Jupiter DIRECT - Livestream Discussion - Sat 11/11/2023

[kraisee]

Join the DIRECT Launcher Team for an interview with David Willis and Lewis Massie.

This Saturday at 12 noon EST, for a few hours, myself, Chuck Longton, Steve & Philip Metschan will be talking about DIRECT and the origins of SLS.

https://www.youtube.com/@DavidWillisSLS/featured

Come and join us as we reminisce about the early days here on NSF!

Ross.

[JAFO]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE record this!!!! I'll be airborne and the company frowns on us watching videos in the cockpit.

[kraisee]

If you have any questions or comments about DIRECT, ESAS, Constellation, Augustine or any of the other parts that led to SLS, please post them here and we'll try to answer/discuss the best ones!

Ross.

[woods170]

If you have any questions or comments about DIRECT, ESAS, Constellation, Augustine or any of the other parts that led to SLS, please post them here and we'll try to answer/discuss the best ones!

Ross.

Hello Ross,

Here's one for you: on Twitter (oh, pardon me, I mean X) there's a guy (Delta9250 IIRC) claiming that the Jupiter rocket as intended by DIRECT would not have worked. The guy claims that the structural margins of the modified ET design were insufficient and that a complete core redesign (as was done for the SLS Core Stage) would have been unavoidable.

Specifically, this guy claims that the construction methods used for the ET propellant tanks (skin on support/stability frames) and the ET intertank (skinstringers on stability frames) would not have left sufficient structural margin to deal with the thrust of the SSMEs from underneath whilst also carrying the load on top (EDS and payload).

If you could shine a light on that, I would be much obliged. Thanks in advance.

[kraisee]

@woods170 It's been a while since we last chatted on here!

Yes, we've seen that one before and we will happily give it a full response during the discussion. Thanks for asking!

More questions anyone?

Ross.

[leovinus]

Reusability. The Falcon 9 came online several years after Direct. What would Direct have done different if Falcon-9 reuse had been demonstrated earlier?

Hindsight is 20-20 but given what you all know now, what should have been done different for Direct w.r.t to technology, people, anything?

[kraisee]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE record this!!!! I'll be airborne and the company frowns on us watching videos in the cockpit.

It will be a YouTube live stream, so it will automatically get recorded and will be available to watch in the future.

Ross.

[Zed_Noir]

Wonder if it was viable to replaced the RS-25 with J-2X after the initial batches of DIRECT launches? Possibility of relatively common engines for the core and the upper stage.

[kraisee]

Reusability. The Falcon 9 came online several years after Direct. What would Direct have done different if Falcon-9 reuse had been demonstrated earlier?

Hindsight is 20-20 but given what you all know now, what should have been done different for Direct w.r.t to technology, people, anything?

I don't think this is one we will tackle in the discussion itself, but I'm happy to give you my answer here...

The 4-seg SRB's we wanted to use were semi-reusable in Shuttle use and that could have continued "as-is", though there was definitely room to consider improving those systems once the first launchers were up and operating.

Unfortunately neither the RS-68 from DIRECT v2 nor the SSME/RS-25 engines we switched back to for DIRECT v3 can be restarted in the air. Both engines require huge amounts of ground hardware for their start sequences and it is completely impractical to attempt to package that up in a flight system, so that really scuppers any options for powered landings. Without that, I just don't see any realistic ways to recover a Shuttle-derived core stage and reuse it. To do so you really would have to go with a completely clean-sheet approach.

Just for fun though, if it were possible to have a do-over with today's tech available to us back in 2006/7, I'd be curious to hypothesize about a re-worked MethaLOX Jupiter Core Stage using SpX Raptor 2's on the Core - and in that case probably also on the boosters too! I have little doubt the performance figures would jump quite a bit for such a system of approximately the same dimensions as a Jupiter-130 or Jupiter-246. That's a definite flight of fantasy though, and to be honest we probably wouldn't have considered it because it would have broken some of the core tenets behind DIRECT: Maximize reuse of (then) existing Shuttle infrastructure, facilities, products and people and minimize development of new systems, to shorten the 'gap' and free-up money for other projects - like a lunar lander, lunar habs, rovers, science activities and a Mars program. And there's no way Congress would have supported that approach either.

Anyway, see you in a few hours...

Ross.

[kraisee]

Wonder if it was viable to replaced the RS-25 with J-2X after the initial batches of DIRECT launches? Possibility of relatively common engines for the core and the upper stage.

Unfortunately the J-2X can only operate in vacuum, so it could not have been used on the Core Stage.

Just supposing a sea level variant were also developed ($$$ and many years) you would have needed roughly 2 times as many of them to match the thrust of the SSME's and you would also lose significant performance because the SSME's staged combustion system makes much more efficient use of the propellants compared to J-2X's gas generator cycle.

The vac J-2X is already 18s Vac Isp lower than SSME and I'd guess you'd lose another 10-20s with a lower ratio sea-level capable nozzle variant. That's quite a lot to be giving away.

Ross.

[Zed_Noir]

Wonder if it was viable to replaced the RS-25 with J-2X after the initial batches of DIRECT launches? Possibility of relatively common engines for the core and the upper stage.

Unfortunately the J-2X can only operate in vacuum, so it could not have been used on the Core Stage.

Just supposing a sea level variant were also developed ($$$ and many years) you would have needed roughly 2 times as many of them to match the thrust of the SSME's and you would also lose significant performance because the SSME's staged combustion system makes much more efficient use of the propellants compared to J-2X's gas generator cycle.

The vac J-2X is already 18s Vac Isp lower than SSME and I'd guess you'd lose another 10-20s with a lower ratio sea-level capable nozzle variant. That's quite a lot to be giving away.

Ross.

The J-2X is less efficient but should be cheaper with the gas generator cycle and higher production volume. Probably can be compensated with bigger 5-segment solid boosters.

Thanks for the reply. Will not post further on this line of query.

[Galactic Penguin SST]

If you have any questions or comments about DIRECT, ESAS, Constellation, Augustine or any of the other parts that led to SLS, please post them here and we'll try to answer/discuss the best ones!

Ross.

Hi Ross,

* Looking back 15 years since I came across DIRECT (and NSF), I wonder if in hindsight the Jupiter-130 + Orion + Cargo module concept would still be a money drain - if still better than handing crew capability to the Russians - for it to be unsustainable. That assumes that's all the USA have to support the ISS, plus what become the CRS program, for almost 1 whole decade until Crew Dragon eventually manages to work in 2020. Also do you think that large MPLM-like module carried on each flight would have killed half of the demands for the COTS-CRS program, making a switch to commercial programs more difficult?

* When we were still arguing about Ares and DIRECT was being proposed, no-one would have even imagined that the Jupiter-241H-DIVUS (cough) would eventually fly just 5 months before another SHLV - then floating around as a certain "Falcon XX" - that I bet all but one person on planet Earth (well, maybe more than 1 in that company) would have ever guessed to be really gonna flying.

Yet this was exactly what happened. I want to ask - what was going to be the "end game" of Jupiter when your plans were proposed? Were there considerations for your team to ask NASA to make a commercially bid SHLV program eventually (maybe say ~2019 as of your 2009 v3 plans) to assist with or replace Jupiter eventually for what was then Constellation? Do you think Jupiter would have ever been competitive with something like Starship had your v3 plans end up as reality?

* What would you think about modifications to your plans if someone from the future told you in 2009 that the small company that just flew a small rocket into orbit would end up with an Ares I-Orion like system that can fly 100 times/year AND designs and flies a real Shuttle successor & SHLV that promises to revolutionize transportation to and from orbit 15 years from then? Would you still push DIRECT as hard as it could, or would you support some other kind of stop gap and transition to commercial transportation contracts?

[Proponent]

Whatever happened to C-Star Aerospace?

[Pheogh]

We are Kerbaling the Architecture now. Come join

[kraisee]

Whatever happened to C-Star Aerospace?

