"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:20:14 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

From what little can be gleaned from the Augustine Commission report,
NASA seems to favor putting the payload and/or Orion on the side of the
ET rather than atop it like in DIRECT, so you basically end up with a
manned Shuttle C.

I know I wasn't the only one around here saying "Just build Shuttle-C
and get on with it" about three years ago, when SSME was dumped and
the Five Segment Accident Waiting To Happen appeared on the scene.
Three years and God alone knows how many billions of dollars later...

And yet there have been many studies done by NASA which show an inline
shuttle derived launch vehicle comes out ahead of the side mounted Shuttle-C
type vehicle. This is particularly true if you assume that shuttle
operations will come to an end, which they most definitely are.

This is why I have a feeling that the side-mounted Shuttle-C style vehicle
was deliberately shown as an "alternative" by NASA to the Augustine
Commission as disinformation. It's easier to point to side-mounted
Shuttle-C style vehicle, note its shortfalls, and then point to NASA's
bloated Ares V to show how they can be solved... They want you to pay no
attention to that "other" inline shuttle derived launch vehicle...

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon