Ed Lu on Launch Vehicles

The most sensible thing I've read in a long time. NASA is currently operating on the theory that the safety of a vehicle resides in its design. While it's nice and all to have a good design, safety can only come from flight experience with the vehicle as a whole. Lots of experience.

What would you call 100 flights of the same design? I'd call it "A good start."

What would you fill the rocket with? sand? where would the funding to prepare that many payloads worth launching come from? High flight rate is a good idea....but that high? how many launches a year total from KSC and VAFB per year...maybe 50?

Once a week?!? I'm not sure that the Eastern Range could support that as a total flight rate from all launch sites, let alone just one by a single LV type. In any case, for what purpose would these vehicles fly? The ISS only needs a new cargo ship about once a month at most and crew rotation flights are needed only 6 times a year. Half of these flights would be Soyuz and Progress launches from Baikonour and other international partners would easily swallow up another quarter of the total, at least for cargo delivery.

Still, I do understand that point here. It is one of the key arguments of the proponents for EELV-based archetectures. You fly more of smaller rockets rather than few of larger rockets. Experience and actual, physical operations rather than simulations thus guide planning and propel the development of new technologies.

Without a corresponding extraordinary increase in monies for payloads, and experiments etc. to put on these rockets, manned or unmanned, they will be launching 'empty'.

The robotic side of NASA has more ideas than money; hence the low launch rate of new missions.

Now, if industry has money for experiments, payloads, perhaps one could sustain a more robust launch rate.

I think a few commentators are missing the point. You launch even if you don't have a payload available. The theory is that you can get sustainable low costs by bootstrapping mass production of launchers.

John Walker, the Autodesk guy, wrote an essay on this back in 1993. http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/rocketaday.html

you would have to sell the government a mass buy of hundreds of rockets under a fixed price, fixed time contract; and you don't even have to launch them all, just build them. good in theory; weak in practice. I don't think that such a thing could be sold....there has to be a need...

I think we agree that more flights = more practice, and that the airline model for HSF is appealing, and that the former would jump-start the latter. But you also need a task that needs doing, that isn't as much of a burden as creating a useful spacecraft & instrument per week. If you do this in the wrong order, the program would cost billions and look useless -- making it a white elephant that begs to be killed in tight budget times.

So you want a "shovel-ready" stimulus for HSF? First think of a job that the American people want done, that takes a hundred small launches to LEO. Couple that with a proven launch vehicle and crew vehicle and the necessary production lines for them.

Obviously we're nowhere near that, so this notion is pure fantasy today.

You bring up an excellent point. Why hasn't NASA partnered with the DOD to automate the the Easter Range so that we could launch on everyday??? Isn't this something that NASA should be doing since the government restricts and controls this?

"What would you fill the rocket with? sand?"
"In any case, for what purpose would these vehicles fly?"
"But you also need a task that needs doing..."

The rockets would fly often and you'd fill the payload with fuel.

If Constellation leveraged fuel depots, you could easily have small to medium-sized launch vehicles flying weekly with fungible payloads of rocket fuel slowly replenishing depots prior to each departure.

That would be quite useful, and if part of the critical path, would not require NASA to spend the next ten years building a heavy launch vehicle.

now THAT would be a good idea; but again there has to be a need...a fuel depot is a good idea...all of the believers know that it is an integral part of a larger infrastructure...but again there has to be a need for the fuel depot...such as really large missions or vibrant transportation going on....there can't be a fuel depot first...you would need a REALLY visionary congress and a clear set of developmental objectives. We are not capable of that at this time.

Seriously?
Automate the Eastern Range to launch (what???) everyday???