Heavy Lift Launch System and Propulsion Technology RFI

IMHO, the likely respondants:

ULA - EELV Common Upper Stage and Altas-V Phase 2 core;

Boeing, ATK & Lockheed - Boeing's RS-68B-powered SDHLV-In-line with ATK strap-ons and a Lockheed Centaur-derived wide-body upper stage.

Whilst I'm sure that SpaceX would like to respond with the Falcon-9 Heavy/Raptor system, that is probably too far off to realistically meet a 2015 deadline to start bending metal.

FWIW, I'm not sure if it is possible to get around the disconnect of a HLV system that is usable by commercial customers. Even if you are using the old definiation of Heavy Lift (IIRC, 25-50t IMLEO), I can't think of many commercial applications. This is why I think that ULA's EELV-based idea might have an advantage. Using the extant EELV single cores with the common upper stage, you still have a launcher for commercial payloads. Go to triple core and you have a low-end heavy lifter. Switch to the 5.4m-diameter twin-RD-180 core and you have a mid-range heavy lifter.

Not to be negative but why would anyone at NASA or in the aerospace industry take this RFI seriously? How many times can the U.S. do this before it becomes comical? I've lost count of the number of attempts by the agency to develop a launch system: NLS, HLLV, Shuttle-C, X-33, SLI, OSP, Constellation. At some point NASA should just admit that, for whatever reason be it political or technical, it cannot be done by a government entity.

If the U.S. government wants heavy lift, then it should do two things:

1. Create a market.
2. Eliminate barriers.

Oh boy another HLV proposal! I can't wait 'till the next admin when the next request for proposals to meet the new space policy comes out. Sure hope I'm wrong. Sure hope people start getting tired of new starts and clean slates. We've been dragged by the office of the president now for 30 years from new proposal to new proposal. The amusing thing is all the amateur rocket pundits (and professionals) out there actually think that THIS TIME it's their chance to see their dream launch come to the fore. I think the general space policy out of the office of the president for the past 40 years has been not to have a space policy. Face it folks, chances are nothing will come of this.

Call me when they RFI a space ship instead of another toy rocket.

Some of Boeing's new shuttle derived concepts look interesting and familiar (DIRECT) except they've also introduced a Jupiter rocket without the SRBs for launching people into orbit.

http://pdf.aiaa.org/getfile.cfm?urlX=6%3A7I%276D%26X%5BR%5B%2ES%40GOP4S%5EQ%3AO%225J%40%22%5FP%20%20%0A&urla=%25%2ARD%26%220%20%20%0A&urlb=%21%2A%20%20%20%0A&urlc=%21%2A0%20%20%0A&urld=%28%2A%22H%25%22%40%2AEUQX%20%0A&urle=%27%282D%27%23P%3EDW%40%20%20%0A

Marcel F. Williams

It is somewhat difficult to launch a space ship without a "toy rocket".

We all know that currently there is only one company that can support Heavy Lift propulsion. We also all know that they cannot survive a three year gap and retain their critical work force with no production or development engine. So do we want to wait until 2015? Be my guest.

My eyes bled reading that RFI. NASA is looking to the technological future and it sees chemical in-space propulsion? MORONS!

> It is somewhat difficult to launch a space ship without a "toy rocket".

The US has a fleet of rockets. Including the most powerful rocket on earth, a rocket which is rarely used. Nothing is big enough to need it.

NASA goes nowhere because it is obsessed with rockets rather than going places.

I understand how Apollo was done. What is amazing is how did Shuttle get built? It was started under Nixon who then resigned. I hate to say it but the best presidents for space were Ford and Carter because they didn't cancel or change the Shuttle Program and just let it get finished.

We have studied the hell out of HLLV concepts.
We know just about all we need to know about chemical propulsion (barring methane).
It is well past time we selected an HLLV design and began building something.
As for chemical propulsion in space, it is so close to being obsolete that it isn't worth investing in.
VASIMR offers great advantages, can be scaled up/modularized for high-speed deep-space missions, but for optimum use, requires either nuclear or fusion power to make it work.
I will believe NASA is NOT trapped in the past when I see an RFP for such a power reactor.

