NASA studies new booster (UPI)

On Sat, 06 Mar 2004 16:49:29 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

On 6 Mar 2004 00:56:37 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(ed kyle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

It is if you need a 75+ ton to LEO heavy lift vehicle.

A *need* that remains to be proven.


If the Moon/Mars initiative goes forward, a new heavy lifter could
come in handy. Yes, I know, we could get away without one, but the
mission requirements might still call for it.




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h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message ...
On 6 Mar 2004 21:47:40 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(ed kyle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

... No one is (thankfully) going to
commit billions to something unneeded just because Eddie Kyle
"thinks" and "knows" that it's needed.


Thankfully, nothing that any of us write on Usenet is going
to decide such issues.

And don't call me "Eddie".


An all-new big vehicle would cost massive bucks to
develop. An alternative is to save money by using
hardware that has already had its development cost
paid for. Do you think an all-new vehicle could be
designed to operate cheaply enough to make up a
development cost difference (over, say, the 50-100
launches that NASA historically might get out such
a vehicle ) that could total $10-20 billion?

Why do you pull numbers out of the...air?

From history. In the early 1990s, NASA estimated it
would cost $1.8 billion to develop Shuttle-C (roughly
$3 billion today).

Saturn V development cost approximately $55 billion
in 2000 dollars, according to "Stages to Saturn".
Space shuttle spending totalled $29.6 billion by
the time Columbia first flew - and that doesn't
include the cost of building the final four
orbiters, the second launch pad, the third OPF,
etc. These are the only heavy-lifters developed
"from scratch" in the U.S. to date.

- Ed Kyle

On 5 Mar 2004 13:59:47 -0800, (Edward Wright)
wrote:

...... NASA doesn't need a new booster. It could use existing rockets .....

Something like the Atlas V could work for LEO missions and zipping up
to the station, sure. You start talking serious Mars hardware, that's
another matter.


....... There's even a fourth option. Instead of developing its own capsules
and launch system, NASA could offer to buy rides from the lowest
provider.


Well, the only other "provider" is the Russians, and it looks like
NASA will be booking Soyuz flights until the Constellation is ready.
Of course, if Kerry becomes president, I would not be surprised if he
axed the whole US manned program and kept booking Soyuz flights.
Which "handles" the question of a new US booster by scuttling the idea
for all time, but I don't think that's the point.






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On Sun, 07 Mar 2004 10:43:18 -0500, in a place far, far away, Michael
Gallagher made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

It is if you need a 75+ ton to LEO heavy lift vehicle.

A *need* that remains to be proven.


If the Moon/Mars initiative goes forward, a new heavy lifter could
come in handy.

"could come in handy" != "need"

Yes, I know, we could get away without one, but the
mission requirements might still call for it.

Might. Many assume "do." A convincing case has not been made.

On 7 Mar 2004 07:44:38 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(ed kyle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

... No one is (thankfully) going to
commit billions to something unneeded just because Eddie Kyle
"thinks" and "knows" that it's needed.


Thankfully, nothing that any of us write on Usenet is going
to decide such issues.

And don't call me "Eddie".

Apologies. I was thinking of someone else who does use that name.

An all-new big vehicle would cost massive bucks to
develop. An alternative is to save money by using
hardware that has already had its development cost
paid for. Do you think an all-new vehicle could be
designed to operate cheaply enough to make up a
development cost difference (over, say, the 50-100
launches that NASA historically might get out such
a vehicle ) that could total $10-20 billion?

Why do you pull numbers out of the...air?

From history. In the early 1990s, NASA estimated it
would cost $1.8 billion to develop Shuttle-C (roughly
$3 billion today).

There's an old saying in the stock market. Past peformance is no
guarantee of future success.

Anyway, it would make no sense to build Shuttle-C in today's context.
Some Shuttle-derived vehicle, perhaps, but not Shuttle-C, which had
the same payload diameter restrictions as Shuttle, due to the need to
avoid any changes to LC-39. If we're not going to operate Shuttle any
more, this requirement goes away, and we have much more flexibility in
vehicle design.

Saturn V development cost approximately $55 billion
in 2000 dollars, according to "Stages to Saturn".
Space shuttle spending totalled $29.6 billion by
the time Columbia first flew - and that doesn't
include the cost of building the final four
orbiters, the second launch pad, the third OPF,
etc. These are the only heavy-lifters developed
"from scratch" in the U.S. to date.

There's no need to design "from scratch." We have plenty of engines
from which to do the job, and tooling available in Michaud. We also
know much more about vehicle design than we did then. If NASA turns
it into a jobs program, then yes, it could cost many billions, but if
it's just something that NASA happens to do as a means to an end,
there's no reason for it to cost that much.

Of course, as I've said repeatedly, the need for it hasn't been
demonstrated, and unless we're going to have a serious program with a
lot of activity, the economic justification for it will be lacking.

