"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
"Alan Erskine" wrote:
They're having all sorts of problems; is this kind of thing unusual in a
major program? I mean, to have this many problems this early (booster, CM
etc)...

It's not unusual at all - the capsule programs of the 60's had it just
as bad, as did the Shuttle. The difference it that because of the
'net the problems are visible to thousands of armchair engineers very
nearly in real time.

The difference was with Apollo, von Braun didn't believe the initial weight
estimates for the CSM and LEM. So he put in generous performance margins in
the design of the Saturn V.

That didn't happen with Ares I and Orion, which is why mass budgets are so
tight on both programs. In other words, today's NASA management thought
there wouldn't be problems when they set the initial mass/payload
requirements for Orion/Ares I.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein