It seems this did not come up here so far, in any case the Ares V design was changed to become more powerful and larger. The plans suggest now that it is to have even larger SRBs and 6 instead of 5 RS-68 engines, and the Size is to become 115 metres. The reasons lie in shortcomings of the Ares I.

I know this does not really make the Ares V more likely to be built, but merely shows what a mess the Ares I is, but, hey, I WANT to see this rocket, its lauch would be perfect.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/ares/aresV/index.html

The plans are: 188 tons to LEO, 71 tons to the moon.

Ares I is a joke. What fool decided that solid rockets were a good idea for manned boosters? That thing's a damn firecracker...

Quoting N328KF (Reply 1): Ares I is a joke. What fool decided that solid rockets were a good idea for manned boosters? That thing's a damn firecracker...

It certainly is the most ugly looking manned rocket ever made. Nothing wrong with that, as form follows function, but it even looks delicate from my untrained view.

Quoting N328KF (Reply 1): Ares I is a joke. What fool decided that solid rockets were a good idea for manned boosters? That thing's a damn firecracker...

Well the Space Shuttle uses two firecrackers. 1 failure in 242 uses (121 launches, 2 solid rockets each, 1 failure). That's not bad for a rocket system.

Quoting N328KF (Reply 1): Ares I is a joke. What fool decided that solid rockets were a good idea for manned boosters? That thing's a damn firecracker...

There is no more fundamental risk between launching a manned vehicle on a solid rocket versus a liquid rocket. There's just a whole lot of problems with this particular solid rocket (Ares I) that might be better solved using a liquid first stage or a solid/liquid combination.

Quoting N328KF (Reply 1): Ares I is a joke. What fool decided that solid rockets were a good idea for manned boosters? That thing's a damn firecracker...

That may be true, but Ares I's performance problems are essentially tied to the decision to abandon the Space Shuttle Main Engine as the upper stage powerplant. That cost the vehicle 200,000+ lbs. of thrust and a few dozen seconds of ISp where it needed it the most. Since the decision to go with J-2S (and then J-2X) the SRB grew from four segments to five, and now might inherit Ares V's 5 1/2 segment design. It will be so long, they might as well name it the Javelin.

NASA needs to pull the plug on Ares I as soon as possible. Sure, all launch vehicles have gone through teething problems (Saturn V's second stage was a real bear) but there are alternatives essentially available off the shelf now, or at most requiring 1/2 the development time and costs to field. Why is NASA wasting so much effort on this dog of a rocket? To save Ares V, which itself is turning into an unaffordable behemoth?

Pull the plug, NASA. Change the architecture from 1 1/2 launches to a full-fledged 2 (which it really is anyway) and use Delta or Atlas as the basis of Ares I (call it Ares II to save face) at least for the first stage, perhaps a smaller version of the Ares I Upper Stage on top, using the earlier/easier J-2S engine instead of the costly and unproven J-2X.

Or go the DIRECT/Jupiter direction, NASA. Call them Ares III and Ares IV if you want to... they started out as NASA NLS proposals anyway, and it won't be the first time rockets skipped numbers in their designation series (no Saturns II, III, and IV, or Atlas IV was ever built, remember.) The public won't really notice, and all Congress is worried about is jobs, and all the alternatives still employ a lot of Shuttle people.

Quoting DfwRevolution (Reply 4): There is no more fundamental risk between launching a manned vehicle on a solid rocket versus a liquid rocket.

Solid rockets can't be shut off, liquid rockets can be - the degree of control is much greater.

Quoting Moo (Reply 6): ckets can't be shut off, liquid rockets can be - the degree of control is much greater.

This is exactly my point. SRBs are great for ICBMs or satellites, but Ares I is a recipe for death.

Quoting Moo (Reply 6): Solid rockets can't be shut off, liquid rockets can be - the degree of control is much greater.

And while the same was true for shuttle, its SRBs at least could have been jettisoned, although I am not sure which consequences this would have had for Shuttle in early stages.

I mean, if we look at the current situation, the Orion capsule and its safety system can also be put on another rocket system. So this is no wasted use of money. Scrapping Ares I now would still be relatively cheap.

I must admit I lack the insightful knowledge on further details of the Ares system, but to me it seems that the concept of Ares I itself is pretty flawed from the beginning. If problems occur at a later stage, those can regularly be overcome, but if the concept itself is flawed, it is a very bad start.

