Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V13_4/V13_472.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #472

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 472

Today's Topics:
             Re: ALS vs. Saturn V
               Re: Saturn V and the ALS
             Re: NASA & Executive Branch
         NASA Headline News for 04/24/91 (Forwarded)
     Re: slight problems with HLV's in general, Saturn or not...
     Re: slight problems with HLV's in general, Saturn or not...
                 ATF Fly-off
             Re: Saturn V vs. ALS

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 12:54:47 GMT
From: mnemosyne.cs.du.edu!isis![e-mail]  (Glenn A. Serre)
Subject: Re: ALS vs. Saturn V


Frank Crary:
I feel that the greatest reductions in launch costs, at least in the
near term, would result from a design that used the best known, proven
hardware available, while concentrating on reducing costs instead of
improving the technology used.

A rebuilt Saturn V, would not do this, since it uses proven 1960's technology
while there are many examples of proven 1980's technology around.

Building a high-tech ALS also would not do, since it would concentrate on
developing new, late 1990's technology.

                       Frank Crary
                       UC Berkeley

Me:
What are examples of proven 1980's rocket technology around?  Parts of the
Shuttle seem to be the most recently developed examples of US rocket
technology.
Those parts have proven to be complex and costly.

As far as technology in the (US, non-shuttle)rockets that are currently
flying, the engines
(for example) are usually little (if any ) modified from the original
military missile designs.

Avionics is probably a good example of 1980's technology that is flying, do
you know of any others?

More ramblings from:
--
--Glenn Serre         |Soon-to-be former Payload Integration Engineer for
[e-mail] |Martin Marietta Astronautics Group, Space Launch Systems
                      |Company.
                      |Next job:  Script writer for Cayenne Systems, Inc.

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 15:32:36 GMT
From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Saturn V and the ALS

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brian Yamauchi) writes:
>>The Europeans thank you profusely for not coming through on the shuttle's
>>promises; Arianespace has made a bundle out of your failure.
>
>On the other hand, wasn't Ariane designed from scratch?  Or is it
>simply a derivative of American launchers (Titan/Atlas/Delta/etc.)?

I'm not sure how this is relevant to the discussion, but Ariane is not a
derivative of any US launcher.  It is, somewhat, derived from earlier
European launchers.
--
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 13:51:13 GMT
From: agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!abvax!iccgcc![e-mail]
Subject: Re: NASA & Executive Branch

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
> Congressional intervention to authorize it?  If NASA were really a business, as
> Hughes seems to think it is, then NASA would have control of it own purse
> strings, but it evidently does not.  So how can it be held accountable for not
> doing something it did not have the money to do?

It must be held accountable for not doing something that it had
contracted to do.  Regardless of the truth of the matter, our
government generally does not choose to declare that it is a
liar that defaults on its contracts and should not be trusted.

The technical term describing an entity that does not have the
money to carry out its promises is "bankrupt".  Our government
is still trying to hide the applicability of that word.  (Too.)

How many readers of this thread are deeply offended by my use
of the words "untrustworthy" and "bankrupt" with respect to
my government?  What is it we have been talking about in
this thread?

dan herrick
[e-mail]

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 08:57:20 GMT
From: [e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Headline News for 04/24/91 (Forwarded)


             Headline News
Internal Communications Branch (P-2) NASA Headquarters

  Wednesday, April 24, 1991    Audio Service: 202 / 755-1788

This is NASA Headline News for Wednesday, April 24, 1991 . . .

Kennedy Space Center staff are nearly ready to gain access to
Discovery's aft compartment for troubleshooting of the suspected
faulty sensor on engine #3.  Yesterday, the main tank was drained and
the rotating service structure moved back around the orbiter.  This
morning work continues to drain fuel cell reactant tanks.  Technical
team members should be ready to inspect the engine #3 aft
compartment area by this afternoon.  Marshall Space Flight
Center and Kennedy officials estimate repairs could be underway
tomorrow if the problem turns out to be the sensor or the wiring
harness.  Should troubleshooting point to the engine controller,
additional time may be required for removal and testing.  Presently,
the KSC and Marshall team are indicating a possibility of picking
up the launch countdown Saturday morning, to support a launch
no earlier than Sunday, April 28.

In orbiter processing facility bay 1, Columbia is nearly ready to be
transported to the vehicle assembly building.  Final orbiter
preparations for the rollover have been completed.  The orbiter will
undergo weight and center-of-gravity checks today.  Columbia's STS-40
solid rocket booster/external tank stack is ready for mating with the
orbiter.  The launch of Columbia for the Spacelab Life Sciences mission
is still set for May.

