DIRECT v3.0 - Thread 1

[clongton]

1. I think costs are a subject to debate when it comes to DIRECT. At least people like John Shannon think the costs are underestimated

1. AeroSpace Corp has essentially validated our cost data. We're on the board.
2. John Shannon was "shooting from the hip" when he talked about our costs. *At that time* he had only "heard" that there was this thing called DIRECT and knew nothing about it. He knows a lot more now.

[clongton]

A mini-shipyard adjacent to ISS would actually be sensible and leverage several factors... perhaps sufficiently to balance out the other issues associated with that inclination... so figure it won't be done.
<snip>
... Spacedock... well, a mini-spacedock... 50 frackin' years overdue but it'd cover the basics and be a valid beginning...

And this too could be an eventual part of Direct... albeit not baselined... once the FUD generators are cleared away.

As long as we're speculating, a shipyard/spacedock, imo, would be best located at EML-1. That eliminates any orbital inclination difficulties, enables any space-capable nation to get there, enables lunar global access with anytime return, allows lunar isru resources to play a part, and is an ideal point of departure and point of return to/from anywhere in the solar system.

[simon-th]

1. I think costs are a subject to debate when it comes to DIRECT. At least people like John Shannon think the costs are underestimated

1. AeroSpace Corp has essentially validated our cost data. We're on the board.
2. John Shannon was "shooting from the hip" when he talked about our costs. *At that time* he had only "heard" that there was this thing called DIRECT and knew nothing about it. He knows a lot more now.

Good to hear that AeroSpace Corp agrees with DIRECT's assessment. I apologize and wonder why Shannon made the remark. Without data backing up his opinion, he shouldn't have said anything about costs.

[HOTTOL]

I was thinking you might have some ideas about avoiding the dock.

I havn't though of anything that hasn't been proposed before. A crazy idea is to have the PLF attached and have Orion dock with the EDS. This would involve large stresses on Orion, due to the weight of the Altair and the PLF above it.

An alternative would be (1) to keep the Altair-PFL-Orion stack as is (2) to undock it from the empty US (3) to dock the stack on its Altair side to the EDS (4) to release Orion and to discard the PLF (5) and to dock the Orion (nose first) to Altair.
Et voilà (?!!)

François

[clongton]

1. I think costs are a subject to debate when it comes to DIRECT. At least people like John Shannon think the costs are underestimated

1. AeroSpace Corp has essentially validated our cost data. We're on the board.
2. John Shannon was "shooting from the hip" when he talked about our costs. *At that time* he had only "heard" that there was this thing called DIRECT and knew nothing about it. He knows a lot more now.

Good to here that AeroSpace Corp agrees with DIRECT's assessment. I appologize and wonder why Shannon made the remark. Without data backing up his opinion, he shouldn't have said anything about costs.

No problem. Ours and theirs cost profiles do not match line for line, but overall we are in the ballpark, and it's the totals that matter. As for Mr Shannon, it's the same with any corporate manager who is steeped in the company pronouncements. If you are used to hearing "$35 billion, $35 billion" all the time and someone comes along and says "no, $8.5 billion", you're initial reaction is going to be skepticism. His reaction was normal and quite expected. Had he said anything else I would have been very surprised.

[brihath]

1. I think costs are a subject to debate when it comes to DIRECT. At least people like John Shannon think the costs are underestimated

1. AeroSpace Corp has essentially validated our cost data. We're on the board.
2. John Shannon was "shooting from the hip" when he talked about our costs. *At that time* he had only "heard" that there was this thing called DIRECT and knew nothing about it. He knows a lot more now.

Chuck-

Your last statement speaks volumes to me.  Is there more you can share on the topic about how John Shannon was brought up to speed about DIRECT, or is it too soon to discuss that publicly?

[Lab Lemming]

And outside of the magnetic field, it means that anyone working there gets roasted when there is a CME.

EML1 is great for a depot, but unless you are actually going to make spacecraft on the moon, it doesn't make much sense to put your shipyard so far from Earth.

We have 25+ years experience working in the LEO environment with MIR, ISS, and the earlier space stations.  Why throw all that away?

A mini-shipyard adjacent to ISS would actually be sensible and leverage several factors... perhaps sufficiently to balance out the other issues associated with that inclination... so figure it won't be done.
<snip>
... Spacedock... well, a mini-spacedock... 50 frackin' years overdue but it'd cover the basics and be a valid beginning...

