Author Topic: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?  (Read 195055 times)

Offline Patchouli

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #180 on: 09/10/2011 03:47 pm »
I did decide to calculate what would one F-1A lift using this rocket calculator.
http://www.silverbirdastronautics.com/cgi-bin/LVPcalc.pl
Assuming the stage would be over all half the mass of a Jarvis 1 I got 23MT.

Just barely enough to lift Orion.

Though Orion can act as a third stage so this is probably not as bad as it seems.

Still can the F-1A be made with a modern nozzle without messing things up too much?

I guess for cheapness do the whole thing in channel wall as modern flight avionics probably would more then make up for the extra weight.
I used an AVP2 style vehicle, double dry weight of the AIUS with about 120% more fuel mass due to the density.  I got about 26 metric tons.

Looking at that it may actually be a good investment to bring back the F-1A.

Offline Downix

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #181 on: 09/10/2011 10:45 pm »
I did decide to calculate what would one F-1A lift using this rocket calculator.
http://www.silverbirdastronautics.com/cgi-bin/LVPcalc.pl
Assuming the stage would be over all half the mass of a Jarvis 1 I got 23MT.

Just barely enough to lift Orion.

Though Orion can act as a third stage so this is probably not as bad as it seems.

Still can the F-1A be made with a modern nozzle without messing things up too much?

I guess for cheapness do the whole thing in channel wall as modern flight avionics probably would more then make up for the extra weight.
I used an AVP2 style vehicle, double dry weight of the AIUS with about 120% more fuel mass due to the density.  I got about 26 metric tons.

Looking at that it may actually be a good investment to bring back the F-1A.
I still wouldn't bring back the F-1A, it's overhead and cost would be far higher today than in the past.  Instead I would look to computerize the F-1 design, automate it's manufacturing methods.  HIP combustion chambers using the same machines as used on the RS-68 and J-2X, sandwich or ablative nozzle, adapt the RS-68's gas generator for it rather than use a unique system, etc.  It would be more time consuming, but the cost reduction for production would be significant.
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Offline luke strawwalker

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #182 on: 09/13/2011 04:35 am »
Slavish devotion to "simple" is exactly what led down the Ares I path. And the end result was a whole system which was NOT simple.

The pretty much sums it it up.

The people running the project would not change the design when it became obvious it was the wrong direction.

If the people doing Apollo had the same stubborn mindset we may have never landed on the moon and certianly would not have done so before the end of the decade.
Apollo originally was going to use a direct landing LOR was the underdog at first.

Kinda like Direct vs Ares.
The 1961 vehicle was a cluster of Saturn C-3 first stages with super upper stages. 

Do you have a link to a study or paper showing that?? I'd LOVE to see it!

Any information greatly appreciated!  OL JR :)
Found it in a book, actually:

http://www.amazon.com/Saturn-F-1-Engine-Powering-Exploration/dp/0387096299

Lots of good information on the engine, and the various uses they studied for it.  Adding some artists renderings of this design.

Ah, ok, thanks... I appreciate it downix! 

I've seen those before... in some of the old studies that I've looked at. 
I think I have both those very graphics, at least I KNOW I have the second one! 

I just can't help thinking-- what if the 'common core booster' idea had come along in say 1960...

What would a Saturn C-3 with a core and two identical core booster LRB's been capable of??  I've seen Saturn V upgrades that proposed adding a sixth F-1 to the first stage, by moving the outboard engines outward by 39 inches and mounting two F-1's in the center equidistant off the centerpoint.  A three-body C-3 would have had six F-1's for liftoff.  Four J-2's on the upper stage seems a bit small (since most of the Saturn V uprated versions were proposing switching to HG-3 (SSME predecessor) engines, uprated J-2 based aerospikes, or increasing J-2 count from 5 to 6 or even 7.  Still, a 4 J-2 upperstage, topped by a J-2 powered third stage (S-IVB) would have been something else (my gut tells me that 4 J-2's aren't enough though for the second stage, especially if you're increasing the payload enough to make use of 6 F-1's at liftoff-- maybe a single F-1 second stage would work better??  Course that means developing an airstart vaccuum nozzle F-1 and STILL suffering the lower ISP...) 

At any rate, it's an interesting "what might have been".  Blue sky thinking ala 1961...

