Acts of Desperation

Forgive me if I sound like I'm defending ATK, I am not. I think it's a sign of desperation, the apparent plan of attack the company has embarked upon. However, what recourse do they have? Nobody is listening to their actual technical and business arguments in favor of Constellation. As soon as ATK (and others) speak positively of the program, they are viciously, and insultingly, derided as somehow anti-American, anti-space and anti-progress, concerned only about their own bottom line. They can't get a fair hearing, nevermind the fact that the only thing a BUSINESS should be concerned about is its own bottom line ANYWAY. So, since nobody cares what they have to say, what choice do they have except to play dirty covert games? The RSRM is so vital to the company's profitability and sheer viability that losing it is going to be nothing short of devastating. The ATK Board, Officers and employees have a dire responsibility to themselves, the employees and the shareholders of the company to do what they can to keep the company healthy. It's a prime responsibility. It would be irresponsible to the company... and the shareholders such as little old ladies with their retirement funds invested in ATK... if they simply went away quietly and let Constellation and the RSRM to be killed off. If an officer of a company that I was invested in did something like that, I would immediately file a complaint with the SEC AND file a lawsuit against them.

I doubt most people reading this will have thought of that perspective, since it's not a "space-related" argument. But it IS reality in the private sector world.

That much said, ATK needs to be careful how far they take it. It's fine to be opposed to a government official. Heck, it's the American Way. But how they go about their "attacks" needs to be carefully, and gingerly, orchestrated. Blatant (albeit covert) blindsides and attacks out of left field are not a good tactic, and most definitely not ethical. Honest questioning and honest accusations are fine.

"It is openly known here in Washington that ATK has been overtly encouraging anti-NASA gossip and has been trash talking the White House, Charlie Bolden, and Lori Garver - especially Lori Garver. How ATK management can possibly expect this thinly disguised attack behavior to be good for business escapes me. Indeed, it sounds more like sheer desperation on their part."

Keith, if there is proof in your accusation, please post them. It seems to me there is are so many accusation happening and finger pointing.

In addition, Robert Block has always been an opponent of constellation and the "approved" terrible journalism happening aat the Orlando Sentinel in regards to our space program needs to cease. ATK just happens to be a significant prime "commercial" contractor and using a personal letter to trash him or accuse him is not professional in any circle. What Block's beef is with ATK, I don't know but, this isn't the first time he's tried to slander them.

Editor's note: your IP 76.8.201.180 tracks to Orem, Utah. Gee, I wonder where YOU work? As for Block's work, I have yet to find an error. He reports things as they are. If it looks bad for you and ATK then perhaps you should look in the mirror. And ... unlike you - he and I use our real names when we post things in public.

Folks:

Whiner!

But wait, maybe Charlie Precourt and ATK knows something we don't. There was mentioned in the budget that research dollars were going to be spent on "large hydrocarbon engines". Like maybe the rebirth of the F1 or redeployment of the RD-170.

That would drop ATK right out of the picture.

A "fly-back" first stage would greatly reduce the cost of a flying a heavy lifter. A fly-back F1 was considered for the Shuttle Program but was killed by committee. With five decades of space engineering under their belts you'd think NASA could design the equivalent of the fly-back F1 that was lighter, stronger and more powerful. Oh, and safer too. Never did like the idea of lighting a solid booster under an astronaut.

tinker

Thanks for bringing that photo up Keith: actually worse than the one I saw. Basically the Bird ain't gonna fly! At least NOT with men on board. If the escape tower had fired at this point the Orion Spacecraft would be heading downward and probably have it's heatshield inadvertently tested by the SRB efflux as it barged past!
It basically shows that the ATK techno-boondoggle slavishly brought on board by Griffin/Horowitz was meant to make money and never mind actually working. As the latest Constellation cancellation billions prove they're going to make their money whether NASA succeeds or not. In fact it would not surprise me if in the last analysis, they made more money for failing! Good riddance. As for Garver: easy to attack a woman isn't it, even in this PC world. Bad fess to ATK: sorry, I mean Morton Thiokol, who, together with NASA top brass killed seven fine Astronauts...

@ Krispace

"If the escape tower had fired at this point the Orion Spacecraft would be heading downward and probably have it's heatshield inadvertently tested by the SRB efflux as it barged past!"

NASA confirmed that this was one of the flight trajectory possibilities of their Monte Carlo simulation. Test Flight... Not real flight.

"who, together with NASA top brass killed seven fine Astronauts..."

The SRB did not explode, in fact both boosters were intact after the explosion as shown in the video. The joint o-ring seal failed, yes (flown out of its known limitations), but the explosion started at the ET. If the seal had given way, directed away from ET, everything would have been likely fine but, we'll never know.

