That was a great speech by Griffin. He should send a copy to the Obama transition team.

He answers a lot of the arm-chair QBs/bloggers critisms concerning alternate rockets.

One interesting point that he discusses is that using two Ares V would be an option when necessary (although 32% more expensive). However Ares I would still be necessary for the ISS until (and if) commercial lauchers are ready and also for the moon.

I think that summed it all up pretty clearly. Long, but clear.

I was about to say "COTS-D" in response to YG, but Griffin is right about some other things:

1) We ought to let the commercial companies actually try to deliver on the COTS and the contracts they've been awarded before we make the assumption that such a thing will actually work.

A lot of aerospace projects ARE canned, and COTS competitor Orbital's own pegasus is a fine example. It was basically like an air-launched Falcon 1; a small payload, 7 million dollar rocket. (Same price!)

And then reality hit pretty hard and it ballooned and now people boggle over Orbital winning the COTS contract as they're one of the most expensive vendors...

Everyone is wooed by SpaceX's _promise_ of cheap rockets, and while I don't see any reason to not take them seriously, obviously the Orbital team felt pretty confident too.

We should see how this goes.

2) The whole idea of commercial vendors is they're doing their own development and getting the money. COTS-D shouldn't be _necessary_ for the companies, even if it's an extra push.

Case in point, SpaceX is moving ahead building a man-rated capsule (even if it won't fly people yet) and fully intends to fly a crew in it. With or without COTS-D, and Musk has also said, with or without the ISS contract, and with or without COTS. The first one.

NASA does have limited money and for every person who says they should dump X and pay for COTS-D, there's another who says they should dump it altogether and a telescope - or dump the telescope for a new probe.

What would the popular opinion of NASA and Griffin be if Bush had actually stepped up with the money to do what he proposed? Bush tried to buy a piece of JFK's legacy for his trophy wall but he didn't bring enough cash, and now the whole deal is jacked up. They haven't mentioned it in a million years, and the press just calls it "NASA's plan to return to the moon." Thanks, George.

Not to be disagreeable or anything, but the assertion we get Ares I for $2.7bln is only true if we definitely get Ares V at the same time. The real problem isn't the Shuttle/Ares I gap, which we can live with, it's the Ares I/Ares V gap. Why? Because it means whoever is elected in 2016 can say, "No, we can't afford Ares V for an additional $15bln," and then what he have is Ares I for $15bln, not $2.7bln. Constellation mistake one was deferring the new launch system to the Bush administration's successor. Mistake two is breaking that system into two components, the second of which was not to fly until seven election cycles down the road. The only way this is going to work, at this late date, is if Ares I and Ares V are developed in tandem, with I flying in 2014 and V flying in 2016. Not holding my breath.

Beyond the costs involved, our probabilistic risk assessment for loss of crew on Ares 1 showed it to be twice as safe - I repeat, twice as safe - as a human-rated EELV-derived vehicle.

Ok, first of all, what an idiot. How do you establish Ares 1 is "twice as reliable" with data that at best gives you a 50% confidence interval? Real reliability engineers don't waste their time with "twice as reliable". If one design isn't at least an order of magnitude better then they're the same. They're within the confidence interval and therefore no conclusions can be made about one being better than another by a COMPETENT engineer, one who knows something about statistics and how they are properly applied.

There is no pride of authorship for good ideas, nor any not-invented-here attitude at NASA.

Did anyone else catch the obvious conflict in this sentence? "No pride of authorship for good ideas." Who decided they were "good", Mike, you? Kind of a qualitative measurement, "good", isn't it? But you aren't like the rest of us mere human engineers. You don't have any "pride in authorship"? I'm guessing that's pretty easy to believe when no one dares question what you've done or why.

William Barton wrote:
"Not to be disagreeable or anything, but the assertion we get Ares I for $2.7bln is only true if we definitely get Ares V at the same time."

As much as possible IS being built at the same time - that being the J2X engine and the SRM modifications (there isn't much else TO Ares I). That is sort of the point.

Two strategic approaches that I can see:

1. come up with an architecture (quite moldy actually architecture from his Planetary Society paper many moons ago), and then complain constantly that the politicians are not giving you enough money. That is Dr. Griffin approach -- the Ares boondoggle. The constant "give NASA more money and it'll be fine" refrain.

2. assume a current (+inflation adjustments) budget and adopt a sustainable architecture that fits the realistic budget, especially in this tight budgetary evnironmnet. And 'jump starts' a self-sustaining (partially at first) private space exploration economy.

I'm with the second option, and whoever leads NASA next can not only survive but also flourish whing these budgetary constraints would outclass even Mr. Webb as the best admin ever. Dr. Griffin wasn't it.

East bound and down, loaded up and trucking,
We're gonna do what they say can't be done.
We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there.
I'm east bound, just watch ol Bandit run.

That would have been a much better speech. Short, to the point, and with a cool Southern twang.

To answer Dfens “twice as relievable” misunderstanding there was a report that showed the Loss of Mission and Loss of Crew data. I don’t have the exact name of the report, but it was the study of why they picked the Ares system.

