Direct 3.0: NASA is in a bind.

[ElectricFetus]

http://www.directlauncher.com/

Their new version lifts more then, cost half as much as and is safer then NASA replacement for the shuttle, they also are gaining traction in NASA and the white house with talk of extending shuttle flights by 2 years to make up for the gap that only direct can fill in time. They even seem to be changing the name so as to give NASA a chance to save face and not look like they are completely dropping the Ares concept for Direct.

[jpappl]

Very cool !!

Good find.

[eddie23]

You have to be F**KING kidding me.
All that money and all that research just to go back to what they were doing in 1969.
I mean realy you dont see the military spending this much money and time just to go back to single engine propeller planes with gatling guns mounted on the front.
Every other heavily funded agency in this country has ADVANCED their technology in the last 30 years. Now we are being told that the new thing for nasa is a 1960's rocket with a tiny capsule on top? Did we do that and advance past that already? Doesnt the U.S. Navy have better things to do than to treck around the oceans looking for NASA's out dated equipment?
I think it is time for the private sector to take over. I bet intell corp would not put up with this crap if they were in charge.

[ElectricFetus]

I both disagree and agree, first of all yes this rocket is nothing but an assembly of junk, a dropping of the idea of reusable expensive rockets for a return to big and dumb rockets. The problem is that nasa is not a well funded industry, in they running now on a budget that is 1/6 what they had to get to the moon (in adjusted dollars) per year. NASA simply is not given the money to develop advance reusable rockets and to explore the solar system, and yet people expect it to, well you get what you put in, if we had kept giving nasa is landing on hte moon budget we would have mars bases by now! The space shuttle it selfs was initially designed to be a two stage fly back reusable rocket, but with massive budget cuts its present epic failure form had to be made.

[/QUOTE]I think it is time for the private sector to take over. I bet intell corp would not put up with this crap if they were in charge.[/QUOTE]
The private sector is doing the same thing if not worse, there making a semi-reusable rocket thats runs on Kerosene/Lox and lunches a capsule type space craft and as yet have no plans for a lunar exploration class booster like Direct or Ares.

http://www.spacex.com/

[D H]

It is hard, really hard, to separate the BS from solid engineering and sour grapes from true concerns with respect to the Ares/EELV/DIRECT/COTS-D/Shuttle-C imbroglio. Only it's not an imbroglio. It is NASA's very future that is at stake here.

I am hopeful that the Augustine Commission can find the right, unbiased, technically correct path through this morass. I have some reservations; Augustine as former Lockmart CEO may not have been the best choice as head of this commission. Lockmart lost a lot when NASA chose Ares and has a lot to gain from the EELV option.

My personal take:
The DIRECT team is blowing a lot of hot air and may have eaten a lot of sour grapes. They have done paper studies and have not had to confront the evil realities that confront every real attempt to create a new launch vehicle. On the other hand, they may have something. They haven't been given any resources to make their case. They have (supposedly) done this work on their own time. If this group worked in private industry rather than for the government they would of course have been fired long ago.
EELV: The ULA lost to Ares. A lot of sour grapes here, and a lot of hot air. There is no way they are going to get human-rated in four years.
Shuttle-C is not a solution for human spaceflight. The whole idea of Shuttle-C is to deliver cargo sans humans.
COTS-D is really promising. They (especially Musk) are a bit over-optimistic, but are learning and are progressing at a rapid pace and at a fairly low cost.

[ElectricFetus]

The thing is Direct is barely a new launch vehicles, they are using the same engines and the same boosters, only slight modifications to the external fuel tank. The Ares is a redesigned fuel tank, new bigger boosters and new engines. The Direct people are even pulling out using Saturn I upper-stage engines (which we have a very long history on how they perform) So their paper work is not likely to be out of whack as there is little unknowns to be expected.

[D H]

Direct versions 1.0 and 2.0 were powerpoint fantasies. Direct version 3.0 is, as far as I can tell, more of the same. The proponents hand-wave away the fact that it is a new system and that it is a new design. "Slight modifications" are anything but "slight" when one gets beyond the powerpoint fantasy world. For example, simply changing the skin of the external tank from aluminum to aluminum-titanium after the Columbia disaster cost a bundle (some estimate 3/4 billion).

