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Originally Posted by Ara Pacis
Cheap or expensive, it really isn't important as long as the money is circulating through the wider economy.
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I'm not so sure, Ara, as there's a difference between parasitic "income" and real income. When John grows the corn that feeds Bill's cattle which supplies Frank's steakhouse which feeds John's family... All that money circulating around does little good for the economy as a whole, other than allow for multiple resources to be shared, and paid for, by multiple people. The same economy, in stagnation, would require no additional work. Indeed, they'd be out of work, but instead working for themselves, probably on a farm.
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Originally Posted by Antice
Frankly. All I've seen from direct is a lot of claims made by people who choose to be anonymous. that is not confidence building at it's finest.
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Would you prefer those 62 NASA engineers who're contributing to DIRECT reveal themselves and get fired for not toeing the party line?
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Direct is going to have a lot of the same conversion from paper to real world rocket conversion problems as any other program if it's chosen to replace Ares. That's not pessimism. that's realism.
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Given that DIRECT makes tremendous use of existing technology and tried-and-true components currently in use, while the more expensive option is a total, from-scratch design, that's not realism. That's mere pessimism.
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Whenever you reconfigure the stack you end up having to redesign parts of it to accommodate the new configuration. that costs time and money.
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The majority of the stack remains the same. So not much time or money. Certainly far less than Ares' totally new design.
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And it wastes all the time and money spendt on the previous configuration as most of that work is now invalid.
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Sunk costs are unrecoverable and cannot be included in current cost analyses. That's finance/accounting/industrial engineering 101.
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Funny thing is. None of the alternatives to Ares realy adresses the Real problems, and that is the fact that NASA keeps being pushed around in a new direction every 4 years.
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I'll agree with you on this one - constantly shoving huge sums towards R&D only to suffer drastically cut production runs is a horribly inefficient and expensive way to make progress.
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Do anyone seriously think Direct will survive any longer than Ares has if it ends up replacing Ares?
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Not without a change in NASA's hierarchy as well as the mindsets of those who hold the pursestrings. Then again, those are the same pursestring-holders who've cut the production runs on most military programs in the last twenty years, so...
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give it a year or 2 and some other interest group is going to start spamming the internet with the new "Superior" architecture that should immediately replace direct.
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I doubt it. DIRECT is an underground, but inside (NASA) effort. Besides, it's been around since before the first launch of the Shuttle. I don't think any Internet spammers will shove it aside anytime soon.
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Originally Posted by JonClarke
The refusal of people to put their names to obsensibly major studies certainly does not do much to encourage respect let alone critical review and engagement.
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Again - would you come forward from within the ranks of NASA if it meant loosing your job?
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It is a bit like UFO proponents who claim anonymous sources for their claims. Put up or shut up.
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Given the nature of who's behind DIRECT, that statement is just downright disingenuous, Jon, an apparent attempt (ad-hom) to discredit DIRECT while failing to discuss the details of DIRECT itself.
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No do extravagant claims about "twice the mass on half the budget". That is easy to say and hard to believe when they are using a smaller launcher and haven't put together any hardware.
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I suppose the Shuttle's SRBs, it's main tank, and it's SSME's aren't "any hardware..."
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Or that they can replaces both Ares I and Ares V when their proposed rockets appear either too large or too small for the task.
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What do you mean by "appear?" Are you referring to the way they "appear" to the human eyeball? Or do you have some facts and figures you'd like to use to back up your claims?
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Originally Posted by AtomicDog
At this point, I don't see replacing real hardware with a paper rocket. Maybe a couple of years ago, but not now.
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Those must be those "paper rockets" that have been lifting off the Cape since 1977...
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Maybe I'll change my mind if Ares 1-x is an abject failure.
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After all that additional money has been sunk into Ares, you mean...
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Originally Posted by Dave J
Judging by the enthusiasm on NASA TV for the Aires program...
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Let me see... NASA TV... Showing enthusiasm for their officially-sanctioned Ares program, without providing any coverage of DIRECT....
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Originally Posted by Antice
politics + engineering = epic fail.
Always has and always will.
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Agreed.
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Thing is. even if time wil show that direct would have been a better solution i can tell you with confidence that swapping is still a very very bad idea.
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Disagreed, and as far as the science politics go (allowed as a topic under BAUT rules), given the nation's economy, DIRECT would not only be an easy sell, but it would help restore confidence in the government's frugal spending of funds on known technologies rather than reinventing the wheel with marginally better, but much more expensive new technologies.
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The Ares program is pretty well under way...
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Sunk cost.
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...and Ares was chosen back when both options were nothing more than half formed trade studies. perceived advantages with Ares made it win out back then. and we can spend ages arguing about that choice in retrospect. it's easy being wise after the fact. however. just like in most cases in life. once a choice is made one better stick to it until it's proven to be a detrimental one.
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That's like saying let's not slow down until we actually run into the brick wall we see ahead of us.
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The reason for that is that a suboptimal decision is way better than none.
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So let's move forward with the more optimal solution, instead, and incorporate some of Ares' technology, incrementally.
Best of both worlds.
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...as long as a choice was made at a time when that choice was needed in order to move forward and design something that could work.
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Well, we know DIRECT will work, as all the main components have been flying off the pad since the mid-1970s.
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That is decision making 101 rule number one. when a decision is needed to stay afloat. make one. even if it might be a bad or non optimal one. since in order to avoid disaster you need to keep moving. always.
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Decision-making 102, which supercedes decision-making 101, states: "Never allow the momentum of mistakes made yesterday keep you from making a better decision today."
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Originally Posted by Ara Pacis
Or until a better one comes along. It doesn't have to be "detrimental" to be worth abandoning. Once it becomes a sunk cost, future decisions should be made on present circumstances, not the past. |
Well-said, Ara, and I'll note you said it before me! Nice to hear one's thoughts echoed by another such as yourself.
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Originally Posted by Antice
...if one is to compare costs vs capability that sunk cost should be deducted before a comparison. however most comparisons I've seen are not doing this.
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Exactly. Proper cost analysis discards all sunk costs on both sides, and only examines the costs to be incurred from this time forward for each avenue of approach, as well as the incremental costs of the various combinations.
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Not to mention a rather distinct tendency to understate costs on the alternate options.
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Always a tendancy, and potentially a huge problem.
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In the case of using a separate rocket for crew than for cargo it was a decision made with safety in mind. the decision still seems quite reasonable to me. one rocket that can be maximized for safety while the inanimate stuff goes up on a rocket where a loss is a cost issue rather than a disaster.
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I agree this is a prudent approach, but then have to wonder why we don't just use a man-rated version of the Delta IV.
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Ares I has several safety selling points for the role of a crew only launcher. It's being designed for the safest trajectory, it will have no black zones. it's first stage is a single engine witch means it's initial launch has only a single engine failure point when leaving the pad. besides solids do not explode when they fail. if it faisl in other ways then the LES will be able to pull the capsule away easily enough. that is what it is designed to do after all.
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All of which are available with DIRECT, save the for single engine point of failure (why is this a good thing, when DIRECT can continue with one SSME out?)
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Getting the sorely needed large fairing Heavy lift vehicle needed to go to the moon and beyond otoh. That should be number one.
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DIRECT does this...