Author Topic: Is Direct really dead ?  (Read 21989 times)

Online MickQ

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Is Direct really dead ?
« on: 01/31/2022 03:43 am »
It has been a while now since we heard anything about the awesome Jupiter family of hlv's.  SLS got in the way.

If and when SLS fails and is quietly pushed aside, is it possible that there will be a resurgence of the Direct architecture ?

kraisee ??

clongton ??
« Last Edit: 01/31/2022 03:44 am by MickQ »

Offline Eric Hedman

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #1 on: 01/31/2022 04:21 am »
Direct would have been great at the time.  Technology is advancing beyond what the Jupiter family could do.  If either, Starship or New Glenn or both succeeds, there is no need for Jupiter anymore.

Offline randomly

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #2 on: 01/31/2022 07:08 am »
Direct would have ended up the same way SLS has. Way over budget, way over schedule etc. The same lack of a Mission, the same contractors involved, the same financial and political forces at work. The engineering details wouldn't really have changed the long term outcome.

Offline woods170

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #3 on: 01/31/2022 08:08 am »
It has been a while now since we heard anything about the awesome Jupiter family of hlv's.  SLS got in the way.

If and when SLS fails and is quietly pushed aside, is it possible that there will be a resurgence of the Direct architecture ?

kraisee ??

clongton ??

DIRECT was based on re-using existing shuttle hardware and existing shuttle infrastructure (including manufacturing infrastructure) to the maximum possible extent.

Unfortunately most of the shuttle infrastructure and all of the STS manufacturing infrastructure was demolished to make way for the Space Launch System.
So, the basis on which DIRECT could have been a technical success no longer exists. Which is why the DIRECT architecture can't be resurrected.

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #4 on: 01/31/2022 09:16 am »
Wood170 is correct. Which is why I think they should have built this system:

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Offline spacenut

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #5 on: 01/31/2022 02:19 pm »
One of the side mount versions would have been much quicker to develop.  No change on the solids or tank.  A pod for liquid engine retrieval.  It would have allowed about 70+ tons to LEO.  Shuttle could still have carried the astronauts or Orion could have been mounted on the side pod as shown.  A lot of in space assembly could have been done.  Also, liquid boosters could have been built to replace the solids eventually with all the money saved.  Flyback boosters were what was suggested back then.  Now land back boosters would save mass. 

Like everyone said, Direct is dead.  Solids are a dead end.  They are good for thrust on first stages or ICBM's.  Parachuting them back into the ocean, retrieving them, and refurbishing them costs as much as new ones.  Land back liquids, as SpaceX has shown cuts operating costs a lot more. 

Offline Jim

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #6 on: 01/31/2022 02:53 pm »
Side mount for payloads is crap

Offline TrueBlueWitt

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #7 on: 01/31/2022 02:59 pm »
It has been a while now since we heard anything about the awesome Jupiter family of hlv's.  SLS got in the way.

If and when SLS fails and is quietly pushed aside, is it possible that there will be a resurgence of the Direct architecture ?

kraisee ??

clongton ??

DIRECT was based on re-using existing shuttle hardware and existing shuttle infrastructure (including manufacturing infrastructure) to the maximum possible extent.

Unfortunately most of the shuttle infrastructure and all of the STS manufacturing infrastructure was demolished to make way for the Space Launch System.
So, the basis on which DIRECT could have been a technical success no longer exists. Which is why the DIRECT architecture can't be resurrected.

A certain administrator applying a scorched earth policy to almost everything shuttle related that could have been re-used. It sure seemed intentional.

Offline KSC Sage

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #8 on: 01/31/2022 03:02 pm »
One of the side mount versions would have been much quicker to develop.  No change on the solids or tank.  A pod for liquid engine retrieval.  It would have allowed about 70+ tons to LEO.  Shuttle could still have carried the astronauts or Orion could have been mounted on the side pod as shown.  A lot of in space assembly could have been done.  Also, liquid boosters could have been built to replace the solids eventually with all the money saved.  Flyback boosters were what was suggested back then.  Now land back boosters would save mass. 

Like everyone said, Direct is dead.  Solids are a dead end.  They are good for thrust on first stages or ICBM's.  Parachuting them back into the ocean, retrieving them, and refurbishing them costs as much as new ones.  Land back liquids, as SpaceX has shown cuts operating costs a lot more. 
Congress required the SLS launch vehicle family to be able to evolve to launch 130 metric tons to orbit.  The Side Mount concept could not evolve to the 130 metric tons requirement. 

Offline whitelancer64

Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #9 on: 01/31/2022 03:12 pm »
One of the side mount versions would have been much quicker to develop.  No change on the solids or tank.  A pod for liquid engine retrieval.  It would have allowed about 70+ tons to LEO.  Shuttle could still have carried the astronauts or Orion could have been mounted on the side pod as shown.  A lot of in space assembly could have been done.  Also, liquid boosters could have been built to replace the solids eventually with all the money saved.  Flyback boosters were what was suggested back then.  Now land back boosters would save mass. 

Like everyone said, Direct is dead.  Solids are a dead end.  They are good for thrust on first stages or ICBM's.  Parachuting them back into the ocean, retrieving them, and refurbishing them costs as much as new ones.  Land back liquids, as SpaceX has shown cuts operating costs a lot more. 
Congress required the SLS launch vehicle family to be able to evolve to launch 130 metric tons to orbit.  The Side Mount concept could not evolve to the 130 metric tons requirement.

The DIRECT concept predates that mandate from Congress.
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #10 on: 01/31/2022 03:43 pm »
Side mount for payloads is crap
Absolutely, but it would’ve been the fastest option to make a Shuttle Derviced Super Heavy Lift Vehicle (>50 tonnes).

Also, I think SLS is basically DIRECT, but the contractors chose to redo a bunch of stuff instead of going with Shuttle stuff. They switched from horizontal welding like the ETs to vertical welding because it was a totally different contractor.

Using old 4 segment boosters instead of 5 segment would’ve helped reduce costs since you don’t need new development. Also, probably wouldn’t have needed to reinforce the crawlerway.
« Last Edit: 01/31/2022 03:44 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #11 on: 01/31/2022 03:45 pm »
The mandate from Congress to do 130t is absolutely silly. It basically necessitated starting a lot of stuff from scratch at enormous costs—I mean “jobs.”
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Offline Eric Hedman

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #12 on: 01/31/2022 04:58 pm »
Shuttle-C was killed in Congress by a faction led by Jim Sensenbrenner in the House.  Trent Lott was the leading supporter in the Senate.  It was a contentious fight between two Republicans.

Offline woods170

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #13 on: 01/31/2022 04:59 pm »
Wood170 is correct. Which is why I think they should have built this system:



Unfortunately that configuration was an even bigger kludge than shuttle was.

Offline spacenut

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #14 on: 01/31/2022 06:23 pm »
Direct was in line not side mount.  However, it used the same solids, no new development.  It used 3 SSME's to start with, so it delivered 70 tons to LEO.  Direct was to evolve, by going with 5 core engines, adding a J2X upper stage to get 130 tons to LEO.  Later it could add the 5 seg boosters if need be.  Same tank tooling, but reinforcing the tank for bottom engines.  No work on the solids or no new solid development to begin with.  The original direct could have launched Orion, or could have sent 70 tons to orbit.  No engine developments, just tank reconfiguration.  Two launches could have gotten us to the moon.  It could have been used to supply the ISS, or launch large payloads.  Then evolve it to add two more engines and the J2X upper stage for deep space or heavier launches.  It was to get us to orbit quicker, then evolve larger over time.