In the end, I do not care how we get back on the moon, but this newly proposed Ares V will be extremely expensive, everybody can see that at once. Therefore its use beyond its moon role is pretty limited, even if Nasa indicates its use for "beyond" is already taken into consideration. Somehow I think we would be better off with some medium scale rockets with more applications.

Quoting N328KF (Reply 7): This is exactly my point. SRBs are great for ICBMs or satellites,

They're not good for satellites, either. Vibration levels are much worse, although its mitigated somewhat on Shuttle and Ariane V by the big liquid tank between the boosters. This would be true with a DIRECT type launcher, too.

Quoting N328KF (Reply 7): but Ares I is a recipe for death.

No, it isn't. The Thiokol/ATK Solid Rocket Booster actually has a better safety record than most liquids. (1 failure in 246 firings, and that 1 was in extreme conditions against the advice of the SRB engineering team.)

Quoting TheSonntag (Reply 8): And while the same was true for shuttle, its SRBs at least could have been jettisoned,

Not while they were firing... they'll race ahead and incinerate the Orbiter/ET if the stack somehow survives the seperation (which will be violent). Shutting down the SRBs in flight is theoretically possible (blowing off the nose cap to reduce chamber pressure to zero) but the stack wouldn't survive that, either, so the option was dropped early in development (you can still find some pictures of Titan IIIs with thrust-termination covers on the tops of the solids)

Quoting TheSonntag (Reply 8): I mean, if we look at the current situation, the Orion capsule and its safety system can also be put on another rocket system. So this is no wasted use of money. Scrapping Ares I now would still be relatively cheap.

And the J-2X engine can still be used for upper stage of Ares V or whatever replaces it if we change the architecture. We'll still need an Earth Departure Stage of some sort.

Quoting Moo (Reply 6): Solid rockets can't be shut off, liquid rockets can be - the degree of control is much greater.

Quoting N328KF (Reply 7): This is exactly my point. SRBs are great for ICBMs or satellites, but Ares I is a recipe for death.

Solid rocket motors can be "shut off" using range safety systems in which shaped explosives rip the casings open, effectively reducing thrust to zero. Any new manned vehicles are going to require a launch escape system and the design requirements to escape a solid vehicle are no more challenging than escaping the blast wave of a failed liquid stage.

Ares I is not a recipe for death. It's just a terrible value to the taxpayers.

Quoting Thorny (Reply 5): That may be true, but Ares I's performance problems are essentially tied to the decision to abandon the Space Shuttle Main Engine as the upper stage powerplant. That cost the vehicle 200,000+ lbs. of thrust and a few dozen seconds of ISp where it needed it the most. Since the decision to go with J-2S (and then J-2X) the SRB grew from four segments to five, and now might inherit Ares V's 5 1/2 segment design. It will be so long, they might as well name it the Javelin. NASA needs to pull the plug on Ares I as soon as possible. Sure, all launch vehicles have gone through teething problems (Saturn V's second stage was a real bear) but there are alternatives essentially available off the shelf now, or at most requiring 1/2 the development time and costs to field. Why is NASA wasting so much effort on this dog of a rocket? To save Ares V, which itself is turning into an unaffordable behemoth? Pull the plug, NASA. Change the architecture from 1 1/2 launches to a full-fledged 2 (which it really is anyway) and use Delta or Atlas as the basis of Ares I (call it Ares II to save face) at least for the first stage, perhaps a smaller version of the Ares I Upper Stage on top, using the earlier/easier J-2S engine instead of the costly and unproven J-2X. Or go the DIRECT/Jupiter direction, NASA. Call them Ares III and Ares IV if you want to... they started out as NASA NLS proposals anyway, and it won't be the first time rockets skipped numbers in their designation series (no Saturns II, III, and IV, or Atlas IV was ever built, remember.) The public won't really notice, and all Congress is worried about is jobs, and all the alternatives still employ a lot of Shuttle people.

Could not agree more. With such a high aspect ratio on the solid booster, is there any risk that flex in the structure will cause gaps in the solid fuel ? That could/would be catastrophic, I think.

The decision to back away from the SSME to me is unfathomable. So now Ares I is a seriously underperforming booster. Woo-hoo.

