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NASA Shuttle Replacement's Problems Are Worsening
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Jul 17, 2008 10:43 AM
from the parts-is-parts dept.
from the parts-is-parts dept.
ausoleil noted that NASA's replacement for the shuttle, the Orion, is slipping behind schedule "'We're probably going to have to move our target date,' NASA exploration chief Doug Cooke told The Associated Press on Wednesday after Nasawatch.com posted the 117-page internal status report (PDF) on the moon program. The cost problems include an $80 million overrun on a motor system. The Orion spacecraft's design remains too heavy for the proposed Ares 1 rocket. Software development, heat shield testing and other complex work remain behind schedule or over budget. There are dozens of such serious challenges, many of which are 'worsening.'"
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yeah, that's right. i'm not a rocket scientist (Score:5, Funny)
wait, my friends, you'll see tons of posts just like this except for that the posters take themselves seriously.
Re:yeah, that's right. i'm not a rocket scientist (Score:5, Informative)
but i'll play one on slashdot and come up with all kinds of rubber band and duct tape solutions
You mean like the ones that saved Apollo 13 [wikipedia.org]? IIRC the solution to the problem of running out of breathable air involved rubber bands and duct tape.
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Re:yeah, that's right. i'm not a rocket scientist (Score:5, Funny)
IIRC the solution to the problem of running out of breathable air involved rubber bands and duct tape.
Because duct tape can be bought on any budget. Hell, it better be the first thing on the budget. Hell, it's probably holding the budget together.
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Re:don't forget zip-ties (Score:5, Funny)
My tool box has two items. Duct tape and WD-40.
If it moves and it's not suppose to Duct Tape it.
If it doesn't move and it is suppose to WD-40 it.
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Re:yeah, that's right. i'm not a rocket scientist (Score:5, Insightful)
Cost plus is always likely to see cost overruns and major delays. The more expensive and the longer it takes, the more the contractors make. There's no motivation to be on time and under budget.
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Re:yeah, that's right. i'm not a rocket scientist (Score:5, Interesting)
The more expensive and the longer it takes, the more the contractors make. There's no motivation to be on time and under budget.
Not true... cost plus is good if you don't want the "lowest bidder" mentality. Although underhanded tactics will inevitably exist, NASA only pays contractors cost plus a FIXED profit for the contractor.
They have no incentive to run over on the time
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Re:yeah, that's right. i'm not a rocket scientist (Score:5, Interesting)
If only it were that easy. Adding to the Cost usually means you're going to take a beating when it comes to determining the Plus. It's also not a great idea to willfully and purposely dick over a major customer like NASA; both because it's illegal and because you'll have no chance to win future contracts.
I don't buy that. First, there's a long history of prime contractors (the ones actually able to make contracts with government agencies) screwing over federal agencies yet continuing to get contracts. Second, it looks pretty straightforward to legally exploit cost plus contracts.
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I am a Rocket Scientist (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is, this project is massive. It was obvious from the beginning that their time estimates were basically based on everything working perfectly the first time and optimization studies showing that they'd already picked the most efficient design. There are always going to be problems, and the bigger the project the more you're going to have.
If they're serious about replacing the shuttle with only a couple years of downtime, they should already be gearing up to test the system as a whole. I'm not personally involved in the project, but it doesn't even look like they're ready to test big pieces yet. Maybe 2020 is a more reasonable date to actually begin flights.
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Re:I am a Rocket Scientist (Score:5, Informative)
If they're serious about replacing the shuttle with only a couple years of downtime, they should already be gearing up to test the system as a whole. I'm not personally involved in the project, but it doesn't even look like they're ready to test big pieces yet. Maybe 2020 is a more reasonable date to actually begin flights.
Disclaimer: I'm a NASA employee at Stennis Space Center, programmer not rocket scientist. The first round of testing on the powerpacks for the new J-2X engines was last month, second round is scheduled for early 2009. That's not the fully assembled engine assemblies, but it's progress.
