So, Why Send Men to an Asteroid?

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-07-05 19:50, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Yeah. This is just symptomatic of what's wrong with NASA. They've
built a rocket and a capsule without a mission.

In itself, that isn't the problem. The problem is that they simply
recycled Shuttle hardware instead of doing something truly new that
could benefit other endeavours. (NASA's mission has R&D in it, doesn't it ?)


Except that's not what they did. It's already been explained to you
that the ALS solids are different from Shuttle solids.


Had NASA developped new method to build SSMEs more affordably, that
might have been interesting. But they litterally used the SSMEs from the
retired shuttles. So no manufacturing improvements to make such engines
affordable.


Because it's ever so much cheaper to build new than to use what you
already own? Car salesmen must love you...


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article . com,
says...

On 2016-07-05 19:50, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Yeah. This is just symptomatic of what's wrong with NASA. They've
built a rocket and a capsule without a mission.

In itself, that isn't the problem.

Actually, that's a huge part of the problem. Ares V, and then SLS,
supporters keep saying we need a really big fracking launch vehicle to
go to Mars. The trouble is, we really don't know how to land large
payloads on Mars, like a manned vehicle! Mike Griffin put the cart
before the horse on this one. He's the one that chose to work on the
"transportation architecture" first, and picked the one with the biggest
launch vehicle possible, well before we had solid requirements for the
thing! That's dumb, dumb, dumb.


Even dumber was that they didn't build what they needed for the stated
goal. Look at the boosters originally called out in the Mars
Reference Mission before they started trying to push a particular
booster model and started resizing the payloads to fit.

Had NASA developped new method to build SSMEs more affordably, that
might have been interesting. But they litterally used the SSMEs from the
retired shuttles. So no manufacturing improvements to make such engines
affordable.

That's to "save money". But even if they are successful at making
disposable SSMEs cheaper to manufacture than the reusable ones, that's
completely backwards in terms of the direction of the industry.
Disposable LOX/LH2 engines which operate from sea level to vacuum are
just not useful! They drive *up* the cost of a launch *system*. Case
in point is how much more expensive Delta IV (LOX/LH2 first stage) is
compared to Atlas V (LOX/kerosene first stage). ULA wants to end Delta
IV production (except Heavy) due to its high cost.


It's the difference between the "performance uber alles" engineering
approach and the "good enough for the lowest cost" approach.


A better way forward would have been for NASA to start working on actual
Mars landing tech and working with the commercial space industry in the
US to develop other enabling technologies like LEO fuel depots and
inflatable HAB structures. But, the best we can hope for now is that
SLS will be killed sooner rather than later. But with a presidential
election coming up, I'd expect the inertia of the program to carry it
forward for at least another couple years (and several billion dollars)
before the new president takes notice (which they might not since space
is such a tiny part of the overall budget).


If they'd actually worked on a Mars rocket that might have been
useful, but that isn't what they did.


--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

In article ,
says...
A better way forward would have been for NASA to start working on actual
Mars landing tech and working with the commercial space industry in the
US to develop other enabling technologies like LEO fuel depots and
inflatable HAB structures. But, the best we can hope for now is that
SLS will be killed sooner rather than later. But with a presidential
election coming up, I'd expect the inertia of the program to carry it
forward for at least another couple years (and several billion dollars)
before the new president takes notice (which they might not since space
is such a tiny part of the overall budget).


If they'd actually worked on a Mars rocket that might have been
useful, but that isn't what they did.


Maybe, but the empirical evidence suggests it would still have been 5x
to 10x more expensive if the program were run like Ares/SLS (i.e. NASA
running the program and contractors getting paid with cost plus
contracts). Unfortunately a the time the decision was made, ULA was the
only game in town. So, just handing over a "commercial" contract to ULA
likely would not have resulted in much savings over running the program
cost plus, since that's the cost model they have used for everything
they do up to that time.

ULA has done *nothing* to reduce launch costs until the Russian RD-180
became an issue and SpaceX became certified to launch DOD payloads.

Love him or hate him, Elon Musk has done more real work to lower launch
costs in the US than any other person to date.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

On Friday, July 8, 2016 at 9:50:43 PM UTC+12, Fred J. McCall wrote:
JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-07-05 19:50, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Yeah. This is just symptomatic of what's wrong with NASA. They've
built a rocket and a capsule without a mission.

In itself, that isn't the problem. The problem is that they simply
recycled Shuttle hardware instead of doing something truly new that
could benefit other endeavours. (NASA's mission has R&D in it, doesn't it ?)


Except that's not what they did. It's already been explained to you
that the ALS solids are different from Shuttle solids.


Had NASA developped new method to build SSMEs more affordably, that
might have been interesting. But they litterally used the SSMEs from the
retired shuttles. So no manufacturing improvements to make such engines
affordable.


Because it's ever so much cheaper to build new than to use what you
already own? Car salesmen must love you...


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

People throw away soda cans because the cost of the can is a small fraction of the value of the beverage. The cost of the beverage to the maker is something else entirely.

As late as 1990 when I was promoting my company Orbatek to NASA folks in Huntsville, and DC, and TRW execs in California, this idea was the way folks thought about space launch. An engineer that started life at Convair and built the original Atlas 'balloon' structure, was fond of the soda can analogy. This carried the day at NASA when they were designing and re-designing the space shuttle external tank.

Many issues in their minds.

One issue not discussed broadly is if you recover and reuse vehicles, and they're certain to crash or fail destructively within 25 flights, then its a certainty ALL of your vehicles will end up a greasy spot somewhere and become an embarrassment to the builders. This is what happened to the Space Shuttle program after two losses of five vehicles the fleet was retired.

Another mind set to overcome is selling services or participating in underlying value, rather than selling hardware. If you're selling hardware, you like throw-away products. Or your reusable products become very expensive because they need extensive rebuilding. How else are you going to maintain income? That's what many say.

However, if you're selling services, you like long lasting products. Better yet, if you're participating in growth of an asset in the frontier, you like inexpensive long lasting products.

SpaceX has purchased the pintle fed engines and other assets from TRW's aerospace division. They are making a vertical take off and vertical landing multi-stage RLV. Very good choices all around.

They have yet to crack the high reliability requirement (one loss per 1000 or more vs. one loss per 25 or less). They do that, and they'll take aerospace to the next level! At that point, they will need to make more good decisions to instil a mindset among their engineering management to promote growth of off world infrastructure by making long lasting reliable and inexpensive launch products.

At that point, the space program will have truly arrived.

William Mook wrote:


As late as 1990 when I was promoting my company Orbatek to NASA folks in Huntsville, and DC, and TRW execs in California, ...


Oh, lord. More self-aggrandizing Mookery...

In a word, bull****.


--
"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the
soul with evil."
-- Socrates