NASA Chief talks about new plan for NASA

[SirNitram]

Link

President Barack Obama's 2011 federal budget proposal, released today, scraps NASA's latest plan to return humans to the moon by 2020. The budget plan looks to turn the agency's attention to developing new engines, in-space fuel depots and robots that can venture out into space.

"This is a very exciting new direction for NASA," said NASA's Chief Financial Officer Beth Robinson during a press conference this afternoon. "We'll be providing tremendous benefit to future space explorers."

NASA administrator Charles Bolden explained that the Obama administration plan calls for cancelling the Constellation moon landing plan that was initiated by former President George W. Bush.

The Constellation program was behind schedule, and was projected to ultimately be over budget, he added. Officials feared that Constellation program would sap funding and attention from developing new technologies, and financially force NASA to withdraw its support for the International Space Station as soon as 2015.

The new mission, along with a five-year budget plan, calls for the space station to continue operating and conduct new scientific experiments at least through 2020. And instead of building new crafts that could take humans further into space, the new plan calls for NASA to work with commercial aeronautics companies to design and build new so-celled space taxis that could take astronauts to the space station and eventually into outer space.

"I think this is a significant vote of confidence in NASA and an exciting shift," said Sally Ride, a former NASA astronaut and a member of the presidential panel charged with assessing the future of U.S. manned space flight. "The committee concluded that the current trajectory is not sustainable. The [space station] was going to be sacrificed after 2015 to fund the Constellation program. Science had suffered. This strategic shift brings NASA back to its roots. It's a significant strategic investment."

Ride added that she's confident that the Obama plan is a much better path for NASA - and a path that will lead to greater space exploration, not less.

"This puts NASA on sure footing," she said. "NASA will be central to the innovation engine that will drive America's economy in the future. It ensures that as we explore the solar system, we will do it with new technologies and we will do it arm-in-arm with commercial and international partners."

The budget would provide that space agency with $7.8 billion to spend over the next five years to develop new approaches to space flight, new rendezvous technologies and in-space fuel depots, according to Bolden. Another $3.1 billion would fund research into new propellants and heavy-lift engines designed to take astronauts farther and faster into space.

Bolden also noted that $4.9 billion would be invested in early stage technologies related to communications, sensors and robots.

Robinson added during the press conference today that over the next five years, $3 billion will be spent on robotics alone. She said they're focusing on preparing for robotic precursor missions. That means NASA is planning to land robots on the moon, for example, so they can gather information and send back data and video in advance of future human space missions.

"As you know, NASA already has had tremendous successes in its robotic endeavors," said Robinson. "The robots on the space station. The rovers on Mars. Those are science. These are meant to pave the way for human missions. That's their main purpose."

NASA also noted today that the plan to send robots into space could vey well increase the number of launches out of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

A reason out of the professionals why Ares was scrapped. Doubtless, though, armchair directors will continue to say it would've been fine.

In interest for myself is a dedicated program for Robotic missions to prep and plan for human ones.

[Vehrec]

This also was published today. It comes from what might be considered an industry insider, who was a strong opponent of the Ares and it's attendant capsule.

Today I wish to endorse strongly the President’s new direction for NASA. As an Apollo astronaut, I know the importance of always pushing new frontiers as we explore space.

The truth is that we have already been to the Moon—some 40 years ago.

A near-term focus on lowering the cost of access to space and on developing key, cutting-edge technologies to take us further, faster, is just what our Nation needs to maintain its position as the leader in space exploration for the rest of this century.

We need to be in this for the long haul, and this program will allow us to again be pushing the boundaries to achieve new and challenging things beyond Earth.

I hope NASA will embrace this new direction as much as I do, and help us all continue to use space exploration to drive prosperity and innovation right here on Earth.

I also believe the steps we will be taking following the President’s direction will best position NASA and other space agencies to send humans to Mars and other exciting destinations as quickly as possible.

To do that, we will need to support many types of game-changing technologies NASA and its partners will be developing. Mars is the next frontier for humankind, and NASA will be leading the way there if we aggressively support the President’s plans.

Finally, I am excited to think that the development of commercial capabilities to send humans into low-Earth orbit will likely result in so many more Earthlings being able to experience the transformative power of spaceflight.

