ASAP endorses Ares 1

[steve82]

The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel has just come out in favor of Ares 1 above the COTS alternatives for manned flight. This is fairly significant and I'm surprised it hasn't gotten more attention in the news and some of the space sites, many of which are still prematurely cheering the death of Ares:

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/100118-n ... -ares.html

It ain't over yet, folks.

 

[bdewoody]

If we have to go back to spam in a can I guess the Ares 1 is as good a launch system as any. If we fail to develope an immediate replacement for the shuttle a lot of talented people are going to be lost and I doubt if they will be able to get jobs supporting Russian manned launches. Lets face it the majority of the cost of putting men in space isn't with the hardware, it goes to pay the salaries of the men and women building and maintaining the launch system whatever it is.

 

[thermionic]

Isn't it going to be a capsule whether Ares or any of the credible COTS operations? So 'spam in a can' which ever way the money goes.

What is the real deficiency of Ares 1, btw? Almost everyone over at nasaspaceflight.com takes it as a certainty that Ares1 is the wrong way to go. And they're smart people. But somehow I'm not clueing into its fundamental problem.

 

[menellom]

Isn't it going to be a capsule whether Ares or any of the credible COTS operations? So 'spam in a can' which ever way the money goes.

What is the real deficiency of Ares 1, btw? Almost everyone over at nasaspaceflight.com takes it as a certainty that Ares1 is the wrong way to go. And they're smart people. But somehow I'm not clueing into its fundamental problem.

Well I imagine you'll probably hear different complaints depending on the person asked. I can't speak for anyone else buy my biggest complaint, and I think the best argument against the Ares I is that its simply not the kind of rocket we need right now - for all the billions of dollars and ever-delayed years of development, all we're ultimately getting out of the Ares I is something to match what the Soyuz can already do, and what private companies like SpaceX and their Falcon 9 rocket will be doing soon. The earliest the Ares I is likely to start flying is towards the end of the decade, 2016 or later. At which point we'll be getting ready to deorbit the ISS if we haven't already... once the ISS is gone rockets limited to LEO are essentially pointless unless we start building another station or something.

What we NEED more than Ares I is a heavy launch vehicle. Something like the proposed Ares V or Jupiter-246. We need a BIG rocket, not a LEO-taxi. Ares I is nothing but an expensive, time-consuming distraction from development of an HLV... and unless we start development of an HLV soon, we won't be going to the Moon or anywhere else beyond low Earth orbit for decades.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Mr Musk strenuously disagrees with the conclusions. From spaceflightnow:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1001/19safety/


Musk refutes report slamming safety standards

A commercial space pioneer and a former astronaut are answering claims by an independent advisory panel that private companies do not meet NASA human-rating standards and last year's presidential review of the space program did not adequately consider safety. adequately

In an annual report released Friday, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, or ASAP, said it would be "unwise" to abandon NASA's Ares 1 rocket and turn to private companies to transport astronauts to low Earth orbit. The board said potential commercial crew transportation providers do not meet NASA safety standards for piloted vehicles.

Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp., said his company's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon space capsule were designed to meet NASA's published human-rating standards.

 

[steve82]

He's making some pretty stout boasts there. We'll have to see what happens when the safety auditors start chasing down his paper trail.

 

[bdewoody]

We can only find out by doing it. Every automobile on the US highways doesn't meet NASA safety standards as they relate to automobiles. If 40.000 astronauts were being killed every year there would be no space program. We have such a double standard about safety here in the USA, almost as bad as the double standard about how American business should conduct itself.

 

[vulture4]

I would only suggest everyone read the full report, with a critical eye. It is replete with inconsistencies and unsupported opinions: This is very different from, for example, the Shuttle mishap reports which are generally precise and detailed.

Constellation is said to be good because it is ten times safer than Shuttle. This figure is not the result of testing or even a design analysis, it was simply a goal stated by NASA, yet it was used as though it was a test result!

The ASAP says SpaceX is unsafe because it hasn't followed the NASA standards, yet it says Soyuz is safe "by equivalence" without any such documentaion. The near-fatal failure of the Soyuz service module to separate, which had occurred before, due to poor quality control of a simple part like an explosive bolt, which nearly killed a US astronaut wasn't mentioned, nor are the two fatal Soyuz incidents in flight and one in which the abort system went off prematurely causing one fatality and multiple injuries. So far as the report is concerned, Soyuz apparently has a perfect safety record.

