It is puzzling how a president who claims to be pro-stimulus and pro-technology could cancel Constellation over a lousy $3 billion a year. The going was slow and expensive, and the Ares I-X was a horrible corn-dog of a vehicle, but at least they flew something. Now it’s going to be paper studies for another ten years.
But hey, the government just put a billion dollars down on a high-speed train to Disney World. So you can go to Space Mountain and dream of the old days, when it was all real.
Keep the tank wrapped in plastic till the last minute.
Seriously.
And how, then, would feed propellants up to the Space Shuttle Main Engines, and protect the tank from the plume from those engines?
Stranger
I’d like to donate the $480 million my state is getting for a train nobody will ride. We have no practical use for a commuter train in Ohio. It’s a bridge to nowhere.
IIRC, aren’t there a couple rockets used to launch satellites that are capable of being(relatively easily) uprated to carrying passengers and supply our needs in LEO? Thats all the further we need to go anyway.
I’ve argued this many times with my friends, and while a presence in space is nifty, its not really useful. It is a publicity stunt. Sure, in the 60s, we needed people. Now we have computers. Until there is a revolution in power generation and propulsion technology, getting humans into space is simply far too expensive to do anything that comes close to warranting the cost.
Returning to the moon is useless, as there is nothing there we need. Mars is even more worthless… For the budget of a single manned mission, we could put dozens, if not hundreds of next generation rovers down.
Not really. The Delta IV Heavy (DIV-9250H) is the only extant vehicle used by the US that comes close to the required payload for a 3-man capsule (the heaviest Atlas V is close). The SpaceX Falcon 9 Heavy and the proposed Atlas V Heavy Lift Vehicle have enough capacity, but neither has flown (the Falcon 9 single-core is slated for first flight in 2010 Q3, and I’m sure that they’re hoping to have more success than they had with the Falcon 1). There seems to be some doubt (at least by opponents of the DIRECT Jupiter rocket family proposal, a Shuttle-derived replacement for the Ares system) as to whether the Centaur upper stage (originally used on Titan III & IV, currently used on Atlas V, proposed for Delta IV) could ever be man-rated, although I don’t know specifically why. (It was originally developed for use on Saturn before the larger S-IV came into being.)
Man-rating a vehicle isn’t just a matter of increasing a few margins; it means that all flight-critical and life support functions have to be highly robust and redundant, which rapidly becomes prohibitive from both a cost and weight standpoint, and is often very difficult from a design frame, as simply slapping on a second system won’t improve reliability as anything that might cause one to fail can cause another; you’re basically designing two largely independence systems of control, command, ordnance, et cetera such that no failure of a single subsystem (like the engines) will cause a catastrophic failure of mission. It also means that the environments as experienced by the capsule and astronauts are often significantly lower than those that would be acceptable for an unmanned payload, which may require significant redesign or the addition of shock and vibe isolation systems.
Although the Mercury-Atlas SLV was purpose-build as a manned launcher, and the Gemini-Titan were substantially remanufactured using Titan II structures, neither would be acceptable for man-rating by modern standards. Nor would the STS, which has a number of structural margins and deficiencies that were accepted or waived at the time but wouldn’t pass muster in the current environment. Of American manned launchers, only the Saturn IB and Saturn V would likely come close to meeting modern requirements. From that standpoint, developing a vehicle from the ground up or significantly evolving a vehicle from existing components is often a lot easier and ultimately more cost-effective than trying to force an existing design to fit into a new requirements paradigm.
I have difficulty disagreeing with either of these statements. The quality and quantity of actual science done by robotic missions is vastly greater than what has been achieved in manned missions, even before considering the dollar costs of manned versus unmanned. (Strictly in terms of serviceable mission time, we are easily talking fractions of a penny for every thousand dollars spent on development and operation of a manned mission.) Of course, space exploration isn’t just about science; it is about adventure and heroism and ticker-tape parades and all that, for which robots serve rather poorly. The only real and valid argument for a manned space program is to gain more knowledge and develop better technology for putting people in space, with the ultimate goal of permanent and self-supporting habitation. That’s not going happen by just sending a few thousand kilos atop a skyscraper-sized launch vehicle every couple of months, but it’s the best we can do until we develop more capable to-orbit transportation technology. I’d agree that manned lunar and Mars missions are of little technical merit (and have a number of environmental and logistical hurdles that make them problematic for the foreseeable future), but a manned program of some kind, particularly one focused on developing the technology and techniques for long-term orbital habitation is a worthwhile endeavor from that standpoint.
Stranger
Hey!
“…and I have this terrible pain in the diodes on my right arm.”
Stranger
Can anyone point me to the source of the 1 billion/launch cost estimate for the Aries I?
It’s actually the recurring cost of a full Ares I mission with the Orion space-craft. So probably not only launching but prepping the Orion, paying mission control staff to track it and retreiving it when it splashed down. Still, one billion per mission seems pretty tough to justify.
