That remains my choice among NASA’s heavy-lift options. Doing a new Saturn V seems particularly crazy to me.
[Update a few minutes later]
More over at the Orlando Sentinel space blog. It’s an interesting point that one of the (many) issues with solids is that they are a lot harder to transport to the pad. And I don’t think that the human spaceflight program should be held hostage to the Pentagon’s need to keep ATK in business for military solid work. If it’s important to national security to have a solid manufacturer available, then let them pay for it, instead of perverting NASA’s launch systems and budget.
At least the revived saturn V idea has the merit of being technically sound. Von Braun knew 50 years ago that a LOX/HP booster stage was not the best solution.
If the scale is right on that image, I don’t think the SV 2.0 would fit in the VAB!
Look at the scale of the shilloute, not the detailed image.
Are those Atlas V first stages as strap on boosters? 🙂
Anyway, if they want to do such monster rocket thingies, they could just strap together a bunch of Atlas V first stages in a cluster like Von Braun did for Saturn I. Then they could just use many RL-10s to power the second stage. That way they would compete with N-1 for the title of launch system with largest number of rocket engines in history. Hm, better make those first stages engines RD-191 instead. Nah kidding.
While I think having a LOX/Kerosene first stage is a good idea, NASA really needs to let go of the notion of super heavy lift.
Eh, at least the poll had options like “screw it, let the private sector figure it out.” Progress, of a sort.
I’m not too concerned about the specific design of the 1st or 2nd stage. We could strap a dozen solid fuel motors around a kerosene 2nd stage and light it off for all I care. However eventually someone’s going to have to bite the bullet and make the 3rd stage nuclear if they want to actually get anywhere outside of LEO with a significant payload.
Interesting to see that the kerosene first stage and Atlas-derived boosters are back on the table. The RP-1 HLLV will be expensive to develop, but at least the core can be built on the assembly line for the Shuttle ET, and the boosters require minimal modification from their Atlas counterparts. Integrating all of the pieces will be a tougher matter, though. And Russian engines will be a tough sell if we’re asking Congress to give NASA an extra $3B per year.
Still, all bets are on “Son of Shuttle C” for the only heavy-lifter that has a realistic chance of being built. Anything else will keep the all-important shuttle workforce on furlough for too long.
Mike – Thanks. That makes much more sense.
More NASA insanity: apparently Constellation honchos are now thinking of Ares I + propellant depots as one possible option. The whole point of Ares was that supposedly EELVs weren’t good enough and now they are considering using something less capable than EELVs. And depots without commercial propellant launches still will not lead to a breakthrough in launch costs. How do these people get away with this? In the commercial world people would at least lose their jobs and probably go to jail if they fleeced their sponsors like this.
Wouldn’t NASA be breaking a 40 year old promise if they build a Saturn derived launcher? One of the promises that NASA made in order to get funding for Shuttle was that they would put the plans for the Saturn away and promise never to build it again. Seems the gov’t in general runs like a broken record. Every 30 years they pull out the same tired old ideas and try to spin them again. Whether the broken record is their socialist space program or their socialist welfare state — play it again Sam.
Personally, I wondered what could have been accomplished if NASA had launched a full-scale Sea Dragon instead of the corndog test they actually did. 500 tons of payload would have meant that they could have put up an entire propellant depot, partially fueled, in one shot.
And if they want to have a practical Mars mission, they could launch a Sea Dragon with an Orion nuclear-pulse upper stage. The 21 meter diameter allows a much higher ISP than the Orion-Saturn V designs.
It isn’t that heavy lift is useless, it’s just that NASA is politically incapable of using it effectively.
Also, high flight-rate reusables are clearly the way to bring launch costs down.
Rand,
You’re buying into ATK’s disinformation. DOD does not need NASA to buy SRBs from ATK. DOD currently enjoys a lower cost of the perchlorate raw material due to SRBs, but this is a small fraction of the cost of all the solid missiles and strap-ons DOD uses. And there are cheaper ways to “subsidize” those costs than buying SRBs forever.
NASA is the world’s only remaining user of large segmented solid rocket motors. This is not a sign of space leadership, but of effective lobbying. It is entirely an artifact of the budget squeezes during startup of the Shuttle program. Crazy me, thinking that strategy in 2010 should be based on something other than a budget kludge from 40 years ago.
– Jim
p.s. By the way, did anyone else notice that when it came to launching Orion on Atlas 552, it was “bad” to put solids next to liquids for launching humans… but when it comes to Ares V lite (etc…) it’s fine.
Ariane 5 flew 8 times this year with segmented solids, which can only be classified as “large” with 2/3 thrust of Shuttle SRB. So, NASA is far from the only remaining user.