Another strange vision popped into my head... A Titan II with a pair of Titan II first stages on either side of the core vehicle... 6 LR-87's at liftoff, single LR-91 upper stage... maybe an Agena third stage... Bet that thing could move some mail!  Better yet, swap the LR-91 upper stage for a DEC or Centaur G Prime... now we're cookin!  OL JR :)
« Last Edit: 09/13/2011 04:39 am by luke strawwalker »
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Offline Downix

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #183 on: 09/13/2011 04:55 am »
Slavish devotion to "simple" is exactly what led down the Ares I path. And the end result was a whole system which was NOT simple.

The pretty much sums it it up.

The people running the project would not change the design when it became obvious it was the wrong direction.

If the people doing Apollo had the same stubborn mindset we may have never landed on the moon and certianly would not have done so before the end of the decade.
Apollo originally was going to use a direct landing LOR was the underdog at first.

Kinda like Direct vs Ares.
The 1961 vehicle was a cluster of Saturn C-3 first stages with super upper stages. 

Do you have a link to a study or paper showing that?? I'd LOVE to see it!

Any information greatly appreciated!  OL JR :)
Found it in a book, actually:

http://www.amazon.com/Saturn-F-1-Engine-Powering-Exploration/dp/0387096299

Lots of good information on the engine, and the various uses they studied for it.  Adding some artists renderings of this design.

Ah, ok, thanks... I appreciate it downix! 

I've seen those before... in some of the old studies that I've looked at. 
I think I have both those very graphics, at least I KNOW I have the second one! 

I just can't help thinking-- what if the 'common core booster' idea had come along in say 1960...

What would a Saturn C-3 with a core and two identical core booster LRB's been capable of??  I've seen Saturn V upgrades that proposed adding a sixth F-1 to the first stage, by moving the outboard engines outward by 39 inches and mounting two F-1's in the center equidistant off the centerpoint.  A three-body C-3 would have had six F-1's for liftoff.  Four J-2's on the upper stage seems a bit small (since most of the Saturn V uprated versions were proposing switching to HG-3 (SSME predecessor) engines, uprated J-2 based aerospikes, or increasing J-2 count from 5 to 6 or even 7.  Still, a 4 J-2 upperstage, topped by a J-2 powered third stage (S-IVB) would have been something else (my gut tells me that 4 J-2's aren't enough though for the second stage, especially if you're increasing the payload enough to make use of 6 F-1's at liftoff-- maybe a single F-1 second stage would work better??  Course that means developing an airstart vaccuum nozzle F-1 and STILL suffering the lower ISP...) 

At any rate, it's an interesting "what might have been".  Blue sky thinking ala 1961...

Another strange vision popped into my head... A Titan II with a pair of Titan II first stages on either side of the core vehicle... 6 LR-87's at liftoff, single LR-91 upper stage... maybe an Agena third stage... Bet that thing could move some mail!  Better yet, swap the LR-91 upper stage for a DEC or Centaur G Prime... now we're cookin!  OL JR :)
Two of the Titan IV cores w/ the dual LR-87's for boosters, kerolox, with the Titan II center kept hypergolic, and the Centaur for an upper stage.... mmmm
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Offline luke strawwalker

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #184 on: 09/20/2011 05:58 am »
Slavish devotion to "simple" is exactly what led down the Ares I path. And the end result was a whole system which was NOT simple.

The pretty much sums it it up.

The people running the project would not change the design when it became obvious it was the wrong direction.

If the people doing Apollo had the same stubborn mindset we may have never landed on the moon and certianly would not have done so before the end of the decade.
Apollo originally was going to use a direct landing LOR was the underdog at first.

Kinda like Direct vs Ares.
The 1961 vehicle was a cluster of Saturn C-3 first stages with super upper stages. 

Do you have a link to a study or paper showing that?? I'd LOVE to see it!

Any information greatly appreciated!  OL JR :)
Found it in a book, actually:

http://www.amazon.com/Saturn-F-1-Engine-Powering-Exploration/dp/0387096299

Lots of good information on the engine, and the various uses they studied for it.  Adding some artists renderings of this design.

Ah, ok, thanks... I appreciate it downix! 

I've seen those before... in some of the old studies that I've looked at. 
I think I have both those very graphics, at least I KNOW I have the second one! 

I just can't help thinking-- what if the 'common core booster' idea had come along in say 1960...

