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Does Obama Have a Problem At NASA?
MarkWhittington writes "Has NASA become a problem for the Obama transition? If one believes a recent story in the Orlando Sentinel, the transition team at NASA, led by former NASA Associate Administrator Lori Garver, is running into some bureaucratic obstruction." Specifically, according to this article NASA Administrator Michael Griffin made calls to aerospace industry executives asking them to stonewall if asked about benefits to be gained by canceling the current US efforts to revisit the moon; we mentioned last month that cutting Aries and Orion is apparently an idea under strong consideration by the Obama transition team.
For some reason the submission goes to a site that mentions the original articles appeared at the Orlando sentinel, but doesn't link to the articles. So here they are:
December 11: NASA chief Griffin bucks Obama's transition team
and
December 12: NASA chief insists he's cooperating with Obama's team
We can't just "un-retire the shuttle," mainly because it is a bloated, out-of-date, foam-shedding death trap. Besides, with everyone talking about creating jobs, how does it make sense to cut NASA hard and put tons of people who are working on Ares out of work?
This was an easy article to find, that's following up this story... Being on Space.com, it was on Slashdot's side bar... ;)
http://www.space.com/news/081211-nasa-obama-transition.html
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Actually, I'm Russian, so don't tell me about your "bad" and "inefficient" government. I know what a truly bad and corrupt government is from first-hand experience.
I also have enough European friends to know what a government can be, and I've seen it for myself as well when I studied in NZ for two years.
Other questions?
From the article: Michael Griffin, noting that no one on Lori Garver's team has any engineering expertise, suggested that Garver was "not qualified" to judge the Constellation program. Garver will not comment about the conversation, but has hinted that there will be a new administrator chosen at NASA shortly and that there will be change to NASA policy."
Toeing. Not towing. Much less work.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
IANAAE (I am not an aerospace engineer) but to me, Ares looks silly. Solid rocket boosters do not burn smoothly, they have a big problem with thrust oscillation. The designers actually worry that these vibrations will incapacitate or kill the crew.
To quote a real expert...also known as Resonant Burning - described as vortices that shed within the solid rocket motors during combustion due to the shearing of internal flow at propellant discontinuities - the issue relates to when the frequency of thrust oscillations is coincident with the acoustic modes of the motor cavity.
Solids work fine when grouped together with liquid stages, but a single solid booster just seems wrong.
IAAAE (I am an aerospace engineer) and Ares looks silly. Solid rockets should never be used for manned vehicles. The capsule idea is the way to go but the LV is a bad choice IMHO.
This article is pure flame bait, Neither Griffin nor the Transition team have stated that any infighting has been occuring.
In fact the transition team has NASA's full attention, read Griffins Response before you make your kneejerk reactions slashdot:
http://www.space.com/news/081211-nasa-obama-transition.html
And Griffins Reply:
Today, Griffin replied, calling the charges "simply wrong."
"I am appalled by any accusations of intimidation, and encourage a free and open exchange of information with the contractor community," Griffin said. "I would like to reiterate what I have stated in a previous email to all NASA Officials: we must make every effort to 'lean forward,' to answer questions promptly, openly and accurately."
Reliability was not the primary issue. The SSME's are very reliable and have a very good track record. But they are designed to be flown and re-flown for up to 25 missions. And with Ares (or DIRECT or any non-Shuttle rocket), the engines will not be re-used. They will crash into the ocean when the fuel is used up and the stage is disposed of.
But the SSME costs upwards of $60 million each, whereas the RS-68 only costs about $25 million.
Finally, I am not saying that it was the wrong decision to make. I am saying that they should have re-evaluated all options when the main engines were changed out. That decision completely destroyed the basis for the ESAS committee's recommendations.
"The only good windmill is a tilted windmill."
Well, Bush's line is only the "we gotta get to the moon then mars on the cheap". Griffin is using an idea that's been floating around for about 15 years on his Mars plan, and the Moon plan is just bigger, better Apollo. Griffin has also been a supporter of what Constellation basically is since 1995 (according to Zubrick, The Case for Mars), well before he was even aware there was a Bush line to tow. Most likely, he wants Constellation to happen because the concept is something he feels ownership towards, and doesn't want Obama to get rid of it and divert the money to the black hole known as the education budget.
As YAAE, I think it looks silly for several reasons. The first and most important one: you can't actually test fire the engine you're going to trust your life to! You can inspect it, and you can test the process, but you can't test the actual article. Furthermore, the propellant grain is susceptible to handling damage and manufacturing defects, so there is reason to want to test it. There are cases where solids in proximity to humans are reasonable -- small solid motors for ballistic parachutes, for example. Or signal flares. In those cases, you can reasonably test two or three orders of magnitude more devices than will be tested for Ares (mostly because they're smaller). The other cases where solids are better is where readily storable propellants are required, like for most missiles. That doesn't apply here. (There are plenty of other reasons as well, but I won't bother going into them.)
The mistake that leads to thinking solids are a good choice is comparing them to the SSME and other engines like it as if that was the only alternative. It's not. The best design to compare it to is probably LOX/Kerosene running at a modest chamber pressure, with a pump feed (gas generator cycle) where the pump and its drive system are heavier than they could be, but simpler in design and with more margin (and hence more reliable and cheaper). It doesn't need to be a turbopump -- piston machinery works too. For a large system, though, the turbopump is probably enough lighter to be better, but it should really have more resemblance to industrial turbomachinery than conventional rocket machinery. Yes, that won't hit the maximum possible Isp or mass ratio for the stage. But that isn't as important on a first stage (or really, anywhere you'd consider using a large solid -- even the low-performance LOX/Kero rocket will beat the solid). What is important are things like design cost, manufacturing cost, and reliability.