NASA Pitches Heavy Lift Vehicle To Congress

BJ_Covert_Action writes "Well, Congress demanded, last year, that NASA develop a budget plan and proposal for a new heavy lift vehicle in light of the Ares V cancellation. Recently, NASA gave Congress just what they wanted. On January 11th, Douglas Cooke pitched an interim report to Congressional members detailing the basic design concepts that would go into a new heavy lift vehicle. Congress required that the new heavy lift vehicle maximize the reuse of space shuttle components as part of its budget battle with President Obama last year. As a result, NASA basically copy-pasted the Ares V design into a new report and pitched it to Congress on the 11th. The proposed vehicle will require the five segment SRB's that were proposed for the Ares V rocket. It will utilize the SSME's for it's main liquid stage. It will reuse the shuttle external tank as the primary core for the liquid booster (the same tank design that is currently giving the Discovery shuttle launch so many problems). And it will utilize the new J-2X engine that NASA has been developing for the Ares V project as an upper stage. In other words, NASA proposed to Congress exactly what Congress asked for."

Comments

Let's get this straight

[MrEricSir]

* Congress demands new Moon program
* Nasa dusts off old plans, calls it Ares V
* Congress cancels Ares program
* Congress asks for new heavy lift vehicle
* Nasa hands them the plans for Ares 5

Man, talk about recycling...

Re:Let's get this straight

[Confusador]

Really, it was expected that they would use the Ares V. The Augustine report had good things to say about it, their problem was with the Ares I. Killing Constellation was really about ditching that as no longer required so they could get serious about the V and the actual deep space equipment (whether it is for the moon, an asteroid, whatever). The problem that I see is that the mandate that they reuse as many shuttle components as possible means that they made some significant changes to the Ares V before giving it back to congress, namely reusing the SSMEs instead of RS-68. The SSMEs are amazingly efficient, but also amazingly expensive, so they don't fit on an expendable segment. Fortunately, they seem to have left themselves an opening to renegotiate that later, FTFProposal:

“This design would allow NASA to use existing Shuttle main engine and booster component assets in the near term, with the opportunity for upgrades and/or competition downstream for eventual upgrades in designs needed for production of engines after flying out the current inventory of main engines and booster components"

As always, though, this project is set up to fail.

“However, to be clear, neither Reference Vehicle Design currently fits the projected budget profiles nor schedule goals outlined in the Authorization Act,”

Re:Let's get this straight

[Nyeerrmm]

Because Ares V is not the best design, but the best design that fulfills the requirements of using the existing workforce, SRBs, SSMEs, etc.

This is basically ESMD's way of passing the buck back to congress and saying they can do one of two things:
1. Build an HLV that keeps jobs in all the nice districts... OR
2. Do it on time and on budget.

In other words, congress' requirements are impossible to fulfill, and ESMD is saying it as politely as possible.

Re:Let's get this straight

[afidel]

Except it won't use the SSME, they are WAY too expensive for throw aways. The RS-68 with 80% fewer parts makes WAY more sense. The line item cost of the RS-68 is $13M vs $50M for the SSME and the production line for the RS-68 is still open and all suppliers are still current.

Re:Let's get this straight

[Opportunist]

Politicians telling Scientists how to do science, what could possibly go wrong.

You would have thought they'd learn from Vietnam when they told the military how to wage a war...

Re:Let's get this straight

[DarkOx]

Wow for the first time it might actually be a good thing for the country that congress never reads anything they vote on, never thought I'd see the day.

In case anyone is wondering I was be sarcastic, the degree to which most our legislators allow themselves to be uninformed as to the content of the acts they vote on is shameful and terrible for our democracy in general.

Re:Let's get this straight

[plover]

No, what Congress should be saying is "we need a vehicle that can place an 11,000 kg load in a 25,000 km orbit, it has to fly by 2015, we need 5 flights per year for the next ten years, ten of those flights will be manned missions to the ISS, and you have a budget of $6.5 billion." They can optionally say "and only build it in the USA", because the US economy is also in their jurisdiction.

Let NASA worry about reuse, booster tech, the number of stages, or if it's named Ares.

Re:Let's get this straight

[Teancum]

Let's be very clear, this is to make sure that Senator Orrin Hatch can bring the bacon home to Utah. His last campaign was pretty much "vote for me! Bringing the bacon home to Utah since 1976!" He is also in campaign mode because he is going up for re-election in 2012 and already has some people in his own party nipping on his heels to kick him out if he makes a big mistake (to the Utah voters).

Senator Shelby of Alabama is another of the usual suspects, as are a few others in various places. It isn't a mistake that the Johnson Space Center got the name of the most famous fairy-god senator for the space program: Lyndon B. Johnson.

I guess it all ends up being about bread and circuses... the final downfall of any democracy.

Politician Engineer

[Mechagodzilla]

Letting Congress pick rocket components is equivalent to me (colorblind) pick out the paint scheme for my house. Both will end in amazing disasters...

