Orion Discussion Thread 2

[Prettz]

$17B and "may slip" to 2023.

Can this capsule land on Mars?  No.  The parachutes are insufficient, no retro-propulsion.
Can this capsule return to Earth from Mars?  No, the heat-shield cannot handle the re-entry speed.  Nor is it rated to operate for 2 years on a mission.
Is this capsule intended for lunar missions?  No.  President says so.  NASA says so.  Congress says so.
Is this capsule intended for ISS?  No.  There are far cheaper spacecraft.
Is this capsule intended for Asteroid rendezvous?  It has no airlock, no arm, no un-pressurized cargo hold.

What are we doing??  Why are we doing this??

Nice strawman arguments. Nobody ever claimed Orion would land on Mars. Most missions would require the use of a mission-specific module, which would also be true of any other spacecraft going somewhere in deep space.

The baseline mission plans I've seen assume a maximum reentry speed of 12.4 km/s, so I think it is safe to assert that the Orion can handle reentry speeds at least up to 12.4 km/s, and yes, there are Mars return trajectories with reentry speeds less than 12.4 km/s.

It is an internet myth that the Orion cannot handle Mars return speeds. I have never seen this claim be substantiated anywhere.

Sure, but Orion will never, ever be involved in any mission to Mars. You wouldn't want to mate it to a larger spacecraft and take it to Mars because it's overkill and much too heavy. You wouldn't want it to be the reentry portion of a Mars return craft because it's overkill and much too heavy. Orion was designed for relatively short, Apollo-style missions to the Moon and nothing else.

Orion was designed for cis-lunar operations. It would be great for going to a gateway station at EML-2 and with a small module as part of its SLS launch it could be used for lunar or asteroid missions.

Orion at least has this going for it. It's a fine transportation for to and from missions to things in lunar orbit or L2 stations. But no one in congress has any desire to fund such things, no Republicans or Democrats.

[Todd Martin]

$17B and "may slip" to 2023.

Can this capsule land on Mars?  No.  The parachutes are insufficient, no retro-propulsion.
Can this capsule return to Earth from Mars?  No, the heat-shield cannot handle the re-entry speed.  Nor is it rated to operate for 2 years on a mission.
Is this capsule intended for lunar missions?  No.  President says so.  NASA says so.  Congress says so.
Is this capsule intended for ISS?  No.  There are far cheaper spacecraft.
Is this capsule intended for Asteroid rendezvous?  It has no airlock, no arm, no un-pressurized cargo hold.

What are we doing??  Why are we doing this??

Nice strawman arguments. Nobody ever claimed Orion would land on Mars. Most missions would require the use of a mission-specific module, which would also be true of any other spacecraft going somewhere in deep space.

The baseline mission plans I've seen assume a maximum reentry speed of 12.4 km/s, so I think it is safe to assert that the Orion can handle reentry speeds at least up to 12.4 km/s, and yes, there are Mars return trajectories with reentry speeds less than 12.4 km/s.

It is an internet myth that the Orion cannot handle Mars return speeds. I have never seen this claim be substantiated anywhere.

Here's a NASA article stating 15 to 21 km/s for a Manned Mars mission return.  http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19660015097.pdf 

Consider that actual reentry heating will depend on the accuracy of the return vector and the weather (among other things), I think depending on a heat shield rated for 12.4 km/s Mars return is unlikely.  I also think it is unlikely Orion can be upgraded to handle a Mars mission, since the parachute system is incapable of handling much increased mass safely. 

[savuporo]

What are we doing??  Why are we doing this??

To rendezvous with an asteroid.

[montyrmanley]

What are we doing??  Why are we doing this??

To rendezvous with an asteroid.

I'm going to plant my flag in the ground right here and declare that the "asteroid heist" mission is never going to happen (at least not as currently envisoned). Robots can do just fine in characterizing and (eventually) mining asteroids. We might need to get humans involved somewhere down the line in the ore-processing and material-fabrication steps, but that's years (maybe decades) away. And as an engineering exercise, the asteroid-heist scenario never made much sense.

If we're serious about cislunar operations (we're not, by the way) we'd be looking to build a station at the earth-moon L2 as a waystation for Mars, or to developing a cislunar ecosystem of fuel depots and solar power systems (to be used to deliver power to space-based assets, not to deliver to the ground). We'd be building robotic systems to complement human missions. We'd be looking at the moon as a test bed for colonization techniques that would, in due time, be used on Mars. (Or we'd ask ourselves what's so great about Mars anyway and dedicate ourselves to building large space-based habitats that wouldn't require us to trade one deep gravity-well for another one.)

