CEV development cost rumbles

"rschmitt23" wrote:
[...]
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.

Interesting. Does this point the finger at Systems Integration, or
other parts of the design process?

Do you have a quick note of the breakdown between development and
manufacturing?

How much of the Shuttle's $14B was spent on test articles (trying to
make a fair comparison, though we didn't do a lot of STS
boilerplates)?

/dps

I
"dave schneider" wrote in message
om...
"rschmitt23" wrote:
[...]
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.

Interesting. Does this point the finger at Systems Integration, or
other parts of the design process?

Do you have a quick note of the breakdown between development and
manufacturing?

How much of the Shuttle's $14B was spent on test articles (trying to
make a fair comparison, though we didn't do a lot of STS
boilerplates)?

The best info I have is from the NASA budget documents for FY73 thru FY00
(in $M Y2K)

Orbiter DDT&E (FY 73 - 82) $14,049
Orbiter Production (FY 1978-82) $4,398
Shuttle Production & Operation Capability - Orbiter (FY 1983-89) $5,538
Orbiter Operational Capability and Flight Hardware (1990-91) $1,445
Shuttle Operations - Orbiter (1992 - 96) $2,360
Shuttle Operations - Orbiter & Integration (1997-00) $2,351
Total $30,141

I don't think this answers your question.

Later
Ray Schmitt

dave schneider wrote:
Compared to the Shuttle, and probably to S-V, you'll find D4 and A5
are way ahead on this. And the Shuttle's standing army goes to
reusable components (TPS, SSMEs, and SRBs).

The question shouldn't be "how many people are assigned to maintaining the
shuttle" but rather "does maintaining reusable vehicle require more manpower
than building a new vehicle for each launch".

And you can then break this down. NASA decided early on that it wasn't worth
building a reusable ET. Is it worth re-using SRBs ? Should they design a more
powerful set of SRBs which would allow the use of an off-the-shelf disposable
engine for the shuttle ? Would this reduce overall costs ?

What portion of Shuttle's "exhorbitant" costs are associated with the shuttle
itself versus the fact that the shuttle transports humans ?

It is easy to say that some delta rocket is much much cheaper than a shuttle.
But if you start to add the costs to man-rate the rocket as well as provide
man-rated crew capsule for each launch, would this really be so much cheaper
than shuttle ?


Another isseu: NASA essentially had 4 shuttles to play with and they were
expected to last forever and no ability to build new ones because tooling was gone.

What if each 200 series shuttle were rated only for a certain number of
flights, and the production line would spit out a new shuttle every 4 or 5
years ? (possibly implementing continueal improvements) ?

Question:

When one complains about Shuttle's exhorbitant launch costs of about $400
million per launch, does that include the astronaut programme costs, as well
as KSC and all the staff at mission control in Houston (and those behind the
scenes) ? Or is it only the costs of processing the shuttle and bringing it to
pad and fueling it ?

If it includes all of the manned space programme costs, then will switching
from Shuttle to the virtual CEV really reduce costs that much ?

LooseChanj wrote:

On or about Mon, 1 Mar 2004 19:27:09 -0800, rschmitt23
made the sensational claim that:


What improvements? As I mentioned at the start of this thread, there have
been no "improvements" made in spacecraft and launch vehicle technology
during the last 30 years that will produce large reductions in either
development cost or operations costs.



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. I know about the upgrades program, and how different
the vehicles are now than when they were built, but still, to refine the
design without the restrictions of well, not being able to build one *new*
might be a good idea. For god's sake, Columbia was a freak accident, now all
of a sudden the shuttle is a deathtrap we need to sweep under the rug ASAP?
Bleh.


NASA managment is running scared after this accident. not a good way to
press forward with the space program.

When one complains about Shuttle's exhorbitant launch costs of about $400
million per launch, does that include the astronaut programme costs, as well
as KSC and all the staff at mission control in Houston (and those behind the
scenes) ? Or is it only the costs of processing the shuttle and bringing it
to
pad and fueling it ?

If it includes all of the manned space programme costs, then will switching
from Shuttle to the virtual CEV really reduce costs that much ?

Futher the entire manned program less the ISS is near 5 billion dollars a year.
How dooes that translate into so many million per sshuttle launch since the
ONLY manned operation we have after backing out the costs of ISS is the
shuttle.

Just what dont I get here?

(dave schneider) writes:
The Shuttle's ability to Bring Things Back is unparalled, and I'm
watching to see how this problem gets solved in the next generation.
It *will* be an important issue for serious Moon work, not to mention
sample returns from Mars.

This is the one truly unique capability that such a huge re-entry
vehicle gives you. But is it really necessary? What do you *need* to
bring back from the moon besides people and scientific samples? What
*need* could possibly justify a re-entry vehicle with a 15 foot by 60
foot payload bay?

At a minimum, you could build a RV small enough to fit the desired
crew size and simply fly it unmanned for scientific sample return. If
there truly is a need to return cargo bigger than this, a separate RV
for cargo may be a good idea, since one of the biggest problems with
the shuttle is its many capabilities made possible by hardware that
must fly on every flight.

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

(Hallerb) wrote:

Just what dont I get here?

I tried to make a list; but even with over 8 gig free on my HD when I
started, I got a 'disk full' error.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

I tried to make a list; but even with over 8 gig free on my HD when I
started, I got a 'disk full' error.

D.
--

Well lets just list the high points shall we.

Again take the entire manned space budget backout the ISS and what remains must
be shuttle or shuttle related.

jeff findley wrote:
(dave schneider) writes:
The Shuttle's ability to Bring Things Back is unparalled, and I'm
watching to see how this problem gets solved in the next generation.
It *will* be an important issue for serious Moon work, not to mention
sample returns from Mars.

This is the one truly unique capability that such a huge re-entry
vehicle gives you. But is it really necessary? What do you *need* to
bring back from the moon besides people and scientific samples? What
*need* could possibly justify a re-entry vehicle with a 15 foot by 60
foot payload bay?

As the size of the scientific samples grow, the Apollo-size cargo bay
becomes more of a constraint. And while I'm not holding my breath for
manufacturing on the moon (besides, the target market for that would
probably *not* be on Earth), there will at some time be fabricated
items that need to be sent back.

At a minimum, you could build a RV small enough to fit the desired
crew size and simply fly it unmanned for scientific sample return. If
there truly is a need to return cargo bigger than this, a separate RV
for cargo may be a good idea, since one of the biggest problems with
the shuttle is its many capabilities made possible by hardware that
must fly on every flight.

Yes, that would work. I think it needs to be a plan underway in
parallel with CEV. Would a lifting body work for unmanned ops like
this? I would guess that automated control would make the answer yes,
but are there gotchas to implementing that on lifting bodies?

/dps