NASA

Ares complaints: blame Lockheed?

At the end of an interview with CBS News’ Bill Harwood, NASA administrator made some interesting comments regarding recent criticism of the Ares 1 launch vehicle, such as the potential thrust oscillation problem with the vehicle’s first stage:

Q: On a different topic, the Ares rocket and the Constellation program continue to generate questions among outside observers as to viability of the rocket system, due to vibration and other issues, and the overall architecture of the moon program. Why is that?

A: Let me get down to the bottom of it. There were winners and losers in the contractor community as to who was going to get to do what on the next system post shuttle. And we didn’t pick (Lockheed Martin’s) Atlas 5, in consultation with the Air Force for that matter, because it wasn’t the right vehicle for the lunar job. Obviously, we did pick others. So people who didn’t get picked see an opportunity to throw the issue into controversy and maybe have it come out their way.

[…]

I think you have been around long enough to know technically this is just not a big deal. It’s about winners and losers. In the larger context, it’s about winners and losers and people seeing an opportunity to reclaim a share of the pie that was lost. And I hate it when it comes to that. But that’s it. The fact of the matter is, Ares, the rocket, and Constellation, the program, are designed to go to the moon and to provide a capability, if necessary, to service the space station in Earth orbit.

The Atlas 5 needs substantial upgrades in order to be a useful part of the lunar architecture and those upgrades, when we added them all up, cost more than the Ares 1. It’s that simple. Now if you just want to go to low-Earth orbit and nowhere else, then the Atlas 5 will do just fine. And I encourage its use for that. What I don’t encourage is for people to say that going to low-Earth orbit and stopping there again is a good goal. That’s not what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to get back to the moon and we want to go on to Mars. And that needs something bigger.

Those comments seem to suggest that Griffin believes that Lockheed Martin (or now, more accurately, ULA, since Lockheed and Boeing have combined their EELV lines into that joint venture) is behind the criticism of Ares 1. While I know there are people at ULA who believe that Atlas 5 could carry out the role of launching Orion, it seems a bit of a stretch to think that they’re the only critics of the current architecture.

63 comments to Ares complaints: blame Lockheed?

  • MarkWhittington

    John Logsdon suggested this sort of thing was going on in the recent Orlando Sentinal story when he blames part of the criticism of Ares on “ego and profits.” Ego, of course, we can see on parade every day on the Internet. Profits obviously refers to the story just referenced.

  • Of course, Mike Griffin doesn’t have an “ego.” And of course, ATK (and Scott Horowitz) have no profits at stake.

    Logsdon’s comment was pointless, unless he’s blaming “all” of the criticism on that.

  • MarkWhittington

    “Of course, Mike Griffin doesn’t have an “ego.” And of course, ATK (and Scott Horowitz) have no profits at stake.”

    Which doesn’t prove that his theory is all wet.

  • The People

    …Griffin believes that Lockheed Martin (or now, more accurately, ULA, since Lockheed and Boeing have combined their EELV lines into that joint venture) is behind the criticism of Ares 1.

    Hogwash. Many people within NASA doubt the viability of the current ATK-centric approach.

  • Griffin’s argument that:

    “The Atlas 5 needs substantial upgrades in order to be a useful part of the lunar architecture and those upgrades, when we added them all up, cost more than the Ares 1.”

    is nonsensical. The ESAS/Constellation lunar architecture performs rendezvous in Earth orbit. Ares I is not going to, or launching anything to, the Moon. Whether Orion is going to ISS or to the Moon, Ares I always delivers Orion to low-Earth orbit, just like Atlas V, Delta IV, Jupiter 120, or any number of other options would. (Actually, unlike these other options, Ares I can’t deliver Orion to a useful orbit, but that’s another story.)

    (Griffin’s focus on Atlas V is also bizarre. Of the two EELV families, Delta IV is actually the leading candidate technically for launching Orion.)

    Instead of giving into paranoid delusions about how Ares I’s shortcomings are the result of an industrial conspiracy, Griffin needs to do his job as manager and focus on the many, very real, and very big management, technical, budget, and schedule issues in the Ares I program, issues that are not coming from the likes of ULA or LockMart but from Congress’s own, independent, non-partisan, watchdog agency, the General Accounting Office (add http://www):

    .gao.gov/new.items/d0851.pdf

    And from independent and respected industry journalists (add http://www):

    .nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5335

    And from his own managers (add http://):

    rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com/2008/02/pressure-to-perform.html

    It boggles the mind that Griffin would waste his breath trying to blame Ares I criticism on industry when there are 30-plus page independent government reports laying out problem after problem in the Ares I program and when his top managers are trying to push back the schedule for major design reviews in order to deal with them.

    Griffin also needs some serious legal counsel with regard to his comments to the press. The agency has past and current COTS competitions, not to mention launch service competitions for robotic missions, in which Atlas V has been a proposed launcher. Unless Griffin wants those awards challenged and decisions revisited yet again, he needs to avoid potentially biased statements in the public about specific industry vehicles.

    FWIW…

  • MarkWhittington

    If one buys Griffin’s theory (and I don’t necessarily do), the reaction here so far seems to fit it. At least two anonymous postings slamming it, including one with an implied threat of legal action. I don’t find it as far fetched as all that. Giving the nature of the Internet, a disinformation campaign would be absurdly easy to undertake. And there are enough sincere people who are willing to believe any bad news coming out of NASA to lend credence.