That photo just makes me want to go crack open a canister of Pillsbury dinner rolls and pig out. I read that farce cost basically the same amount as shuttle launch would. I personally feel cheated as tax payer. But that seems steep for what basically was a STS SRB with a wood mock up upper stage. As far as the Challenger accident. I was down there, it was my second launch in person. I skipped school and went down with my older brother and his girlfriend. It might be easy for people to break it down like every tragedy we have to " get to the bottom " of what happened. Those who had to people did. For me living in Florida it was much more personal and really hit home. I live right up the road and never miss a launch even if I cant be at the cape I watch from my back yard. Like Apollo 1 before it there was an investigation the reasons were found and men still into space.I was devastated by this accident and I couldn't look away I just stared at the sky hoping it wasn't true.The For a time I couldn't look at the sky anymore. But my love of space exploration has never wavered even when there are those people who said whats the point? Because we have to. that's the point.

I'll defend the work that the SRBs have done to the hilt, they're amazing. While Russia ran away with the lead in liquid technology for a couple decades, we're catching them back. In solids, though, nobody even comes close to US technology (see the unhappy history of the Bulava missile).

But the SRBs are ALSO a huge pain in the ass. They cost too much, weigh too much, have too many handling problems, and do a great job of making the pads a nightmare to clean up & repair after EVERY launch. At some point, they're going away. ATK can either find a new technology to embrace for the space program, stick with smaller commerical strap-ons, or re-double their DoD efforts.

Not like Garver ever attacked anyone for her personal gain? for political reasons and her career?

LOL

I've read right here on NASA Watch interesting things during the Kerry campaign. How she openly lied about what the Bush administrations plans were for shuttle. Perhaps that was an act of desperation. This is where I learned what made her tick and why she should not be working at NASA.

Kerry Campaign Representative Spreading False Shuttle Rumors
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2004/10/kerry-campaign-representative-spreading-false-shuttle-rumors.html

"What is troubling about Ms. Garver's behavior is that she is circulating information that is untrue - and she has been told as much. Is this what we can expect from NASA in a Kerry Administration? Scary thought.

The best thing Lori Garver could do right now for space exploration would be to sit down and shut up."

Editor's note: there were indeed people - like Paul Shawcross at OMB - who were trying to limit or outright kill the shuttle program at the time that this posting was put online and they had their supporters inside NASA. Alas, this was not the official position of NASA which soon became clear. She was accurate in repeating what she was told - it's just that it wasn't what the agency was planning to do. As such it would have been better if she had not repeated what she had told.

Interesting that Charlie is such a supporter of the Orion Ares concept. Before he left NASA, he was the number 1 supporter of winged/fly back carriers as a follow on to Shuttle.

So long as everyone is pulling in different directions, all fighting to the death for their own narrow commercial, political or philosophical self-interest, HSF will stagnate. ATK needs to learn that, if it fights for 'all or nothing', it will get nothing, especially as it is only one of several aerospace lobbying groups fighting for a lion's share of the pie. Congress will likely simply take their toys away, annoyed at the contradictory accusations and counter-charges.

Until everyone is satisfied with getting just one small part of a larger whole, there will just be loud, bitter and frequently slanderous arguments and no progress. If, for example. ATK were satisified with, say, the just building RSRMs for a D-SDLV, if the commercial lobby were satisfied with just LEO cargo and crew to the ISS, and if NASA's centres were all willing to put the program as a whole first rather than their little parochial pet projects, then they could all haul together and allow for the emergence of a more balanced program.

I have to say there's plenty of bad accusations floating around and the real issue should be with transparency when it comes to our political appointees. I've read an awful lot of accusations about Lori Garver and her ties to "new space" companies. I give them credence only because they seem to check out. She did accept money from someone to train to fly on a Soyuz with Space Adventures, even taking on the nickname "space mom". She ran a consulting group in DC that pushed the agenda of new space companies, some of which are now in bankruptcy (e.g. Sea Launch). I have not read any article that explains these potential conflicts of interest but it seems a worthy question to ask.

That said, this is nothing new. We only need to go back to the prior administration and follow the exploits of Scott "Doc" Horowitz. As an astronaut, he came up with the "scotty rocket" which consisted of a solid rocket motor first stage and a hydrogen second stage used to launch a capsule. He left the astronaut corps and joined ATK as a Vice President to further promote his vision. Then he went to NASA HQ as the associate administrator for exploration systems and promptly went about procuring the Ares I (aka Scotty Rocket). After procurement he "retired" and became a consultant to both NASA and ATK. Good work if you can get it.

As an architecture-agnostic exploration supporter it pains me to see the press doesn't really talk about things like this. While making unsubstantiated claims about people is wrong, the internet sure makes it easy to look for the potential credibility of these claims. It would take actual investigative reporting to shed some more light on these circumstantial data points that give rise to theories. Without this, it only leaves us outsiders to wonder what's going on. What I do know is that most Americans don't like Washington's insider politics and would feel much better if our tax-funded agencies were run by professionals who were both technically savvy and politically capable. I don't get the feeling NASA's had that for some time. I think the lack of sustained progress proves this point.

