A Return to the Moon by the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary.

[Alfastar]

About the Ariane 5, Arianespace needs a yearly subsidy of about $200 million a year from the government otherwise it would go broke.

Well, the same rules goes for SpaceX. If NASA (Government funds) don't pay them, then its done for SpaceX. Arianespace try to find commercial launches. SpaceX don't really do that, and it looks there more care about a new Dragon and a COTS Falcon 9 launch then really find serious some real commercial launches.

I'm not saying new launchers can't be done by governments, only that it can be done more cheaply by private companies for the simple reason people are more careful about spending and wasting their own money rather than the governments money.

Well, you got a point there, but at this moment, only a few spaceflight companies really thinks about wise spending, wasting and make profit still.

Following such a commercial, low-cost approach, every industrialized country, including the Netherlands, could have its own independent spaceflight program, no ESA required.

Well, a low-cost approach is not always better. I can also make a very cheap rocket, made of hot water in a very cheap bottle, but the question of it is efficient, and working good, that is question two :lol:

 

[RGClark]

That is wrong. It had been 200 million Euro from ESA in 2011 and 2012 together paid by the SLICE 13 program, and that not as such a illegal direct subsidy, but for maintaining fixed ground infrastructure related to the Ariane 5 beyond the commercial flight operations. Especially not by "The government", as such a thing does not exist here.
Compared to other companies, Arianespace is far away from broke, but it really exists only by the vim of ESA - as you can see looking at the shareholders of Arianespace and how a company can operate with only 1.7 million net income in a year (Out of 1.3 billion Euro income in 2012).
100 million is a lot of money, but it is just 10% public money in 1.3 billion Euro income. SpaceX receives WAY more tax payers money in relation to their income, since almost all income is from NASA currently and not subject to market forces (And will likely never really be. There will never be a choice between Cygnus or Dragon, but rather a choice "How many Cygnus and how many Dragons").

OK, I'll accept your amount paid to Arianespace yearly to keep it afloat. The European Union refers to it as a subsidy and is the main reason why they wanted to move to an Ariane 6 so that this annual subsidy would not be required.
Government financed, partially or fully, space projects always have some development costs. That is what NASA is paying SpaceX now. Obviously the development costs paid by the ESA governments to develop the Ariane 5 dwarfs the amount paid by NASA to SpaceX. That's different than an annual subsidy paid to Arainespace even for fully commercial launches of satellites.


Bob Clark

 

[RGClark]

The cost to NASA for lunar or other BEO missions can be cut drastically, perhaps by three orders of magnitude, by following a combination of four cost-cutting approaches.

1.)Commercial space approach. SpaceX and now Orbital Sciences have shown that as much as 90% off of the development cost can be cut by the cost-sharing of the commercial space approach.

2.)Go small. NASA’s SEV weighs about a third that of Orion. Orbital’s Cygnus weighs about a quarter. Imagine how small, and low cost, your lunar mission could be if you only had to transport a quarter of the mass to the Moon.

3.)Use existing components. The huge development costs for the Apollo program and of Constellation were because they had to use all newly developed components. Those costs would be reduced greatly if you only had to adapt already existing components. No Saturn V, Ares V, or SLS, and their huge development costs, required.

4.)Use international partners. The cut in development cost by engaging in cost-sharing is already included in the commercial space approach. However, the cost to NASA can be cut even further by sharing development costs with our international space partners such as the ESA and Japan.


Bob Clark

 

[Urwumpe]

1.)Commercial space approach. SpaceX and now Orbital Sciences have shown that as much as 90% off of the development cost can be cut by the cost-sharing of the commercial space approach.

Developing a rocket (or anything else on Earth) does not get cheaper automatically, because a private company is doing it. The same forces that interfere in public spaceflight are also existing in private spaceflight.

SpaceX is actually a pretty bad example for a commercial approach (For example, they are also sharing NASAs "Not-Invented-Here" attitude), Orbital Sciences is the older and better example. SpaceX just has the better PR department.

if you want to put the R&D costs into relation, look at the Delta II development, which, while happening pretty early in history, had been a pretty cheap and cost-effective program, until the much more commercial oriented Ariane 4 hit the market.