... most powerful thanks to the Russian RD-180 engine. Without that, the next most powerful rocket in the books is not Delta-IV Heavy but, rather, the Russian Proton. The reason a Delta IV Heavy eastward launch has a larger nominal payload to LEO is that it is launched from KSC (18 deg north) vice Baikonur (46 deg north), and this provides a significant added boost from Earth's rotation. If you want to compare apples to apples, then its 3.6 tons into polar orbit with Proton compared with 2.3 tons for Delta-IV Heavy.

Bottom line: as a nation we're losing ground ... and fast.

Why isn't anyone talking about bringing back nuclear thermal? Brain-dead simple (=reliable), powerful, easy to make, double the ISP of the best chemical engines, perfect interim solution until sufficiently powerful nuke reactors + plasma thrusters are created. What is it? Too soon? Nucular bad?

> If you want to compare apples to apples, then its 3.6 tons into polar orbit with Proton compared with 2.3 tons for Delta-IV Heavy.

Equally apples-to-apples is the rocket launched from its own pad, not your imaginary one. Delta is more capable.

Still that misses the point. The point is NASA doesn't use what it has.

Zack,

Which company are you talking about?

Certainly not the proven launch developer based in Colorado and Alabama.

One of the 4 HLLV concepts studied by NASA last fall uses an ET-diameter tank, hydrocarbon engines, and existing Atlas V cores as strapons.
So yes, Michoud would need their fairly small workforce continued, but the powerful Atlas V core boosters will be in regular production throughout.

And I believe all those are made by hardworking Alabamans. Somebody should tell Senator Shelby.

- Jim

Why isn't anyone talking about bringing back nuclear thermal? Brain-dead simple (=reliable), powerful, easy to make, double the ISP of the best chemical engines, perfect interim solution until sufficiently powerful nuke reactors + plasma thrusters are created. What is it? Too soon? Nucular bad?

Nuclear very bad. We are not going to get permission to use a nuclear thruster on the Earth's surface or in LEO. So you are talking Moon base to EML spacestation and EML spacestation to Mars. The Moon base is decades away.

Solar thermal using nuclear thermal technology for manned inspace propulsion is viable.

Why is nuclear thermal bad? The US Navy uses it on ships every day all over the planet. The only difference is they use it to heat water, we will use it to heat hydrogen. You get lots of thrust and twice the Isp of LOX/LH2.

Just build the Sea Dragon. 550 metric tons to LEO! That's 1.2 MILLION lbs, 3x the proposed Ares V. If you want heavy lift, do it big.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket)

Follow me on Twitter @VAXHeadroom

I may be reading it wrong, or perhaps it wasn't written clearly, but it sounds like a couple of the above posters are advocating nuclear for a launch vehicle because of its higher ISP.

If so, you must revise your ideas. ISP is not the same as thrust; it is (more or less) a comparative measure of delta-V (velocity change), but without respect to time. (I'm simplifying here.)

A high ISP lets you thrust for long periods of time, but only at low thrust levels. It can not provide high thrust for any period of time, nowhere near the thrust necessary to lift any payload (even a bowling ball) off the surface of the Earth into orbit.

For an in-space transfer vehicle, where no gravity wells are involved, nuclear is the ideal method of propulsion, although the refueling problem has yet to be properly addressed.

The current legal status of nuclear is the hang-up. A nuclear device has to be 1) built, 2) transported into space, and 3) used in space, and right now those are three separate "disallowed" activities.

I'm not sure how they're going to get around this for VASIMR testing.

If I have misunderstood your nuclear proposals, please excuse me.

Steve

Why is nuclear thermal bad? The US Navy uses it on ships every day all over the planet. The only difference is they use it to heat water, we will use it to heat hydrogen. You get lots of thrust and twice the Isp of LOX/LH2.

Because it is.

Also the Navy does not do silly things like flying nuclear reactors over people's homes.

Zack,

Which company are you talking about?

