Space News is published every Monday, but the preceding Friday they post some of their top stories online. And it looks like Monday’s issue will have some interesting items: [subscription should not be required for these links, but the links will only be good for a week]
- Extending the life of the shuttle from 2010 to 2012 is feasible without “dramatically affecting” the current timeline for the exploration architecture, provided the $5 billion for the three addition flights doesn’t come out of the exploration program. An extension to 2015 would cost $11 billion and cause a number of disruptions to current schedules.
- Despite being the lowest-scored of three proposals, Orbital got the biggest Commercial Resupply Services contract (in terms of dollar value). SpaceX was the clear best choice, but NASA wanted the assurance of having a second supplier available. Orbital beat out PlanetSpace, the third proposal, because of “serious management risks inherent in the PlanetSpace proposal”, as NASA’s Bill Gerstenmaier explained in the source selection document.
- Yes, Mike Griffin is still backing Ares 1 even though he “is finding the critics harder to dismiss and his job in jeopardy.”
Dr. Griffin is defending the Ares approach because he claims it’s better than 3 scenarios to get to the Moon:
– all-EELV approach: He said the resulting lunar missions wouldn’t be able to go much beyond Apollo
– EELV versions of Ares 1 and 5: He says this would be too expensive.
– EELV replacement of Ares 1, with Ares 5: He says this would be too expensive, since Ares 5 needs production lines anyway.
He’s only focusing on 2 aspects, the payload delivered to the Moon in 1 case and the cost of development in the other 2 cases. There are lots of other considerations: what is the human spaceflight gap going to be, is the plan too expensive (regardless of whether there are other too expensive plans out there) forcing a different approach or a different mission altogether, does the plan deliver benefits (especially in VSE goal areas like commerce, security, and science) early, what’s the schedule, what’s the risk, what’s the operational cost once development is done, what are the opportunity costs, etc.
Here are a few things (among many) he should be considering:
– COTS D for ISS crew transportation – The current plan has too much of a human spaceflight gap. A well-funded COTS D competition should have been funded years ago. This would benefit NASA (close the gap and relieve pressure on Ares). The results need not affect the Moon program hardware plan (although if NASA chose they could – for example if NASA waited for the COTS D results before defining a lunar architecture, and used the intervening time for robotic lunar engineering and science (ISRU, resource mapping, etc), restoring other NASA areas cut because of human spaceflight problems, etc). COTS D, not the Moon mission, is the urgent “house is burning down” issue now, and should be addressed first. We have the NASA ISS gap, the space tourism market, and potentially Bigelow space stations in play now.
– shrinking Orion – It may be expensive to do now as Dr. Griffin mentions in the article, but many people have been pointing out for years that it doesn’t need to be so big, that the crew doesn’t need to be so large that it brings Ares to budgetary paralysis and ever-receding schedules, etc.
– propellant depots – As Rand and Jon have pointed out, this would not only enable different lunar architecture approaches, but would also make the Ares architecture much more productive in terms of useful payload delivered to the Moon. Griffin claims that all-EELV capabilities are too much like Apollo, and the Ares approach enables a lunar base. I’d suggest that the type of lunar base he envisions is too small and too slow to develop. It isn’t going to achieve the VSE goals: commercial, science, and security benefits on a scale that justifies the cost. Propellant depots might change that for the lunar mission. They are also an example of useful space infrastructure in and of themselves for commercial, science, and security benefits, and the space access market they could demonstrate could be very helpful in encouraging commercial space access improvements. The propellant depot infrastructure and space access market aspects could easily prove to be more important than the Moon mission.
– International participation – Right now noone but NASA and its contractors seem to be interested in NASA’s human spaceflight to the Moon program. If NASA could get other organizations to share the transportation system costs (and benefits), the whole enterprise might be in better shape. If someone else made, for example, a lunar lander or HLV compatible with NASA’s architecture, things could happen much sooner. It wouldn’t necessarily require NASA to forgo developing its own versions eventually, just as multiple countries contribute to ISS space access. If the Moon is important, we need a fault-tolerant Moon transportation industry, not an architecture.
– COTS for lunar cargo – COTS D is the priority now, but when that succeeds, and if there’s still a lunar plan by then, a COTS approach for lunar cargo should be started.
– find credible non-NASA uses for Ares V – I don’t like this idea because it competes with commercial space access, but this is another area Dr. Griffin should investigate if he’s committed to Ares. It seems the military and science space interests find Ares V itself and Ares V payloads much too expensive. If NOAA, or intelligence agencies, or some other potential user comes up with a legitimate need for Ares V capabilities (huge mirrors, etc), if they can show that their plan is affordable (eg: they plan a regular series of many big but simple cookie-cutter satellites that need Ares V) and can put down some money to show they’re serious, and if NASA can show that a couple more Ares V’s can be made each year without much more incremental cost, then we could say the Ares plan is doing at least some of what the VSE demands: contribute to the nation’s security, science, and economic needs.
