CEV development cost rumbles

Brian Gaff wrote:
Hmm, if all you wanted was a one size fits all solution, as per the current
Shuttle, then I guess you could do this, but from what I read, this is not
what is wanted now. Times and ways of doing stuff change with the benefit of
hindsight...

What is wanted is the Enterprise with its light-speed capable shuttles,
transparent aluminium windows, shields etc.

What is wanted is $10 per pound launch costs.

It is, in my opinion, unrealisting to expect to go from $10,000.00 down to
$10.00 in just one generation of ship, unless you have made a very dramatic
discovery in the meantime. (anti-gravity engines or whatever).

So, unless/until you make a dramatic discovery, the best thing would be to
fine tune your current systems, instead of totally re-inventing what will turn
out to be the same thing with a different shape.

So, how can you add a crew escape option to the current design?Do you really
want to carry huge items to orbit with humans in the same vehicle?

is crew escape really necessary ? Or is is just a requirement inserted in
there to eliminate a shuttle-like solution ? Are cars equipped with ejection
seats in case the brake system fails while car is barreling down a long hill
with a steep curve at the bottom ?

NASA hasn't revealed much about the crew cabin of Columbia. *IF* just
protecting the aft bulkhead with thermal blankets would have been sufficient
to shield the crew from the fire (and proper use of suits to keep them alive
with O2 until low enough altitude), is there really a need for an escape
system that can be used during re-entry ? And as far as Challenger is
concerned, since it seems that the crew cabin did survive the explosion,
wouldn't current bailout procedures (had they been implemented back then) have
made it possible to survive this ?

As for advances in technology, you do have much smaller electronics and
with a better capability, you also have considerable experience with
composites for rigid structures.

That is just fine tuning. None of those will give you the dramatic cost
reductions.

None of the current "new" technologies in the works (ion drive, nuclear
engines) are usable at launch. So perhaps what is needed is to use a
conventional space truck to bring stuff to LEO where the new technologies can
then be launched.

Also, the avionics for a ship that goes to Moon or Mars are going to be very
different from those going from earth to LEO. So I am not so sure that NASA
should be putting all its eggs in one CEV backet.

I think having an improved shuttle as well as some form of space-only crewed
vehicle would be a better solution. Upon returning from moon, such a ship
would de-accelerate into LEO, and then crew would transfer to a waiting
Shuttle for the hot re-entry. (with the vehicle either staying in orbit, or
brought back in shuttle's cargo bay).

And when you consider the Mars mission, there is absolutely no way that you'll
be able to launch the whole kit and kaboodle in a single rocket. Assembly in
LEO will be required. And such a ship is much more liklely to look like the
ISS than a CEV/Soyuz/Apollo thing. (although it would include some form of
lander for Mars).

Andrew Gray wrote:

Isn't OV-200 generally interpreted as 'shape, size, plugs, stay - but
make the rest better'? - which'd imply that the designs, at least as
regards LES and other such macro-changes, are pretty firm.

That's what I was thinking of when I posted, a new-build airframe of the
same design as the existing orbiters, but with upgraded systems (eg
electric APUs, perhaps non-toxic OMS/RCS, etc).

On the other hand... if you had sufficient silly money, it's not
implausible to retrofit an LES of the form of "two damn great solid
rockets by the wing roots"... which, if memory serves, was where it got
to in the design stage before falling off the board.

Doing that would add weight to the orbiter's structure, but that could be
comphensated for if the abort SRMs were fired and jettisoned shortly after
SRB separation (at which point they would be unnecessary, and could
probably be retrieved for refurbishment).

--Chris

(Derek Lyons) wrote:
LooseChanj wrote:

My opinion is still do at least Orbiter Mark II. Start with a design for
which we know what's good, bad, and ugly. Or 30 years from now we'll be
saying what a shame...the Saturn V never really got refined, nor did the
shuttle orbiters.

nods There's been rumbles of that now and again in these NG's, but
folks rarely want to address it directly.

There is a gospel/dogma that Apollo was near perfect, and thus all
capsules are near perfect, and that since the Shuttle is flawed, all
descendants thereof are irredeemably flawed as well.


Actually, Derek, many of those who have been shuttle supporters for a
long time have been slowly picking up on what the capsule people have
been saying: winged designs are hard, so lets put off doing another
winged design for a while, pick an easy design and see if we can get
the flight rate up. Have the research centers continue to work on TPS
designs, let DOD do a scram jet, and then revisit winged vessels when
we have better materials and/or design.