C-Star was just the first name for the DIRECT Project 2 that was mentioned at the end of this interview, the one with the Leviathan ocean-launch system architecture. A portion of the original DIRECT team looked to develop a commercial launch operation. It didn't ultimately get anywhere due to internal frictions between the members.

I ultimately left the group and went and founded Horizon Space Technologies in the UK - think a British "Firefly" style operation. I've only just this year been released from my NDA obligations, so couldn't speak about it before now. In short, we got really close! We had over £400m lined up in Series A, B & C rounds waiting to close in quick succession. But we just found it frustratingly impossible to find that first initial investor willing to punt for the first few million in the high risk initial Seed round. I fought for five years, with an amazing team made up of experts, including some very impressive people out of the Formula 1 world, but UK investors are a far more risk averse breed compared to their American counterparts, and after trying probably a thousand different sources, absolutely nobody could be persuaded to back a startup rocket company in Blighty.

I transferred ownership of Horizon to Paul Williams, who is continuing to make progress, now working under the name Black Arrow seaborne launch and I still believe the project has genuine legs, but I have had no involvement with Black Arrow. I do wish Paul and his team all the very best of luck!

I did hear that Orbex absorbed quite a few of Horizon's staff after we closed down in 2015. They will be launching from the same A' Mhςine Scottish launch site that we originally identified. They'll be following the MTCR framework we laid down for UK commercial space launch operations and be utilizing the the US<>UK ITAR arrangement that we did the first round of pathfinding on between UKSA and US State Dept. And Horizon sparked UKSA to begin drafting all of the launch licensing and regulatory frameworks that they'll also be using too, so I consider that we still did quite a lot of trail-blazing for all future UK launch aspirations to follow.

Since then I've worked for two more startups, but won't be talking about them due to active NDA's, other than to say that I've been involved in launching two different types of space launcher and I now have five satellites in orbit to my name.

I just started a new position as Treasurer and Operations Director for a new Aerospace-related charity that is being formed right now, and should be announcing in the new year, to help educators and students with all the resources they need to teach and learn how to make satellites and experiments going into space.

Ross.

[JAFO]

That was a long awaited, terrific stream. Glad to both be reminded of what happened, and see so much information that can only now be disclosed.

In the past I've asked/been a pest about if there was ever going to be a written history of DIRECT, but the idea was kiboshed because so many participants were still involved in the industry and worried about repercussions. With the passage of time and this video, do you think things may have changed, and an enterprising journalist might be able to at least start archiving all this information/history to be brought together at some point in the future? Be a shame if (god forbid) a hard drive crashes or someone is lost, along with all their memories of how and what happened.


I think at one point you said you only had 30 people watching, that might have been 30 people logged into youtube. Many people (like myself) just lurked without logging in.

[kraisee]

If you have any questions or comments about DIRECT, ESAS, Constellation, Augustine or any of the other parts that led to SLS, please post them here and we'll try to answer/discuss the best ones!

Ross.

Hi Ross,

* Looking back 15 years since I came across DIRECT (and NSF), I wonder if in hindsight the Jupiter-130 + Orion + Cargo module concept would still be a money drain - if still better than handing crew capability to the Russians - for it to be unsustainable. That assumes that's all the USA have to support the ISS, plus what become the CRS program, for almost 1 whole decade until Crew Dragon eventually manages to work in 2020. Also do you think that large MPLM-like module carried on each flight would have killed half of the demands for the COTS-CRS program, making a switch to commercial programs more difficult?

My opinion is that Shuttle costs were very mature and relatively stable, and if we really had used, lets call it 85% of Shuttle infrastructure 'as is', we could have spend a whole lot less on the LV element than SLS has, it would have been up and running a lot sooner too. In that environment we could have afforded to do the other things like landers, habs, rovers etc - and properly funded the ISS to do more work than at present, so I think ability to bring up supplies on a J-130 would have been a useful bonus that would not have interfered with the CRS missions.

* When we were still arguing about Ares and DIRECT was being proposed, no-one would have even imagined that the Jupiter-241H-DIVUS (cough) would eventually fly just 5 months before another SHLV - then floating around as a certain "Falcon XX" - that I bet all but one person on planet Earth (well, maybe more than 1 in that company) would have ever guessed to be really gonna flying.

When DIRECT started Falcon 1 had only had one flight and was still 2-1/2 years away from making orbit for the first time, so commercial space was a totally unknown factor. And given how close Elon came to going bust just before that 4th flight, it could so easily never have come to pass at all. Nobody, even Elon, KNEW what it would do. Heck, at that time even the Faclon *5* was still only a CAD drawing!

Yet this was exactly what happened. I want to ask - what was going to be the "end game" of Jupiter when your plans were proposed? Were there considerations for your team to ask NASA to make a commercially bid SHLV program eventually (maybe say ~2019 as of your 2009 v3 plans) to assist with or replace Jupiter eventually for what was then Constellation? Do you think Jupiter would have ever been competitive with something like Starship had your v3 plans end up as reality?

I don't know that we ever really planned that far ahead, not until 2010-ish, when it looked like it might really, actually happen.

I don't think anyone could draw the line between J-130/246 being competative with Starship.   If, back in 2005, NASA had actually stuck with a genuinely Shuttle-derived (use what you've already got with minimal changes) version of the LV-24 & LV-25 when Doug Stanley originally drafted the ESAS report, instead of Griffin artificially switching everything over to the Stick & Stack, we would have had the money to properly fund a healthy usage program for the new Jupiter/Orion/Altair/Surface systems. In such a scenario, with a LOT less work to get a new SDHLV operating, we could have flown the first unmanned J-130 as early as 2009 before the last Shuttle flew, closed the crew flight gap to less than 2 years, and we could have put the first astronauts back on the lunar surface in 2015! By the time Lunar Starship is ready to go there in late 2025, we would be up to Jupiter flight number 135, having had 17 Lunar landings, one Mars flyby mission (2020) and two Mars landing missions (2022, 2025).

EDIT: I'll attach the 2006 potential manifest for an early-decision LV-24/25 approach using a maximum of what they already had from Shuttle to close the gap and lower LV development and operations costs. This was independently assessed and found to be realistic.

Starship's potential comes in at that point. If realised it promises to lower costs and increase payload delivery capacity dramatically, so it would be a capability we would be ready to fully exploit given the goal of forming a permanent lunar outpost (and eventually Mars too).

I don't really see that Jupiter, operating decade earlier than Starship, would exactly be "competing" at all.   I think that after 16 years, when Starship comes along, it would be the next logical path to take to expand an already healthy exploration program.   But it's a path not trod, so little point in worrying about now.

* What would you think about modifications to your plans if someone from the future told you in 2009 that the small company that just flew a small rocket into orbit would end up with an Ares I-Orion like system that can fly 100 times/year AND designs and flies a real Shuttle successor & SHLV that promises to revolutionize transportation to and from orbit 15 years from then? Would you still push DIRECT as hard as it could, or would you support some other kind of stop gap and transition to commercial transportation contracts?

For me it was largely about trying to save the many thousands of jobs that were at risk - and were ultimately lost - at the end of the Shuttle program. A genuinely Shuttle-derived minimal changes approach still made sense - at least in the pre-2009/10 timeframe.

Would I have just waited from 2006 for SpaceX to develop a lunar-capable Starship by 2025, and just abandoned all other alternatives until then? No, that doesn't hold water.

But I wish I could have nudged NASA's hand in 2006 to do a big, healthy 135-flight exploration program for the 16 years from 2009 thru 2025, and have one or two commercial companies (Spx and BlueO) come in at that point with solutions that allow the agency to do more with lower cost launches so that the saved money could be used to expand the size of the overall program, oh heck yes, that would have been the dream solution.

Ross.

[kraisee]

That was a long awaited, terrific stream. Glad to both be reminded of what happened, and see so much information that can only now be disclosed.

