NASA Borrowing From Shuttle and Ares I

In article 0e187a08-2fc7-4a02-a0fa-
,
says...

Is Jupiter (Direct) still the best way to go for NASA?
Or are there better options now?

My personal opinion is that NASA need not develop any new HLV for itself
and should stick to using existing launch vehicles. To make up for the
lack of an HLV, they ought to invest in developing in orbit storage and
refueling of LOX and LH2.

Direct is still the best (cheapest) option for a NASA HLV, but NASA
seems to be pitching an HLV that's more expensive than Direct. The HLV
they're pitching has the five segment SRB's (direct uses the shuttle's
existing 4-segment SRB's), five SSME's in the first stage (Direct would
use 3 or 4, depending on the mission), and an upper stage which would
use the J2-X (Direct would use existing RL-10 engines).

So, the vehicle NASA is pitching requires both development of the 5
segment SRB's and the J2-X, both of which will add billions to the
development costs of an HLV. This is not Direct.

Jeff
--
"Had Constellation actually been focused on building an Earth-Moon
transportation system, it might have survived. The decision to have it
first build a costly and superfluous Earth-to-orbit transportation
system (Ares I) was a fatal mistake.", Henry Spencer 1/2/2011