Wednesday’s hearing of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee on the planned reauthorization of NASA and the Vision for Space Exploration covered familiar ground: discussion of the Shuttle-Constellation gap, the belief that NASA is being asked to do too much for too little money, worries about being dependent on the Russians, and a little bit of concern about Chinese space developments. The only senators present were the chairman, Bill Nelson (D-FL), and the ranking member, David Vitter (R-LA), who had to leave for another event partway through the hearing.
The agency’s staunchest supporter at the hearing arguably was not either senator but instead former NASA flight director Gene Kranz. He spoke strongly in favor in NASA’s current approach to implementing the Vision, heaping praise on both it and the agency’s current leadership. “This is the best game plan that I have seen since the days of President Kennedy,” Kranz said of ESAS, comparing it to the DC-3 and the B-52. “The system that Griffin’s team is putting into place will be delivering for America 50 years later… so the message I would give to you and to the US Congress is to stay the course, stay on track.”
In one of the few questions Vitter was able to ask before leaving, he asked Kranz whether the future reauthorization bill should devote any language to studies of alternatives to ESAS, citing in particular the “Jupiter-120″, a shuttle-derived concept from the Direct proposal. Kranz rejected that suggestion. “I believe it’s important that we don’t waste too much time looking back,” he said. “I have personally been a victim, and I believe NASA has been a victim, of so many studies that seem to be never-ending that burn up the resources, delay the schedule, [and] disenchant the people who are executing them.”
Later, Robert Dickman, executive director of AIAA, offered another alternative to closing the gap involving EELV. “For less than the cost a single space shuttle mission, they could be human-qualified and… a relatively simple capsule to go to low Earth orbit could be built” for access to ISS, he suggested.
Nelson pushed back on this idea, seeing it as something of a threat to Constellation. “The question is, where are we going to get the money?” Nelson asked at one point.
“Chairman, I would simply say, the same question of where you going to get the money is the question if you try to accelerate Constellation,” Dickman responded. “It’s the same dollars, it’s just the question of whether you use it to accelerate Constellation or you keep Constellation on its current path and build something that has a unique capability to haul humans to station and back.”
“I am told that the cost estimates for human-rating of an EELV range from 500 million to a billion dollars. And under this funding profile, I just don’t know where we’re going to get that,” Nelson said.
Fortunately for Nelson, Kranz stepped in and described the cost in money and schedule he experienced man-rating the Atlas and Titan for the Mercury and Gemini programs. “I don’t see how this helps close the gap,” he concluded. “All I see it, again, is as a diversion from the basic plan that you’ve got. As I said, I think you’re building the DC-3 or the B-52 and this is the right plan.”
“The system that Griffin’s team is putting into place will be delivering for America 50 years later…”
What a depressing thought. Let’s hope he’s wrong.
Your concise yet skewed summary of the exchange about man rating an Atlas V omits two critical points. Dickman wants the cheap Atlas V and the Ares, Nelson was quite right to ask where the money would come from. Kranz added that the “relatively simple capsule” Dickman proposed would be far more expensive than man rating the launcher and would take far longer to develop. Kranz was also right about something else, all this sniping at the Ares architecture does nothing except undermine the whole program.
Comparing human rating an Atlas V to the original Atlas and Titan isn’t a useful comparison. The latter were converted ballistic missiles, whereas Atlas V was designed from scratch to be a reliable launch system. All that’s really required to human rate it is to add Failure On-Set Detection (FOSD), and ensure that its trajectory doesn’t create any blackout zones for aborts (which it has plenty of power and performance to do).
NASA’s bold future illuminated: a hearing with mostly just one senator (D-FL) seemingly biased against EELVs and a somewhat famous 74 year old retiree acting as a sock puppet for NASA.
At most the audio recording will still exist in 2058.
While I am sympathetic Mr. (Dr?) Krantz argument about studies versus execution, and have made the argument myself, I was never wild about the ESAS plan and it has become clear that the nation is not willing to fund it to the level required to make it succeed. I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable to have an opinion about the technical problems Ares-1 may have, but I am concerned. That said, I suspect that Mr. Krantz is correct about that adapting the EELVs will prove to be harder than we think today. I do think that is the way we should have gone, but I’m not so sure we should go that way today, especially since SpaceX is developing the same capability for ISS support. NASA might be better off giving SpaceX greater subsidies (and technical help if needed) to develop the Dragon for crew transport.
— Donald
“That said, I suspect that Mr. Krantz is correct about that adapting the EELVs will prove to be harder than we think today. I do think that is the way we should have gone, but I’m not so sure we should go that way today, especially since SpaceX is developing the same capability for ISS support.:
Those two points are mutually exclusive. It is as hard as developing a whole new rocket (Falcon 9). In fact, it is not hard at all, most of the ground work was done for OSP. Only thing left was the launch vehicle health monitoring system (LVHM)
As much as I respect Mr. Kranz, I have to agree with him. NASA is building the equivalent of the DC-3 or the B-52 but 60 and 80 years later in the 21st century.
“Kranz was also right about something else, all this sniping at the Ares architecture does nothing except undermine the whole program”
It isn’t ‘sniping” when the architecture is wrong
Mr Kranz (at most he has an honorary Doctorate or two) does hit the nail on the head. Of course we already have a “B-52″ of space – the Atlas and the Delta. Proven, known, supportable launch vehicles. Why should we develop another vehicle which, after many test flights, could approach that reliability? But might not.
Mr Kranz is dazzled by The Great New Project that will allow lots of enthusiastic young people to spend uncounted hours pushing the state of the art. He should read these words “Despite the constraints that the agency was under, prior to both accidents NASA appeared to be immersed in a culture of invincibility, in stark contradiction to post-accident reality.” Columbia accident investigation report, page 199, section 8.4, second paragraph.
Mr Kranz’s “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” approach to all problems is well known. An organization that he was a major contributor to has done great things but paid a great price.
With the passing of the Bush administration, this is an appropriate time to look at our options and decide on a preferred path. Putting all of our hope in a new program with unknown problems, while shutting down all options, is not a good idea.
cIclops: Dickman wants the cheap Atlas V and the Ares, Nelson was quite right to ask where the money would come from.
And that was what Gen. Dickman was trying to explain (not very effectively, it would seem): if NASA does get a windfall of an extra couple billion dollars (and good luck with that), you can either use that to accelerate Constellation to late 2013 or keep Constellation in 2015 and develop an EELV-based transportation system. If that EELV-based system can enter service prior to late 2013, you’ve managed to close the gap somewhat. (Dickman proposed this out of concerns that new vehicles and spacecraft under development as part of COTS may take longer to develop than anticipated, although at one point he suggested the capsule that could go on top of an EELV might be SpaceX’s Dragon; I’m not sure SpaceX would go for that.) It does raise a question, though, of what you do with such a system—or with Ares 1/Orion—once Constellation enters service, especially while waiting for Ares 5 and other key architecture elements to be developed.
As for the 50-year reference, Mike Griffin made similar comments in his January 2008 STA speech, citing the DC-3 and B-52 in particular, like Kranz (go to page 8).
The question I was answering was specifically about how to get utility out of ISS. My answer was that use of ISS is also linked to the issue of the Gap. We have chosen not to sustain use of the ISS, and hence we have not considered a transportation system that is intended to take humans to and from ISS – and nothing more ambitious than that. We are willing to wait until whenever Ares and Orion are available before we carry crews to ISS on our systems, and plan to stop doing that within the next ten years. A transportation system that meets the needs for ISS could be used well past the activation of the ARES-CEV configuration, and operated for much less than a system that is optimized for lunar exploration transportation. It might also open the ISS to commercialization. It would have nothing to do with Exploration – no contention for launch pads, processing, etc.
I don’t know what it would cost to human-rate any vehicle. It is certainly true that it can be made as hard and expensive as anyone chooses to make it. I also don’t know what it would cost to accelerate Ares-CEV. My instinct is that adapting a rocket that has been designed to be the most reliable expendable vehicle ever built and has flown many times, and taking basic designs that were proven in the Mercury/Gemini era and modernizing them into a larger, dockable capsule, or one that is being designed for just crew transport under the COTS program, would be easier than doing a major acceleration – but why not let independent parties do cost estimates?
I believe Exploration is extremely important – an imperative for mankind. I said so yesterday. It happens that I also think doing science in space is important, and that we shouldn’t walk away from our $100B investment in ISS without using it for as long as it is useful. The issue isn’t whether Constellation is the right architecture. It’s whether we want to sustain use of ISS, and if “yes” whether the Constellation transportation system is the best way to do that.
It may be that there will be no funds to do either. If there are additional funds, I’m simply suggesting that if use of ISS is important, and reducing the gap would be good, we should consider options other than acceleration. If the only thing that is important is Exploration, there’s no need to look further.
With all due respect to Gene Kranz, he was a flight director. He should not be claiming any expertise in the judgment of approachs for developing a new flight hardware architecture. He has not ever developed or designed any new space flight systems. He is wrong about the Ares architecture. The DIRECT (Jupiter-120) architecture is so much better than Ares I / V and should be adopted by NASA for the VSE as soon as possible.
Mr. Kranz seems to have two conflicting points of view there.
First he tells of how devastating a 6 year gap was to the agency in the 70’s, but then he also strongly backs the *only* solution which has a 6 year gap…
DIRECT has a two year gap and reduces development costs considerably by reducing the amount of costly engine, manufacturing and launch infrastructure elements to a bare minimum (re-cert the RS-68 for human use and modify an existing tanking structure) the Jupiter-120 could fly an Orion in 2012.
With spare cash and only a two year gap, we can actually afford to keep all of Kranz colleagues in work.
I guess Kranz has simply never read anything about Jupiter-120.
Ross.
PS – We have two new presentations hitting the website in the next day or so. They are currently available here:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=12379&mid=275653#M275653
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=12379&mid=275928#M275928
I have noticed that all the people who speak of dumping the current architecture and replacing it with something else have one thing in common: none of them seem to realize that Congress controls the purse strings. If the current architecture is thrown out, after we have spent years and billions of dollars on it, who honestly believes that Congress will cough up more money for an entirely new architecture?
