NASA changing opinion on the Direct HLV launcher.

On Sat, 18 Sep 2010 16:43:25 -0400, David Spain
wrote:

Again the problem I believe is you're taking too narrow a focus.
It's not just the NRE cost to build a launcher, its cost to build + cost to
operate. Jorge pulled out numbers in an earlier post that said cost to operate
should be in the range of 1/2 to 2/3 the cost of current shuttle operations.

That seems reasonable to me. The big cost in the Shuttle program was
the manned orbiter, which is being replaced by a much simpler capsule.
SSME was costly, too, but the plan is to build a simpler, cheaper
version once the stock runs out.

IIRC the old ballpark figure for a shuttle launch was in the neighborhood of
$600 million per launch.

In FY09, it was around $800 million per flight.

So using Jorge's figures we get a spread of somewhere
between $300-400 million per launch[1].

Assuming that's correct, that's about the same as the now-retired
Titan IV and about $100 million less than Delta IV-Heavy (according to
the New Horizons people who looked at using Delta IV-Heavy for their
Pluto launch, and that was seven years ago.)

Now this money is strictly overhead
that has to be factored in when you get to figuring your budget for payload.

Which is the same as with Shuttle for the last 30 years. But the
launch vehicle now is 1/2 to 1/3 the price while offering three times
the cargo capacity.

Assuming you aren't launching without payload, you have to figure it in to the
cost of each payload item (like Altair) you build.

Just like Space Station, which we somehow managed to build while
operating Shuttle.

So it adds onto the tail end cost of any project that wishes to take advantage
of a SD-HLV and is recurring.

This is what we're going round-and-round about on the Space Station.
We almost always hear from critics about the "$100 billion Space
Station." But the Station itself cost around $33 billion (after
blowing $8 billion, $18 billion, and $24 billion cost caps), the rest
was Shuttle launches (projected out to 2015 to reach $100 billion.)

Now we're replacing a Shuttle that costs $800 million per flight with
an SD-HLV that costs $300 million per flight (with three times the
throw-weight), and an Orion that will likely cost somewhere around
$100 million each.

Nor the recurring launch costs. If much of the infrastructure is to be re-used
it seems only natural to assume most of the recurring costs will remain.

No, the OPFs will be gone, along with the great bulk of the Shuttle
workforce.

On the other hand, if we don't use KSC and the Louisiana
infrastructure (i.e., we pick an EELV-derived architecture) then we
have to pay for the decommissioning and EPA cleanup of KSC, which will
be enormous.

And how much will an EELV-based architecture cost? Delta IV is
anything but cheap, and it seems unlikely DoD will let NASA take over
its workhorse Atlas to make manned flight improvements and eat up
limited production capability.

The EELV and SpaceX crowd consistently ignores these problems.

[1] Compare this to what SpaceX is claiming for the price of Falcon-9/Dragon
launches and you'll see what I'm getting at. SD-HLV doesn't make any cost
sense for ISS transport or resupply.

It remains to be seen how cheap Falcon/Dragon are once they actually
go into mass production, versus the small scale manufacturing and test
program they've been in for the last five years. But SpaceX has a $1.6
billion contract to supply the ISS with 12 cargo Dragon flights, which
adds up to $133 million each, for around 5,000 lbs. of cargo each (per
Encyclopedia Astronautica. SpaceX itself claims 13,000 lbs of cargo,
but that simply can't be right.) The manned version will almost
certainly be significantly more expensive. Call it $150 million each,
probably more.

But SD-HLV/Orion/MPLM could well be in the neighborhood of $600
million per flight while delivering a spacecraft capable of serving 6
months as a lifeboat and an MPLM with three to four times the cargo
capacity of Dragon (depending on how much better weigh/balance
restrictions for MPLM get once it no longer has to ride in the
Shuttle's payload bay). That's the equivalent of four or five Falcon
9/Dragon flights, and you still need a lifeboat.

In any event, I'm not advocating cancelling Dragon and Cygnus.
SD-HLV/Orion/MPLM can be an excellent backup to them, filling in the
cargo uplift shortage that we're already looking at, and relieving
Dragon and Cygnus of the cost and payload-eating requirement of
6-month stay times at ISS in the lifeboat role. If we have Orion/MPLM
available for uplift, we can perhaps let Dragon be specialized for
payload downmass, at the expense of uplift.

