Delta IV Heavy 1/96

[luke strawwalker]

Originally Posted by sparky00

I love the detailed and insightful information here! Truly some knowledgeable folks.

I can't help but be struck by the contrast between the engineering side-that has meticulously and carefully considered every detail, down to paint over foam, and the program/management side, while seems to have real trouble deciding what they want to do & how and when they want to do it, and then seeing that decision through to completion.

It almost seems that without that external direction and deadline from the President ("we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard"), NASA does not seem able to stay on course and schedule, at least in its manned programs, resulting in huge expenditures on programs that end up cancelled and schedules that slip before they're published.

Most unfortunate.

Maybe instead of SLS, they could build a large, 3-stage rocket. 5 huge RP-1 /LOX engines for the first stage, cryogenics for the 2nd & 3rd stages. Something that could take 100,000+ lbs out of earth orbit. Something about 33 feet in diameter and 363 feet high. I wonder if they could build something like that?

It's not so much NASA management as it is politics and the Congressvermin... THEY are the ultimate authority on what gets built and what gets cancelled, and how much funding they provide to do it.

Funny you mentioned that... the RAC-2 study that NASA did around the time of the Augustine Commission actually looked at alternatives to the "shuttle derived" solutions that were all the NASA Administrator and Congress wanted to consider at the time. Interestingly enough, they found that the most capable, most flexible, and lowest recurring operational cost launch vehicle would indeed be a liquid propellant, serially staged launch vehicle powered by a cluster of high-thrust liquid kerosene engines on the first stage, with a large liquid hydrogen powered second stage, boosting a third in-space propulsion stage into orbit to push the payload to the destination. The only problem they found was that the "development risk" was higher and the "lead time" was longer, since it would be "starting from scratch" versus using all the "shuttle components" "off the shelf, as-is" for the SDLV's like SLS. Of course, NASA typically over-estimates the difficulties of all-new systems, and underestimates the difficulties of adapting existing systems to new roles, like shuttle derived...

SO, basically, a modern Saturn V clone would be the cheapest to operate, but probably more expensive to develop (don't see how that's possible, considering the $36-40 BILLION dollar development cost projected for SLS). The big liquid booster is also the most flexible. Considering the flight rates and overhead costs, SLS will be THE most expensive booster ever conceived by mankind...

Later! OL JR

[Jan Kytop]

The problem is : Chemical engines are now a dead end, only the development of the atomic engines is the future of space travel.

[Konstantine00]

I have thought about this for a while, and I think that SLS would work well for an Apollo style moon mission, or even for launching orion and beneath it part of an MTV payload into low Earth orbit. In terms of going to Mars, I think that NASA could use it to launch multiple or large MTV components together in LEO. Just my ideas...

[Paper Kosmonaut]

I guess lots of Americans all like them space vehicles big and heavy, large with black and white stripes and a busload of engines at the bottom end. (-;
Again, the world doesn't need a big ass towering booster like SLS. Even more so: There's no need for a new type of rocket when the old ones are doing great. The Russians use their R7 derived rockets now since 1957 and they still are doing great. Only recently they put more speed into developing their new Angara launcher (their first new rocket in more than 3 decades).
The Apollo style moon missions were born out of a "quick and dirty" way of thinking. Kennedy's decade was running out fast. The Saturn V was the only way to keep the promise. No other rocket was capable enough at the time, the second largest being the Titan which could just reach earth orbit with a Gemini capsule. And, also important, NASA had a huge budget those days to get them to the moon before that deadline.

Nowadays the launcher market has changed a lot. Modern rocket engines are relatively smaller but more powerful and the rockets themselves are much more efficient in weight to payload rate. The commercial industry is able to develop launchers in a quicker and more efficient way than a government-based institution like NASA can. And the commercial rockets are just as good. NASA used them all the time. Using a commercial rocket would withhold NASA from developing a redundant behemoth and spending that money instead on designing missions and training personnel to fly the missions.

