Ares V Rocket Bigger and Stronger For Moon Mission

wooferhound writes "In a move to make the heavy-lift vehicle more robust (predicting an increased launch thrust requirement) to send four astronauts, a lunar lander plus supplies, NASA has announced the Ares V rocket will be beefed up to cater for our future needs to get man back to the Moon. This huge vehicle is now designed to carry payloads of over 156,600 lb (71,000 kg), some 15,600 lb (or 10%) more than the original concept. Ares V was originally designed to be approximately the same length as the original Saturn V lunar rocket (361 feet or 110 metres long), but to accommodate an extra booster engine and extra payload volume, Ares V will be 381 feet (116 metres) long. This upgrade will be capable of sending far more instrumentation into space, an extra 15,600 lb (7,000 kg, or the equivalent mass of a male African elephant)."

Interesting dichotomy

[BadAnalogyGuy]

When we produce a huge rocket, the news reports it as for space exploration. When China builds one, it's reported to be for threatening their neighbors.

Re:Bigger and stronger?

[LS]

What exactly would be the impact of the radioactive matter expelled by an Orion rocket on the atmosphere and the environment in general? Has there been a study? Do you know? Please enlighten me as you seem to be sure that this type of propulsion is not a problem.

LS

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Bigger and stronger?

[cyber-vandal]

As long as it's not someone you care about that is.

We should go to the moon because...

[RustinHWright]

Yes. Launchpad.
And source of materials out of which to build larger vessels and simply bulk matter to provide more shielding for stuff in space. (If we're ever going to have real settlements at L5 we're going to need many tons of matter of whatever the frack is cheapest to protect them from radiation.
And, if we can mine it and refine it cheaply enough, even "sparklers", low Joule but cheap supplementary rockets.
And, if nothing else, a place to stop and "catch our breath". If you're planning to climb a mountain, it makes it easier if you have a place to stop a third of the way up to refuel, do repairs, etc. The moon provides that.

I just don't understand why we have to keep going over this again and again and again any time the idea of going back to the moon is raised. This is basic logistics, people. A base near the top of the gravity well makes it easier to reach anywhere beyond that gravity well. It's just that simple.

Re:Bigger and stronger?

[weirdcrashingnoises]

they can launch it within .1 km of my home as long as they give me nuclear space launch life and house insurance before they do so.

Re:Direct is a joke

[ab8ten]

That rocket is designed by NASA, it's just that the NASA employees responsible have done so in their own time, and in secret.

Re:Bigger and stronger?

[CougMerrik]

They still sell raw veggies and lean cut meat at your grocery store. Probably even tofu, sushi, etc. As long as you don't reach for the corn syrup, all that stuff should be as healthy for you in America as it would be anywhere else. Lots of people manage healthy eating habits in the US; put the tuna down and grab a cookbook.

By the way..don't try to switch to raw potatoes (Solanine poisoning) or crawfish (Iodine poisoning) now that your all-tuna diet has failed you. Everything in moderation is probably a good bet.

Re:Bigger and stronger?

[Reality Master 101]

We allow devices to be used that we absolutely KNOW will kill hundreds of thousands of random people every year. They're so dangerous that if you accidentally twitch your hand, it's entirely possible you will die and take other people with you. They're called cars.

Hell, using your BBQ slightly increases the risk of a random person getting lung cancer from the fumes.

Everything we do creates some amount of risk. Not to say we shouldn't work to minimize the risk, but it's absurd to worry about this level of statistical significance. Unfortunately, Mr. Dyson dramatically overestimates the public's understanding of risk and probability. He thought he was reassuring people, but most people have the same reaction as you, "OH NOOOOS, SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE????"

Re:You are WRONG and here is why

[khallow]

I work at Marshall Space Flight Center, and I can't get into too much detail about the specifics due to security reasons, but the ARES will fly and the design is coming along nicely. It's beyond naive to suggest that NASA does not want to use the best possible rocket.

Ares I isn't even close to launching (2014 for first unmanned launches, ignoring demo launches like the one that might be next year). There's a surprising lack of momentum behind this project. And nothing aside from some J-2X development has been done on Ares V. Maybe Ares V will survive the two and a half presidential terms, but that's a huge gamble. Certainly the "ARES will fly" line is unrealistic.

