DIRECT Post-Shuttle Plan Pitched To Obama Team

FleaPlus writes "Popular Mechanics reports that a 'renegade' group including NASA engineers has met with President-Elect Obama's space transition team to present information on the DIRECT architecture for launching NASA missions after the Space Shuttle is retired. According to the group, DIRECT's Jupiter launch system will be safer, less expensive, better-performing, and be ready sooner than the Ares launch system NASA is currently developing, while still providing jobs for much of the existing shuttle workforce. Meanwhile, it's expected that current NASA head and adamant Ares supporter Michael Griffin will be replaced by a new NASA administrator."

Comments

First chance to see if Obama is a retard or not

[damburger]

Of course DIRECT is "cheaper, quicker and safer" than Ares - because it is a paper project. All projects are cheaper, quicker, safer, happier, and will make your cock bigger etc etc until someone tries to implement them.

If any of the problems of developing a SDLV that have plagued Ares so far occur for Jupiter, then switching at this point will be a false economy.

Re:First chance to see if Obama is a retard or not

[evanbd]

Of course I can't make a perfect judgment on the matter. However, I think that for someone not directly involved in the projects in question, I'm quite well qualified. And yes, I'm aware that paper projects always look better. The thing is, Ares never looked all that good -- even on paper. The idea that an extended SRB is anything other than a new large solid is a fantasy; it was obvious to everyone with technical knowledge on the matter from the beginning that any nontrivial changes to the SRBs lost most of the advantages of keeping Shuttle hardware involved. Changes to the main fuel tank are less problematic, but still not wonderful. Using only a single (extended, and therefore new) SRB as the first stage of Ares I obviously had problems -- the performance characteristics meant it was being used in a highly suboptimal manner in that application.

To an observer who hasn't been paying attention since the early Ares proposals, I can see how this would look like jumping ship as soon as the paper project met reality, only to start a new paper project. However, that is not an apt description. Ares was based on a set of highly optimistic assumptions -- basically, that the designers knew how heavy the payloads would be, and could design to those targets. Unsurprisingly, the Orion capsule grew in mass and Ares I had to find extra performance to make up for it. In contrast, the Jupiter 120 has 40t of throw capability to LEO for a 20t capsule. The extra 20t is allocated to "extra payload." In the event that Orion gets heavier still (which it probably will do, though a lot of the weight gain has likely already happened), it's far, far easier to reallocate a few tons from "extra payload" to "capsule" than it is to pull those tons out of a hat. That sort of planning is what makes DIRECT better, even when comparing apples to apples. Any aerospace engineer who looked at early Ares proposals should have had warning flags going up in their mind as soon as they saw how small the gap between the target capsule mass and the lift capability of the booster was.

For the record, I think there is a lot less wrong with Ares V than there is with Ares I. The Jupiter is still a better choice, I believe, but the difference is less drastic. There is a middle ground that would cancel Ares I, and use Ares V to launch the capsule -- I think this would be an improvement over the current plan, but that the DIRECT plan would be better still. None of these are how I think the rocket *should* be designed, given ample time and budget -- but replacing the Shuttle is a project that doesn't have ample time. If NASA is to get anything flying soon, it will have to be a suboptimal design that has significant Shuttle heritage. Of such projects that I've seen proposed, DIRECT is the best compromise between doing the job well and something that could actually be built in time.

Re:Differently-abled?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been watching too many Hollywood movies. Not all engine failures are explosive. In fact, with health monitoring added to engines they can be shut down at the first sign of trouble.

I actually dare you to find the last time a liquid engine failure "blew up the entire cluster" itself, NOT by subsequent range safety officer action.

With reasoning like that you'd think Saturn V would never have flown, with 5 (that's FIVE) engines on the 1st and 2nd stage.

Let me summarize the situation.

[Keebler71]

Ok, so there has been a lot going on with respect to constellation. Let me put some things in perspective. At the turn of the millennium it had become clear that tremendous expense of both shuttle and station had forced NASA human space flight out of the "exploration" business with all resources more or less locked up in LEO. Shuttle requires a veritable army of engineers and support personnel to maintain the vehicle and conduct operations and the costs to maintain this capability was crushing NASA. NASA felt "trapped" into their existing architecture with little hope for returning to an exploration role without significant additional funding. NASA needed to find a cheaper alternative to LEO that would free up the budget to being developing concepts beyond LEO.

Then comes the Columbia disaster and the subsequent investigation which recommended that shuttle be retired by 2010.

In 2004 Bush announces the Vision for Space Exploration clearly defining our country's goal to resume our manned exploration of the moon and Mars.

NASA conducts an extremely detailed study into literally hundreds of architecture design alternatives known as the Exploration Systems Architecture Study. It is a fantastic report - read it here. The study rejects using EELVs (due primarily to safety concerns)and recommends a shuttle-derived re-using shuttle and Apollo technology across the two launch vehicles (then called CLV and CaLV). The recommended architecture becomes the basis of the Constellation architecture. (Which later replaces Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) on the CaLV with RS-68 engines and extends teh CLV from 4-seg to 5-seg (which was actually in the original trade space). This configuration was chosen as it was both the safest configuration as well as having one of the lowest O&M costs (particularly compared with alternatives that leveraged SSMEs more heavily.) NASA is finally on a path to returning to a capability beyond LEO as well as dramatically reducing its workforce with the looming retirement of shuttle a somewhat simpler to maintain replacement

Therein lies the problem... as retirement looms and irreversible decisions begin to be made (reconfiguring pads, not-ordering certain long-lead items for shuttle, etc..) that huge workforce of shuttle support finally realize what Constellation means to their job security. Without shuttle and its extremely complex reusable sub-systems, many of these people will be out of a job and their pet projects in jeopardy.

