NASA studies new booster (UPI)

Michael Gallagher writes:

I think a real life example of this in Skylab, which, in spite of
problesm on assent, was in orbit and operational after ONE launch. In
contrast, we've been launching station elements for what, five years,
and it's not eve close to done yet! So which is the better aproach?

If you happen to have a surplus Saturn V available, the Skylab approach makes a
lot of sense. If not, not.

Will McLean

(Edward Wright) wrote in message . com...
(ed kyle) wrote in message om...

The more that Dr. von Braun's group studied the problem, the larger
their rockets became. From the first generation Saturns of the Horizon
study (salvos of 14 metric tons to LEO) to von Braun's Saturn B-1
design (16 tons to LEO) to the Silverstein Committee Saturn C-2
(20 tons to LEO) and C-3 (40-ish tons to LEO) to the 100 ton+ Saturn
C-4 and C-5 designs. As the rockets grew, the number of launches
needed for one of von Braun's EOR missions fell from seven or eight
to five or six, and finally to just two.

As a result, Apollo was unsustainable and cancelled after just a few
flights.


Apollo/Saturn V was no more unsustainable than a
Saturn I/EOR/Apollo effort would have been under the same
Vietnam/social unrest/budget-crunch conditions. Commercial
demand for Saturn I class launchers was nonexistent
until the late 1990s, so there would not have been many
other uses for even the smaller Saturn launchers to share
the Saturn development cost burden.

A small-Saturn EOR effort would have required the same type
of massive expenditures that Apollo finally did. For
example, the 1959 Project Horizon plan required an average
of 5.3 Saturn launches per month (even using the more
powerful beyond-EELV-Heavy-class 32 ton to LEO "Saturn II")
from an equatorial launch site equipped with no less than
eight launch pads.

Some people are able to learn from their mistakes. Insightful people
learn from other's mistakes.

Doing something foolish because it was done in the past is foolish.

The early small-Saturn EOR plans fell by the wayside
because the best rocket team ever assembled found a
better way to solve the problem. EOR had a better
chance of succeeding when performed with fewer launches
of bigger rockets.

The EOR progression went as follows during the 1959-62
period:

12 Saturn B-1
6 Saturn C-2
3 Saturn C-3
2 Saturn C-4/5

In 1969, Armstrong/Aldrin proved that their understanding
of the problem (that bigger was better) had been anything
but foolish.

- Ed Kyle

(McLean1382) wrote in message ...
Michael Gallagher writes:

I think a real life example of this in Skylab, which, in spite of
problesm on assent, was in orbit and operational after ONE launch. In
contrast, we've been launching station elements for what, five years,
and it's not eve close to done yet! So which is the better aproach?

If you happen to have a surplus Saturn V available, the Skylab
approach makes a lot of sense. If not, not.

I disagree. Skylab was hardly the best way to do a space
station, despite its size. It was quite similar in design
to the earliest series of Salyuts, which, along with Skylab,
were very crude in comparison to the last Salyuts, Mir, and
ISS.

If I had at my fingertips the ability to deliver 100+ tonnes
to LEO I'd certainly use that mass a lot better than Skylab
did. With today's technology (inflatables, for example) we
could do extraordinary things with 100 tonnes to LEO.

In article ,
Christopher M. Jones wrote:
Skylab was hardly the best way to do a space station, despite its size.
It was quite similar in design to the earliest series of Salyuts, which,
along with Skylab, were very crude in comparison to the last Salyuts,
Mir, and ISS.

There is no good way to do a space station. Every one of these
projects has ended badly.

--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

(Greg Kuperberg) writes:
In article ,
Christopher M. Jones wrote:
Skylab was hardly the best way to do a space station, despite its size.
It was quite similar in design to the earliest series of Salyuts, which,
along with Skylab, were very crude in comparison to the last Salyuts,
Mir, and ISS.

There is no good way to do a space station. Every one of these
projects has ended badly.

Just because it hasn't been done, doesn't mean it isn't possible.

I'd argue that cheap access to space is a prerequisite for "doing a
space station right".

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

In article ,
jeff findley wrote:
There is no good way to do a space station. Every one of these
projects has ended badly.
....
I'd argue that cheap access to space is a prerequisite for "doing a
space station right".

Fair enough. FIRST we should establish cheap access to space, with
private money. Then we'll see.
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

On 10 Mar 2004 03:37:34 GMT, (McLean1382) wrote:

If you happen to have a surplus Saturn V available, the Skylab approach makes a
lot of sense. If not, not.


A shuttle derived heavy lifter is the next best thing.





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On 8 Mar 2004 10:26:48 -0800, (Edward Wright)
wrote:

Michael Gallagher wrote in message . ..

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.


We haven't sent any MANNED spacecraft to Mars yet. You think we can
lauch it all on a Titant 3 or a Delta 2, fine, but I don't think that
will work. For one thing, it would be very cramped ....


.... 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 .....

