DIRECT 2.0 has sure been quiet lately

[J.McDonald]

What happened with X-33 is not parallel to any Ares I events, up to this point. X-33 was doomed from the start thanks to the lack of political will behind moving beyond STS at that time.

The USA has a long history of not following though with space plans and concepts since the Apollo days, but that problem has originated outside of NASA, not within the agency. NASA must be given a GOAL and a DEADLINE in addition to the MONEY in order to turn a plan into hardware.

It's my understanding that X33 was doomed by its very design. It was way too optimistic, relying on three key immature technologies. It takes more than political will to alter the mass fraction of a design, and improve the isp and thrust/weight ratio of an engine. It takes major leaps in technology, and perhaps bending of the rules of physics. In hindsight it's clear that the X33 as originally conceived would never have worked, and Venturestar was thus doomed also.
The comparison I was drawing was that through the X33 project NASA managers continued to spin the 'all is well' story, yet those working on the project could see the writing on the wall almost from the start. It is a good example of why people like me find themselves able to question NASA management, when normally one would take the position that they are capable and responsible. The two shuttle AIBs support this viewpoint, IMHO.

If you were to ask me what I think the fundamental problem with NASA (or its managers) is, I would say it is thinking too big. After the success of Apollo, I guess they must have thought they could do anything. Who would blame them?
Cue STS. An attempt to leap-frog a couple of decades worth of X-plane research and build a full-scale operational RLV.
Cue NASP, another attempt to cut spaceflight costs by employing bleeding-edge technologies.
Cue X33, an attempt to demonstrate three new technologies simultaneously, the failure of one dooming the whole project.
Now it's time for Ares- the 'safest' and the 'biggest' rocket ever. Both are, and will continue to be, shockingly behind schedule and overbudget. One is likely not to leave the drawing board unless its wings are clipped.

IMHO NASA's best moments, Apollo excluded, have been when it has been forced to make do. The best is the enemy of the good, as they say.
Gemini was a great program, cheaply and succesfully leveraging Mercury systems to achieve more ambitious goals.
Voyager was also a fantastic mission, at relatively low cost reusing Mariner systems to explore every gas giant in the solar system.
Skylab was another example. A hastily put together program using what already existed, to do the job on time and budget.

So for some hindsight....
In 2004/5, NASA could have decided to proceed with OSP, but ensure the capsule was compatible with lunar missions. They would have launched it by EELV and it would have eliminated the 'gap', at a fraction of the cost of Ares/Orion.
They could have proceeded with a directly shuttle-derived HLLV, also reducing schedule and costs- call it Jupiter, NLS, whatever, it would have used 4-seg SRBs and an 8.4m tank.

But no, these plans weren't good enough. Let's build the biggest rocket we can imagine, and then make it even bigger! We don't want to have too much of a head-start on the Chinese now, do we?

[Ares_Is_Go]

John, Jim,
I am wondering if he was referring to an SRB not attached to a stack flying? That IS a totally new test.

Just a guess on my part.

Correct. When was the last time Nasa launched a single solid rocket booster?? This sounds like a new test.

AIG

[klydemorris]

Anyone notice that Me2 was asked of NUMBERS to support his straw-man argument... that was about 4 pages ago... did I miss them somewhere...

[JimMcDade]

X-33 VentureStar is not historically parallel to Project Constellation. X-33 was an exasperating misadventure (amongst others) from the Dan Goldin years. Don't forget that X-33 was co-announced in 1996 by the infamous comedy team of Goldin and and Al Gore, inventor of the internet. The X-33 VentureStar concept itself emerged from NASA's ACCESS TO SPACE STUDY, but the bulk of the blame for the sad end to that project lies at the feet of Lockheed Martin, not NASA.

