Commercial HLV and R&D

[clongton]

Exploration doesn't need HLV.

OMG. Administrator Charles Bolden just lied (according to you) to the entire staff at JSC. He said the we *need* a heavy lift.

[jongoff]

Exploration doesn't need HLV.

OMG. Administrator Charles Bolden just lied (according to you) to the entire staff at JSC. He said the we *need* a heavy lift.

Or there could be a difference of opinion--especially regarding what constitutes Heavy Lift.  Jeff Greason laid out some more details of his opinion over on Rand Simberg's site yesterday.  His case for something a step up from the current EELVs (ie a Phase 1 or *maybe* Phase 2 design with a 6.5 or 7.5m fairing) was pretty reasonable.  But that's not what many people think of when they hear HLVs...It's quite possible to disagree with someone without accusing them of being a liar.  Calm down a bit Chuck.

~Jon

[Serafeim]

heavy lift is I think somethink 50t and above.
Bolden said that has talks with the Congress and industry in order to curve  out some technologies from constellation in order to build the hlv.
Its smelling Direct a little..

[robertross]

Exploration doesn't need HLV.

OMG. Administrator Charles Bolden just lied (according to you) to the entire staff at JSC. He said the we *need* a heavy lift.

Yeah, and he also said we don't have Heavy Lift now because the shuttle can't go to the moon or asteroids.

(sorry chuck, just playing fair) 

[notsorandom]

I think its quite likely that when Administrator Bolden was talking about heavy lift he was using it in the common usage and not Jeff Greason's. I think that when most in the industry are polled on the subject that the definition falls into the over 70 mt range perhaps higher. Its really an issue of semantics though since there is no official definition. Back in the Saturn I days it was considered to be heavy lift with a payload of less then 10 mt.

There seem to be a few options for heavy lift rockets (<70mt) Commercial SD HLV, Atlas, and Delta. Can anyone give some budget numbers on these options?

I did a little digging myself and came up with these numbers. On another thread neilh posted some Atlas upgrade costs. I added them up and got a program cost of $8.3 Billion for a rocket capable of 74mt and $17.3 Billion to develop a 135 mt rocket. It looks like the recurring cost is $1.25 Billion per 135 mt flight and $0.625 Billion per 74mt flight. Ross Tierney gave the figures of $12 Billion program (100mt) cost and $240 million per flight. I haven't been able to find any figures for Delta.

[Pheogh]

I think its quite likely that when Administrator Bolden was talking about heavy lift he was using it in the common usage and not Jeff Greason's. I think that when most in the industry are polled on the subject that the definition falls into the over 70 mt range perhaps higher. Its really an issue of semantics though since there is no official definition. Back in the Saturn I days it was considered to be heavy lift with a payload of less then 10 mt.

There seem to be a few options for heavy lift rockets (<70mt) Commercial SD HLV, Atlas, and Delta. Can anyone give some budget numbers on these options?

I did a little digging myself and came up with these numbers. On another thread neilh posted some Atlas upgrade costs. I added them up and got a program cost of $8.3 Billion for a rocket capable of 74mt and $17.3 Billion to develop a 135 mt rocket. It looks like the recurring cost is $1.25 Billion per 135 mt flight and $0.625 Billion per 74mt flight. Ross Tierney gave the figures of $12 Billion program (100mt) cost and $240 million per flight. I haven't been able to find any figures for Delta.

Don't forget to compare extensibility as well. This includes fairing size and growth options. If you are comparing an entry level vehicle to a max-ed out vehicle its not exactly an apple's to apple's comparison. Especially if you throw into the mix development schedule.

[MP99]

Exploration doesn't need HLV.

OMG. Administrator Charles Bolden just lied (according to you) to the entire staff at JSC. He said the we *need* a heavy lift.

Or there could be a difference of opinion--especially regarding what constitutes Heavy Lift.  Jeff Greason laid out some more details of his opinion over on Rand Simberg's site yesterday.  His case for something a step up from the current EELVs (ie a Phase 1 or *maybe* Phase 2 design with a 6.5 or 7.5m fairing) was pretty reasonable.  But that's not what many people think of when they hear HLVs...It's quite possible to disagree with someone without accusing them of being a liar.  Calm down a bit Chuck.

~Jon

When JSC thinks "heavy lift", I don't think 40mT is what comes to mind.

Martin

[infocat13]

heavy lift is I think somethink 50t and above.
Bolden said that has talks with the Congress and industry in order to curve  out some technologies from constellation in order to build the hlv.
Its smelling Direct a little..

the Augustine Commission said, "thall shall not mixeth the methods for buying small chariots and large chariots but use the same methods.IE if you buy crew EELV then heavy lift should be EELV derived."Commercial" HLV to me smells like EELV heavy lift. A Aerospace corporation paper depicts a ET core surrounded by 6 to 7 Delta IV CBC's but I have a hard time calling this monster "commercial"

[notsorandom]

Don't forget to compare extensibility as well. This includes fairing size and growth options. If you are comparing an entry level vehicle to a max-ed out vehicle its not exactly an apple's to apple's comparison. Especially if you throw into the mix development schedule.