ASAP says the Shuttle is perfectly safe now but after another year of safe flight it will mysteriously become unsafe because a multitude of parts, of which the ASAP was unable to identify even one, will suddenly wear out en masse after thirty years, in all three orbiters, even though they are different ages.

Shuttle is bad because it is based on "old technolgy" even though it has had continuous upgrades. Ares is of course based on Shuttle and even older Apollo technology, which is why it was considered "man rated", yet yet it is considered new. Soyuz likewise isn't "old".

ASAP says Shuttle must be terminated because we are running out of parts and experienced people are leaving. But in reality the parts are simply not being ordered and the experienced people are being laid off. These are management decisions, not design deficiencies.

ASAP says safety come from "sandards, applying the standards, and verifying the standards have been applied." Yet as anyone who has sat through weeks of meetings knows, the standards SpaceX is accused of not meeting refer to the extraordinarily complex NASA safety review process and document structure, not to engineering or design. This includes multiple boards where scads of powerpoints are presented to people who never put hands on the hardware and decisions are made by voting. In fact the ASAP report does not discuss design or engineering at all. For instance, the SpaceX procedure of test-firing all engines prior to use (impossible with Ares) isn't mentioned. But this is understandable since none of the authors appear to have experience with launch vehicle design.

NASA estimates of risk are often given to two decimal places but if you actually trace the original source of the estimate it often is based on an order of magnitude estimate made without objective evidence.

 

[menellom]

There is no such thing as "safe" when it comes to manned spaceflight, only various degrees of "bat**** crazy". No matter how many redundant systems or special safety gadgets you pack into a craft it doesn't change the fact that you're still putting 4-6 people in a tiny metal can and mounting them to what is essentially a giant ****ing missile.

Yes, disasters like Challenger and Columbia, and all those before were tragic losses of life and seriously damaged the public's confidence in NASA... but arguing that we should 'stay the course' with Ares I just because it might be a few decimal points safer than alternatives like the Falcon 9 or Jupiter rockets on some arbitrary 'safety scale' would be a mistake.

Ares I has got to go, and the sooner we dump it in favor of a new design or lose the LEO-taxi concept altogether in favor of an HLV, the better.

 

[its_amazing]

Constellation is said to be good because it is ten times safer than Shuttle. This figure is not the result of testing or even a design analysis, it was simply a goal stated by NASA, yet it was used as though it was a test result!

I am going to have to disagree with you here. For I-X and even Ares-I our tolerences and requirements to meet were given from the begining. If we did not meet the predesigned goal, it never went to the next level. It was a goal that was set for us to reach from the get-go.

The ASAP says SpaceX is unsafe because it hasn't followed the NASA standards, yet it says Soyuz is safe "by equivalence" without any such documentaion. The near-fatal failure of the Soyuz service module to separate, which had occurred before, due to poor quality control of a simple part like an explosive bolt, which nearly killed a US astronaut wasn't mentioned, nor are the two fatal Soyuz incidents in flight and one in which the abort system went off prematurely causing one fatality and multiple injuries. So far as the report is concerned, Soyuz apparently has a perfect safety record.

Have you read page 57 of the report?

ASAP says the Shuttle is perfectly safe now but after another year of safe flight it will mysteriously become unsafe because a multitude of parts, of which the ASAP was unable to identify even one, will suddenly wear out en masse after thirty years, in all three orbiters, even though they are different ages.

One of the results from the CAIB report was that flying the shuttle past 2010 would requite its re-certification.

NASA estimates of risk are often given to two decimal places but if you actually trace the original source of the estimate it often is based on an order of magnitude estimate made without objective evidence.

Not sure what risk estimate you are talking about here. For our ascent and entry risk assemensts, all the probabilty numbers are calculated based on documented analysis and results. These risk numbers just don't appear out of thin air.

 

[nimbus]

More ASAP rebuttal, from CSF
http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/?p=1058

 

[Gravity_Ray]

Ares I is not a bad rocket due to design and safety. Its a bad rocket due to the fact that we dont need to keep going to LEO over and over and over.... again.

