Slashdot Mirror
NASA Shuttle Replacement's Problems Are Worsening
ausoleil noted that NASA's replacement for the shuttle, the Orion, is slipping behind schedule "'We're probably going to have to move our target date,' NASA exploration chief Doug Cooke told The Associated Press on Wednesday after Nasawatch.com posted the 117-page internal status report (PDF) on the moon program. The cost problems include an $80 million overrun on a motor system. The Orion spacecraft's design remains too heavy for the proposed Ares 1 rocket. Software development, heat shield testing and other complex work remain behind schedule or over budget. There are dozens of such serious challenges, many of which are 'worsening.'"
Look, does this news really come as a surprise? NASA's been over-budget and behind schedule since the last Apollo flight. Without the unlimited checkbook that Mercury/Gemini/Apollo had, this should be expected.
Unlimited budgets have a way of clearing all obstacles in their path.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
How long will there be no active US manned spacecraft - and will this get longer?
I am reminded of the gap between Apollo and the Shuttle - and look at what happened to Skylab...
We seemed more adventurous and capable in the 1960s than we are in 2008. Is this what has become of the great spacefaring nation that so many before us had envisioned? Despite serious technological advancements, have we lost our momentum? Maybe it was a passion for the unknown that enabled us before. I fear it has been replaced by disinterested private contractors, underfunding, and ambivalence. More so if this shuttle replacement isn't successful.
Sure sure. Sounds great.
Now, just initial here that the 2008 mandatory stress testing has been done on each component, OSHA has approved the ergonomics of the seats, all modern safety systems are in place...and...hello? Where are you going?
No one (with power in NASA or gov't) is interested in getting back to the moon without a billion rules, regulations, and safety measures.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
I've given up on any hope for a manned successor to the shuttle, at least as far as NASA is concerned. I've gotten my geek hope burned too many times on the hype.
If this thing ever gets off the ground, I will be surprised. But even if it does at that, I imagine the design will be as flawed and compromised as the shuttle's.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
say fuck no to rules man!
and we haven't paid for much of a space program for several decades now. All that engineering knowledge has slowly, and literally, died as engineers have retired. Sending a handful of people to earth orbit every year is not exploration - any focus on anything other than how to advance human beings as rapidly as possible to every body in the solar system is simply spending money without garnering public desire to pay for more of it. We need people going places, and waiting five decades to get around to making it happen has wasted away all the good will those who write the checks had for doing this business.
You should see the contortions Grumman had to go through, to get the Lunar Module under the mission weight budget, well into the Apollo Program.
I figure the only thing that's changed between now and then is the Internet makes it much easier for the lay public to form entirely the wrong impression about highly complex and technical works-in-progress.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
I'm not sure the problem is so much technical as process: the Orion is a "Cost Plus" contract.
Cost plus is always likely to see cost overruns and major delays. The more expensive and the longer it takes, the more the contractors make. There's no motivation to be on time and under budget.
Life is short: void the warranty.
No one (with power in NASA or gov't) is interested in getting back to the moon without a billion rules, regulations, and safety measures.
Also consider that astronauts were looked on as rough and tough guys doing their national duty in the days of Apollo. Today they're seen as geeks wasting cash on expensive toys.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
In fairly new technology a fairly good rule I observe is to always doubel managements estimated time. Therefore the first manned Orion to ISS will be 2018 (assuming ISS is still functional then).
Now, just initial here that the 2008 mandatory stress testing has been done on each component, OSHA has approved the ergonomics of the seats, all modern safety systems are in place...and...hello? Where are you going?
Actually, the real problem is the toxic fuels that were used, and a few other toxic components. It's the _environmental_ issues that prevent Apollo-era technology from flying today, not the safety issues.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
There are existing commercial launch vehicles such as the Delta IV or Atlas V rockets that can be man rated or the potential upcoming commercial launch vehicles such as the SpaceX Falcon 9 that could replace Ares I. Although man rating isn't trivial it's insane for NASA to create a new rocket to compete with existing commercial launch vehicles. NASA should encourage making manned access to low Earth orbit a low cost commercial commodity rather than using government resources to discourage such access.
In fact, NASA should contract with two independent suppliers capable of lifting the CEV to low Earth orbit and buy launch vehicles from each supplier in near equal quantities. This would add some expense, but it would make sure that should a launch accident occur our manned space program isn't grounded for years as complex accident investigations occur and fixes are implemented on the failed launch vehicle.
The Ares I is an albatross that only exists because of pride and politics. It is harmful to the exact type of space development that this nation needs. In the early 60's NASA didn't lose any face by choosing to re-purpose ICBMs for the Mercury and Gemini programs. Instead, out of necessity, NASA it's rocket building teams on the Saturn series of rockets. It was the practical decision then and it is the practical decision to re-purpose existing vehicles now for LEO access.
If NASA wants to build a launcher (and whether they should be building any is a very debatable) then they should be concentrating exclusively on the Ares V/VI which actually goes somewhere and does something that commercial space companies may not be able to do economically today.
