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Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #522

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 12 : Issue 522

Today's Topics:
       Re: You Can't Expect a Space Station to be Cheap
               Re: Spell u-l-y-s-s-e-s
           Re: Ulysses speeding up rel. to the sun
           Re: Galileo Update #2 - 11/01/90

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Date: 1 Nov 90 18:08:19 GMT
From: hub.ucsb.edu!ucsbuxa![e-mail]  (Charles Frank Radley)
Subject: Re: You Can't Expect a Space Station to be Cheap





o
o
>Boeing has a long track record of building highly successful
 >aircraft.   LLNL does not have any track record at all in large
 >space systems.
+ First of all, that is irrelevant.

It is not irrelevant, track record is the SOLE reason Boeing
receives these kinds of contracts.    Therefore your analogy
there cannot be applied to LLNL.

+Second of all, the LLNL contractors on this DO have a good track
+record in large aerospace systems.

So do the Freedom contractors.......

>At what point do you decide it does not work.
+That is a fair question. Let's see... Freedom was to be done in
+six years and cost 8 billion. Instead it will take 20 years and
+over 40 billion which is 2.5 times as long and five times the
+cost

Don't you think LLNL will go through similar cost increases as
reality starts to dawn, and the magnitude of the task is truly
appreciated ?   And in the 2 years I have been working Freedom,
first element launch has been set at March 1995, and has not
slipped one day.    And the costs have been reduced, not
increased.

 +If LLNL doesn't have an Earth Station in orbit four years after
+ start costing under $4 billion I will call for it to be killed.
+ How's that?

That's OK provided Freedom does not get cancelled in the interim,
then we get nothing.

+Interesting choice of numbers. Freedom was to be ready in about
+six years with the start of operations next year. We have
+already spent six years with nothing to show for it (not
+counting the $8 billion in briefing slides that is).

Progress is greater than you think.   Breadboard hardware has
been built and tested, and we are moving into Engineering
Development units.    Manufacturing drawings are being released,
although probably not in their final form.  Flight software
specifications have been written, and coding will start in a
matter of months (not sure exactly - not my area).   Flight
article metal bending will begin in 1992 and deliveries of flight
articles will begin in 1993.  March 1995 first element launch
date has been unchanged for the last two years.

+That is not the problem. A 10% cut is enough to send all of
+Freedom back to the drawing board. That is bad project
+ management. Projects I have managed have taken harder hits
+ without tossing everything out.

All of Freedom is not sent back to the drawing board, the area I
am working on has so far been affected little.   And nobody is
"tossing everything out", where did you hear that ?

+ Besides, sources on Freedom say that the budget cuts are the
+ excuse  not the cause of the redesigns.

Redesigns would have been necessary with or without budget cuts,
but the cuts have made them more often and more severe.  And the
fact that the redesigns have been for political and not technical
reasons has been very bad for morale.
>   Proposing untried NiH batteries which have no advantage over
 >existing ones;
+ These batteries provide more power for less weight. This
+results in cost savings which most people think is an advantage.
 >proposing untried amorphous silicon cells with
 >dubious qualification prospects and admitting conventional
> cells woulBd be just as good and less risky;

But the NiH and solar celss are not space qualified, and they
underestimate the qual costs, which could wipe out the saving.
And they may never pass qual.  It could be a valid R & D program,
I simply object to LLNL trying to sell it as being cheap and off
the shelf.

 >presupposing a brand new
 >ELV will be ready on time in three years and cost next to
 >nothing; - all this I find hard to swallow.
 +
 +Tell us what part is hard to swallow? Have you read up on them?
 +MDAC and Martin Marietta say it can be done. What do you know
 +that they don't? You spoke above about Boeing and how they
+ could estimate cost because they had a track record. Don't
+ these +companies also have a track record?

+ But again, none of these are serious problems. If they work, we
+advance the state of the art and save money. If they fail, their
+weight budgets and schedules allow for it.

No it is worse, if they fail and Freedom is cancelled, we waste
decades, it will take that long to rebuild a manned space
program.


+ A NASA contractor and NASA both say it will work. I think it is
+ safe to say that both are up on the relevant standards and
+laws.

Fair enough.

> station cannot go up in the HLV with the crew following in the
> Shuttle or on a (safer and cheaper) Delta.

Oh come on, the Delta is an unmanned ELV, there are no manned
spacecraft designed to fly on delta.   And developing a new
manned spacecraft is not cheap.  Don't tell me that has been
factored into the cost too.

+ You miss the point. If the HLV is not available they can launch
+ the Earth Station on a Titan. Freedom was deliberately designed
+ to use ONLY the Shuttle. The LLNL plan allows for failure but
+ Freedom does not.

But again, Titan is expensive, no cheaper than shuttle.   Don't
tell me they have included costs of Titans in their plan.  This
really is getting very far fetched.

+ It is only good engineering to have a backup for all the
+methods and technology you plan to use. I always do.

I agree 100 %, no 1000 %.    It is the COST I am disputing, not
so much the technical approach.

 >+ If the HLV is gounded, they could use Titan, Delta, or even
+ the Shuttle.
 >Sure, but then their cost projections go out the window, and
> you end up with a system costing the same as Freedom.
+  No because the alternatives they use are all much cheaper than
+ the Shuttle.

Wrong again.   Titan is no cheaper than Shuttle.    Delta is too
small too launch the LLNL package, so requires a complete
redesign which cancels out the launch cost saving.

 >Adapting launch packages to fit three or four different
> vehicles sends your cost sky high.
+ Not in this case. The HLV fairing and interfaces are all
+compatible with Titan IV. In fact, they both use the same
+fairing and interfaces. A worse case failure will double their
+transport costs which will go from $500M to $1B. See what can be
+done when you have a fallback plan?

A single Titan-IV launch gives you a tiny space station.   More
like a MIR than a Freedom.    MIR is a lot cheaper than LLNL.
The whole point of Freedom is its size and capability. LLNL gives
all that away.

 + That means there is about a 50% chance that Freedom will never
 +be built. I consider a 50% chance of failure high risk.

I will not dispute those probabilities, other people arrive at
different numbers.    The point of failure rate predictions like
that is as an inspiration to work on the causes and fix them.
That is why the number was generated.   You don't just close your
eyes and pray...!   Reliability predictions are design tools, not
forecasts of doom.
 The point is you are not able to quote probabilities for LLNL
because there is no meaningful test data and hence no failure
rate data, so a responsible engineer has to assume high failure
rates until proven otherwise.   For some reason which I do not
understand, you seem to assume the failure rates for LLNL will be
low.   Such "ass-backwards" thinking reminds me of Challenger
"We got away with launching in cold weather twice, so this gives
us confidence we will get away with it again...."   It reflects a
fundamental failure to understand the statistical basis of
reliability predictions, and how to use the numbers generated.

 >With one exception, I would like to see an ACRV added to
 >the program to get some independence from the Shuttle.
+ How does that make them independant of the Shuttle?

It makes the crew in orbit able to get back.   It does not of
course prevent the SSFP from re-entering.

+ If you want to know how much it costs, you do.

I do not understand.

 + Well, we do pay interest on the deficit. I think it counts as
+credit.

So Freedom costs should be computed to amortize the deficit ?

 >+One bad effect of this is that it hurts the domestic launch
 >+ industry.
 >
 >No, it does not.  NASA is prohibited by Executive Order from
 >competing with the commercial ELV industry.

+Ah but it does. It takes buisness away and costs the taxpayers
+ billions.
Are you saying Freedom should be launched on commercial ELV ?  I
have no real problem with that.   Would require several dozen
Titan-3 launches.  The ELV industry does not have that capacity
right now, would require them to change gear.   But could save
$$$.    Will need to redesign all the Freedom launch packages
however, big cost and schedule hit at this stage in the program.


 >+ It is cheaper to design for no eva and do eva if needed than
to
 >+ require eva.

 >Not really.   Once you provide the airlocks, EVA suits,
training
 >and all, then take it all into orbit, whether you use it or not
 >makes little difference to the final cost.
 + The Earth Station already has an airlock and facilities for
+EVA.

I do not mean the Earth station, I mean your mysterious "Delta-
launched" manned spacecraft will have to be designed to support
EVA in order to assemble the Earth station in the event the Earth
Station fails to deploy automatically.    That makes the Delta-
spacecraft expensive.   More than the entire HLV, to put it in
perspective.

 >All Moon/Mars funding has been deleted, so how come
 >LLNL think they are going to get congress to change their minds

+ They already have. The House Senate Conference put back the DoE
+ IR&D money. Some of this money will go to the Great Exploration
+ for A detaild study. After that, there is good reason to expect
+ them to start in earnest. This probram has the support of the
+ Space Council (Quale recently told the head of LLNL that he
+ wanted to see this program move forward).

I am delighted.   I just hope Quayle and the congress won't be
too disappointed when they see the cost projections escalate
and/or the schedule start slipping, happens to everybody sooner
or later.

+I would like to see a reason more detailed. What specific
+engineering problems are there?

I do not know.   That is the problem in itself.  They express
extraordinary optimism about an unknown quantity.    Maybe it
will work.    It is simply psychological, I was always taught not
to count your chickens until they are hatched.

 > >>Any of those guys coming to southern California any time
soon?
 > >+ Invite them down
 > >Hah !  I value my job too much.
 >+ That's an interesting remark. Why would inviting some
+ speakers in get you fired?
 >I work for a Freedom contractor.    LLNL represents the
> competition.
+ Now that is another interesting remark. I routinely visit and
+look at the work of my competition. I want to know what they are
+ up to and if they have any good ideas.+
+  Why are your bosses so afraid of evaluating the competition?

We are of course VERY interested in the competition.   My concern
is giving competitiors visibility of our status, and providing
them a forum.   Meeting on neutral turf is AOK, which is why I
ask: are they coming to So Cal.

+ BTW, NASA and LLNL recently signed a MOU on this. Both agreed
+to exchange information and ideas. So I think you can do it
+ without getting fired.

That is very interesting, I did not know that.  In that case it
is highly likely our paths will cross anyway.
   Also, my competitors do net give me the same access to their
facilities as yours do !

------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 90 15:23:50 GMT
From: swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink![e-mail]  (J.D. Frazer)
Subject: Re: Spell u-l-y-s-s-e-s

If it's any help, "Ulysses" is pronounced by all of my Classic Literature
instructors at UBC as "You - liss - seas", the way you've always used it.

It sounds funny to me if it's pronounced any other way. I'm not sure if there
is a "correct" way to say the word. English lends itself well to abuse and
modification. :-/
--
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<    J.D. Frazer         | "How can the same shit happen to the     >
< [e-mail]     |  same guy TWICE?!" - Officer John McLain >
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<      CANADA            |                                          >
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------------------------------

Date: 2 Nov 90 00:05:41 GMT
From: hal![e-mail]  (Steve Masters)
Subject: Re: Ulysses speeding up rel. to the sun

[e-mail] (Stuart Warmink) writes:

>Assume that Ulysses was boosted out of Earth orbit in such a direction
>that it was originally at a tangent to the Earth's orbit - not an
>unusual direction for a boost to the outer planets. If started of in such
>a direction its velocity w.r.t. the Sun would be 0. As Ulysses gained
                                                 ^^^
...not unless it were launched directly against the earth's orbital velocity
at the earth's orbital speed...Ulysses, upon leaving earth's orbit, was almost
certainly moving close to the earth's orbital velocity (about 18.5 mi/sec,
I think) relative to the sun.

This doesn't explain an increase in sun-relative speed...are we sure there isn't
a typo?  Unless there is a gravity assist from Venus, there is no way to get
to Jupiter by dropping closer to the sun (I don't think, anyway :) )

Steve Masters    [e-mail]
ENSCO, Inc.
Melbourne, FL  32940  USA

------------------------------

Date: 2 Nov 90 02:51:31 GMT
From: tristan![e-mail]  (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: Galileo Update #2 - 11/01/90

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Baalke) writes:
>
>                      Galileo Status Report
>                        November 1, 1990
>
>     The Plasma Science instrument's protective sun shade on the Galileo
>spacecraft was retracted today as planned.  Preliminary telemetry information
>indicates proper retraction did occur.  Two more delta DOR (Differential
>One-way Ranging) navigation activities were attempted today.  One activity
>using 70 meter antennas in Goldstone and Spain was successful, the other using
>the 70 meter antenna pair in Goldstone and Australia was not due to improper
>predict information at the Goldstone station.

    All I can say is that I hope that Galileo is on target for its
first encounter with the Earth, which will be next month. Since its
sunshade is now gone, that means that it cannot go to the distance of
Venus again without getting whatever damage prompted the installation
of that sun shade. I forget what the details of that were all about.

    I wonder if the spacecraft's controllers plan to make the
spacecraft take pictures of the Earth during the two flybys. That
might make good press for the program.


$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster: [e-mail]

Since this nodename is not widely known, you may have to try:

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End of SPACE Digest V12 #522
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