DIRECT v2.0

[animaux]

Michael Bloxham - 20/3/2008  8:34 AM

What an inforesight that would be (hehe, I created a new word).

Sorry, but: http://inforesight.com/

kraisee - 10/3/2008  1:03 AM

Norm,
We have been working hard on a presentation with lots of cool graphs (hence the reason we've been a little quiet).   Hopefully we will be able to show it to y'all later this coming week.

Big week for us.

Ross.

So am I the only DIRECT v2.0 Thread lurker here who is still wondering what you guys were up to last week !?!

[Rifleman]

Achilles - 20/3/2008  9:05 AM

So am I the only DIRECT v2.0 Thread lurker here who is still wondering what you guys were up to last week !?!

You are definitely not the only one, but I am sure we will all find out when the time is right.

[riney]

kraisee - 19/3/2008  12:02 AM
(enormous list of additional missions snipped)

Ross -

The technical and organizational benefits of DIRECT are compelling enough, but this list of additional missions that could be accomplished on existing budget is staggering. I sure hope this information is being included in the marketing efforts you and the team are working, in a very straightforward "you can get this... *or* you can get all this" kind of way. And in gigantic bold letters.

This is the sort of thing that can get people interested in space again. Real capabilities, real steps forward, and in reasonable, non-nebulous timeframes.

--John Riney

[SolarPowered]

I'm curious, if you have them, what the mass-to-LEO numbers are for a 3-stage, 5-engined DIRECT are?  (I think I saw it called the "J-541" somewhere?)  Both with DIRECT and NASA margins.

(And yes, I agree that one is almost certainly better off launching 2 J-232s than a J-541, given the dozens of J-232's you can fly for the cost of developing the J-541.)

[clongton]

SolarPowered - 20/3/2008  1:06 PM

I'm curious, if you have them, what the mass-to-LEO numbers are for a 3-stage, 5-engined DIRECT are?  (I think I saw it called the "J-541" somewhere?)  Both with DIRECT and NASA margins.

(And yes, I agree that one is almost certainly better off launching 2 J-232s than a J-541, given the dozens of J-232's you can fly for the cost of developing the J-541.)

3-stage, 5-engined would be a Jupiter-35x, (3) stages, (5) engines on the core stage and (x) engines on the upper stage(s).
We have those numbers somewhere but havn't looked at them for a very long time, once we realized that the possibility that NASA would ever need such a beast were remote at best. The dust on those numbers is thick.

[Norm Hartnett]

Achilles - 20/3/2008  6:05 AM

kraisee - 10/3/2008  1:03 AM

Norm,
We have been working hard on a presentation with lots of cool graphs (hence the reason we've been a little quiet).   Hopefully we will be able to show it to y'all later this coming week.

Big week for us.

Ross.

So am I the only DIRECT v2.0 Thread lurker here who is still wondering what you guys were up to last week !?!

Everything slides to the right. (That’s got to be a corollary of Murphy's law.)

[kraisee]

Rifleman - 20/3/2008  11:07 AM

Achilles - 20/3/2008  9:05 AM

So am I the only DIRECT v2.0 Thread lurker here who is still wondering what you guys were up to last week !?!

You are definitely not the only one, but I am sure we will all find out when the time is right.

Dang.   There's me hoping nobody would notice

Please be patient.   Rifleman is right.

Ross.

[kraisee]

riney - 20/3/2008  12:35 PM

kraisee - 19/3/2008  12:02 AM
(enormous list of additional missions snipped)

Ross -

The technical and organizational benefits of DIRECT are compelling enough, but this list of additional missions that could be accomplished on existing budget is staggering. I sure hope this information is being included in the marketing efforts you and the team are working, in a very straightforward "you can get this... *or* you can get all this" kind of way. And in gigantic bold letters.

This is the sort of thing that can get people interested in space again. Real capabilities, real steps forward, and in reasonable, non-nebulous timeframes.

--John Riney

I agree completely.

