: Develop a heavy lift vehicle (HLV) that allows the entire mission to be launched with a single booster, just as was done for the Apollo missions."
Retards-R-Us
"Regrettably, in designing this mission architecture, the ESMD planners had to act in conformity with the direction of the technically unqualified Mr. O'Keefe, who enunciated a preference that the program be conducted without heavy lift vehicles. Such politically dictated technical decision-making is unacceptable; it is a formula for programmatic catastrophe..."
"Thus we encounter again the fundamental problem with President Bush's policy. By postponing the program's goals until far in the future, important capabilities that could be used to achieve those goals will be lost before the time comes for those goals to be attempted. Under the current plan, Spiral 1 might succeed, at maximum cost, in producing a CEV in ten years."
"But in the meantime, the heavy lift vehicle components embodied in the shuttle program will have been lost. As a result, in 2014, NASA will actually possess a smaller fraction of the hardware needed to send humans to the Moon than it does today."
In closing:
"It is unreasonable today to spend ten years to develop a CEV, when in the 1960s we did it in five, or sixteen years to reach the Moon, when two generations ago we did it in eight."
"Embarking on the program in such a dilatory way will cost us the heavy lift hardware of the shuttle, which is something we can ill-afford."
Since my worthy opponant admits that EELV is a poor choice for Mars--that is a tacit admission than EELVs to the moon are a wasteful distraction
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This may run a little long, I will divide it into three parts: Zubrin's veracity, Zubrin's Lunar goals, and Zubrin's details
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This is really Doc Zubrin's treatise against NASA's VSE plans. It is basically a compilation of his three Moon essays and some extra NASA-hate sprinkled on the bottom... You know, I once had some respect for Zubrin, he seemed like a pretty sharp and noble man.
But now, now I have none, because Zubrin's zealousness has destroyed him. Destroyed him by driving him to lie and decieve to literally desperatly try to put men on Mars as fast as possible no matter what. It really horrifies me to see Zubrin affirm so many things that are simply untrue.
Zubrin is not a stupid man, he is a trained professional engineer, and so he has no excuse for his eregorious statements and assertions... And you, Publiusr. The fact that you fell for his lies, deception, and slander, well that just goes to show that either you are too ignorant to debate these matters or are likewise a liar and you definatly hate NASA.
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I think by now it is pretty clear that Zubrin doesn't care much for a Lunar program occuring before a Mars program. I think it must drive him insane really (maybe literally) that NASA isn't rushing off to Mars ASAP. So, Zubrin doesn't really care about going to the Moon at all I don't think, and he is trying to slander and assasinate Lunar plans that might cause HIS plan for Mars to take longer, without giving the slightest care about how good that plan might be for the Moon.
If we were to listen to Zubrin, then basically everything we will do on the Moon will wind up being a short-lived like Apollo and have no future beyond short two-week expeditions... basically, all wasted. This is in one way consistant, his MarsDirect plan - as advertised - has no growth or upgrade path, and is so optimistic that it is probobly impossible without radical alteration (nuke engines, smaller crew). His idea of a "base" is just to huddle some some cramped, worn out HAB modules. Basically, Zubrin doesn't care what happens, as long as we get there NOW NOW NOW.
I can't stress this enough, that however we go to the Moon or Mars must NOT be the end of the road, and that evolution into a partially or fully reuseable and scaleable system that no perminant presence can be expanded in our present & near future economic environment.
His reasoning behind the insistance that we launch the entire Lunar mission in a single flight directly to the Moon is laced with lies and half-truthes, which is undoubtably because that is exactly how he wants to go to Mars. Just call a press conferance and point out that "Mars doesn't take any more Delta-V" and pitch MarsDirect in front of Congress again.
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Now for the specific things that Zubrin said that are factually untrue, intentionally deceptive, or obviously biased:
[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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I quit reading the excerpt after the first paragraph because the bit about the X-38 was a lie. The X-38 was NOT designed to be launched by a medium sized booster, nor would it have made access to space any cheaper. It was a narrowly-defined "point" design for bringing astronauts back to earth from ISS. It would hav been launched by the shuttle. Moreover, the X-38 was designed for astronauts to lie on their backs, and I do not think there was sufficient headroom to install conventional seats.
Sean O'Keefe's role in X-38 was overstated, because the program was effectively cancelled over six months before he came to NASA. The Orbital Space Plane was a more pragmatic outgrowth of the failed Space Launch Initiative, which could have performed both the human launch requirement and the ISS escape mission.
I generally think that OSP would have been a good investment, if not for two things: 1) NASA became enamored with capsules after the loss of Columbia, and 2) Supporting ISS with vehicles like OSP made no sense in the return to the moon and beyond.