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Fortunately for NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, does this news really come as a surprise? NASA's been over-budget and behind schedule since the last Apollo flight. Without the unlimited checkbook that Mercury/Gemini/Apollo had, this should be expected.
Unlimited budgets have a way of clearing all obstacles in their path.
Re:Fortunately for NASA (Score:4, Insightful)
There are alternatives [spacex.com].
Yeah, including some real alternatives, that can actually get into the orbits NASA needs to get to, rather then just barely out of the atmosphere (where you can tell a tourist that they are 'in space'. Like this [ulalaunch.com] or this [ulalaunch.com].
The US Government has already funded the development of not one, but two rockets with the kinds of capabilities they need. They are flight proven, expandable to handle all sorts of loads, and available right now, not whenever Ares will slip out to. Add a little redundancy in a couple of systems, and have them ready to launch American astronauts into space in two years.
SpaceX is cool, and is probably the direction that the future of American space exploration needs to go. But it is not ready, it is not proven and it doesn't come close to the kinds of payload capacity or reliability that we need now. Check back around the time when Ares is supposed to be done to see what SpaceX is up to. In the mean time, quit screwing around developing a rocket similar, but slightly different from, the two perfectly good commercially available ones that are already up and running.
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Re:Fortunately for NASA (Score:5, Informative)
The post office is, roughly, a crown corporation. It operates under a government mandate and follows some special rules regarding taxes, but it has been self funded for quite a long time now.
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Re:Fortunately for NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
You should check the figures on that... it stopped being true some time ago. Email has killed the ability of the USPS to fund itself. It's really hard to track the USPS budget, for lots of reasons (for example, their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarters are 84 days long, and their 4th quarter is 112 days), but the Federal budget includes payments to the USPS for security and anti-terrorism, to make up for reduced revenue from Congressionally capped rates, and for other reasons.
Suffice it to say that the USPS is no longer self-sufficient.
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Gap? (Score:5, Insightful)
How long will there be no active US manned spacecraft - and will this get longer?
I am reminded of the gap between Apollo and the Shuttle - and look at what happened to Skylab...
Re:Gap? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually this kind of cost overrun is absolutely planned.
You'd do it too, if faced with this alternative:
If you cared *nothing* for your country but just wanted to run a big project, then you would lie, get the money, and do the project. On the other hand, if you cared *dearly* for your country, and knew it needed a space program, then you would lie, get the money, and do the project.
Ah well.
I am finally at peace with this. What I will never be at peace with, however, is the fact that the space program is a mere drop in the bucket of market-distorting federal transfer payments.
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Re:Gap? (Score:5, Insightful)
The war is not about sunk cost. It hasn't been since we defeated the Iraqi regular army.
It's about power gaps. Which, having taken over the country and destroyed their existing government, it would be irresponsible for us to simply leave the Iraqis to fend for themselves.
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Re:Gap? (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody-or-others-law:
A poorly planned project takes three times as long to complete as scheduled.
A well planned project only takes twice as long.
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What has happened to us? (Score:5, Insightful)
We seemed more adventurous and capable in the 1960s than we are in 2008. Is this what has become of the great spacefaring nation that so many before us had envisioned? Despite serious technological advancements, have we lost our momentum? Maybe it was a passion for the unknown that enabled us before. I fear it has been replaced by disinterested private contractors, underfunding, and ambivalence. More so if this shuttle replacement isn't successful.
Re:What has happened to us? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Less funding. For as much as we use it as a dick wagging competition neither party has a real interest in seeing a very robust space program when those dollars could go to buying off voters with more useless ventures that put cash in the right pockets.
2. Speaking of dick wagging competitions, we've lost our main rival. While the argument could be made that the Chinese are going to beat us up in the space race in another couple of decades, most people just aren't that interested. The space race is no longer a spectator sport since Crazy Ivan is now regarded as either friendly or impotent. The same Joe Sixpacks who shell out hundreds to thousands of dollars each year on their favorite football team were keeping interest in the space program alive when it was competitive. They love The Right Stuff, they yawn at 2001.