> Just use the equipment from the Apollo
> program...problem solved.
This would be going back to vacuum tube technology.
It would also be quite expensive to do. Not only are the required vacuum tubes not in stock anywhere, the factories and machines that made the vacuum tubes no longer exist. And the tools to make the machines to make vacuum tubes no longer exist, and nobody makes the tools any more.
Now multiply this problem with every part -- from electronics to literally nuts and bolts -- of the rockets, engines, ground segment, etc. The industrial infrastructure that created Apollo parts went the way your neighborhood horse whip factory did.
That's an urban myth. NASA has a complete Apollo rocket suspended in pieces from the ceiling in its tourist center. I have pictures.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Which is exactly why we need to resurrect interest in the Space program. No one cares? Has anyone ever thought about what life would be like if we DIDN'T have the space program?! Slashdot would be out of business...we'd still be in the dark ages of tech if we didnt have a space program. No high availiability servers, no hybrid cars, no amazingy resilient memory metals, no high heat plastics or ceramics... ALL these things have peices that came from the space program research or otherwise. Kids nowdays learn basic science in schools...taught to a test, taught to look into the box of ideas and take from it, imitate, never innovate. Rarely will you ever see a child look up and wonder about what makes the world tick, what makes the sun shine, why is the sky blue...etc. Nowadays, Brittany Spears getting in a car wreck is more in tune with their attention spans. I worked with these people, these people are dedicated to getting another man to the moon with as much safety as money can buy. We DO need a space program, it needs more money, and the Patriots in congress don't seem to understand that. We're in a recession, soon to head into a depression...why not divert some government bailout money to the space program and only bail out half of Fannie MAe or Freddie Mac? Its time we had an administration that hearkened back to the days of Reganomics, where failure was NOT an option. Nowdays, the american public is too engrossed in American Idol to realize that the same people that are running the country into the ground financially with pork barrel spending and side goals are also starving a potential venue of economic revitaliazation with thier short sighted, anti-innovative laws and associated security theatre. We've lost so much in the past 7 years, let's not add the space program and the gifts of knowledge and research benefits to the casualty list. We need the space program, Congress will probably understand that the day that they wake up and realize that China has already colonized Mars and Japan is on the way to Europa. Kubrick said it best, "All of these words are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them wisely, use them in peace." The universe is at our door step, let our shortsightedness not rob us of that. Save NASA.
Remember, it's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you...
The Apollo astronauts _were_ tough guys doing their national duty.
Besides that. JFK was buried the day Armstrong set foot on the Moon. The goal set by him was accomplished, the Russians defeated and, thus, Joe Sixpack lost interest. There seemed to be a can-do attitude, a willingness to blow stuff up and to take risks that is no more.
It's really tragic thing. Maybe we don't deserve to be a spacefaring race.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Damn, I thought they were talking about Project Orion.
I'm sure there are a lot of smart people at NASA who can do quite a lot on their modest government regulated salaries.
But I'm equally sure they are vastly outnumbered by mediocre and downright incompetent talent that waste tax payer dollars doing little, nothing or actually counter-producing by dragging the aforementioned smart people into their screwed up projects on last-minute, emergency fix-this sessions.
It's the nature of government employment methodology: "keep the fat."
Thank god we have some rich billionaires developing the commercial space program.
These opinions guaranteed or your money back.
Well unless you count LEO...we're not. The ISS is what, about 220 miles up? Shuttle makes it a whopping 500-ish at most? what a sad state.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Back in the 60's we were competing against the "Ruskies" and NASA had a much bigger budget (when adjusted for inflation). They threw money at the engineering teams and told them to make it happen. These days, NASA is operating on a fraction of what it once had.
Damn it, I *JUST YESTERDAY* posted to correct this fallacy. When will the Internet learn?
The blueprints for everything, down to the last nut and bolt, are on file at MSFC. Source.
Further, rebuilding a Saturn from them won't work. You can't get the parts made any more, nor would you want to. You can't duplicate IBM's work and make another Instrument Unit--two tons of 1960s-vintage analog computers and gyroscopes, including equipment designed to determine the rocket's launch azimuth based on star sightings, not GPS like we'd use today. Then there's all the other analog and early digital equipment that's integral to the design. Remember, it's not just a giant fuel tank and some engines--it's a launch vehicle. It's got a flight manual, and it's designed to be used in conjunction with an Apollo command and service module pair flying it.
Re-design the rocket to use new technology? By the time you've de-Apollo'd Saturn, you've made a whole new launch vehicle. Which is exactly what Ares is.
The Saturn V is an awesome piece of technology, yes. An awesome piece of 1960s technology. Rebuilding it today would not work, period, no matter how cool it might be.
Look through the discussion, and the term "man-rated" comes up, a lot. It's probably a good thing it does too, because it's generally a bad idea to lose life during launches, or any other time during the flight, for that matter.
