I know the technical problems aren’t your big issue with the program, but as I read your article, a solution to the SRB tailoff concern occurred to me. The Titan boosters would fire their second stage ‘in the hole’ while still connected to the 1st stage during tailoff. The Wikipedia picture shows the vents in the interstage used for that purpose:
The PR issue might be a problem, however, because when the second stage ignites, it looks like the whole bloody things explodes. A quick search on Youtube didn’t bring about a video of the effect.
You know what NASA is? It’s the “public option” for manned spaceflight. With similar effects to what we can expect the healthcare public option to have on the private sector.
Wouldn’t it be great to have 70 SpaceXs? That’s where we should be heading, to an industry with real competition and innovation.
Separation is always very risky. Depending on how you slice up the historic data, it accounts for the plurality of launch vehicle failures, something like 25-35%. This is not a “new” risk.
At this point it’s not clear whether there was a recontact or not — we’re still looking into it. Though the upper stage tumble looked funny, it was predicted in some of the sim runs, and keeping the upper stage upright was not a test requirement. Keep in mind that the real Ares I will separate at a much higher altitude, which 10X lower dynamic pressure. But it will still be risky. It would be risky even with a cryo first stage.
Rand, there have been two sep-related Falcon I failures. In Demo 2 it wasn’t the “root cause” but it makes the point that sep is risky even when the government is not involved ;-).
BBB
At this point it’s not clear whether there was a recontact or not — we’re still looking into it.
Why don’t we know yet? (For whatever value of “we” is appropriate: the test team, NASA administration, or the public.)
Rand
I would suggest pointing out that the Augustine commission found that the recurring cost per flight for the Ares 1/Orion is apt to be in the range of a billion dollars. Also, that over twenty years it would not fly more than a couple of dozen times. Which means that if you add the DDT&E costs and the overhead costs, you are getting darned close to $3 billion per flight.
Dennis, I understand back in 2005 or so that the Ares I was forecast to fly about 100 times over its lifetime. What changed?
You know what NASA is? It’s the “public option” for manned spaceflight.
That’s not a bad analogy, actually. As Ezra Klein discusses, the “main problem” with US healthcare costs is … the costs of per unit care. The US just pays more per doctor visit, CT scan, etc. than other countries. Insurance has nothing to do with it.
And that’s exactly the problem with NASA. Replacing the Shuttle with Constellation changes the appearance of the program but doesn’t address the fact that we just pay too damn much per launch.
And the motive is the same in both situations – Washington D.C. interests only places value on costs, because that’s what gets funneled back to them as campaign contributions. The larger value to society is lost to them, so they don’t care. This is one of the reasons we need serious, no-kidding campaign finance reform. There just needs to be a strict, no-exceptions policy on accepting campaign donations from anyone who isn’t a homo sapiens constituent.
“Rand, there have been two sep-related Falcon I failures. In Demo 2 it wasn’t the “root cause” but it makes the point that sep is risky even when the government is not involved ;-).”
So a government agency that has been putting payloads into orbit for over half a century, can make the same mistake as a company that’s been putting payloads into orbit for over 1 year, for about 500 times as much money? 😉
Or 100, or 50. (In case of quibbling)
Brock,
It would be interesting to see what a market in manned spaceflight would look like. Just like it would be to see a market in healthcare ☺
You know what NASA is? It’s the “public option” for manned spaceflight.
A poor analogy, it’s more like the Department of Defense medical system of manned spaceflight. The “public option” will be funded by premiums paid by the people who choose it; NASA and the DOD are funded by taxes, paid by everyone. The “public option” will reduce the deficit (according to the CBO); NASA and the DOD only increase it.
There is one similarity: the benefits (whether medical care or space flight) of the “public option”, NASA, and DOD are all only available to a select few (estimates are that only a few million people will be eligible to choose the public option, which is close to the number covered by the DOD medical system).
Dennis, I understand back in 2005 or so that the Ares I was forecast to fly about 100 times over its lifetime. What changed?
At two flights a year (the ISS taxi flights were added much later), it would take 50 years to get that many flights. That is a LOT over overhead money per year for so few flights.
Dennis, I haven’t heard that. Within a few days of the announcement, I recall hearing speculation that they’d be launching at peak a dozen times a year. That later got reduced to 6-8.
“Shuttle-derived” vehicles lead to shuttle-derived over promises of flight rate? At some point in time the shuttle fleet was supposed to fly dozens of times a year.
It’s great to see this in PM. I don’t think many laypeople have any notion how expensive the Ares I project is relative to private efforts.
