Author Topic: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?  (Read 195110 times)

Offline eric z

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #260 on: 07/06/2020 08:26 pm »
 I was thinking [always dangerous for me] the other day that Ares 1 would have made a great fireworks launcher
every 4th of July; would have been awesome! :P

Offline Proponent

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #261 on: 07/07/2020 12:05 pm »
And there actually was a proposal at one point for an annual Ares I-X launch during SLS's development phase, to keep launch crews in shape.  Why not time it for Independence Day?

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #262 on: 07/12/2020 03:42 am »
Ares 1 is being reborn in form of NGIS Omega.
Nope.  Nothing alike.  The only thing they have in common is the rough diameter of the solid motor, but I'm not even sure those are exactly the same.  One is steel, the other is composite.  The solid motor segment lengths and total lengths differ.  Omega has two solid motor stages where Ares 1 had one.  Different propellant formulations.
 The upper stages are completely different.  Different launch platforms.  Different launch pads.  Etc.

 - Ed Kyle

Offline MATTBLAK

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #263 on: 07/12/2020 05:34 am »
IF Ares 1 had had to contend with a lighter and smaller Orion spacecraft: 4 meters diameter instead of 5 meters... IF the J-2X had been assigned a higher thrust rating, early in it's design stage - say 350k thrust instead of 294k... IF the 5-segment solid first stage had deleted the requirement for reuse and ditched the parachutes and other recovery systems... IF the 'Thrust Oscillation Mitigation' systems devised had come to a reasonable mass fraction of the liftoff weight... IF the Upper Stage had been designed to the 'Bleeding Edge' of lowest mass possible...

Then, yes - Ares 1 could probably have delivered a 23 ton, 4-meter wide Orion spacecraft into a useful low Earth orbit, to meet the Altair Lunar Lander, perched atop the Earth Departure Stage of a more sensible, 8.4 meter diameter Ares V using 5x RS-25E engines on it's Corestage and sporting a 350k thrust, throttleable J-2X on the Upper Stage. The Altair could have been a smaller ship, sized for 2x Crew members but still heavier than the 15 ton Apollo LM by about 90%. That Altair would have a full Cryogenic, LH2/LOX Descent Stage that would do the LOI and be able to reach most locations on the Moon.

If the Ares 1 had been later upgraded with a much more powerful 'Dark Knight' style expendable, all-composite first stage; that would allow the Orion to have 3 or 4 metric tons more propellants loaded aboard for more challenging missions requiring more delta-v. This comes under the category of 'Coulda-Woulda-Shoulda' of what Constellation (CXP) should have been, engineering wise. CXP could have brought aboard reusable Landers and propellant ISRU over time. And the Orion could eventually have been handed off to newer and partially reusable Commercial launchers - as could the Altair Lander.

Don't we have an alternate history thread(s) about this around here, somewhere? Still - I'm a guy that believes Orion should have been downsized to 4 meters from day one and that Atlas V-Phase 2 should have been the Crew Launcher and the upgraded Side-Mount Shuttle derived vehicle as the Cargo launcher. But what do I know...
« Last Edit: 07/12/2020 11:57 pm by MATTBLAK »
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Offline theonlyspace

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #264 on: 12/13/2020 09:35 pm »
Is todays Orion any lighter than it was in Constellation? Would it been faster to just continue the Altar booster?

Offline NEMo1103

Lil bit late, but is there a diagram/image providing information on the planned Constellation missions (Orion, Ares I-X/I-X Prime, AA 1-4, etc.) and their dates/objectives? Thanks in advance!
Constellation Program aficionado

Offline Starlab90

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #266 on: 03/30/2022 09:13 pm »
Lil bit late, but is there a diagram/image providing information on the planned Constellation missions (Orion, Ares I-X/I-X Prime, AA 1-4, etc.) and their dates/objectives? Thanks in advance!

There is one somewhere in these forums. It's probably somewhere in the L2 forums. You need to remember, it's been over 10 years, now, so you'll need to search back 10 years or more to find it.

Online DanClemmensen

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #267 on: 03/30/2022 09:23 pm »
Lil bit late, but is there a diagram/image providing information on the planned Constellation missions (Orion, Ares I-X/I-X Prime, AA 1-4, etc.) and their dates/objectives? Thanks in advance!
Table at:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Constellation_missions
images in the second reference, which is archived at:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20080308161244/http://pmchallenge.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/2007Presentations/Presentations/Hanley_Jeff.pdf

Offline NEMo1103

Thank you!
Constellation Program aficionado

Offline Vahe231991

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #269 on: 06/25/2022 03:17 pm »
I wanted to ask whether the Ares rocket and other components of the Constellation program would have proceeded on schedule, especially in terms of a first orbital launch for the Ares I, if the Iraq War had not taken place because the US involvement in Iraq unintentionally put some strains on the NASA budget for the Constellation program.