  • Jim Mesko

    Simberg and Whittington have reading comprehension problems. I just looked at the Orlando Sentinel article and it did not quote Logdson as saying those things. It says this:

    “The developments are worrying John Logsdon, the director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, who is concerned that the criticism of Ares I — some legitimate, some driven by ego and profit — could end up destroying Constellation and with it the first new vision of space exploration in 35 years.

    “It’s not a bad plan,” he said, “We just need to adjust it some.””

    The only words directly attributed to him (i.e. in quotes) are the ones at the end, the others were a reporters’ characterization. How do you know that they are accurate?

    Griffin’s claim is a wee bit disingenuous. He’s the one who has been sitting on damaging information about NASA until the last minute. Note that last year he released the details of the slip of the Mars robotic mission until the Friday before Christmas (when nobody would notice) and released the details of the air safety study until the day before New Years (when nobody would notice–but he got that wrong). Reports of the Ares thrust oscillation problem have been around for quite awhile. Just talk to anybody who was involved in the top to bottom review in Houston in November. These reports have also been public: read some of the better articles on this and you’ll note that one of the key experts warned about it a year ago. Lockheed did not _invent_ the problem, or the stories. NASA sat on the information until the AP forced it out of them. If he wasn’t trying so hard to hide bad information about NASA, then reporters would be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He has provided no reason for them to trust him.

  • MarkWhittington

    “How do you know that they are accurate?”

    I haven’t heard Dr. Logsdon complain that he was misquoted. In any case they fit known facts.

    “Reports of the Ares thrust oscillation problem have been around for quite awhile. Just talk to anybody who was involved in the top to bottom review in Houston in November. These reports have also been public: read some of the better articles on this and you’ll note that one of the key experts warned about it a year ago. Lockheed did not _invent_ the problem, or the stories. NASA sat on the information until the AP forced it out of them.”

    That’s kind of a straw man. Technical problems are a part of any new development project, which is why we hire all of those engineers to fix them. As you say, the thrust oscillation problem had been common knowledge for quite some time, so I’m pretty sure that there was no plot to conceal it from the media. My surmise is that the problem will be solved next month and thus will be proven to have been blown out of proportyion.

  • “At least two anonymous postings

    Mr. Foust welcomes anonymous comments on this forum. If you’re uncomfortable with them, no one is forcing you to post here.

    And if you can’t participate in a discussion without making ad hominem attacks based on a poster’s status, then don’t waste your or our time participating. I don’t and have never worked for any company or organization associated with any potential Ares I competitor, but it shouldn’t matter even if I did. If the argument someone puts forward is logically consistent, backed up with evidence, and has no counterargument, it doesn’t matter where it comes from.

    Argue the post, not the poster.

    “slamming it,”

    If “slamming” means pointing out the lack of logic and technical accuracy in the Administrator’s argument; pointing out that tons of Ares I criticism is actually coming from non-partisan, independent, unbiased, and even official sources; and arguing that the Administrator should focus on those very real and very legitimate issues in his program instead of wasting time blaming his program’s shortfalls on industrial conspiracies, then yes, I guess that “slamming it”.

    “threat of legal action.”

    Noting that the Administrator’s comments could be perceived as biased and serve as the basis for a procurement challenge is not the same as a “threat of legal action”, not by a long stretch.

    For the umpteenth time, please do not put words in other posters’ mouths when you respond to their posts. If you can’t make an argument without putting words in other participants’ mouths, then you should not participate.

    And if you’re having trouble understanding what other posters’ have actually said, then slow down, read their posts two or three times, and absorb and think through them before you respond.

    Ugh…

  • Of the two EELV families, Delta IV is actually the leading candidate technically for launching Orion.

    Based on what? The last time I looked, it had a severe underperformance problem with the upper stage that would result in huge abort blackout periods due to high entry gees.

    Simberg and Whittington have reading comprehension problems.

    I didn’t read what John said. I was simply responding to what Mark claims that he said. If you’re saying that Mark has reading comprehension problems, that would be nothing new. It’s demonstrated in almost every thread in which he participates, including this one (as “anonymous.space” points out).

  • Even if the criticism *was* coming from Lockheed, what of it? The Ares has serious weight issues. The capsule is still 2000 pounds overweight even though they have gone to single-string safety systems. They’ve cut testing out of the program. The vibration issues are not going to go away without adding mass or getting rid of the solids altogether; either way, it’s a major redesign. Griffin is indulging in ad hominem rather than dealing the substance of the criticisms.

  • Dennis Wingo

    I just spoke to Dr. Logsdon (we are here together in a conference in DC) about this and he laughed at the notion that he was the source of the conspiracy theory.

  • David Stever

    I work for a non-space branch of Lockheed, and I have never seen an LM attack on Ares I. What I see is the company linking up with just about every other group who has an iron in the family to help them use the Atlas V family to get their capsule or cargo into orbit. If Bigelow or any of these other folks can get into orbit (whose capsule will Bigelow be using to launch to their orbital complex?) with a stack built on top of a V401, it will be years before NASA will do it on an Ares I, and that fact (if it becomes a fact) will stand for itself more then any argument on any blog that I’ve seen. I think that LM is prepared to let their hardware speak for them (more programs means more sales), which is why I see nothing coming out of them about Ares’ issues.

