Re: MSNBC (Oberg) - Deadly space lessons go unheeded

From: George William Herbert (gherbert_at_retro.com)
Date: 01/27/05 

Date: 27 Jan 2005 20:42:04 GMT

Andrew Nowicki <andrew@nospam.com> wrote:
>NASA is in decline because the U.S. is in
>decline. President Bush is not going to
>appoint a charismatic, independent NASA
>administrator because he prefers a stupid
>slave who does not argue with the boss.

What, like charismatic, independent Sean O'Keefe,
who argued rather forcefully with his boss and
his boss' other staff that NASA was important,
enough so that his agency was the single non-DOD
agency which got funding boosts in the last
couple of years?

>The american space cadets are too ignorant
>to have any impact on space policy -- they
>will applaud new administrator no matter
>who he is.
>
>All rocket launchers used today trace their
>design to nuclear missiles.

That has not been true since the early 1990s
at best.

Atlas: current generation uses different tanks,
a new Russian engine derived from one that has
only ever flown on non-missile vehicles (RD-170
was designed for Zenit and the associated
Energia booster). Upper stages are RL-10
based Centaurs with no missile heritage,
though the RL-10 came out of some turbopump
work for the liquid hydrogen precursor concept
to the SR-71, which at least is miliary.

Delta: current generation uses different
tanks, a new US engine which is completely
new, burns LOX/LH2, and has no design heritage
with missile components for 30+ years,
and an upper stage using the RL-10.

Pegasus: Commercially developed, using custom
developed solid motors with no significant
design heritage to weapons other than size.

Taurus: Uses Castor 120 first stage, which is
a civilianized Peacekeeper first stage, but the
rest of the vehicle is Pegasus derived.

SpaceX Falcon-1 and V: zero missile heritage.
New tanks, on new tank concepts, from a brand
new company with no prior military work.
Motors are derived from an experimental
clean *** design done by NASA for lower
cost liquid rocket motors.

SeaLaunch: Uses a Zenit model, which is an all new
tankage and a motor purpose developed for it,
with no military system design heritage per se
as far as I know.

Zenit: see above.

Soyuz: This, in deed, was once a ICBM, though without
the current second stage.

Dnepr: A decommissioned SS-18 missile.

Arianne 5: A new clean *** design, using LOX/LH2,
with no design heritage with missiles.

H-II: A new clean *** design, using LOX/LH2, with no
design heritage with missiles.

...

>They are not
>suitable for launching payloads into orbit
>because they are not reusable.

They are not optimal for launching payloads
into orbit because of their high cost.
Cost and reliability are the only criteria
that matter.

-george william herbert
gherbert@retro.com