Author Topic: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?  (Read 54824 times)

Offline Lobo

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #40 on: 05/13/2013 04:44 am »
The mandate was to make it to the Moon by 1970.  Had that failed, I doubt there would have been the will in Congress -- or from a Republican president -- to continue on.  There would have been no first landing in 1972.
It was all about beating the Soviets.  If the landing had slipped a year or two, it wouldn't have mattered.  There's no way that Nixon would have wanted to be blamed for cosmonauts on the Moon first.

 - Ed Kyle

Yea, I think that's exactly right.

1970 was Kennedy's challenge.  Had he not been assasinated and thus made a martyr and lionized, there probably wouldn't have been as much drive to get it done by 1970 unless we really thought the Soviets would have gotten there by then. 
I think the destroyed N-1 launchpad we photographed after the July 3, 1969 would have cooled off the space race some if we hadn't been trying to realize JFK's dreams post-mortem.
Had JFK lost re-election in 1964, or just finished his 2nd term and Nixon or another President was elected in 1968, we might not have gotten there by the end of the decade.  JFK's challenge might have seemed like another Politician's lofty rhetoric.  Kinda cool to do if we could, but not worth breaking the bank over just to do.
Especially as we realized that the Soviet's were having struggles getting there. 
Nixon would have wanted to have Americans be the first to set foot on the moon as much as anyone, but i really think the 1970 deadline was mostly about an taking up a challenge by a martyr'd President during the "heat" of the Cold War, more so than the fear the Soviets would get there by 1970.

I think the lunar program under a President Nixon would only have cooled down or been cancelled if we'd not realized they might be getting close and they actually beat us there and we were some time and a lot of money away from doing it ourselves still...the same way our beating them there resulted in their manned lunar program being cancelled.

Of course, in 1970, if JFK hadn't been killed, Nixon might not have been President.  Or he could have been in a 2nd term (JFK barely beat him in 1960).  Hard to say how JFK's legacy would be if he'd not been killed.  If bad, Nixon maybe have run again 1964 and beat JFK.  Or Goldwater might have ran instead of Nixon in 1964 (as he actually did).  Or JFK might have won again in 1964 and LBJ might have ran and won in 1968 (as the incumbant vice President)and he'd have been President then.  Or JFK might have had a different VP in his 2nd term and they'd have run...or lost...as the incumbant VP running for President in 1968.  Etc. Etc.

So pretty hard to know exactly how things would have turned out, but I'm pretty sure any President would have been pushing for NASA to beat the Soviets to the moon...just maybe at a slower and less well funded rate than in real history.  Might have even resulted in a more Sustainable program and more lunar flights over more years, without such a huge ramp up in funding, and then such a drop off in funding.  Maybe a more consistant level of funding would have made for some different decisions being made?
Also, if we'd waiting several more years before beating the Soviets there, the Soviets may have been far enough along with N-1 and NK-lander to still do some lunar missions, if they were developed and almost ready to go.
Which might have meant we wanted to retain the ability a parady capability for perceived Soviet military or PR threats from the Moon.  The Shuttle may have been postponed and we kept going to the moon maybe once a year for several years, to keep an eye on the Reds

Hard to say how things might have went down....






Offline Lobo

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #41 on: 05/13/2013 05:17 am »
If you were willing to leave off the man-rating, and cite the common components with Atlas V to meet the language of the NASA authorization, D4SH would be done the fastest for super-heavy lift.


Do you mean NAA2010?  That D4SH could meet it?
Although this hypothetical is prior to that, selling a better concept that would then be written into NAA2010.

And sticking with a 1.5 launch architecture, you could leave off the Delta IV man-rating, and just make it the cargo launcher.


To grease the political wheels, do the final core assembly at MAF, ULA just ships D4 CBC's to MAF for final attachment, in the same manner by which the Redstone and Jupiter tanks were shipped in for turning into the S-IA/S-IB stage.


Interesting concept.  That's probably be more politically palatable, although I'm imagine it could be assembled in the VAB better, right on the ML.
Although, could that big 15m+ diameter construct be transported from MAF to the VAB ok?  10m was the biggest they ever did in the S-1C right?

