Lol. Nice smilie...
Yeah, I found out about the politics yesterday. So I'm not sad anymore------>

"Griffin said critics in the media and on anonymous Internet blogs"

Nothing anonymous about it. It's Keith Cowing. And if you want the context of the images from which Griffin is saying the images are taken out of - you can usually find the full PPT / PDF etc at nasaspaceflight.com

Like I said two years ago ( http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000718/ )

I though it then, I still think it now.

Doug

Probably a bit of both Doug. Can you really expect a big Govt. agency to be completely divorced from the jobs issue?

I found this interesting: I had no idea Imperial units were still used at NASA. I'd thought that the loss of that probe had changed things. Hmm...

To be fair, this was two years ago, it may have changed since - but the whole thing was ft/sec, lb's etc. I was shocked. Not just one presenter, all the presentations that related to the VSE hardware, even clean-sheet-of-paper stuff like specs for what has since become Altair.

AP: NASA may be able to speed up launch of moonship

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Have they settled on feet wet or feet dry yet?

Excellent.

Yes; excellent news...but Moonship?

I hate that. It's a spaceship that is a part of a moon mission but it is not in itself a moon ship, the other rocket is the one that has the capacity to go to the moon. This one will just hitch a ride.

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Not only is the Ares I having problems but so also is Ares V:

Return to SSME - Ares V undergoes evaluation into potential switch.
December 26th, 2008 by David Harris, Chris Bergin
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2008/...ential-switch/

In the "New era in ultra-strong materials imminent: arbitrarily large diamonds..." thread I discuss that among the myriad other ramifications, the development of arbitrarily large sized diamonds might also solve the problem of producing high thrust, low weight engines.


Bob Clark

That's not likely, Bob, as someone else mentioned in that thread, and for a variety of reasons.

RGClark you have been warned before about thread hijacking by another moderator in another thread. So you can have time to familiarise yourself with the rules, I am giving you a day off

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No, that article is not about a problem with the Ares V. It as about a different timeline issue that may be eased by utilizing Ares V changes.

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Well, it did mention a possible plume impingement and base heating problem with the current RS-68 configuration, but that's to be expected with clustered engines. Shuffling around the engine locations may solve it, as might switching from the RS-68 to the SSME. It doesn't look like a major technical problem, just the normal issues that have to be ironed out when designing a new launch vehicle.

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“There’s nothing that spells progress in large, friendly letters like trying to combine two totally incompatible technologies.” – David Szondy, Tales of Future Past.

Exactly. I hope Ares V benefits from Ares I being axed--as seems to be the case now.

Ares V benefiting would seem unlikely. Rather the opposite: once a man-rated Atlas V or Delta IV is flying, upgraded heavy-lift versions of THOSE would be considered vs Ares V.

Ares V was always an expensive launcher, even with the dwindling commonality with Ares I. With potentially NO Ares I, there's NO commonality. Ares V would be a totally unique launcher with a very low flight rate -- once or twice a year on average. That further increases costs.

Upgraded heavy-lift versions of EELVs (e.g, Delta IV Super Heavy) can theoretically launch Saturn V-class payloads. Some would require significant development, but at least they wouldn't be a totally new vehicle like Ares V. See attached chart.

If Ares I is killed, rather than that save Ares V, it may well kill Ares V as well.

Attached Images

Delta4GrowthOpt2.jpg (101.8 KB, 20 views)

If you read the history of the Saturn V rocket, you will see that it had problems early in its gestation. There were combustion instability problems in the F1 engine, and the S-II stage had manufacturing problems.

Internet forum quarterbacking of a launch vehicle development program does nothing to help the contractors in fixing problems that come up. Read the history of the development of the Saturn V and you will see that major engineering challenges do come up in development, and they are usually fixed without fanfare.