In the past I've asked/been a pest about if there was ever going to be a written history of DIRECT, but the idea was kiboshed because so many participants were still involved in the industry and worried about repercussions. With the passage of time and this video, do you think things may have changed, and an enterprising journalist might be able to at least start archiving all this information/history to be brought together at some point in the future? Be a shame if (god forbid) a hard drive crashes or someone is lost, along with all their memories of how and what happened.

Yes, I've been approached about four times over the years. I never really felt comfortable with the idea of a book, because it felt like sticking the knife into the agency, and that's the absolute very last thing I ever wanted to do.

But time has passed and Deb, my better half, who is an amateur writer and really first-class editor, has bent my ear about the idea of a book telling the story a couple of times in the run up to this interview with David and Lewis. I guess, that as long as such a thing could be done in a respectful manner, I'm not so against the idea any longer...

I think at one point you said you only had 30 people watching, that might have been 30 people logged into youtube. Many people (like myself) just lurked without logging in.

Not sure how YT measures such things. I'll check with David for you, and see if he knows what the deal is.

Ross.

[JAFO]

That was a long awaited, terrific stream. Glad to both be reminded of what happened, and see so much information that can only now be disclosed.

In the past I've asked/been a pest about if there was ever going to be a written history of DIRECT, but the idea was kiboshed because so many participants were still involved in the industry and worried about repercussions. With the passage of time and this video, do you think things may have changed, and an enterprising journalist might be able to at least start archiving all this information/history to be brought together at some point in the future? Be a shame if (god forbid) a hard drive crashes or someone is lost, along with all their memories of how and what happened.

Yes, I've been approached about four times over the years. I never really felt comfortable with the idea of a book, because it felt like sticking the knife into the agency, and that's the absolute very last thing I ever wanted to do.

But time has passed and Deb, my better half, who is an amateur writer and really first-class editor, has bent my ear about the idea of a book telling the story a couple of times in the run up to this interview with David and Lewis. I guess, that as long as such a thing could be done in a respectful manner, I'm not so against the idea any longer...

AWESOME!

From one amature writer to Deb, I think she would be a terrific person to write it, we often think of those on the project but forget about the ones at home who suffer from us not being around and the effects it has on our home lives, she could give a bit of "Deb: Ross came home from the Augustine Commission hearing just bouncing off the walls, the presentation had gone better than expected." or "Deb: Probably the lowest point I saw Ross was in 200X. Naysayers were beating the team up, and they struggled knowing their information was solid, but their sources were terrified about losing their jobs if their participation was found out."

I think at one point you said you only had 30 people watching, that might have been 30 people logged into youtube. Many people (like myself) just lurked without logging in.

Not sure how YT measures such things. I'll check with David for you, and see if he knows what the deal is.

Ross.

No big deal, just didn't want you to think that there were only 30 people interested. I can't wait to get home and listen to the full thing.

[kraisee]

I now understand the viewing figure is both signed in and not, together.

Ross.

[woods170]

I now understand the viewing figure is both signed in and not, together.

Ross.

Kudos for you being on the event. Much appreciated!

I watched the recording after it was over. Didn't have time in my schedule to tune in for the live event. Noticed that you addressed my question around the 1-hour mark. It is clear that, contrary to what Delta9250 claims on Twitter, the stock ET tankage had enough structural margin for the Jupiter 130 and required only very little modifications for Jupiter 240. Thanks for answering my question.

However, I will say something about this event drawing not all that many viewers. IMO that is partly because on Twitter (err, I mean X) David Willis has a tendency to act somewhat irrational regarding his love for SLS. The result is that quite a few people in the spaceflight community don't take David all that serious. And that included his YouTube stuff.

So, although the live stream was a good event, I'm afraid that the aversion that some of the spaceflight community has against David Willis will have negatively influenced the viewing figure.

[JAFO]

I now understand the viewing figure is both signed in and not, together.

Ross.

Kudos for you being on the event. Much appreciated!
....

However, I will say something about this event drawing not all that many viewers. IMO that is partly because on Twitter (err, I mean X) David Willis has a tendency to act somewhat irrational regarding his love for SLS. The result is that quite a few people in the spaceflight community don't take David all that serious. And that included his YouTube stuff.

So, although the live stream was a good event, I'm afraid that the aversion that some of the spaceflight community has against David Willis will have negatively influenced the viewing figure.

Hopefully other websites will post links to the recording and write an article about it. Eric Berger,  Jalopnik, others, are you reading this?

[Pheogh]

Working on getting the old website back up so everyone can look at images and download past presentations. Will post here once it's back up.

[woods170]

I now understand the viewing figure is both signed in and not, together.

Ross.

Kudos for you being on the event. Much appreciated!
....

However, I will say something about this event drawing not all that many viewers. IMO that is partly because on Twitter (err, I mean X) David Willis has a tendency to act somewhat irrational regarding his love for SLS. The result is that quite a few people in the spaceflight community don't take David all that serious. And that included his YouTube stuff.

So, although the live stream was a good event, I'm afraid that the aversion that some of the spaceflight community has against David Willis will have negatively influenced the viewing figure.

Hopefully other websites will post links to the recording and write an article about it. Eric Berger,  Jalopnik, others, are you reading this?

I don't think Berger is on NSF. If he is, he has kept himself hidden extremely well.

[Robotbeat]

I now understand the viewing figure is both signed in and not, together.

Ross.

Kudos for you being on the event. Much appreciated!

I watched the recording after it was over. Didn't have time in my schedule to tune in for the live event. Noticed that you addressed my question around the 1-hour mark. It is clear that, contrary to what Delta9250 claims on Twitter, the stock ET tankage had enough structural margin for the Jupiter 130 and required only very little modifications for Jupiter 240. Thanks for answering my question.

However, I will say something about this event drawing not all that many viewers. IMO that is partly because on Twitter (err, I mean X) David Willis has a tendency to act somewhat irrational regarding his love for SLS. The result is that quite a few people in the spaceflight community don't take David all that serious. And that included his YouTube stuff.

So, although the live stream was a good event, I'm afraid that the aversion that some of the spaceflight community has against David Willis will have negatively influenced the viewing figure.

David Willis is weird like that, but I like him.

People should be more willing to disagree with people while not disliking them.

[JAFO]

Question: I was under the impression that the ET I-beam "detuned" the thrust oscillations of the SRMs, so when the Stick was proposed it was believed that undampened TO would disable the crew. But IIRC, at about 2:31 you talk about how later investigation found that the I-beam actually amplified the vibration.


Do you have time to expand on how that changed, please?

[kraisee]

Question: I was under the impression that the ET I-beam "detuned" the thrust oscillations of the SRMs, so when the Stick was proposed it was believed that undampened TO would disable the crew. But IIRC, at about 2:31 you talk about how later investigation found that the I-beam actually amplified the vibration.


Do you have time to expand on how that changed, please?

Not sure about exactly amplifying them, but on the later Shuttle missions they added sensors and telemetry to allow them to see what was happening to the SRB's and the ET connections, and what they found surprised - and concerned - quite a few in the program: The natural operating frequencies of the SRB's harmonized together at about 40-50 seconds into flight and remained completely in-sync until separation.

In practice, this meant that when the left SRB chuffed and pushed upwards with increased force on the I beam connecting them through the ET, the right hand one was also pushing upwards at the exact same instant. A fraction of a second later they were both relaxing a bit (compared to the baseline thrust force) and this cycle continued through the flight, both SRB's exerting forces increasing and decreasing on the attachment points at the same time.

The ET's I beam was designed to support such loads, but at the time it was designed nobody thought that it would experience those forces in-sync for any real length of time during a flight - they expected the SRB frequencies to be decoupled and should have operated at separate and offset frequencies.

The big takeaway was that nobody thought the frequency of one SRB could be changed by external forces. They thought the internal forces would massively dominate things and they would just do their own thing as a result. When they saw this on multiple Shuttle flights, that the operating frequency of one SRB could be altered by an external frequency, enough that they synchronized, the question became: What resonant frequency problems could result in flight in different configurations - such as the Ares-I?