Also, would there be a better way to do a D4SH in this case?  Boeing's D4SH seems to show the Central core supporting all the mass of the payload with 6 outboard boosters attached directly to it, but could it be put together more like S-1B, so that each Delta IV CCB sent to MAF would be literally a stock CCB used by USAF?  So rather than ULA developing it, NASA would, and just buy the standard CCB's from ULA?   


For launch pad, using KSC would make the most sense. It may not be the most efficient, but it does meet the letter of the law and can be converted rather quickly.


Well, since only NASA would be launching this beast, and it probably wouldn't launch all that often even for NASA (only on Lunar missions probably) i think it would make the most sense to do that at KSC, so ULA's pads will be launching the configurations that USAF/DoD want, which would be the single stick or tri-core heavy Delta IV.


An upper stage using the J-2X would address the RS-25 issue as well, same tooling, plant, and material, plus would be shared with the RS-68A+ as well.


Good point.  Too bad J2X was as far along as it was.  THe J2S would likely have been much cheaper to develop and build.  The features of the X had for the Ares 1 wouldn't be needed.


While Li-Al tanks would be nice, they are not critical. A later conversion would enable it to meet the letter of the law. As the law allowed for upgrades to enable meeting the final lift requirement, this is acceptable. The upgraded Li-Al CBC would further improve the USAF's options as well.


Boeing's growth chart shows the near 100mt performance with Al-Li tanks, so I don't know how much less D4SH's perforamnce to not have the Al-Li.  But I'd guess whatever it was could be made up for by designing the large upper stage for the D4SH to have a bit more performance, right?  A big 8.4 m  upper stage (built in MAF too) with a single J2X engine should be designed with extra margin without the Al-Li tanks I'd suppose.


It is not ideal, but it could meet the letter of the law and been faster than the existing plan. However, it would not grow as well as the current SLS either. It's main strength is that it would cost less and make ULA more competitive on the global marketplace.

Well, that'd be in the event of the existing NAA201 still being written.  But in this thread, Administrator Downix could have went out there in February 2010 and sold this concept.  Along with the 7-core 1st stage being assembled in MAF to keep it working along with the new J2X upper stage for it. 
Orion wouldn't be cancelled in FY2011 budget, but a human rated Atlas 55x Phase 1 (with 5m upper stage) rather than Ares 1.

you do it well enough, and NAA2010 would mandate -this- instead of something more shuttle derived, so you wouldn't have to dance around anything.  :-)

Offline Jim

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #42 on: 05/13/2013 05:21 am »

After the N1 debacle, there was no chance of the Soviets mounting any Lunar Landing challenge, and our own intelligence was well aware of the fact.

Unsubstantiated.
 The N1 "debacle" didn't end until 1974 and the last flight in 1972.  We did have intel about the explosions, but that did not mean the challenge was over or that they were not going to succeed, we only knew we were ahead.  It was only over once we landed on the moon.

Offline Lobo

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #43 on: 05/13/2013 04:10 pm »

After the N1 debacle, there was no chance of the Soviets mounting any Lunar Landing challenge, and our own intelligence was well aware of the fact.

Unsubstantiated.
 The N1 "debacle" didn't end until 1974 and the last flight in 1972.  We did have intel about the explosions, but that did not mean the challenge was over or that they were not going to succeed, we only knew we were ahead.  It was only over once we landed on the moon.

Yea, I was watching an interesting documentary on the NK-33 engine and they talked about how is was planned for use on the N-1's production model.  The test N-1's were using NK-15's, the prototype NK-33's.
And the Soviet model for their testing was different from ours.  They had no way to test the N-1 1st stage on a test stand, and obviously this was long before they had any kind of CAD in Russia. And the Soviet method of rocket testing in general was just to launch it, wait for it to fail, when it did, fix the problem, and then launch again.  Wash, rinse, repeat until it works.  They fully expected the early N-1's to fail.  There was no "debacle".  They had planned 12 test flights of the N-1 in order to get it working, only 4 of which were flown before the program was cancelled more due to internal and external politics than because the scientists and engineers didn't think the testing wasn't proceeding nominally.

