Which Way Do We Go?

Augustine Report considers Direct the primary candidate for a Shuttle-Derived variant...

....As also discussed in Section 5.2, the primary candidate for
consideration from the more directly Shuttle-derived
family is the in-line variant..... To the less-trained eye, such
a vehicle would look much like an Ares V. In fact, at the
end of the ESAS study in 2005, the candidate for the CaLV
(Cargo Launch Vehicle) was exactly the Shuttle-derived
variant just described. In the four years since ESAS, the
design has evolved into the Ares V known today. Thus, the
considerations for this choice of a more directly Shuttle-
derived vehicle vs. Ares V more or less exactly play out the
trade studies conducted by NASA in the last four years.....

This may be why Bolden is ordering the Marshall study regarding Shuttle derived vehicles...

personally, I really dislike the side mount system... not good for a shuttle... not good for Orion CEV..

"personally, I really dislike the side mount system... not good for a shuttle... not good for Orion CEV.."

I couldn't agree with you more. Foam shedding has never been completely corrected and probably never will be. Don't strap humans to a gas tank!

I witnessed the press conference this afternoon, it was pretty awful. The Chairman of the committee intimated that the additional $3 billion they asked for was intimated by the White House to be unlikely. That's depressing. Especially when you consider we really need more like $5-6 billion per year more if you really want to close the gap, extending ISS, build up really capable vehicles, do critically important research and development, and really do some exploration worth talking about.

I know I'm going to get beat up for this, but I ask this again, does anybody want to spend a year in a tuna can soaking up cosmic radiation to do a flyby of Mars? I mean what are they going to discover in a flyby, that the MRO isn't doing now? I agree are you that the Lagrangian points will be critical to the development of a deep space infrastructure, but has exciting destinations they are not. As things look the committee things we could visit those points in the early 20s.

Once again I have noticed that the commission doesn't really have a problem with the Constellation architecture per se. They believe the system to be doable and safe if given the funding initially projected. Politicians on both sides of the asile have been equally feckless over the past 3 decades of neglect in what I believe is an important program for this country's future. To paraphrase the Chairman, in a country with a $3.8 trillion dollar budget and extra $3 billion is a rounding error.

By way of comparison, and with no politics intended, the administration is about to send a $250 check to every person receiving Social Security. George Will calls this a consolation check for not getting a COLA increase. The cost of living actually dropped about 4% this year, so no COLA indicated. Somebody in the Puzzle Palace just said, "make it so". With 57 million people receiving checks, that's $14.25 billion right there in one gulp. I can see why they just can't come up with the 3 billion, can't you. Res Ipsa Loquitur.

An additional $5-6 billion only gets you Ares plus ISS, not the rest of what we need. The absolute most NASA might get is $3 billion, so the real choice is between Ares and ISS. Commercial launchers are so much less expensive than the R&D plus O&M for NASA to have its own private family of launchers that the commercial option does really figure in the trade. So what's it going to be, ISS, for which there is no replacement, or a NASA sandbox that can be replaced by rockets that already exist and have a near perfect record?

What the defenders of business as usual don't want to face is that without commercial development of space, starting with competitive commercial launchers, this is the end of the line for NASA. If NASA gets its sandbox, the ISS comes down in 5 years and a Moon landing, if any, probably won't happen before 2030.

At that point, no foreign partner should trust NASA again, and neither should any taxpayer.

I looked through the summary, and the Committee gives the highest scores to the flexible option. The program of record scores worst. I also got the impression that they prefer Ares V Lite over shuttle derived launchers and EELVs. However, momentum seems to be building for the shuttle derived option.

Regarding Shuttle extension, I noticed that the Committee says on p. 49 that NASA has already "recertified much of the Shuttle system." Also, they say that "Space Shuttle program managers believe the program is meeting the intent of the CAIB's recommendation [to recertify]." Instead of a new, full recertification process, they Committee only "suggests that an independent review of the Shuttle recertification process be undertaken if a decision is made to add flights to the current manifest." This is in contradiction to those who demand a full recertification process, which would cost a lot and add delays. However, I'm highly doubtful that there will be any Shuttle extensions. I used to think it likely, but the more time goes by without a decision on extension, the less likely extension is.