A cynical POV: the Direct team comprises a bunch of disgruntled civil servants who had there say twice and lost both times on technical, logistical, and financial bases. If the Direct proponents were anything but civil servants they would have been fired ages ago.

[D H]

Moderation: I posted this in Science & Technology, where it received little attention. It was merged into this thread since this the Augustine Committee is reviewing the future of human spaceflight.

Back in May, President Obama asked Norm Augustine to head the Human Space Flight Review Committee. Their purpose:

The Committee shall conduct an independent review of ongoing U.S. human space flight plans and programs, as well as alternatives, to ensure the Nation is pursuing the best trajectory for the future of human space flight – one that is safe, innovative, affordable, and sustainable.

The committee held its first public review last week and has made all of the presentation materials public. This included a review of the current Constellation program plus a look at several alternatives.

The web site: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/hsf/home/index.html
Last week's meeting: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/hsf/meetings/06_17_meeting.html



If you look at the meeting presentations you will see a lot of jargon and acronyms flung about. To help find ones way through this jargon,
Ares - The two launch vehicles, Ares I and Ares V, currently under development for Project Constellation. The Ares rockets are based on the Shuttle's solid rocket engines. Solid rocket engines burn until they run out of fuel or explode.


Augustine, Norm - The chair of this new committee and a similar committee organized by the first President Bush nearly 20 years ago. Whether Augustine can divorce himself from his role as former CEO of Lockheed (see The Borg ULA) is a concern. Whether the committee's findings, to be released in August, will have any meaning, is quite another.


The Borg ULA - United Launch Alliance. Lockheed bought Martin Marietta in 1995. Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Lockheed-Martin and Boeing formed a joint venture, the United Launch Alliance in late 2006.


Constellation - NASA's current pathway to achieving the Vision for Space Exploration.


COTS - Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, an obvious play on commerical-off-the-shelf. The underlying idea is that the competitive free market is a heck of a lot better than a government bureaucracy at providing routine services, and that launching a vehicle to low Earth orbit should be a routine service by now.

Lori Garver, an associate administrator at NASA, was one of the key champions of the COTS concept. Garver quit NASA in 2001. She served as the lead space policy advisor in Hillary Clinton's campaign. When Clinton dropped out, she switched to working for the Obama campaign. Upon winning the election, Obama named Garver as the head of his NASA transition team. In May, Obama nominated Garver as NASA's deputy administrator. This appointment speaks a lot of the future of commercial space.


COTS-D - An optional, and unfunded, COTS capability. The COTS program ends with an automated cargo delivery to the ISS (COTS-C). COTS-D delivers humans to the ISS. Both the SpaceX and Orbital designs can be expanded (with $$$) to support humans onboard the vehicle.


DIRECT - An alternative proposal to the Ares launchers currently being built as a part of Project Constellation. This is an under-the-table project that has zero public funding. The people working on this project are for the most part Constellation engineers who don't like the way the Ares design was selected.

The Shuttle's solid rocket engines are a bit skinny, thanks to the width of Roman chariots (http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html). This makes a tall stack of such engines develop a bit of a shimmy. The developers of DIRECT don't think it is a particularly good idea to put people on top of a bomb that cannot be turned off and that has a tendency to shimmy and shake.


EELV - Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle. A DoD program started in 1994 to develop a family of expendable (i.e., not reusable) launch vehicles. Boeing, Lockheed, Martin Marietta, and McDonnell Douglas offered proposals. See The Borg ULA.

NASA resisted proposals to use EELVs in its launch vehicles for the Constellation program and for COTS.


ESAS - Exploration Systems Architecture Study. A large-scale study during summer 2005 to flesh out the Vision for Space Exploration. Project Constellation was one key result of this study.


VSE - Vision for Space Exploration. The space policy announced by George W. Bush in 2004, colloquially known as "Moon, Mars, and Beyond"

[ElectricFetus]

Direct versions 1.0 and 2.0 were powerpoint fantasies. Direct version 3.0 is, as far as I can tell, more of the same. The proponents hand-wave away the fact that it is a new system and that it is a new design. "Slight modifications" are anything but "slight" when one gets beyond the powerpoint fantasy world. For example, simply changing the skin of the external tank from aluminum to aluminum-titanium after the Columbia disaster cost a bundle (some estimate 3/4 billion).