But the number is from the Augustine Report, which itself was probably the impetus for canceling the Ares, so its probably a good read if your interested in the pros and cons: pdf here. The relavant paragraph is page 91.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/01/30/give-space-a-chance/
The Bad Astronomer seems to agree with me.
All good points.
Yet, the ironic thing is that the best non-man rated launch vehicles have (from a statistical point of view) as good a “safety” rating as the Shuttle. Yeah, there is some apples to oranges stuff here.
All this redundancy stuff sounds good in theory, but from a practical standpoint one has to wonder how much it actually buys you, if anything.
Twin engine aircraft sound a hell of alot safer than single engine ones but the stats don’t really support it.
It may well be better to keep it as simple as possible, don’t have a backup unless the penalty for doing so is minor, and fracking make sure its done/built right rather than building in two of everything that either incurs a penalty or has to be built to cutting edge technology so that two of everyting can be built in.
Do they? The shuttle launch system has had one failure in 130ish flights (since the Colombia was a failure of the Spacecraft, not the launch system). That appears to beat everything else in Wikipedia’s list of heavy launch systems.
A few sytems on the list of mid-heavy systems have perfect success rates, but all the one that have had more then ten launches also have worse failure rates then the Space Shuttle.
The shuttle was bout 1 in 25 for Challenger.
Once they fixed the o rings it was about one in a 100 for Columbia. If you die coming down because you did it in a fragile, heavy, reasuable spacecraft that really doesnt count much in the safety department IMO.
Those are statistically the same as other good launch systems. Maybe not “heavy” launch systems, cause when push comes to shove, when it comes to mass in orbit these days, the shuttle is the only one. Of course its mainly “heavy” because its man rated, redundant, “reusable”, can fly, land on runways, and all that other jazz. But, its not apparent to me that all that jazz really buys you anything in terms of safety when you crunch the numbers.
IMO the safest way to get into orbit these days is the Russian stuff. And has been for a long time.
IMO if we took the Russian technology/way of doing things and properly funded it thats the safest bet so far these days.
Or in other words, its not like 1 in 10 non “man rated stuff” blows up and 1 in a 1000 “man rated” stuff blows up". Its statistically the same and IMO a bit more TLC when building and operating the non-man rated stuff would put you equal to or even better than all this theorectically better “man rated” stuff.
If you want to get statistically technical about it, Apollo was perfect any way you look at it, it did way harder shit, went to damn moon for goods sake, put way more in LEO than anything before or since, and was built at the DAWN of the space age.
Whats our excuse today for not measuring up?
Yea, but the failure rate of just about everything is going to seem worse if you just count up to the first failure and then stop there. The failure rate of the Shuttle Launch system is 1 in 128.
But we’re discussing launch systems like the Ares I. The Colombia disaster wasn’t a failure of the launch sytem, it was a failure in the payload. If a Delta IV launches a satellite, get it up to orbit, and then the satellite fails, that doesn’t count against its success rate either. The failure rate of the Shuttle Launch system is 1 in 128.
I disagree, it appears man-rated systems have a much smaller failure rate then their non-man rated systems in an equivalent class.
Statistically technical? Anyways, the Apollo was launched on the man-rated Saturn V, which indeed never had a failure.
And that was at least half the point.
Apollo “could” be considered perfect. On the other hand, the shuttle, not so great (your somewhat pendantic point about payload failure not withstanding).
The better non manned rated (and Russian manned) systems are statistically the same as that range. When is N is small and you really look at all the not quite right real word assumptions that go into statistical calculations…the numbers are the same.
One of the points being…PR NASA would claim the shuttle was the safest way to get into orbit and come out of it…which is statistical BS…and its expensive to boot…IMO once you get past about a 1 in to 10/20 go up come down death rate its all the same thing statistically speaking.
It’s official:
Obama axes NASA moon plan in new budget
Of course, states with space-jobs will oppose this in Congress, but it is almost certain to go down.
thanks for the link to the Augistine report.
This commercial capsuleresembles the Soyuz with it’s solar panels.
Thanks again for the link. The Augustine report. I read sections so far. I don’t see the reason for the high cost/launch though the report cites the far more capable than necessary for a taxi cost of the Orion. The main reason I can see is that it would only be used for low orbit trips a few times. It is designed for long duration and so is expensive.
I was impressed by the committee members. While I certainly am no engineer, those folks certainly have impressive backgrounds. If they think the Aries is a waste of money, I couldn’t argue with them. I do disagree that the plan for a commercial rocket makes sense. Step 1: obtain 5 billion in capital from NASA. Step 2: do what you can to live up to your initial promises. Step 3: bail if it doesn’t work. They recommend that NASA develop a backup manned launch system just in case the commercial vendors decide not to continue.
I guess the Aries I isn’t going to work. I just don’t have any faith that the proposed alternatives will be better.
But these are smart people who clearly have devoted their lives to developing space systems. It isn’t to be dismissed I have to say that.