Tuesday Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison made it official, issuing a press release stating that she had been named to chair the science and space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee. The press release included an interesting (if not entirely surprising) quote: “I strongly believe in the value of the manned space program and I am committed to returning the shuttle to flight and keeping it operable until another vessel can replace it.” Of course, under current plans, the shuttle would be retired around 2010, but the Crew Exploration Vehicle will enter service as late as 2014. Hutchison and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), who will be the ranking minority member of the subcommittee, have both previously stated their preference to keep the shuttle operating as long as possible, such as in this Florida Today op-ed they jointly authored last year.
Budgets as proposed don’t provide enough funds to complete CEV while at the same time keeping the Shuttle flying, why is that so hard for Senators Hutchison and Nelson to realize?
It is nearly impossible for Astronauts to bail out of a space shuttle, and nearly impossible for politicians to bail out of the space shuttle program. We’re all trapped.
why is that so hard for Senators Hutchison and Nelson to realize?
Posted by Dogsbd at February 9, 2005 02:54 PM
While I (probably) disagree with the Senators, there is method to this madness, and I have recently come to believe that the issue is more complex than I previously thought. As was recently pointed out in Spaceflight (by far the best space feature magazine, http://www.bis-spaceflight.com/publicA.htm, providing week-by-week accounts of what is done by the crew of every human spaceflight), once the Shuttle production lines are shut down, they will quickly become part of history — just like the Saturn-V. Once that happens, a Shuttle-derived heavy lift vehicle because much more difficult. Once _that_ happens, any new HLV must be developed from scratch.
The Spaceflight piece suggested that Shuttle and Ariane components could be combined to create the CSV using entirely existing technologies. I think the argument underestimates the amount of new systems development and testing that would be required, but it is worth considering since it would involve no new technology.
The point was, this or similar plans would become impossible if the Shuttle-related production lines are closed.
— Donald
“a Shuttle-derived heavy lift vehicle … would become impossible if the Shuttle-related production lines are closed.”
True, but I think NASA realizes that. And since the Shuttle is to remain in service until 2010 we have 5 years to make a decision on how whether or not to build an STS derived HLV.
Personally I’m about 90% convinced that we need a 100 ton to LEO class lifter if we’re going to have a serious Moon program.
How many people drive 18 wheelers to work? Absurd? All we need is a human commuter to and from LEO. Since rockets fail occasionally, the survival, escape, and rescue system needs to be robust and crash dummy tested. No EVA, no food, no 100 tons – not even 100 pounds. So that is the 1st development effort. The rocket portion and upper human transport portion can be competitely bid so that when the next disaster happens, we can ignore or even fire the rocket manufacturer and / or human transport module manufacturer – but in the mean time and very strategically the other rocket and module manufacturers keep the ball rolling – no more 2 to 3 year Challenger / Columbia shutdowns. Does NASA ever learn a lesson? This was all somewhat discussed by Sen. Hollings in Challenger hearings…if NASA would just listen to its customer’s representatives. Who is the customer again???
The “breakthrough technology” is not nanoscience. It is the tech. of survival, escape, and rescue – ignored since Apollo – (but not by Soyuz and Shenzhou.) To control development and production cost, Wallops Island could do 1/100th scale crash dummy tests for all failure modes – ALL!. WSTF could do 1/10th to partial full scale just as Apollo era, and for the first time KSC could launch some partial and full scale crash dummy tests – they need something to do! Glenn could do the development work for the human transport module When will the engineers again run NASA, and the politicians mold to the plan, instead of what is going on now…the opposite!
Personally I’m about 90% convinced that we need a 100 ton to LEO class lifter if we’re going to have a serious Moon program.
I am coming to favor a gold plate, honest to God, crew only RLV to ferry humans to LEO;
combined with
a non-man rated HLLV cargo lifter having the largest possible fuel to dry weight ratio we can achieve.
For example, start with a Thiokol SRB which is 85% fuel and 15% structural mass. Swap in composites and other plastics for aluminum and push the 85/15 towards 90/10 or greater. A 4 segment SRB has 192,000 pounds of strutural mass. If you could go from 85/15 to 90/10 that would add 64,000 pounds to your first stage payload capacity. 80,000 pounds if using 5 segment.
Build a shuttle C or related SDV using a pair of plastic 5 segment SRBs and you can add 160,000 pounds to the 2nd stage payload, in other words in addition to what astronautix says SDV can lift, today.
Adding 160,000 pounds of 1st stage payload to an SDV might very well cost-justify throwing away the SRBs after each launch.
= = =
Total reuseability and man-rated reliability or build expendables with as little dry mass as possible and never let crew ride on them.
After all, large amounts of the mass needed for Moon and Mars is simple bulk goods such as fuel (LH2, methane & LOX) and water (for rad shields and drinking) and food.
Why slog fuel in a Mercedes class RLV?
“Personally I’m about 90% convinced that we need a 100 ton to LEO class lifter if we’re going to have a serious Moon program.”
This, I disagree with. If NASA gets side tracked into launch vehicle development — and all NASA’s tendancies are to do just that — the VSE will die the same slow death that every other recent plan has undergone. We have brand new, state-of-the-art expendable launchers in the EELVs and Ariane-V. At least the initial lunar missions should use those. My wild guess is that it wouldn’t take more than four per mission (empty CEV, upper stange and fuel, lunar lander, return stage and fuel). Even if it took twice that, we could launch two or three actual lunar missions for the $10 billion plus a new launch vehicle would cost. We could probably even start the initial emplacement of a base.
This would kill two birds with one stone. It would increase the flight rate of the EELVs, reducing their costs for everyone. It would produce early results, thereby justifying later development of the HLV.