X-38, on the other hand, was a cheap-and-dirty effort from the start. Instead of starting with the aerodynamically-superior HL-20, NASA picked the X-24. To make up for the craft's poor low-speed handling, they had to add a complex and heavy parafoil. Even with the parafoil, the landing speed was quite high. The X-38's batteries and consumables were designed to last for only a few hours (after a year or more of storage.) The TPS was the same type of fragile tiles used on the belly of the shuttle. This is not very good when you consider the chances of a debris strike when the X-38 is docked to the ISS for a year or more.
Who needs Michael Griffin when you can have Peter Griffin? Catch "Family Guy" Sunday nights on FOX.
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I will be starting with the Moon/VSE essays, and then pay attention to the NASA slander later. Beginning with the systemic lies and ending with the technical ones:
"But the president's policy directive clearly specified that a central purpose of the lunar program is to enable sustained human exploration of Mars... it would delay such missions for many decades."
President Bush has said no such thing, merely that NASA should go to the Moon first before heading to Mars, not what we should do there when we go. Taking any more meaning from his speech is reading your own agenda into it. Zubrin is bashing the VSE plan for not having a Lunar ships double as a Martian one, which is silly since they are two very different destinations... One thing Zubrin does have right is the delay, that yes actually it does have a delay of about 25yrs. Since this is such a long length of time, it makes no sense to compromise the Lunar program now for hardware compatibility with Mars tomorrow.
I'd like to add that I don't think Zubrin has any clue how we intend to stay wherever we go either... reuseability is obviously nessesarry since we can't build very large numbers of all-expendable vehicles, and Zubrin obviously has ignored this... First dismissing the scaleable and modular Lunar arcitecture, and proposing his one-size-fits-none MarsDirect sardine can.
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"Each mission requires four MLV launches."
Three. A mission of roughly equal mass to an HLLV mission could be accomplished in three launches, not four. And the EOR mission will actually increase payload capacity, since the fuel needed to launch the CEV's TEI stage from the Lunar surface is greater then the extra mass cost of a seperate manned lander module.
"Those four launches must be done quickly, since the EDS and LSAM vehicles are carrying cryogenic liquid oxygen and hydrogen... The program requires four MLV launches within just a few weeks."
Zubrin is being especially deceptive here. The launches do NOT have to be performed rapidly if the lander and TEI stage use Methane or Hypergolics instead of Hydrogen. Zubrin's MarsDirect plan calls for the HAB to burn Hypergolics, why not a Lunar mission? Doctor Zubrin, you sir are a LIAR.
"Each mission requires four critical rendezvous operations... The mission would fail if any of the four engine burns (failed)"
And Apollo required two. Why exactly is this a problem, Bob? Docking is easy to pull off, especially with today's technology. No docking attempted by US space vehicles has ever failed in any fasion that would not otherwise doom the mission (Gemini RCS problem). Bob's reliability figures are a scare tactic, aggrigating smal sounding but actually large numbers for this maneuver to try and scare you.
"Just think" this and that about the scarry "rocket burns!" too, frankly if we can't handle a measly rocket burn, we have no business going anywhere. Our modern rocket engines are extremely reliable, the RL-10 series has fired hundreds of times with virtually no failures. Zubrin himself wants to use clusterd RL-10 derived engines to launch his MarsDirect ERV off Mars too.
"One of the cheapest ways to create a heavy lift vehicle is by converting the shuttle... It is a basic feature of rocket economics that larger boosters are more economic than smaller boosters."
Wrong. The "super" 120MT model needed to effectively carry out Zubrin's plan would cost quite a bit more then Shuttle-C or Magnum because of the heavy upper stage and structural improvements needed... But this is beside the point, that Shuttle is very manpower-intensive to fly to the point of fatal fault, that it is NOT clearly cheaper per-launch.
And it is a basic feature of modern industry that a more automated manufacturing method using smaller, easier to make pieces and combining them can yeild lower price then a single nearly hand-built monster like SDV. Zubrin is too smart to feign naievity' here, he is simply lying.
I will not go into the conspiracy-theory and partisanship laced rants about NASA's management that Zubrin spews, other then to touch on two things:
1: Zubrin supports Hubble SM4, which is clearly a bad idea. This illustrates that Zubrin is not making objective & rational decisions... his claim that Hubble would last to 2015 is extremely dubious.
2: The Colubmia incident, that it makes me sick that Zubrin so casually mouthes the "maybe, maybe not" after the fact. Him being an engineer should know, that if there is something bad that you could not possibly do anything about, then it makes no sense to worry about it. Those astronauts were dead the moment the SRB clamps were released on Pad 39, they just didn't know it yet.
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And the next one is for you, Publiusr
Edit: Oh, and I want to point out that I think that Zubrin is using the 20MT payload figure for the EELVs in his "QQ" study, which is patently deceptive and absurd... Zubrin needs to quit the Mars Society for its own good at this point I think.
