It's an interesting concept. I read on UniverseToday (link also contains a youtube video of the concept) that he has now presented his idea to the Augustine Commission, stating that the overall cost would be ~$6b instead of the planned $35b for Constellation.

For those that haven't already heard of the concept and don't want to/can't watch youtube, the program would use the existing STS launch system, but instead of a shuttle, they would have a cargo container strapped to the side of the ET and connected to the three Shuttle Main Engines. Once in orbit, the contents of the cargo vehicle are separated from the launch vehicle (for the lunar missions, the contents are a self contained 2nd stage), which falls back to Earth along with the ET.

I don't imagine the SSME's survive reentry. Aren't those incredibly expensive to just drop back through the atmosphere?

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"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

Yes, but there's a precedence - recall the throw-away stages from the Saturn V stack which disposed of 11 engines in total (excluding one on the Apollo Command Service Module and and two on the Lunar Module):
5 F1s - Stage 1
5 J2s - Stage 2
1 J2 - Stage 3 (a.k.a. SIVB)

So a lunar mission in the proposed scenario would dispose of three SSMEs on each stack and a J2 (assumed) on the cargo or Ares stack for a total of eight engines per lunar mission.

Given that the SSMEs on the shuttle are essentially rebuilt after each mission, that cost would be traded for the cost of building more engines. Maybe enough to start to see some economies of scale but I don't have the figures to argue one way or another.

On a side note, apparently even NASA engineers can't resist having rockets make sounds in space...

Well; you (and UT) is a couple of days late. We've already had some discussion on that plan buried here. Although; maybe a new topic is reasonable considering that thread is about Delta.

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6b to develop the new "second stage" for the existing shuttle stack sounds way to cheap tbh. but that might just be me.
in a straigh comparison one also has to remember that the constelation figures are for 2 interdependant launchers.
this is a big step back in capability compared to ares I/V and the 1,5 launch lunar architecture.

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And apparently the new configuration would only accommodate a crew of two on a lunar mission.

The new stack also doesn't specifically address Mars mission launch and lift needs, which Ares V is supposed to include, although I suppose we can infer multiple launches to put the pieces into LEO and assemble on orbit using this new configuration.

That's a good point, I hadn't thought of that. It makes me wonder what the actual launch cost will be for each mission if they proceed with this stack. They're actually scrapping quite a bit of material with each launch (the ET, the engines, the cargo shell, the entire "2nd stage"), and the fact that each moon-shot would require two full systems with only the SRB's reusable (is the Orion reuseable?). I know the Saturn shed a lot of material as well, but the political climate back then was, in the early Apollo days, much different.

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

Yea that one I didn't, is the weight to get a third astronaut on board that much higher?

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

Apparently the weight of additional astronauts - plus consumables, life support, etc. - is enough to force the crew size reduction. But I'm basing that on the short UT story. I'd like to see the original study.

The Orion capsule is being designed as a reusable craft but how many missions NASA will actually get out of each one is probably unknown until development is further along.

Shuttle C was traded for in the original ESAS. it's still available on the nasa website if you want to compare the mission profiles they used for the trades.

for the lazy ones. you can find it here

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So if I go find it myself even though you already provided the link, does that make me less lazy?

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

that would be wasting time. smart people usually are lazy as well so it's not meant as an insult. who else would invent the washing machine hey? or the dishwasher? some of humanity's best inventions are invented by people who just don't want to spend more effort than needed.

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that would be wasting time. smart people usually are lazy as well so it's not meant as an insult. who else would invent the washing machine hey? or the dishwasher? some of humanity's best inventions are invented by people who just don't want to spend more effort than needed.

Larry's Second Law states that "Laziness is the foundation of efficiency. Give a job to a lazy man and he'll find the easiest way to get the job done right the first time. Anything else is more work."

The Corrolary is: An action transferred is an action completed.

Only two astronauts? I may know almost nothing about rocket design, but I can't get behind this.

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The figures I've seen is that each Orion is good for 10 missions. Note that there are three designs for the Orion capsule. Block I design is strictly for LEO, Block II is for lunar missions, and Block III is for Mars missions.

If we can only send two people to the Moon, then you can, without a doubt, scrap a manned mission to Mars (by the US). And since a Moon shot requires a Block II capsule (which apparently isn't in development yet, the focus being on Block I at the moment), and it would deliver only two astronauts to the Moon, I think that we can write off any manned lunar missions by the US as well, if this is adopted.

The one potential upside to this design (and I will lay money that if NASA goes with this design we'll not see this feature at all), is that you could park the ET into orbit, for later use as "something." It is currently possible to do this with the shuttle, and a group had asked NASA to do that, so that they (the group) could later convert those tanks into an orbiting hotel for very little money. NASA, for whatever reason, denied the request.

There are a number of advantages to using "disposable" hardware. One of which is that you can keep modifying the design during the program life, like NASA did with the Apollo hardware, and you're not stuck with a grounded fleet, while you make changes, as was the case with the shuttle program. (There are exceptions to this, of course. If a catastrophic accident happened during one of the missions, you'd want to keep everything on the ground while you implemented changes to prevent the accident from happening again.) Another benefit (and one that's not really been used) is that you can "chuck" some of the components where they might have a later use. NASA send one of the upper stages on the Apollo missions on a collision course with the Moon. The impact of it was measured by seismometers which had been previously placed there, and gave us information about the Moon's composition. Sending every discarded booster, tank, etc. to the Moon (or at least LEO, if it couldn't reach the Moon) would allow colonists access to already refined materials while they were on the Moon.

So rather than having to mine ore and convert it into a useful material, they could cannibalize the crashed booster for those materials and use that in the construction of their colony. You'd also have access to materials which would be difficult, if not impossible to manufacture on the Moon without an extremely large (and expensive) colony. For example, I don't think that any lunar colonists in the early days would have the capability of manufacturing insulation for cryogenic tanks, but if they could simply strip it from the crashed section of a booster, then they'd have it available for a variety of uses. (One wouldn't have to panic if an existing cryogenic's tank insulation somehow got damaged and failed, since you could patch it with that you stripped from the crashed booster.)

Admittedly, you'd have to make sure that the boosters smacked down someplace where nobody was going to be, but that's not insanely difficult to do.

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They can be fitted with a reentry shield and shroud, as well as with JPADS recovery technology.

We've discussed this before. The blame is not to be put on NASA. NASA from their side only asks that the required changes to the ET do not get in the way of vehicle performance or launch schedule.

But there are other regulations. End of life stuff and the like. If said group doesn't have a way (other than vapourware) to connect to the ET's, make them controllable soon after launch (which is needed, or they'd soon make an uncontrolled reentry to who knows where) and at end of life disposable in a decent way, there is no authority that would allow this.

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