Keith Cowing Makes His Move

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/20...able.html#more

I've already made mine :

http://webpages.charter.net/tsiolkov...oposal/IPO.doc

What will Michael Griffin's next move be?

It's a space board! Filled with player's pieces!

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/20...able.html#more

Keith Cowing's web page contains:

Here are the specific questions I asked ESMD PAO - questions that they
are either unwilling or unable to answer:

Do launch vibroacoustics, oscillations, etc. generated by the current
Ares 1 design exceed acceptable baselined limits for the Orion
spacecraft? Do these oscillations exceed limits and/or pose a risk to
the crew inside the Orion spacecraft? If so, to what extent to they
exceed acceptable limits?
[and continues on in that vein]

Well, PAO is almost surely unable to answer to this level of technical
detail on their own.

The questions are also mostly loaded. It struck me as the kinds of
questions that a congressional committee, GAO, etc, would ask, not the
kind that PAO would routinely answer to the public.

Having said all that, it is interesting that Cowing is on this
particular warpath. Not that I've been following Ares closely enough
to really know what to make of it...

"Jim Kingdon" wrote in message
news
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/20...able.html#more

Keith Cowing's web page contains:

Here are the specific questions I asked ESMD PAO - questions that they
are either unwilling or unable to answer:

Do launch vibroacoustics, oscillations, etc. generated by the current
Ares 1 design exceed acceptable baselined limits for the Orion
spacecraft? Do these oscillations exceed limits and/or pose a risk to
the crew inside the Orion spacecraft? If so, to what extent to they
exceed acceptable limits?
[and continues on in that vein]

Well, PAO is almost surely unable to answer to this level of technical
detail on their own.

That was my thought as well. And since PAO can't answer these directly, I'm
not terribly sure they're going to be highly motivated to start bugging
ESMD's technical managers for the answers.

The questions are also mostly loaded. It struck me as the kinds of
questions that a congressional committee, GAO, etc, would ask, not the
kind that PAO would routinely answer to the public.

Yea, well, we are talking about Keith Cowing here, so it doesn't surprise
me.

Having said all that, it is interesting that Cowing is on this
particular warpath. Not that I've been following Ares closely enough
to really know what to make of it...

From what I've gleaned from sites like NASA Watch and Spaceflight.com, it's
not doing very well. The vibration issue was discussed here a bit (no ET to
dampen the SRB's vibrations, and the fifth segment on the SRB changes the
frequency of the SRB vibrations as well). Weight has been an ongoing issue
since NASA insists on launching Orion fully fueled for lunar missions.

All in all, it's not appearing to be going very well. This isn't the "safe,
simple, soon" launch vehicle that ATK sold us. It's a horrible bait and
switch!

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein

wrote:
On Jan 15, 9:46 am, kT wrote:
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/20...able.html#more

I've already made mine :

http://webpages.charter.net/tsiolkov...oposal/IPO.doc

What will Michael Griffin's next move be?

It's a space board! Filled with player's pieces!

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.


Woefully inadequate proposal. Nothing but hot air.

Some examples where it falls short.

"In order for early satisfaction of the proposal contract, the author
may require the use of both United Launch Alliance assets and services
and United Space Alliance assets and services located at the cape.'

ULA is not NASA's nor the US Gov''t's. You have to contract them
yourself.. Same with USA, Boeing and PWR NASA isn't going to "hand"
them to you.

I'm pretty sure they'll jump on the bandwagon, because it means lots of
Delta IV Medium and Atlas V flights to support my space colonization
program, and it means lots of transition jobs for the shuttle folks.

You understand the fundamentals of space colonization, right?

Or do I have to lay it out for you in a 'book'.

"The teaming arrangements have been discussed in the summary, and
consist of launch vehicle architect, a critical enabling technologies
partner, and integration contractor, and launch contractor and a
mission contractor, in addition to the two primary propulsion and
structures contractors, Pratt and Whitney* and Boeing*. "

Again lacking and full of hot air. NASA doesn't want the teaming
arrangements 'discussed", they want you to make them and have the
agreements in place.

Well, if I had been given any warning about this at all, I could have
done so, but I was more concerned about doing the actual 'work' required
to get this launch vehicle architecture validated. That involves, you
know, actually reading stuff, and doing the necessary research, instead
of going with preconceptions, or trashing options that you don't like.