On top of the problems with the Ares I-X itself, it seems to have caused “substantial” damage to Pad 39B:
Dennis, I understand back in 2005 or so that the Ares I was forecast to fly about 100 times over its lifetime. What changed?
At two flights a year (the ISS taxi flights were added much later), it would take 50 years to get that many flights.
That’s in the right ballpark. Ares/Orion was supposed to be “an American Soyuz — the way NASA astronauts will go to space for the next 40 years.”
Karl
To where in the hell would they fly at a $billion per flight? Just flying the Ares 1/Orion would consume the entire NASA HSF budget.
It would seem to me likely to be cheaper to simply fly twice as many Ares V (If you are going to keep the program of record) than to maintain the special appurtenances just to fly the Ares 1.
If you are only going to the store twice a year, a tractor-trailer you are already using might be cheaper than a mini-van purchased for such a low use rate.
My favorite solution is Atlas Phase 2.
It can scale from 9 to 75 tons so you can fly it alot and still get a maximum lift capacity that splits the difference between a Saturn V and a current EELV heavy.
There would be little need to retain the current Atlas when you can scale down to 9 tons. Anything smaller can fly on someting else.
My favorite solution is Atlas Phase 2.
Why? It sucks up funding and it sucks up potential payloads for RLVs. No RLVs, likely no big reduction in cost to orbit, no large scale space tourism, no economic development of space. It doesn’t look much better than Constellation to me.
Has anyone seen the Wikipedia page for Ariane V lately? It seems that with some upgrades that they are interested in doing, they can kick the LEO payload to 27,000 kg.
That starts to get interesting. They are planning this for exploration type missions.
To where in the hell would they fly at a $billion per flight? Just flying the Ares 1/Orion would consume the entire NASA HSF budget.
Hell, if I know. Depends what the marginal cost of launch is. If they really need $2+ billion a year, whether it launches or not, then I just don’t see Ares I going anywhere interesting. But if it has a rather low marginal cost on top of that then they could use it for the purpose NASA claimed at the time to be interested in. Things like ISS service and the occasional Moon/Mars missions.
70 plus Falcon 9 developments for one Ares I development. Surely heads must roll if this ever becomes general public knowledge. If a journalist asked Obama how this could be justified in a press conference, what would the outcome be?
Huh, $35 billion buys a lot of payload too. Even at $10,000 per kg to LEO (which I gather are current EELV prices), that’s 3500 tons to LEO.
There wasn’t any contact *at all* between the stages, Rand — the NASASpaceflight website has videos up that show what looks like a 2-3 SRB-diameter gap between the stages just before the tumble motors fire (which swings the nose of the SRB away from the upper stage simulator). The separation itself is clean and looks like any other stage separation — the booster retros fire and the stages separate smoothly and without losing any significant alignment.
Maybe if the cost comparison could be made more visual:
And to think, SpaceX is not even developing small low cost high flight rate reusable launch vehicles. They are still somewhat traditional.
It’s great to see this in PM. I don’t think many laypeople have any notion how expensive the Ares I project is relative to private efforts.
Thanks, Jim. I try to expand these kinds of thoughts beyond the usual choir, and this is one way of doing it.
Why? It sucks up funding and it sucks up potential payloads for RLVs. No RLVs, likely no big reduction in cost to orbit, no large scale space tourism, no economic development of space. It doesn’t look much better than Constellation to me.
That’s simple. Lazarus Long explained it: “Human beings hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn; when they do, which isn’t often, on their own, the hard way.”
Like Wile E. Coyote. If Ares I doesn’t work out, they just move on to the next scheme to get heavy lift, whether it’s Ares V, Shuttle C, Atlas Phase 2, or Ariane V B.
First, Rand,
Thanks for the clear analysis. It helps us all understand what is actually going on.
Second, everyone, why does the government development cost so much? Can someone point out something that the government does that drives up costs without a corresponding benefit? Or even government contractors? Something a person who is not even a little bit libertarian will understand and agree with?
Can someone point out something that the government does that drives up costs without a corresponding benefit?
It provides work for many people who don’t add value, because space isn’t very important. It’s primarily a jobs program for space professionals. It costs so much because it can afford to, because they’re spending other peoples’ money, and not their own.
When it comes to NASA I agree. But I was wondering why an intelligent individual like Mike Puckett was in favour of Atlas Phase 2.