Seperately, many of us who have been reusable space craft supporters
for a long time have been slowly picking up on what the expendable
people have been saying: reusable designs require high flight rates
to avoid being expensive (and worse, expensive up front), so lets
concentrate on making reliable expendables that can get the flight
rate up on a pay-as-you go basis, and then use those reliable
components in steps to getting back to reusable craft.

The shuttle is sexy, major impressive, and has done things that Apollo
designers would give right arms for. But it requires heroic efforts
to be usable. Apollo required heroic efforts. But the route to CATS
requires something where heroic is too much. The fabled "airliner
flight-line turnaround" is part of the discussion, and EELVs are a
step closer; DC-X was a step closer; Falcon-V and Spaceship One are
steps closer. Maybe Kliper is a step closer.

200-series orbiters are possible. But they would be only an
incremental improvement in design, and Big Bucks items as much as Buck
Rogers. Capsules designs on make significant advances over Apollo for
better bang for the Big Bucks.

/dps

P.S. For Ray, here's a question: why would a capsule version of OSP
or CEV require as many lines of code as a shuttle? The GNC should be
a lot simpler, especially on a LEO-version (start with a modest
computer for CEV-L, replace the Pentium with a Pentium Pro for CEV-S
(S=Selene for the moon shots), and go with an Itanium for CEV-M
(Mars); processor names chosen for familiar analogy rather than as an
actual design point). In addition, many of those lines of code should
already exist (GEO transfer stage guidance, for instance).

ELCSS should also be closer to "off the shelf" now that we have
experience with Soyuz, Apollo, and Shuttle designs; the ISS designs
are also useful input, but would be overkill on a 4-day flight. Space
suit designs might also have given us engineering data that would help
with a compact modular unit (here's an opportunity for a reusable
component in an expendable airframe).

Modelling a capsule's aerodynamics and heat transfer should be simpler
than a winged design, thus saving CFD and wind tunnel costs.

So many systems should be easier to design and/or manufacture on a
capsule CEV that I would expect to see big savings from adding up all
the smaller savings. Do we lose all that in system integration costs?
Would they really be as bad or worse than the SI for the shuttle?

Tnx

/dps

rk wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:

rk wrote:

For the main engine controllers, there was a lot of work and risk
involved in the plated wire memories.

Why? PWM flew a decade before on the Posiedon missile. It wasn't
exactly new or untried.

I typed from memory and started to hit the notes for some details. I can dig
deeper to search if you wish (a tad busy or I would do it now; perhaps during
a work break later this evening) and this was more or less available.

Yes, I'd like to see some more. I find it hard to understand how PWM
can fly on a strategic missile, but be 'risky state of the art' a
decade later.

From:

"Annual Report to the NASA Administrator by the Aerospace Safety Advisory
Panel,"

When was this report dated.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

dave schneider wrote:
been saying: winged designs are hard, so lets put off doing another
winged design for a while, pick an easy design and see if we can get
the flight rate up.

Are the X33 style of self lifting vehicles harder or simpler than real wing
such as Shuttle ?

The shuttle is a known entity.

Have the research centers continue to work on TPS
designs, let DOD do a scram jet, and then revisit winged vessels when
we have better materials and/or design.

It is one thing to have scientists design a new TPS in a lab. You need a
shuttle to really test it. How many shuttle flights did it take before NASA
had acquired sufficient knowledge of the original TPS system to make changes
to it ?

If they develop a new TPS system, why not retrofit it on the shuttles (whether
100 or 200 series) ?

to avoid being expensive (and worse, expensive up front), so lets
concentrate on making reliable expendables that can get the flight
rate up on a pay-as-you go basis,

When you consider the "man rated" issues, would expandables really be cheaper
once you add all the redundancy and robustness that is required ?

Expandables got popular when the russians were able to offer a seat for 20
million bucks to tourists. And they got popular whenever the shuttle was
delayed (and now grounded) while Soyuz/Progress always launch on time.

But if you were to transpose Soyuz to NASA, wouldn't NASA make significant
modifications to "man rate" it, and then add a billion flight rules to ensure
safety which would make it just as "reliable" as Shuttle ?

