EELVs Are A Bad Deal

So says Jeff Wright.

"http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-05za.html"

- Ed Kyle

"Ed Kyle" wrote in news:1107795542.650249.123320
@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-05za.html

Gosh, he spent so much time bashing the Delta IV Heavy
(and not making much sense in the process), that
he completely overlooks Atlas V, and all of Delta
IV's previously successful flights.

So the Heavy got a little blackened at liftoff.
So what? 20+ G acceleration? Huh? Yes, it takes
off vertically; don't most rockets? Yes, once in
a great while something goes boom, which is why
there are large expanses of empty land (and ocean)
around the launch pad.

100 tons to orbit with a three RS-68 ET? Unless
it's with the SRBs, I don't think so.

Most of his objections make little or no sense.

Typical Space Daily op-ed piece, completely one-dimensional
in its myopia. Disgusting!

--Damon

On 2005-02-07, Damon Hill wrote:

100 tons to orbit with a three RS-68 ET? Unless
it's with the SRBs, I don't think so.

Would that include circulising the orbit , Or would that be left to
the payload ? (ref another recent thread...)

Typical Space Daily op-ed piece, completely one-dimensional
in its myopia. Disgusting!

Must admit, wasnt suprised when I read it myself. SpaceDaily appears
to like "controversial" pieces.


Iain

On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 21:04:55 +0000, in a place far, far away, Iain
Young made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Typical Space Daily op-ed piece, completely one-dimensional
in its myopia. Disgusting!

Must admit, wasnt suprised when I read it myself. SpaceDaily appears
to like "controversial" pieces.

Yes, particularly if they're poorly written.

Iain Young wrote:
On 2005-02-07, Damon Hill wrote:

Must admit, wasnt suprised when I read it myself. SpaceDaily appears
to like "controversial" pieces.


It has to be the tabloid rag of space web sites.

- Ed Kyle

"Iain Young" wrote in message
...
On 2005-02-07, Damon Hill wrote:

Must admit, wasnt suprised when I read it myself. SpaceDaily appears
to like "controversial" pieces.

There's a difference between "controversial" and out-right "crap" like this.


--
Alan Erskine
We can get people to the Moon in five years,
not the fifteen GWB proposes.
Give NASA a real challenge

I get the impression that proposals for Shuttle Derived vehicles are
about keeping NASA in the launch business.

We had a long discussion about 6 - 12 months back about how much it
would cost, and it would depend mostly on how many of the 10,000s of
staff would need to come with it. How about NASA issues a launch
manifest, and then the proponents of shuttle Derived Heavy lift can go
to the venture capitalists and suggest they buy the equipment and make
lots of money?

Interesting quote: Griffin also said that ... he takes a 'dim view' of
approaches that would rely on orbital staging and assembly operations,"
and how he doesn't "'think EELV is a competitive option...'"

What does he mean by "orbital assembly". This implies astronauts going
out and doing complex building stuff. All that would be needed is for
two vehicles to dock and head off. Docking is hardly complex - these
days you wouldn't even need any solid data links.

One would think that NASA would like the orbital
assembly concept. It requires steady funding and
management of a repetitive process. It shares
many traits of the current shuttle/ISS program.
It involves the running of continuous production
lines for space flight hardware. That's where the
real money will be spent anyway, rather than in
launch vehicles.

- Ed Kyle

By orbital assembly, do they mean real assembly? Surely you'd just need
orbital rendezvous.

Alex Terrell wrote:
By orbital assembly, do they mean real assembly? Surely you'd just
need
orbital rendezvous.

Who knows? Most historic EOR plans required
orbital rendezvous, docking, and propellant
transfer, but not "assembly" in the sense that
astronauts would have to do spacewalks with
wrenches. The Boeing drawings seem to suggest
that two Delta IV second stages would be launched
alone *as* payloads and joined together with a
CEV-type payload - but there is a problem with
that - Delta IV-Heavy can't orbit a fully fueled
Delta IV second stage! (Nor can Atlas V orbit a
fully fueled Centaur.) Still, it might be
enough - two launches could put 40-ish tons
of propellant into orbit, which would be enough
to boost 24-ish tons toward the moon.

- Ed Kyle