                   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the 84 students from Copley High School and Copley-
Fairlawn Middle School, Akron, Monday was much more than just
any ordinary Earth Day.  The 84 students had just emerged from 10
days of seclusion in Moonbase America, a cluster of nine domes
set up to simulate an actual extraterrestrial base.  The $3 million
project is jointly sponsored by NASA with the education community
and corporate support.  NASA Administrator Richard Truly helped
kick off the project ten days earlier.  The 84 students spent their time
working around the clock, in eight-hour shifts, to attend to a host of
environmental, electronics, computer and hydroponics
experiments spaced throughout the nine-dome city.  NASA
Lewis Research Center computer specialist Bill Crell helped to debrief
the students following their "journey."  Additionally, 12 middle-school
and high school students staffed the "control facility" which monitored
the Moonbase's operations.  Homework, the teachers say, was
"faxed" to the base.  Former NASA astronauts Al Worden and John
Glenn helped with the project, which was entirely managed by Carolyn
Staudt, Copley High School physics teacher.

                   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space
(Albert Gore, D-Tenn., chairman) holds hearings today in the
Russell Senate Office Building, room 253, from 9:30 through noon.
Today's hearing is on the NASA Office of Space Science and
Applications Fiscal Year 1992 budget request.  OSSA Associate
Administrator, Dr. Lennard Fisk, will be the principal witness.

                   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The newest space shuttle orbiter, the Endeavour, will be rolled out
tomorrow in a ceremony at Rockwell's Space System Division plant in
Palmdale, Calif.  Several thousand Rockwell employees, their families,
government leaders and top NASA and Rockwell officials will be on
hand for the ceremony, which begins at 1:30 pm EDT.  The rollout
ceremony will be covered live on NASA Select TV from 1:30 to 3:30
pm EDT.  Also appearing at the ceremony will be Dr. Robert Duce,
University of Rhode Island vice Provost for Marine Affairs, who will
present NASA with a sternpost remnant recovered from Endeavour's
namesake ship -- the first sailing ship commanded by British Captain
James Cook.  On that trip, during the period from 1768 through 1771,
Captain Cook observed and recorded the transit of the planet Venus.
The sternpost will be carried aboard Endeavour on its first flight, now
scheduled for STS-52 in February 1992.  Endeavour is expected to
arrive at the Kennedy Center next Friday, May 3.

                   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Stennis Space Center's Teacher Resource Center is hosting
an Earth Day workshop all day today to assist Mississippi and
Louisiana educators with their science teaching requirements.  The
teachers received a series of briefings on Earth and the environment
from scientists working at Stennis.  In addition to the scientists from
Stennis, the workshop is also being supported by Stennis contractor,
Environmental Protection Agency, and other Stennis resident-agency
staff scientists.

                   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)
holds its annual meeting next Tuesday through Thursday, April
30 - May 2, in Arlington.  This year's theme is "Aerospace 1991: The
Changing Course."  The meeting will be in the Crystal City Hyatt
Regency Hotel.  Key speakers for the sessions will include NASA
Deputy J.R. Thompson, Office of Aeronautics, Exploration and
Technology Associate Administrator Arnold Aldrich, and Norman
Augustine, chief executive officer of Martin Marietta Corp.


Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA
Select TV.  Note that all events and times may change without notice,
and that all times listed are Eastern.

Wednesday, 4/24/91
    1:15 pm    Magellan-at-Venus status briefing, live from the Jet
          Propulsion Laboratory.

Thursday, 4/25/91
    1:30 pm    Rollout ceremonies for space shuttle Endeavour, live from
          Rockwell International's Palmdale, Calif., orbiter assembly
          plant.

This report is filed daily at noon, Monday through Friday.  It is a service of
NASA's Office of Public Affairs.  The contact is Charles Redmond, 202/453-
8425 or CREDMOND on NASAmail.  NASA Select TV is carried on GE
Satcom F2R, transponder 13, C-Band, 72 degrees West Longitude,
transponder frequency is 3954.5 megaHertz, audio is offset 6.8 MHz,
polarization is vertical.

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 13:52:13 GMT
From: agate!bionet!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!pacbell.com!iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!widener!hela![e-mail]  (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: slight problems with HLV's in general, Saturn or not...

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Phil Fraering) writes:

>Is a heavy-lift launch vehicle really needed?

Not now. However, they will be if we ever get a Lunar/Mars exploration
program off the ground. It wouldn't hurt to have the infrastructure there
for when real expansion begins. Work on the F-1 engine began years before
the race for the moon for the simple reason that Von Braun realized that
we would someday need a big engine. If he hadn't anticipated that need, we
wouldn't have made it to the moon in the 60's.