It is hard to keep all of the various false starts in order, but certain factual, historical evidence shows that NASA engineering was not primarily responsible for the demise of those Grunge-era ideas. It is true that the false starts were embarrassing public relations-wise for NASA, but that misplaced perception of embarrassment was/is more the result of general public ignorance of the behind-the-scenes reality of how things actually happened.

There was a spate of space vehicle studies and proposals conducted by NASA and the DOD in the late 1980s and early 1990s. For example, the NASP and NLS concepts were proposals actually intended to supplement STS, not to necessarily replace it.

The SSTO concept, another false start, did not originate with NASA nor the DOD. An organization called the Strategic Defense initiative organization pushed SSTO into being in 1989-1990. That was another misfire that is not fully attributable to NASA.

The root cause of the downfall of X-33 was Lockheed Martin's unrealistic promise to pay for the incremental development of X-33 VentureStar on their own tab. It was too good an offer for NASA (and the White House and Congress) to resist, but Lockheed Martin bit-off more than they could chew. Lockheed Martin planned to operate the new vehicles commercially. The unrealistic goals for X-33 originated with Lockheed Martin, not from NASA.

The revolutionary, lightweight, X-33 composite propellant tank could not handle the propellant load. It fell apart. Lockheed Martin made a switch to an aluminum tank- a change that eliminated the internal cargo space- in a vain act of desperation to save the project, but "W" killed the project. Lockheed Martin just failed to follow-through on their promises. The USAF was then offered X-33, but they declined. $1.3 billion went down the toilet.

The real flaw in all of those 1980s and 1990s space misadventures was not fundamentally technical in nature. The real problem was a lack of broad political support for NLS, SSTO, and X-33 VentureStar.

A particular strength of Ares I is that it does enjoy broad political support in spite of the criticisms coming from the blogosphere/online discussion groups.

A powerful array of US Senators and Congress-members have carried Ares I through Bush's political decline, the Presidential transition, and the prolonged absence of a NASA administrator.

The false-start programs from the 1980s and 1990s were politically weaker than Ares I. That political strength behind Ares I did and will continue to steamroll the negative opinions coming from bloggers and online rocket scientists.

Additionally, Project Constellation, particularly Ares I, actually IS a another case where NASA has been told to make do with limited resources. When the project was announced, Bush told NASA that it should expect nothing more than modest annual budget increases and that it needed to retire the Space Shuttle so that the new program could live within STS-era sized appropriations.

The Project Constellation budget planning projection was intended to keep NASA at roughly the same percentage of federal outlays during development, introduction, and operations of Ares I and the other Constellation hardware. Under such fiscal constraints, an STS-to-Ares I gap was, and still is, unavoidable.

The parsimonious funding foundation of Project Constellation is just barely enough to keep the work moving forward. Unfortunately, the anemic program budget means delays are inevitable, and that the additional engineering work needed to address the problems that typically arise when building space vehicles has to proceed without the intensive Tiger Team mentality that was fairly common during the Apollo program.

In summary, it is wrong, in my opinion, to use past performance of those rejected space projects to judge today's work in Projct Constellation. To do so, is unfair and it is logically flawed. Whew!

[J.McDonald]

If I may snip a few bits from your epic length post

The unrealistic goals for X-33 originated with Lockheed Martin, not from NASA....The real flaw in all of those 1980s and 1990s space misadventures was not fundamentally technical in nature. The real problem was a lack of broad political support for NLS, SSTO, and X-33 VentureStar.

NASA were offered a few different proposals for the project that became X33, and they specifically chose the highest risk one. You could argue that NASA management were gullible to the point of incompetence in embarking on a project which required the limits of technology to be pushed so far. No matter what LM were saying about the design, it should not have been taken at face value- NASA should have had confidence in the design themselves before entrusting public money to it.

As I said above, the problems with X33 and Venturestar were technical. A politician cannot alter the laws of physics. It's pretty clear that SSTO RLVs are a pipe dream until there is a paradigm shift in the technology. Most people can work that out using a calculator and a few glances at the specs of current and past vehicles. It took NASA $1.3bn to come to that conclusion. NASP falls into this same category, IMHO.
NLS, Shuttle-C, the original SSF, and all the other projects are a little different since they almost certainly technically possible but were killed by lack of funding and/or political will.