I can personally attest to the fact that the experience results in a different perspective on life on Earth, and on our future as a species. I applaud the President for working to make this dream a reality.

Buzz Aldrin

[Simon_Jester]

Thing is, they're trashing hardware that's almost out of the development cycle (and the sunk costs) in favor of a program to eventually hopefully create poorly defined hardware that isn't on the drawing board yet. That means sacrificing the ongoing pool of experts in setting up and running manned flights, which will make restarting the program a lot more difficult ten years down the line when (if) the hardware is available.

I'm not sure it'll save money in the long term, and I'm not sure it'll produce better results, either.

Also, it bothers me that I can't tell whether this was a professional decision that Obama decided to back, or a decision Obama made off the cuff and then pushed the professionals to justify. Obama was rather opposed to the manned space program even before he was elected, as I recall, so I'm worried it was the latter: that Obama decided to kill the Constellation program and found experts willing to endorse it, not the other way around.

[K. A. Pital]

If the result of a hardware out-of-cycle would have been like the STS, perhaps it's best that it's trashed. A more superior program should take it's place.

Also, who cares about manned flight to other planets? This is an engineering challenge and economic challenge, sure, but why spend money to bring human beings to faraway space bodies? We're miles away from anything resembling a colonization (thanks to that "ISS" crap and, yes, the Space Shuttle - without these "programs", we'd have possibly three space stations in orbit and a generation of heavy boosters working, so perhaps not al programs that "egt off the board" are for the good). We're miles away from orbital construction, orbital launches and the like.

Like I said, it's not the first time a piece of space hardware gets trashed before it takes off, and perhaps in this case the damage-to-potential is minimal. The cancellation of Energia booster in the 1990s was a far greater setback, potential-wise, to space colonization/exploration/mass bulk lifting than this, in my view.

There's the Delta IV heavy and perhaps it's time to increase humanity's orbital presence. Fabricate some orbital facilities. Move a few new space stations. Oh no, I forgot - that ISS crap is in the way. I can't wait until it's fucking over. Though that day would probably never come.

Consider this: Energia rocket already had a 32 ton translunar potential in it's basic configuration. Ares V would hardly arrive until 2020, because Ares I would unlikely be thoroughly tested before 2016-2017, is that right? So you're re-creating a booster mimicking the potential of a rocket that had even greater upgrade potential - Energia in it's 6-booster config would've allowed for 200-to-LEO (and around 70-80 ton to translunar) were it completed.

Something tells me that the demise of Ares I is certainly not the worse thing that happened to space industry. Though certainly a bad sign for heavy lift

[SirNitram]

Thing is, they're trashing hardware that's almost out of the development cycle (and the sunk costs) in favor of a program to eventually hopefully create poorly defined hardware that isn't on the drawing board yet.

Given the lack of basic engineering understanding of the design head(Not a random engineer, the one in charge) of Ares, I think the phrase you should look up is 'Good money after bad.'

And again, who cares about a moonshot?

[MKSheppard]

I see that Nitram continues his retardation regarding Ares I.

If it's such a bad and horrible design, shot through with flaws; then explain the near flawless flight of Ares I-X.

And I love this new article:

The new mission, along with a five-year budget plan, calls for the space station to continue operating and conduct new scientific experiments at least through 2020.

With fucking what?

The shuttle's last flight is this year in September, I plan to be down there to watch it go up.

How the fuck will you support ISS without a man-rated system? Pay the Russians $$$$$$ for Soyuz?

I bet you Stas will love that part.

Man-Rating SpaceX's rockets (ha Ha HAHAH AHAHHAHAHAHAHHA) is not an option -- and man rating our other lifters like Atlas or Delta is going to cost as much and take as long as it would have for Ares I to begin it's first manned flights.

And instead of building new crafts that could take humans further into space, the new plan calls for NASA to work with commercial aeronautics companies to design and build new so-celled space taxis that could take astronauts to the space station and eventually into outer space.