Like Ares is somehow cheaper what with it using a whole new tank design, new boosters, new engines, two separate rocket systems, etc, etc. Direct will cost billions but Ares will cost much more.


A cynical POV: the Direct team comprises a bunch of disgruntled civil servants who had there say twice and lost both times on technical, logistical, and financial bases. If the Direct proponents were anything but civil servants they would have been fired ages ago.

Just because they were snubbed before does not mean they are wrong.

[D H]

Like Ares is somehow cheaper what with it using a whole new tank design, new boosters, new engines, two separate rocket systems, etc, etc. Direct will cost billions but Ares will cost much more.

Just because they were snubbed before does not mean they are wrong.

I admit I have a bias against Direct. They had their say not once, but twice. Third time around? If they worked for practically any company rather than the government they would have been fired the instant they persisted in working on their clandestine project after Direct 2.0 was shot down. Heck, most companies would have been fired them the instant they persisted after Direct 1.0 was shot down.

Choosing to wait for the best proposal to come forward is absolutely the worst thing a manager can do. One of the principle mantras of engineering is "The best is the enemy of good enough." The manager of any large engineering project has to make critical design decisions early on based on the available information at hand. A good manager will listen to alternatives up to a point. After that point, the project team must coalesce on the chosen design and even a good manager will start acting a bit dictatorial if the people under him or her act like a bunch of children -- which is my admittedly biased view of the Direct team.

[ElectricFetus]

I admit I have a bias against Direct. They had their say not once, but twice. Third time around? If they worked for practically any company rather than the government they would have been fired the instant they persisted in working on their clandestine project after Direct 2.0 was shot down. Heck, most companies would have been fired them the instant they persisted after Direct 1.0 was shot down.

So? Imagine if Galileo had been in a company.


Choosing to wait for the best proposal to come forward is absolutely the worst thing a manager can do. One of the principle mantras of engineering is "The best is the enemy of good enough."


Ares is not "good enough" its "lets make something we don't have the money for".

The manager of any large engineering project has to make critical design decisions early on based on the available information at hand. A good manager will listen to alternatives up to a point. After that point, the project team must coalesce on the chosen design and even a good manager will start acting a bit dictatorial if the people under him or her act like a bunch of children -- which is my admittedly biased view of the Direct team.

A good manager would have chosen a better project to begin with, you have to be smart enough to notice when your handed a hand full of shit and asked to make a shit mountain. Ares had seriously obvious problems to begin with, their lack of noticing and jumping on to the first set of ideas without going "hey wait a minute these are all shit lets go through another round of proposals" was a mark of idiocy not good management.

[Ophiolite]

So? Imagine if Galileo had been in a company. Galileo is remembered for his work as a scientist, not as an enigneer.

[ElectricFetus]

Galileo is remembered for his work as a scientist, not as an enigneer.

doesn't matter, he was snubed repeatedly by the church asked to recant even put under house arrest for years his ideas.

And engineering example might be the John Houbolt and LOR.

[orcot]

Will the ares be cancceled in favor of Jupiter direct?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIRECT

[granpa]

hopefully not.

Supporters of DIRECT argue that NASA would be better served by developing and operating essentially a single mid-sized rocket system rather than two different rockets to perform crew launch (the smaller Ares I) and cargo launch (the larger Ares V).

[orcot]

They claim it would be twice as cheap and could be developed in under 4 years

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4295233.html?page=3

[granpa]

isnt that what they said about the space shuttle?

[D H]

Mod action: orcot's "will jupiter replace the Ares?" thread merged into this "Direct 3.0: NASA is in a bind". The two threads cover exactly the same topic.