[Proponent]

The possible delay of EM-2 to 2023 is now all over the news:

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/09/16/orion-spacecraft-may-not-fly-with-astronauts-until-2023/
http://spacenews.com/first-crewed-orion-mission-may-slip-to-2023/

About the price-tag: 17 Billion US dollars from start (CEV) to end of EM-2. If that isn't just plain silly then I don't know what. 17 Billion US dollars for an Apollo CSM on steroids. Mind-boggling.

Apollo cost 150 billion in today's dollars. So, meh, seems about ballpark with historical precedent. The CSM was one of 3 major components for Apollo: Saturn V, CSM and the LM. If a modern replacement each cost 17 billion to develop, all three components would cost about 50 billion or one third of Apollo's total cost. Could some capitalist probably do it cheaper working out of their proverbial garage than a government program: yeah, probably.

The attached spreadsheet shows the money spent on various components of Apollo by fiscal year (from Apollo by the Numbers), with inflation to FY 2015 using the NASA New-Start Inflation Index.  Spending through FY 1967 was $28 billion in FY 2015 terms.  The first manned flight occurred about a third of the way into FY 1968 (the fiscal year started in July then), when NASA was spending on the CSM at a rate of about $4 billion per year.  So, that makes the cost to first manned flight round about $30 billion.  That figure definitely includes Apollo's service module, whereas Orion's service module is now being funded by ESA.  Furthermore, technology has moved on since the 1960s, and it should be easier to develop Orion than Apollo.

All in all, I agree that Orion's price tag is not obviously out of line with Apollo's.

What it does seem out of line with is Starliner and Dragon.  Granted, Orion can fly a much longer mission and has a larger delta-V, but that's largely due to the service module, most of the cost of which probably isn't included in the $17 billion quoted for Orion.

EDIT:  If probably would make sense to add in the figures for spacecraft support.  both spacecraft-support and command-and-service-modules numbers are reported only from FY 1963 onward.  In 1962, there is a spacecraft-development number which should probably be included too.  All of these together raise the NNSI-adjusted total to about $34 billion through the first manned flight.  There are other numbers that might be added too, such as those for developing the Little Joe 2 booster used solely to test Apollo's launch-escape system.

[ncb1397]

The possible delay of EM-2 to 2023 is now all over the news:

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/09/16/orion-spacecraft-may-not-fly-with-astronauts-until-2023/
http://spacenews.com/first-crewed-orion-mission-may-slip-to-2023/

About the price-tag: 17 Billion US dollars from start (CEV) to end of EM-2. If that isn't just plain silly then I don't know what. 17 Billion US dollars for an Apollo CSM on steroids. Mind-boggling.

Apollo cost 150 billion in today's dollars. So, meh, seems about ballpark with historical precedent. The CSM was one of 3 major components for Apollo: Saturn V, CSM and the LM. If a modern replacement each cost 17 billion to develop, all three components would cost about 50 billion or one third of Apollo's total cost. Could some capitalist probably do it cheaper working out of their proverbial garage than a government program: yeah, probably.

The attached spreadsheet shows the money spent on various components of Apollo by fiscal year (from Apollo by the Numbers), with inflation to FY 2015 using the NASA New-Start Inflation Index.  Spending through FY 1967 was $28 billion in FY 2015 terms.  The first manned flight occurred about a third of the way into FY 1968 (the fiscal year started in July then), when NASA was spending on the CSM at a rate of about $4 billion per year.  So, that makes the cost to first manned flight round about $30 billion.  That figure definitely includes Apollo's service module, whereas Orion's service module is now being funded by ESA.  Furthermore, technology has moved on since the 1960s, and it should be easier to develop Orion than Apollo.

All in all, I agree that Orion's price tag is not obviously out of line with Apollo's.

What it does seem out of line with is Starliner and Dragon.  Granted, Orion can fly a much longer mission and has a larger delta-V, but that's largely due to the service module, most of the cost of which probably isn't included in the $17 billion quoted for Orion.

Starliner and Dragon are more like the Mercury program which only cost $2 billion(today's dollars) total which is pretty much inline with Dragon and Starliner. So, yeah, apparently LEO is a lot cheaper than Cis-lunar no matter the program/decade/administration. Cislunar is also a lot cheaper than interplanetary.

edit: the ESA service module cost is basically rounding error on that 17 billion.

[Proponent]

Dragon, for example, with up to seven passengers, the capability of rendezvousing and docking with ISS and, we're told, a heat shield capable of withstanding re-entry from Mars is far more than the equivalent of a Mercury capsule.  It's quite a bit more capable than Orion without a service module.  I'm skeptical that the cost of Orion's service module could be small if it provides consumables for 84 person-days and over 1000 m/s of delta-V.

[kraisee]

Just saw today's news.   Jaw literally on the floor.

The original RFP for the CEV was in January 2005.   That's nearly 11 years ago.

