Space Faring Standards

IF we want to be a space faring people, we HAVE to adopt new launch vehicle standards.  This has become painfully obvious to me this fall with that failure of the Antares rocket and the political fallout of the RD-180 rocket engine which makes the Atlas V as useless as if it had a catastrophic in-flight failure.  You can say this sentiment has been building since SpaceX arrived on the scene and Elon Musk talked about improving the rocket.  I see it now.  I see how deficient our rockets have been.  The rocket is basically in a state that the automobile was in the pre-Model T period.  They are costly and unreliable.  They are toys for the rich.  Small efforts have been attempted to bring the launch price down.  The only company that is bringing prices significantly down is SpaceX.  Those prices still need to come down MORE.  SpaceX can't do it alone either.  There needs to be more companies in the effort.  Well, I came up with some standards to start with that should get us in the right direction.  Of course this is just my own opinion.  They cover items from payload to the first stage.

1.  The payload needs to be recoverable in all phases of flight.  Capsules with crews have had abort systems which were high speed rockets that separated the payload (capsule and crew) form the failing rocket and allowing the parachutes to activate and bring the payload safely to the ground.  Why don't we have this on unmanned payloads?  Unmanned payloads today just blowup with the rest of the rocket in case of an abort.  Thus making vapors out of hopes and investments.  Then the insurance companies have to pony up cash.  I have no doubt this drives up cost of launch to some degree.  If some degree of recovery of the payload could be guaranteed I bet cost would come down.

2.  The upper stage needs to be able to orbit the Earth and make a reentry and landing back to it launch site to be able to reuse.  This is a plan for SpaceX.  They want to make the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket reusable.  They want it to land after a launch back to base, preferably.  Today, all second stages are discarded after launch.  This means all that hardware has to be created from scratch and tested for ever launch.  That's a lot of man hours.  That's a lot of material.  That's a lot of money.  It's just a bad way to operate.  We've just been operating like that since the beginning of the space age.  The one exception would be the Space Transportation System which, arguably, had an orbiter that was held the payload and was also the second stage.  It was totally reusable.  It's drawback was that there was a lot of maintenance to it to get ready for the next flight.  Yet, overall reuseability should bring down the price of each launch.  Beneficial reuseability was demonstrated in the suborbital world with SpaceShipOne in 2004.

3.  The first stage needs to be able to lift the upper stage and the payload to a certain altitude guaranteed even in the event of an engine failure.  One rocket today meets this standard.  That rocket is the Falcon 9.  It demonstrated it in Oct 2012 where one Merlin engine shut down.  The rocket kept on flying and thanks to its design got it main payload to the International Space Station.  If that happened to any other rocket, the mission would have been a total failure.  The Falcon 9 can do this feat because it has 9 rockets which allows it to loose one or two engines before mission failure.  This needs to be a standard in all future rockets.  The area from the launchpad to the altitude where the second stage can ignite is a critical one.  The Earth is the most dangerous object to a flying rocket.  The more distance it can get away from the planet the safer it is.  That's why this standard is so important.  It give a high degree of guarantee to get to that second stage at a reasonable cost.

4.  The fist stage needs to be recoverable in one piece and reusable.  No one has ever accomplished this.  Oh, now your thinking about the SRBs in the STS.  Well, those were not reused in one piece. They were broken down and rebuilt.  I'm not talking about breaking down and rebuilding.  I'm talking about launch, land, recover, refuel, and launch again.  SpaceX is trying to learn how to do this.  They are currently trying to land their first stage on a large barge in the ocean.  Nobody else is even trying.  Well, Blue Origin was proported as wanting to accomplish this but they are not releasing where they are at or how far they got.  With them it has been so long that I can only conclude they were unable to finish the project.  First stage reuseablility is essential to bring down prices.  It represents the biggest hardware in the rocket stack.  It is only a suborbital vehicle by itself.