[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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Publiusr said: "that is a tacit admission than EELVs to the moon are a wasteful distraction"
No, no it isn't. It is five years before we set out for the Moon in earnest, but it is twenty at least until we prepare for Mars. Sacrificing the ideal solution now to save a dime on development tomorrow is stupid, and will wind up costing even more money in the long run, which you and Zubrin seem eager to sacrifice for expediancy.
Although I am not including it above and lumping it in with Zubrin, I want to re-emphasize that putting crews on top of HLLV is probobly a bad idea. The huge solid rocket boosters are a threat that an escape system could not reliably deal with, and man-rating a very big rocket with many engines is much harder then man raiting a small rocket with only a few smaller ones. Simple engineering.
It has been the lesson of Shuttle not to combine crew and cargo, why are we so eager to ignore this? ...And if you are launching the crew seperatly, then HLLV cannot accomplish a direct flight mission. Then, it doesn't matter how you get the componets up there, as long as you can do it safely and efficently. I don't like direct flight because it imposes signifigant payload penalties for having to lug the TEI fuel back to orbit. It also requires the largest and most expensive SDV concept to be practical.
Whatever you are launching on SDV for the Moon, it will be comprised of two seperate pieces, the payload and the TLI stage. Since docking is easy, it makes little difference if these things were launched seperatly on a rocket half the size. Same payload mass, comparable reliability, superior price and flexibility.
The EELV's today are by far from the end possible varient. The Delta-IV imparticularly has alot of growth headroom with only small changes, it could reach payloads up to 50MT with standard three-core Aluminum construction. The single-core Atlas-V equipped with a heavier Centaur stage could perhaps launch the CEV with few or no SRMs either for maximum safety. I want to emphasize that these would be only variations on exsisting rockets, not derivitive vehicles, and thus would be relativly inexpensive and low-risk to develop versus SDV or any HLLV option.
Their price is also a known quantity unlike SDV or clean-sheet, so the fiscal risk of SDV with its legacy price-is-no-object Apollo infrastructure or make-work Shuttle Army.
Later on, when we are ready to move into a partially reuseable mission arcitecture to save Lunar money to pay for Mars, HLLV will be too large to be very useful in this capacity, so infact if prices were equal the Medium plan makes more sense. Sending supplies with an HLLV is massively overkill as well, but a current EELVs are too weak.
And prices are not equal. If the USAF and NASA go into buying EELV+ together, then the one thing that has been driving up US launch prices will be vanquished - low flight rate. Flying well over a dozen times a year will substantially reduce the price, which SDV cannot. The added flexibility of EELV+, easier man rating, flexable payload size, and USAF compatibility are a price as well as performance advantage.
Since SDV is too big for the USAF, NASA would be the sole buyer, and since SDV is so infrastructure-intensive to fly (crawler vs. truck, vertical vs. horizontal integration), opening a second SDV pad to inrease flight rate would be much more expensive probobly.
I've had about all of this that I can handle for one evening.
[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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I quit reading the excerpt after the first paragraph because the bit about the X-38 was a lie. The X-38 was NOT designed to be launched by a medium sized booster, nor would it have made access to space any cheaper. It was a narrowly-defined "point" design for bringing astronauts back to earth from ISS. It would hav been launched by the shuttle. Moreover, the X-38 was designed for astronauts to lie on their backs, and I do not think there was sufficient headroom to install conventional seats.
Sean O'Keefe's role in X-38 was overstated, because the program was effectively cancelled over six months before he came to NASA. The Orbital Space Plane was a more pragmatic outgrowth of the failed Space Launch Initiative, which could have performed both the human launch requirement and the ISS escape mission.
I generally think that OSP would have been a good investment, if not for two things: 1) NASA became enamored with capsules after the loss of Columbia, and 2) Supporting ISS with vehicles like OSP made no sense in the return to the moon and beyond.
X-38, on the other hand, was a cheap-and-dirty effort from the start. Instead of starting with the aerodynamically-superior HL-20, NASA picked the X-24. To make up for the craft's poor low-speed handling, they had to add a complex and heavy parafoil. Even with the parafoil, the landing speed was quite high. The X-38's batteries and consumables were designed to last for only a few hours (after a year or more of storage.) The TPS was the same type of fragile tiles used on the belly of the shuttle. This is not very good when you consider the chances of a debris strike when the X-38 is docked to the ISS for a year or more.
*Nod* Another pack of lies about NASA...
The X-38:
-Could never land on a runway, even if it had wheels
-Could never be reuseable with its req'd rough landing
-Could probobly not be enlarged to hold extra crew/light cargo
-No windows
-No cockpit
-No controls, only a "go" button
-No rendevous guidence hardware (radar/lidar/EO)
-No launch-escape mechanism provision
-No liquid-fuel OMS engines
-No signifigant thermal management system
-No power beyond 9hrs of batteries
-No redundant LSS systems
-No signifigant communications systems
-No hope of being a competitor to HL-20/OSP or CEV... Its also quite clear that Zubrin hates O'Keefe for whatever reasons, which I don't think he deserves.
