Another Booster Alternative for Orion?

[ATSF90East]

With all of the recent commotion over the Russian incursion / invasion of Georgia, the use of Soyuz spacecraft to ferry US Astronauts to and from the ISS has been called into question. There is a projected 5 year gap where NASA will have no manned capacity of its' own.

There have been several people who have said that maybe we should not retire the Space Shuttle in 2010, but continue to fund further missions to service the ISS. This plan would siphon funding from the Ares booster development, and lengthen the development time even further.

We won't even go into the Direct 2.0 debacle.

There is another alternative that I've been seeing more and more lately on the internet - why not man-rate either the Atlas V or the Delta IV to carry the Orion? Bigelow Aerospace is considering this idea to carry crews to their proposed space station.

There would be several advantages from a time and cost standpoint, in my opinion. First, the design of both EELV boosters is mature. Manufacturing and launch infrastructure is already in place. I suspect that some of the engineering to man-rate the Delta IV Heavy was done when Boeing proposed to use it for the winged CEV that they proposed several years ago.

What are your thoughts?
Bruce Sebring

[Rick]

If I am not mistaken Bruce, I believe there is a 5 year man rating period for potential launch vehicles?

That would not really reduce the 'gap' between programs.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

[jdhouse4]

The NASA man-rating requirements can Googled, but in-short they are not time-based, so the 5-year gap could be reduced to that time needed to get the Delta IV/Atlas V man-rated and performance up-rated to support Orion. According to JSC, Orion's diameter was reduced from 5.5 meters to 5 meters so that EELV launch was supportable. My concern would be that Orion, not EELV man-rating, would be the pacing item. Anyone know for certain?

[Andrew]

My concern would be that Orion, not EELV man-rating, would be the pacing item. Anyone know for certain?

From a simply non-technical aspect, that would appear logical. The Orion capsule is still in design while those ELV alternatives are ready and (mostly) proven.

-Andrew

[Rick]

Isn"t there an historical reference of some kind to look at in this case?And if so, would it even apply?The current VSE was based on the Apollo program as it was proven to have worked. Both the spacecraft and the launch vehicle where being developed concurrently, if I remember my facts correctly.

[J.McDonald]

Apollo/Saturn is applicable to Ares/Orion development.... but not EELV/Orion. Apollo was delayed by, what, 2yrs, following the fire, IIRC? Could be interesting to compare Apollo development times with Orion, though.

[J.McDonald]

Can this thread be moved to the new EELV section?

[Me2]

Isn"t there an historical reference of some kind to look at in this case?And if so, would it even apply?The current VSE was based on the Apollo program as it was proven to have worked. Both the spacecraft and the launch vehicle where being developed concurrently, if I remember my facts correctly.

Mercury on Atlas and Gemini on Titan II were developed concurrently

[Rick]

Can this thread be moved to the new EELV section?

Doing it now John.

[Rick]

Done.

[Rick]

Apollo/Saturn is applicable to Ares/Orion development.... but not EELV/Orion. Apollo was delayed by, what, 2yrs, following the fire, IIRC? Could be interesting to compare Apollo development times with Orion, though.

I was really speaking about development prior to the Apollo 1 fire.