2.)Go small. NASA’s SEV weighs about a third that of Orion. Orbital’s Cygnus weighs about a quarter. Imagine how small, and low cost, your lunar mission could be if you only had to transport a quarter of the mass to the Moon.

If you need a truck, you should use a truck. It makes no sense to drive alone to work in a SUV, but it also makes no sense to buy large furniture with a Fiat 500.

What you can do is develop in small steps to keep the costs low. That is already scientifically documented, how working with small agile steps reduces costs by reducing the inertia of the program. But that does not always work that easy in spaceflight as in other industries.

3.)Use existing components. The huge development costs for the Apollo program and of Constellation were because they had to use all newly developed components. Those costs would be reduced greatly if you only had to adapt already existing components. No Saturn V, Ares V, or SLS, and their huge development costs, required.

Wrong - old components can be cheap in procurement, but result in the much more expensive system. You have to see the big picture in such a program. It can pay out to develop the right components for your system new, and use commercial parts where you can do that for your advantage.

Usually, you have better chances to use commercial components for less specialized roles. A navigation system does not need to be developed again, if there are already dozens of suitable systems on the market and technical standards around that permit swapping such components even late in development.

4.)Use international partners. The cut in development cost by engaging in cost-sharing is already included in the commercial space approach. However, the cost to NASA can be cut even further by sharing development costs with our international space partners such as the ESA and Japan.

That does not make things cheaper. Rather contrary. Different cultures cause friction as well.

The advantage of international cooperation is bringing different strengths and capabilities together. The USA might have been able to build their own spacestation on day in the distant future, but cooperating with the Russians, who had much more experiences in that field made it much easier to get ahead. But the Russian approach had its own limitations, so both sides needed each other to complement. ESA, CSA or JAXA are rather small partners, but also contributed important components that made the ISS possible without Russia or USA having to reinvent the wheel.

But cheaper was never the result of this in total. Russia could have developed the computer system for their segment themselves, but having the Europeans was more effective from a technical point of view, but added costs for the cooperation.

 

[MattBaker]

But cheaper was never the result of this in total. Russia could have developed the computer system for their segment themselves, but having the Europeans was more effective from a technical point of view, but added costs for the cooperation.

I would like to add that the commercial partner approach is still cheaper for the indivual countries since the big workload gets shared by several nations.
Of course the costs might be higher, but ESA pays less for an ExoMars mission if the Russians pay something, too.

And I don't think a single nation could have build up something as big as the ISS (or in the future lunar bases?) from a financial point of view so cooperating with other agencies/nations is indeed something NASA could use to cut costs.

On the other hand if you build up a moon base with 15% Russian money and use Soyuz capsules to get there you can be sure that the moon base will not be "American only" and I guess many people and politicians have reservations against that.

 

[Urwumpe]

And I don't think a single nation could have build up something as big as the ISS (or in the future lunar bases?) from a financial point of view so cooperating with other agencies/nations is indeed something NASA could use to cut costs.

It simply speads the risks and responsibility for the program on multiple shoulders. That is something that is politically or strategically appreciated, but not cheaper.

Imagine how expensive it already is to make Russian components compatible to US components. It is also not done with one payment for standards. It is a constant investment in better processes - or the big project will fail.

In the long term, paying for the ISS more for international cooperation will make future cooperations easier and cheaper. But only if such cooperation is constantly kept high on the agenda. If you have an increase in nationalism and egoism, projects will actually become for a moment cheaper. And then increase in costs again, when the technological risk becomes a factor again.

 

[RGClark]

Wrong - old components can be cheap in procurement, but result in the much more expensive system. You have to see the big picture in such a program. It can pay out to develop the right components for your system new, and use commercial parts where you can do that for your advantage.

