Administration To Review Orion Lunar Rockets by out2theblack

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Administration To Review Orion Lunar Rockets

POSTED BY: OUT2THEBLACK
UPDATED: Wednesday, May 6, 2009 13:50
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Wednesday, May 6, 2009 1:50 PM

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/2009/05/is-a
res-i-adequate-obama-administration-or-order-a-new-study.html

'...Ares' woes are well-known; it's required re-engineering to deal with violent shaking caused by vibrations in its solid-rocket first stage, and engineers are still working on correcting the rocket's tendency to drift on takeoff into its launch tower. Also, its estimate costs through 2015 have risen from $28 billion in 2006 to $44 billion today.

Top NASA officials have remained mum on the possibility of another study, but Griffin has taken the lead in defending the approach. At a speech last month to the National Space Club, he lashed out at engineers and space advocates who have demanded a new study.

"I've grown impatient with the argument that Orion and Ares 1 are not perfect, and should be supplanted with other designs," he said. "I don't agree that there is a better approach for the money, but if there were, so what? Any proposed approach would need to be enormously better to justify wiping out four years worth of solid progress."

But critics question whether there has been solid progress. They point to signs that NASA is having serious problems with the rocket designs, which are constantly undergoing revision because of technical and cost woes.

Recently, NASA announced that it would cut the number of crew members that the new Orion capsule could carry from six astronauts to four. Orion was originally supposed to be able to fly six astronauts to the space station and four to the moon. But because the Ares I rocket is less powerful and more expensive than originally designed, NASA has had to cut weight and costs from Orion.

Frustrated with the ESAS and Ares I, many NASA engineers have in their spare time worked on other designs that they insist would be a better choice than Ares I. One such program that has received support from many engineers and space advocates has been the Direct 2.0 Jupiter rocket, which is essentially the shuttle's fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters with a capsule mounted on top in place of a side-mounted orbiter...

Now Direct proponents are hopeful that their rocket design will get a second look by the new panel created to examine Ares and all viable alternatives.

"It's about time," said Steve Metschan, the CEO of TeamVision Corp., a software-design company promoting the Direct concept. "That is all we have been advocating from the very beginning when it was clear that there were problems with the original study."

He is confident that the study will find the Jupiter rocket to be more affordable and safer -- and that it will retain more workers at Kennedy Space Center than Ares I or any other rivals.

http://www.directlauncher.com/

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