And we all know that story.

Ross.

[kraisee]

David is a really nice guy! Yes, he is an SLS hugger, but we all have our favourites and that's a normal thing IMHO. He's young enough that this the only rocket he has known that could get people away from Earth. To him, this is his Saturn-V. I get that and I'm grateful that SLS exists and is creating that passionate drive in people like David - that's a really good thing!!

I'm more of a cautious pragmatist myself. I'm certainly glad SLS got built compared to the unaffordable Ares-I and Ares-V option. I also think SLS is a much better option than having NASA's budget reamed and given to other agencies. While I certainly have real issues with SLS's costs, I also recognize that things could always be much worse.

But I'm also equally glad there are other players out there these days, who are willing to take big risks trying to build truly innovative and unique things that are really pushing the envelope.

I only wish NASA could do more of that risk-taking themselves. They can't, for political reasons, but it sure would be nice if they could find a way.

Ross.

[JAFO]

People should be more willing to disagree with people while not disliking them.

"If you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If you're already smart, surround yourself with smart people that disagree with you."
Isaac Jaffe

[Pheogh]

David is a very kind, enthusiastic, and inquisitive young man. I say this having spent 3 separate attempts to see SLS launch with him (which included 8+ hours waiting in the cold metal stands at the Saturn Center at KSC each time). I was also lucky enough to spend time with him and see IFT-1 at Starbase. I cannot say enough nice things about him! A true fan of all things space and NASA.

As we often said during the whole saga of direct... "First They Ignore You, Then They Laugh at You (his HLS post), Then They Attack You, Then You Win"

I think I speak for the whole team when I say whether there were 3 people viewing the stream or a 1000, it was a great experience to reminisce with the whole team again on the incredible effort of DIRECT. To this day, professionally DIRECT is one of the things I am most proud of.

The long history of DIRECT is cataloged here on NSF (Thanks Chris B) and hopefully always will be for the intellectually honest to go read and digest the way David and Lewis have.

Thank you again David and Lewis for hosting the stream.

[leovinus]

PS: Probably a good idea if someone can download a copy of the archived YouTube stream and discussion and attach here on this thread for posterity. Am in the middle of a move and do not have the resources to do it myself.

[woods170]

David is a really nice guy! Yes, he is an SLS hugger, but we all have our favourites and that's a normal thing IMHO.

Yeah, he seems like a nice guy. I have no problems with him. Unlike one of my co-volunteers at the NRM museum, who basically detests David. He sometimes gets into a Twitter fight with him despite both of them having each other in their ignore lists.

But I digress.

[clongton]

I have to say that getting together with everyone for the first time in YEARS was an awesome experience. It says a lot about our relationship with each other when after all that time we pick up our conversation right where we left off, as if it were only yesterday that we last spoke. We were, each of us, in each other's heads so completely back then that at times it seemed like we all had one single mind. You guys didn't get to see the first hour, which was BEFORE the livestream started. We started at 11am eastern to make sure everything was connected properly so the livestream would go smoothly. We chatted with each other so easily, like we had never stopped.

[kraisee]

Chuck and I are going to discuss a possible book later this week. Far too early to promise anything on that front, but we're going to talk and see where it leads us.

Obviously, we'll bring Philip and Steve in to the conversation too, but if any of the other members of DIRECT - either public or private side - would be at all interested in contributing to such an effort, please do drop me a line.

If such a project really does goes ahead, I'll mention it here on NSF.

Ross.

[kraisee]

Yeah, he seems like a nice guy. I have no problems with him. Unlike one of my co-volunteers at the NRM museum, who basically detests David. He sometimes gets into a Twitter fight with him despite both of them having each other in their ignore lists.

Social media really has contributed to breaking down civil human interaction in the most harmful way for all of society.

I still hope the pendulum might swing back again, before this harm becomes permanent, and leaves us all in a far worse world.

There's a reason why all the executives at the social media platforms banned their own kids from using them.

Ross.

[Eric Hedman]

I now understand the viewing figure is both signed in and not, together.

Ross.

Kudos for you being on the event. Much appreciated!
....

However, I will say something about this event drawing not all that many viewers. IMO that is partly because on Twitter (err, I mean X) David Willis has a tendency to act somewhat irrational regarding his love for SLS. The result is that quite a few people in the spaceflight community don't take David all that serious. And that included his YouTube stuff.

So, although the live stream was a good event, I'm afraid that the aversion that some of the spaceflight community has against David Willis will have negatively influenced the viewing figure.

Hopefully other websites will post links to the recording and write an article about it. Eric Berger,  Jalopnik, others, are you reading this?

I don't think Berger is on NSF. If he is, he has kept himself hidden extremely well.

I don't know about Eric Berger, but over the years a few well known and very influential people have told me that they come to this site and other space focused sites from time to time to read what is going on.  You might be surprised by who is reading these threads.

[AS-503]

Chuck and I are going to discuss a possible book later this week. Far too early to promise anything on that front, but we're going to talk and see where it leads us.

Obviously, we'll bring Philip and Steve in to the conversation too, but if any of the other members of DIRECT - either public or private side - would be at all interested in contributing to such an effort, please do drop me a line.

If such a project really does goes ahead, I'll mention it here on NSF.

Ross.

Ross,

My memory is a little fuzzy from that 2006-ish timeframe but wasn't your old profile avatar/pic the dinosaur/asteroid meme with the dinosaur being the Constellation/Ares ESAS architecture and the meteor the Direct proposal?

[kraisee]

Ross,

My memory is a little fuzzy from that 2006-ish timeframe but wasn't your old profile avatar/pic the dinosaur/asteroid meme with the dinosaur being the Constellation/Ares ESAS architecture and the meteor the Direct proposal?

It wasn't mine, I used the main Jupiter launch beauty shot for my avatar, but I do recall someone on the team used that one for their avatar on here.

Ross.

[catdlr]

PS: Probably a good idea if someone can download a copy of the archived YouTube stream and discussion and attach here on this thread for posterity. Am in the middle of a move and do not have the resources to do it myself.

leovinus,
I have downloaded a copy for my archives.  I've requested permission to post on this thread.  Chris B. usually doesn't allow that if it's on YouTube because it costs NSF storage to maintain a copy.  But I do know from experience that many old NSF threads, with YouTube posts, are no longer available (i.e., broken links) because some YouTube channels have been deleted or disappeared for copyright issues, etc.  Once I get authorization, I'll post in this thread.  It's 1.9GB. (3hr55m) at 1080P.   I may have to split it up into one-hour segments.   I will also upload a copy to my own YouTube Channel for another archive location.

Best,
Tony

[Chris Bergin]

PS: Probably a good idea if someone can download a copy of the archived YouTube stream and discussion and attach here on this thread for posterity. Am in the middle of a move and do not have the resources to do it myself.

We can't reupload content from youtube channel. No one ever do that please.

[catdlr]

PS: Probably a good idea if someone can download a copy of the archived YouTube stream and discussion and attach here on this thread for posterity. Am in the middle of a move and do not have the resources to do it myself.

leovinus,
I have downloaded a copy for my archives.  I've requested permission to post on this thread.  Chris B. usually doesn't allow that if it's on YouTube because it costs NSF storage to maintain a copy.  But I do know from experience that many old NSF threads, with YouTube posts, are no longer available (i.e., broken links) because some YouTube channels have been deleted or disappeared for copyright issues, etc.  Once I get authorization, I'll post in this thread.  It's 1.9GB. (3hr55m) at 1080P.   I may have to split it up into one-hour segments.   I will also upload a copy to my own YouTube Channel for another archive location.

Best,
Tony

PS: Probably a good idea if someone can download a copy of the archived YouTube stream and discussion and attach here on this thread for posterity. Am in the middle of a move and do not have the resources to do it myself.

