Commercial HLV and R&D

[mlorrey]

I doubt SpaceX is acknowledging anything with their claim of wanting to build a S-HLV down the road. SpaceX isn't going to the Mars and the Moon, ...

You need to pay more attention to things Elon says. His intention with SpaceX is to put men on Mars... not today, not with F9, but his intention with founding SpaceX is to get human beings permanently off Earth and living someplace that could potentially be sustainable...

[clongton]

I'd really like to see that chart with the X axis re-based to "Kg launched per year" rather than "number of launches per year".

It would be interesting to set it up so that the y axis was cost and the x axis was total kg to LEO per year. I was looking at the chart again keeping the lift capacity of each rocket in mind and there appears to be a sweet spot of around 70mt to LEO in each class of vehicle. That looks to be true in the EELVs, In-line SDHLVs, and side mount SDHLVs. Anything lower or higher at a kg to LEO is more expensive. Perhaps with present technology that represents the most economical lift capacity for any HLV system.

The Jupiter-130 Performance:

Insertion Orbit.........................................30.0 x 100.0nmi, 29.0°
Payload w/ regular NASA GR&A's......171,596lb (77,835kg)
Payload w/ additional 10% Reserve...154,436lb (70,051kg)

Built commercially, it is the perfect HLV because
1. It hits the sweet spot for launch economy
2. At that rate provides the lowest kg to orbit cost
3. Can be fielded quickly
4. Reuses the existing (already paid for) manufacturing and launch infrastructure
5. Maintains all the Congressional support needed for long term viability by inheriting the Shuttle industrial base.

[jongoff]

If you want a new space station flying in 2025, you better start planning and funding development of it now... and there are no plans to do so.

To the degree there is such planning, it appears to be to buy or lease Bigelow modules. And those can be launched on current EELVs. If you want to make sure the ISS survives or is replaced by a new station, you had better not put an HLV on the critical path.

Didn't he choose to use Russian LVs instead ? That's how real non-subsidized 'commercial' business works.   

He initially chose Russian, but would really rather go with a domestic supplier.  He doesn't want to get stuck in the same situation as NASA currently is, where Russia is the only supplier, so they have NASA over the barrel as far as crew launch costs.  A large part of why Bigelow hasn't been moving faster is that he knows his business case doesn't close until he has at least one or two domestic crew/cargo launchers.  I'm sure he also wouldn't mind having someone like SpaceX succeed in developing a domestic launcher that can compete on price with foreign options like Proton.

~Jon

[jongoff]

I'd really like to see that chart with the X axis re-based to "Kg launched per year" rather than "number of launches per year".

It would be interesting to set it up so that the y axis was cost and the x axis was total kg to LEO per year. I was looking at the chart again keeping the lift capacity of each rocket in mind and there appears to be a sweet spot of around 70mt to LEO in each class of vehicle. That looks to be true in the EELVs, In-line SDHLVs, and side mount SDHLVs. Anything lower or higher at a kg to LEO is more expensive. Perhaps with present technology that represents the most economical lift capacity for any HLV system.

An important thing that is overlooked in all of this is that there are some reuse/refurbishment options for ELVs that start making sense once you start talking about more than a dozen flights per year.  While a full-up RLV doesn't usually make sense until you're up to 50 flights per year, most of the ELV providers have looked at ways to start reusing some parts once the flight rate goes up.  SpaceX has looked at water recovery of first stages (and possibly upper stages).  ULA has looked at recovering the propulsion section of Atlas V's using mid-air recovery.

Once you start getting up into the high flight rates, improvements like this start making economic sense, which changes the curve of the launch costs.  Those curve naively assume that the only effect of higher flight rate is the "learning curve" effect.  In reality, if you had demand for dozens of EELV flights per year, especially if a lot of them were propellants, you'd likely see all sorts of interesting things happen.

Once you factor in those sort of possibilities, it probably pulls the "sweet spot" down quite a bit.  I'm not willing to dismiss Jeff Greason's opinion about needing the ability to occasionally go up to 50mT, but I really doubt going much bigger makes as much economic sense as you're trying to claim.

~Jon

[clongton]

I'd really like to see that chart with the X axis re-based to "Kg launched per year" rather than "number of launches per year".