Let me think. F-1, SSME, J2-X, RS-68, RS-27, RL-10, RS-84 and overseeing RD-180 ... I think is pretty clear

First, I never said Isp was the same as thrust. Second, your explanation of Isp versus thrust is complete nonsense. Delta-v is a function of Isp AND the total propellant burned. Isp is a measure of propellant thermochemical and engine nozzle performance (i.e. gas total temperature and exit velocity). Thrust is driven by total mass flow. There is no inherent limitation to thrust or burn duration based on Isp. For any Isp (high, low, or somewhere in between) I can dial in the thrust by adjusting mass flow rate (i.e. chamber pressure and/or size of engine).

We ARE talking about in-space transfer. You made the assumption that we were talking about ascent.

The NERVA engine had a minimum thrust of approximately 75,000 lbf and an Isp of 850 lbf-sec/lbm. That's 5 times the thrust of an RL-10 and nearly 2 times the Isp. Sounds like a pretty good in-space option to me.

If the President wants "game-changing" technologies, then the legal limitations may need to be revisited.

Oh, "because it is." You sound like one of my kids now.

Project Prometheus, a.k.a. NASA's Nuclear Systems Initiative, proposed to do such "silly things" in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Naval Reactors. This went away with Bush's vision... but you watch, it will be back.

Looks like there is no way around an HLV politically... unless ULA makes a great pitch.

But I'm agreed that rockets are a side issue. Build a space based nuclear reactor or please make Bolden stop talking about weeks to Mars.

"Not to be negative but why would anyone at NASA or in the aerospace industry take this RFI seriously? How many times can the U.S. do this before it becomes comical?"

All that much more reason to go with a Shuttle-derived HLV now, and not wait for five years. Now you have much of the infrastructure and people in place and its a pretty straight forward mod to make the payload carrier part of Shuttle C.

"We ARE talking about in-space transfer."

Like I said before, that is not the important (and hard) problem.

The important problem is getting mass (be it vehicles, propulsion mass/fuel, or whatever) off Earth and into orbit, i) up a large gravity well, and ii) through all that atmosphere. (It's the two together that are a problem - on the Moon, with no atmosphere, just build a big electromagnetic cannon, or some similar solution.)

Without solutions to that hard problem, everything else, like in-space thrust, is 'looking under the streetlight for the lost keys' (to refer to an old joke).

Maybe one day there will be industry up there, and we won't have to lug stuff 'up the hill', but for now, everything is down here - and getting it 'up there' is the problem.

The US has a fleet of rockets, but NASA can't afford them. Working in the deep space business, I have seen many a mission concept scrubbed or totally redesigned/downscaled because we couldn't afford to buy the launch vehicle from the vendor. There's a lot we could do with a Proton, but we're not allowed to buy one. The Ariane 5 launch for JWST was finagled as payment in services in exchange for partnership in the program.

Touche!

Noel is absolutely correct!!!

You know, I post here with the assumption that the local visitors are generally of above average intelligence and think the same of others. Can you see where I went wrong with you? You have to be daft to actually propose nuclear thermal operation inside the atmosphere and so deep in the gravity well. The power/weight ration of such an engine could never justify its use even if the radiation issues weren't a problem.

NASA seems intent on riding the chemical horse until the Chinese wave at us from Pluto. I resent that. The fastest, and easiest, and best way to get around in space beyond LEO is nuclear thermal. And it pisses me off that no one at NASA is even mentioning it. Boggles the mind, really.

Maybe one day there will be industry up there, and we won't have to lug stuff 'up the hill', but for now, everything is down here - and getting it 'up there' is the problem.

There are hard problems vs problems we need to solve, and in what order. That's the basis of our scientific and technical evolution, and always has been. Right now, we need to get out in the solar system to work out what we need, and where it is. Only then will it be worth lifting major infrastructure into space. We know, at least by present planetary system formation theory and gravitational dynamics, that most of the solar system's important resources are beyond the 2:1 Sun-Jupiter Kirkwood gap (or at least beyond the Snow Line). That seems to be where we need to head. But we can head out there in steps that allow us to learn about operating in Deep Space. Once a need develops, so will the systems required to move any mass needed from Earth, and the other systems to use all that mass that exists out in the solar system.

@OmegaPoint:

Mr. OmegaPoint, you assumed that I was talking about you when I said "a couple of the above posters"; I was not. YOU made that assumption.