Yet the first crewed test flight is STILL another 8 years away? Seriously?

And with the better part of another decade to wait, does ANYONE seriously think we won't see further slippage?


When we wrapped-up DIRECT in 2011, our team collectively decided to step back and not publicly criticize things that we knew were still sub-optimal (mostly SLS issues such as 5-seg, all-new manufacturing at MAF, lack of parallel Shuttle continuation etc).   But Orion was, at that time, looking like a reasonable plan.

NOT ANY LONGER.

The old king (Griffin's Constellation) clearly had no clothes at all.   The current one is certainly charging for a really big wardrobe, but I'm seeing far too much skin to be at all comfortable, thank-you so very much.

Absolutely appalling show.   Many heads need to be rolling for this fiasco, but I doubt anything will really change.

Ross.

[MarcAlain]

I have a question - where are all these costs coming from? How can this thing cost so much to develop, in particular the rocket itself? Is it the design itself, or are the companies involved trying to profit as much as possible?

[montyrmanley]

I have a question - where are all these costs coming from? How can this thing cost so much to develop, in particular the rocket itself? Is it the design itself, or are the companies involved trying to profit as much as possible?

Easy: staff. NASA staff, Lockmart staff, subcontractor staff, ESA staff, etc. As I mentioned upthread, the costs for Orion and SLS only make sense when you think of it in terms of keeping paychecks flowing to the various management, design, and fab centers for the system. (And to NASA centers, obviously.) Ten years' worth of well-paid aerospace jobs in lots of different states with congressmen to run political cover. NASA botched the Constellation project (underfunded though it was) and required a lifeline after cancellation to keep body and soul together until "the next big thing" came long. That "next big thing" hasn't come along yet, and may not come along for a good while. So: Orion and SLS are there to keep the welders welding and the programmers programming to keep the industrial base alive and to keep NASA's hand in the rocket-building game.

NASA wants to avoid closing one or more field centers. The big defense contractors want to avoid further painful layoffs as industry consolidation continues in an era of tight federal budgets. Congressmen want to keep high-paying aerospace jobs in their districts. You can't ask for an engineering rationale to these incredible costs because there isn't one.

We did Apollo nearly fifty years ago with technology that is hilariously primitive compared to what we have now, so the "space is hard" argument (always rather specious) rings ever more hollow. Space is hard, but it was far harder back then and we still managed to do it, from development to flight, in timespans of less than a decade.

[MarcAlain]

I have a question - where are all these costs coming from? How can this thing cost so much to develop, in particular the rocket itself? Is it the design itself, or are the companies involved trying to profit as much as possible?

Easy: staff. NASA staff, Lockmart staff, subcontractor staff, ESA staff, etc. As I mentioned upthread, the costs for Orion and SLS only make sense when you think of it in terms of keeping paychecks flowing to the various management, design, and fab centers for the system. (And to NASA centers, obviously.) Ten years' worth of well-paid aerospace jobs in lots of different states with congressmen to run political cover. NASA botched the Constellation project (underfunded though it was) and required a lifeline after cancellation to keep body and soul together until "the next big thing" came long. That "next big thing" hasn't come along yet, and may not come along for a good while. So: Orion and SLS are there to keep the welders welding and the programmers programming to keep the industrial base alive and to keep NASA's hand in the rocket-building game.

NASA wants to avoid closing one or more field centers. The big defense contractors want to avoid further painful layoffs as industry consolidation continues in an era of tight federal budgets. Congressmen want to keep high-paying aerospace jobs in their districts. You can't ask for an engineering rationale to these incredible costs because there isn't one.

We did Apollo nearly fifty years ago with technology that is hilariously primitive compared to what we have now, so the "space is hard" argument (always rather specious) rings ever more hollow. Space is hard, but it was far harder back then and we still managed to do it, from development to flight, in timespans of less than a decade.

That's what I had gathered.

In the future though, will it make sense to start over? Would that even be possible?

Are we stuck like this with NASA until someone comes along and sues them like SpaceX did for DOD launches? I guess that's outside the scope of this thread.

[whitelancer64]

$17B and "may slip" to 2023.

Can this capsule land on Mars?  No.  The parachutes are insufficient, no retro-propulsion.
Can this capsule return to Earth from Mars?  No, the heat-shield cannot handle the re-entry speed.  Nor is it rated to operate for 2 years on a mission.
Is this capsule intended for lunar missions?  No.  President says so.  NASA says so.  Congress says so.
Is this capsule intended for ISS?  No.  There are far cheaper spacecraft.
Is this capsule intended for Asteroid rendezvous?  It has no airlock, no arm, no un-pressurized cargo hold.

What are we doing??  Why are we doing this??

