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Russians Save ISS From Serious Trouble??



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 2nd 03, 10:08 PM
James Oberg
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Default Russians Save ISS From Serious Trouble??


"Rick C" wrote
I think the idea is not that you'd h ave fewer launches per year, but

fewer total flights.

That's the idea -- that hardware doesn't stack up on the ground and overflow
onto the tarmac at KSC -- where uplift was the bottleneck long before the
neck was corked by the 107 catastrophe.

At the same cost, you launch your components 30% faster, get to 'Assembly
Complete' years sooner, and make all the users happier.

Meanwhile, in this alternate reality, the Russians would have put their
Mir-2 into the intended 65 deg orbit, as was planned from the start, for
much better land and sea coverage AND that allows access from Plesetsk,
breaking the stranglehold of a foreign spaceport. First unmanned Progress
vehicles, and then manned Soyuzes, would have launched out of Plesetsk.

And occasional NASA shuttle missions would also visit, perhaps to bring up
US earth-observation modules for the hi-inc orbit, in support of occasional
US guests on the Mir-2. Russians (aboard our shuttles) would visit ISS in
its 32 or 33 deg orbit for science research, too.

Two stations? Too perfect? Yeah, it never could have happened -- it LOOKED
more wasteful, and when it comes to government budget decisions, appearance
ALWAYS trumps reality.





  #2  
Old July 3rd 03, 06:44 PM
Gary Coffman
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Default Russians Save ISS From Serious Trouble??

On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 21:08:00 GMT, "James Oberg" wrote:
"Rick C" wrote
I think the idea is not that you'd h ave fewer launches per year, but

fewer total flights.

That's the idea -- that hardware doesn't stack up on the ground and overflow
onto the tarmac at KSC -- where uplift was the bottleneck long before the
neck was corked by the 107 catastrophe.

At the same cost, you launch your components 30% faster, get to 'Assembly
Complete' years sooner, and make all the users happier.


I understand that Assembly Complete could have occurred years earlier, and
that would have a substantial positive impact on total program costs.

But you don't actually "save a billion dollars a year" on Shuttle flights which
could then be diverted to developing hardware the Russians ultimately provided.
That was the statement being challenged.

Gary

  #3  
Old July 3rd 03, 07:43 PM
James Oberg
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Default Russians Save ISS From Serious Trouble??


"Gary Coffman" wrote in message
I understand that Assembly Complete could have occurred years earlier, and
that would have a substantial positive impact on total program costs.

But you don't actually "save a billion dollars a year" on Shuttle flights

which
could then be diverted to developing hardware the Russians ultimately

provided.
That was the statement being challenged.



OK, point well taken -- but you DO save the money spent on integration that
made US modules much more expensive, and the money -- nearly a billion
dollars -- spent to buy Russian space bargains. And finishing construction
early IS a cash savings -- although finding a way to spend the savings could
be a challenge.


  #4  
Old July 4th 03, 06:28 AM
Gary Coffman
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Default Russians Save ISS From Serious Trouble??

On Thu, 03 Jul 2003 18:43:15 GMT, "James Oberg" wrote:
"Gary Coffman" wrote in message
I understand that Assembly Complete could have occurred years earlier, and
that would have a substantial positive impact on total program costs.

But you don't actually "save a billion dollars a year" on Shuttle flights which
could then be diverted to developing hardware the Russians ultimately provided.
That was the statement being challenged.


OK, point well taken -- but you DO save the money spent on integration that
made US modules much more expensive,


Ok, I agree with that. Being able to fully outfit and test each module on the
ground before launch is a major plus. Being able to autonomously dock those
modules in orbit would have been an even bigger plus )only the Russians have
demonstrated that capability). Restoring a heavy lift ELV system to launch them
(US or Russian), so Shuttle could have been retired to museums, would have
been an even larger plus (and actually would free up $5 billion a year).

and the money -- nearly a billion
dollars -- spent to buy Russian space bargains.


Yeah, but I don't believe Lockmart equivalents to what was purchased from
the Russians would have actually been less expensive. The Russians are
the low cost supplier in this area.

And finishing construction
early IS a cash savings -- although finding a way to spend the savings could
be a challenge.


Finding a way for NASA to *hold onto* the savings would be the main problem.
Congress has never had a problem finding ways to spend money, but there's
no guarantee that it would be spent on space.

Gary

  #5  
Old July 4th 03, 06:52 PM
Gary Coffman
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Default Russians Save ISS From Serious Trouble??

On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 15:07:36 GMT, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 01:28:21 -0400, Gary Coffman
wrote:
Ok, I agree with that. Being able to fully outfit and test each module on the
ground before launch is a major plus. Being able to autonomously dock those
modules in orbit would have been an even bigger plus (only the Russians have
demonstrated that capability).


Autonomous docking has its drawbacks, including the need to outfit
each module with its own navigation, control, power, and propulsion
systems. So you could have larger modules than Shuttle carries, but
each module would have a big chunk of it devoted to just getting to
ISS whereas the Shuttleborne modules are entirely useful payload. Look
at the Proton-launched modules at ISS... each as large or larger than
a Shuttleborne module externally, but each with considerably less
useable internal volume.