My group has been doing this for decades, Jim. We've made every mistake
in the book. We have no problems with making mistakes. We learn from it.

Michael Griffin has made some fundamental mistakes, and it's time for
him to admit it. We're confident that we can get through this thing, but
certainly some changes have to be made, and we have definitely forced
the issue. These problems aren't going away, we have to 'solve' them.

Nothing is going to change the fact that we are forcing these changes.

That's what science is all about, Jim, solving problems. Do you grok?

"The participant shall describe the approach for manufacturing the
elements of the space transportation system in support of flight
demonstration(s).

The author of this proposal has already selected primary integration
contractors, with complete latitude in the integration, test and
launch of the vehicle. The propulsion and structures contractors are
fixed."

That is just a bunch of BS. I could say the same thing about a new
SST, indy car or train, just giving a list of contractors.
NASA is asking how you are going to bend the metal and where.

With presses and brakes, at Boeing Company facilities, whether they be
in Decatur or at Michoud or somewhere in northern Illinois or southern
Wisconsin. The core and booster stages are designed to fit into existing
large volume aircraft, the Super Guppy, the Beluga and the Dreamlifter.

Your proposal has no meat and just a lot of hand waving. You never
answer the requirements adequately. Your proposal was probably
****canned upon reciept.

Is that the NASA way?

It's a position paper, Jim, a white paper. Do you understand what a
position paper is? Have you ever written one in your life? I have.

This happens to be a position paper that is going to be read by both the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) and congress, in the near future.

This isn't designed to compete with the credible offers on the table,
two from Orbital and Andrews, this is designed to save NASA from itself,
and to lay out a path to full reusability, using components of these
COTS competitors. This is an offer of a method to salvage a disaster.

What we have, Jim, are 14 SSMEs and a couple of dozen NK-33s.

These are the two most efficient engines in existence.

It's a launch vehicle architecture. It works for me.

Jim Kingdon wrote:

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/20...able.html#more

Keith Cowing's web page contains:

Here are the specific questions I asked ESMD PAO - questions that they
are either unwilling or unable to answer:

Do launch vibroacoustics, oscillations, etc. generated by the current
Ares 1 design exceed acceptable baselined limits for the Orion
spacecraft? Do these oscillations exceed limits and/or pose a risk to
the crew inside the Orion spacecraft? If so, to what extent to they
exceed acceptable limits?
[and continues on in that vein]

Well, PAO is almost surely unable to answer to this level of technical
detail on their own.

The questions are also mostly loaded.

Loaded with facts.

It struck me as the kinds of
questions that a congressional committee, GAO, etc, would ask, not the
kind that PAO would routinely answer to the public.

Yes, the Bush Administration is a secret society. Are you a member?

Having said all that, it is interesting that Cowing is on this
particular warpath. Not that I've been following Ares closely enough
to really know what to make of it...

Indeed, your level of ignorance is astonishing for a space advocate.
Perhaps you are not a space advocate after all. We're space activists.
We're professional astrobiologists. Do you know the difference?

wrote:
On Jan 15, 11:22 am, kT wrote:
Your proposal has no meat and just a lot of hand waving. You never
answer the requirements adequately. Your proposal was probably
****canned upon reciept.
1. Is that the NASA way?

2. It's a position paper, Jim, a white paper. Do you understand what
a
position paper is?

3. Have you ever written one in your life? I have.
4. . This happens to be a position paper that is going to be read by both the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) and congress, in the near future.


1. No. You didn't meet the requirements of the COTS request.

I'm pretty sure I did, I read the solicitation very carefully.

2. They weren't looking for position papers.

But they got one, and now they have to deal with it.

Not dealing with my position paper would be like not dealing with the
severe technical problems with the Constellation architecture and Ares.

COTS is limited to
station resupply and not architectures. You should be sending it to
Mike or ESMD and not COTS.

I sent it to Lee Pagel.

It's his job to present it to Griffin and Cooke.

3. Written many that meant something and had a valid point.

Give us a link then.

4. You are too full of yourself.

Full of ideas. Smart enough to analyze them in a rational manner.

It still won't say anything to
them. Still no meat or data. It is going in the same place as your
COTS proposal did.

Without actually reading it, I suppose.

wrote:

On Jan 15, 11:22 am, kT wrote:

What we have, Jim, are 14 SSMEs and a couple of dozen NK-33s.