I agree. But Ares I will probably be killed. Rocket engineers will be on the outside looking in like in the pre-Griffin days. Great.
My problems with Obama http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2...193/497/697159

The most serious problem for the Ares I appears to be solved:

Ares I Active Damping Unneeded

Dec 18, 2008
By Frank Morring, Jr.
"NASA managers have concluded they don't need an active damping system in the aft skirt of the Ares I first stage to prevent dangerous vibrations from rattling the crew of the Orion crew exploration vehicle on top, and will use a passive system instead.
"Steve Cook, the Ares project manager at Marshall Space Flight Center, said Dec. 17 that a follow-up review held 90 days after preliminary design review in September concluded a passive series of weights and springs, coupled with the spring/ring design originally baselined as an isolator between the first and second stages, should keep thrust oscillation in the system at acceptable levels.."
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/gener...Damp121808.xml

Bob Clark

Delta & Atlas upgrades were considered and costed before the Ares concept was fully fleshed out. The costs and challanges came in higher than the Ares design, but I don't know the details.

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

From what I've read, no one outside of NASA knows the details because they never released the study. There are quite a few engineers who believe Ares I is both unnecessary (R&D is costing billions when EELVs could do the same job) and fundamentally flawed.

The Costs and Challenges of the Ares design have also come out higher than their predictions at the time. Ares 1 very quickly became a bad idea.


Doug

Hate to sound like some hijacking plug, but suppose we went with the DIRECT 2.0 idea instead?
I've read the site on it, as well as NASA's assesment. I don't really see what DIRECT's problems would've been. Might it have been a better way to go after all?

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Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...ce-threat.html

Something new appeared today...

This doesn't surprise me. The Ares concept is flawed. This is a new rocked, an entirely different architecture, not yet tested in flight. Everything can happen. In contrast, we have Ares and Delta that have flown many times without failure.

This doesn't suprise me either, since any project has a risk analysis, and as the design gets perfected, the risks change places on the list.
Something has to be the most risk.
So why is it flawed? Yes; everything can happen, but not having a history compared to things with a history is a bit unfair. Since it is not yet tested and perfected means that there are still things to test and perfect. It's a natural phase of development.
I'm assuming a typo there, and that you mean Atlas.
Do you have some spec's on what it would take to man-rate those rockets?
I don't, and I never get a clear answer on what man-rating a rocket is. I'm sure it is because it is a complex process, and part of it may require a redesign due to loading, vibration, or other factors.
When they man-rated Redstone, there was quite a bit of reconstruction being done.

Besides, since Atlas and Delta were not designed in an open civilian program, we were never able to see the progression of the development of those rockets either. I wouldn't be suprised if they had the same growing pains.

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I'm not saying that these problems can't be solved... But do you really believe that Ares I is the future of human spaceflight?

Because I don't... Is this the best NASA can do after 50 years of active exploration? I refuse to accept it. When I first saw the new concept I thought it was a joke.

I realize that man rating will be dificult. However, we do have the basis here.

That's how it comes across.
No, but I do think it is a necessary step to get out of the current hole that we are in.

I don't connect active exploration with launch technologies. They are related, but it's ground based research that helps use with the problems of atmosphere, gravity and speed.
I do think that we should have more at this time, but why is NASA the only one failing? Aren't other countries trying to go higher, bigger and faster, yet only come up with rocket sticks?

Yes; and we also have to consider an entire program and migration path along with infrastructure and compatibilities between this "taxi" and planned cargo vessels.
I'd like to see a full comparison myself. I've only seen rocket-to-rocket comparisons, but never on a program-to-program basis.

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I have seen some papers according to which people should be able to travel beyond LEO aboard a Delta IV. But I haven't seen a full comparison, too ...

We don't really need a ship to send people beyond LEO.

That's the part of Ares that I like. Design a way to get man to orbit in the most efficient means possible on a single man-rated craft. Send mission specific hardware up on the platform that best suits it (if it's not up there already) without the need for man-rating each platform. I see some long term savings there.

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To start over would be a mistake. X-33, OSP, Boeing bimese scramjets, etc.

All nixed. We fianlly have a simple LV, and people want to backbite that, and then go on to lament the overcomplicated failure that was X-33 (all Skunk, no Works.)

That's the sad aspect of science fiction. It made us think progress amounted to flying cars and winged SSTO rocketships.

So now we want to take wings off an airplane that spends most of its time in atmo--so we can call it a flying car--then place wings on an object that spends most of its time in a vacuum.

Idiocy.