5.  Intensive and comprehensive checks on first stage, and upper stage systems need to be done at the launch time where the computer has the ability to abort at the sign of any failed test.  Most, if not all, mainstream rockets have implemented this standard to some degree or another.  The more successful the rocket, the more comprehensive their computerized checks are.  This stands to reason.  This is why there are delays at launch time.  Though they may be a little frustrating, I take the delays as a sign that the checks and tests are working and working hard.  It is a good thing.  Could Antares have used more comprehensive checks and tests to avoid its catastrophic failure?  Possibly.  Time will tell.  As far as I can tell, these tests and checks have become more and more computerized over the years.  Where many of them were just people staring at numbers on a screen to see if they see any anomalies.  This is thanks to miniaturization of the computer circuits on silicon chips and more sophisticated software.  Progress in this area should continue.  We need to get smarter software and more powerful computers as time goes on.  I have no doubt this trend will continue.  So this standard is the one standard that is being implemented by all successful launchers.  Great!  1 out of 5 ain't bad?!

Elon Musk, in an interview with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, mentioned that reusable rockets were needed to make space more accessible.  So he's working on the reusable rocket.  In my estimation, reusable stages just cover 2 of 5 standards that ought to be implemented by all launchers if we are going to be a people that live and work in space.  I don't mean low Earth orbit.  I mean the Inner Solar System, to include: the Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Asteroid belt, and Near Earth Objects.  It's time we look at the big picture and make plans to inhabit this playground.  To do it we not only need to be scientifically smart but also economically smart in all things.

These standards are mostly from other people through the decades.  Many have realized we needed reusable vehicles to access space to include many science fiction writers.  Computerized tests came out of necessity from real life launch companies and government entities. Von Braun and his team implemented the multi-engine first stage to where if one goes out it could still get to orbit.  Maxime Faget came up with the idea of a rocket as a launch escape system for crews.  I just expanded the possible idea to non-human payloads.

I'd like to see other launch companies make new rockets that take on these standards.  I know a couple of start ups that are targeting the small satellite launch market that design their rockets with multiple engines on the first stage.  One of them is called Firefly.  We need to wait and see what happens.  For now, we have to make due with the clunker rockets as we see Falcon 9 develop and incorporate 4 out of the 5 standards I've stated.  Watch the other companies tremble in fear.

Revenge of the Stick

Ares I 'The Stick'

Could solid fuel be the cure to SpaceX competitors?  ATK seems to think so.  Look what they are touting.

A Nasaspaceflight.com article titled 'ATK expand on its domestic alternative to Atlas V’s RD-180' said that ATK is bidding for a solid state first stage for the Atlas V.  Has the much hailed hero rocket by ULA plummeted this far from the heavens?  According to the article, plans to make the politically maligned RD-180 engine in the US fell through.  Now, they are hoping for the BE-4 from Blue Origin to save the rocket.  But wait!  Here comes ATK with an alternative solution, solid fuel first stage for the Atlas V.  What?!

Yes, solid fuel first stages.  Ahhhh!  Those where the days.  Oh the thrust, the power, the long slender look.  Doesn't just give you goosebumps?  I'm referring to the 'Stick.'  No, not some sleazy battery operated toy, but the rocket that was supposed to put astronauts back into space after the Shuttle was decommissioned as part of the ill fated Constellation Program.

Ares I was to be powered by a large solid rocket booster based on the Shuttle SRB.  It was aptly and despisingly nicknamed 'the Stick.'  The only launch, or proto-launch of such a configuration was in 2008 with the Ares 1-X.

Also according to the article, ATK is also petitioning Orbital Sciences and offering a solid rocket booster as a first stage to Antares.  This would make Antares an all solid fuel rocket, perhaps the biggest in operation.  It's not the best of options that could exist for them, but I suspect it would be a quick fix for the troubled rocket.