It would be interesting to set it up so that the y axis was cost and the x axis was total kg to LEO per year. I was looking at the chart again keeping the lift capacity of each rocket in mind and there appears to be a sweet spot of around 70mt to LEO in each class of vehicle. That looks to be true in the EELVs, In-line SDHLVs, and side mount SDHLVs. Anything lower or higher at a kg to LEO is more expensive. Perhaps with present technology that represents the most economical lift capacity for any HLV system.

An important thing that is overlooked in all of this is that there are some reuse/refurbishment options for ELVs that start making sense once you start talking about more than a dozen flights per year.  While a full-up RLV doesn't usually make sense until you're up to 50 flights per year, most of the ELV providers have looked at ways to start reusing some parts once the flight rate goes up.  SpaceX has looked at water recovery of first stages (and possibly upper stages).  ULA has looked at recovering the propulsion section of Atlas V's using mid-air recovery.

Once you start getting up into the high flight rates, improvements like this start making economic sense, which changes the curve of the launch costs.  Those curve naively assume that the only effect of higher flight rate is the "learning curve" effect.  In reality, if you had demand for dozens of EELV flights per year, especially if a lot of them were propellants, you'd likely see all sorts of interesting things happen.

Once you factor in those sort of possibilities, it probably pulls the "sweet spot" down quite a bit.  I'm not willing to dismiss Jeff Greason's opinion about needing the ability to occasionally go up to 50mT, but I really doubt going much bigger makes as much economic sense as you're trying to claim.

~Jon

Good morning Jon
The only thing worth considering recovery is the engines and I notice you didn't mention Delta. I assume that's because the nozzle is consumed during operation? As for either the Atlas or the Falcon, or even a commercial J-130 for that matter, I would wager that mass production for the kinds of flight rates you're talking would make recovery of spent engines marginally cost effective at best, leaving the curves pretty much where they are. And don't forget what John Shannon said: "Learned from SSME about life cycle costs. Reusability is a myth in my opinion because of the parts that have to be replaced and associated costs with keeping the supply chain in place to keep the engines maintained" http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2009/07/shuttle-derived-heavy-lift-veh.html. If you believe his statement to be inaccurate I'd be interested in why that is. Keeping that supply chain up and running is what would work against reuse  in this case, because mass producing the engines to maintain an expendable architecture is exactly what keeps the cost per unit down, making recovery and reuse marginal at best.

In any case you and I have both just expressed an opinion, without backup facts, as to the likely effect of recovering engines. On the other hand, the charts we produced have a mountain of data behind them, with far more data than even Mr Greason likely had available to him for the kind of statement he made, because quantifying that kind of data simply wasn't possible given the limitations imposed on the Augustine Commission. That wasn't in their charge, and our data is specific to the question. We have the data needed to back up what the charts have stated and therefore stand by the conclusions drawn. I will note however that as the flight rate increases in an expendable architecture that the per unit costs continue to drop. I just don't see how, without data to the contrary, that halting that price drop at some point well above where it might otherwise have gone in order to reuse the engine, saves any money at all. Produced in much lower quantities the per unit cost will be much higher than it might otherwise have been. And don't forget that the Shuttle SSME's were flown back to KSC for refurbishment and reuse by the Shuttle itself. For any expendable vehicle, the LV operator will have to incur the additional expense of going to recover them at sea.

[Robotbeat]

Chuck, with all due respect, if we never pursue reusability, we will never become a true spacefaring civilization. We will never colonize the solar system. And if that's true, what the heck is the point of manned spaceflight, anyways?

The analogy people make about throwing away an airplane every time it is reused is perfectly valid. There are a heck of a lot of jet airplanes produced every year, but the dry weight cost-per-kg is still about the same as the dry weight cost-per-kg of launch vehicles. Why would we expect human-rated launch vehicles to be any different?

The OMS engines need far less servicing between flights (and have a much higher thrust/weight ratio than most RCS thrusters) compared to the SSMEs, and the SSMEs have a lot of room for improvements to bring operational costs down. SSMEs don't "prove" that it's impossible to build a launch vehicle engine that doesn't require extensive maintenance between flights.

[Antares]

IMO, we must pursue technologies (including conceptual designs) that facilitate reusability, i.e. minimize recurring cost.  That was the problem with Shuttle.  We have reusable (or at least refurbishable) technologies.  We need to spend on making it cheaper to actually do so.  Technologies that are so robust that even gutless NASA managers will let them refly without an inspection.

