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Ares V Rocket Bigger and Stronger For Moon Mission
wooferhound writes "In a move to make the heavy-lift vehicle more robust (predicting an increased launch thrust requirement) to send four astronauts, a lunar lander plus supplies, NASA has announced the
Ares V rocket will be beefed up to cater for our future needs to get man back to the Moon. This huge vehicle is now designed to carry payloads of over 156,600 lb (71,000 kg), some 15,600 lb (or 10%) more than the original concept. Ares V was originally designed to be approximately the same length as the original Saturn V lunar rocket (361 feet or 110 metres long), but to accommodate an extra booster engine and extra payload volume, Ares V will be 381 feet (116 metres) long. This upgrade will be capable of sending far more instrumentation into space, an extra 15,600 lb (7,000 kg, or the equivalent mass of a male African elephant)."
Elephants have been rather underrepresented in space recently.
I hope you are right.
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Fuel cost isn't really a frequently considered factor for research applications where the entire program's cost is measured in the billions of dollars.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_heavy_lift_launch_systems
The Wikipedia article says this about the subject:
Freeman Dyson, group leader on the project, estimated back in the '60s that with conventional nuclear weapons, that each launch would cause on average between 0.1 and 1 fatal cancers from the fallout.
A super-Orion might be more friendly (since it would use fusion bombs), but also might not be (since it would have to use larger bombs, and would need conventional atomic bombs for the first few "strokes" anyhow). In the worst case, one could use GCNR "nuclear lightbulb" (no radioactive release whatsoever) to assemble an Orion in orbit. But even with a GCNR, I'm pretty sure you would have heard "AAH! Hiroshima! Chernobyl!" all the way round the globe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_elephant
From wikipedia: Males stand 3.64 meters (12 feet) tall at the shoulder and weigh 5455 kg (12,000 lbs), while females stand 3 meters (10 feet) and weigh 3636 kg to 4545 kg (8,000 to 11,000 lbs).
Article should read: 7,000 kg, or roughly equivalent mass of two female african elephants.
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Lunar soil contains; Oxygen 40% Silicon 20% Iron 12% Calcium 8.5% Aluminum 7.3% Magnesium 4.8% Titanium 4.5% Sodium 0.33% Chromium 0.2% Manganese 0.16% Potassium 0.11% Sulfur 540 ppm Carbon 200 ppm Nitrogen 100 ppm Hydrogen 40 ppm Helium 4 28ppm Helium 3 0.01 ppm Don't you think all that stuff would be useful?
I work at Marshall Space Flight Center, and I can't get into too much detail about the specifics due to security reasons, but the ARES will fly and the design is coming along nicely. It's beyond naive to suggest that NASA does not want to use the best possible rocket.
You mention an internal study found DIRECT superior in every way? Can I ask, have you read this study? I have, and it does not say what you suggest that it says. Are you just spouting what you read from a newspaper, or do you have higher access than I do? Newspapers live on sensationalist reporting. Keep in mind that it takes a lot more effort to send a rocket to the moon that it does to send a rocket to orbit. Also, (and I am making up these percentages here but the trend is real) it takes a lot more effort to raise the safety rating from 85% to 95%. I would not sit on top of a DIRECT rocket.
Additionally, the quality of your opinion goes down further when you mention that almost no shuttle or previous equipment is being reused. That is simply not true. The J-2X engines are a direct evolution from the J-2. The RS-68 is a direct evolution from the Delta IV. The solid rocket boosters and recovery system are also improvements. Not a single solid rocket booster was ever lost on the space shuttle (they are all re-used) and the design for the ARES is almost identical.
The local newspaper here, The Huntsville Times, ran an article from the Orlando Sentinel that basically says exactly what you posted. The next day they printed a response from a higher up NASA executive. Keep in mind the importance of safety and reliability when humans are on board.
"NASA has an excellent plan in place for its future space fleet
The Huntsville Times reprinted an Orlando Sentinel story on June 23 that suggested NASA, now hard at work on the Ares I rocket that will return human explorers to the moon in the next decade, passed too hastily on "Direct 2.0," an alternative next-generation rocket concept some say is worthy of further consideration.
That decision was not hasty. Nor was it the only alternate concept considered - literally thousands of options were set aside for one compelling reason or another in the run-up to Ares development. Why?
Because the Ares family is the right set of rockets for the mission.
It's the best possible solution to our 21st century spacefaring challenges: flying humans routinely to space, supporting groundbreaking research on the International Space Station and sending explorers to the moon and worlds beyond.
To reach this solution, NASA has embraced a multitude of opinions, as it always has done. We value open debate and rational dissent, and rely daily on the innovative minds and voices of gifted engineers and developers who think around corners and buck conventional wisdom. They have been heard, and their insight has helped set us on our chosen path - which began in earnest in 2005 when NASA announced its formal plan to develop the Constellation Program vehicles: the Ares I and Ares V rockets and the Orion crew capsule, and which have continued to mature ever since.
Designing any rocket - particularly a rocket intended to accomplish such bold, far-reaching exploration initiatives - is a tough proposition. It takes years of training and rigorous analysis. In getting to where we are today, the agency has been thorough and conscientious in its evaluation of thousands of possible options. On the Ares family alone, we have evaluated more than 1,700 concepts since 2005, using proven, validated launch vehicle design models and techniques.
Was each rejected option a drawing-board failure, flawed from the start? Not by any means. The prodigious talents of our engineers and developers across NASA and among its partner organizations is second to none.
But NASA works within its budget to accomplish three goals above all else: maximizing the safety of our crews during launch and spaceflight; ensuring the highest-value, most cost-effective mission operations possible; and increasing the boun