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yg1968
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« Reply #15 on: 09/09/2011 07:23 PM » |
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Great move. Helps SLS and also helps us get further out of being stuck with SpaceX, who we REALLY don't want to be stuck with.
Unless a spacecraft provider decides to choose the Liberty as its main LV, the Liberty doesn't have much chances of carrying crew.
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Scia
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« Reply #16 on: 09/09/2011 07:23 PM » |
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Great move. Helps SLS and also helps us get further out of being stuck with SpaceX, who we REALLY don't want to be stuck with.
Why would we be stuck with SpaceX if the Atlas 5 is being human rated, and Boeing is building their own Crew capsule?
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Robotbeat
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« Reply #17 on: 09/09/2011 07:25 PM » |
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Great move. Helps SLS and also helps us get further out of being stuck with SpaceX, who we REALLY don't want to be stuck with.
Yeah, being stuck with huge fixed costs is way better.
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Chris Bergin
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« Reply #18 on: 09/09/2011 07:31 PM » |
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Chris, any chance of an article/insights before the presser? Obviously this will be a big article post-presser...or so we hope to see one from this great site.
They want to announce it at a set time. Sometimes they will help you, like ULA did with Atlas V/Dreamchaser and allow you to write up the content and then publish at the time of the announcement, but never before. When you see reports before the announcement, it means someone has broken an embargo, which is poor journalistic practise. Absolutely will cover it best I can 
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Space Pete
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« Reply #19 on: 09/09/2011 08:07 PM » |
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Great news! In my book, one more crew-rated rocket can't be bad news.
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Lars_J
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« Reply #20 on: 09/09/2011 08:13 PM » |
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This is odd... More commercial crew offerings are always good - but this does not appear to be funded as part of CCDEV. So where is the money coming from?
Is NASA setting up a separate funding stream for ATK, not from CCDEV funds?
I have no objection to ATK being part of the commercial crew programs supported by NASA, but the playing field should be even.
If the end result is ATK lobbying for more commercial crew funding in general, that would be a good outcome. But their recent history makes me skeptical of that. I would love to be proven wrong.
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Robotbeat
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« Reply #21 on: 09/09/2011 08:21 PM » |
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Akin's Law #39: "39. The three keys to keeping a new manned space program affordable and on schedule: 1) No new launch vehicles. 2) No new launch vehicles. 3) Whatever you do, don't decide to develop any new launch vehicles." http://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html
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edkyle99
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« Reply #22 on: 09/09/2011 08:25 PM » |
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Hey Ed!
Your rides' here...
Robert
Heh! I would rather see a J-2X stage, but c'est la vie. Liberty stays alive simply because it has a lot of parts ready to fit together - on paper. It is "competitive" because it has low development costs, leveraging Ares I work completed, and especially because it shares an entire stage with another, robust launch vehicle program. The challenge here is that ATK has never successfully managed a large launch vehicle development effort. That ATK Launch Vehicle didn't work out so well, for example. http://hamptonroads.com/2008/08/rocket-explodes-shortly-after-launch-wallops-island - Ed Kyle
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Chris Bergin
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« Reply #23 on: 09/09/2011 08:27 PM » |
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This is odd... More commercial crew offerings are always good - but this does not appear to be funded as part of CCDEV. So where is the money coming from?
Is NASA setting up a separate funding stream for ATK, not from CCDEV funds?
I have no objection to ATK being part of the commercial crew programs supported by NASA, but the playing field should be even.
If the end result is ATK lobbying for more commercial crew funding in general, that would be a good outcome. But their recent history makes me skeptical of that. I would love to be proven wrong.
I *think* they don't actually gain any physical money from NASA, they sort of pay for it themselves in return for presenting to the NASA teams the same way as the other CCDEVs are.....which puts them back in the running for the downselection. Not all that confident about that, so someone correct me, but if it's unfunded SAA, they get no money from NASA, I believe.
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Lurker Steve
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« Reply #24 on: 09/09/2011 08:36 PM » |
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This is odd... More commercial crew offerings are always good - but this does not appear to be funded as part of CCDEV. So where is the money coming from?
Is NASA setting up a separate funding stream for ATK, not from CCDEV funds?
I have no objection to ATK being part of the commercial crew programs supported by NASA, but the playing field should be even.
If the end result is ATK lobbying for more commercial crew funding in general, that would be a good outcome. But their recent history makes me skeptical of that. I would love to be proven wrong.
I *think* they don't actually gain any physical money from NASA, they sort of pay for it themselves in return for presenting to the NASA teams the same way as the other CCDEVs are.....which puts them back in the running for the downselection.
Not all that confident about that, so someone correct me, but if it's unfunded SAA, they get no money from NASA, I believe.
It's can't be totally unfunded, since it needs some level of NASA support. No funds are transferred to ATK, but similar to the ULA agreement, they needs NASA employees to participate in reviews, check milestone progress, etc. There is some level of overhead associated with those tasks. I wonder which cape facilities they propose to use for this effort.
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Cherokee43v6
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« Reply #25 on: 09/09/2011 08:41 PM » |
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I think this is a good thing. With all the CCDev folks (except SpaceX) jumping on the AtlasV bandwagon, I was beginning to get worried that the least likely part of the system to have problems was the part that would have all the redundancy.
As the recent Progress launch failure has shown us, having too many systems dependent upon a launch vehicle can be problematic.
ps... I am in no way implying that the CCDev teams were looking at using AtlasV exclusively... Just that the kind of redundancy that people here talk about must extend to launch vehicles in addition to crew capsules.
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Robotbeat
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« Reply #26 on: 09/09/2011 08:45 PM » |
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I think this is a good thing. With all the CCDev folks (except SpaceX) jumping on the AtlasV bandwagon, I was beginning to get worried that the least likely part of the system to have problems was the part that would have all the redundancy.
As the recent Progress launch failure has shown us, having too many systems dependent upon a launch vehicle can be problematic.
ps... I am in no way implying that the CCDev teams were looking at using AtlasV exclusively... Just that the kind of redundancy that people here talk about must extend to launch vehicles in addition to crew capsules.
Why would we need more than 3 different launch vehicle families? (Falcon 9, Atlas V, Soyuz... all of which have flown already, while Liberty is nowhere near flight) See Atkin's Law #39: http://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html
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A_M_Swallow
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« Reply #27 on: 09/09/2011 08:45 PM » |
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If NASA and ATK are announcing a new manned launch vehicle is there any information on which spaceships will fly on it?
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Lars_J
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« Reply #28 on: 09/09/2011 08:47 PM » |
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I wonder which cape facilities they propose to use for this effort. Isn't that pretty clear? VAB and LC39. KSC is at least probably pretty eager to do this, since this might be the only near-term launch from LC39, with SLS in some sort of temporal limbo. Liberty-X? But the funding issue will be real interesting to unravel.
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manboy
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« Reply #29 on: 09/09/2011 08:49 PM » |
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Probably an unfunded SAA for the Liberty Launch Vehicle.
Here's to hoping that this is all that design is going to get.
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