Re: 10 meter diameter CaLV

On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 15:57:52 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Jorge
R. Frank" <jrfrank@xxxxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Now, if you want an opinion....

As I've said in the past, the CLV is the Shaft (for taxpayers - "Bend
over, Norton!). NASA would've been much smarter to continue
development of a human rating kit for one or the other (or both) of
the EELVs, particularly in view of the costs associated with what
they're designing. However, that wouldn't save enough shuttle jobs or
match Griffin's (tunnel)vision of a shuttle-derived LV.

While I don't disagree with the technical points, I do think there's a
"grass is always greener" view of the EELVs. There are some real issues
that would need to be overcome there, and in the end I think the cost
savings would be next to nothing. (If you disagree, I'd like to know why
- with specific reference to the points NASA makes in section 6.4.2 of
the ESAS Report.)

It's not too difficult for me to imagine an alternate universe where NASA
went EELV-derived, ran into a bunch of technical issues that drove up the
costs, and the usual barking heads start bemoaning that NASA didn't go
shuttle-derived or whatever. Especially given that "EELV" is about to
become a code word for "sole-source to LockMart", since my reading of the
tea leaves tells me that Delta and ULA are not long for this world.

I find that quite easy to imagine as well (even though the Shuttle was
never man rated, which just shows how convuluted, nutty, and pointless
this whole notion of "man rating" is).

The real issue, of course, is that NASA has completely thrown in the
towel on low-cost, reliable launch capability. Arguing about whether
or not to use EELVs or Shuttle-derived expendable launchers to deliver
humans to orbit in an "affordable and sustainable" program is like
arguing about what color the lifeboats should have been on the
Titanic.
.

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