Further, if NASA were interested in using "best possible rockets", they'd be going with EELVs over Ares I. More reliable and safer. More on why I say that. But then we're talking about an agency that flew Space Shuttles for 40 years. "Best possible" isn't the correct term to use here. Politically convenient for the NASA supply chain, but not best possible.

You mention an internal study found DIRECT superior in every way? Can I ask, have you read this study? I have, and it does not say what you suggest that it says. Are you just spouting what you read from a newspaper, or do you have higher access than I do? Newspapers live on sensationalist reporting. Keep in mind that it takes a lot more effort to send a rocket to the moon that it does to send a rocket to orbit. Also, (and I am making up these percentages here but the trend is real) it takes a lot more effort to raise the safety rating from 85% to 95%. I would not sit on top of a DIRECT rocket.

• Better reuse of existing shuttle components. DIRECT uses standard 4 segment solid rocket motors (exactly like the Shuttle), a modified Shuttle external tank, and the RS-68.
• Higher flight rate. Since there's one rocket instead of two, the significant fixed costs of DIRECT will be split over more launches. Should be able to achieve similar flight rates to the Ares I.
• Even now, DIRECT can be developed before Ares V can. Heavy lift comes online much sooner. Lower risk of heavy lift program cancellation.
• Larger payload means fewer design compromises and lower risk for the Lunar missions over the Ares I.
• DIRECT has somewhat more room to expand. You can enlarge the SRMs and center tank at some point in the future. Ares I is as big as it can get. There's no more performance to be had from the first stage.
• DIRECT uses a configuration very similar to the Space Shuttle. The significant difference is that the vehicle is on top rather than on the side. That means solid rocket motors (SRM) will have similar performance to a Shuttle for DIRECT. No thrust oscillation issues unlike the Ares I.
• DIRECT doesn't compete directly with commercial launch vehicles, the EELVs while the Ares I does.

It's the best possible solution to our 21st century spacefaring challenges: flying humans routinely to space, supporting groundbreaking research on the International Space Station and sending explorers to the moon and worlds beyond.

No. The economics of Ares I and V don't work. Too low a launch rate to significantly lower costs or support the reliability numbers that NASA claimed in Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS), which justified the Ares program in the first place. As I hear it, Ares I launches at most six times a year and Ares V launches at most three times a year. That's not routine service, folks. Atlas V already launches as much as the Ares I theoretically ever will. Further, by failing to use existing US commercial launch services, NASA weakens US competitivity in this area.

Now, I know there's still debate over how useful a high launch rate is. My take is it's the most significant contributor to low cost and high reliability. For example, the Ares I was claimed by the ESAS to have extremely low odds of loss of mission during a launch, 1 in 4

How soon we forget....

[SirTreveyan]

"Not a single solid rocket booster was ever lost on the space shuttle (they are all re-used) and the design for the ARES is almost identical."

I'll say it in one word...Challenger.

From what I recall the loss of the orbiter was caused by the failure of the solid rocket booster. Subsequent to the explosion of the shuttle both solid boosters were ordered to self-destruct [nasa.gov]. By my count that is two that were lost during flight.

Now being really nit-picky, if we count any flight related damage that results in a SRB segment being unusable before it's rated lifetime expires as a partial loss, I am sure the numbers will start to add up. During the course of the Rodgers Commission investigation information indicating that other shuttle flights had SRB joints that experienced burn through of the O-rings. On one flight the burn through was about 33% the radius of the O-ring. These segments were sent back to Morton-Thiokol for refurbishing. But that does not mean they actually flew again, they could have been too damaged to refurbish. We do not know. I doubt anyone at NASA really knows. To me, that would be the loss of a segment. If you add up the SRB segments that could not be refurbished, for whatever reason, I am sure you would get the equivalent of several more SRBs that were lost due to flight activities.

While you make several good points, simple errors like this ruin your credibility.

Re:Dreams

[DerekLyons]

First, dear NASA: Permitting whatever mission creep that has led to this embiggining of Ares V is a fatal mistake. Driving up the cost only provides a larger surface on which to paint a bullseye.

Dear Topspin: It's not mission creep - it's the way of world. Paper projects are light and cheap, real world projects are neither. Let's take the Saturn V for example - it's paper version had four F1 engines. In the last revision before bending metal, they had to add a fifth F1 (a 20% increase in 1st stage thrust) and despite this Saturn V performance was still barely enough.