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Setbacks Cast Doubt On NASA's Ares Project
stoolpigeon writes with this excerpt from an Orlando Sentinel article about the Ares program, which paints a bleak picture of the program's future: "Bit by bit, the new rocket ship that is supposed to blast America into the second Space Age and return astronauts to the moon appears to be coming undone. First was the discovery that it lacked sufficient power to lift astronauts in a state-of-the-art capsule into orbit. Then engineers found out that it might vibrate like a giant tuning fork, shaking its crew to death. Now, in the latest setback to the Ares I, computer models show the ship could crash into its launch tower during liftoff. "
The Saturn V is (was) built from what is now antiquated technology. I'd rather see then implement Jupiter.
Please, this is not a troll.
So what are the alternatives? I understand that not only is the shuttle getting very old (and presumably less safe with already a 1:100 chance of failure per launch) but is extremely expensive in terms of dollars/lb. to orbit.
Are there any reasonable alternatives that are available in say, 5 years? Such as using a man-rated Delta (very reliable commercial launcher) for the relatively small Orion crew capsule and perhaps some sort of Shuttle tank + Shuttle engines + 2 current boosters as a heavy lift vehicle? Or will the U.S. be without manned space flight capabilities in a few years (ceding it to the Russians and Chinese!).
Any NASA/ex-NASA/space experts out there? (By the way, really disappointed that the SSTO efforts like the Delta Clipper and X-34(?) didn't work out. Also, no, the Japanese space elevator will not be available for at least 20 years and probably not within our lifetimes).
An even more bleak picture comes from this blog/editorial:
http://rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com/2008/10/getting-specific.html
It seems as though NASA hasn't learned about what went wrong with the development of the Space Shuttle and are bound and determined to repeat those mistakes of the past and make new ones on top of that. This is a rocket being designed by committee, with some of the top management folks who don't want to compromise on the basic premise: to "reuse" as many of the Shuttle parts as possible.
I hate to break the word to anybody still ignorant on this, but so little is being re-used from the Shuttle design that they might as well have gone back to the Saturn V design instead, or even made something completely from a blank piece of paper and rebuilt the supply chains from scratch.
There are also so many engineers who are working for NASA that are complaining about this design that at the very least somebody in political leadership (aka congressmen & senators) ought to be starting to listen to the grumblings going on here. The lines of communication between Griffin and the engineers doing the actual number crunching and the basic design of this vehicle are completely broken.
Of course, NASA has a wonderful reputation for listenting to its engineers that you can put full confidence in the NASA administration being able to listen to what needs to be fixed.
Anyway, I'd rather they found these errors now, rather than later...
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
As the Chinese already have a working man-rated launch vehicle, I suspect that the US will have to make the Areas work no matter what, or else you'll be seeing the Chinese on the moon first (and at this rate even the Russians and the Europeans too, since the Europeans are currently looking at man-rating the Ariane and launching astronauts with a modified ATV).
There, my contribution to the Slashdot US vs. the rest of the world slanging match.
... that engineers at NASA have formed a group to develop an alternative to "Ares", because of the perception that it was too little for too much effort. And the fact that NASA has so far rejected their plan without having looked at it seriously.
I have been saying this for years now: NASA has been dropping the ball when it comes to man in space. It has been doing great with robotics, but otherwise has been dropping the ball.
You want to see another man on the moon from the United States? Make it a $10 Billion dollar prize. NASA blows that (or pretty close) on a single Shuttle launch. I bet private industry would do it in under 10 years.
NASA has been losing it, big time. Can they make a comeback? I would be the happiest person if they did. But I have my doubts.
Despite what people will say about the environmental side-effects, I still feel that Project Orion is the best possible way for us to get back to space fast, and actually travel useful distances with a live crew.
There are going to be setbacks. Mistakes will be made. For the most part these rocket surgeons do the job, on time.
Personally, I'd like to see them re-engineer the Saturn V. Didn't it run linux?
Why should we worry about setbacks? The Delta IV Heavy is launching just fine and could have easily done the job. All that they would have had to do would be the man-rating of the spacecraft and the redesign of the fairing. Additionally, the Delta IV Heavy has a lot of upgrade potential. Cross feeding propellant and adding additional strap-on boosters could easily double its capacity. And should I also mention that you can shut off the engines on the Delta IV if you have a problem (which might be convenient when you are transporting humans who don't like to explode when malfunctions occur).
You also have a conceptual error. The problem is with the Ares I, not the Ares V. The Ares I is a crappy 25 tonne rocket that is being built because it will provide pork to Utah. The Ares V, which also supplies pork to Utah, is the 130 tonne ultra heavy lift rocket that is in the same class as the Saturn V.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
And like a large software project it also might be a lot of hoopla about day to day operations.