It was a much better plan than SLS.  SLS was a compromise between the inital Direct 3 engine using existing solids and the evolved direct using 5 engines and 5 seg solids and a J2X upper stage.  So the SLS used new solids and only 4 engines and no upper stage.  A kludge compromise proposed by the senate and congress, who are not rocket scientists.  So the 4 engines don't allow for a heavier upper stage like a J2X upper stage for 130 tons.  SLS will start with about 95 tons to LEO and with an upper stage maybe get 40-45 tons TLI or about 115-120 tons to LEO.  Overpowered for LEO, but underpowered for TLI or TMI. 

SLS is going to die a low death.  Direct would have been flying by 2014-2016 and the heavy version being worked on now.  Direct alone could have done a lot of work with a 70 ton capacity. 

Offline JAFO

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #15 on: 01/31/2022 08:07 pm »
(in Sean Connery/Marko Ramius voice): It reminds me of the heady days when space geeks had hope, and LC-39 would have trembled again at the sound of moon rockets. Now they tremble again - at the sight of a Falcon RTLS. The order is: Launch the BF Starship.
« Last Edit: 02/01/2022 08:34 pm by JAFO »
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Offline MATTBLAK

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #16 on: 01/31/2022 10:03 pm »
Wood170 is correct. Which is why I think they should have built this system:



Unfortunately that configuration was an even bigger kludge than shuttle was.
I don't agree, but Atlas V Phase 2 would have been my preference, along with upgraded Delta IV-Heavies.
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Offline spacenut

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #17 on: 02/01/2022 02:30 am »
Wood170 is correct. Which is why I think they should have built this system:



Unfortunately that configuration was an even bigger kludge than shuttle was.
I don't agree, but Atlas V Phase 2 would have been my preference, along with upgraded Delta IV-Heavies.

Atlas V phase II would have been a very good rocket.  Enough in single stick to launch Orion to LEO.  A 3 core heavy version could do about 75 tons to LEO.  The single stick, like Falcon 9 would have become a workhorse, while the 3 core heavy version would have been a deep space workhorse.  RD-180's could have been manufactured here to avoid the problems of today.  They might have even made a 5 core superheavy version, or even a new 8-10m core for Saturn V capability. 

Offline MATTBLAK

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #18 on: 02/01/2022 02:49 am »
Yes, indeed. And when the RD-180 was eventually banned, ULA could have switched to the AR-1 engine. I bet they wish they'd chosen that engine for Vulcan now!
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Online butters

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #19 on: 02/01/2022 04:41 am »
Following DIRECT here on NSF at the time, my impression was the overriding goal was to minimize The Gap in human spaceflight capabilities after the looming Shuttle retirement. Orion to the ISS ASAP with Jupiter-130. Then add the JUS and Jupiter-246 for exploration missions. I don't recall much discussion on such issues as whether we'd be able to produce enough core stages for two Orion/J-130 missions per year for regularly-scheduled ISS crew rotations. It was more important to have something that would work at all and wouldn't be catastrophically unaffordable. Pretty bleak in hindsight. Perhaps others remember differently.

Commercial Crew, at least in the form of Crew Dragon at the moment, has ended The Gap that motivated DIRECT's sense of urgency in prioritizing early LEO capability. There's an argument to be made that Jupiter would have been a better investment than SLS, but not now that we've already spent the money to develop the 5-segment SRBs and stretch the core. The JUS would have been significantly bigger than the EUS and presumably more expensive, in part to compensate for the design decisions intended to hasten the introduction of J-130.

DIRECT was proposed as a solution to the worst problems with Ares I & V, and so was SLS. The futility of the Ares launchers was such that the bar was set relatively low for alternatives, and SLS was clearly more reasonable and realistic than what it replaced. The DIRECT community celebrated. It took some time for the SLS honeymoon to end and the dissatisfaction to set in. It wasn't that SLS wouldn't work or wouldn't be safe or would bust the budget. It was that it could only launch once a year (sustained) and couldn't do very much when it did.

SLS didn't fix the problem where we couldn't afford a lunar lander along with Orion and Shuttle-derived launch. We still couldn't afford Altair. Asteroid Redirect and Lunar Gateway (to say nothing of Flexible Path) only served to reinforce the frustrating limitations. What looked like a decent compromise in 2009 just doesn't cut it in 2022. That applies more-or-less equally to both Jupiter and SLS. We're holding SLS to a higher standard today than we were DIRECT during its heyday. Remarkable progress has been made in the launch/space industry during this time, and one thing is clear: there is no going back.

So, yes, DIRECT is dead, and for all the good that the project did (not least for this community on NSF), it's good that it's dead.

Offline woods170

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #20 on: 02/01/2022 08:02 am »
Unfortunately that configuration was an even bigger kludge than shuttle was.


I don't agree, but Atlas V Phase 2 would have been my preference, along with upgraded Delta IV-Heavies.

Agreed that Atlas V phase 2 absolutely should have happened. It would have offered so much more heavy lifting flexibility. And it would have upset Mike Griffin even further (which is always a good thing).
« Last Edit: 02/01/2022 08:04 am by woods170 »

Offline geza

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #21 on: 02/01/2022 09:58 am »
I did not follow the debates about Direct closely that time. I was very enthusiastic about the Constellation program. Griffin had a vision about a long term beyond-LEO human spaceflight. He explained his reasons to choose that specific architecture, and I was eager to understand his analysis. I didn't feel to judge it; I was just happy to see a reasoned plan after so many years of "Shuttle mode". I lost my interest when the Augustine committee concluded, that no meaningful BLEO HSF was possible without significantly more money - and the government decided not to allocate that money. Well, Griffin wanted 4 Ares V launch per year to operate the Lunar South Pole Base. Now, after so many years, we will have an SLS once a year and have no plan to use it for a meaningful BLEO program.

I see with some sadness that Griffin's tenure is seen very negatively today. What was THAT wrong? It was only a question of insufficient money, or something else? Why SLS is constrained for a single flight per year? It is only because of the costs, or something more substantial? Wasn't the Augustine committee just right that either invest more money to human BLEO, or wait for something new?

Offline dglow

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #22 on: 02/01/2022 10:46 am »
I see with some sadness that Griffin's tenure is seen very negatively today. What was THAT wrong? It was only a question of insufficient money, or something else? Why SLS is constrained for a single flight per year? It is only because of the costs, or something more substantial? Wasn't the Augustine committee just right that either invest more money to human BLEO, or wait for something new?

Griffin is portrayed as obstinate and ego-driven, and is blamed for dictating the troubled Ares I design sans trade studies or technical evaluations. I’m honestly curious whether this apocryphal tale is real or myth. Anyone?

Offline Proponent

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #23 on: 02/01/2022 11:28 am »
I see with some sadness that Griffin's tenure is seen very negatively today. What was THAT wrong? It was only a question of insufficient money, or something else? Why SLS is constrained for a single flight per year? It is only because of the costs, or something more substantial?

Griffin proposed a lunar architecture that could succeed only with large budget increases.  My guess is that he thought he had a deal with Shuttle state legislators, whereby NASA would choose a ridiculously expensive Shuttle-derived architecture and they would see to it that NASA got the budget it needed.  What Griffin did not realize was that the legislators did not care about going back to the moon, they cared only about getting federal money.  NASA started spending money on Shuttled-derived rockets, as the legislators wanted, but never got the budgetary plus-up needed to fund a lander.

Offline Proponent

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #24 on: 02/01/2022 12:02 pm »
Griffin is portrayed as obstinate and ego-driven, and is blamed for dictating the troubled Ares I design sans trade studies or technical evaluations. I’m honestly curious whether this apocryphal tale is real or myth. Anyone?