The two problems that made the N-1 testing a little different were that the Soviets were in a space race with us, so their brass was pushing them to move faster then they otherwise would have, and there was a lot of PR at stake vs. other rocket programs.  And the 1969 N-1 test destroyed the launch pad, which took time to rebuild.  If not for that, even though we still beat them to the Moon, they might have continued testing the N-1 and tried to get a flag and a footprint on the Moon, as they were all about military and PR parity with us (see Buran, the Blackjack bomber, the Tu-4 Bull Bomber, Tu-144 version of the Concorde, etc).  They probably could have gotten in at least another 3 or 4 test launches in the time it took to rebuild the pad.  Impossible to know for sure, obivously, though.

But by the time they were able to repair the damage to the Pad, and get the next N-1 on the pad, we'd already landed on the moon 3 times, had already cancelled our last 3 lunar missions, and were talking about a reusable space plane. 
By the time they got the 4th N-1 on the pad, we'd been to the Moon two more times, and had the last lunar mission rolling out the next month. 

Another issue was unlike other Soviet Rocket test flights which also were all done in secrecy, we were able to find out about the N-1 testing and the failures, and so I think there was "face saving" PR considerations in continuing the testing.  Not to mention the money, and the fact we'd have long sense ended our lunar program by the time they'd have gotten their first Cosmonaut on the Moon.  I believe internal politics caused the program to be cancelled, and all traces of the program covered up as much as they could.

Had the pad not been destroyed in 1969, and had we taken a little longer to land, and had we decided to continue doing missions and maintaining a presence on the Moon, I'd wager the Soviets would have continued their program and gotten a cosmonaut on the surface before it was all said and done.  Not before we did, but still there before the programs were cancelled totally.


Offline newpylong

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #44 on: 05/13/2013 04:31 pm »
It was all about beating the Soviets.  If the landing had slipped a year or two, it wouldn't have mattered.  There's no way that Nixon would have wanted to be blamed for cosmonauts on the Moon first.

 - Ed Kyle


In hindsight it didn't matter. In reality, the notion that we knew that their Moon program wasn't going anywhere by the time of Apollo 11 is wrong. By July '69 they had already launched the N-1 twice, the race was still very much on. The program wasn't killed for another 4 years.
« Last Edit: 05/13/2013 04:31 pm by newpylong »

Offline llanitedave

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #45 on: 05/13/2013 04:57 pm »
It's also arguable but likely that the N1 itself would never have been built without the Saturn V.  Until Kennedy made his commitment, the Soviets were looking at much smaller rockets.  The Go-ahead for the N1 wasn't given until 1965, well after the Saturn V was already near completion.

It all comes back to the fact that we never would have achieved Kennedy's challenge without Von Braun and the Saturn V.  He was no loose cannon, and not a public servant, either.  He was a war criminal given a second chance, and he wasn't about to let small-minded bureaucrats undermine that.  He was also a visionary, and flexible enough to be able to be convinced of the superiority of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous after having previously championed Earth Orbit Rendezvous as a staging method to get to the Moon.  It was visionary work that saved him from living out his life as a prisoner of war.  None of this strikes me as carrying the cachet of personal irresponsibility that "loose cannon" entails -- except in the mind of a bureaucrat. 
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Offline Jim

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #46 on: 05/13/2013 05:04 pm »
It all comes back to the fact that we never would have achieved Kennedy's challenge without Von Braun and the Saturn V.

That doesn't mean we couldn't have gone to the moon by the early 70's without him. 

Offline Jim

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #47 on: 05/13/2013 05:07 pm »
  None of this strikes me as carrying the cachet of personal irresponsibility that "loose cannon" entails

then you don't know history and much about him

Offline Lobo

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #48 on: 05/13/2013 05:39 pm »
Ok folks, let's bring it back to the thread topic about a better CxP replacement rather than the Von Braun and the Soviet lunar program.  (and I've been as guilty as any).

Thanks.

Offline jnc

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #49 on: 05/13/2013 06:23 pm »
Ok folks, let's bring it back to the thread topic about a better CxP replacement rather than the Von Braun and the Soviet lunar program.

One of Constellation's initial birth-notices was in a famous article from Griffin pointing out that Saturns cost $X million each, and since 197<something> NASA had been given a total of $Y billion, and gee look where'd we have been if we'd just kept going with Saturns, and not gotten into the whole Shuttle thing.