But I question the path to man rating. For the US space program, as far as I can tell, only Mercury and Gemini turned previously designed boosters into man-rated. Everything else has been designed from the get-go as man-rated. It seems to me that though it can be done that way, it's a bit of a fallacy in the making. To some extent, parts is parts, and it should always be possible to tighten the specs on some number of parts to improve the reliability of an existing booster. For that matter, existing non-man-rated boosters likely have a much longer track record, more launches, etc. They really don't want to lose *any* of these things, because even if human life isn't on top of the stack, typically tens of millions of dollars are.
So I don't understand why we don't start with a non-man-rated booster with a large number of launches and study its track record, failure modes, etc. Then start work on a man-rated version of that same booster with the necessary spec and reliability tweaks. Seems to me that it would be faster and cheaper. It likely wouldn't have the launch capacity, but at the moment that's a separate issue. Even in the Aries program there's the Aries-I with relatively low launch capacity, and the Aries-V with much greater capacity. Better heavy launch programs would still need to go forward, but why have a new light-launch program?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Its an organisational one. They themselves are already complaining about their budget and they haven't even got a rocket off the ground yet. They've got teams off their own engineers who disagree so strongly with the direction NASA is taking they are designing an alternative rocket on their own time (DIRECT/Jupiter/Ares 2 or 4 or whatever). They've got staff airing their complaints to the press rather than their supervisor. I'd say the wheels have come off the plan to return to the Moon, buy NASA probably haven't even settled on what size wheels those would be yet.
I've mentioned this before. We can't do scale. Everyone is so invested in the orthodoxy of competition that cooperation automatically falls flat on its face. The idea of man as selfish and rational is a self fulfilling prophecy - if you believe that about other people it makes it almost impossible for you to trust and work with them.
So, in my humble opinion, neither the Americans nor anyone else is getting back on the interplanetary horse until we figure out the systemic, structural problems in our societies.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
They're screwed. MacGyver himself couldn't keep this project on schedule with all the duct tape, rubber bands and paperclips in the world.
The problem is, this project is massive. It was obvious from the beginning that their time estimates were basically based on everything working perfectly the first time and optimization studies showing that they'd already picked the most efficient design. There are always going to be problems, and the bigger the project the more you're going to have.
If they're serious about replacing the shuttle with only a couple years of downtime, they should already be gearing up to test the system as a whole. I'm not personally involved in the project, but it doesn't even look like they're ready to test big pieces yet. Maybe 2020 is a more reasonable date to actually begin flights.
Isn't it ironic that all these debates about space launchers and exploration, are always restricted to one nation's nationalist efforts?....Why not champion any and every side who is willing and able to explore space?
Simple. Manned exploration is mostly about glory, NOT science. Robots are far cheaper for collecting science and samples. (And please don't start the argument about on-the-spot geologists. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny.)
Thus, if its only about glory, then nationalism must come into play. Otherwise, nobody will care enough to pay.
Table-ized A.I.
Not really, your "cost" are highly controlled, and while you can theoretically try to get more money out of NASA to keep your facility busy in lean times, you're not going anywhere since you aren't getting additional profit, and have to deal with unallowed cost.
Plus usually there are follow on contracts you're interested in (to qualify for a new fee), so you have an incentive to finish in time, and even under cost since it's a FIXED fee. As for buying from subsidiaries or other subcontractors - they are subject to the same rules as the prime, so there's no hidden way of generating profit on that end either.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
The difference is that the Saturn V stats reflect real performance, the Ares V figures are still hypothetical. Shuttle never got much more than about 80% of its originally advertised payload capacity.
And of course, Saturn V is 45 year old technology. Just replacing the Instrument Unit (guidance system) with modern avionics would add about 2000 kg to the payload.
-- Alastair
Here's another thought. The Russian have some huge heavy lift rockets that are tested and reliable. Use the Russian rockets to do the heavy lifting and concentrate on developing the manned equipment. Actually if you tell the Ares V contractors this is the plan then they may just find a way to get things done on time and on schedule for a change.
Shuttle never got much more than about 80% of its originally advertised payload capacity.
You are wrong here in a way. I do not know the original advertised payload capacity, however, when they were during launch trajectory analysis they found out that when they used the upside down trajectory, it increased payload by almost 20%, so I can guarantee that the payload they carried up was more than what they originally thought it would be, if not the full extra 20%. I hope that made sense.
"Just use the equipment from the Apollo program...problem solved."
Even if this could be done there are problems...
1) Why bother. The Apollo can only support a VERY high risk "plant the flag" type mission. We do not want to do that mission.
2) Many people just don't realize how risky and shoe string the Appollo design was. I think if we started it up we could expect to loose one in ten missions. NASA did 6 missions and almost lost one. It was also a very expensive design. The expense was the reason NASA went for the shuttle, they thought it would be cheaper. It would have been cheaper had they been able to run as many missions per year as were planned. But the first accident caused the major user the Air Force abandon the program. With most flights now canceled the cost per flight went through the roof.
Bottom line is that Apollo was risky and expensive and could only do one very limited mission. That is NOT what we want now. Now the idea is to build a robust transportation system that can support a range of missions