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Re:What has happened to us? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's also be clear that the need to put humans in space seems not so obvious any more. We have fleets of robots exploring other planets with less cost and less risk. To me, human exploration of space at this time seems like a waste. Right now the human space program seems more like a corporate boondoggle than anything else. Of course it is over budget, that is the whole point - to spend a lot of taxpayer money!
With robots you can take more risk and spend more money. And, I'm not saying that humans shouldn't go into space, it just seems like right now we should be focused on exploration, which is better served with robots.
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Re:What has happened to us? (Score:5, Informative)
The resource on the moon is the isotope He3. It might be useful for certain fusion scenarios. However, investing $billions now would be putting the cart before the horse.
We don't know if *any* kind of hot or cold fusion will be feasible with any fuel. IIRC, He3 will be harder to fuse (but less radioactive) than the usual D/T combination. OTOH, there are other more abundant fuels, harder to fuse than He3, which would also have low radioactivity. We'll have to see which, if any, fusion reactors end up as workable possibilities.
The He3 is in trace quantities distributed across the surface of the moon. Mining it would require gathering moon dirt in quantities comparable to the amount of coal mined here on earth, then distilling a few tons of He3 annually from these countless megatons of dust. This doesn't seem economical with any foreseeable space technology.
The huge amounts of money it would take to develop this moon fuel capability would probably be better spent on fusion cycles that don't need He3, or other energy technologies altogether.
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The Intermediate Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Intermediate Solution (Score:5, Funny)
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Shocker!!!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
News would be if they were under budget and finished a year early.
you get what you pay for (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:you get what you pay for (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm astounded at the number of people on a nerd site (of all places) who take "old sayings" unquestionably.
Whoever believes that "you get what you pay for" has never prepaid for sex, or used an unlicensed contractor for home repairs. You usually pay for what you get, but you don't always get what you pay for. Often a higher priced item will be inferior to a lower priced item. Only a fool buys item A because it costs more than item B. Seller B may be trying to get market share.
Money doesn't grow on trees, you know. Oh wait - yes, it does. It not only grows on trees, it grows on cornstalks and soybean bushes and all sorts of other plants.
There's no such thing as a free lunch... excuse me, grandma's calling. What, grandma? Sure, I'll come over for lunch.
Nothing free is worthwhile. Except maybe air. And rain. And those dandelion leaves in that expensive salad you just bought. Someone gave me some tomato plants, and guess what? Home grown tomatos are vastly superior to the ones I bought. Yes, It took fifteen minutes physical labor to plant them and I'll have to pick the tomatos, but that's not a cost, it's a benefit. I work at a desk job and don't get much exersize. Meanwhile I pay a fee for the gym.
My dad always said "don't believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see". I think he's right, and I think it goes double for those incredibly stupid old sayings. Don't take anything on face value; at least give it half a thought.
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Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
You should see the contortions Grumman had to go through, to get the Lunar Module under the mission weight budget, well into the Apollo Program.
I figure the only thing that's changed between now and then is the Internet makes it much easier for the lay public to form entirely the wrong impression about highly complex and technical works-in-progress.
project rule: double estimated time (Score:4, Insightful)
Why the Ares I? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are existing commercial launch vehicles such as the Delta IV or Atlas V rockets that can be man rated or the potential upcoming commercial launch vehicles such as the SpaceX Falcon 9 that could replace Ares I. Although man rating isn't trivial it's insane for NASA to create a new rocket to compete with existing commercial launch vehicles. NASA should encourage making manned access to low Earth orbit a low cost commercial commodity rather than using government resources to discourage such access.
In fact, NASA should contract with two independent suppliers capable of lifting the CEV to low Earth orbit and buy launch vehicles from each supplier in near equal quantities. This would add some expense, but it would make sure that should a launch accident occur our manned space program isn't grounded for years as complex accident investigations occur and fixes are implemented on the failed launch vehicle.
