POLL - Was NASA's Ares I-X Launch a Success?

[hipar]

The nay Sayers contended a rocket with that form factor could not be flown. Would it shake itself apart? Would it go unstable at Max Q? Would it even clear the tower? The design engineers freely admitted they weren't absolutely sure what to expect.

With some extrapolation to the configuration Ares I, we can predict an it can fly reliably.

So let's cut NASA a break on the chute deployment failure by weighting that about 10% of what's important to demonstrate at this stage of development.

 

[jakethesnake]

The nay Sayers contended a rocket with that form factor could not be flown. Would it shake itself apart? Would it go unstable at Max Q? Would it even clear the tower? The design engineers freely admitted they weren't absolutely sure what to expect.

With some extrapolation to the configuration Ares I, we can predict an it can fly reliably.

So let's cut NASA a break on the chute deployment failure by weighting that about 10% of what's important to demonstrate at this stage of development.

I agree for the most part, as I said above... this was a test, and the test was run to completion and recorded every bit of the way, from beginning to end. So not 90% successful but 100% successful.

Also, welcome to Space.com hipar.

 

[tanstaafl76]

The nay Sayers contended a rocket with that form factor could not be flown. Would it shake itself apart? Would it go unstable at Max Q? Would it even clear the tower? The design engineers freely admitted they weren't absolutely sure what to expect.

Sorry but I find this a bit too apologetic. I support NASA's mission but this isn't 1969, it's 2009. Ares I would have never gotten to this point if there was any real doubt as to whether it could fly. I find it far less likely that NASA designed a testing timeline with a 4 segment SRB and a dummy capsule because they were so uncertain it was flightworthy, than the more plausible scenario that NASA over-packed the development timeline with unnecessary incremental steps to keep busy and assure they got a couple decades of funding out of the Constellation project. Now that the **** is hitting the fan they are busily coming up with reasons as to why they can skip the next test flight.

With some extrapolation to the configuration Ares I, we can predict an it can fly reliably.

Extrapolation? That's ridiculous, there shouldn't be extrapolation, the first launch should have been a 5.5 segment SRB with a semi-operational capsule on top that could separate properly.

So let's cut NASA a break on the chute deployment failure by weighting that about 10% of what's important to demonstrate at this stage of development.

Eh, if this was a start-up space company that made it's own parachute or something it would be one thing (although I have a funny feeling a good number of rank-and-file NASA cheerleaders around these parts would condescendingly snicker about amateur private space companies learning some lessons about trying to play in the big leagues of rocketry). NASA may have some budget constraints, but at nearly $19 billion dollars each year, I would think they could make a parachute work.

I just have a hard time slapping too many backs at NASA based on launching a 4 segment SRB that we've seen pairs of launch with the shuttle for the last three decades, especially when by design it doesn't have the capability to separate properly, and whose parachute system failed. If they are going to set the bar so low that this is going to qualify as a "100% success" then we're never going to make it back to the moon much less Mars, and NASA has become nothing more than a make-work department of the federal government.

 

[MeteorWayne]

That's a bit disingenous. The 19 billion NASA budeget has to fund manned spaceflight, and dozens of robotic missions underway and in planning stages. To suggest that the whole amount is dedicated to future manned spaceflight is just deliberately wrong.

 

[tanstaafl76]

I never suggested it was. If someone wants to go through the financial gymnastics of determining precisely how much has been spent by NASA specifically on the parachute system that failed, I have a feeling it wouldn't be any less disappointing.

Nevertheless, the parachute failure alone is not the point, but rather the seemingly low bar set for this test mission by an organization that should be the absolute pinnacle of human spaceflight capability on planet earth given its history. Dare I say it has a touch of a token feel to it, or that someone took Scotty the engineer's advice to under-promise and over-deliver so as to appear a miracle worker. They've certainly gotten the under-promise part down. And then as long as the thing doesn't explode on the launch pad it will be hailed as an unbridled success regardless of the relatively insubstantial outcome and side issues.

Perhaps I'm just grumpy about this flight but the whole thing smells a little bit. It smells like the program was designed in a more budget-friendly environment, designed to be stretched out with token milestone test flights that really could have been consolidated into far fewer ones, but efficiency of time and money are a far lower priority than showing things off to the public to make sure everyone knows "NASA is doing something, look!" and to ensure a nice long production roadmap for NASA employees and contractors. That way everyone is happy, right? The stupid public will never catch on anyway, as long as we fire off a rocket from time to time they'll "ooo" and "ahhh" and thump their chests and salute the flag, and the handful of astronauts that have the real cajones to get into our "fire and forget" candle-rocket will deservedly play the part of national heroes, a reputation that with any luck will rub off onto the whole bureaucracy.

And while I don't doubt everyone at NASA wants to go back to the moon and beyond, at times it feels like an equally important goal is to make sure they get a 25 year NASA career and nice retirement package out of it to boot. There sure doesn't seem to be a zeal to get the taxpayer the most bang for their NASA-funding dollar. After all, if they rushed through it with zeal and wrapped up the project in 10 years, then they'd have to start over and begin a new one, which might mean some personnel shake-up and new project designs, and perhaps more foreboding than anything, heightened expectation of NASA. In the space race it was impressive to see what the organization could achieve with not only ample funding but an incentive to do it promptly... but sadly that urgency seems to have evaporated.