Quoting Thorny (Reply 9): Not while they were firing... they'll race ahead and incinerate the Orbiter/ET if the stack somehow survives the seperation (which will be violent). Shutting down the SRBs in flight is theoretically possible (blowing off the nose cap to reduce chamber pressure to zero) but the stack wouldn't survive that, either, so the option was dropped early in development (you can still find some pictures of Titan IIIs with thrust-termination covers on the tops of the solids)

Seem to recall reading (sorry, I have no link) that if the crew tried to bail on the SRBs while they were firing, the orbiter would pivot back on the aft attach points, wings would come off, and then what's left (if not incinerated as indicated by Thorny) would do essentially what the crew cabin did on -51L. Same conclusion.

Quoting Connies4ever (Reply 11): The decision to back away from the SSME to me is unfathomable.

The SSME delivers amazing performance but it is on hell of a complicated engine. The start-up sequence in particular was a major PITA to master. Building a variant that could be air-started and be manufactured cheap enough to throw away each flight was apparently too much to ask.

What is unfathomable IMO is that they couldn't see that coming sooner, and that they stuck with the Ares I configuration when so much of the performance depended on the SSME.

I'm pretty sure that the one booster failure everybody refers to wouldn't have been that serious on the Ares I, although it caused the destruction of Challenger.
I'm also pretty sure that a solid rocket booster isn't likely to blow up like a bomb, and the abort rocket on Ares will be powerful enough to separate the capsule at any stage of the flight if something goes wrong. Liquid fuel rockets are a lot more complex with a lot more things to go wrong. Saying that they're safer because you can shut them down is simplistic and ignores the many catastrophic failures that could occur where the ability to shut down the engine wouldn't be of any benefit.

Since the Space Shuttle was the first man-rated rocket with solid boosters, I think it is fair to say that enough experience could be gathered in those Shuttle flights that they can be considered safe enough. The SRB failure in the Challenger launch would not have caused any problem in an Ares-I style rocket.

This is not my problem with the Ares-I, my problem is that it is ugly (irrelevant for its purpose), it looks unstable from the outside already (irrelevant if engineers know how to do it), and that it obviously falls short of what it is intended to do, so that an already overpowered Ares V behemoth needs to be made even stronger.

How much weaker is a J-2x compared to a SSME? Maybe this is a very stupid question, but why don't they just try to man-rate the RS-68 and put it on the Ares I? As far as I know, isn't that in the same class as the SSME?

Quoting Connies4ever (Reply 11): Seem to recall reading (sorry, I have no link) that if the crew tried to bail on the SRBs while they were firing, the orbiter would pivot back on the aft attach points, wings would come off, and then what's left (if not incinerated as indicated by Thorny) would do essentially what the crew cabin did on -51L. Same conclusion.

Not quite the same thing. That would happen in "Fast Sep" (which is still an option, I think) where the Orbiter separates from the External Tank while the SRBs are still attached and firing. Its not 100% unsurvivable, but its close enough that its only a "well, they're dead anyway if they don't try" option.

Quoting Nomadd22 (Reply 13): I'm pretty sure that the one booster failure everybody refers to wouldn't have been that serious on the Ares I, although it caused the destruction of Challenger.

It would almost certainly have a forced a launch abort due to reduced performance of the SRB. But the crew would likely have survived.

The problem with solids is that the Challenger accident was a non-typical failure. The slow leak is rare, usually solids just plain let go in a firecracker-like explosion. See the 1986 Titan 34D failure (which wiped out the pad at Vandenberg) or the 1997 Delta II failure. The warning time in most solid motor failures is dangerously low. The Shuttle SRB design is very robust (made more so after Challenger) and their recovery for inspection helps greatly to improve their safety, but with the Ares I performance problems, the larger size of the SRB, and the switch to a new propellant, we're moving too far away from the Shuttle experience to be useful. Its time to pull the plug and go with a better known comodity, like RD-180, RS-68, or even F-1 for the boosters. Tell ATK that we gave it the old college try, but it just wasn't working.

Quoting TheSonntag (Reply 14): How much weaker is a J-2x compared to a SSME?

J-2X: Thrust 294,000 lbs., weight 5,450 lbs., isp 448 seconds
SSME: Thrust 488,000 lbs., weight 6,800 lbs. isp 455 seconds
RS-68: Thrust 650,000 lbs., weight 14,500 lbs, isp 410 seconds

They've gotten the J-2X's Isp up a lot more than I thought from the J-2's 418 seconds and J-2S's 436 seconds.