Well, anybody running a large program is going to have be pushy.  But the ESAS report used to justified Constellation's architecture did have some odd assumptions, like quite a high rate of failure of automated rendezvous and docking, which helped rule out use of smaller launch vehicles.  And somehow launch vehicles having large, segmented SRBs with single-point-of-failure TVC were safe enough for crew launch, but an Atlas V with two small, monolithic solids with fixed nozzles wasn't.  In fact, the whole idea of having a single, quick study to choose the architecture is suspect.  Compare the Apollo era, where, despite the tight timetable, the "mode debate" was a much more elaborate affair involving many organizations.

Griffin could be slippery.  In 2012, he did not do his credibility among discerning observers any good when he testified before Congree that China could beat the US to the moon with a distributed-launch architecture based in its Long March 5, a launch vehicle in same class as the Delta IV.  His comments (and those of Rep. Hultgren) are downright misleading.

On the Space Show, he once claimed that everything had been going just fine with Constellation until it was suddenly cancelled one day.  That's just not true: it was slipping badly, and the big budget boosts needed were repeatedly pushed off into future years. Constellation's Altair lunar lander never received any significant funding.

When challenged as to how NASA could possibly receive the money it needed for Constellation amid rapidly growing federal budget deficits, he said that NASA's budget was so small, it hardly mattered.  He ignored that the fact that the most common method of limiting federal spending is to impose across-the-board cuts of a given percentage.

You might get the feeling I don't like Griffin much.  While it's true that I think he produced a lousy space policy, I do not doubt that deep down he sincerely wanted to see NASA achieve something, and I'd love to have a beer with him to try to understand his thinking.
« Last Edit: 02/01/2022 12:14 pm by Proponent »

Offline libra

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #25 on: 02/01/2022 12:20 pm »
Direct would have ended up the same way SLS has. Way over budget, way over schedule etc. The same lack of a Mission, the same contractors involved, the same financial and political forces at work. The engineering details wouldn't really have changed the long term outcome.

I see the point you are making, but feels it is a bit unfair to the DIRECT team. They really did their best to propose a couple of launchers more balanced than Ares I / Ares V.  Their own Ares V / SLS -class rocket was Jupiter 246; and it really tried to avoid both flawed approaches by sticking as close to the Shuttle existing hardware / workforce / infrastructure as possible.

As said above, SLS amounts to re-inventing Ares V except even worse. Jupiter 246 took great lengths to stick as close as the Shuttle existing infrastructure to try and a) drive costs down and b) please the workforce and politician backers in Congress. 4-seg SRBs, those kind of things.

And then SLS happened...

This brings an interesting question. No, two.

1 - Which "large SD-HLV" would have been better ? Ares V or SLS or Jupiter 246 ? I'm leaning for the latter...

And I personnally loved the Jupiter 120 / 130 lifting Orion: unlike Ares I at least, they did not lacked muscles to do the job.

2 - Was any SD-HLV, Shuttle-driven architecture optimal ? Nope, because Shuttle was flawed and politics should not drive a space program. The two points before well considered, DIRECT was the optimal answer to the existing statu quo as it stood in 2009 - much better than Constellation, and that's why it happened in the first place.

If the "varied post 2010 alt HSF programs, leading to Moon / Mars" were to be ranked, it would be something like
1- Starship / BFR
2- Falcon 9R / Dragon
3- EELV & Centaur derivatives (Bernard Kutter)
4- DIRECT
5- Constellation
6- SLS

Bottom line: SD-HLV was never optimal, but it was the "existing political and workforce statu quo, so do the best with it". DIRECT WAS exactly that, well ahead of Constellation and SLS.
« Last Edit: 02/01/2022 12:48 pm by libra »

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #26 on: 02/01/2022 12:24 pm »
Ares I was a disaster. He opposed using EELVs for no reason, and that put the program back a whole decade probably.
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Offline libra

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #27 on: 02/01/2022 12:31 pm »
Ares I was a disaster. He opposed using EELVs for no reason, and that put the program back a whole decade probably.

Common, do you forget the Black zones ? now that was one heck of a sickening episode in the Constellation saga.

I remember reading about that "black zones" affair on this forum back in 2008-2009, and being completely incensed by the silly thing.

Because, by this metric... a good case could be made that, if EELVs launch safety had "black zones" - then Ares 1 launch ascent safety had a freakkin' black hole the size of Interstellar Gargantua.  :o

This was the proverbial mote & beam story - except cubed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_and_the_Beam

"He, Michael Griffin, complained that EELVs had a mote in their ascent safety; yet he never admitted Ares 1 had one heck of a beam in the same place "

LMAO.

Quote
"3 And why beholdest thou, Michael Griffin, the mote that is in thy EELV's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own Ares 1 eye?

4 Or how wilt thou, Michael Griffin, say to thy EELV brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine EELV eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine Ares 1 own eye?

5 Thou Michael Griffin hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own Ares 1 eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's EELV eye. "


ROTFL, works superbly.  ;D 

Offline Proponent

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #28 on: 02/01/2022 01:00 pm »
Wasn't the Augustine committee just right that either invest more money to human BLEO, or wait for something new?

That's how Augustine was widely interpreted, but if you read the report closely, you see that there was another way.  In Section 6.5.3, on p. 93 (PDF p. 94), the report states that the use of EELV-derived rather than Shuttle-derived super-heavy-lift launch vehicles "may ultimately allow NASA to escape its conundrum of not having sufficient resources to both operate existing systems and build a new one."

Congress and many others eagerly interpreted "super-heavy lift" to mean Saturn V-class or larger, but, again, a close reading of the report shows otherwise.  Augustine defined "super-heavy lift" as anything more capable than existing EELVs, i.e. more than 25 metric tons to LEO (Delta IV Heavy) and concluded that a capability of about 50 metric tons is adequate (Sect. 5.2.1, p. 64ff).

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #29 on: 02/01/2022 01:24 pm »
Yup. I realize all-EELV would’ve been a tough pill for Congress to swallow, but you could’ve done like Crew on Delta IV Heavy and done like a minimal Jupiter or even just Sidemount for cargo.

But the future we got, where NASA spins its wheels for a decade longer and almost everything seems to end up using SpaceX launchers, is not so bad overall.
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

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Offline Eric Hedman

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #30 on: 02/01/2022 03:03 pm »
Everything about Constellation was a disaster starting with Ares I.  Griffin was in denial about the severe thrust oscillation problem on Ares I.  They were designing a friggin multi-ton shock absorber to be placed between the first and second stage to keep the shaking from kicking the crud out of the crew flying on the rocket.  The rocket was already severely weight constrained due to using a shuttle solid booster as a first stage.  In July of 2008, Griffin came to speak at the EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh.  I asked him about this issue and was dumbfounded by the response.  He said if this was the worst problem they needed to tackle that the development of Constellation was going to be a breeze.  The video of his response might still be up on YouTube.  I haven't looked in a while.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #31 on: 02/01/2022 03:20 pm »
Orion and its LAS had to be redesigned because of the insanity of Ares I, and it pushed everything back considerably. They probably could’ve launched with crew in 2013, not 2023, and used a Sidemount-launched earth departure stage for the push to cislunar. Another sidemount launch for the lander. “2.5 launch” architecture where the crew uses EELV.

No new launch vehicles on the crew side, and the sidemount would be a very minimal mod of Shuttle (delete the OMS pods).
« Last Edit: 02/01/2022 03:22 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline libra

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #32 on: 02/01/2022 03:49 pm »
Everything about Constellation was a disaster starting with Ares I.  Griffin was in denial about the severe thrust oscillation problem on Ares I.  They were designing a friggin multi-ton shock absorber to be placed between the first and second stage to keep the shaking from kicking the crud out of the crew flying on the rocket.  The rocket was already severely weight constrained due to using a shuttle solid booster as a first stage.

