credit: obama.com
An unfinished war, a huge national debt, an imminent deep recession, a huge tax cutting commitment, a massive fiscal stimulus to be spent, a car industry whose saving might be cheaper than the economic devastation its collapse would bring, and a former president's ambitious plan to return America to the Moon; not too many challenges then for the president-elect (some of them self inflicted admittedly)
Hyperbola thinks the Obama administation should do the following...
Guessing how much NASA's budget might be cut over the next four or even eight years is not a game worth playing, just assuming that its budget does not grow at all will present the agency with enough problems as its Congressionally mandated goals are already completely unachievable. So I will briefly tackle hear the main broad areas
Aeronautics
Starting with the first A in NASA its programmes have suffered grievous cuts that the science community should recognise as far worse than they have had to face
The management of the US national air space and the development of technologies to mitigate the environmental impact of aircraft is more important than knowing what makes Venus tick
Aeronautics needs a hike in funding along with a presidential policy for meeting those air space and environmental challenges. Obama's green technology revolution will be hollow if he doesn't do at least that
Science
I am splitting science into Earth focused, astronomy and planetary. I think it is time for the other US government agencies that study the environment to collaborate and focus on climate change analysis
NASA's S should be for outer space and it should not have a mission Earth. Hubble's days are numbered and it should not be replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope. Astronomy for the time being will have to rely on the other orbiting and ground based assets
Planetary science should be entirely Mars focused and should compliment preparations for a permanent human settlement on the Red planet
Space operations
Obama should come out quickly and announce support for the International Space Station to 2020. Space Shuttle should not face schedule pressure and should carry out its final 10 missions (including the launch of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer instrument) at a safe pace. This will likely mean an extension into 2011 and probably beyond
Shuttle should ideally not be retired before NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services programme candidates have proven they can resupply ISS as NASA did not request Congress to provide a legal waiver for Russian cargo provision. The ISS should be provided with all the spares it needs using Shuttle and NASA should reverse the decision to reject the permanent MPLM option
The crew transportation COTS-D option should be funded and longer term steps should be taken to realise the commercialisation of low Earth orbit. Can the US section of the ISS be privatised? Finally, the Orion crew exploration vehicle should not service ISS
Exploration
Obama should commit early to support the long term aim of returning America to the Moon, as part of an international effort, and then to go to Mars in the first half of this century. Again commercial opportunities should be sought for this, starting with cislunar telecommunications
NASA should dump its Ares I crew launch vehicle, its capabilities are too limited for the lunar and beyond manned operations the agency should be aiming for. The agency should move to the human rated Ares IV as its intermediate step to the cargo/Altair launching Ares V
The two boosters would be used for a double launch EOR-LOR conop for lunar missions that would begin during the 2020s, to remove the 2020 target the agency will now miss. Ares IV could also be used for a NEO mission
The international lunar outpost will still be the first step towards Mars. While the Moon's gravity is wrong for creating some of the technologies for Mars we need to develop hardware, subsystems and components, that can cope with such an extremely harsh environment for very long durations. If they can survive the Moon they can survive the Martian surface, that planet's orbit or one of its moons
Before Ares V is ready Ares IV can be used to send very large scientific payloads to Mars that will test entry, descent and landing technologies needed to put people on the surface accurately and safely
The architecture for Mars should be for the establishment of a permanent scientific outpost and not the 500-day Apollo version with a small team there and back within a few years. Again commercial opportunities should be a part of the long term Martian settlement plan
With the European Space Agency's budget and goal setting member state minister's meeting in less than a week tomorrow I'll set out what Hyperbola thinks ESA should be doing in the next three years and longer term
Would it not be cheaper to human-rate an EELV design to get people into orbit? NASA's already spent billions with nothing to fly, and I'd bet Mr. Musk would at least be able to land a Tesla Roadster on the moon with that kind of budget.
If they focused on something sustainable: How about developing VASIMIR for Earth/Moon transit with a reusable lunar lander docked to it? Then they could free up Ares V for more useable cargo besides fuel. Why not stage lunar expeditions from ISS? Could they go to the moon from that orbital plane?
May be a simplistic view, but it seems like everyone's trying to recreate Apollo and not looking at the larger picture.