Nice strawman arguments. Nobody ever claimed Orion would land on Mars. Most missions would require the use of a mission-specific module, which would also be true of any other spacecraft going somewhere in deep space.

The baseline mission plans I've seen assume a maximum reentry speed of 12.4 km/s, so I think it is safe to assert that the Orion can handle reentry speeds at least up to 12.4 km/s, and yes, there are Mars return trajectories with reentry speeds less than 12.4 km/s.

It is an internet myth that the Orion cannot handle Mars return speeds. I have never seen this claim be substantiated anywhere.

Here's a NASA article stating 15 to 21 km/s for a Manned Mars mission return.  http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19660015097.pdf 

Consider that actual reentry heating will depend on the accuracy of the return vector and the weather (among other things), I think depending on a heat shield rated for 12.4 km/s Mars return is unlikely.  I also think it is unlikely Orion can be upgraded to handle a Mars mission, since the parachute system is incapable of handling much increased mass safely.

Yes, of course there are Mars-return trajectories with higher reentry speeds (these would also have faster Earth-Mars / Mars-Earth transit times as well), but these do not represent an absolute minimum speed limit. There are studies that consider return velocities between 11.5 km/s and 12.4 km/s.

www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Exploration/Cryogenic_Propulsive_Stage_Mission_Sensitivity_Studies_-_Low_Earth_Orbit_Departure.pdf

See pages 29-33.

[Jim]

Are we stuck like this with NASA until someone comes along and sues them like SpaceX did for DOD launches?

No, not the same thing.  Spacex doesn't have case to sue NASA.  NASA can operate its own vehicle (Orion) or it can procure crew transport services like Dragon or CST-100.  The DOD case was where Spacex wasn't allowed to compete for a block of launches.   NASA isn't preventing Spacex from doing anything.

[SLC17A5]

I had felt that SLS/Orion was a dead program walking, but this article has really cemented that belief.  I will be shocked if the first crewed launch takes place at all.  I also do not believe there is a possibility of reforming the process.  It will continue as long as Congress is allowed to task NASA to design and build rockets at public expense.

[Jim]

I had felt that SLS/Orion was a dead program walking,

See my posts from years ago

[PahTo]

I must say, I just popped in to this thread via the main NSF page (didn't have it on notify) and see the recent comments.  Ouch--how very disturbing and sad.  Granted, for years I too have been stating "SLS will only fly 2-4 times, if it flies at all", but to see some of the most knowledgeable and trusted (to me anyway) voices speak so bluntly brings it home that much harder.  Orion and SLS are tied at the hip, so one delayed means all delayed.  At this point my biggest and best hope is that Europa Clipper flies on SLS Block-1 (iCPS) before the whole thing is shut down (or that funding for HSF gets a boost, and the funds are well used--yeah, right...)

[MarcAlain]

Is it actually that bad of a rocket/capsule?

Say NASA somehow got some nice stuff funded - small lunar base to learn how to do stuff with, a station at the L2 point, and year long stays for 4-6 astronauts at said lunar base. Would the SLS be bad at that point?

Would another system be cheaper per actual flight, not considering this disastrous development costs?

Is there a world where the SLS is as beloved by our children (grandchildren for some of us) as we love the Saturn V?

[ThereIWas3]

Are we stuck like this with NASA until someone comes along and sues them like SpaceX did for DOD launches? I guess that's outside the scope of this thread.

What NASA really has to fear is something like the Truman Commitee in Congress.  Orion/SLS could not survive that, and neither could some NASA centers.

[PahTo]

Is it actually that bad of a rocket/capsule?

Say NASA somehow got some nice stuff funded - small lunar base to learn how to do stuff with, a station at the L2 point, and year long stays for 4-6 astronauts at said lunar base. Would the SLS be bad at that point?

Would another system be cheaper per actual flight, not considering this disastrous development costs?

Is there a world where the SLS is as beloved by our children (grandchildren for some of us) as we love the Saturn V?

So many questions, allow me to try to answer all by answering the last:

Booster:
SLS would be beloved if ATK brought the "advanced boosters" online in a timely fashion, and at 1/3 to 1/2 the current cost of the 5-seg, and with better performance.   As well, the Block 1B->Block II variant has re-useable main engine pod or the RS-25E comes online in a timely and affordable fashion.
Orion:
Orion is a 'tweener.  Not capable enough of going the long haul (interplanetary, or even moderate/large asteroids where they live), and way too much for LEO.  It makes sense if an EML2 way-point is established, and it makes the runs to and from (and to polar lunar orbit for a station at one or both lunar poles).

[MarcAlain]

the RS-25E comes online in a timely and affordable fashion.

How much cheaper is the RS-25E expected to be than inflation adjusted cost for the RS-25D?