Not surprisingly, there becomes no shortage of personnel at Shuttle-oriented NASA sites who begin advocating against Constellation and for an extension of Shuttle. Adding to the detractors are of course the disgruntled "establishment" consortium of launch providers, ULA, advocating using EELVs. Then there are the Direct guys who are brilliant NASA engineers but this concept was in essence already considered in the ESAS study and deemed less favorable than the CLV approach.

Add to the mix the political baggage that comes with the program's genesis stemming from an unpopular president and the oncoming president's commitment to "change" at all levels of government and you have a perfect storm of opposition - much of it which has absolutely nothing to do with the actual merits of the current design.

People who have not worked on Constellation simply don't understand how much work has gone into it compared with any of the above mentioned alternatives. Of course they look good now. They have been studied by small groups of engineers for months. Compare with the thousands who have been working on Constellation for years. Despite what anyone says about their program being cheaper or faster - any change at this point will result in

Re:Let me summarize the situation.

[khallow]

Ok, so there has been a lot going on with respect to constellation. Let me put some things in perspective. At the turn of the millennium it had become clear that tremendous expense of both shuttle and station had forced NASA human space flight out of the "exploration" business with all resources more or less locked up in LEO. Shuttle requires a veritable army of engineers and support personnel to maintain the vehicle and conduct operations and the costs to maintain this capability was crushing NASA. NASA felt "trapped" into their existing architecture with little hope for returning to an exploration role without significant additional funding. NASA needed to find a cheaper alternative to LEO that would free up the budget to being developing concepts beyond LEO.

This is the cost of a bad decision. 30 years of LEO. Stretching out the Space Shuttle decision (to the early 80's) by ten years, but getting a powerful space industry in the process would have been far better.

NASA conducts an extremely detailed study into literally hundreds of architecture design alternatives known as the Exploration Systems Architecture Study. It is a fantastic report - read it here. The study rejects using EELVs (due primarily to safety concerns)and recommends a shuttle-derived re-using shuttle and Apollo technology across the two launch vehicles (then called CLV and CaLV). The recommended architecture becomes the basis of the Constellation architecture. (Which later replaces Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) on the CaLV with RS-68 engines and extends teh CLV from 4-seg to 5-seg (which was actually in the original trade space). This configuration was chosen as it was both the safest configuration as well as having one of the lowest O&M costs (particularly compared with alternatives that leveraged SSMEs more heavily.) NASA is finally on a path to returning to a capability beyond LEO as well as dramatically reducing its workforce with the looming retirement of shuttle a somewhat simpler to maintain replacement

A path which depends wholely on whether someone in the 2016-2018 timeframe decides to support Ares V. If that gets cut, then there is no manned spaceflight past LEO. We can whine about how that future government is shortsighted, but it's just another shortcoming of the Ares plan. If you want the future to turn out a certain way, you lock it in now, not ten years from now (remember they started this in 2005).

Moving on, the ESAS has serious problems. First, the safety numbers are completely unrealistic for several reasons. First, they exaggerate the safety of the "stick". The Stick is claimed in this report to have a loss of mission (LOM) odds of 1 in 400 roughly. The first stage is the solid rocket motor. The problem is that the first stage on its own doesn't have the reliability to meet this LOM figure. There have been 123 launches of the Space Shuttle which uses two of this type of motor and one failure. Thus, the historical LOM failure rate is 1 in 246. I understand it gets worse when you consider test firings of the SRM.

Then we go to the unequal treatment of the EELVs. The relatively low LOM figure is due in part to "black zones" (parts of the launch phase where the mission cannot be aborted) and consideration of the launch vehicles using the 1.25 structural safety factors used in the launch vehicles now. A manned EELV would not have the black zones and would have a 1.4 structural safety factor.

Then we have to consider that NASA is going to compromise on safety anyway. That is what happened in the two Shuttle accidents and there's no reason not to expect it to happen again in my view. For example, they stripped out some of the redundancy of the Orion capsule for lunar flights. Transfering risk from space launch, which frankly is low risk to start with, to the higher risk portions of a lunar flight just doesn't make sense. But that's the sort of decisions you get. These will reduce the actually safety and reliability of the Ares I. My b

Re:Renegade Space Vehicle designers

[Jeff DeMaagd]

If I'm not mistaken, most people accept that the meaning and use of words change over the centuries, so no, it doesn't matter if they're working for another employer or not.

Re:Building Better Vacuum Tubes

[goodmanj]

We have, but thrust is currently too low for manned missions, For example:

I wouldn't call any of your examples "solid state", in the electronics sense the parent jokingly suggested. They're all basically very large vacuum tubes without the tube.

Call me cynical, but...

[fahrbot-bot]

...is there a chance that the NASA chiefs are pushing for Ares specifically because it will require a complete reworking of the infrastructure and launch support systems? What better way to get funding to rebuild all your facilities than by saying it's required to support the new vehicle(s).

I'm not a rocket scientist, but after reviewing the various on-line resources for DIRECT and Ares, DIRECT looks like the *obvious* better way to go -- reusing (and/or slightly modifying) many existing components and facilities.

Perhaps the problem is simply that DIRECT is less expensive. As any pointy-haired boss will say, "where's the fun in that?"

Re:cynisms

[c6gunner]

Why is it that I can't see that thing mentioned without immediately thinking that it will someday go horribly wrong by firing at the wrong time?

Because you're being a silly bugger?

Do you have the same fantasies about ejection-seat systems? Or aircraft fire-suppression systems?

If I were you I'd be more worried about your airbag going off in your face while you're booting along at 90mph, shaving, and drinking a coffee all at the same time.