Can the Ares Program Be Salvaged?

MarkWhittington writes "The Augustine Commission has not officially presented its findings to the White House, but already a push back is starting to occur over the possibility that the Ares 1 rocket will be canceled after three billion dollars and over four years of development. According to a story in the Orlando Sentinel contractors involved in the development of the Ares 1 have started a quiet but persistent public relations campaign to save the Ares 1, criticized in some quarters because of cost and technical problems."

Comments

The fallacy of sunk costs

[ShooterNeo]

Yes, 3 billion dollars of taxpayer money has been blown. However, the decision to make is : will the gains from FUTURE spending exceed FUTURE costs? We don't factor in the 3 billion already spent in this decision. Alas, it's impossible to quantify gains since a few moon rocks and some pretty pictures don't have a readily assignable value. I'd say no, because I think the 20 billion or whatever a working Ares rocket line would cost could be better spent on other areas of space exploration. 20 billion would pay for a lot of unmanned missions, or could be used to develop a cheaper way to get to orbit (such as lasers or an EM accelerator or something)

Re:The fallacy of sunk costs

[QuoteMstr]

Or a launch loop, which is a practical alternative to a space elevator that doesn't require exotic materials. Not that it'll happen in this "no we can't do it, think of the {amoebas,corporations,children}!" age.

Re:The fallacy of sunk costs

[QuoteMstr]

Oh, and I hate to reply to myself, but from the article:

Lofstrom estimates that an initial loop costing roughly $10 billion with a 1 year payback could launch 40,000 metric tons per year, and cut launch costs to $300/kg, or for $30 billion, with a larger power generation capacity, the loop would be capable of launching 6 million metric tons per year, and given a 5 year payback period, the costs for accessing space with a launch loop could be as low as $3/kg.

Re:The fallacy of sunk costs

[negRo_slim]

Yes, 3 billion dollars of taxpayer money has been blown.

So we are going to bicker over 3 billion? Seems to me could recoup the loss by, oh I don't know, cutting 3 billion from defense spending? Seems to me a lot of things could get done by diverting money from Defense.

Re:The fallacy of sunk costs

[QuoteMstr]

The structure supports itself using the energy stored in the moving ribbon. That's the whole point. It's not a 2,000km long, 80km-high viaduct.

Also, it's pathetic and sad if we forgo what would be one of the greatest advancements of our time because we're afraid somebody might knock it down like so many bricks. I can't believe that you're so paralyzed by fear that you'd rather do nothing than attempt something great, and, fail or success, at least say you've tried.

Re:The fallacy of sunk costs

[lordholm]

So, you mean that this thing, which would reach an altitude of 80 km, be 2000 km long, effectively being the largest human built construct on the planet (save for the wall of china perhaps), would only cost a mere $10 billion. Contrast this to the construction of one of the worlds largest suspension bridges the sound bridge between Malmà and Copenhagen. This bridge which is about 7 km in total length costed around $6 billion to build in an area where there where infrastructure enough to support the project, and where they where using well known engineering principles and techniques.

So, building a 285 times large constructs (not adjusted for it going up as well), based on unproven methods, in a remote area of the world with little infrastructure, probably infested with malaria, is of course very likely to cost only a mere 40% more than that bridge.

Seriously, that sounds really ridiculous.

Re:Should it be salvaged?

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

Whether it should or not, it looks like we're definitely on track to make sure we never get into space on our own again.

Oh wait, that wasn't the goal, was it?

Wrong Question

[WindBourne]

The question should be SHOULD Ares I be rescued? Honestly, I do not think so. It always struck me as a waste since other rockets of similar size were available. That bring us to Ares V. Should it be? I honestly do not know. I know that USA needs multiple types of launchers and they need them to be low costs. I would very much like to see an Ares V or a Direct 2** be in the mix. Which is better? I am not sure. Personally, I have to give the nudge to Direct since it uses far far more of the current launch human-rated equipment. There is a lot to say for that. In the end, I am much more concerned that we will not do the right thing WRT to private space. I have aborted that several times. This time, we need to get it started AND give them an ALTERNATIVE destination; Basically, we need to get Bigelow building his Space Station. Also we need tugs combined with a fuel depot to haul things around. While it is nice to say that this is about NASA, but it really is not. It is about Obama and Congress allocating say 1.5B, 1B, and then .5B for the next 3 years and sticking with it. Will they do it? Tough question to answer

