As Clark Lindsey notes, even if we can believe the Probabilistic Risk Analysis that declares Ares “twice as safe” as an EELV (of course, to do that, we’d have to first actually see it…), that’s a pretty pathetic safety improvement considering the billions of dollars and many years that it will cost us. Considering how high the operational costs will be, it’s not likely to fly very much, anyway (I can’t see more than a four lunar missions a year, given the the budget likely to be available at the outrageous per-mission cost for the Constellation architecture). So the difference between, say, 0.999 and 0.995 is likely to be academic. Particularly when most of the hazards in a lunar mission occur after orbit has been attained. I am increasingly less and less impressed by Mike Griffin’s vaunted intelligence, and don’t miss him as administrator, even if he’s never replaced.
Speaking of which, this is indicative either of how disconnected with policy the president’s press secretary is, or how low a priority space policy is (and perhaps some depressing combination of the two):
“Q: Robert, the James A. Baker Institute is recommending that the Obama administration defer another lunar shot, and instead focus on energy and climate change. Does the White House have a reaction on that?
MR. GIBBS: I don’t have anything particularly from — I would point you to folks over at NASA. I don’t have any particular guidance on that.”
What would the “folks over at NASA” know about it? Policy has to come from the White House, but so far, it seems lacking. Clearly the administration is (over)interested in energy and climate change, but to set that up as an alternative to a “lunar shot” is a false choice. Of course, characterizing VSE as a “lunar shot” is simply a display of ignorance on the part of the questioner, but I suspect that this will be representative of the clueless quality of the space policy debate to come. If there is one.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Oh, and just in case you thought that Ares 1 didn’t have enough technical problems, here’s a new one — post-staging recontact:
This so-called recontact problem could end an Ares I mission – possibly catastrophically – during ascent. Failure could come seconds after firing of the separation pyrotechnics, if the upper stage’s J-2X engine does not provide enough power fast enough to stop it from slowing down and colliding with the first stage and its motor, which would still be providing residual thrust.
This is what caused SpaceX’ third failure. It will be a lot harder for NASA to solve, though.
SpaceX had the problem because they made a change to their first-stage propulsion that resulted in a slightly longer thrust tailoff than they expected. It was solved by simply decreasing the delay between separation and upper-stage ignition.
NASA doesn’t have this option, necessarily, because there are relatively large dispersions in thrust tailoff for an SRB, so it may be hard to find an optimal and reliable delay duration between separation and ignition. This wasn’t a problem for Shuttle because it doesn’t actually stage — it does a parallel burn, and the SSMEs are already at full thrust when the solids separate, and it can easily outrun them. But now, since they’ve come up with the brilliant concept of a solid first stage with an air-start second, they have a new serious risk in the program. And Ares-1X will tell them absolutely nothing about how to solve it.
[Update a few minutes later]
One more point. I’d like Dr. Griffin to tell us what he thinks an astronaut’s life is worth. Because clearly it’s not infinite. He has decided that making it twice as safe is worth billions, but even then, it’s not “safe” in absolute terms (because nothing is, this side of the grave). So we’ve established what he is — one of those heartless bastards who are willing to kill astronauts to pinch pennies. Now we’re just haggling over the price. I’d like to know what it is, though clearly, it’s a lot higher than my own estimate.