The Ares I is an albatross that only exists because of pride and politics. It is harmful to the exact type of space development that this nation needs. In the early 60's NASA didn't lose any face by choosing to re-purpose ICBMs for the Mercury and Gemini programs. Instead, out of necessity, NASA it's rocket building teams on the Saturn series of rockets. It was the practical decision then and it is the practical decision to re-purpose existing vehicles now for LEO access.
If NASA wants to build a launcher (and whether they should be building any is a very debatable) then they should be concentrating exclusively on the Ares V/VI which actually goes somewhere and does something that commercial space companies may not be able to do economically today.
Re:Why the Ares I? -- Uhh, payload? (Score:5, Informative)
Did you look at how much payload each rocket can take to orbit before you made this post? Look at the payload capacity to GTO (not LEO)
Let me list the estimated maximum payloads since you did not:
Delta IV: 20,000 pounds or so
Atlas V: 18,000 pounds or so
SpaceX Falcon 9: 27,000 pounds or so
Ares I: 50,000 pounds or so
See the difference? Ares I is also rated for man-flight, which just makes everything much more complicated.
The article is from a florida newspaper. Of course florida newspapers are going to print doom stories because they don't want to lose Shuttle business. Losing business happens.
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Re:Why the Ares I? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's exactly what's supposed to happen.
We're canceling the Shuttle, and later when Ares/Orion turns into a huge disaster with budget overruns and shortfalls, Congress will be justified (in the public's eyes) when they cancel it as well and shut down the entire manned spaceflight program.
And if you think they're going to make private spaceflight easy to make up for this, you're deluded.
We're in the process of shutting down our airline industry with ridiculous security policies that do nothing for security and everything for driving people away from air travel. Private aviation is being similarly crippled with new taxes designed primarily to ensure that only the very wealthy can afford to fly. There is no reason to have NASA when we can outsource our space flight needs to overseas vendors and get paid kickbacks to our secret overseas bank accounts.
A population that stays in the same place all the time is much easier to control. Transportation is under attack.
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Man rated (Score:4, Insightful)
Look through the discussion, and the term "man-rated" comes up, a lot. It's probably a good thing it does too, because it's generally a bad idea to lose life during launches, or any other time during the flight, for that matter.
But I question the path to man rating. For the US space program, as far as I can tell, only Mercury and Gemini turned previously designed boosters into man-rated. Everything else has been designed from the get-go as man-rated. It seems to me that though it can be done that way, it's a bit of a fallacy in the making. To some extent, parts is parts, and it should always be possible to tighten the specs on some number of parts to improve the reliability of an existing booster. For that matter, existing non-man-rated boosters likely have a much longer track record, more launches, etc. They really don't want to lose *any* of these things, because even if human life isn't on top of the stack, typically tens of millions of dollars are.
So I don't understand why we don't start with a non-man-rated booster with a large number of launches and study its track record, failure modes, etc. Then start work on a man-rated version of that same booster with the necessary spec and reliability tweaks. Seems to me that it would be faster and cheaper. It likely wouldn't have the launch capacity, but at the moment that's a separate issue. Even in the Aries program there's the Aries-I with relatively low launch capacity, and the Aries-V with much greater capacity. Better heavy launch programs would still need to go forward, but why have a new light-launch program?
This isn't a technical issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Its an organisational one. They themselves are already complaining about their budget and they haven't even got a rocket off the ground yet. They've got teams off their own engineers who disagree so strongly with the direction NASA is taking they are designing an alternative rocket on their own time (DIRECT/Jupiter/Ares 2 or 4 or whatever). They've got staff airing their complaints to the press rather than their supervisor. I'd say the wheels have come off the plan to return to the Moon, buy NASA probably haven't even settled on what size wheels those would be yet.
