MSNBC (JimO) - Hubble debate -- a lot of sound and fury

Mary Shafer wrote in message . ..
RI bid what was essentially a modernized Orbiter. Nothing
new in either of them.

How do you figure?

The Rockwell X-33 looked vaguely like the Orbiter (with emphasis on
vaguely), probably had somewhat similar aerodynamics, and used a
modified SSME. I can't think of anything else that it had in common.

It's certainly more of a departure from the Orbiter than any of the
modified fighters that Dryden has used as experimental aircraft, and
that's counting the F-16XLs, and maybe the X-29 as a modified F-20.

-jake

Mary Shafer wrote in
:

The X-33 RFP called for an _innovative_ vehicle, but the MDAC bid the
DC-Y and RI bid what was essentially a modernized Orbiter. Nothing
new in either of them. At least Lockheed-Martin bid something
innovative, with the aerospike engine on a lifting body. It deserved
to win and the other two didn't.

When NASA (or any other government agency) wants a specific company or
specific proposal to win the competitive bid process, it writes the
RFP to be sure that happens. It doesn't specify "innovative" for a
warmed-over SDIO concept or an Orbiter retread.

I'm not sure the DC-Y/Delta Clipper quite deserves the label "warmed-over",
since it only got as far as the low-altitude, subsonic DC-X demonstrator.
DC-Y/Delta Clipper would have been the first demonstrated SSTO and the
first orbital VTVL vehicle. While not as technologically ambitious as X-
33/VentureStar, it was fairly innovative in its own right.

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jeff findley wrote:

If your only metric is innovation. Unfortunately, when you have a
fixed budget (which X-33 essentially had), there is an inverse
relationship between innovation and successfully completing a flight
test program. In other words, the entire program was shut down before
all of the bugs could be worked out in the innovative areas.


The Skunk Works broke one of its own rules on that project- one _and
only one_ new breakthrough technology per project. They tried a linear
plug nozzle motor, lightweight metallic TPS, and composite LH2 tanks all
at once- that was just begging for failure.



When NASA (or any other government agency) wants a specific company or
specific proposal to win the competitive bid process, it writes the
RFP to be sure that happens. It doesn't specify "innovative" for a
warmed-over SDIO concept or an Orbiter retread.



Innovative gets specified when there is more of a desire to play in a
technological sandbox than there is to do real work towards lowering
the costs of access to space.

In the end, NASA's official position is that X-33 failed because we do
not yet have the technology to produce a workable SSTO.


Remember the Lockheed CL-400 Suntan though- it also was a complete flop,
but taught a lot of lessons on how _not_ to do things that paid off in
the A-12/SR-71 projects.


In the end,
this program did more harm than good, especially when NASA refuses to
admit any guilt as it relates to the program's failure.


I think NASA got sold a line of bull by Lockheed Martin, especially when
Lockheed implied that a lot of the technology that they would be using
was based on something classified that they did...and which they
couldn't talk about (wink, wink).
Whatever it was, it apparently didn't use composite LH2 tanks, did it?

Pat

On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 17:39:36 -0400, John Doe wrote:

BenignVanilla wrote:
the politically safe path, and not launching to the Hubble. The nation cried
foul when the second shuttle was lost, and NASA is responding in CYA
fashion

Did the nation really cry foul ?

If NASA can't fly the shuttle to Hubble for safety reasons, that it shouldn't
be flying it at all. Shuttle was designed for that type of mission, it isn't
as if you're asking it to be outfitted with additional SRBs that could send it
to the moon.

While I can understand a Hubble mission can't be flown until they have the
right self-contained repair procedures, I think it is important for NASA to
get those. That expertise isn't required just for Shuttle, but for all
subsequent vehicles. Being able to fix stuff in space is very important,
especially if you're going beyond LEO for long durations.

And yes, this means that NASA needs to widen the envelope of EVA procedures to
find safe ways for Crew members to go to places they are currently prohibited
from going.

In fact, NASA's refusal to go to Hubble means that NASA isn't confortable for
the Shuttle's safety. The day NASA re-instantes the HUbble flights is the day
I will trust that NASA has truly ficed the foam problems and implemented CAIB recommendations.


excellent points!

Pat Flannery writes:

jeff findley wrote:
If your only metric is innovation. Unfortunately, when you have a
fixed budget (which X-33 essentially had), there is an inverse
relationship between innovation and successfully completing a flight
test program. In other words, the entire program was shut down before
all of the bugs could be worked out in the innovative areas.

The Skunk Works broke one of its own rules on that project- one _and
only one_ new breakthrough technology per project. They tried a linear
plug nozzle motor, lightweight metallic TPS, and composite LH2 tanks all
at once- that was just begging for failure.

Agreed, but NASA didn't care to see it this way. The linear plug
nozzle motor was based on previous research and on a proven
"powerhead", so they didn't see that as being breakthrough. As you
say later Lockheed implied that the composite LH2 tanks weren't
breakthrough, hinting strongly that they had done them before (on a
black program). That left the metallic TPS as the only breakthrough
technology.

NASA fell in love with the three new technologies in the Lockheed bid
and picked a "winner" that turned out to be a hangar queen.

In the end, NASA's official position is that X-33 failed because we do
not yet have the technology to produce a workable SSTO.


Remember the Lockheed CL-400 Suntan though- it also was a complete flop,
but taught a lot of lessons on how _not_ to do things that paid off in
the A-12/SR-71 projects.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure NASA really learned its lesson. They
appear to be completely backing away from reusable technology as
applied to launch vehicles, because they think the technology isn't
there. It's far more likely that X-33 failed due to mismanagement of
the program, which started with picking the wrong "winner".