We can't reupload content from youtube channel. No one ever do that please.

Thanks Chris.
OK, we got the answer from Chris, as I predicted, "NO".  I'll post a copy on my YouTube channel as a secondary location in case the original link gets deleted.

Best
Tony.

[catdlr]

As promised, here is a secondary YouTube location for the Live Stream.  Use it only if the primary is no longer available.  I maintain a full physical copy of this on my personal file media and a Backup Cloud Server as well.

[spacenut]

Could Direct have worked with 4 strap on Falcon 9's after F9 became operational?  This would have made it less costly to operate.

Also, wouldn't it have been cheaper for NASA to develop an upper stage off the SSME than develop the larger solids or even the J2X? 

This would have greatly increased the LEO payload. 

These are all hindsight questions.

I know back then, Downix, I believe that was his forum name, came up with an idea for AJAX.  This would have used Atlas V's boosters instead of solids on the core.  He had it figured from 2 to 8 Atlas V's on the core to dial up the payloads. 

[clongton]

I know back then, Downix, I believe that was his forum name, came up with an idea for AJAX.  This would have used Atlas V's boosters instead of solids on the core.  He had it figured from 2 to 8 Atlas V's on the core to dial up the payloads. 

Yes it was a good approach, but it violated the fundamental approach of DIRECT; to use the existing STS infrastructure, personnel and hardware with as little change as possible. Other than that I loved Ajax. It was the American answer to the Soviet Vulcan, the Heavy Lift varient of the Energia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energia_(rocket)

[Zed_Noir]

Could Direct have worked with 4 strap on Falcon 9's after F9 became operational?  This would have made it less costly to operate.
<snip>

Had discussions with @Lobo on using Falcon 9s as strapped-on boosters for the Direct core.

That would be the Falcon 9 v1.1 variant as boosters. Which was also the cores for the never build Falcon F9H tri-core launcher that had estimated performance similar to an expended Falcon 9 Block 5.

After the appearance of the Falcon 9 Full Thrust, the predecessor to the Block 5. It's apparent to me that SpaceX has a path toward a competing launcher versus Direct.
 

[spacenut]

Yes, I forgot that FH is almost a direct competitor to the vanilla version of Direct.  FH with a 5.5m upper stage and a smaller thrust Raptor could get probably 70+ tons to LEO.  Probably at a lower cost. 

Direct was a quicker and more simple solution than Ares I and V and would have cost a lot less to develop.  We would already have a cis-lunar program if it was developed using existing 4 segment solids and existing SSME's.  No new development costs for solids or RS-25's.  Same size tankage as shuttle just reinforced to carry an upper stage or Orion.  Existing Delta IV upper stage could have been used for an upper stage.  Lots of ifs and inches. 

[Jim]

Other boosters like Atlas or Falcon would require a redesign of the core to be lifted from the base and eliminate the SRB beam.

[kraisee]

Jim's right. The existing EELV class rockets at the time - Atlas-V, Delta-IV and Falcon-9 - are simply not designed for this sort of operation - the load paths through the structures are all wrong.

I'm sure that with a big enough contract SpX could have redesigned Falcon-9 to work as a SDLV booster (and probably do so in half the time it would have taken ULA to do similar) but that was never something NASA considered doing.

Regardless of the technical aspects, never forget the band of 800 lb gorilla's in the room:   The politics of the decision making process.

The politics throughout the period we're talking about - 2006 to 2011 - would never have aligned behind any other booster solutions except ATK's SRB's. Even the awesome lobbying power of Boeing and Lockheed *combined* couldn't do anything to alter that reality.

Even today - nearly two decades after ESAS - ATK's boosters are still a fundamental core part of the SLS program and there is no real discussion about using someone else's products on SLS instead.

The politicians write all of NASA's checks. The agency does exactly what it is paid to do. And nothing else.

Ross.

[kraisee]

Yes, I forgot that FH is almost a direct competitor to the vanilla version of Direct.  FH with a 5.5m upper stage and a smaller thrust Raptor could get probably 70+ tons to LEO.  Probably at a lower cost. 

Direct was a quicker and more simple solution than Ares I and V and would have cost a lot less to develop.  We would already have a cis-lunar program if it was developed using existing 4 segment solids and existing SSME's.  No new development costs for solids or RS-25's.  Same size tankage as shuttle just reinforced to carry an upper stage or Orion.  Existing Delta IV upper stage could have been used for an upper stage.  Lots of ifs and inches. 

Don't forget that Falcon 9 only flew for the very first time one year before DIRECT *finished* and only flew twice in total while DIRECT was still running.

For 80% of DIRECT's efforts, SpaceX had only the tiny Falcon 1's limited flight record (ultimately two successes out of five flights) to show. It was not much of a comparison at the time.

Falcon Heavy didn't fly until seven years after everyone at DIRECT had already hung up our coats.

The truth is, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy simply were not seriously on anyone's radar at the time we're talking about - at least not the decision makers in D.C.

They've certainly come a long way since then, but it would still take a whole decade after these events, before NASA would even consider planning it's human exploration program using their systems for the first time.

Ross.

[deltaV]

Don't forget that Falcon 9 only flew for the very first time one year before DIRECT *finished* and only flew twice in total while DIRECT was still running.

A rational government in ~2011 would indeed not have bet the human spaceflight program solely on SpaceX given their then-lousy record. Instead a rational government would have invested in several 40+ tonnes to LEO commercial vehicles e.g. Falcon Heavy and an upgraded Atlas and designed the human spaceflight program around them. However Ross may be right that rational government would not have been politically feasible.

[kraisee]

Don't forget that Falcon 9 only flew for the very first time one year before DIRECT *finished* and only flew twice in total while DIRECT was still running.

A rational government in ~2011 would indeed not have bet the human spaceflight program solely on SpaceX given their then-lousy record. Instead a rational government would have invested in several 40+ tonnes to LEO commercial vehicles e.g. Falcon Heavy and an upgraded Atlas and designed the human spaceflight program around them. However Ross may be right that rational government would not have been politically feasible.

Depends on your measure of "rational".

- Is it rational to plan the next 20+ years of the national human spaceflight program, using a rocket from a company that in 2011 had only demonstrated a 57% success rate (3 failures, 4 successes) and who were still many years away from flying a Heavy configuration, and were frankly only talking about a Heavy at the time, and were still a ways from getting seriously into the process of designing it?

- Is it irrational for a Senator to fight for more money and jobs in the district where they were elected to do precisely that?

- Is it irrational to depend on contractors who have been delivering good products for decades instead of looking at yet-another-upstart company that may or may not make it?    And remember there were a vast number of such companies that littered the landscape prior to SpaceX coming on the scene - there were probably 100+ startups that tried and failed before SpaceX actually made it, they were utterly unique in that regard, nobody else had succeeded. To name but a few; Beal, Kisler, Amroc, Pioneer, Rotary, EER, Pacific American, Kelly, Universal Spacelines, Space Transportation Corp. - all had flared briefly only to fizzle to nothing. Honestly, there were few people - at that time in the early 2000's - who genuinely thought SpaceX would be any different.

- Is it irrational to choose to give contracts to all of the contractors who have been dedicated to the program for all those decades, instead of just selecting a few and slamming the door on the rest? (I'm specifically talking about excluding ATK by choosing to go with Boeing/LM Heavy EELV's exclusively)


At the time of this decision making process, SpaceX simply hadn't yet accomplished enough to be in the running. Any notion of them being involved, is based purely on a false perspective that you only get years further down the timeline, after things had started to change and SpaceX had been given the time necessary to demonstrate what they could ultimately achieve. I personally don't think that general perspective really "switched" until they started trying to land boosters with the first F9 v1.1 in September 2013 - That's when the whole industry really started to pay attention - and that was still two years into the future, compared to the final events of this thread.

The politics of the time (2006-2011) were firmly - nay, strictly - aligned behind ATK, Boeing and LM ... Period.