One interesting thing in the report is that Option 1, the program of record with no new money, has the Ares I+Orion flying LEO missions indefinitely, with no place to go. If people have griped about Shuttles in the days before ISS and Shuttle-Mir going in circles for no reason, imagine how much worse it would be to send Orions on endless LEO missions. If the Russians could independently operate their ISS segment after detaching it, perhaps Orions could go there.

I don't think any significant amounts of new money are going to be allocated. There might be a little more, but not much. At the end of the report is talk about structural changes to NASA, so it's quite possible that the strategy will be to try to free up some money to fund exploration by making some of those changes. Also, international partners will be asked to contribute as well. The hope would be that the combination of cost savings and international participation would be enough to close the funding gap for a viable exploration program.

Complicating all this will be political battles in Congress. Any changes will be fiercely resisted, of course. While the report is highly unfavorable for opponents of change, they do have the advantage of time. As of right now, NASA has no alternative plan. Bolden can only "hope" to meet with the President "before the end of the year." The time lag before the administration formulates its new plan gives opponents of change time to attack the report and bolster their position.

It's an interesting report. There's sure to be plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth in the coming months as NASA's future gets hashed out.

I attended the same press conference and heard NOTHING from Norm Augustine suggesting that the requested additional funds would not be made available by the WH.
Nobody except the WH knows what will be requested in FY11 et al.
Please don't color the truth by personal biases.

While I agree that the inline, aka Direct, seems simpler and cleaner I disagree with the argument that foam shedding is the issue with a sidemount. To date, the only impact that I know of is that the foam shedding can damage the reentry heat shield of the Shuttle. Since even with a sidemount the Orion would have the heat shield protected the foam shedding would have no impact on the safety of an Orion.

Does anyone know that the fixed costs of the ISS and Ares are? The report does mention the fixed cost of the Shuttle.

I'm curious to know what the true savings in NASA's yearly budget would be if Ares, ISS, and Shuttle were scrapped without any reduction in civilian employees or infrastructure. Maybe that number is in the report and I missed it. If it is, please direct me to it. Thanks.

@ martin:

You can find NASA budget documents at:

http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/index.html

The Space Shuttle Program is part of Space Operations. Budgets run around $3 billion per year. The Augustine Report talks about Shuttle costs on page 50 (PDF page 51). It says that it is wrong to think that the end of the Shuttle Program will free up $3 billion per year, because a lot of that $3 billion covers the costs of facilities that will be retained. They cite fixed costs as being $1.5 billion per year, with about $400 million of those costs not yet reflected in future Constellation budgets. The report concludes that the end of the Space Shuttle Program will free up about $1.6 billion.

The ISS is part of Space Operations too. Budgets are $1.7 billion for 2008, $2.1 billion for 2009, $2.3 billion for 2010, $2.5 billion for 2011, $2.7 billion for 2012, $2.6 billion for 2013, and $2.4 billion for 2014. Page 86 of the Augustine Report says extension to 2020 will cost an extra $14 billion, which is consistent with budget figures. Page 54 of the Report cites a figure of at least $2 billion for deorbiting the ISS

Constellation is in Exploration Systems. Augustine page 90 cites a figure of $5 to $6 billion to finish Ares I, if all common costs are allocated to Ares V. Recurring costs would be about $1 billion per flight for Ares I.

The actual budget has, for Constellation, $2.7 billion in 2008, $3.4 billion in 2009, $3.5 billion in 2010, $5.5 billion in 2011 and 2012, $5.4 billion in 2013, and $5.6 billion in 2014. Using 2012 as an example, the budget has $1.4 billion for Program Integration and Ops, $2.1 billion for Orion, $2.0 billion for Ares I, and only $25 million for Ares V. None of the future budgets shows anything over $25 million for Ares V, with 2009 being the high point at $30 million. The development phase for Ares V would supposedly start in 2013, but the money for that doesn't seem to be there at this time.

I hope this helps. I would have liked to have seen more cost figures in the Report. An appendix with some tables would have helped.

Mr Seitzen you are correct. I checked my tape of the event and it was in the correspondent's preamble to his question, and not in the Chairman's answer. I stand corrected. I still believe it's a dismal situation though.

@martin:

You might also want to check the "Affordability Analysis" PowerPoint.

There are a lot of additional documents at:

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/hsf/related_docments/index.html