  • David Stever

    “irons in the family”? What the heck is that? I meant to say “irons in the fire”, of course.

  • Mark writes: My surmise is that the problem will be solved next month and thus will be proven to have been blown out of proportyion.

    Is that “surmise” based on anything other than pure wishful thinking? We know from history that it’s not based on your knowledge of what’s going on in the program, or the nature of engineering in general. I doubt if anyone working the program, even Mike Griffin, thinks that it’s going to be solved “next month.”

  • Dennis Wingo

    Logsdon is stating here at the CSIS center that the Ares 1/CEV does not have the resources to fly until 2015 and that there is little support for money to speed this up.

  • Charles in Houston

    Fellow People Of Excellent Reading Comprehension –

    Mike Griffin’s comments require careful thought, and David Stever (could be a psuedonym!!) had the best observation:

    I think that LM is prepared to let their hardware speak for them (more programs means more sales), which is why I see nothing coming out of them about Ares’ issues.

    United Launch Alliance does not need to spread rumors, they have flying vehicles that people pay money to use! When you see a Delta or an Atlas launch from either coast, you see that we have known, reliable boosters. If someone wants to go off and reinvent them (giving us a 65 percent chance of making our schedules) they need to explain why.

    Too bad Mike Griffin wants to use our money to reinvent a rocket to get people into space.

    Charles
    (by the way, “Charles” is Swahili for “anonymous”)

  • David, while for a number of reasons I prefer the Delta-IV technology, Boeing has done nothing to support it. I say, more power to Lockheed Martin for pushing their product in as many venues as possible. It is refreshing to see an American company not automatically ceding the launch market to others.

    — Donald

  • while for a number of reasons I prefer the Delta-IV technology, Boeing has done nothing to support it.

    Boeing’s problem is, as I mentioned, that their vehicle is a dog for getting to LEO, particularly with crew (it’s not what its nominal design mission was), and they know it, and have known it since OSP days.

  • Vladislaw

    This is what Griffin said about the Atlas:

    “The Atlas 5 needs substantial upgrades in order to be a useful part of the lunar architecture and those upgrades, when we added them all up, cost more than the Ares 1. It’s that simple. Now if you just want to go to low-Earth orbit and nowhere else, then the Atlas 5 will do just fine. And I encourage its use for that. What I don’t encourage is for people to say that going to low-Earth orbit and stopping there again is a good goal. That’s not what we’re tyring to do. We’re trying to get back to the moon and we want to go on to Mars. And that needs something bigger.”
    http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts122/080207griffin/

    This is what Lockheed said:

    “The Atlas booster has been used for decades to launch government and commercial payloads to a wide range of orbits and its reliability record is at the top of the space industry. As the simplest, most robust, and most reliable version of the Atlas V family, the 401 configuration has been selected by Bigelow to launch its space complex. This launch vehicle, compliant with the Federal Aviation Administration’s stringent requirements for unmanned spaceflight, will undergo modest system upgrades that will augment existing safety features prior to flying the first passengers.”

    http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Bigelow_Aerospace_And_Lockheed_Martin_Converging_On_Terms_For_Launch_Services_999.html

    Griffin says it would need SUBSTANCIAL upgrades while Lockheed calls them MODEST.

    So who is correct?

  • Well, actually, they seem to be talking past each other. Lockheed isn’t being directly responsive to what Griffin said. I think that his claim is that it lacks the performance to get a six-crew Orion to orbit without major upgrades (of course, it’s not clear that Ares 1 will, either, once they solve the vibration issue). Lockmart didn’t really talk about that.

    But of course, the correct response is that NASA doesn’t necessarily have to get a six-crew Orion to orbit. They could have accommodated their architecture to the EELVs. To paraphrase Don Rumsfeld, on a limited budget, you go to the moon with the launch vehicles you have, not the launch vehicles you’d like to have.

  • Transport Codifier

    Boeing’s problem is, as I mentioned, that their vehicle is a dog for getting to LEO, particularly with crew (it’s not what its nominal design mission was), and they know it, and have known it since OSP days.

    Boeing doesn’t have many problems. Boeing knows that by sticking an RL-60 or MB-60 or equivalent on their ‘dog’ – the Delta IV Medium, and talking to Mitsubishi about modifying the hydrogen tank, and then outfitting the upper stage as a service module, that their ‘dog’ beats the pants off of anything else around at volume flight rates, and they’ve known it since the COTS 2.0 days.

  • Rand,
    But of course, the correct response is that NASA doesn’t necessarily have to get a six-crew Orion to orbit. They could have accommodated their architecture to the EELVs. To paraphrase Don Rumsfeld, on a limited budget, you go to the moon with the launch vehicles you have, not the launch vehicles you’d like to have.

    I think the bigger point is that there are all sorts of built-in assumptions here about how the lunar architecture has to be. There have been several designs for 5-8 person capsules that can fly on 20klb to LEO vehicles. Getting 6 people up isn’t the problem. It’s when you try and make your crew/passenger launch vehicle act just like an updated Apollo CM/SM that Atlas V starts requiring serious upgrades. Sure, the Apollo CSM approach is a proven technically feasible way of doing things. But it is also a proven ridiculously expensive way of doing things.

