TeamVision Jupiter III Launch Vehicle

[Triton]

Jupiter III launch vehicle from TeamVision from 2006 rendered by Philip Metschan.

http://www.teamvisioninc.com/downloads/AIAA-2006-7517-146.pdf

Is this the same thing as DIRECT 1.0?

How does this launch vehicle compare to Zubrin's Mars Direct launch vehicle that was also named Ares?

Updated images later in this topic.

 

[CFE]

DIRECT 1.0 and TeamVision began as two separate efforts. Ross Tierney started DIRECT 1.0 by working with dissident NASA engineers, while TeamVision was the result of Steve Metschan's use of the FrameWork CT software to come up with an "optimized" solution to the goals of Project Constellation. The unwieldy (yet awesome) Jupiter III concept was TeamVision's solution to the needs of a Mars transportation architecture.

DIRECT 1.0 ran into problems when it was revealed that the regen-cooled RS-68R would come up short of their performance specs and would take much more $$$ and time to develop. DIRECT 2.0 was result of the original DIRECT team collaborating with TeamVision. Changes included a three-engine core for the heavy-lifter and a larger upper stage with improved fuel fraction based on Centaur structural concepts.

 

[Triton]

Thanks for clearing up the confusion CFE.

Does anyone have additional renders or artwork for the TeamVision Jupiter III that they would be willing to share?

 

[CFE]

You could probably contact Steve Metschan or Phil Metschan (who does a lot of Steve's graphics) directly. Steve's on the NASA Spaceflight forums.

 

[luke strawwalker]

The problem with all these types of proposals, like the Jupiter III, was that the infrastructure couldn't support multiple SRB's beyond the pair used on the shuttle. The pair of shuttle SRB's practically maxed out the crawler and crawlerway. Adding a second pair of SRB's would totally blow the roof off the capabilities required to handle their weight. The four-SRB proposals for supplementing the thrust of Saturn V would have had the SRB's added to the stack at the pad to avoid the issues of moving all that weight. There have been other four SRB proposals I've seen in the past (somewhere-- were lost when my hard drive melted down last year) and they were equally unrealistic simply due to their infrastructure requirements impacts...

The other issue is, that IIRC the pads at SLC-39 were only designed to accommodate a maximum of 11 million pounds thrust (IIRC). Most of these proposals would blow the lid off that as well... Requiring the pads be rebuilt or refurbished and strengthened to withstand the extra liftoff thrust.

Finally, there's the issue of flight rates versus vehicle development and operations costs... how often would a vehicle like Jupiter III be needed... it could launch basically a year's cargo in a single flight, but that single vehicle would be INCREDIBLY expensive to sustain, support, and operate. At some point, it's better and more efficient to launch several smaller rockets that you already are geared up to handle and support, increasing the flight rates and better amortizing support overhead costs among more launches of an "existing" vehicle you already have, rather than engineer some rarely used mega-booster at terrific expense... That was the argument that DIRECT made, anyway.

Jupiter III would make one heck of a flying model rocket, though...

Later! OL JR

 

[Triton]

Thanks for the additional information, Luke.

 

[GeorgeA]

During the SEI and FLO era, Lockheed and Aerojet briefly studied an SLS-like core with eight (count 'em) ASRMs, the Case 1 Parallel-staged Vehicle. One can only assume they intended to do on-pad assembly, but moving assembled ASRMs to the pad would have only been fractionally easier than moving the 260-inch monolithics. I doubt they spent much time on the launch operations concepts for it before moving on to other wacky ideas, such as the Case 1 Tandem-staged Vehicle with the second stage sitting atop a pack of ASRMs, Case 2, an MLV Saturn V-3X(U) analog with three SLS-like cores strapped together, or Case 4, with a 38-foot-diameter core and boost assist from STS-diameter M-1 pods.