 In July of 2008, Griffin came to speak at the EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh.  I asked him about this issue and was dumbfounded by the response.  He said if this was the worst problem they needed to tackle that the development of Constellation was going to be a breeze.

 The video of his response might still be up on YouTube.  I haven't looked in a while.

 :o :o :o :o I missed that one back then, but WTH.

Zero Base Orion (I think it was called that way) was a drastic weight trim of Orion, for Ares 1 (should have been the other way around, but whatever...) ; and in the process some interesting capabilities were lost (can't remember if land landing was already dead by this point). And Orion still suffers from it today.

J-2X versus air-started-SSME, not a very apealing choice...

Quote
But the future we got, where NASA spins its wheels for a decade longer and almost everything seems to end up using SpaceX launchers, is not so bad overall.

COTS and CCDEV were excellent ideas, if only happened accidentally and through constraint.
...
(ah, damn, we can't burn the ISS in 2011, but the Shuttle has to go by that year; but not enough money to replace its crew and cargo capabilities - what can we do ?
...
Hey, how about public-private-partnerships ?)

NASA at least got four companies with five different but complementary vehicles, out of this (Dragon 1, Dragon 2, Cygnus, DC cargo, CTS-100).

That's one of the few positive legacies of Griffin and his Constellation debacle.

Offline Pheogh

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #33 on: 02/01/2022 04:06 pm »
A Jupiter-241 Heavy sits in the VAB right now, so I'm not sure dead is the right word. Nearly this exact vehicle was spec'd out prior to the 2010 Authorization Act and presented to the Augustine Commission by the DIRECT team. That being said I(we) fully support NASA and the contracting entities/engineers that made SLS possible. I for one am over the moon to see the launch and hopefully rollout in person in a few weeks.

In the words of one of my favorite aerospace engineers "perfection is the enemy of good enough". I for one would take SLS over another 10 years without Heavy Lift... Respectfully.
« Last Edit: 02/01/2022 04:07 pm by Pheogh »

Offline dglow

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #34 on: 02/01/2022 04:26 pm »
I for one would take SLS over another 10 years without Heavy Lift... Respectfully.

Agreed. But for that guarantee we needed SLS flying 8 years ago.

Offline JayWee

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #35 on: 02/01/2022 06:00 pm »
Wasn't the Augustine committee just right that either invest more money to human BLEO, or wait for something new?

That's how Augustine was widely interpreted, but if you read the report closely, you see that there was another way.  In Section 6.5.3, on p. 93 (PDF p. 94), the report states that the use of EELV-derived rather than Shuttle-derived super-heavy-lift launch vehicles "may ultimately allow NASA to escape its conundrum of not having sufficient resources to both operate existing systems and build a new one."

Congress and many others eagerly interpreted "super-heavy lift" to mean Saturn V-class or larger, but, again, a close reading of the report shows otherwise.  Augustine defined "super-heavy lift" as anything more capable than existing EELVs, i.e. more than 25 metric tons to LEO (Delta IV Heavy) and concluded that a capability of about 50 metric tons is adequate (Sect. 5.2.1, p. 64ff).
And let's not forget the pre-Griffin Aldridge commission! The Vision for Space Exploration.
Which recommended EELVs and spiral development. Then Griffin came, threw that away, said to never speak of spiral development again and started the ESAS "study".
I remember following the Aldridge commission briefings and then being disappointed with the Ares architecture.



Offline JAFO

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #36 on: 02/01/2022 09:11 pm »
Looky what I found.

« Last Edit: 02/02/2022 04:23 am by JAFO »
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Offline JAFO

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #37 on: 02/01/2022 09:27 pm »
"Who ARE you guys?" Dr. Leroy Chiao.  Still love that moment and chuckle at it from time to time.

Steve mentions several studies NASA produced over the years, including a 1,000 page study about modifying the ET. Wonder if any of those are available?

Years ago I suggested that someone should write a book (even a self published ebook) about what really happened, but it was shot down by a leader in the DIRECT movement. I understand that some of the DIRECT players may still be active in the industry and thus not willing to have their information exposed, it seems the only detailed history of DIRECT is in the threads on NSF forums,  so maybe, someday. A shame to have the history lost now that SpaceX is rampaging.
« Last Edit: 02/01/2022 09:29 pm by JAFO »
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Offline kraisee

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #38 on: 02/02/2022 12:53 am »
Oh boy, looks like we've got a new DIRECT mega thread starting here :)

I don't think there will ever be a resurgence of DIRECT in the future.   As it's original architect I believe DIRECT is dead, and has been for the last decade.

There might be a different group of people who get together to change the direction of the agency in the future - I wish them luck and hope our campaign demonstrates that it IS possible - but it will be a different effort entirely.   Our team have all gone our separate ways, most have actually retired.

DIRECT had two core objectives:

 1) To close the gap between Shuttle and whatever would follow.

 2) To minimize launch vehicle development costs by reusing as much Shuttle infrastructure as possible with minimal changes, so there would be more money available for spacecraft, landers, hab modules and activities on the Moon and Mars.

I'm not sure exactly how well we achieved either, but I do know that building two rockets for the Ares plan was totally unaffordable and would leave us all sucking hind t*t with just one - and that one would have been Ares-I, which was useless.

At the time of our final meeting with the agency in 2010 we agreed that the most logical direction for the agency was an 8.4m stretched tank, powered by 4 or 5 SSME-based engines, boosted by 5-seg boosters (they were far enough along the development path and the politics totally precluded staying with 4-seg by then, so we reluctantly went with the flow) and with an J-2X powered upper stage on top - though that last one, we strongly recommend they look closely at an RL-10 alternative.   The agency agreed that this configuration was the best path forwards, and we exited, stage left.   We left it to NASA to run with the ball, and assured them that we would not be continually looking over their shoulder.

And here we are, the Jupiter-241 Stretched Heavy - the same basic configuration we discussed at that meeting - is exactly what we got.

Of course, what happened AFTER that is a whole other story...   I wish there had been a more reasonable attitude by certain members of Congress regarding how the money should have been utilized, but they had their own fixed objectives and we were completely unable to persuade them towards our viewpoint.   That ground has been trod endlessly on here so I won't cover any of that ground again.   I have watched from the sidelines ever since, disappointed with the way the politics took the program, but I had served my time walking the corridors of power and I have no interest in doing that again.

It was actually quite painful for me personally that DIRECT was so divisive in the early days - it was never intended to be.  I lost quite a few friendships as a result of it.

Every so often I and other team members have taken a look back at our plans compared with what did happen.   Yes, they're just paper plans, probably with a bit too much optimism in terms of possible schedules, but it was still interesting for us.   Below, have a look at one of our last schedules and see for yourselves why we often reminisce about "what could have been"...

As for a book, our goal was NEVER to do harm the agency.   I felt that writing a book would only serve to keep the wound open, and I think Chuck & most everyone else in the team felt much the same.  We had decided amongst ourselves, that if the agency ever chose our general path we wanted to get the hell out of their way and stop being a thorn in their side.

The real history of DIRECT remains here on this very forum - whole and intact - from my very first post, to our final declaration of success, and a bit more besides.   Aside from the discourse of private meetings, EVERYTHING ended up on here for all to review for themselves.   I hope it remains here forever.

Ross.
« Last Edit: 02/02/2022 12:56 am by kraisee »
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #39 on: 02/02/2022 01:15 am »
Yeah, I think the DIRECT effort *did* influence the course of events (cancellation of Ares I) and the selection of SLS.

Which is remarkable when you think about it. SLS, for all its flaws, WILL be what humans take beyond LEO for the first time in half a century, further into space than anyone has ever been.