The way I see it is that NASA needs to get the public's attention and keep it.   The public has a very short attention span though - as Apollo demonstrated.   So NASA really needs new "showcase" missions repeatedly.   On the current plan there won't be budget to do much.   But with this plan I'm aiming for a showcase mission at *minimum* every 4-years - which nicely coincides with the political cycle too

New spacecraft to ISS.   Lunar Flyby.   Mars Sample Return.   James Webb ST.   More Hubble.   Hubble v2.0.   "Apollo 18".   All this within the next ~8 years would serve to get us a bit of positive attention.

From there we go to Lunar Base 1 construction and use.   First Crewed NEO mission.   Mars Test Flight (uncrewed).   Phobos Crewed Flight.   First Mars Crewed Flight.   Thats all within the following 12 years or so and without this ever descending into a Moon First vs. Mars First battle.

I want it all!  (insert maniacal laugh here).

Ross.

[kraisee]

And more to the point - nobody can show me a way to pay for half of this on top of the Ares budget without asking Congress for more money - something very unlikely in the expected budgetary crunch which is coming.

DIRECT can do this all with no increased budget above the rate of inflation.   I think that's something we might actually *get* if we're actually producing this many high profile missions for the money.

If we can't show a significant return for this investment though, I suspect NASA funding won't stay as high as it currently is for much longer.

The public and political *perception* today is that nobody knows whether NASA is really 'worth it' or not.   Clearly, creating a 5 year gap in US human spaceflight capability, laying off American's while buying $2.7bn worth of Russian spacecraft and creating an expensive replacement fleet which we won't be able to afford to utilize is not going to do anything at all to help this perception.   If we lose support because of it, we will lose everything.

Ross.

[clongton]

All this without asking Congress for any “additional” money.

But even if Obama becomes President and follows thru on his statements about a delay (which is not cast in stone), if the Jupiter-120 replaces the Ares-I, it can wait out his presidency for 4 or 8 years. All that’s needed to kick it off again is authorization to build an upper stage because the Jupiter-120 is the foundation for “everything” going forward. If the Jupiter-120 gets the nod, the VSE is safe.

[TrueGrit]

It sounds like you’ve gotten a lot of Centaur information and nothing to the contrary…

It should be noted...  Lockheed is not the only one who has studied long duration, low boiloff upper stages to serve as an EDS.  The same NASA ACES effort that funded the Lockheed ICES study funded a companion study by Boeing.  If you do an AIAA search for ACES and you'll find the Boeing study.  Lockheed based its study Centaur, while Boeing studied the Delta Cryo Second Stage (DCSS) and they came up with similar results.  As such I wouldn’t claim “Lockheed have, by a long way, the most experience in reducing boiloff.”  To suggest otherwise discounts the fact that none of these studies progressed to actually building flying hardware.  Lockheed have a lot of Centaur experience, but Boeing developed and started flying a comparable cryo stage in the last decade.  In fact it is the Boeing developed DCSS that has better long coast performance.

As for the Ares-I upper stage being a “different beast” than what’s required for an EDS…  I would say that’s a mischaracterization of the Lockheed and Boeing studies.  They both determined that incremental add-on modifications are only what is required.  Additional insulation around the high heat input places (skirts for example), and a special cooling-vent system is all that’s required.  The Lockheed and Boeing studies indicated these changes could incorporated such that they could be made into special low boiloff kits that mod nearly unchanged Centaur or Delta upper stages.  In fact the only non-kittable type mod I could potentially see improving the Ares I upper stage thermal performance is an internal vacuum jacketed feedline.  This could easily be fitted to the existing Ares-I upper stage design, if the trade studies indicate it's worth while...

And just another note...  Lockheed owns the ICES design lock, stock and barrel.  To suggest that Boeing build it it like saying the government give Ford a contract to build Caddy's to GM specs for the president.  I think GM would object...   Don't you think?

[kraisee]

Getting off the subject, everything I've heard from Obama seems to indicate that he isn't explicitly against NASA, just that he doesn't see much value in what they've been doing.

I think a suitable proposal - showing real value for money - could win him around.

I don't think Ares is ever going to enable such a range of missions myself, so I think DIRECT has the only realistic chance of convincing Obama *if* we can get the switch over.

