Some Interesting Ideas From the Other Side of the Pond

I don't have time to go into detail at the moment, but I wanted to relay an interesting paper that Keith Cowing reported on NASAWatch today. Now, if I were someone at the ESA, I'd probably be taking NASA's grand plans about Constellation with an appropriate sized grain of salt right about now. But there were some good ideas overall:

• The report mentioned that our ISS experience shows the importance of having redundant transportation methods (ie imagine what would've happened to ISS if Soyuz didn't exist). I don't think that redundant transportation method should necessarily be another government-centric transportation system, but I agree wholeheartedly that monocultures are a bad idea.
• The report also mentioned that having a safe-haven in LLO is one of the best ways to increase the safety and flexibility of a lunar exploration program. Right now, most of the danger associated with lunar exploration have to do with operations on or near the moon. The current architecture does nothing to reduce those risks, but instead focuses on the much sexier earth-to-orbit transportation risks. Having some infrastructure in LLO can go a long way to fixing that, while also giving you some very interesting mission options. Now, I'm still a fan of the idea of Lagrange stations, and I think that in the long-run they'll dominate the traffic in the lunar half of cislunar space. I just think that there is a small, and critical niche filled by one or more small polar LLO stations. I've been planning to write up my ideas on this concept for over two months now, so can someone poke me in a few weeks if I haven't followed up on this thought?
• Unlike NASA they don't seem to be deathly afraid of on-orbit assembly when it makes sense. Of course, they don't have an HLV fetish that they have to rationalize...
  

There were a few other good points, but those three were the key ones that stood out to me. Of course they also seem to be missing the importance of propellant transfer, and they seem to be almost as clueless as NASA as far as commercial enterprise is concerned (both why it's important, and how best to foster real commercial involvment). But it was an interesting read if you have a few minutes.

Marburger's Speech

There's been a lot of discussion over the past few days about OSTP Director John Marburger's speech at the recent Goddard Memorial Symposium, but there were a couple of good points that I felt deserved repetition, and I also had a few thoughts I would like to add.

One of the memes that John started two years ago is the concept of extending our nation's economic sphere throughout the Solar System. Early on in his speech, referring to the thriving commercial satellite market, John states that "Humanity has succeeded in incorporating Low and Geostationary Earth orbit in its economic sphere." While I think he's basically right, I'd just point out that LEO and GEO are still only on the fringes of our economic sphere. While there are a couple of (very large and profitable) niches that have been exploited in spite of the immature state of existing earth-to-orbit transportation systems, none of these markets really have succeeded in catalyzing further demand for other services in LEO and GEO. While lots of money is being made, and lots of useful services are being provided, we still have a long way to go before I'd really state that LEO and GEO are firmly within mankind's "economic sphere".

The most important idea from this speech is found in the next paragraph:

If we are serious about this, then our objective must be more than a disconnected series of missions, each conducted at huge expense and risk, and none building a lasting infrastructure to reduce the expense and risk of future operations. If we are serious, we will build capability, not just on the ground but in space. And our objective must be to make the use of space for human purposes a routine function.

He amplified this point a few paragraphs later:

Exploration that is not in support of something else strikes me as somehow selfish and unsatisfying, and not consistent with the fact that we are using public funds for this enterprise, no matter how small a fraction of the total budget they may be.

If the architecture of the exploration phase is not crafted with sustainability in mind, we will look back on a century or more of huge expenditures with nothing more to show for them than a litter of ritual monuments scattered across the planets and their moons.

I think that though this may not have been his intention, these quotes highlight most of my current frustration with NASA's current approach to executing the Vision for Space Exploration. Having NASA develop its Constellation architecture means that 20 years from now, it will be just as hard for a commercial entity to get to the moon as it would be if Constellation was cancelled tomorrow. Nothing that is being done "reduces the risk or expense of future operations" or "makes the use of space for human purposes a routine function." I'm glad that at least someone is trying to tie this all back to actual benefit to the nation. I'm also glad that John pointed out that the whole "NASA only spends less than 1% of the federal budget" line does not give NASA carte blanche to spend that money however it darned well pleases. That money is supposed to be spent in a way that furthers the national interest, preferably in a way that makes space more accessible for everyone.

