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Would have bought us two more SpaceX's and four more new rockets, based on what SpaceX has spent in their 8 years or so of existance.

It's quite sobering when you realize that the half-billion required simply to cancel the contract for the Ares I first stage is about the same as SpaceX has spent in total to develop, build, and launch several Falcon 1's and the Falcon 9, and do most of the development on the Dragon cargo/crew capsule (all designed to NASA's human-rating specifications). Particularly so since most of the justification for when prior NASA administrator Mike Griffin went with the Ares I design was that it was supposed to be much cheaper and faster to develop than the alternatives (which ended up being complete BS).

The purpose of Ares I-X is to provide data that can be used to design Ares I, reduce risk to the Ares I project and Constellation Program, and provide experience with ground processing and flying a vehicle similar to Ares I.

This is the vehicle that ATK Thiokol tried to sell as "Safe, Simple and Soon"

Oh, well.

(I started writing this comment and got a strange feeling of deja-vu. It turns out that my last slashdot comment 67 days ago was virtually identical. This is getting scary.)

This is the vehicle that ATK Thiokol tried to sell as "Safe, Simple and Soon"

Oh, well.

come up with an viable, alternative solutions

Griffin has solutions. NASA must yet go through the motions (congressional hearings, etc.) The intent is, however, easily discerned. It's called Safe, Simple and Soon and Griffin is hell bent on building it. He is also a talented politician and knows better than to let his agendas show too much. Don't be misled; he is uncompromising Planetary Society material, and if he can fire a bureaucrat he will. NASA's bureaucrats are busy hiding at the moment.

of course, here is the original link for the HLV and crew rocket.

We have the bulk of the science needed to go there. What we have been trying to come up with, is how to stay there for a short time, and then how to come back. That is very difficult. If we go on a one-way mission, then we could devote research to staying there and how to mine better. Much of that research will involve automation. That can be applied back here on earth.

As to how to get there, the rockets are coming. I think that sending a small crew there, is fairly easy, if doing a 4 month one-way trip. Staying there will require a small nuke. No 2 ways about it. Most likely, they will send it there early on (before man mission) to provide power to robots. It will construct a small shelter in the ground, as well as a green house on the surface (all automated). Once these are going, then send man. We have most of the technology for these. Just have to do it.

Dude, the new designs are already being worked on. New hardware descended from either the STS or the Delta IV Heavy. One or the other will fly based on some stuff we already have. The "better ideas" (really, just different ones that are better in some ways) are coming.

SafeSimpleSoon.Com, for example, has tons of info on an idea that looks likely to work. You don't cancel one idea because you don't like it before the next is ready, though. You go through transition first, and the transition is just starting right now.

You're right about the troll thing, and let's take that away. Now, I will respond to the rest of what you said, and let us stop being incendiary at each other and let's actually hold a good debate here.

Here's what I think, so far, in order:

The design lifetime of the Shuttle was for 100 flights per orbiter. That means that with a fleet of four, the design lifetime is 400 flights. Each orbiter has on average flown only about 25-30 flights, which means we are only 1/4 of the way through the design lifetime. Aircraft lifetimes are measured by the amount of time they've actually been flying rather than the amount of time they've existed.

While it is true that not all of the design goals have been met (which is a shame), keep in mind that no one had ever built a spaceplane anything like the shuttle before and therefore the only experience that it could be based on was that of airline service. It is now routine to fly aircraft long distances several times per day and work routine maintenance in around the schedule an airline must keep. This we do very well. But it turned out over time that the Shuttle was more complex to work with than anyone thought. While it seems easy enough to say that "they should have thought of that", is it really true? I don't think so. You only gain confidence in statements like that when you've had a lot of experience with the situation at hand -- which we didn't have with the Shuttle. It would have been great had it worked out that way, and we thought it would because we thought we knew what it would be like to operate it but it didn't happen. I don't think it's out of laziness or incompetence or anything else, but out of inexperience. Now we know more about what works and what doesn't, so in the future if a better spaceplane is tried, we will have years of Shuttle experience behind us as well as more years of expendable rocket experience. It will happen, but not yet.

In order to try again to build a shuttle replacement, we are going to have to get through the study phase. If there is serious incentive to build it, after the studies are completed, there will be designs, then testing. While it's easy to say "oh, if they were serious they'd be doing real work", the truth of the matter is still that these things take time. I think we'd all like to see it happen sooner rather than later, but we just can't get around the fact that major stuff like this takes time. Originally, in fact, the CEV wasn't supposed to be ready until 2014-2015 or so. Now, there has already been a lot of "let's move that up to 2010" debate. Can an entirely new system be built in a few short years? Sure. It's been done before, when properly funded. The Saturn family of rockets first began real flight testing in the mid 60s and was flying operational missions by the end of the decade. All that was needed was enough people to build it and the funds to build with.