If someone posted an hourly press release for my internal work process at work it would also be full of failures. "Gavin wastes an hour on an idea which goes nowhere." "Gavin thinks he has found solution but actually finds more problems." "Gavin runs projections and determines his initial idea would result in a complete failure."
I would like to know whether the project is actually off track--or just working through the problems that are a result of doing something difficult. With any large project you spend most of your time screwing up. My favorite anecdote is from one of the editors of Apocalypse Now. They calculated the number of individual edits they made in the film and divided it by the number of days they were editing. If they had been able to work without any mistakes and just cut the film they would have only needed to cut two shots per day.
That can't be right. A 1/6 chance to fail is a 5/6 chance to succeed. Wikipedia indicates 11 manned launches. (5/6)^11=0.13
If 1/6 chance is correct then there was only a 0.13 chance that all those launches succeeded. I find it hard to believe that we were really that lucky. The chance of failure had to have been much lower.
Cow Cube
It might seem unrelated but this "management project" might be easier to experience for most of us. Lord of the Rings Online PvMP. Tactics.
Two sides, uneven numbers and uneven skills. Battles tend to be tank rusk vs tank rush, or zerg vs zerg. Hit the other with all you got and see if you can wipe them out. It is the nature of the game. In the battle area there are keeps to take. First thing a SMART leader who understands KISS does is ask himself. Do I really want to add complexity to the battle by giving myself TWO goals, fighting the enemy AND taking a keep at the same time? Note that taking a keep itself already has two tasks at least, killing NPC's and stopping others on your side "accidently" pulling every NPC in the area.
KISS means, Keep It Simple Stupid. The more complex you make a task, the more trouble you create for yourself. The human brains ain't all that good at dealing with a lot of tasks so it tends to just ignore things it can't handle if overloaded. Overlooking the basics by focussing on to many complex demands at once.
In Lotro PvMP one of the basics is "you need numbers". A complex task is to try stategies like creating a diversion, flanking etc etc. Everyone who thinks they know about war might think these are valid tactics but forget one thing. KISS. Even an attempt at flanking the enemy is FAR to complex to pull off. Sure, it might work once, if you got people who REALLY work together, but 9 times out of 10 it just ends up with the enemy just wiping one part first, then the second. PvMP is Lotro is about numbers vs numbers, so stick together and hit them in force. It works, has been proven to work and is something most people can deal with. Split for instance into two groups and you waste ten minutes getting everyone to follow the right leader, while the enemy looks on and thinks "Yummie, bite sized enemy forces".
So how does this relate to the US space program? The mandate to re-use space shuttle parts. Totally unneeded complexity. Re-using existing stuff SOUNDS smart but goes against KISS because it forces you to work around ALL the problems the existing parts bring. It is in this case BLOODY clear the existing parts have troubles because if they didn't, you would be using the old system.
If you want a rocket to take you to the moon with a manned module then THAT is the design requirement. Nothing more. Rocket+manned+moon. Not +cheap. Not +beforedateX. Not +reuseparts. Not +somebodiespetproject. Everything requirement you add makes things far more complex and that is BOUND to go wrong.
People in software are of course familiar with the idea of re-usability. Re-use your code. C++ was build around the idea. The idea has its meritcs. I certainly wouldn't recommend that the next moon rocket seeks to re-invent the screw BUT there is a HUGE difference between using existing parts if it happens to be convenient and putting re-using parts as a design requirement.
Think of it like this. Using GD in your website software vs GD must be used in your website software. Using OS/2 for your desktop vs your desktop MUST use OS/2.
As a software engineer you probably seen this countless time. Software requiring the use of Oracle database to store 1 column because we use oracle in this company. Demands to have servers run windows because that is what the boss has on his desktop.
Ares has to many design requirements that have nothing to do with getting the US back on the moon and that is the reason it failed. If they had gone for a new design, re-using only if it happened naturally, then they would already have had a rocket, it would have been cheaper and it might even have been flying already. But no, it had to re-use by design to be cheaper and faster and voila, as everyone could predict, it is more expansive and slower. re-use as part of the design spec != KISS. If someone mentions re-use of code as a goal during development I have long since learned to get the hell out of the project. I suggest NASA hires me so that I can stand by with a clue-bat during their brainstorming sessions and whack anyone adding needless complexity to their projects. Seeing how much money it wastes, I would say 10 million a year would be nice starting salary. Where do I apply?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Dont forget, We still have Saturn. There are still two Saturn rockets in Kennedy Florida, that we can still use.
Saturn was extrodinarly sucessfull. It's existing saftey measures are fine. What is Missing? Manpower. We now lack the training and science in people to be able to run the program.
That part of the problem is that the US had a very successful manned space program with many firsts (including the moon landing). In fact the US continues to have a very successful unmanned space program. The recent Mars missions, the rovers and the Phoenix Mars mission, have been very successful.
