A reminder that the Review of US Human Space Flight plans committee will be holding a telecon today at 1 pm EDT for the “finalization of scoring of options” contained in their summary report. The telecon will be streamed online for those who can’t get into the limited phone bridge.
Meanwhile, the manager of NASA’s Constellation program, Jeff Hanley, had a strong and negative reaction to the Augustine committee’s summary report, Florida Today reports. Hanley wrote a 3,376-word email to JSC director Mike Coats complaining about several aspects of the committee’s report, including its treatment of crew safety and its emphasis on commercial launch options. At one point, in response to a section of the report that states that development of the Ares 1 under the current plan would delay development of the larger Ares 5, Hanley wrote, “This paragraph demonstrates either an intentional mischaracterization of the facts or a clear lack of understanding of Constellation.” Neither NASA nor committee members responded to the inquiries about Hanley’s email.
Hanley’s must have emailed more addresses than just Coats’. I can’t imagine that a center director would share an email from one of his program managers with the press. If Coats did leak the email, it says a lot about Hanley’s future at the agency.
Regardless, the excerpts in the Florida Today article are disturbing. They show a program manager who is deeply out of touch with his program. For example:
“The committee’s claim is ‘patently false and untrue,’ Hanley wrote. ‘We are building the Ares V NOW.'”
This is simply not true. Aerospace Corporation has estimated that Ares V’s development cost is $35 billion (with a “b”). The Ares V budget in NASA’s FY 2010 budget request is only $25 million (with an “m”), and it stays flat at $25 million through FY 2014 (the entire budget). Hanley is delusional if he thinks NASA is currently building any significant piece of Ares V on that budget. It’s a design budget, not a development budget. At that spending rate, it would take 1,400 years to complete Ares V development.
It sucks that Hanley was saddled with developing launch vehicles that never fit their budget to begin with and that the VSE budget commitments were never met in the ensuing years. But he’s not doing himself, the Constellation program, or NASA any favors by entertaining the fantasy that a multi-ten billion development program is underway based on a budget that’s off by several orders of magnitude frpm the amount that’s actually needed to support such a program. Ares V is not being built today and due to the extreme mismatch between its costs and available resources, it won’t start development for many, many years. If Hanley had a better grip on reality, he’d realize that the Augustine Committee is speaking truth to power on this point and trying to save the civil human space flight program untold years and efforts betting on a vehicle that can’t be delivered on anything resembling a rational timeline.
FWIW…
I suspect that he’s playing the game that, by developing Ares I, he’s making the “down payment” on Ares V, and thus is also developing Ares V.
Sadly, the Constellation program did not need to come to this. Had they put someone like John Muratore in charge, he would have had several precursors flying and would be on track to flying something that we could afford. The X-38 was an amazing program that was the wrong one at the wrong time, but it achieved remarkable stuff with a limited budget.
Constellation became a grandiose attempt to recreate Apollo, not a reasonable attempt to do new work. Given a budget that could have afforded a reasonable effort – they went out and designed an unaffordable, unrealistic system. Sure we would have caught a lot of flak for designing a system that was too small, but we could have designed a system that could have grown.
“However, Spaceflight Now’s Craig Couvalt reads between the lines to conclude that the administration is likely to request additional funding for NASA’s human spaceflight program”
Couvalt is a bright guy who has good sources…but if there is additional money (and I doubt that) it doesnt mean it is for the current program.
Robert G. Oler
“I suspect that he’s playing the game that, by developing Ares I, he’s making the “down payment†on Ares V, and thus is also developing Ares V.” [Mr. Simberg]
You may be right, but then Hanley is being technically dishonest with himself (e.g., 5- versus 5.5-segment SRB) instead of budgetarily dishonest, which is arguably even more worrisome for a manager in charge of a large engineering development program.
“Had they put someone like John Muratore in charge…” [Charles]
This is not a knock against Mr. Muratore, but I don’t think it would have changed anything. Griffin was ultimately in charge, and ESAS and Ares I/V were his babies. The die was cast regardless of who sat in the position of Constellation Program Manager.
I suspect Griffin had a hard time finding someone with actual development experience who knew better, like Muratore, to fill the position, and that’s partly why someone with operations experience, like Hanley, was chosen.
“The X-38 was an amazing program that was the wrong one at the wrong time, but it achieved remarkable stuff with a limited budget.”
Again, not a knock against the hard and dedicated efforts of the X-38 team, but the project was arguably more about not becoming a competitive threat to the Space Shuttle program than about rapidly developing a viable U.S. emergency crew return vehicle.
