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Alternative Launcher For Returning To the Moon
DIRECT Launcher writes, "A grass-roots effort, based around a group of engineers, managers, and others involved in the US space program, is proposing an alternative launch vehicle for NASA to adopt for the new Lunar Exploration program. The new vehicle offers serious performance and cost savings totaling $35 billion over the next twenty years. The proposal was presented to NASA last week. The concept would make possible future Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions after Shuttle has retired, allow for all the remaining ISS elements to be launched after all, free up cash to fund the JIMO mission again, and also allow NASA to return to the moon three years early."
Here's more info on the Song:g -wam-eurovision-2005
http://www.dailymotion.com/tag/Wig/video/xb1fs_wi
Terrific for all you fans of Hair Nation! Not what you'd expect from the Norwegians.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I can understand why we'd want to go to Mars, but why try to scrounge up existing resources to get to the Moon? Sure, saving $35 Billion sounds great, but that's $35 Billion out of an estimated $108 Billion, which really means $200 Billion. The first time we went, we gained an unprecedented amount of technical knowledge, global press, and renewed patriotism from our people. The second time, we're planning on reusing parts to duplicate what's already been done. Who's going to care? And who's going to benefit other than the defense contractors?
... yeah, but you still spent $120 to make an addition to your 27 pair collection.
This whole thing feels like when my wife comes home and says "look, I just saved $30 on this new pair of shoes"
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
I notice there's a lot of talk for reusing orbiter (like DIRECT) and Apollo technology. Now, I'm all for reuse of facilities and technology, but I can't help but think that we're undercutting ourselves by not developing new technology and capability that will last into the future. It's as if no one ever wanted to develop further than 1920's cars, since they did the job 'well enough'. Is this going to cost us when, in three decades, the new vehicles are hitting end-of-service and suddenly we're stuck with infrastructure that is half a century out of date?
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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I must say that this is wonderful. This is exactly what engineers are supposed to do: Take what you have and use it in the most efficient ways possible. I'm glad some people stepped up to such a huge challenge and, at least from their propaganda, have created a viable system that could really help one of this country's, IMHO, failing organizations. Kudos to that group. But we will see how the GOP really lets that extra 35 billion get spent, new launch systems for STAR WARS enabled satellites?
--- Bah, who needs a sig?
That looks a lot like an Energia rocket stack. NIH?
I'd rather have a sinister device to blow up the moon!
Circumcision is child abuse.
It offer the potential for savings - as nobody knows how much it will save until its built and flying. (And aerospace cost estimates are notoriously unreliable - we simply don't do enough of them to build an experience base.
From the website:
Which is at least partially nonsense - because even a brief examination of the imagery they present shows that they are proposing to use two different launcher systems - with less than you might think different between them. (In fact, the only unchanged component between the two are the SRB's.)
That being said - this system will still end up being more expensive than it should be, because it still relies on the standing army at the Cape and the antiquated production methods at Michoud.
Everybody so far commenting is simply complaining about wasting money, cutting jobs, reusing old stuff, rebuilding new stuff....you are missing the most incredible part of their proposal:
70 metric tons to orbit base
98 metric tons to orbit cargo vehicle
This compares to the current shuttle lift capacity of 16+ metric ton.
Son, packaged correctly, you could launch the entire remaining ISS sections into space at one time.
This is simply reusing some very basic lift parts and redesigning some new engines for the base of the fuel tank. Probably some reinforcement to the tank too for the added weight on top. Some new control and piping to the top for the rest of the vehicle....
I frankly don't know how they plan to get that much more thrust and lift capability out of those SRBs and new engines...but if they think they can do it, I'd be inclined to support them whole heartedly.
Even if they only made half their expected lift capacity, it would still a significant improvement.
How about launching 4 or 5 GPS satellites and a spy satellite all on one mission?
How about building a moon base?
How about putting a decent sized nuclear reactor in space to provide unlimited power instead of relying on solar panels?
Tonnage gets you everything.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
But that isn't man rated.
How much would making it man rated add to the cost of development?
That is one of the reasons they are going with the J-2x.
I would love to see a real heavy lift launch vehicle built.
Something like a new and improved Saturn V. All the current ideas remind me of the Saturn 1. They are put together out of spare parts of other rockets.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I think added capacity is the simplest part to explain...
Removing the shuttle saves 68 tons for the thing empty, 108 tons loaded.