 

[luke strawwalker]

During the SEI and FLO era, Lockheed and Aerojet briefly studied an SLS-like core with eight (count 'em) ASRMs, the Case 1 Parallel-staged Vehicle. One can only assume they intended to do on-pad assembly, but moving assembled ASRMs to the pad would have only been fractionally easier than moving the 260-inch monolithics. I doubt they spent much time on the launch operations concepts for it before moving on to other wacky ideas, such as the Case 1 Tandem-staged Vehicle with the second stage sitting atop a pack of ASRMs, Case 2, an MLV Saturn V-3X(U) analog with three SLS-like cores strapped together, or Case 4, with a 38-foot-diameter core and boost assist from STS-diameter M-1 pods.

Would you happen to have links or would be willing to share any of these studies/concepts or could direct me to them?? I'd LOVE to see this sort of thing!

Later! OL JR

 

[sferrin]

Artist's impression of TeamVision Jupiter III launch.

Looks like something somebody built in Kerbal Space Program but with better graphics.

 

[sferrin]

The problem with all these types of proposals, like the Jupiter III, was that the infrastructure couldn't support multiple SRB's beyond the pair used on the shuttle. The pair of shuttle SRB's practically maxed out the crawler and crawlerway. Adding a second pair of SRB's would totally blow the roof off the capabilities required to handle their weight. The four-SRB proposals for supplementing the thrust of Saturn V would have had the SRB's added to the stack at the pad to avoid the issues of moving all that weight. There have been other four SRB proposals I've seen in the past (somewhere-- were lost when my hard drive melted down last year) and they were equally unrealistic simply due to their infrastructure requirements impacts...

SP-413 mentions one. Four SRBs strapped to a Shuttle tank with four SSMEs at the base. In 1975.

 

[Triton]

SP-413 mentions one. Four SRBs strapped to a Shuttle tank with four SSMEs at the base. In 1975.

Sorry, what is SP-413?

 

[GeorgeA]

Would you happen to have links or would be willing to share any of these studies/concepts or could direct me to them?? I'd LOVE to see this sort of thing!

Later! OL JR

The report is Advanced Transportation System Studies Technical Area 2 (TA-2), Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle Development, Contract NAS8-39208 DR 4, Final Report, sadly no longer available on NTRS. I'd love to share a copy with you, but do you know the old story about the shoemaker whose kids went barefoot? I work for the world's premier data storage company and did I use our consumer product to back up my home iMac? Aw hell no.

Somewhere I have a paper copy and if I can dig it up, I'll scan in the relevant pages. One of the difficulties with those ATSS publications (there were several) is they are essentially compilations of slide decks rather than actual technical reports, and there's a lot of repetition. Thus there aren't useful TOCs or indexes, and it's a slog to find the exact item you want.

 

[sferrin]

Would you happen to have links or would be willing to share any of these studies/concepts or could direct me to them?? I'd LOVE to see this sort of thing!

Later! OL JR

The report is Advanced Transportation System Studies Technical Area 2 (TA-2), Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle Development, Contract NAS8-39208 DR 4, Final Report, sadly no longer available on NTRS. I'd love to share a copy with you, but do you know the old story about the shoemaker whose kids went barefoot? I work for the world's premier data storage company and did I use our consumer product to back up my home iMac? Aw hell no.

Somewhere I have a paper copy and if I can dig it up, I'll scan in the relevant pages. One of the difficulties with those ATSS publications (there were several) is they are essentially compilations of slide decks rather than actual technical reports, and there's a lot of repetition. Thus there aren't useful TOCs or indexes, and it's a slog to find the exact item you want.

Right here:

http://thehuwaldtfamily.org/jtrl/research/Space/Launch%20Vehicles/Advanced%20Transportation%20Studies%20Heavy%20Lift%20Launch%20Vehicle%20Development,%201995.pdf

 

[sferrin]

SP-413 mentions one. Four SRBs strapped to a Shuttle tank with four SSMEs at the base. In 1975.

Sorry, what is SP-413?