Offline Coastal Ron

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #270 on: 06/25/2022 05:16 pm »
I wanted to ask whether the Ares rocket and other components of the Constellation program would have proceeded on schedule, especially in terms of a first orbital launch for the Ares I, if the Iraq War had not taken place because the US involvement in Iraq unintentionally put some strains on the NASA budget for the Constellation program.

What schedule?

The Ares I concept was as bad as the SLS, in that Michael Griffin needed an excuse to spend money on SRB's that would ultimately be needed for the Ares V, so he created the Ares I. But the Ares I was a bad concept from the start, and demonstrated by the attached image, which showed that the only constant in the Ares I was the SRB - everything else was looked at for being changed.

And let's not forget that Michael Griffin had also lied about whether the Delta IV Heavy could fly the Orion spacecraft, because he wanted the Ares I to be the only launch vehicle for the Orion. However because the Ares I was a flawed concept from the start, and because NASA had to keep making changes to the Ares I, that meant that the Orion had to keep changing in design too. And the cost of those changes is part of the reason why the Constellation program was cancelled.

So the bottom line is that regardless whether the Ares I could have flown, it should NEVER have been allowed to become operational. And the SLS program is repeating the same mistakes...  >:(
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline Vahe231991

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #271 on: 06/26/2022 04:49 pm »
I wanted to ask whether the Ares rocket and other components of the Constellation program would have proceeded on schedule, especially in terms of a first orbital launch for the Ares I, if the Iraq War had not taken place because the US involvement in Iraq unintentionally put some strains on the NASA budget for the Constellation program.

What schedule?

The Ares I concept was as bad as the SLS, in that Michael Griffin needed an excuse to spend money on SRB's that would ultimately be needed for the Ares V, so he created the Ares I. But the Ares I was a bad concept from the start, and demonstrated by the attached image, which showed that the only constant in the Ares I was the SRB - everything else was looked at for being changed.

And let's not forget that Michael Griffin had also lied about whether the Delta IV Heavy could fly the Orion spacecraft, because he wanted the Ares I to be the only launch vehicle for the Orion. However because the Ares I was a flawed concept from the start, and because NASA had to keep making changes to the Ares I, that meant that the Orion had to keep changing in design too. And the cost of those changes is part of the reason why the Constellation program was cancelled.

So the bottom line is that regardless whether the Ares I could have flown, it should NEVER have been allowed to become operational. And the SLS program is repeating the same mistakes...  >:(
NASA's plan regarding the Ares program called for three Ares I-X and one Ares I-Y suborbital launches to be conducted from 2009-2012 and the first orbital Ares launch to be carried out in 2015, but the planned Ares I-Y flight was shelved shortly after the first and only Ares I-X suborbital launch. I wanted to emphasize whether the NASA budget would have been able to fund the Constellation program into the 2010s had the US not gone to war in Iraq given that the Iraq War unintentionally caused the NASA budget for the Space Shuttle and Constellation programs to be tight.

Offline JayWee

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #272 on: 06/26/2022 06:44 pm »
The Augustine Commission report said Constellation would require additional $3B/year. Congress was unwilling to provide that.
It had nothing to do with the Iraq War. Maybe tangentially with the financial crisis of 2008.
But in any case, the blame rests squarely on Mike Griffin's stupid architecture.

Offline Coastal Ron

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Re: Could Ares 1 have Worked if things had been different?
« Reply #273 on: 06/26/2022 07:13 pm »
I wanted to emphasize whether the NASA budget would have been able to fund the Constellation program into the 2010s had the US not gone to war in Iraq given that the Iraq War unintentionally caused the NASA budget for the Space Shuttle and Constellation programs to be tight.

There is no constitutional limit to how much money NASA can be funded, but on the flip side, ALL NASA funding is discretionary, meaning there is no law stating that any part of NASA's funding is an "entitlement".

And since NASA total budget in 2008 was only 0.6% of the total Federal Budget, NASA was no more a drain on the total budget than pretty much any other U.S. department or agency.

One other thing, George W. Bush set the precedent of funding the Iraq War OFF the Federal Budget, so NASA's budget wasn't competing against DoD funding of the Iraq War.

The Ares I was a dud, and that was what did it in.
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

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