None of the EELV's have the payload capability. The existing Atlas V can only put 19,500kg into LEO and the Delta IV only a few tonnes more. Both require significant upgrades including to launch pad infrastructure to achieve Ares I like capabilities. Those upgrades probably are cheaper than Ares I's development but my point is that if you are seriously going to go beyond LEO there is no point investing in technology that was designed for putting satellites into Earth orbit. It is clear that a lunar Orion is going to be heavy. NASA has substantial technological challenges to get a lunar Orion to fit into its 29,000kg boundary. I say, why bother, follow the Russian example and just build big because you can always find people who will have secondary payloads. These rockets are still going to be operating within the timeframe of a manned Mars mission. We are going to need a very substantial payload capability to do that mission. I would also add that if we want an ISS 2 with more substantial capability and for it not to take 10-years to build it is worth having these rockets. Ares IV provides for a larger Orion that can do missions other than lunar and Ares V combined with Ares IV will deliver to the Moon's surface substantial payload to ensure mission success for the international lunar outpost.
As to your other points;
Staging lunar missions from ISS is a waste of fuel.
VASIMIR is an interesting technology and could form part of a lunar-cycler later on the development of the lunar outpost and as a basis for nuclear propulsion to Mars
The amount of development to bring the Ares I to launch is horrendous. LM has a complete future laid out for the Atlas V, up to the 3 CCB Heavy and the 5 CCB (Monstero?) that could launch almost 100,000 MT to orbit. At this point, you have something the size of the Saturn V without having to reinvent the Saturn V, which Griffin seems intent on doing.
It just seems to make so much more sense to use what is out there and not throw so much money down the rat hole to develop this new family of lifters. The lead time to orbit the Orion is long enough without the years of development the Ares calls for.
The ULA data sheet for Atlas V does have a near-100,000kg capable modified version, the 3 CCB you mention and there is even a "Phase 3B" evolved vehicle allegedly capable of 200,000kg (that is 200 metric tonnes not 100,000) that would require launch pad modifications.
http://www.ulalaunch.com/images/product_sheet/Atlas_Product_Sheet_FINAL.pdf
It is an easy conclusion to draw that the 3CCB or Phase 3B rockets are simply the further development of flight proven hardware into a more capable booster but in this business little is simple and man rating it all (despite claims little needs to be done to today's Atlas V) will no doubt become more problematic. I know from LM sources that the 100,000kg Atlas V HLV version never left the drawing board. And there is one unpalatable factor that has to be understood about NASA funding. It has a heavy political element and decisions that gut the existing spaceflight industrial structure will face severe Congressional resistance.
Not sure Russia is going to keep supplying engines for the Atlas V, & US definitely lacks the expertise to manufacture the engine. Either way, the cost of making disposable, restartable SSME's would have been justified by this time & solved a lot of Ares problems.
I completely agree on the Russia point and I think that that is why Congress decided it wanted a report on US rocket engine capabilities
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/10/22/317661/congress-demands-us-rocket-engine-report.html
It will be interesting to see if this becomes a fight between PWR and SpaceX for future EELV engine contracts. Admittedly SpaceX has got to bulk up its engines but they tell me the plans are in the works.
What is Ares IV?
oops I'll add this link to the blog post
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/01/02/211318/nasa-quietly-sets-up-budget-for-ares-iv-lunar-crew-launch-vehicle-with-2017-test-flight.html
Basically NASA looked at an intermediate step for Ares V, it uses the Ares I upper stage with the Ares V core-stage, and considered the possibility of launching a manned asteroid mission in the latter half of the nexy decade using an Orion CEV orbited by the Ares IV
For people not inside of last decades stagnation of spacecraft’s technology will be horrific news that NASA-21-century needs about 10 years to remake what NASA-20-centurury have made within less than 5 years – the Apollo style spaceship In 1960-ties it was made without supercomputers, with less knowledge on hypersonic atmospheric reentrance, designing on drawing-board and typing on typewriter.
All explanations I have read seem to me unsatisfactory.
The process of degradation of any government agency was brilliantly described by British historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson as early as 1955.
For people who was lived in totalitarian, government funded society all is clear: the ‘privatization’ of space will be hard, long, and painful.
I wish good luck of new American administration.
Rob,
Have you seen the response to your recommendations at
Transterrestrial Musings?