200-series orbiters are possible. But they would be only an
incremental improvement in design,

I think that a new and improved shuttle could be far more than "incremental".
There have not only be fairly substantial changes to the shuttle since it
first flew (TPS comes to mind), but also, experience has also shown many of
the design problems of the 100 series (for instance, access to engines,
something which original designers didn't think would be needed between flights).

If the current shuttle has a series of kinks, which, when put together,
require much longer stay in OPF thus increasing costs significantly, then
fixing those kinks could significantly lower maintenance costs (for instance,
electric APUs that don't require the purging of dangerous fuel lines/tanks).
And for OMS/thrusters, perhaps they could design the plumbing such that their
purging could be greatly facilitated.

A lot has been learned since the original shuttles, and I suspect that if you
were to put all this experience together, you could build a 200 series shuttle
that would have sighificant advantages over current ones without having to
totally re-invent the wheel.

The GNC should be
a lot simpler, especially on a LEO-version (start with a modest
computer for CEV-L, replace the Pentium with a Pentium Pro for CEV-S
(S=Selene for the moon shots), and go with an Itanium for CEV-M
(Mars);

Hardware is irrelevant. A 386 is probably more than enough. GNC is not the
only thing that needs source code. You need ECLSS, C&C, remote controllability
from ground, all the telemetry, caution alarm system, communications. You also
need al the interfaces to the actual launch vehicle.

experience with Soyuz, Apollo, and Shuttle designs; the ISS designs
are also useful input, but would be overkill on a 4-day flight.

Last I heard, going to the moon was 3 days each way. Right ? So that would be
6 days + contigency planning. How many people are you carrying to the moon ? 3
? 6 ? Shuttle's ECLSS is probably better sized than Apollo.

Also, remember that if you're going to be using the CEV as a shuttle between
earth and moon base alpha, you'll also want each CEV to bring lots of supplies
to the moon base. If you're sending 4 people to stay on the moon for a month,
you'll need to carry a couple month's worth of supplies (again, you need contigency).

Going to mars, the CEV is useless. ISS is useful. For building Moon base , CEV
is useless, ISS is usefull (in terms of already built systems).

Modelling a capsule's aerodynamics and heat transfer should be simpler
than a winged design, thus saving CFD and wind tunnel costs.

How significant would those costs be ? Doesn'.t NASA already have plenty of
empirical experience with the shuttle's wing ? (including its behaviour during
columbia final's re-entry).

Derek Lyons wrote:

Yes, I'd like to see some more. I find it hard to understand how PWM
can fly on a strategic missile, but be 'risky state of the art' a
decade later.

I'm not an electronics guy but I *was* a systems design engineer. I can
foresee lots of problems with the use of certain technologies in certain
applications, even technologies considered "mature" for that other
application. Case in point: PWM on Poseidon may have had different specs -
data access rates, interface requirements, vibration tolerance,
acceleration tolerance, acoustic environmental tolerance, etc. Oh, yeah -
lifetime and reusability, as well. An SLBM controller may get by with a
MTBF of 60 minutes total use, perhaps, including test cycles. The SSMEs
may have had specs calling for a hundred times that. Furthermore, the SSME
controllers probably have a much higher real-time computational load on
them than do similar data devices on a solid-fueled SLBM. Of course, these
are just suppositions on my part, albeit educated ones based on knowing
first hand that the design specifications make all the difference in
something like this. The prior discussion of the problems with Viking's
systems should have made that clear.

Another more interesting topic, and one I *do* know about, was the SSF MDMs.
At the time, the state-of-the-art PC was a 386DX running at about 33 MHz.
Yet MDMs were spec'd at 286's running at 12 or 16 MHz (can't remember the
details). The software people desperately wanted to change the MDM spec to
the known, "reliable" and much more powerful 386 to cope with code- and
feature-bloat, but at the time, there were no widely-available rad-hardened
386's available, period. So using "proven" 386's in the design simply
wasn't an option they could do without incurring lots of cost and
development effort.

In point of fact, I believe the MDM specs were eventually bumped up but by
then I was out of the loop and into law school. I have no idea what the
flight hardware is now but I *do* know that if FEL had been in the '95 time
frame that it was when I joined the program, every one of dozens of MDMs
would havbe been 286 boxes running at 16 MHz or slower, in spite of
"proven" technological alternatives.

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
Remove invalid nonsense for email.