This could get very interesting when/if Congress and the President
finally make a decision.

Brian

On Sat, 18 Sep 2010 13:42:13 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

No, not like NERVA which only had one application (manned flights to
Mars.) SD-HLV in its basic form will launch Orion to the Space
Station, a mission which will exist until at least 2020, and now there
is talk of 2027. The minimum SD-HLV design can easily accomodate an
Orion and an MPLM (or some sort of out-sized cargo carrier) on the
same flight

That's unnecessary; Dragon can carry crews and cargo to the station, as
well as the ESA's ATV, JAXA's HTV, and Russia's Progress for cargo only.

Well, I think the idea is to not depend on (pay) ESA, JAXA and RSA, so
that leaves Dragon and Cygnus, neither of which is proven and neither
of which can carry large outsized replacement parts. We're gambling
our $33 billion Space Station investment here. Some insurance seems
reasonable.

The need for Shuttle-sized payloads was important while building the
ISS, but not to sustain it.

I'd rather we prove that before we throw away our ability to do it. So
far, we've had CMGs breaking down with alarming regularity and beta
gimbals that are already cranky after only a few years in service. God
alone knows what large component's going to break down next.

In any event, if the idea is that we're building the minimum large
launch vehicle that can make deep space exploration practical (and
that seems to be the ultimate idea from both the White House and
Congress) then we might as well take advantage of the excess payload
capacity in the meantime, which is a very good fit for something like
an MPLM to ride along beneath Orion.

Brian

On 9/18/2010 12:43 PM, David Spain wrote:
Brian Thorn wrote:
NASA is stuck with a funding level that will let them either build a
new launcher (like Ares) or a new payload (like Altair), but not both
at the same time.

Again the problem I believe is you're taking too narrow a focus.
It's not just the NRE cost to build a launcher, its cost to build + cost
to operate. Jorge pulled out numbers in an earlier post that said cost
to operate should be in the range of 1/2 to 2/3 the cost of current
shuttle operations.

IIRC the old ballpark figure for a shuttle launch was in the
neighborhood of $600 million per launch. So using Jorge's figures we get
a spread of somewhere between $300-400 million per launch[1]. Now this
money is strictly overhead that has to be factored in when you get to
figuring your budget for payload. Assuming you aren't launching without
payload, you have to figure it in to the cost of each payload item (like
Altair) you build. So it adds onto the tail end cost of any project that
wishes to take advantage of a SD-HLV and is recurring. That's why I
think this figure is so important. You can defer this cost by spreading
out the builds; in other words you build a few launchers, then you build
a few payloads, then later when the money is available, you assemble and
launch them. But this spreads things so far out on the time-line I have
to wonder if missions are politically even feasible to do this way.

Assuming they go with the side-mount design, you also now have a
expendable cargo pod's price to figure into the cost; and you don't get
the liquid engines back either, so what you've done is make something
like the Shuttle but a lot less reusable, and with no payload return
capability other than what you can stick in the Orion CM...as now the
only thing that's going to get reused are the SRBs and the Orion CM
itself - which will need a new heatshield on it, as they went with an
ablative concept.
I don't see how it somehow gets far cheaper if you throw more of what
you launch away on each flight.
Another problem here; assuming they go with the Orion on the front of
the cargo pod, how exactly is it to lug the payload over to the ISS?
Its SM main engine(s) are pointed straight at the payload, so is it
supposed to detach, rotate 180 degrees, dock with the payload, and then
maneuver it towards the ISS?
That requires a lot of extra fuel in the SM, which will again up costs,
as you don't get the SM back either.
You could also stick maneuvering engines and their fuel supply on the
cargo pod itself, but again those get destroyed on every flight.
One rational is that we will use one or two of these to do a trip to a
near-earth asteroid.
So once that's done, what's it to be used for next? Trips to other
asteroids?
You think the Moon flights got boring fast, wait till they end up
sitting on a little ball of rock, with not even The Little Prince to
shoot the breeze with.

Pat

On 9/18/2010 12:53 PM, Jorge R. Frank wrote:

IIRC the old ballpark figure for a shuttle launch was in the
neighborhood of $600 million per launch. So using Jorge's figures we get
a spread of somewhere between $300-400 million per launch[1].

