2005: a different NASA constellation program ?

[Archibald]

inspired by this excellent discussion
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=34811.0

What happened OTL: for political reasons Mike Griffin picked up the Ares I / Ares V combination where Ares I underperformed at 20 tons to LEO while Ares V at 130 tons to LEO busted the budget.
Now whatif they had picked up those LV-24/25 launchers instead ? (short story is: LV-24/25 were rejected by NASA on political, jobs grounds in 2005; a year later those rockets become the basis of the DIRECT effort; but DIRECT only had 90 people, even from NASA, and it remained rather marginal. LV-24 put DIRECT instead of Ares I / V from day one with entire NASA support)

 

[nixonshead]

Isn't that basically SLS? In which case if you imagine the rocket getting all the funds that went to Ares-1 IOTL, then SLS would probably be flying about now... but considering Orion has been funded consistently IOTL and is still not ready for it's first flight, NASA would have had this big rocket without any payload. You could imagine SLS development funds from OTL instead being put to developing the lunar lander and departure stage, so let's say SLS development finishes in 2012 (7 years after start, as per OTL schedule), that means at this point there's been 2 years worth of funds going to developing the lander. That would probably still put them at least another 5 years from being able to fly it.

So I'd sketch out a rough schedule as follows:

2005: LV-24/25 and Orion start development.
2010: Shuttle retirement.
2012: SLS makes first test launch. EDS and Altair lander start development.
2015: SLS 2nd launch carrying unmanned Orion (EFT-1)
2016: SLS 3rd launch with EDS and unmanned Orion.
2017: SLS 4th launch, manned Orion.
2018: SLS 5th launch, unmanned Altair Earth orbit.
2019: SLS 6th & 7th launch, Moon mission.

I'd say that's pretty optimistic, with Altair being the pacing item. They might also stick to the original plan of abandoning the ISS in 2016 to free up funds.

 

[e of pi]

Isn't that basically SLS?

Not really. SLS has some key distinguishing differences from DIRECT J130/246, which is in turn different from LV 24/25. LV24/25 was a 1.5 stage vehicle: 4-seg SRBs, plus a near-stock ET with 3xSSME, no upper stage. Capacity would be about 70, 75 tons to LEO. Quickest, cheapest option. Apparently, this was about $2b in total development costs, and predicted to be not only fast, but capable of development and even production without interfering with Shuttle operations. J130/246 is the same kind of lightly modified Shuttle ET as core, but with 4xSSME instead of 3, and additional development of a large upper stage. Capacity without this upper stage remains about 75 tons, but with it it rises to 130 tons. Core dev is almost the same, but when you have the funds to develop the upper stage, you don't need to redevelop the core to accommodate the increased 4x engines to have the thrust to lift it. LV24/25 is best for LEO-staged program, while J130/246 is good for directly (haha) going places.

SLS is a more complex beast--it has the 5-seg solids, which add years of development and a lot of cost. Why have it at all? ATK threatened to kill its entire segmented solid business in a sort of scorched-earth negotiating tactic unless their development was supported, so at that point Griffin (and SLS designers) figured it was the best they could get. OTOH, it also means that you're better off stretching the length of the core, as well, for better balance, and your cost and development timeline balloon.

As long as you somehow avoid the 5-seg boosters and stick to the least-changed core, preferably the 4xengine version, then you could probably indeed make a first flight by 2011 or 2012. Actually funding Orion to completion and getting Altair to be more than a paper payload might mean that it ends up being about as costly as OTL Constellation, but in 2008 when Obama comes to office it's actually producing, and the word is "we can do this on budget and on-time" instead of OTL, where it's very consistently been that another $3b per year is needed to actually achieve the goals. That might be enough to save it from the 2010 budget fight, and a 2020-or-slightly-before moon mission sounds plausible. I was hopeful that SLS might actually be this, but the commitment to 5-seg and a stretched core really has hurt it a lot.

ISS is an interesting question. No single partner can unilaterally splash it, but if the US pulled out, then you are looking at a case where Russia, ESA, and JAXA would be unable to fund it by themselves. I'd hope to see it saved--maybe you see commercial crew viewed less as a threat, so it gets its requested budgets instead of consistent short-changing and attempted legislative interference by congresspersons in districts related to SLS? That'd be possibly online in 2015 or so, then, and could save substantial costs, perhaps enough to keep the station alive while lunar missions are ongoing. Another option would be that with this SDHLV appeasing the Utah politics faction, you can also get approval to stick Orion on a Delta IV Heavy and you can use that for ISS pretty cheap.

The question of what you do after a few sorties, though, is a whole other kettle of fish. Finding the money for a lunar outpost, or a Mars program...well, that's a real challenge. Ironically, this is sort of similar to situations I've been wrestling with with Workable Goblin for Part IV of Eyes, so...I've given the questions some thought.

 

[nixonshead]

Not really. SLS has some key distinguishing differences from DIRECT J130/246, which is in turn different from LV 24/25. LV24/25 was a 1.5 stage vehicle: 4-seg SRBs, plus a near-stock ET with 3xSSME, no upper stage.