Leaving aside the whole Ares I/V thing (which I have no wish to re-autopsy), was Griffin's basic concept there (go back to where we were before Shuttle, and try and keep going on that path) right, or not? It seems to me that that's basically what's happening now.

(And questions of re-usable/non-reusable, commercial/government are I think secondary - it's the broad concept I'm looking at.)

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Offline jnc

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #50 on: 05/13/2013 06:56 pm »
He was also a visionary, and flexible enough to be able to be convinced of the superiority of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous after having previously championed Earth Orbit Rendezvous as a staging method to get to the Moon.

I'm not sure that it was exactly 'visionary' to change his mind to support LOR. In fact, I'd say it was rather the opposite: the people at Marshall favoured EOR, in part, because of the infrastructure and techniques it would leave behind (e.g. tankers, orbital refuelling, etc) - all stuff that people are talking about here a lot, now - and that would have been more visionary. I suspect WvB probably guessed that LOR would wind up leaving us exactly where Apollo left us - with no natural path forward. (And I won't get into discussion of why he went along with LOR, then, that's even further off-topic.)

And yes, I realize that in some sense that conclusion clashes with what's in my previous post - that going on with Saturn might have been better than diverting to Shuttle. Although I want to make clear that I'm not trying to criticize the decision to go with Shuttle; to be fair, I'm not sure that the problems with that could have been clear at the time - probably 20/20 hindsight.

I wonder if one day we'll look back and say, 'oh, wow, when we did X after Constellation, it really would have been better if we did Y'.

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Offline llanitedave

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #51 on: 05/13/2013 07:38 pm »
There is an indirect relationship between the Shuttle, Von Braun, EOR vs LOR, and the thread topic, what a "better" CxP would be. 

To answer the last question, you have to answer "better for what purpose?" 

I agree that EOR was part of Von Braun's vision.  He (wisely, I think) was convinced to drop it for Apollo in favor of LOR as the only way to achieve the decadal challenge.  But for the long term, his vision, and that of many others, was for a large space station acting as a staging point for trips to Mars.  EOR is the the basis for that infrastructure.

At the time, the Shuttle could be justified as a means to construct a large space station --  IF it could sustain a high flight rate.  Its re-usability could make up for its lack of cargo capacity compared to Saturn.  In hindsight, it was a mistake, since it couldn't manage the high flight rate it needed.  The fact that funding for an effective and usable space station never developed wasn't any help either.

In this respect, CxP, and SLS, are departures from Von Braun's vision.  While they have huge cargo capabilities, they are too expensive to really support a massive in-orbit construction job.  Returning directly to the Moon or going to Mars without setting up a waypoint infrastructure first is not what any of the "walk before you run" ideas of expanding space exploration were about. ISS is fine as a prototype, but I don't see that it has much chance of being the nucleus of an industrial space presence.

Now, maybe Von Braun's vision was wrong.  Maybe you DON'T want to use an orbiting space port as a way to get further beyond Earth.  If direct trips are more efficient or effective, then something like CxP would have been the way to go, and SLS is a reasonable fallback.  Otherwise, I would go for something really big, and really cheap, and have it do nothing but loft space station parts and fuel.  Then the interplanetary craft can be built and launched from orbit, without having to do an atmospheric transit.  We can improve on SEP technology, and develop true spaceships.

Can we afford all this?  Sure.  Will we spend money on it?  Doubtful.
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Offline Ben the Space Brit

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #52 on: 05/13/2013 07:44 pm »
To answer the last question, you have to answer "better for what purpose?"

CxP was, at least supposedly, an answer to the challenge of the Vision of Space Exploration.  Assuming that some kind of relevance to VSA, then I would argue, therefore, that the objectives of a CxP replacement would be:

1) Affordable, reliable human and human-supporting space access;
2) Return to lunar surface;
3) Deploy and support multiple-crew lunar surface facility(s);
4) BEO human exploration (Mars and other locations).

I would also argue that any launcher system thus deployed to answer these objectives that was so expensive that payload development was effectively permanently deferred is missing the point.
« Last Edit: 05/13/2013 07:45 pm by Ben the Space Brit »
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Offline Lobo

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #53 on: 05/13/2013 11:07 pm »
If you were willing to leave off the man-rating, and cite the common components with Atlas V to meet the language of the NASA authorization, D4SH would be done the fastest for super-heavy lift.