Now, NASA isn't completely neglecting its responsibility to help reduce the risk and expense of future commercial, defense, and NASA operations. They are doing such things as COTS and Centennial Challenges. And people in power seem to be finally wising-up to the idea that COTS is the only real hope for reducing the gap, and the only way to economically services the ISS once the Shuttle is finally retired. But I do think that it's a big negative mark that the vast majority of the money NASA will spend over the next decade on Constellation has nothing to do with making the moon easier for everyone to access in the future.

There's been talk from NASA and some of their less discerning fanboys of a "Lunar COTS". Basically the idea is to waste $100-120B on using Constellation to setup a small ISS on the Moon, and then once its there start paying commercial entities to service said base. This creates an interesting situation. Since NASA won't have done anything for over a decade to help make it easier for commercial entities to actually service the moon, they'll either have to keep sustaining the base themselves while they spend the money to belatedly help develop that commercial capability. Or, if the commercial market has independently created that capability anyhow, that NASA base will likely be only a small niche market in the cislunar space. The smart thing to do would be to start finding ways to develop or promote those commercial capabilities from the start. Things like funding research or sponsoring prizes for fielding the technologies needed for propellant depots. Acting as a customer for commercial services especially on-orbit propellants. Acting as a better customer for commercially attained lunar environmental data. Finding ways to promote translunar tourism and eventually lunar orbital (or Lagrange point) stations. Finding ways consistent with federal laws to act as an anchor tenant, to champion these new technologies, to fund demonstrator missions, and even to put money aside in escrow for being a leading customer for these new capabilities.

For a short duration before Griffin got in as NASA's administrator, NASA was actually acting in a way to more fully fulfill mandate to "promote commercial as well as international participation "to further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests." Under the guidance of O'keefe and Steidle, NASA setup several billion dollars worth of "Human and Robotic Technologies" research to help develop and field the technologies that would allow it to more effectively achieve its exploration goals. It was set to operate its exploration architecture in a way to leverage to the maximum extent possible existing and future commercial capabilities. To act as though NASA can't do that is to ignore the fact that that was its very plan up until Griffin took the reins.

I guess the question boils down to what Marburger said: do we intend to extend humanity's economic sphere of influence to include the rest of the Solar System?

It's Not Important Whether You Win or Lose...

...it's how you place the blame. Or at least that's how a friend of mine at NASA once put it.

Apparently, in the wake of yet more news leaks about severe technical issues on Ares I, Mike Griffin decides to play the blame game (hat tip: Space Politics):

A: Let me get down to the bottom of it. There were winners and losers in the contractor community as to who was going to get to do what on the next system post shuttle. And we didn’t pick (Lockheed Martin’s) Atlas 5, in consultation with the Air Force for that matter, because it wasn’t the right vehicle for the lunar job. Obviously, we did pick others. So people who didn’t get picked see an opportunity to throw the issue into controversy and maybe have it come out their way.

I'm sure the guys in Denver are getting a hoot out of this. Of all the people who have a reason to be upset at the massive waste that is Ares-I/Ares-V, the LM/ULA guys I know have actually been rather politic about their complaints.

You see, they're too busy working on making a vehicle that's safe enough to fly people and affordable enough to do so entirely on the private market, without needing multi-billion dollar sole-source contracts from NASA. Of course, Mike may actually have a point though. If there is anyone outside of NASA HQ who is to blame for making Ares-I look bad, it probably is the Atlas V guys...

Just not in the way Griffin is insinuating...

Discussion of Dr. Griffin's STA Comments on ESAS

I've had several people in several places ask me if I was going to do a point-by-point rebuttal of Mike Griffin's comments to the STA this week (for reference the text of his comments is available here). While I don't have the time to go into every single disagreement I have with what he said, I think there are a couple of key points I would like to point out. In other words, I've come to discuss Griffin, not to Fisk him.

Missing the Vision

Dr Griffin starts his defense of the chosen Constellation architecture by framing it "in the
context of policy and law that dictate NASA’s missions." As he said on page 2:

Any system architecture must be evaluated first against the tasks which it is
supposed to accomplish. Only afterwards can we consider whether it accomplishes
them efficiently, or presents other advantages which distinguish it from competing
choices.

