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."

Comments

Is reuse limiting ourselves?

[Kell Bengal]

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the new vehicles are hitting end-of-service and suddenly we're stuck with infrastructure that is half a century out of date?

Re:You guys are missing the most important point..

[AKAImBatman]

This compares to the current shuttle lift capacity of 16+ metric ton.

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.

Son, packaged correctly, you could launch the entire remaining ISS sections into space at one time.

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.

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.

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.

Re:A Traffic Cone on the Information Super Highway

[DerekLyons]

Thats just an optional upper stage with aero shroud on top in the picture on the right.

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.)
 
 

The Core vehicle and SRB's are actually identical on both of those launchers.

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.

Re:You guys are missing the most important point..

[UnderCoverPenguin]

The Ares I also proposes a new, not yet man-rated engine: The 5 segment SRB. Maybe that could get man-rated faster than the RS-68. As for the RS-68 not being restartable, neither is the SSME. The proposed applications of either engine (in either proposal) does not require a restartable engine.

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.