Urwumpe, perhaps you are disagreeing purely for the sake of disagreeing? Remember we are talking about development costs here. Hypothetically, suppose you did not have to develop such a large rocket as the Saturn V, or the Ares V, or the SLS, but could just use already existing launchers. The large, new rockets because of their large size would be quite expensive to develop of course.
So you're saying if you can accomplish the same thing without that huge expense it's cheaper still to pay that huge expense?

Bob Clark

 

[Urwumpe]

Urwumpe, perhaps you are disagreeing purely for the sake of disagreeing? Remember we are talking about development costs here.

I don't really give a damn about you reducing it now to development costs (which are about 70% of the costs on spaceflight), because you will later simply assume that R&D costs are all and something that you did just develop on the paper with a pocket calculator can fly to Mars for a few dollar of R&D costs.

I talk about total costs to acomplish the program. Not a single mission, not a single R&D budget. What does it cost to really do that? Anything else is just a waste of energy to discuss. And nobody would even consider doing things that way: Only R&D, and maybe a single flight.

So you're saying if you can accomplish the same thing without that huge expense it's cheaper still to pay that huge expense?

If you save money (and thus, performance or quality) at point X, you have to invest more money at another point to compensate. There is no general rule: If we avoid developing the most expensive parts ourselves, we are cheaper. The only reliable simple way to pay less is to attempt less. Reduce mission requirements, design for less performance. That is what SpaceX and Co do. They are cheaper because they do less.

It does not even change if you would only use old Saturn V parts for building your rocket. Even if you try building a second Saturn V, it won't be for free.

 

[RGClark]

A key fact also is that NASA only had to pay $288 million of that Antares development cost. This for a 5 metric ton capable rocket. Because of such drastic cuts in costs that government has to pay for launcher development, commercial space will become the predominate means of producing new rockets going forward.
See argument here:

On the lasting importance of the SpaceX accomplishment, Page 3: towards European human spaceflight.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2013/05/on-lasting-importance-of-spacex.html

Bob Clark

A European space research group wants ESA to build the liquid-fueled version of the Ariane 6:

Europe Urged To Halt Work on ‘Dead End' Ariane 6 Design.
By Peter B. de Selding | May. 30, 2013

The academy is urging the agencies to stop work on the Ariane 6 they approved in November with a view to beginning full development in 2014. The academy-favored rocket would use liquid propulsion instead of solid, and would face four more years of preparatory work before moving to full development in 2018.
In the meantime, the academy says, Europe should focus on an upgraded heavy-lift Ariane 5 that would fly for a decade before both it and the Europeanized version of Russia’s medium-lift Soyuz rocket are replaced by the all-liquid Ariane 6 in 2027. This rocket, called Ariane 5 ME, has been in design for several years. Continued work on it was approved, alongside Ariane 6, at the November meeting of European Space Agency (ESA) governments.
http://www.spacenews.com/article/la...ged-to-halt-work-on-‘dead-end-ariane-6-design

The phrasing there is rather confusing but it seems to be saying this liquid fueled version of the Ariane 6 would be ready by 2027. Commercial space is both cheaper and faster than standard government funded space projects. Both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences were able to develop their launchers in 4 years.
As I discussed in my blog, for political reasons it would be difficult for the ESA to promote such commercial space. Then my recommendation to the Academy would be encourage the EU to promote it.
Another key advantage not mentioned by the Academy, at least not in this news report, is that the liquid fueled version could lead to a European human rated launcher.


Bob Clark

 

[Hlynkacg]

You're still ignoring the proverbial "elephants in the room".

• The primary cost drivers in spaceflight (as in almost all engineering projects) are man-hours needed to complete the project and the stringency of your engineering requirements. Any "cost saving measure" that involves an increase in one or both isn't a cost saving measure, it's the opposite.
  
• The ESA and Arianespace have no incentive to bother with SSTO or "Man Rating" in the first place, and a very strong incentive to avoid them all together. See above.

 

[RGClark]

You're still ignoring the proverbial "elephants in the room".

• The primary cost drivers in spaceflight (as in almost all engineering projects) are man-hours needed to complete the project and the stringency of your engineering requirements. Any "cost saving measure" that involves an increase in one or both isn't a cost saving measure, it's the opposite.
  