The best thing NASA can do is engage private companies to do its taxi and mail services and focus on Heavy Lift. We need the best minds to focus on the hardest tasks. What is the point of spending so much money and time building Ares I when the long pole in the tent is Heavy Lift to the Moon, NEO's, and Mars.

Bah... its crap like this that makes me say, just cancel all human space flight for NASA and just do science. NASA has to dance to the tune of every idiot that can file a spread sheet. Put the engineers to good use please, and give COTS a chance to work.

 

[DarkenedOne]

Constellation is said to be good because it is ten times safer than Shuttle. This figure is not the result of testing or even a design analysis, it was simply a goal stated by NASA, yet it was used as though it was a test result!

Your right that the figure is not a result of testing, which is what should be the standard for testing such vehicles. Ultimately it does not matter what the estimated reliability of a vehicle is but the actual rate of failure is when it is being used.

This fact was evident in the shuttle program. The actual reliability of the space shuttle turned out to be far lower than the predicted reliability.

That is why I like manned/unmanned rockets like the Falcon 9 and the Soyuz. The Falcon 9 will be tested dozens of times as an unmanned rocket before it carries humans into space. The Ares on the other hand will only be tested a few times before it is manned.

Ultimately these safety rating that NASA is giving are just estimated guesses as to the true safety of the vehicle. The only way to actually know with any reasonable certainty that anything will work is through extensive testing.

 

[menellom]

Ares I is not a bad rocket due to design and safety. Its a bad rocket due to the fact that we dont need to keep going to LEO over and over and over.... again.

The best thing NASA can do is engage private companies to do its taxi and mail services and focus on Heavy Lift. We need the best minds to focus on the hardest tasks. What is the point of spending so much money and time building Ares I when the long pole in the tent is Heavy Lift to the Moon, NEO's, and Mars.

Exactly!

 

[vulture4]

ASAP says the Shuttle is perfectly safe now but after another year of safe flight it will mysteriously become unsafe because a multitude of parts, of which the ASAP was unable to identify even one, will suddenly wear out en masse after thirty years, in all three orbiters, even though they are different ages.

One of the results from the CAIB report was that flying the shuttle past 2010 would requite its re-certification.

I would be happy to read others' opinions on this, but it appears to me that the concern that the CAIB expressed in their call for "re-certification" wasn't that the the vehicle itself might be wearing out in some unknown way that couldn't be prevented, but rather that insufficient resources were being applied to maintaining all the facilities and infrastructure, as well as the vehicles, for the extended program. Maintenance, logistics, sustaining engineering, etc. had in some cases not been adequate or been allowed to lapse. One example they pointed out was the deteriorating roof of the VAB, which was allowing debris to fall on the Shuttles. The recertification was for the entire program rather than just the vehicle, and was intended to assure that all the elements of the program would be adequately funded for a longer duration then originally planned. They said that that with adequate support the shuttle could continue to fly safely.

This cost will not be avoided with the Constellation program, since it requires either maintaining the same facilities as Shuttle (i.e. the VAB and crawers) or building new ones.

The ASAP report expressed a different concern, that components of the Shuttle were approaching a "knee" in the failure curve, when their failure rate would rapidly increase. While it's true that mechanical components sometimes display a "U-shapred" failure rate, because the types of failure which increase with time are due to cumulative mechanical wear or damage, it is quite feasible to prevent the system as a whole from experiencing an increase in failure rate through an adequate program of inspection, as has been shown through nearly a century of aviation. The Shuttles are quite possibly the most intensively inspected and maintained aerospace vehicles in the world, and worn or damaged parts are routinely replaced, so the a priori evidence for the mechanism conjectured by the ASAP is limited. Moreover, the ASAP was, as I pointed out, unable to identify any components which could be shown to be experiencing an increaseing failure rate which couldn't be mitigated by normal inspection and maintenance.

 

[its_amazing]

CAIB - Volume I - pg 209
"The Boardʼs discovery of mass loss in RCC panels, the deferral of investigation into signs of metal corrosion, and the deferral of upgrades all strongly suggest that a policy is needed requiring a complete recertification of the Space Shuttle. This recertification must be rigorous and comprehensive at every level (i.e., material, component, subsystem, and system); the higher the level, the more critical the integration of lower-level components"
"Aviation industry standards offer ample measurable criteria for gauging specific aging characteristics, such as stress and corrosion. The Shuttle Program, by contrast, lacks a closed-loop feedback system and consequently does not take full advantage of all available data to adjust its certification process and maintenance practices."

