NASA Encounters Problems With Ares 1 Launch Vehicle Design

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...


Jeff Findley wrote:

The current weight problems with Ares I/CEV would be the perfect excuse
for this. If the word comes down from above that these weight problems
are a good thing, I'm sure they'll only get worse, because the boss is
*always* right at NASA.


The big question is what exactly do you use a Saturn V sized booster for?

I'm not for NASA building any new launch vehicle themselves. Just playing
devil' advocate here.

You can go to the Moon, you can use it to build space stations...and
that's really about it. The main reason the Russians ditched Energia is
that there really wasn't any need for something with that LEO payload
capacity. They couldn't even figure out a use for the smaller Energia-M
version.

Proton and Soyuz were good enough. That's one of my arguments. Delta IV
and Atlas V are good enough for launching a capsule with a crew or cargo to
ISS. Why build Ares I/V at all? Just to keep jobs at ATK and Michoud?
Just to keep the propulsion guys at NASA busy working on the J-2X? Just to
keep the infrastructure (code for jobs) at KSC going?

It's too big for the vast majority of scientific or commercial payloads,
and if there's one thing that the ISS should teach us it's that giant
space stations are not anywhere as useful an idea as they seemed to be in
the 1950s.

I agree.

Even if you build Ares V, you are still going to have to build something
else to get crews to the ISS, as the thing is far too large for simply
moving personnel and supplies to orbit.

Overcapacity isn't much of a problem. The shuttle is the perfect example of
this. The MPLM's are a neat idea, but why waste a shuttle mission bringing
up equipment in an MPLM and stuffing it with trash on the way down when you
could launch something like ESA's ATV on an EELV? Because the shuttle is
flying *anyway*. If you've got Ares V, you certainly could use it for ISS
flights. Stick a manned CEV on top and an unmanned (MPLM like) module under
that and you've got cargo and crew rotation in one shot.

It would be like driving a semi truck to the grocery store.

It would be more like driving a school bus loaded with boy scouts and
camping gear (possibly in a trailer behind the bus) to a semi-improved camp
site half way across the US. Where I live this is how several boy scout
troops transport scouts to camp outs. They've got the busses, usually
donated to them by the sponsoring church, so why not use them? Why go out
of your way to buy something "better suited" to this task when you already
own an old school bus?

In other words, if NASA thinks it needs Ares V, why bother with Ares I in
the first place? As Henry says, the high program costs come from the large
amount of infrastructure, not from the small incremental cost difference
between an Ares I and an Ares V launch.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

h (Rand Simberg) writes:

Especially since launching crews on the Ares V would allow to build the
crew vehicle with very little concern for weight and give lots of room
for crew and vehicle safety. If you have 100+ tons to build a capsule
for six people quite a lot of problems just vanish. Bound to be much
cheaper to develop and build, too.

Won't happen, of course.

You're still weight constrained by the need to get it to the moon and
back. You can't just let the vehicle grow, or your EDS requirements
balloon along with it (as well as forcing a larger Service Module for
the return).

Yes, this is one of the reasons it won't happen. Although you could
still have two versions of the CEV, one reusable (heavy, overbuild, just
for LEO missions) and one expendable (weight-optimized, for moon
missions) sharing parts. Or use the same CEV, but for LEO/ISS missions
use a much larger SM with a shuttle-derived cargo bay...

Anyway, judging from the low launch frequency developing Ares I *and*
Ares V looks not exactly like a wise move.


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 08:39:18 -0600, Jeff Findley wrote
(in article ):

In other words, if NASA thinks it needs Ares V, why bother with Ares I in the

first place? As Henry says, the high program costs come from the large
amount of infrastructure, not from the small incremental cost difference
between an Ares I and an Ares V launch.

I'd agree with that whole-heartedly.

Someone should compile a text file containing every one of Henry's
posts on this topic and slide a printout under Mike Griffin's door,
along with copies to every Senator and Representative on the key
committees.

Sounds like a job for OM. :-)

--
Herb Schaltegger
"You can run on for a long time . . . sooner or later, God'll cut you
down." - Johnny Cash
http://www.angryherb.net

"Pat" == Pat Flannery writes:

Pat Jeff Findley wrote:

The current weight problems with Ares I/CEV would be the perfect
excuse for this. If the word comes down from above that these
weight problems are a good thing, I'm sure they'll only get worse,
because the boss is *always* right at NASA.