Very good point Pheogh! There are also other things to consider besides cost. Things like development time, scalability, and reliability matter. From what the Direct team had said the SD HLV is the quickest to get into operation. With Chris Bergin's recent article about MAF and left over Shuttle parts indicating that testing could begin in 2012. So I will extend the questions about budget in my previous post to include IOC dates of the Atlas and Delta HLVs. I'm full of questions today

[infocat13]

Don't forget to compare extensibility as well. This includes fairing size and growth options. If you are comparing an entry level vehicle to a max-ed out vehicle its not exactly an apple's to apple's comparison. Especially if you throw into the mix development schedule.

Very good point Pheogh! There are also other things to consider besides cost. Things like development time, scalability, and reliability matter. From what the Direct team had said the SD HLV is the quickest to get into operation. With Chris Bergin's recent article about MAF and left over Shuttle parts indicating that testing could begin in 2012. So I will extend the questions about budget in my previous post to include IOC dates of the Atlas and Delta HLVs. I'm full of questions today

IOC dates for Delta IV,please see figure 14 on page 43 of the attached document ( page 56 on the PDF)
however what would be the IOC on a smaller EELV with a Orion lite? These represent various versions of the Delta IV heavy and these are explained on table 3

[clongton]

Exploration doesn't need HLV.

OMG. Administrator Charles Bolden just lied (according to you) to the entire staff at JSC. He said the we *need* a heavy lift.

Or there could be a difference of opinion--especially regarding what constitutes Heavy Lift.  Jeff Greason laid out some more details of his opinion over on Rand Simberg's site yesterday.  His case for something a step up from the current EELVs (ie a Phase 1 or *maybe* Phase 2 design with a 6.5 or 7.5m fairing) was pretty reasonable.  But that's not what many people think of when they hear HLVs...It's quite possible to disagree with someone without accusing them of being a liar.  Calm down a bit Chuck.

~Jon

When JSC thinks "heavy lift", I don't think 40mT is what comes to mind.

Martin

I've said this before but it was a while back so I'll repeat.
Back in the day when I was working the F-1A program, the Saturn-V was considered the standard for heavy lift. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I heard "100 tons" and "heavy lift" used in the same sentence. The general consensis was that "heavy lift" was "in the neighborhood of 100 tons". Anything significantly less than that was not heavy lift. There never was any official definition. I don't think it ever occurred to any of us back then that folks would ever be squabbling about something so fundamental. "Heavy Lift" and "100 Tons" is synonymous.

[Lee Jay]

Yeah, well, naming is pretty nebulous in many cases.  Let's take "high voltage".

To a safety officer, "high voltage" is anything above 50V.
To an average person, "high voltage" is 120V and up.
To an average engineer, "high voltage" is anything over 480V.
To a power engineer, "high voltage" starts above 34,500V (usually 69,000V).

[clongton]

These were guys that designed and built the engines that powered the Saturn-V. Some of them had worked directly with Von Braun. I would take their definition any day over anybody elses that had never done such a monumental thing. In this case I don't think it's nebulous at all; it's well founded. The term was invented by them. They are the ones that get to define it; not you or me. We can only learn from them.

[jongoff]

Exploration doesn't need HLV.

OMG. Administrator Charles Bolden just lied (according to you) to the entire staff at JSC. He said the we *need* a heavy lift.

Or there could be a difference of opinion--especially regarding what constitutes Heavy Lift.  Jeff Greason laid out some more details of his opinion over on Rand Simberg's site yesterday.  His case for something a step up from the current EELVs (ie a Phase 1 or *maybe* Phase 2 design with a 6.5 or 7.5m fairing) was pretty reasonable.  But that's not what many people think of when they hear HLVs...It's quite possible to disagree with someone without accusing them of being a liar.  Calm down a bit Chuck.

~Jon

When JSC thinks "heavy lift", I don't think 40mT is what comes to mind.

Martin

I've said this before but it was a while back so I'll repeat.
Back in the day when I was working the F-1A program, the Saturn-V was considered the standard for heavy lift. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I heard "100 tons" and "heavy lift" used in the same sentence. The general consensis was that "heavy lift" was "in the neighborhood of 100 tons". Anything significantly less than that was not heavy lift. There never was any official definition. I don't think it ever occurred to any of us back then that folks would ever be squabbling about something so fundamental. "Heavy Lift" and "100 Tons" is synonymous.