And there already are rockets that do the desired job perfectly. Just look at what a single Falcon 9 Heavy can take into space. 53 ton! That's the equivalent of say TWO(!) Salyut space stations. With just two launches there already could be a significantly big habitat in orbit that can take people to the moon or another planet.
Getting a massive complex to Mars from orbit takes much less energy than launch the whole shebang from earth.
So, all equipment needed for a manned moon mission and even a manned Mars mission can be brought up with existing launchers. It needs to be assembled in space into a travelling space station- like structure. Delta IV heavies and Falcon 9 Heavies are very much capable of doing just that. Delta IV and Falcon 9 already fly. And can be man-rated. The SLS still is in its early stages of development...

[OhioMike]

Your forgetting the 3 rules in guberment agencies PK....
1. Keep rocker designers, engineers and physicist employed or you'll lose that talent like they said years ago about shipbuilders when they started closeing naval bases!
2. The cash cow is still produceing milk!!! The GREEN kind!! Dont dare waste that opportunity for milking the taxpayers!!!
3. It doesnt have to make sense!!! Never ever ever ever!!!!!!!!!

One further note that i'm surprised NASA allowed without saying something like....."it might get the Orion into a high enough orbit? Were hopeing!"
....They showed the world that a Delta IV heavy will get orion into a LEO! Thats where eventually when Congrees realizes it, the space station can be used as a ship yard and lets build the Moon and Mars cruisers there instead of building SLS to loft them all at once!!! AND it saves us money and we dont have to give NASA as much money!!!!!!!!! Or am i the only one who noticed??

PS..On a more, Far more important note...Has it been 2 weeks AMX?????????
Mike

[Paper Kosmonaut]

As a quick response to your points:

1. If governmentally paid engineers from NASA decide to make the step to one of the commercial companies, there might be even more value for money. Better salaries for the engineers, more efficiency in the developing process of new rockets (if needed), less governmental interference, less red tape, better work flow, quicker results. Profit.
NASA and their money could use all the wages of their 'lost' engineers on more research and non-hardware developments. More profit.

2. In the past decades NASA has been spending that tax money on lots of projects that ended up costing more and more money and ending up on the scrap heap. Remember Constellation? Remember Venture Star? All died prematurely. Different reasons, I know, but they were in a sense a big waste of money. Even the space shuttle was a waste of money because as the compromise it was, it still turned out way too expensive.
Whether it's congress or other decisive institutions that axe the project, just receiving loads of money and just wasting it isn't going to get you very far. Not in ways of equipment and also not in credibility.
NASA should be better off with a solid 10-15 year plan that could be executed without any halfway through budget cuts or scrapping.

3. That just doesn't make any sense (Well, okay, in KSP perhaps). I was making some serious points on how humankind could start exploring their universe sooner and in a wat that makes more sense in an economical way. Also, you might want to consider cutting down on exclamation mark usage. It makes your comment not only slightly less easy to read, it also makes me believe you're a few sandwiches short of a picknick.

Furthermore, the ISS isn't capable of doubling as a spacecraft shipyard. Not now, not any time soon in the future. If we would need such a thing, it would have to be specially built for that purpose.
For now, we don't need such a thing. We can just take big elements up to LEO separately launched on aforementioned rockets and let them dock automagically in space. Last launch would be the return spacecraft with the crew and off we go.

[EDIT]
By the way, this is, if it's up to me, the last said on this subject here and now. Like I said before, I think this forum isn't meant for this. NASASpaceflight is, and if we want to talk space politics and stuff, it should be done there. This forum is for paper models and discussions on the models we make...

[OhioMike]

My mistake...my apology as well! As you'll notice, i did try to return it to paper models, with my very last sentence! I did include far to many question marks though.............my apology for that as well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!
Mike

[Paper Kosmonaut]

[dhanners]

To bring it back to modeling, here's my scratchbuild of a generic Delta 4-Heavy in 1/96th. Did it several years ago.

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Yeah, that was the one that made me long for a good model of the D-IVH in the first place. Good to see there now are two available and a third on the way.