RS-68 (which grew out of the Space Transportation Main Engine effort of the late '80s, early '90s) is less fuel efficient and has much worse thrust-to-weight numbers than J-2 or SSME, both of which were sacrificed to make the engine cheaper. Its too big, heavy, and powerful for an upper stage engine. Isp should go up a little if the regenerative cooling nozzle and other improvements are made for Ares V (Delta IV will like them too, but it isn't economical for P&W to pay for them unless a lot more engines are bought for Ares.)

Quoting Moo (Reply 6): Solid rockets can't be shut off, liquid rockets can be - the degree of control is much greater.

Either way, if a solid or a liquid had to be shut down, I have a feeling you'll have bigger things to worry about.

Quote: New engine configuration under evaluation for Ares V By Chris Bergin/David Harris, 8/1/2008 12:21:54 PM The Ares V core stage team is currently evaluating a configuration change to the location of the six RS-68 main engines on the ever-growing Ares V. External engine fairings - similar to the Saturn V first stage - are being considered, in order to configure the six RS-68 engines away from the Solid Rocket Booster exhaust. (snip)

Full article here:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5481

Rumors are now flying that the Astronaut Corps has said "enough is enough, we're not getting on that thing" about Ares I and its many technical shortcomings, and that NASA is now scrambling to find alternatives. A "Big DIRECT" seems to be in favor.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/new...estuff/2008/08/more-rumblings.html

Could all just be bunk, of course.

Probably, Ares will be canceled by congress at the behest of the next administrator. The only chance I see for the Ares I to survive is for Griffin to be reappointed by the next administration.
What would come after is anybody's guess - my guess is it will be something enough like Direct to get its benefits, but different enough to save face. It looks like face saving is going to be very important here. This is because a lot of smart and powerful people in NASA have loudly and publicly supported Ares for years.

The Direct people seem very adept in both congressional and agency politics. If (well.....probably WHEN) the Ares program falls apart, I would not be surprised if somehow they get most of what they want.

Quoting Cloudy (Reply 19): What would come after is anybody's guess

My guess is that the Moon/Mars emphasis will vanish instantly on January 21, 2009 no matter who is elected.

Griffin will linger a little while in the new Administration until the next President chooses a successor. We once left NASA in a position where it didn't have an Administrator for a long while. The Challenger disaster happened during that time. The next President won't fire Griffin until a replacement is found.

If McCain is elected, I think there is a fair chance that Ares will continue in some form. Ares I seems to be a lost cause, and I think McCain's advisors will make that clear to him. Griffin might be reappointed by McCain, but he'll have to abandon his pet project. McCain does not seem like the type to support this mess for very long. Ares I will be dead, probably replaced by "Ares II", which will look suspiciously like DIRECT. Ares V will still be alive, but will be backburnered.

If Obama is elected, I think Ares will be killed at the earliest opportunity. No Ares I. No Ares V. But Obama was surprised by the backlash against his plan to kill Constellation (even if he only called it "postpone for five years", the result would be the same), so he'll pick a cheaper architecture, almost certainly EELV-launched Orion, with the Space Station the only objective. This isn't a near-term bad idea, but it kills Orion's long term plans. Starting up deep space operations once the Shuttle's heavy-lift infrastructure is gone will be even more expensive than Ares I and Ares V are today, and they are approaching "impossibly expensive".

Well, one thing is for sure: We will not see ISS scrapped by its original date anyway. No one can afford to scrap it so early after all delays in construction.

Yet on the other hand, the return to moon would be a nice thing.

My idea would be: Postpone the moon plans until maybe 2025-2030, and use the budget on the ISS to max out the science on it. By 2020-2030, we might have China having an ambitious moon project, and this could help to sell a new moon mission to the US public.

One thing is for sure, Orion might be adequate for transporting people to the ISS, but it is virtually useless for science in Earth orbit, its real purpose is to fly to the moon. So it should (and will not) be scrapped, just put it on a better launcher.

Quoting Thorny (Reply 20): Ares I seems to be a lost cause, and I think McCain's advisors will make that clear to him. Griffin might be reappointed by McCain,

Who would tell McCain what he needs to hear? After the election he won't have much time for this issue. There are far more pressing matters he has to deal with. Many of those he might consult are employed at NASA or otherwise constrained from telling him the whole story. It is hard for dissidents to get their say when time is so limited. When he does find out, however, he will be furious. He may start a MASSIVE investigation, which would probably result in the end of all US ambitions beyond Earth orbit. Or even destroy the US manned space program completely. It doesn't seem in his character to simply appoint people who will switch to something like Direct and leave it at that.