You can not plan a project on whether something will be there IF it's
needed if you know it will be needed. Just waiting for the private
sector to cough up what we need and then deciding that's the time to
go will not work because there's no guaruntee the private secotr will
produce it on its own!

We know the mission requirements for a manned flight to Mars. We
could have done it twenty years ago! We have almost all the
technology we need; most of the unknowns relate to long durations of
weightlessness and the effects of living in low gravity on the crew.
But we do not have to wait for the private sector to maybe, someday,
come up with some new launchers or spacecraft when we can do it now.

If anything, the private sector can benefit from government
ependitures on Mars missions. Just as the airline industry was able
to grow pretty much exponentially because World War 2 saw the
development of larger plains, refnements of radar, and training a lot
of pilots, so too could private ventures benefit from work done
towards a Moon Mars mission.

..... Elon Musk, at least, is closer to launching than any of NASA's
Constellation concepts ....

I don't know how long Elon Musk has been doing what he is doing, but I
bet he has been working at it longer than NASA has on Constellation,
which was announced just last month. So OF COURSE Constellation is
nowhere near launching. Nor was Mr. Musk one month after cenceiving
his vehicle, I imagine.

... 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.

If you can GUARUNTEE that the private sector will produce the hardware
needed for a Mars mission without the govenment intervening at all,
cool. Othwerwise, nope, sorry, no point in waiting except to just
wait. I was 8 years old when the last astronauts walked on the Moon;
I want to see them go back while I'm still alive. Hoping the private
sector will provide what we need on its own will not achieve that.
Sorry.



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On 9 Mar 2004 17:06:30 -0800, (Edward Wright)
wrote:

Michael Gallagher wrote in message . ..

The football analogy doesn't quite work, but the diving one does.
Even then, the kind of diving we're talking about involves special
equipment, including mixed atmosphere rigs, and special training.

So? I repeat, I would have no trouble finding people to do the job. My
company is more than willing to train them.


Only if your company has an expert diver to do it! And even then,
you'll probably learn it's nothing to sneeze at.

And even then, what's the most cost-effective way to put an oil
drilling rig in position, assemble it all at once in a ship yard and
tow it out, or have commercial divers assemble it peice-by-piece on
site from hardware brought out on small boats? That the oil industry
has done the former for quite some time should be a clue.



Non sequitar. Space workers don't need to sneak up on an enemy and
slit his throat without being seen.


The navy also has salvage divers at their disposal, not jsust special
ops. IIRC, a Navy salvage ship has been involved in TWA 800 and
investigating other plane crashes at sea.


..... I want to make space construction routine
and economical, not an exotic, expensive activity only engaged in by
elite government forces like the Navy Seals.


I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with the idea
that we should wait until that just happens before we go to Mars. If
that is not what you are saying, mea culpa for getting it wrong; if it
is, I disagree. As far as exploration goes, if we can go now, or if
we have most of the building blocks for beginning now, then we should
begin now, not procrastinate.





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On 9 Mar 2004 18:06:30 -0800, (Edward Wright)
wrote:

Michael Gallagher wrote in message . ..

14 years ago, the Synthesis Group called for a heavy lifter to support
SEI because fewer launches and less on-orbit assembly would make the
overall mission cheaper, not more expensive.

Which is one of the reasons why SEI failed and NASA has not been to
the Moon in the last 14 years.


Never mind Congressional Democrats holding the budget to zero until
Clinton was elected and could kill it.


No, very little. One World War II airbase required more mass than
Skylab, and we built a lot of airbases in the South Pacific during
World War II, hauling the supplies in on DC-3's -- not Saturn V's.


But how quickly could we have built those air bases hauling the
supplies in bi-planes? If it is better to use smaller boosters and
lots of on-oribt assembly, surely it would have been better to cram
supplies into the rear seats of bi-planes and haul it out that way?

However, if they used the DC-3, then maybe there was a reaon for that?

Then again, why did the military have to build those bases? Never
mind that pressures of war -- that's a socialist venture! Shouldn't
we have waited until someone just happened to build a facility that
more-or-less suited our needs and then we could have moved in after
paying rent?

Could it be that they didn't do any of those things because that
wouldn't have gotten the job done?

Another lesson from World War 2 is how government funded MILITARY
developments benfitted the CIVILIAN airline industry: we came out of
the war with larger planes, developments in radar allowing it to be
installed at every airfield, and a pool of trained pilots. This lead
to the growth of the airline and travel industries since the war.
World War 1 had also lead to advances in airplane design.

So the lesson is that government funded technolgies can ultimateltly
be used by the private sector. We have seen that in the commercial
communications satellite industry. Can we see it in the area of
manned flight? Perhaps. For instance, NASA could, working towards a
Mars flight, develop a space suit that private operators could use
later.