It would have been beneficial to run the program as three separate
*truely* X-programs. One to test the aerospike, one to test
lightweight structures (e.g. integrated, structural, composite, LH2
tanks), and one to test metallic TPS. Instead of admitting this, NASA
instead blamed the failure on the lack of technology, instead of
blaming it on how their overall technology development program was
being run.

In the end,
this program did more harm than good, especially when NASA refuses to
admit any guilt as it relates to the program's failure.

I think NASA got sold a line of bull by Lockheed Martin, especially when
Lockheed implied that a lot of the technology that they would be using
was based on something classified that they did...and which they
couldn't talk about (wink, wink).
Whatever it was, it apparently didn't use composite LH2 tanks, did it?

If it did, apparently they weren't integrated, structural,
multi-lobed, composite, LH2 tanks. Those tanks were complicated in
*many* different design variables.

Jeff
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The probe wasn't lost because of a human error in units. It was lost
because the Goldin-style faster-better-cheaper mantra required
a process in which humans were perfect, and didn't need
checking. THAT was the cause of the disaster, not the fact
that the project was implemented by normal human beings.

Good points here but still I think it should not have happened at all. Orbit
insertion has been accomplished so many times that the logic surrounding
the parameters should be COTS. I could realy imagine someone make a
sourceforge project surrounding it. I guess many students would love the
promise of real implementation.

Sincerely
Bjørn Ove

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
[snip]
With public support for NASA being rather sparse these days, it might be
a good idea to not trash an existing project that clearly has the
public's support, even if it doesn't make complete sense to those who
are better informed.

Right. So we turn the space program over to the masses as a bread and
circuses progam.

D.

Who's paying the bills?

LB

"Jorge R. Frank" writes:

Indirectly, yes. NASA took over DC-XA when SDIO cancelled it. When it came
time for the next phase, which would have been DC-Y. NASA re-competed the
contract under the name X-33 rather than sole-sourcing it to MDAC.
Procurement law sets out specific circumstances under which sole-sourcing
is allowed (small contracts or lack of other suppliers in the market), and
the circumstances of DC-X did not fit: the contract was too large and there
were other suppliers in the market. Had NASA sole-sourced it anyway, it
would have invited legal challenges from other potential suppliers and a
lot of scrutiny from Congress. MDAC bid on the re-competed contract but
lost to LockMart. We can debate the relative merits of the X-33 competitors
(personally I preferred MDAC and Rockwell's designs over LockMart's), but
not the necessity of re-competing the contract.

There's something that bugs me about that argument:

When they recompeted the contract, they did not compete a contract for
DC-Y. They competed it for something completely different; the resulting
vehicle was not a decent followon capable of expanding the envelope of
DC-X.

It was a different vehicle with a different flight profile.

--
Phil Fraering
http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com
"Something's just not right..."
"Sweetie, we're criminals. If everything were right, we'd all be in jail."

Phil Fraering pgf@AUTO wrote in
:

"Jorge R. Frank" writes:

Indirectly, yes. NASA took over DC-XA when SDIO cancelled it. When it
came time for the next phase, which would have been DC-Y. NASA
re-competed the contract under the name X-33 rather than sole-sourcing
it to MDAC. Procurement law sets out specific circumstances under
which sole-sourcing is allowed (small contracts or lack of other
suppliers in the market), and the circumstances of DC-X did not fit:
the contract was too large and there were other suppliers in the
market. Had NASA sole-sourced it anyway, it would have invited legal
challenges from other potential suppliers and a lot of scrutiny from
Congress. MDAC bid on the re-competed contract but lost to LockMart.
We can debate the relative merits of the X-33 competitors (personally
I preferred MDAC and Rockwell's designs over LockMart's), but not the
necessity of re-competing the contract.

There's something that bugs me about that argument:

When they recompeted the contract, they did not compete a contract for
DC-Y. They competed it for something completely different; the
resulting vehicle was not a decent followon capable of expanding the
envelope of DC-X.

It was a different vehicle with a different flight profile.

The particular flight profile was not relevant; the overall goal (an SSTO
RLV with low per-flight cost) was. So the RFP was written generally enough
for competing approaches to be tried - otherwise, the RFP would have been a
disguised sole-source solicitation to MDAC, since they were the only ones
proposing an SSTO with that particular flight profile.

I was a bit surprised to see NASA write the RFP generally; usually, they
are guilty of overspecifying it to the point that you can tell they had a
particular company/product in mind and wrote the RFP to practically assure
that only that product could win. At least in this area, NASA got X-33
right, in my opinion.

Where NASA screwed up on X-33 was to equate the amount of new technology in
a vehicle with the cost reduction it would be able to achieve, which is
fallacious. So they picked Lockheed's bid, which promised the steepest cost
reductions, but also had the most new technology crammed into one vehicle,
and therefore the most technical risk of all three bidders. Then, when the
development program (predictably) failed, NASA proclaimed that the
technology just wasn't there for SSTO, despite the fact that the two losing
bids had less technical risk and could well have worked. Of course, with
MDAC and Rockwell both subsequently swallowed by Boeing, we'll probably
never know for sure.

I would have preferred to see all three bids funded to a fly-off, as the
DoD often does with aircraft procurements. It would have cost the
government more up-front but would be far less likely to result in failure.
It looks like CEV may be taking this approach.

--
JRF

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"Jorge R. Frank" writes:

I would have preferred to see all three bids funded to a fly-off, as the
DoD often does with aircraft procurements. It would have cost the
government more up-front but would be far less likely to result in failure.
It looks like CEV may be taking this approach.

Let's hope so, especially for the crew launch/entry module.

Since the CEV appears to be a more modular vehicle, there isn't really
any reason to give all of the pieces to one contractor. You may want
a prime contractor to oversee everything, but that doesn't mean that
entire modules couldn't be subcontracted out.

Jeff
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