Pat The big question is what exactly do you use a Saturn V sized
Pat booster for? You can go to the Moon, you can use it to build
Pat space stations...and that's really about it. The main reason the
Pat Russians ditched Energia is that there really wasn't any need for
Pat something with that LEO payload capacity. They couldn't even
Pat figure out a use for the smaller Energia-M version.

Why do you have to have a use for it right off the bat? And don't
tell me that a bunch of scientists wouldn't give a lot to be able to
build an outer planets mission where they didn't have to worry much
about launch weight, they could just stuff all their instruments on
there and put a couple of inches of steel around it for radiation
resistance.

Instead of fighting for ounces of weight, if you can optimize for ease
of building, fixing and launching, that would be worth alot.

I keep thinking that having a "Space container" with fixed mass,
dimensions and CoG contraints would be a wonderful thing. Make
everyone design their satellites to fit those constraints and away you
go. Offer a consistent bus interface to the launcher and away you
go. Payload integration costs go down, you just plug the payload onto
the bus and it's done. If someone wants to launch two sats from one
container, go for it. As long as it meets the contraints.

Just think how much easier a Pluto mission with an Ares V launch would
be, esp if they were told to design to these limits. Then let the
payload people come up with tradeoffs in terms of how they spend their
mass budget. Too little mass, no problem unless it's under the
minimum, and I doubt that would happen since they'd just load on more
fuel (Xeon thrusters ala the comet impacter who's name I'm blanking
on?) to give them more boost to get to pluto faster.

Pat It's too big for the vast majority of scientific or commercial
Pat payloads, and if there's one thing that the ISS should teach us
Pat it's that giant space stations are not anywhere as useful an idea
Pat as they seemed to be in the 1950s.

How does ISS teach us that? It's not a giant space station with 50
people on it full time. It's barely got three who have to work almost
full time just maintaining it. Who knows what work would happen if
they could actually get a full crew on there.

Pat Even if you build Ares V, you are still going to have to build
Pat something else to get crews to the ISS, as the thing is far too
Pat large for simply moving personnel and supplies to orbit. It
Pat would be like driving a semi truck to the grocery store.

Have you seen the size of the Suburbans people drive? Are they really
needed for a trip to the grocery store? But what's the cost of
maintaining two seperate cars in your household? One to bring people
to the store, the other to bring trash to the store in exchange for
supplies? Yes, I'm inverting the shuttle use here, but the idea is
the same.

Who cares if the damm thing flies light, just like no-one cares if you
ship a container around the world which is empty or full? As long as
they know it's mass, they can stuff it in the proper place on the
ships, but then it's YOUR problem to deal with how it's
loaded/unloaded at either end.

That's what NASA should be doing, defining the space container(s) with
appropriate interface specifications and getting the hell out of
people's way in using them.

John

Monte Davis wrote:


I disagree... or at least I'd push that down below a more salient
thing it should teach us. Namely, if you plan a multi-hundred-ton
station *as if* you had routine, robust access to orbit (the "space
truck" projected in 1970) when you don't -- and spec its modules so
that you have no alternatives -- the result won't be pretty.

How would the station timeline and budget have turned out without the
STS stand-downs after Challenger and Columbia and their ripple effects
-- IOW, simply extending the 1984-1985 launch rate? I'm not asserting
that alone would have made a success of the station, but it would
certainly have helped a lot.



I can't fully damn ISS due to the fact it isn't finished, but the Soviet
experience was that Mir was a huge flop.
The small Salyut stations were quite useful, as they were simple enough
to leave their crews plenty of time to do research rather than station
maintenance. Mir on the other hand was so big and complex that it
required the crew to be constantly doing station maintenance rather than
useful research. Based on its size, Mir should have had around a 11
person crew on board it, as you were talking about something fairly
close to 5 & 1/2 Salyuts joined together.
By that standard ISS should have around 20 people on it when completed.

Pat

On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:04:43 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote
(in article ):

By that standard ISS should have around 20 people on it when completed.

SSF was intended for an 8 person crew. Those of us doing the detailed
design always figured it would be be a really, really good idea to
explicitly designate two of them as station engineering staff and let
them devote themselves full-time to maintenance and upkeep tasks, with
very specific training for the job.