Chuck,
“something that the government does that drives up costs without a corresponding benefit?” One very simple thing is cost of labor. Each member of that army of civil servants has a great benefits package with an incredible pension plan attached to it. Ever hear the one about the civil service missile? It doesn’t work and you can’t fire it! (My apologies to good civil servants everywhere, yes, I’ve known a few) But really, streamlining the workforce is incredibly hard to do. Compare that to SpaceX. I doubt if their workers have pension plans. I also doubt there’s much, if any, deadwood in the labor force.
“Or even government contractors?” a) Reams and reams of acquisition regulations definitely drive up cost. The cost of compliance adds a huge premium onto what you pay for. What do you get for it? The ability to “prove” to Congress that you are being good stewards of the taxpayers money. b) Ever hear of Cost Plus Fixed Fee contracting? The theory is that because R&D programs are by their nature “risky,” if you used Firm Fixed Price contracts, the contractor would bear all of that risk and you wouldn’t be able to get contractors to bid on the work. By using CPFF contracts, the government absorbs that risk, industry is guaranteed a profit, and you get multiple bidders for the work. The downside is it almost always costs more than programmed. Why? Because contractors will underbid to get the work, betting on the fact the project won’t get cancelled when they overrun costs. And if they do overrun, because it’s a cost plus contract, they still get paid for the overrun, and in most cases will still get the fee on that overrun. (That’s a gross simplification, there are ways to hold contractor’s feet to the fire but you wanted simple.)
That’s my two cents, hope it helps.
It seems I was not clear enough. Most people will not really understand your statement, Rand. Likewise yours, Steve A. Sorry. Try looking at the 11 PM news. They present very short stories that an ordinary person can easily understand. Yes, I know they get things wrong all too frequently and don’t develop stories in depth.
Let me give an example of what I am looking for. Quite a few people in engineering circles know about the harm the current ITAR regulations are causing. Still, though, that does not translate that well to people who are not all that involved in the business. Last April Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger’s staff asked me for examples of ITAR folly. He was going to give a speech to an AIAA forum on ITAR reform. I gave him a juicy example. An astronomer who was born in Italy wrote a paper about a bit of Hubble apparatus before he became an American citizen. The ITAR people took one look at his paper, slapped a secret stamp on it — and would not let him read his own paper. Ruppersberger used the example in his speech and commented “How about a little common sense?”
I know the technical problems aren’t your big issue with the program, but as I read your article, a solution to the SRB tailoff concern occurred to me. The Titan boosters would fire their second stage ‘in the hole’ while still connected to the 1st stage during tailoff. The Wikipedia picture shows the vents in the interstage used for that purpose:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_23G
The PR issue might be a problem, however, because when the second stage ignites, it looks like the whole bloody things explodes. A quick search on Youtube didn’t bring about a video of the effect.
You know what NASA is? It’s the “public option” for manned spaceflight. With similar effects to what we can expect the healthcare public option to have on the private sector.
Wouldn’t it be great to have 70 SpaceXs? That’s where we should be heading, to an industry with real competition and innovation.
Separation is always very risky. Depending on how you slice up the historic data, it accounts for the plurality of launch vehicle failures, something like 25-35%. This is not a “new” risk.
At this point it’s not clear whether there was a recontact or not — we’re still looking into it. Though the upper stage tumble looked funny, it was predicted in some of the sim runs, and keeping the upper stage upright was not a test requirement. Keep in mind that the real Ares I will separate at a much higher altitude, which 10X lower dynamic pressure. But it will still be risky. It would be risky even with a cryo first stage.
Rand, there have been two sep-related Falcon I failures. In Demo 2 it wasn’t the “root cause” but it makes the point that sep is risky even when the government is not involved ;-).
BBB
At this point it’s not clear whether there was a recontact or not — we’re still looking into it.
Why don’t we know yet? (For whatever value of “we” is appropriate: the test team, NASA administration, or the public.)
Rand
I would suggest pointing out that the Augustine commission found that the recurring cost per flight for the Ares 1/Orion is apt to be in the range of a billion dollars. Also, that over twenty years it would not fly more than a couple of dozen times. Which means that if you add the DDT&E costs and the overhead costs, you are getting darned close to $3 billion per flight.
Dennis, I understand back in 2005 or so that the Ares I was forecast to fly about 100 times over its lifetime. What changed?
That’s not a bad analogy, actually. As Ezra Klein discusses, the “main problem” with US healthcare costs is … the costs of per unit care. The US just pays more per doctor visit, CT scan, etc. than other countries. Insurance has nothing to do with it.
And that’s exactly the problem with NASA. Replacing the Shuttle with Constellation changes the appearance of the program but doesn’t address the fact that we just pay too damn much per launch.