To grease the political wheels, do the final core assembly at MAF, ULA just ships D4 CBC's to MAF for final attachment, in the same manner by which the Redstone and Jupiter tanks were shipped in for turning into the S-IA/S-IB stage.


As an alternative to the 7-core D4SH, could two upgraded D4H's have been used?  I've seen Boeing publications that put the top end performance with upgrades of the D4H at a bit over.  I believe that's with 6 GEM-60's, new RL-60 upper stage, Al-li tanks, and crossfeed.

Two could put about 100mt into LEO.  ABout that same as the 7-core D4SH but I think a lot closer to what was already flying, and it could launch from LC-37...as well as easily from KSC. 
This would be a "2.5" launch architecture, and would need the added step of launching an EDS on one D4H, and the LSAM on the other to remotely dock/mate in LEO, and then Orion could launch on an Altas Phase 1-55x and rendezvous with them in LEO prior to TLI. 
I think something like an ACES-71 could burn itself to LEO and have enough propellant left to push the Orion/LSAM stack through TLI, right?
This assumes a smaller LSAM than Altair.  something more like 30mt, so the Orion CSM/LSAM stack would be around 50mt.

Seems like logistics would be much easier with that scenario, although, it would probably cut MAF out of the picture for the most part.  If ULA could build the stretched 5m common upper stage, like an ACES-71, perhaps inaddition to an ACES-41 common upper stage, then there wouldn't be much for MAF to do I wouldn't think.  Although they could still build Orion.

There's one extra rendezvous event in LEO, but would that be a major issue?

Offline Lobo

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #54 on: 05/13/2013 11:46 pm »
One of Constellation's initial birth-notices was in a famous article from Griffin pointing out that Saturns cost $X million each, and since 197<something> NASA had been given a total of $Y billion, and gee look where'd we have been if we'd just kept going with Saturns, and not gotten into the whole Shuttle thing.

Leaving aside the whole Ares I/V thing (which I have no wish to re-autopsy), was Griffin's basic concept there (go back to where we were before Shuttle, and try and keep going on that path) right, or not? It seems to me that that's basically what's happening now.

Yea, if his numbers are accurate, it's sort of hearbreaking to think what we missed by throwing away all of that expensive to develop Apollo hardware to chase the fool's gold of reusability.  He basically said given what NASA's average historical budget was, we could have continued to launch two lunar missions per year, plus keep and maintain a Skylab sized space station with 4 crew/supply rotations per year.

Not sure if it was this article or another, but I believe he also said, "we don't need a HLV, we already have one in the Shuttle stack".

I think that was part of his support for Ares 1/5.  He wasn't wrong, but he just went about it the the most inefficient way possible.  Much better would have been a two launch architecture using ESAS's LV24/25, which later became Direct's J-130.  If Griffin had pursued that direction, I think we could have had Orion flying on LV24/J-130 by the time the Shuttle was retired.  I think a fully fueled Orion probably could have gotten itself from the core disposal orbit of the LV24/J-130 with a burn from the SMME to the ISS's orbit.  If hauling a cargo module too, a DCSS or Centaur could have been used, just as SLS BLock 1 will.  (BUt no need for it if the Service Module can do it)

That would have prevented a gap and restablished US ISS service for both crew and Cargo.  It's sort of oversized for that, but it wasn't any different than launching the Shuttle to the ISS.  And it could have brought up disposable MPLM's along with Orion.  And been a nice transition using the exisitng 4-seg SRB, and a core based more directly on the ET.. 

I personally think this would have been faster and cheaper than Direct's J-130 and J-246.  Those two would have gotten Orion plus a larger Altair sized LSAM to the Moon.  But using two LV24/25's/J-130's with something like an ACES-71 upper stage could have gotten Orion and a maybe 30mt LSAM to the moon for a LOR two launch system.

