Clark Lindsey has some useful thoughts. As he notes, it would have been pretty amazing if this test had failed, considering what a trivial thing they were doing, and how much they spent on it. If it had failed, it would (or at least should) have been the end of NASA, or at least Marshall, as a credible developer of rockets (not that they should have such a reputation now, given the history of the past three decades). Another SpaceX could have been founded and another Falcon 9 developed for the cost of that test. Which tells you all you need to know about the cost effectiveness of the NASA jobs program.
[Update a few minutes later]
Jeff Manber says that it was the wrong test, at the wrong time.
[Thursday morning update]
Chair Force Engineer has some thoughts on the Potemkin Rocket:
While Ares I-X was a low-fidelity test of a bad rocket design, the test’s fundamental flaws should not detract in any way from the Ares I-X program personnel who devoted the last three years of their life to making this test a success. While I strongly believe that Ares I-X should have waited until the 5-segment SRB was available, Ares I-X still taught NASA personnel much about ground handling operations and ocean recovery for the Ares rockets.
It would be churlish to imply that people who work on a bad project are bad people, and I’ve never intended to do that. I know from personal experience in the industry that sometimes you have to do what you have to do, and the real tragedy is that so much talent, and not just taxpayers’ money, has been wasted on this program. It was a huge opportunity cost, in time, dollars and people. The people who work on it both happily, and otherwise, deserve plaudits for doing as good a job as they could under the circumstances. Let’s just hope that their talents can soon be turned to more useful ends.
What is the schedule for the first test of the 5 segment Ares rocket?
@brian d, are you ready for this?
2013
Yes, that’s right, they won’t test the 5 segment rocket until 4 years from now. And even then it will still have a dummy J-2X stage. Actual launches won’t be until 2017, at best. This program is a disgrace to manned spaceflight, to NASA, and to the American taxpayer. By the end of this they will have managed to create one of the least capable, most compromised, most expensive launch systems in history. The only good thing about it is that it’s going so slow a lot of different congresses and presidential administrations will have a shot at cancelling it.
I think this is that rarest case, where “all good press is bad press.”
The press (from the handful of outlets who care) seems uniformly positive and even in awe (some are calling it a Mars rocket *furrows brow*).
For the even smaller handful of people who read such news stories and think about NASA, this will be “proof” that things are going well, and that they’re making slow, but steady progress. Which is all actually kinda true — the only problem is such people aren’t aware NASA’s simply making slow, but steady progress over the edge of a cliff.
Yes. Not to mention that even if they go through all that time and expense, they will basically get something that is neither more capable nor cheaper than an EELV Heavy. By this rate even the sedate Chinese space launch program will launch Long March 5 before NASA gets a new rocket up.
It amazes this observer that this was characterized as a success. That recontact, or whatever it was at separation, would have killed a crew.
By the end of this they will have managed to create one of the least capable….
I totally agree.
It’s a double waste. First you tax people to pay for a useless endeavor, which has an economic de-stimulating effect. Second you tie up an economically stimulating group of people i.e. engineers and scientists that could otherwise be involved in productive pursuits.
Do I believe what I saw on the short clip on the evening TV news? Did you all see what I saw, that the rocket kind of listed off to one side and then straightened up? Didn’t that rocket look like the proverbial Broward County drive, i.e., all over the road?
@IO: Agreed. I wonder if we’ll ever get to hear why the dummy second stage tumbled like that. Did the 24-hr news networks and evening updates even bother to show that part of the “test?”
Well yes, the dummy stage tumbled because it had no propulsion, and certainly no passive aerodynamic stabilization. The test was essentially complete at burnout of the booster. It does illustrate just how fast things go pear-shaped if the upper stage doesn’t light RIGHT NOW after such a high-Q staging, though…
In fairness, the five-segment booster would deliver the upper stage to higher altitude and lower Q than this test demonstrated, but it’s not really encouraging to see such rapid pitch/yaw rates and recontact with the booster.
Incorrect. The rates were low enough that the LAS would have saved the crew easily.
That was an intentional tower avoidance maneuver. Saturn V did the same thing.
Also in fairness, the real upper stage will have ullage motors to help separate from the first stage and the separation will occur along a different plane.
Also in fairness, this “test” bore so little likeness to the full-up configuration that it says nothing (good or bad) about the Ares I design.
They should have spent the money on an Atlas V launch of a real payload and just slapped an “Atlas IX” decal on the side, it would have been just as accurate a test.
Correction, that should be an “Ares IX” decal. 😛
Which is less expensive? Fueling the rocket with rocket fuel of whatever rocket fuel is made up of, or $100 bills?