    So long as you don’t try to turn your crew/passenger capsule into some sort of long-duration Winnebago (one of the same issues the shuttle had), it can work just fine with existing launchers. It just requires some more thought and creativity than a rerun of Apollo for a bunch of aging hipsters.

    ~Jon

  • Transport Codifier: That is exactly why I don’t understand Boeing, or their sponsors at DoD. They have a clean-sheet vehicle built from the ground up to be most efficient at high flight rates. Yet, they seem determined to fly it at the lowest, most expensive rates possible. They’ve had a greater than year-long window when much of the rest of the global launch industry was out of the picture, and who took advantage of that to reenter the market? The Chinese with their relatively ancient design. Flown at optimum rates, the Delta-IV should be able to take the world by storm. Instead, they waste their money playing financial games creating the uncompetative United Launch Alliance and failing to produce or market their vehicle.

    I’ve often said that if United States companies spent a tenth of the money they spend enriching CEOs and institutional investors with financial shenanigans actually producing and marketing the better mousetraps we invent, we’d be the manufacturing envy of the world. Nothing illustrates what’s wrong better than Boeing’s bahaviour with the EELV contract, in which they’d rather suckle at the government teat than look to the future or take a chance on something less than a guaranteed market. . . .

    — Donald

  • Good News everyone we are coming to the end of ESAS based on the five phases of every failed project.

    Arrogance
    (I’m the Smartest Engineer of all Time)

    Despair
    (Just one month after ESAS came out and real engineers actually checked the numbers)

    Panic
    (Ares-I can lift 25mT, no 22mT, no 20mT, no 18mT, heck whatever it can do will be fine quit complaining)

    Blame the Innocent
    (Atlas is the cause of the Ares-I problems. Why you ask? Because it just makes the Ares-I look so bad by any comparison you could choose to make)

    Reward the Guilty
    (At some point somebody in DC needs to give this guy a golden parachute so we can finally get a serious plan in place to implement the VSE)

    Now………
    “Do we want to go to the moon or not?”
    John C. Houbolt – November 15, 1961
    Question posed in Letter to Dr. Robert C. Seamans Jr, NASA Associate Administrator

    Ralph Ellison “I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest”

  • SpaceMan

    Rand Simberg :

    Of course, Mike Griffin doesn’t have an “ego.” And of course, ATK (and Scott Horowitz) have no profits at stake.

    EVERYONE, including all those posting here, has an ego so pointing to “ego” as a “bad” thing or pretending (like many of the posters) one doesn`t have one is a strong indicator of ignorance and fluff between those ears.

    All this is a tempest in a teacup and will be worked out in time.

    I would suggest that anyone that wants to be actually taken seriously on this topic to put some of their own resources into the game and prove you know something about the topic. So far I don`t see anything here but posing and posturing appropriate to those in junior high school. I certainly wouldn`t hire any of you to actually do any important work.

    Get off your high horses & actually produce results.

  • EVERYONE, including all those posting here, has an ego so pointing to “ego” as a “bad” thing or pretending (like many of the posters) one doesn`t have one is a strong indicator of ignorance and fluff between those ears.

    Who said otherwise? Who has pretended they don’t have an ego?

    That was exactly my point. Another person with reading comprehension problems.

    I certainly wouldn`t hire any of you to actually do any important work.

    Why would we care whether or not some anonymous poster who calls himself “Space Man” would hire us? Anyway, many of us are already too busy “producing results.”

  • D. Messier

    The criticism is not just coming from the companies with a stake in it. Nor am I told that this was an either/or situation. Some advocated using atlas for orbital, thus freeing up money $$ and resources for the lunar system (the pacing technology). They thought that Atlas wouldn’t be that difficult or expensive to human rate. According to what I’ve heard, there was heavy political pressure to maintain the higher level of jobs that the current architecture maintains.

    OK, lunch break over. Back to work.

  • reader

    just a minor note. I thought that Delta IV usability, and the entire “black zones” issue was clarified long ago, and solved during the OSP program.

  • reader

    another note, on mr. Simbergs recent post
    become spacefaring (e.g., space assembly, docking/mating, propellant storage and transfer)
    A significant part of that was already learned during the Gemini-ATV experiments, or has it been already forgotten ?

  • I thought that Delta IV usability, and the entire “black zones” issue was clarified long ago, and solved during the OSP program.

    Not that I’m aware of, and I was working in Huntington Beach at the time as a consultant, doing systems engineering on OSP, right up to the point that it died.

  • reader

    google on “delta iv black zones” will turn up nasaspaceflight and uplink threads where this has been discussed, however i claim no knowledge about the subject, just something i read.

  • Transport Codifier

    There are no Delta IV black zones unless you fly ‘black’. This is a high performance cryogenic rocket, you can pretty much fly any profile you want, trading for the most part performance, parameters, drag and skin heating.

  • Transport Codifier

    That is exactly why I don’t understand Boeing, or their sponsors at DoD. They have a clean-sheet vehicle built from the ground up to be most efficient at high flight rates. Yet, they seem determined to fly it at the lowest, most expensive rates possible.

    There is no ‘Boeing Airlines’. Somebody has to pay for this stuff. Michael Griffin by decree forbade NASA from doing so, hence no real market.