ATK has no recourse, but dirty tactics? Why don't they finish Ares I by themselves and sell it to NASA? Why won't LockMart finish Orion by themselves? The reason is they have no desire to lose their cost-plus contracts. If either of these companies were concerned about space, they would market the rocket and the spacecraft. I guess maybe they don't have enough confidence in their own products?

They certainly arent alone in pushing a conspiracy minded view of the new policy. It's always easier t avoid discussing something on the merits and reduce it to the level of nefarious personalities (e.g., attacks on Al Gore and GW, personal attacks on Darwin, etc).

Rather than just admit that the administration took option 5b from the Augustine playbook (minus Orion), they'd rather create some OSTP, OMB, Garver boogeyman.

The reason there is such fratricide within the HSF community of members, is the lack of a long term vision for HSF that folks are aligned behind; in the absence of a long term vision, the short term tactical concerns are not balanced by long term concerns, hence HSF advocates can only come from a survival perspective when dealing with the issues in front of them. So, for ATK, its survival. This is not surprising.

Obama as President is responsible for establishing the long term vision, and path to that vision for the Governments HSF program. So far we have not heard from Obama. His lack of leadership speaks volumes and is an indication that he probably doesn't have one besides "inspire my daughters Gen Bolden, like NASA of the old days"

@ mreams13: "If either of these companies [ATK; LockMart] were concerned about space, they would market the rocket and the spacecraft. I guess maybe they don't have enough confidence in their own products?"

Hogwash. If not, the same could be said for SpaceX and Bigelow.

> Why don't they finish Ares I by themselves and sell it to NASA?

Exactly!!!

If they truly believe in their product, they should put their own skin in the game and complete it on their own and then compete it against other launchers on the open market.

Does anyone have an estimate on how much NASA has already put into Ares I and compare that to how much they plan to help support the development of other launchers?

Sadly, spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt and paying congressmen off works well too. :(

"Oh, and safer too. Never did like the idea of lighting a solid booster under an astronaut."

So a first stage solid is "unsafe" when compared to a liquid, but a solid launch abort system is safe for rescuing a crew? How is it safe for one but not the other. I was always taught KISS. The less complex a system (fewer moving parts or part count in general) the more better. Solid = no moving parts, liquid = 1000's. Also the fewer the parts the cheaper to produce. Its that, and the fact there is a long shelf-life on solids part of the reason the military (with the exception of EELV) almost entirely uses solids? If there good enough to carry ICBMs won't they be safe enough for a first stage, one that has basically flown very well since Challenger. Sorry, just hate to read the constant criticism of solids because they aren't as complex and SHINY as liquids.

SpaceX and Bigelow have been proceeding on their own for some time, the NASA contracts are fairly recent.

She did accept money from someone to train to fly on a Soyuz with Space Adventures, even taking on the nickname "space mom".

Expl Believer: just a modest amount of research would have turned up the links below. You do all readers of this blog a disservice when you make things up.

Radio Shack and DFI Int'l (now Avascent) paid Garver's way for the medical screening, which ultimately led her to have her gall bladder removed (how's that for giving a pound of flesh in support of space exploration - name me a living NASA astronaut who has given as much!)

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1003/1
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=8502

"inspire my daughters Gen Bolden, like NASA of the old days"

It's laughable isn't it?

He should be inspiring the nation by standing up for NASA, by keeping HSF robust at NASA!

Not gutting it and dispersing the funds to the four winds of a nascent and unproven industry!

I would take Ares I over ANY future propulsion unicorns they promise.

It would be like getting rid of your used car, cancel your order for the new car, and donate the moneys to five different car companys just starting out the promise Jetson's vehicles!

Hey in twenty years, your first in line to buy one. If they are still around.

In the mean time, you take the BUS! or Soyuz as the case may be. :P

The difference between a first stage solid booster (or any stage for that matter) and a solid launch escape system is that with a stage booster you can't shut it down, with a solid launch escape system you don't want it to shut down (for the few seconds it runs).

Apples and oranges. Good for one, not so the other.

A breach in the SRB of Challenger did cause death and mayhem because 'the contractor' did not heed the recommendation of it's own engineer to not fly on a day that was to cold.

The SRBs suffered from other problems right from the start. NASA found out during the Challenger inquiry that the boosters were igniting with explosive force under the shuttle stack. I believe one engineer called it "dynamic overshoot" where the booster were applying almost twelve gees of force (more then twice the expected force) for a fraction of a second during ignition. This caused some minor damage to the boosters that couldn't be explained. The solution to the problem (or one of the solution) is the so called "noise suppression" water sprayed under the boosters during ignition.

