JimMcDade
06-30-2008, 09:10 PM
from Al.com:
Ares remains the answer for NASA
Sunday, June 29, 2008
By DAVID KING, Director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
For The Huntsville Times
NASA has an excellent plan in place for its future space fleet
The Huntsville Times reprinted an Orlando Sentinel story on June 23 that suggested NASA, now hard at work on the Ares I rocket that will return human explorers to the moon in the next decade, passed too hastily on "Direct 2.0," an alternative next-generation rocket concept some say is worthy of further consideration.
That decision was not hasty. Nor was it the only alternate concept considered - literally thousands of options were set aside for one compelling reason or another in the run-up to Ares development. Why?
Because the Ares family is the right set of rockets for the mission.
It's the best possible solution to our 21st century spacefaring challenges: flying humans routinely to space, supporting groundbreaking research on the International Space Station and sending explorers to the moon and worlds beyond.
To reach this solution, NASA has embraced a multitude of opinions, as it always has done. We value open debate and rational dissent, and rely daily on the innovative minds and voices of gifted engineers and developers who think around corners and buck conventional wisdom. They have been heard, and their insight has helped set us on our chosen path - which began in earnest in 2005 when NASA announced its formal plan to develop the Constellation Program vehicles: the Ares I and Ares V rockets and the Orion crew capsule, and which have continued to mature ever since.
Designing any rocket - particularly a rocket intended to accomplish such bold, far-reaching exploration initiatives - is a tough proposition. It takes years of training and rigorous analysis. In getting to where we are today, the agency has been thorough and conscientious in its evaluation of thousands of possible options. On the Ares family alone, we have evaluated more than 1,700 concepts since 2005, using proven, validated launch vehicle design models and techniques.
Was each rejected option a drawing-board failure, flawed from the start? Not by any means. The prodigious talents of our engineers and developers across NASA and among its partner organizations is second to none.
But NASA works within its budget to accomplish three goals above all else: maximizing the safety of our crews during launch and spaceflight; ensuring the highest-value, most cost-effective mission operations possible; and increasing the bounty of rewards our continued exploration of space will reap here on Earth.
Other vehicle system concepts may have offered benefits in one area or another - but those benefits worked against the system as an integrated whole. For example, certain configurations may have provided greater performance, but at the expense of safety and reliability. Other concepts may have sought to use more existing hardware, cutting near-term development costs, but subsequently would have increased recurring operational costs.
Direct 2.0, the concept in question in the June 23 Times article, falls significantly short of the lunar lander performance requirement for exploration missions as specifically outlined in Constellation Program ground rules. The concept also overshoots the requirements for early missions to the International Space Station in the coming decade. These shortcomings would necessitate rushed development of a more expensive launch system with too little capability in the long run, and would actually increase the gap between space shuttle retirement and development of a new vehicle. Even more importantly, the Ares approach offers a much greater margin of crew safety - paramount to every mission NASA puts into space.
To accomplish the nation's goals in space, we need more than a new rocket. We need a robust, multipurpose space fleet.
Ares meets those requirements. We have a good plan in place - based on years of flight data, practical experience, new and proven technologies and, above all, exhaustive study - and we're making excellent progress. Nearly three years in, we will conduct the preliminary design review for the integrated Ares I stack next month - at a pace unseen since the Apollo era.
David King is director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
Ares remains the answer for NASA
Sunday, June 29, 2008
By DAVID KING, Director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
For The Huntsville Times
NASA has an excellent plan in place for its future space fleet
The Huntsville Times reprinted an Orlando Sentinel story on June 23 that suggested NASA, now hard at work on the Ares I rocket that will return human explorers to the moon in the next decade, passed too hastily on "Direct 2.0," an alternative next-generation rocket concept some say is worthy of further consideration.
That decision was not hasty. Nor was it the only alternate concept considered - literally thousands of options were set aside for one compelling reason or another in the run-up to Ares development. Why?
Because the Ares family is the right set of rockets for the mission.
It's the best possible solution to our 21st century spacefaring challenges: flying humans routinely to space, supporting groundbreaking research on the International Space Station and sending explorers to the moon and worlds beyond.
To reach this solution, NASA has embraced a multitude of opinions, as it always has done. We value open debate and rational dissent, and rely daily on the innovative minds and voices of gifted engineers and developers who think around corners and buck conventional wisdom. They have been heard, and their insight has helped set us on our chosen path - which began in earnest in 2005 when NASA announced its formal plan to develop the Constellation Program vehicles: the Ares I and Ares V rockets and the Orion crew capsule, and which have continued to mature ever since.
Designing any rocket - particularly a rocket intended to accomplish such bold, far-reaching exploration initiatives - is a tough proposition. It takes years of training and rigorous analysis. In getting to where we are today, the agency has been thorough and conscientious in its evaluation of thousands of possible options. On the Ares family alone, we have evaluated more than 1,700 concepts since 2005, using proven, validated launch vehicle design models and techniques.
Was each rejected option a drawing-board failure, flawed from the start? Not by any means. The prodigious talents of our engineers and developers across NASA and among its partner organizations is second to none.
But NASA works within its budget to accomplish three goals above all else: maximizing the safety of our crews during launch and spaceflight; ensuring the highest-value, most cost-effective mission operations possible; and increasing the bounty of rewards our continued exploration of space will reap here on Earth.
Other vehicle system concepts may have offered benefits in one area or another - but those benefits worked against the system as an integrated whole. For example, certain configurations may have provided greater performance, but at the expense of safety and reliability. Other concepts may have sought to use more existing hardware, cutting near-term development costs, but subsequently would have increased recurring operational costs.
Direct 2.0, the concept in question in the June 23 Times article, falls significantly short of the lunar lander performance requirement for exploration missions as specifically outlined in Constellation Program ground rules. The concept also overshoots the requirements for early missions to the International Space Station in the coming decade. These shortcomings would necessitate rushed development of a more expensive launch system with too little capability in the long run, and would actually increase the gap between space shuttle retirement and development of a new vehicle. Even more importantly, the Ares approach offers a much greater margin of crew safety - paramount to every mission NASA puts into space.
To accomplish the nation's goals in space, we need more than a new rocket. We need a robust, multipurpose space fleet.
Ares meets those requirements. We have a good plan in place - based on years of flight data, practical experience, new and proven technologies and, above all, exhaustive study - and we're making excellent progress. Nearly three years in, we will conduct the preliminary design review for the integrated Ares I stack next month - at a pace unseen since the Apollo era.
David King is director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.