Author Topic: There is a better way forward - DIRECT Article on The Space Review  (Read 42934 times)

Offline MB123

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Thanks for that Chuck, well said, I understand.

IMO there should be no (logical) problem in subjecting NASA to external scrutiny. It wouldn't be a reflection of a lack of confidence, rather just a due diliegence exercise. This is only the third time we have designed a rocket for exploration. No one can know everything. We should have a culture of participation, private, government, etc.
« Last Edit: 06/05/2008 01:29 pm by MB123 »

Offline renclod

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That is not what I was asking.  I was asking what the specific cost to refurbish an orbiter between missions.  We all know what the total systems cost is.


In FY2001, for 7 missions, out of a total $ 3.119 billion ("then dollars") :

0.515 SRBs (first stage)

0.596 ET, SSMEs (second stage) [edit: split this fifty-fifty, lol]

0.669 Orbiter

0.524 Ground Operations

0.199 Flight Planning and Operations

0.071 Human Spaceflight Support

0.256 Upgrades

0.290 Program Integration

Source: http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20020091874
( 20020091874_2002153364.pdf page 5 table 3 )
It came up on NTRS today.

Hope this helps ...

« Last Edit: 06/05/2008 08:44 pm by renclod »

Offline clongton

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We thought everyone might like to see the presentation and video that Steve showed at the ISDC in Washington.
Here’s the presentation.
Here’s the video
Both are ~11 mb.
Enjoy.
« Last Edit: 06/05/2008 07:22 pm by clongton »
Chuck - DIRECT co-founder
I started my career on the Saturn-V F-1A engine

Offline gladiator1332

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Any word how the breaking news bit on the Ares V went over with the crowd?

Offline Namechange User

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Any word how the breaking news bit on the Ares V went over with the crowd?

I'm not sure it was really breaking news.  They've been making hints at this for some time.  I was at the AIAA conference in Denver back in March and they stated then this was being considered. 

For the record, I do not agree with it.  It throughs away their commonality arguement between Ares 1 and 5 and really starts to show the poor choice being made here.
Enjoying viewing the forum a little better now by filtering certain users.

Offline kraisee

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Totally unofficial, but ISDC went extremely well for us.

Eric Boethin, President of the "Front Range L5" chapter of NSS in Denver, CO was also doing a presentation on how DIRECT could actually be utilized if built, which was an effort all of his own!   Serious thanks go out to Eric for putting together something independently to try to support us - major kudos to him for that.

Stephen and he worked together in the last week or so to try to make sure the two presentations didn't cover too much of the same ground though.

His presentation followed immediately after Stephen's on Thursday and essentially resulted in a whole hour of DIRECT-related time.   At the end of that, both Eric and Stephen went out into the halls and have another hour and a half of discussions with most of the crowds from the presentation hall.

A lot of good feedback came from those present and a lot of new contacts were made - some of which are turning out to be really exciting for us.   We're going to see where they all lead before we will talk about those though.

Not sure if the Ares-V 'revelation' was even commented on.   I don't think anyone is surprised though.   Just seems to fit with the rest of the bait and switch we've seen so far.   I expect the foam mixture will even be re-formulated now, to remove the very last vestiges of Shuttle heritage from the Ares program.

Ross.
« Last Edit: 06/06/2008 03:21 am by kraisee »
"The meek shall inherit the Earth -- the rest of us will go to the stars"
-Robert A. Heinlein

Offline mike robel

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I guess I am out of the loop.  Who was the target audience of these last presentations?

Also, it would be interesting to see the other presentation, if you can get a copy.

Offline kraisee

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The ISDC Presentation was mostly aimed at "influential people" both within the space community and also political movers and shakers at many different levels.

The Presentation on the website was slightly more politically focussed.

I will try to get a hold of Eric's final copy for the group.

Ross.
"The meek shall inherit the Earth -- the rest of us will go to the stars"
-Robert A. Heinlein

Offline kkattula

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One thing a president can change is the Director of NASA. If he appoints someone who wants to change to Direct, IIRC, all he needs is senate(?) approval of the appointment.

And that person doesn't even need to commit to Direct, just to implementing Constellation in a more cost-effective & timely manner.

Offline kraisee

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And the reverse is also true.

Congress can block the appointment of anyone who doesn't fit their criteria.   It all depends on exactly what everyone's criteria are.

Right now though, Congress is effectively operating in a vacuum (pun totally intended).   They just don't have any other information to base their decisions upon other than the official company line coming out of NASA - which is being tightly controlled by Griffin.

They have no independent validation to rely upon and they are thankfully beginning to realize that.