He then went on to discuss President Bush's original announcement of the Vision for Space Exploration, and the NASA Authorization Act of 2005. I agree that it is important to make sure you know up-front what yardstick your program is going to be measured by. However, I think one thing becomes quickly obvious as you read Dr Griffin's quotes from those documents--he entirely focuses on the technical implementation details, and never once mentions the actual policy goals!

Quoting from "A Renewed Spirit of Discovery: The President’s Vision for U.S. Space Exploration":

Goal and Objectives
The fundamental goal of this vision is to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program.

These goals are the yardstick by which any VSE implementation needs to be judged. The rest of the technical details of how the space exploration program is carried out needs to be viewed in the light of these three areas of US interests. It doesn't matter if a proposed implementation hits all of the other technical details, if it doesn't really further US scientific, security, and economic interests, it isn't really compliant with the goals of the president's Vision.

Going into a little more detail on these goals, the Renewed Spirit of Discovery document continues (emphasis mine):

In support of this goal, the United States will:
• Implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and beyond;
• Extend human presence across the solar system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations;
• Develop the innovative technologies, knowledge, and infrastructures both to explore and to support decisions about the destinations for human exploration; and
• Promote international and commercial participation in exploration to further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests.

Once again, all of the specific technical details like the CEV, retiring Shuttle in 2010, etc. are all pursuant to these goals.

Lastly, the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 (available here) states, once again with my emphasis:

The Administrator shall establish a program to develop a sustained human presence on the Moon, including a robust precursor program, to promote exploration, science, commerce, and United States preeminence in space, and as a stepping-stone to future exploration of Mars and other destinations.

Once again, you will notice that the key goals of this Vision, elucidated by both the President and Congress include not only science, but commerce, and in the president's case security.

I could go on about how Dr Griffin's focus on the parts of the Authorization Act that talk about heavy lift and shuttle derived ignored other sections in the act that talk about "encouraging the commercial use and development of space to the greatest extent practicable" (see Section 101.a.2. parts B-C). But I think the fundamental issue is that by focusing exclusively on just the technical side of the requirements, and not on the underlying goals, Griffin is missing the Vision.

Growth Potential

On page 7, Dr. Griffin starts making his case for the Constellation architecture with this somewhat ironic statement about the Space Shuttle:

Once before, an earlier generation of U.S. policymakers approved a spaceflight architecture intended to optimize access to LEO. It was expected – or maybe “hoped” is the better word – that, with this capability in hand, the tools to resume deep space exploration would follow. It didn’t happen, and with the funding which has been allocated to the U.S. civil space program since the late 1960s, it cannot happen. Even though from an engineering perspective it would be highly desirable to have transportation systems separately optimized for LEO and deep space, NASA’s budget will not support it. We get one system; it must be capable of serving in multiple roles, and it must be designed for the more difficult of those roles from the outset.

And then Dr Griffin goes on to try and justify an architecture based on building a duplicative LEO capable only launch vehicle first, and hoping that when that vehicle is finally done, that there will be funding for developing "the tools to resume deep space exploration"...

After that auspicious start, Dr. Griffin then reminds us that "the new system will and should be in use for many decades." Of course some of the historical analogies he draws could lead one to different solutions than it led him. For instance, he mentions that "In space, derivatives of Atlas and Delta and Soyuz are flying a half-century and more after their initial development." An interesting thing to note about Atlas and Delta is that the only reason why vehicles with the name Atlas and Delta are "still flying" a half-century after their initial development, is precisely because they are only derivatives of the original. In fact, the current EELVs have very little in common with the vehicles that originally bore their names.

On pages 8 and 9, Dr. Griffin concludes that (emphasis mine):

The implications of this are profound. We are designing today the systems that our grandchildren will use as building blocks, not just for lunar return, but for missions to Mars, to the near-Earth asteroids, to service great observatories at Sun-Earth L1, and for other purposes we have not yet even considered. We need a system with inherent capability for growth.