The Ares architecture ought to be technically quite safe, although building the biggest rocket ever as well as flying the largest solid first stage in history are both steps away from the 'known'. YMMV.

I agree that there is more political will behind Ares than for X33 and the other failed programs. NASA has always followed through with plans to replace its manned spaceflight capability. So STS is a better comparison- and many of the detractors of Ares view it in this light. These people do not see STS as a success. I agree, since STS was supposed to make flights safer and cheaper, and it did neither. NASA aimed big, and missed.

Now, with Ares, NASA had the opportunity to use EELVs and a closer derivate of the shuttle stack, but chose to extend the schedule and budget to (hopefully) improve ultimate safety and performance. IMHO, they are aiming big again, and the project will run overbudget and over-schedule, and will fail.

Additionally, Project Constellation, particularly Ares I, actually IS a another case where NASA has been told to make do with limited resources. When the project was announced, Bush told NASA that it should expect nothing more than modest annual budget increases and that it needed to retire the Space Shuttle so that the new program could live within STS-era sized appropriations.

The Project Constellation budget planning projection was intended to keep NASA at roughly the same percentage of federal outlays during development, introduction, and operations of Ares I and the other Constellation hardware. Under such fiscal constraints, an STS-to-Ares I gap was, and still is, unavoidable.

The parsimonious funding foundation of Project Constellation is just barely enough to keep the work moving forward. Unfortunately, the anemic program budget means delays are inevitable, and that the additional engineering work needed to address the problems that typically arise when building space vehicles has to proceed without the intensive Tiger Team mentality that was fairly common during the Apollo program.

No, NASA are not 'making do'. They are thinking big. It is clearly a goal that CxP must achieve more than Apollo did, so this comes regardless of the cost of the program. I believe that NASA would view a return to Apollo capabilities as just as much of a failure as having no program at all. Hence they are taking the expensive options at every turn and risking complete program cancellation.

If CxP is cancelled because it runs over budget, people should ask:
- did Orion need to be so large? Couldn't the already-running OSP design have been adapted for the purpose?
- why spend $15bn on Ares-I when an EELV could have been man-rated for the job for a fraction of that, and have been ready sooner?
- why invest $3bn in new SRBs, and more in the 5.5segs, when the 4-seg is developed and flight proven?
- why scale up the heavy lifter core to 10m when the facilities already existed to support 8.4m?
- why insist on anytime/anywhere lunar landing capabilities when it drives LSAM mass so high?

etc.

[Ares_Is_Go]

It is intersting how easy it is to blame Nasa for everything!

Nasa has been around for 50 yrs now. Does not that count for something without denegrating its management and its puppets, it appears?

[spacefan]

Could Esa or Roscosmos do better if they enjoyed nasa levels of funding? I think the russians probably could. Where would manned space exploration be if they did.

[Rick]

Could Esa or Roscosmos do better if they enjoyed nasa levels of funding? I think the russians probably could. Where would manned space exploration be if they did.

Without getting of the thread topic too far, I'd say that if the Russians had enjoyed NASA's level of funding, there would probably still have been a space race far longer than it actually existed.

[JimMcDade]

Rick, you are right. The Russian space program managers were always second in line to the Soviet military. In 1957, there was only one computer in the entire Soviet Union that was capable of crunching orbital insertion trajectories. That computer was in Moscow, and the Sputnik team was indebted to Khrushchev for his decision to assign priority to the satellite space program.

The Soviet military wanted Korolev to solve the problem of ballistic nose-cone survivability first, then work on satellites. The early Soviet nuke warhead technology trials failed when the nose-cones disintegrated during descent.