Some people have said that NASA has tried a scroched earth policy, so that the only choice left would be Ares. At least Congress stopped that plan and left it to the new admin. to have that choice as to what to do.
My suggestion:
1. Scrap Ares I.
2. Do COTS-D.
3. Keep shuttle flying to 2012.
4. Modify Ares V into Direct J232.
This would save NASA jobs, have the protaintail of EELV’s winning the COTS-D contract. I think SpaceX would win, but NASA could split the contract between 2 firms. Long-term–it would give NASA a HLV for the moon.
The problem has not been Orion but Ares I has been so underperforming.
NASA doesn’t need an HLV for the moon, if they want to do it affordably and sustainably.
“I’d suggest that the type of lunar base he envisions is too small”
How big is the lunar base he is suggesting and what size do you recommend?
Bigelow stated he has plans of dropping his modules on the moon is that a possible second source?
” It seems the military and science space interests find Ares V itself and Ares V payloads much too expensive.”
How expensive is it per launch? I have never successfully been able to find a number on launch costs. One billion? Two billion per launch? Plus intergration and payload cost.
If it can launch for 1 billion it would be 2400 and change per pound.(based on the 207 tons NASA says it is rated for)
If the Ares V does go through I would like to see it used for the creation of a human crewed and operated international fuel and resupply station. NASA launch the hub as government supplied equipment and commercial space all the modules and power supply. All the global launchers could launch fuel to it.
I would prefer NASA move towards a more commercial orientated “gas n’ go” IN space based ships and let commercial space do the “pop & drop” earth to LEO flights for astronauts.and all the cargo runs.
A replacement for Hubble would also be a possible candidate.
Vladislaw: “How big is the lunar base he is suggesting and what size do you recommend?”
I don’t think NASA has an exact base defined, and I certainly don’t. The amount of mass they’d be able to get to the Moon in a reasonable amount of time with a couple Ares 1/V launches per year, which is what they’re talking about, isn’t enough to deploy the types of infrastructure that would give enough payback in economic or security terms, in my qualitative judgement. Every lunar economic plan that seemed plausible to me needed a lot of mass to kick-start. NASA isn’t doing a lot of ISRU or similar work, which underscores the point that they aren’t heading towards the ambitious type of base I’d think is worth the big effort and opportunity cost.
“Bigelow stated he has plans of dropping his modules on the moon is that a possible second source?”
Getting more mass to the Moon via propellant depots, working with commercial providers like Bigelow to make a bigger operation, and working with international partners are all potential ways to help bring about the needed critical mass. I haven’t seen any plans or heard of deals for such steps, though. I’d be willing to reassess and possibly change my judgement if, for example, NASA and Bigelow made a deal to set up Bigelow modules on the Moon (assuming the Bigelow modules had some economic or other “VSE goal” benefit, such as helping share development costs for Bigelow space stations, or doing commercial work in the Bigelow modules on the Moon).
“How expensive is it per launch? I have never successfully been able to find a number on launch costs. One billion? Two billion per launch? Plus intergration and payload cost.”
I haven’t seen exact numbers, and NASA may very well not know. It’s going to be expensive based on similar past vehicles done with similar operations and support staff. It may not look too bad on a per-pound basis because there are so many pounds being launched (so I’m not completely critical of Ares V or HLVs the same way as with Ares 1 – I just think it would be a lot better to go commercial, and if they are making Ares V or another HLV, to launch it considerably more frequently and design it to be launched frequently) , but an Ares V launch is going to be very expensive.
I agree with you that if Ares V is built it should be used in ways that promote commercial operations. Rand’s Ares V/depot concept is one way.
“A replacement for Hubble would also be a possible candidate.”
You may be interested in this document: “Science Opportunities Enabled by NASA’s Constellation System: Interim Report”.
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12201
Of the science missions they evaluated, a few didn’t benefit from Constellation. Most of the rest were in the $5B or higher cost range, which I think pretty much puts them out of realistic consideration (developing and operating Constellation won’t leave lots of spare billions left over for science missions). From the report:
“Finding 1. The greatly increased payload capability promised by Ares V could lead to much more costly science payloads.
Finding 2. The committee determined that the Ares I capabilities are not sufficiently distinct from those of Atlas V and Delta IV to enable different types or a higher quality of space science missions.
…
Of the mission concepts evaluated, only one was considered to be marginally in the less than $1 billion category, and seven were considered to be in the greater than $5 billion category, which would make them larger than any other space science mission developed by NASA to date (with the possible exception of the James Webb Space Telescope, currently estimated to cost $4.5 billion).
