Popular Mechanics has an extensive story on the people pushing Direct. I haven’t read it yet, but may have some comments after I do.
5 thoughts on “NASA Renegades”
Comments are closed.
Popular Mechanics has an extensive story on the people pushing Direct. I haven’t read it yet, but may have some comments after I do.
Comments are closed.
Sort of interesting. Not too much that was new to me as a regular TTM reader. Some biographical information was new, but the big picture seemed familiar. The arguments from NASA management were typically just bald assertions and character accusations.
The main take-away for me was the unspoken lead on just how constrained the vision is within NASA. Even “dissident” engineers without management or political meddling cannot apparently conceive of a rocket program that costs less than $13 billion to develop and billions more to launch and operate. Further, the DIRECT program does nothing to change the fundamental economics or operations of NASA or space ops generally.
NASA needs to stick to doing Mars probes, telescopes and space related R&D. The private sector can handle launch just fine without them. Even without the cost reductions we’re hoping SpaceX will bring to the table, just think how much hardware NASA could put into orbit using the Delta IV Heavy. At $140M/launch (assuming a small savings from the purchase of 250 flights), the Ares development costs could put 3,282,500 kg (7,236,674 lbs) of fuel and hardware to GTO using existing hardware. Then there’s the cost/launch question once the Ares V is operational (assuming it gets there). It has an ~8:1 cargo advantage over the Delta IV and ~6:1 over the F9 Heavy, but I bet costs/launch more than go the other way.
I’ll leave it to Rand or one of the other more qualified commenters to figure out how many Moon missions or prop depots we could put into orbit using just the development costs of the Ares program. Or heck, even DIRECT.
Corrections more than welcome. I believe a billion would be enough for about four (current, unmodified) EELV flights or about nine or ten Falcon 9 flights with a Dragon capsule to the ISS.
Add to that the Direct team claiming savings of over ten billion (I don’t remember the precise figure) compared to the Ares i & V.
Spend a billion on an Orion version that fits the EELVs (including the Delta IV even though it might not be able to launch it manned for other reasons –it would still be valuable as long as the capsule can be remotely operated, rescue/replacement missions anyone?) and a little help for the Atlas upgrades and well there you go: 5* launchers for the price of 2: special deal for Uncle Sam! It’s the Super Rebate Never Get Stuck Again Plan ^_^
And there should still be money left over for a lot of the NASA stuff that got cut because of ESAS/Ares I.
* 5 = small Jupiter, big Jupiter, Delta IV, Atlas V, Falcon 9
Haven’t read the article (nothing really new to me in general), but did read the first comment over there.
First, their are all kinds of professional engineers at NASA and an engineer who specializes in one particular field may not be fully qualified to evaluate a particular system or component in question. Second, some of the engineers who are grumbling may not work directly or even indirectly with the Ares program. It might be that they are stuck in less glamorous programs and are are jealous of the Ares work. It may be that they have a professional interest in seeing their EELV systems become- man-rated and promoted above the existing or adapted Shuttle systems that Ares utilizes.
Whoever wrote this comment is either completely ignorant of engineers or has an ego that is undeserved. Judging by the sentence I highlighted, the author of the comment hasn’t even read the first paragraph of the PM article or doesn’t know what Direct 2.0 is. I at least did as much.
As for the threat of jobs, I think that is misunderstood. The fact is, if Constellation is done properly, then NASA shouldn’t need as big a contigent to operate in the future. Without considering nominal attrition, people then start wondering where the cuts will be. So people then decide not to do anything that might draw negative criticism.
So with Ares, you got a problem that needs to be solved, and that is what engineers do. Management has said, “before assuming it won’t work, try solving the problems.” So engineers put their heads down and work through the issues. After some time, they get frustrated and start doing what engineers do; they ask questions.
OOH, they could switch to the Direct Plan, be “renegades,” and spend tens of billions on EELV’s and be _happy_ about it, instead of sad with ARES.
I think Direct is just another way to keep us playing the game even though it’s rigged against us.
Ares was sold as something it isn’t: a Shuttle derived vehicle. Since it is not going to use the same engines, nor the same stages, not even the same launch pads, how does it take advantage of Shuttle infrastructure? It doesn’t.
Worse, Ares I is a POS design which accomplishes nothing against a Delta-4 or Atlas-V Heavy. At best one can say it may be a test vehicle for technologies to be used in Ares V, much like Saturn I was for Saturn V, and that is about it. Yet I have not heard it being sold on this premise. Disaster of disasters seems to be they haven’t even finalized the early design for Ares V! Even this past week I was hearing reports of a switch to an “expendable” SSME engine again. WTF?!
If they are having problems with RS-68 being ablatable, just switch it to regenerative cooling, like Boeing actually suggested some time ago. Heck, Space X switched the Merlin engine to regenerative cooling in months, so I expect they can do it as easily. It would certainly be easier than making that mammoth SSME cheap!