And the motive is the same in both situations – Washington D.C. interests only places value on costs, because that’s what gets funneled back to them as campaign contributions. The larger value to society is lost to them, so they don’t care. This is one of the reasons we need serious, no-kidding campaign finance reform. There just needs to be a strict, no-exceptions policy on accepting campaign donations from anyone who isn’t a homo sapiens constituent.
“Rand, there have been two sep-related Falcon I failures. In Demo 2 it wasn’t the “root cause” but it makes the point that sep is risky even when the government is not involved ;-).”
So a government agency that has been putting payloads into orbit for over half a century, can make the same mistake as a company that’s been putting payloads into orbit for over 1 year, for about 500 times as much money? 😉
Or 100, or 50. (In case of quibbling)
Brock,
It would be interesting to see what a market in manned spaceflight would look like. Just like it would be to see a market in healthcare ☺
You know what NASA is? It’s the “public option” for manned spaceflight.
A poor analogy, it’s more like the Department of Defense medical system of manned spaceflight. The “public option” will be funded by premiums paid by the people who choose it; NASA and the DOD are funded by taxes, paid by everyone. The “public option” will reduce the deficit (according to the CBO); NASA and the DOD only increase it.
There is one similarity: the benefits (whether medical care or space flight) of the “public option”, NASA, and DOD are all only available to a select few (estimates are that only a few million people will be eligible to choose the public option, which is close to the number covered by the DOD medical system).
Dennis, I understand back in 2005 or so that the Ares I was forecast to fly about 100 times over its lifetime. What changed?
At two flights a year (the ISS taxi flights were added much later), it would take 50 years to get that many flights. That is a LOT over overhead money per year for so few flights.
Dennis, I haven’t heard that. Within a few days of the announcement, I recall hearing speculation that they’d be launching at peak a dozen times a year. That later got reduced to 6-8.
“Shuttle-derived” vehicles lead to shuttle-derived over promises of flight rate? At some point in time the shuttle fleet was supposed to fly dozens of times a year.
It’s great to see this in PM. I don’t think many laypeople have any notion how expensive the Ares I project is relative to private efforts.
On top of the problems with the Ares I-X itself, it seems to have caused “substantial” damage to Pad 39B:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/10/pad-39b-suffers-substantial-damage-ares-i-x-parachute-update/
Dennis, I understand back in 2005 or so that the Ares I was forecast to fly about 100 times over its lifetime. What changed?
At two flights a year (the ISS taxi flights were added much later), it would take 50 years to get that many flights.
That’s in the right ballpark. Ares/Orion was supposed to be “an American Soyuz — the way NASA astronauts will go to space for the next 40 years.”
Karl
To where in the hell would they fly at a $billion per flight? Just flying the Ares 1/Orion would consume the entire NASA HSF budget.
It would seem to me likely to be cheaper to simply fly twice as many Ares V (If you are going to keep the program of record) than to maintain the special appurtenances just to fly the Ares 1.
If you are only going to the store twice a year, a tractor-trailer you are already using might be cheaper than a mini-van purchased for such a low use rate.
My favorite solution is Atlas Phase 2.
It can scale from 9 to 75 tons so you can fly it alot and still get a maximum lift capacity that splits the difference between a Saturn V and a current EELV heavy.
There would be little need to retain the current Atlas when you can scale down to 9 tons. Anything smaller can fly on someting else.
My favorite solution is Atlas Phase 2.
Why? It sucks up funding and it sucks up potential payloads for RLVs. No RLVs, likely no big reduction in cost to orbit, no large scale space tourism, no economic development of space. It doesn’t look much better than Constellation to me.
Has anyone seen the Wikipedia page for Ariane V lately? It seems that with some upgrades that they are interested in doing, they can kick the LEO payload to 27,000 kg.
That starts to get interesting. They are planning this for exploration type missions.
To where in the hell would they fly at a $billion per flight? Just flying the Ares 1/Orion would consume the entire NASA HSF budget.
Hell, if I know. Depends what the marginal cost of launch is. If they really need $2+ billion a year, whether it launches or not, then I just don’t see Ares I going anywhere interesting. But if it has a rather low marginal cost on top of that then they could use it for the purpose NASA claimed at the time to be interested in. Things like ISS service and the occasional Moon/Mars missions.
70 plus Falcon 9 developments for one Ares I development. Surely heads must roll if this ever becomes general public knowledge. If a journalist asked Obama how this could be justified in a press conference, what would the outcome be?