The committee notes that adding a heavy-lift launch vehicle option could lead to larger science missions and even higher costs. There is a direct relationship between the size of a spacecraft and its cost. Expensive space science programs will place a great strain on the space science budget, which has been essentially flat for several years and is already under strain from an ambitious slate of 85 flight missions.”
There’s more in the report, and the assessment varies from mission to mission. A lot of the missions are for astronomy, and human (and robotic) assembly and servicing are considered.
My gut feeling is that no “one-off” giant robotic mission in this range is going to be worth the huge cost of the spacecraft and the launch unless at least one of the following happens:
– the spacecraft is repeated a large number of times (eg: a series of identical weather satellites, a series of identical gas giant probes that aren’t optimized for 1 planet)
– the spacecraft is big but simple (eg: is just Ares V class because it has a lot of fuel or a big mirror)
– the spacecraft can be upgraded and maintained like Hubble (but at a lower cost than with the Shuttle)
Rand: NASA doesn’t need an HLV for the moon, if they want to do it affordably and sustainably.
I agree completely. The EELVs were designed for high flight rates. Let’s use them that way. Pack things tight, make them small and flexible, live off the land or get by without — is there anything you really must have in a lunar base that cannot be flown, in whole or in parts, in existing or planned upgrades to the EELVs? (If so, let’s have a list we can attempt to whittle down or find substitutes for.)
It is long past time to stop wasting dollars and decades building ever new versions of essentially similar rockets, and, simply, go to the moon with what we’ve already developed. And likewise the NEOs and PhD and other destinations that require similar delta-Vs..
— Donald
From the report:
“Finding 1. The greatly increased payload capability promised by Ares V could lead to much more costly science payloads.
This is one of those dumb statements that bean counters always make. Someone once did a least squares fit of some existing programs and found that the heavier ones were more expensive. It is therefore assumed that it is a law of nature that bigger will ALWAYS more expensive. That mindset is what derailed the big dumb booster years ago, and it continues to drive us to more expensive ways of doing things.
Bigger payload capacity does NOT have to mean more expensive payloads. We spend mountains of money making things smaller and lighter so they can fit on the launch vehicle, and more mountains of money reducing the electrical power so it can run on the solar arrays that can fit on the launch vehicle. We then throw that carefully polished, obsessively optimized design out the window and start over on the next spacecraft because we have to re-optimize with fantastic precision to host the new science instrument, which has five bolts instead of six and draws 1.35 amps instead of 1.25 A.
A larger, more capable booster can dramatically reduce costs and shorten mission development time. IF everybody can resist the capability creep disease. If you try to launch a 50 ton spacecraft that has ten times as much crap on it as a 5 ton spacecraft, while keeping all the stability, maneuverability, redundancy, etc., etc. requirements that you currently have, then yeah, that’s going to cost you, probably more than 10x. If you take the new capability and use it with sensible restraint you can throw out the unobtanium structure, build a general purpose structure, include adquate power margins, then use it again and again. It wouldn’t matter if it weighs 10% more than it would if you started over and re-designed everythign from scratch.
Not that I think the Ares 5 is a worthwhile investment, but its worth would be greater if it’s used properly, rather than just as a license to build and even bigger Battlestar.
pr: I agree with you, and I was thinking along similar lines at the end of my Jan 4 post. To be fair to the NAP authors, they did consider using Ares V in a number of ways that would reduce development time, expense, or risk rather than always trying to use the extra mass and volume to squeeze out the last ounce of performance.
It might be quite difficult to actually manage Ares V class science missions the way you describe in practice. There might be a lot of political pressure to fit one last instrument on with all that extra mass available, in an NPOESS sort of style … maybe resulting in lots of adding and subtracting of instruments as problems are encountered. We seem to fall into the same trap again and again in civilian and military space programs even with the current class of missions.
I’m actually surprised that Administrator Griffin didn’t go years ago to the NASA robotic science community and say something like “Here’s $2B and 4 Ares V launches – $500M apiece and that’s all you get for your Ares V bait. Have fun.” I wonder how that would have worked out – would the science community have come up with a good but cost-effective set of Ares V class robotic science missions? Would they now be backing Constellation?
There might be a lot of political pressure to fit one last instrument on with all that extra mass available, in an NPOESS sort of style …
Yep, that’s always the problem. When the proposals are being written you can always say, gee, it’s only an extra $50 megabucks to put this one more thing on, and it’s already a $1 gigabuck program, so what’s an extra 5%? Capability is cheap, so you buy a lot of it. The problem comes in the messy and unpleasant “reality” portion of the program. That’s when everyone’s real mass/power/data rate/whatever numbers show up, so everyone has to go on a crash diet, which is where the real problems start.
Like everyone else who has been around this block more than once, I have lots of great ideas to fix it that will, of course, never be implemented.