Add in the 25 tons that's the maximum payload the shuttle can lift, and it gets real easy to believe they can lift almost a 100 tons by redesigning the shuttle lift platform a bit to remove the need for the shuttle. You loose some tons because one of the things they have to do is move the shuttle's engines to the central tank.
There's no practical reason why we couldn't make a space station type module, or even a Bigelow one, into a satellite servicer with the addition of thrusters, which could be refueled by supply missions.
You don't do lab work in a 'shuttle', you do it on a station which stays up there. You launch and recover people using lighter and therefore cheaper vehicles.
I don't read AC A human right
I frankly don't know how they plan to get that much more thrust and lift capability out of those SRBs and new engines...but if they think they can do it, I'd be inclined to support them whole heartedly.
Glancing around, it appears that 70 tons to orbit is a slight but nice improvement on the Shuttle C. 98 tons is a big improvement.
How about putting a decent sized nuclear reactor in space to provide unlimited power instead of relying on solar panels?
What's wrong with relying on solar panels to provide unlimited power? The only place it matters is when you're in a place (eg, virtually all of the lunar surface, or well beyond the orbit of Mars) where solar power either isn't available for a period of time or is attenuated due to distance.The shuttle has an absolute lift power of ~120 metric tonnes. The fact that the majority of the lift power is used in lifting the Space Shuttle itself brings the maximum cargo lift weight down to ~25 metric tonnes.
Why wouldn't the 130 metric tonne to LEO Ares V do the same? With the DIRECT, you could finish the Space Station. (A useless piece of junk in the wrong orbit.) With the Ares V, you could launch a new one in only two flights.
All these technologies are "shuttle derived". Which means that the Super Booster capabilities of the Shuttle are separated from the Space Shuttle vehicle, and placed into a more traditional stack. Through the use of more engines and staging, NASA plans to launch more absolute weight with the Ares V than the Shuttle can launch today. The DIRECT would actually scale back the absolute weight.
The Ares has an upgrade path (read: even more tonnage per launch) through the development of better engines. The DIRECT design anticipates those engines, and demands that they be manrated before they are ready. Which should raise a lot of red flags.
Basically, the DIRECT design stands out as a beautiful paper concept. It all seems to come together into the perfect solution, but ignores the realities of the situation. More likely than not, we'd never get a craft off the ground if we went with the DIRECT design. Warts or not, the CEV is the pragmatic solution. We need to follow the program through to conclusion, and not get distracted by the paper ideas that jump out at us.
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Thats just an optional upper stage with aero shroud on top in the picture on the right. The Core vehicle and SRB's are actually identical on both of those launchers. The Proposal on the site explains it.
For me I guess it would be a question of what is the "interesting" work to be done and spending the money there. Perhaps the "getting to space" part isn't as interesting as it once. Perhaps the interesting part is doing stuff once we're there and the funds should be directed accordingly.
If whatever we want to do needs a bigger/better launch technology then so be it but otherwise what is the point? To continue to stretch your car analogy, UPS vans don't have the state of the art engineering excellence of Formula 1 cars but they don't need it to perform their role well.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
The Russians have always done space better than the Americans and probably always will. It's typical American arrogance and stupidity to be wasting money trying to reinvent the wheel when you could just buy the technology from the people who already have it.
http://www.energia.ru/english/
All these technologies are "shuttle derived". Which means that the Super Booster capabilities of the Shuttle are separated from the Space Shuttle vehicle, and placed into a more traditional stack. Through the use of more engines and staging, NASA plans to launch more absolute weight with the Ares V than the Shuttle can launch today. The DIRECT would actually scale back the absolute weight.
NASA doesn't need the extra weight that the Ares V can throw. And since their plans call for four launches per year of the Ares V, it's not going to ever be a cheap platform, just due to low launch frequency. At least, here, they would have a greater frequency of launches which would use that launch crew a little better. Further, this launch platform is more likely to be replaced by commercial launch capability than the Ares V. This would hasten NASA's exodus from the launch market.
The Ares has an upgrade path (read: even more tonnage per launch) through the development of better engines. The DIRECT design anticipates those engines, and demands that they be manrated before they are ready. Which should raise a lot of red flags.
I'm missing something here. Glancing at the DIRECT design, I don't see why it would require an engine to be man-rated before it is "ready". After all, they could test new design changes by launching cargo. Most launch platforms have multiple configurations. It seems to me that you would start with a configuration that isn't man-rated and work out the problems with relatively low-value cargo launches.