When I listen to this kind of talk, I fear that the Moon-Mars Initiative will be redesigned, then redesigned again, then redesigned yet again, over and over again. Anyone who thinks that Congress will stand for this sort of nonsense is deluded. As Krantz said in the hearing, the space advocacy community needs to learn that there is no free ride.
Engineering realities are important, but they are irrelevant when set against political realities. If Columbus had not gotten his money from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, it would not have mattered at all what kind of ship he would have preferred to sail in.
J.B. I agree with you. The problem is, the political reality right now is that we’ll end up with Ares-1 and nothing else — no moon and no Mars. If that is so, I’d rather go with SpaceX’s Dragon or an EELV-launched solution for LEO access. The only potentially good side to going forward would be if Ares-1 were truly a lunar capable craft. Then, we would have it available if the political stars ever line up again. However, I do fear that we have wasted this once-in-a-lifetime political opportunity on an architecture that tries to carry too many astronauts, takes too long, and costs too much.
— Donald
When I listen to this kind of talk, I fear that the Moon-Mars Initiative will be redesigned, then redesigned again, then redesigned yet again, over and over again.
Welcome to a government space program. The only time that didn’t occur was Apollo, because the goal was important.
If you want to see serious progress in space, you’ll have to await private enterprise, and competition. Ten- and twenty-year plans will not get us there.
For the Moon and Mars, for a long time to come, the government is the only game in town. We might as well get used to it. Better by far to promote private enterprise where it can gain traction for the time being (i.e. routine low Earth orbit missions) and let the government do those things for which there is no immediate profit motive.
For the Moon and Mars, for a long time to come, the government is the only game in town.
For Mars, yes. For the moon, I disagree. There is a lot of private demand for moon trips. I think that it’s likely to be satisfied before NASA’s planned excursions there.
As for Mars, I’m indifferent. When we can afford it, we’ll do it. As long as our only means of getting into space is with throwaway launchers, we can’t afford it.
Jeff, I think a better title for this thread would have been
Former NASA Administrator, Krantz says ‘NASA should get off their butts’,
That was something he almost was saying under his breath at the end. I had to agree with him there. Krantz seems to think that unless we speed forward with this a new adminstration could change it to some new system, with a few more years of study and then a small start at it, a new adminstration comes in and that one gets scrapped.
By stating for the “next 50 years” he is trying to eliminate the discussion on everything and the only discussion congress really needs to decide is the spending pace because everything else has been decided, no more studies, no more alternatives, we got our foot in the door to the moon so shut up and lets go before any spoiler can enter.
Kranz, not krantz… sheesh seen the name for 30 years and spell it wrong.
Rand, did you see this?
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12201#toc
Interm Report
Committee on Science Opportunities Enabled by NASA’s Constellation System, National Research Council
Big Booster (ARES V) means big science.
Does anyone think that Bigelow Aerospace, Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services and United Launch Alliance are spending $500M to $1B to human rate an Atlas? That kind of investment wouldn’t seem to make sense for a commercial venture. And I doubt that Lockheed and United Launch Alliance would cut corners and accept undue risk to fly passengers commercially. But still they’re pursuing it.
Even a guy that made his fortune building hotels for a living can figure out what’s the safest launch vehicle out there.
Some inside NASA (with help from their Aerospace Industry lobbyists) are now trying to discredit Dickman for his “blasphemous” comments. They are going so far as to suggest that he be removed from his position in AIAA. They are also suggesting that NASA withdraw Papers from all upcoming AIAA Conferences.
NASA is trying to purge all dissent.
A couple thoughts/observations here:
–Not being an engineer, I have no idea what specifically goes into “human rating” a rocket vehicle. I gather that it means more bells and whistles to ensure safety. This adds more complexity and more weight, improving one aspect of the rocket while making it worse elsewhere. It does seem to be a club for silencing fans of EELV.
–The EELV fans and “Direct” fans have boldly declared that 1) Ares will not work, 2) their approach is better, and 3) their approach would not have the same problems in development. On point 3, they are correct; their rockets would have different problems. On point 2, I will remain agnostic. On point 1, however, I think you folks need to back off a bit and give Ares a chance to fly. The first opportunity is Ares I-X, now scheduled for spring 2009. After that, there’s a three-year gap–plenty of time to pile on.
–To echo what someone wrote earlier, Congress does not like changing horses mid-stream unless there’s a d@mn good reason. Serious problems with Ares I-X might qualify as “serious problems,” but that’s a discussion Congress won’t have until after it flies. And more to the point, scrapping Ares completely and going with EELV or Direct will mean additional design and development time, extending the gap further. One engineering axiom I’m familiar with is that “Everything takes longer and costs more.” On new development programs, that would appear to be the rule rather than the exception.
I love a good NASA-bashing session as much as the next armchair rocketeer, but really, folks: they’re building something, and they’re going through with flying it. That’s a big step over X-33, NASP, SLI, OSP, NGLT, or any of the other paper rockets that have come out of the agency in the last ten years. At least give them a chance.
I do not believe NASA has spent ANY significant sums on ESAS that would be “wasted” with a switch to DIRECT.
J2X? Needed eventually anyway
5 segment? Not “needed” but could be used.
Orion capsule? DIRECT uses the exact same capsule ESAS would use (except perhaps with enhancements because of greater margins).
Future savings (2009 – 2012) should also easily eclipse what has been spent to date.
Watch the presentation Ross posted. It is very clear and, well, direct.
I love a good NASA-bashing session as much as the next armchair rocketeer, but really, folks: they’re building something, and they’re going through with flying it. That’s a big step over X-33, NASP, SLI, OSP, NGLT, or any of the other paper rockets that have come out of the agency in the last ten years. At least give them a chance.
ESAS is what bashes a 20+ year NASA legacy not DIRECT.
Most of the Jupiter 120 system is currently operational today. It is called the shuttle stack. Why build altogether new rocket with new problems (thrust oscillation) when minor tweaks to a proven system is:
(a) cheaper;
(b) FAR more capable;
(c) eliminates the work force gap (first Jupiter 120 test flight BEFORE final orbiter flight); and
(d) mostly eliminates the human spaceflight gap.
Fly an Apollo 8 class mission by 2013? 3 years before Ares 1 can reach ISS? Why is this even a close decision?
I agree with Gene Kranz on the dangers of switching horses mid-stream. The only problem is that he is looking at the wrong horse. The horse we are on right now is the STS and the Jupiter-120 is a DIRECT extension of that system. That is how Jupiter-120 saves 5 billion dollars and can be operational three years ahead Ares-I because we had a twenty year head start. The net result is that over 85% of the hardware, manufacturing, integration, and launch infrastructure is already in place for the Jupiter-120 today.
It is really surprising to me that Gene Kranz doesn’t see how the Ares-I will destroy America’s second Heavy Lift system infrastructure and workforce. The pain his generation suffered when we destroyed our first HLV is exactly why the VSE authorization language specifically directed NASA to ‘maximize’ the use of the STS which the Ares-I doesn’t do. We even incorporate one of the most expensive components of EELV’s so the Jupiter-120 is really a hybrid of the STS and EELV systems.
It’s a real twist in logic to think that an approach advocated by NASA for twenty years, up until Mike took over, that gets us back to the Moon sooner while saving more NASA jobs and money is somehow a step backwards and not a NASA idea start to finish.
Just today, Orion Preliminary Design Review (PDR) slipped, again, to late November 2008. That’s a total six-month slip from the original March 2008 milestone, just for PDR. See:
nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5419
nasawatch.com/archives/2008/05/orion_pdr_slip.html
Reason? Orion is (surprise!) still overweight, by at least 1,000 lbs. See:
blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/2008/05/nasa-considers.html
nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5401
I hate to criticize a legend like Kranz, but he’s out of touch. It’s been three years since ESAS, and Constellation can’t even get the ESAS Earth-to-orbit elements (Ares I/Orion) to work on paper, forget bending metal on those elements or starting serious design work on the lunar elements (Ares V/EDS/Altair). Ares I/Orion are now highly likely to not even pass a lousy PDR before the next President is in office. What an incredible waste of the political opportunity afforded by the Bush Administration to NASA to get an actual human space exploration effort restarted.
Clinton, McCain, and Obama have all made statements that could lead to the deferment or termination of Constellation’s lunar elements (Ares V/EDS/Altair). We now have at least a six-year gap in U.S. civil human space flight capabilities and that gap is still growing. Soyuz, the world’s only post-Shuttle system for transporting astronauts to the ISS, has experienced two recent partial failure during reentry.
It’s far, far past time to start pursuing alternatives for U.S. civil human space flight access. General Dickman’s EELV recommendation (whether Orion on a human-rated Atlas 5H2 or a smaller CTV-like capsule on an Atlas 402 or other single-stick EELV), DIRECT/Jupiter 120, or a Falcon 9/Dragon acceleration will all take less time, less money, be more safe, and be more capable than Ares I/Orion. Let’s conduct an independent, non-advocate study (unlike ESAS), get it externally checked (unlike ESAS), and get on with it before it’s too late. It’s disingenious and self-serving of Senator Nelson to suggest that such an path forward cannot be afforded in this time of burgeoning need when Nelson spends so much of the same hearing taking about an extra Shuttle flight for AMS (a half-billion dollar pricetag, at least) and additional funding for an imaginary 2013 Ares I/Orion acceleration (touted as $2 billion but actually several billion dollars, at least).
Most importantly, these alternatives are workable systems that don’t put two completely new, multi-year engine developments in the critical path, suffer from uncharacterized acoustic issues, or work at the ragged edge of mass margins and safety systems. Regardless of where it comes from, NASA has to obtain a working human ETO system without having it consume so much of the agency’s money, time, and effort. Execute on ETO, and the nation’s political leadership can at least entertain the possibility of pursuing more ambitious human space exploration and development goals. Continue to fumble the ETO ball, and NASA’s human space flight programs will never move forward.
My 2 cents… FWIW.
Gene Kranz is absolutely right. He may not be an engineer, but he knows what he is talking about and he knows if we don’t focus our efforts and resources, we will certainly fail.