While I disagree with the direction Dr. Griffin is going, I do agree with his point in that last sentence. We do need a transportation architecture that has inherent capability for growth. I just don't think that the Constellation architecture really fits that bill.

The Promise of Commercial Space

Now, lest you think I'm going to spend yet another post hammering on Dr. Griffin, I'd like to quote a part of his speech that I really agreed with:

Further application of common sense also requires us to acknowledge that now is the time, this is the juncture, and we are the people to make provisions for the contributions of the commercial space sector to our nation’s overall space enterprise. The development and exploitation of space has, so far, been accomplished in a fashion that can be described as “all government, all the time”. That’s not the way the American frontier was developed, it’s not the way this nation developed aviation, it’s not the way the rest of our economy works, and it ought not to be good enough for space, either. So, proactively and as a matter of deliberate policy, we need to make provisions for the first step on the stairway to space to be occupied by commercial entrepreneurs – whether they reside in big companies or small ones.

I have to say that for all my disagreements with Griffin, he at least talks a good talk when it comes to commercial space. I full-heartedly agree with his point in this paragraph. When you think about it, even assuming everything works out according to his plan, Constellation is never going to be capable of supporting more than a dozen people off-planet at any time. While that may be a lot more than we have now, Ed Wright has a point when he says that that is a round-off error, not an exploration program. Basically, the only way we're going to see large numbers of people off planet, and the only way we're going to see the large-scale manned exploration and settlement of our solar system in our life times, is if the private sector can eventually play a much more expansive role in space transportation. As it is right now, so long as the commercial industry continues to play second fiddle to parochial interests and NASA-centricism, we're not really going to go much of anywhere.

So, the fact that NASA is at least doing something to help promote that day is a sign that they at least partially get it. A successful and thriving entrepreneurial space transportation industry is going to help them actually achieve their goal of extending human life throughout the solar system in a robust program of space exploration.

Griffin continues with more good comments in his next paragraph:

If designed for the Moon, the use of the CEV in LEO will inevitably be more expensive than a system designed for the much easier requirement of LEO access and no more. This lesser requirement is one that, in my judgment, can be met today by a bold commercial developer, operating without the close oversight of the U.S. government, with the goal of offering transportation for cargo and crew to LEO on a fee-for-service basis.

But here is where the conversation takes a dangerous turn:

Now again, common sense dictates that we cannot hold the ISS hostage to fortune; we cannot gamble the fate of a multi-tens-of-billions-of-dollar facility on the success of a commercial operation, so the CEV must be able to operate efficiently in LEO if necessary. But we can create a clear financial incentive for commercial success, based on the financial disincentive of using government transportation to LEO at what will be an inherently higher price.

To this end, as I have noted many times, we must be willing to defer the use of government systems in favor of commercial services, as and when they reach maturity. When commercial capability comes on line, we will reduce the level of our own LEO operations with Ares/Orion to that which is minimally necessary to preserve capability, and to qualify the system for lunar flight.

While I agree that the government not only is the government being "willing to defer in favor of commercial services" is a really good idea, I think that this approach (of hedging their bets by coming up with a competing in-house launcher) is fraught with risk. Also, while on first blush, it may appear to be common sense to not "hold the ISS hostage to fortune", it is my contention that this line of reasoning not only doesn't hold as much water as it seems.

First off, as has been pointed out on numerous occasions, including in Griffin's statements above, a commercial solution to ISS crew/cargo is going to be a lot more affordable than the in-house Ares-1/Orion solution. It has been mentioned before by people high up at NASA, that they really need COTS to succeed, because if they have to fly all the ISS missions themselves (especially if ISS doesn't get retired in 2016, which Dr. Griffin mentioned in this speech as a possibility), there really won't be anywhere near enough money to develop the lunar portions of the proposed Constellation architecture in time for the 2020 lunar return goal. You could say in a way that the existing Constellation architecture holds the rest of the Vision hostage to the fortune of COTS. If COTS doesn't succeed, there's no way NASA is going to be able to afford executing on the rest of the vision. If the supposed "backup plan" for ISS resupply won't produce acceptable results anyway if COTS doesn't turn out, NASA shouldn't be trying to make it a backup plan at all--they should invest more heavily in making sure that there are multiple COTS competitors and that they have enough resources to succeed. One of the single biggest execution risks for any COTS company is financing risks. And having a NASA "backup plan" that could potentially compete with them is one of the single biggest obstacles to be overcome in raising money for a COTS team.

