Heavy Lift Is Needed

Space Daily ^ | Sep 24, 2004 | Jeff Wright

[tricky_k_1972]

OPINION SPACE Heavy Lift Is Needed

In the good old days... by Jeff Wright Pinson AL (SPX) Sep 24, 2004

I was disturbed by the anti-Heavy Lift sentiment expressed by Don Robertson in the Sept. 20 issue ("No Need for New Launchers Now "). He could not be more wrong. The key to lower launch costs is not launch frequency, but delivery in bulk. We do not see motorboats crossing the Atlantic with goods, but very large containerships plying the waves.

The EELVs cannot in fact lift over one-fifth of the Saturn V's 130-140 tons to LEO. The EELV is an albatross- no better than the near-extinct Titan IV it replaces. The critics of ISS forget that the big reason behind the constant delay of ISS is the fact that it is assembled 20 tons at a time.

A modular HLLV, like Energiya, that had the hydrogen engines under the External Tank (ET), could carry a simple Buran-type orbiter, or swap it out with 100 ton payload pods. Five of those and ISS would have been finished years ago.

The critics of HLLVs also don't seem to understand the term 'margin.' It would take five three-core Delta IV 'heavies'- with one RS-68 hydrogen engine per core- to place 100 tons to LEO in five launches of 20 tons each.

This means you would have to throw 15 RS-68 engines away. I can place 100 tons into orbit, expending only three or four RS-68s mounted under our External Tank in an Energiya type system, that has engine-out capability- unlike the EELVs.

If one of an HLLV's hydrogen engines go out, I can burn the others longer. This cannot be done with the Delta IV. The RS-68- a good engine- now has had trouble with turbopumps before, so some engine-out capability should be mandatory.

The Delta IV has been taken out of the commercial launch market, and Boeing's largest commercial rocket is now the Sea Launch booster, Zenit - which started life as the Energiya HLLV liquid-fueled strap-on booster. The two-nozzle version of the four nozzle Zenit (RD-170) engines is the RD-180, used by Lockheed-Martin's Atlas V EELV.

Both Boeing and Lockheed-Martin now must rely on technology that was developed for Heavy Lift in the first place, which makes their attempt to fight Heavy-Lift development all the more sickening to those of us who watched as these two companies put off rocket development in favor of Stealth systems and $200 billion Joint Strike Fighters - neither of which can deflect asteroids, or disable ICBMs.

If it wasn't for Heavy-Lift, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin would not now have their two biggest commercial launchers.

Now the two companies rely on Russian equipment. They still don't get it. What we really need is all-American technology with Russian philosophy. All American RS-68s from Boeing can be placed under Lockheed-Martin's External Tank giving us Heavy Lifters with engine out capability and no reliance on other countries.

The Russian philosophy is what we must adapt - they understood that 'too much truck is better than not enough.' Remember, their R-7 Sputnik launcher was considered overlarge, and yet it and the bigger Proton have become their best sellers.

By the time we completed our EELVs they could carry no more than these other Russian launch vehicles which had glutted the market, leaving the EELVs too little - too late. Now the Aerospace companies are left the EELV Albatross they now wish to hang on our necks.

The EELVs would continue the failed 'build it twenty-tons-at-a-time-and-they-will-come' mindset that left us with the ISS. This philosophy is even worse when it comes to exploration since hydrogen boil off will be even more of a problem when you adopt the pieces/parts.

If we want large production runs, then get the most bang for your buck. Using the Delta IV approach, you must expend 15 RS-68s to get 100 tons to orbit.

By launching five HLLVs with only three RS-68s apiece, you sell your 15 RS-68s but you have 500 tons in orbit in the same amount of time. Real Space commerce will only be successful if done in large scale - not by dropping ME-163 Komets out from under Learjets.

The Titan IV often cost a billion dollars a shot. An HLLV should be no more than this. But remember, that equates to $200 million for every 20 tons of HLLV payload - putting it at least even with EELV costs, that are likely to exceed $250 million for every 20 tons or so- with no engine out capability.