However, let me stridently say that we are a long way from fielding another reusable architecture.

[clongton]

Robotbeat and Antares;
If you look closer at what I said, I was speaking specifically about reusing the engines. I agree that we will need to eventually (re)develop a reusable system but not at the expense of shutting down manned spaceflight in the interim while we do the R&D. Shuttle operations have taught us that while reusability is certainly possible, as John Shannon pointed out at the current state of technology it doesn't make sense. It is less expensive to use expendables *at this time*. At the current and foreseeable flight rates, reusable systems are just too expensive.

The comparison to throwing away an airplane is appropriate *IF* you include the state of current technology. The hard fact is that this time it is more economical to throw away the airplane and until someone finds a way to change that equation that is what we will continue to do.

I too want to see fully reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft; I really do. But until someone can make a good economic case for them in lieu of expendables I'd rather spend my money on what actually works for the least cost - expendables.

Sorry - just being cold practical.

[Namechange User]

The OMS engines need far less servicing between flights (and have a much higher thrust/weight ratio than most RCS thrusters) compared to the SSMEs, and the SSMEs have a lot of room for improvements to bring operational costs down. SSMEs don't "prove" that it's impossible to build a launch vehicle engine that doesn't require extensive maintenance between flights.

OMS engines:  bi-prop pressure-fed hyper engine producing about 6000 lb thrust that operates in only near vac or greater conditions
RCS thrusters:  bi-prop pressure-fed hyper engine producing ether 870 lb thrust or 25 lb thrust that operates in only near vac or greater conditions
SSME:  LH2/LOX high pressure turbo pump engine producing about 300,000 lb thrust and operating from sea-level to vacuum

Not sure it was a valid comparison.

[docmordrid]

He initially chose Russian, but would really rather go with a domestic supplier.  He doesn't want to get stuck in the same situation as NASA currently is, where Russia is the only supplier......

~Jon

Part of the reason, but the larger issue was dealing with the US State Dept. over ITAR issues.  Like the IRS on steroids according to his recent interviews.

[butters]

I too want to see fully reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft; I really do. But until someone can make a good economic case for them in lieu of expendables I'd rather spend my money on what actually works for the least cost - expendables.

I'd argue that the technical and economic case exists for fully reusable spacecraft if not yet also for fully reusable launch vehicles.  For example, there's no reason why something roughly along the lines of Dream Chaser can't be operated economically at the current state of the art.

If we had designed Shuttle to be a fully reusable crew spacecraft rather than a partially reusable launch system, I suspect we'd have come away with a much more positive impression of reusability, even given the limitations of 70s technology.

[clongton]

I too want to see fully reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft; I really do. But until someone can make a good economic case for them in lieu of expendables I'd rather spend my money on what actually works for the least cost - expendables.

I'd argue that the technical and economic case exists for fully reusable spacecraft if not yet also for fully reusable launch vehicles.  For example, there's no reason why something roughly along the lines of Dream Chaser can't be operated economically at the current state of the art.

If we had designed Shuttle to be a fully reusable crew spacecraft rather than a partially reusable launch system, I suspect we'd have come away with a much more positive impression of reusability, even given the limitations of 70s technology.

When Shuttle was designed it used state-of-the-art technology. The so-called "limitations" of 1970's technology was nothing of the kind. In the 1970's that technology was pushing the envelope of what was possible. It *was* state of the art.

If you are constantly playing armchair quarterback by imposing 30-year in the future technology on today's capabilities you will never go anywhere. You will instead be always waiting for the next great breakthrough before you bend metal. At some point you have to just go with what you have and build it, knowing that technology doesn't stand still.

Shuttle could *not* have built with better technology than what was used. There wasn't anything better.

[butters]

I absolutely agree that Shuttle was state of the art (at least) for its time.  This is 2010, and the state of the art has made some progress. 

But we've also learned some conceptual lessons from Shuttle, and I think that in hindsight, we could have designed a fully reusable crew spacecraft that was economical to operate using the technology that was available to the Shuttle designers at the time.

We made some conceptual mistakes and some political compromises that led to a design that was overly ambitious in misdirected ways.  But the technology was there in the mid-70s to make it work, and the technology is certainly here today to make it work well.