Which is remarkable for a bunch of no-name hobbyists organizing on an enthusiast forum. So hats off to you, Ross, Chuck, and everyone else.

And I think you should write a book about it. Not necessarily now, but someday.
« Last Edit: 02/02/2022 01:17 am by Robotbeat »
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Offline VSECOTSPE

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #40 on: 02/02/2022 03:30 am »
Griffin is portrayed as obstinate and ego-driven, and is blamed for dictating the troubled Ares I design sans trade studies or technical evaluations. I’m honestly curious whether this apocryphal tale is real or myth. Anyone?

I knew Griffin — had at least one lunch and one dinner with him — when he was at Orbital Sciences Corporation and well before he was NASA Administrator.  I was picking his brain from his tenure as the Associate Administrator for Exploration at NASA HQ during the Bush I White House’s Space Exploration Initiative.  From just those couple interactions, I think obstinate and ego-driven are accurate.  Full of hubris is how I would describe him.  It was clear to me that Griffin had learned nothing from the total implosion of his plans under SEI.

I looked into Griffin’s background afterwards, and what struck me was the paucity of program experience, especially development program experience.  Griffin helped build an SDIO smallsat line and run the associated tests but that was about it before he moved into leadership positions.  His positions as CTO at OSC and later head of the Space Department at APL made some sense given his background and those organizations’ small spacecraft specializations.  But I never understood why someone who had never had a role in developing launch vehicles, manned spacecraft, manned military systems, or the like was put in charge of NASA’s human space exploration organization during SEI and later all of NASA during another human space exploration push.  A lot has been made of Griffin’s multiple degrees, but they mean little in a human space flight context without the practical experience.  I obviously wasn’t sitting with the White House Chief of Staff when the decision was made, but I think Griffin’s appointment as NASA Administrator under Bush II had as much to do with the fact that he was a card-carrying Republican as anything else.

I wrote the VSE at NASA HQ, and you won’t find Ares I or anything like it in that document.  In fact, the document plainly states, “NASA does not plan to develop new launch vehicle capabilities except where critical NASA needs—such as heavy lift—are not met by commercial or military systems.”  The whole document was heavily vetted all the way up through the Bush II White House.  So from the get-go, in pushing Ares I, Griffin ignored the direction he had been given and did his own thing at cross purposes to the Administration.  Any new government launch vehicle is a multi-billion dollar, multi-year proposition.  Putting a new launch vehicle development at the beginning of what was supposed to be an exploration push doomed that effort, regardless of how good or bad the launch vehicle’s turned out to be.  It was a big, unnecessary, detour from the careful strategic direction Griffin had been handed by the Bush II White House.  It’s hard to imagine a worse strategic misstep or first step.

But no doubt, Ares I did turn out to be a very bad launch vehicle, and the seeds for that were sown in ESAS.  After the VSE release, I moved to ESMD to start COTS and some related programs.  So I was there when Doug Stanley, whom I had a couple graduate school classes with, headed up ESAS for Griffin.  Other folks upstream have covered the technical flaws in ESAS, like the faux EELV blackout zones.  A lot of us inside the agency were shocked at how heavily the scales were weighted in ESAS.  I was not in the room when Griffin gave Stanley his marching orders, so I don’t know for certain whether Griffin weighted the scales or if Stanley just buckled under the pressure.  But I understand that Stanley disavowed ESAS years ago, and it’s hard to see how any actual independent study would have come to its conclusions.

Someone else upstream mentioned how quickly (60-90 days) ESAS made decisions (architecture, LV, engines, configuration) that took the Apollo Program the better part of two years to work through.  Because ESAS was so rushed, it’s certainly possible they just screwed up.  But that rush also smacks of Griffin pushing a solution and ESAS serving as a fig leaf, rather than the Administrator wanting the best possible answer out of carefully considered vetting process.  The fact that Griffin brought Scott Horowitz — an ATK astronaut with huge conflicts of interest and practically zero development experience — on as AA for exploration systems indicated to me at the time that the fix was in.  When Horowitz proceeded to sole source every contract he could — a practice that still affects SLS negatively to this day — it became clear that the pretense of even ESAS was over. 

The “Associate Administrator for Exploration” sign that Griffin kept from his old job and hung on his office door as NASA Administrator really said it all.  Griffin was going to run Constellation according to whatever his hubris demanded or backroom deals he had struck.  He thought he knew better and could sidestep the guiding principles — leadership integrity, technical objectivity, procurement competence, competition, and keeping politics at arm’s length — that had long served NASA and the Administrator’s office so well.  As bad as the years, billions of taxpayer dollars, and thousands of careers wasted on Ares I was, it was actually the abandonment of these practices that did the most damage.  That’s what opened the door to the Orion/SLS debacle that we’re still slow-rolling through.

This old blog does a great and entertaining job documenting day by day just how bad and how far Griffin & Co deviated during his tenure.  If anyone has any doubts about just how poor an Administrator Griffin was, they need only read this:

http://rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com/

Offline VSECOTSPE

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #41 on: 02/02/2022 03:47 am »
Direct would have ended up the same way SLS has. Way over budget, way over schedule etc. The same lack of a Mission, the same contractors involved, the same financial and political forces at work. The engineering details wouldn't really have changed the long term outcome.

This is not a knock against DIRECT, but to first order, I agree with this viewpoint.  The engineering details are really secondary to the cost centers and management practices that any space transportation system built on the Shuttle (and arguably Apollo) workforce and infrastructure will inherit.  That has to be broken up in order to move to something more (not less) effective and efficient.  That doesn’t mean firing that workforce or demolishing that infrastructure.  But if we’re serious about human space exploration, it does mean we need them doing more important things than competing very poorly with industry on launch vehicles and capsules.

FWIW...

Offline kraisee

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #42 on: 02/02/2022 04:14 am »
I won't name names, but someone who worked in Griffin's office at the time, told me Griffin actually ended up hating the Ares-I, but his overlords gave him his marching orders to do what ATK wanted.

That's because separately, NASA was told point-blank by ATK that they were going to pull completely out of producing SRB's for NASA unless they could have a big fat, lucrative development contract.

Finally, a certain Alabama Senator who was in charge of NASA's cash spigot, was determined to take all the Shuttle money - and everything else he could get his mits upon - and direct it towards Marshall to create jobs and secure his own re-election prospects. Marshall is NASA's launch vehicle development center.

These were the three primary legs of the political stool upon which NASA stood when Griffin took over.   Understand this and you will understand why ALL the various decisions played out exactly the way they did.

I do want to point out that we at DIRECT were actually very supportive of the Vision for Space Exploration.   That was a "policy" and it was a damn good one, for the most part.   It was only ever the technical solution specifically for the launch vehicles that we had a problem with.   From day 1 it was crystal clear to all of us that the agency could barely afford one new launch vehicle, let alone two - and we also knew that if the launch vehicle(s) gobbled up all the available cash we would never get a lander, or any of the lunar infrastructure elements at all. I do recall repeatedly warning that we would "get a shiny new rocket with nothing to put on top of it".

In hindsight, I think we were dead on the money expressing these concerns.

I don't know precisely where the Scorched Earth approach to Marshall's (the Shuttle External Tank manufacturing) infrastructure originated - it certainly didn't seem to be anyone at Marshall.   It may have been Griffin.   It may have been Horowitz (who had worked for ATK, charged with increasing the size of their SRB business, and was the real architect behind Griffin's Planetary Society paper and ultimately the Ares-I as well).   It may have been Cook.   It may have been a Congressman.   That element of the tapestry always eluded us.

