NASA has been busy developing a new rocket to return the U.S. to manned space flight after the last shuttle flight, scheduled for Sept 16, 2010? The new rocket is named Ares, to lift the new crew vehicle, Orion. Critics of the Ares program wonder why it is going to cost so much time and money to well, only surpass the 1967 Saturn V by relatively little. Wikimedia commons has an interesting Saturn V - Shuttle - Ares IV comparison.
Critics of the Ares include passionate engineers and administrators besides cost-minded Congress and non-manned space flight advocates. President Obama has appointed a 10-member special panel to determine the best path forward for NASA, not simply Ares. Alternative to over-budget Constellation moon rockets gaining traction tells that this committee has asked for detailed analysis of alternatives to Ares.
The committee is headed by Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin, and an evangelist for aerospace and scientific advancement. He decries the budget limitations that NASA has been forced to endure as discussed in NASA Panel Says Budge Cutbacks Have Impaired Programs. The panel is due to provide its recommendations to the President by the end of August, and it appears to outsiders, that a cheaper and faster return to space is better.
It probably did not help the Ares program this week - Air Force: NASA's New Rocket Unsafe for Astronauts. The Air Force concluded that for the first minute of flight, the astronauts would be unable to safely jetison away from an errant Ares booster. The study was based upon a 1998 Titan IV rocket detonation similar to the proposed Ares booster. The article also reminds us that the Ares has a liftoff 'tilt' issue that could push the rocket into the launch tower with a wind gust greater than 13 mph. It has also been exhibiting dangerous vibration/resonance issues in some testing.
Also, Ares I-X testing delayed to Oct 31 explains that the scheduled test flight has slipped two months, placing it on Halloween, long after Norm Augustine provides his findings to the President. The explanation is that managers are still concerned about vibration levels and additional renovations are required for the launch pad.
Most engineers working on big aerospace projects will readily admit that schedule and cost overruns are almost expected. There are perhaps many factors, but I think one dominates. We fail to comprehend how complex our projects are. For example, look at your mobile phone. It does lots and lots of cool things, doesn't it? (And like an iceberg, the real complexity is unseen, residing at the physical, link, and network layers of the waveform.) But that product is an evolution - the existing software and hardware has been incrementally developed and modified since the mid 1980s. A product team does not suddenly crank out two million lines of code for a new mobile phone. We fail to recognize the true cost of complexity when we schedule projects because we are seduced by the success and capabilities of commercial products.
Much like a rocket that launches poorly, it is difficult to straighten out the trajectory of a project like Ares. I'm certain there are brilliant engineers and managers working ungodly hours to make it succeed. They are attempting to build what was specified for them. We always see more clearly looking backwards instead of forward. I wish the Augustine panel the clearest vision for planning a path forward for NASA.
So if it basically a Saturn 5. What was all the R&D money spent on?
Sounds to me like it's an engineers version of "The Achemist".
Posted by: J Matthew | November 01, 2009 at 08:31 AM