Given the state of analysis on the SLS and budgetary constraints, if NASA were to opt for one of the sensible options left - Phase 1 upgrade of Delta IV or Atlas V to 40-50mt to LEO variants, what could NASA potentially do with that vehicle?Circumlunar flights? Lunar orbital flights? Lagrange point flights? An actual NEO mission?
Given the state of analysis on the SLS and budgetary constraints, if NASA were to opt for one of the sensible options left - Phase 1 upgrade of Delta IV or Atlas V to 40-50mt to LEO variants, what could NASA potentially do with that vehicle?
Quote from: john smith 19 on 07/29/2011 03:31 pmQuote from: DLR on 07/29/2011 03:12 pm... there is no reason for NASA to build an SLS. Existing heavy lift rockets (Delta IV Heavy and soon Atlas V Heavy and Falcon Heavy) should have sufficient capability for any kind of mission imaginable, if we dock stages in LEO. That's pretty much one of the conclusions of the Augustine Commission. Actually the Augustine Commission stated that existing rockets weren't good enough. They did however indicate that an intermediate sized rocket such as Atlas Phase 2 (and probably Falcon Heavy as well) would be sufficient.
Quote from: DLR on 07/29/2011 03:12 pm... there is no reason for NASA to build an SLS. Existing heavy lift rockets (Delta IV Heavy and soon Atlas V Heavy and Falcon Heavy) should have sufficient capability for any kind of mission imaginable, if we dock stages in LEO. That's pretty much one of the conclusions of the Augustine Commission.
... there is no reason for NASA to build an SLS. Existing heavy lift rockets (Delta IV Heavy and soon Atlas V Heavy and Falcon Heavy) should have sufficient capability for any kind of mission imaginable, if we dock stages in LEO.
Quote from: deltaV on 07/29/2011 03:33 pmQuote from: john smith 19 on 07/29/2011 03:31 pmQuote from: DLR on 07/29/2011 03:12 pm... there is no reason for NASA to build an SLS. Existing heavy lift rockets (Delta IV Heavy and soon Atlas V Heavy and Falcon Heavy) should have sufficient capability for any kind of mission imaginable, if we dock stages in LEO. That's pretty much one of the conclusions of the Augustine Commission. Actually the Augustine Commission stated that existing rockets weren't good enough. They did however indicate that an intermediate sized rocket such as Atlas Phase 2 (and probably Falcon Heavy as well) would be sufficient.From section 5.2.1 of the Augustine Report:"If there were the capability to fuel propulsion stages in space, the single-largest mass launched would be considerably less than in the absence of in-space refueling. The mass that must be launched to low-Earth orbit in the current NASA plan, without its fuel on board, is in the range of 25 to 40 mt, setting a notional lower limit on the size of the super heavy-lift launch vehicle if refueling is available."
Folks, one suggestion for this type of thread:To ensure focus on discussing the theme as posted, may I suggest that use of the word "pork" is replaced by "politically viable" or similar wording? Clearly there are threads where the use of the word pork would be appropriate, so I do not suggest that Chris put the word on his profanity list... (btw, spotted an "Incorrect" in one of Chris' posts the other day - funny)-Petter
Quote from: boaorm on 08/04/2011 08:24 amFolks, one suggestion for this type of thread:To ensure focus on discussing the theme as posted, may I suggest that use of the word "pork" is replaced by "politically viable" or similar wording? Clearly there are threads where the use of the word pork would be appropriate, so I do not suggest that Chris put the word on his profanity list... (btw, spotted an "Incorrect" in one of Chris' posts the other day - funny)-PetterPolitical correctness comes to NASASpaceflight.com ... Wonderful!
What to you want to do Senators? Fund a space program or fund your states?
... And with orbital propellant depots, we could do all of these things with even smaller launchers. But 50 mt is plenty.
Or one heck of a commercially sourced/purchased space program. Imagine what could be done and explored if ULA, Boeing, SpaceX, SnC, Bigelow all got that money instead of the SLS and MPCV black holes. I know it is an unrealistic dream that it would happen - but I can dream, can't I?
However, this efficiency of operations would requiresignificant near-term realignment of NASA. Substantialreductions in workforce, facilities closures, and mothballingwould be required. When the Committee asked NASA toassess the cost of this process, the estimates ranged from$3 billion to $11 billion over five years.
SpaceX quotes $80m-$125m for a Falcon Heavy launch. Let's conservatively say that SpaceX is the lowest bidder, no progress is made by any US company over the next 20 years to reduce launch costs, the Falcon Heavy underperforms a bit and only gets 50 mt to LEO, and NASA paperwork raises the launch cost to $150m per launch.
It would be better to assume launch prices per mt are what they are now (or are only cut a bit). And while Atlas V and Delta IV are existing heavy launch vehicles, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy only exists on paper. Having said that, for any strategy planning I think it would be very unreasonably to assume costs below 300-400million per launch of a 50mt LV.
To add to what posters have said above, the "10 year limitation" on this thread was supposed to limit the amount of speculation we can do. Can we really pull off a NEO mission within 10 years given NASA's calculations for its costs and complexity? I would say that even LLO might be too challenging within 10 years in the current space flight climate. What I can see happening is circumlunar and a Lagrange point test mission.
No Falcon Heavy launches except for the test flight appear on SpaceX's manifest, which suggests that payload owners share your skepticism.
Falcon Heavy is a bit beyond the pure paper stage: its engine Merlin 1D has apparently been test fired and the construction of its Vandenberg pad has begun. On the other hand it still a few years from flight. No Falcon Heavy launches except for the test flight appear on SpaceX's manifest, which suggests that payload owners share your skepticism.
Quite alot could be done, actually, although will entail building things in somewhat smaller pieces for deep space mission (l1,2 ect). For example instead of the hab module (or mission module) being one piece it might consist of two and then the command/service combo and propulsion. (3 fh launches)