Re:Wrong Question

[jpmorgan]

You can certainly argue that Ares I should be replaced by man-rating commercial boosters. Some would argue that it's cheaper to engineer a man-rated rocket from scratch than go back and redesign an existing one, but it's a complex issue that I certainly am not qualified to weigh in on. But that's something that requies a great deal of knowledge of aerospace engineering and the projects themselves to determine. On the other hand, Ares V, as intended, will have significantly higher payload capacity than any other other rocket around. Bigger than Saturn V. So the debate about replacing Ares V with something COTS is moot... there IS nothing COTS that will fill its role. It is about Obama and Congress allocating say 1.5B, 1B, and then .5B for the next 3 years and sticking with it. Will they do it? Tough question to answer Honestly, if congress just allocated some money and threw it at NASA with a 'go build X' mandate, that'd be perfect. The problem with NASA is congressional micromanagement. For example, Congress banned NASA from spending any money on development of VASIMR propulsion, or inflatable space habitats, both of which are key pieces of technology that should be a backbone future space development. But nope, no money, because of some special interest in some congresscritter's district somewhere, that has a vested interest in NASA using an inferior piece of technology.

Re:Wrong Question

[0123456]

Some would argue that it's cheaper to engineer a man-rated rocket from scratch than go back and redesign an existing one, but it's a complex issue that I certainly am not qualified to weigh in on.

The whole 'man-rating' concept is really bogus: the shuttle couldn't be called 'man-rated' in any real sense when it kills its crew one flight in fifty.

The primary difference between manned and unmanned launchers is aborts and engine-out capability; if you're launching a bunch of humans and you lose a couple of engines but can still achieve a low orbit, that's preferable to having to make a risky abort. If you're launching a satellite and can only put it into a low orbit where it won't stay up for long, you're better off just dropping it into the ocean.

So yes, you'd want to ensure that aborts could be handled safely at any point in the flight, and add extra capability to handle engine-out failures which where the unmanned launch would be better off to just crash and burn. But those are relatively minor issues... you may lose some payload from flying a non-ideal trajectory, and you'll add some cost and perhaps some mass to improve engine-out capability; but those kind of changes hardly register when compared to NASA's record of spending billions of dollars and several years to achieve... nothing.

On the other hand, Ares V, as intended, will have significantly higher payload capacity than any other other rocket around. Bigger than Saturn V. So the debate about replacing Ares V with something COTS is moot... there IS nothing COTS that will fill its role.

Which leads to the obvious question: 'so what?'

What will Ares V achieve which will be worth its development and flight cost? Do we really need to build a huge launcher which will fly maybe once a year if we can launch the same payload on four or five flights of a smaller launcher which will see the cost-benefits of mass production?

I'm willing to be convinced that NASA really _need_ a huge, expensive launcher of their own, but I've seen no evidence so far that it will prove cheaper than buying launches elsewhere.

But nope, no money, because of some special interest in some congresscritter's district somewhere, that has a vested interest in NASA using an inferior piece of technology.

That, though, I could somewhat agree with... but I think you put too much blame on Congress and too little on NASA 'not invented here' syndrome (c.f. the Delta X).

Re:Should it be salvaged?

[0123456]

Oh wait, that wasn't the goal, was it?

I always thought that the goal of Ares was to provide a method of finally killing the shuttle program: by promising a successor which would maintain the shuttle program jobs, they would have the political clout to close down the shuttle support manufacturing (external tanks, etc) to ensure that it couldn't fly past 2010 and then they would close down Ares once its job was done.

Augustine's views are well-known

[Anonymous Coward]

Augustine's personal views on human spaceflight have been known since 1990:

--
In its original report, the [Augustine] committee ranked five space activities in order of priority:

      1. Space science
      2. Technology development
      3. Earth science
      4. Unmanned launch vehicle
      5. Human spaceflight
--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advisory_Committee_on_the_Future_of_the_United_States_Space_Program

http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2009/05/does_the_choice_1.html

Re:Should it be salvaged?

[dkf]

Should NASA be in the space launch business?