BTW: The Russians won't man rate a launch vehicle with solid boosters and were very reluctant to fly their nationals on the Shuttle for that reason.

tinker

"If they truly believe in their product, they should put their own skin in the game and complete it on their own"

Not exactly! The reason you see the concern by the larger corporations is that the "market" as everyone seems to beleive in is just not there. Lockheed-Martin and ATK are publicly traded companies and they have to look at ROI. The upfront cost fo these endeavors are huge. There is no incentive to take on those costs in the hopes that a market will create itself. If the Commercial crew budget is split between 3 companies, it amounts to about $450M a year per company. If NASA expects 3 launches a year from each, that only amounts to $150 million a launch. There is absolutely no profit incentive there.

ULA is a prime example of the failure of the "launch" market. To optimize resources for the DoD money they were getting they had to combine. All of the other competitors are gone and couldn't survive.

Don't be surprised if NASAs HSF budget goes to a fully private subsidy approach that the larger corporations just walk away (no ROI).

As far as I can tell SpaceX and Sierra Nevada are not yet publicly traded, hence no answering to shareholders and a lot of personal money is being invested.

The big concern here is that there is a real risk that the incentivized commercial crew market does not succeed. Without a government funded option with government risk acceptance there is a good chance that in 3 to 5 years there are going to be government commissions reviewing how the failure of the commercial crew market left us with nothing. Yes it could succeed, but should we take that risk? the money is there to take both paths, why wouldn't NASA want to do that?

Also, just an FYI, I have read that as a standalone system, solids are easier to abort from than liquids. In a catastrophic falure, solids tend to rupture and deflagrate and don't produce as much overpressure and thermal environment. In a catastrophic failure liquids produce a more detrimental abort environment.

@ beomoose: "SpaceX and Bigelow have been proceeding on their own for some time, the NASA contracts are fairly recent."

They certainly have been. But that's not the point. mreams13 implied, if not indirectly stated, that a company that's confident in its design should want to continue on its own, develop its vehicle and then sell to NASA once it's complete. SpaceX, Bigelow and many others, are now salivating at the prospect of using NASA money to develop their capabilities and vehicles. If an implication is going to be made that ATK is not confident in its design because it isn't willing to go out on its own to develop a vehicle, then to be fair, the same must be said of any other company wanting money from NASA to do the same thing.

The current Amateur Hour at NASA HQ deserves to be badmouthed. Garver's motives deserve to be scrutinized. Many are balking at this new HSF "plan" because it is nonsense. And the song and dance by Bolden when he tries to defend it makes one cringe. The whole thing is rank amateur and an insult to NASA HSF.

It was ATK's lobbying that brought us Constellation in the first place. Now 4 years and $9B down the Constellation road what do we have to show? NASA's aeronautics and robotics programs have been reduced to fractions of their former glory. The 2 robotic Mars missions every 2 years are gone. Talk of crewed Mars missions are completely missing. Without a massive infusion of cash lunar landings have slipped past 2030. And ATK's Ares I won't support crew launch until ISS has been abandoned leaving Orion with no destination.

But a first stage solid booster can be shut off. That's what the range safety system in for:) Is the presumption that if a liquid rocket goes awry that you'd have time to shut it down and a solid you couldn't? I content that the astronauts in true fighter pilot bravado would punch out and the range would destroy whatever was necessary for public safety (liquid or solid). In which case a solid motor would be saving their lives.

As for Challenger, I believe the Roger Report/Commission found that it was NASA and the internalization of problem solving within the element (MSFC) that lead to the disaster, not contractor silence.

As for "dynamic overshoot", it is fixable via motor redesign. But in true NASA fashion it is easier and cheaper to build ground equipment than to fix the real problem and requalify it.

'SpaceX and Bigelow have been proceeding on their own for some time, the NASA contracts are fairly recent.'

Ah, no - at least for SpaceX. Some of the first Falcon 1 launches were paid for by DARPA, and they've also had an Air Force contract since 2005.

I'm pretty sure the water system was installed after STS-1, not 51-L. IFRC it was ignition overpressure that buckled a strut in the forward RCS pod on STS-1, not higher than expected acceleration. I'm not arguing for first stage solid only configs by any means, but that issue was IMHO a lack of testing not a fundamental weakness of solids. It was not the only surprise on STS-1.

I think you have some good points, but I reach a slightly different conclusion (sentences taken out of order):

> Lockheed-Martin and ATK are publicly traded companies and they have to look at ROI. ... As far as I can tell SpaceX and Sierra Nevada are not yet publicly traded, hence no answering to shareholders and a lot of personal money is being invested.

Yes, there is lots of personal money invested, and they are not publicly traded companies, but that does not mean they are not interested in a return on investment or don't have investors to answer to. A difference is that privately held companies are generally under less pressure on a quarter-to-quarter basis and can therefore worry more about long-term results.

That doesn't mean large publicly traded companies don't invest large amounts of money in future products (e.g., Microsoft may have spent $10 billion to develop Vista) or products for unproven markets (e.g., Apple's touch-based iPhone and upcoming iPad or fuel cell cars, or hybrid cars, ...).

