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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.
NASA Engineer: "The extra weight it can carry is equivalent to a male elephant."
The Press: "Oh yeah, African or Indian?"
NASA Engineer: "Why African of course."
The Press: [wanders off trying to find someone to interview who will make them feel smarter]
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
If China manages to put a man on the moon, we'll put a goddamn elephant on the moon, because we're America!
What exactly would be the impact of the radioactive matter expelled by an Orion rocket on the atmosphere and the environment in general? Has there been a study? Do you know? Please enlighten me as you seem to be sure that this type of propulsion is not a problem.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
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.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
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.
Am I the only one? (I should have learned my lesson about asking at /. for video but I haven't.) I don't care *what* the video is made of really. I just really want video with my space stories. When something launches, when something crashes, when something oh, lands on Mars or something... I want video. I don't care if it is computer generated, you (and I) know that the NASA folks made a video to present to someone somewhere.
Here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PMvS1hQKxM
(Computer-generated video from last year of Ares V concept)
Freeman Dyson estimated that launching a 6000 ton Orion would cause .1 to 1 fatal cancers, and it's been shown that efficiency increases with increasing size such that the amount of fissionables expended is almost constant on scales up to nearly 8 million tons.
The fallout from a launch would be similar to that of a ten-megaton nuke, of which the Soviets and the US detonated quite a few. Seriously, if you had the chance to put an eight million ton starship in orbit in exchange for one random death, would you say no? The chance to set up a self-sustaining moonbase in one move? To visit the entire solar system in short order?
As long as it's not someone you care about that is.
Funny, I never saw any in rural England.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
The Ares V is certainly cool from a "bigger, shinier" perspective, but not so good from the perspective of wanting to reduce our immense launch costs to something even marginally more manageable. A big part of the (somewhat shoddy) reasoning for going with a shuttle-derived system was that it would be able to make use of currently-existing facilities and infrastructure. It's now looking like the Ares V is getting to be too large to use those facilities, so NASA will have to revamp its facilities, raising the cost even more.
In general, it was pretty peculiar of NASA to not devise a launch system which would take advantage of what we've learned (the hard way) from the ISS and use in-orbit assembly, which would've allowed NASA to use the already-existing launchers available from the private sector. Instead, NASA decided to compete against the private sector and create a new family of Ares boosters, basically from scratch.
Here's some interesting commentary from a couple of knowledgeable folks within the aerospace industry:
http://chairforceengineer.blogspot.com/2008/06/directly-seeing-light.html
In a recent post, I discussed the weight issues associated with Ares V (probably to be renamed Ares VI if the extra RS-68 engine is slipped in.) The rocket is growing to address performance shortfalls, but it has become too heavy for the existing crawlers, too heavy for the existing launch pad, and too heavy for the hard stand on which the mobile launcher sits. I suggested that NASA should have initially determined weight and size limits on their rocket, based on the existing infrastructure, and limited the weight and size of Ares V to fit within those requirements. If that rocket were insufficient to meet the lift requirements for Project Constellation, use two heavy-lifters instead of one heavy-lifter and one crew launcher.
http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/2008/03/out_takes.html
As noted, the vehicle has come a long way from the originally advertised "Shuttle-derived" system that was supposed to save us so much money and time, and utilize the existing Shuttle infrastructure (though the latter was always a politically-induced pork-driven bug, not a feature, if one wanted to actually lower launch costs). It (like Ares I) is now essentially a new vehicle, including components, though if Ares I ever comes to fruition, Ares V will probably be at least in part derived from it. ...
So, they're going to launch the Orion, with crew, on an Ares I, and hope that they can get a successful Ares V mission off within four days, because they can't afford the duration. They build this mondo grosso launch vehicle to avoid having to do multiple launches, and yet, they not only have dual launch, but it's one on a tight window. And if they can't get the launch off on time, the lunar mission is scrubbed, and the crew comes back home from LEO, having wasted the cost of an Ares I launch (and an Orion, if they end up not making it reusable).
This is an affordable, resilient, sustainable infrastructure?
http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/2008/06/thoughts_on_the.html
The rationale for the heavy lifter has always been to avoid the complication of orbital assembly (apparently, the false lesson learned from our success with assembling ISS is that we should throw away all that experience, and take an entirely different approach for VSE). But it's already a "launch and half" mission, needing both Ares 1 and Ares 56, so they're not even avoiding it--they're only minimizing it. And even if the lunar mission doesn't outgrow the Ares 6, it won't be able to do a Mars mission in a single launch. So if we need to learn to do orbital assembly (and long-term
I find that question so incredibly fucking hypocritical, it borders on insanity just to comprehend it.
Americans are the most unhealthy people on the planet. Shoving fast food, dioxins, heavy metals, high fructose corn syrup, and god knows what else in shitty prepared foods into their bodies every single day.
I tried to clean up my act and just ate Tuna as protein with fresh vegetables for 6 months. I now have mercury poisoning since I was not aware that the FDA actually allows small amounts of mercury to be sold in fish. The CA attorney general sued them, but he ended up losing since federal authority overruled him. Fucking bastards. If they had a label, I would not have eaten it.
In any case, considering the absolute crap we stuff down our pie holes EACH AND EVERY DAY at a future burden of billions upon billions of dollars to health care, I don't see what the big deal is with a little more radiation. I mean seriously, I know that I sound upset (which I am a little) and trolling here, but since when have we really demonstrated a real commitment to either our health or the environment?