Well, yes, but my impression was a lot of these changes were simply the result of SLS being a real rocket development as opposed to a powerpoint stalking horse for Constellation. In particular I suspect the choice of 5-stage SRBs was simply down to the fact that a lot of development work for these had already been done for Ares-1, so it might as well be taken advantage of (which seems pretty reasonable). I suspect the LV-24/25-to-DIRECT changes were mostly a result of greater knowledge/study, as are the DIRECT-to-SLS differences. So if LV-24/25 had be chosen in 2005, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it ended up as something very similar to SLS (perhaps with 4-segment boosters rather than 5) by the time it hit Critical Design Review. Though even with the SRBs, I seem to recall Thiokol being pretty bullish about how easy it would be to upgrade the shuttle SRBs to 5 segments, so even this might have been maintained.

 

[Michel Van]

The White House and NASA Mike Griffin had not understand the beauty of DIRECT concept
There Jupiter rocket had give NASA a modular adaptable system, based on existing hardware like Shuttle and US launch rocket. what had reduce the R&D cost

But the Constellation Ares-1 and Ares-V needed fifth (even 5.5) segment SRB, the J-2X engine and six RS-68B for Ares V

Irony after billion were spent on Ares-1 and Ares-V the White House kill Constellation program.
and SLS was born who used elements of DIRECT concept, like RS-25 engine after they realized they can't cluster the RS-68B because there the ablative carbon nozzle would overheat.
For the moment they are again wandering into liquid booster using lox/RP-1 like NK-33 or even rebuild F-1 engine

had Mike Griffin take DIRECT concept in begin
NASA had now Jupiter rocket ready, now waiting on Lockheed Martin to get the Orion finish...

 

[e of pi]

Well, yes, but my impression was a lot of these changes were simply the result of SLS being a real rocket development as opposed to a powerpoint stalking horse for Constellation. In particular I suspect the choice of 5-stage SRBs was simply down to the fact that a lot of development work for these had already been done for Ares-1, so it might as well be taken advantage of (which seems pretty reasonable).

Mmm. In a sense, that was the argument for SLS when it finally happened in OTL. "We're so close, we might as well use them, right?" But it has costs much more than that. It also added a stretch of the core, and then they decided to totally overhaul the tooling at Michoud. The LV 24/25 and DIRECT could have been built on the existing tooling with no modifications. The changes with SLS aren't a technical necessity, but rather a political one--the boosters and the core stretch both.

I suspect the LV-24/25-to-DIRECT changes were mostly a result of greater knowledge/study, as are the DIRECT-to-SLS differences. So if LV-24/25 had be chosen in 2005, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it ended up as something very similar to SLS (perhaps with 4-segment boosters rather than 5) by the time it hit Critical Design Review.

I wouldn't either, simply because of the politics--Griffin needed the political support Thoikol commanded, and the head of Thoikol demanded in return that the company get to develop 5-seg; development being more profitable than merely building the same product. I even recently read (over on the NSF thread that spawned this) that Ross Tierney of DIRECT had heard that ATK literally threatened to refuse to produce solids at all if they weren't given the 5-seg development they demanded, and forced Griffin into Ares V and Ares I to let him have cover. I wish I didn't believe that might be true. (Of course, SLS is not only using 5-seg, but also providing ATK with yet another large development program in the form of the "advanced boosters". One wonders...)

 

[Archibald]

The whole thing give me the feeling that, once nixon approved the shuttle on January 5, 1972 that train wreck could never be stopped. The whole shuttle enchilada that replaced Apollo only for the jobs and politics still remain today..
Which in turn explain why most of my space TL PODS are set between 1967 and 1973.
Before, Apollo was as good as it could be, don't want to change that.
Post 1973 - see above...

 

[Thande]

What about man-rating Delta IV Heavy, then using it in the role that OTL Consteallation envisaged for Ares I, while building a more modest Ares V (closer to the current SLS) to launch the lander and Earth Departure Stage, with off-the-shelf 4-segment boosters and SSMEs and not requiring man-rating? Would that work? I know there were political reasons why NASA was hostile to the idea of man-rating EELVs, but in principle.

 

[e of pi]

What about man-rating Delta IV Heavy, then using it in the role that OTL Consteallation envisaged for Ares I, while building a more modest Ares V (closer to the current SLS) to launch the lander and Earth Departure Stage, with off-the-shelf 4-segment boosters and SSMEs and not requiring man-rating? Would that work? I know there were political reasons why NASA was hostile to the idea of man-rating EELVs, but in principle.

Actually, the man-rated Delta IV would enter service at about the same time as a Lv/24/25 or J130/246 style vehicle--about 5 years after program start. They'd be a great pairing, though. I have to suspect that the ESAS Orion being coincidentally about half a ton too heavy for Delta IV to launch to LEO, but just barely within the nominal performance of the Ares I "stick" configuration they recommended instead...may not have been that much of a coincidence. Having Delta IV Heavy for ISS ops would be useful (though it probably kills COTS and CRS in the cradle, which in the long run is probably worse). However, there's not really a savings in not man-rating the SDHLV--all the parts are already manrated, and so the cost is minor compared to the flexibility offered for lunar missions or beyond, and unlike the Ares 5, you don't have so much launch that you can afford to launch all the unmanned portions in one go, then the crew separately. To stick within two-launch lunar ops with a J130/246 or LV24/25, you need a manned heavy to be one of the two.

