Quote from: Chris Bergin on 01/08/2009 07:57 pmHowever, it would take the Direct team to provide me with an exclusive run on such news, because the other key element of this site is we never run second hand content.Am I mis-reading this? ? ? ? You really won't report this unless DIRECT gives you an exclusive and refuses to talk to the rest of the press or any other news site? ? ? ? Hard not to understand your comment as meaning exactly this. Jeez.I can understand if you need to hear directly from the source before you publish, but to say you won't list a news item just because someone else scooped you by 10 minutes is simply petty. It's still news (and directly from the souce), it's just not an exclusive.I need to subscribe to some other news sites, I think, to hear all the news that you refuse to publish because someone beat you to it.MartinPS I'm very strongly tempted to apologise for such a dismissive tone, but if you really refuse to publish news because someone beat you to it, then you're not a news site, you're just screaming "first!" out to the internet. I would love to apologise if I've misunderstood the comment that I've quoted above, or its context.
However, it would take the Direct team to provide me with an exclusive run on such news, because the other key element of this site is we never run second hand content.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Direct team came back from their undisclosed location, and offer you (Chris) a nice scoop, worthy of an article. Not to say they will, and maybe it still isn't time to break the seal on any really big one (whatever that may be), but we at least have to be grateful that much of their discussions are based here on this site, and that says something.Edit: 'We' instead of 'you'
Wow, that's a nice cover and on a big publication.Is that one of your graphics Pheogh?Quote from: guru on 01/08/2009 04:38 pmSo, Ross and Chuck are going to be on an episode of Battlestar Galactica?Moon, Mars and New Caprica?
So, Ross and Chuck are going to be on an episode of Battlestar Galactica?
... Constellation is also designed to support ISS but, as clearly stated from the outset, only if commercial service fails to materialize. Constellation is not focusedon or designed for maximum efficiency in LEO operations.
Quote from: OV-106 on 01/08/2009 07:35 pmQuote from: TrueBlueWitt on 01/08/2009 06:33 pmPM Cover and write-up is still not enough to make the front page of this site.Hopefully the next shoe to drop on the 15th will qualify What? Why should it? Chris and company I think have been very good giving the forum to discuss all of this. It's up to him if he chooses to make a story out of it or not. This is a news site. As excited as I am that Direct and NSF are in Popular Mechanics, it is not a news story. If NASA switches to Jupiter, then we will see a story.
Quote from: TrueBlueWitt on 01/08/2009 06:33 pmPM Cover and write-up is still not enough to make the front page of this site.Hopefully the next shoe to drop on the 15th will qualify What? Why should it? Chris and company I think have been very good giving the forum to discuss all of this. It's up to him if he chooses to make a story out of it or not.
PM Cover and write-up is still not enough to make the front page of this site.Hopefully the next shoe to drop on the 15th will qualify
Quote from: Mark S on 12/27/2008 06:01 pmQuote from: clongton on 12/27/2008 05:41 pmQuote from: Mark S on 12/27/2008 05:17 pmHave the dangers of an ocean spash-down been added to the Ares-I LOC numbers? All kinds of things can go wrong with an ocean splash-down, such as the capsule capsizing or sinking, or the flotation devices could malfunction. Surely that would have an adverse affect on the safety ratings of the mission. I can't imagine that there could be 2000 splash-downs without a serious event taking place at least once.Mark S.To the best of my knowledge, Ares-I LOM/LOC numbers do NOT include any spacecraft recovery events or milestones. IIRC, they are limited to the spacecraft launch. Someone please correct me if that is not right.So, the Columbia accident should not count towards Shuttle LOC numbers, in that case. Sure, the trigger event was during the launch, but they actually survived the launch, completed their science mission, and had left orbit. Clearly, that line of logic does not hold up.I would say that LOC/LOM numbers have to account for and include any possible loss while riding in, on, or around any NASA vehicle. Once they are safely on board the Nimitz (or whatever), then NASA can be absolved of responsibility.Didn't one of the Mercury capsules actually sink, and nearly take the astronaut down with it?Mark S.Being fair, there is a very big difference between Launch Vehicle LOM/LOC numbers and Mission LOM/LOC numbers. While there are certain launch events that can have an affect on the Mission numbers, as in Columbia, typically the Launch Vehicle numbers do not include Mission numbers but are considered and quoted separately. Launching the spacecraft is the job of the launch vehicle. The mission after orbital insertion is generally not affected by the launch vehicle. That's why the mission numbers are quoted separately from the launch event.The falacy in this particular case (Orion/Ares vs. Orion/Jupiter) is the current design of Orion has been severly compromised by the performance limitations of Ares-I, making the spacecraft much less safe than it would have been otherwise. It is not UN-safe, it is LESS-safe. That does NOT include resulting spacecraft performance shortfalls, only safety considerations; things like lacking mmod protection, reduced survival time in the water after splashdown, and single fault tolerant systems vs. dual fault tolerant.