Every dollar we put toward attempting to man rate the EELV or proceeding down the road with the Jupiter 120 or a similar diversion puts us further behind not just in getting American’s back into space on an American vehicle but also with moving forward in the human exploration of the solar system. The Congressional/political opposition to the ESAS or the Vision for Space Exploration doesn’t care about the type of booster we use — they oppose money spend for manned space exploration in any form. They will simply use any changes or set backs in the Constellation program as an opportunity to further reduce the NASA Budget and slash the manned program. Barack Obama wants to postpone (read KILL) the Constellation program for five years to pay for his education initiative. You can take it to the back that if he is elected President and the Congress permits him to do that, there will be no more manned space program in the US for as long as he is President.
It is clearly a waste of breath (ink? electrons?) to urge supporters of manned space exploration to unite behind the Constellation program. But watching the space advocacy community self-destruct this program is, in my view, a profound tragedy for America and possibly for the human race.
he knows what he is talking about and he knows if we don’t focus our efforts and resources, we will certainly fail.
He doesn’t seem to know that if we focus our efforts and resources on a poor concept and a lost cause, we will be even more likely to fail.
It is clearly a waste of breath (ink? electrons?) to urge supporters of manned space exploration to unite behind the Constellation program. But watching the space advocacy community self-destruct this program is, in my view, a profound tragedy for America and possibly for the human race.
Ares I and Orion are a tragedy for America and the human race. If you can’t understand that simplest truth, there is no sense for space advocates to waste their valuable time trying to explain it to you over and over again.
You are quite simply, not a credible space advocate. The space advocacy is not self destructing, it’s rallying together to kill an idiotic launcher design.
Better late than never.
stargazer: I am torn because I agree both with you and, increasingly, with the critics of ESAS. In particular, I agree with you that political viability is more important than technical perfection, that “starting over” is even more likely to fail politically than continuing ESAS, and that ESAS probably can be made to work on a purely technical level. However, I also agree with those that claim that ESAS was a political mistake — it costs too much, especially for the limited capability, and it takes far, far too long to produce measurable results — and is looking increasingly like it may have been a technical mistake, as well.
My personal solution, as if anyone in the wider world cares, is that I will support ESAS continuing as long as it remains “the law of the land,” while fully expecting it to fail politically, and possibly technically. I have written no published articles arguing against continuing ESAS, though I have argued that the EELVs would have been smarter. If ESAS fails, it won’t require any help from me! I sincerely hope that I am proven wrong regarding the viability of ESAS, but, unfortunately, that is not where what I consider the objective evidence is leading me.
— Donald
.
“He doesn’t seem to know that if we focus our efforts and resources on a poor concept and a lost cause, we will be even more likely to fail.”
Rand: Your comment, of course, presumes you are correct that Ares is a lost cause and likely to fail. That is where the disagreement lies. Ares has not been shown to be a failure — even though there are many who are eager to draw that conclusion. There is no reason to think that NASA Administrator Griffin — bright fellow that he is — would advocate or cling to a booster strategy that he knew was failing or would fail. They are working the technical issues and we need to give them the time to make it work. I remind all the “Direct” and EELV advocates that unforseen technical issues will arise regardless of which booster strategy was/is selected. Resolving them will cost money, time and patience — all items in short supply.
“Ares I and Orion are a tragedy for America and the human race. If you can’t understand that simplest truth, there is no sense for space advocates to waste their valuable time trying to explain it to you over and over again.
You are quite simply, not a credible space advocate. The space advocacy is not self destructing, it’s rallying together to kill an idiotic launcher design.”
Spacer Orama: I’m not sure who died and made you king, but I am sure that you don’t get to decide who is, or is not, a “credible space advocate.” However you did, albeit inadvertently, confirm my statement that it is a waste of breath to attempt to urge members of the space advocacy community to pull together on any technology approach to manned space exploration. If ESAS is killed, it is unlikely that there will be a successor technology that has any objective beyond low earth orbit — and probably not even that. We die by our own hand.
“I am torn because I agree both with you and, increasingly, with the critics of ESAS. In particular, I agree with you that political viability is more important than technical perfection, that “starting over†is even more likely to fail politically than continuing ESAS, and that ESAS probably can be made to work on a purely technical level.However, I also agree with those that claim that ESAS was a political mistake — it costs too much, especially for the limited capability, and it takes far, far too long to produce measurable results — and is looking increasingly like it may have been a technical mistake, as well.”
Donald: I appreciate your dilemma. However I would suggest to you that any approach will have legions of critics — too big, too small, wrong technology, too ambitious, too far a technological reach, not enough of a reach, wrong goals, and the old favorite “its a waste of money.” And that is before we even begin to run into the inevitable technology problems, delays, and unintended consequences. My point is that to have any chance of achieving this, or any program, we have to settle on technology and goals and then drive like “heck(?)” to achieve them. People need to suck up their dissent or the political process — seeing the division — will simply pull the plug and spend the money elsewhere. Maybe EELV would have been a better choice — maybe not — but one thing we can be sure of is that it was not the choice they made. They need and deserve a chance to make this work. We will never succeed if we continually seek to overturn the most fundamental technological and policy objectives of the ESAS/Vision. That is why the opponents of manned space exploration are so pleased at the endless feuding over these issues.
I remind all the “Direct†and EELV advocates that unforseen technical issues will arise regardless of which booster strategy was/is selected.
The technical issues they’re running into were entirely foreseeable, and yet they didn’t foresee them, which reduces confidence in their ability to resolve them. Not all development programs are created equal. Yes, every program will have teething problems, but there are some designs that simply don’t make sense, and end up being unviable, regardless of how much money and time is thrown at them, and even if they can be completed with some arbitrarily high budget and long schedule, public patience is bound to run out.
Add to this the fact (or at least what will be the strong opinion of many) that the system isn’t worth the money even if it were on budget and on schedule (many tens of billions of dollars for a system that will deliver a couple crews to the moon per year, at a cost of billions per flight), and it simply makes no sense. It doesn’t meet the Aldridge goals of supporting either national security or supporting private enterprise, and it’s not sustainable, any more than Apollo was.
Better that it die now, before we waste too much more national treasure and time on it, than later, after it has completely and finally destroyed NASA’s credibility. Now, I’m not a big NASA fan, at least when it comes to human spaceflight, so that wouldn’t bother me so much, but it should concern you.
Your comment, of course, presumes you are correct that Ares is a lost cause and likely to fail.
Depending on how you define failure, it has failed already in several ways. Its premise itself is a failure, the fact that the most optimistic timeline for getting it operational makes everyone yawn is a failure. The very fact that there is a serious debate and doubts ( okay, internet debate ) about its technical feasibility makes it a failure.
There is no such thing as “human rating” a launch vehicle (not yet anyway). However, I can see the point in diverting attention from a Shuttle derived system (which was stupid to begin with) to the EELV, which I think should have been done in the late 1990s.
The U.S. Government and folks stuck inside boxes are always Johnny Come Latelys that bitch when things go awry. One way or another, this VSE is a debacle waiting to happen.
Well the loons have really come out today.
It now seems that the rocket model guy named “Kraisee” is convinced that Dennis Wingo’s postings on Shuttle C are, in reality, some sort of stalking horse whose real intent is to discredit the whole SDLV notion such that only EELVs are left as an option (once ESAS collapses I guess). see http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=12897&mid=276420#M276420
“NOW I believe we finally get to the root of your effort – at last.
I surmise that this effort is to push EELV, with Shuttle-C purely as a political lever to get there. The fact that the Shuttle-C effort will not fly often and will be even more expensive than Shuttle because of that low flight rate is, I think a ‘feature’ of your plan – to make the SDLV option un-affordable so it gets canceled in favor of the EELV’s.
I’ve suspected this for a while, but I haven’t been convinced until just now.”
Stick to making little plastic rocket models, Kraisee – you are not ready to tackle Machiavelli logic just yet.
I’m not sure who died and made you king,
Wehrner von Braun and Krafft Ehricke, by the looks of it.
but I am sure that you don’t get to decide who is, or is not, a “credible space advocate.â€
Sure I do. Support for VSE, ESAS, Orion and the Ares I is the criteria for seperating the true space activists and the outright cranks and nutjobs.
It’s that bad.
However you did, albeit inadvertently, confirm my statement that it is a waste of breath to attempt to urge members of the space advocacy community to pull together on any technology approach to manned space exploration. If ESAS is killed, it is unlikely that there will be a successor technology that has any objective beyond low earth orbit — and probably not even that. We die by our own hand.
Yeah yeah, we’ve heard it all before, the world is flat, man will never fly, global warming is a socialist hoax. Do your realize how idiotic your logic is?
Nobody dies. The rocket will never fly. It’s utterly and completely pathetic.
any serious space advocate should be technology agnostic, certainly in this century, because obviously out of gazillion possible technologies that have been thought of for spaceflight, only relatively few have been tried and then under piss poor policy conditions.
ESAS is a failure because it prescribes a specific technology approach, and arguably a very poor one too.
I find it interesting that here on this thread that General Dickman has been threatened for his speaking out about the unneeded gap in human spaceflight.
Some inside NASA (with help from their Aerospace Industry lobbyists) are now trying to discredit Dickman for his “blasphemous†comments. They are going so far as to suggest that he be removed from his position in AIAA. They are also suggesting that NASA withdraw Papers from all upcoming AIAA Conferences.
General Dickman I would recommend sticking to your guns and to dare NASA to do their worst. You have a two star general’s retirement and so your livelyhood is not threatened. If NASA Insider is correct then Mike Griffin will also try and have you removed as the head of the AIAA. This is when we as as engineers need to illuminate the Ares 1 system as the fraud that it is.
Dr. Griffin is attempting to destroy both the space shuttle as a system as well as the ISS as he feels that it is the only way to get the Ares system funded. This is even though NASA’s own numbers indicate that Ares 1 is currently unable to loft the Orion capsule to ISS much less to anywhere else, and that the Ares 5 is several tons short of its required TLI capability. The changes that NASA has introduced lately that still do not meet this capability require the abandonment of everything that they are currently building for the Ares 1, which was their stated reason for building the 1 in the first place, which was to reduce the Ares 5 development costs.
