NASA changing opinion on the Direct HLV launcher.

On 9/19/2010 10:55 AM, Brian Thorn wrote:


So what? We throw away the big cargo holds of ATV and HTV already.
Progress throws away its cargo holds every time. Dragon and Cygnus
will be throwing away their cargo holds (well, SpaceX is looking at
returning Dragons.)

The difference is scale; we're going to have a booster with enough
lifting capacity (assuming that 3x Shuttle cargo capacity pans out) to
carry three modules to the station on each flight; it needs cargo, but
it doesn't need _that_ much cargo. This thing is sized to build
something along the lines of the Station out of "2001", not support the
ISS' cargo needs.
It reminds me of the old Nova program; we sized the Saturn C-5
specifically to support the Apollo missions, as that's what was needed
to support a manned Moon mission using LOR with a single launch.
Do direct ascent and you needed a Saturn C-8; go EOR and two launches
and all you needed was a Saturn C-3.
And while we were working on Apollo, we were coming up with designs for
Saturn-V's successor - Nova - far more capable than Saturn V.
But there was a problem with Nova; even though we could probably
successfully build it with the experience gained during building the
Saturn V, Nova didn't have a well-defined mission to perform. You could
launch a monster space station with it, but you could do that with
multiple Saturn V launches as well, and save yourself the trouble and
cost of building Nova and its pad facilities. Big as it was, it wasn't
big enough to use for a manned Mars landing mission with a single
launch, so you ended up with the argument that since you were going to
need multiple launches anyway, why not use Saturn-V's and just do more
launches?
So Nova died.
And this thing has the same problem Nova had. Without knowing what it's
going to be used for in detail in the years to come, you are going to
have a hard time knowing if you made it too large or too small.
It's a lot less capable than Ares-V, so it can't be used to carry the
Altair lander that was designed for Constellation with the heavy/light
dual launch mission scenario; but at the same time it's a lot more
capable than Ares-1, so unless you want to start building a new space
station, it has way more capability than needed for just sending Orions
and some support cargo to the ISS.
You shouldn't start work on it before you figure out exactly what it's
going to be used for down the road.

Pat

On Sun, 19 Sep 2010 14:46:54 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

You shouldn't start work on it before you figure out exactly what it's
going to be used for down the road.

I don't think the launch-to-LEO segment of a mission is going to
change that radically whether we choose Moon, NEOs, Mars, or beyond.
We still need to loft a significant mass from 0 to 17,500 mph. With
the DIRECT-like SD-HLV our starting point will be a vehicle of around
70 tons to 28.5/120 but which can grow to around 110 tons using extra
engines, a stretched tank, 5-segment SRB, and an upper stage, all of
which can be brought on line incrementally. That's a fairly flexible
starting point. So let's stop arguing about it and start building it.
Once we're bending metal, we can pick the destination.

Brian

Jorge R. Frank wrote:
On 09/16/2010 02:06 PM, Bill C wrote:
On Sep 16, 2:29 am, Robert wrote:
Just saw this:

NASA: Change of heart on new rocket that would reuse shuttle parts?
Design puts engines underneath familiar orange external fuel tank,
with solid rocket boosters on sides and capsule on top.

How will this compare with the Shuttle?

Will it cost less to operate?

Should be between 1/2 and 2/3 the shuttle cost, due to the absence of the
orbiter.


Jorge R. Frank also wrote:
That's not what I meant. Cost per launch is meaningless. Shuttle is $3
billion per year independent of flight rate. I'm saying SD-HLV will be
$1.5-2 billion per year, independent of flight rate.

Really? That is an impressive amount of overhead!

Brian Thorn wrote:
Which is the same as with Shuttle for the last 30 years. But the
launch vehicle now is 1/2 to 1/3 [2/3rd not 1/3] the price while offering
three times the cargo capacity.

You didn't specify three times over what, but your statement would imply the
Shuttle, is that correct?

Brian Thorn wrote:
No one is even discussing the possibility of commercial payloads for
SD-HLV. The only thing quasi-commercial being considered at all (and
that's just "what if?") is a Space Solar Power demonstration, and even
that would be NASA/DoE/industry, not a traditional space customer.