Basically, the DIRECT design stands out as a beautiful paper concept. It all seems to come together into the perfect solution, but ignores the realities of the situation. More likely than not, we'd never get a craft off the ground if we went with the DIRECT design. Warts or not, the CEV is the pragmatic solution. We need to follow the program through to conclusion, and not get distracted by the paper ideas that jump out at us.
But the CEV is vehicle agnostic, right? I don't see any problem with launching it on a DIRECT rocket or some commercial vehicle, should one of sufficient capability come out while the CEV is still in service.And you know that... how? In fact, NASA will need all the weight it can throw going forward. Sure, a simple moon mission might not require it, but what about a Mars mission? There will need to be significantly more fuel and hardware boosted for that operation. And what about a lunar transfer point in LEO? That was one of the original intentions of the ISS. The DIRECT would require at least three flights to lift the weight of the current ISS design, while the Ares-V could do it in two. More advanced concepts (e.g. a spinning station) would require even larger tonnage. I won't even get into the issue of launching materials for a moon or Mars base, much less an asteroid mining operation.
Currently, there are no commercial launchers that can even touch either the DIRECT or the Ares-V designs. It's unlikely that this will change, leaving NASA (and the military by extension) severely underpowered for space operations.
You are missing something. The RS-68 has flown only six times, with mixed results. To "man-rate" the vehicle, it would need to fly a lot more. The CEV Program addresses this issue by flying the RS-68 on a cargo-only craft. The man-rated craft will fly with the highly reliable J-2 engines used in the Saturn V. The J-2 is designed for in-flight restart, a key feature in these plans. AFAIK, the RS-68 is not designed for restarts, nor has it been tested for such.
There was a crash program underway to design a restart system for the RS-68, but NASA found the use of the J-2 to be a safer and more economical solution.
Launching what exactly? The DIRECT program does away with manned space travel until the RS-68 is man-rated. However, Project Constellation calls for the cargo booster and passenger vehicle to be used in conjunction. If there are no people to launch, there is no cargo to launch. Especially for something as powerful as a Super Booster. I suppose we could lift weapons platforms like the Russians did, but I doubt that the international community would be very happy.
The Orion is (theoretically) vehicle agnostic. The CEV Program is the plan to build the Ares-I, the Ares-V, and the Orion.
I don't see a problem with a commercial vehicle, either. I *do* see a lot of problems with the DIRECT plan, as outlined above.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Whooosh!
First off, keep in mind, that almost certainly any system not fully developed by 2010 will be killed. Why? Because we will have a new admin, and because we will have new launch capabilities via private enterprise. In addition, for going to both the moon and mars, we will end up using BA-330 (or bigger). We will find it far cheaper. All in all, the CEV will not be the norm for traveling out of orbit.
DIRECT and the Ares system both offer a heavy launcher. Ares V is able to handle more, while the Ares I handles far less. But Ares I has direct (and cheaper) competition in other current and new launchers. That leaves Ares V. There is nothing of its size. OTH, DIRECT can do 2/3 of the weight for a fraction of the cost of development as well as cheaper to launch. DIRECT will not be the jack of all trade. It will be consider the heavy weight launcher that we lost when we gave up saturn. I suspect that when private enterprise finally goes to the moon or mars, the heavy launcher will take priority. In particular, it will allow for sending up a larger version of the BA-330 (perhaps the BA-500 with lots of fuel and supplies).
Offhand, I would guess that DIRECT is exactly what we need.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This would be the market support for the development of a lunar mission capability without risk to the taxpayer.
Seastead this.
Imagine how much you would get with a 1 Billion dollar X Prize, we would be on Mars probably. NASAs time has passed, time to can everyone and move on.
Ares V could do it. But the problem is that it is not slated to be operational UNTIL after 2016 i.e. about the time that the ISS is expected to decommision. Instead, DIRECT would be ready in either 2010 or 2011. Big difference.
As to the upgrade path, I would not worry about it. After 2012, I am betting that the next big upgrade will come out of Scaled Composite (not just in tonnage, but in very low costs). DIRECT gives us a nice stepping point.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You shouldn't put so much stock in what it says on paper. If the DIRECT program goes forward, it will NOT be flying by 2010. Nor 2011. In fact, we'll be lucky if it's flying by 2016. After all, it's based on the same technology as the Ares-V. Simply scaling it back does little to improve the schedule of the program. It may seem like it on paper, but the reality of this has never held true.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
As this system is intended to replace both Ares vehicles - the cargo variant is not optional, it's a requirement. (Their own proposal and examples show the cargo variant as part of the mission architecture.)