To argue that the technology does not yet exist to develop an economically reusable crew vehicle, even one that launches on expendable launch vehicles is, in my view, a stunningly pessimistic position.

I have no doubt that we could do that.  We just aimed for a substantially more ambitious goal than that with Shuttle and bit off slightly more than we could chew.

[docmordrid]

Primary misconception: sidesaddle launch with such a fragile TPS

Secondary misconception: launching a 100 ton spacecraft to deliver a telescope (satellite, whatever) to orbit with less than a quarter that mass

Avoided like the plague: KISS

[dad2059]

If you want a new space station flying in 2025, you better start planning and funding development of it now... and there are no plans to do so.

To the degree there is such planning, it appears to be to buy or lease Bigelow modules. And those can be launched on current EELVs. If you want to make sure the ISS survives or is replaced by a new station, you had better not put an HLV on the critical path.

Didn't he choose to use Russian LVs instead ? That's how real non-subsidized 'commercial' business works.   

He initially chose Russian, but would really rather go with a domestic supplier.  He doesn't want to get stuck in the same situation as NASA currently is, where Russia is the only supplier, so they have NASA over the barrel as far as crew launch costs.  A large part of why Bigelow hasn't been moving faster is that he knows his business case doesn't close until he has at least one or two domestic crew/cargo launchers.  I'm sure he also wouldn't mind having someone like SpaceX succeed in developing a domestic launcher that can compete on price with foreign options like Proton.

~Jon

Bigelow got tired of State Department b.s. and red tape that went along with using Russian rockets. That's why he would prefer to use American launchers.

[Serafeim]

  Chuck, with all due respect, if we never pursue reusability, we will never become a true spacefaring civilization. We will never colonize the solar system. And if that's true, what the heck is the point of manned spaceflight, anyways?

The analogy people make about throwing away an airplane every time it is reused is perfectly valid. There are a heck of a lot of jet airplanes produced every year, but the dry weight cost-per-kg is still about the same as the dry weight cost-per-kg of launch vehicles. Why would we expect human-rated launch vehicles to be any different?

but with chemical propelled rockets we cannot have true reusability.
The fuel  an Jet plane is carrying is 80% of its mass?No.

So for equal fuel ratio we need electric  propulsion,with nuclrear fission,fusion or antimatter reactors..

and this ia mainly for Earth launch.If we canot end this 80% fuel of a rocket to launch from earth we cannot be space faring civillization..

and earth to space launch is what is making space flight so expensive ...

a solution for that nasa also know for the future is the space elevator and after that high energy reactors,maybe antimatter..

[docmordrid]

Superconducting turboelectric drive systems are a possibility for flyback launchers, which IMO is a direction we should have gone with or without turboelectric drives.

[Serafeim]

what is that?is an electric propulsion?
sorry but I dont know it..

[Robotbeat]

  Chuck, with all due respect, if we never pursue reusability, we will never become a true spacefaring civilization. We will never colonize the solar system. And if that's true, what the heck is the point of manned spaceflight, anyways?

The analogy people make about throwing away an airplane every time it is reused is perfectly valid. There are a heck of a lot of jet airplanes produced every year, but the dry weight cost-per-kg is still about the same as the dry weight cost-per-kg of launch vehicles. Why would we expect human-rated launch vehicles to be any different?

but with chemical propelled rockets we cannot have true reusability.
The fuel  an Jet plane is carrying is 80% of its mass?No.

So for equal fuel ratio we need electric  propulsion,with nuclrear fission,fusion or antimatter reactors..

and this ia mainly for Earth launch.If we canot end this 80% fuel of a rocket to launch from earth we cannot be space faring civillization..

and earth to space launch is what is making space flight so expensive ...

a solution for that nasa also know for the future is the space elevator and after that high energy reactors,maybe antimatter..

Jets like the 747 usually have a mass ratio of 2:1 for long-duration flights, not 5:1.

It's not the fuel costs which are keeping us from becoming spacefaring. Fuel costs are "an accounting error." If fuel costs ever become the predominant cost for putting stuff into orbit, we will have reduced the costs by two orders of magnitude. That's enough (on the launch vehicle side of the problem... there are many other difficulties) to enable colonization and utilization of space.

[mmeijeri]

Propellant costs will probably still be enough to keep you and me out of orbit though. Unless fusion reactors become a reality in our lifetime and reduce energy costs dramatically as they might.