wrote:
I know this has been hashed over before, but I've got the task to
determine what exactly would be required to man rate the two EELV's to
NASA standards. Without getting into the philosophical debates over the
worthiness of such a project, does anyone know of sources of
information for *what* would need to happen and how much it might cost?

Thanks...


I'd agree that the document Rand and Ed are talking about in another
response thread is going to be part of it, but looking at the CEV RFP
that was made public today (can be found at
http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/sol.cgi?acqid=113638) suggests
that it's not the entire story. From what I can read (in attachment
J-1), they permit the vendors to consider trade-off between different
objectives *including abort requirements* in the final design.

Finally, the "man-rating" of the booster will certainly only be
definable in the context of the overall launch system -- differences in
spacecraft & abort systems design will play a part in determining what
has to be done to the booster and pad infrastructure to make the overall
system "99% safe" (whatever the h*ll that means)...

--
Reed Snellenberger
GPG KeyID: 5A978843
rsnellenberger-at-houston.rr.com