What would a Saturn C-3 with a core and two identical core booster LRB's been capable of??  I've seen Saturn V upgrades that proposed adding a sixth F-1 to the first stage, by moving the outboard engines outward by 39 inches and mounting two F-1's in the center equidistant off the centerpoint.  A three-body C-3 would have had six F-1's for liftoff.  Four J-2's on the upper stage seems a bit small (since most of the Saturn V uprated versions were proposing switching to HG-3 (SSME predecessor) engines, uprated J-2 based aerospikes, or increasing J-2 count from 5 to 6 or even 7.  Still, a 4 J-2 upperstage, topped by a J-2 powered third stage (S-IVB) would have been something else (my gut tells me that 4 J-2's aren't enough though for the second stage, especially if you're increasing the payload enough to make use of 6 F-1's at liftoff-- maybe a single F-1 second stage would work better??  Course that means developing an airstart vaccuum nozzle F-1 and STILL suffering the lower ISP...) 

At any rate, it's an interesting "what might have been".  Blue sky thinking ala 1961...

Another strange vision popped into my head... A Titan II with a pair of Titan II first stages on either side of the core vehicle... 6 LR-87's at liftoff, single LR-91 upper stage... maybe an Agena third stage... Bet that thing could move some mail!  Better yet, swap the LR-91 upper stage for a DEC or Centaur G Prime... now we're cookin!  OL JR :)
Two of the Titan IV cores w/ the dual LR-87's for boosters, kerolox, with the Titan II center kept hypergolic, and the Centaur for an upper stage.... mmmm

Heck, lets use up all those Titan I kerolox first stages that went unused when Titan I was retired in ('64? IIRC).  Use those suckers as strap on boosters flanking your hypergol Titan II core. 

Definitely Centaur upper stage...

Now you're cooking with gas!!!  OL JR :)
NO plan IS the plan...

"His plan had no goals, no timeline, and no budgetary guidelines. Just maybe's, pretty speeches, and smokescreens."

Offline Patchouli

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #185 on: 09/20/2011 07:17 pm »
I would not even bother with Titan parts as the tooling was long gone by the time Constellation was announced and a hypergolic core stage would not be a non starter.
The best move would have been to develop a kerolox first stage built with ET tooling and run two RS-84s or two TR-107s.

The target payload 38,000kg.
I always thought of Jarvis as an ideal CLV.
« Last Edit: 09/20/2011 07:24 pm by Patchouli »

Offline luke strawwalker

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #186 on: 09/30/2011 10:15 pm »
I would not even bother with Titan parts as the tooling was long gone by the time Constellation was announced and a hypergolic core stage would not be a non starter.
The best move would have been to develop a kerolox first stage built with ET tooling and run two RS-84s or two TR-107s.

The target payload 38,000kg.
I always thought of Jarvis as an ideal CLV.

Well, yeah... I was referring more I guess to the "what if Apollo had continued" thread.  Clearly Titan I wouldn't make much sense in the Cx era unless you wanted to use it as a basis for a new booster-- restart LR-87 production or something like that...

lateR! OL JR :)
NO plan IS the plan...

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Offline Downix

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #187 on: 09/30/2011 11:46 pm »
I would not even bother with Titan parts as the tooling was long gone by the time Constellation was announced and a hypergolic core stage would not be a non starter.
The best move would have been to develop a kerolox first stage built with ET tooling and run two RS-84s or two TR-107s.

The target payload 38,000kg.
I always thought of Jarvis as an ideal CLV.

Well, yeah... I was referring more I guess to the "what if Apollo had continued" thread.  Clearly Titan I wouldn't make much sense in the Cx era unless you wanted to use it as a basis for a new booster-- restart LR-87 production or something like that...

lateR! OL JR :)
LR-87's were run on LH2 and RP-1 as well, so that is a non-issue as well.
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Offline Downix

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #188 on: 07/06/2012 05:37 pm »
I was asked to break down the Ares I development and noted something revealing about the issues of Ares I. There was in ESAS a 5segment, j-2s+ vehicle studied, LV16. Comparing it to the final form of Ares I reveals one gaping issue, LV16 had a significantly different upper stage, smaller and lighter, closer to Centaur construction. With this, the severe redesign on the J-2s was not needed, it did not lose ISP to gain thrust. Its length and design also would not be at the occilation sweet spot, having LOX and LH2 arranged differently. Reveals to me how many of the issues are inertia.
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Offline Ben the Space Brit

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #189 on: 11/02/2012 12:19 pm »
Reveals to me how many of the issues are inertia.

I have to agree with this.  I remember thinking at the time that a lot of Ares-I's problems were due to a fundamental unwillingness on NASA's part to acknowledge that there were any problems.  NASA seemed to be trying to "little modification here, little modification there" their way out of their fix when, instead, a full redesign to make a joined-up solution of the underlying problems was needed.  This would have probably meant real progress, either towards solving the problems or identifying that a resolution (at acceptable safety levels) was unachievable.