I just wish we could get his support first.   If only there were a way we could get this list of missions in front of his science guys - but that has proven to be virtually impossible given the current election cycle

Ross.

[spacediver]

Interesting finding!

Last week I was at a scale modelers convention in Sinsheim, Germany.
This is one of the largest conventions for scale models in Germany and spreads from RC-aircraft, railways, boats to space models and much more.

As I wandered through the halls I found that stand with really nice scale paper models of aircraft, rockets and spacecraft.
Between models of Buran, Atlas, Shuttle etc. I recognized the impressive silhouette of a Jupiter 232!!

Missing the SRB’s, but without any doubt, it was the core of a J-232!!
Scale 1:100 and completely made of paper!
Unfortunately I did not have a camera with me.

Direct grows popular!!
At least in Germany...

BTW if you ever come to Germany, do not miss the technical museum at Sinsheim.
The only museum in the world that shows the Concorde and the Tupolev 144 side by side!

Spacediver

[kraisee]

TrueGrit,
Agreed.   I said as much a few posts back.   But Boeing have simply never replied to any of our enquiries.   LM did.

I am aware of the long duration work Boeing did, but have not seen the results so can't really comment.   Can you point me towards any public papers?

Centaur is (I understand) still the only cryo stage to have actually been *used* IRL (In Real Life) after a long period of 'loitering'.   To the best of my recall, two Titan Centaur/RL-10's were used in the 1960's to boost satellites (the Voyager probes?) after a particularly long period of coasting after ascent.   They are the only cryo stages to have actually done this previously, so LM does have the only non-theoretical experience and hard data in this field so far.   Everything else is study material and simulation work until it can actually be *proven*.   While I'm pretty sure Boeing can match LM pace-for-pace, they haven't yet taken that final step - yet.


The bottom line is that we simply have no information on the expected mass of a comparable Boeing stage.   First order estimates with generous margin are all we really need, but we don't even have that.   Believe me, we would *really* welcome it.

In the absence of a response from Boeing though, we can only use what has been provided to us.


BTW, regarding Boeing building ICES hardware, I actually said "At worst case, they could always license the ICES technology from LM and still build the hardware".   Given a license, it wouldn't be an issue.

Ross.

[kraisee]

Models:

There are four people who have contacted us to build model kits of Jupiter's already.   One paper, one plastic and two flying.

I think there's a race developing between who will actually fly a Jupiter-120 first

When the kits are available we will make sure to place a link on the model building thread, and possibly also on our website too.

Ross.

[TrueGrit]

It's too bad Boeing is being closed-lipped...  As they might be the best source of knowledge for the current Ares I upper stage.  The Boeing ACES study was presented at the AIAA Space 2006 conference (see AIAA 2006-7454).

Nathan did have an interesting point that preserving the basics of the current Ares upper stage could be more palitable.  It would be telling if you can't close on the performance needs, but it would represent an easier transition.  The reliance upon the WBC pmf might be considered a liability in that your esentially sole-source selecting Lockheed.  They are the only ones building stages in such a way.  By using a "more common" stage pmf, SIVB or DCSS as examples, you can transfer the contract to Boeing.

[kraisee]

We've got about 2.5mT of margin through TLI - not to mention our 10% arbitrary margin on launch too.

I think we could still quite happily close all the performance targets even if Boeing's EDS tanking massed 30% more than LM's - which won't ever be the case.   If the two stages were more than ~10% different given the engines, capacity and Al-Li material are all the same, I would be quite surprised.

It might be worth another attempt at contacting Boeing though.   We'll see.   You'd think they'd be interested in hedging to preserving their contract in case the change does happen.

Ross.

[mojo]

When will you reach the "point of no return" as the shuttle derived manufacturing systems that Direct is relying on are being canned?

[TrueGrit]

Another thing before I forget...  The 5-segment booster need not be abandoned.  ATK and NASA were already studying a 5 segment booster for the Shuttle before the change in direction (see AIAA-2003-5127).  These studies involved making the change a drop-in without any ET tank attachment changes.  I see no reason the 5-segment booster couldn't have a low level activity preserved with the goal of on-ramping it later as a performacne enchancement.