Augustine Commission Public Teleconference - Oct 8, 09

[Jim]

...
FWIW, I agree with Bo about seperate 'mission' and 'archetecture' safety assessment is necessary.  How safe any given mission would be must be necessarily affected by the suitability and reliability of the vehicle.  That said, safety is really on roughly equal footing with cost, IMHO.  It doesn't matter if your rocket has a 1:1400 LOC rate if you can't afford it, after all.
...

NASA put their launch vehicle requirement at 1:1000 or better.  If the other factors in a mission give an overall rating of 1:100 or 1:20, then it makes no significant difference whether the LV is 1:1100 or 1:2000 or 1:10000000000. The effect on the mission rating is lost in the noise.

Yes but a lot of these risks increase because we have not done it often and the more missions we fly to the moon, the less risky it becomes. It's also a matter of how many times, we have done it and not just the fact that we are going further into space.

And its a whole lot easier to do so if you aren't blowing $40B on making a vehicle that in the best perfect theoretical world only improves mission crew safety by 0.1%.

~Jon

Bingo, that is the whole crux of the matter.  Ares I (32 billion) is not worth the 0.1%

[Jim]

The problem is that NASA is staring itself blind on the whole "crew separate from cargo".

It is a policy that will ultimately result in the death of NASA spaceflight - for budget reasons.

Cargo is define as mass not related to mission, ie  a comsat.  Another manned spacecraft (lunar lander) or some important ISS logistics are not "cargo".  But ISS logistics items such Tang, toilet paper and tee shirt (low value) are included as  "cargo",

[Lars_J]

The problem is that NASA is staring itself blind on the whole "crew separate from cargo".

It is a policy that will ultimately result in the death of NASA spaceflight - for budget reasons.

Cargo is define as mass not related to mission, ie  a comsat.  Another manned spacecraft (lunar lander) or some important ISS logistics are not "cargo".  But ISS logistics items such Tang, toilet paper and tee shirt (low value) are included as  "cargo",

I agree... but Ares I appears to be specifically designed to do absolutely minimal 'cargo'. (or logistics) It is taking the "crew separate from cargo" to the extreme - which is the core belief behind the "1.5 launch" philosophy/fallacy.

[Jim]

I agree... but Ares I appears to be specifically designed to do absolutely minimal 'cargo'. (or logistics) It is taking the "crew separate from cargo" to the extreme - which is the core belief behind the "1.5 launch" philosophy/fallacy.

Orion is to carry around 500lb logistics.

[SimonFD]

The problem is that NASA is staring itself blind on the whole "crew separate from cargo".

It is a policy that will ultimately result in the death of NASA spaceflight - for budget reasons.

Cargo is define as mass not related to mission, ie  a comsat.  Another manned spacecraft (lunar lander) or some important ISS logistics are not "cargo".  But ISS logistics items such Tang, toilet paper and tee shirt (low value) are included as  "cargo",

I agree... but Ares I appears to be specifically designed to do absolutely minimal 'cargo'. (or logistics) It is taking the "crew separate from cargo" to the extreme - which is the core belief behind the "1.5 launch" philosophy/fallacy.

I don't think the 1.5 launch idea is a bad one, just one that suffered/suffers from an (apparently) poorly thought out starting point (SSME's that can't /won't restart) and underfunding. As Ross has pointed out many times over the last few months/years -  you need lots of cash to develop two new (ish) vehicles. The promised extra $ never turned up.
One vehicle launched twice should have been the baseline but only if you hadn't been promised the cash to do the job at the inception.

[savuporo]

Show me one lift vehicle other than the Shuttle that is human rated and exists anywhere but on paper. The term "paper rocket" is meaningless.

Most any of the operational launchers are "human rated". The term "human rated" is meaningless.

[SpacexULA]

Bingo, that is the whole crux of the matter.  Ares I (32 billion) is not worth the 0.1%

And that is the reason we all love Jim

"I am sorry mam, your son can not have the 5 million dollar surgery to save his life.  If he lives 80 more years and makes 50k a year, he will never earn enough to pay it back" , reaches over, unplugs the cord, sips his coffee, and walks out of the room.

[Scotty]

Two comments:

First, The Roger's Commision ever stated that Crew can not fly with Cargo.
What was said, Crew should not be flown with Cargo, if the crew does not add something very valuable to the mission.
Examples, flying a module to the space station or a Hubble servicing flight, where EVA is required to do the mission.
On the other hand, crew should not be and needs not be present just to place payload into orbit, as was being done with many pre Challenger Shuttle flights.