> The upfront cost for these endeavors are huge. There is no incentive to take on those costs in the hopes that a market will create itself.

That is what the entrepreneurial spirit is about - taking a risk and if it pans out, receiving the reward.

> If the Commercial crew budget is split between 3 companies, it amounts to about $450M a year per company. If NASA expects 3 launches a year from each, that only amounts to $150 million a launch. There is absolutely no profit incentive there.

This illustrates a fundamental difference between the old way of business (where NASA is the only customer) and the efforts to start the new model (where they hope to grow the market BEYOND NASA).

If it turns out that NASA is the only customer for the new companies, then in many aspects I think the effort will have been a failure even if they can deliver a launch service for less.

> The big concern here is that there is a real risk that the incentivized commercial crew market does not succeed.

I agree, but ironically, this can also be the argument to kill Constellation. Without the Constellation competition, the (more) privately developed rockets (I include human-rating Atlas and Delta in this) are more likely to stick to it and attract investment dollars.

NASA has a habit of killing efforts that they see as competition. The Shuttle system is a good example, where NASA heavily lobbied and won the battle to kill all ELVs so that the Shuttle was the only American vehicle to launch anything into space. This caused real problems when the Challenger blew up.

So NASA with Constellation is viewed as a competitor and chases money away from privately funded efforts. NASA without Constellation is seen as a customer and attracts money to privately funded efforts.

But I agree with you on what I think is your fundamental point: "Yes, there are big risks with this approach, and some companies don't have the stomach for it."

Re: "NASA has a habit of killing efforts that they see as competition"

I agree that the Shuttle reference was a misstep. I assume that the belief was that to make the Shuttle economically sound, there was incentive to get the flight rates up. Unfortunately, flight rates and schedule pressure don't coexist well with safety and mission success considerations of spaceflight (as we saw with Challenger).

However, in this case, one has to remember that the COTs cargo and crew effort (with cargo first) has always been running in parallel with Constellation, Elon Musk even stated that in his presentation to the Augustine commission. There was no attempt at a shutout there. The parallel efforts, I think were fairly well thought out.

So,in reality, I don't really think this argument is about the commercial aspect of the budget line. I think it is about the complete cancellation of Constellation. If one doesn't like the architecture, then change the architecture. Bolden's argument is that the Constellation architecture wasn't viable with the funding levels defined. Although he takes a page out of the Constellation playbook when he states that the new budget can do something new within funding limits. All he is doing is deferring the actual execution of anything even farther down the road and saying it is more cost effective. If I spend $80 billion on exploration in 10 years or spend $80 billion on exploration in 20 years and acheive the same result, although 10 years apart, the only thing that has been gained is a schedule slip.

And remember that Bolden's goal is exactly that of Constellation, Mars with maybe the moon or other beyond LEO points in the middle. If one can decifer the Constellation logo under Keith's inappropriate X, they would notice that there are three crescents on the logo, Earth, Moon, Mars. Bolden says Constellation "drifted" back towards the moon, but it was always part of an overall plan. Bolden's plan is a bit different and would contain 2 question marks and a crescent with a question mark: Possible commercial to LEO, something with an undefined spacecraft but new HLV technology to somewhere beyond LEO and then Mars somewhere out there only when we know we have a technology that can speed up the trip.

I am new a trying to follow up on campaign contributions and are curious how much the new space companies donated the last election cycle and to whom. Anyone know where that data can be found?

ex_navy said...

"I am new at trying to follow up on campaign contributions..."

It's a pretty open secret...
http://www.opensecrets.org/
... you'll find that Obama is very deep in the collective pockets of the really big corporate players... and those don't include aerospace.

New space? Not so much... they don't have the money it takes to get the attention of Obama and Rahm Emanuel was too busy selling us all out to those same-said big players in order to keep them from funding a Republican comeback.

As I've said before the entire aerospace industry, new space and old, is below Obama's radar financially speaking.

He promises the world and he delivers it... to the >1%.

Which, given his thoroughly documented record to date, makes the idea of him actually following through on those commercial space wet dreams grim humor indeed.