Any proposal that didn't focus on those three was simply dead before anyone even looked at the shiny brochures. Sorry to be blunt, but that's the unvarnished truth of the political landscape at that time. The various Senators and Congress-people who were in charge of the purse strings for NASA's budget at that time wanted the program setup that way because it benefited their own districts, and thus their own reelection hopes. As a result, no project that didn't fit that model, would get even a second glance.

Ross.

[Eric Hedman]

Don't forget that Falcon 9 only flew for the very first time one year before DIRECT *finished* and only flew twice in total while DIRECT was still running.

A rational government in ~2011 would indeed not have bet the human spaceflight program solely on SpaceX given their then-lousy record. Instead a rational government would have invested in several 40+ tonnes to LEO commercial vehicles e.g. Falcon Heavy and an upgraded Atlas and designed the human spaceflight program around them. However Ross may be right that rational government would not have been politically feasible.

Depends on your measure of "rational".

- Is it rational to plan the next 20+ years of the national human spaceflight program, using a rocket from a company that in 2011 had only demonstrated a 57% success rate (3 failures, 4 successes) and who were still many years away from flying a Heavy configuration, and were frankly only talking about a Heavy at the time, and were still a ways from getting seriously into the process of designing it?

- Is it irrational for a Senator to fight for more money and jobs in the district where they were elected to do precisely that?

- Is it irrational to depend on contractors who have been delivering good products for decades instead of looking at yet-another-upstart company that may or may not make it?    And remember there were a vast number of such companies that littered the landscape prior to SpaceX coming on the scene - there were probably 100+ startups that tried and failed before SpaceX actually made it, they were utterly unique in that regard, nobody else had succeeded. To name but a few; Beal, Kisler, Amroc, Pioneer, Rotary, EER, Pacific American, Kelly, Universal Spacelines, Space Transportation Corp. - all had flared briefly only to fizzle to nothing. Honestly, there were few people - at that time in the early 2000's - who genuinely thought SpaceX would be any different.

- Is it irrational to choose to give contracts to all of the contractors who have been dedicated to the program for all those decades, instead of just selecting a few and slamming the door on the rest? (I'm specifically talking about excluding ATK by choosing to go with Boeing/LM Heavy EELV's exclusively)


At the time of this decision making process, SpaceX simply hadn't yet accomplished enough to be in the running. Any notion of them being involved, is based purely on a false perspective that you only get years further down the timeline, after things had started to change and SpaceX had been given the time necessary to demonstrate what they could ultimately achieve. I personally don't think that general perspective really "switched" until they started trying to land boosters with the first F9 v1.1 in September 2013 - That's when the whole industry really started to pay attention - and that was still two years into the future, compared to the final events of this thread.

The politics of the time (2006-2011) were firmly - nay, strictly - aligned behind ATK, Boeing and LM ... Period.

Any proposal that didn't focus on those three was simply dead before anyone even looked at the shiny brochures. Sorry to be blunt, but that's the unvarnished truth of the political landscape at that time. The various Senators and Congress-people who were in charge of the purse strings for NASA's budget at that time wanted the program setup that way because it benefited their own districts, and thus their own reelection hopes. As a result, no project that didn't fit that model, would get even a second glance.

Ross.

This is a great explanation of the problems with presentism.  You can't judge the past by what you know now and people didn't know back then.  It doesn't matter if it was something 10 years ago or 500 years ago. People like to think they would have made better decisions even without the aid of twenty-twenty hindsight.  It doesn't work that way.

[Todd Martin]

At the time, I thought the DIRECT team to be brave, passionate engineers that fought to make a better value launcher.  Nothing has changed that opinion over the years.  What I could use help in understanding is the difference in flight rate between STS and SLS.  The budgets are similar, each STS flight needed a new core tank and 2 solids which is the same as SLS.  Would DIRECT have allowed for 6 flights a year instead of 1 every 2 years?

[aperh1988]

At the time, I thought the DIRECT team to be brave, passionate engineers that fought to make a better value launcher.  Nothing has changed that opinion over the years.  What I could use help in understanding is the difference in flight rate between STS and SLS.  The budgets are similar, each STS flight needed a new core tank and 2 solids which is the same as SLS.  Would DIRECT have allowed for 6 flights a year instead of 1 every 2 years?

The SLS core stage contains all of the legacy shuttle MPS (for 4 engines not 3) and all of the avionics boxes. The core stage is like the ET and orbiter combined, much more complex than the ET by itself. The answer to your question is no.

[Zed_Noir]

At the time, I thought the DIRECT team to be brave, passionate engineers that fought to make a better value launcher.  Nothing has changed that opinion over the years.  What I could use help in understanding is the difference in flight rate between STS and SLS.  The budgets are similar, each STS flight needed a new core tank and 2 solids which is the same as SLS.  Would DIRECT have allowed for 6 flights a year instead of 1 every 2 years?

The SLS core stage contains all of the legacy shuttle MPS (for 4 engines not 3) and all of the avionics boxes. The core stage is like the ET and orbiter combined, much more complex than the ET by itself. The answer to your question is no.

Also there is no commonality between the old ET and the SLS core in how they were manufactured. The SLS is basically a new rocket design with rebuild RS-25 engines and upgraded solid boosters.

[aperh1988]

At the time, I thought the DIRECT team to be brave, passionate engineers that fought to make a better value launcher.  Nothing has changed that opinion over the years.  What I could use help in understanding is the difference in flight rate between STS and SLS.  The budgets are similar, each STS flight needed a new core tank and 2 solids which is the same as SLS.  Would DIRECT have allowed for 6 flights a year instead of 1 every 2 years?

The SLS core stage contains all of the legacy shuttle MPS (for 4 engines not 3) and all of the avionics boxes. The core stage is like the ET and orbiter combined, much more complex than the ET by itself. The answer to your question is no.

Also there is no commonality between the old ET and the SLS core in how they were manufactured. The SLS is basically a new rocket design with rebuild RS-25 engines and upgraded solid boosters.

100% correct, although I think Todd Martin’s question really was more about DIRECT rather than SLS. My point was even if you had kept the ET design and “strapped engines to it” you still run into most of the same SLS-type issues that limit flight rate - all the avionics and MPS needs integrated  for every flight. STS avoided a huge part of this effort by reusing the orbiter. Given the same budget DIRECT probably wouldn’t have  met the same flight rate as STS.

[kraisee]

At the time, I thought the DIRECT team to be brave, passionate engineers that fought to make a better value launcher.  Nothing has changed that opinion over the years.  What I could use help in understanding is the difference in flight rate between STS and SLS.  The budgets are similar, each STS flight needed a new core tank and 2 solids which is the same as SLS.  Would DIRECT have allowed for 6 flights a year instead of 1 every 2 years?

We were always aiming for around 12-15 launches every year. 12 Exploration launches and two ISS crew/resupply missions. There could have been extras as the infrastructure was designed to support well over 20 cores every year before needing sigificant expansion. If they had followed DIRECT's plan, reusing most of what we already had with minimal modifications, we could also have afforded such a program.


A lot of SLS' additional costs originate from political decisions, but there are also technical ones.

I always thought it would have been better for Boeing to get the Orion and Altair contracts because they had more experience with such vehicles, and LM should have gotten the integration program and both stages of the Jupiter because they had so much more experience with the Shuttle's Super Light Weight Tank and with their ICES low-boiloff stage technologies.

In the event, Boeing just didn't know how to make a tank out of Al-Li 2195 and NASA threw all the existing ET tooling away to be replaced with all-new tooling to make tanks from AL-2219 instead - the same stuff the older, heavier LWT ET's had been made of. This meant a completely clean-sheet design ($$$) for a larger rocket than was actually necessary ($$$), all new tooling ($$$), all new training ($$$) all new materials ($$$), modifying Michoud to enable vertical assembly ($$$), all new J-2X engine in the critical path ($$$), all new test stand for the J-2X ($$$), major modifications to the Core stage test stand at Stennis ($$$) etc. etc. You get the idea; all of these decisions drove the costs of every single element up by quite a lot.