I've mentioned this before. We can't do scale. Everyone is so invested in the orthodoxy of competition that cooperation automatically falls flat on its face. The idea of man as selfish and rational is a self fulfilling prophecy - if you believe that about other people it makes it almost impossible for you to trust and work with them.
So, in my humble opinion, neither the Americans nor anyone else is getting back on the interplanetary horse until we figure out the systemic, structural problems in our societies.
Amazing what 40 years of politicization will do (Score:4, Interesting)
NASA has been on a long, uninterrupted downward slide ever since Reagan, when it became more heavily politicized. They somehow managed to get people to the moon in 1969 with a basic, brute-force, heavy-lift vehicle and almost enough computing power to run a pocket calculator. Since then, the manned program hasn't made it much past Low Earth Orbit.
If the current crop of idiots can't get their act together, why not blow the dust off those old Saturn V plans, save some weight by substituting new materials where it would work, and get freakin' going? Longer stays could be accommodated be using the Mars Express approach of sending automated supply missions on ahead.
I don't know if it's time to fire everybody in upper management and start fresh, but it's getting really tempting. And let's try to remember that space exploration is dangerous work. Test pilots die. Astronauts die. That doesn't mean you shut down and abandon your whole program for years on end whenever something goes wrong. They tried it with the Space Shuttle, and all that down time didn't ultimately make things a lot safer.
Re:Just wait (Score:5, Interesting)
Citizens actually want to fund space activities, not the stuff that's killing us: http://perotcharts.com/ [perotcharts.com]
Dis-intermediating DC is step #1 in carrying out the will of the people.
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Re:Just wait (Score:4, Interesting)
Nonsense. The vast majority of people really want to see some cool pictures on the news every couple of years or so. If you substitute to 10c per person (or whatever the current budget works out to) with half a dozen multi-millionaires and a long (actually, short) tail of "enthusiast" types chipping in $50 or $20, you won't have enough for a single Delta launch, let alone fund design testing build and operation of two and a half new launchers, a new crew vehicle and the TLI / lander / ascent hardware needed for another moon landing.
I personally am of the opinion the moon landings will be jettisoned as soon as practical, and that that's a good thing. I just hope it's early enough to leave enough left for the increasingly delayed outer planets flagship mission and some more Mars landers / rovers, oh and a telecoms relay orbiter that will be desperately needed in 7-10 years' time. (Did you know there's nothing on the Mars launch schedule after MSL in 2010? That money's gone to Dubya's cock-eyed publicity stunt of trying to get Kennedy's rep by announcing another manned moon landing. But I realise that's unpopular around here.
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Re:Just wait (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're confusing Ares I [wikipedia.org] and Ares V [wikipedia.org]. Ares I isn't all that big. It's a single stack of capsule -> fuel tank -> stage 2 engine -> stage 1 solid rocket booster. If anything, it's quite a bit thinner than most rockets. However, it does make up for this by towering a massive 94m high. Which does mean a few upgrades to the scaffolding.
The Ares V, however, she's gonna be a beasty. With six (!) main engines, two outboard Solid Rocket Boosters, a plump width of 10m on the central stack, and a towering 116m tall, she's going to put every other rocket to shame. Personally, I can't wait. ;-)
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Re:Just wait (Score:5, Informative)
The Ares V will even put the Sat V to shame.
The Ares V is going to be the large booster we SHOULD have built after the Saturn V. It's late, but it's finally coming. :-)
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Re:Just wait (Score:5, Interesting)
FYI, I found updated numbers for the six engine Ares V on NASA's site here:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/ares/aresV/index.html [nasa.gov]
The correct LEO figure is stated here:
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Re:Just wait (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is that the Saturn V stats reflect real performance, the Ares V figures are still hypothetical. Shuttle never got much more than about 80% of its originally advertised payload capacity.
And of course, Saturn V is 45 year old technology. Just replacing the Instrument Unit (guidance system) with modern avionics would add about 2000 kg to the payload.
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Re:Did we really make it to the moon? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure sure. Sounds great.