There are actually designs in progress that are looking pretty good and are based on existing hardware so in theory they will take less time and money to complete. SafeSimpleSoon.Com has some great information, and these can be turned into flight hardware relatively quickly. See what I said above about what it took to design an entirely new system from scratch; if we're starting from existing hardware, it's not so hard.

I do not have my head in the sand. I am a realist and I know what is involved in these things. I'd like to see it all work out as much as the next person, but you can't just snap your fingers and make it happen.

Apparently, you haven't read the many articles that are all over the space subset of the Web that describe the plans that are forming to build new rockets that will be able to carry people and cargoes, have you? You waste all this space saying "we should do this" and "we should do that" without realizing that ... we are doing it! But this kind of thing isn't done overnight; it takes a while to complete.

SafeSimpleSoon.Com

Notice that the story is about a guy with a partisan interest in the outcome- he's a Thiokol engineer and they make the solid-fuel boosters for the current shuttle.

Thiokol ATK is the prime contractor of the SRB. In 226 flights one has failed. Whether that failure is attributable to Thiokol is a debate that will never be complete. The bottom line is that the failed SRB probably would not have failed if it flew under the conditions for which it was designed. In any case, Thiokol SRBs are reliable, and cheap, human rated boosters that will do the job soon. If you need to consult with someone about how to build SRBs, I recommend you consider inviting someone from Thiokol.

These boosters are the heart of the proposal, and my only question is, do we want solid fuel rockets as the primary lifter for human crews?

Risk analysis of SRB verses SSME shows the solid booster is less likely to fail catastrophically.

Don't they present special challenges and risks because they can't be shut down in case of problems? Just asking, IANA astronautical engineer.

Here's a quote from a site that explains this:

In the event of a catastrophic failure, a solid rocket motor actually provides more reaction time and better survivability for a launch escape system to protect the crew. Most catastrophic failures of a solid rocket motor actually result in a phenomenon referred to as thrust augmentation, which is easily detected by an In-Vehicle Health Monitoring System (IVHM), which can be used to signal the Launch Escape System.

This has be demonstrated; a solid fuel Delta booster exploded on the pad and the payload got hurled downrange intact (until the ground inflicted a sudden deceleration...) This could be a survivable scenario with a good crew module. Solid boosters aren't the bombs they are perceived to be, and they are extremely reliable relative to liquid boosters.

I think this scheme is excellent. Separate crew and cargo; mighty groaning 100 ton heavy lift events can fail without a half dozen dead people. Reuse the best part of STS; propulsion of over 200 tons of LEO capacity. People go up in small, simple, reliable rockets with survival systems built in. No costly reinventing the wheel; the physics of the problem haven't changed in the 40 years this has been going on.

This is a very commonly asked question. In reality, once the vehicle is launched, the last thing the astronaut crew would want to do is shut down the main engines. The most reliable liquid rocket engine manufactured today is the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), and the most reliable solid rocket motor is the SRB. Recent Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) analysis for the Space Shuttle show that the contribution to risk during launch from the SRBs is an order of magnitude less than from the SSMEs. Also, shutting down a liquid rocket engine is not trivial. An important parameter used to look at the effects of shutting down a liquid rocket engine, which is suffering a malfunction, is what is referred to as the "catastrophic failure ratio." This is defined as the percent of time that an engine will fail catastrophically. The accepted value for current rocket engines is 20-30%. The SSME and the J-2 are the only engines with in-flight shutdown capability in response to malfunctions. Even if the engine is designed to enable in-flight shutdown, there are failure modes that will be catastrophic for both liquid and solid rocket motor designs. The advantage of a solid rocket motor is that the chance of having a catastrophic failure is less likely. This is due to its simplicity relative to the liquid design. In the event of a catastrophic failure, a solid rocket motor actually provides more reaction time and better survivability for a launch escape system to protect the crew. Most catastrophic failures of a solid rocket motor actually result in a phenomenon referred to as thrust augmentation, which is easily detected by an In-Vehicle Health Monitoring System (IVHM), which can be used to signal the Launch Escape System. From the FAQ at http://www.safesimplesoon.com/

Check out the Website from which the article comes from.

There will be 2 rockets. The first will be for crew and/or lightweight payloads (think satellites). It will use the current shuttles booster as the first stage. There will then be a 2'nd stage from the saturn V or a new design. Then the crew module will be either the new CEV or a simple souyz/apollo capsule. If they use the CEV, then it is a space plane approach. If capsule, well a simple chute will work. The solid rockets will be reuseable, as would the CEV. Most likely, the capsule/CEV approach would use the heat shields that were designed for the X-33.