If ATK could just produce something positive about their NASA efforts this would be a help to them.

the stick is dead!lol

With all due respect to the Constellation team, readers of Mr. Precourts email would do well to consider all his statements in context. A debate without an honest view of all the past and the interplay of all those events is simply each side trying to posture in the best possible light; its cherry picking observations that are advantageous. It is not a debate where each side is listening to the other or even responding to the other’s points.
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For one, Constellation had goals as stated in the then president’s vision that included dates, such as the crew capability to the station being reached by “no later than 2014”. To further constrain the task the funding was to come by “re-allocating…from within that budget”, a budget to go up by “roughly a billion dollars spread over the next five years”. This was said back in 2004.
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Aldridge was named to a commission back then to “advise on implementing the vision” and it would be in that later report that the words “affordable” and “sustainable” would be oft repeated. A particular phrase from the Aldridge report is timely and relevant to Mr. Precourts statements – “Support for this endeavor must come with a commitment from NASA – and all its partners – to good stewardship. Above all, the space exploration vision is neither sustainable nor affordable unless NASA’s leadership of the exploration vision is deemed credible by the public and
Congress. NASA will continue to operate under a bright light of scrutiny.”
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Fast forward 6 years. First, NASA’s “re-allocation” of funds toward Constellation decimated the necessary R&D that would make future access to space more affordable and sustainable; that is to be clear, the task was to do things differently and better, so as to have an acceptable recurring cost once the entire Orion, Ares I, Ares V, and Altair plus any associated payloads was to be operational and produced year after year. Capability was to grow, by definition reaching beyond Low Earth Orbit, but it was to do so within a set of “-ilities” like affordability that were not to be taken lightly. At current projections this architecture, Orion, Ares I, Ares V and Altair, minus any useful payload other than these transportation elements, would have cost every year as much as back in Apollo, adjusting for inflation. It is impossible to separate the “-ilities” from capability. It was said before in the Aldridge report - “NASA will continue to operate under a bright light of scrutiny.”
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That cost amount that would be Apollo like would have meant Human Space Flight, today composed of Transportation (Shuttle), a Station (the ISS), R&D (a Constellation centric line), and a new development program (Constellation itself) would have become in the 2020’s entirely one line item – the recurring operation of the Transportation dual vehicle architecture for a couple of flights a year to the Moon. No Station, Outpost, payloads, R&D, other initiatives, or otherwise. Constellations original plan to get funds by re-allocating had become a plan to consume and subjugate other necessary parts of NASA to its dual vehicle performance driven architecture.
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Add in dates that would make any endeavor further defined, such as 2014 to ISS or 2020 to the Moon, and it may be said the entire effort was over-constrained from the start. Dates, “-ilities”, like affordability and performance capabilities all together comprised what had begun. It is easily seen that all these variables (with performance or capability usually last to erode) ceded slowly into the background as the years went by. Even safety, for a program born in the aftermath of losing the Columbia, had become a semantics game for Constellation. The Bush vision in 2004 actually never made a statement about any sure improvement there, and the later Aldridge report never made any tangible statements about how far to improve there (using statements like needing “robust safety precautions”). The result was an Orion Ares I architecture that the Program Manager Jeff Hanley finally admitted to the Augustine committee would make safety no better than Shuttle on the Orion Ares I’s first couple of flights. Later numbers of improvement, end-to-end, all the way up to landing, would have been better than Shuttle only in some decimal places of analysis. Flight rate and demonstration, was never going to assure the improvement was actually there, driven in, learned in or credible.
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All this yields the question of what was being improved by Constellation? The desire to have more affordable, routine access to space, that is also safer and more reliable, was very much a part of the Shuttle’s theme coming after Apollo. Back then, after Apollo, a federal government once under enormous fiscal pressures (entitlement programs, an unpopular war, energy issues, trade issues, current account in-balances…sound familiar?) chose a new direction consistent with those issues. More affordable, routine, higher flight rate access to space was required. While the Shuttle did not come close to meeting these “-ilities” of recurring yearly cost being low and flight rate being high, or of safety being a given, it moved in a direction consistent with the constraints trying to create a future that could get around such limits.
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Having seen the consequence of decisions in 2004/5, it’s not all just to say that a Shuttle derived architecture can not be derived that is a heavy-lift, while improving cost and safety measurably, which is to say credibly. But a Constellation-redux that is a defined vehicle capable of some mission (the Moon) for a given recurring operations costs (including production) must involve credibility. Credibility meaning margin in the budget, money actually set aside, more early, less later, but not allocated to any content until and unless events arise. Credibility meaning safety by design, such as through more test-fail-fix cycles than occurred in Shuttle, driving all hardware faults out by design as it goes toward finalizing what becomes certified for manufacture.
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Yet for all this the ultimate reality is a $xxx hundreds of millions a year SRM operation in Utah (or for that matter a $xxxM a year liquid stages operation at Michoud, LA, or similarly Mission and flight ops at JSC, and ground ops at KSC, engines at Rocketdyne, and SRB refurb/rebuild ops at KSC, etc) must keep more or less current content/deliverables (segments, stages per year, etc), while ALSO improving “-ilities” in an absolute sense – to become costs some X% (perhaps 85%) of the current element costs.
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These are not dramatic numbers as regards cost or safety to target for a Shuttle derived vehicle improvement, and should be where any defense of Constellation “re-imagined” should focus. Asking for blank checks ended for NASA at the birth of the Internet; the ISS is likely the last such program NASA could undertake on a capped yearly funds basis while allowing all other aspects to float or be derived. Information (and perception) was more easily controlled back then.
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Start from a realization that the dual vehicle architecture had been woefully under-estimated in both it’s get there as well as recurring costs, as well as all dates and the impact of cuts to other areas - in retrospect. Realize balance was exactly what the Constellation program showed it lacked in its inability to leave other parts of NASA goals intact.
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Then - the memo’s that are really needed are one from every element manager in Shuttle on how the current operation is going to improve and give more for slightly less dollars next year than this year. As absolute dollars, deflating, against clear metrics, like elements delivered per year, at Shuttle like flight rates, with no games being played about lift, and no semantic stretches confusing matters. The matter becomes enabling just a heavy lift vehicle driven by all things cost first, especially any eventual production and ops, with all other variables derived. All while leaving “balance” to mean space systems R&D is not decimated, nor are space initiatives eliminated that have as goals even more significant improvement of the “-ilities” like affordability of access to space. Now those would be productive memos.
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Krispace and Keith
You are misrepresenting this photo. The photo is of a development flight test used to gather data, not the final system. Ares I-X did not have the separation motors.