Oh, and side note: Zubrin being critical of JIMO, that it ought to have a smaller 20kW class reactor rather then a 100-150kW... Uhh Bob, what size of reactor did you want for MarsDirect? ...Yeah, thought so.
[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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docking is still a problem, the dart program comes close to saying just that, along with other things about nasa built stuff.
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docking is still a problem, the dart program comes close to saying just that, along with other things about nasa built stuff.
No it isn't, that was a fairly simple glitch to fix, and the docking could be handled by direct human control, either in the vehicle or by remote. There won't be any life-or-death docking operations that don't have a human crew onboard to supervise either.
What do you call all the sucessful dockings in the Gemini program? Or the twin dockings of Apollo on every flight? Or all the times Shuttle has docked sucessfully with the ISS? ...None of those even had terminal computer guidence.
And frankly, if docking scares us then we're doomed any which way. We have to get over every single little thing being an "oh no!" situation if we are to DO anything except grab a few souvieneer rocks and pictures.
[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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The irony behind DART, at least according to today's news, is that it may have actually collided with its target spacecraft. This error would be due to noise in the GPS signal. Apparently DART was more successful than first thought.
Who needs Michael Griffin when you can have Peter Griffin? Catch "Family Guy" Sunday nights on FOX.
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The EELV's today are by far from the end possible varient. The Delta-IV imparticularly has alot of growth headroom with only small changes @ it could reach payloads up to 50MT with standard three-core Aluminum construction. The single-core Atlas-V equipped with a heavier Centaur stage could perhaps launch the CEV with few or no SRMs either for maximum safety. I want to emphasize that these would be only variations on exsisting rockets, not derivitive vehicles, and thus would be relativly inexpensive and low-risk to develop versus SDV or any HLLV option.
I have no doubt that EELV's will cover us up through spiral 2. Its when we start longer term lunar missions, ones that require permenent surface installations, that I think we will need a HLLV. And I can't see us doing an all new HLLV program while doing spiral 2 lunar missions. The money probably won't be there. For that reason it makes for sense to hang on to the SDV, even if the launches are rare.
Their price is also a known quantity unlike SDV or clean-sheet so the fiscal risk of SDV with its legacy price-is-no-object Apollo infrastructure or make-work Shuttle Army.
We've been launching shuttles for 20 years, and your telling me we don't know how much it cost to refuel a set of SRBs, to build a ET, to build a set of shuttle engines that need to be replaced after a few missions? The only unknown is the cost of the cargo section itself, which will vary from launch to launch.
Thats far fewer unknowns that a rocket that only exists in computers.
Since SDV is too big for the USAF, NASA would be the sole buyer, and since SDV is so infrastructure-intensive to fly (crawler vs. truck, vertical vs. horizontal integration), opening a second SDV pad to inrease flight rate would be much more expensive probobly.
If I'm not mistaken, the USAF has been look for a way to quickly replace a number of satillites in wartime to replace losses. Theres nothing else out there that could potenially do that. Plus, if they ever get that kenetic energy penatrator they want, their not going to want a small magazine on it.
In short its in there best interest to have that capability, and there not going to get it on there own.
"Yes, I was going to give this astronaut selection my best shot, I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses."
---Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane
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The Air Force does want to be able to repalce satellites in a hurry during a space war scenario, but it would rely on smaller launchers like RASCAL to do the job. SDV would take far too long to prepare for launch, and it would need to fill the payload bay with several satellites before it would be ready for launch.
The big unknown quantity with SDV is how much of the shuttle support staff are needed to stay on board to operate the SDV. If this number is high, SDV will not be economical. I do agree that heavy lift will become essential when we reach the colony phase of lunar exploration, but that period may be far enough away that we can design a proper HLLV instead of going "quick and dirty" with SDV.
My thought is that the competing CEV contractor teams should prepare proposals for an SDV. The proposals would be evaluated on the basis of best value, and a decision should be made on whether it will be EELV-only or SDV for cargo and EELV for manned launches.
Who needs Michael Griffin when you can have Peter Griffin? Catch "Family Guy" Sunday nights on FOX.
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All this diatribe, while the Russians keep on doing what you're all discussing, routinely and on schedule, in their own way. Why not leap-frog them, while taking advantage (and paying them) for what already works in the interim? Let's face it: We're just a bunch of amateurs when it comes to remote docking. Re-inventing the wheel, comes to mind. Ho-hum.
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All this diatribe, while the Russians keep on doing what you're all discussing, routinely and on schedule, in their own way. Why not leap-frog them, while taking advantage (and paying them) for what already works in the interim? Let's face it: We're just a bunch of amateurs when it comes to remote docking. Re-inventing the wheel, comes to mind. Ho-hum.