On page 681 section 12.9.2 of the report, it shows the data of a CLV with Atlas, Delta, and Aries.

Atlas had a LOM at 1 in 149, and a LOC at 1 in 957
Delta had a LOM at 1 in 172, and a LOC at 1 in 1,100
Ares I had a LOM at 1 in 433, and LOC at 1 in 1,918 (data with 1 J-2s and 5 RSRB. With the 1 SSME and 4 segment RSRB had even higher odds and that is why they chose that at first)

That looks like data that is “twice as reliable” to me.

I found a link to the report if you are interested in why the Ares was chosen.

I referenced the page in section 12

http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/esmd/news/ESAS_report.html

Jerr,

Atlas, and Delta are operational (and have been for some time) rocket systems (not "rockets", btw, each is a *system*
comprised of ground, processing and launch operations)

Ares 1 is still as real as a drawing on a napkin (and please don't bring up that fake 'test' Ares-X, it's 80% a dummy from the upper stage to the avionics)

One cannot possibly list Ares-1 and Atlas, Delta in the same breath.

"Ares I" "HAD a LOM" is an abuse of the English language. Ares I has no existance to have "HAD a LOM"

I was quoting a report that was in the past. The report in the past "had" that data.

The Delta and Atlas systems are not real because there is no CLV version of either. The data is for possible CLV versions of each system.

I am no English major, and I am not a rocket scientist. I just waned to point out where the “twice as reliable” data can be found.

NASA can't even send a competent shill to spread their crap? Let's see, Jerr, would that be the same document that shows a .9978 probability that the SSME will air start? Even a few months later that was a laugh when they abandoned the SSME as an upper stage engine because they couldn't air start it. Oh, and by the way, when Griffin says "safety", that means Loss of Crew (LOC for those of you who like acronyms) not Loss of Mission (LOM).

Of course, if you go to page 582 in the Risk and Reliability volume, you can see that not only was Griffin lying, but also that he knew he was lying. I've added 3 lines to the chart on that page, a red line at the top of the 50% interval, a yellow line at the top of the 75% interval, and a magenta line at the top of the 95% interval for the "man rated" EELV (far left).

As you can see following the magenta line, even the great Mike Griffin cannot say with 95% confidence that there's any difference between any of the configurations analyzed. No real scientist draws any conclusions on data with less than 95% confidence. In fact, he cannot say with 75% confidence (yellow line) that there's a significant difference between the safety of configuration 2 ("man rated" EELV) and 16 (Griffin's current baseline, more or less). In fact, he can't even say with 50% confidence that there's any difference between configurations 2, 4, 9, and 15.

Of course, maybe he wasn't lying. Maybe he's just incompetent. That makes it all better, doesn't it? The guy running NASA is incompetent. Gee, I know that gives me a warm feeling all over.

Defns,
You really need to have a personal attack in your first sentence? I was just talking about the data in the report, and I did mention the LOC data and how the SSME was changed.

I am a firm believer in the saying "liars always figure and figures always lie", but I was just pointing to data that Griffin was talking about in case an objective person wanted to look at it.

If you disagree with the data that is fine, but I don’t think any points can be made when you start out with baseless personal attacks.

RocketScientist:
Who cares if the upper stage is a dummy stage? Everyone is saying Ares is too tall and uncontrollable, it will drift into the tower, etc...

So, if you launch an exact replica in height, weight, shape and it flies ok then it won't matter if the upper part of the rocket held the orion or just a bunch of metal that weighed the same as orion!

That's not data in the report, it's analysis. Data would be the number of launches, the number that were successful, the number that failed, the number that killed crew. The fact of the matter is, NASA didn't have any of that kind of data for the very reasons RocketScientist cited earlier. They had to come up with the analysis they did based on data from the subcomponents or parts they do have data on.

Frankly I don't believe this analysis since rarely is confidence interval data available for parts or subcomponents. Most likely this was a result of some bastardized data from launches of existing or past rockets. I noticed no one signed their names to any of the crap spread in those reports. I doubt the Aries will be much safer than the shuttle (1 in 75 kills astronauts).

Smaller heat sheild is good. No carbon-carbon composites is good. An escape system is good. None of those would likely have any effect on the analysis results, though, because there's just not any data to hang that analysis on.

Ares 1 and Ares 5 have many differences in such key elements as the upper stage ( different diameters )
Instrument Unit ( different diameters ), booster rocket elements ( different number of segments )etc that indicate a lack of commonality and resulting increases in such key factors as test, qualification and operational costs. The Saturn 1B and Saturn 5 systems had a common third stage and instruement and were mutually supportive in many areas. They could both carry the same basic payload ( Apollo Command and Service Module).

In regard to the Orbital Science Pegasus, its promise for lowering costs to LEO suceeded in killing the Scout, which had several decades of successful operations. After the Scout was discontinued, the cost for Pegasus went up rapidly becomoing almost twice the cost for Scout.

Beware of bad resigns and unreal promises. Do not get rid of what works until the promised replacement has proven its nettle.

The bottom line is, Griffin is either a liar or incompetent. Funny that even though he was caught red handed no one seems to give a damn. Must be nice to be the head of NASA.