> And remember that Bolden's goal is exactly that of Constellation, Mars with maybe the moon or other beyond LEO points in the middle.

I think a problem most of us can agree on is a lack of clarity after 2020 when ISS is terminated.

Bolden has made what I feel are off the cuff remarks regarding wanting to go to the Mars, but I don't think that is official policy, a plan, or even a vision. I can want lots of things.

And for pro-commercialization people like myself, this post-2020 lack of clarity should also be a problem since I hope most people realize lead time for anything in this business is pretty long. Remember, its been almost 5 years since Virgin Galactic announced plans to build SS2 and WK2, and I don't think SS2 has even had a drop test yet.

""If the escape tower had fired at this point the Orion Spacecraft would be heading downward and probably have it's heatshield inadvertently tested by the SRB efflux as it barged past!"

NASA confirmed that this was one of the flight trajectory possibilities of their Monte Carlo simulation. Test Flight... Not real flight."

Did they indeed. Perhaps you could explain why the Dummy upper stage was not stressed to handle the longitudinal, lateral and torsional loads accordingly. If you think test flights are not "REAL" flights what is the point of them? Plus if they are not as close to actual design and build prior to modifications - to cope with THE UNEXPECTED - what's the point of a Test Flight?

""who, together with NASA top brass killed seven fine Astronauts..."

The SRB did not explode, in fact both boosters were intact after the explosion as shown in the video. The joint o-ring seal failed, yes (flown out of its known limitations), but the explosion started at the ET. If the seal had given way, directed away from ET, everything would have been likely fine but, we'll never know."

If you read my post a little more carefully you'd have seen I did not mention an SRB explosion. But, because of flame impingement upon the ET from the broken O-ring seal - the limitations & failings of which were already known to Morton Thiokol and NASA Top Brass prior to the flight - the ET exploded instead. Ergo MT/ATK and NASA are responsible. If you look at the launch video footage the efflux jet from the broken seal directed laterally and at a 90degree tangent away from the ET skin...it must have moved round or plumed considerably during flight.

Edgar has made some important points here: when it was initiated by President Bush, the objectives of VSE and later CxP were similar to the objectives of the Obama proposal: low-cost lift to space with the objective of reaching out beyond LEO. Bush brashly predicted specifically that we could get to the Moon by 2020, without a budget increase. Everybody knows a variant of this Murphy's law: "You may pick any two: what you're doing, when you'll finish, how much it'll cost." Unfortunately the schedule was the first thing to go, and the notion of low cost was sacrificed to ambition: "Apollo on steroids."

If you believed those dates could possibly be met, and if you looked at "Apollo on steroids" and retained any hope for cost control, then you were fooling yourself or over-medicated.

Remember, this much was in place before Obama took office.

If you now criticize the Obama proposal as lacking specific dates and milestones (as contained in a budget!?!??) then you're hypocritical, because you know (or should know) that such projections wouldn't be credible anyway. The way to guaranteed cost overruns is to pound a stake on an objective that requires technology development, give a fixed deadline for finishing it, and commit to it at any cost. Yeah, tried that.

The one criticism of Obama that I think is totally deserved is for rolling this out without any sales pitch or explanation, as though its logic and merits would be self-evident to all. It's taking a risk, no argument there; but as I said elsewhere, it's like sliding on an icy highway and choosing between colliding with a car in front of you or aiming for the ditch. That should have been in the speech (the one we didn't get).

The redstone was a solid rocket .. just so you know..

# Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7), America's first human in space, Alan Shepard.
# Mercury-Redstone 4 (Liberty Bell 7), America's second human in space, Gus Grissom.

:D

This is in regards to the postings from both Krispace and Adam K.