Quote from: clongton on 12/27/2008 05:41 pmQuote from: Mark S on 12/27/2008 05:17 pmHave the dangers of an ocean spash-down been added to the Ares-I LOC numbers? All kinds of things can go wrong with an ocean splash-down, such as the capsule capsizing or sinking, or the flotation devices could malfunction. Surely that would have an adverse affect on the safety ratings of the mission. I can't imagine that there could be 2000 splash-downs without a serious event taking place at least once.Mark S.To the best of my knowledge, Ares-I LOM/LOC numbers do NOT include any spacecraft recovery events or milestones. IIRC, they are limited to the spacecraft launch. Someone please correct me if that is not right.So, the Columbia accident should not count towards Shuttle LOC numbers, in that case. Sure, the trigger event was during the launch, but they actually survived the launch, completed their science mission, and had left orbit. Clearly, that line of logic does not hold up.I would say that LOC/LOM numbers have to account for and include any possible loss while riding in, on, or around any NASA vehicle. Once they are safely on board the Nimitz (or whatever), then NASA can be absolved of responsibility.Didn't one of the Mercury capsules actually sink, and nearly take the astronaut down with it?Mark S.
Quote from: Mark S on 12/27/2008 05:17 pmHave the dangers of an ocean spash-down been added to the Ares-I LOC numbers? All kinds of things can go wrong with an ocean splash-down, such as the capsule capsizing or sinking, or the flotation devices could malfunction. Surely that would have an adverse affect on the safety ratings of the mission. I can't imagine that there could be 2000 splash-downs without a serious event taking place at least once.Mark S.To the best of my knowledge, Ares-I LOM/LOC numbers do NOT include any spacecraft recovery events or milestones. IIRC, they are limited to the spacecraft launch. Someone please correct me if that is not right.
Have the dangers of an ocean spash-down been added to the Ares-I LOC numbers? All kinds of things can go wrong with an ocean splash-down, such as the capsule capsizing or sinking, or the flotation devices could malfunction. Surely that would have an adverse affect on the safety ratings of the mission. I can't imagine that there could be 2000 splash-downs without a serious event taking place at least once.Mark S.
Quote from: Herb Schaltegger on 01/08/2009 06:02 pmQuote from: Will on 01/08/2009 04:56 pmWell, it isn't a real stage.Sure it is; it's one with side-mounted, jettisonable engines and controls. Structurally it's a stage. Get over it and pick something else to poke at.It's not a good idea to dismiss criticism.DIRECT will be reviewed by NASA under their own terms. NASA have designed an upper stage for the Ares-V, and it comes out at a much more conservative dry mass than JUS. Hence they will try to criticise the JUS. A 'pre-rebuttal' is needed to ensure that JUS's numbers can be verifed.
Quote from: Will on 01/08/2009 04:56 pmWell, it isn't a real stage.Sure it is; it's one with side-mounted, jettisonable engines and controls. Structurally it's a stage. Get over it and pick something else to poke at.
Well, it isn't a real stage.