• The ESA and Arianespace have no incentive to bother with SSTO or "Man Rating" in the first place, and a very strong incentive to avoid them all together. See above.

The reduction in man-power costs is included in the fact you are using a much smaller system and you have zero development costs for developing a huge heavy lift launcher.
For the liquid fueled Ariane 6, it doesn't have to be SSTO. The version being discussed in that report is analogous to the Delta IV Medium, an all cryogenic two stage system. What's key is that such a system quite likely once you have it can be man-rated at relatively low cost, as shown by Lockheed Martin in man-rating the Atlas V:

NASA and ULA confirm Atlas V baseline for human rated launches.
July 19, 2012 by Chris Bergin
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/07/nasa-ula-confirm-atlas-v-baseline-human-rated-launches/

The argument for human spaceflight for the ESA is the same as with any other space agency. If the Europeans didn't want it they wouldn't be paying the Russians for doing it. The main impediment has been cost. But the point of the matter is by following the commercial space approach such a system can be developed for a few hundred million dollars rather than the billions now thought.

Bob Clark

 

[Urwumpe]

The reduction in man-power costs is included in the fact you are using a much smaller system and you have zero development costs for developing a huge heavy lift launcher.

There is no such thing like zero development costs.

 

[kamaz]

Hypothetically, suppose you did not have to develop such a large rocket as the Saturn V, or the Ares V, or the SLS, but could just use already existing launchers. The large, new rockets because of their large size would be quite expensive to develop of course.

Assume that you have a mission which requires IMLEO of 100 tons.

This can be launched in one piece on a HLV (SLS) or in five pieces on an EELV (Atlas/Delta). It may appear that launching on existing EELVs is cheaper.

However, launching the payload in 5 parts generates additional costs comapred to launching in one piece, namely:

- extra engineering related to designing the payload so it can be assembled from 5 pieces; this is non-trivial, especially, if half of your payload is actually a cryogenic kick stage;

- increased operational costs due to doing more launches on a tight schedule.

Launching on EELVs is going to be cheaper for a one shot mission, but if you want to fly repeated missions, then a HLV is going to be cheaper because of lower operational costs and easier payload engineering.

 

[Pioneer]

I doubt that this will happen

 

[Alfastar]

The argument for human spaceflight for the ESA is the same as with any other space agency. If the Europeans didn't want it they wouldn't be paying the Russians for doing it. The main impediment has been cost. But the point of the matter is by following the commercial space approach such a system can be developed for a few hundred million dollars rather than the billions now thought.

Bob Clark

Got you any numbers how much a Soyuz 2.1b launch cost? I find it a bit cheap to say that Russia does everything expensive, and commercial does everything cheap.

Look, the manned Soyuz launches are not cheap, but why should ESA doing the private way? ESA got already the Ariane 5, who was originally build in the focus that it can launch the hermes. Man-rating the Ariane 5 is a bit more easy then rockets like the Vega. Why the private way, if ESA already can modificate the ATV into a manned spacecraft. Would be maybe cheaper also then spending years and years in a private company who not can survive without government funds.

 

[RGClark]

Assume that you have a mission which requires IMLEO of 100 tons.
This can be launched in one piece on a HLV (SLS) or in five pieces on an EELV (Atlas/Delta). It may appear that launching on existing EELVs is cheaper.
However, launching the payload in 5 parts generates additional costs comapred to launching in one piece, namely:
- extra engineering related to designing the payload so it can be assembled from 5 pieces; this is non-trivial, especially, if half of your payload is actually a cryogenic kick stage;
- increased operational costs due to doing more launches on a tight schedule.
Launching on EELVs is going to be cheaper for a one shot mission, but if you want to fly repeated missions, then a HLV is going to be cheaper because of lower operational costs and easier payload engineering.