I think the NASA engineers can figure out the location of the center of pressure, the center of gravity, the mass, and the moments of inertia of the second stage. And are then able to do a Monte Carlo with varying initial conditions. And, if people doubt them, one can estimate the values themselves with the tools and information available for free over the web. This is not to say I support the test, it clearly did not represent a test of the second stage. However, I must congratulate them on lighting the fuse before the Constallation cancellation storm clouds moved in.

Concerning the Challenger, as far as I'm aware, the escaping hot gas from the SRB caused a structural failure of the ET and SRB attachment point. This caused the Challenger to veer off course and the resulting aerodynamic forces caused the vehicle to disintegrate. To me, in the true sense of the word, the Challenger did not explode, i.e. the liquid hydrogen did not detonate. I'm not suggesting that Krispace and Adam are unaware of this. But, I would like to clarify it for those who are not.

Ooh! Open goal!

The Redstone used a liquid-fuelled rocket engine running a mix of water-diluted ethyl and LOX.

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/R/Redstone.html

You might have been thinking of the Jupiter-C variant of the Redstone used to launch the Explorer-1 geophysical satellite. That had 2nd and 3rd stages made up of clusters of Baby Sargeant SRMs.

> The redstone was a solid rocket .. just so you know..

Not according to the guys at Marshall (Overview of the Marshall Center's Role in Mercury-Redstone Project. Looks like it was alcohol & LOX-powered.

Now, here's an interesting add-on possibility to the "Merchant 7": Build your vehicle so that it doesn't use a fossil fuel.

the stick is dead!

This pathological hatred shown for Constellation by some New-Space fans is really creepy.

I mean, by and large the people who think Constellation is an approach with a lot to recommend it basically wish the New-Space organizations well. But in the other direction...

I really makes one wonder what's really driving the intense, emotional disdain, etc shown for Constellation by some; what's really behind it?

Is part of it the concern that the much-hyped 'free enterprise' New-Space cannot in fact succeed without tapping into Uncle Sammy's big bucks, so that every dollar spent on Constellation is a dollar they New-Space organizations can't get?

If so, you need to be really concerned, because when all the dust settles (which likely won't be till January at best, and longer than that if either House or Senate changes hands in November), New-Space won't be getting any big dividend. It's not at all clear yet what will happen, but the chances of the Holdren/Garver 'plan' getting through Congress are slim and none - and slim left town when the Congress was blind-sided by the administration's amateurish tactics.

I'm just hoping that when the dust settles, NASA hasn't been 'Superconducting Super-Collider'd into a major cut - which is what often happens with divided efforts: Congress comes down from the hills after the battle is over, and shoots all the wounded.

To whatever your name is, I didn't say the Redstone was a solid rocket. So, you were not replying to my message.

Hell Noel

so whats up
the stick is dead!

This pathological hatred shown for Constellation by some New-Space fans is really creepy.

I mean, by and large the people who think Constellation is an approach with a lot to recommend it basically wish the New-Space organizations well. But in the other direction...

I really makes one wonder what's really driving the intense, emotional disdain, etc shown for Constellation by some; what's really behind it?

The Stick is dead is hatred ? now really!

The Stick just could cut the mustard and was crossed of the list, sound better? Hows about ding dong the stick is dead the stick is dead the stick is dead.

Hows about the stick died of natural causes?

Mean while ATK tries to snipe bite at the heals of progress in revenge. The new stick is borne!

Jubilation over the fate of CxP is unseemly and IMO unwarranted. The program is/was a means to an end that I am excited about. The trouble it ran into was partly external and partly self-imposed (programmatically), but there's nothing to rejoice about in the turbulence that will result.

I believe it was inevitable that it would be at least dramatically rescoped in these tight budget times, especially because so many program objectives were slipping schedule, and making themselves moot by creating logical disconnects.

The alternative proposed by Obama is not a panacea -- it is full of risk and possibility. It has not been given the sales pitch it deserves. It has not had the details defined or the burrs filed off. It will not protect current workers from the financial and career disruption and uncertainty that they now face. But it is also not nothing.

"I really makes one wonder what's really driving the intense, emotional disdain, etc shown for Constellation by some; what's really behind it?"

Mainly because Constellation has been so horrendously mismanaged that the only humane thing to do is end it. When you sit down and look at what Constellation is actually offering, and the cost we are paying for it, I can't see how anyone thinks its a good idea to proceed. I'm not talking about what Constellation promised 4 years ago, or what it could do if countless billions weree pumped into it.

As it stands it will cost $40 Billion dollars to develop Aries-1 and Orion to first flight. That's almost double what it cost to develop the Shuttle (adjusted for inflation) for a vehicle with a small fraction of the Shuttle's capabilities. A vehicle that until 2025 or 2030 (When Ares 5 and Altair are ready) will be pretty much be limited to repeating the Apollo 7 mission at a billion dollars a pop. What is Orion going to do for 8-12 years once its finished it's shakedown?