On the basis of the stories coming out, I suspect NASA shouldn't even be in the rowing-boat launch business. Don't get me wrong. They do amazing things with the things they put up there, but they just seem unable to get a grip of launch costs. So it should be someone else's job, someone else (or even many someones) who can keep costs down so that NASA money can be spent on the bits that really inspire everyone.

There is another option

[EMUPhysics]

http://www.directlauncher.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Launch_Vehicle

The DIRECT system is a better option:
1) Most of the hardware is man-rated; unlike Ares

2) NASA does not have to retool manufacturing; unlike with Ares

3)Can be ready sooner with heavy lifting as an option

Why NASA is completely dug in on Ares is mind boggling. Orion, the capsule, is a go no matter what.

Also, the contractors won't really be affected: ATK would still make the SRBs, Lockmart would still manufacture the capsule, and Boeing would get it's money from being part of United Space Allaince.

Re:Wrong question to ask

[jpmorgan]

No, the question is 'will the Ares program be salvaged.' The answer is 'yes.' Now, I'm not saying that Ares I should be killed... or that it should be saved. But if you try to kill it, all the congresscritters whose districts are going to get money out of Ares I (the SRB components are built by Thiokol, for example), won't let you. If the NASA tries to replace it with something else, Congress will step in and earmark part of NASA's budget specifically for Ares development. NASA has sucked since Apollo, since congress saw the awe and wonder that space exploration inspired and realised it would be a great, unkillable jobs program.

Am I cynical? Yes. But NASA has been enormously hindered by congressional micromanagement over the years. And none of it has been for the benefit of the space program.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Should it be salvaged?

[Planesdragon]

So it should be someone else's job, someone else (or even many someones) who can keep costs down

Whenever you see cost overruns, you're seeing "someone else" running the price up.

Government can be amazingly effecient -- if you can cut through "procurement" and "government contractgors."

Re:So we are going to bicker over 3 billion?

[QuoteMstr]

We're doomed to a race to the bottom because no amount of government regulation is going to stop corporations from doing everything they can to minimize costs, which incidentally implies paying their workers as little as possible.

No. There are plenty of things we can do to stop it:

• Minimum wage
• Progressive income taxes
• Taxing capital gains as income
• Strong unions for collective bargaining
• Laws against unlawful termination
• Tariffs against nations with poor labor laws

Or are you just presupposing that there's nothing we can do, and moving from that assertion to the idea that even trying is wrong?

These things worked here for 50 years, and they still work in Western Europe. What the hell is wrong with you when you argue against policies that benefit your own economic and social interests?

Re:Should it be salvaged?

[damburger]

Yes, they should. They've achieved great things whilst privately funded space flight has mostly floundered. Take your libertarian bullshit to the conspiracy nuts, because it only makes sense if the moon landings never happened.

Re:No, it can't be "saved"

[Graymalkin]

The Ares I-X is a stunt at best and a sham at worst. The Ares I-X has a dummy fifth segment and a dummy payload attached meaning it's simply a Shuttle SRB with an inert payload attached. One of the major challenges with the Ares I is the fifth engine segment, it completely changes the dynamics of the rocket. The Ares I-X launch does nothing to test the Ares I design in anything resembling its actual flight configuration. It won't be until the Ares I-Y flight in 2013 that the five segment engine will actually be tested and even that won't be testing the J-2X engine. The whole Ares I stack won't be tested with the Orion 1 until at least 2014 and likely not until 2015.

To say there's no problems with the Ares I is disingenuous. The thrust oscillation issues have theoretical fixes but until the Ares I-Y and Orion 1 flights there's still a lot of unknowns. The likely solution will be added dampening mass and stiffeners which will mean the Orion won't be able to launch with a full compliment. The Block 1A Orions will only be able to launch three astronauts to the ISS instead of the originally planned four. Because of launch pad changes needed for the Ares V the Ares I is only going to have a single civilian launch pad (LC-39B). This puts a hard limit on the number of Ares I launches that can be done in a year which increases the cost of each individual launch. Because of this the Block 1B (cargo only) Orion was canceled entirely.