But later you go on to talk about resupply missions to the ISS and re-crew
with Orion. Isn't that directly in competition with SpaceX which is doing this
commercially under COTS? If Orion/SD-HLV becomes the preferred way, why bother
to let contracts to SpaceX?

Brian Thorn wrote:
David Spain wrote:
Is SD-HLV really providing something unique in the market that will have
customers lining up?

No, but it makes Moon, Asteroids and Mars more practical.

At 1.5 - 2 billion a year whether SD-HLV is flying or not puts a spin on the
word practical that I'm not accustomed to.

Brian Thorn wrote:
NASA is stuck with a funding level that will let them either build a
new launcher (like Ares) or a new payload (like Altair), but not both
at the same time.

And after they build SD-HLV they'll be stuck @ $1.5-2 billion flying or not.

Maybe this is what NASA has become accustomed to over the years, but gee that
*is* a pile of money. [Yeah I know, it's (somewhat) relative... Don't get me
started on the 'Wall Street Bailout']...

I realize that the COTS contract for SpaceX to develop Falcon 9 / Dragon was
$1 Billion, but didn't that also include the NRE for designing the launcher
PLUS several launches? Didn't I read somewhere that the on-going price
estimate for future Falcon launches (Falcon 9?) was somewhere in the $40
million per launch range? I guess to compare apples to apples with Jorge's
figures we'd need to know what SpaceX's ongoing operational costs are. But
then again maybe we don't, if we figure SpaceX isn't going to price launches
at a loss.

I guess my comment here is, hey, you know, there is a reason the airlines
don't fly 707s anymore....

Brian Thorn wrote:
So let's stop arguing about it and start building it.
Once we're bending metal, we can pick the destination.

Who's writing the check? You? If so, fine, then I don't care....

Dave

On 9/19/2010 2:41 PM, Brian Thorn wrote:
And we just happen to need to launch two
Orions a year to serve as Space Station lifeboats.

No, we do not need to do that. The ISS has a six person crew max and one
or two Soyuz always attached so that the three or six crew can abandon
it if necessary, each Soyuz capable of carrying three people.
Saying "Well, what if something went wrong and they couldn't use them?"
would mean we should have no US astronauts aboard right now, as it would
take quite a while to get a Shuttle ready to go if they had an
emergency*, and there would be a multi-year gap between the Shuttle
being retired and the first Orion flight anyway, so that whole time
period would also be unsafe for the crew.
As an example, if the second coolant pump had failed before they could
repair the first one with the EVA, the station would have become
uninhabitable in a day or two at most, with no time to wait for a
Shuttle rescue mission to be launched.
NASA suddenly found this "need" for a rescue Orion around the time
Constellation was going kaput and they were scrambling to find something
Orion could do that Dragon couldn't.
If they had really been that interested in a US ISS rescue vehicle, they
would have continued work on the Crew Return Vehicle, which was a lot
more suited to the mission than Orion is (greater cross-range, lower
launch weight suitable for a Delta IV Heavy or Atlas V, nearly fully
automated return capability, and long orbital storage lifetime.

* In fact, Russia could probably stack and launch two replacement Soyuz
rescue spacecraft faster than we could get a Shuttle rescue mission
ready to go at the moment.

Pat

On 9/19/2010 5:04 PM, David Spain wrote:

That's not what I meant. Cost per launch is meaningless. Shuttle is $3
billion per year independent of flight rate. I'm saying SD-HLV will be
$1.5-2 billion per year, independent of flight rate.

Really? That is an impressive amount of overhead!


That's the whole idea; keep as much Shuttle-related infrastructure and
Shuttle-related employees working as possible, like any good public
works project.
Another idea here would be to use the concept "If you can't raise the
bridge, lower the river." i.e. downsize Orion till it's light enough to
launch on a Delta IV Heavy or Atlas V.
Since it's size was driven by the Moon and Mars missions of Project
Constellation, and those are dead (at least for the moment) there is no
reason that Orion needs to be as big as it is, just for ISS resupply and
rescue.
But of course once you do that, then the question becomes "Then why not
just use Dragon instead?" And there's no good answer for that...NASA has
really painted itself into a corner with this whole mess, probably
figuring they could pay lip service to COTS, it would flop, they could
then say: "See, we told you so." and go right back to their cocked-up
business as usual.
They weren't counting on Elon Musk's people demonstrating a really steep
learning curve, or showing the type of ASAP drive that the people in the
early days of NASA itself demonstrated.