Too much is being made of the fact that I-X is very different than the real Ares I should it ever be built. Yes, NASA is probably counting on people to think all is well and that should be countered. But incremental development is a great idea, especially if you’re still learning to build a rocket.
The real problem is NASA shouldn’t be in the launch business to begin with. Especially since they are still relearning how to do it. Your tax money is being spent to let a government design bureau relearn something that is available commercially.
This whole ‘test’ was designed originally by Griffin for political purposes, to help ensure dollars for his program. He thought it would happen last year originally.
Unfortunately this fraud is working well amongst the idiots, which is what it was designed to do. Furtherly unfortunately, the fate of human commercial launch for NASA may depend upon the comparison of this dummy booster fraud with however Falcon 9 performs on its first flight, which is also the latter’s first flight to orbit. Of course the comparison is between a ferrari and and a soap-box with a bottle-rocket up it’s *$$, but that won’t matter at the stupid surface level of perception.
Of course incremental test is desirable (I wish SpaceX had that capability!) but in the case of Ares it’s putting a tool necessary to produce low cost, high usability in the service of a design that can only do the opposite.
I should have added that, as Jeff Greason pointed out in the interview with Robert Block at the Orlando Sentinel the other day, the comparison should not be with Falcon 9 alone anyway, since the commission (and many of us out here) recommended a _competition_ for commercial human flight access to ISS. Of course, that would then include such vehicles as the Atlas V, with an established flight record.
“2013
Yes, that’s right, they won’t test the 5 segment rocket until 4 years from now.”
And as an apparently successful horizontal 5-segment motor test has already been done, one can only head scratch over that schedule, even deeper…
Don’t know what you’re griping about. The Ares I-X is almost exactly like a real Ares I. All you have to do to turn an Ares I-X into an Ares I is just:
1. Replace the first stage
2. Replace the second stage
3. Replace the payload
4. Replace the avionics
There! That should about do it!!
“Which is less expensive? Fueling the rocket with rocket fuel of whatever rocket fuel is made up of, or $100 bills?”
Not sure if your question is tongue-in-cheek or not, but rocket fuel is the cheapest part of the equation. The largest cost comes in maintaining the standing army of people and infrastructure who need to be paid/maintained whether things fly or not. While solid fuel (used in this test) is a little different, the liquid propellants used to fill the shuttle cost less than $10M IIRC. Smaller boosters would obviously cost less per flight in fuel.
Rand, I think this is the key passage from the ChairForce link:
For members of Congress who don’t comprehend how much more work beyond Ares I-X is necessary before the real Ares I is ready, the visual of Ares I-X lifting off is evidence that the program is on track. Indeed, members of Congress are already spinning the Augustine Report as evidence that Ares is being well-executed, even though the committee largely ignored that question (and largely endorsed the idea of commercial spacecraft for low earth orbit missions, with Ares V Lite for deep space exploration.) Somewhere, Mike Griffin is smiling with glee. Not just because Ares I-X succeeded, but because the political winds growing across the Potomac will keep his Shaft Rocket airborne for the foreseeable future.
Okay, now what?
“There! That should about do it!!”
Don’t forget to switch the license plates over…
I don’t think they should put an Ares 1-X sticker on an Atlas.
I think they should put an Estes sticker on the Ares 1-X.
Except that the Estes version of the Ares probably has a functioning upper stage…
Why didn’t they just use this?
It would be churlish to imply that people who work on a bad project are bad people, and I’ve never intended to do that. I know from personal experience in the industry that sometimes you have to do what you have to do, and the real tragedy is that so much talent, and not just taxpayers’ money, has been wasted on this program.
Thanks Rand. I don’t think you have suggested those doing the grunt work are bad people. You perhaps threaten their particular way of life and location of work, but I think in the realms of what is best for all, and that I can tolerate (besides, it’s not like your not in the industry and having to move yourself). And to be fair, I think your commentators have been reasonable. I rebuked MM, but only because of the suggestion the risk to Atlantis wasn’t properly considered, and his reply was gracious.
I thought the test looked pretty good. The tilt from the pad was planned, and the performance was better than I thought. The separation looked bad, but as others have pointed out, that was not, and never intended to be, a nominal second stage sep. I think it was easier to keep the standard tumbling motion of the SRB, since they were keeping the standard 4 segment for a show launch.
I didn’t work on Ares, and had no role in Ares 1X, but I do in the next major test, scheduled last year in White Sands… now scheduled next January, err…. anyway… it should be a very useful test, well could have been, but well… sometimes, you say it right about the time, money, and talent. It’s a well engineered test, that should look very successful, because as you know, “Failure is not an option”. If only failure was an option, this test would be done by now, lessons would have been learned, and the date of first manned flight would be a lot sooner.