A Bit Left Off

[BJ_Covert_Action]

The editors took the second paragraph of my summary out. They probably thought it was a bit too tasteless, or something, despite the important information in it. Here it is (also from the article linked):

The catch is, NASA also admitted that they will not be able to complete the proposed rocket on the budget that Congress has given them. Neither will they be able to finish the rocket on time. Finally, NASA has commented that a current study being conducted by 13 independent contractors is still being conducted to determine if there is a better design out there that NASA has, 'overlooked.' NASA has stated that, should that study finds any alternate, interesting designs then, they will need to consider those seriously."

Re:A Bit Left Off

[catmistake]

It will reuse the shuttle external tank as the primary core for the liquid booster (the same tank design that is currently giving the Discovery shuttle launch so many problems).

fyi, not a "design issue" but a materials issue:

for Discovery's prolonged grounding, shuttle program manager John Shannon said a combination of inferior material and assembly issues is to blame. Cracks occurred in five of the 108 aluminum alloy struts in the center of the tank, which holds instruments. The damaged struts have been patched. Technicians will reinforce the remaining struts as a safety precaution, using thin 6-inch strips of aluminum.

Re:A Bit Left Off

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Well actually, they very well may have considered it. Or, at least, NASA may have. Congress tends to be the entity demanding that the same SRB's get used on the new vehicle that were on the shuttle system. You can thank Senator Orrin Hatch and Senator Richard Shelby for this, in part, because they are defending the industries that provide jobs to the areas they represent. As a result, they both push heavily to have certain technical requirements inserted, via budget line items, into legislation regarding NASA's designs.

In a recent copy of Make magazine Dick Rutan, Burt Rutan's test pilot brother, was quoted saying, "In America, the Apollo program was the greatest thing we ever did. A young president wrote a check and got the fuck out of the way..." I think that sums up nicely the role that politicians should play in engineering. But then, I'm old fashioned like that.

There is quite an argument to be made that this whole thing is a political ploy by NASA to either force Congress to pay for what they are asking for, or to loosen up on the stupid ass requirements an allow NASA to design a truly optimal solution. Whether or not the ploy will work, backfire, or do nothing will be seen with time I suppose.

Re:A Bit Left Off

[yincrash]

Can someone explain the disadvantages of SRBs? Is it just that they are more explosive?

Re:A Bit Left Off

[Jherico]

Well, for one thing, SRB's don't have an off switch or a throttle. Once ignited your only options are 'let it burn until it runs out of fuel' and 'detonate the entire rocket at once (which is what happened when the SRB's on the Challenger went out of control after the launch stack fell apart).
The Shuttle SRB's in particular are built in segments which are connected by O-Rings, and that design vulnerability is part of the cause of the Challenger disaster, although this particular failing is less about SRB's in general than political ass-hattery.

Re:A Bit Left Off

[Caerdwyn]

Manufacturing solid rocket motor fuel is, essentially, a casting operation: you pour the liquid into a mold, then the liquid sets into a solid in the shape you need (and the shape is critical in rocket motors). The trouble with the solid rocket boosters as used in the Shuttle is that they are so big you have to cast them in segments, then stack them and join them. Wherever there is a seam between the segments, the burning solid fuel tends to burn into that seam; this increases the surface area that is burning, which increases pressure, which increases burn rate, which increase pressure, ad explosium. It's a very difficult (meaning: expensive and risky) problem to manage, and as we found out with Challenger, cold temperatures can cause shrinkage which opens up those seams, changing the internal geometry of the motor. Multi-segment SRBs are just plain trouble.

As anyone who has worked in large-scale casting can tell you, there are limits as to how much you can cast in a single pour. Your liquid is cooling even as you pour it, changing in volume as it cools. If you pour in multiple phases, letting it cool between phases, you're introducing seams, and subsequent pours can partially remelt previous pours, causing expansion in the previous seam and possible cracking (which are uncontrolled seams and surface area... if your solid core has internal cracking, there is a very high chance of explosion). And large continuous pours also have the potential for cracking as the early parts of the pour solidify and cure while the later parts are still molten. This, plus limits on how large a segment of solid rocket fuel you can transport without flexing (cracking) safely, is what puts upper limits on single-segment solid rocket motors.

Solid rocket motor technology on large scales comes mostly from ICBMs. You want solid motors on your ICBMs, as a single-segment motor is more rugged than a liquid fueled motor, your launch vehicle is readily transportable and self-contained, does nto need a refueling infrastructure, and is always ready to use (keeping liquid fuels in tanks for a long period of time is dangerous and high-maintenance). ICBMs don't have to throw 60,000-plus pounds of payload into orbit, therefore they don't need engines larger than can be cast in a single segment.

Nothing wrong with SRBs for sub-orbital missions with moderate payloads, or orbital missions with small payloads. But for the mass that a heavy lift booster needs to throw into orbit and beyond, they just don't scale well.

The sad fact is that the political and budgetary environment are constraints of problem-solving at NASA, just as surely as mass, temperature, volume, gravity and materials technology are constraints. Any viable proposal needs to take into account and address ALL constraints.

This is why all senior NASA people seem to get grey hair early.

Reuse shuttle parts?

[h4rr4r]

Sounds more like corporate welfare then science to me.

Let's just ask Elon what a Falcon XX will cost instead.