My main worry about the JUS is thus: we all know that Ares-V is being pushed to greater performance (six engines, bigger SRBs, composites, etc). If a significantly better EDS is possible, why haven't NASA adopted such a design?
Other than the EDS, my main worry for DIRECT is the cost numbers. How do you buy a much larger tank, PLF, and thrust structure, an RS68, an SRB nozzle and recovery system, and three SRB segments, for only $15m?*It's all very well cutting DIRECT some slack in this forum. But don't expect NASA to play that nicely. We need the proposal to be as tough as nails to stand up to whatever NASA can throw at it.* this number assumes that Ares-I's J2X costs $25m and an RS68 is only $20m.
Quote from: MP99 on 01/08/2009 11:13 pmQuote from: Chris Bergin on 01/08/2009 07:57 pmHowever, it would take the Direct team to provide me with an exclusive run on such news, because the other key element of this site is we never run second hand content.Am I mis-reading this? ? ? ? You really won't report this unless DIRECT gives you an exclusive and refuses to talk to the rest of the press or any other news site? ? ? ? Hard not to understand your comment as meaning exactly this. Jeez.I can understand if you need to hear directly from the source before you publish, but to say you won't list a news item just because someone else scooped you by 10 minutes is simply petty. It's still news (and directly from the souce), it's just not an exclusive.I need to subscribe to some other news sites, I think, to hear all the news that you refuse to publish because someone beat you to it.MartinPS I'm very strongly tempted to apologise for such a dismissive tone, but if you really refuse to publish news because someone beat you to it, then you're not a news site, you're just screaming "first!" out to the internet. I would love to apologise if I've misunderstood the comment that I've quoted above, or its context.Heh. I'll try and explain it better
We cover NASA and current vehicles - we are not covering Direct's development (and no news media site is). You're seeing numerous news media taking up a feature on Direct and that's cool - we've done the same back in 2006 and we've got the forum threads (also cool). No one is "missing" anything due to the update threads.
It was intimated why we had not run another article on Direct based on (a) The latest magazine feature. Reason: not a viable news story for us to run with for the reasons given in my other post,
and (b) That we might pending any big news that directly (pun intended) relates to NASA's CxP direction.I noted (b) would be viable if we get the news off the Direct team. Reason: It is unviable as a news site to rehash something already reported by another site. Some sites do re-write previously run content (with the "according to a report in the Blah Blah news...", but not us - we break news here for the reasons given of bringing something new to the party. But we still would run something if we had an additional angle. Basically, it HAS to be fresh news. No one here wants to re-read something they already know, and rightly so."Exclusive run" means breaking the news, it does not mean "do not to speak to another site." They are under no obligation to come to me with a breaking development, but the point is if they did, then I would run it (which answers the orginal question).
So the bottom line is "yes" I would write a news article about Direct (I believe the intimation is I'm avoiding such content), but "no" I wouldn't write an article on news already reported, as the readership of this site expects me to give them something new in the articles.
The big difference will be in the cost of building the Jupiter core & JUS vs ARES I US, Ares V core & EDS.IIRC for 2 x ISS, 2 x Lunar Manned, 2 x Lunar Cargo you will need:10 x Jupiter core, 8 x JUS VS 4 x AUS, 4 x Ares V core, 4 x EDSMany of the production costs are fixed, so if you make more copies of a stage, EACH ONE WILL COST LESS. Conversely, making only a few of each, drives up the individual cost.
...Direct 2.0 does have the burden of explaining the numbers and reasoning, but I find the level of skepticism a bit excessive.
One additional point to be made regarding the production of Jupiter vs Aries.Direct would require 3 production lines: Shuttle RSRB, Core stage, EDSAries would require 5 produciton lines: 5Seg RSRB, 5.5 Seg SRB, Aries I US, Aries V Core, Aries V USThe Shuttle RSRB lines exist, the Direct core stage line reuses a lot of ET production equipment, and the Jupiter EDS is a new lineAll 5 production lines for Aries are new----------------As far as the JUS being a magical stage, at least one company thinks they can make it. All the Direct team is looking for is a review of the designs on an even playing field.