Yes. I'm always interested in Rand's POV ;-)
There are analyses of rockets that show optimal commercial payloads of slightly less mass than Rand points too. Orbital's Antonio Elias gave an indepth description of such an analysis at the AIAA Space 2008 conference in San Diego - I made an audio recording for my own journalistic needs but can't publish it under AIAA rules. At that session SpaceX's Max Vozoff agreed with the concept and pointed to Dragon's cargo capability
A similar analysis has been done with aircraft to show the optimal aircraft range is something like 3,000nm. And people advocate air to air refueling for airliners on the basis of that
I have grave doubts about the orbital propellant depot idea. I have been meaning to tackle this in a blog post. The one big problem is this, we simply do not have the technology to keep cryogenic propellants stored for very long periods in orbit. You would need insulation and cryocoolers made of unobtainium quite frankly and I wonder if even tomorrow's solar panels could deliver sufficient power to keep very large fuel depot containers of propellant consistently cool enough - answers on a post card as to what an optimal propellant depot size would be...
Having said that, I have explained in my replies to other comments to my Obama advice blog post that the EELVs do not currently have the payload capability for a manned Moon, Mars programme or even ambitious future robotic missions. I question the claims that EELV evolved heavy lifters can be built as cheaply as their advocates claim
Remember how the Ares were to be all so derived from Shuttle?
Ceres is a new and mysterious fifth planet.
None of the lunar hardware will apply to this goal easily achievable planetary goal, whereas nearly all of our existing launch and long duration space flight infrastructure and experience may be almost immediately incorporated in this goal, and can be tested adequately tested with initial missions to Phobos and Deimos, which will also retire much of the risk of a Mars surface mission as well. The moon is off the table.
Mr. Coppinger, you're incorrect on the comment you made about the EELVs being unable to loft the Orion capsule.
1. Much of the Orion's mass is comprised of fuel used for the TEI burn during a lunar mission. With this fuel load removed, either of the EELVs, the Atlas 5 552, or the Delta 4 Heavy, could bring Orion to ISS. Both launch vehicles would also not need the Orion to act as third stage to achieve orbit.
2. The Delta 4 Heavy will receive a payload capacity increase in 2012 due to improvements being made in its engine, the RS-68. This increase will allow the Delta 4 Heavy to loft the planned lunar Orion mass.
I've read that ISS staging has only a 6% impact on launch vehicle payload capacity.
I disagree with the idea that the RD-180 cannot be used because of Russian politics. For one, the realm of international relations do not follow the schoolyard tactics of 'take your ball and go home'. The hard facts of collaboration with the Russians is that they have kept their commitments, even during moments of friction elsewhere, and that this has expanded operational capability, be it use of the ISS after Colombia or during an upcoming period of transition, or allowing powerful RP-1 first stages without having to duplicate the capabilities already existant in the RD-180.
I also question your general maligning of ULA. The fact is that they have recent experience fielding new successful rocket systems, two of them in fact, whereas the NASA record has been one of general failure in this regard. You expect NASA to change its ways and pull off a project of that scope, asking more of ULA only asks an experienced engineering team to do more.
Propellant depots are largely an outgrowth of existing cryo second stage work. I suggest you read up more on the subject; I'll leave a link for you to do so. While they are not yet ready to be operational, they aren't as preposterous as your unobtainium remarks have made them out to be.
Your remark that the EELVs shouldn't be considered because they put up satellites was ridiculous. In reality, a rocket sending up a 100-1000 billion dollar satellite receives a whole lot of attention to make sure it does not fail, and the successful launch record indicates that. What matters is payload capacity, and an architecture using the payload capacity of those launchers in a inventive way can do the very same things one relying on a speculative heavy lifter can.
http://selenianboondocks.com/2008/11/ula-propellant-depot-paper/
Just to briefly respond
1 I don't understand how dumping the service module is a good idea. My whole point was that Orion should be used for the Moon. That in part is because all of its development to date has been for the 7-month mission it would undertake for a lunar outpost mission
2 The only RS-68 upgrade I am aware of is the B version that is a USAF/NASA programme undertaken for Ares V. Neither ULA or Boeing have ever told me that this could deliver an increase in payload capability for Delta IV from 22,950kg (the figure given by ULA's own product data sheet) to the 29,000kg plus needed for Orion. I will check with them.
3 Your figure for ISS staging is unsubstantiated.
4 Russian engines - it will be interesting to see the outcome of this US Congressional report.
5 I didn't malign ULA. It wouldn't be ULA that developed the EELVs but Lockheed and Boeing and it is just historical fact that all rocket development programmes end up over budget and late
6 I have spoken to NASA personnel at length about cryogenics storage and I stand by my statement.
7 The point I was making about EELVs and going beyond LEO is that if you want to go to the Moon etc you need to send a lot of payload and in the long term it is more efficient to use a very big rocket. Why did NASA not just use lots of Saturn IBs with its 18,400kg payload capability (similar to the EELVs) for Apollo instead of developing Saturn V?