I think better even than that, would have been to go with EELV's and Evolved EELV's like Atlas Phase 2.  But a pair of LV24/25's/J-130's would have for something a little more robust than Apollo, Especially if a hydrolox lander crasher stage was used.  And certainly better/faster/cheaper than Ares.
And like Griffin said, we already have a HLV in the Shuttle stack, we don't need another.
And maybe after we had that all going, then we could have man-rated Atlas V, and used a pair of them on each side as a 4-seg replacement as it was known then the SRB reuse wasn't saving any money.  Then the Atlas Phase 1-55x could be used as a crew launcher for Orion to LEO with a short fueled service module.  So the whole LV24/25/J-130 wouldn't been needed for routine crew rotations to the ISS.  Just for large Cargo deliveries.

Too bad he let the most directly-derived Shuttle HLV morph into Ares 1/5.


« Last Edit: 05/13/2013 11:49 pm by Lobo »

Offline Lar

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #55 on: 05/14/2013 12:08 am »
To answer the last question, you have to answer "better for what purpose?"

CxP was, at least supposedly, an answer to the challenge of the Vision of Space Exploration.  Assuming that some kind of relevance to VSA, then I would argue, therefore, that the objectives of a CxP replacement would be:

1) Affordable, reliable human and human-supporting space access;
2) Return to lunar surface;
3) Deploy and support multiple-crew lunar surface facility(s);
4) BEO human exploration (Mars and other locations).

I would also argue that any launcher system thus deployed to answer these objectives that was so expensive that payload development was effectively permanently deferred is missing the point.

This.

What boggles me is that the pols don't get this (or don't care). Actually it doesn't boggle me.
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Offline Downix

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #56 on: 05/14/2013 07:18 am »
If you were willing to leave off the man-rating, and cite the common components with Atlas V to meet the language of the NASA authorization, D4SH would be done the fastest for super-heavy lift.


Do you mean NAA2010?  That D4SH could meet it?
Although this hypothetical is prior to that, selling a better concept that would then be written into NAA2010.

And sticking with a 1.5 launch architecture, you could leave off the Delta IV man-rating, and just make it the cargo launcher.
Too true
Quote

To grease the political wheels, do the final core assembly at MAF, ULA just ships D4 CBC's to MAF for final attachment, in the same manner by which the Redstone and Jupiter tanks were shipped in for turning into the S-IA/S-IB stage.


Interesting concept.  That's probably be more politically palatable, although I'm imagine it could be assembled in the VAB better, right on the ML.
Although, could that big 15m+ diameter construct be transported from MAF to the VAB ok?  10m was the biggest they ever did in the S-1C right?

Also, would there be a better way to do a D4SH in this case?  Boeing's D4SH seems to show the Central core supporting all the mass of the payload with 6 outboard boosters attached directly to it, but could it be put together more like S-1B, so that each Delta IV CCB sent to MAF would be literally a stock CCB used by USAF?  So rather than ULA developing it, NASA would, and just buy the standard CCB's from ULA?   
You nailed it on the head at the end. It is not just bolting 7 CBC's together for launch a la D4H. It is physically modifying them to create a single core. They would no longer be 7 CBC's, they'd be an all unified design, similar to the Saturn IB, so the loads would be transferred in a more uniform manner. They could be transported, although it would need a new barge. The VAB has been studied to handle material wider than the 15' of this design. You would also reduce the number of engines from 7 to 6 this way, which would give a performance boost.
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For launch pad, using KSC would make the most sense. It may not be the most efficient, but it does meet the letter of the law and can be converted rather quickly.


Well, since only NASA would be launching this beast, and it probably wouldn't launch all that often even for NASA (only on Lunar missions probably) i think it would make the most sense to do that at KSC, so ULA's pads will be launching the configurations that USAF/DoD want, which would be the single stick or tri-core heavy Delta IV.
Right.
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An upper stage using the J-2X would address the RS-25 issue as well, same tooling, plant, and material, plus would be shared with the RS-68A+ as well.


Good point.  Too bad J2X was as far along as it was.  THe J2S would likely have been much cheaper to develop and build.  The features of the X had for the Ares 1 wouldn't be needed.
However those same features would work well for the Delta IV SuperHeavy in this case. The reduced impulse of the RS-68 vs the RS-25 mean that the system would stage lower, where the J-2X's design would be a well fit design. In fact, I'd almost say it was at the final J-2X's sweet spot, far enough out to take maximum efficiency out of the design.
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While Li-Al tanks would be nice, they are not critical. A later conversion would enable it to meet the letter of the law. As the law allowed for upgrades to enable meeting the final lift requirement, this is acceptable. The upgraded Li-Al CBC would further improve the USAF's options as well.