Ross.
« Last Edit: 02/02/2022 05:27 am by kraisee »
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Offline kraisee

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #43 on: 02/02/2022 04:27 am »
Direct would have ended up the same way SLS has. Way over budget, way over schedule etc. The same lack of a Mission, the same contractors involved, the same financial and political forces at work. The engineering details wouldn't really have changed the long term outcome.

This is not a knock against DIRECT, but to first order, I agree with this viewpoint.  The engineering details are really secondary to the cost centers and management practices that any space transportation system built on the Shuttle (and arguably Apollo) workforce and infrastructure will inherit.  That has to be broken up in order to move to something more (not less) effective and efficient.  That doesn’t mean firing that workforce or demolishing that infrastructure.  But if we’re serious about human space exploration, it does mean we need them doing more important things than competing very poorly with industry on launch vehicles and capsules.

FWIW...


The ATK pressure was a fairly big problem NASA management had to juggle, but the political pressure from Shelby was the brontosaurus in the room.   He had - and still has - the final power to write the checks that NASA uses to pay for each and every project and program.   And a lot of other government activities besides.   He gets what he wants.   Period.

We met with Shelby and tried to get our position across that we needed to keep the launcher costs low, so that we could build a lander and lunar surface infrastructure, and maybe even have some left over for starting work on Mars gear too, so that the country could have a HEALTHY SPACE EXPLORATION PROGRAM.

His priority, however, was to secure money for more jobs at Marshall.   I believe that his concern was this:

If the program had been funding four or five different projects there would have been strong political pressure brought to bear to spread the work out to other centers.   Note that KSC won Orion away from Marshall by strongly supporting Shelby's push for a giant SLS program, and that was managed by then-Senator, now NASA Administrator Bill Nelson).   Shelby was never going to allow the money/jobs to be taken away from his state and a program that consisted of multiple different projects ABSOLUTELY risked that, so he decided to go with one big rocket instead - and when he decides something like that, his Congressional colleagues have learned to line up behind him or see all the checks for their own projects put on indefinite hold (I think the term is "caught up in committee").

I still believe that if we could have found a way to guarantee all those projects happened at Marshall, we should have been able to tick the money/jobs box for the Alabama Senator.   I would bet that he didn't really care what the money was actually spent on, just as long as it created lots of new jobs in his own district.   But we in DIRECT simply didn't have any political clout to force a suitable agreement between all the different players at the political level.   We are (mostly) engineers, not political lobbyists.

As an aside, and in answer to your comment above, if we had been able to get all the appropriate political stars to align properly, I do believe that the costs and schedule could have been kept under much better control - because effective cost management could have been baked-in at the top political level, if that's what they had ordered.   But for SLS, spending money was the effective order of the day, not saving it.

Anyway, that the real reason why I believe everything played out the way it did.

We knew every bit of this in 2010 when we exited the stage, and absolutely nothing has happened since, to change my mind.   Everything that has occurred on the SLS program was 100% predictable back then - when viewed through this particular lens.

ATK ended up getting more than one big fat lucrative development contract.   Orion had to proceed or there really wasn't going to be anything on top of SLS, ever.   No money was spent on a lander until recently, nothing for habs, transports, science or much of anything else.   Everything available across the agency was funneled into the single monolithic Marshall-controlled program that became SLS - and the people at the agency had little real say in those decisions.   They made the best of it, and after a lot of effort, it now exists.

I wish things had happened differently, and all we're doing here is just airing old, dirty laundry.

I'm still going to be happy to watch this beast climb into the sky.   The blood, sweat and tears we spilled was worth it, and I have no doubts most of the people who did the hard work of building it feel exactly the same way.

Go SLS!

Ross.
« Last Edit: 02/02/2022 05:59 am by kraisee »
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Offline libra

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #44 on: 02/02/2022 06:56 am »
Fascinating hindsight here. Truly makes this forum a unique, unmatched place across the Web.

Reads like the 2009 logical end to this - same political drama, except 40 years before: at the other end of the Shuttle era, in a sense.

https://www.amazon.fr/After-Apollo-Richard-American-Program/dp/1137438525

« Last Edit: 02/02/2022 07:17 am by libra »

Offline woods170

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #45 on: 02/02/2022 10:20 am »
I won't name names, but someone who worked in Griffin's office at the time, told me Griffin actually ended up hating the Ares-I, but his overlords gave him his marching orders to do what ATK wanted.

That's because separately, NASA was told point-blank by ATK that they were going to pull completely out of producing SRB's for NASA unless they could have a big fat, lucrative development contract.

Political blackmail.
Why am I not surprised? Oh yeah, now I remember... Something similar got us SLS:

"That's right Lori. You can have Commercial Crew as long as I can have SLS"
(Bill Nelson speaking to Lori Garver and Charlie Bolden in 2010)

Offline VSECOTSPE

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #46 on: 02/02/2022 04:15 pm »
I won't name names, but someone who worked in Griffin's office at the time, told me Griffin actually ended up hating the Ares-I,

If Griffin actually ever said that, his actions spoke louder than those words.  He defended Ares I to the bitter end.

Griffin did hate the ULA monopoly, and I heard him say so in a couple meetings in the A-suite on COTS.  He did not want to be beholden to it.  But his cure in Ares I was way worse than the disease.

Quote
but his overlords gave him his marching orders to do what ATK wanted.  That's because separately, NASA was told point-blank by ATK that they were going to pull completely out of producing SRB's for NASA unless they could have a big fat, lucrative development contract

I’m no fan of the old ATK.  But if an ATK exec actually ever made such a threat, it would have been an empty one that they could not carry through on.  Besides being a violation of contracting law, the damage to ATK’s businesses of holding STS hostage to extra-legal blackmail would have been devastating.

Quote
The ATK pressure was a fairly big problem NASA management had to juggle, but the political pressure from Shelby was the brontosaurus in the room.   He had - and still has - the final power to write the checks that NASA uses to pay for each and every project and program.   And a lot of other government activities besides.   He gets what he wants.   Period.

NASA Administrators have to work with their appropriators where they can.  But even the cardinals are not absolute in their power.  They don’t control both branches or both houses, they don’t control the outyears, they’re not the final technical and programmatic authority, and they can’t actually zero out some other congressman’s interests just because they’re not getting their way on theirs.  Griffin had tools available to him to limit Shelby’s damage, if that’s what Griffin actually wanted to do.

Griffin chose instead to get in bed with Shelby.  NASA’s (still mostly non-existent) exploration efforts have paid the price ever since.

Offline Nomadd

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #47 on: 02/02/2022 04:33 pm »
 I probably missed it, but wouldn't needing to spend $100 million each plus development for expendable 25s have made all of the alternatives a little pricey?
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Online DanClemmensen

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #48 on: 02/02/2022 05:08 pm »
I probably missed it, but wouldn't needing to spend $100 million each plus development for expendable 25s have made all of the alternatives a little pricey?

I thought the $1.79 billion for a total of 18 RS-25E engines was the total cost including development.  If development is extra, then the price is even more ludicrous than I thought. Ouch. Still cheaper than the $137 million apiece for the refurbishment and upgrade of the RS-25D engines.

Offline Stan-1967

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #49 on: 02/02/2022 05:20 pm »
I won't name names, but someone who worked in Griffin's office at the time, told me Griffin actually ended up hating the Ares-I, but his overlords gave him his marching orders to do what ATK wanted.

That's because separately, NASA was told point-blank by ATK that they were going to pull completely out of producing SRB's for NASA unless they could have a big fat, lucrative development contract.