The Cargo rocket will initially be the Shuttle-C, which is the same current set-up, but the shuttle is stripped, and remote controlled. It will allow us to get much larger cargo to space. In addition, they will over time move to an in-line cargo approach with the booster being upped to 5 segments (vs. current 4). That will allow the payload to be slightly less than the Saturn V. This shuttle-C/new inline are on one-way shoots. No coming back except in a burn-up approach. Who knows. If we are smart, we can send it to someplace upthere were we can re-use the metal.

This writer is off the mark. Goto the site and see what ATK suggests.

They are using the booster from the shuttle (combined with one of several H2/O2 2'nd stage) to launch ppl into orbit. The solid engine rocket is well known and inexpensive. More important, it is the safeest approach at this time, In addition, they do not care wether a capsule is used or a small space plane. They are simply suggesting seperating crew from cargo.

As to the cargo, they are suggesting doing several steps to get to the final in-line cargo configuration. After that this rocket should have similiar capabilities as the Saturn V.

Now, if the big ship is doing cargo only, and the little rocket is doing the crew upload, then they will almost certainly need a different rocket for the moon/mars.

Instead of using the same module for crew and cargo (the shuttle), there will be two totally separate launch vehicles. In both cases, the only thing that would be reusable is the solid rocket boosters (unless the crew capsule is also reusable). Is it a surprise that ATK Thiokol is the contractor for the SRBs' motors?

In the initial cargo implementations, they'd still have problems with foam debris, but that's a problem only if the cargo module is designed to safely reenter. The final cargo proposal would end up using an external tank with two shuttle engines mated to the bottom, and I doubt the current ET is designed to deal with that kind of stress. So the final cargo design will require some significant redesign by Lockheed Martin.

I'm not entirely certain the reusability of the SRBs save that much money since they have to be closely inspected and recertified between uses. But they are the most powerful in existence--each providing 3.3 mil lb of thrust. Why not reuse the design?

I did find the FAQ on their website a bit disingenuous:

"In the case of Challenger, the SRB did not suffer a catastrophic failure, but the leaking hot gas interacted with the rest of the vehicle, which resulted in the loss of Challenger and her crew."

Not exactly system-level thinking. Certainly the same "leaking hot gas" would have resulted in loss of cargo in their new proposal, but whether it would have caused loss of crew in their CEV is unknown.

Instead of using the same module for crew and cargo (the shuttle), there will be two totally separate launch vehicles. In both cases, the only thing that would be reusable is the solid rocket boosters (unless the crew capsule is also reusable). Is it a surprise that ATK Thiokol is the contractor for the SRBs' motors?

In the initial cargo implementations, they'd still have problems with foam debris, but that's a problem only if the cargo module is designed to safely reenter. The final cargo proposal would end up using an external tank with two shuttle engines mated to the bottom, and I doubt the current ET is designed to deal with that kind of stress. So the final cargo design will require some significant redesign by Lockheed Martin.

I'm not entirely certain the reusability of the SRBs save that much money since they have to be closely inspected and recertified between uses. But they are the most powerful in existence--each providing 3.3 mil lb of thrust. Why not reuse the design?

I did find the FAQ on their website a bit disingenuous:

"In the case of Challenger, the SRB did not suffer a catastrophic failure, but the leaking hot gas interacted with the rest of the vehicle, which resulted in the loss of Challenger and her crew."

Not exactly system-level thinking. Certainly the same "leaking hot gas" would have resulted in loss of cargo in their new proposal, but whether it would have caused loss of crew in their CEV is unknown.

All about me.

Buran - In Depth History

The US shuttle could in theory be modified to support unmanned flight, but can't lower its landing gear automatically -- the astronauts wanted there to always be a function that would require a human to be physically there. So the only switch that can lower the gear is the one on the pilot's side of the main control panel, right near the rotational hand controller.

I would actually like to see thought given toward modifying the shuttles for unmanned flight, although it appears that there may be a version of the CEV built that is basically the CEV placed on top of a shuttle-style payload canister. Sort of like a CEV/Shuttle-C hybrid.

See SafeSimpleSoon.Com for more on some current proposals.

Been there, working on it.

SafeSimpleSoon.Com

Look, we are now getting paranoid. This foam has been falling off on all the missions since it was first applied. We are simply seeing it because we are looking. The shuttles were going to be launched at about 1 every 3-4 months. If they keep it going, the likely hood of anything happening are very slim.

Instead, NASA could focus on getting CEV going and use the SafeSimpleSoon approach within 1-2 years. It would have the advantage of giving us a true heavy lift that we lost after Nixon killed the Saturn V program.

Hence the reason for a better approach to space.