Having a low limit on the number of launches that can be made every year and the low payload mass make the Ares I almost entirely unsuitable for ISS missions. The per launch cost is derived from the cost of the actual launch vehicle and the infrastructure costs to run the manned spaceflight operations divided by the number of launches per year. The infrastructure/operations costs are the same (or similar) no matter how many launches are performed every year since you don't stop paying people in between launches. The more launches that happen the cheaper each individual one is since you're getting more payload out of every man-hour worked and thus the cost of a pound of payload decreases. The Ares I being limited to a single launch pad means at best you can get six launches a year if there's a 60 day turnaround for the pad and nothing ever goes wrong.

The Ares I being unsuitable for ISS missions means it doesn't have anything it is good at until the Ares V is completed and lunar missions are ongoing. The Ares I doesn't have enough launch capability to launch an Orion with an experiment module/palette so it can't do Spacelab type missions. Orions could be launched for independent operations but with only three crew members each person would have to wear multiple hats which puts a lot of strain on individual astronauts and keeps their schedules booked. Such a configuration would also make for a cramped cabin since mission instruments would need to be packed in alongside the rest of their supplies. I'm sorry but the Ares I is a shitty rocket and a waste of time and money for NASA. It might be a different story if the Orion was smaller or the Ares I wouldn't kill the crew without vibration dampeners. As it stands however the Ares I is a boondoggle and the sooner we shitcan it the better. An EELV or DIRECT option would be far better not just for Orion missions but eventual Moon, NEO, and Mars missions.

Re:So we are going to bicker over 3 billion?

[QuoteMstr]

So do you support collective bargaining or not? If not, why? Your own principles dictate that you should: unions are a natural consequence of the freedom to assemble and the freedom to contract.

Ares IS Salvage

[DynaSoar]

When National Geographic wanted some space history background material, they contacted NASA' history office. NASA's history office sent National Geographic to http://www.astronautix.com/ I assume NASA sent NatGeo there due to its objectivity and completeness, because they sure didn't send them there for pro-NASA propaganda. This is a good example: http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ares.htm

Ares is a salvage project from its inception. It is an attempt to build a family of lifters from existing designs, technology and manufacturing as much as possible, with as little new design, technology and manufacturing as they can get away with.

Ares was designed by ATK Thiokol, manufacturer of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters, using derivative components of the shuttle, and in the case of Ares 1, the solid rocket boosters as the main engine. It is far more adaptation than it is invention. This is in keeping with NASA's "faster, cheaper" mind set that served well in many planetary probes. But since it is not a ground-up design, where flaws are handled when they first occur, it is prone to problems emerging from more complex configurations, the errors themselves more often due to complex interactions. Vibration problems, such as the current Ares booster 'pogo-stick' problem, are a common example of such emergent behavior.

One of NASA's greatest inventions during the early manned space program was systems analysis software, intended to examine a large system as it was built to determine where problems might and/or did occur. But even now, with far greater computational capability, the complexity of potential interactions due to starting with a large system that has been altered in numerous small ways from its original design puts the Ares designs beyond predictability. That will continue to occur as long as the design philosophy is maintained. If this fact, and the fact that such problems could emerge only under certain conditions -- say at max Q, pushing a heavy load with a smaller, lighter load on the top (ie. an Orion) -- isn't at the forefront of those minds trying to decide whether to scrap it and start over, it should be.

Had the shuttle component and system design philosophy been based on extensibility and adaptability (such as with SpaceX's Falcon 1 -> Falcon 9 design), Ares might have a better chance. But the core design of Ares 1 is the SRB, which was designed over 35 years ago for one purpose -- to be strapped on the side of the shuttle to help with its initial lift phase. It did that job well, with its only major failure having been a NASA decision going counter to a Thiokol recommendation. Now we have Thiokol recommending and NASA deciding the same things.

Robert Truax designed vehicles using surplus components. He designed so many, with so much acclaim for his designs, that there was a TV show based on it (Salvage 1, with Andy Griffith, ABC, 1979). But Truax was salvaging components to use in their intended fashion, not entire systems being adapted to entirely new designs.

One has to wonder at the basis for decision making when an agency first builds from scratch, then declines designs reusing some of the parts, but later chooses to rebuild existing designs. The probability is great that the decision is not technical but rather administrative. When the decisions were technical we got "Not on my watch." and Apollo 13 got home. When the decisions became administrative we got "My God Thiokol, what do you want me to do, wait until April?" and the Challenger didn't come home. This is the sort of fuzzy, intuitive, gut-feeling stuff that gets trashed in serious discussions about such major projects as a space vehicle. But the people that trash that kind of thinking aren't going to fly these things. A pilot that doesn't have a personal example of an intuitive, gut-feeling decision that was right hasn't been flying long, and the older the pilot they more likely that following such a gut feeling

Re:So we are going to bicker over 3 billion?