Nonsense! You are just falling victim to Russia-worship. The Russians have come up with reliable systems but with one major issue: Performance.
That is, they don't have any. They don't have any rockets capable of lifting more then our current ones, and they can't be upgraded. The big Angara-VII will hardly match today's basic Delta-IV HLV.
Klipper will also be unable to return from the Moon. Only a capsule shape can withstand direct reentry, which leaves only Soyuz as a capable "Russian CEV," and it is half the size it needs to be. And Progress? It still beuffdles me why the Russkies' bother with 2.2MT loads of stuff.
And frankly, we have much more experience with all-cryogenic engines then they do, and I trust our engines more then theirs.
And our experience with docking operations is somehow invalidated? I don't think so. The Russian docking systems were responsable for almost killing everyone on MIR if memory serves.
[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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The EELV's today are by far from the end possible varient. The Delta-IV imparticularly has alot of growth headroom with only small changes @ it could reach payloads up to 50MT with standard three-core Aluminum construction. The single-core Atlas-V equipped with a heavier Centaur stage could perhaps launch the CEV with few or no SRMs either for maximum safety. I want to emphasize that these would be only variations on exsisting rockets, not derivitive vehicles, and thus would be relativly inexpensive and low-risk to develop versus SDV or any HLLV option.
I have no doubt that EELV's will cover us up through spiral 2. Its when we start longer term lunar missions, ones that require permenent surface installations, that I think we will need a HLLV. And I can't see us doing an all new HLLV program while doing spiral 2 lunar missions. The money probably won't be there. For that reason it makes for sense to hang on to the SDV, even if the launches are rare.
Their price is also a known quantity unlike SDV or clean-sheet so the fiscal risk of SDV with its legacy price-is-no-object Apollo infrastructure or make-work Shuttle Army.
We've been launching shuttles for 20 years, and your telling me we don't know how much it cost to refuel a set of SRBs, to build a ET, to build a set of shuttle engines that need to be replaced after a few missions? The only unknown is the cost of the cargo section itself, which will vary from launch to launch.
Thats far fewer unknowns that a rocket that only exists in computers.
Since SDV is too big for the USAF, NASA would be the sole buyer, and since SDV is so infrastructure-intensive to fly (crawler vs. truck, vertical vs. horizontal integration), opening a second SDV pad to inrease flight rate would be much more expensive probobly.
If I'm not mistaken, the USAF has been look for a way to quickly replace a number of satillites in wartime to replace losses. Theres nothing else out there that could potenially do that. Plus, if they ever get that kenetic energy penatrator they want, their not going to want a small magazine on it.
In short its in there best interest to have that capability, and there not going to get it on there own.
"that I think we will need a HLLV"
Really? Why? A 100MT SDV and a pair of 50MT EELV+ rockets could deliver about the same payload, and if we are buying ~18+ EELV rockets a year versus 4-6 SDV shots, I bet the EELV+ option will come out cheaper.
"...your telling me we don't know how much it cost to refuel a set of SRBs, to build a ET, to build a set of shuttle engines that need to be replaced after a few missions? The only unknown is the cost of the cargo section itself, which will vary from launch to launch... Thats far fewer unknowns that a rocket that only exists in computers."
But its not just the cost of tank & boosters, those are a relativly small part of the cost of flying either STS or SDV. The big issue is the cost of the launch staff, the thousands of people that are needed to operate the antique KSC launch center even if you do get rid of the STS Orbiter. Plus, you will have a new overhead cost of expendable engines, upper stages, and avionics. Also if you are wanting the big 120MT version of SDV, the main tank will have to be signifigantly alterd to handle the weight.
So yeah, I think its a big risk that SDV will turn out to be an expensive nightmare like Shuttle, and be far more expensive then NASA could afford or that EELV+ could provide... Oh, and last I checked, EELV missions have actually flown unlike SDV. Again, I want to remind you that EELV+ would only be modifications of exsisting vehicles, and not basically a brand new rocket with old boosters like SDV.
"Theres nothing else out there that could potenially do that."
Yes there is. As AdAstra points out, the USAF is looking at fleets of smaller vehicles, not bigger ones. SDV could not be rapidly sortied with such a large number of small payload items needed for integration, and you would be in risk of losing them all if it failed. A risk the USAF would obviously not tollerate.
A KEM missile platform? Since you would want immediate attack ability at a variety of longitudes and redundancy, you would obviously favor a number of smaller platforms rather then a few big ones. EELV+ would be perfect for this, able to launch a very modest magazine and do it for less money.