Here's a pertinent list of the payload to LEO of various options:

Space X Falcon I: 670 kg <---Flown and in service
Space X Falcon 9 (Light): 10,450 kg <---First Flight in March of this year.
Space X Falcon 9 (Heavy): 29,610 kg <----even fucking more speculative.
Shuttle: 24,400 kg
Ares I: 25,000 kg
Saturn V: 118,000 kg
Ares V: 188,000 kg

What's fun is that SpaceX's entire plan for Falcon 9 is laughably hilarious -- their idea is to simply cluster together nine Merlin engines (Falcon 1 uses a single engine) for the light version. For the heavy (ha) version, their plan is to simply bolt on two extra Falcon 9 Stages for a total of 27!!!! engines working together at liftoff.

Another $3.1 billion would fund research into new propellants and heavy-lift engines designed to take astronauts farther and faster into space.

Been done.

Jesus fuck, how stupid does Obama think we are.

We've already researched all the fucking propellants available -- did so in the sixties.

The best possible propellant combination is the Fluorine (LF2) / Lithium (LLi) / Hydrogen (GH2) Tri-Propellant mix.

It has an ISP of 542 in vacuum (LOX/Hydrogen has 470). It's the best you can get without going nuclear (which is again, old news). NASA actually did do tests with this mix in the sixties and published several papers on it.

So why aren't we using this today?

The answer is that Fluorine is violently unstable and likes to spontaneously combust on contact with such sundry things as the air, or rocket engineers.

Lithium on the other hand, has to be kept at a temperature above 180 degrees Celsius, or it solidifies; which makes engineering a bit tricky, keeping the Fluorine tanks below -188 degrees Celsius, and the Lithium tanks above 180 degrees Celsius.

As for "new heavy lift engines"?

Already done.

RS-68

700,000 lbf per engine and costs a mere $14 million compared to the Space Shuttle Main Engine's $50 million. The plan was to you know, use five of these in Ares V. But hey, that's dead now. Go Obama!

Though I am sure that RS-68 will eventually find use in whatever halfass dirty paper proposal comes out of the Obama Administration in a couple of years -- which will enjoy a lifetime of about a year of development, before that proposal dies.

[MKSheppard]

There's also the problem that many "commercial" space companies are run by idiots.

Take for example Space X.

They could have just bought RS-68; the most powerful LOX/LH2 rocket engine in the world, with 700,000~ lbf of thrust; and costing a mere $14 million.

Instead, they spent a lot of money developing their own LOX/RP-1 rocket engine called Merlin, which in it's latest incarnation is only 125,000 lbf.

So basically, Space X's plan for moving from Falcon 1 (600~ kg to orbit) with a single Merlin to Falcon 9 (10,000~ kg to orbit), is to simply take nine Merlins and cluster them.

For their plans for Falcon 9 Heavy (20,000+ kg) ; the idea is to just bolt on two extra Falcon 9 First Stages; each with nine merlin engines; so that on liftoff, you have 27!!! engines working.

Space X could have vastly simplified the development of Falcon 9, if they had just bought RS-68 and put two of them into Falcon 9 -- and spent their money on detail design on improving the other aspects of the rocket -- like the ground support equipment, etc.

Instead, they spent it on reinventing the wheel (engines).

Same thing also happened with Rotary Rocket. Just look them up man! It's hilarious.

[K. A. Pital]

How the fuck will you support ISS without a man-rated system? Pay the Russians $$$$$$ for Soyuz?

Actually, if the "I" SS finally gets some doubt thrown about the actual use of that project (versus the potential use of developing many orbital stations instead of one), and if our leaders finally consider that if they can build station modules and have the launcher to lift them (Proton), why not have a station of our own? That might be good.

Can't wait till the ISS is deorbited and a real space race between major powers begins. Or not. In any case, the ISS has been one wreck of a project.

[MKSheppard]

Can't wait till the ISS is deorbited and a real space race between major powers begins. Or not. In any case, the ISS has been one wreck of a project.

There's one good thing about the ISS -- it led to the development of many common electrical/data interfaces, as well as docking interfaces -- plus gave people around the world experience in working on a huge multinational project.