But the real cost of medium lift is higher, since you will need five upper stages for every 100 tons placed into orbit, by five EELVs, as opposed to having just one engine-equipped External Tank delivering the entire load to space- retaining a large empty shuttle External Tank that, like Skylab, gives industry real floor space.

Gene Meyers of Space Island Group understands that much at least, and sees the industrial potential only large scale can bring.

The money saved by ending JSF and the Discovery Programs could field an HLLV in only a few years with much more capability.

Or we can continue to send puny bomb-disposal robots to Mars and risk the lives of EELV-riding astronauts docking and refueling fifty-eleven times just to get to the moon, while the Russians continue to make money off us, because they had the good sense to build rockets big in the first place.

[Phsstpok]

I was being flippant about SSTO.

I presume you prefer some "elegant" over engineered solution with exotic materials (that don't exist yet)?

I was convinced of this basic course by Jerry Pournelle. You have any bones to pick, argue with him.

Lead, follow, get out of the way or get burned in the backwash. Those are your choices. What we've got now ain't working, Jack.

[jpsb]

I would suggest the shuttle-C, build it and a few more (improved shuttles), end of problem.

[jpsb]

see #22.

[Old Professer]

Speaking of slingshot failures, have you heard that the space station is running low on oxygen and only an emergency resupply by Russia can save it?

[Old Professer]

If you could put a colony on the moon tomorrow, it would look like Haiti today in two generations.

[RightWhale]

Yes, if they can't fix it they will have to abandon ship.

[tricky_k_1972]

I agree, and it seems NASA or at least some parts of the defense industry is also coming around to the same conclusion. There has been alot more interest in the space elevator concept in the last year or two.

I think part of the problem on the interest side has to do with peoples perceptions of the space industry on thinking outside the box and space elevators are way outside the traditional lines of pursuit. They like the idea of rockets as both an access to space and the development into defensive and offensive weapons. It's hard to visualize for them any other application for a space elevator other than a cheaper and more reliable access to space.

Even the idea that space elevator is more reliable is brought into question when you think about what a big honking target it presents. Do you want military and/or civilian industry relying on an access point that might be brought down in seconds, much better in their minds to have the capability spread out and easier to defend.

Now as to your worries about waiting for 50 years, I think will have the "capability" to build one in 5 to 10 years. Material sciences is advancing very quickly and we even now at least know the material that will get us there- Nanotubes. We just have to figure out ways to mass produce and the right medium to bind them with, that’s straight engineering, not discovery.

Thanks for your hints about lambda-p, I knew it conceptually but I had not seen the math behind it. For those of you out there with interest in the math, here is a great site that describes it in simple terms as it applies to SSTO's. http://experts.about.com/q/2540/2876706.htm

[tricky_k_1972]

Oxygen, Food a Prime Concern for Next ISS Crew
By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 24 September 2004
7:00 p.m. ET

International Space Station (ISS) officials have listed food and oxygen supplies among their top concerns for the next astronauts bound for the orbiting facility, and are drawing up plans to de-crew the station if stores dip too low.

As the launch date approaches for the crew of ISS Expedition 10 and a visiting cosmonaut, space station managers are working to ensure the station will be able to support human occupants for the planned six-month mission.

"Things look very good, though food and oxygen will be a little tight by the Progress 16 launch," said William Gerstenmaier, NASA's manager for the ISS program, during a teleconference with reporters today. Progress 16 is the first resupply mission slated for Expedition 10, and expected to dock at the ISS on Dec. 25, he added.

Expedition 10 commander Leroy Chiao and flight engineer Salizhan Sharipov are scheduled to launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Oct. 11 at 12:17 a.m. EDT (0417 GMT). Riding with them will be Russian Space Forces test cosmonaut Yuri Shargin, an ISS visitor who will return with the current station crew, Expedition 9's Gennady Padalka and Michael Fincke, on Oct 19.

