Here's a study completed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) from October 2006. It outlines some of the alternative vehicles considered around the time of the Ares I/ Ares V 's adoption by NASA as their preferred vehicles for meeting the requirements of the Vision for Space Exploration, what would come to be known as "Project Constellation", which was ultimately canceled in 2010/11.

Here's the summary and the pics will follow... Enjoy! OL JR

Attached Files

NASA Study Summary- Alternatives for Future US Space Launch Capabilities.txt (25.6 KB, 34 views)

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Existing and historical heavy lifters...

Characteristics chart...

"Closely derived" launchers as defined by the study...

Cost comparison of "closely derived" vehicles...

"Super Heavy" (as defined by the study) launchers and their evolution from existing vehicles...

Later! OL JR

Attached Thumbnails

         

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Comparison of "super heavies" considered in the study...

Cargo launches required of various launchers considered and total payload capability...

Costs of "close derivative" launchers...

Shuttle modifications into "close derivatives" of shuttle...

Atlas modifications into its "close derivatives"...

later! OL JR

Attached Thumbnails

         

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Modifications to create Delta IV "close derivatives"...

Mods to create shuttle derived "super heavies"...

Mods to create Atlas "super heavies"...

Mods to create Delta "super heavies"...

Comparison chart of recurring costs (per flight) of various launchers...

Later! OL JR

Attached Thumbnails

         

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Comparison chart of costs of all alternatives examined, 2006-2017...


This was an interesting study from a historical perspective in 2012, knowing what we know now. Ares I, which was projected to cost $5 billion to develop (to first flight) had burned through $9 billion (along with Orion) from 2006-2010 when it was canceled, and hadn't even completed PDR, meaning it wasn't even off the drawing board. The five segment first stage SRM development was well along and continued to completion (so far) but the J-2X wasn't even in the testing phase when the Ares I was canceled and the upper stage and other vehicle systems were in the design phase. The Ares I IOC, originally to be 2014, had slipped to 2017 (20% confidence level) or more realistically, 2018 (75% confidence level, IIRC). There's no reason to put any more faith in any of NASA's estimates for the final costs for Ares V, either.

The "cost comparisons" between shuttle, Delta IV, Atlas V, and Saturn V REALLY are the smoking gun here... note shuttle costs per pound of payload to orbit... they're STUPID expensive! Compare it to Saturn V, which, despite having a MUCH larger development cost (due to being at the bleeding edge of "state of the art" in the mid-60's and having to invent "everything"!) actually had a per-pound payload cost to orbit about the same as Delta IV and Atlas V, themselves only a FRACTION of shuttle costs! It's safe to say that, had Saturn V been flown enough to amortize the development costs over more units produced, and had it been "improved" through a cost-cutting program to streamline and simplify the manufacturing and integration of the vehicle, it could have beat the pants off any other system flying today, and ESPECIALLY off the shuttle!

What a shame...

Note also the shuttle costs per launch-- CBO estimates them at about $900 million per flight. Now, NASA always cried foul at this estimate as too high, and claimed that shuttle per-flight recurring costs were around $450 million to $500 million per flight. Now that shuttle has been retired and the final program costs are known (to the degree they can EVER be fully known, since NASA often plays games in the bookkeeping, assigning project costs to other projects when they're in a budgetary crunch and one project runs into cost overruns or needs extra funding, muddying the waters as to what the projects ACTUALLY costs). The shuttle program, from its inception in 1972 until the last orbiter flew, with retirement costs, divided by the 135 launches in the program, works out to a cost of about $1.1 to $1.2 billion per flight... MUCH closer to the CBO estimate of $900 million per flight than the "official" NASA estimate of $450 million or so... (a figure roughly arrived at by dividing shuttle program budget by the number of flights per year).

IOW, shuttle was a "bill of goods" from day one...