Now, this is all fine and dandy for ATK.  They are making smart moves for their business.  I don't blame them for offering solid rocket boosters as first stages for troubled Atlas V and Antares.  However, if ULA or Orbital Sciences have any delusions of competing with SpaceX on the basis on solid fuel, they better think again.  SpaceX prices are already so low the launch market members are tossing up their lobster dinners and scrambling for ideas to compete.  SpaceX is still on the move.  They are learning how to catch a flying Falcon 9 in the ocean, and then fly it again.  This is sure to bring their prices down even further, causing more tossing of lobsters.  Hmmm...maybe SpaceX will get an award for saving lobster populations on the planet.

Commercial Launch Market Made Different

"If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking." - George S. Patton.

For years after the Saturn V rocket was retired, rockets in the United States were reduced to a set of parameters.  This reflected a way of thinking in the industry.  If a rocket failed on liftoff, it was to be blown up.  It was an easy solution to minimize collateral damage.  Of course, computers then had a tiny fraction the power of today's computers.  By the way, that smartphone you just dropped? Yeah, it has more computing power than they could dream of back then.  Manufacturing was largely done by hand, or by hand operated mechanical/electrical machines.  Flaws were checked by only human hands and eyes for hours on end.  Now, we have robotic arms equipped with X-rays, infrared, ...etc, sensors.  The flaw checking is done in a fraction of the time it used to.

Saturn V was the so big that it took five of the biggest rocket engines on its first stage.  It was said that it could loose one engine and still complete the mission, or at least it could get its payload to orbit.  That capability went away with the Saturn V.  Elon Musk brought it back with the advent of Falcon 9.

So now, we have a contrast of operations.  One is a legacy operation founded on old technology and a robust track record.  The other is based on new technology capabilities and the need to take launch operations in a whole new direction.  I say 'new' though it's been in operation for four years now, it's still relatively new compared to the many decades of launch history we've had.

On October 7th 2008, Falcon 9 rocket lifted off carrying the Dragon capsule bound for the International Space Station.  There was an engine anomaly and one engine shut down.  The rocket kept on going.  The primary payload got to complete its mission.  The secondary payload did not.  The rocket was not blown up.  If any other rocket had a main engine anomaly and was shut off, the rocket would have to been blown up because there would be no way it could get its payload to any orbit.  Atlas V and Delta IV would have to be blown up if such a thing happened to them.

In contrast, on October 28th 2014, Orbital Sciences rocket, Antares, lifted off and had allegedly a main engine anomaly within seconds.  It was blown up by mission control as soon as they detected the anomaly.  I gathered that from the briefing after the mishap and some articles.  The exact reason and conditions of he anomaly is still being investigated.  Antares was built on the old mindset on how you design a rocket.  Orbital is good at getting parts together and making a rocket.  They leverage the market.

You can see the difference here between the mishaps between Falcon 9 and Antares.  Falcon 9 was purposely designed to succeed with redundancy and Antares was not.  You can say the designers of Antares didn't know or didn't realize.  I say that is total BS.  Everyone knows!  Everyone in rocket design knows the Saturn V.  They know about all the mishaps in the past.  They are just making the same mistake as everyone else is doing by not thinking, or they are rationalizing the problem away.  This problem still exists in Atlas V and Delta IV.  The designers of those rockets did not account for this problem.

I was going to go into other points, but this point is so big and poignant.  It just makes me mad.  It makes me mad that for years big companies have been ripping off NASA and the US taxpayers with high cost for launches on rockets that are sub quality.  In contrast, this entrepreneur is offering high quality rockets at low cost launch service.  How can anyone pass that up?  The reality is they can't.  The Atlas V days are numbered because it's too costly and its engines are politically risky.  So they are trying to give it different engines.  Europe is trying to make a new rocket in an attempt to compete with SpaceX.  Through all of this money is scarce.  Recession is coming back to Europe and things are slowing down in China.  So reducing cost to launch satellites is too tempting.  The old ways have to go.  Elon has the floor.

