Re: Briefing on SRB based CEV at NPS with Scott Horowitz

Tom Cuddihy wrote:
> Ed Kyle wrote:
> >
> > What about ISS? It is an example of what can be
> > accomplished using low earth orbit rendezvous methods.
>
> You want to duplicate a program that is now at $30 billion dollars
and
> still not even at core complete?

No. ISS is merely an example that shows that existing
launch systems can be, and have been, used to assemble
large mass objects in low earth orbit. A single
Saturn V couldn't have launched ISS, but Shuttle and
Proton and Soyuz have.

> It's currently 10 years behind schedule and only has a 10 year
expected
> useful life. The cost overruns are way in excess of original budget,
> even after scaling back capability.

These are ISS program issues that have nothing to
do with LEO rendezvous methods. They are the result
of really bad program management.

A Shuttle-C assembled ISS would probably not have done
any better because the projected billions it would have
taken to develop Shuttle-C - not to mention the
additional funds required to create an auto-docking
upper stage from scratch - would probably have bled the
program dry. (There would have been Shuttle-C cost
over-runs too, as happens in all big NASA programs.)

And what would have happened if one of the Shuttle-C
launches had failed - taking 1/4th of ISS worth maybe
$5 billion with it? Answer - the same thing that will
happen if a single large launch vehicle carrying most
of a multi-billion lunar mission fails.

The problem with really large launch vehicles is that
they cannot be allowed to fail, because it is cost
prohibitive to build back-up hardware for such a massive
launch. This drives the launch cost up as extra efforts
are made to provide redundancy, etc. The launch cost
doubles or triples or quadruples as the result of efforts
that, in the end, only incrementally improve launch
reliability.

Consider Space Shuttle, a super-heavy launcher with all
of the redundancy designed into it, which is nontheless
sitting today with a demonstrated reliability that is
less than Delta II and Tsyklon 2 and recently-retired
Atlas II, etc.

- Ed Kyle

.

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