That's not what I meant. Cost per launch is meaningless. Shuttle is $3
billion per year independent of flight rate. I'm saying SD-HLV will be
$1.5-2 billion per year, independent of flight rate.

So what you are describing is the infrastructure maintenance cost, not
the actual cost of the vehicle.
So if we launch two per year, the infrastructure cost alone is going to
be between $750 million to $1 billion?
Then you toss the vehicle cost in on top of that, and you are going to
easily bust $1 billion per flight - and unlike the Shuttle, we don't get
a major payload return capability, lose the liquid fueled engines on
every flight*, and have the cargo container burn up on every mission also.
Plus, vehicle development costs have to be figured into the total
program cost divided by the number of missions flown during its
operational career.
So what you end up with when all is said and done...is something that
makes the Shuttle look almost like a bargain launch system by
comparison...which shows just how off-its-rocker this vehicle concept is.

* Which, if they are SSME's means you are limited to the stock on hand
as far as total missions you can fly before you have to start launching
it using some new sort of engine.
While the idea of using the retired SSME's that weren't considered safe
for further Shuttle launches was fine for the Ares V, where there wasn't
going to be a crew aboard, now you would be sticking them on a manned
vehicle again and counting on the LES saving the crew if something goes
wrong with one of them.

Pat

On 9/18/2010 2:47 PM, Brian Thorn wrote:

In any event, if the idea is that we're building the minimum large
launch vehicle that can make deep space exploration practical (and
that seems to be the ultimate idea from both the White House and
Congress) then we might as well take advantage of the excess payload
capacity in the meantime, which is a very good fit for something like
an MPLM to ride along beneath Orion.

Remember though, you won't be getting the MPLM back for re-use.
Once it's up there it stays there - either attached to the ISS, or
orbiting on its own until orbital decay causes it to burn up in the
atmosphere.
And if you leave it attached, that's one less node attachment point on
the station, so you run out of room for them pretty fast.
Plus, now they need their own atmosphere recycling gear and temperature
control systems, as what you've done is just made them into new station
modules that weren't in the plans.

Pat

On Sun, 19 Sep 2010 00:10:58 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

On 9/18/2010 2:47 PM, Brian Thorn wrote:

In any event, if the idea is that we're building the minimum large
launch vehicle that can make deep space exploration practical (and
that seems to be the ultimate idea from both the White House and
Congress) then we might as well take advantage of the excess payload
capacity in the meantime, which is a very good fit for something like
an MPLM to ride along beneath Orion.

Remember though, you won't be getting the MPLM back for re-use.
Once it's up there it stays there - either attached to the ISS, or
orbiting on its own until orbital decay causes it to burn up in the
atmosphere.

One possible solution, the Orion could take the MPLM with it when it
leaves. Do a staged de-orbit burn, putting the MPLM in a very
short-life orbit, and then Orion completes its deorbit burn one orbit
later after jettisoning the MPLM. Soyuz has been doing something like
this for forty years.

And if you leave it attached, that's one less node attachment point on
the station, so you run out of room for them pretty fast.

Unless you have CBMs at both ends and you just daisy chain them. It
gets awkward, but it also makes dockings by other vehicles a bit
easier, with much greater clearances.

Plus, now they need their own atmosphere recycling gear and temperature
control systems, as what you've done is just made them into new station
modules that weren't in the plans.

We're very short of modules at ISS compared to original plans, though.
The Russian Research Modules will probably never see the light of day,
the CAM is dead, the Hab is dead... And NASA is already studying
converting the Node STA into an additional Node for ISS (attached
forward of Node 2), with an inflatable Bigelow-type Hab to attach to
it, so ISS evidently has considerable excess capability.

Brian

On Sat, 18 Sep 2010 23:55:09 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

That's not what I meant. Cost per launch is meaningless. Shuttle is $3
billion per year independent of flight rate. I'm saying SD-HLV will be
$1.5-2 billion per year, independent of flight rate.

So what you are describing is the infrastructure maintenance cost, not
the actual cost of the vehicle.
So if we launch two per year, the infrastructure cost alone is going to
be between $750 million to $1 billion?