These are the two most efficient engines in existence.

It's a launch vehicle architecture. It works for me.

That isn't an architecture. just a bunch of engines

Engines which very simply define the architecture.

These are things NASA and industry easily know how to do.

I'm not about to reinvent the wheel, this is a path to full reusability,
without the pitfalls of sub-orbital testing and idiotic mantras like
'We'll fill the sky with X-planes'. We are just looking at not throwing
away the engines, core stages, upper stages and boosters, and designing
them to be useful in space for space colonization from the very start.

Are you afraid of designing things, Jim? I'm not. I've trained for it.

wrote:

On Jan 15, 11:47 am, wrote:
On Jan 15, 11:22 am, kT wrote:



What we have, Jim, are 14 SSMEs and a couple of dozen NK-33s.
These are the two most efficient engines in existence.
It's a launch vehicle architecture. It works for me.
That isn't an architecture. just a bunch of engines

It is the rest of the stuff that makes an architecture.

It's all stuff that we have - multiple examples of.

What we don't have anymore is time and money, now that George W. Bush
and Michael Griffin wasted it. And we all know that time = money.

"Len" wrote in message
...
On Jan 15, 11:47 am, wrote:
That isn't an architecture. just a bunch of engines

Actually, engines are where most aerospace
designers have started for over a 100 years.

A lot of home built aircraft used to use air cooled VW engines, but a used
Beetle is still a *long* way from a finished home built aircraft.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein

Matt wrote:

KT, I can't help asking - why do you state that your paper will be
read by anyone in NASA management? (I am NOT commenting on the
quality of your paper, but isn't it just going to be one more in a
flood of mail the agency (and Pagel and whoever else you target) gets
all the time?)

Because I submitted it. Two years too late, but there it is.

Do you have some channel to management that insures your work gets
picked out of a heap of equally sincere (and many nonsincere) inputs
from the public and gets serious attention?

Yes : NASA JSC-COTS-2

Saying that ignoring your paper amounts to ignoring the problems can
be said by any one of hundred or thousands of people who have also
raised concerns about the current technical direction (myself, for
one).

But I have committed my position to print, and published it.

You also know that I ran a BLOG during the two years that my working
group was performing our own alternative ESAS, do you not?

http://cosmic.lifeform.org (offline)

You also understand that I have been in continuous contact with this
usenet group during that time, and often published our results within a
few hours right here on the usenet for all the world to see, right?

Again, I'm not attacking your paper. It's the process of ensuring
that NASA pays serious attention to it that I'm curious about.

Well, this is new territory for us too. I'm sure Keith thought long and
hard before making this current obvious move of his. All I can do is
outline the process that I and my collaborators have taken. In fact, the
script (Tommy - The Early Years :-) has already been snapped up by a
well known Hollywood producer, and will hit the screen regardless of
what happens with my current escapade.

If you have any suggestions, we'd like to hear it. Back when this all
went down I was six months on and six months off in the field, so when
Griffin was hired and the ESAS was performed, I was totally out of the
loop, and in fact, I was really tied up with a bunch of hurricane work.

Sometimes I wonder if the whole thing could have been avoided with a
simple letter, in that case, it would be all my fault. However, on the
positive note, I can see that my proposal itself already has had a
remarkable effect on the process :

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008...08_Altair.html

This is how things are supposed to be done, I am so happy that I was
able to clearly demonstrate that with a simple COTS proposal. Not to
trivialize the hard two years of current work that went into it, though.

Now, I'm not a lunar lander guy, in fact, I am the renegade black sheep
of the whole group, who was violently opposed to my publishing this
proposal in the form that I did (you know, the Sea Dragon guys), but I
do have some lunar lander guys, and I am certainly in contact with the
lunar colonization guys, and they very well may be interested in this.

And frankly, I need the money. We've been doing this out the the
kindness of our hearts for a very long time now. But all of us know the
fundamentals of the process, the methods to success, and that
'propulsion' is at the bottom of the Mount Extraterrestrial pyramid.

Physics and finances will catch up with the Ares I soon enough.

We are well past bitching about this, Keith Cowing wants answers, and he
deserves to get them, and other, like you, want solutions, and now you
have one, out of many possible no doubt. If you've got one, lets see it.

The invitation to join my working group was out there for 2 full years.