CEV, STS Shuttle, and "Orion"

(Was Re: Priorities in government and space)

doug
>Has anyone heard or read a reasonable cost estimate of the new Space
>Shuttles, err... I mean Orion's cost per launch? The STS was supposed to
>cost $20 million per launch and fly something like 100 times per year.
>Obviously it missed both projections.
>
>While I don't expect "Orion" to be the cost effective solution to enable
>space settlements, If saving money now gets us to a more affordable,
>reliable system sooner, then I guess I'm all for it.

Harvey wrote
>The government would see NASA cut its own budget to finish construction and
>would then cut NASA's budget to save more money in the Federal budget. They
>have done it before and killed the expendable launchers of the 1960's and
>'70's. The Saturn V was a monster lifter that could still be used and would
>have been enhanced over the years.
>NASA has proven over the years that they over-estimate capabilities and
>under-estimate costs, especially when Congress requires changes of the
>programs for compatability with USAF military programs.
>

from "Gun Fighter"
>Orion a shuttle? hummm from NASA artwork looks a lot more like a no
>frills rocket and capsule to me... Which I take more of a sign that
>NASA is wanting something simple and cheap as a stop gap till private
>space launch vehicle/s is available and meets their needs for low
>earth orbit, than Orion can be kept for heavy lift and interplanetary
>missions...

I don't see the (present) "Orion" CEV people-mover as a step backwards, so
much as a belated "marking time" way to catch up to where we should have
been all along.

The thing they're calling Orion now -formerly Constellation, formerly the
CEV- represents something we haven't had since the last finished Apollo
capsule and Saturn-related booster were thrown away in '76 (the Apollo-Soyuz
handshake). That's a safe, simple way to LEO and back for people: Abort
anywhere from 0 airspeed/0 altitude to hypersonic/orbital. They'd meant to
use that capsule for revisiting/saving Skylab. Instead Skylab was left to
fall.
With the politically motivated bad decision to stop production of all other
boosters and throw all US launch business the Shuttle's way, we also gave up
on all other ways to attempt to lift cargoes cheaply and reliably. The USAF
rebelled quickly, even before the Challenger disaster let them do it
publicly and finally, but civil space was left with only the Shuttle.

The big problem and disconnect for most people, is that the STS Shuttle has
never been anything but a highly experimental craft. Many unknowns taken for
granted or (hopefully) worked around, and many places where simple things
can spell disaster for the crew riding the unforgiving plane.
Even if some things have been done to upgrade them to use more modern
technologies, the basic launch stack philosophy remains wrong - for lifting
cargo, for doing on-orbit work, and for moving people. It's a camel (horse
lover's joke for a beast designed by committee, so it's bad tempered,
smelly, spits occasionally, and has humps. At least the real camel is
superbly adapted to be the unequalled "Ship of the Desert").
Because of the bad burn from the STS Shuttle over the years, I don't like
calling Orion CEV a "Shuttle", either, although a shuttle capability is what
it gives us. Actually, the "Space Shuttle" shouldn't be called that. A
shuttle by definition, like on a weaving loom, is only made to go back &
forth, rapidly and repeatedly.
You don't build a 747 so that it goes to one destination, staying on the
tarmac to be used as a hotel and workshop, and after going back home it
needs an army to rebuild it. That's not what a "shuttle" vehicle is supposed
to do, either.

One nice thing about any small people-mover "CEV thing" is that if you
remove the crew carrier, that will probably give you a booster capable of
neatly replacing the Shuttle's capacity, for a vastly cheaper unmanned cargo
launch (in an aeroshell bigger than the Shuttle's cargo bay). It only needs
to be met at a previously lifted EVA prep/servicing arm mounted volume by a
manned launch. I'll bet the whole assembly could be flown and re-used more
cheaply than a single STS Shuttle launch.
So two such assemblages need to be placed into orbit to have the ability to
launch payloads from different inclinations. In no way does it need to be as
expensive as the Shuttle-built ISS. I saw John Young (Gemini/Apollo
astronaut) at the first Mars Society 'con give a talk on space. He said once
that the solar cells on most satellites, the Salyut/Mir, and Skylab are
great things to have. Open them up, point them at the Sun, and you've got
power.
The ISS has solar arrays too; do you know what they need to produce power?
Software.
As Zubrin pointed out in "Entering Space", there's no good material reason
why a Titan booster costs the government more than what anybody can spend
for a 747 (maybe even if you outfitted it as a living/work space).
"An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications". I'd say that a
diplodocus is the NASA version, but it has to have 5 heads, and can't take
any action unless at least 3 of them agree, so it starves more often than
not.

And I agree that "Orion" (probably only the Mk-1 atom-bomb propelled ship)
is the best presently buildable way for crossing the solar system (with
people anyway, other things such as supertanker-sized bags of NEA ices, can
move by other means).
Other things might become available by the time we need Nuclear Pulse
rocketry's capabilities, but I don't see anything as capable, as attainable
with no major fundamental new inventions needed (contained plasmas,
long-term antiproton storage, and such).