Maybe this is what NASA has become accustomed to over the years, but gee
that *is* a pile of money. [Yeah I know, it's (somewhat) relative...
Don't get me started on the 'Wall Street Bailout']...

I realize that the COTS contract for SpaceX to develop Falcon 9 / Dragon
was $1 Billion, but didn't that also include the NRE for designing the
launcher PLUS several launches? Didn't I read somewhere that the
on-going price estimate for future Falcon launches (Falcon 9?) was
somewhere in the $40 million per launch range? I guess to compare apples
to apples with Jorge's figures we'd need to know what SpaceX's ongoing
operational costs are. But then again maybe we don't, if we figure
SpaceX isn't going to price launches at a loss.

I guess my comment here is, hey, you know, there is a reason the
airlines don't fly 707s anymore....

S-h-h-h...be vewy, vewy, quiet...we awe hunting powk bawwels hewe. ;-)

Pat

On Sun, 19 Sep 2010 21:21:59 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

And we just happen to need to launch two
Orions a year to serve as Space Station lifeboats.

No, we do not need to do that. The ISS has a six person crew max and one
or two Soyuz always attached so that the three or six crew can abandon
it if necessary, each Soyuz capable of carrying three people.

True, but the US does not want to keep paying Russia for the
priviledge in perpetuity. The only choices therefore are Orion and
Dragon, both of which will probably be ready around 2015. Orion was
designed from the beginning for long stay-times as a lifeboat. Dragon
was not, so while Orion will have to wait for its launcher, Dragon's
launcher will be available but it will take longer to modify Dragon
into a lifeboat.

Saying "Well, what if something went wrong and they couldn't use them?"
would mean we should have no US astronauts aboard right now, as it would
take quite a while to get a Shuttle ready to go if they had an
emergency*, and there would be a multi-year gap between the Shuttle
being retired and the first Orion flight anyway, so that whole time
period would also be unsafe for the crew.

Agreed, but irrelevant. The US wants its own lifeboat, something that
hasn't changed in 15 years. Orion since its inception has been planned
to be that lifeboat (that's why it has a design spec of six crew and
six-month service life) replacing the ACRV, X-38, and OSP efforts
before it.

As an example, if the second coolant pump had failed before they could
repair the first one with the EVA, the station would have become
uninhabitable in a day or two at most, with no time to wait for a
Shuttle rescue mission to be launched.

Agreed, but irrelevant. We're not talking about the Shuttle.

NASA suddenly found this "need" for a rescue Orion around the time
Constellation was going kaput and they were scrambling to find something
Orion could do that Dragon couldn't.

No, Orion has been planned to be the ISS crew rotation/lifeboat
vehicle for the USOS since it's inception in 2005. The only thing that
has changed since then is that ISS has been (all but officially)
extended from 2015 to 2020.

If they had really been that interested in a US ISS rescue vehicle, they
would have continued work on the Crew Return Vehicle,

There was no funding. Something had to give and Russia had Soyuz on
offer, so a US lifeboat could wait. But that wait was to be only
temporary until the bulk of ISS spending was over. But at nearly the
same time that finally happened, we lost Columbia. Then people started
asking "why are we still designing a lifeboat when we really need a
crew ferry?" That doesn't mean the US was not that interested in its
own CRV, as can be seen ast work on a CRV of some sort has never
stopped. CRV morphed into X-38, X-38 morphed into OSP, OSP morphed
into CEV, which was renamed Orion.

which was a lot
more suited to the mission than Orion is (greater cross-range, lower
launch weight suitable for a Delta IV Heavy or Atlas V, nearly fully
automated return capability, and long orbital storage lifetime.