EELV+ is also great for non-manned NASA missions. If you want to launch some supplies or light equipment to a Lunar base a few times a year, do you send an SDV? No way, thats overkill. Heavy probes to the outer planets? SDV is again far too big, but regular EELV's are too small. Etcetera etcetera, there are several good applications for a rocket bigger then what we have, but smaller then SDV.
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When I say "EELV+" I am referring to a few options:
-Delta-IV+ "SHLV"
Equipped with better engines, RL-60 and RS-68R for its upper and lower stages and a six-pack of GEM-60 solid rockets for an extra kick at launch. Probobly with higher-octane liquid hydrogen too. Otherwise identical to the one that flew this year, able to lift around 50MT probobly. It certainly could with Lithium alloy construction or crossfeed fuel lines, which I think would be pretty easy to include if it came down to it. NASA switched to Lithium alloy for the Shuttle tank without much trouble or expense.
If we are aiming to have a real presence on the Moon, then I think its safe to talk about buying at least nine, possibly twelve yearly. The Boeing factory and launch pad are already capable of this flight rate.
If we are buying a dozen upper stages, 36 cores, and 72 solid rocket boosters a year I am asserting that the price each will be substantially lower then building only three to six SDVs and refurbishing a dozen SRBs to achieve equal mass-per-year launched. Shuttle has already shown that this low flight rate leads to high costs, and there is no reason to launch more vehicles then this.
-Delta-IV+ Medium 56
The basic Delta-IV Medium upgraded with RS-68R and RL-60 engines and six GEM-60 SRMs could perhaps launch the CEV, and would probobly be big enough for many USAF applications. It would probobly be powerful enough without SRMs to launch the CEV to the ISS if its powerful Lunar-return rocket were omitted. This varient could take up the extra three available launches that Boeing's factory and launch pad could accomodate.
-Atlas-V+ 5XX
The same RD-180 powerd rocket in use today, except with a new upper stage with a larger diameter, more fuel, and the new RL-60 engine. This would be the ideal vehicle to launch CEV on, since it would be able to do it with only two or three small solid rocket boosters. If Lithium alloy or composits were used, its possible that Atlas-V could launch CEV with no solid rockets at all... I estimate we would buy several of these anually: up to four for Lunar crews, two for the ISS crews if it is still around, and up to six for Lunar and ISS supplies.
-Atlas-V+ HLV
Lockheed has offerd a tripple-barrel version of Atlas-V to the USAF with a payload in the 30MT region. Swapping out the upper stage with a more powerful one like the Delta-IV+ SHLV, using Lithium alloy tankage, and adding a four-pack of solid rocket boosters and it could probobly match the Delta-IV+ SHLV payload. This is probobly the least practical concept however, since it would require the most development.
-SpaceX future vehicle (?)
Elon Musk may eventually get into the game too. If he could actually get some rockets off the ground and come up with a heavier engine, he could pull off a vehicle in the same ballpark as the Atlas-V+
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Basicly the only real option is a Hermes+Orbit Boosters launched from a very big flying wing. Every part reusable.
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What? No way, thats nonsense. You can't make such a configuration fully reuseable, the big rocket you need to put a little OSP into orbit couldn't be easily recoverd. The flying wing carrier plane would be very expensive to develop too, and you couldn't deliver very much payload this way.
If you are going to go to all that trouble, spend some extra money to build a true two-stage all-flyback Shuttle-II... Large supersonic carrier plane with Kerosene rocket or LOX-boosted Turbine/Ramjet engines (like the SR-71, only bigger), and a modest but not-too-small upper stage orbiter burning LOX and slushed Hydrogen with regular bell-nozzle engines.
It would easily cost $15Bn or a bit more to develop, but would be far-and-away more useful... We won't need that kind of reuseability for a while though. What I am talking about is reusing the TLI stage and lander for the Moon, and reusing the ERV (no more HABs either) and MAV (that can land) for Mars when a base is established at either location. It wouldn't be fully reuseable, but it would cut way down on the number of launches and replacement vehicles you need.
Edit: Oh, and there is a neat trick called the ACES system. Basically, a mid-air LOX plant, which would signifigantly reduce the takeoff weight.
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How about we go with just the flying wing capable of orbit return? We could look at the X-38? being launched from an internal launch bay once in orbit to transfer people to a space station or an unmanned payload orbiter? Either way they use the same system to get to orbit and return to Earth.
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Huh? You mean air-launching a small vehicle from a "bomb bay"to get to orbit? No way, the little vehicle would be too big.
If you are talking about taking one big plane from the ground all the way to orbit, you'd need something like the X-30. Trouble is, no propulsion system is efficent enough to do the job except a very advanced engine called a Regenerative Scramjet, which is probobly a little ways out of our technological reach.
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GCR, when you refer to "high-octane hydrogen" I assume you mean slush hydrogen, which has never flow before. How much work will it be to bring slush hydrogen into commercial use? Its use will also require modification of tanks, since the liquid oxygen tanks would have to be 20% bigger (unless you changed the mixture ratio, which would lower specific impulse).