Second, NASA is not open with data on "problems" as was stated earlier in this thread.
In reality, NASA is hiding as much data as possible concerning problems with Ares I.
I work directly with Ares I, and I along with many other posters here, have access to tons of internal documentation to prove such.
But we can not post any of it, as the documents are classified as ITAR.
I have no desire to prove NASA is hiding data that is harmful to Ares I, by exposing myself to legal action.

[93143]

But wasn't it the point to seperate crew from cargo that resulted in Ares-1?

a)  We've discussed this on here before - it doesn't make any sense to be so absolute about it.  Sending up crew with a pure cargo launch, as with STS-51L, is stupid because the crew didn't need to take the risk; they could have stayed on the ground and let an unmanned launcher do the job.  Sending up crew without an escape mechanism, like with STS, is suboptimal because if something goes wrong, they're screwed.  But if they've got to get up there anyway and they have a LAS, the presence of cargo on the same flight is largely irrelevant.

b) No.  Delta IV Heavy with RS-68A could launch Orion easily, with no black zones, without requiring the draconian mass scrubs Ares I needs, and without relying on Atlas V's Russian main engine.  And if it had been chosen in 2005 it would probably be ready by now.

And you said that Ares-1 is so bad. Do you really think NASA managment is totally incompetent not seeing the *as you say* amazing DIRECT design???

[impolitic_rant] ESAS was not a fair and even-handed analysis (not that it could have been anyway with only 60 days); it was skewed to favour Mike Griffin's personal pet rocket system (Ares).  The leaked Appendix 6 pretty much proves this (never mind the fact that it had to be leaked in the first place; NASA stonewalled for years in the face of repeated Freedom of Information Act requests).  Ever since then, CxP management has been acting blindly political, even going so far as to deliberately distort the facts in order to make DIRECT look bad (see their analysis of DIRECT 2.0 and the DIRECT team's rebuttal, not to mention the faulty engine data that led to the DIRECT team giving up on v1.0).

DIRECT isn't so much amazing as it is common sense.  NASA has come up with it before, multiple times, but they've never had the budget to do it before now.  Yes, something like Jupiter (though not as well optimized) was in ESAS.  Why did Ares I and V come out ahead?  Because the criteria were skewed to produce a certain result, and when data didn't support the desired result, it was ignored (see blackzones on the EELVs, or the otherwise-inexplicable max-Q waiver for the single-stick SRB booster).

Ares V wasn't a bad design.  It was basically a Jupiter-252SH (Stretched Heavy), in the DIRECT team's nomenclature.  Pairing it with the ill-conceived Ares I caused all the problems and started it on the road to the current Godzilla VII.  (Please note that the original ESAS design choice could not do the ESAS lunar mission, so there IS in fact a problem with the 1.5-launch idea...)

Ares I was always a marginal design.  Engineering issues like thrust oscillation were ignored when they shouldn't have been, so the mass impact of mitigation was unexpected.  Switching the upper stage from SSME to J-2X probably killed Ares I's viability; the extra booster segment doesn't quite make up for the loss.  Trying to make the capsule too big to go on an EELV made it far too big to go on Ares I, with the result that LM at one point actually issued an official "F off" to NASA regarding the continual mass scrubs required due to declining Ares I performance.  They've scrubbed land landing capability, radiation shielding, dual-fault tolerance, a good amount of drinking water, the toilet, the reserve batteries, the high-gain antenna, the 6-crew requirement...  they had to nerf the Service Module, which by the way has to function as a third stage to even get the capsule into orbit, and THEN it still has to do two more burns to get up to the ISS phasing orbit - no, this is not a lunar-capable Orion; Ares I can't launch a lunar-capable Orion.  And now they're talking about trying to make the capsule out of composites...[/impolitic_rant]

NASA has gone public with all it's (big and small) problems since Columbia. Seeing this, i can't beleave that NASA is closing her eyes regarding nothing else than the future of human space flight.

That's the Space Shuttle Program.  They're good; they're not the problem.  The problem is the Constellation Program, specifically the management thereof.

Even Mr. Augustine thinks that there are better ways than DIRECT. (flexible Path....)

He had 90 days and was in a huge hurry.  The panel didn't even consider DIRECT as a plan.  They just took the Jupiter-241 as a potential rocket design (costs and performance basically confirmed by Aerospace), ignored the J-130 for unknown reasons, and assumed for the sake of argument and due to lack of time that J-241 was the same as NSC, which it isn't.