Political blackmail.
Why am I not surprised? Oh yeah, now I remember... Something similar got us SLS:

"That's right Lori. You can have Commercial Crew as long as I can have SLS"
(Bill Nelson speaking to Lori Garver and Charlie Bolden in 2010)

So I am not a fan of the SLS & its use of SRB's, but what really were the alternatives for heavy lift back in the 2009 time frame?   The US did not pursue kerolox propulsion like the RD-180, and basically committed themselves to hydrolox in either 1.5 stage configuration like STS, or Delta Heavy single stick & tri-core configuration.  I would think that back in that time SRB's were the only realistic option for heavy lift.  Would it have been politically viable to use clusters or RD-180 for a single stick first stage even back then?   The only options I recall that were floated was a resurrection of the F-1 as an updated engine from Dynetics & the Pyrios proposal for making LRB's.  How long & at what risk was that path?

I think it may be a stretch to accuse ATK of blackmail for telling NASA they would shut down making SRB's for them if they did not get a contract.  That is a supplier giving a customer a straight up honest business assessment of what they would do without a contract for the SLS.   What is ATK supposed to do?  Keep open facilities & manpower assignments to a product line with no other customers?  The military doesn't need the STS or SLS SRB's so there is no point to ATK wasting any money on them if NASA didn't select them. 

The real question is why did NASA yield and judge SRB's as the technology path to commit to for SLS vs. developing alternatives for stage 1 main propulsion?  It think those answers have all been re-hashed many times & are explainable by politics & pork.  It doesn't need to cast shade on ATK explaining a business reality that any normal company would react to the same way.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #50 on: 02/02/2022 05:20 pm »
I think they should’ve “just” made more regular SSMEs.

Are they saving any additional money given all the extra development and qualification?

How many regular engines would they need to make before it was more expensive than the expendable ones?
« Last Edit: 02/02/2022 05:27 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline eric z

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #51 on: 02/02/2022 05:32 pm »
  I have a suggestion for the Nasaspaceflight.com brass: Gather the best of all these endless pro, and mostly-con arguments over the last 10+ years, and then publish a book called "SLS Facts and Fiction", or something like that! Or maybe...?
You could even get Mr.Griffin and Coastal Ron to write 2 forwards,
 Sell it to raise L2 scholarship money, or to provide beer at future launch parties.
Then ban this topic forever!

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #52 on: 02/02/2022 05:32 pm »
I won't name names, but someone who worked in Griffin's office at the time, told me Griffin actually ended up hating the Ares-I, but his overlords gave him his marching orders to do what ATK wanted.

That's because separately, NASA was told point-blank by ATK that they were going to pull completely out of producing SRB's for NASA unless they could have a big fat, lucrative development contract.

Political blackmail.
Why am I not surprised? Oh yeah, now I remember... Something similar got us SLS:

"That's right Lori. You can have Commercial Crew as long as I can have SLS"
(Bill Nelson speaking to Lori Garver and Charlie Bolden in 2010)

So I am not a fan of the SLS & its use of SRB's, but what really were the alternatives for heavy lift back in the 2009 time frame?   The US did not pursue kerolox propulsion like the RD-180, and basically committed themselves to hydrolox in either 1.5 stage configuration like STS, or Delta Heavy single stick & tri-core configuration.  I would think that back in that time SRB's were the only realistic option for heavy lift.  Would it have been politically viable to use clusters or RD-180 for a single stick first stage even back then?   The only options I recall that were floated was a resurrection of the F-1 as an updated engine from Dynetics & the Pyrios proposal for making LRB's.  How long & at what risk was that path?

I think it may be a stretch to accuse ATK of blackmail for telling NASA they would shut down making SRB's for them if they did not get a contract.  That is a supplier giving a customer a straight up honest business assessment of what they would do without a contract for the SLS.   What is ATK supposed to do?  Keep open facilities & manpower assignments to a product line with no other customers?  The military doesn't need the STS or SLS SRB's so there is no point to ATK wasting any money on them if NASA didn't select them. 

The real question is why did NASA yield and judge SRB's as the technology path to commit to for SLS vs. developing alternatives for stage 1 main propulsion?  It think those answers have all been re-hashed many times & are explainable by politics & pork.  It doesn't need to cast shade on ATK explaining a business reality that any normal company would react to the same way.
Atlas Phase 2 and Delta IV Heavy upgrades. Both viable, with eventual off ramps to new EELV offerings (ie from SpaceX, who already were advertising Falcon 9 Heavy on their website).

Keep in mind we literally launched uncrewed Orion on Delta IV Heavy in 2015, and the Delta IV upper stage (from the same assembly line plus a minor like 4 inch stretch for boil off hydrogen during loiter) will literally be used as the initial upper stage for crewed missions in Artemis.

Using EELVs (and upgrades) was absolutely, unquestionably viable from a technical perspective.
« Last Edit: 02/02/2022 05:35 pm by Robotbeat »
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Online butters

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #53 on: 02/02/2022 06:20 pm »
The bit that makes me skeptical that Mike Griffin was ever really opposed to Ares I (at least during the ESAS timeframe) is that he led a study team at The Planetary Society, before he was appointed NASA administrator, which published a report in 2004 that came to the same conclusion as ESAS did a year later. Here's the report for those interested:

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/strategies/AdvisoryGroupReports/garriott_griffin_2004.pdf

I'll quote from the executive summary:

Quote
A key to this vision is the requirement to complete assembly of the ISS and to retire the Shuttle Orbiter, without in the process incurring another lengthy hiatus in the ability of the United States to conduct crewed spaceflight operations. To this end, we recommend phased development of the new CEV, with the “Block 1” version designed for LEO access and return only, with a later “Block 2” version suited to the requirements of interplanetary missions. The CEV would be launched on a new human-rated vehicle, possibly based on the existing Shuttle solid rocket motor (SRM), augmented with a new liquid upper stage. Such a system could be available before 2010.

Griffin arrived at NASA HQ with the 1.5-launch Shuttle-derived lunar architecture already in mind. This report worries about the cost of the EELVs and how much of a share of EELV fixed-cost overhead the NASA exploration program would have to cover given that the commercial satellite market was not panning out as hoped for the EELV providers. It also perpetuates the fallacy that the SRB's "reusability" would be a significant cost advantage for the Shuttle-derived CEV launcher over the EELVs.

It's plausible that Griffin eventually came to hate Ares I at some point in time, but at the time of ESAS, there's strong evidence that he was in favor of The Stick, and there's some evidence that it was probably his idea more than anybody else's.

Offline randomly

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #54 on: 02/02/2022 06:23 pm »
  I have a suggestion for the Nasaspaceflight.com brass: Gather the best of all these endless pro, and mostly-con arguments over the last 10+ years, and then publish a book called "SLS Facts and Fiction", or something like that! Or maybe...?
You could even get Mr.Griffin and Coastal Ron to write 2 forwards,
 Sell it to raise L2 scholarship money, or to provide beer at future launch parties.
Then ban this topic forever!

As distasteful as this topic is to some, it's a very important topic. Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Anybody who thinks NASA should be accomplishing great things and pushing the boundaries of science and exploration doesn't want to just keep repeating the disastrous waste of resources, talent, and money that SLS/Orion has become. Perhaps even more damaging than the enormous costs is the schedule paralysis that goes along with these cost plus contracts. There is no real schedule pressure. All the financial incentive for contractors is to slow walk everything and maintain there funding for as long as possible.
It seems likely Artemis 1-3 will now all be essentially test flights, and an actual lunar landing mission won't happen till ~2028.
I don't begrudge all the people and engineers who worked on SLS/Orion from seeing it finally launched at least once, but an effective HLS program at NASA won't have a chance until SLS/Orion is cancelled and NASA is unshackled from it's flight schedule.
As a life long NASA / Space fan I don't think I'd have imagined a decade ago that cancellation of a NASA rocket would be the single most important advancement for the future of NASA human spaceflight.