[sunspot42]

Libertarian *uckwads like you have the infuriating habit of comparing everything but Laissez-faire capitalism to authoritarian command economies.

That's as concise a summary as I've seen. They really are the mirror image of communist lunatics like Lenin. Although I must say, the way the free market halfwits crashed the world's largest economy only 20 years or so after being handed partial control, authoritarian command economies certainly seem to work better than laissez-faire free for alls.

Both wind up with psychopaths running things after a certain amount of time (Stalin, Mao, the lunatics at Enron, AIG, Citibank, etc.). But at least the command economies can keep the trains running on time.

The really odd thing about laissez-faire cluster*ucks is how much they behave like command economies. In a command economy you wind up with political psychopaths in charge who enforce groupthink thru ideological propaganda. The ideology influences policy and behavior, so you wind up with insanity like the Soviet government refusing to fund the study of genetics because it clashed with the Party line. Or the insanity of Mao's great leap forward, which was anything but. Irrefutable evidence which contradicts the ideology is simply ignored or shouted down by propaganda-baked fanatics. So the society as a whole follows utterly irrational beliefs right off a cliff.

In a laissez-faire economy you wind up with a few wealthy psychopaths - a kleptocracy - in charge of the economy and government. Command authority isn't vested in a single individual, but that doesn't seem to matter much. If anything, it's worse - you wind up with an uncoordinated gang of crazed thieves in charge, stealing everything that isn't nailed down, destroying the economy in the process. They use propaganda to incite bigots, psychotics and religious fanatics to vote against their own best social and economic interests, in order to seize and maintain control of the government and prevent it from stopping their psychopathic rampage (indeed, government is now feeding their rampage - witness the recent multi-trillion dollar "bailout" of Wall Street).

It's something like having a cabal comprised of folks like Jeffery Dahmer, David Berkowitz, and Charles Manson running the country. Their primary interest isn't in running anything - they're only invested in keeping anything from interrupting their rampage, as (in this case) they steal everything in sight. These psychopaths are so greed-crazed, they don't even seem to realize they're destroying the very system they've been stealing from. They're parasites that are killing their host. The whackjobs running Enron are a textbook example. And just as in command economies, the society as a whole follows these nuts right over a cliff (witness the housing boom and bust).

The solution seems to be having a government structured in such a way that it simply doesn't allow psychopaths to gain enough power - political or economic - to have any substantial influence over either the government or the economy. So companies the size of AIG or Citibank would automatically be broken up, or taxed so heavily they'd be better off broken up. Extreme concentrations of wealth would be taxed out of existence, and exotic "investment" vehicles would be taxed and treated like what they really are - gambling. Government itself would be structured in such a way that no single position, or even large group of positions, would have enough power to substantially alter either the structure of the government or its relationship to the economy - particularly when it comes to allowing any individual or corporation to become too powerful.

Re:Should it be salvaged?

[ajlisows]

That is a good idea. Private companies are NEVER corrupt. If the government would have kept that money given to the Telcos we would NEVER have gotten the communications infrastructure upgraded.

Wait, that's right. We DIDN'T get it upgraded. The Telcos pocketed the money.

Companies could say "Sure, we've got a great plan to launch men to Mars by 2018!" When 2018 comes around, they could say "uhhhh, we tried but it's really hard to do" (which is totally believable in this instance) "if you gave us the same amount of money, we'll have a man on Mars by 2028!"

I'm not a fan of big government either, but I also am not big on trusting huge corporations working with any sort of "public interest" in mind...which is what the space program is because the odds of any real financial gain from space exploration in the next 50 years are very low.

Re:Should it be salvaged?

[Richard_at_work]

What, precisely, do you think is actually happening here? NASA isnt developing and building Ares I, Alliant Techsystems, Boeing and Rocketdyne are - all private companies. NASA is acting as the administrator of the program, a position you would need however you decide to source your rockets.