[orcot]

What ultimatly will count is if they can perform their duty and the $/kg

[ElectricFetus]

Lets do a simple break down
Ares:
- new engines, had to switch to regenerative cooled instead of ablative will now cost about as much as mass produced SSME.
- new 10m wide central fuel tank
- new 5.5 segment boosters
- new Upperstage for Ares I.
- new engine for upper stage for Ares I
- new upper stage for Ares V
- new engines for Areas V upperstage.
- new lunch pads for Ares I and V

Direct:
- Same Engines as Shuttle
- Same 8m fuel tank with modifications that have been done before.
- Same 4 segment Boosters
- new upperstage for Direct 246
- production engines for upperstage of Direct 246
- same launch pads as spaceshuttle.

Its so dam obvious direct is the cheaper, less time consuming option to develop, the production price is more contentious: if Ares 5.5 segment booster and ablative cool engines had works as originally design that option would have had a reasonably cheaper lunch cost (price per lbs in orbit) but now that testing has show those are no longer possible the price on Ares has been climbing. The price of direct is more reliable as most of it parts are already developed and tested and with known production prices.

[D H]

It's not so danged obvious. Seemingly small changes can cost an immense amount. The cost just to change the outer skin of the Shuttle's external tank from aluminum to aluminum/titanium allow was over half a billion dollars.

Direct is reusing stuff that no longer exists. The logistics pipelines for the Shuttle have been terminated. A lot of the manufacturing capabilities are gone. The costs of bring those capabilities back online will be immense. Wayne Hale discussed this last August in his blog. From http://wiki.nasa.gov/cm/blog/waynehalesblog/posts/post_1219932905350.html:
Starting four years ago, the shuttle program in its various projects made "lifetime buys". That is, we bought enough piece parts to fly all the flights on the manifest plus a prudent margin of reserves. Then we started sending out termination letters. About two years ago, we terminated 95% of the vendors for parts for the external tank project, for example. Smaller, but still significant, percentages of vendors for SSME, Orbiter, and RSRB have also been terminated.

A lot of things that go into the shuttle build up are specialty items. Electronics parts that nobody makes any more (1970's vintage stuff). Hey, if it works, why invest money in certifying new parts? Certifying new ones would be even more costly! Specialty alloys to meet the extraordinary demands of space flight, parts that are made by Mom and Pop shops mostly in the LA basin are norm rather than the exception. You might think that simple things like bolts and screws, wire, filters, and gaskets could be bought off the shelf some where, but that thinking would merely prove how little you know about the shuttle. The huge majority of supplies, consumable items, maintenance items, they are all specially made with unique and stringent processes and standards.


Direct is getting one last shot with the Augustine Committee. The Direct proponents had their say. The committee has asked the Aerospace Corporation to conduct an independent analysis of the Direct proposal.

My guess is that Direct will not win the day. It is a paper study. It has to compete with another Shuttle derivative (Shuttle-C (another paper study)), with systems already well into the development phase (Ares and COTS), and with systems that already exist (EELV).

[orcot]

I'm all for improvements but but be fair theirs (o my eyes) little difference between the 1960 rockets and the ones to day. Rocket's have almost zero progress they have the same insane cost and the same insane mass ratio flirting with 1%.
If they have so little ambition they might as well go for the cheaper faster option.

You might think that simple things like bolts and screws, wire, filters, and gaskets could be bought off the shelf some where, but that thinking would merely prove how little you know about the shuttle.
Well when they redesigning they might as well look into adding more modern bolts and screws the design can't changes that much for using a different set of bolts

[D H]

The only reason it looks cheaper and faster is because it's all on paper. Every new rocket design looks cheaper and faster initially. Every new rocket design hits some major stumbling block along the way from design to first flight, and hits yet more stumbling blocks from first flight to operational flights. Direct hasn't hit these bumps in the road, and that is not because these bumps don't exist.

You are not a rocket scientist. You simply are not qualified to judge Direct. Shoot, I am a rocket scientist and I am not qualified to judge it. It takes a large team with a huge diversity of skills to assess the quality of a rocket design. Even the Augustine committee members by themselves are not qualified to give a fair and accurate judgement of the Direct design. That is one reason why they asked Aerospace Corp. to look it over.

[phlogistician]

It's not so danged obvious. Seemingly small changes can cost an immense amount. The cost just to change the outer skin of the Shuttle's external tank from aluminum to aluminum/titanium allow was over half a billion dollars.

I completely agree. Rocket Science, is after all, Rocket Science.