They won't end up identical - I'd bet large, large, sums of money on it. The requirements of the two vehicles demand they end up not identical. NASA man-rating requirements alone will cause a drift between the two types - which will be further emphasized by the different performance requirements for each type.
Seems to me that the Direct proposal could initially use SSMEs, then upgrade to the RS-68s, later.
Also, FWIW, the military commissioned the Titan IV as a backup to the shuttle - one of the available payload shrouds is designed to accept even the largest shuttle payload. I do not know if a Titan IV launch would be too harsh for ISS modules, but, so far, the military has not permitted civilian use. I do recall, however, that the Artemis Project had a proposal to use a pair of Titan IV launches to get the 2 halves of their spacecraft into orbit.
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
Why not take existing proven rocket engines (such as those used on the Titan booster, the Saturn rocket, the shuttle, the Delta rocket, whatever the russians use to launch soyuz or whatever it is) and strap it to the rear end of a big fuel tank with the payload (ISS module or whatever else) strapped to the nose or something.
No new technologies or anything, just use what we have now and know works.
If takeoff weight is an issue, do what the russians did with Sputnik or what was done with the Saturn 5 and just have more rocket engines firing at once.
Then, once you have it working, you can go forward and say "ok, this works, lets design a new rocket engine that can plug into this launch vehicle but would provide more takeoff weight" or whatever.
Of course, IANARS (I am not a rocket scientist) so I dont know exactly how feesable this idea is.
Another idea that has come up is to simply take the shuttle SRBs and external tank as they are now (or replace the shuttle SRBs with liquid rockets) and strap a set of rocket engines on to the rear end of the external tank (to substitute for the shuttle main engines) and strap a payload in (on top of it or on the back in place of the orbiter).
...we've never really been on the moon ? (conspiracy off)
:)
Apart from that, the proposal is probably having a secret part, in which the committee is told that the real reason of saving billions of dollars is that they would simply film the whole event in a studio somewhere
Maybe THIS time we'll actually go!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Wouldn't a unit of mass be more suitable here?
Say out loud: I'm an Aspie and I'm somewhat proud, I guess. Uh. Can I write an email in all caps instead? Hm...
That part of the proposal will probably get the focus from the naysayers so they can continue on the with the current methods and ideas they have.
While reuse is nice; it rarely is as easy as pdf's make it out to be. As for the weight, that is a great part of the proposal. Too bad the costs associated put it outside of a non-government group. Would be nice to see a private company built around the concept of putting stuff into space on a large scale.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
China will hold the high ground. It's easier to launch ICBMs from the moon than from earth :-P
If you don't read the article it appears this way, but if you go to the site, there is a video that shows how this concept would work. As the video plays, a song plays in the background. The post is about the song.
C'mon mods it is interesting background to the article. It is most assuredly not offtopic.
my wife's shoe pair count is around 150 ...
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
For women's shoes the standard unit of measure is the Imelda. In your wife's case that would be a bit over 2%.
(My wife and her friends refer to anyone with more than about .025 imelda as a "shoe whore", a term they don't seem to consider in any way uncomplimentary.)
Yeah this post seems off-topic, but what the hell, it's a math post, and math is pretty important to celestial navigation!
I'm all for alternative architecture, but DIRECT has several problems. The main issue is that it only "saves" money in the area of eliminating development of a second VSE rocket: the Crew Launch Vehicle AKA the Stick. It delibrately maintains the standing army of workers, which is the main cost issue with NASA manned space hardware. DIRECT tries to preserve all those jobs, while modern rockets (Atlas, Delta, Zenit and Falcon) all use radically fewer construction and deployment personell. DIRECT also has the issue of trying to make something work in an unintended way, and it requires development of a new version of the RS68. Not so direct.
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Simpler modifications and evolution of existing launchers (Atlas, Delta) will achieve better results in both time and cost, IMHO.
We're discussing DIRECT on the uplink forums, too:
http://uplink.space.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=m
josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
70 metric tons to orbit base
98 metric tons to orbit cargo vehicle
Ooooooh, color me completely unimpressed.
There've been some Project Orion documents declassified and published recently. Take a look.
Specifically, look at these numbers.
For the uninitiated, Orion's a nuclear pulse rocket. You have a big baseplate. You have your payload on top of the plate. You set atomic bombs off under the plate. Plate moves.
