NASA had told Hyperbola its administrator Charles Bolden was not going to be available here in Daejeon, Korea but a bit of persistence goes a long way and over a few minutes after the heads of agency plenary session Bolden gave away some interesting details about his thinking on the future of US human spaceflight policy
What was surprising was the degree to which Bolden had clearly already decided that Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles were not going to be a part of that future. Despite this journalist's prodding about the interest shown in EELVs during the Augustine review Bolden was very clear, they were not man rated and multiple launch scenarios with LEO rendezvous and docking was just a no-no; so this was one former two-star US Marine Corp general this blogger decided it was not worth arguing with
But even before the EELVs were outright rejected Bolden was adamant beyond LEO exploration needed a heavy lift vehicle. One wonders what heavy lift vehicle exactly is being costed by the agency, Bolden was guided away by his minders at this point, but the other elements that Bolden was describing match very closely the Augustine summary report's option two; making the heavy lift vehicle the Ares V lite
And of course this also means propellant depots are unlikely to see the light of day evey 45min either
To date this blog has been expecting a decision on US human spaceflight policy before Christmas so that the new policy could be incorporated into the FY2011 budget. Remember when the FY2010 budget request talked of a second budgetary submission to Congress following the review? But if a decision is months off - well there is universal health care and a new Afgan war strategy to sort out first - then appropriations specifically for this new policy may not appear until FY2012. And what does that mean for the Augustine committee's $2.5 billion commercial crew proposal, or any commercial transportation initiative?
So "Yes we can" now has less immediacy to it and for NASA it's now more of "Yes, in due course"
What was surprising was the degree to which Bolden had clearly already decided that Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles were not going to be a part of that future. Despite this journalist's prodding about the interest shown in EELVs during the Augustine review Bolden was very clear, they were not man rated and multiple launch scenarios with LEO rendezvous and docking was just a no-no; so this was one former two-star US Marine Corp general this blogger decided it was not worth arguing with
But even before the EELVs were outright rejected Bolden was adamant beyond LEO exploration needed a heavy lift vehicle. One wonders what heavy lift vehicle exactly is being costed by the agency, Bolden was guided away by his minders at this point, but the other elements that Bolden was describing match very closely the Augustine summary report's option two; making the heavy lift vehicle the Ares V lite
And of course this also means propellant depots are unlikely to see the light of day evey 45min either
To date this blog has been expecting a decision on US human spaceflight policy before Christmas so that the new policy could be incorporated into the FY2011 budget. Remember when the FY2010 budget request talked of a second budgetary submission to Congress following the review? But if a decision is months off - well there is universal health care and a new Afgan war strategy to sort out first - then appropriations specifically for this new policy may not appear until FY2012. And what does that mean for the Augustine committee's $2.5 billion commercial crew proposal, or any commercial transportation initiative?
So "Yes we can" now has less immediacy to it and for NASA it's now more of "Yes, in due course"
on October 12, 2009 7:03 PM | Reply
The best move is to continue the program of record, show up in 2015 & say look, send more money or lose the space station. There would be more pressure to make something happen when the S**t is hitting the fan than conjecturing about it 6 years earlier.
Fortunately Pojama is so famous for not making decisions or doing much of anything, we probably don't have to fear cancellation of the program of record & starting over at ground 0.
on October 13, 2009 12:17 AM | Reply
Rob, you seem to have left out the EELV heavy lift option.
It could be we are looking at an Atlas V Phase 2
on October 13, 2009 1:02 AM | Reply
In the context of the discussion I concluded that Ares V lite was more likely as other comments Bolden made suggested he was leaning towards the Augustine report's option two that has Ares V lite. To completely dump Constellation I think is politically difficult and while Ares I may get cancelled its first stage development can be used for the Ares V SRBs and the J-2X would be used for Ares V's upper stage so its not a complete waste. The trouble with EELVs is again you are changing a design used for another purpose and Atlas uses Russian engines and I have reason to believe that US rocket engine technology is going to get a boost, pun intended, fairly shortly. There has also been a long lived conspiracy theory about Constellation that a double Ares V launch was always intended and Ares I was simply a way of making progress, with those technologies, with the limited budget until Shuttle was retired at which point there is lots of cash for a new effort. That double Ares V launch could see Orion launched by a version of Ares V whether that is Ares IV or Lite.