Boeing's growth chart shows the near 100mt performance with Al-Li tanks, so I don't know how much less D4SH's perforamnce to not have the Al-Li.  But I'd guess whatever it was could be made up for by designing the large upper stage for the D4SH to have a bit more performance, right?  A big 8.4 m  upper stage (built in MAF too) with a single J2X engine should be designed with extra margin without the Al-Li tanks I'd suppose.
You've got it. Compare the US engine layout between the original Boeing design (7m DCSS w/ twin MB-60's against an 8m upper-stage w/ a single J-2X) and you get a far more optimized upper stage for this mission profile.
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It is not ideal, but it could meet the letter of the law and been faster than the existing plan. However, it would not grow as well as the current SLS either. It's main strength is that it would cost less and make ULA more competitive on the global marketplace.

Well, that'd be in the event of the existing NAA201 still being written.  But in this thread, Administrator Downix could have went out there in February 2010 and sold this concept.  Along with the 7-core 1st stage being assembled in MAF to keep it working along with the new J2X upper stage for it. 
Orion wouldn't be cancelled in FY2011 budget, but a human rated Atlas 55x Phase 1 (with 5m upper stage) rather than Ares 1.

you do it well enough, and NAA2010 would mandate -this- instead of something more shuttle derived, so you wouldn't have to dance around anything.  :-)
That's just it, the Delta IV *is* shuttle-derived. That's why it meets the letter of the law.
chuck - Toilet paper has no real value? Try living with 5 other adults for 6 months in a can with no toilet paper. Man oh man. Toilet paper would be worth it's weight in gold!

Offline Lobo

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #57 on: 05/14/2013 06:49 pm »

You nailed it on the head at the end. It is not just bolting 7 CBC's together for launch a la D4H. It is physically modifying them to create a single core. They would no longer be 7 CBC's, they'd be an all unified design, similar to the Saturn IB, so the loads would be transferred in a more uniform manner. They could be transported, although it would need a new barge. The VAB has been studied to handle material wider than the 15' of this design. You would also reduce the number of engines from 7 to 6 this way, which would give a performance boost.

15m of this design, you mean?  “15’ ” usually denotes feet.

What did the studies find out?

My only indication of concern is in the ESAS study, on page 425, when evaluating Atlas Phase 3a, which they denote as LV 11/11.1:

“The four strap-on boosters with a central core configuration, LV11/11.2, dictates the need for new facilities as no present launch infrastructure at KSC can accommodate this configuration.”

And then I believe the depth limitation to SLS Advanced boosters is like 9.8m.  But I think that’d driven by the proposed modifications to the Ares 1 ML than any issue with the pad itself.  So would an LV such as this maybe not fit on a KSC ML that would also have a tower on it?  I’m assuming that was the anticipated problem with Atlas Phase 3A, with the strap on boosters are 90 deg. To each each other, that makes it 15m wide in two directions, same as D4SH, although with 2 fewer boosters.
So how could this be resolved?

Also, when you say this could have a 6 engine configuration rather than a 7-engine, how is that?  Do you mean to re-plumb the MPS rather than having one engine on each core?  And then you could just have 6 engines on the new MPS?
IF so, wouldn’t that add a lot of development costs?
I’d almost think it might be better to go with a 10m tank made at MAF using the RS-68’s in that case.  Much lighter and you are doing most of the work new anyway.  The MAF tooling should be able to be modified back to make 10m cores like it did on the S-1C. (Which I think was floated when Ares V was looking to widen out to 10m).

I think I might leave the engines where they are, and keep the cores as stock as possible.  But design an upper thrust structure that distributes the payload mass down through each CCB more evenly, rather than all the forces going right into the central core, like the Boeing D4SH sort of looks like.  Maybe you can cross feed the bottoms in reverse.  Leave off the central RS-68, and use that like an extra tank, and pump propellant out into the 6 outer engines.  The central engine might suffer from trapped hot-gas buildup anyway, where the outboard engines would have air flow characteristics similar to the central core of a D4H.  I’m not sure how Boeing would plan to address it for their D4SH concept, maybe just additional TPS?  But I don’t think the central engine would get very good airflow to clear out the gasses. 


