Unfortunately, the Discovery was program was cancelled (after the current Disc-12 flies)and the next New Frontiers won’t even have an Announcement of Opportunity out until 2015 at the earliest. It’s not just Mars. It’s not just Flagships. Planetary Science was virtually annihilated.

Let that be a warning to any who dare to p.o. OMB …

“No, I mean Figure 1.1 on page 11 of the full PDF download, which is free as long as you give them an email address.”

Thanks for the clarification.

“Using historical data, that line graph shows how much spacecraft typically cost per metric ton of launch payload available to them.”

Powerful metrics. That is the type of info that can be used to ultimately derail the SLS. I say that because no matter the “generally accepted wisdom” of thinking that a bigger rocket must be better, the unintended consequence in NASA budget terms is that fewer missions are affordable, and LESS science & exploration gets done.

I downloaded the report, and the “TABLE S.1 Summary of Mission Concepts Evaluated by the Committee” looked at 17 potential missions:

– 5of the 17 (~30%) gained no advantage using Ares V
– 6 of the remaining 12 (35%) use antennas or mirrors
– One relies on Orion, but utilizes the Ares V EDS
– The remaining five (30%) relied upon the Ares V EDS

In summary, only 6 of those 17 missions relied upon the larger diameter capability of Ares V. The rest could be done using existing rockets and separately launched boosters.

Also of note is the point that Doug Lassiter & DBN have been making, in that of the six missions utilizing antennas or mirrors, five of them were estimated to be >$5B in cost. How many of those level of missions could NASA afford to launch every year?

No, I mean Figure 1.1 on page 11 of the full PDF download, which is free as long as you give them an email address. Using historical data, that line graph shows how much spacecraft typically cost per metric ton of launch payload available to them. For example, a 10mT spacecraft will cost at least $5 billion and up to $15 billion (not including launch), depending on difficulty. The text accompanying the graph notes that Ares V has a 10mT throw-weight to Uranus/Neptune and even more to Mars/Jupiter.

Again, when the Mars program was well-funded, $5 billion would have funded an entire decade of missions. If we had forced the Mars program to use Ares V, they would have only been able to do one spacecraft of average difficulty every 10 years. Obviously, HLVs on the scale of Ares V or SLS make no sense for science missions.

Your points about shroud size in Figure S.1 also stand.

And even then only compared to currently existing launchers, not launchers that might exist 20 years from now.

Which means it could also be done with propellant transfer and smaller launchers. That would actually be a good idea: provide SMD with a transfer stage based on the Orion and heavily subsidised propellant at L1/L2 and let them take care of the science side of things.

I didn’t href it. I just posted that address as text. WordPress turned it into an activelink.

The shroud size in a launch vehicle is a simplistic metric for payload size. JWST, for example, could never have been lofted deployed in an 8m diameter shroud. The deployed version of JWST could never have withstood launch loads. What’s been proposed as a large-aperture HLV follow on for JWST (visual and UV wavelengths) is a BIG chunk of heavy glass that completely obviates any need for a support structure and alignment actuators. What you end up with is a hugely massive telescope that needs a huge control system to point it. By the same token, in making it massive and stiff, a lot of control options are taken out. This strategy isn’t extensible, as a bigger telescope has to wait for a bigger rocket. All in all, not a very smart investment in technological capability. But hey, it’s a low-tech way of filling (exactly one) SLS!

Grunsfeld worked on this plan while he was at STScI. Let’s hope he’s visionary enough to see beyond that strategy.

““The NRC one that you refer to most certainly was competed, and is available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12554.””

The link should be “http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12554” (you had a period on the end).

“Figure 1.1 should be mandatory reading for anyone thinking about using SLS for science/robotic missions.”

Not wanting to pay $37.25, I downloaded the PDF summary – do you mean chart “FIGURE S.1″, which starts “Two possible configurations of the Ares V shroud…“?

That figure stated “Any spacecraft carried atop an [Ares V] upper stage would have severely restricted volume constraints. Neither shroud option takes advantage of the width of the Ares V shroud. SOURCE: Adapted courtesy of NASA.”

SLS would have the same constraints, and in looking at the preliminary NASA plans for the SLS, the Earth Departure Stage (EDS), which might mitigate this issue somewhat, isn’t even planned to be available until the 2030’s. That means the SLS would offer no advantages payload-size compared to existing rockets during it’s first decade of availability.

I don’t think SLS backers know that, otherwise they wouldn’t be crowing about how only the SLS can loft wider payloads than existing rockets. Taking that into account, now we’re talking 20 years until the SLS can provide any meaningful value over existing launchers.

This is really starting to get me pissed off about wasted spending. Politicians won’t be able to focus on anything related to logic for the rest of this year (too busy saving their own skins), but I think I’m going to start publicly lobbying for the cancellation of the SLS next year, either by joining an existing group, or maybe doing something on my own.

The fiscal insanity known as the SLS has to be stopped.