It seems that at least some in the ALS project were unwilling to admit that they were having problems, perhaps for fear of panicking Congress; consequently it was difficult for the teams to really sit down and fix the issues.  Everyone seemed to be toeing the party line of "it's just a minor glitch that we can work past" instead of saying "hey, this is potentially bad, we need to fix this thing!"

So, in terms of this thread, Ares-I could possibly have ultimately worked if the psychology of the project leadership at the middle- to high-level was fundamentally different.

(BTW - Something like Stumpy would have worked, as would have dividing up the SRB into a three-seg and, perhaps, 2.5-seg; a three-stage vehicle would have broken the harmonic issue too and, by the nature of solids, not greatly increased statistical failure rates.)
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Offline MATTBLAK

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #190 on: 11/02/2012 12:34 pm »
Ares 1 - even with the mass of thrust oscillation reduction equipment - might have come close to the promised L.E.O. payload performance if the first stage had been made expendable by deleting the not-insignificant mass of recovery systems and if the J-2X had been redesigned for much more thrust quite early on in its development phase.

For example; getting P&W/R to bring the engine's thrust up to 350k from the 294k design goal.
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Offline edkyle99

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #191 on: 11/02/2012 04:14 pm »
Ares 1 - even with the mass of thrust oscillation reduction equipment - might have come close to the promised L.E.O. payload performance if the first stage had been made expendable by deleting the not-insignificant mass of recovery systems and if the J-2X had been redesigned for much more thrust quite early on in its development phase.

For example; getting P&W/R to bring the engine's thrust up to 350k from the 294k design goal.

Could we turn this thread off?  We've talked about this for seven years.  Everybody seems to "know" what killed Ares I, but they're wrong.

 - Ed Kyle
« Last Edit: 11/02/2012 07:58 pm by edkyle99 »

Offline MATTBLAK

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #192 on: 11/04/2012 05:26 am »
You're right Ed - probably time it was locked. But I was just trying to make a simple, technical summary.
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Offline tnphysics

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #193 on: 12/04/2012 05:25 am »
Maybe if a third stage had been used, the second stage uprated, and the first stage liquid-fuelled...but then it would not be the Ares 1 anymore :)

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #194 on: 12/30/2012 05:12 pm »
Maybe if a third stage had been used, the second stage uprated, and the first stage liquid-fuelled...but then it would not be the Ares 1 anymore :)
Liquid would not be the solution.  Liquid was the problem, if there was a problem. 

It has become clearer that Ares I performance was challenged most by liquid upper stage technical details.  The J-2X engine, for various reasons, was (and is) being designed to perform at a lower specific impulse than originally advertised.  As for the upper stage structure itself, Boeing accomplished little based on the public information it released.  The liquid upper stage, its engine, and its avionics were the Ares I pacing items, both on schedule and on mass/performance. 

The solid first stage motor and its avionics, meanwhile, were being tested.     

 - Ed Kyle
« Last Edit: 12/30/2012 05:13 pm by edkyle99 »

Offline clongton

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #195 on: 12/30/2012 06:15 pm »
Actually, it is true for today and 2005. There was never a need for Ares I.  In 2005, CEV was going fly in EELV and should have flown already.  The layoffs were inevitable.

There could have been addition pads for Atlas and Delta and billions left over for payloads,  both unmanned and for HSF.

Haven't posted here before but followed it from the beginning. But for an end-of-year exercise I started re-reading the threads that really interested me. This is one of them.

Specific to this post from Jim I wanted to say that in spite of my involvement with DIRECT, in the beginning I was an EELV man. I wanted to see the existing EELV fleet evolved. We had everything we needed already in place. Orion didn't need to be as big as it turned out to be. Of course Griffin ordered the lunar-class Orion to be too big for the EELV to lift, forcing the adoption of the HLV, much the same way as I believe ATK is attempting to force SLS back to a 5-engine core, to force the adoption of the large SRB.

Context: DIRECT came about because Congress made a Shuttle-Derived HLV mandatory and the CxP design choice was beyond stupidity. DIRECT was an effort to obey the law but make the HLV make sense.

Ares-I WAS the problem with CxP. The concept of the 1.5 architecture itself was not the problem. It was the choice of LV for the booster/CLV that was the problem. For an excellent example of how a 1.5 architecture would have worked beautifully, go back and peruse the AJAX threads. The booster/CLV was the existing Atlas-V CCB, sharing everything with the EELV family. THAT would have worked, but it was not allowed by Congress. When we first started DIRECT we had long conversations about the CLV and I advocated strongly for the Atlas CCB but over and over again we kept coming back to the NASA Authorization Act which mandated the SRB be used. There was no getting around it so DIRECT became what all of you saw.