“Unobtainium” may not be needed. Check out this cryogenic hydrogen storage tank advancement for future automobiles that may apply. The depot doesn’t have to be absolutely leak proof if the extraction rate of fuel from the tank by all of the combined ships being serviced by the tank is overwhelmingly greater than the fundamental gas loss rate of the tank. In such a situation, only a tiny fraction of the fuel would be lost before the tank is refilled.
I have spoken to NASA personnel at length about cryogenics storage and I stand by my statement.
Yes, because "NASA personnel" are never wrong. ;-)
You might want to broaden your discussions to people like Frank Chandler at Boeing, and Frank Zegler at Lockheed Martin.
The idea is that until you have all the other lunar elements operational, the only mission Orion will be performing will be to go to the ISS in LEO, and existing launchers can put it up there. By the time those other lunar components are ready, so too will be an upgraded existing launcher that can loft the heavier Orion.
While checking the effects of the the RS-68b upgrade, also check your number on the Orion's mass. Rather than 29mt, it is around 23-24mt when it is to dock with the EDS/Altair stack.
All that said, I concur with you that NASA would be better suited funding crewed COTS to perform the crew transfer missions to the ISS. As a stopgap until Mr. Musk's boosters have demonstrated reliability, there is also the option to launch the Dragon capsule on one of the EELVs, notionally, the Atlas 5 401.
Most of what a heavy lifter will put up is propellant; the defueled components can all be brought up individually on lesser existing rockets. A separate fuel delivery market will allow for NASA to take advantage of the lower prices such a payload demand will generate, as well as any future advances in the rocket field like Mr. Musk's efforts. The way I've always looked at it was this: With a new vehicle, can NASA beat the price per pound to LEO of either existing commercial efforts or near-future ones like the Falcon 9? Again, I don't think the NASA record is one where the answer to that question is yes.
You have already rejected the way things were done during Apollo, that the same objective can be accomplished through different methods. Does the Ares 4 replicate the Saturn 5, or its launching of all components necessary on a single booster?
What was the fate of the heavy lifter they built that time? Didn't last, did it? By procuring launch services from commercial capacity, NASA will not have maintain at precarious expense its own internal launch capacity, but rather can rely on the production lines shared by other customers of the product.
Perhaps in addition to talking with NASA people on their opinion of fuel depots, you could talk to individuals involved in fuel depot work as well, or just take a look at their ideas, like the paper I linked to.
Rob,
A couple thoughts:
1. Libs0n wasn't suggesting dumping the service module. He was suggesting launching it with a partial propellant load (probably a light load). The service module is currently hypergolic, and hypergolic propellant transfer is a 40 year old technology. One that even the US has finally demonstrated in the past year or so.
2. Ares I can't deliver 29000kg either. What the upgraded Delta-IV can do is deliver more payload than Ares I. And by actually being able to put the payload all the way into orbit instead of having Orion do the circ burn, the service module can shrink by a non-trivial amount.
3. EELV didn't end up over budget or data IIRC. Ares-I has spent more money so far than Delta-IV, Atlas-V, and Falcon IX development combined. And that included new pads for those vehicles, new assembly lines, and some new engines and stages. The EELV folks have a much better and more recent track record at launch vehicle development than NASA (which hasn't developed a new orbital vehicle in my lifetime).
4. I know the people at Boeing and LM who work on this stuff. And if the NASA guy you spoke with really believed that (as opposed to a miscommunication), then he doesn't know what he's talking about. More to the point, even NASA thinks that Zero Boiloff or low boiloff is feasible without unobtanium.
5. The only reason NASA only used Saturn V instead of using EOR was due to time constraints. That program was ultimately unsustainable. Why must we continue down dead-end paths like this?