You don't really think every Atlas V and Delta IV launch is paying all
the costs of operating Cape Canaveral AFS and Vandenberg AFB, do you?
If they did, they would be a billion per launch, too. How much is
Europe subsidizing the operation at remote Kourou? At some point we
have to write-off the infrastructure as the cost of doing business (as
DoD and Arianespace very clearly do.) Why demand different accounting
for NASA? We also need to look at the cost of alternatives. Falcon
9-Heavy or Atlas V Phase-Whatever will both be too large for their
existing launch facilities. Would you convert LC-39 to launch them? If
you do, then you save very little by dumping the Shuttle
infrastructure. And if you don't, you have to account for the cost of
shutting down KSC. That won't be cheap, as the DoD base closures found
out the hard way.

Then you toss the vehicle cost in on top of that, and you are going to
easily bust $1 billion per flight - and unlike the Shuttle, we don't get
a major payload return capability,

A capabiltiy every Shuttle critic of the last 25 years has said we
don't need.

lose the liquid fueled engines on
every flight*, and have the cargo container burn up on every mission also.

This, by the way, is also true of every other launch vehicle the world
has ever built.

Plus, vehicle development costs have to be figured into the total
program cost divided by the number of missions flown during its
operational career.

Of course. But again, this is true of every system. Including Falcon
9-Heavy which doesn't exist yet. There is also the cost of the
alternatives: propellant depots and greatly increased production
capability, probably requiring at least one additional pad, to enable
EELVs to do the deep space mission. They won't be cheap.

So what you end up with when all is said and done...is something that
makes the Shuttle look almost like a bargain launch system by
comparison...which shows just how off-its-rocker this vehicle concept is.

Not really, you keep missing that this vehicle has a payload capacity
three times that of Shuttle just to start with, with larger versions
to follow. It isn't a one-for-one comparison. And of course, this
vehicle is intended to enable deep space operations, which Shuttle and
EELV can't do by themselves, so again it isn't a one-for-one
comparison.

No one is talking about building SD-HLV simply for the mundane task of
sending Orion and some cargo to ISS. That mission is simply taking
advantage of the capability when it exists until such time as deep
space missions are ready.

The alternatives are Atlas V and Falcon 9. Atlas V is good, but DoD is
unlikely to allow NASA to do much with it beyond ordering a launch or
two a year. Falcon 9 is too small (somewhere between Delta II and
Atlas V) to do the deep space job efficiently. Delta IV has already
priced itself out of competition (NASA ordered zero of them with this
week's big contract award, ordering everything else in the inventory,
even ordering some 'aren't they dead?' Athenas, but no Delta IVs.)

* Which, if they are SSME's means you are limited to the stock on hand
as far as total missions you can fly before you have to start launching
it using some new sort of engine.

The plan is for a cheaper, non-reusable SSME. P&W is talking about
perhaps a 30% cost reduction, depending on the flight-rate asked for.

While the idea of using the retired SSME's that weren't considered safe
for further Shuttle launches was fine for the Ares V,

That's not the plan. You're confusing the old Shuttle-C idea of using
end-of-life SSMEs (and end-of-life GPCs). Our current SSMEs are
nowhere near their end-of-life, so flying them on Ares or SD-HLV is
hardly different than flying them on Shuttle.

where there wasn't
going to be a crew aboard, now you would be sticking them on a manned
vehicle again and counting on the LES saving the crew if something goes
wrong with one of them.

The alternative is to put humans on Atlas V, Delta IV, or Falcon 9,
all of which have propulsion systems far less mature and with far less
flight experience than SSME.

Brian

On Sun, 19 Sep 2010 11:50:01 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Yeah, but that doesn't solve the basic problem; the MPLM can't do a
reentry, so you lose it every time you use it, unless you dock it to the
ISS and leave it in place there.

So what? We throw away the big cargo holds of ATV and HTV already.
Progress throws away its cargo holds every time. Dragon and Cygnus
will be throwing away their cargo holds (well, SpaceX is looking at
returning Dragons.)

You do realize that ATV's pressurized cargo hold is built on the same
line that built the Nodes and MPLMs and is almost identical (except
about half the length), right? ATV already has multiple-month
stay-times with more or less the same pressure hull as MPLM.

We can have new MPLMs built on the same line as ATV, maybe even with
some barter arrangement.