Well those two things help lead to being lazy about future manned space missions. After all that's not the competitive "We've got to do it first," thing going on. Then there's the fact that the unmanned missions are much, much cheaper and seem to produce plenty good data.
You have to remember that sending people in to space has thus far not been all that necessary, nor is there a real economic reason (beyond tourism). If it was a case that there was a lot of money to be made, like say you sent someone to the moon and they brought back billions of dollars of valuable resources, well then sure, there'd be plenty of motivation to keep a modern manned mission going. However as it stands, there's no economic benefit. So the benefit is entirely scientific. Well, that's sure as hell not worthless, but unmanned missions seem to do the job brilliantly.
I mean suppose you are running the program and I come to you and say I have some research I want to do. I can do it two ways: I can either design and build an automated system, which has a chance of failing, or I can send people, who based on past experience have about a 1% chance of dying (that's roughly NASA's record at this point, about 1 in 100). Also, the automated system is much cheaper to do, and can potentially work for longer, though perhaps not quite as flexible.
Which do you choose?
I'm certainly not against NASA modernizing it's manned space program I think it's worthwhile. But let's maintain a realistic assessment of how useful it is and how priority it is. The US has already sent people to the moon, a number of times in fact. Doing it just for bragging rights isn't useful at this point.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but we had a series of really nice, multi-stage rockets... what, forty years ago? Just off the top of my head, we had... Vanguard, Atlas, Saturn, Delta, Titan.. And they all worked pretty well.
We seem to have made them in the "dark ages" of technology, too, relatively speaking.
What's the problem now? Are our engineers less smart? Do we have fewer materials? "
Why will nobody say the obvious? WE didn't build Saturn. The Germans did.
While we had German engineers, we were pretty hot in the Space Race. So the obvious answer is, get the Germans to make another one. If we can afford it.
Or we could ask the Brits. Last I heard they were building a 1000mph car, and we havn't been able to do that sort of thing for 30 years. In fact, since the Germans left.....
GP is probably referring to Dilbert Principle, which is much more ominous then Peter Principle. It states that in large organizations, if management has no immediate incentive to fire them, for whatever illogical, office politics reason, like maintaining a facade of department importance and business, most incompetent people are promoted to managerial positions to minimize their damaging impact on organization.
It implies that management is simpler or marginally important work. However, "Dilbert" is all about bad management hurting organizations' goals a lot, so it remains a bit contradictory... perhaps promotion of the worst is not a process commanded from above, but shaped by push from bellow: there are people looking for escape from positions they are not good at, and others who are good at their present positions usually won't compete with them for "higher" positions they deem ... unsatisfying.
Perhaps none should be allowed to change the ranks too fast? If someone shows signs of impatience and eagerness to take the helm, then perhaps there is something wrong going on in the spot they're presently at.
Peter Principle means: "Commanding positions are too important to be handed out just as rewards for simpler job well done". Dilbert principle means: "Commanding positions are too important to be handed out as decoys to lure elephants out of the china shop", but modified Dilbert Principle means: "Eagerness to rise from one's ranks is not a good reason for facilitation of it, but a good reason to do deep check on that person's performance at its present position".
One job I landed for a summer while I was in school for aerospace engineering was as an apprentice helicopter mechanic. I would always catch flack for being an engineer and every little design flaw in the airframe was my fault (even though some of the airframes were built well before I was even born). Sometimes their complaints were legitimate, however other times I could give them an educated guess as to why the engineer designed something a specific way even though it may be more difficult to maintain. As with everything in life there are trade offs in the designs.
That job was not only a lot of fun, but it also gave me a pretty unique insight that a lot of engineers don't get into what happens after the product is designed and out the door. Because of that experience the maintainability of a product is something that I try to keep in high regard when I'm going through the design process because I have been on the receiving end of some really bad designs that could have been (IMO) easily avoided.
This is one of the reasons, and I know people will cringe when they read this, I actually believe that engineers make the better managers than someone who's just "a manager". When you have someone who has gone through the process and knows what the challenges are, they're going to make better decisions in the long run. If you throw someone with a suit at a project who has little to no technical background you're going to run into the PHB problem.
[side rant]The same type of thing goes for the engineers. During work on the project there should be at least one engineer who has a background in safety, reliability, and maintainability (usually a systems engineer) to go over the work and point out major flaws in the design that can easily be fixed at that stage rather than after the product has been developed and you get complaints from all the mechanics. Unfortunately this seems to be something that a lot of companies forgo because it can be a very expensive process.[/side rant]
What NASA seems to have is a disconnect between levels of workers. The engineers are saying one thing and the managers are doing another. I understand that trade offs need to be made when managing a project, but from what I've read there have been a lot of poor decisions in those areas. I'm not a part of all these shenanigans but I have former classmates who are on that project. One major problem NASA has is politics, not only within the organization itself but politics in DC for funding and everything that comes with it. That will gum up the works of any major project faster than incompetence.