And this too could be an eventual part of Direct... albeit not baselined... once the FUD generators are cleared away.

As long as we're speculating, a shipyard/spacedock, imo, would be best located at EML-1. That eliminates any orbital inclination difficulties, enables any space-capable nation to get there, enables lunar global access with anytime return, allows lunar isru resources to play a part, and is an ideal point of departure and point of return to/from anywhere in the solar system.

[clongton]

1. I think costs are a subject to debate when it comes to DIRECT. At least people like John Shannon think the costs are underestimated

1. AeroSpace Corp has essentially validated our cost data. We're on the board.
2. John Shannon was "shooting from the hip" when he talked about our costs. *At that time* he had only "heard" that there was this thing called DIRECT and knew nothing about it. He knows a lot more now.

Chuck-

Your last statement speaks volumes to me.  Is there more you can share on the topic about how John Shannon was brought up to speed about DIRECT, or is it too soon to discuss that publicly?

There's not much to tell. We've had a couple of conversations with him and talked about it. That's it. When looked at thru fud-proof glasses it's not that hard to see. John's an honest, open minded guy who doesn't dismiss anything "just because". There was no "campaign" to educate him. We just told him what DIRECT is and is not. He gets it. But he still works for NASA and has a job to do. While he's officially championing NSC, as per his employer's instructions, you notice that he is also not fudding DIRECT either. Both DIRECT and NSC work. DIRECT does the VSE as defined while NSC scales it back a fair amount. It all depends on what the mission ultimately ends up being. We happen to believe that DIRECT is the better solution.

Don't read too much into what I said about John knowing more now than then. That's easy to accomplish with anyone with just a conversation or two.

[clongton]

And outside of the magnetic field, it means that anyone working there gets roasted when there is a CME.

EML1 is great for a depot, but unless you are actually going to make spacecraft on the moon, it doesn't make much sense to put your shipyard so far from Earth.

We have 25+ years experience working in the LEO environment with MIR, ISS, and the earlier space stations.  Why throw all that away?

A mini-shipyard adjacent to ISS would actually be sensible and leverage several factors... perhaps sufficiently to balance out the other issues associated with that inclination... so figure it won't be done.
<snip>
... Spacedock... well, a mini-spacedock... 50 frackin' years overdue but it'd cover the basics and be a valid beginning...

And this too could be an eventual part of Direct... albeit not baselined... once the FUD generators are cleared away.

As long as we're speculating, a shipyard/spacedock, imo, would be best located at EML-1. That eliminates any orbital inclination difficulties, enables any space-capable nation to get there, enables lunar global access with anytime return, allows lunar isru resources to play a part, and is an ideal point of departure and point of return to/from anywhere in the solar system.

 Because it's still deep inside earth's gravity well and that makes everything much more expensive. Radiation mitigation can be designed into the facility while gravity-well expense cannot be designed out of LEO.
 
 Let's not take this too far afield of the topic.

[brihath]

1. I think costs are a subject to debate when it comes to DIRECT. At least people like John Shannon think the costs are underestimated

1. AeroSpace Corp has essentially validated our cost data. We're on the board.
2. John Shannon was "shooting from the hip" when he talked about our costs. *At that time* he had only "heard" that there was this thing called DIRECT and knew nothing about it. He knows a lot more now.

Chuck-

Your last statement speaks volumes to me.  Is there more you can share on the topic about how John Shannon was brought up to speed about DIRECT, or is it too soon to discuss that publicly?

There's not much to tell. We've had a couple of conversations with him and talked about it. That's it. When looked at thru fud-proof glasses it's not that hard to see. John's an honest, open minded guy who doesn't dismiss anything "just because". There was no "campaign" to educate him. We just told him what DIRECT is and is not. He gets it. But he still works for NASA and has a job to do. While he's officially championing NSC, as per his employer's instructions, you notice that he is also not fudding DIRECT either. Both DIRECT and NSC work. DIRECT does the VSE as defined while NSC scales it back a fair amount. It all depends on what the mission ultimately ends up being. We happen to believe that DIRECT is the better solution.

Don't read too much into what I said about John knowing more now than then. That's easy to accomplish with anyone with just a conversation or two.

The key factor to me is that he is open minded. I got that impression watching his remarks on June 17th.  The fact that the DIRECT team has had some conversations with him is a good thing IMO.