Lack Of Imagination

In the HBO miniseries "From The Earth To The Moon" the episode "Apollo One" depicts the investigation into the deaths of  Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee and the loss of the Apollo capsule CSM-012.  They perished in a fire during a plugs out test on the launch pad.  In the episode, a Senator asks Astronaut Frank Borman what was the cause of the fire.  His answer was, "failure of imagination."  The idea was that nobody thought that the conditions of that particular test were dangerous.  They were all thinking of getting to the Moon.  NASA lost its innocence because of that incident.

Now we live in the wake of two commercial space disasters,  One commercial astronaut is dead.  One is wounded.  For all those who love space and commercial space, this is a time of pause.  One reusable space plane is destroyed.  One non-reusable rocket and cargo spacecraft with all of its cargo and research is also destroyed.  Accounting and insurance takes care of the rocket and the spacecraft.  The cargo must have had many customers with their hopes going to ISS.  Their projects may be insured but their hopes were dashed.

Many outside of the industry do not understand how these accidents happen.  There is a lot of anger out there on the net.  That's understandable.  There's a lot of fear and uncertainty.  That's also understandable.  Understand that these things affect everybody.  They affect all the CEO's of every space company to every kid who dreams about space and all the people and engineers in between,  We are all rattled even if we don't admit it.

Our innocence is gone.  Now, we will see how the space market reacts to it.  Investigations have to be completed.  They will find stuff that nobody may have suspected before.  Other stuff may be confirmed.  Plans will be made and implemented to avoid the same disasters.  These things must happen and will happen to move forward.  Moving forward is in the hands of the market.

Why are we doing this?  Why are we going to space at all?  Why did the crew of Apollo One and of VSS Enterprise die or get injured?  Why did Orbital Sciences Cygnus' customers loose their hopes?  Why did they even try?

They did it because they believe in a future that was better than this present one.  Space is out there.  We have been dabbling in low earth orbit for several decades trying to figure out how to proceed out in deeper space where higher radiation lives,  Out there where asteroids can be studied and mined and  where a moon can be settled.  Out there where a second planet can possibly hold life again (Mars).  Where we can study a dense atmosphere up close and figure out how to keep climate in check (Venus).

One of the biggest reasons is that life as we know it is a single point failure.  That means we know that if a big enough asteroid hits the planet it will wipe out all of life,  We know the size of the asteroid it would take to do it.  We know there are many asteroids much larger than such a size.  So in a real sense we are trying to save no just the human race of all of life from certain extinction.  It's not a matter of if but a matter of when.

My condolences to the family of the Virgin Galactic astronaut who died.  I hope the injured astronaut makes a full recovery.  I sincerely hope Virgin Galactic and Orbital Sciences are able to carry on with their programs.

Space programs should continue.  We must renew our hope in space.  We owe it to those who have perished and to our children and their children.  We must imagine again.

Remember the fallen:  Apollo 1, Challenger OV-099 STS-51-L, Columbia OV-102 STS-107, VSS Enterprise 4th rocket powered test flight.

PS I call the pilots astronauts as a way to honor them.

Launch Reimagined

In my opinion, there is a fundamental flaw in our efforts to commercialize launch operations to space.  We had scientists show us how to do it under NASA and then had companies do it for a profit.  OK.  That sounds all nice and good.  Except we end up with an enormous launch cost per payload weight measure.  Now, scientists take into account to most efficient way to do things.  They did a good job of this in getting to space.  They developed a very efficient way, scientifically.  Sometimes scientific efficiency opposes financial realities.  I was shocked when my physics teacher, back in high school, said that to travel from point A to point B in a vehicle and to have that vehicle at point B at the end of the trip was not very efficient.  Of course in my mind, I thought I still needed that vehicle to go other places, and that's where economics came in.  So why do we throw away rockets?  We do it for efficiency, not economy.  Maybe we should alter the way we go to space to make it more economical.  SpaceX has an idea, DARPA has and idea, and I have an idea of how to make change this efficient operation into and economical one.