Gerstenmaier said that a problematic Russian oxygen generator, known as an Elektron, prompted ISS planners to evaluate the limits of consumables like food and oxygen and determine parameters where it may become necessary to evacuate Chiao and Sharipov from the ISS. There has been little debate among ISS planners over the decision to send Expedition 10 without a working Elektron, he added.

"There was pretty good consensus today and no dissenting opinions," Gerstenmaier said of a recent ISS operations review meeting. "We have oxygen in the [storage] tanks, and then we also have a fairly good chance of having the Elektron running again."

The Elektron device failed earlier this month, and Padalka and Fincke have been working to repair it while dipping into their backup air supplies. The space station currently has a total of about 162 days worth of oxygen stored in an attached Progress cargo ship, oxygen-generating candles and in storage tanks. A red line has been drawn at the 45-day mark, though ISS officials said it's not a final deadline to abandon the station.

"It's not a hard, black and white constraint that at that point we come home," Gerstenmaier said. "If there's a Progress scheduled to come, we'll make sure we're prepared with that."

Should the ISS crew have to leave the station, they would leave it in an autonomous mode akin to that used during recent spacewalks in which two crewmembers leave the station empty, he added.

There are two supply ships scheduled to dock at the ISS during the Expedition 10 mission, Progress 16 and Progress 17, the latter expected to launch in February 2005. A new Elektron device, and additional oxygen-generating candles are not expected to be ready until at least January 2005. A U.S.-built oxygen generator should be ready for ISS use by 2006.

Russia's unmanned Progress cargo ships typically carry about 25-50 kilograms of oxygen, though that can be increased up to 100 kilograms depending on the need. In addition, other forms of oxygen, including the oxygen-nitrogen mix we call air and oxygen-generating candles can also be stuffed into a supply ship.

"There are lots of different ways to bring oxygen up," Gerstenmaier said.

ISS officials said they are also preparing the ISS for the planned arrival of NASA's Discovery space shuttle, slated to launch sometime in March 2005, by preparing new cameras to launch to the station and plans to rearrange cargo prior to the shuttle docking. A number of space station modules and other hardware based at Florida's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) have also weathered the effects of several hurricanes rather well and is wrapped up tight for this weekend's anticipated arrival of Hurricane Jeanne, Gerstenmaier said.

In addition to their science and station duties, Chiao and Sharipov are expected to conduct two spacewalks and move a Soyuz between docking ports during their expedition.

From Space.com. http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/exp10_update_040924.html

[Dinsdale]

Buran rode on Energia. It was not the only proposed use for Energia.

Buran was a copy of the shuttle? Except for the lift engines perhaps. But form does follow function.

[boris]

"Even the idea that space elevator is more reliable is brought into question when you think about what a big honking target it presents. Do you want military and/or civilian industry relying on an access point that might be brought down in seconds, much better in their minds to have the capability spread out and easier to defend."

Sabotage is indeed a concern. A more immediate one would be orbital debris removal; as the "rope" descends through 100 nm, it will be chopped to bits by orbital debris. So first, you orbit a gigantic "catcher's mit" made of aerogel (or something) with a big rocket on the back. It orbits oppositely to the vast majority of debris. I expect several sweeps would be needed, and would take a lot of time.

Security could be addressed--but not against a bomb hidden in cargo or a big nuke strike on the ground end. Perhaps security would best be ensured by building lots of them, so if one is brought down, the rest continue to function. I also assume that by the time the skyhook is ready, militant Islam will be a thing of the past (hopefully).

--Boris

[boris]

"Buran was a copy of the shuttle? Except for the lift engines perhaps. But form does follow function."

I studied it for years before Glasnost and Peristroika. It was a flat-out copy, as were the RD-0120s. The Russians filed FOIAs to get the prints and planning documents. The American taxpayer paid the development cost; the plans were shipped to the Soviet Embassy by Your Government In Action.