Open warfare may result but the nation cannot allow this opportunity for opening the space frontier to be lost to one man’s ego. When the attack is underway, demand the cost numbers for the modified Ares 5. It will be found that it is up to ten billion dollars more than Dr. Griffin is currently telling congress. Look for the upcoming cost increases for the Orion vehicle (a six month slip in the PDR will cost several hundred million dollars alone) and for all of the changes to the Ares 1 to mitigate the thrust oscillations.
If war is what Dr. Griffin wants, and this warning to General Dickman is just the first salvo (ask Lockheed Martin what was threatened if they did not pull their JPC papers on EELV human rating a couple of years ago) of a battle for the heart and soul of the American space program. If Griffin wins, we all lose.
I find it funny that Cowing discredits “Direct” months ago, stating that there is no chance of it being adopted yet he publishes articles about Shuttle-C, which have the same chance of being adopted. I see I a little favoritism here.
Dear “Me” I posted links to Direct articles well before others did – and before I linked to Shuttle-C articles. Check your facts next time.
It is interesting that Senator Nelson had the EELV human rating numbers off the top of his head and that they are considerably less than what many people, including NASA has reported.
The proper response to Senator Nelson is you can either find the money to human rate the EELV or find the money for the overruns that are already happening with Orion because it is forced to fly on an underpowered launch vehicle with a dangerous dynamic load environment due to the thrust oscillations of the first stage.
The man makes a good point about the constant redesign effort that plagued Freedom/ISS so much. You got too many people with ideas out there. And given the parameters rocket engineers have to work with now ESAS isn’t so bad. None of the alternatives will offer an order of magnitude improvement in terms of costs/achievements.
CONCERNED NASA OBSERVER: General Dickman I would recommend sticking to your guns and to dare NASA to do their worst. You have a two star general’s retirement and so your livelyhood is not threatened.
General Dickman,
I totally agree with this sentiment.
Thank you for having the courage of your convictions, and standing up in public to say “The Emperor has no clothes.” The AIAA’s credibility has gone up in my eyes.
Griffin will be gone soon. Everybody knows this, and his power and influence is rapidly declining.
The ESAS architecture will be gone soon thereafter, and this is the time for good people to stand up and start talking about, discussing, and debating alternatives. Our national space agenda is not served by ignoring reality — ESAS is a dead man walking.
The AIAA can do us all a favor by continuing to start the conversation about what do we do after the next Administration cancels ESAS.
– Al
“Politics is not rocket science, which is why rocket scientists do not understand politics.”
You got too many people with ideas out there.
Imagine that. People … with ideas.
We can’t have that at NASA or the AIAA. It’s a good thing that Michael Griffin came along and rid us of that problem.
And given the parameters rocket engineers have to work with now ESAS isn’t so bad. None of the alternatives will offer an order of magnitude improvement in terms of costs/achievements.
On the face of it, that’s nonsense. We have 14 SSMEs and two EELVs that are flying now, require no development costs, and will continue flying well into the future. ESAS and the Stick were non starters three years ago.
Please do try to keep up. The Michael Griffin Stick Era is over in all aspects except the decommissioning process. What most of us are interested in, will it be a scorched Earth policy against all dissent, or will they go quietly.
It’s been going on for a while but it’s still a bit perplexing to see some people so adamantly in favor of Ares I yet none of them ever go into detail on what the potential benefits of Ares I are compared to other approaches. There doesn’t seem to be any at all but if there are I’d like to know about them.
Including Griffin himself I haven’t seen or heard a single person who can at this stage point out the benefits, instead it’s the regurgitation of aims long since lost to technical and bureaucratic difficulties or outright impossibilities and/or misguided loyalty to NASA’s ESAS that hamstrings NASA and precludes it from having anything but an even more dismal future.
The Ares I defenders should consider this a challenge and tell the rest of us what precisely they’re defending.
The defense of Ares I was as a prelude to Ares 5, and the rationale for Ares 5 is Mars.
As I understand it, within the parameters of chemical rocketry today you can only justify human spaceflight in terms of the prestige factor and very audacious scientific goals such as looking for life on Mars. Anything more requires at least an order of magnitude improvement in launch costs (efforts at which have failed with Shuttle and X-33). Direct or Shuttle-C won’t solve that.
So it makes sense to do it the ESAS way by putting all kinds of things in place for Mars (long-term tech, Orion, Ares 1/5) and the industrial base back on Earth supporting it. I think it’s very efficient for Mars purposes, without having to ask for a direct goal-statement from a president.
The defense of Ares I was as a prelude to Ares 5, and the rationale for Ares 5 is Mars.
As I understand it, within the parameters of chemical rocketry today you can only justify human spaceflight in terms of the prestige factor and very audacious scientific goals such as looking for life on Mars. Anything more requires at least an order of magnitude improvement in launch costs (efforts at which have failed with Shuttle and X-33). Direct or Shuttle-C won’t solve that.
So it makes sense to do it the ESAS way by putting all kinds of things in place for Mars (long-term tech, Orion, Ares 1/5) and the industrial base back on Earth supporting it. I think it’s very efficient for Mars purposes, without having to ask for a direct goal-statement from a president.
I believe this is EXACTLY right concerning the motivations behind ESAS.
But riddle me this . . .
In a democratic Republic (such as the United States) who decides whether the factual assumptions which underlie this viewpoint are accurate and who decides what larger objectives NASA should be aimed at?
If the 4 segment + air-start SSME Ares 1 had worked, Griffin very well may have gotten his Mars-ship before anyone knew otherwise.
= = =
IMHO, the $64 billion question is this: Are there any economic benefits to be found on the Moon? If yes, we need to do the Moon first. If no, touch and go for Mars.
The defense of Ares I was as a prelude to Ares 5, and the rationale for Ares 5 is Mars.
So what’s on Mars, besides a bunch of salty and acidic rocks in a very steep gravity well? We’ll probably have more definitive answers to life on Mars in the next few years anyways. Even worse than the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) of the 80’s and 90’s, they again grossly underestimated the technical difficulties and financial costs of such an ADVENTURE (and surely it’s not even exploration), they so horribly botched the architecture that suddenly it was a jaunt to the moon, we certainly can’t afford a lunar base yet, and now it’s degenerating into Ares I to the ISS. And you support it.
Again, if you can’t see the folly of this yet after three full years, you won’t.
One word : liquids.
Thanks for trying Spector but that’s not a defense for Ares I and it doesn’t point out any benefits of Ares I compared to the alternatives.
Ignoring personal disagreement it could be construed as a defense for the VSE but it’s no defense at all for ESAS (including Ares V) over the alternative vehicles and approaches to fulfilling the VSE.
Keith Wrote: Dear “Me†I posted links to Direct articles well before others did – and before I linked to Shuttle-C articles. Check your facts next time.
Actually Keith, you have never posted anything on DIRECT specifically or our more recent work as represented in the AIAA 2007 paper. This might be the first AIAA paper to be specifically referred to in a House Hearing Charter. We have now had two Congressional hearings in row that our work was reference and I think this will continue based on what I know. That should count for something. I think with all the Shuttle-C stuff you might at least post something.
http://www.directlauncher.com/
Regarding the issue of “human rating” the EELVs: I know nothing about the Atlas, but a co-worker of mine was deeply involved in the analysis, design, and testing of several flight-critical systems for Delta IV (and ISS before that), and he recoils in horror whenever somebody talks of “human rating” that rocket.
Rand’s comment: “As for Mars, I’m indifferent. When we can afford it, we’ll do it. As long as our only means of getting into space is with throwaway launchers, we can’t afford it.”
Totally agree. Sending humans to Mars with chemical rockets, especially throwaway chemical rockets, is foolishness and tax dollar waste of the highest order…
Here’s another bit of hilarity from one of the Direct cult members Ross aka “Kraisee” (the guy who sells toy rocket models). This is so utterly – and demonstrably false it is hilarious. Keep up the good work!
Posted 21/3/2008 11:55 PM (#259771 – in reply to #259638)
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=12379&posts=302&start=1
“When the VSE was announced O’Keefe wanted to abandon the STS infrastructure to remove development costs. This was not popular in Washington. O’Keefe left NASA. There are no coincidences.”
Why don’t you respond to him over there instead?
Regarding the issue of “human rating†the EELVs: I know nothing about the Atlas, but a co-worker of mine was deeply involved in the analysis, design, and testing of several flight-critical systems for Delta IV (and ISS before that), and he recoils in horror whenever somebody talks of “human rating†that rocket.
Yes, Delta has some problems in that regard (particularly an underpowered second stage that creates blackout zones for abort) that Atlas does not.
Mars is not something to be indifferent about. It holds the answers to two very big questions: ‘was there ever life there’ and ‘will there be life there’?
An adventure, maybe, but one damn worth one. How long ago was it that you felt alive, rocketperson?
Mars is not something to be indifferent about. It holds the answers to two very big questions: ‘was there ever life there’ and ‘will there be life there’?
That’s nice. I don’t think them big enough to spend hundreds of billions on when, by waiting a couple decades, we may be able to answer them for orders of magnitude less.
An adventure, maybe, but one damn worth one. How long ago was it that you felt alive, rocketperson?
I feel alive every day, thanks. Do you have any other stupid questions?
You don’t have to answer that–it was a rhetorical question. I’m sure that you do.
That’s nice. I don’t think them big enough to spend hundreds of billions on when, by waiting a couple decades, we may be able to answer them for orders of magnitude less.
I am in 100% agreement with Rand on this one. JPL is blowing billions of dollars on rovers for this enterprise when the Moon is far more important in the near and mid term. How many billions in overruns more do we have to tolerate from those guys?
Anyone see the news reports that the Russians are increasing production of RD-180s for Atlas? Must be for Bigelow. It’s a great thing that the commmercial sector will probably beat NASA/Ares into LEO long before NASA ever gets that POS Ares flying.
I hope they invite Griffin and Doc to view the first launch!