But the CRV was one-way, to be carried up in the Shuttle's payload bay
(giving it a two-year orbital lifetime). That was quickly realized to
be problematic. OSP, its replacement, was round-trip, but NASA killed
it after 107 because it had wings, or things that looked suspiciously
wing-like, and that of course was EVIL after Columbia. The OSP team
pretty much moved straight in to CEV/Orion with strict orders to
design a capsule. Now here we are six or so years later and you're
saying "It's pork! We don't need it!" Sometimes, I get the feeling
NASA just can't win.

* In fact, Russia could probably stack and launch two replacement Soyuz
rescue spacecraft faster than we could get a Shuttle rescue mission
ready to go at the moment.

Not even remotely possible. This isn't 1980. Russia builds Soyuz on a
careful "just in time" schedule, the same way NASA has Shuttles ready
to fly on a carefully planned schedule (hurricanes and hailstorms not
withstanding.)

Brian

In sci.space.policy Brian Thorn wrote:
All we have to go on is the SpaceX/Iridium contract announced with
few details in July. That's for $492 million to replenish the
Iridium constellation beginning in 2015. The contract is evidently
for 66 satellites plus 6 spares, or 72 satellites.
...

If Falcon 9 launches seven satellites at a time, it will be about
$70 million each. Six at a time would be $82 million. Five at a time
would be $98 million.

Did you reverse that and perhaps have some math errors? 72 satellites,
7 satellites at a time would be 11 launches for $492 million or
$44.73M per launch no? Six satellites at a time would be 12 launches
for the same $492 million or $41 million a launch, and five satellites
at a time would be 15 launches for $492 million or $32.8 million per
launch.

rick jones
--
Wisdom Teeth are impacted, people are affected by the effects of events.
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

On Sun, 19 Sep 2010 21:04:26 -0400, David Spain
wrote:

That's not what I meant. Cost per launch is meaningless. Shuttle is $3
billion per year independent of flight rate. I'm saying SD-HLV will be
$1.5-2 billion per year, independent of flight rate.

Really? That is an impressive amount of overhead!

But if we don't use it, we have to pay to decommision it (the miltiary
base closures tell us this won't be cheap and won't be quick) and then
we have to pay to replace it with something else (either lots more
infrastructure for greatly-increased EELV/Falcon 9 flight rates, or a
new EELV-derived heavy lifter.

Which is the same as with Shuttle for the last 30 years. But the
launch vehicle now is 1/2 to 1/3 [2/3rd not 1/3]

Oops, thanks!

the price while offering three times the cargo capacity.

You didn't specify three times over what, but your statement would imply the
Shuttle, is that correct?

Yes. From around 24 tons on Shuttle to 70 tons on something like
DIRECT, using mostly the same infrastructure.

No one is even discussing the possibility of commercial payloads for
SD-HLV. The only thing quasi-commercial being considered at all (and
that's just "what if?") is a Space Solar Power demonstration, and even
that would be NASA/DoE/industry, not a traditional space customer.

But later you go on to talk about resupply missions to the ISS

Yes, as a backup/complimentary system. Right now, with the COTS
flights and ATVs / HTVs already contracted, ISS has a significant
shortfall (many tons) of supplies each year. Everyone seems to be
ignoring it, and that's a little scary.

There is plenty of room for both Orion/MPLM and Dragon/Cygnus. As as I
said in another post, if we shift some cargo to MPLM, we can contract
more Dragons for downmass (returning experiments, failed hardware,
etc.) without cutting in to ISS's supply needs (which are already
overtasked.)

But mostly, I was thinking "commercial" as in comsats. ISS support is
quasi-commercial at best (it is entirely a government customer.)

and re-crew
with Orion. Isn't that directly in competition with SpaceX which is doing this
commercially under COTS? If Orion/SD-HLV becomes the preferred way, why bother
to let contracts to SpaceX?

So far, there is no plan to launch crew on Dragon. They'd like to, but
so far, no. And as of now, Dragon doesn't have anything close to the
six month stay time required of a Space Station Lifeboat. So our
choices are either keep paying Russia for seats on Soyuz (the
political support for that is close to zero), pay for Dragon upgrades
(which will increase cost and reduce payload), or just keep developing
the system we already have well-along: Orion, which was designed to do
that from the beginning.