But perhaps the Direct folks and /or the Astronaut corps will get to him while he campaigns in Florida. Florida is a major swing state, after all.

Quoting Thorny (Reply 20): Starting up deep space operations once the Shuttle's heavy-lift infrastructure is gone will be even more expensive than Ares I and Ares V are today, and they are approaching "impossibly expensive".

That assumes that the big booster proponents are right, and also that no new or newly proven technology comes along. If Obama wins and restricts Orion to LEO, it will obviously be a long time before operations outside of LEO can be contemplated. By the time the political winds change and some future administration wants to leave LEO, we might be able to store cryogenic propellants in space (the Direct proponents like this idea). Or we may be able to move all the heavy stuff out of LEO on a low thrust/high efficiency rocket such as the VASIMR. Or a new, cheaper booster (EELV successor family?) may come into being that is more scalable. There are lots of possibilities, and station research may speed things along a bit. Even Griffin wants VASIMR tested at or near the station as soon as possible.

IN SHORT.....I doubt we will leave LEO before 2020 anyway. Even 2030 is looking doubtful now. My guess is that by the time there is real political will to leave LEO there will be better means to do so than with shuttle hardware. Of course, the wildcard is a competitive threat. If we throw away all the shuttle stuff and the Chinese leave LEO before better means are available to us there will be a lot of 'weeping and gnashing of teeth'.

Quoting Cloudy (Reply 22): Who would tell McCain what he needs to hear?

Outside advisers, the same way every new President builds his team, a process that starts long before 12:00pm on January 20.

Mike Griffin was at Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Lab when Bush brought him in to run NASA. Sean O'Keefe was at Syracuse University before Bush brought him to OMB and then to NASA less than a year later. Dan Goldin was at TRW. I think McCain is likely to get someone from the aerospace industry (if you think he doesn't have a lot of contacts in the industry, think again), but as long as that's not someone from ATK, their review of Ares I will be scathing. There will be so many people vying for jobs in the next Administration, there will be no shortage of people to run a review of NASA for the next President.

Quoting Cloudy (Reply 22): After the election he won't have much time for this issue. There are far more pressing matters he has to deal with

McCain won't have a lot of time to spend on NASA, but NASA won't be as under-the-radar as it has been in years past, either. The coming retirement of the Shuttle and the growing gap between Shuttle and Orion has already raised alarm on Capitol Hill. The next President will be forced to look into it, and probably even before he takes office, certain influential Congresspersons will see to that.

Quoting Cloudy (Reply 22): He may start a MASSIVE investigation, which would probably result in the end of all US ambitions beyond Earth orbit.

Presidents don't usually do that, Senators do, and there is nothing stopping any Senator from doing that today. McCain won't be a Senator anymore, so there is zero chance of him calling a Congressional investigation into Ares. Instead, he'll approach it as "your proposals are unaffordable, change direction and pick a lower-cost architecture." Griffin might possibly survive, but I doubt it. McCain will publicly call the Ares I cancellation/architecture change a budgetary decision, but privately he'll chew Griffin's hindquarters over wasting tax dollars.

Obama, I think, won't even entertain the notion of Shuttle-derived architecture. He'll tell NASA its EELV or nothing. And Griffin will have zero chance of surviving in an Obama Administration. Bush's cronies carry too much baggage, deserved or not.

Well NASA just announced that they will be pushing Orion launch out one year:

Quote: "September 2014 is when we are saying we will launch the first crew on the Orion," program manager Jeff Hanley told reporters in a conference call Monday.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/08/11/nasa.orion/index.html


Tugg

Quoting Tugger (Reply 24):

Are they dreaming? They are low on budget, facing lots of delays, suffering from technical problems, how on earth do they want to be faster?

Quoting TheSonntag (Reply 25): Are they dreaming? They are low on budget, facing lots of delays, suffering from technical problems, how on earth do they want to be faster?

Read again. They've delayed one year.

Shocked. Shocked I am.

Quoting Thorny (Reply 26): Read again. They've delayed one year.

4 years of no US manned capability and counting...