~Jon
1 the SM uses hypers because the mission it is being designed for is the 7-month lunar outpost mission and they don't have the cryo storage tech
2 I will check with ULA on this mystery Delta IV upgrade that produces such a fabulous increase in payload
3 I'll check the EELV record, I am pretty sure there will be a delay in there somewhere
4 The EELVs don't carry people and so the engineering rigour is not as great
5 Why do you assume it is one NASA "guy"?
6 I seriously question the claim that it was just somehow more convenient to design and build Saturn V than launch more Saturn IBs and have them do EOR
1 The 23-24mt figure for Orion is because it has used its SM engine to get it from a suborbital trajectory, after separating from the Ares I upper stage, to LEO. The figure I gave is the Gross Lift Off Weight and if you are going to argue that EELVs can launch it then that is the figure you need to use
2 NASA price per pound - you seem to forget that private companies build these vehicles for NASA. It is their cost price that is the determining factor
3 Saturn didn't last because of the political, budget reasons surrounding Apollo not because the structural efficiency and long term cost value of such a payload capability was a bad model
4 I will look at the paper and I have emailed ULA and asked to interview Zegler. I am actually on vacation right now but decided that radio silence might seem odd after my pre-scheduled blog posts generated somewhat more of a response than I was expecting.
See my reply to LibsOn
I guess what I've said with regards to reducing the Orion's fuel loadout is a moot technical point; in all likelihood the upgraded Delta 4 Heavy will become available before Orion development completes.
The GLOW of an EELV launched Orion will be less than the GLOW of an Ares launched one. The EELV will place the Orion into the proper orbit without the need for the Orion to fire its SM engine.
Again, the value of payloads already launched by EELVs means the repercussions of failure are severe, and precautions taken in the standard of engineering involved have resulted in launch vehicles that are reliable enough for the needs of human spaceflight. If you recall, NASA was to use EELVs to launch their Orbital Space Plane project, before that was replaced by the VSE and NASA's preferred implementation to it. They were also included for consideration as crew launch options in the outdated ESAS study.
Have a good vacation.
If the private sector were given carte blanche to develop lunar capable hardware, I'm sure that they would develop capable hardware, in less time than the unwieldy NASA infrastructure. Maybe co-operation between public and private sector is the way forward (even though it would be a political hot potato!) Just my thoughts, constructive comment would be useful.
"The EELV will place the Orion into the proper orbit without the need for the Orion to fire its SM engine."
Including the rendezvous and docking maneuvers for Altair/EDS link up?
I have been looking for a while for the TLI starting point, the orbit, for Constellation and can't seem to find it. LEO altitudes for Ares V to place the Altair and EDS in, I can find them, 200km plus, and I have known the Ares I upper stage, Orion separation altitude for quite a while as well.
While I know that for Apollo's Saturn V payload capability the difference between LEO and TLI was to basically halve it, I only know of Constellation that the TLI mass capability of Ares V was to be about 75mT (and LEO about 130mT?). With all the other issues surrounding Constellation the orbit data for EOR has not been at the top of my to do list but I'll ask NASA.
So I am not as confident as you because if Orion doesn't dock with Altair at the altitude the Delta IV can put it into, if LEO in this case or the TLI is above 400km, you have a problem and anything closer to a comfortable 220km rendezvous is still eating away at your safety margin - ouch
The EELVs don't carry people and so the engineering rigour is not as great
They carry satellites worth hundreds of millions. Where do you think they skimped? Why do you think that the insurance companies would have allowed them to?
I seriously question the claim that it was just somehow more convenient to design and build Saturn V than launch more Saturn IBs and have them do EOR
It wasn't "more convenient." It was less technical risk, given our knowledge of rendezvous and docking at the time. It was the most expensive way to do it, but we were in a race, and the saying at the time was "waste anything but time." We are no longer in a race. Now we have to do it in an affordable and sustainable manner. Heavy lift is not the way to do that.
Thanks for responding Rob on the Ares IV question.
As far as Delta IV heavy vs Ares I as the Crew Launch Vehicle for the Orion Spacecraft, my understanding was NASA's selection was based upon the supposedly superior safety of the Ares I (based on very questionable assumptions) and not upon any lack of payload capability by the Delta IV heavy.
You mention the GLOW of the Orion spacecraft as 29 tonnes (which is obviously more than a Delta IV heavy can lift), but my understanding is the GLOW of Orion includes the massive weight of the launch escape system (which is jettisonned shortly after launch). So the GLOW of the Orion should not reflect on the LEO payload needed by the Crew Launch Vehicle.
Sorry I don't understand what you mean. "So the GLOW of the Orion should not reflect on the LEO payload needed by the Crew Launch Vehicle."? You have the LAS with either the CLV or an EELV. The question for me on EELV launched Orion is, what altitude does Orion dock with the EDS/Altair stack?
