NASA Encounters Problems With Ares 1 Launch Vehicle Design

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article et,
Greg D. Moore \(Strider\) wrote:
At one time they could design and build the Saturn V and land on the
moon in 8-years...

And look where it got us anyway. 12 men on the moon. (and would have been
no more than 18 if all missions planned had flown and succeeded.)

Don't remember that before summer 1967, "all missions planned" went far
beyond Apollo 20 -- Saturn V production was never meant to stop at #15.

True, but I was stopping at actual hardware built or in the pipeline.


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Sure, but it was an arbitrary decision. The Saturn V was pricey, but
no more pricey than the shuttle. More scaleable too. More *useful*
too.

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article et,
Greg D. Moore \(Strider\) wrote:
At one time they could design and build the Saturn V and land on the
moon in 8-years...

And look where it got us anyway. 12 men on the moon. (and would have been
no more than 18 if all missions planned had flown and succeeded.)

Don't remember that before summer 1967, "all missions planned" went far
beyond Apollo 20 -- Saturn V production was never meant to stop at #15.

True, but I was stopping at actual hardware built or in the pipeline.


--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

"neopeius" wrote in message
ups.com...
Sure, but it was an arbitrary decision. The Saturn V was pricey, but
no more pricey than the shuttle. More scaleable too. More *useful*
too.

In retrospect, the shuttle was a lot costlier than expected at the time.

The problem partly was the Saturn V was oversized for most expected payloads
at the time and the Saturn IB/Apollo wasn't optimized for LEO missions.
(Granted a smaller/lighter Apollo CSM may have helped a bit there.)

So, useful is a tough metric. Yes, ideally a few Saturn V launched space
stations and Saturn IB crew rotation missions (ala Skylab +) might have been
the right course, but it's not obvious.



Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article et,
Greg D. Moore \(Strider\) wrote:
At one time they could design and build the Saturn V and land on the
moon in 8-years...

And look where it got us anyway. 12 men on the moon. (and would have
been
no more than 18 if all missions planned had flown and succeeded.)

Don't remember that before summer 1967, "all missions planned" went far
beyond Apollo 20 -- Saturn V production was never meant to stop at #15.

True, but I was stopping at actual hardware built or in the pipeline.


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spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry
Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 03:06:35 GMT, (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

So what? If you're going to need it anyway, it's cheaper and easier to
launch it with a CEV and a tub of ballast than to develop and operate a
second rocket just for LEO missions.

....And who's to say that it needs to be ballast? You simply design the
damn thing so that it can launch 2-3 satellites once it's up there.
Passenger flights carry cargo not associated with their passengers all
the time.

OM
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Henry Spencer wrote:

Preferably both, at least long enough to insist that P&W really go through
with setting up US production capability for the RD-180.


I thought of that possibility also; because it's designed as an
expendable, the RD-180 might be a good alternative.
But, like SSME it's designed to light on the pad, not while airborne,
and might need some mods also.
Somebody has got to build and fly this thing:
http://www.buran.ru/htm/strbaik.htm
If that worked as advertised, it would open up all sorts of
possibilities for new booster designs:
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/baikal.html
Having your boosters fly back and land on runways beats the hell out of
pulling them out of the ocean.
And if that concept worked, you might be able to scale it up, as was
intended for the Energia 2's boosters:
http://www.k26.com/buran/assets/images/enert2.jpg

Pat

neopeius wrote:

Sure, but it was an arbitrary decision. The Saturn V was pricey, but
no more pricey than the shuttle. More scaleable too. More *useful*
too.


Yeah, but at the time we had no idea that Shuttle operating costs were
going to end up being around a order of magnitude greater than we
thought they were going to be.

Pat

Henry Spencer wrote:

(You leave the ballast on the station. Space stations *want* to be heavy,
not light -- extra mass reduces the effect of air drag and lengthens the
interval between reboosts, without changing the average annual reboost
fuel consumption.)



In that case the obvious ballast to use is water- kill two birds with
one stone.
You can use it for drinking, radiation shielding, or with enough solar
power, break it down into oxygen for breathing and hydrogen, or into
LOX/LH2 propellants.