"R9.2-1: Prior to operating the Shuttle beyond 2010, develop and conduct a vehicle recertification at the material, component, subsystem, and system levels. Recertification requirements should be included in the Service Life Extension Program."

 

[bdewoody]

Ares I is not a bad rocket due to design and safety. Its a bad rocket due to the fact that we dont need to keep going to LEO over and over and over.... again.

The best thing NASA can do is engage private companies to do its taxi and mail services and focus on Heavy Lift. We need the best minds to focus on the hardest tasks. What is the point of spending so much money and time building Ares I when the long pole in the tent is Heavy Lift to the Moon, NEO's, and Mars.

Bah... its crap like this that makes me say, just cancel all human space flight for NASA and just do science. NASA has to dance to the tune of every idiot that can file a spread sheet. Put the engineers to good use please, and give COTS a chance to work.

We do until someone decides it's time to go somewhere else. In the future interplanetary travel will be in ships that never leave space so until we figure out how to build a transporter device we will need vehicles to get us to and from LEO or LMO or LTO (low titan orbit). I still favor a lifting body vehicle that can transport up to 6 crew members and land horizontally on a runway. Launch either vertically or from under the wing of a mother ship. Capsules should be reserved as emergency escape craft only from my viewpoint.

 

[vulture4]

Heavy lift with a conventional ELV doesn't require technology development, indeed it's already been done with Saturn. ULA already advertises proposed concepts for any required payload up to 100 tons, and they can get close to that just with enhancements to the Delta-IV. It probably makes more sense for NASA to get the funding and design a payload, find out how much it weighs, then just issue an RFP for a booster and ground support equipment and let each manufacturer propose an efficient, clean-sheet design, rather than try to specify every detail and even the processing flow as they did for the Ares V.

 

[Ruri]

Most of the findings by the ASAP the past few years are so full of bull you if you could stack it you probably could reach the moon without a rocket.

I fail to see how Ares I would be safer then a proven vehicle like the Delta IV esp with it's insanely high max Q.
In fact I would not consider Ares even as safe as the shuttle for it's first 25 missions.

Even the first Delta IV-H mission would not have been an LOC event heck it may not have even been an LOM event for a vehicle like Orion or Dream chaser.
Both would have had enough delta V in their orbital maneuvering system to reach orbit.

BTW the Delta IV with the RS68A is more powerful then Ares I so Orion can have a full fuel load.

Their comments on Falcon 9 also are baseless as this vehicle is designed for reliability and will be the only vehicle that can handle an engine out at t+1 without LOM.
The Merlin unlike the J2X at least has a nearly flawless testing record.
No Merlin 1C has ever exploded not even during testing.
They did have a burn through on a Merlin during some very early testing but that was a Merlin 1A prototype and the engine was extensively modified atfer that test.

Falcon like the EELV also will have the benefit of getting tested as an unmanned vehicle before it ever carries a crew.

The first crewed Dragon/F9 will be a safer vehicle then the first Crewed Orion simply because of this testing.
Same goes for the first crew vehicle on an EELV as they'd have all the past missions of a given EELV for their data points.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Wayne Hale's comments...it's the Jan 15th blog posting.

http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/waynehalesblog

So I am quite amused by the current debate about whether or not NASA should build rockets or contract that work out to commercial firms. NASA per se has never built rockets of any size. But that statement is so simplistic as to be disingenuous. There is a marked difference between the “old” way of doing business and what is being proposed as a “new” way of doing space business.

Simply put, in the old days (or even today’s days), NASA (the government) was in control; made all the big decisions, required complete insight into all the details of the design, manufacturing, testing, and production of the space flight vehicle. Eye watering amounts of documentation were required for every step. The “new space” model is that one or more nimble, flexible, innovative, efficient commercial companies will provide a reliable, safe, economical launch vehicles and spacecraft that American astronauts can ride to the International Space Station. Getting to low earth orbit is so easy that practically anybody can do it! Large government programs are no longer required and NASA should concentrate its efforts on deep space exploration and doing the “hard” things like landing on the Moon or Mars...