    The minute Bigelow or somebody equivalent forks over the money, it’ll fly.

  • Transport Codifier

    Get off your high horses & actually produce results.

    What is there to do? Put a capsule on the Delta IV Medium and fly it. Next.

    Certainly I have offered something above and beyond that simple truth.

    What people like me are concerned about, is what about that upper stage and the RL-10 engine sitting there, what do I want to do with that now?

    We are in the midst of a paradigm shift, but many still argue whether the new paradigm actually exists, they’ve got Apollo and Mars on the brain.

  • Ray

    Dr. Griffin: “It’s about winners and losers. In the larger context, it’s about winners and losers and people seeing an opportunity to reclaim a share of the pie that was lost.”

    Dr. Griffin is completely right on this point. It is about winners and losers. However, the Lockheed Martin isn’t a loser in the ESAS deal, since they have Orion, and who knows what else with the lunar part of ESAS if that is ever contracted out. They also have the potential to get a nice commercial launch business going with Bigelow, and that may position them for more commercial business later, if more commercial space stations or other human launches appear, and if the greater flight rate makes them more competitive in the traditional commercial launch business. Why should they care about Ares 1, other than being annoyed at the danger Ares 1’s problems put their Orion in? If they get the commercial business going, they’ll be too busy to care. About the only concern I see them having with Ares I is the potential for an Ares 1 cousin to win the next COTS round, especially if it’s a politically-won victory, given Dr. Griffin’s apparent personal sudden distaste for LM now that they have possible commercial aspirations.

    No, the real losers with Ares I are the American taxpayers, commercial space, science, and space advocates. The taxpayers lose because Ares 1 is really really expensive. Even if solved, the Ares technical problems are going to cost a lot of money, either during development or in operation. Despite what Griffin says, there are a lot of cheaper options to get to the LEO – EELVs, Falcons, and any number of other options. There are any number of other ways to get to the Moon than ESAS, too, especially when you add in the possibility of useful infrastructure like refueling, smaller crew size, and so on. These options are either useful in and of themselves (infrastructure), or well worth the tradeoff (smaller crew per launch trading for cheaper, safer launch using commercially useful infrastructure on quicker and cheaper development schedules). The taxpayer loses even though the VSE was supposed to be sustainable. Science also loses, since ESAS may never get to the Moon, and will be very limited, late, slow when it gets there, and costly if it ever does arrive at the Moon. The VSE was supposed to help science, but we already see how science has lost in this decade, and with the Stanford meeting obviously science interests are interested in changing the whole VSE, probably because they see more damage from ESAS not being worth the cost. Commercial space was also a central theme of the Aldridge Commission and the VSE, and we see how commercial space has no major part in ESAS. This is a major, all-encompassing flaw with the ESAS plan, and in itself is enough reason to cancel ESAS. I do admit that science and commerce have had some recent successes with the lunar plan in getting to launch and get data from some new lunar robotics, but this isn’t enough to turn the tide. Finally, space advocates lose with ESAS because ESAS is too slow, too expensive, too politically fragile, and too unsustainable (because of lack of self-sustaining commercial or at least military/commercial space-helping EELV offshoots, and high financial cost). The space advocates are faced with lots of sacrifice (opportunity costs for what could have been done with the ESAS money), little prospect of return on the investment (ESAS cancellation risks), and too little return even if ESAS goes by plan (just a few astronauts to the Moon doing a modern replay of Apollo, at least for the first few years).

    Yes, it is about winners and losers, but the only winners seem to be the actual people working on ESAS. That’s not enough.

    Now … none of this is doomed to happen. ESAS could easily become much better. We’ve already seen how “we only need a map of the Moon” with 1 U.S. mission (LRO) became that plus GRAIL, a possible small Ames orbiter, 2 possible Ames landers, and whatever comes of the Lunar X PRIZE. There are all sorts of ways ESAS could be improved with more commercial participation, more up-front science, international participation, and more. Many, but not all by any means, of the possible improvements involve replacing or changing Ares 1. Whatever it takes, let’s make the needed changes to ESAS and get back to the VSE, or if we can’t figur out how to do that, let’s cancel the whole thing.

  • […] activities, they compete on others. Griffin is bound to catch more heat from those blobs because he dared speak Unpleasant Facts. When billions of dollars are at stake, the teams will matter more than the industry or the agency, […]

  • TrueGrit

    Delta IV is a dog huh? And is being neglected without any investments. It also seems to forget that the Delta IV Heavy is the most capable launch system in service other that STS. And unlike Atlas Heavy has actually built and flown hardware… And 4 yrs before Ares I makes its first flight will fly an upgraded version that will be capable of injecting 27,000 kg to ISS orbit. That’s far above Atlas Heavy capability, and ~115% of the ESAS crew vehicle requirement. As for the so called “black zones”? They were fixed almost immediatly after being “found”… You simply need to fly a slightly less ideal trajectory.

  • Luke Skywalker

    You simply need to fly a slightly less ideal trajectory.

    Which cuts the payload by 20%.

  • MarkWhittington

    “Is that “surmise” based on anything other than pure wishful thinking? We know from history that it’s not based on your knowledge of what’s going on in the program, or the nature of engineering in general. I doubt if anyone working the program, even Mike Griffin, thinks that it’s going to be solved “next month.””