The Soviets mistakenly though that the USA was going to launch a satellite in early October, so they bumped up their planned launch to October 4, 1957. It is interesting to note that technical problems actually caused Sputnik to orbit about 50 miles lower than planned, but Korolev benefited from the large margin of error built into the flight plan.

Ares I engineers also have some fairly broad margins to work with and a conservative approach to evaluating performance.

Some of the opponents of Ares I have used the conservative "worst case scenario" study/test results and numbers in their attacks. I think that the direct attacks on Ares I using some of those results was a mistake. For me, that action created an impression that the attackers were growing increasingly desperate.

It is better strategy to sell your product by emphasizing it's own merits as opposed to continually bashing the competition's products, particularly by trying to stretch or the amplify the problems of the competing design.

It is better to appear active as opposed to being reactive in relation to the competition. Continuous efforts to denigrate the competition grows tiresome and it can backfire when the intended audience starts to wonder about the arguers dedicated focus on negatives.

J McDonald: I respect your views on those failed concepts, but I also respectfully disagree with some of your conclusions. However, that's all past history and I don't want to waste too much time retelling a lot of arcane details that led me to my own conclusions.

The USA is the only nation on Earth that could make a balky pile of bathroom tiles fly into space. This nation has the will and the money to force things to fit and the audacity to change the rules of the game mid-stream or just redefine success on the fly. The STS program is a textbook example of the USA's robust enthusiasm for forcefully maintaining appearances in the face of brick wall realities.

The defined roles and expectations for STS were open for edits and revisions over the entire life of the program. No matter how disappointing, costly, dangerous, or inefficient the STS actually proved to be, it was the CHOSEN system and the inattentive and forgetful American public was ready and willing to open wide and swallow the latest, revised pieces of propaganda, including HAIL COLUMBIA!, THE DREAM IS ALIVE, and SPACE SHUTTLE: AMERICA'S WORKHORSE IN SPACE.

Don't get me wrong, the Space Shuttle support team that prepared and serviced the STS has performed heroically over the years. They did their best with what they were given to work with.

[J.McDonald]

It is interesting to note that technical problems actually caused Sputnik to orbit about 50 miles lower than planned, but Korolev benefited from the large margin of error built into the flight plan.

Ares I engineers also have some fairly broad margins to work with and a conservative approach to evaluating performance.

Hmmm, I'd shout 'duck!' if you took a fifty mile margin from Orion's insertion orbit !
More seriously, the Direct team claim that NASA present Ares performance minus industry standard margins. Anybody able to confirm or deny this?

It is better strategy to sell your product by emphasizing it's own merits as opposed to continually bashing the competition's products, particularly by trying to stretch or the amplify the problems of the competing design.

I think Direct stands on its own merits. A different approach which sacrifices potential ultimate safety and performance for a less costly, shorter, and less risky development.
Unfortunately many people react to this saying "so what? We've already chosen Ares". So it's at that point that you start to ask- is Ares going to do the job it's supposed to, on time, on budget?

This nation has the will and the money to force things to fit and the audacity to change the rules of the game mid-stream or just redefine success on the fly. The STS program is a textbook example of the USA's robust enthusiasm for forcefully maintaining appearances in the face of brick wall realities.

The defined roles and expectations for STS were open for edits and revisions over the entire life of the program. No matter how disappointing, costly, dangerous, or inefficient the STS actually proved to be, it was the CHOSEN system and the inattentive and forgetful American public was ready and willing to open wide and swallow the latest, revised pieces of propaganda, including HAIL COLUMBIA!, THE DREAM IS ALIVE, and SPACE SHUTTLE: AMERICA'S WORKHORSE IN SPACE.

Don't get me wrong, the Space Shuttle support team that prepared and serviced the STS has performed heroically over the years. They did their best with what they were given to work with.

Do I take it that you consider STS a success?