A valid point if using the same size mission. In post #20 in this thread I discussed an alternative plan developed by some NASA engineers to use EELV's to launch a lunar mission instead of developing the SLS. However, it required 6 launches of the Falcon Heavy or 10 of the Delta IV Heavy. This was because it used the same heavy Orion capsule and Altair lander.
But if instead you used a Dragon sized capsule it could be done by a single launch of the Falcon Heavy or two of the Delta IV Heavy.

Bob Clark

---------- Post added at 02:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:19 AM ----------

Got you any numbers how much a Soyuz 2.1b launch cost? I find it a bit cheap to say that Russia does everything expensive, and commercial does everything cheap.
Look, the manned Soyuz launches are not cheap, but why should ESA doing the private way? ESA got already the Ariane 5, who was originally build in the focus that it can launch the hermes. Man-rating the Ariane 5 is a bit more easy then rockets like the Vega. Why the private way, if ESA already can modificate the ATV into a manned spacecraft. Would be maybe cheaper also then spending years and years in a private company who not can survive without government funds.

The problem with man-rating the Ariane 5 is that it would cost several billions of dollars. ESA was considering it but it got shot down because of the high cost. People in the industry also have a distrust of using solids to carry manned spacecraft.
Making a decision to develop a system that costs a few hundred million dollars is much easier than it is for making the decision to develop one that costs several billion dollars. In fact, it's about ten times easier.

Bob Clark

 

[Alfastar]

The problem with man-rating the Ariane 5 is that it would cost several billions of dollars. ESA was considering it but it got shot down because of the high cost. People in the industry also have a distrust of using solids to carry manned spacecraft.
Making a decision to develop a system that costs a few hundred million dollars is much easier than it is for making the decision to develop one that costs several billion dollars. In fact, it's about ten times easier.

Bob Clark

Ahh, I understand you point, but why man-rating cost billions of dollars (Or euros, we talking about ESA now) ?

And can you give some data how much a Soyuz 2.1b launch cost? I would thank you very much if you can get some data

 

[Urwumpe]

Ahh, I understand you point, but why man-rating cost billions of dollars (Or euros, we talking about ESA now) ?

And can you give some data how much a Soyuz 2.1b launch cost? I would thank you very much if you can get some data

Well, first of all, because we would have no capsule, and a manned ATV would cost 3.2 billion Euros. Sounds expensive, but actually isn't. SpaceX would pay almost the same amount for man-rating the Dragon, despite having already heatshield and landing systems. It also involved the changes to the Ariane 5 for launching it manned, something that the often cited "example" SpaceX would also have to do.

Second, man-rating the Ariane 5 would involve not only new components (higher standards of redundancy), but also testing the involved components for new standards. While the bulk of the Ariane 5 components can be considered man-rated, the system Ariane 5 itself isn't. Just think that even such a simple thing like a crew access arm will cost multiple million Euros (because when you actually have to do things, nothing is simple suddenly).

You need new mission and launch control infrastructure for manned launches, more people involved, etc. SpaceX will simply use NASA and claim to be cheap there, ESA would have to build up the infrastructure from ground up.

And that is a pretty big difference. We Europeans are missing opportunities and have deciders, who don't know that you have to risk something for gaining something. Instead we are turned into a continent of passengers. And the last ESA conference only reinforced that. While we are getting on the boat with the CEV, we are still only passengers. More expensive spacetourists. The Ariane 6 is another stupid distraction there. We don't need it at all. It is cheaper for competing with SpaceX for LEO flights - where no market is, the market is MEO and GEO. But as you will quickly learn in the IT crowd: Who pays peanuts only get monkeys (or shorter: musks)

OK, the USA also have the advantage of having such a oversized manned spaceflight program in their past, that they only need to shrink, instead of building things up. But it is a critical difference.

 

[Alfastar]

Well, first of all, because we would have no capsule, and a manned ATV would cost 3.2 billion Euros. Sounds expensive, but actually isn't. SpaceX would pay almost the same amount for man-rating the Dragon, despite having already heatshield and landing systems. It also involved the changes to the Ariane 5 for launching it manned, something that the often cited "example" SpaceX would also have to do.