Chuck, you're trying to have it both ways.  The Augustine Committee specifically said that when they said "HLVs are necessary for robust exploration", they meant HLVs to mean "vehicles at least 40-50mT with fairings of at least 6.5-7.5m diameter".  You can't take their "HLVs are necessary" comment out of context of their definition of HLVs.  What they were saying in effect is that "vehicles with payloads in the 40-50mT range and 6.5-7.5m fairing diameter range are necessary for robust exploration".  If that doesn't qualify as HLVs to you, that's fine, but you can't just turn around and accuse Martijn of calling Bolden a liar.

If a vehicle in the 40-50mT range in your opinion isn't Heavy Lift, then the A-com didn't say Heavy Lift is required for robust exploration.

~Jon

[Namechange User]

Chuck, you're trying to have it both ways.  The Augustine Committee specifically said that when they said "HLVs are necessary for robust exploration", they meant HLVs to mean "vehicles at least 40-50mT with fairings of at least 6.5-7.5m diameter".  You can't take their "HLVs are necessary" comment out of context of their definition of HLVs.  What they were saying in effect is that "vehicles with payloads in the 40-50mT range and 6.5-7.5m fairing diameter range are necessary for robust exploration".  If that doesn't qualify as HLVs to you, that's fine, but you can't just turn around and accuse Martijn of calling Bolden a liar.

If a vehicle in the 40-50mT range in your opinion isn't Heavy Lift, then the A-com didn't say Heavy Lift is required for robust exploration.

~Jon

You quote the Augustine Commission as defining HLV as "AT LEAST 40-50mT" and that they agreed "HLV's are necessary for robust exploration".  The "at least" is key.  Therefore, by what you just posted something that has greater than what you believe is necessary still fits the intent of the Augustine Commission. 

Well, we have that now and it won't require finite R&D funds that could be used for beyond Earth orbit tech development instead and it won't take another generation either. 

[clongton]

No, I'm not having it both ways. You admit yourself that the Augustine Committee said "at least" 40-50mT. That means that to those people that is at the extreme low end of what is heavy lift. Well like I said, the guys that actually invented the term and built the launch vehicle that epitomized "heavy lift" understood that term to be "in the neighborhood of 100 tons". So Augustine would be happy with anything that exceeds 40-50mT, and the guys that invented the term said it was 100 tons.

I'm not trying to have it both ways. There is agreement.

[notsorandom]

I just read through the Summery report trying to get a handle on what they considered an HLV. As OV-106 said they consider the range of 40-50mt to be the absolute minimum needed for robust exploration. However, thats the theoretical lowest mass they were considering. Practically I think they considered HLV to be much higher. On page 5 it lists the various HLV options they identified. The lowest payload rocket class, EELV heritage, is listed at 75mt. Therefore I would make the case that they didn't consider any of the smaller EELV growth option to be heavy lift. Realistically unless we are talking about an entirely clean sheet design there are five HLV options Atlas, Delta, Ares, SD in-line, and SD side-mount. The Bolden HLV study effectively ruled out the SD side-mount and Ares. That means we are looking at the smallest HLV being 75mt. I still like the 100mt definition though

I took a look at the document that infocat13 posted. There is quite a bit there but in my limited time reading and digesting it it looks like the time tables they were giving were for human rated vehicals in the Ares I payload class. It seems to be even in this weight class that 72 month is on the low end. Yikes! Thats two times longer then the Jupiter-130. I wonder what the Delta 75mt development time looks like even without the human rating. I'm going to do some digging myself on this.

[robertross]

I took a look at the document that infocat13 posted. There is quite a bit there but in my limited time reading and digesting it it looks like the time tables they were giving were for human rated vehicals in the Ares I payload class. It seems to be even in this weight class that 72 month is on the low end. Yikes! Thats two times longer then the Jupiter-130. I wonder what the Delta 75mt development time looks like even without the human rating. I'm going to do some digging myself on this.

Have fun with that 

There is no question J-130 closes many cases.

You're going to find some interesting stuff concerning Atlas-V Heavy growth options, and Jim has been a good source on this to back things up.

Much of it comes down to the classic reasoning of the Direct case (jobs, infrastructure, existing technology, ISS support...) versus the development timeframe (which requires the development funding to go along with it) AND the business case of #flights & cost per flight.

[Antares]

If there's anything I've learned in the last _____ (since Obama, ESAS, grad school, high school), it's that a clear-thinking layman armed with facts is no match for putative experts chained by past thinking even if well-intended.

Question everything.

[Dave G]

Back in the day when I was working the F-1A program, the Saturn-V was considered the standard for heavy lift. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I heard "100 tons" and "heavy lift" used in the same sentence.

OK, so let's say HLV/BFR = 100 tons.

Unlike Saturn-V, we're talking about something that won't be man-rated, and can take advantage of the technology and experience gains of the last 40 years.

The question is this:  Could it be developed for a lot less than Ares V?