If George Abbey had really wanted rapid development of a reliable crew return capability, then X-38 would have started from a proven capsule shape, rather than an untried lifting body shape. Of course, the irony is that we’re currently using a proven capsule shape for emergency ISS crew return, only it’s Russian.
And if we were going to the expense of developing and testing a crewed reentry vehicle, which is arguably the demanding part of crewed vehicle design, then logically we would spend the delta budget necessary to size and equip that vehicle for transporting crews up to ISS on an ELV so we could maximize our investment and have a backup system for all modes of crew transport. But instead the vehicle was sized for transport in the Space Shuttle payload bay, which prevented it from transporting crew up to ISS. Of course, the irony is that when we needed a backup crew transport system after the Columbia accident, we did have a crewed reentry vehicle that launched on an ELV and was capable of transporting crew to ISS — only it was Russian.
FWIW…
“…an untried lifting body shape.”
Excuse me? The SV-5, untried?
Need to read some history there, neighbour.
G Clark
“The SV-5, untried?”
Sorry I wasn’t more specific, but yes, unlike various capsule designs, for Earth reentry, the SV-5J or X-24A are untried. The jet-powered SV-5J never flew and the rocket-powered X-24A only reached Mach 1.6 (IIRC). These designs havn’t been tested in hypersonic flight, nevertheless through a full Earth reentry profile.
Note that this is not a knock against lifting body designs — I’m just stating facts about what has and has not been tested for Earth reentry.
FWIW…
@Major Tom:
“If George Abbey had really wanted rapid development of a reliable crew return capability, then X-38 would have started from a proven capsule shape, rather than an untried lifting body shape. ”
This is not quite true. X-38’s shape was based on the X-24 that actually flew. So there were a lot of data and research on such vehicle. What was not trivial and un-tested was the use of a parafoil. And I remember the early tests were failures but I believe that right before cancellation they were able to properly deploy. Politics aside I think X-38 might have worked as intended. There was another major issue that needed to be solved as far as I know related to aeroheating of the body flaps (someone may correct me here if I am wrong). I don’t know how big of a deal it was and may have been major depending on whether you needed deflected flaps for re-entry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin-Marietta_X-24
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-38
As for a “proven” capsule shape. It is precisely what CEV was supposed to be: Apollo. Unfortunately in that case they changed the OML so much that pretty much you had to redo the entire aerodynamics and aero-heating analyses. At this kind of Mach number you cannot just say “oh well it’s about the same shape”. Beyond that and like for any re-entry vehicles the location of the CG is paramount therefore the re-entry profiles of CEV or Apollo are most likely “very” different. In hypersonics “very” may be one Mach number different at the same altitude for example…
Bottom line: Capsules are “easier” than other vehicles but by no means are they “easy”.
FWIW.
As for the hypersonics portion of flights with the X-24. Remember the Asset program (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASSET_(spaceplane)). The OML is indeed different but I would say that if you show the vehicle re-entry alpha is similar and that the surface of the exposed heatshield is similar to that of the X-24 then you do have re-entry data. But point is well taken on the untried re-entry.
“Note that this is not a knock against lifting body designs — I’m just stating facts about what has and has not been tested for Earth reentry.”
Finally, remember that Shuttle is indeed a lifiting body, the definition of which is that lift is actually generated by the whole body as opposed to by the wings like in “regular” aircraft. The wings on Shuttle are primarily there for the landing flare. Most of the lift on those hypersonic vehicles is created by the force applied to the heat shield (like the capsule) when they enter at very high alpha. The bottom of Shuttle is essentially flat so during that portion of flight it may as well be a “flat plate”.
Very interesting to hear the committee banter back and forth about safety. One guy kept going on about Ares I and how safe it was with its one engine on each stage…
Both the Atlas V and the Delta IV also have one engine on each stage. His argument of simplicity and safety is naive to the extreme. Single engines have undesirable abort consequences just as multi engine clusters do, but engine clusters also have additional benefits that may or may not outweigh their disadvantages in complexity and weight. Just saying it’s simple doesn’t fly.
Tom Hill,
The person who was making that point was Bo Bejmuk
The actual hypersonic portion of the SV-5 envelope was explored in the three SV-5D PRIME (erroneously called X-23) suborbital flights. Full reentry with hypersonic maneuvers including pitch-up, cross-range deflection, and turns were demonstrated.
The only lifting body shape in the world with more actual flight data is the BOR.