    Actually, Rand, my understanding is that March is the deadline for coming to an understanding of the thrust oscillation problem, as stated in the January 28th AV Week article. I admit I miswrote that it was the deadline for the solution, though the article suggests the possibility that the problem may not actually be a problem given better data.

    As for my engineering expertise, or lack there of, I have to plead guilty. I can only defer to information from people who do have that kind of knowledge. This is the key sentence from the AV Week article:

    “Although the problem isn’t fully understood, none of the NASA engineers involved in solving it sees it as a show-stopper.”

    I’m told that the much maligned Mike Griffin, who supports the Ares, is in fact an aerospace engineer of some experience.

    In any case I have to surmise that those who not only have engineering expertise but are actually working on the program do not agree with you or some of the posters that the trust oscillation problem will cause the demise of the Ares program. So it is a question of whom to believe. I choose to believe people who are actually working on the project and not outsiders who may not have full information and who have their demonstrated biases.

    As a general note, I have to observe the usual super heated rhetoric and frankly wild statements in this thread that seem to be the norm when the subject of Ares 1 comes up. The conspicuous lack of sober analysis and the prevailing rants, unsupported by anything resembling facts, make me tend toward the view that enemies of the Ares have no credibility.

  • MarkWhittington

    “I just spoke to Dr. Logsdon (we are here together in a conference in DC) about this and he laughed at the notion that he was the source of the conspiracy theory.”

    Dennis, did Logsdon clarify his statement?

  • Transport Codifier

    You simply need to fly a slightly less ideal trajectory.

    Which cuts the payload by 20%.

    Exactly 20%, on all trajectories? Please do us a favor, go and a fly a couple of trajectories with a credible flight model, and then get back to us on that, ok?

  • “Get off your high horses & actually produce results.”

    LockMart has actually produced results. Lots of them. They have put their resources into the game and proven they know something about the topic.

    And Griffin says the criticism of Ares comes from LockMart. So, SpaceMan, according to your logic, if LockMart is behind the criticism of Ares, then Griffin should damn well listen to them.

  • kert

    Which cuts the payload by 20%
    Um, flying a D IV Medium to orbit with a 20% payload cut is still far better than not flying at all, vibrating to pieces on top of a questionable solid, or probably even riding a Titan II.

  • gm

    .

    I’ve FIRST said in 2005 (posting on uplink.space.com) that a 5.5 m. CEV was too big while a 4.5 m. capsule is enough for the job

    then, I’ve published two articles (in aug. 30, 2006 and jan. 28, 2007) to explain why a smaller Orion is better:

    www. gaetanomarano.it/articles/012eggCEV.html

    www. gaetanomarano.it/articles/019orionlight.html

    then, last week, I’ve published my article about the Ares-1 “dead weight” launch:

    www. ghostnasa.com/posts/023deadweight.html

    happy to see that (now) lots of peoples and experts (finally) agree with me :)

    .

  • “While I know there are people at ULA who believe that Atlas 5 could carry out the role of launching Orion, it seems a bit of a stretch to think that they’re the only critics of the current architecture.”

    It’s even more of a stretch to interpret Griffin’s words that way. There was no “only” in what he said. Of course those people who are critics of Ares I are happy to stretch them that way, whatever it takes.

  • MarkWhittington

    http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/orl-griffin0908feb09,0,1682085.story

    “ULA has never publicly criticized Ares I or suggested that its rocket systems should be reconsidered as a viable alternative for Ares. But congressional staffers have said ULA is lobbying hard behind the scenes for more opportunities for its rockets.”

    Which I suppose can be spun a number of ways, but certainly suggest that Griffin has sound reasons to suggest what he did.

  • In any case I have to surmise that those who not only have engineering expertise but are actually working on the program do not agree with you or some of the posters that the trust oscillation problem will cause the demise of the Ares program.

    I have never said that it will. I have said that it may. That is a statement with which I’m confident that people working on the program would agree, even if they see no obvious “show stoppers.”

    More reading comprehension problems from Mark.

  • Dynamicist

    Actually, physicists are unanimous that inline solid rocket boosters (SRBs) on manned spacecraft are not worth the trouble which they will invariably cause.

  • “Actually, physicists are unanimous that inline solid rocket boosters (SRBs) on manned spacecraft are not worth the trouble which they will invariably cause.”

    I believe the last person to try a space launch exclusively on solids didn’t have much luck…

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wan_Hu

    But apparently the documentation is a little…uh…shaky.

  • Dennis Wingo

    “ULA has never publicly criticized Ares I or suggested that its rocket systems should be reconsidered as a viable alternative for Ares. But congressional staffers have said ULA is lobbying hard behind the scenes for more opportunities for its rockets.”

    There has been a lobbying effort, but not the one that you think. The bias against the Atlas by Dr. Griffin is well known in aerospace circles. At least two of the COTS contenders are relying on the Atlas and or Lockheed Martin for their infrastructure.

    Therefore, it is self interest by LMC to present the benefits to the U.S. government for having a COTS vehicle based on the Atlas. This includes lowering the payments to ULA to support the industrial base of the Atlas/Delta production lines and increasing the production rates of critical launch vehicle elements that could be used in a national emergency as a “surge” capability to reconstitute our orbital assets in the event of an attack on them by an adversary.

