Perhaps they should separate naming the upper and core stages. The core stage is "Jupiter" which remains essentially the same. The upper stage is what the Jupiter rocket delivers to orbit. It sounds fine saying "Liftoff of the Jupiter Rocket carrying the *model name* upper stage to orbit."
Perhaps they should separate naming the upper and core stages.
Jupiter it was born, Jupiter it should stay. And leave the techie detail suffixes to the engineers.Mark S.
The J-130 uses J-24X components. It is a J-24X without 1 SSME or an upper stage. So it seems to me the J-24X is the Jupiter and J-130 is the Jupiter lite. Jupiter lite also makes it sound 'quick and easy'.Heavy also seems to already be used conventionally for 3 parallel staged cores.
Quote from: cixelsyD on 06/05/2009 09:46 pmPerhaps they should separate naming the upper and core stages.I like this idea. What we need is a catchy and appropriate name for the Jupiter Upper Stage. Then we can call the two configurations Jupiter and Jupiter/"Insert catchy name here".It should be something from Roman mythology, or something related to the planet. Maybe after one of Jupiter's moons (Io, Ganymede, Callisto), or one of Jupiter's children (Minerva (goddess of wisdom!)).Mark S.
That's actually not a bad idea. Check this out:The Jupiter Upper Stage, which doesn't have a name, is really a big Centaur. The name "Centaur" is already well known as an "Upper Stage", not a rocket, so we could have "Jupiter" and "Jupiter/Centaur". ULA already uses "Atlas" and "Atlas/Centaur" and everybody understands the difference without referring, in everyday talk, to Atlas-441, 552, etc. What do you think?Just musing a little here.Edit: Centaur is an Atlas stage and DHDCUS is the equivalent Delta Upper Stage. Both companies collaborated to combine the best of each concept and created the ACUS "Advanced Cryogenic Upper Stage". How about Jupiter and Jupiter/ACUS? In either case, there's no doubt that you are talking about a single rocket, with or without an upper stage. The specific designations could be reserved for the technical discussions.
Edit: Centaur is an Atlas stage and DHDCUS is the equivalent Delta Upper Stage. Both companies collaborated to combine the best of each concept and created the ACUS "Advanced Cryogenic Upper Stage". How about Jupiter and Jupiter/ACUS?
Or you could name it after another creature from mythology. Instead of Centaur you could have, (just a few from a list)ChimeraGriffin (previous administrator anyone?)HydraPegasus (taken I think)Phoenix (taken by rover I think)
Eclair
Quote from: clongton on 06/05/2009 10:29 pmEdit: Centaur is an Atlas stage and DHDCUS is the equivalent Delta Upper Stage. Both companies collaborated to combine the best of each concept and created the ACUS "Advanced Cryogenic Upper Stage". How about Jupiter and Jupiter/ACUS? Calling it Centaur would rub salt into the wound by reminding NASA that the upper stage is based on externally developed technology. Politically that sounds like a bad idea. I suggest avoiding all languages except English, Greek and Latin for political (xenophobic) reasons. Other ancient languages are probably ok, but I would avoid modern languages such as French, German and Japanese.Zeus sounds like a good name for the second stage.
Quote from: cixelsyD on 06/05/2009 11:30 pmOr you could name it after another creature from mythology. Instead of Centaur you could have, (just a few from a list)ChimeraGriffin (previous administrator anyone?)HydraPegasus (taken I think)Phoenix (taken by rover I think)Nah. We must NOT get fancy here. This is not mythology, it is a cryogenic upper stage on a rocket. The name of the stage should reflect that. This is, after all, rocket science.
Quote from: mars.is.wet on 06/05/2009 04:02 pmNASA News Bulletin clipNice! I'm amazed to see it in an internal NASA newsletter at all. I would have guessed that any mention of DIRECT would have been embargoed.It would be nice to think that perhaps this is a sign of improved relations.
NASA News Bulletin clip
Quote from: cixelsyD on 06/05/2009 09:20 pmI think Ares III and Ares IV are great names for the vehicles.We had a bit of a discussion this morning about the naming convention for DIRECT. My suggestion is to drop the numeric suffixes in normal conversation, in presentations, and in advocacy materials. This should be done in order to make clear that there is only one Jupiter vehicle, flown either with or without an upper stage.There is not just a great amount of commonality between the single-stage Jupiter and the Jupiter with its Upper Stage. They are identical in every way that counts, except for the presence of the fourth SSME and the JUS. Presenting and discussing them as if they were two different vehicles minimizes one of the strongest selling points that DIRECT has.Renaming them to "Ares-III" and "Ares-IV" introduces even more confusion than the suffixes "-130" and "-246" already have. Jupiter is unique, it is not Ares by any stretch of the imagination, and people would think that "-III" and "-IV" have just as little in common as "-I" and "-V", i.e. nothing of practical value besides the J2X.Jupiter it was born, Jupiter it should stay. And leave the techie detail suffixes to the engineers.Mark S.
I think Ares III and Ares IV are great names for the vehicles.
There is a difference between what is used in presenting and selling it to NASA et al, and what will be best for official designations. The Ares-III and IV designations better from a public relations stand point, since sounds more like an upgrade than a big change.