OSP: reliability and survivability

On 11 Sep 2003 22:05:01 GMT, in a place far, far away, Pat Flannery
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

It's hard to beat a stick of dynamite for simplicity of design, but I
wouldn't ride one into space.

Simplicity of design is not the key to either low cost or safety.

How about hybrids then, such as the nitrous oxide/rubber or plastic one
to be used on Spaceship 1?

Nope, not for low ops cost. I think that Burt may be regretting his
propulsion choice.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
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In article , says...
True, we don't seem to be having much luck with what we are presently
contemplating- maybe we should go right back to the basics and start
from scratch as regards concepts...

Concepts or organizations? imho: we have too few different organizations
trying to build space ships. Let's give Burt our best wishes, and hope
for a few more like him. Redundancy is good. Competition is good. Even
some communists knew that. ("Let a thousand flowers bloom...")
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

Imagine that, a FROG ON-OFF switch, hardly the work
for test pilots. -- Mike Collins

In article ,
h says...
Simplicity of design is not the key to either low cost or safety.

But it may be the key to low cost *and* safety.

Many years of experience shows that complex designs are either
unreliable or expensive. If nothing else, complex designs require
extensive (I.e., expensive) Quality Assurance programs to make them
reliable.

If we ever get to the point of stamping out a million copies of a
particular spacecraft design, then we can discuss amortizing the QA cost
of a complex design over the production run for a low per-unit cost.
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

"The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It
is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay." -- Sir Antony
Hoare, 1980.

In article ,
h says...
Simplicity of design is not the key to either low cost or safety.

But it may be the key to low cost *and* safety.

Many years of experience shows that complex designs are either
unreliable or expensive. If nothing else, complex designs require
extensive (I.e., expensive) Quality Assurance programs to make them
reliable.

If we ever get to the point of stamping out a million copies of a
particular spacecraft design, then we can discuss amortizing the QA cost
of a complex design over the production run for a low per-unit cost.
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

"The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It
is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay." -- Sir Antony
Hoare, 1980.

On 12 Sep 2003 03:40:01 GMT, in a place far, far away, Kevin
Willoughby made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
says...
Simplicity of design is not the key to either low cost or safety.

But it may be the key to low cost *and* safety.

Many years of experience shows that complex designs are either
unreliable or expensive.

Do you think that modern airliners (or even cars) aren't complex? How
about microchips?

If we ever get to the point of stamping out a million copies of a
particular spacecraft design, then we can discuss amortizing the QA cost
of a complex design over the production run for a low per-unit cost.

If we don't get to the point at which we're doing much more in space
than we are, costs will never come down, regardless of design. To
think otherwise is to continue to indulge in NASA-like fantasies.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

On 12 Sep 2003 15:40:01 GMT, in a place far, far away, rk
made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:


So, I would say that a modern microchip is ridiculously expensive.

I would also say that modern microchips are ridiculously cheap.

It's a volume thing.

Exactly. The same with space launch.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

Kevin Willoughby wrote:

In article ,
says...
Simplicity of design is not the key to either low cost or safety.

But it may be the key to low cost *and* safety.

Many years of experience shows that complex designs are either
unreliable or expensive. If nothing else, complex designs require
extensive (I.e., expensive) Quality Assurance programs to make them
reliable.

Yep. One of the hardest things to get folks new to the boat to
understand; Despite the massive overall complexity, no individual
system was any more complex than it needed to be.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

Kevin Willoughby wrote:

Concepts or organizations? imho: we have too few different organizations
trying to build space ships. Let's give Burt our best wishes, and hope
for a few more like him. Redundancy is good. Competition is good.