Add in the costs for the launch facilities - VAB modifications ($$$), all new ML ($$$), second new ML ($$$), increased propellant capacity systems ($$$) etc. Again, all driving the infrastructure costs up and up and up.

Much the same happened with the SRB's. I believe ATK has actually gotten three different big budget development contracts over the years, in support of different SLS variants. This has also driven their costs up too. ($$$)

And the SSME's also got re-work on them, and they needed to build new facilities to manufacture disposable RS-25's too. ($$$)


DIRECT had a completely different approach.

We proposed reusing all of the existing facilities far more effectively and fully. The only really new bit of manufacturing we needed was for the thrust structures on the first and second stages, plus the new payload fairing. We needed new SSME's too, which would have been a costly element, just as with SLS, but we were always aiming for much better economies of scale, which I'll come to in a minute.

Jupiter's Core Stage and Upper Stage should have been manufactured on the standard ET tooling, using LM's existing AL-Li-2195 experience and techniques - we needed so little alteration that Jupiter Cores could have been made while the final ET's were still being made for Shuttle! NASA's own 1992 NLS plans for an in-line SDLV planned to make 14 NLS cores and 9 Shuttle ET's together on the same production line every year!

The SRB's didn't need to be changed AT ALL (yes, ATK's CEO threatened to pull out if they didn't get a cushy development contract, but I would have called their bluff and threaten to just privatize the tooling as it was a national security asset - and anyway, ATK stood to make a lot of money from 12 launches x 8 segments per year = a whopping 96 segments to be processed annually!).

The VAB needed only one single existing work platform to be modified from Shuttle spec. The propellant farms at LC-39 was already perfectly adequate for DIRECT's Jupiter-246 or 241 configurations and didn't need expanding. The Shuttle MPL's could have had an extra exhaust chamber integrated and a simple launch tower like the Atlas-V's, all three MLP's could have been modified for less than the cost of building a single new ML! The testing facilities at Stennis were also adequate with only a refurbishment of the main test stand being needed - not a major redesign.

New RS-25's would still have been needed, as I mentioned earlier. But this is where economies of scale really come into play (also with all the rocket hardware, not just SSME's)...

The majority of costs to make rocket hardware is fixed. You need all the same equipment and facilities, and pretty-much the same number of engineers and technicians if you're building one product every year as you do to make 6 units, or 12 units every year. As a rule-of-thumb use a 10 to 1 ratio to get an idea of the costs involved. So say a hypothetical program has fixed infrastructure costs of $3 billion a year, the actual hardware produced is probably in the order of 1/10th of that or $300m each. That means that the first item off the production line costs $3.3 billion. But the second only costs an additional $300m for a total of $3.6bn, but splitting the costs between the total number, each now costs $1.8 billion for that year. A third costs $3.9bn total, but each now costs $1.3bn. This hopefully demonstrates why "economies of scale" are so important in this business.

By the end of the Shuttle program, including all the extra layers required post-Columbia, Shuttle's costs were in the order of $3.1bn per year with a typical flight rate around 6 per year. Shuttle's rule was actually closer to 7:1, because the winged orbiters took quite a lot more effort to maintain between flights compared to most rockets. So this suggests fixed infrastructure costs were around $1.7bn and per flight costs were around $240m per flight, resulting in each flight costing about $500m.

These economies of scale are what hurts SLS the most. One flight every year (or worse, two years!) means every flight carries the full weight of the annual fixed costs. I've seen numbers as high as $4.1 billion per SLS flight. Using the normal 10:1 rule, this suggests the SLS program's fixed costs are around $3.7bn per year, and per-flight costs are around $400m each. That's double what Shuttle used to cost! Yikes!

Since 2007, Congress has added a total of about $2 billion extra to NASA's annual budget every year to pay for SLS.  The massive costs mean that just one flight per year is already stretching NASA's budget enormously. The agency has been forced to strip the Science Directorate of most of its budget for over a decade now! There was no remaining money available to pay for the Altair lander or any lunar surface hardware either. All for a shiny new rocket. Aside from Orion, we have developed precisely NOTHING else to put on top of it.

How stupid is that, eh?

It's like building the Saturn-V and Apollo CSM, but never funding the Lunar Module. Doh! 


Anyway, with no further additional funds, NASA simply can't afford another $400m to add a second SLS launch each year, so there are zero economies of scale. That's why SLS flights cost $4.1bn each.


DIRECT would have resulted in far lower annual infrastructure costs, only slightly higher than Shuttle's. With the $2bn extra Congress gives NASA now, our launcher program would have had about $1.8bn annual fixed costs, with J-130 flight costs lower than Shuttle (no winged orbiter) of around $130m (x2) and J-246 flight costs (x12) around $170m. At our planned 14 mission flight rate, that totals about $4.1bn - the same total as SLS's annual costs, but it would have paid for 6 Lunar missions every year, one Mars mission every two years, and two J-130/Orion missions to the ISS every year, carrying about 50 tons of cargo at the same time.


Keep in mind that all of this was actually EXACTLY what the Congress purse-string-holders wanted. Their goal was always to flow MORE money to, and create MORE jobs in, their various districts. Higher costs were a GOOD thing to them. So SLS achieved precisely what they wanted and Jupiter's low-cost plan actually did not.

This was the real reason WHY things went the way they did.

I just wish we could have persuaded the Congress-folk that Jupiter, Orion, Altair, Lunar Rover, Lunar Hab and early Mars exploration would have formed a big enough PROGRAM that would have spent all the same amount of money and created all the same number of high paying space jobs in all the same districts, but would have resulted in zero "gap" after Shuttle and a far healthier US Human Space Flight Program with new Lunar Landings as early as 2015! But they always figured that lots of smaller projects were easier for NASA's enemies in Congress to cancel than one giant monolithic rocket project that was "too big to fail", even if it resulted in something a lot more embarrassing and less justifiable to everyone.

Ross.

[Emmettvonbrown]

We were always aiming for around 12-15 launches every year. 12 Exploration launches and two ISS crew/resupply missions. There could have been extras as the infrastructure was designed to support well over 20 cores every year before needing sigificant expansion.

Interesting to compare that with Shuttle flight rates. 24 a year was the revised goal, before Challenger (from "once a week", 52 per year or even 60, "one flight every six days").
They achieved 10 consecutive flights over 1985-86, ending with the disaster. According to Mike Mullane, they were heading into the wall even before STS-51L.
Post Challenger the record of flight per year was in 1996, with 8 missions.

So I presume DIRECT could do better because there was no more shuttle orbiter to refurbish ? 

[kraisee]

We were always aiming for around 12-15 launches every year. 12 Exploration launches and two ISS crew/resupply missions. There could have been extras as the infrastructure was designed to support well over 20 cores every year before needing sigificant expansion.

Interesting to compare that with Shuttle flight rates. 24 a year was the revised goal, before Challenger (from "once a week", 52 per year or even 60, "one flight every six days").
They achieved 10 consecutive flights over 1985-86, ending with the disaster. According to Mike Mullane, they were heading into the wall even before STS-51L.
Post Challenger the record of flight per year was in 1996, with 8 missions.

So I presume DIRECT could do better because there was no more shuttle orbiter to refurbish ? 

Partly, yes. The massive complexity of the Orbiter's made a huge difference to the program's costs and schedules.

DIRECT's budget plan was essentially derived from Shuttle's plus the extra ~$1.5bn that Congress allocated to exploration activities early in the Constellation effort.

We really just reallocated the same existing Shuttle costs, plus the new allocation for exploration, to pay for Jupiter's, Orion's and Altair's. We found that we could afford to fly ~14 missions each year for that amount of money.


But don't underestimate the difference that was possible if the new program had really started ACHIEVING THINGS.