John Doe writes:

dave schneider wrote:
Have the research centers continue to work on TPS
designs, let DOD do a scram jet, and then revisit winged vessels when
we have better materials and/or design.

It is one thing to have scientists design a new TPS in a lab. You need a
shuttle to really test it. How many shuttle flights did it take before NASA
had acquired sufficient knowledge of the original TPS system to make changes
to it ?

If they develop a new TPS system, why not retrofit it on the shuttles (whether
100 or 200 series) ?

Cost. To keep costs down, the TPS on the shuttle isn't generally
stripped down to nothing and reapplied. Instead, pieces are replaced
only when necessary.

to avoid being expensive (and worse, expensive up front), so lets
concentrate on making reliable expendables that can get the flight
rate up on a pay-as-you go basis,

When you consider the "man rated" issues, would expandables really be cheaper
once you add all the redundancy and robustness that is required ?

Shuttle isn't "man rated". If NASA bends the rules (waivers) for the
shuttle, why can't they be bent for its replacement?

Expandables got popular when the russians were able to offer a seat for 20
million bucks to tourists. And they got popular whenever the shuttle was
delayed (and now grounded) while Soyuz/Progress always launch on time.

Expendables didn't "get" popular. The only entity trying to reuse
launch vehicles is NASA (and perhaps the carrier planes used by
Pegasus), and they've had a very poor record of reducing costs by
using a "reusable" vehicle.

But if you were to transpose Soyuz to NASA, wouldn't NASA make significant
modifications to "man rate" it, and then add a billion flight rules to ensure
safety which would make it just as "reliable" as Shuttle ?

See above "man rating" comments.

200-series orbiters are possible. But they would be only an
incremental improvement in design,

I think that a new and improved shuttle could be far more than "incremental".
There have not only be fairly substantial changes to the shuttle since it
first flew (TPS comes to mind), but also, experience has also shown many of
the design problems of the 100 series (for instance, access to engines,
something which original designers didn't think would be needed between flights).

Making the engines easier to pull and reinstall is fixing the symptom,
not the problem.

If the current shuttle has a series of kinks, which, when put together,
require much longer stay in OPF thus increasing costs significantly, then
fixing those kinks could significantly lower maintenance costs (for instance,
electric APUs that don't require the purging of dangerous fuel lines/tanks).
And for OMS/thrusters, perhaps they could design the plumbing such that their
purging could be greatly facilitated.

Fixing all of the "kinks" would cost billions. This isn't an
exaggeration, considering the cost of some shuttle upgrades that have
either been done, or have been canceled due to rising costs
(e.g. electric APU's).

A lot has been learned since the original shuttles, and I suspect that if you
were to put all this experience together, you could build a 200 series shuttle
that would have sighificant advantages over current ones without having to
totally re-invent the wheel.

First, it's stuck in LEO. This is true for a variety of reasons, not
the least of which is the "dead weight" of the vehicle that you
*don't* want to take out of LEO (wings, main engines, structure to
hold it all together...).

Second, it's simply not suited to exploration (ignoring the cost and
weight issues). You really don't need a payload bay 15'x60' for
manned missions to the moon and Mars. This huge bay was due to USAF
requirements that no longer apply.

Third, you don't need wings. They add complexity (moving parts),
cost, mass, and etc. Unfortunately, they don't add much value either.
For lunar and Mars missions, is there a *valid* requirement to land on
a runway?

Fourth, it's both a launch vehicle and a manned space vehicle. Why
mix the two?

Fifth...

Going to mars, the CEV is useless. ISS is useful. For building Moon base , CEV
is useless, ISS is usefull (in terms of already built systems).

This is just false. ISS is useless for either lunar or Mars missions
because it's in a very bad orbit (payload penalty paid by any vehicle
that launches from KSC to ISS). CEV can be sent up into a much more
optimal low earth orbit. CEV can return crews from the moon (let's
see ISS do that).

Jeff
--
Remove "no" and "spam" from email address to reply.
If it says "This is not spam!", it's surely a lie.

P.S. For Ray, here's a question: why would a capsule version of OSP
or CEV require as many lines of code as a shuttle? The GNC should be
a lot simpler, especially on a LEO-version (start with a modest
computer for CEV-L, replace the Pentium with a Pentium Pro for CEV-S
(S=Selene for the moon shots), and go with an Itanium for CEV-M
(Mars); processor names chosen for familiar analogy rather than as an
actual design point). In addition, many of those lines of code should
already exist (GEO transfer stage guidance, for instance).