-- RobS
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I don't think its slushed hydrogen, there are actually two kinds of condenced liquid phase LH2 if memory serves, Ortho and Para type, one of which is a little better then the other. Its a subtle distinction that I don't fully understand myself, being that I am not a physical chemist... I might be wrong about that, but I don't think that slushed hydrogen would work without tank stirring in a regular Delta, and so Boeing wouldn't do that.
Actually, if you would increase the Hydrogen feed to the engine, you would yeild a little higher specific impulse. Its common for cyrogenic engines to intentionally use too much Hydrogen for this purpose. Since you could carry more Hydrogen in the same tanks, you would therefore be able to take advantage of this with only changing the feed ratio.
Edit: Well, here is what is easy to find in five minutes with Google: Since Hydrogen atoms have only a single proton for a nucleus, the nucleus will spin. Both will either spin the same direction or opposit direction in the H2 molecule, the same way is "Ortho" and opposit it is "Para." The Ortho form is slightly unstable compared to Para, and will naturally convert to Para with the release of heat, which is a storage issue. "Regular" freshly liquified LH2, which is a 75/25% mix, can be passed over a special catalyst to convert it to the stable Para form for storage.
The Ortho and Para forms have slightly different physical properties as well... I am taking an educated guess that the Ortho form is a little less dense, being an excited state, then the Para form. So, if you do "extra" processing to eliminate as much of the Ortho form as possible, then the LH2 will be denser, as well as boil off slower during the time between fueling and liftoff. This makes more sense then the other extreme, since the heat released by a 100% Ortho LH2 would boil it all away quickly since you can't insulate the LH2 from itself.
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I've held off on this to give others a chance.
On the subject of lies, I can't think of a better one than this:
"Equipped with better engines, RL-60 and RS-68R for its upper and lower stages and a six-pack of GEM-60 solid rockets for an extra kick at launch. Probobly with higher-octane liquid hydrogen too. Otherwise identical to the one that flew this year, able to lift around 50MT probobly."
Prove it.
That X-38 was blown off for OSP was no lie. Personally--I am not a fan of either--but my point in that first part was that folks at Marshall went beyond their launch vehicle mandate in dabbling with all this. Your accusation of "Russia worship" is disgusting--as is your name-calling and your poor attitude in attacking not only Zubrin whose points about HLLVs are perfectly valid--unlike your EELV worship nonsense. You have sacked Aldrin and other people who are your betters--so why don't you shut up awhile?
You questioned me on heads-up side mount for Buran--for instance--when even a three-year-olds would understand that an aircrft flying below, say, a jumbo jet shedding ice would be more likely to be struck than an aircraft flying above--with the craft below feeling both slipstream, gravity, etc.
That you don't understand that is puzzling, as is your dismissive attitude to top mounting any OSP. First we question top mount capsules on HLLVs--but before you dismissed the danger of top mount OSP. To quote David Leestma, interview in the July 1, 2002 issue of Av Week and Space (page 33):
"Top-mounting a winged vehicle, launching on an ELV doesn't come for free. It's easy to draw a picture of a winged vehicle on top of an ELV, but aerodynamically that is a very difficult task because ELVs take axial loads, but a winged vehicle could put a bending moment into it, and they don't take bending moments very well."
When I called Leestma at 1-281-483-3222 during the OSP debacle and confronted him with his own words on OSP--that he never spoke again once he found himself working for it (and was strangely quiet thereafter) he said "Who is this?"
So while you chose to question Zubrin--it is the OSP folks you should have been looking at.
I question your knowledge--esp. since the New NASA Chief seems to be more in tune with my thinking. Or perhaps you are smarter than he is.
Which I firmly doubt.
If it makes you feel in better, Revenger, there are some at Marshall who want clean-sheet--and Pratt & Whitney has changed its tune in opposing HLLV now that they have Rocketdyne. ATK's SDV approach is what is spoken about in Washington--for they realize something Zubrin understands that some of you do not:
That building a future HLLV from scratch in an era of tighter budgets after an expensive EELV program (that Zubrin is right to question) is all but impossible--especially after alienating current SDV/STS workers, and letting the big pads rot and rust. HLLV is liekly now or never, whether you think so or not.
His QQ comments are accurate, because that is what Boeing itself wants. They want 20 ton only--and you have done nothing with your BS comments to show that 50 ton EELV concepts will work--even if Boeing wanted that.
Simple math Three RS-68s per 80-100 tons is less than six-through-15.
Deal with it.
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Translation: "Blah blah blah HLLV good EELV bad"
I think that you are somehow confused publiusr... The professional engineers at the Boeing aerospace corporation came up with that figure, and they are the ones that build the thing: it is therefore on you to prove that what they say is untrue. You still have provided no basis for your assertion that it is undoable, time and time again, even when pressed to do so.