Keith just has a personal grievance with us. His personal preferences and ours are in direct opposition and he has made it one of his goals in life to just say nasty things about us.
I just don’t have time for that.
I’m far more interested in discussing the future of the US space program and trying to solve what I see as a looming debacle surrounding Ares at the moment. We have only two years before we retire Shuttle, and less than that before we lose key parts of the infrastructure and begin the brain-drain again – just as we did after Apollo. Those are my concerns.
Ross.
We have only two years before we retire Shuttle, and less than that before we lose key parts of the infrastructure and begin the brain-drain again – just as we did after Apollo.
Ross, both the SRBs and RS-68s are still in production. Your concerns are baseless, nothing is preventing you from building your beloved rocket at any time in the future. Just don’t expect US taxpayers to foot the bill, that’s all.
You don’t have any problems. US SSME guys got problems. Chill, dude.
Keith just has a personal grievance with us. His personal preferences and ours are in direct opposition and he has made it one of his goals in life to just say nasty things about us.
You know Ross I have known Keith for a long time and I can state without any reservations that making a statement that he has a personal grievance with you or your team is just silly. There are a lot of us, including many people who work in the business who think that your team exclaiming that the DIRECT solution is the only ballgame in town to save NASA from itself is mildly annoying to a lot of folks.
You have attacked every solution that varies from your one great plan and exhibits the same attributes that you decry in the current administrator.
“Keith just has a personal grievance with us. His personal preferences and ours are in direct opposition and he has made it one of his goals in life to just say nasty things about us.”
You folks have a penchant for grossly exaggerating your importance in the grand scheme of things – certainly with regard to me making you and your little cult “one of my goals in life”. Get a grip, dude.
Whatever value your Direct idea has been eclipsed by your odd persistence that you – and only you – have the solution to America’s space program.
This is especially odd to many of the people you have pushed your ideas at given that you are a British citizen who sells toy rocket models – someone who uses a stylized icon of Werner von Braun (instead of a picture of yourself) on the Direct website …. see http://www.launchcomplexmodels.com/Direct/media/images/ross.jpg
The only names ever associated with this proposal include you (UK model maker), 2 software/graphic guys, a Portuguese citizen who makes computer simulators – and only one person who even comes close to being an actual rocket scientist.
Where are all the other people who do the analytical and design work for the pretty pictures? Their complete absence from any mention in your propaganda materials is comical and totally undermines its credibility.
I will start taking you guys seriously when you earn some credibility.
And oh yes: getting mentioned in a congressional hearing is no big deal. My name/website has been mentioned a dozen times or more in hearings over the past decade. I have been asked to submit testimony. Yawn. So what? Everyone/everything gets mentioned in hearings – eventually. Indeed, a few weeks back a veteran House member was asking about anti-gravity research at NASA. Half the time the members just read what their staff puts in front of them – as was the case with Sen. Vitter.
Names, Ross. We need names of real rocket scientists – not model makers and graphic artists.
On page 6 of your AIAA paper it says
“-Dr. Michael D. Griffin, NASA Administrator May 3, 2005 (Interview with SpaceRef) “As NASA Administrator, I already own a Heavy Lifter (in) the Space Shuttle stack. I will not give that up lightly and, in fact, can’t responsibly do so because any other solution for getting 100 tons into orbit is going to be more expensive than efficiently utilizing what we already own.”
First of all you clearly did not understand what this SpaceRef posting was. I did not conduct an “interview” with Griffin. I was one of a number of people who asked him a question in a public forum. This is a transcript of his public comments at a WIA breakfast. Indeed, the item http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=16514 is clearly titled “Transcript of Remarks by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin at a Women in Aerospace Breakfast 3 May 2005″.
Not only did you not understand the context wherein Griffin was quoted, you altered what Griffin actually said and then did not provide your readers with the actual source of the article as a reference or to allow them to see where he said these things i.e. the context.
He was talking about EELVs and said “I think it would be a problem if that were the only launch option available to the Nation. The President’s space policy directs the DOD and NASA to work together to advance architectures for space lift, with a preference, but not a requirement, for EELV. The reason for the preference is obvious, because you’ve already got developed systems.
On the NASA side, we have the obligation to come forward to the leadership with our view of the launch architecture as well and our requirements. Now, our requirements are going to be in the range of several tens of metric tons for the new crew exploration vehicle, and notionally, a hundred metric tons for heavy lift requirements to return to the moon. Those are the requirements.
I personally don’t care how they get met, you know. If I could be Tinkerbell and wave the wand, that’d be fine, too. NASA should be, needs to be about more than just getting up the first hundred miles. We’ve spent far too long trying to overcome that problem.”
You just picked out some words spoken by someone else, and reorganized them to make a point you want to make while ignoring other words that person spoke – words that might call your point into question.
What else have you garbled or omitted reference to?
Ross,
I’m far more interested in discussing the future of the US space program and trying to solve what I see as a looming debacle surrounding Ares at the moment. We have only two years before we retire Shuttle, and less than that before we lose key parts of the infrastructure and begin the brain-drain again – just as we did after Apollo. Those are my concerns.
I second that. And add to it the high probability that the next administration will be in a budget environment where money for experimental programs like COTS or a crash replacement to Ares I/CEV will be hard to find. It time for the community to stop the useless debates on Moon/Mars, New Space/Old Space, government/private and develop a unified strategy for opening the space frontier.
Perhaps its time for another space summit among the various space advocate leaders. One that addresses the issues pointed out in the Foust/Miller articles, the coming spaceflight gap, and the return of the Russian bear.
“It time for the community to stop the useless debates on Moon/Mars, New Space/Old Space, government/private and develop a unified strategy for opening the space frontier.”
Wow, on guy says there are ‘too many people with ideas’ and another says ‘let’s end this useless debate’. Is this the new space program? Let me try to expain it to you as gently as I can, as long as there are giant liquid powered two stage to orbit launch vehicles sitting on the pad unused, true space enthusiasts, advocates, activists and industry workers (not including you, of course) will debate the ridiculous waste of time, money and resources being foisted at an untenable launch vehicle design, and develop ideas in which to stop that waste, and begin to move forward again. There is no one true way. There are two ways at least, ready to go, sitting on the pads. There are several other very simple ways to use shuttle hardware without having to invoke Ares or Direct. The shuttle is flying right now. Whole nations are throwing resources at the problem, some unfriendly.
We are in the Wright Flyer era of space flight, and you are demanding all aircraft must be the same.
Louis Blériot would disagree.
Obaminator,
Only an engineer would think that an unified strategy means a single launch system. A unified strategy may just as well result in creating a space policy that enables multiple solutions to be found. The Unified part comes from the space advocate groups working together for funding, not just promoting their own favorite rocket design, and to presenting a united front on space policy.
Only an engineer would think that an unified strategy means a single launch system.
Yup. We need an robust infrastructure, with redundant affordable means of accomplishing the missions, not a single approach.
Only an engineer would think that an unified strategy means a single launch system.
Actually, a mathematician and physicist would think that as well. The Russians seem to think that is an adequate defininition of unified launch vehicle too.
A unified strategy may just as well result in creating a space policy that enables multiple solutions to be found. The Unified part comes from the space advocate groups working together for funding, not just promoting their own favorite rocket design, and to presenting a united front on space policy.
An mathematician, physicist and engineer would think of the individual components of your ‘unified space policy’, which by your definition means individual launch systems. A really smart and clever mathematician, physicist and engineer, who seems to be in somewhat of a hurry and strapped for cash, would look around and identify components that can be immediately pressed into service in an elegant and simple manner, circumventing a whole spectrum of possible financial and physical setbacks in the process of fielding a workable ‘system’ in a hurry. This particular mathematician, physicist and engineer, who has been analyzing and designing such ‘broad front’ launch vehicle systems for decades, in fact, did just that, back in 2005, and what he found were a pair of complementary EELVs sitting on the pad ready to go, a space shuttle system with three remaining vehicles and 14 servicable SSMEs, a pair of stagnant and powerful upper stage engine program called the RL-60 and the MB-60, a stagnant engine development program called the IPD – Integrated Powerhead Demonstrator, and now three years later this same individual recognized two seperate hydrocarbon based booster programs, the SpaceX Falcon 9 with its regenerative 100 K Merlin 1C, and the Orbital Taurus II, using a pair of 300 K Russian NK-33, which should be adaptable for use individually, and in pairs as liquid hydrocarbon reusable boosters.
The particular mathematician, physicist and engineer also sees an very large and bright ISS fly by occasionally in the morning and evening skies.
What this gentleman did, rather than debating POLICY, performed his own analysis on how this amazing (astonishing actually) set of national and private space infrastructure and assets could be mixed and matched in order to extend their usefulness, in the form of modern reusable launch vehicle demonstration systems, without invoking long and expensive research and development programs or violating any laws of physics, and several easily implementable launch vehicle modifications and designs became self evident. None of these systems involved the use of difficult to refuel, transport and erect space shuttle derived solid rocket motors, and all of them were capable of evolutionary extensions which promote and advanced lower costs, higher flight rates, greater extensibility and intrinsic vehicle and component reusability.
None of them go by the acronyms ESAS, ARES, Direct of Shuttle C.
This particular mathematician, physicist and engineer doesn’t lurk around on space policy boards endlessy promoting his particularly clever and easily implemented launch vehicle designs, this gentleman published his results in the form of a COTS proposal, and continues to simulate them in software, mercilessly, constantly trying out new variations on these themes.
Policy does not produce launch vehicles, mathematicians, physicists and engineers do. I suggest you start listening to them, and not administrators.
Policy produces the MONEY to hire the mathematicians, physicists and engineers to build the vehicles. Viewgraphs are cheap, rockets are not.
The problem has not been a lack of solutions or designs, its a lack of money. No Bucks, No Buck Rogers.
The purpose of a good NASA administrator is to get the money the mathematicians, physicists and engineers need to build the vehicle, not design the vehicle themselves. That is why Webb was the greatest of the NASA adminsitrators and Griffin probably the worst.
We need to replace Spock with a Piccard if we are ever going to fix NASA.