    I have just spent two days in Washington listening to a lot of interesting discussion in this area.

    Therefore it is not an inevitable logical conclusion to make that ULA/LMC would be lobbying congress to replace Ares 1.

  • Dynamicist

    Are you going to educate us about global warming and the Shuttle C as well?

  • Dennis Wingo

    Thomas you are beyond education.

  • Prof. Brainerd

    Nobody is beyond education, Dennis. When your scientific and technical views run counter to the entire established scientific and engineering community, there is a certain credibility gap, which is your burden to bear.

    I don’t see you as accepting that responsibility. So educate us, please.

  • Ray

    Mark pointed out a good article from the Orlando Sentinel to add to the discussion. It does make that case (without really documenting or proving it) about ULA pushing for its rockets. It also give more background (possibly familiar to most folks here) about the numerous other points of contention with Ares 1 – high cost, technical problems to overcome, science community opposed because of past (and possible future) incursions into their budget (supposedly from Shuttle, but easy to blame on Ares since it’s the new program), and the military and CIA which probably would like to share launch costs. That all matches exactly what Jeff said in the beginning – it really wouldn’t be LM, which has about as much to lose as gain with Atlas V vs. Ares 1, but if anything it would be ULA. Also as Jeff mentioned, certainly this 1 technical issue is certainly not the only point of contention, and if ULA is pushing for their rocket, they wouldn’t be the only critics of Ares 1 by far.

    Let me add another relevant article, care of Space Pragmatism blog (go there if this link doesn’t work), from Areo-news.net:

    http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=44ee108e-5aa9-402a-9e5c-e28a853a2c60

    From the article:

    “Other NASA insiders tell the Sentinel this shaking syndrome — and other rumored problems, yet to be discussed publicly — leave more than a few people scratching their heads at whether NASA’s Ares program is worth continuing.

    Many dissenters are lobbying presidential candidates to abandon the program outright. NASA officials admit political support for the Constellation program is shaky, especially given its projected cost of $26.3 billion between 2009 and 2013, including $7.5 billion for Ares I.”

    Personally, I’d say let Constellation go do whatever it wants, as long as what I consider higher priorities – COTS, Centennial Challenges, modest X planes, robotic science missions, general use of commercial services in the spirit of the Zero-G deal – are funded adequately, which I don’t think they are now.

    Failing that, of course given past failures in NASA rocket and human spaceflight development programs, I’m especially focused on technical, management, and political problems with Constellation. Apparently a lot of other people feel the same way. This should have been expected from the start from the NASA Constellation folks. Rather than taking a seige mentality, they should have taken the expected scrutiny as an opportunity to make a program that from the start is reviewed openly and independently, that takes advantage of commercial possibilities to reduce risk and expense, that doesn’t add unnecessary requirements (ISS/Moon/Mars all in the same vehicle, 4 people and equipment to the lunar surface, etc), and that inherently brings in new supporters (eg: commercial, international) rather than alienates existing supporters (eg: science).

  • Tom

    On the DIV ‘dog to LEO’ argument. Is that because of the single RL-10, not getting the mass down (and acceleration up) of the upper stage fast enough?

  • Prof. Brainerd

    Is that because of the single RL-10, not getting the mass down (and acceleration up) of the upper stage fast enough?

    That’s about it. For GTO missions they can loft, and then use gravity as an assist, the Ariane V does the same thing, but far more effectively because of the much more powerful first stage. With the underpowered upper stage and a large payload intended for low Earth orbit missions, gravity losses will eat into your performance, far more so than the drag losses from flattening out your ascent profile to remediate the so called black zones.

    Hydrogen is as powerful as a rocket fuel you will get, so whatever the performance you get from these engines is already the maximum possible.

    That leaves lots of latitude for ascent profile optimization. With LEO more efficiency and acceleration is always desired, right up to the maximum allowed by the vehicle and engine. Thus is our interest in SSME SSTO.

    The RL-60/MB-60 is a very credible upper stage engine niche between the RL-10 and J2-X or SSME, depending if you need ground start or air start. With the RL-60, there is almost no need at all for the J2-X at all anymore.

    This kind of spaceflight will break all existing rocketry records. For instance, one could ground start an SSME along with four RL-10s, and that alone is very nearly approaching SSTO performance, and the acceleration problem of the SSME is solved. However, a single RL-10 is not sufficient.

    We’ve already gamed most of this stuff out in Orbiter, it’s very simple.

    That we are not flying the Delta IV Medium now is a travesty.

  • Prof. Brainerd

    Addendum : Gravity assist is somewhat of a misnomer, you can trade altitude for velocity outside of the atmosphere, and then plan subsequent burns appropriately. I’m not sure what that maneuver is actually called. Low earth orbit launch occurs for the most part within the atmosphere, so as previously indicated, performance and final orbital parameters are traded for dynamic pressure, drag and thermal dissipation, and there is only one burn, although to limit final acceleration, multiple engines or deep throttling capabilities may be required. It all depends on what kinds of forces your payload, stack and engine can withstand. Since cryogenic hydrogen space flight offers the highest possible performance efficiency, these are the maximum forces achievable.