Unless you can show even a minimally relevent reason why the Delta-IV can't do this, then you have no further basis to keep babbling your "20MT!" figure, as Boeing "wants" whatever keeps them from getting downselected and sells rockets... The Delta-IV was never intended to be the end-product of the line, it is after all an "evolving" launch vehicle... The 50MT line is not that far out of reach, for instance if you just add those little GEM-60 solid rockets, you get about a ~25% increase in payload to the Medium rockets, so too with the Heavy. And improving the thrust and Isp of the other engines? You said yourseld that Delta-IV is thrust-limited.
As far as SDV goes, you have to do a little math... for the SDV system to be economical, it must fly for no more then about $400M per flight, five or six times a year. $200M+ of that rocket is already tied up with expendable hardware costs, probobly more infact then STS. If STS costs ~$100M for expendables, and it costs $800-900M a shot for five anually, then you will have to reduce the non-hardware costs from $700M down to $200M. Thats 70%.
And that, I think, is unlikly to ever happen and NOBODY, not you, not Griffin, not Zubrin has yet shown any evidence to the contrary of this unlikly possibility... and if NASA can't do that, then the cost of SDV will strangle VSE, and we won't be going anywhere. If that means starting over later for an HLLV for Mars, then that is the way it has to be... A real shame too, when the Delta-IV Heavy is already flying on-cost just down the beach.
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"...and your poor attitude in attacking not only Zubrin whose points about HLLVs are perfectly valid... You have sacked Aldrin and other people who are your betters--so why don't you shut up awhile?... I question your knowledge"
His points are not valid because he makes them. His credibility, in my opinion, has been destroyed by his obvious bias to say or do anything to see MarsDirect executed as per his plan. This includes writing essays full of lies about the EOR Lunar mission arcitecture, and trying to sell a Mars plan that probobly won't work before anyone notices, which also has no future beyond flags & footprints... Buzz Aldrin is also not someone I reguard as being much more space savvy then any of us, he was mainly a pilot if memory serves.
I do not reguard either men (Griffin too perhaps, if he is SDV-infatuated) as my "betters," and for that matter, I reguard very few people as my "betters" with respect to their judgement about spaceflight given the same information.
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"...when even a three-year-olds would understand that an aircrft flying below, say, a jumbo jet shedding ice would be more likely to be struck than an aircraft flying above--with the craft below feeling both slipstream, gravity"
Blah blah here we go again... there IS NO heads up/down during liftoff, where the foam damage occurs, since both vehicles are flying straight up. Duh... And that slipstream you mention? Guess what? It is passing over your spaceplane's wings no matter what direction you are flying. If you are saying that it is a major influence compared to gravity, then your own statement is self-contradictory. Which is it?
"...Top-mounting a winged vehicle, launching on an ELV doesn't come for free..."
Which is exactly why the adapter, say for the HL-20, was massed at several tons for structural supports. This simply isn't a show-stopper problem, if it were then there wouldn't have been THREE seperate programs that all put the vehicle on top. Furthermore, you can't put it on the side of any exsisting, economical rocket. It simply must go on top, and it can.
"When I called Leestma..."
Well of course he didn't answer you... if I got a call about my polymer chemistry projects from someone I didn't know and didn't address themselves, I wouldn't answer you either. Your wild-eyed vein-popping stupidity in this matter is driving you to harras the poor fellow? That might even be illegal in some places publiusr... I think its about time that you accept that your position is untennable and cooled off for a while.
Edit: Oh, and about capsule-on-SDV? My issue with that wasn't aerodynamics: it was about putting people on top of a huge rocket (which is hard to man-rate) with giant boosters that you can't turn off.
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The very first will be not necessarily scientists, but rather technicians. You are looking at a situation where they are only going to be conducting a survey of the soil in focus on site of interest(whether for colonization or for science). Scientists can pretty much sit at home and get the data in a download. Technicians can take core samples, drop soil in a spectrum analyser, and grow snails in plastic cylinder for that extra bit of Protien fill. They can also take photos, make notes, and upload the answers to Earth.
There wont be any room for 'mission specialists'. Every one who goes must (for reasons even I thought were obvious) have the ability to opperate every critical piece of technology. No room for liabilities on this trip.
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Buzz Aldrin is also not someone I reguard as being much more space savvy then any of us, he was mainly a pilot if memory serves.
Buzz earned an Sc.D in Aerospace Engineering from MIT in 1963 or so. His papers on the topic of rendezvous earned him the nickname "Dr. Rendezvous." Since his Apollo days he's been a bit of a space visionary; his ideas about space transportation range from zany to pragmatic.
Who needs Michael Griffin when you can have Peter Griffin? Catch "Family Guy" Sunday nights on FOX.
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