Except that in the early part of the 21st century, getting to low earth orbit is neither routine nor easy. Anybody that has really tried to do it - past the viewgraph engineering stage – can attest that getting to LEO is hard. It requires precision, care, extremely good engineering, quality control, etc., etc., etc. Landing on the moon may be “hard”, but getting to LEO and back is hardly a cakewalk. Recently I have read several statements from some "new space" entrepreneurs concerning space flight safety...

How do you know when you have gone from being “efficient” to having cut the corner too close?

 

[steve82]

Elon Musk's statement in the article: "According to Musk, the panel's findings are "bizarre." He says the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft "meet all of NASA's published human-rating requirements, apart from the escape systems."

Reflects a good deal of naivete about spacecraft design. The escape system is not something you go out to Bubba's Aerospace and buy to attach to your vehicle. The Orion is designed around the Launch Abort System. That's why all of the first flights of Orion are the Pad Abort and Ascent Abort flight tests. How much White Sands range time has Musk put in for his abort tests? How many missile boosters has he procured for his transonic abort tests? How much analysis has he really done on the whole matter of safely returning crews? Orion has that system built, I would even venture a guess that Orion has had more people working the Abort system and planning and executing the testing for it these past few years than Musk has in his whole company. That's what it takes to do it right. The Ares/Falcon debate may linger on, but there is absolutely no equivalence between the Orion and the Dragon.

 

[menellom]

Then why not compromise and figure out a way for the Falcon to launch the Orion? Orion is on schedule to finish almost all its solo testing by the end of the year, if a heavy variant of the Falcon 9 could carry Orion... 'tada' we've got our LEO taxi problem taken care of and we can focus on a damn HLV.

 

[SpacexULA]

Reflects a good deal of naivete about spacecraft design. The escape system is not something you go out to Bubba's Aerospace and buy to attach to your vehicle. The Orion is designed around the Launch Abort System. That's why all of the first flights of Orion are the Pad Abort and Ascent Abort flight tests. How much White Sands range time has Musk put in for his abort tests? How many missile boosters has he procured for his transonic abort tests? How much analysis has he really done on the whole matter of safely returning crews? Orion has that system built, I would even venture a guess that Orion has had more people working the Abort system and planning and executing the testing for it these past few years than Musk has in his whole company. That's what it takes to do it right. The Ares/Falcon debate may linger on, but there is absolutely no equivalence between the Orion and the Dragon.

The quality of a program is not determined by the head count. No you don't go to "Bubba's Aerospace", you actually go to David Thompson's New and Refurbished Rocket Shop, also known as Orbital Sciences. That's who designed built and tested the LAS for NASA. You know, the other unsafe, untested, commercial launcher.

This report was published without doing research at SpaceX or with the Shuttle office. Any time you have Elon Musk & John Shannon on the same side of an issue, it must be real.

Falcon 9 follows a long and safe tradition of HSF. It will have an engine out capacity like Saturn 5, using a Pintle injector like the Lunar lander, with a laucher with the capacity to deliver the capsule more than fully to orbit without the capsule having to finish the job like Saturn 5 and Soyuz.

Ares 5 (engine) is dead, long live Ares 5 (segment)

 

[steve82]

You're absolutely right about Orbital and they are the place to go. But their LAS design has also been an integral module of Orion since day one. It's taken 3 years of planning just to get to this March's PA-1 test. If Dragon is only now thinking of how to add that capability, they are years behind where they need to be to meet the Orion IOC date, which is still on schedule. At any rate, they are still not equivalent vehicles.

 

[menellom]

You're absolutely right about Orbital and they are the place to go. But their LAS design has also been an integral module of Orion since day one. It's taken 3 years of planning just to get to this March's PA-1 test. If Dragon is only now thinking of how to add that capability, they are years behind where they need to be to meet the Orion IOC date, which is still on schedule. At any rate, they are still not equivalent vehicles.

Again, I point out the suggested compromise. NASA will have its Orion capsule done long before Space X could have its Dragon capsule done... and Space X will have its Falcon 9 rocket done long before NASA could have its Ares-1 rocket done.

..... tada!