Competition taken to extremes can dilute the brain trust required to
achieve the objective- in the case of the Saturn V/Apollo project,
several companies each worked on various parts of the vehicles, with
close cooperation to assure that the completed parts would function
smoothly together when finally integrated; in contrast, the Soviet
N-1/L-3 project set the Korolev and Chelomei design bureaus at each
other's throats in a squabble to gain access to limited political
patronage and funding, with the result that the whole project collapsed
as it was too challenging for the Korolev bureau to achieve alone,
especially with the Chelomei design bureau breathing down their necks,
and trying to get there own UR-700 project approved by seeing what they
could do to throw roadblocks in Korolev's way.
A similar "Apollo" approach might work in regards to a new space launch
system- let a number of companies work on it; each doing what they do
best- this sounds a bit crazy from a cost viewpoint at first, but the
Pegasus launch vehicle uses parts supplied by Scaled Composites (wing),
Hercules (stages 1 & 2), Rocket Research (stage 3), and Lockheed
(carrier aircraft/stage 0). It was developed for only 55 million dollars
according to Mark Wade's site, and has worked quite well (provided you
don't try to stick a hypersonic test vehicle on its nose) in service.
One of the big failings that I see in the private sectors approach to a
new launch system is that each of the companies seem dead set to
manufacture the whole vehicle themselves, airframe, motors, avionics and
all- rather than using off-the-shelf items either in a stock or only
mildly modified form, along with their own input in regards to overall
design and systems integration.
Aerospace companies tend to be good at one thing in particular, and
trying to develop expertise equivalent to existing companies in many
areas in a new design enterprise corporation is asking for delay,
excessive development costs, and the reinvention of already existing
technologies in a more primitive and unproven form.
One reason Lockheed was able to get the F-117 built so quickly and on a
fairly small budget was their use of off-the-shelf items, such as
landing gear components from the F-15, General Electric J-404 motors
from the F-18, environmental control system from the C-130, inertial
navigation gear from the B-52, and flight control systems combining
elements of both the F-16 and F-18; these were all integrated into the
new stealth airframe, letting the Skunk Works concentrate their effort
on the key part of the design- the aircraft's radar avoidance features,
and maintaining that aspect in a aerodynamically controllable design.
Such an approach in regards to a new launch system might result in a bit
less than perfectly performance optimized finished vehicle, but would
slash both development cost and time dramatically, while allowing the
use of operationally proven components.


some communists knew that. ("Let a thousand flowers bloom...")

One of Mao's most cunning tricks- or greatest miscalculations- in
assuring the continuation of the Communist's power in China (depending
on who you believe). By demanding the intellectuals to begin critiquing
their own government's policies for a few months, the dissidents were
lured into the open- and scythed down like weeds in the following
anti-intellectual pogrom to the tune of around 30 million dead. (cut to
scene of ten thousand identically blue collar uniformed Boeing "Red,
White, and Blue Guard" troops advancing on Burt Rutan's office, each
waving a copy of "The Little Corporate Stock Book"; then severely
pummeling him with desktop models of Delta launch vehicles after his
having undergone "Design Criticism/Self Criticism"- before they march
triumphantly on to tear the White Knight apart on account of its
"intellectually decadent" nonmetallic airframe.)

Pat

rk wrote:

That is low volume which is exacerbated by it not being launches
from one launch vehicle but quite a few different models and
organizations. There's that learning curve thing and with this
small number it is tough to move ahead.



Particularly when you consider the low number of total launches any
given employee is going to experience during his total career based on
those figures; it's probably no coincidence that the high success rate
of the Soviet R-7 Semyorka derived vehicles came about at the same time
that launches were occurring at a rate of over one a month; the whole
manufacturing/assembly/operations organization knew the rocket inside
and out, and were able to determine just what they needed to do to make
it work based on past individual experience.

Pat

"HAESSIG Frédéric Pierre Tamatoa" wrote in message
...

The Ruzicka Family a écrit dans le message :
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"Edwin Kite" wrote in message
om...
In deciding whether or not to fund NASA's proposed Orbital Space Plane
- a "space taxi" dedicated to crew transport, in contrast to the
current "space truck" - Congressional mavens are making a faulty
assumption. That is that because OSP will be launched on unproven
Delta and Atlas-family rockets, it will be fundamentally no more

By the time that OSP actually flys, both the Delta 4 and Atlas V will
have
flown many missions, with both commercial and government payloads. Both
systems will be far from "unproven" by that time. In order to actually
FLY
the OSP, there will have to be some modifications made, especially with
regard to avionics, adapter interface, etc. ALL of these mods will be
made
with the intent of actually making the launchers even MORE safe and
reliable. Will they be 100% safe and reliable? No. No space launch
system
ever has been, nor ever will be 100% safe and reliable. But to say that
the
Delta 4 or Atlas V will be unproven by that time is not factually true.

Remember that Ariane V is supposed to be Man-rated ( triple redundancy ).
Would you take a flight on it at this time?


Are we talking here about the regular Ariane V, or the newer ECA version?