And we should be careful appointing SpaceX as the de facto supplier of
"commercial" crew space. Right now, I think they would be in a
dead-heat with Lockheed, and there is Boeing's CST-100 as a dark
horse.

No, but it makes Moon, Asteroids and Mars more practical.

At 1.5 - 2 billion a year whether SD-HLV is flying or not puts a spin on the
word practical that I'm not accustomed to.

The alternative is dozens of EELV or Falcon 9 launches per year, which
would almost certainly mean expansion of their production facilities
and at least one additional launch pad (for crew launches) all of
which adds up, plus some sort of orbital staging area to put all the
EELV-launched pieces together (a prop depot, probably). That *might*
save you money versus the SD-HLV, but its a very close call. EELVs are
not cheap, remember. And then there's the very real problem that the
DoD might say 'no' to NASA using Atlas V, leaving only the much more
expensive Delta IV or the 27-engine monster, Falcon 9-Heavy.

And after they build SD-HLV they'll be stuck @ $1.5-2 billion flying or not.

None of the alternatives are free. Sure, we won't have to foot the
whole bill for the EELV infrastructure, but then again, we won't have
to schedule around military production and commercial flights if we
use Shuttle-derived infrastructure. ("Oops, sorry... we missed this
month's lunar launch window because the Pentagon needed to launch
Wideband Gap Filler 12 this week.")

Maybe this is what NASA has become accustomed to over the years, but gee that
*is* a pile of money. [Yeah I know, it's (somewhat) relative... Don't get me
started on the 'Wall Street Bailout']...

If we want to go beyond LEO, its going to take a pile of money. So do
we want to put a pile of money into expanding the EELV/Falcon
infrastructure, or into developing a heavy lifter? That's essentially
the decision we have to make right now. Both arguments have
considerable merit.

I realize that the COTS contract for SpaceX to develop Falcon 9 / Dragon was
$1 Billion, but didn't that also include the NRE for designing the launcher
PLUS several launches?

No. It was $1.6 billion for 12 supply flights to ISS ($133 million
each). SpaceX had to pay the rest.

Didn't I read somewhere that the on-going price
estimate for future Falcon launches (Falcon 9?) was somewhere in the $40
million per launch range?

It looks to be closer to $70-80 million now.

I guess to compare apples to apples with Jorge's
figures we'd need to know what SpaceX's ongoing operational costs are.

And they aren't telling.

But then again maybe we don't, if we figure SpaceX isn't going to price launches
at a loss.

All we have to go on is the SpaceX/Iridium contract announced with few
details in July. That's for $492 million to replenish the Iridium
constellation beginning in 2015. The contract is evidently for 66
satellites plus 6 spares, or 72 satellites. Delta II launched five
Iridiums at once. Proton launched seven. Falcon 9's capability is
somewhere in between. It seems unlikely a single launch would carry
more than seven, since they're going into six different orbital planes
of six satellites (plus a spare) each.

If Falcon 9 launches seven satellites at a time, it will be about $70
million each. Six at a time would be $82 million. Five at a time would
be $98 million.

I guess my comment here is, hey, you know, there is a reason the airlines
don't fly 707s anymore....

The USAF flies 707 or its direct offspring all the time, they are E-3
AWACS, KC-135s, RC-135s...

So let's stop arguing about it and start building it.
Once we're bending metal, we can pick the destination.

Who's writing the check? You? If so, fine, then I don't care....

It's time to fish or cut bait. Do you want a deep space program or
not? The only thing sure about a manned deep space program is that it
won't come cheap.

Brian

On Mon, 20 Sep 2010 23:37:03 +0000 (UTC), Rick Jones
wrote:


Did you reverse that and perhaps have some math errors? 72 satellites,
7 satellites at a time would be 11 launches for $492 million or
$44.73M per launch no? Six satellites at a time would be 12 launches
for the same $492 million or $41 million a launch, and five satellites
at a time would be 15 launches for $492 million or $32.8 million per
launch.

Ack! That's what I get for being in a hurry to finish a post...

Brian