Re:Politician Engineer

[TheL0ser]

Slightly worse, I'd say. You're a single person, so you can just point at a color, whatever it may be, and call it good. They have to pass a resolution to create a committee to appoint a group to review the plans, and then squabble about who gets what in their state.

This is Jupiter Direct

[vinn]

This is basically the Jupiter Direct program advocated by quite a few insiders at NASA. It was designed by some NASA engineers moonlighting. So, this isn't some half-baked scheme by Congress to try to engineer something themselves. I didn't look at these final details, but it does sound like they added more SRB's than originally planned.

For more information, see the wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIRECT

Frankenstack

[burisch_research]

The Falcon 9 is a heavy lift vehicle. It can deliver 32000kg to LEO at a cost (supposedly) of $95M per launch. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9)

I can't find any figures for NASA's new Frankenstack, but I'm guessing its capabilities would be approximately similar. Except that they have $10bn budget to play with, so we can be reassured that the cost will expand to consume the budget, even if they are using obsolete technologies.

Re:Frankenstack

[Tekfactory]

SpaceX plan costs $1 Billion just to develop the Merlin 2 engines and "qualify" them on Falcon 9 rockets in 3 years. I assume by qualify they mean flight tested, I don't know if a Heavy Lift vehicle needs to be man-rated. Of course the Falcon 9 will have to be man rated to carry a Dragon capsule with crew onboard, so if qualify means man rated so much the better.

You have $9 Billion left to build the Rocket, and finish the Dragon capsule crew module version which is already funded.

What, this is nonsense

[mrwiggly]

Well, first off all the problem with discoveries tank is due to a manufacturing problem with the stringers, not a design flaw.

Second of all, why use SSME's? They are designed for re-use, and have restart capability that will not be needed. A better choice would be the rocketdyn's RS-68, single use, cheap as fuck, provides more lifting power.

Why does Congress make engineering decisions?

[MobyDisk]

Congress required that the new heavy lift vehicle maximize the reuse of space shuttle components as part of its budget battle with President Obama last year

So congress made engineering decisions for NASA. They told NASA to reuse some parts from something else. And does Congress even know if that actually saves money? There have been plenty of times I've been told to develop something and to reuse an existing piece of code, and I've had to disappoint someone by pointing out that reusing their old COBOL EXE does not actually shrink the timeline. :-( In mechanical engineering, I've learned that reusing parts often adds a lot of work.

Maybe that isn't the case here, but Congress should instead have set constraints and let NASA decide how best to implement it. No doubt the new request also tells them what vendors to use, and what state to by them from, and where to eat lunch so that the money gets spread around to their own pet projects.

be PROACTIVE!

[Thud457]

Unlike Congress, a fence post has the wisdom to refrain from doing anything actively stupid.

HLV needed? can it be successfully promoted?

[k6mfw]

I think this whole thing is gonna die no matter how it is presented (which is too bad because all this great technology and we all still going to the same place Yuri Gagarin visited nearly 50 years ago).

I believe it was Dennis Wingo who wrote a comment on nasawatch.com that proposing HLV is a non-starter. Reason is such a launch vehicle is so expensive there is no way such a program will be approved by congress. It would be nice to have a Saturn V class vehicle that can place 100 tons in one shot but if you ain't got the money, then do planning for lower cost lower payload rockets (there are several). Supposably Sean Okeffe, NASA administrator before Mike Griffin, as a longtime Washington DC politico understood this so didn't push for a HLV. But he was replaced by Mike Griffin (man o man you should read the rants about Griffin on nasawatch). I don't know all the details but enough to bring up some interesting discussion (new topic for /.?)

I read on Wayne Hale's blog that OMB made the edict to Augustine Commission to not present any options that cost more than $3B which limited options "worthy of a great nation's exploration." Kind of reminds me of funding large programs, either put a lot of money upfront on development but save on operational costs, or skimp on development and have a more expensive operations cost.

I think the biggest question that needs to be answered is why go back to the moon and on to Mars? Back in the 60s, we knew exactly why a HLV had to be built. It was needed for Apollo so we can beat the Reds to the moon. Otherwise if they get there first, they will plant the Soviet flag on the moon seizing the high ground and enslave the rest of world in Communism. Now that all may sound silly but if you read all the history, it was serious back then. However, looking back the Apollo program could have "failed" like the Soviet lunar program (Korolev never had the resources needed for a HLV and much of the Politburo argued among themselves), the USAF MOL never flew (it just kept getting more and more complex), and John Houbolt at LaRC was able to successfully get the LOR adopted (which was among a few key fundamentals to have Apollo/Saturn work without violating the laws of physics). Also note that Saturn V was built to fulfill a single task. It was too expensive for "routine" flights to the moon, and Ares V is trying to be "routine" which I can never see congress funding.

I'd love to see us go back to the moon and see what the old Apollo sites look like now (and... what if they were to find the rovers on blocks with the tires missing?!?!). However, if I could wave the magic wand, I would direct NASA to do research and development in making access to space lowcost. So far all orbital access requires major bucks and a huge standing army just to get a small elite few into space (I'm not elite and I wanna go!)