Later! OL JR

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Thank you for posting these new documents! They confirm a conviction of mine that has been growing for some time: NASA should be razed, destroyed, smashed to bits. In its place should be created a new organization--NACA, the National Advisory Committee for Aerospace, which would be essentially a rebirth of the pre-NASA NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics). Also:

Just as the old NACA did *not* constitute a "national aviation program" (it was not a government aircraft procurement & air transportation service that competed with the private aviation industry), the new NACA would -not- be--as NASA is--a "national airline to space" that (by its very existence) is an impediment to the development of a competitive private space industry. Like the old NACA, the new NACA would conduct high-risk/high-reward, cutting-edge Research & Development work on aircraft, launch vehicle, and spacecraft structures, propulsion systems, guidance systems, materials, and aerothermodynamics--the kind of research that is too expensive for private aerospece firms to conduct entirely on their own. In addition:

The existing NASA (formerly old NACA) field centers would conduct this work as they did under the old NACA--unlike NASA, the new NACA would do its R & D work exclusively to provide such engineering knowledge to private industry--the new NACA would *not* develop or operate space transportation systems, although scientific satellites and unmanned space probes (which have no immediate, direct commercial applications) would be part of the new NACA's mission--as they were part of the old NACA's mission.

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

I agree, NASA needs a MAJOR reboot...

Not entirely sure of the best way to do it, though...

Of course as a political animal that proves quite useful to a number of constituencies, I SEVERELY doubt it will ever happen (along with campaign finance reform, term limits, and Congress actually having to live under the same laws they force upon us).

No less an esteemed person than Apollo 17's Harrison "Jack" Schmitt agrees with us... he's on the record saying NASA needs a complete reboot.

Later! OL JR

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

The congress via NASA has wasted billions and billions over the years by authorizing and funding programs, then cancelling them before anything was accomplished.

The first thing that congress and NASA need to do is make a decision on what they really want to accomplish and stick with it. Heck...just pick something worthwhile and go!!! At the very minimum, I'd like us to go back to the moon before the Chinese, if for no reason other than to tick everybody else off that we can start from scratch twice before anybody else can get there once!

Second, they need to fund it and lock it in place so that no future congress or administration can cancel it.

Third, congress must allow NASA to find the appropriate compromise between fastest, cheapest, safest way to accomplish that goal without demanding that certain technologies be used only because they are built in their state.

I don't think any of those three things will ever come to pass, so I predict that in my lifetime I will only see the continued cycle of starting programs and canceling them before they bear fruit.

__________________
I love sanding.

They have done and they still do all of that.

What NASA needs is a real mission. A Moon base is the logical step.

__________________
Retro-grouch

That isn't the point (or the problem with NASA). The NACA never competed with private industry. NASA, by being a de facto "state-run airline to space," could and did undercut private space launch companies, particularly the small ones (their subsidies for launching satellites aboard the Shuttle were just one example of this) because being a federal agency, it doesn't have to worry about making a profit or even being efficient. Also:

The large, legacy launch vehicle manufacturers (Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed, Martin Marietta, McDonnell Douglas, Rockwell, etc.) were Shuttle contractors and also produced other products (missiles and their components) for the government, so they weren't concerned about reducing the cost of space access because their customers who paid them (NASA and the DoD) didn't care, either. This distortion of the market has kept us dependent on incrementally-improved derivatives of 1950s-era ballistic missiles, which were developed back then with only rapidity of readiness and reliability in mind--their cost was not considered important.I agree, but NASA should not be the sole agency involved because of their myopic vision and because spreading out the cost among other federal agencies (and other nations) would make such a base more affordable (including to NASA). In the U.S., the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Geological Survey, as well as the Department of Energy (their nuclear and solar energy expertise would be valuable) should have shares in such a lunar base. ESA, JAXA, and the European & Japanese scientific agencies that operate the European and Japanese Antarctic bases would also be helpful partners in establishing, operating, and expanding a Moon base.

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR