As an average US citizen who happens to love his space program and who wants to see it succeed, Direct isn’t simply 5 guys with an idea like Cowing thinks, it’s an old idea put together by NASA engineers. Stephen is right in this nonsense.

The Ares I is a waste of money when the capability already exists to orbit a ROBUST Orion Cev. With Ares I, the capability of the CEV has been stripped like a 73 Monte sitting on blocks in downtown Compton.

This is the biggest disaster ever to befall the United States of America, and you have yet to witness the majority of the damage that has been done.

Page 5 STA Speech by Mike Griffin his Quote from the VSE authorization “The Administrator shall, to the fullest extent possible consistent with a successful development program, use the personnel, capabilities, assets, and infrastructure of the Space Shuttle program in developing the Crew Exploration Vehicle, Crew Launch Vehicle, and a heavy-lift launch vehicle.”

Now do you think going with a 100% EELV (not heavy lift BTW Strike 1) solution for the VSE, thereby requiring the complete dismantlement of the current STS manufacturing, integration and launch infrastructure (Strike 2), is consistent with this policy directive?

Like it or not when you use public money you need to follow the directives hand to you by the elected representatives of the citizens that go with that money. The VSE authorization was passed with strong support from both parties and was signed into law. The forces that crafted this language are still alive and kicking.

Now maybe at some point in the future a new Congress will pass a new law signed by a new President that effectively abandons serious manned exploration beyond Earth Orbit or publicly funded manned exploration altogether but right now this is the law. The President aside, the NASA congressional district politics is alive and well so it’s hard to imagine how anyone could make a serious dent in level or which districts the money flows into.

Of course Mike isn’t too far behind your plan in that his plan dismantles almost 90% of the current infrastructure, requiring new infrastructure at great expense, risk and time delay, in order to assemble the Ares-I and Ares-V. Not to confused with a real STS derived launch system like the Jupiter that looks just like all the other inline STS derived solutions forwarded by NASA since Challenger but before Mike.

Forgetting pesky policy directive for a moment do you think the two decades it took to put the ISS together using 20mT chunks constrained to a 5 meter diameter (just like EELV’s would impose on us for VSE) represents the best way to get a serious VSE off the ground and out of Earth orbit anytime in the next three decades? Why would we constrain ourselves to an approach that all the runner up space powers will have and must use when we have a perfectly good HLV system already up and running that just needs a little love?

Again still waiting for questions asked two posts back.

Gosh, I haven’t a clue. But then again I am not in one of those rocket cults (such as yours) so I guess I am not enlightened.

Amerigo, my question to you is what did Mike say (specifically his description of the VSE policy, pages 1-15) that you disagree with?

Keith, here is an extra-credit question for you. What policy directive would your plan violate with your lego land in space approach?

Here is a clue it’s the same one the Mike violates but doesn’t look like he is violating.

Keith, still waiting for an answer to some of my questions.

Stephen: why you seem so intent upon converting me from AC to DC (Ares Cult to the Direct Cult) escapes me since I’d rather see a wide range of launch vehicles – preferably smaller, cheaper, commercially procured launchers – placing smaller, modular components into space – components that can be mixed and matched ala LEGOs to accomplish a wide variety of missions. That’s how commercial transport systems work on Earth. Why should space be any different?

OK – your turn to post another 400 word cheerleading rant.

Others of us have wider more unbiased views of the situation. For instance, from mr. Griffin’s perspective, the advantages of Ares V is that it is a larger version of Direct. From your perspective, the advantages of Direct is that it is a smaller version of Ares V, one not dependent on long lead time elements. Others feel that expendable heavy life launch is unjustified.

Other’s have other perspectives, other advantages, other disadvantages, in fact, others direct their launch vehicle architectures to completely different space program structures and goals, and then their advantages become glaringly self evident, for instance, high flight rates, compatible with existing launch vehicle architectures, the complete abandonment of solids with the attendant advantages of lower gross liftoff weight, smaller launch vehicles, the possibility of incorporating reusable elements or even a reusability flight test program into the launch vehicle development program, and finally, the obvious and demonstrable cost and efficiency advantages of liquid fuels.

I could go on and on, but you appear to be another cheerleader for the president’s version of ‘how things ought to be’ and the blinds you to all of the other options of ‘how things could be’. You guys really think you can save this program with Direct, but in reality you are talking about minor development and operational improvements of something that is already completely out of scale and out of touch with the needs of the taxpayers.

You need to quit spinning and start justifying the foundation of what you are trying to do, which from my perspective sets you up to simply act as more cheerleaders for the president’s VSE, a space program architecture which many still feel is completely unjustified by the reality of existing economic and future environmental conditions.

http://www.teamvisioninc.com/downloads/AIAA-2006-7517-146.pdf

If you want bigger pictures than screen shots from the pdf just go to Google and type “Jupiter III-X”

If you want we could put back up the old version of the landing page for this link which was basically a picture of the Jupiter-3 and a reprint of the abstract but I’m sure you would come up with a new strawman to replace this one so what is the point.

If this will be in fact be your ‘last’ remaining issue as to why we aren’t ‘credible’ than I would more than happy to do this just for you, or are there other ‘credibility’ issues?

I mean after all their must be other credibility issues because the Ares-I has the backing of the entire management chain at NASA and Mike has explicitly rejected the concept that one STS derived configuration line could possibly do both the ISS and Mars missions.

The Ares-I must represent the most perfect and credible launch system ever put forward by the mind of men (key the lights shining on the Ares-I with angelic music) representing the apex of everything we have learned and what a rocket could ever hope to be. I mean how could a rag tag bunch of rocket engineers like myself, in our free time no less just to make it fair, possibly come up with a better design than those anointed by the beltway working 24/7 ? It just strains all logic does it not?

I think your credibility detector needs a serious realignment bordering on reversal when you think the Ares-I is good engineering and the Jupiter-120 is a ‘powerpoint’. Come to think of it maybe I’m asking too much of you. What is your formal degree in anyway?

First, the Jupiter-120 manufacturing, integration, and launch infrastructure is nearly 80% in place today to support the Space Shuttle in direct contrast to the Ares-I. Second, the Jupiter-120 relies on the existing STS stack arrangement between he SRB and the External Tank that has successfully placed the Space Shuttle in orbit while isolating the crew from the serious vibrations associated with all solid rockets since their invention by the Chinese over two thousand years ago (sorry Mike no Scooby Doo mystery here). Still no solution in all those years either I might add. It’s kind of along the lines of making useful dull knives, square pegs in round holes etc. Third, the engines required by the Jupiter-120 are already in use on the Delta Launch System in direct contrast to the brand new J-2X engines required by the Ares-I and identified as a serious “unaccounted for” programmatic risk by the recent GAO report that was missing in NASA’s 2015 launch date prediction. Fourth, the Jupiter-120 doesn’t even require an upper stage in the first place unlike the Ares-I (important time and money saving tip for all you super shoppers out there wanting to minimize the gap). Fifth, the extra lift capacity of the Jupiter-120 (48mT) over the Ares-I (18mT and falling) will enable the Orion designers to field a fully lunar mission capable spacecraft from day one (Without making any allowances for Ares-I paint shaker from hell effect) while providing the extra capacity for an ISS logistics in the same launch saving what would take two launches of the Ares-I assuming it works at all, which from what I know is a big ‘if’ bordering on near impossibility. Maybe we need to add a 6×6 square on the good old 5×5 likelihood vs. seriousness chart.

Bottomline: Jupiter-120 is the historically dominate NASA configuration (Pre-Mike) concept with roots all the way back to the first days of the Space Shuttle. The Ares-I and Ares-V are the odd balls in the line up. In addition, the Jupiter-120 is more than three years ahead in actual hardware development time than the current Ares-I representing billions of dollars in savings for the reasons above.

But just keep on believing in Mike after all he has got to be credible. But don’t rely on your opinion of Mike because at his confirmation hearing he said he is the smartest NASA administrator ever so it must be true. God bless us everyone.