Also, you're mixing up the rocket and the exploration vision.  The committee's apparent preference for the "Flexible Path" option (which is explicitly stated to be executable with the Jupiter-241) does not constitute a criticism of the Jupiter launch vehicle.

[robertross]

Bingo, that is the whole crux of the matter.  Ares I (32 billion) is not worth the 0.1%

And that is the reason we all love Jim

"I am sorry mam, your son can not have the 5 million dollar surgery to save his life.  If he lives 80 more years and makes 50k a year, he will never earn enough to pay it back" , reaches over, unplugs the cord, sips his coffee, and walks out of the room.

That's a totally different scenario, so hardly a valid comparison.

Ares-I doesn't live yet, so pulling the plug has no effect except re-arrangement of staff, contract decisions, and choosing a better rocket.

If Ares-I had flown maybe 5 flights, costing $1B amortized/flight, then pulling the plug for an existing $300-400M rocket makes sense.

[Danny Dot]

The Ares data isn't just ITAR, it is Sensitive But Unclassified as it should be to not expose criminal conduct.  Yes that is right, all data that exposes any criminal conduct must not be exposed to any one for any reason at NASA or you will be fired. 

And it doesn't matter if Ares I won the sellection during ESAS, ULA had to be allowed to bid - especially for cost data.  I can't say in strong enough words cost estimates ALWAYS come from the contractor.  Doing internal cost estimates without a bid then letting a sole source contract is a felony under Federal Acquisision Regs.

Danny Deger

[Analyst]

Bingo, that is the whole crux of the matter.  Ares I (32 billion) is not worth the 0.1%

And that is the reason we all love Jim

"I am sorry mam, your son can not have the 5 million dollar surgery to save his life.  If he lives 80 more years and makes 50k a year, he will never earn enough to pay it back" , reaches over, unplugs the cord, sips his coffee, and walks out of the room.

Isn't this reality in the US health care system for decades now?! And half of the population does not care, and part of the other half is lukewarm about a better health care system. Mostly because - surprise - it does cost money to live healthier and longer.

So $40 billion for the "safest rocket ever" - flown by a dozen people each year are worth it - but a decent health care system for 300 million people is not?

Analyst

PS: No, I don't want to discuss health care. Just putting things into perspective.

[mmeijeri]

But they figure that these issues can be fixed with enough time and money which is a fair assesment in my opinion.

Perhaps, but it totally demolishes the argument that Ares I is clearly the safest launcher possible. It isn't clear at all.

[klausd]

@93143

Thanks for your post!

I really can understand you. 

Just 2 things you have missed: the 6-crew requirement was never required for lunar missions. And for these missions, Ares will bring orion to a lower inclination which will result in up to 3 tons more payload for Ares-1 loaded with the moon version of orion.

But we will see what's going to happen soon. And i really don't want the end of hsf!

[Ben the Space Brit]

Maybe it was me but Bo's comment at the end of the teleconference about 'at least being heard' seems to have carried a lot of frustration.  At times during the public hearings he seems to have been doing nothing but fighting the PoR's corner against all-comers.

Speculation: His frustration comes from the likelihood that PoR and Ares-I are both going to be conspicuous in their absence from the final report aside from their starring appearance in a section titled: "PoR Baseline for Comparison (Not Viable)".  I also think that the note that he requested to the effect that Ares-I is the safest CLV might be loaded down with disclaimers about 'simulated results' and 'intended design goals'.

Just 2 things you have missed: the 6-crew requirement was never required for lunar missions.

(Slight OT - Pray pardon my transgression)

I might be wrong, but I think that the six-crew requirement originates from a Mars crew return mission profile.  An Orion with one pilot is launched to rendezvous with a returning MTV beyond LEO to recover the crew of five.  Hence you have the six-seat requirement.  Once again, we were reminded that Ares-I and Ares-V were originally intended for Dr. Griffin's vision of a Mars HSF program.

IMHO, six crew is a nice round number for general LEO orbital maintenance missions.  You thus have two two-man EVA teams that you can rotate during the mission, plus a pilot and a flight engineer (the latter to operate the RMS).  You could also theoretically use Orion as a one-vehicle lifeboat for a full six-man ISS crew.  I'm pretty sure that this latter requirement is what is driving Roscosmos to specify six crew for their Soyuz replacement.

[Analyst]

1) I might be wrong, but I think that the six-crew requirement originates from a Mars crew return mission profile.