Quoting Thorny (Reply 26): Shocked. Shocked I am.

But wasn't 2014 always the targeted date for the first Orion mission anyway? So far, even that date seems very doubtful for me.

I mean, there is nothing wrong with the Soyuz, but given the recent international developments, being dependant on them is not really brilliant, and if they do not get the recent troubles sorted out, one must also be concerned over this spacecraft. Any catastrophic failure of a Soyuz would end the ISS.

So they better try to get Orion going.

Quoting TheSonntag (Reply 28): But wasn't 2014 always the targeted date for the first Orion mission anyway? So far, even that date seems very doubtful for me.

No, 2014 was first operational mission, but 2013 was first manned flight.
Now 2014 is first manned flight and 2015 is first operational mission.

Quoting TheSonntag (Reply 28): So they better try to get Orion going.

Time for Congress to step in and say "you're taking too long, just use the Delta IV-Heavy." We'd probably have first manned flight in 2012 if they did that today.

I really think Congress is going to start pushing NASA on this now. 2015 is the same year ISS is to be decommissioned. (Everyone thinks that date will be pushed back, but Congress has not bought into that idea yet, so they might be irked by NASA's endless delays in Orion.)

Also might be a nice incentive to tell NASA they must double or triple funding for COTS and tell them whoever flies three manned flights first will be the chosen winner... SpaceX, Orbital, or Orion. Right now, its a horserace between Orion and Dragon.

Quoting Thorny (Reply 29): I really think Congress is going to start pushing NASA on this now. 2015 is the same year ISS is to be decommissioned. (Everyone thinks that date will be pushed back, but Congress has not bought into that idea yet, so they might be irked by NASA's endless delays in Orion.)

Thorny thank you so much for your posts on Anet. I truly enjoy the vast wealth of knowledge you bring here.

One question. Is there any way Congress would say, "heck with it, just fly the shuttle to bridge the gap"

I know they said they have to re certify every system of the STS, but is there any way Congress would allow them to continue anyway?

What was the basis for this recommendation? Was it a genuine safety concern or was it more of a economic incentive to push NASA onto Constellation?

Thank you again for your contributions!
Sam

Quoting Sv7887 (Reply 30): One question. Is there any way Congress would say, "heck with it, just fly the shuttle to bridge the gap"

Recertification of the orbiters aside, Constellation needs the funds that are currently being used to fly the Shuttle. Keeping the Shuttle active past 2010 means delaying Orion even further unless Congress steps forward and gives NASA the funding to continue operating STS while Orion is in development.

Quoting DfwRevolution (Reply 31): Keeping the Shuttle active past 2010 means delaying Orion even further unless Congress steps forward and gives NASA the funding to continue operating STS while Orion is in development.

oh okay that makes sense. I am assuming Congress is too cheap to do that? How powerful is the NASA lobby in Congress?

I can't see the American public being too comfortable with abandoning manned space flight, even if it is for a few years..

The whole Russian situation might be a kick on the pants to get our own stuff together.

Quoting Sv7887 (Reply 30): Thorny thank you so much for your posts on Anet. I truly enjoy the vast wealth of knowledge you bring here.

My pleasure, but I do make mistakes so don't take everything I say as Gospel!  

Quoting Sv7887 (Reply 30): One question. Is there any way Congress would say, "heck with it, just fly the shuttle to bridge the gap"

I'd say that possibility is gaining steam, yes. However, this doesn't solve the lifeboat problem for ISS. We'll still need to barter with or pay the Russians if we want to leave astronauts on the Station between Shuttle flights. The best solution right now is probably to bump up funding for COTS and Orion, and keep Shuttle flying until one of them is available.

Quoting Sv7887 (Reply 30): What was the basis for this recommendation?

The Columbia Accident Invesigation Board in 2003.

Quoting Sv7887 (Reply 30): Was it a genuine safety concern or was it more of a economic incentive to push NASA onto Constellation?

Constellation didn't yet exist. X-33/VentureStar had collapsed as the Shuttle successor and NASA was at the time toying with the Orbital Space Plane, but they were still baselining the Shuttle to continue flying until 2020.

By most accounts, the CAIB found this plan to be dangerous without a major recertification of the Shuttle (issues like the Flow Liners and wiring problems in the previous few years had raised questions about the Shuttle's age, although the Columbia accident was not an age-related accident) to prove that it was capable of going to 2020, so they picked a generic date (2010) and recommended NASA give the Shuttle a thorough once-over if it wanted to fly the Shuttles beyond that date.

