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NASA and Space Station Alliance On Shaky Ground
coondoggie writes "Even as the latest shift of astronauts arrived at the International Space Station, challenges with the orbital outpost on the ground are threatening its future. Those challenges include the pending retirement of the space shuttle but also the way NASA and the ISS are managed. A report issued this week by the Government Accountability Office said NASA faces several significant issues that may impede efforts to maximize utilization of all ISS research facilities."
The existing Atlas and Delta-IV will be able to lift the Orion module just fine. Not only that, but Space-X's Falcon/Dragon vehicle will be ready well before then.
Of course, NASA always has the option of building an alternative launch system for a lot less money than the ARES craft. The beauty is that all of the engines are already built and tested, and the J-130 can loft about 30-40 metric tons of payload (say, an MPLM along with the Orion module.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Ares 1 was almost done.
That will be why it wasn't supposed to make its first flight to ISS until around 2016.
To put people on top of a Delta-IV or Atlas requires man-rating them.
The whole concept of 'man-rating' is mostly nonsense: if a rocket isn't safe enough to launch some spam in a can, it's not safe enough to launch a billion-dollar satellite. There are issues with using the Delta and Atlas, but they're relatively minor compared to building a whole new launcher: ensuring that the trajectory used always allows a safe abort, improving engine-out performance (where your satellite is toast anyway so you might as well crash and burn on an unmanned launch), etc.
If you want to start building Direct now, you have to consider all the work that's already gone into Ares in the cost. Is it still cheaper?
Yes. Because you only have to build one new launcher and not two.