Thus, if Russia puts into orbit Mir II (TWICE AS BIG! TWICE AS STRONG! TWICE AS AWESOME!); then future US space station modules or spacecraft will be able to dock with Mir II, and at least share some power -- full compatibility will probably never be achieved -- but the standardization of oxygen/power/rough data interfaces among the world is necessary for space to truly take off; so that if Nation A's space station gets into trouble, Nation C can fly up it's own spacecraft to take the crew off; rather than Nation A's astronauts being doomed.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I thought the Russians are already considering turning parts of the ISS that belongs to them into MIR II?

Actually, curious, what entails verifying that a rocket is man-usable? More thorough vacuum sealing?

[PeZook]

Actually, if the "I" SS finally gets some doubt thrown about the actual use of that project (versus the potential use of developing many orbital stations instead of one), and if our leaders finally consider that if they can build station modules and have the launcher to lift them (Proton), why not have a station of our own? That might be good.

I think the real issue is the weird conflict in stated goals: on one hand, you don't want to sacrifice the ISS in 2010 to pay for a Moon landing ; Okay, I get it: if your priorities go this way, so be it. But then, in the same document, you say you're going to cancel a rather mature launch vehicle and a crewed capsule that could be used to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS.

So what Shep means is that, if the US is willing to keep supporting the ISS, it will pretty much have to do it via Soyuz and Progress ships.

Can't wait till the ISS is deorbited and a real space race between major powers begins. Or not. In any case, the ISS has been one wreck of a project.

Havin an Ares-V class launch vehicle would help that (a lot!)

Actually, curious, what entails verifying that a rocket is man-usable? More thorough vacuum sealing?

NASA Human Rating Requirements For Space Systems

As you can see, sometimes it's relatively simple and cheap, other times it requires extensive modifications to the launch vehicle, depending on the configuration of the rocket (the most expensive part is the one where the launch vehicle needs the ability to be human-controlled ; Almost no commercial rocket is capable of that, and it means a lot of system integration work) ; Then there's various safety features like accomodations for a launch escape system, etc.

IIRC, there's been a study conducted on the Delta IV heavy, which concluded it could potentially be man-rated, but I don't know of any budget estimates.

[K. A. Pital]

Havin an Ares-V class launch vehicle would help that (a lot!)

Indeed (hence my comment that while I don't give a crap about Ares I, the demise of heavy Ares V is lamentable). The folks from Energia are working on a superheavy again (the Rus-MST 100 ton variant), this time with constraints, essentially kitbashing together lots of RD-180s *slams head* That's what happens when you leave a good chunk of your superheavy rockets on a launch pad in the posession of post-Soviet banana republic and they die Too bad Energia can't be ressurected.

I don't believe any superheavy rocket, American, Russia or otherwise, in the 100 ton class, would actually fly before 2020 anyway, considering the current trend of extreme delays in any new space booster project.

But then, in the same document, you say you're going to cancel a rather mature launch vehicle and a crewed capsule that could be used to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS.

Using the Ares I to ferry men to the ISS is... bad. It's like using the Proton to do it. A vast underuse of lift capacity.

[PeZook]

I don't believe any superheavy rocket, American, Russia or otherwise, in the 100 ton class, would actually fly before 2020 anyway, considering the current trend of extreme delays in any new space booster project.

Yeah, that was obvious from the start: too little money, too many cost overruns.

Using the Ares I to ferry men to the ISS is... bad. It's like using the Proton to do it. A vast underuse of lift capacity.

Not if you give it a six or seven person "space taxi" capsule. There's no other system with the same kind of capacity until something gets man-rated.

Which should've been done, like, twenty years ago, to be honest. Using the Shuttle as a passenger ship was a tremendous waste (112 tonnes in orbit, of which 70 are the spacecraft: you could replicate Apollo with that kind of capability!), even if it could bring up some supplies as well. Feh.

[Vehrec]

The new mission, along with a five-year budget plan, calls for the space station to continue operating and conduct new scientific experiments at least through 2020.

With fucking what?

The shuttle's last flight is this year in September, I plan to be down there to watch it go up.

How the fuck will you support ISS without a man-rated system? Pay the Russians $$$$$$ for Soyuz?

I bet you Stas will love that part.