FYI
Nonetheless, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, William H. Gerstenmaier, has said that no more Americans will fly on Soyuz until the problem is identified and fixed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/11/AR2008051102101_pf.html
Interesting. So if the Russians don’t come clean does it mean no astronauts on ISS after Shuttle retirement?
Policy produces the MONEY to hire the mathematicians, physicists and engineers to build the vehicles. Viewgraphs are cheap, rockets are not.
Which makes it trebly unfortunate and tragic for America that billions of dollars the three full years have been wasted on a pair of rockets that will never make it past the viewgraph stage, when another pair of very fine rockets have been sitting on the pad the entire time, bought and paid for.
NASA doesn’t need more money, they need better management and a solid rap over the fingers by both Congress and the executive branch alike.
Without more money but with the right approach (putting ESAS out of its misery) the billions saved should go awfully far. One could escape the “One true way” mindset by having more than one (US) option for launching humans to space. It should be enough to enable having three different capsules available for four different launchers:
– Jupiter 120 capable of lifting the lunar CEV and LEO CEV capsule versions and if needed the Dragon capsule too
– Atlas V and Delta IV variants capable of lifting the LEO CEV and the Dragon capsule
– Falcon 9 capable of lifting the Dragon capsule and possibly the LEO CEV
The above would mean switching to Direct, accelerating COTS D, and entering a shared expenses deal with Lockheed, Bigelow Aerospace, and Boeing/ULA and possibly the DoD. It would also mean putting in a bit of extra effort in trying to make the various capsules fit with as many of the launchers as possible.
If for some reason one of the approaches ends up too costly and/or difficult simply drop it (and Congress decides that, not NASA). If it turns out that Direct is the one which fails in such a way then NASA will just have to make do without any HLV at all for the next decades.
Habitat Hermit: One could escape the “One true way†mindset by having more than one (US) option for launching humans to space. It should be enough to enable having three different capsules available for four different launchers…
This strategy places a heavy emphasis on access to space, and ignores the other aspects of NASA’s mission that have been effectively ignored over the last 3-4 years. A reexamination of options to replace ESAS should include a truly objective assessment of government-funded human space missions. The justification for this investment line is becoming much weaker in light of the rise of commercial opportunities in LEO, growing distaste with VSE and Bush Administration initiatives, continuing slips and screw-ups on the part of the Constellation program, and general lack of public support for space (compared to other national issues).
The best thing that an Obama or McCain Administration could do for space is to convert the NASA centers into FFRDCs and let them compete for limited resources. The strength of key NASA legislative enclaves could be weakened substantially after the election, a perfect time to make these changes.
Yes it is “launcher centric” so to speak because launchers seems to be the bane of NASA, however I think it’s fairly safe to say it would immediately improve the fiscal situation for the rest of NASA as the single largest expenditure (Direct) is paced differently and much more smoothly than ESAS/Constellation. All of that (launchers, capsules, and redundancy) should also be done and finished with within seven years at most (possibly as little as five) and the issues of basic launch laid to rest for the foreseeable future. Any ventures into RLVs should be done NACA and COTS style only and to the benefit of commercial industry (and if Direct fails that applies to HLVs too).
More “smart turtle” less “ADD rabbit” ^_^
::launchers seems to be the bane of NASA
One more reason for them to get out of the business of designing and operating launchers.
Well, NASA should probably focus on one pretty basic thing: reversing Ares I’s negative-mass-to-orbit problem. If they can manage, the main thing they will have to worry about is funding the program. Which there’s not enough money to do.
That’s all. Simply really. All too easy.
Given the current situation, I’m open to hearing any and all alternatives. Don’t know if they’ll work any more than the current plans aren’t working.
[…] NASA, Wasting Money, distracting PR, hot air, public service announcement, space. trackback A post over at the Space Politics website discusses the recent testimony of Mr. Gene “Failure is Not an Option” Kranz, the […]
I can’t believe that there are those here (come on Me, AnonymousSpace, and Rand, you know who you are) who think they’ve got a better bead on things than Gene Kranz about NASA’s implementation of VSE. Are you so arrogant as to believe that what you have done in aerospace brings you to the level of someone of Kranz’ accomplishments? Please. I guess that’s why he’s where he is and…well, us pud-knockers are where we are…here.
Oh, for those who think J-2X is crashing, read this news from AviationWeek. According to AvWeek, 2013 is still the target date, so much for AS’s 2017. I know, I know, the aforementioned AS, Me, and RS will swear that they know more than what AvWeek is reporting.
And guess what else? According to latest from NASA Spaceflight.com, the Ares I numbers are improving. How about that! Could it be that critics of how NASA is managing Ares and VSE don’t really know what they are talking about? I’m thinking…yeah, that’s looking very, very likely.
Could it be that a guy with several Master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in engineering (Mike Griffin) knows more than AS, Me, and RS? That my fellow Spacers is a certainty.
“I can’t believe that there are those here (come on Me, AnonymousSpace, and Rand, you know who you are) who think they’ve got a better bead on things than Gene Kranz about NASA’s implementation of VSE. Are you so arrogant as to believe that what you have done in aerospace brings you to the level of someone of Kranz’ accomplishments?”
It doesn’t matter what anyone’s accomplishments are or what their level of arrogance is. The facts remain:
– Ares I is more than 10,420 pounds (4,739 kilograms) overweight. See (add http://www.):
nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5420
– Decisions have yet to be made on a thrust oscillation mitigation system for Ares I, which will further worsen Ares I mass issues. See (add http://www.):
nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5413
– And the Mobile Launch Platform will have trouble accommodating the Ares I first stage nozzle extension necessary to meet at least 1,200 pounds of Ares I performance needs. See (add http://www.):
nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5415
– The Ares I-X test vehicle is also too high to be secured during rollout using existing equipment and will require other modifications to the Mobile Launch Platform that conflict with the Shuttle schedule, potentially resulting in a six-month schedule slip. See (add http://www.):
nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5404
– And Ares I is still wrestling with a potential $700 million budget overrun, requiring significant compromises to the planned test flight schedule that may still not be enough to prevent a six-month to one-year slip schedule slip. See (add http://www.):
nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5335
And (add http://www.):
nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5404
– That’s just Ares I. Orion is also some 1,000 to 1,500 pounds overweight (again). See (add http:):
blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/2008/05/nasa-considers.html
And (add http:):
rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com/2008/04/when-abnormal-is-normal.html
And (add http://www.):
nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5401
– Decisions have yet to be made on Orion’s nominal landing mode (land versus water), which will further worsen Orion mass issues. See (add http://www.):
flightglobal.com/articles/2008/05/08/223393/nasa-keeps-orion-landing-reassessment-results-secret.html
– Even if the decision is for a nominal water landing mode, the astronaut corps is pushing for an off-nominal landing mode on land, which will still worsen Orion mass issues. See (add http://www.):
nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5419
And (add http://www.):
nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5401
– Because of Orion’s mass issues, major corners have been cut in Orion flight safety features, including the loss of two-fault tolerance on various subsystems:
flightglobal.com/articles/2008/02/27/221869/new-orion-cev-requirements-force-contract-renegotiation.html
– The Orion schedule is slipping (again). See (add http://www.):
nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5419
And (add http:):
blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/2008/05/nasa-considers.html
– And the Orion budget is threatening to overrun to the tune of some three billion dollars. See (add http:):
rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com/2008/04/this-wont-hurt-bit.html
– Because of Orion’s schedule and budget problems, major corners have been cut in Orion’s ground test schedule, and even then, NASA’s confidence in meeting the schedule for an operational Ares I/Orion capability has dropped from 65% to 33% :
flightglobal.com/articles/2008/04/02/222708/nasa-cancels-ares-i-crew-launch-vehicle-test-study.html
– Even if by some miracle the Ares I and Orion projects navigate this minefield of technical problems and technically driven schedule and budget issues, NASA will likely have to operate under a continuing resolution until after the election, further delaying the schedule by some number of months (add http://www):
flightglobal.com/articles/2008/04/09/222841/election-year-delay-for-nasas-ares-and-orion-vehicles.html
– And on top of all these problems with the Earth-to-orbit architecture, Ares V isn’t powerful enough to sustain a lunar architecture with even a minimally functional Altair lander, forcing changes to its engines that remove commonality with Ares I and the benefits thereof: See (add http://www.):
flightglobal.com/articles/2008/03/25/222397/nasa-awards-contracts-for-lunar-lander-study.html
And (add http://www.):
flightglobal.com/articles/2008/02/27/221870/nasa-adds-power-and-height-to-ares-v-rocket.html
And (add http:):
rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com/2008/02/bait-and-switch.html
Again, I hate to criticize a legend like Kranz, but he either doesn’t know what’s happening with the system or chooses to ignore reality.
And if we do want to play the accomplishments game, Kranz may be a great launch and spacecraft operator, but he has little to no launch vehicle or spacecraft development experience.
(As an aside, this is a persistent problem with senior Ares I and Orion management generally. Horowitz was not a systems developer — he was an astronaut. Same goes for Hanley — a former missions operator. And Cook, an advanced concepts study lead. Even those top managers with some technology development experience, like Cooke, cannot point to the successful development of a prior flight system under their watch.)
“According to AvWeek, 2013 is still the target date, so much for AS’s 2017.”
Two points:
1) This statement confuses J-2X readiness dates (2013) with Ares I readiness dates (2017). They’re not the same thing.