BTW, ASSET was apparently a sub-scale Winged Gemini shape. See Mark Wade for more on that.
“The actual hypersonic portion of the SV-5 envelope was explored in the three SV-5D PRIME (erroneously called X-23) suborbital flights. ”
Absolutely. I stand corrected. I was not able to find the reference any more and I wrongly associated ASSET with this in my mind.
Shuttle still is a lifting body with a lot of data but it’s a different story than that of the bathtub series.
Since the 5 segment solid rocket booster would be a component of the Ares V launch vehicle, I guess Hanley is technically correct since serious funding for the liquid rocket booster component of the Ares V heavy lift vehicle was not scheduled to be fully funded until after the Ares 1 was developed– whenever that happens. But this was a bad funding strategy right from the start!
The Ares 1 is a cancer on the space program, IMO, since it threatens to compromise the crew size of the Orion vehicle while also seriously delaying the replacement of the space shuttle and our return to the Moon. NASA is simply throwing good money after bad as long as they continue to fund the the development of the Ares 1.
Except Ares V needs a 5.5-segment booster…
2 very interesting points that came out of the telecon, that I think are worth noting big time
1. For all the options that don’t utilize an Ares V, propellent transfer seems to now be a part of the plan, it would appear. If you lookk on the scoring chart, you’ll notice that EELV super heavy & shuttle derived both employ propellent depots
2. The Committee determined that, from a financial sustianablity point of view, the best option was an EELV “super heavy & propellent tranfer”
worth noting
Regarding the email, I was reminded of the quote:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.”
Jeff Hanley’s memo referenced in the post is worth a read.
some comments are in order
The memo is one of the most poorly written memo’s from a manager in the US government that I have read…and that’s saying a lot…I’ve written some poor ones but this is about the worst.
It is almost a “blog” sort of stream of consciousness effort…and if the goal was to simply vent then it was successful. However, it the goal was to summon some intellectual arguments (there is very little technical presented in it) to help Coats defend the program it was a flop. Of course Coats is not much better in terms of intellectual horsepower so maybe it all worked out. It is laden with tired cliches “Buyer beware.” is one example.
Then there the are contradictory logical points made; particularly concerning launch vehicle development and NASA’s expertise…maybe in another post…
Where Jeff really flounders is his attempt to wrap himself in historical examples.
The memo writes: ”
. NASA’s present COTS program is THIS EXACT MODEL. Deliver cargo first, then grow toward crew after there is a trackrecord.
. Note that the federal government did not fund passenger service, but rather funded ‘cargo’, in that case.”
Hanley is referencing the Augustine commissions discussion of the airmail contract which more correctly is refereed to as McNary Watres Act (also called the Air Mail Act of 1930) and was passed on April 29, 1930.
the entire bill is fairly complicated (and is a study on how lobbying has not changed much over the years) and should be read by all. But the reality is that the act changed the way mail payments were computed with a direct goal of making passenger commercial air service profitable.
Under the act airmail carriers would be paid up to $1.25 per mile for having a cargo capacity on their planes of at least 25-cubic feet, whether the planes carried anything or flew empty. If they had less capacity, the “per mile†rate would be less. There was no incentive to carry mail since the airline would receive the same amount for a plane of a certain size whether it carried anything or not. But an airline could easily get additional revenue by carrying passengers. Thus, there was an incentive to use larger planes that were suited to carrying more passengers.
The goal despite what Hanley is claiming was to support passenger operations because the passengers were where the revenue was. It along with the awarding of routes essentially killed the “mom and pop” mail organizations
There were a couple of other provisions of the bill and they all were important BUT ALL were focused on creating profitable passenger carrying airlines.
the memo is correct in a narrow sense, the bill did not fund specific passenger operations…that was part of its charms.
There are a couple of other areas where Hanley “jumps the shark” and seems excited with his own ability to use the keyboard. There are on a wider plain… good and bad arguments to build Ares 1…but Hanley’s main thrust seems to be to stop commercialization of lift…and to make that point he does to history what is frequently done by folks who do not know it, he distorts it.
Jeff if you read this, get some historical background. Also there are several US government sponsored schools in memo writing. People at your GS level are routinely sent to them. Get Coats to send you. The arguments you make and the way they are presented are inarticulate and uninformative. By the “grading sheet” of at least one of the schools, you would receive a D plus.
This is probably about that. My excuse is, the kids are at their Uncle/Aunt’s house, the wife is out flying until Saturday, the Jack is open… and I am taking a break from the amateur radio…and this is a blog
Robert G. Oler