It is an International Space Station, yes? Other nations are involved? Then why the fuck are you so upset about asking them for assistance for a few years? Hell, even if your capsules had been green-lighted, how many of them have been built? Seems to me that there's a delay inherent there if the space shuttle stops flying this year and they haven't already built what you propose replace it. Indeed, the earliest reports on Orion had it making a manned flight no earlier than 2014. A bit of a built in delay, hmmm?

Man-Rating SpaceX's rockets (ha Ha HAHAH AHAHHAHAHAHAHHA) is not an option -- and man rating our other lifters like Atlas or Delta is going to cost as much and take as long as it would have for Ares I to begin it's first manned flights.

And instead of building new crafts that could take humans further into space, the new plan calls for NASA to work with commercial aeronautics companies to design and build new so-celled space taxis that could take astronauts to the space station and eventually into outer space.

Here's a pertinent list of the payload to LEO of various options:

Space X Falcon I: 670 kg <---Flown and in service
Space X Falcon 9 (Light): 10,450 kg <---First Flight in March of this year.
Space X Falcon 9 (Heavy): 29,610 kg <----even fucking more speculative.
Shuttle: 24,400 kg
Ares I: 25,000 kg
Saturn V: 118,000 kg
Ares V: 188,000 kg

What's fun is that SpaceX's entire plan for Falcon 9 is laughably hilarious -- their idea is to simply cluster together nine Merlin engines (Falcon 1 uses a single engine) for the light version. For the heavy (ha) version, their plan is to simply bolt on two extra Falcon 9 Stages for a total of 27!!!! engines working together at liftoff.

So what? I ask you, what does that really tell you? Because to me it sounds a bit like they are having to report to investors and other people who want to see a return on their rocket motor. And isn't your Ares V just a cluster itself?

Another $3.1 billion would fund research into new propellants and heavy-lift engines designed to take astronauts farther and faster into space.

Been done.

Jesus fuck, how stupid does Obama think we are.

We've already researched all the fucking propellants available -- did so in the sixties.

The best possible propellant combination is the Fluorine (LF2) / Lithium (LLi) / Hydrogen (GH2) Tri-Propellant mix.

It has an ISP of 542 in vacuum (LOX/Hydrogen has 470). It's the best you can get without going nuclear (which is again, old news). NASA actually did do tests with this mix in the sixties and published several papers on it.

So why aren't we using this today?

The answer is that Fluorine is violently unstable and likes to spontaneously combust on contact with such sundry things as the air, or rocket engineers.

Lithium on the other hand, has to be kept at a temperature above 180 degrees Celsius, or it solidifies; which makes engineering a bit tricky, keeping the Fluorine tanks below -188 degrees Celsius, and the Lithium tanks above 180 degrees Celsius.

Well that's great. What's the second best combination? Third? Fourth? Can we improve on past performance with modern materials? Not all R&D was done in the 50s and 60s. It does occasionally pay off to go back and check these things out again.

As for "new heavy lift engines"?

Already done.

RS-68

700,000 lbf per engine and costs a mere $14 million compared to the Space Shuttle Main Engine's $50 million. The plan was to you know, use five of these in Ares V. But hey, that's dead now. Go Obama!

Though I am sure that RS-68 will eventually find use in whatever halfass dirty paper proposal comes out of the Obama Administration in a couple of years -- which will enjoy a lifetime of about a year of development, before that proposal dies.

Ares I and V were low hanging fruit and you know it Shep. We can do better than a damn capsule that's using the same fucking reentry ablative that was used on Apollo.

But who knows? It's a cheap engine. Maybe Space X will pick it up at some point in the future if it's made available.

[PeZook]

What's fun is that SpaceX's entire plan for Falcon 9 is laughably hilarious -- their idea is to simply cluster together nine Merlin engines (Falcon 1 uses a single engine) for the light version. For the heavy (ha) version, their plan is to simply bolt on two extra Falcon 9 Stages for a total of 27!!!! engines working together at liftoff.

So what? I ask you, what does that really tell you? Because to me it sounds a bit like they are having to report to investors and other people who want to see a return on their rocket motor. And isn't your Ares V just a cluster itself?