  • Gravity assist is somewhat of a misnomer

    It’s not a “misnomer.” It’s just one more indication that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

    Since cryogenic hydrogen space flight offers the highest possible performance efficiency, these are the maximum forces achievable.

    The only way in which hydrogen is “high performance efficiency” (whatever that means) is specific impulse. There are many other factors to launch system performance to consider (such as bulk density, for which hydrogen is about the worst possible propellant), and the last part of your statement is meaningless gibberish. The Delta continues to have serious upper-stage performance issues for a crewed mission.

  • Prof. Brainerd

    It’s not a “misnomer.” It’s just one more indication that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

    The Ariane V does it all the time, Rand, you can easily trade altitude for velocity for a subsequent burn, once you are out of the atmosphere, both drag and gravity losses are irrelevant. A booster headed for LEO is never really out of the atmosphere for the entire duration of the burn. It’s very clear to me, but I can’t understand how that can’t possibly be clear to you.

    For instance, one doesn’t do circularization burns at periapsis, particularly if periapsis happens to be still in the atmosphere or even at ground level.

    Have you ever flown Orbiter in your life? Do you understand the analytic complexities of launch profile optimization for even something as simple as low earth orbit transport? Try it, you might like it, it’s highly non trivial, but LEO spaceflight greatly simplifies something that is already very complex.

    There are many other factors to launch system performance to consider

    Of course there are, but for an existing launcher like the Delta IV Medium, the only factor to consider here is the thrust of the upper stage engine, everything else is already maxed out. Adding another RL-10 or replacing the RL-10 with an RL-60 adequately solves any Delta IV Medium problem you might encounter on the way to low Earth orbit, and you get the entire upper stage as a bonus on every flight. I don’t see anybody in the space transport industry addressing that fundamental truth. There are no conceivable performance issue for cryogenic space flight on existing launchers or using existing engines beside mass and acceleration which happens to be ‘force’ by the way, if you haven’t noticed.

    As long as mass and acceleration limits, and thus dynamic pressures, structural integrity, thermal heating and the desired orbital parameters, are not exceeded, for any conceivable hydrogen launcher, you’re going to orbit.

    Hydrogen is very specific that way. You do yourself and your comrades a disservice by lying about EELV black zones and the under powered nature of the Delta IV Medium in low Earth orbit applications, those are issues that has long ago been solved by straightforward means.

    Even the RL-10 will get you to orbit just fine in the existing launch vehicle. The problems only arise with grossly overweight vehicles like OSP and CEV.

  • Please educate me. I thought it was more efficient to use denser fuels for 1st stage and higher specific impulse (H2/O2) for upper stages. Isn’t this why Saturn V had kerosene in the S-IC & H2/O2 in the S-II & S-IVB, and the use of solids (or suggested RP-1 replacements) on the shuttle? Since H2 is so volume-handicapped, doesn’t the tankage start adding up to outweigh the Isp advantage? I thought this was why they spoke of slush H2 for VentureStar/X-33 and in part contributed to that program’s demise (since they couldn’t make the tanks to hold it).

    I guess this is why it always bothered me that the Delta IV was all H2/O2 (minus the tiny solid strap-ons, of course). Granted, it obviously flies, but are they paying a performance penalty hefting those huge H2 tanks from a standing start?

    I would be delighted with any and all’s insight here. Always preferred the pure orb mech to that darn rocket equation…

    Thanks.

  • Prof. Brainerd

    Please educate me.

    The issue has been discussed in great detail on the usenet and elsewhere, the these discussions are archived. You are free to educate yourself, it would be unproductive to repeat the various pro and con arguments here.

    Granted, it obviously flies, but are they paying a performance penalty hefting those huge H2 tanks from a standing start?

    We’re discussing a launch vehicle that already exists. However, notice that the Delta IV accommodates SRBs, and that boosters don’t always have to be solid fuel based, nor do they always have to be inline with the stack, In fact, I notice several COTS competitors right now developing boosters that are going to be hydrocarbon based. Flight optimization of launch vehicle architectures still in the design stage is an even more complicated task than mission specific flight profile optimization of boosters that already exist.

    The core of an Ariane V is very nearly stage and a half to low Earth orbit capable without any upper stage or payload at all. Even with all of the disadvantages of hydrogen, it is still in widespread use, which is evidence of its veracity. I don’t see that changing at all in the future, in fact, I think it will become the future fuel of choice from reusable engine considerations alone, as well as for national security and technological competitiveness. Other nations in the world seem to agree with this simple assessment.

    Of course, I could be wrong, but clearly the evidence is on my side so far. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out over the decades, but now with environmental and financial bankruptcy problems pending, we no longer have the luxury of decades to work out all the little details here.

    There are only a certain number and type of engines and architectures that can be pressed into immediate service to solve these problems which, admittedly, never should have existed, and only came into being in the last seven years or so. That puts a severe limit on the overall solution space.

    The fact that we have a working TSTO hydrogen powered vehicle with a decent payload capability to low earth orbit (the Delta IV Medium) puts us well ahead of the curve should be decide to go the distance and develop hydrogen powered SSTO core stages, that may or may not be booster enhanced, whether solid, liquid, reusable or not, some time in the future.

    I reiterate, we are not flying the underutilized boosters we have right now.

    I’m looking at the problems we will be facing in ten years, in addition to the severe problems, of our own making for the most part, we are facing now.

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