SpaceX, as most people know, wants to make throw away rockets into reusable rockets.  That's tall order.  So tall, that they are the only ones actively pursuing this avenue.  They have succeeded in reentering their first stage Falcon 9 v1.1 and flown it all the way down to the ocean.  Now there is talk of them wanting to land their first stages on a floating platform.  Kudos to them for getting this far.  They are ahead of everyone else.

DARPA came up with an idea that uses wings.  It's called the XS-1.  The idea is to have an unmanned space plane act as the first stage of a rocket to launch small satellites.  Supposedly, these would fly back to base.  That would be good.  You want your first stage to come back to base to reuse it and not haul it back to base.

Here's my idea, as crazy as it sounds.  Scientists, scream if you must.  In a 2 stage rocket, make the first stage suborbital.  Yes, you heard me.  Let it only go up and down, like an elevator.  Let the second stage be responsible for the lateral velocity.  Mull that over a bit.  Sure, how high should that first stage go?  Pretty high, I can imagine.  Perhaps even beyond the atmosphere (greater than 100 km in altitude).  How mush fuel should that second stage have to get from 0 to 17,000 mph before falling back to Earth or sustaining altitude while accelerating laterally?  How much fuel would the first stage need for all the fuel the second stage would need and to land as well?  A lot.  OK.  What are the benefits?  How about having a first stage that can land on the same landing pad as it launched from.  Conceivably,  it could be prepped with another second stage, payload, and fuel and fly in short order again.  Now we're talking rapid turn around for a first stage rocket.  What is that worth?

 So there they are.  SpaceX has it's plan to alter the launch operations to make it more economical and is working it.  DARPA has a competition with an idea using wings.  I just throw science to the wind and take an idea that leverages most fuel possible to get the most out of the hardware.  What is sure is that launch as we have seen it in the past is not how it's going to be in the future because we just can't afford it anymore.

Boeing CST-100

Credit NASA

Boeing and SpaceX have won NASA's Commercial Crew Transportation Capability competition in the last month.  Good job to both teams.  Now, I've written a lot about SpaceX because there has been a lot to write about.  Here, I'm gong to change my focus on the Boeing team.  It may come to a surprise to some of my readers that, in fact, I like Boeing as a company.  I've been a customer, both for pleasure and business, for many years of their jetliners and never had a complaint.  Boeing is mostly a mainstay company.  They have their jets for many decades.  Sure, they change them to meet market demands, but for the most part, they keep them up and running for as long as possible to keep costs down both for themselves and for their customers.  On the rocket side, they have the Delta family.  It has been operating well for many years.  There has been a couple of mishaps, but overall everything is OK.  They do make the currently largest rocket in the world, the Delta IV Heavy.  Then they have business with the military and NASA in miscellaneous projects - at least for this post.  CST-100 is a different project for Boeing.  For a company that is a safe company as Boeing, CST-100 is really out there.

The first thing about CST-100 is that it is not business as usual.  It is not a 'cost plus' contract.  It is a contract where risk is taken on by Boeing.  That, I sense, is a big deal to the company.  Sure, they do take on that sort of risk when they sell a jetliner to an airline company, or do they?  Well there is no airliner to go between the end user and the company.  So far, the contract will be just between NASA and Boeing.  In the unforeseen event Boeing decides to put in a third party, like ULA, then the dynamic would change a little.  Let's assume that it won't.  Boeing will take responsibility for the craft and all the technicalities.  That means that they retain ownership.  For a disposable craft, ownership is a short lived thing.  Risk is the important item here.  Any technical malfunction leading to human injury or fatality could lead to money lost by the company.  Amount will vary on a case by case basis.  Of course, since this is rocket industry, the sky is the limit.  (These are generalized statements. I have no clue what agreements NASA and Boeing will have including anything pertaining to risk.)