2) Moreover, the 2017 date doesn’t come from me. It comes from Government Accountability Office, which wrote:
“Although the J-2X is based on the J-2 and J-2S engines used on the Saturn V, and leverages knowledge from the X-33 and RS-68, the extent of planned changes is such that both the ESAS and Ares I standing review boards reported that the effort essentially represents a new engine development. The scope of required changes is so broad, the contractor estimates that it will need nearly 5 million hours to complete design, development, test, and evaluation activities for the J-2X upper stage engine… According to Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne representatives, these design changes will result in the replacement and/or modification of virtually every part derived from the J-2 or J-2S designs.â€
“Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne is also redesigning turbo-pumps from the X-33 program that feed fuel and oxidizer into a newly configured main combustion chamber, to increase engine thrust to 294,000 pounds—the J-2S had 265,000 pounds of thrust. The element also faces significant schedule risks in developing and manufacturing a carbon composite nozzle extension in order to satisfy these thrust requirements. According to contractor officials, the extension is more than 2 feet—i.e., about one-third—wider in diameter than existing nozzles.â€
“the J-2X development effort is accorded less than 7 years from development start to first flight. In comparison, the Space Shuttle main engine, the only other human-rated liquid-fuel engine NASA has successfully flown since the Apollo program, development required 9 years… If the engine does not complete development as scheduled, subsequent flight testing might be delayed. The J-2X development effort represents a critical path for the Ares I project. Subsequently, delays in the J-2X schedule for design, development, test, and evaluation would have a ripple effect throughout the entire Ares I project.â€
If the J-2X schedule experiences at two-year slip as the GAO argues is likely, then Ares I operational readiness will slip by two years, from 2015 to 2017.
“And guess what else? According to latest from NASA Spaceflight.com, the Ares I numbers are improving.”
“Improving” means little when the booster alone is still more than 10,000 pounds overweight, and the payload is still more than 1,000 pounds overweight. The system is massively in the hole, when it should have more than 20% mass margins to meet NASA’s own human rating requirements going into PDR.
Moreover, the only reason that the “Ares I numbers are improving” temporarily is because the mass needed to support decisions on thrust oscillation mitigation systems has yet to be added to the totals.
“Could it be that a guy with several Master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in engineering (Mike Griffin) knows more than AS, Me, and RS?”
Education is important, but it’s what we do with it that counts.
To be brutally honest, Ares I is so screwed up that engineers are being forced to resort to crazy options like thrusters firing in the opposite direction of the first stage engine to mitigate the thrust oscillation from the first stage (add http://www.):
nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5413
And (add http://):
rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com/2008/05/rube-goldberg-was-piker.html
When such goofy and drastic measures are being considered, we don’t have to have PhDs to figure out that the system is not going to fly, at least not with anything remotely resembling the performance, safety, schedule, and budget promises that the system was sold on. A wise manager would recognize the intractability of the problem and embrace the necessary change to a different solution set.
And besides, how do you know that some of us don’t have two PhDs? Argue the post, not the poster.
FWIW…
Anonymous: What a depressing post. I hope you’re wrong in a lot of this, or at least over-stating your case, but I fear that you are not.
— Donald
anonymous.space, About the ‘old’ engine, the J2 that they are mearly ‘upgrading’ with all the changes they are making for it, will it’s development give us an engine that can be used for other launch systems if they do not contine contellation but they do finish the engine. I have not compared it to what is already out there, will the NEW and IMPROVED J2X be a killer engine that will be worth the time and effort to build it?
Don, so far AnimymousSpace has been wrong about the J-2X, which is headed for CDR on schedule. He’s been predicting here that the J-2X schedule would quickly start to slide and would delay the Ares I until 2015 to 2017. Yes, Orion is overweight because NASA is still trying to figure out how much redundancy to have. Bottom line is that AnonymousSpace knows some particulars that you and I don’t, that hasn’t helped his batting average.
As for the super long post…full of sound.
“Don, so far AnimymousSpace has been wrong about the J-2X, which is headed for CDR on schedule. He’s been predicting here that the J-2X schedule would quickly start to slide and would delay the Ares I until 2015 to 2017.”
Where did I say that J-2X “would quickly start to slide”? Please don’t put words in my mouth.
And again, it’s not me saying that J-2X is going to require an additional two years to develop. It’s the GAO. Here’s the relevant excerpts from their latest April 2008 report:
“Ares I upper stage essentially requires development of a new engine…”
“… the J-2X engine represents a new engine development effort that, both NASA and Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne recognize, is likely to experience failures during development. Addressing these failures is likely to lead to design changes that could impact the project’s cost and schedule.”
“Although the J-2X is based on the J-2 and J-2S engines used on the Saturn V and leverages knowledge from the X-33 and RS-68, the number of planned changes is such that, according to NASA review boards, the effort essentially represents a new engine development. NASA and Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne recognize that some level of developmental problems are inherent in all new engine development programs. As such, the project has predicted that the J-2X development will require 29 rework cycles. In addition, the J-2X faces extensive redesign to incorporate modern controls, achieve increased performance requirements, and meet human rating standards. The J-2X developers also face significant schedule risks in developing and manufacturing a carbon composite nozzle extension needed to satisfy thrust requirements. According to contractor officials, the extension is more than 2 feet—i.e., about one-third—wider in diameter than existing nozzle extensions.”
“The development schedule for the J-2X is aggressive, allowing less than 7 years from development start to first flight, and highly concurrent. Due to the tight schedule and long-lead nature of engine development, the J-2X project was required to start out earlier in its development than the other elements on the Ares I vehicle. This approach has introduced a high degree of concurrency between the setting of overall Ares I requirements and the development of the J-2X design and hardware. Consequently, the engine development is out of sync with the first stage and upper stage in the flow-down and decomposition of requirements, an approach our past work has shown to be fraught with risk. NASA acknowledges that the engine development is proceeding with an accepted risk that future requirements changes may affect the engine design and that the engine may not complete development as scheduled in December 2012. The J-2X development effort represents a critical path for the Ares I project. Subsequently, delays in the J-2X schedule for design, development, test, and evaluation would have a ripple effect of cost and schedule impacts throughout the entire Ares I project.”
“NASA’s Administrator has publicly stated that if Congress provided the Agency an additional $2 billion that NASA could accelerate the Constellation program’s initial operational capability date to 2013. We believe that this assessment is highly optimistic. The development schedule for the J-2X engine, the critical path for the Ares I development, is already recognized as aggressive, allowing less than 7 years for development. The development of the Space Shuttle Main engine by comparison took 9 years. Further, NASA anticipates that the J-2X engine is likely to require 29 rework cycles to correct problems identified during testing. Given the linear nature of a traditional test-analyze-fix-test cycle, even large funding increases offer no guarantee of program acceleration, particularly when the current schedule is already compressed and existing NASA test facilities are already maximized.”
“According to NASA, at this time, existing test facilities are insufficient to adequately test the Ares I and Orion systems. Existing altitude test facilities are insufficient to test the J-2X engine in a relevant environment. To address this issue, NASA is in the process of constructing a new altitude test facility at Stennis Space Center for the J-2X… Further, Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne—the J-2 X upper stage engine contractor—indicated that existing test stands that could support J-2X testing will be tied up supporting the Space Shuttle program until 2010. NASA has taken steps to mitigate J-2X risks by increasing the amount of component-level testing, procuring additional development hardware and test facilities, and working to make a third test stand available to the contractor earlier than originally planned. NASA has compensated for this schedule pressure on the Ares I project by adding funds for testing and other critical activities. But it is not certain that added resources will enable NASA to deliver the Ares I when expected.”
If GAO’s findings give you so much heartburn, then you need to take it up with them. I don’t work at GAO. Arguing with me isn’t going to force GAO to retract their findings.
“Yes, Orion is overweight because NASA is still trying to figure out how much redundancy to have.”
A very inaccurate portrayal of the situation.
The problem is not that NASA has to “figure out how much redundancy to have.” NASA knows how redundant Orion _should_ be. Per NASA’s own human rating documents, Orion is required to have dual redundancy on all systems that are critical to crew safety.
The problem is that the Orion project can’t meet the requirement to have dual redundancy on all systems that are critical to crew safety (among other requirements) within the allowed mass. Geyer even confirmed in today’s telecon with reporters that Orion’s PDR has slipped two months to November because the team is still looking to save mass, including being more aggressive on load margins.
“Bottom line is that AnonymousSpace knows some particulars that you and I don’t, that hasn’t helped his batting average.”
I have not quoted or referenced any “particulars” that you can’t verify in GAO reports, Flight Global articles, Orlando Sentinel reporter blogs, or Nasaspaceflight.com articles. I’m just repeating what these sources have found.
Again, if these findings give you so much heartburn, then go argue with all those investigators and reporters. Arguing with me isn’t going to change what they report on.
And if it’s the facts supporting these findings that give you so much heartburn, then don’t be mad at me or with these investigators and reporters. Be mad at NASA for allowing Constellation program to have gotten to this point in the first place.
“As for the super long post…full of sound.”
I count 25 links and references in my last two posts. I count two references in your last two posts. If you have more evidence that things are going well in Constellation, I’m all ears. But if not, don’t make ridiculous claims that the evidence weighs in favor of an Ares I/Orion system that will fly with anything close to its promised performance, safety, cost, and schedule. The evidence has clearly and overwhelmingly gone the other way.
FWIW…
“Anonymous: What a depressing post. I hope you’re wrong in a lot of this, or at least over-stating your case, but I fear that you are not.”
Judge for yourself. I included all the links and references.
FWIW…
CapsulesAreFun: I believe that Anonymous has demonstrated that he or she has a deeper knowledge of the subject than most of us posting here, certainly than myself. They present references to third-party sources and, even in areas where I disagree, they present careful, well-argued, knowledgeable arguments. Thus, much as I am inclined not to, I am forced to take their views seriously.
That said, I always take anyone’s views with a grain of salt. There are supporters of the current architecture — not least, Dr. Griffin — who are knowledgeable and present good reasons for their choices.
So, bottom line for this non-engineer, and given the totality of what I’ve read and seen, I’m enclined to believe that reality lies closer to Anonymous’ views, while reserving judgement and hoping that he or she is wrong.
Time will tell. . . .
— Donald
“I have not compared it to what is already out there, will the NEW and IMPROVED J2X be a killer engine that will be worth the time and effort to build it?”
Although I’m sure some folks have strong opinions about what the “perfect” rocket engine is, it obviously depends on the application in mind. J-2X will be great for some things and terrible for others.
GAO is _not_ arguing that J-2X will be a useless piece of junk. What GAO is arguing is that J-2X is going to take considerably longer to develop than what NASA has planned and that this is likely to cause about a two-year slip in the overall schedule for Ares I.