I don't entirely blame them, after all it goes against the survival instincts of every major government agency, which typically put priority on spending every penny of their budget every year to make sure it doesn't get cut the next time around instead of looking to save taxpayers money, and making sure certain phrases such as "under budget" and "ahead of schedule" never enter the vocabulary.

"Under budget" could prompt politicians to reconsider the next round of funding as possibly being more than sufficient, and "ahead of schedule" means you're spoiling the party for all the NASA employees who wouldn't have anything left to do. Therefore why would such an organization be motivated to have a culture of anything but "slow and expensive, that's just how spaceflight is" ?? Isn't the relative and sudden efficiency of the shuttle program now that they have more concrete deadlines to hit a bit suggestive? Shouldn't one entertain the possibility that NASA may have been dragging its feet between shuttle flights for years because there was no incentive to perform them any faster?

When the Constellation roadmap was put together, they never envisioned the current environment, that the entire program would risk being abandoned or substantially modified based upon some outside commission who are frighteningly aware of every bureaucratic dirty secret and skeleton in NASA's closet. Yet not only has that become a vivid reality, but the very existence of NASA itself has started to be questioned given the severity of our budget issues. This was definitely not in the cards a few years back! Now that the apple cart is starting to upturn in the budget situation, substantial doubt has been cast on the practical necessity of Ares I, and their Ares I-X flight didn't wind up being quite as spectacularly flawless and attention-grabbing as they'd hoped, suddenly there is talk that they may be able to skip the Ares I-Y flight. Really? Just like that? All that careful budgetary planning and roadmapping and suddenly they can just decide they don't really need that test flight after all? Maybe some NASA folks are starting to realize that the elongated timelines and orbital transit gap is starting to make NASA look a bit like a fat man being asked to run a foot race, especially with lean private sector upstarts dashing to get human-rated spacecraft in orbit before Ares I ever sees a launch pad.

But hey, these are just my personal perceptions from the outside looking in. Honestly I hope I'm wrong. I hope NASA hasn't succumbed to such bureaucratic debilitation. I don't think it's unreasonable to voice these views though, considering my tax dollars are going to fund this as much as anyone else's are.

 

[mj1]

The Ares I-X launch was a bogus political stunt by NASA. They just wanted to be seen as doing something. Here is a good article by Buzz Aldrin documenting how the Ares I-X was just a political ploy. The real rocket is no where near ready and will more than likely be cancelled.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/buzz-aldr ... ostComment

 

[docm]

^^^^---- what he and Buzz said.

 

[tanstaafl76]

So if what Buzz says is true, it took NASA three years to borrow a 4 segment SRB from the shuttle program that we've seen launch successfully over 120 times and the guidance system from an Atlas rocket that also has an extensive flight record, all for a test flight that would not reach orbit, could not separate properly, and had a failure on the one system that was actually untested: the parachute.

I don't see how that can be classified as anything but underwhelming.

 

[nimbus]

Is Buzz wrong on these points?
1 - Does the fifth segment not need to be genuine if it needs only mimic Ares I's height and weight distribution, in order to assess stacking in the VAB, rollout and pad dynamics, flight characteristics, and post-separation trajectory and parachute recovery?
2 - Does the J-2X being 2 years away put it in normal development margins? Is not being ready for this test is too big a deal if upper stage dynamics aren't too problematic and already understood?
3 - Does the token Orion capsule and escape system matter if the test was concerned only with first stage matters?
4 - Guidance system bought from Atlas - Would it matter if it was running Ares controls that directly carried over to Ares hardware?
5 - Tower damage - What if the cost was no biggie because the structure damaged was going to be removed anyway, and in practice the tower would be prepared for the tilted exhaust?
6 - Upper stage spin and damage: Wasn't collision damage ruled out (water impact instead)? Won't the actual upper stage be in lesser enough atmosphere that its RCS should make a pretty different performance than this test?

I don't think it matters since even a good test methodology and successful result wouldn't change the fact that Ares isn't the best strategic path, but it would make Buzz' article mostly a misleading sales pitch for his own design.

 

[tanstaafl76]

He's only wrong if the goal was not conducting a realistic test of the Ares rocket, which this certainly was not. They took a shuttle SRB and put dummy weight on it and an Atlas guidance system. How is that a test of Ares I? It is, at best, an extremely rudimentary test of whether a single shuttle SRB can be fired into the sky with some amount of control. Was there really that much of a question about it?

Since the operational hardware in the "test" consisted of pieces from existing programs that were already flight-tested, have already been flown on real flights hundreds of times with actual payloads, successful separations, and working parachutes, it is not unreasonable to suggest that it was perhaps not so much a test as it was a political show designed to buy NASA more time; especially since most of what made up Ares I-X is not what the plans say is going to be the configuration on the final Ares I. Different booster, a real capsule, operational separation rockets, operational second stage, working parachutes, etc. Ares I-X might have looked similar, but it was really just a facade because the parts underneath aren't what Ares I will be made of.

So since it was largely a test of hardware that has been used in other programs for many years but won't be the hardware used on the final Ares I, even if they got "a lot of great data" they only got that data for a configuration that doesn't match that of the final rocket. So how much of a success can it really be?

I think people raise these points with urgency because we've come to a cross-roads where the future of NASA is in jeopardy as a relevant space agency. Political stunts and bureaucratic foot-dragging aren't going to fly any longer. It's hard to be awe-inspiring when your test launches look token and political. Snails' pace testing roadmaps in the face of trillions of dollars in federal deficits is not going to win a lot of cheerleaders.