Second, man-rating the Ariane 5 would involve not only new components (higher standards of redundancy), but also testing the involved components for new standards. While the bulk of the Ariane 5 components can be considered man-rated, the system Ariane 5 itself isn't. Just think that even such a simple thing like a crew access arm will cost multiple million Euros (because when you actually have to do things, nothing is simple suddenly).

You need new mission and launch control infrastructure for manned launches, more people involved, etc. SpaceX will simply use NASA and claim to be cheap there, ESA would have to build up the infrastructure from ground up.

And that is a pretty big difference. We Europeans are missing opportunities and have deciders, who don't know that you have to risk something for gaining something. Instead we are turned into a continent of passengers. And the last ESA conference only reinforced that. While we are getting on the boat with the CEV, we are still only passengers. More expensive spacetourists. The Ariane 6 is another stupid distraction there. We don't need it at all. It is cheaper for competing with SpaceX for LEO flights - where no market is, the market is MEO and GEO. But as you will quickly learn in the IT crowd: Who pays peanuts only get monkeys (or shorter: musks)

OK, the USA also have the advantage of having such a oversized manned spaceflight program in their past, that they only need to shrink, instead of building things up. But it is a critical difference.

Thanks Urwumpe for make it total clear why man-rating is not cheap

According to some people, SpaceX is always cheaper, and you can do everything with a Falcon-9 (or heavy) rocket, and with a Dragon on it. But don't we forget also that SpaceX originally goal was to become a private spaceflight company. But now, there totally only focusing about the Dragon, Falcon 9 COTS missions, FH and got plans to build a new rocket launch pad (again) somewhere in Texas. Of course, the prices of the Falcon-9 and heavy are low, mostly thanks by NASA funds who let the price artificial low. There totally not focusing about profit, but only about non-profit projects and hipster talk.

So, before someone says: "We can use a cheaper alternative by using the Falcon heavy with a Dragon" There is no strong fact that everything become cheaper with some white painting on a rocket with blue letters on it. Going to the moon is step one, going back to earth is step two. Same rule is also for any other moon / planet.

 

[T.Neo]

- extra engineering related to designing the payload so it can be assembled from 5 pieces; this is non-trivial, especially, if half of your payload is actually a cryogenic kick stage;

Not necessarily. Even the components in HLV-orientated missions tend to be of a mass that EELV-sized or EELV-derived vehicles could handle, especially if propellant can be distributed. The issue isn't with developing components that can be split up- in a way, they already are- it's with designing the interfaces that allow these components to come together while in space.

Furthermore, propellant is very easy to break up and move around between launches- it's a fluid payload- and it's the majority of mass in a BEO mission. Launching a cryogenic propulsion stage on an EELV-size launcher isn't that difficult when in-space propellant transfer is discussed. The ideal isn't to assemble such a stage from several parts, but launch it partly fuelled and top it off with propellant launched on other vehicles (the S-IVB for instance was only about 12 tons dry, easily within the capabilities of modern launchers). While the technical capabilities of in-space propellant transfer or long-term storage of cryogens on orbit may be challenging, they're a pretty important skill to have (and would likely be relevant in some form for an HLV-orientated mission in any case), and could have very useful spinoffs for commercial spaceflight, unmanned exploration, and military programs.

- increased operational costs due to doing more launches on a tight schedule.

The opposite should hold true- cost per launch should go down as the fixed costs of the production and launch infrastructure (which currently make up the majority of launch costs) are amortised over more numerous flights, and higher production runs allow the implementation of cost-saving measures through mass production. Reduced cost per item through higher production runs is a fact of life throughout engineering, and the reduction of launch costs through the amortization of fixed costs is simple mathematics. It should be noted that several launch systems, including the EELVs, were built with far higher flight-rate capacities than were realised. Higher launch rates are possible, at least in theory (Soyuz once achieved 60 launches in a year).

In addition, the use of existing launchers means that an exploration program can share costs with military and commercial launches, as well as other exploration flights. Not only can this reduce the effective cost for the exploration program, but the exploration program can reduce costs for other users as well.