Other people were talking about nuclear before you suddenly appeared in this thread rudely shooting down other people's comments.

Not everybody has the same background. I was just trying to clarify that nuclear will not be considered for launch vehicles; Also, I said I was simplifying; this is no place for a technical lecture.

If you disagree, fine; but please at least have the profesionalism to do so politely. Otherwise, go launch a submarine.

Steve

"You have to be daft to actually propose nuclear thermal operation inside the atmosphere and so deep in the gravity well."
So Freeman Dyson was daft was he?
And by extension America's own DoD.

For a study into the possibilities of Nuclear (LANTR) SSTOs try reading "Advanced Propulsion Study" by Eric W. Davis
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA426465&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

We have plenty of deserts.

@Stan
Be careful to attribute the comment you are objecting to to the correct person. Doubly so when using insults.

Keep this up and people will wonder if you are a troll.

p.s. If you cannot use ... use "..." and names.

Purely FWIW, whilst I think that Nuclear Thermal is the way to go for crewed BEO propulsion in the long-term, it will take a while to get it to the necessary safety levels to get it past the politicians. Don't forget that NERVA was designed in the Apollo era and has the more 'seat of the pants' Apollo approach to such things. The more safety-conscious modern era would demand a lot more work on safety before flying a "nuke" in space, even though it is basically a small fission reactor, smaller even than the ones used in perhaps hundreds of crewed warships around the world.

In the interim, I would like to see a crew-rated version of RL-10 and the revival of RL-60 which, IMHO, is closer to reaching service than J-2X. The former is okay for crew to LEO and the latter would work well in clusters as the powerplant for an EDS.

"NASA seems intent on riding the chemical horse until the Chinese wave at us from Pluto. ... The fastest, and easiest, and best way to get around in space beyond LEO is nuclear thermal. And it pisses me off that no one at NASA is even mentioning it."

Now, where did my keys go?

"Right now, we need to get out in the solar system to work out what we need, and where it is. Only then will it be worth lifting major infrastructure into space. ... But we can head out there in steps that allow us to learn about operating in Deep Space. Once a need develops, so will the systems required to move any mass needed from Earth"

I think you've got the cart before the horse. Even now we need a cheaper, safe way to get mass into orbit - without that, I very much doubt we can even afford the exploration you speak of. (At least, if done by humans, if not robots, which are generally much lighter - no need for food, oxygen, radiation shielding, etc).

You claim that throwing mass into LEO is the toughest problem the American space program is faced with. It's not. The most difficult problem is the one you have never dealt with before. That's working and living and moving far outside of earth's gravity.

Heavy lift is certainly the horse before the cart, but there is nothing mysterious about it. USA has had the necessary know how for decades. Now there is still plenty of room for improvements especially in making the whole enterprise more economical with reuseable stages, etc. But otherwise basically there is nothing new here.

At the same time, IF you read the RFI with any sort of attention, you will see that NASA is prepping the groundwork for the propulsion tech it will use to get around in space, your cart. Their future looks decidedly tired. Oh look. The keys. Been looking all over for them.

Even now we need a cheaper, safe way to get mass into orbit - without that, I very much doubt we can even afford the exploration you speak of.

But that's where we need to do some thinking. In-space systems have a significant advantage, because, if done right, you get to re-use the mass you send into orbit, leaving it there, hence reducing the mass you keep sending up for a given result. It's not $/kg that matters, but $/mission (or, really, $/outcome). With our pre 1950's way of doing spaceflight (apart from ISS), we're putting up way too much mass per outcome right now.

As Von Braun pointed out, and others have since, the cheapest, safest, mass to send into space is the fuel (and, eventually, you may not even send most of that up). That is why he was against over-doing HLV. You send the expensive fragile bits up as little as possible. Human launches, Soyuz-style, are actually reasonably cheap compared to the rest of a human mission. It's the infrastructure for those humans that's expensive, and we want to send that infrastructure up as little as possible. Then the price will come down, far faster than just reducing $/kg. Of course, reducing $/kg will also be good, eventually, but, for a mature spacefaring species, it shouldn't be the big driver.