Now, just initial here that the 2008 mandatory stress testing has been done on each component, OSHA has approved the ergonomics of the seats, all modern safety systems are in place...and...hello? Where are you going?
No one (with power in NASA or gov't) is interested in getting back to the moon without a billion rules, regulations, and safety measures.
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Re:Did we really make it to the moon? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also consider that astronauts were looked on as rough and tough guys doing their national duty in the days of Apollo. Today they're seen as geeks wasting cash on expensive toys.
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Re:Did we really make it to the moon? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Apollo astronauts _were_ tough guys doing their national duty.
Besides that. JFK was buried the day Armstrong set foot on the Moon. The goal set by him was accomplished, the Russians defeated and, thus, Joe Sixpack lost interest. There seemed to be a can-do attitude, a willingness to blow stuff up and to take risks that is no more.
It's really tragic thing. Maybe we don't deserve to be a spacefaring race.
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Re:Did we really make it to the moon? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's really tragic thing. Maybe we don't deserve to be a spacefaring race.
Have some patience, man! It's like having the Vikings visit the Americas, get killed, never return, and then you complain that "Maybe we don't deserve to be a seafaring race."
A little over a century ago, man wasn't even flying airplanes. The first human was sent into space less than fifty years ago. There's no real reason to think that large-scale space exploration and even colonization won't happen. There's also no real reason to think that it will, or should, happen within the next fifty years, or even within the next two hundred years. The amount of time that humanity has so far been visiting space is but a blink of an eye in historical terms.
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Re:Did we really make it to the moon? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, just initial here that the 2008 mandatory stress testing has been done on each component, OSHA has approved the ergonomics of the seats, all modern safety systems are in place...and...hello? Where are you going?
Actually, the real problem is the toxic fuels that were used, and a few other toxic components. It's the _environmental_ issues that prevent Apollo-era technology from flying today, not the safety issues.
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Re:Did we really make it to the moon? (Score:4, Informative)
err, the S-1C was a Kerosene/LOX burner, and the upper stages were hydrogen/LOX. The Titan, which was obviously not part of Apollo, used some really toxic hypergolic fuels, but Apollo was relatively clean. I'm sure the spacecraft itself had plenty of toxic crap in it, but the booster was relatively safe.
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Re:Did we really make it to the moon? (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn it, I *JUST YESTERDAY* posted to correct this fallacy. When will the Internet learn?
The blueprints for everything, down to the last nut and bolt, are on file at MSFC. Source. [space.com]
Further, rebuilding a Saturn from them won't work. You can't get the parts made any more, nor would you want to. You can't duplicate IBM's work and make another Instrument Unit [wikipedia.org]--two tons of 1960s-vintage analog computers and gyroscopes, including equipment designed to determine the rocket's launch azimuth based on star sightings, not GPS like we'd use today. Then there's all the other analog and early digital equipment that's integral to the design. Remember, it's not just a giant fuel tank and some engines--it's a launch vehicle. It's got a flight manual [nasa.gov], and it's designed to be used in conjunction with an Apollo command and service module pair flying it.
Re-design the rocket to use new technology? By the time you've de-Apollo'd Saturn, you've made a whole new launch vehicle. Which is exactly what Ares is.
The Saturn V is an awesome piece of technology, yes. An awesome piece of 1960s technology. Rebuilding it today would not work, period, no matter how cool it might be.
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Re:I'm outraged? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, that's sucks I guess. But since NASA has something like a $17 billion budget, isn't that a colossal non-issue? I realize this was just the motor system, but if I had a $40,000 budget to furnish a new home, I don't think I would be concerned if the coffee table was $20 more than I was expecting.
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
"NASA's current FY 2008 budget of $17.318 billion represents about 0.6% of the $2.9 trillion United States federal budget."
I'll let the reader come to his own conclusions about US priorities. Without linking to the DoD budget.
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Re:I'm outraged? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Inefficiency (Score:4, Informative)
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