On the other hand, waiting around for the private sector to just up
and develop the vehicles needed for Moon/Mars seems to be a sure fire
way to insure we never go. History shows that out of all the firms
that got started in the '80s, only one, OSC, has successfully launched
and orbital booster, and even then, IIRC, they don't count because of
the sin of taking government money. But what have the "pure" private
firms produced? Nothing so far. Maybe one firm other than OSC, and I
am unsure of that. The efforts towards a space tourism business
through private developed suborbital vehicles are exciting, but that
is a long way from Mars.

So? When did I advocate using the Shuttle?


You didn't; you have advocated eschewing heavy lifters in favor of
smaller boosters and lots of on-orbit assembly. I mentioned the
shuttle only because it has been used for on-orbit assembly of the
space station.

Is that a trick question? Orbital assembly, of course ....

Has it worked for the station? Well?

..... Whatever that's supposed to mean. When Lunar Gemini was cut in favor
of Apollo, it made a difference ....

Only because they didn't want Gemini to compete with Apollo.

..... When Dyna-Soar was cut in favor of
MOL and MOL was cut in favor of unmanned satellites, it made a
difference ....

In what way? In any case, I was referring to arguments that space
funding should be cut to fund SOCIAL programs. That has never done
anything to solve social problems, IMHO.

..... You can argue about whether those differences were
positive or negative, but each choice made a difference, whatever your
version of history shows.

I don't want to. I haven't advocated using Pegasus, and I haven't
advocated using Shuttle. Please stop creating strawmen.


I did not hear of Elon Musk until about a week ago, sorry. I asssumed
from what I read in Space News that his booster is in the same class
as Pegasus. My bad if it's not.

But at least you admit it's not a good idea to assemble the station
from lots and lots of small peices.


The fact that something is uneconomical using Pegasus does not prove
it can't be done economically with a reasonable launch vehicle.


Ok ......

The question, then, is what is "reasonable" for a manned mission
beyond LEO, to the Moon and Mars? As I noted above, the military did
not use biplanes do deliver supplies to the bases it was constructing,
nor did it simply wait for the private sector to produce something we
could use.

I am all for commercial space activities, believe it or not. I'd love
to see private manned missions into space as much as you. But I also
want to see manned flights back to Moon and on to Mars. I do not
think it would be wise to simply wait for the private sector to
produce something that can be used before going. That is
procrastination, in my view. Especially as while government-funded
technologies have helped the private sector, "pure" private space
entrpenuers haven't produced anything capable of getting people to LEO
yet, never mind the Moon or Mars.

And I do not see why NASA can not move ahead with Constellation and
its related booster while Congress passes legislation helping the
private secotr along. The two do not have to be mutlally exclusive
unless we want them to be.

Columbus used tiny ships because they were cheap and readily
available. They were small even by 16th Century standards, not much
larger than today's commercial fishing boats ....

The key words are "readily available." He used what already existed.
He did not say, "Well, I'll wait until someone just happens to produce
a boat I can use and then I'll try and raise money for a voyage." If
Columbus had followed your advice, instead of lobbying the kings of
Portugal and Spain to make his voyage, he would have sat around
waiting for something like the Dutch East India company to be founded,
and then tried to convince them they should sail west to go east.
IOW, he probably never would have gone. But without Columbus sailing
when he did, would there have been a Dutch East India Company, or if
it had existed anyway, would it have known about, much less bothered
with, the Americas? Possibly, but I doubt it.


.....we don't need heavy lifters today, and by the time we do, we
will have much better technology ....

Will we? Developed by whom? Paid for by whom?

.... There's no need to bankrupt NASA by
trying to build one now ....

You don't have to bankrupt anybody to build Shuttle-C, just replace
the oribter with a cargo vehicle that doesn't have to come back. Or
an upper stage.

You praised Columbus for using "readily available" ships. Well,
Shuttle-C/a shuttle-derived booster is as close to as readily
available as you can get! We do not have to design or test all new
engines or build an all-new launch facility; we already have those
things. What we lack is what to put in place of the orbiter.
Shuttle-C is appealing becuase it would require the least
modifications to the lauch site, IMHO. If we put the payload on top
of the ET, as with a traditional rocket, that's something else again,
but probably not that big. The only "problem" with it is (a) it is a
government vehicle; and (b) it is expensive to operate, and (c) it is
a government vehicle.

On the other hand, the hypothetical boosters you want to use, built
and operated entirely with private money, don't exist yet. Maybe one
other '80s startup other than OSC has actually orbited something, and
I am not sure about that. Many others have gone nowhere. THIS is
what we should pin our hopes for a manned Mars mission on!?

Way I see it, Shuttle-C wins the readily available concept. It is
government funded, but so was Columbus, so no points there. You want
to wait and hope that someday the private sector coincidentally
produces something we could use for Moon/Mars, hey, go right ahead.
But I do not want to wait if we don't have to. And we don't have to.

....NASA won't get back to the Moon and Project Constellation will
be a footnote in history books, if that.

If Kerry wins in November, yes. No argument there. Heck, if Kerry
wins, I wouldn't be surprised if all of NASA becomes a footnote and we
think about maybe putting our astronauts on Russian Soyuzs.




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