Huh, $35 billion buys a lot of payload too. Even at $10,000 per kg to LEO (which I gather are current EELV prices), that’s 3500 tons to LEO.
There wasn’t any contact *at all* between the stages, Rand — the NASASpaceflight website has videos up that show what looks like a 2-3 SRB-diameter gap between the stages just before the tumble motors fire (which swings the nose of the SRB away from the upper stage simulator). The separation itself is clean and looks like any other stage separation — the booster retros fire and the stages separate smoothly and without losing any significant alignment.
Maybe if the cost comparison could be made more visual:
http://cheezburger.com/View.aspx?aid=2795305984
🙂
And to think, SpaceX is not even developing small low cost high flight rate reusable launch vehicles. They are still somewhat traditional.
It’s great to see this in PM. I don’t think many laypeople have any notion how expensive the Ares I project is relative to private efforts.
Thanks, Jim. I try to expand these kinds of thoughts beyond the usual choir, and this is one way of doing it.
Why? It sucks up funding and it sucks up potential payloads for RLVs. No RLVs, likely no big reduction in cost to orbit, no large scale space tourism, no economic development of space. It doesn’t look much better than Constellation to me.
That’s simple. Lazarus Long explained it: “Human beings hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn; when they do, which isn’t often, on their own, the hard way.”
Like Wile E. Coyote. If Ares I doesn’t work out, they just move on to the next scheme to get heavy lift, whether it’s Ares V, Shuttle C, Atlas Phase 2, or Ariane V B.
First, Rand,
Thanks for the clear analysis. It helps us all understand what is actually going on.
Second, everyone, why does the government development cost so much? Can someone point out something that the government does that drives up costs without a corresponding benefit? Or even government contractors? Something a person who is not even a little bit libertarian will understand and agree with?
Can someone point out something that the government does that drives up costs without a corresponding benefit?
It provides work for many people who don’t add value, because space isn’t very important. It’s primarily a jobs program for space professionals. It costs so much because it can afford to, because they’re spending other peoples’ money, and not their own.
When it comes to NASA I agree. But I was wondering why an intelligent individual like Mike Puckett was in favour of Atlas Phase 2.
Chuck,
“something that the government does that drives up costs without a corresponding benefit?” One very simple thing is cost of labor. Each member of that army of civil servants has a great benefits package with an incredible pension plan attached to it. Ever hear the one about the civil service missile? It doesn’t work and you can’t fire it! (My apologies to good civil servants everywhere, yes, I’ve known a few) But really, streamlining the workforce is incredibly hard to do. Compare that to SpaceX. I doubt if their workers have pension plans. I also doubt there’s much, if any, deadwood in the labor force.
“Or even government contractors?” a) Reams and reams of acquisition regulations definitely drive up cost. The cost of compliance adds a huge premium onto what you pay for. What do you get for it? The ability to “prove” to Congress that you are being good stewards of the taxpayers money. b) Ever hear of Cost Plus Fixed Fee contracting? The theory is that because R&D programs are by their nature “risky,” if you used Firm Fixed Price contracts, the contractor would bear all of that risk and you wouldn’t be able to get contractors to bid on the work. By using CPFF contracts, the government absorbs that risk, industry is guaranteed a profit, and you get multiple bidders for the work. The downside is it almost always costs more than programmed. Why? Because contractors will underbid to get the work, betting on the fact the project won’t get cancelled when they overrun costs. And if they do overrun, because it’s a cost plus contract, they still get paid for the overrun, and in most cases will still get the fee on that overrun. (That’s a gross simplification, there are ways to hold contractor’s feet to the fire but you wanted simple.)
That’s my two cents, hope it helps.
It seems I was not clear enough. Most people will not really understand your statement, Rand. Likewise yours, Steve A. Sorry. Try looking at the 11 PM news. They present very short stories that an ordinary person can easily understand. Yes, I know they get things wrong all too frequently and don’t develop stories in depth.
Let me give an example of what I am looking for. Quite a few people in engineering circles know about the harm the current ITAR regulations are causing. Still, though, that does not translate that well to people who are not all that involved in the business. Last April Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger’s staff asked me for examples of ITAR folly. He was going to give a speech to an AIAA forum on ITAR reform. I gave him a juicy example. An astronomer who was born in Italy wrote a paper about a bit of Hubble apparatus before he became an American citizen. The ITAR people took one look at his paper, slapped a secret stamp on it — and would not let him read his own paper. Ruppersberger used the example in his speech and commented “How about a little common sense?”
Getting my drift?