However those same features would work well for the Delta IV SuperHeavy in this case. The reduced impulse of the RS-68 vs the RS-25 mean that the system would stage lower, where the J-2X's design would be a well fit design. In fact, I'd almost say it was at the final J-2X's sweet spot, far enough out to take maximum efficiency out of the design.


Hmmm…well, going back to all the loads being on the central core, and the 6 outboard boosters being bolted onto that, what if you put a J2X on the central core?  Light it on liftoff and let it burn all the way to disposal orbit.  Stage the boosters when they normally do.  I’d think there’d be enough fuel for it if that core can fuel an RS-68 half way to orbit.  Then have an upper stage with RL-10’s only, like the SLS Block 1B upper stage.
That’d make for a unique central core for sure…so I dunno. 
Also, if the central core burns to orbit, then the payload could probably just use like an ACES-41 (assume would be developed for ULA in this scenario), or a stretched version the ACES-71.  Might not need a new wide-body, SLS-type upper stage just for this D4SH then.  Encapsulate it in like an 8m PLF with the payload like an Atlas 551 centaur is. 

Might just be easiest to have 7 cores each with their own RS-68 engine bolted together at the bottom, and have an upper thrust structure to distribute the loads better, and just focus on a TPS that can protect the central RS-68 engine until staging?  Then the whole cluster stages together.  The upper stage would sit on the upper thrust structure rather than on the central Core.
Dunno…

 

That's just it, the Delta IV *is* shuttle-derived. That's why it meets the letter of the law.

How is Delta IV shuttle derived?  That McDonnel Douglas and PWR was leveraging RS-25 expertise in the RS-68 and 5m core?

Offline Lobo

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #58 on: 05/14/2013 07:59 pm »
I reopend this in this thread here yesterday:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30012.60

Would it be maybe easier to have MAF develop and build like a 6.5m Delta IV based core, with two RS-68's on it, and fly a 3-core heavy as NASA's HLV?
It should eliminate the heating problems with the RS-68 as there won't be a central one ringed by others.
6.5m is a bit Narrower than Boeing's 7m, but I'd assume the tooling at MAF could be used to make a smaller diameter core realtively easily.  It'd be much closer to a Delta IV core than the SLS core, and the Delta IV engines and mounts and maybe other hardware like avionics.
6.5m would be the max diameter I'd think in order to fit throught the VAB doors, correct?  Boeing's 7m cores would make it a bit over 21mt and I think too wide for the VAB.

I just wonder if developing a new 6.5 Delta-based core at MAF might be actually better/faster than the 7-core clustered tank.  And that 6.5m core could be made at MAF to support the full loads, with the two outboard booster being merely strapped on.
The cores would be CCB and built all the same.

It would still be the cargo launcher, so the RS-68's don't need to be man-rated, and Orion can keep flying on Atlas Phase 1-55x.

At some point if the RS-68 was man-rated, a single stick version of this would make a pretty good crew launcher.

Would this be a better replacement for CxP?  Than something more directly EELV based like the 7-core cluster of 5m Delta IV cores?  Or would it not improve cost or schedule much over SLS?
Even if it couldn't fly until 2017, Orion on an Atlas Phase 1-55x could probably have flown fairly quickly after the Shuttle was retired, if they got ULA working on man-rating RD-180, the Atlas SRB, and the new man-rated 5m common upper stage back in 2010.  Maybe by 2013 Orion could have been flying to the ISS?

Offline spectre9

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Re: What Would a Better CxP Replacement Have Looked Like?
« Reply #59 on: 05/14/2013 10:33 pm »
I like the CBC with RS-25 and CCB as strap ons.

It's still a good rocket even when you add in the solids for heavier cargo.

It's not the perfect rocket like RAC2 and it's not the politically sweet RAC1 but RAC3 was a great idea looking back on it.

You could fly many more times than SLS with the existing stock of RS-25 and not require some huge amount of LH2 not seen at KSC since the days of Saturn V.

With ULA still supporting Atlas/Delta and the RS-25s just gathering dust this path might still be revived if SLS has any hiccups.

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