This:
http://www.xmission.com/~sferrin/SP-413_Space_Settlements_-_A_Design_Study.pdf

 

[GeorgeA]

Right here:

http://thehuwaldtfamily.org/jtrl/research/Space/Launch%20Vehicles/Advanced%20Transportation%20Studies%20Heavy%20Lift%20Launch%20Vehicle%20Development,%201995.pdf

Outstanding, thank you. If you look through the 592-page PDF, you'll find the series-burn and parallel-burn options, the Case 4 inline boosters, the Saturn-derived and NLS-derived systems, and the later, post-SEI 50-80K lbm payload, two-stage launchers that were supposed to be ISS-focused and yet somehow also be boosters for a HLLV. The NLS-derived launchers are quite obviously the older, bigger brothers to SLS.


Note that the heavies were capable of 500K-675K lbm payload to LEO, so they were pretty stout, somewhere around the mid-upper end of the Saturn MLVs of the 1960s and the low end of the post-Saturns.

 

[GeorgeA]

This:
http://www.xmission.com/~sferrin/SP-413_Space_Settlements_-_A_Design_Study.pdf

Some flyback S-IC info within as well.

 

[GeorgeA]

During the SEI and FLO era, Lockheed and Aerojet briefly studied an SLS-like core with eight (count 'em) ASRMs, the Case 1 Parallel-staged Vehicle. One can only assume they intended to do on-pad assembly, but moving assembled ASRMs to the pad would have only been fractionally easier than moving the 260-inch monolithics. I doubt they spent much time on the launch operations concepts for it before moving on to other wacky ideas, such as the Case 1 Tandem-staged Vehicle with the second stage sitting atop a pack of ASRMs, Case 2, an MLV Saturn V-3X(U) analog with three SLS-like cores strapped together, or Case 4, with a 38-foot-diameter core and boost assist from STS-diameter M-1 pods.

Several years before the TA-2 concepts I mentioned, Martin Marietta proposed the Mini-Magnum and Super-Magnum shuttle-derived HLLVs under the Manned Mars System Study:

Magnum Vehicle--Shuttle-Z's lineage goes back to late 1988 when NASA asked Martin Marietta Astronautics Group to present heavy lift booster concepts that used the National Space Transportation System's (Space Shuttle's) components. The booster had to be capable of lifting 227 to 680 metric tonnes of payload into a 407 by 407 km orbit inclined at 28.5 degrees. These ambitious lift requirements might enable NASA to launch an entire manned Mars vehicle at once.

Martin Marietta investigated two classes of ultra-large vehicles, both known as Magnum boosters. The Super Magnum family, as shown in Figures 5.3.2.1-1 through 5.3.2.1-3, has lift capabilities ranging from 575 to 666 tonnes and requires 12 SRBs for stage-l, 16 SSMEs burning in parallel for stage-2, and 4 SSMEs on stage-3. This family has a 13.7 meter core vehicle diameter and ranges in height from 113 to 142 meters. The Mini-Magnum family, shown in Figures 5.3.2.1-4 and 5.3.2.1-5, has roughly half the Super Magnum's payload capability (200 t class). This vehicle uses 6 SRBs for stage-l, seven SSMEs that start two minutes into the flight as the SRBs thrust begins to taper off for stage-2, and a single SSME for stage-3. Mini Magnums have a 10 meter core diameter and are 90 or 107 meters tall for the tanker or cargo version, respectively.

http://hdl.handle.net/2060/19930003255

 

[luke strawwalker]

AWESOME materials there... thank you guys very much for the links...

This is just the sort of thing I love to dig into!

Later and thanks again! OL JR

 

[Triton]

"An Alternate Approach towards Achieving the New Vision for Space Exploration"
by Stephen Metschan, TeamVision Corporation, Federal Way, WA, 98003

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Space 2006
19 - 21 September 2006, San Jose, California

Source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160331112557/http://www.teamvisioninc.com/downloads/AIAA-2006-7517-146.pdf

 

[Byeman]

why are you bringing all these old sites?

 

[sferrin]

why are you bringing all these old sites?

Last I checked that's kinda the whole point of this website. Why do you think this information shouldn't be here?

 

[Lord_RevaNite]

why are you bringing all these old sites?

Last I checked that's kinda the whole point of this website. Why do you think this information shouldn't be here?

Well, I agree completely but all links on this thread are broken anyways. Same in almost all forums on this site, it would be good if they had in house data storage, or at least a common server.