Things like a six year gap, performance shortfalls requiring safety equipment to be lost from Orion and cost overruns are beginning to wake people up to the fact that not all is well within the agency.   This raises more and more questions - and the answers Griffin has been giving have been less than satisfactory for many.   They aren't happy with Griffin, and they are losing confidence.   IMHO, it is only a matter of time before they demand their own answers to the most important questions and simply choose to go outside of NASA to get them.

Ross.
« Last Edit: 06/06/2008 04:22 am by kraisee »
"The meek shall inherit the Earth -- the rest of us will go to the stars"
-Robert A. Heinlein

Offline MB123

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Right now though, Congress is effectively operating in a vacuum (pun totally intended).   They just don't have any other information to base their decisions upon other than the official company line coming out of NASA - which is being tightly controlled by Griffin.

It does not require support for either Ares or Direct for one to insist that Congress gets some independent advice.

Offline kraisee

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Absolutely correct.   It's an excellent thing for Congress to have independent evaluations at the start of any new 30-40 year program which will eventually cost hundreds of billions.

Ross.
"The meek shall inherit the Earth -- the rest of us will go to the stars"
-Robert A. Heinlein

Offline JonSBerndt

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We thought everyone might like to see the presentation and video that Steve showed at the ISDC in Washington.
Here’s the presentation.
Here’s the video
Both are ~11 mb.
Enjoy.

This is a first-rate presentation. I like the image on the last page of the presentation, with the crawler climbing towards the pad. Where did that image come from - how was it rendered?

Jon

Offline kraisee

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That's our very own Philip Metschan's work there. Pure graphic artistry, based on technical details we had put together, and referencing pictures of the Shuttle hardware too.

He's the same chap who did the wonderful front cover image, the photo-retouch of the Jupiter-120 at the Pad.   All of which are pure artistry.   He also did some of the 3D imagery of the exploded diagram of J-120 and J-232 inside the document too.

A *very* talented guy whom we are so lucky to have involved.

We also have Antonio Maia producing 3D imagery for us too - a *lot* of his work can be seen in our AIAA paper.

Between them, these two guys have really helped Bring the Thunder to our presentation efforts.

Ross.
« Last Edit: 06/06/2008 02:25 pm by kraisee »
"The meek shall inherit the Earth -- the rest of us will go to the stars"
-Robert A. Heinlein

Offline jeff.findley

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I really like the PowerPoint.  I saw one minor error though.  On page 14 is a picture of the Jupiter 120 which has a text label which says "3x RS-68".  Obviously this should say "2x RS-68".  The next page is correct.

I think these are the best two slides.  They show how seamless the transition would be from Jupiter 120 to Jupiter 232 and show how much commonality there is between the two. 

The transition from Ares I to Ares V is nowhere near as seamless and the commonality between them, at this point, is close to nil.


Offline HIP2BSQRE

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The presentation is VERY Good.  A+

Offline kraisee

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Jeff,
That was actually corrected for our last presentation, but the error crept back in somehow :)

I've just uploaded a corrected version.

Ross.
"The meek shall inherit the Earth -- the rest of us will go to the stars"
-Robert A. Heinlein

Offline robertross

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Totally unofficial, but ISDC went extremely well for us.

{Snip}
His presentation followed immediately after Stephen's on Thursday and essentially resulted in a whole hour of DIRECT-related time.   At the end of that, both Eric and Stephen went out into the halls and have another hour and a half of discussions with most of the crowds from the presentation hall.

{Snip}
A lot of good feedback came from those present and a lot of new contacts were made - some of which are turning out to be really exciting for us.   We're going to see where they all lead before we will talk about those though.

Ross.

Excellent! I was going to ask how it all went for your group, and I see it went better than I had hoped. Now to see if any of the little gears start turning in the background...

Offline Lampyridae

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Good stuff from Antonio Maia and Philip Metschan. I've downloaded plenty of Antonio's stuff to play with in Orbiter. That photo retouch is also just begging to become reality.

NASA CGI visuals have been a bit sub-par for a while; they don't quite have the cinematic punch that good old oil paintings or cinematically done CGI have. The latest Orion In today's meda-driven world, people want awesome cinematics.

Would be nice if the story got included in a Discovery Channel program...

Offline kraisee

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I know Philip really wants to make cool video sequences for NASA.

But there are not enough opportunities in that small market so he's just going to keep on working for the Hollywood movie business until such jobs become available.

Ross.
"The meek shall inherit the Earth -- the rest of us will go to the stars"
-Robert A. Heinlein

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