on October 13, 2009 1:08 AM | Reply
In the context of the discussion I concluded that Ares V lite was more likely as other comments Bolden made suggested he was leaning towards the Augustine report's option two that has Ares V lite. To completely dump Constellation I think is politically difficult and while Ares I may get cancelled its first stage development can be used for the Ares V SRBs and the J-2X would be used for Ares V's upper stage so its not a complete waste. The trouble with EELVs is again you are changing a design used for another purpose and Atlas uses Russian engines and I have reason to believe that US rocket engine technology is going to get a boost, pun intended, fairly shortly. There has also been a long lived conspiracy theory about Constellation that a double Ares V launch was always intended and Ares I was simply a way of making progress, with those technologies, with the limited budget until Shuttle was retired at which point there is lots of cash for a new effort. That double Ares V launch could see Orion launched by a version of Ares V whether that is Ares IV or Lite.
on October 13, 2009 1:13 AM | Reply
In the context of the discussion I concluded that Ares V lite was more likely as other comments Bolden made suggested he was leaning towards the Augustine report's option two that has Ares V lite. To completely dump Constellation I think is politically difficult and while Ares I may get cancelled its first stage development can be used for the Ares V SRBs and the J-2X would be used for Ares V's upper stage so its not a complete waste. The trouble with EELVs is again you are changing a design used for another purpose and Atlas uses Russian engines and I have reason to believe that US rocket engine technology is going to get a boost, pun intended, fairly shortly. There has also been a long lived conspiracy theory about Constellation that a double Ares V launch was always intended and Ares I was simply a way of making progress, with those technologies, with the limited budget until Shuttle was retired at which point there is lots of cash for a new effort. That double Ares V launch could see Orion launched by a version of Ares V whether that is Ares IV or Lite.
on October 13, 2009 2:32 AM | Reply
Interesting to read this, Rob. I'm enjoying your blogging from Korea. How's the kimchi?
on October 13, 2009 3:17 AM | Reply
Since the SD-HLV (Sidemount shuttle) is called the HLV, it might also suggest that Bolden could favor the Sidemount shuttle concept.
Ares lite is nearly as costly as the Ares 1/V configuration since it still requires the development of the 5 segment rocket booster.
on October 13, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply
Rob
It might help convince me if you actually gave us that context, because right now, its not there, and rather lacking.
on October 13, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply
Well, this development might just increase the chances of Shuttle-derived launch vehicles especially DIRECT but still not to a considerable level.
So, the conclusion is that Ares-1 is here to stay. The exact purpose and design of Ares-5 is still under revision.
on October 13, 2009 8:37 PM | Reply
Tsk, Tsk.
The solution is Ares VI!
The file is in your waste-paper basket Robbie.
For y'all, Ares VI is Ares V with SSMEs instead of RS-68Bs, 2 J-2xs in the second stage and carries both Altair AND ORION at the same time.
One launch not two.
When I'm right, I'm right.
on October 14, 2009 2:47 PM | Reply
Rockets aren't a great way to get off this planet. They aren't real reliable. Here's a chart (http://i30.tinypic.com/2dcfh95.gif) from data NASA collected for their own ESAS study. Here's the data table that goes with it (http://i31.tinypic.com/2463kms.gif). It provides launch failure rate data from 1980 to 2005. As you can see, in that 25 years, rockets pretty much averaged the same reliability. It didn't matter how they were configured, if they were side mount, top mount, had solid boosters or liquids, they're all about the same. To the degree that the data tells us anything after 25 years and thousands of launches of vehicles made by many companies and many countries, they're all about the same.
We can waste billions of dollars on speculation about how the stick with it's completely untested escape system can provide some negligible safety benefit. We can yammer endlessly about the benefits of "man rating". The bottom line is, there's no data. There's no model. There's nothing to base those arguments on. You want data, look at the table I gave you. Look at the chart. That's the reality. One 9 of reliability. That's all you get. 25 years of data. Thousands of launches. That's reality. The rest is crap.
Now are we going to get in the game or not?
on October 15, 2009 7:59 AM | Reply
.
NO Ares-1
NO Ares-5
NO Direct
NO Shuttle-C
NO commercial rockets
NO orbital refuel
NO old.space EELVs
NO SRB-5 (probably)
it seems the NASA chief is following my suggestions for the HSF Committee:
http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/045suggestions.html
.