In any case, it is my understanding that SpaceX plans to develop a Saturn-V class vehicle as their third-generation project. If the first flight goes well, NASA should probably help them along rather than do it themselves.
Cargo delivery to LEO and escape to lunar orbit (essentially the same as GEO transfer) are mature industries that don’t need NASA’s help except as a market. This Democrat says, farm it out to industry. . . .
— Donald
>>> If NASA gets side tracked into launch vehicle development — and all NASA’s tendancies are to do just that
On revolutionary, single stage to orbit, hi-tech all reusable “stuff” they do indeed. Building an STS derived heavy lift involves none of that. Or should not, but if someone gets cared away with gold platting….
>>>> My wild guess is that it wouldn’t take more than four per mission (empty CEV, upper stage and fuel, lunar lander, return stage and fuel).
And another to launch the crew? Anyway, at 4 launches that’s over a billion dollars at current Delta IV heavy costs (254m ea) and around 700 million at the best estimated cost (170m ea), and I’m betting that even if the launch rate was 30 DIVHs a year you’d never see that $170m rate.
Also DIVH could loft at most a roughly 80-ton complex in 4 shots, STS derived could loft a more capable 100 plus tons in one shot. Although I would hope the crew would be launched separately on an EELV, but that adds even more capability with a total of ~120 or more tons in orbit.
>>> $10 billion plus a new launch vehicle would cost.
Maybe I have too much faith in NASA, but I can’t imagine that an STS derived HLV would have to cost that much. It possibly would if they went the inline route with the engines under the ET, and the payload on top. But doing so increases the lift capacity even more and is actually a good idea, plus while you’re at it re-design to use RS-68’s rather than SSME’s.
Cheaper it may be in the long run, but if you _start_ with launch vehicle development, rather than payloads, this will never get anywhere. Mark my words!
— Donald
>>>> Cheaper it may be in the long run, but if you _start_ with launch vehicle development, rather than payloads, this will never get anywhere. Mark my words!
You may be right but I think the same could also be true of using EELV’s, but for different reasons.
If it takes 4-5 launches and a month or two of on-orbit assembly to do what Apollo could accomplish in one launch and a week or two, and then it takes dozens of launches and many months/years to establish even the most rudimentary base on the Moon I am afraid the political will may erode due to impatience. And those dozens of launches at $170 to $250 million each will start looking very expensive for comparatively little result. Congress likes to see quick results, and the only way I see to do that is with some sort of heavy lift capability.
I have heard of no estimates for a HLLV, even Shuttle derived, for less than $10 billion. Given the track record, I consider that an underestimate. I hope I’m wrong.
The figures higher in this thread are actually less conservative than I was using. If it takes four to eight EELVs to do a lunar mission, using the figures above, that’s one to two billion dollars. That means that just by forgoing development of the HLLV, you could pay the launch costs of five to ten lunar missions.
I am _not_ arguing that we should not develop an HLLV, I am talking about the order. Get something on the moon that needs resupply ASAP with whatever is available right now. Then, you’ve got a market. Then, you can use that to justify the HLLV and optimization of the logistics steam.
Mir is a good model. Russia has launch vehicles today because Mir existed when the Soviet Union collapsed, and also because someone needed them for their own station. Mir, and later the ISS, were (and are) markets that keep a significant fraction of the world’s launch industry busy today. Likewise, the existance of the ISS is a good part of the reason the Bush Administration could not seriously consider dropping human spaceflight as one of their options post Collumbia.
It’s also the lesson from human history. If you want to open a new frontier soon, get something — anything — up there that needs resupply and do it as quickly and dirty as possible. Then, once you’ve got a market, you can start worring about getting costs down.
Finally, I don’t see why this needs to be as logistically complex as you’re making it sound. Remember that Apollo involved at least two dockings (LEM extraction, then LEM / CM for the return to Earth). The four elements I listed earlier should all be pre-packaged sections, ready to dock-and-go. Once everything is launched, it shouldn’t take more than a day to assemble in orbit, launch the crew, and start the mission.
— Donald
>>> Finally, I don’t see why this needs to be as logistically complex as you’re making it sound.
Lets use the example of 4 EELV launches: 1. Lunar Lander, 2. TLI stage, 3. TEI stage, 4. CEV. How many pads do you have to launch from? Presently there is only one pad that I’m aware of that is capable of handling the Delta IV Heavy. So you have to roll out the first rocket/payload and launch it, now start the clock (or calendar). How long does it take to get the second, third and forth payloads out to that one pad and launched? I’m guessing that at best the CEV and crew would launch no sooner than six weeks after payload one went up. And if you build or modify another pad to handle the heavy EELV to increase launch rate you eat into that $10 billion you’re “saving” on the HHLV.
A side issue on this is that the longer it takes to complete assembly the higher the first payloads have to be lifted so that it’s orbit won’t decay before the last arrives. This higher orbit requirement cuts into the payload capacity of the lifter.
On the other hand an STS derived HHLV could be built that would launch from Pad39 with little to no modifications to the pad, and crews could launch from Pad 37, which will already handle the current Delta IV Heavy. Of course some modifications would be needed to that pad for crew accommodations.
Also on the political side of this (as a counter to your argument that STS derived costs would kill it) one thing STS derived has going for it is a ready constituency in Congress. I’m sure that there’s a number of Senators / Congressmen would want to see continued production of external tanks, SRB’s etc. Just as most of the politicians who bemoan the death of Hubble do so because of the money it brings to their continuants (rather than a true love for Hubble itself), the same would be true with STS components.
Now I’m not saying that STS derived heavy lift is a clear winner, but just that I don’t think EELV’s are a clear winner either. Both options need to be studied very carefully.