Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Archibald" data-source="post: 64572" data-attributes="member: 138">I've spent the last months absorbing stuff at the NASA forums. I can tell you that Ares V and Ares I are in deep trouble. Ares I is too weak for Orion, and plagued by the famous thrust oscillations. Ares V is a monster with six RS-68 and 5.5 segment SRBs, 180 tons to LEO (!) Not only it is too heavy for the crawlers and VAB, it is also way to expensive: something like 1.5 billion $ per launch, for two launches per year at best. Another problem is the six or seven RS-68 cause base heating problems. In other words, they threaten to literally incinerate Ares V first stage at take-off! So the Augustine commission re-examined various launchers options, all reduced to a maximum of 70 tons to LEO at best. Uprated EELVs, Direct, Shuttle C... and, with that, different mission profiles according to budget levels. The most favourable is called flexible path:instead of building a moonbase, period, it consists of a large number of missions to various targets, including Phobos and asteroids. Btw, the shuttle may be extended to 2015, and the ISS to 2020.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Archibald, post: 64572, member: 138"] I've spent the last months absorbing stuff at the NASA forums. I can tell you that Ares V and Ares I are in deep trouble. Ares I is too weak for Orion, and plagued by the famous thrust oscillations. Ares V is a monster with six RS-68 and 5.5 segment SRBs, 180 tons to LEO (!) Not only it is too heavy for the crawlers and VAB, it is also way to expensive: something like 1.5 billion $ per launch, for two launches per year at best. Another problem is the six or seven RS-68 cause base heating problems. In other words, they threaten to literally [i]incinerate[/i] Ares V first stage at take-off! So the Augustine commission re-examined various launchers options, all reduced to a maximum of 70 tons to LEO at best. Uprated EELVs, Direct, Shuttle C... and, with that, different mission profiles according to budget levels. The most favourable is called flexible path:instead of building a moonbase, period, it consists of a large number of missions to various targets, including Phobos and asteroids. Btw, the shuttle may be extended to 2015, and the ISS to 2020. [/QUOTE]

Verification