Handwaving over the detail, and a flashy QT movie make it all sound so simple, but making a new vessel from spare parts isn't really a simple solution, or let's face it, private industry might just have thought of that, sourced parts, and done it themselves, instead of developing their own systems.

[phlogistician]

Every new rocket design hits some major stumbling block along the way from design to first flight,

Indeed, take Ariane-5, they re-used the flight control software from Ariane-4, and, well, the results of that decision got spread all over the ocean near French Guiana.

[D H]

Indeed, take Ariane-5, they re-used the flight control software from Ariane-4, and, well, the results of that decision got spread all over the ocean near French Guiana.
Good example. BTW, the wikipedia article on Ariane 5 flight 501 is a bit flawed. This, for example, is just plain wrong:
Efficiency considerations had led to the disabling of the software handler (in Ada code) for this error trap, although other conversions of comparable variables in the code remained protected. This led to a cascade of problems, culminating in destruction of the entire flight.
A seemingly simple calculation can expand to a horrendous mess in flight software. For example, an Earth-bound application that requires finding a solution to ax^2+bx+c=0 will simply plug in the quadratic equation: x=\frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}. One line of code. In flight software that might be dozens of lines of code. A decision as to whether to add the extra code needed to protect against the overflow, underflow, and constraint errors exceptions that might result is made at design time. The wiki article claims the software handling for the overflow error that triggered the failure was disabled. Wrong. The overflow protection softwere never existed. How can you disable something that doesn't exist? The crash of Ariane 5 flight 501 was caused by a software error, but not a programming error. The programs worked exactly as specified and designed.

This article includes material directly from the Inquiry Board's report:
http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~steve/Spiro/arianesiam.htm

And here is the Inquiry Board's report itself:
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/esa-x-1819eng.pdf

[ElectricFetus]

But Direct is not a new rocket design, at least far less new about it then Ares and Ares is already over budget and NASA has not received new money even to pay for the original budget of Ares, so in the end Ares V is doom to be canceled no matter what, and we will be stuck with no moon capable rocket unless we change gears.

[orcot]

You are not a rocket scientist. You simply are not qualified to judge Direct
Okay I realise that but NASA's budget yust isn't cut out for mannend space flight anymore.
If there is no near magical cheap way then it would seem better to abandon it (mannend space flight) all together and focus on creating cheaper rockets/rocket planes and space elevators (don't know if that last ones is actualy possible but those nano tubes have also other usefull/profitable applications)

That or triple NASA's budget

[phlogistician]

NASA should just buy some Energia rockets from the Russians. They have been tested, and would be far cheaper than developing a new rocket. NASA needs a heavy lift vehicle, Russia could use the cash, it's win/win.

[ElectricFetus]

You are not a rocket scientist. You simply are not qualified to judge Direct.

What a beautiful fallacy. According to you when a small child tells a mathematician 2+2=4 that child should shut it mouth.

[D H]

NASA should just buy some Energia rockets from the Russians. They have been tested, and would be far cheaper than developing a new rocket. NASA needs a heavy lift vehicle, Russia could use the cash, it's win/win.
It's win/lose. The price Russia charges the US to take an astronaut to/from the ISS will increase after the Shuttle program terminates. After this point, Roscosmos will be the only game in town.

There are other alternatives to both Ares and Direct. The Augustine committee is investigating several.

[ElectricFetus]

Considering the chairman bias in the Augustine committee he likely to favor EELV. EELV would be the cheapest option for LEO operations at this point, but it has no potential for Lunar operations and beyond.

[phlogistician]

It's win/lose. The price Russia charges the US to take an astronaut to/from the ISS will increase after the Shuttle program terminates. After this point, Roscosmos will be the only game in town.


That could be factored into the deal for buying Energia rockets, keep the cost in check during the period the contract for the rockets is in place?

But yeah, only having one rocket supplier is perhaps subject to 'market forces' a little too much, and the Russians aren't daft.

I just think it's a shame the Energia rockets didn't get used. All that R&D, for nothing. Same with Buran, really.