Fuck it all people, seriously, just fuck it. If we can take that risk and actually get a craft like that in orbit that will allow us all to explore the solar system together, let's do it. I would love to see a real manned mission to Mars in my lifetime. Maybe even farther. 8 million tons is a LOT of spaceship. We can take more than enough supplies and energy for manned missions even further out.
If you told me that I was one of ten people in the room, and one of us had to die, but that death would make such a profound contribution to the human race... I would be one of those 10 people. No question, no hesitation. I honestly believe you take a greater risk eating prepared foods loaded with high fructose corn syrup, so sign me up for the dose of radiation.
Yes. Launchpad.
And source of materials out of which to build larger vessels and simply bulk matter to provide more shielding for stuff in space. (If we're ever going to have real settlements at L5 we're going to need many tons of matter of whatever the frack is cheapest to protect them from radiation.
And, if we can mine it and refine it cheaply enough, even "sparklers", low Joule but cheap supplementary rockets.
And, if nothing else, a place to stop and "catch our breath". If you're planning to climb a mountain, it makes it easier if you have a place to stop a third of the way up to refuel, do repairs, etc. The moon provides that.
I just don't understand why we have to keep going over this again and again and again any time the idea of going back to the moon is raised. This is basic logistics, people. A base near the top of the gravity well makes it easier to reach anywhere beyond that gravity well. It's just that simple.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
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.
What I do for a living: Build a GPS mobile game
It is stated US policy to completely control space, and deny access to it for anybody not friendly. China wants independent access to space, which is seen as unacceptable, so in order to be able to secure this access they need to be able to fight the US in space. If they can't blast American satellites to pieces they won't be able to have any serious space programme.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
On a serious note, I don't see why an interplanetary mission can't be assembled from a bunch of ~20t pieces instead of putting it all up in one shot. There are a lot of working, proven 20t launchers (Ariane 5, Delta IV, Proton, Long March 5) so international cooperation would be relatively simple.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
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?
The Ares V is not being super-sized because it's the best way of getting back to the moon. This rocket is the result of NASA administrator Mike Griffin's desire to build the biggest mofo rocket ever built. It is so big, much of the Kennedy Space Center infrastructure will have to be rebuilt. This will cost billions more. The main fuel tank is much wider than the shuttle tank. This requires a new production line, transportation barge and infrastructure at the cape. The 'extended' solid boosters require extensive design work and are not cheap either.
,undersized. At every design review, it is struggling to meet the thrust requirements for getting the Orion capsule into orbit. The Orion itself is suffering as a result, having to be stripped back to the bones before safety systems are carefully added back in.
Meanwhile, the Ares I is
So, instead of designing two badly sized, expensive rockets that has almost no hardware re-used from the Shuttle, NASA could be building a direct evolution of that hardware. Luckily, such a design already exists. It's been proposed by NASA engineers twice in the past - after the fatal Shuttle accidents. The idea is simple: Retain the existing Shuttle tank and solids. Place engine on the bottom of the tank. Place a payload on top of the tank. This concept has been around for years, but today it's being promoted as DIRECT.
http://www.directlauncher.com/
lots of discussion here: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=12379.0
This architecture will meet all the lifting requirements for getting back to the room whilst being: Cheaper (by many billions), and Sooner (the 'flight gap' after shuttle retirement is reduced from 6 years to 2. This retains all the technical staff that would otherwise be layed off. A similar brain drain after Apollo did massive damage to NASA and we don't want that to happen again
I could go on and on. It is obvious that DIRECT is the better option. They are actively lobbying congress and have plenty of support within NASA. In fact, an internal NASA study found that DIRECT was superior to Ares in every way, but this study was squashed by management. With DIRECT, the next president can have astronauts back in space in his administration. But only if his NASA administrator cancels Ares and Chooses DIRECT.
I have no
I assert that this entire thing is a waste of time money and cycles. A pound to a penny the supposed manned lunar landings are cancelled long before launch. I can believe the Ares-1 will fly, because without that there's no US manned launch capability so big political symbolism, but with the economy guaranteed to be in the toilet for the next five years and with oil permanently at least ten times more expensive than the historical average, "Apollo (slight reprise)" simply won't have enough domestic political support to avoid the axe. No doubt Dubya had something like that scenario in mind when he announced the ludicrous and engineeringly illiterate "first the Moon, then Mars" scheme but denied it the funding in the first place. And with the relative costs of fantastically amazing missions like MRO, MER and Phoenix compared to manned operations, then frankly I'm glad.
Going to the moon is not that bad of an idea.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
its cuz they're wearing sneakers. Check the butter in your fridge for their footprints.
rewriting history since 2109
Get your trunks off me, you damned, filthy, elephants !
Caveat Utilitor
We allow devices to be used that we absolutely KNOW will kill hundreds of thousands of random people every year. They're so dangerous that if you accidentally twitch your hand, it's entirely possible you will die and take other people with you. They're called cars.
Hell, using your BBQ slightly increases the risk of a random person getting lung cancer from the fumes.
Everything we do creates some amount of risk. Not to say we shouldn't work to minimize the risk, but it's absurd to worry about this level of statistical significance. Unfortunately, Mr. Dyson dramatically overestimates the public's understanding of risk and probability. He thought he was reassuring people, but most people have the same reaction as you, "OH NOOOOS, SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE????"
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
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
Dear Topspin: It's not mission creep - it's the way of world. Paper projects are light and cheap, real world projects are neither. Let's take the Saturn V for example - it's paper version had four F1 engines. In the last revision before bending metal, they had to add a fifth F1 (a 20% increase in 1st stage thrust) and despite this Saturn V performance was still barely enough.