ELCSS should also be closer to "off the shelf" now that we have
experience with Soyuz, Apollo, and Shuttle designs; the ISS designs
are also useful input, but would be overkill on a 4-day flight. Space
suit designs might also have given us engineering data that would help
with a compact modular unit (here's an opportunity for a reusable
component in an expendable airframe).

Modelling a capsule's aerodynamics and heat transfer should be simpler
than a winged design, thus saving CFD and wind tunnel costs.

So many systems should be easier to design and/or manufacture on a
capsule CEV that I would expect to see big savings from adding up all
the smaller savings. Do we lose all that in system integration costs?
Would they really be as bad or worse than the SI for the shuttle?

Tnx

/dps

You would think so. However, there're numerous studies going back to the
days of the RLV Subpanel of the NASA/DOD Aeronautics and Astronautics
Coordinating Board (1965) and the "Integral Launch and Reentry Vehicle"
(ILRV, 1968) work that preceeded the shuttle Phase A effort (1969-70)
indicating that the mode of reentry (capsule/parachute, lifting
bodies/runway, or shuttle orbiters/runway) is not a strong driver of
development cost. NASA spent about $20B (current dollars) to develop and
manufacture five orbiters. Of this, $14B was spent on engineering
development and for Enterprise, Columbia and Challenger. About $2B was spent
for each of the last three orbiters, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour.

For Apollo, the CSM cost was $22B (current dollars) for engineering
development and for 12 Block I vehicles, 23 Block IIs and 20 boilplate
units.

When I worked on the DC-X/XA program at McDonnell Douglas in the early
1990s, we made a lot of PR noise about semi-automated software development
tools like Matrix-X. And I'm sure that there are better tools now. But
flight computer hardware and software typically account for 5-10% of total
development cost. So saving 10 or 20% on this cost doesn't change the bottom
line significantly. As far as "off-the-shelf" hardware, I'm not aware of
any that could be used in a new vehicle like the CEV without significant
modification. Spacecraft and launch vehicle designers and program managers
have enough problems without trying to shoehorn "alien" hardware into their
designs.

In article , Chris Bennetts wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote:

Isn't OV-200 generally interpreted as 'shape, size, plugs, stay - but
make the rest better'? - which'd imply that the designs, at least as
regards LES and other such macro-changes, are pretty firm.

That's what I was thinking of when I posted, a new-build airframe of the
same design as the existing orbiters, but with upgraded systems (eg
electric APUs, perhaps non-toxic OMS/RCS, etc).

And the various incremental upgrades that have been installed since
1977, as well. Essentially more a case of "bring the standards up to
[a new] spec, then re-open the line" rather than "build a new vehicle" -
probably about as expensive to start production, all told, but probably
also less risky (in that it's a design with familiar qualities) in
project if not flight terms.

On the other hand... if you had sufficient silly money, it's not
implausible to retrofit an LES of the form of "two damn great solid
rockets by the wing roots"... which, if memory serves, was where it got
to in the design stage before falling off the board.

Doing that would add weight to the orbiter's structure, but that could be
comphensated for if the abort SRMs were fired and jettisoned shortly after
SRB separation (at which point they would be unnecessary, and could
probably be retrieved for refurbishment).

I vaguely recall Jenkins suggested they were likely to be about
payload-neutral... but they'd add a new failure mode and Not Come Cheap.

--
-Andrew Gray

Andrew Gray wrote in
:

In article , Chris
Bennetts wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote:

On the other hand... if you had sufficient silly money, it's not
implausible to retrofit an LES of the form of "two damn great solid
rockets by the wing roots"... which, if memory serves, was where it
got to in the design stage before falling off the board.

Doing that would add weight to the orbiter's structure, but that
could be comphensated for if the abort SRMs were fired and jettisoned
shortly after SRB separation (at which point they would be
unnecessary, and could probably be retrieved for refurbishment).

I vaguely recall Jenkins suggested they were likely to be about
payload-neutral... but they'd add a new failure mode and Not Come
Cheap.

They also provide meaningful abort assistance during only about 30 seconds
of ascent. Plus they were going to be expensive to develop ($300 million in
1972 dollars, or over $1 billion today).

--
JRF

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