[D H]

Considering the chairman bias in the Augustine committee he likely to favor EELV. EELV would be the cheapest option for LEO operations at this point, but it has no potential for Lunar operations and beyond.
The Aerospace Corporation is evaluating Direct for the Augustine committee. Let's see what comes out before we start playing the conspiracy game, shall we?

[ElectricFetus]

The Aerospace Corporation is evaluating Direct for the Augustine committee. Let's see what comes out before we start playing the conspiracy game, shall we?

Why you believe the committee will make a unbiased decision free from human failings?

[D H]

The committee has done a lot to minimize such bias. It has asked for an outside evaluation of Direct to be performed by The Aerospace Corporation. The committee members come from academia, NASA, and industry, including competitors of Lockheed.

Turning the question around: What makes you believe the Direct proponents are free from human failings? Opportunities to design and develop a new launch vehicle occur very, very rarely. These guys had there say at glory and lost twice. This is their third shot. If they come out on top, good for them. If they don't, they need to accept that they lost, period.

[ElectricFetus]

Turning the question around: What makes you believe the Direct proponents are free from human failings?

I never said they were.

Opportunities to design and develop a new launch vehicle occur very, very rarely. These guys had there say at glory and lost twice. This is their third shot. If they come out on top, good for them. If they don't, they need to accept that they lost, period.

Or laugh "I told you so!" when Ares V is canceled and we never go back to the moon. In first run the plan was not well developed, the second time NASA had a vest interest in denouncing them because it went with Ares already, if they lose a third time I'm fine with them quiting but that does not change the serious failing of Ares.

[Nasor]

From http://wiki.nasa.gov/cm/blog/waynehalesblog/posts/post_1219932905350.html:
...
You might think that simple things like bolts and screws, wire, filters, and gaskets could be bought off the shelf some where, but that thinking would merely prove how little you know about the shuttle. The huge majority of supplies, consumable items, maintenance items, they are all specially made with unique and stringent processes and standards.Hmm...Really? I get that you can't just phone in an order for SSME turbopumps and have them delivered the next day, but are there really no off-the-shelf bolts or screws or wires out there in the wide world of construction and engineering supply companies that would be appropriate for use in a space vehicle, and that you could simply order more of as needed? I know they're "made with unique and stringent processes and standards" and all, but there are many companies that would be happy to sell you tons of screws that are machines to sub-micron tolerances, many of which were also designed to function in various extreme environments. What exactly are you looking for, screws that were hand-carved by Swiss artisans to nanometer precision?

How much effort was made to use "off-the-shelf" stuff when they were designing it? Was it a matter of drawing up specs and then just awarding contracts for crazy, unnecessarily-specific things right and left?

[D H]

Hmm...Really? I get that you can't just phone in an order for SSME turbopumps and have them delivered the next day, but are there really no off-the-shelf bolts or screws or wires out there in the wide world of construction and engineering supply companies that would be appropriate for use in a space vehicle, and that you could simply order more of as needed?
That the Shuttle uses a lot of custom parts is in part a reflection of when it was built but is also a reflection that off-the-shelf devices don't cut it in lots of applications. Google "custom fasteners" and you will see that use of specialty fasteners is the norm in many domains.

[ElectricFetus]

SpaceX may prove the need for "custom" parts wrong.

[D H]

SpaceX may prove the need for "custom" parts wrong.
Which is of course a strong argument against the Direct proposal. The Shuttle is 1970s technology. A lot of what is off-the-shelf now was not back in the day. The Fastener Quality Act of 1990, for example, did not exist when the Shuttle was invented.

Change the Shuttle design to make use of off-the-shelf parts and you have a new vehicle that has to run the human rated gauntlet start to finish.

[ElectricFetus]

Which is of course a strong argument against the Direct proposal. The Shuttle is 1970s technology. A lot of what is off-the-shelf now was not back in the day. The Fastener Quality Act of 1990, for example, did not exist when the Shuttle was invented.

Change the Shuttle design to make use of off-the-shelf parts and you have a new vehicle that has to run the human rated gauntlet start to finish.

As with Ares I/V which is also not made for "off-the-shelf" and also needs to "run the human rating gauntlet"

Unfortunately SpaceX has no near term designs or plans for a lunar mission capable booster.