Hi Rob,
I guess I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I'll try to restate.
I remember the first time I heard that the Orion GLOW was 29 tonnes (in a nasaspaceflight.com story) and I was shocked. Had the mass of the Orion suddenly grown from the oft reported 23 tonnes? And how could the Ares I lift such a mass to orbit?
Then I remembered that lift-off weight had to include the mass of the huge launch escape tower and capsule shroud. According to some reports the mass of the escape system is over 6,000kg. That fully accounts for the difference between reported GLOW and earlier reports of the Orion's mass.
Since the escape system is such a massive beast, just like Apollo the Orion escape system will jettison away from the capsule while the launch vehicle is still at low suborbital velocity. That way the launch vehicle does not have to waste lifting power to accelerate the mass of the escape system all the way up to orbital velocity.
So GLOW has little relationship to actual mass of the spacecraft in orbit, or the payload to orbit capacity of the spacecraft's launch vehicle. GLOW does not equal payload to orbit.
I still think your thinking is a little awry.
Let me put it this way.
Orion is 29,000kg until its LAS is jettisoned.
Orion's SM engine will push the vehicle from the suborbital trajectory Ares I's upper stage puts it into, wihout a LAS.
Once in LEO the Orion mass is around 22,000kg.
With an EELV it is true that at some point the LAS will be jettisoned
With an EELV it is true that the Delta IV and its upper stage will push about 22,000kg to 400km.
With this option though you have to leave a large chunk of SM propellant behind. That is scary.
What will an EELV launched Orion have to do in orbit before it docks with Altair to go the Moon, that is my concern? Until the Orion, EDS/Altair rendezvous altitude is known I am sceptical of EELV capabilities to do the job.
My personal view is that too often there is not enough public information for people to calculate the exact outcome. Orion is being designed to go to the Moon. If EELV can't lift the Moon Orion then its pointless talking about its use for an ISS mission. Remember, all that propellant left behind, to enable an EELV lift off, is supposed to be used for boosting the ISS altitude.
The one caveat here is this, they don't know the final mass of Orion yet because the mass of the heat shield and airbags and possible oscillation mitigation mods are still unknown. Don't forget that 10-month PDR delay. Because the final Orion mass is unknown they can't finalise the LAS, coz they don't know what mass the LAS is dragging to safety. and does anyone think that Orion mass will go down?
"Orion's SM engine will push the vehicle from the suborbital trajectory Ares I's upper stage puts it into..."
Critics of the Ares I say the Orion SM making the orbital circularization burn is an indication of the Ares I having marginal capacity. (Though I believe the SM burn has more to do with controlling the reentry point of the CLV upper stage than it has to do with gaining any orbital velocity)
"With this [EELV] option though you have to leave a large chunk of SM propellant behind. That is scary."
I don't believe the Orion spacecraft is too heavy for even the current version of the Delta IV heavy. So I don't believe any Orion SM propellant would be wasted. If anything it is the Ares I which seems to have payload trouble (along with all the other troubles recently reported).
"...does anyone think that Orion mass will go down?"
Well yes I do, since according to the news I've read problems with Ares I has pressured NASA to reduce Orion's mass to fit. I think the last numbers I read had the Orion mass creeping down towards 21,000kg. Which is ironic since the orginal specifications for Orion were larger than neccessary for the lunar mission. (You don't need a 5.5 meter diameter 6-man capsule for a four man lunar mission)
"Until the Orion, EDS/Altair rendezvous altitude is known I am sceptical of EELV capabilities to do the job."
I have never heard of an Earth orbital rendezvous altitude as high as 400 km for the Orion lunar mission, more like half that altitude. I believe an Earth departure burn gains the greatest advantage by burning at the lowest possible perigee due to orbital mechanics. So there is no incentive for a very high rendezvous orbit.
Hi Rob,
A found a couple recent NASA documents on the web. According to them the Orion is down to 20.2 tonnes and the parking orbit starts at 210 km.
I found a ULA document for the current Delta IV heavy which lists a payload exceeding 50,000 lb to a 400 km altitude circular orbit. That is more than enough payload for a lunar CLV mission.
Do you have a web URL for the NASA documents?
http://astronautical.org/files/vonbraun/2008/Von_Braun_Symposium_2008-10-21_2c_Sumrall.pdf
http://mynasa.nasa.gov/pdf/203086main_AresV_ESMD%2520TEC_Nov2007%2520Rev%25201.pdf