A cluster of 27 engines is just begging for a critical failure. Even the Soviets were unable to make the 30 engine N-1 first stage work properly, because complexity very quickly starts to increase along an exponential curve. It goes double if you want to fly people on the thing.

There's a reason why the trend was to build engines with the lowest possible amount of moving parts, rather than cluster more and more weaker engines together: not only does it save expensive components like fuel pumps, it vastly reduces complexity.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah, clustering many low-power engines is bad. The USSR found out the hard way (thanks to Glushko's quarrels with Korolev).

But there's the uber-powered RD-170 and RD-180 family if you really want to ask the Russians. And if you're cash-strapped. 3,83 to 7 MN of thrust, and it's working existing engines ready to be fitted on your rocket! Just give us the $$$$

[Shroom Man 777]

I find it remarkable that for all its economic and political woes, the Soviets have managed to hold on to their space infrastructure. Sure, there are problems, but in the end despite everything that's happened, the Soviets are pretty much going to be the "last man standing" when it comes to regularly manned spaceflight after the Space Shuttle goes down for the count. It's pretty remarkable, and ironic, since the Soviets were the first ones in space anyway. This is a sign of their destiny! and it is in Space, the final frontier!

[PeZook]

Yeah, clustering many low-power engines is bad. The USSR found out the hard way (thanks to Glushko's quarrels with Korolev).

Weren't there also some problems with producing a large and powerful enough engine? I'm not that well read in the history of the N-1, so I can't be sure.

Also, food for thought: try doing thrust vectoring with an array of 27 engines vs. the usual arrangement of 2 to 5.

But there's the uber-powered RD-170 and RD-180 family if you really want to ask the Russians. And if you're cash-strapped. 3,83 to 7 MN of thrust, and it's working existing engines ready to be fitted on your rocket! Just give us the $$$$

Yeah, though the RS-68 is almost as awesome, if with slightly less thrust. Rockedyne did some great work reducing complexity to an absolute minimum, while still maintaining pretty high thrust (it's a development of a Soviet design, IIRC )

[PeZook]

I find it remarkable that for all its economic and political woes, the Soviets have managed to hold on to their space infrastructure.

It takes a special kind of man to be a Russian, and ridiculous resillience is a required trait

[K. A. Pital]

Weren't there also some problems with producing a large and powerful enough engine? I'm not that well read in the history of the N-1, so I can't be sure.

Yeah, there were - Glushko was a fan of large and powerful, but... TOXIC engines. Korolev was not. So Glushko basically told him to find his own way, refusing to make a very powerful LOX engine necessary for the rocket. This led to the boondogle.

[phongn]

The new mission, along with a five-year budget plan, calls for the space station to continue operating and conduct new scientific experiments at least through 2020.

With fucking what?

The shuttle's last flight is this year in September, I plan to be down there to watch it go up.

How the fuck will you support ISS without a man-rated system? Pay the Russians $$$$$$ for Soyuz?

I bet you Stas will love that part.

It is an International Space Station, yes? Other nations are involved? Then why the fuck are you so upset about asking them for assistance for a few years? Hell, even if your capsules had been green-lighted, how many of them have been built? Seems to me that there's a delay inherent there if the space shuttle stops flying this year and they haven't already built what you propose replace it. Indeed, the earliest reports on Orion had it making a manned flight no earlier than 2014. A bit of a built in delay, hmmm?

I think Shep is questioning if NASA will have the budget to support Soyuz flights to ISS.

So what? I ask you, what does that really tell you? Because to me it sounds a bit like they are having to report to investors and other people who want to see a return on their rocket motor. And isn't your Ares V just a cluster itself?

There's a small difference between 5 RS-68B + 2 RSRM and 27 Merlin 1C.

Well that's great. What's the second best combination? Third? Fourth? Can we improve on past performance with modern materials? Not all R&D was done in the 50s and 60s. It does occasionally pay off to go back and check these things out again.

Chemistry is your friend. Why do you think we use LOX/LH2 so extensively?

Ares I and V were low hanging fruit and you know it Shep. We can do better than a damn capsule that's using the same fucking reentry ablative that was used on Apollo.

By all means, tell me what we can do.