--Boris

[Dinsdale]

Buran had no lift engines of it's own. If you are telling me that it's a flat-out copy in all respects I'll just have to respectfully disagree.

No doubt the Ruskys did copy some of it.

[tricky_k_1972]

Well I'll give you that there are alot of similarities between the two, there are a couple of major differences. the Russians put the engines on the main stack instead of on the shuttle, this allowed them a much more robust system and allowed them several more options as to what package they decide to lift.

They also made more use out of the ability to attach several more boosters to the main stack giving them the ability to scale up the basic platform depending on mission.

Another thing about the Buran itself, its' heat shielding tiles were more uniform, simplifying the manufacturing and installation process.

[tricky_k_1972]

See my post above #33.

[SunkenCiv]

Any human missions beyond Earth (and ultimately, into Earth orbit) will require heavy lift capability. To go to Mars, we'll first have to establish a base on the Moon, and get all those skills back online. Von Braun's approach was to get to the objective by small steps. First, orbit. Then, humans in orbit. Then, rendezvous in orbit. Then in-orbit docking. Then, free return around the Moon with practice dockings. Then add the partial descent. Then land. Then do it six more times (13 didn't work out that way).

Establishment of a radioastronomy facility on the Lunar Back Side ("I'm goin' to the backside station." "Is that some sort of euphemism?") and a front side comm station (using a cable laid across the lunar surface, just to demonstrate and practice civil engineering on the Moon and obviate the need for a commsat orbiting the Moon, which would itself ruin the advantage of building the radioastronomy facility), leading to other temporary, occasional, and permanent bases on the Moon, is perfect practice for long term space travel.

Long term space travel will be needed for any human missions to Mars.

The steps to Mars... uh-oh... bed time. And the microwave just went off. [1226307]

George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent

[SunkenCiv]

Shuttle-Derived Vehicle: Shuttle-Derived Disaster
by Jeffrey F. Bell
Apr 16, 2004
SpaceDaily

...External Tank. But this has its problems also. The absurd brown Styrofoam exterior has obviously got to go. And the production cost of each ET has ballooned up to over $60M -- more than a baseline EELV booster complete with engines and avionics!

It's hard to tell if Bell likes the Shuttle, or really hates it. He suggests getting rid of the Solid Rocket Boosters in favor of liquid fueled engines built by the Russians. However, there is this:

The side-booster configuration sacrifices an important reliability and safety feature. Since the fuel load is distributed in several separate tanks, any engine that fails kills the mission even if it is shut down safely. The monolithic stage can burn all its fuel in the surviving engines and usually reach orbit.

IOW, BDB. His claim that the SRBs are unsafe for the crews assembling them is contrary to experience. Has there been even one life lost from a premature ignition of the STS' SRBs? Spaceflight is inherently dangerous, and the risk is borne basically entirely by the astronauts, including those killed by an SRB defect.

[SunkenCiv]

EELV - Lockheed-Martin
http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/launch/eelv_l.htm

"The intent of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program is to develop a family of launch vehicles, services and supporting systems that will significantly reduce the life-cycle cost (LCC) compared to today's systems. A number of design features combine to provide an EELV family of launch vehicles that meets the national mission model at a significant reduction in LCC."

[RightWhale]

Shuttle is back in the hanger to have its external tank and solid boosters replaced. The foam was mentioned, but the real problem is internal plumbing.

[SunkenCiv]

Oddly enough, I found this link (Shuttle Refit) on the homepage from Crystal Window and Door Company, using Google. But it's not a valid link. This one is:

Shuttle Refit
Allard Beutel & Jessica Rye

...Discovery was de-mated from its External Tank (ET-120) and Solid Rocket Boosters in high bay 1 on June 2... Once mated to the new tank, technicians will work final closeouts on the fully assembled Space Shuttle stack, and perform liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen electrical mates and an interface verification test. Discovery is scheduled to return to Launch Pad 39B on June 13.

Prediction: Virgin Space Travel will have put more people into space than all other "vendors" combined by the end of 2010. :')

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