[D H]

As with Ares I/V which is also not made for "off-the-shelf" and also needs to "run the human rating gauntlet"
Any vehicle used by NASA that is to carry people into space must be human-rated. Any vehicle that goes to the ISS, even if it is unmanned, must prove that it will be safe with respect to harming the ISS. (Since there aren't any people onboard, it can be hazardous to itself, but it had better not cause any risk of hazard to the ISS.)

Unfortunately SpaceX has no near term designs or plans for a lunar mission capable booster.
Falcon 9 Heavy (http://www.spacex.com/falcon9_heavy.php)

Don't forget Orbital. It is also a COTS partner.

[phlogistician]

The Fastener Quality Act of 1990, for example, did not exist when the Shuttle was invented.

Legislation like that is a must if people intend to use off the shelf products for high-risk endeavours.

Too many times doing DIY, using a bag or bolts or screws, allegedly made to the same standard, one will just shear. You don't want to be thinking one of those is holding something vital together when they light that candle.

[ElectricFetus]

Any vehicle used by NASA that is to carry people into space must be human-rated. Any vehicle that goes to the ISS, even if it is unmanned, must prove that it will be safe with respect to harming the ISS. (Since there aren't any people onboard, it can be hazardous to itself, but it had better not cause any risk of hazard to the ISS.)

and I never said the opposite, only reminding you that Direct, Ares, etc all share these problems so there no use mentioning them.

Don't forget Orbital. It is also a COTS partner.

30tons to LEO is not the at least 70ton to TLI (200tons LEO), the falcon heavy can't lift the required weight by as long shot. Even worse 5.5tons to LEO for the Taurus II, which by the way is behind even the SpaceX falcon 9 in development.

[D H]

With Tiassa's assistance, I merged the Augustine Committee thread from Science & Society into this thread. See this post (http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2288356).


Updates:
The Augustine Committee does not appear to like Ares.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/orl-nasa-ares-moon-mission-changes-071409,0,2316961.story
According to committee officials, panel members have told NASA they want to see the effects of both minor tweaks and "wholesale" changes to its Constellation Program that is intended to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 on a new generation of two Ares rockets and a crew capsule called Orion.

... "One of the [panel's] subcommittees has asked the [Constellation] program to present both the baseline ... program and one of the variants that they have studied as well," said one committee official, who asked not to be named because he's not authorized to speak for the committee. The official provided no details about the "variant," ...

Augustine will hold a short press conference this Friday. Perhaps he'll say something then.


NASA has made some boneheaded moves as of late. The Constellation program budget is spinning out of control, and so is that of the Mars Science Laboratory -- the latter to the extent that it is threatening future unmanned missions. Then there's this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/12/AR2009071201977.html?hpid=topnews
After more than a decade of construction, it is nearing completion and finally has a full crew of six astronauts. The last components should be installed by the end of next year.

And then?

"In the first quarter of 2016, we'll prep and de-orbit the spacecraft," says NASA's space station program manager, Michael T. Suffredini.

[ElectricFetus]

For some reason duke nukem comes to mind here, the first series of video games were fun, violent and wacky, just like we liked them, but then for over 11 years nothing but high hopes, I think NASA needs a full overhaul, they are incapable of getting things done, there budget is too small and their present bureaucratic personnel are apparently incompetent despite resumes that glow like the sun.

[D H]

I'm late for a meeting, so this is quick. NASA has done some boneheaded things. Who's to blame: They are, to some extent. They don't know how to estimate costs and keep them under control. Expected political fallout is a big design driver (how else can you explain something like Ares?). That politics is a driver leads to the next culprit: Congress and the President. Neither understands science, particularly so the previous administration. NASA's budget is too small. If NASA administration had any cojones, they would tell Congress and the President that the budget is too small to accomplish the goals levied by Congress and the President. What do you want us to cut? Instead NASA plays along with Congress and tries to do too much with too little. That might explain Suffredini's announcement that the ISS is to be deorbited in 2016. He's playing a game of chicken.

[orcot]

Playing chicken by announcing deorbiting a international space station? That man understands less abouth politics then politicians understand science. I bet the russians,japanese, esa will love to hear that.
At least he should threated to cancel the next martian rover or the launch of weather sattelites.