 

[Garrison]

The White House and NASA Mike Griffin had not understand the beauty of DIRECT concept
There Jupiter rocket had give NASA a modular adaptable system, based on existing hardware like Shuttle and US launch rocket. what had reduce the R&D cost

Which was the same rationale behind the Ares I and Ares V; reusing existing hardware would be quicker, simpler, and cheaper but it never worked out that way. I suspect had DIRECT moved from Powerpoint to actual development it would have produced its own parallel set of problems.

 

[sparky42]

I'm right in thinking that ATK do the solids for the nukes as well? I seem to remember around the same time as the 5 segment argument, their was comments along the line of "without this we can't build the next gen SLBM/ICBMs"

 

[e of pi]

Which was the same rationale behind the Ares I and Ares V; reusing existing hardware would be quicker, simpler, and cheaper but it never worked out that way. I suspect had DIRECT moved from Powerpoint to actual development it would have produced its own parallel set of problems.

The thing was that Ares I/V broke hardware reuse at every chance, largely on the political demands of those with districts containing the companies building the hardware--10m core instead of 8.4m for Ares V, 5 seg and then 5.5 seg for Ares I and V, the new 5.5m upper stage for Ares I instead of using 5.0m Delta IV tooling, the use of the RS-68 instead of the RS-25 for the Ares V, and the J-2 being revived, then overhauled into the J-2X instead of using the readily-available, more-efficient RL-10. None of these were technical necessities. All were political decisions.

If DIRECT had been carried to fruition under the same political requirements, perhaps it might have seen the same level of bloat and waste. OTOH, that's not really the question--the question is what it would have been like if a better, directly-derived vehicle concept had been selected, and then carried out in a technically-focused and more cost-effective manner without the degree of political bloat.

I'm right in thinking that ATK do the solids for the nukes as well? I seem to remember around the same time as the 5 segment argument, their was comments along the line of "without this we can't build the next gen SLBM/ICBMs"

It's their argument, and remains so to this day, but the segmented solids they build for NASA have almost nothing to do with the monolithic ones they do for missiles. Those are more closely related to the SRBs used by Atlas and Delta (the military launchers), and besides, the budget of the DoD is something like 30x the size of NASA's--if there's something they need, they really should pay for it themselves.

 

[sparky42]

The thing was that Ares I/V broke hardware reuse at every chance, largely on the political demands of those with districts containing the companies building the hardware--10m core instead of 8.4m for Ares V, 5 seg and then 5.5 seg for Ares I and V, the new 5.5m upper stage for Ares I instead of using 5.0m Delta IV tooling, the use of the RS-68 instead of the RS-25 for the Ares V, and the J-2 being revived, then overhauled into the J-2X instead of using the readily-available, more-efficient RL-10. None of these were technical necessities. All were political decisions.

That's about the best list of why Ares went off the deep end that I've read for a while. This for reminding me about how much non reuse there was. I'm surprised nobody got hauled up to account for such massive changes given the original plan. As you said politics drove the changes but seriously, even with a increase in budget surely with that level of changes there's zero heritage flight safety involved and guaranteed flight delays due to development. (And how do you have half a stage? Either it's a stage (smaller or not) or it's not surely, or have I missed something?)

It's their argument, and remains so to this day, but the segmented solids they build for NASA have almost nothing to do with the monolithic ones they do for missiles. Those are more closely related to the SRBs used by Atlas and Delta (the military launchers), and besides, the budget of the DoD is something like 30x the size of NASA's--if there's something they need, they really should pay for it themselves.

You're right, I only ask because I've seen some comments on nav weapons boards that the same argument is being brought out for the next gen boomers now as well? What else do they want funded I wonder?

 

[Garrison]

The thing was that Ares I/V broke hardware reuse at every chance, largely on the political demands of those with districts containing the companies building the hardware--10m core instead of 8.4m for Ares V, 5 seg and then 5.5 seg for Ares I and V, the new 5.5m upper stage for Ares I instead of using 5.0m Delta IV tooling, the use of the RS-68 instead of the RS-25 for the Ares V, and the J-2 being revived, then overhauled into the J-2X instead of using the readily-available, more-efficient RL-10. None of these were technical necessities. All were political decisions.

If DIRECT had been carried to fruition under the same political requirements, perhaps it might have seen the same level of bloat and waste. OTOH, that's not really the question--the question is what it would have been like if a better, directly-derived vehicle concept had been selected, and then carried out in a technically-focused and more cost-effective manner without the degree of political bloat.

Which is essentially ASB for the reasons you mention. There is not one NASA launcher/vehicle program that has been carried through to completion since STS. All of have been cancelled through bloat, politics, or a combination of both. The problems with Constellation weren't exceptional, rather they were and are endemic in NASA projects.