Are you insane? every single bit,part, bolt and screw is well documented. as well as the documentation for every revision change made after each launch. they have full documentation to build all they need. I'm 40 and I still have a huge crate of documentation for that launch system. And I have the parts that are not classified, there is at least another 500 pages I was not allowed to have copies of. I even have copies of the memos from the engineering teams. all of these were purchased from NASA.
Problem is you typically dont want to build and launch 40 year old tech. you want to redesign it to use the current stuff and add your new sensors and fight gear that let's you do more with it and increase safety and monitoring. that will take time.
If you think that any part of the Apollo program was undocumented and some greasy jumpsuit mechanic climbed inside to make a undocumented tweak before launch then you've been watching WAY too many movies.
The structural requirements for an aircraft are very different than those of a rocket. With mass being such a critical problem in rocket design, are you any better off if you have to add a substantial amount of mass to add the capability of taking off and flying to high altitude? From what I remember about rockets launched from balloons, the main problem in reaching space wasn't altitude, it was velocity, and a balloon launch didn't help much in reaching escape velocity.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Actually, from my experience in software, the absolute worst PHB's I've ever seen, were ex-programmers. Some of them _brilliant_ ex-programmers. But they were crap at dealing with people, even worse at organizing things, hated being in meetings half the time now, and most of them also expected their employees to meet and exceed some standards that they themselves actually failed. (Except maybe in their own mind.)
A rough breakdown, off the top of my head, is somewhat like this:
- two ended up obnoxious control freaks, and convinced that nothing ever gets done unless they pester someone to death. One of them used to click on Netscape's title bar to show it that he's watching. He genuinely believed that it loaded pages faster if it knew the boss is watching . (Freaking hillarious or freaking sad, for someone who had been a brilliant programmer before. You decide which.)
- one ended up personally doing the programs of his whole team, because it was less stress than trying to organize and manage that team. He'd make up by lashing out with random acts of mis-management, presumably more to show himself that he's still the boss, than to show it to his underlings.
- two ended up what I can only describe as yes-men in both directions. They basically avoided managing, by pretending to be on everyone's side, both from above and from below.
- one ended up, basically a depressed whiner.
Etc.
As for Dilbert... here's something worth wondering about: several comic strips paint the PHB as being unable to read people's reactions. In one, he can't tell if Wally is sleeping or working, when looking at him from the front. Several make sense only if he isn't even aware of the harm he does. That guy has Asperger's Syndrome. He's a nerd. A complete nerd, in fact.
And if I'm allowed to run amok with analyzing a cartoon character too far: while it is possible that his narrow focus of interest (practically a given for an aspie) was management from the start, it's very _unusual_ for that disorder. Asperger's Syndrome is a bit like being colour blind, only it's about human reactions instead of about colours. The typical way is to end up fascinated with numbers, technology or the like, not with the people that you can't even understand much. My money is that such a person started from engineering, CS or some other such field.
And, yes, I know that it is just a cartoon character, and I'm not pretending that it's real or anything. I _am_ however guessing that it might be based on one or more managers that Scott Adams worked with before.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The impression I get, is that it was a political backlash. Systems management empowered people in the system who could get things done in ways that anybody outside their highly specialised fields of knowledge could not. In a word, NASA spawned technocrats - people with significant political and economic power wielded not by mandate or by entrepreneurship but by scientific knowledge, and the United States associated such people with Communism.
Oversimplified a bit, perhaps, but the basic gist of it is true - NASA as an organisation seemed uncomfortably 'socialist' to many people and as soon as the mitigating circumstances of the space race passed, they tried to eradicate this element of it.
The result is now just another government agency, run with plenty of political oversight and short-sighted, penny pinching accounting.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Air launching reduces range costs. No blastproof pad, blockhouse, or associated equipment is needed. This permits takeoff from a wide variety of sites, generally limited by the support and preparation requirements of the payload. The travel range of the aircraft allows launches at the equator, which increases performance and is a requirement for some mission orbits. Launching over oceans also reduces insurance costs, which are not small for a vehicle filled with what are essentially explosives.
Launch at altitude allows a larger, more efficient, yet cheaper first-stage nozzle. Its expansion ratio can be designed for low ambient air pressures, without risking flow separation and flight instability during low-altitude flight. The extra diameter of the high-altitude nozzle would be difficult to gimbal. But with reduced crosswinds, the fins can provide sufficient first-stage steering. This allows a fixed nozzle, which saves cost and weight versus a hot joint.
*** Don't be dull.***