[FPSPACE] thinking about Ares & Orion

[Keith Gottschalk]

             It seems to me that for NASA to try to get a Saturn 5 size
budget again would be a very tough row to hoe.

    Years ago, on FPSPACE,  JimO, Dwayne D, & other historians debated
at length that May 1961 saw a unique concentration of unique political
factors, even within the Cold War, which never again occurred, and
certainly don't occur today. That alone enabled NASA to get equivalent
to was it 5% or whatever of the Pentagon budget, compared to today's
1%.

     Gagarin's flight had followed the Bay of Pigs. Also, Sputnik &
Gagarin were the only times in the seventy years of the Soviet Union
that it scored technology firsts, actually "caught up with West" &
overtook the USA.

     First, in 2007 by contrast, even if the USG withdraws from being
overextended in this or that Middle East country, it will not see that
as a defeat due to Russia or the PRC. 

        Second, even if the PRC puts a probe on the Moon, & ultimately
a manned base, the PRC shows no signs of trying to put missiles in Cuba
nor Venezuela - it prefers to tender to Walmart. The Pentagon will
continue to get its conventional weaponry, but voters & Congress do not
see it as a  national prestige priority to match the PRC moonshot for
moonshot.

         Third, while PRC ability to apply quality control to consumer
electronics is noted, it is not seen as threatening to overtake US
hi-tech leads on a range of fronts. India is increasingly regarded as an
allied, fellow democracy. Therefore, anything ISRO might do in space is
no more a threat or rivalry than what ESA or JAXA does in space.

          Clearly, an Ares & Orion would be four decades more modern
than a Saturn 5 & Apollo capsule. Their electronics will be incomparably
lighter, smaller, & more capable. Current welding & other techniques
will make it vastly less labour-intensive to build Ares than Saturn. But
as long as you are again walking the ELV route, your costs in real terms
must be much around the same order off magnitude.

     There is no substitute for biting the bullet of the R&D costs
towards a true RLV. Instead of abandoning the STS, incremental
improvement in it might be the optimal path.  To replace the SRBs with
two fly-back liquid-propellant boosters will eliminate the costs for two
ships and two crews. It will end the costs of returning segments to
their manufacturer for re-fabrication. 

    The challenges are reducing any STS turn-around time from three
months to say three hours. At the very least, three days. This would
require as the following incremental upgrade making the ET an integral
part of the spacecraft, as an internal tank. 

   Whether the Eldon Musk route, and the sub-orbital tourist hops in
winged craft routes will eventually merge in  one or other start-up
company, time will tell. So far, virtually none of these can raise the
capital they require.

     A representative example of having fantasy business plans must be
the Space Island Group. Look at the price they claim to be able to
deliver SPS electricity to the ground - by using ELVs for all their
lifting of infrastructure! Even worse, they propose to not buy off the
shelf any of the ELVs that could reach GSO - Ariane 5, Atlas 5, Delta 4,
GSLV mk.3, Long March 2F, or Proton. They need to R&D from scratch a
STS-derived ELV. Bar the SSMEs, they need to modify every other
component.

      No wonder the investment & financial markets are unconvinced. It
will be interesting to watch how the spaceflight future actually
unfolds.

Keith
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