--
Herb Schaltegger
"You can run on for a long time . . . sooner or later, God'll cut you
down." - Johnny Cash
http://www.angryherb.net

On Nov 14, 5:12 pm, (Henry Spencer) wrote:

If NASA really wants to carry on with the Porklaunchers, the smart thing
to do is to kill PL-IB and declare full speed ahead on PL-V *right now*,
while claiming loudly that PL-IB turned out to be technically impractical
and a shuttle-derived launcher just has to be big.
The logical conclusion of this is "Direct"
http://www.directlauncher.com/.

Doing this also makes PL-V quite a bit simpler, since with 2 heavy
launchers per lunar mission, it doesn't need the 5 seg solids and
bigger tank diameter. Unlike the current Porklaunchers, it can actually
have significant commonality with the shuttle hardware, and re-use much
of the infrastructure unchanged.

It may not be the best plan, but it seems to make a lot more sense than
the stick.

wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote:


Even if you build Ares V, you are still going to have to
build something else to get crews to the ISS,



Why?



Because it's not economical for the crew/light cargo mission - each Ares
V is going to cost at least twice as much as a Ares 1 due to it using
two SRBs and having a far bigger two-stage core assembly.
There's also the reliability factor to consider - with its two SRBs,
Ares V has a built-in SRB catastrophic failure probability that's twice
that of Ares 1

Which would make perfect sense if the extra running costs of taking the
truck to the store were lower than the cost of buying and running a car
to do the trip. Similarly, if the full cost of five Aries V launches
(including development, launch site maintenance etc) is lower than the
cost of four Aries 1 launches and one Aries V launch each year, then
launching crew on a launcher with twice the required payload capacity
makes perfect sense. It's quite conceivable that the costs of operating
two launchers rather than one could easily swallow up any savings from
one launcher having lower base costs per launch.



I depends on how many total launches you have in mind... if it's
something like ten or twenty, then maybe just going for Ares V makes
sense as your sole launcher.
If you end up with around 100 launches desired, of which only 20 need
the Ares V's lifting capability, then you probably end up saving money
by going the two booster route.
If past experience is anything to go by, once made Ares 1 will end up
being used for a very long time and for missions that are unforeseen
nowadays. Imagine if you went back to the original Thor IRBM design team
and told them that around 50 years down the line, a much evolved version
of their missile would be landing rovers on Mars

Even more so, if you use a semi truck to drive everywhere and then you
buy a small car for the trips where it 'doesn't make sense', and the
truck then spends most of the time sitting on your driveway, pretty
soon your wife will be nagging you to get rid of it. Just as it's much
easier for Congress to scrap an Aries V that flies once per year to
launch big payloads on mega-missions than to scrap an Aries V which
flies multiple times per year and is the only manned launcher you have.



The two problems with the annual mega-mission idea is that the
mega-mission can only go to one destination, and you've still got all
that upkeep and infrastructure to maintain in the other eleven months of
the year eating up your money, just like the Shuttle does when it's been
grounded.
Also, I'm pretty sure this now takes two Ares V launches per manned
Lunar mission using the present weight Orion CEV and the promulgated
Lunar lander.
If we're not going to do the Lunar missions, then there's no reason to
build Ares V at all, because we intend to finish up our diminished ISS
with the Shuttle, and there's no real need for another station in the
near future after that.

Pat

Jochem Huhmann wrote:

Especially since launching crews on the Ares V would allow to build the
crew vehicle with very little concern for weight and give lots of room
for crew and vehicle safety.


Yeah, the thing could be a real monster, something more like a small
space station than a spacecraft (that's the mass of two Mir core
modules, or one third again as much mass as a Apollo CM/SM).
I don't know what you'd use something like that for, but it could be a
truly huge spacecraft.
I imagine you could come up with a reusable design with ease with that
weight carrying ability.
We could put wings on it...and have it's payload come out of a cargo bay
mounted in its top... wait a minute.... :-)

Pat

Jochem Huhmann wrote:

Or use the same CEV, but for LEO/ISS missions
use a much larger SM with a shuttle-derived cargo bay...



Then we put the wings and tail on it. :-)

Pat