[MP99]

1. I think costs are a subject to debate when it comes to DIRECT. At least people like John Shannon think the costs are underestimated

1. AeroSpace Corp has essentially validated our cost data. We're on the board.

Well, that's just superb news. Another big step forwards.

cheers, Martin

[mrbliss]

We can call them "Not-Direct" threads. 

Indirect Threads? 

[Mark S]

We can call them "Not-Direct" threads. 

Indirect Threads? 

We're all getting a little giddy here, aren't we?    We've spent a long time waiting, so I think a little exuberance is not out of line.

Mark S.

[A_M_Swallow]

And outside of the magnetic field, it means that anyone working there gets roasted when there is a CME.

EML1 is great for a depot, but unless you are actually going to make spacecraft on the moon, it doesn't make much sense to put your shipyard so far from Earth.

We have 25+ years experience working in the LEO environment with MIR, ISS, and the earlier space stations.  Why throw all that away?

Because an extra delta-v of 3.77 is km/s needed to bring spaceships back from L1.  Eventually the interplanetary spaceships will be built at LEO but refuelled and repaired at the L1 Spaceyard IMHO.

[Josef]

Look!



Regards

Josef

[Mark S]

By the way, the current issue of Popular Mechanics has an advocacy article by Buzz Aldrin, exhorting us to go straight to Mars and not get sidetracked by a rehash of Apollo. 

Whether you agree with that position or not, the interesting thing is his position on a replacement for the Ares launchers.  He actually acknowledges that Ares is dead, then pushes for an evolutionary development to replace Shuttle.  And the two options he mentions by name are NSC and DIRECT!  He didn't express a preference, but just the fact that DIRECT is on Buzz's radar is amazing.

DIRECT is acknowledged as not just a viable option, but a leading contender, straight out of the mouth of an Apollo astronaut, on the record, in a national publication!  How long have we waited for that to happen?

Cheers,
Mark S.

[clongton]

We can call them "Not-Direct" threads. 

Indirect Threads? 

We're all getting a little giddy here, aren't we?    We've spent a long time waiting, so I think a little exuberance is not out of line.

Mark S.

Don't set yourselves up for a big letdown. The best doesn't always win. I experience this every weekend at the track. The best stock car does not always win. There are a lot of non-technical things that come into play that the car team can't control. And there are lots of things that DIRECT has no control over, like what the President decides the mission needs to be.

For the stated mission, there is no doubt that DIRECT is THE best solution. But what if political or economic realities change the mission? Will DIRECT still fit? We don't know. It depends on a LOT of things that we have no control over.

Selection of the launch system is a political decision, not a technical one. We have done all we can from a technical perspective. Now it's up to the politics and trying to predict the outcome of any political decision is a crap shoot. It's anybody's guess.

[ugordan]

straight out of the mouth of an Apollo astronaut

Not to belittle Buzz's points at all, but being an Apollo astronaut by itself doesn't necessarily mean you're qualified to judge something. Remember Ed Mitchell and his UFO mumbo-jumbo? 

[MP99]

Don't set yourselves up for a big letdown. The best doesn't always win. I experience this every weekend at the track. The best stock car does not always win. There are a lot of non-technical things that come into play that the car team can't control. And there are lots of things that DIRECT has no control over, like what the President decides the mission needs to be.

For the stated mission, there is no doubt that DIRECT is THE best solution. But what if political or economic realities change the mission? Will DIRECT still fit? We don't know. It depends on a LOT of things that we have no control over.

Selection of the launch system is a political decision, not a technical one. We have done all we can from a technical perspective. Now it's up to the politics and trying to predict the outcome of any political decision is a crap shoot. It's anybody's guess.

Chuck,

good call.

I will quietly take comfort from the fact that DIRECT now seems to have the "workable" sticker applied to both the technical and cost aspects.

At least it means that exploration is an option that the policians can reasonably choose.

cheers, Martin

[brihath]

straight out of the mouth of an Apollo astronaut

Not to belittle Buzz's points at all, but being an Apollo astronaut by itself doesn't necessarily mean you're qualified to judge something. Remember Ed Mitchell and his UFO mumbo-jumbo? 

Buzz is a pretty vocal space advocate, however.  He has taken an active role in sustaining a vision for HSF.  I'm not sure comparing him to Ed Mitchell is valid.  I think the most important conclusion to take from the PM article is that there is more public discourse regarding HSF and that DIRECT is being mentioned as a viable alternative in more and more publications.