>The vast majority of
>commercial payloads are rather small compared to the payloads of the
>large vehicles being developed,

Many payloads are as big as they can get. There is a chicken and egg
problem. Nobody will build bigger satellites without a launcher and
nobody will build a bigger launcher without demand.

> I suspect that it would be easy to
>break up the larger payloads into smaller payloads assembled on-site
>if the smaller vehicle proved cheaper.

You can't do the assembly without the infrastructure in place to support
it. That infrastructure will be a lot easier with larch cheap launchers.

>Especially if new technology is going to be developed, it would be
>easier to develop it on a small test vehicle;

Agreed. But since these are to be operational vehicles we should not
be developing new technology.

>the insurance for the heavy
>launcher is going to be a lot more than for the light launcher,
>because more is risked each launch.

But if overall cost per pound is lower, so what? The Saturn (as well
as the Heavy Lift Delta and Titan V) should be able to reduce costs
by a factor of three.


Your points are very valid. It all comes down to the size of the market
and now it just isn't big enough. However, many times in the past large
markets have emerged from wise investment by the government on
infrastructure.

  Allen
--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Allen W. Sherzer | If you love something, let it go. If it doesn't come back |
|   [e-mail]   | to you, hunt it down and kill it.                         |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 20:05:13 GMT
From: sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!widener!hela![e-mail]  (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: slight problems with HLV's in general, Saturn or not...

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Fraering Philip) writes:

>1. If there's no market for the smaller launchers, will there be a
>market for the larger ones?

Depends on the price. There is no market for large payloads today which
are big enough to justify construciton of a larger launcher. However,
some applications would eventually use the extra capacity if provided.

If we had, say, a HL Delta I think we would see larger communication
satellites. Eventually, we would see more larger payloads. This is
especially true if these vehicles result in significant cost reductions.

>2. I believe that on-orbit assembly will be much easier than you seem
>to believe.

I think eventually you will be correct. At the moment it is hard and
I can't say when it will become easy.

>3. It makes more sense to do the R and D on a small scale than on a
>large one BUT this does not mean I am proposing that the small
>vehicles should be much more experimental than the large ones. I think
>there should be small experimental vehicles, but only as an adjunct.
>Whatever gets built, the first couple are going to be at least
>slightly experimental in nature.

Depends on what we build. At the large end, there is no need for it
to be the least bit experimental. Smaller 10K pound vehicles on the
other hand, will be very R&D.

  Allen
--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Allen W. Sherzer | If you love something, let it go. If it doesn't come back |
|   [e-mail]   | to you, hunt it down and kill it.                         |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 14:33:14 GMT
From: news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Kieran A. Carroll)
Subject: ATF Fly-off

[e-mail] (Doug Mohney) writes, regarding the
money that Lockheed and Northrop put into their ATF (>not< ALS :-)
prototype development projects, over and above the amount the USAF
had agreed to pay them (i.e. their self-funded over-run):

> ...They put in MUCH more than half the development money. Maybe
> close to 75-80%. The losing contractor (as I previously mentioned and which
> you chose to ignore) lost lots of money, and the AF will not conduct business
> that way in the future, due to the disincentives of a "Winner Take All"
> approach. The long-term effects of this contract on our industrial base are
> unclear.

Referring again to the PBS show that recently examined the ATF
fly-off, I recall that one of the requirements that the USAF put
on the designers was the per-unit price of delivered airplanes.
That is, I believe that the lot-buy of ATFs is a fixed-price one,
with the manufacturer knowing the price beforehand. Thus, as long as Lockheed
hasn't under-estimated production costs, the US will get a fair deal on
this airplane.
--

     Kieran A. Carroll @ U of Toronto Aerospace Institute
     uunet!attcan!utzoo!kcarroll [e-mail]

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

Date: 26 Apr 91 06:45:04 GMT
From: agate!lightning.Berkeley.EDU![e-mail]  (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: Saturn V vs. ALS

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (K.MacArthur working for bwebber) writes:
>available capacity?   You can't set up a market until somebody takes the
>risk and provides the infrastructure.  Usually that somebody is the govt,
Not at all. If someone thinks a market is possible, they will invest in
the infrastructure. You seem to think the government should develop
infrastructure, and then see what corporate interest there is in using
it. Would it not make more sense to show how profits can be made with
current infrastructure, they let all the greedy CEO's realize that, by
investing in infrastructure, they could increase their profits?

                         Frank Crary
                         UC Berkeley

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

End of SPACE Digest V13 #472
*******************