Quoting Thorny (Reply 29): Now 2014 is first manned flight and 2015 is first operational mission.

Interestingly enough, this means that a minimum 3 year absence of US personnel from the ISS is likely - the Shuttle retires in 2010, but currently NASA only has an exemption from the 'Iran Non Proliferation Act' until 2011.

Quoting Moo (Reply 34): Interestingly enough, this means that a minimum 3 year absence of US personnel from the ISS is likely - the Shuttle retires in 2010, but currently NASA only has an exemption from the 'Iran Non Proliferation Act' until 2011.

NASA plans to keep a presence on ISS during the gap by buying Soyuz rides from the Russians. That plan may be questionable, however. This would require a large increase in Soyuz production, continued good relations with the Russians, and no deadly accidents on the Soyuz. All three of these conditions are coming into question. Soyuz has had a number of serious incidents as of late, mostly having to do with events leading up to reentry. Our relationship with the Russians is at a low point currently. The Russians are having a difficult time retaining qualified people for their space program. A major increase in Soyuz activity may be too much for their workforce.

As of now, Orion is experiencing major problems. Dragon(when it exists) will be a product of Space X, which has had three launch failures in a row. The Russians may not be able or willing to provide all the Soyuz launches we would like. It isn't a good situation by any means.

Quoting Cloudy (Reply 35): This would require a large increase in Soyuz production,

The "large increase", from two to four per year, is already in progress and has been for about two years now as Russia gears up for ISS crew expansion from three to six in 2009. The US will continue to buy seats on Soyuz, as Russia is already depending on them to do through 2011 with the expectation that will be extended through 2014-15.

ATV and HTV will be enough to take up the additional resupply needs, so an increase of Progress flights is not needed, either. If Shuttle continues flying post 2010, or COTS comes online in that period, so much the better.

In the end, Georgia will probably blow over and both sides will agree that such disagreements will remain on Earth and not impact ISS. There is no credible alternative to US seats on Soyuz until perhaps 2012-13, when an accelerated Orion could perhaps be ready or when SpaceX could perhaps have Dragon human-qualified (assuming SpaceX ever gets its engineering to match its propaganda.) So Congress will have to either abandon ISS for two years or go ahead and let NASA buy seats on Soyuz. The latter seems most likely.

Quoting Cloudy (Reply 35): NASA plans to keep a presence on ISS during the gap by buying Soyuz rides from the Russians. That plan may be questionable, however.

Thats exactly what I am talking about - NASA can only do that because of an exemption from the Iran Non-proliferation Act, and that exemption runs out in 2011. After that, NASA would have to break the law to buy Soyuz rides.

The current situation would make an extension of the exemption unlikely.

Quoting Moo (Reply 37): The current situation would make an extension of the exemption unlikely.

Technically, the Georgia affair has nothing to do with Russia selling nuclear technology to Iran, so maybe not.

Quoting Thorny (Reply 38): Technically, the Georgia affair has nothing to do with Russia selling nuclear technology to Iran, so maybe not.

Politically it wouldn't look good to extend an exemption to an act that covers a country that you are currently denouncing as an aggressive military power to its neighbours.

With respect to the increasing amount of work in the Ares/Constellation programs and the potential of a changeover in priorities after the 2009 election, I'm looking for information on a career change prospect to work in Moon/Mars projects to coincide with my MS Space Studies degree in 2010. Hopefully someone will be interested to develop telecommunications/data communications systems for those programs soon.

Does anyone have a list of the companies that are working in the two areas (Moon, Mars) so far? I am familiar with the NASA publications, but am looking for background information about the players only.

Thanks,

BOACVC10

Quoting BOACVC10 (Reply 40): Does anyone have a list of the companies that are working in the two areas (Moon, Mars) so far? I am familiar with the NASA publications, but am looking for background information about the players only.

There are number of different companies: ATK, Boeing, Lockheed, United Space Alliance and of course NASA. Some of the smaller players are Hamilton Sundstrand, Jacobs Engineering, United Technologies, etc. Those are the ones off the top of my head. If you want something to coincide with your MS Space Studies degree I'd say the best bet would be to try to get on as a civil servant with NASA in Houston.