Nobody really expects a program to meet all of its goals- capability, schedule, and budget. But lets look at how far from the mark STS really was:
Shuttle was supposed to fly in 1977, rescue Skylab, build SSF, fly dozens of times a year, slash launch costs, and improve safety to 1:10,000 LOC.
We all know how it turned out. Especially safety.

CxP was supposed to fly by 2013, return to the moon around 2018, fly 6 to ISS, and achieve complete lunar surface access and anytime return capabilities. All this for a flat budget.
Will you consider CxP a success if it misses the mark as badly as STS did?

[Rick]

Do I take it that you consider STS a success?

It depends what you consider successes. Given the strapped budget the space agency had to deal with, and of course, the loss of two crews and vehicles, there also have been successes Here are some listed below:



Missions of the space shuttle have included the transport of the Spacelab scientific workshop and the insertion into orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope (1990), the Galileo space probe (1989), the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (1999), and a wide variety of communications, weather, scientific, and defense-related satellites.

Other notable achievements of the shuttle program include the rescue and repair of disabled satellites (including the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993 and 1999) and the first three-person spacewalk (1992).

In 1995 the Endeavour's mission of Mar. 2–18 set the record for the longest shuttle flight. It was also in 1995 that the crew of Atlantis accomplished the first of nine shuttle-Mir (Russian space station) docking maneuvers and crew transfers, which were designed to pave the way for the assembly of the International Space Station (ISS).

The crew of Discovery made the ninth and final docking in 1998, five months before the Russians orbited Zarya, the first ISS module. A month later the astronauts aboard Endeavour initiated the first assembly sequence of the ISS, linking the Unity module, a passageway that connects living and work areas of the station, to Zarya.

In 1999 the Discovery crew accomplished the first docking of a shuttle with the ISS during a mission to supply the two modules with tools and cranes. Shuttle flights since have continued to bring supplies and components to the station, including the Destiny (2001, United States) and Columbus (2008, ESA) laboratories.

I guess I am looking at the glass half full, rather than half empty.

[JimMcDade]

As I said, the US government is outstanding when it comes to re-defining the definition success by changing the measures of success on the fly. Contrary to what some believe, I am not a NASA cheerleader. I just want to see NASA and the critics play honestly and in the best interest of all parties.

The STS is a remarkable system and it has been extremely successful if you look at particular jobs such as ISS assembly and the HST missions. When you look at STS in terms of the original expectations, it did fall flat in a lot of those areas.

We have seen 132 STS missions. Space is a very dangerous business. There was one ATO and two terrible occasions where the orbiter and crew did not survive.

STS has to be rated as an overall success if you look at it in terms of maintaining US leadership in human space exploration for three decades. Soyuz is incredible, but it was never built to execute the kind of ambitious missions that STS has executed so well.

Most people probably consider HST to be the number one STS accomplishment, but I think that some future space historians will view the ISS as an even more important accomplishment.

I have been very impressed at the way the NASA team and the orbiters have handled the packed, post-STS-107, ISS completion schedule. I was very skeptical about the ability of NASA to finish that job, particularly when meddling politicians forced the upcoming HST servicing mission back onto the schedule. So far, so good, but I am concerned for the next crew of Atlantis. Those guys know they are running a little extra risk, but that's the kind of people they are----- heroes.

The bottom line is that STS has indeed been a success in spite of a lot of it's shortcomings. The worst thing about the STS was the loss of fourteen astronauts, but both Challenger and Columbia demonstrated that it is always the frail human beings behind the machine that unintentionally cause catastrophe.

To see a Shuttle launch in person is a soul-stirring experience. The power of those big engines surges across the water and palmetto scrubs right through your chest. we do not yet have the video and audio technology to do justice to the launch experience. I strongly encourage people who have not seen a launch before, to do their best to see one of the last Shuttle launches before it is too late. I will miss them.