As far as docking a chain of them together on the ISS, they only have
docking gear at one end, so you would have to add another docking collar
at the far end. The whole point of the MPLM is to get its cargo unloaded
and stowed on or in the ISS, then head back to earth with things
discarded from the ISS, to be refilled with new supplies. It's not
designed for long term exposure to the outer space environment like the
ISS modules are.

That fear has been put to rest by the Permanent Logistics Module,
which is converted from MPLM Leonardo. PLM will be permanent. SD-HLV
MPLMs will only be there 6 months.

This isn't a problem.

You could modify it into something that could do this, but by the time
you were done doing that it would basically be a whole new ISS module
with all the development costs that implies.

The "back end CBM" idea has already been looked at, during the
conversion of the MPLM into the PLM. Time and money, not technical
viability made it impractical. Both go away in the five years we have
before SD-HLV will be ready. ATV is only flying once a year or so,
plenty of time for Alenia to build a few extra pressure hulls a year.

Brian

On 9/19/2010 7:42 AM, Brian Thorn wrote:

Remember though, you won't be getting the MPLM back for re-use.
Once it's up there it stays there - either attached to the ISS, or
orbiting on its own until orbital decay causes it to burn up in the
atmosphere.

One possible solution, the Orion could take the MPLM with it when it
leaves. Do a staged de-orbit burn, putting the MPLM in a very
short-life orbit, and then Orion completes its deorbit burn one orbit
later after jettisoning the MPLM. Soyuz has been doing something like
this for forty years.

Yeah, but that doesn't solve the basic problem; the MPLM can't do a
reentry, so you lose it every time you use it, unless you dock it to the
ISS and leave it in place there.
As far as docking a chain of them together on the ISS, they only have
docking gear at one end, so you would have to add another docking collar
at the far end. The whole point of the MPLM is to get its cargo unloaded
and stowed on or in the ISS, then head back to earth with things
discarded from the ISS, to be refilled with new supplies. It's not
designed for long term exposure to the outer space environment like the
ISS modules are.
You could modify it into something that could do this, but by the time
you were done doing that it would basically be a whole new ISS module
with all the development costs that implies.

Pat

On Sun, 19 Sep 2010 14:46:54 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

On 9/19/2010 10:55 AM, Brian Thorn wrote:


So what? We throw away the big cargo holds of ATV and HTV already.
Progress throws away its cargo holds every time. Dragon and Cygnus
will be throwing away their cargo holds (well, SpaceX is looking at
returning Dragons.)

The difference is scale; we're going to have a booster with enough
lifting capacity (assuming that 3x Shuttle cargo capacity pans out) to
carry three modules to the station on each flight;

No, it wouldn't launch three modules at once: they would still need a
tug of some sort to get from initial orbit to ISS, and we just happen
to be building one: Orion. And we just happen to need to launch two
Orions a year to serve as Space Station lifeboats. So the MPLM will
always be launched with an Orion to act as a tug (it is designed to
tug an Altair anyway.)

SD-HLV would launch an Orion and an MPLM, killing two birds with one
stone: Orion delivered as US lifeboat (and crew transfer) and an MPLM
full of cargo. We wouldn't be launching an MPLM alone, or even a
mammoth "double long" MPLM, just an ordinary MPLM, loaded somewhat
heavier than on Shuttle because of reduced c/g restrictions.

it needs cargo, but it doesn't need _that_ much cargo.

I'm not talking three Shuttle-loads of cargo arriving at one time, I'm
talking an MPLM arriving with the normal Orion rotation. We built ISS
with the plan of supporting it with MPLMs flown on Shuttle something
like four times per year. Now we'll be supporting ISS with two MPLMs a
year (with each six month Orion rotation) and a few of Dragons and
Cygnuses in between.

Bonus: With Orion/MPLM available twice a year we can put more emphasis
on Dragon's downmass capability, sacrificing some upmass in order to
make Dragon a better cargo return vehicle. It's a win-win.

We should use the tools we have. We're building a launcher to enable
deep space exploration, but there won't be deep space exploration for
at least the first few years it is available. So let's put the SD-HLV
to work doing something useful those first few years. It might be
overkill in the cargo resupply arena, but as they say: better to have
and not need than to need and not have.

Brian