Credit EC Holm

Now, in face of the higher risk, I can see why the CST-100 was designed the way it was; it has little innovation.  About the only two major innovations it does have are that it can land on land using airbags and has autonomous docking.  Otherwise, it is shaped like the old Apollo capsule, most of its supporting systems are in the service module like in Apollo, thrusters are in the service module like Apollo.  So the craft has a strong design basis in legacy systems.  I believe this was to reduce risk.

There seems to be a belief out there on the net that this craft's electrical system is only powered by batteries alone.  If that is the case, it is unprecedented and could possibly be a significant innovation.  Batteries are traditionally heavy and don't last long.  They are usually replenished with power form solar cells or fuel cells as is for all modern maned or cargo carrying craft.

The CST-100 team was in a tough situation.  On one side, they had a company that was adverse to a lot of risk, and on the other side, they had a project that demanded to take on a lot of risk.  So the design reflected lower risk.  I applaud the team for their excellent work in such a tough situation.  Is CST-100 really what we need to advance commercial space?  Maybe.  Time will tell.  It is not the best.  It was design for five people but can fit seven.  On the other hand SapceX Dragon 2 was designed for seven people.  Dragon 2 is a riskier program to build.  CST-100 has a better chance at success.  I think both will make it.  I can't stress enough how extraordinary it was for Boeing to take on this project in the first place.  There was never a manned capsule made in Boeing's name.  Instead Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas who had made both the Mercury and the Gemini capsules (late 1950's to early 1960;s).  These are on display at the St Louis Science Center.  I took pictures of them - seen above.  They are strikingly small.  So small that they look like some mesh between modern art and engineering built around humans.  This is a really risky project for Boeing.  I applaud them in taking this leap.

Future of the Dream Chaser

Credit Ken Ulbrich/NASA

NASA has made its choices.  SpaceX and Boeing are in and Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) is out.  In their comments, NASA said that it was a hard choice.  I believe them.  The Dream Chaser was based on the HL-20, a NASA project.  This gives Dream Chaser good credibility.  So, what possible future could there be for a spaceship that needs someone to fly it?

It's an unprecedented situation in the world where a company has an almost ready made space ship but needs someone to fly it.  SNC has vowed to keep on with the project with possibly using it to compete for NASA's next round of cargo hauling to the ISS (see Denver Business Journal article).  In a Denver Post article, SNC said it will offer flight to anyone or even sell a space ship to anyone.  You can see they are trying their best to keep the project afloat.

Now, bear with me in some speculation.  I can think of two customer/buyers that would be in their interest to buy services or a craft.

European Space Agency (ESA) has for a very long time toyed with the idea of having their own manned access to space without relying on Russia or the United States.  They considered making a space plane they called Hermes a long time ago.  They are considering leveraging the ATV technology and making a capsule to launch on an Ariane 5 launcher.  They are currently about to launch a technology tester to test reentry systems known as IXV.  Why not just forgo development and buy a Dream Chaser?  They could take their astronauts to ISS and bring home experiments landing on a european runway.  Sounds like an opportunity Europe would be crazy to pass up.

Virgin Galactic (VG) is about to fly people to space.  Six people at a time get to fly to suborbital space in the new SpaceShipTwo space plane.  They get to experience weightlessness for 5 minutes and then come home.  A chance of a lifetime, nay, a chance never before offered,  What would be the next step?  Why orbit of course.  With a Dream Chaser, Virgin Galactic could take passengers to orbital space for a day or a week and then come home.  Up to six passengers can fit on board.  Then they can land on a runway just like SpaceShipTwo,  Heck, it can be the same runway.  Dream Chaser shares some technologies with SpaceShipTwo.  They have the same non-caustic hybrid engines, and they have the similar type of landing gear configuration.  They are both made out of carbon fibers and resin.

So here we are.  In an unprecedented situation in the history of commerce, a orbital space ship is offered to the world.  Isn't it exciting?  Will ESA and VG make an offer?  We have to wait and see how the market responds.  Is it too early for a commercial orbital space craft?  Does anyone really have the money to purchase?  It the answers are 'no' then SNC will probably store Dream Chaser for a future venture, hopefully.