In article ,
ed kyle wrote:
It is if you need a 75+ ton to LEO heavy lift vehicle.
As others have noted, the *need* for that is not at all clear. (There is
a difference between a wish and a need.)

I think there is a need if human lunar exploration is
going to occur. I *know* there is a need if human Mars
exploration is ever going to happen.

Wernher von Braun didn't agree; he was ready and willing to plan manned
lunar and Mars exploration with the Saturn I, which had less payload to
LEO than Atlas V.

...likely that an all-new heavy lifter would cost tens of
billions to develop from scratch.
Let me get this straight. Shuttle-C will be really cheap to run, because
it doesn't include that expensive orbiter. But an all-new heavy launcher
will have near-shuttle development costs, even though it doesn't include
an orbiter. How's that again? Something there does not compute.

An all-new big vehicle would cost massive bucks to
develop. An alternative is to save money by using
hardware that has already had its development cost paid for.

Certainly, and we've got a lot of that lying around, much of it suitable
for use in a new big launcher. For example, it would make sense to set
the tank diameter equal to that of the shuttle ET, so existing production
facilities and tooling could be used to build the tanks -- building big
lightweight tanks is not easy, and developing suitable techniques was a
big-ticket item for Apollo. But that does not require you to copy other
aspects of the shuttle.

...Do you think an all-new vehicle could be
designed to operate cheaply enough to make up a
development cost difference (over, say, the 50-100
launches that NASA historically might get out such
a vehicle ) that could total $10-20 billion?

I think so. But I don't think it would cost that much in the first place,
not today. And I don't think developing from scratch is necessary even if
you do need that kind of lift, as I already explained. And finally, I still
don't see a compelling case for that lift requirement.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

In article ,
ed kyle wrote:
Saturn V development cost approximately $55 billion
in 2000 dollars, according to "Stages to Saturn".

Much of which went to developing technologies that we don't have to
redevelop.

Space shuttle spending totalled $29.6 billion by
the time Columbia first flew...

As I've noted before, it's funny how getting rid of the orbiter is
supposed to save enormous amounts of money for the Shuttle-C option,
but not having an orbiter in the first place isn't supposed to save
any money at all for the non-Shuttle-C option.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

(TKalbfus) wrote in message ...
Nonsense. The Orbiters are much too valuable.


Really? How much value do they generate? Seems to me, the Shuttle can't be
operated profitably. What we need is a Shuttle we really don't have to worry
too much about after it has delivered its payload. The Shuttle C is one
approach, but what if we make an automated flyback shuttle that is cheap enough
so that we can build many more. In other words if the shuttle returns its a
bonus, otherwise we used a new shuttle right out of the factory. The shuttles
are cheaply built and don't have many fail-safe systems for reentry. Reentry
saves on costs for building more, but we are not going to hold up a launch
based on uncertainty on the heat shield, if it works we get to use it again,
but if it doesn't their are other shuttles. The thing is we mass produce the
shuttle. If you want to launch 1 shuttle a week for the next year you build 52
shuttles. The shuttles are cheap and expendible. Ideally a shuttle should cost
no more than an external tank.

Tom

The shuttles would still cost several times more, and have a few times
less cargo capacity than a Shuttle C.

Michael Gallagher wrote in message . ..

...... NASA doesn't need a new booster. It could use existing
rockets .....

Something like the Atlas V could work for LEO missions and zipping up
to the station, sure. You start talking serious Mars hardware, that's
another matter.

Nonsense. How do you think every piece of US hardware on Mars got
there.

....... There's even a fourth option. Instead of developing its own
capsules
and launch system, NASA could offer to buy rides from the lowest
provider.

Well, the only other "provider" is the Russians,

That isn't true, no matter how many times people repeat it.

"Elon Musk" may be an unusual name, but I don't think it's Russian.
Neither is "George Herbert." And there are others, if NASA is willing
to consider things that don't look like its preconceived notion of a
"capsule."

We aren't talking about launches that are scheduled for today, so it
doesn't matter if a commercial service is available today -- only if
the service can be available when it's needed. Congress understands
that. The law defines a commercial service as a service offered by a
commercial provider *or* a service that *could* be offered in response
to an RFP.

Elon Musk, at least, is closer to launching than any of NASA's
Constellation concepts. The people who say NASA should not use any
commercial service that isn't available today are the same people who
want NASA to use all kinds of government hardware that doesn't exist
today. Interesting double standard.

(ed kyle) writes:

Because rocketry is a preverse science (and because the space
business in inelastic). Building more rockets does not make
for more launches. It just makes more rockets. The world is
awash in launch capacity right now, but launch rates are lower
than they've been since the early years of the space age.

The religion that "rocket science" is somehow on a higher plane than
all other science and engineering is a false religion. The belief
that space travel doesn't need to be bothered with the principles of
basic economics is also false.

Jeff
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