Good point, but the NCPP section doesn't necessarily scale directly with
module size. The bigger the module, the less of it is lost to those purposes,
and heavy lift allows you to launch bigger modules. That could mean fewer
modules to Assembly Complete, or a bigger station.

Restoring a heavy lift ELV system to launch them
(US or Russian), so Shuttle could have been retired to museums, would have
been an even larger plus (and actually would free up $5 billion a year).


Um, no. Shuttle's annual budget is around $3 billion, not $5 billion.
And you wouldn't save even $3 billion, since you're heavy lift ELV
won't be free and you still have to get your astronauts to ISS some
other way.

You're heavy lift ELV will be a long way from free. Saturn V cost over
$1 Billion each to launch in today's dollars. So three of those a
year, and you've already matched your annual Shuttle costs (for five
or six flights a year.) You have a lot more cargo to ISS with those
three flights, but you still don't have a crew on ISS. You'd have to
put an Apollo or similar spacecraft on top of the stack to get crew to
ISS on the same flight, but that will raise the cost of each flight.
Unfortunately, you only need your heavy lift ELV for a few flights
(total ISS mass is to be around 1 million pounds, Saturn V had 200,000
lbs. payload capacity.) Once ISS is completed, your new ELV is
overkill for the resupply application. So your ELV cost a few billion
dollars to develop and you only get maybe a half-dozen flights out of
it.


I'm not going to overly thrash old ground, but Saturn V and Energia
development has already been paid for by other programs. *If* we or
the Russians had *retained* that capability, the development cost
wouldn't have counted against ISS construction. I agree that developing
a *new* heavy lift vehicle strictly for ISS construction would be a bad
economic deal, unless other programs could use it too.

Some of the really large BDB concepts do look better than Saturn or
Energia, but you'd need other missions for them than just building ISS
to make it worthwhile to proceed with them. Space enthusiasts could
certainly come up with those missions (back to the Moon, Mars missions,
etc), but whether they could sell them to Congress is another matter.

After that, you need a smaller, cheaper vehicle to get supplies and
crews to ISS. So you have to design and build one, or buy Russian.
Politicians aren't going to let you buy Russian, so you have to spend
a few billion more to develop a crew taxi. OSP is already reported to
be projected at $12 billion in development costs. Its unclear if that
includes an unmanned cargo transport as well as the crew taxi. But in
OSP's case, you have to launch crew and resupply on separate flights.
Launch costs of an OSP/Cargo Vehicle on a Delta IV-Heavy will
optimistically be around $200 million. But you need twice as many
launches to replace the Shuttle (which does crew and resupply on the
same flight.) That's $400 million to replace a $500 million Shuttle
flight. Add in the $12 billion development costs, and it simply
doesn't make economic sense.

If we're going to retire Shuttle, replace it with something that is
actually much cheaper to operate and doesn't just shift funds from one
expensive system to another. If you can't do that, just build a
replacement for Columbia for $3 billion or so and move on.


Well, sure. I do suspect that OSP is going to be an expensive turkey.
But it doesn't *have* to be that way. The various stretch Apollo or
Big Gemini type concepts look cheaper (IMHO passively safer too).

IMHO launching an *airplane* into space just doesn't make a whole
lot of sense. Just get the spacecraft back through the atmosphere
in one piece, then use a real airplane, or a truck or ship, to move it
around on the Earth, if desired, after its mission is over.

A Swiss army knife isn't a very good knife, scissors, or nail file, and
costs more to develop and operate than those items individually. Single
purpose vehicles can generally be designed to do particular jobs better
and cheaper than a one vehicle does it all approach.

Gary

  #6  
Old July 5th 03, 01:56 AM
LooseChanj
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Default Russians Save ISS From Serious Trouble??

On or about Fri, 04 Jul 2003 15:07:36 GMT, Brian Thorn
committed multiple counts of:
You're


*bang bang bang* *Your* post was fine otherwise.
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  #7  
Old July 5th 03, 02:02 AM
Brian Thorn
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Default !

On Sat, 05 Jul 2003 00:56:43 GMT, LooseChanj
wrote:

On or about Fri, 04 Jul 2003 15:07:36 GMT, Brian Thorn
committed multiple counts of:
You're


*bang bang bang* *Your* post was fine otherwise.


Drat!
  #8  
Old July 5th 03, 02:25 AM
James Oberg
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Default Russians Save ISS From Serious Trouble??


"Gary Coffman" wrote in message
Finding a way for NASA to *hold onto* the savings would be the main

problem.
Congress has never had a problem finding ways to spend money, but there's
no guarantee that it would be spent on space.


Fully agree -- and hence, NASA has never had any real motive to save money.




  #9  
Old July 7th 03, 05:29 AM
Kent Betts
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Default Russians Save ISS From Serious Trouble??

"James Oberg"
Fully agree -- and hence, NASA has never had any real motive to save money.


Congress likes to spend money. Cheney wanted to stop the Osprey, but since the
program involved 200 companies in 38 states, Congress overruled him and
continued the program. Funding has as much to do with politics as budget
concerns.


 




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