I personally liked the 1.5 architecture. It was the choice of CLV that screwed CxP. So I say again, Ares-I WAS the problem.

Ares-I would not have worked.
« Last Edit: 12/30/2012 06:31 pm by clongton »
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Offline edkyle99

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #196 on: 12/31/2012 05:10 am »
Ares-I would not have worked.
We're going to disagree on that one.  There might be schedule or money reasons, but I don't see any technical reason why Ares I could not have worked. 

 - Ed Kyle
« Last Edit: 12/31/2012 05:28 am by edkyle99 »

Offline clongton

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #197 on: 12/31/2012 12:19 pm »
Ares-I would not have worked.
We're going to disagree on that one.  There might be schedule or money reasons, but I don't see any technical reason why Ares I could not have worked. 

 - Ed Kyle

Ed have you looked at the results of the Ares-IX launch? In spite of the transition section being nearly 3x the thickness of design reference it buckled under aerodynamic load. Had the section been the actual design thickness for the real Ares-I the vehicle would have bent right over with that section failing completely in flight. TO had been successfully addressed but at the cost of major payload capacity loss and millions of dollars. If the money hadn't run out Griffin could have kept going and ultimately made a rocket that would fly but its payload capacity would have likely dropped below that of the existing EELV's. At that point it would have been a total waste to even consider using.

The only way Ares-I would have worked would have been for Griffin to abandon the solid 1st stage and create the liquid 1st stage that you designed. THAT would have worked very nicely. But by then it was too late. Griffin had bet his professional reputation on the solid and pissed away the budget. Both his reputation and the vehicle budget were gone.

« Last Edit: 12/31/2012 12:22 pm by clongton »
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Offline MATTBLAK

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #198 on: 12/31/2012 12:44 pm »
Ironic really about the First Stage - assuming the Solid first stage were abandoned for Ares 1 and kept only for Ares V. Then using a 5-meter diameter first stage (Delta IV tooling) with either 2x RD-180 engines (shades of Atlas V Phase II) or 2x RS-68 (too close together for thermal stability?) along with the Ares 1 J-2X upper stage would have resulted in a fine launch vehicle, well able to lift a fully-featured Orion. 'Simple' upgrades could have included a cluster of GEM-60 solids to that first stage, or even 'ganging' three-in-a-row together just like Delta IV-H.

But then that enters Heavy Lift territory - threatening to make Ares V redundant and erasing ATK Solids altogether. And we just couldn't have that now, could we?! I mean; just imagine - a modular family of launch vehicles, able to lift whatever payload you allocated to a custom-clustered configuration of stages. Heaven forbid NASA and the powers-that-be could ever be that logical!

...As I'm typing this, suddenly I'm having a deja-vu flashback to the old Nasaspaceflight.com pages - like this were 2007 or something.

Sigh... :(
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Offline Patchouli

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #199 on: 01/21/2013 02:56 am »
Ironic really about the First Stage - assuming the Solid first stage were abandoned for Ares 1 and kept only for Ares V. Then using a 5-meter diameter first stage (Delta IV tooling) with either 2x RD-180 engines (shades of Atlas V Phase II) or 2x RS-68 (too close together for thermal stability?) along with the Ares 1 J-2X upper stage would have resulted in a fine launch vehicle, well able to lift a fully-featured Orion. 'Simple' upgrades could have included a cluster of GEM-60 solids to that first stage, or even 'ganging' three-in-a-row together just like Delta IV-H.

But then that enters Heavy Lift territory - threatening to make Ares V redundant and erasing ATK Solids altogether. And we just couldn't have that now, could we?! I mean; just imagine - a modular family of launch vehicles, able to lift whatever payload you allocated to a custom-clustered configuration of stages. Heaven forbid NASA and the powers-that-be could ever be that logical!

...As I'm typing this, suddenly I'm having a deja-vu flashback to the old Nasaspaceflight.com pages - like this were 2007 or something.

Sigh... :(

A bit a of a late reply but I think it could have worked if SLI never was axed and the TR-107 or RS-84 was used as a first stage engine.

A two TR-107 first stage based off ET tooling and a single J-2X second stage probably would have made a very capable LV.
The J-2X actually would be over kill and the cheaper J-2S could be used instead.

The danger is the TR-107 and RS-84 could have eliminated the need for SRBs on Ares V.
« Last Edit: 01/21/2013 03:00 am by Patchouli »

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