Their advanced interplanetary design had a deliverable payload the moon of 5700 tons; that's about the mass of a Los Angeles-class submarine, easily enough for a permanent manned lunar base. And not just in a single launch, in a single stage. Instead of putting men on the moon and returning them to earth by 1970, we'd have had a manned mission to Saturn (and back) by 1970.
"Oh, but you'd pollute the whole planet!" Feh. Again, look at the numbers. For the big interplanetary class, the bomb you set off at sea level is
250 kilotons is nothing. During the course of above-ground nuclear testing, the US set off a 15-megaton bomb, 60 times larger. The Soviets detonated a 50-megaton bomb. Hell, the US set off a one megaton pure fission bomb, purely to see if they could do it.
You'd launch this thing once, from a big barge in the middle of the Pacific. We'd be all over the solar system by now, instead of struggling to reinvent Apollo to go back to a place we abandoned over 30 years ago, instead of wasting hundreds of billions and too many years on a white-elephant shuttle design whose principal achievement (repairing the Hubble) would pale in comparison to the slightest thing you could do with a spacecraft capable of delivering 1300 tons to Saturn's orbit.
Feh. In the words of Old Man Murray, "It's not a lack of knowledge holding you people back, it's a lack of will."
That's going to be the epitaph for humanity.
Practical, cheaper, reliable, reuses established components? Congress (ie the congressmen responsible for the district in which these subcontracting firms sit) would NEVER stand for such an outrage.
Only communists would try to make such a direct assault on the jobs of American workers!*
* jobs not actually filled by American workers
-Styopa
The Dr. refers to the prefix "m", which stands for "milli" (i.e. 10e-3), being different from the prefix "M", which stands for "mega" (i.e. 10e6).
Personally, I enjoy reading about millibits ("mb") of memory.
Better yet listen to the video, especially the opening 30 seconds. Then tell me you still take this seriously.
Not much different than the current plan, except they eliminate the small man-rated vehicle and replace it with one designed to carry both cargo & people. There are advantages to launching stuff in one shot, but then they lose the flexibility of the simpler crew-only launches.
And that $35 Billion savings sounds like complete BS. I think NASA's annual human spaceflight budget is around $5 billion. Considering the next launch system is likely to have a lifespan of 20 years or so, that's almost $2 billion/year in savings, or 40% of the budget. Then figure that about half of that is development savings (i.e., the next 5 years), and they somehow shave 60% off the entire human spaceflight budget? It defies logic, and calls into question everything else they've put forward.
It's not just direct sunlight...To rely on solar panels requires you to either:
1) Bring them with you
or
2) Make them there
The weight of the solar panels needed to generate sufficient power to maintain a base has to compare with the weight of an equivalently powerful nuclear reactor. Add the attenuation by distance and atmosphere on Mars and a nuclear reactor is likely the most energy-dense form of power for any base of significant size.
Reuse existing Shuttle tech? Umm, the RS-68 engine is not from the Shuttle. Using the Thiokol solid rockets on a new unmanned heavy-lift vehicle might be a good idea, but I don't think any other Shuttle components are worth saving, are they? Isn't that one reason why we want to replace the thing?
The mission proposed here is little more than a repeat of Apollo. What's the point? Oh, THERE it is...down at the bottom:
This isn't about having a manned space program that actually accomplishes something worthwhile. This is a jobs program for NASA's standing army, as Jerry Pournelle calls it.FWIW, here's my proposal:
No more flags and footprints! Build a habitat (using a low-risk, incremental robotic approach) and send people to the moon to stay for a few months. Then we will see if lunar rock and regolith can be smelted into useful materials; or if 1/6 gee turns bones into jello. The Moon is a harsh place, but it's only 3 days from Earth if something goes wrong. And because it's so harsh, if we can make it there, we can make it anywhere in the Solar System.
Yes, this will be expensive. Spread it out over as many years as necessary, to bring down the annual cost. Why are we in such a hurry to replace the Shuttle? We could build the MLV first.
The new MLV MUST be as safe as we can make it. Yes, I KNOW...manned spaceflight is dangerous. But the various Shuttle replacements being bandied around are, without exception, more dangerous than they need to be. Safety is being sacrificed for expediency or low cost or politics. We've seen this movie before, and we know how it ends: the US manned space program once again grinding to a halt for two years after something blows up and kills another 7 astronauts.