Far more often than not, GAO turns out to be right about these things. Witness all their reports that predicted the massive overruns we’ve seen in recent years in military and intelligence spacecraft development programs. Based on that history, I’d tend to take GAO at their word.
But we don’t have to. The GAO reports on Ares I lay out a very compelling set of evidence — from the almost complete lack of J-2 heritage at the component level, to unproven breakthroughs in nozzle technology, to problems getting test stand time, to SSME experience — that supports their finding that J-2X development is going to take a couple years longer than NASA has scheduled. Again, I’ve excerpted the relevant portions above. Read them for yourself.
What I take away from this is that it was stupid to put a completely new engine development like J-2X in the critical path of a new system to get NASA astronauts flying again after Shuttle retirement. It was doubly stupid to put two new engine developments — counting the 5-segment SRB (GAO has a lot to say about that, too) — in the critical path. If NASA wants to develop new and better rocket engines, that’s a fine and worthy goal. But NASA shouldn’t make those engines a requirement for a human launch system that is on a tight schedule to get flying ASAP.
Moreover, there’s no reason that NASA had to go down this path. This is not the early 1960s where there weren’t existing rocket engines and launch vehicles lying around. It’s 50 years later and we have two existing launch vehicles available to the nation (Atlas V/Delta IV), a third one on the way with engines that are much farther along in DDT&E than J-2X (Falcon 9), and other Shuttle-derived designs that do not require new engine development (like Jupiter 120). Stupid, stupid, stupid…
FWIW…
Donald,
I would assume all of us here have an aerospace background and engineering education commiserate with that background.
As for Anonymouspace, from what I can tell he is an industry veteran and is presently a consultant. But here’s the problem with consultants–they only get told what they need to know to do the job they are being consulted on, which is usually something that is going, or may very well go, wrong. So they see a highly skewed world. Anonymouspace keeps reading things in the GAO report that are not there. He had a big discussion about it a few posts back over his interpretation of two GAO reports. Don, if you take the time to read those two reports, and they are not engineering docs but written for all of us, you’ll see that delta between the GAO’s wording and Anonmouspace’s interpretation is…well, vast, e.g. Anonymouspace keeps saying that the GAO, and I’ll use his word here,
“What GAO is arguing is that J-2X is going to take considerably longer to develop than what NASA has planned and that this is likely to cause about a two-year slip in the overall schedule for Ares I”
That’s not what the GAO wrote. I’m paraphrasing here, the GAO acknowledges that the J-2X program is risky–duh–but also notes that NASA and its J-2X contractor Rocketdyne are mitigating that risk by, among other things, doing what was done so successfully during Apollo and building up testing from the component to the system, and building in time-slips (think of this is a launch hold time) for 29 reworks. So far, over the 2 years that the J-2X contract has been in effect, none of those slips has occurred. And the series of tests just finished on the J-2X went smoothly. Yes, yes, a couple of firings only lasted, and I’m trying to remember here, 40 sec. for a 80 sec. firing and another was something like 240 sec. for a 400 sec. firing. One of those was due to cavitation of the LOX due to a valve being vibrated loose on the test stand. In other words, not a problem with the engine’s power pack but with the test stand.
As for Mike Griffin, if anyone here thinks he or she is more technically talented or capable and better educated, then please, by all means, stand up, introduce yourself, and make your case by telling us how long you were Chief Engineer of NASA, one of its centers, Boeing, Rocketdyne, or other aerospace firm, and how long you ran a FFRDC such as Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
The reason I first posted here was become some here were critical of Gene Kranz’ testimony last week in support of NASA’s VSE efforts. Those critics should tread very lightly when criticizing Gene Kranz’ technical judgements of NASA’s implementation of VSE because quite frankly few can fill his shoes. For those of you here who are equally accomplished on a technical level, who have directed manned missions to the Moon, who were Director of Mission Operations at a NASA center for over 11 years, you have my apologies.
Don, everyone, I’m not trying to belittle anyone’s accomplishments or hurt their feelings. But if someone stands up and wants to write about how they know better than Mike Griffin or Gene Kranz when it comes to getting people into Space, you’d better be able to stand toe-to-toe with those two individuals.
In closing, thanks Keith for exposing the Direct 2 folks to be what they are, charlatans. I mean, they’re led by a toy rocket maker! Jeezzz.
As for Mike Griffin, if anyone here thinks he or she is more technically talented or capable and better educated, then please, by all means, stand up, introduce yourself, and make your case by telling us how long you were Chief Engineer of NASA, one of its centers, Boeing, Rocketdyne, or other aerospace firm, and how long you ran a FFRDC such as Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
The argument-from-authority logical fallacy doesn’t carry much weight here, sorry. If you want to be convincing, you have to learn how to actually argue.
Don, everyone, I’m not trying to belittle anyone’s accomplishments or hurt their feelings. But if someone stands up and wants to write about how they know better than Mike Griffin or Gene Kranz when it comes to getting people into Space, you’d better be able to stand toe-to-toe with those two individuals.
I’d be happy to debate either of them, as would (I suspect) anonymouspace, if (s)he didn’t feel a need to remain anonymous. My credentials (and his or hers) are irrelevant to my willingness or ability to do so.
“As for Anonymouspace, from what I can tell he is an industry veteran and is presently a consultant.”
Wrong.
“But here’s the problem with consultants–they only get told what they need to know to do the job they are being consulted on, which is usually something that is going, or may very well go, wrong. So they see a highly skewed world.”
Again, argue the post, not the poster. If you resort to ad hominem attacks based on made up assumptions about other posters, then you shouldn’t be posting here. Base your argument on logic and evidence, not on whom you’re arguing with.
“That’s not what the GAO wrote.”
It is absolutely what the GAO wrote. Here’s one (of several) passages in which the GAO argues that J-2X development will take two additional years:
“NASA’s Administrator has publicly stated that if Congress provided the Agency an additional $2 billion that NASA could accelerate the Constellation program’s initial operational capability date to 2013. We believe that this assessment is highly optimistic. The development schedule for the J-2X engine, the critical path for the Ares I development, is already recognized as aggressive, allowing less than 7 years for development. The development of the Space Shuttle Main engine by comparison took 9 years.”
And here’s one (of several) passages in which the GAO argues that a delay in the J-2X schedule results in a delay to the whole Ares I schedule:
“The J-2X development effort represents a critical path for the Ares I project. Subsequently, delays in the J-2X schedule for design, development, test, and evaluation would have a ripple effect of cost and schedule impacts throughout the entire Ares I project.”
I don’t know how to make this any simpler or more clear. GAO is arguing that J-2X will probably take two additional years to develop, and that any delay in the J-2X schedule will result in a similar delay to the overall Ares I schedule.
“So far, over the 2 years that the J-2X contract has been in effect, none of those slips has occurred.”
Actually, there have been slips in the J-2X schedule, resulting in the schedule compression that GAO refers to here:
“Given the linear nature of a traditional test-analyze-fix-test cycle, even large funding increases offer no guarantee of program acceleration, particularly when the current schedule is already compressed and existing NASA test facilities are already maximized.”
J-2X slips have not hit the bottom line yet but there’s little slack left.
“As for Mike Griffin, if anyone here thinks he or she is more technically talented or capable and better educated… Those critics should tread very lightly when criticizing Gene Kranz’ technical judgements of NASA’s implementation of VSE because quite frankly few can fill his shoes.”
Kranz certainly deserves a high degree of respect for his mission operations acccomplishments. But that’s not evidence that Kranz knows how to develop launch vehicles or spacecraft.
Griffin certainly deserves respect for his extensive academic background. But that’s not evidence that Griffin can properly formulate and manage the execution of engineering development programs.
And again, you’re basing your arguments on personalities, instead of logic and the evidence at hand.
“In closing, thanks Keith for exposing the Direct 2 folks to be what they are, charlatans. I mean, they’re led by a toy rocket maker!”
In point of fact, that’s simply not true. Chuck Longton has worked Titan, Atlas, aircraft turbofan engine, and nuclear submarine development for some four decades. Stephen Metschan worked NASA studies at Boeing for a decade before founding his own engineering analysis software company. You can read their bios here, among other places (add http://www):
thespaceshow.com/guest.asp?q=494
thespaceshow.com/guest.asp?q=455
I’m not plugging for DIRECT/Jupiter 120 — I think their study should be subject to thorough external review and options comparison just like ESAS and Ares/Orion should have been. But we shouldn’t criticize alternatives based on false accusations.
FWIW…
CapsulesAreFun: I would assume all of us here have an aerospace background and engineering education commiserate with that background.
In my case you would be wrong. While I think I have educated myself reasonably well in spaceflight theory and history, my degree and training is in archeology. The value I think I bring to the discussion is a long-term perspective that sets our goals within the wider sweep of human history. This is a space politics discussion board, and, for better or worse (better, I would say), engineers and scientists are never the sole deciders of our society’s course of action.
In the case of Anonymous (and I wrote this before reading his post below) I would guess (and it is no more than that, based on the nature of their knowledge and arguments) that Anonymous is in a policy position somewhere. Rest assured, I do take Anonymous’ views with large grains of salt — and I often do not agree with them — while fully respecting their obvious breadth of knowledge of the subject.
As for Mike Griffin, if anyone here thinks he or she is more technically talented or capable and better educated, then please, by all means, stand up, introduce yourself, and make your case by telling us how long you were Chief Engineer of NASA, one of its centers,
Dr. Griffin may be the best engineer since the beginning of the Universe (I am not qualified to say), but he is truly terrible at politics. He’s done a decent job of spreading the bacon, but whether ESAS is acheivable or not, he clearly put a human lunar return on shaky polticial ground by choosing an architecture that cost too much and took too long, when other alternatives were available. Far worse, he has made gobs of unnecessary enemies (by canceling science projects and, worse, reinstating them; remember, space scientists were not initially opposed to the VSE, which was, I think, one of the policy’s great achievements). Worse again, he needlessly antagonized environmental scientists through probable sensorship and by making unnecessarily provocative statements about the environment, in addition to cutting their budgets before being overruled this year, all at a time when it was already clear that the next Administration might well be favorably disposed to environmental science and scientists.
— Donald
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