I find it remarkable that for all its economic and political woes, the Soviets have managed to hold on to their space infrastructure. Sure, there are problems, but in the end despite everything that's happened, the Soviets are pretty much going to be the "last man standing" when it comes to regularly manned spaceflight after the Space Shuttle goes down for the count. It's pretty remarkable, and ironic, since the Soviets were the first ones in space anyway. This is a sign of their destiny! and it is in Space, the final frontier!

IIRC, the US helped fund the Russian space program during to keep things going while they had their economic woes.

Yeah, though the RS-68 is almost as awesome, if with slightly less thrust. Rockedyne did some great work reducing complexity to an absolute minimum, while still maintaining pretty high thrust (it's a development of a Soviet design, IIRC )

You're thinking Atlas V, which uses the RD-180. RS-68 is an American design.

[Simon_Jester]

I thought the Russians are already considering turning parts of the ISS that belongs to them into MIR II?

I have this image of a cosmonaut with a wrench going around the inside of the ISS...

American: "Hey, Dmitri, what are you doing with that wrench?"
Russian, speaking into throat microphone: "We are go for Operation 'take our toys and go home.' "
Russian: "You don't want to know. You really don't want to know."

Consider this: Energia rocket already had a 32 ton translunar potential in it's basic configuration. Ares V would hardly arrive until 2020, because Ares I would unlikely be thoroughly tested before 2016-2017, is that right?

I see your point. The first prototype Saturn I-variant launch was in October 1961, while the first full-up manned Saturn V launch was in December 1968. That's seven years; if we did as well this time we'd have Ares V ready by late 2016. Since it's unrealistic to suppose we'll be working as fast this time, your estimates are likely to prove right.

What bothers me is that I'm not sure having a better rocket in fifteen to twenty years is a good substitute for having an adequate one in five to ten. If nothing else, what happens if the next president decides to do the same thing in 2014 or 2018 that Obama is doing now, and abort the development cycle of whatever heavy lift design Obama decides to fund? Every year of expensive development process is an opportunity for future politicians to screw up the project.

So you're re-creating a booster mimicking the potential of a rocket that had even greater upgrade potential - Energia in it's 6-booster config would've allowed for 200-to-LEO (and around 70-80 ton to translunar) were it completed. Something tells me that the demise of Ares I is certainly not the worse thing that happened to space industry. Though certainly a bad sign for heavy lift

Didn't say it was the worst thing ever. But unless you guys are planning to dust off the Energia plans in the immediate future (which would be awesome, I very much agree), someone has to build a heavy lift booster for manned space flight. Actually build, not just plan, spend ten billion dollars on the design, then erase the plans, then repeat.

[Sky Captain]

Ignoring political troubles how would costs compare of restarting Energia rocket production vs designing and building Ares V nearly from scratch? For Energia at least R&D part is already done and paid, rocket has successfully flown few times proving the design. I suspect big question is whether the tooling still exists to build Enegia hardware.

[PeZook]

Ignoring political troubles how would costs compare of restarting Energia rocket production vs designing and building Ares V nearly from scratch? For Energia at least R&D part is already done and paid, rocket has successfully flown few times proving the design. I suspect big question is whether the tooling still exists to build Enegia hardware.

A major part of R&D for new rockets lies in prototypes and test flights. Energia only had two flights, which is of course much more advanced than the Ares V ever was, but not quite "finished R&D, ready for production". There wasn't even an actual production line.

You're thinking Atlas V, which uses the RD-180. RS-68 is an American design.

Uh...no, I was thinking of the RS-68, the engine planned for use in the Ares V, made by Rocketdyne. It was based on a design pioneered by the Soviets first, though that was IIRC, so I could be wrong.

[phongn]

Uh...no, I was thinking of the RS-68, the engine planned for use in the Ares V, made by Rocketdyne. It was based on a design pioneered by the Soviets first, though that was IIRC, so I could be wrong.

WIkipedia claims that design elements in the RS-68 were first pioneered by the Soviet Union but I don't see any indication that the engine as a whole was based on a Soviet design. I thought you might've confused it with Atlas V, since that uses a wholly Russian engine.