Offline mike robel

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #55 on: 02/02/2022 07:26 pm »
Perhaps even more damaging than the enormous costs is the schedule paralysis that goes along with these cost plus contracts. There is no real schedule pressure. All the financial incentive for contractors is to slow walk everything and maintain there funding for as long as possible.

Cost Plus contracts have been around a long time.  Many of the issues that prolong the project are from customer changes to specifications and/or the stretch out of programs by Congress.

In my time working on defense simulations for the US Army and the Joint Staff (I was a worker-bee, thought by some to be smart.
 Never a PM or anybody important.) I came to the conclusions

(1) The government doesn't really know what they want when they issue the request for proposals,
(2) even if they approve something as we briefed it, doesn't mean some other person will disagree with it and change it,
(3) the rank and file do not purposefully try to stretch out the process.  I don't know where the higher levels of management change from wanting to do the job right to wanting to stretch out the process for more money,
(4) The contractor, who may have only 90 days to put together a plan to do something that the government may have spent many months, even years, developing the RFP, don't really know how they are going to accomplish the job either
(5) Sometimes the bid is a big gamble for the company and failing to win it pushes them to mergers or closure.  (In my limited experience, mergers don't work out well for the "mergee").  Just look at the consolidation of the many companies that make up Boeing and their issues with the 737 and Starliner.

Your experience may vary. 

Offline whitelancer64

Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #56 on: 02/02/2022 08:58 pm »
I think they should’ve “just” made more regular SSMEs.

Are they saving any additional money given all the extra development and qualification?

How many regular engines would they need to make before it was more expensive than the expendable ones?

In short, they couldn't have "just" made more regular SSMEs.

A lot of the "development" money that went to AJR was spent re-starting the supply chain for RS-25 parts. Many of which, since much of the the supply chain had been essentially dead for about 10 years, were either obsolete or no longer manufactured. So AJR had to do a lot of both redesigning, and had to spin-up tooling for manufacturing of parts.

This is the primary reason why the RS-25s for SLS got completely new build avionics and electronic control systems. It's a big reason why they had to 3D print parts for them as well.

Also, any new parts have to be qualified for flight, which is why they have done and are doing a long series of ground testing of these modified and new part engines, which isn't cheap either. And they'll have to do a bunch of ground tests for the new build engines when those come along.

Ultimately, the plan is that the RS-25Es will be much cheaper (at least 30%, up to 50%) per unit than the regular SSMEs were. But there is a lot of development and overhead costs that are going into making that happen.

Think about it like what SpaceX is doing with Starship. Ultimately, they want to have a launch vehicle that can be priced at well below $10 million per launch, but they are currently spending billions of dollars. We have to keep in mind that they have to do that before they can get to that future price point.
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Offline geza

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #57 on: 02/03/2022 08:18 am »
I wrote general questions 3 days ago; now I've read through your answers and the other comments since. Very interesting, I learnt a lot, thanks! This is a very good forum.

Online DanClemmensen

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #58 on: 02/03/2022 03:09 pm »
I think they should’ve “just” made more regular SSMEs.

Are they saving any additional money given all the extra development and qualification?

How many regular engines would they need to make before it was more expensive than the expendable ones?
As I understand it, SLS does not use "regular SSMEs". It uses the 15 remaining SSMEs left over from the Shuttle program, but they were upgraded and modified because the SLS is physically different than the shuttle. The fact that the engines are inline with he tank was given as a big reason the modifications were required. This would have been true for most DIRECT proposals, I think. for SLS, making additional RD-25Ds would be more expensive. The last RS-25D was manufactured in 1998(?), so restarting the line would have been an adventure, and some things would need to be changed in any event to incorporate the adaptations.

Offline Hog

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #59 on: 02/04/2022 10:21 am »
I think they should’ve “just” made more regular SSMEs.

Are they saving any additional money given all the extra development and qualification?

How many regular engines would they need to make before it was more expensive than the expendable ones?
As I understand it, SLS does not use "regular SSMEs". It uses the 15 remaining SSMEs left over from the Shuttle program, but they were upgraded and modified because the SLS is physically different than the shuttle. The fact that the engines are inline with he tank was given as a big reason the modifications were required. This would have been true for most DIRECT proposals, I think. for SLS, making additional RD-25Ds would be more expensive. The last RS-25D was manufactured in 1998(?), so restarting the line would have been an adventure, and some things would need to be changed in any event to incorporate the adaptations.
a) There were 16 leftovers from STS. , 2 unflown/unfired, with one assembled from parts.  ME-2062 was built in 2010 and ME-2063 in 2014. These 2 engines will fly on Artemis-2, the first crewed mission.(coincidence-I think not).
b) The SSME/RS-25D/RS-25 Block-II will fly on SLS 1-4 without mods, but will be controlled via new controllers and will run at 109%RPL instead of Shuttles nominal 104.5%.  the RESTART engines will fire at 111%RPL something an SSME could only perform in "do or die contingency aborts multiple failures deep."
c) testing was required as the "head pressure" at the engines is higher than for STS than SLS and the RS25 engine is a "head start" engine. aka it uses gravity and propellants to start the engines.  This change brought MPS pressures outside the original RS-25D "start box". Start box is a graphical box where many parameters required for engine start, must all meet within this box for said start.  The higher head pressures of SLS brought the RS25 out of the typical RS-25D start box.

I've always wondered what a new build RS-25D would cost compared to a RESTART engine? 

2014 assembly of ME-2063, the last RS-25D.

Offline John Duncan

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #60 on: 02/20/2022 10:35 am »
All I know is that the mouse/ elephant comparison comes to mind.  DIRECT was the mouse which was turned into an elephant by legacy contractors and politics.  I remember the DIRECT days fondly.

I'll be watching the first SLS launch with excitement.  But I fear we might not see enough of them to call it operational.

Vale DIRECT.

Offline Eric Hedman

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #61 on: 02/20/2022 03:34 pm »
Perhaps even more damaging than the enormous costs is the schedule paralysis that goes along with these cost plus contracts. There is no real schedule pressure. All the financial incentive for contractors is to slow walk everything and maintain there funding for as long as possible.

Cost Plus contracts have been around a long time.  Many of the issues that prolong the project are from customer changes to specifications and/or the stretch out of programs by Congress.
Cost Plus contracts really got their start after WW II.  Congress was mad that some fixed price aircraft development contracts resulted in some  higher than normal profit margins.  They called these companies war profiteers.  If you look at how fast some of these companies went from proposal to operational combat aircraft (some cases less than two years), they did it without changing specs and with an urgency to match or exceed what the enemies were capable of.  In these fixed price contracts, contractors often greatly overestimated the resources required to protect themselves from financial ruin.

After WW II Congress in their infinite wisdom insisted on fixed price and fixed profit margin and development of practically all weapons systems development took longer and got a lot more expensive, but they protected us from the possibility of a big margin on fixed price contracts.  To be fair, newer systems were getting a lot more complicated so development was going to take longer.  When development stretched out requirements do change too because the competition usually isn't standing still.

Offline TomH

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Re: Is Direct really dead ?
« Reply #62 on: 03/20/2022 06:04 am »
So I am not a fan of the SLS & its use of SRB's, but what really were the alternatives for heavy lift back in the 2009 time frame?

These future phases of Delta and Atlas:



NSF forum member Downix had a proposal which he called AJAX:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=22266.0



Orion and its LAS had to be redesigned because of the insanity of Ares I, and it pushed everything back considerably.

In no way am I advocating this idea, but I've long wondered what the Ares I performance might have been had the S1 been based on a Dark Knight/BOLE.
« Last Edit: 03/20/2022 09:20 pm by TomH »

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