[J.McDonald]

Well you can't deny that STS achieved many things.
This is also not the place to start a debate about the various merits of flying all of those payloads on safer, cheaper, conventional expendable vehicles.
But the point I was making was that STS set out to accomplish a task and in key areas it failed.
Many of those who do not wholeheartedly support the Ares/CxP plan are worried that the same level of underachievement will be realised. FOC by 2013 and lunar missions by 2018 are long dead. A lunar base currently hangs in the balance. Will the lunar missions be curtailed after just a few have flown? (do the 'steroids' guarantee us any more sustainability?); worse than that, will Ares-V become so huge that it doesn't get funded sufficiently and never flies?

Perhaps it's because I'm Scottish, and we're a nation of natural pessimists! I just have a grave feeling that NASA has aimed too big and will miss. Yet again.

[Rick]

My view is certainly not in line with yours John. NASA is not looking big enough. Not to get nostalgic here, but BIG was very succesful in the '60's. BIG brought pride to the American people, and in fact, the worldwide population as a whole.

Again, nostalgia is getting the better of me today.

[spacefan]

Americans can be justly proud of Apollo, it was an awesome achievement. STS for all its flaws did maintain America's pre-eminance in space.

Ares 1 will get built and take people into LEO. Ares V will get funding otherwise the Russians will be top dog in space.

[Rick]

Americans can be justly proud of Apollo, it was an awesome achievement. STS for all its flaws did maintain America's pre-eminance in space.

Ares 1 will get built and take people into LEO. Ares V will get funding otherwise the Russians will be top dog in space.

You hit the nail on the head spacefan. I could not agree with you more!

[JimMcDade]

J, I am just glad that you care enough to hold some strong personal opinions about space exploration--- even if we often hold different opinions. Too many people don't care at all these days.

We have barely scratched the surface of the moon. We have no inkling of the fantastic discoveries, inventions, and innovations that will come after we finally commit to serious lunar exploration and exploitation.

We could speculate about the future, but we would certainly do no better than many of your (our) 16th century Scottish ancestors who first landed in the New World, if they had tried to project things like television, cell phones, space satellites, or digital computers.

Who knows what will come as we investigate matters such as that dry, electrically charged lunar dust that recently made the news? We have been pessimistically looking at that dust as a problem to be overcome. Perhaps we need to consider that sticky, charged dust as a potential solution, not as a problem.

Will we develop technologies that exploit that natural and renewable source of electrical potential on the moon? Only time will tell. We cannot plumb all of the lunar possibilities and potentialities from the surface of earth. We cannot duplicate the totality of the lunar environment anywhere here on earth.

You and I might argue about the best way to get there, but some day in the distant future, somebody will stand on the lunar surface and wonder why it took so long for our generation to follow-up on the early Apollo lunar missions.

[J.McDonald]

Yes you're probably correct, and apologies if I've been responsible.
So to get back on topic...

Direct have now moved to v.3.0 with SSME and RL10 engines in place of RS68 and J2X. This is a significant change and is the result of a cascade of events. It all began with base heating issues around the ablative RS68, which led to a RS68-regen vs. SSME trade, with SSME being the winner; the superior performance of SSME on the core allowed a much later MECO and a resultant smaller EDS. This led to a single J2X baseline for a while, which was then traded against a 6 RL10 layout, the latter having, again, higher isp and, again, winning out.

I fin it very interesting how in both cases, the 'high tech' (i.e. high isp) engine has been found superior. That both engines are already in production is obviously a big advantage, and fits very well with the Direct philosophy.

What remains to be seen is whether the event that sparked all of this, the base heating issue, will surface in the Ares V design. Does anybody know if CxP are planning on abandoning the ablative RS68, or is this a case of Direct rumour-mongering?

[JimMcDade]

I see that the National Enquirer, err... Orlando Sentinel is at it again.

[Rick]

Lull before the storm

but seriously, HST problems are going to delay Ares I-X around 6 months

I give you credit on this one Me2.

You were on the money with this one.