I still believe that if LV-24/25 had not been overruled by Griffin in 2005, and the program had moved forwards in generally the same way DIRECT later suggested (though we would never have been needed!) we could have seen lunar crew on the surface around 2015, crew living permanently at a lunar outpost around 2018 and the first Mars missions starting around 2020 (see our schedule from 2006).

That would have been a stunning human space flight program and THAT would have created great support throughout the public and Congress - and that usually leads to increased budgets for the program, so even more flights could have been feasible.

Adjusting Gus Grissom's quote:   More bucks; more Buck Rogers.

Ross.

[JAFO]

Chuck and I are going to discuss a possible book later this week. Far too early to promise anything on that front, but we're going to talk and see where it leads us.

Obviously, we'll bring Philip and Steve in to the conversation too, but if any of the other members of DIRECT - either public or private side - would be at all interested in contributing to such an effort, please do drop me a line.

If such a project really does goes ahead, I'll mention it here on NSF.

Ross.

Any word? My credit card is ready to help crowdfund it.

[JAFO]

Chuck and I are going to discuss a possible book later this week. Far too early to promise anything on that front, but we're going to talk and see where it leads us.

Obviously, we'll bring Philip and Steve in to the conversation too, but if any of the other members of DIRECT - either public or private side - would be at all interested in contributing to such an effort, please do drop me a line.

If such a project really does goes ahead, I'll mention it here on NSF.

Ross.

Any word? My credit card is ready to help crowdfund it.

Bump. Still willing to be Donor #1 (or +1 if others beat me) to crowd fund the book.

[kraisee]

Really appreciate the encouragement, but there hasn't been any traction at our end so I just don't see it happening.

Ross.

[JAFO]

Really appreciate the encouragement, but there hasn't been any traction at our end so I just don't see it happening.

Ross.

:sad:

But Thanks for the livestream at least.

[Eric Hedman]

Really appreciate the encouragement, but there hasn't been any traction at our end so I just don't see it happening.

Ross.

:sad:

But Thanks for the livestream at least.

As fascinating as a good history of Direct would be, a good comprehensive history of any project this big and complex is a heck of a lot of work.  If notes, e-mails, CAD models, discussions, aren't organized and documented along the way for the purpose of writing a book, reconstructing a history by sorting through a haystack of information including the NSF threads, and talking with the people who were involved becomes very difficult.  It's not surprising that nobody has the time to do this.

[clongton]

<snip> ...and talking with the people who were involved becomes very difficult.  It's not surprising that nobody has the time to do this.

Especially when one considers that the majority of them were design engineers at Boeing, Lockheed and MSFC, who must remain publicly anonymous. To this day, exposure would not be a pleasant experience for them.

[JAFO]

<snip> ...and talking with the people who were involved becomes very difficult.  It's not surprising that nobody has the time to do this.

Especially when one considers that the majority of them were design engineers at Boeing, Lockheed and MSFC, who must remain publicly anonymous. To this day, exposure would not be a pleasant experience for them.

Understood, sad that there is still a threat to these unnamed engineers.


Since the book will never come out, is there any chance you gents (and ladies, etc.,) that were involved could expand on any of the topics covered in the livestream, as you have time/interest/can with out disclosing any identifying information? For instance, the discovery that the ET I-beam did not actually act as a detuning device to mitigate thrust oscillation of the SRBs.

Maybe we could activate a Direct Q&A , or " Stories from Direct" thread?

[Jer]

Was there any discussion of using the TR-106 (or RS-83) instead of the SSME or RS-68?

[clongton]

Was there any discussion of using the TR-106 (or RS-83) instead of the SSME or RS-68?

No it wasn't. The law mandated using existing infrastructure and flight hardware to the extent possible. The RS-83 was a conceptual reusable engine proposed for the Space Launch Initiative (SLI) in the early 2000s. The design never left the developmental phase, as the program was canceled. So it was never a consideration.

[JAFO]

Chuck, could you talk about  the discovery that the ET I-beam did not actually act as a detuning device to mitigate thrust oscillation of the SRBs?

[clongton]

Chuck, could you talk about  the discovery that the ET I-beam did not actually act as a detuning device to mitigate thrust oscillation of the SRBs?

The idea that the External Tank (ET) I-beam in the Space Shuttle program acted as a detuning device for Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) thrust oscillation has been questioned many times over the years. Originally, the I-beam was thought to play a role in damping or mitigating thrust oscillations that were known to cause concerns during Shuttle launches. However, analysis and testing during actual launches revealed that the I-beam itself did not significantly contribute to the reduction of these oscillations. Thrust oscillations from the SRBs, are actually driven by internal motor pressure fluctuations. The I-beam, a structural element was designed to provide strength and stability during the launch, but it did not have the expected impact on mitigating the SRB oscillations. This led to a shift in focus to other methods for controlling these oscillations, including internal motor changes, nozzle design improvements, and advanced damping techniques like tuned mass absorbers​, all in an attempt to smooth the oscillations out at the source. Ultimately it was suspected, but never proven, that the presence of a large reservoir of fluid (propellant) between the SRBs largely contributed to softening these effects. But I am not  the expert on  this subject. The detailed data we had all came from the team of analysists working the project.

In short, the ET I-beam's role in mitigating thrust oscillation was overstated, and other measures, such as nozzle modifications and internal structural changes, were more effective in managing these issues. I don't know much else about this except that this problem was never completely adjudicated, and was a major concern for the Ares-1 CLV design. Sensors onboard the Ares-1 test vehicle indicated that the oscillations could potentially be debilitating to any crew riding that LV, lending weight to the theory that the ET fluid reservoir of the Shuttle stack was the key to oscillation dampening. But again, to my knowledge never proven.

[sdsds]

For the Jupiter design the key aspect of SRB thrust oscillation was that NASA knew the STS hardware solved it somehow. By retaining ET design and manufacturing techniques, and staying at least initially with four-segment boosters, Jupiter-130 could conceivably have flown while Shuttle was still in service. Or at least with no slip in the launch cadence. That seems like a good thing, right? Consider though the implications:

STS-134: May 16, 2011
STS-135: July 21, 2011
Jupiter 1: September 26, 2011
                 ↕
Orion EFT-1: 5 December 2014

The Orion capsule was only ready for an uncrewed LEO test flight (on DIVH) 3 years after what would have been the Jupiter program's "need by" date. Look at that from the perspective of Lockheed-Martin. Doesn't allowing Boeing to muck around with the SLS core design and manufacturing guarantee you the schedule buffer you need? And aren't you willing to trade the low margin External Tank and Jupiter core business for the high margin capsule business?

Specifically on how the Shuttle stack dealt with SRB thrust oscillation, the intertank structures (including the thrust beam) carried the SRB loads into the mass of the propellants. For the SLWT, wiki says the LOX load was ~629 tons and the LH2 load was ~106 tons, so pretty clearly the LOX dynamics dominated. (Details at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_external_tank#Intertank for those interested.)

[Rik ISS-fan]

Didn't a lot of the delays in Orion development have to do with more restrictive requirements for the mass of the system. Caused by lower launch capability of the launch vehicle?

[clongton]

Didn't a lot of the delays in Orion development have to do with more restrictive requirements for the mass of the system. Caused by lower launch capability of the launch vehicle?

Delays caused by both reduced funding and by design changes. The design changes were the major contributing factor. Originally, the Atlas and Delta EELVs could have lifted a conceptual Orion to LEO, where it would meet the Altair lander, still mated to the ESU upper stage. But Administrator Griffin insisted that Orion must only be launched on the Ares-1, so as the design was developed, it was - unnecessarily - made too heavy for either EELV. Unfortunately, once it was determined that the RS25 engine was not restartable in space, the J-2X was developed to replace it, but was not powerful enough and now Orion was too heavy for the Ares-1. So it needed a complete redesign, so that the J-2X would work, but the Orion still be too heavy for the EELVs. Political gerrymandering at its finest.