2) An Orion with one pilot is launched to rendezvous with a returning MTV beyond LEO to recover the crew of five.

3) Hence you have the six-seat requirement.  Once again, we were reminded that Ares-I and Ares-V were originally intended for Dr. Griffin's vision of a Mars HSF program.

4) IMHO, six crew is a nice round number for general LEO orbital maintenance missions.  You thus have two two-man EVA teams that you can rotate during the mission, plus a pilot and a flight engineer (the latter to operate the RMS).

5)You could also theoretically use Orion as a one-vehicle lifeboat for a full six-man ISS crew.  I'm pretty sure that this latter requirement is what is driving Roscosmos to specify six crew for their Soyuz replacement.

1) Correct, they designed everything "backwards" from Mars requirements (Something really stupid given the budget reality.).

2) Wrong. No delta v. Orion goes all the way to Mars and back.

3) Yes, see 1).

4) True for Shuttle. For Orion, without missions modules which are a pie in the sky: No so much.

5) Yes.

Isn't Orion down to a crew of four currently?

Analyst

[mmeijeri]

At times during the public hearings he seems to have been doing nothing but fighting the PoR's corner against all-comers.

Hardly surprising since he was chair of the Constellation Standing Review Board. The findings of the committee will likely lead to the obvious but unspoken conclusion he wasn't doing a good job.

[Jim]

Bingo, that is the whole crux of the matter.  Ares I (32 billion) is not worth the 0.1%

And that is the reason we all love Jim

"I am sorry mam, your son can not have the 5 million dollar surgery to save his life.  If he lives 80 more years and makes 50k a year, he will never earn enough to pay it back" , reaches over, unplugs the cord, sips his coffee, and walks out of the room.

The FAA for requiring an aircraft mod is much less.

Also there can be an escape system on EELV's

[Matthew Raymond]

I just don't see there being enough payloads to justify the development costs.

That's my point - If you're going to develop the JUS anyway, you should be able to get the smaller-diameter ACES stage much cheaper than if you had to develop it from scratch.  Which is apparently something ULA wants to do anyway, but can't quite justify based on current markets...  The JUS contract could tip the balance.  After all, the ACES-41 would be a far better EELV upper stage than the Centaur or DHCUS, and once you've got it, you've got it.

In addition, if a JUS-based depot needs filling, you could use an ACES-71 to do that...

   Well, the depot filling thing makes some sense. I'd like to point out, however, that building the JUS only would encourage ULA to build the larger rockets it keep promising to build, whereas the ACES-41 and -71 are really designed to minimize the rocket development needed for a moon-capable upper stage. It wouldn't surprise me if they build one of the ACES stages on their own (but not both) if JUS gets built.

Show me one lift vehicle other than the Shuttle that is human rated and exists anywhere but on paper. The term "paper rocket" is meaningless.

Most any of the operational launchers are "human rated". The term "human rated" is meaningless.

Not so. First of all, manned launch vehicles need instrumentation on all systems for two reasons:

1) NASA needs a steady stream of data for mission operations, and later for mission analysis to see what worked and what needs to be changed.

2) The LAS needs to know when something has gone wrong to trigger an emergency auto-abort.

Secondly, systems need to be specifically designed with crew safety in mind. Excessive G forces and thrust oscillations are examples of things you want to be sure you design out of your rocket before you put people on it.

   Just because there isn't literally an official "rating" for human space flight doesn't mean that there aren't certain things that need to be done to prepare a lift vehicle for manned missions. I personally think that NASA should create a set of official "human rating" guidelines so that we can put this silly argument to rest.

[Jim]

Not so. First of all, manned launch vehicles need instrumentation on all systems for two reasons:

1) NASA needs a steady stream of data for mission operations, and later for mission analysis to see what worked and what needs to be changed.

2) The LAS needs to know when something has gone wrong to trigger an emergency auto-abort.

Secondly, systems need to be specifically designed with crew safety in mind. Excessive G forces and thrust oscillations are examples of things you want to be sure you design out of your rocket before you put people on it.

3.    Just because there isn't literally an official "rating" for human space flight doesn't mean that there aren't certain things that need to be done to prepare a lift vehicle for manned missions. I personally think that NASA should create a set of official "human rating" guidelines so that we can put this silly argument to rest.

1.  That already exists for ELV's

2.  That is a given

3.  NASA does have a a set of official "human rating" guidelines document.  It is bogus.  Ares I couldn't meet it and it was revised.