The support for shuttle replacement is pretty bipartisan. If the
Porklauncher V was *the* rocket for shuttle replacement, it would be
fairly safe. It would be in a stronger position if it had been the chosen
rocket all along, but I think they could still get away with making the
switch now. (They can't wait too much longer, though.) What might get
cut, or at least postponed, is an expensive new rocket that's needed
*only* for beyond-LEO operations.



Ares V seems too big for most things; I see Ares 1 getting made and Ares
V getting canceled.
They might be on to something with that DIRECT design, if Ares 1 is a flop.
At that point DIRECT looks like the economical alternative to Ares
1/Ares V, and that attracts Congress like bees to pollen.

Pat

From: Rusty
According to discussions on Nasaspaceflight.com the Ares 1 is
in trouble:
--The CEV will have to use its Service Module engine as a 3rd stage.
The CEV service module will have to add 1000fps to achieve orbital
velocity on a mission to the ISS.
--The Ares 1 payload weight is down to 22 m-tons.

That actually sounds about right, though perhaps minus another couple of
metric tonnes for their final safety feature applications and/or
reserves and you're down to perhaps a working 21 if not a wussy 20 tonne
payload for merely achieving ISS, which is about what I'd said a good
year ago.

Makes some of us village idiots wonder how the nearly 30% inert mass of
the Saturn 5 managed getting nearly 50t into orbiting the moon, and so
quickly within a 60:1 rocket/payload ratio, having extra payload and/or
fuel to burn none the less.
-
Brad Guth


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From: Rusty
According to discussions on Nasaspaceflight.com the Ares 1 is
in trouble:
--The CEV will have to use its Service Module engine as a 3rd stage.
The CEV service module will have to add 1000fps to achieve orbital
velocity on a mission to the ISS.
--The Ares 1 payload weight is down to 22 m-tons.

I believe that actually sounds about right, though perhaps minus another
couple of metric tonnes for incorporating their final safety features
and/or of fuel reserves and you're down to perhaps a working 21 if not a
wussy 20 tonne payload for merely achieving ISS, which is essentially
about what I'd said a good year ago.

"rocket/payload ratio of 42:1"

Of course, silly me, this only makes some of us village idiots wonder as
to how the heck that nearly 30% inert mass of the Saturn 5 managed
getting nearly 50t into orbiting the moon, and so quickly within a 60:1
rocket/payload ratio, as well as having extra payload and/or fuel to
burn none the less.

Ares-I Rocket concept started itself out at deploying 25 tonnes into
LEO/ISS with supposedly a safety margin of fuel to spare. Now it's down
to 22 tonnes and they're not even close to a solid prototype with any
proven certainty (they can't even specify as to it's final GLOW or of
whatever's inert mass, much less along with incorporating a good LES
configuration should all hell bust lose.

Perhaps they can utilize their LES itself as a third stage puller rather
than having to pack along an extra kicker.

Supposedly they're stuck within a 900t or somewhat less of a GLOW
window, as representing a somewhat pesky situation that may require a
little something extra in the way of their having to utilize spendy
composites and/or ductaping a couple of extra SRBs on for good measure.

Too bad they're still not smart enough to be using LRBs of h2o2/c3h4o or
perhaps better yet h2o2/Al instead of those somewhat inefficient SRBs.
Where the heck are those smart Jewish Third Reich rocket scientists when
you need them?
-
Brad Guth


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In article ,
OM wrote:
So what? If you're going to need it anyway, it's cheaper and easier to
launch it with a CEV and a tub of ballast than to develop and operate a
second rocket just for LEO missions.

...And who's to say that it needs to be ballast? You simply design the
damn thing so that it can launch 2-3 satellites once it's up there.

It's certainly possible, if NASA has payloads to fit. Remember that NASA
is forbidden, by presidential order, to compete with commercial launch
suppliers. (It's also supposed to use commercial suppliers whenever
possible for its own payloads, but there have been a truly remarkable
number of excuses deployed as to why payload X has to fly on the shuttle.)
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