Which brings me to my other concern. The danger of having NASA in-house launch vehicles and space access capabilities that can serve as a backup to COTS also allows them to directly compete with COTS if the budgetary situation goes sour. Think about it. If Ares-1 finally gets built and working, but Ares-V doesn't get funded, there's nothing for Ares-1 to do but service ISS. With how hard the esteemed congressmen from Florida, Utah, and Alabama are fighting to maintain the Shuttle workforce and infrastructure (even to the point of suggesting continuing to fly the Shuttle!), does anyone really think that they would just "stand down" at that point, even if there was a clearly superior commercial alternative? Not very likely. I'm sure they would come up with some technical reason why Ares-I was superior (after all, our probabilistic risk assessment says that Ares-I has a 1:2106.5923 chance of killing a crew, while our numbers show that they have a 1:500 chance--who do you want flying our brave astronauts?) and find a way to not actually stand down. The frustrating thing is that by setting things up the way NASA is doing, the NASA people don't even have to be malicious for such a result to happen--it's a natural and likely consequence of the perverse incentives that NASA and Congress are setting up.

So, while I personally think that Dr. Griffin really and emphatically believes in and supports commercial space development, I'm afraid that there's a high chance that some of his well-intended choices could end up coming back to haunt us.

Moon, MARS!!!! and Beyond

The last item I'd like to point out in Dr. Griffin's speech is one of the justifications he used for the "1.5 launch" architecture they selected. Dr. Griffin made the point that while he feels that Constellation needs to be backward compatible with ISS as a backup plan, it also needs to be forward compatible with Mars, because sometime in the 2030s, we're going to be going there. Now, I'm of the opinion that trying to guess what the best technical approach will be for a problem 30 years from now is somewhat of a fools errand. But that's just me I guess.

So, starting on page 16 he begins to layout his case:

On the other end of the scale, we must judge any proposed architecture against the requirements for Mars. We aren’t going there now, but one day we will, and it will be within the expected operating lifetime of the system we are designing today. We know already that, when we go, we are going to need a Mars ship with a LEO mass equivalent of about a million pounds, give or take a bit. I’m trying for one-significant-digit accuracy here, but think “Space Station”, in terms of mass.

Now, I'm not going to go into the fact that there are probably plenty of other approaches to Mars exploration that can change the equation entirely. That's a post for another day. For now, let's just run with that premise.

He then repeats the "everyone knows that ISS taught us that using 20 ton vehicles to build something big is a bad idea" catechism, but that's not what I'd like to discuss. The real gem is in this paragraph on page 17 (emphasis mine):

But if we split the EOR lunar architecture into two equal but smaller vehicles, we will need ten or more launches to obtain the same Mars-bound payload in LEO, and that is without assuming any loss of packaging efficiency for the launch of smaller payloads. When we consider that maybe half the Mars mission mass in LEO is liquid hydrogen, and if we understand that the control of hydrogen boiloff in space is one of the key limiting technologies for deep space exploration, the need to conduct fewer rather than more launches to LEO for early Mars missions becomes glaringly apparent.

It is true that one can draw that inference--that hydrogen boiloff means you should build as big of an HLV as possible. However, the conclusion I would draw is that if cryogenic propellant storage technologies are "key limiting technologies for deep space explortion", then the right answer is to stop trying to kludge around the problem--develop them! Don't use the existing state of the art in propellant handling and problems that are still 20 years down the road drive multi-billion dollar development projects today.

There are current technologies under development that could yield very low to zero boiloff of cryogenic propellants. There are multiple groups (ULA, Boeing, groups working with Glenn Research Center, etc.) pursuing multiple approaches to solving these problems. There are passive cooling and active cooling techniques. This isn't some high-risk technology like nuclear fusion. The technologies needed for cryogenic fluid management in space are mostly low-risk extensions of 40 years worth of research and development. More to the point, many if not all of these technologies need to be developed to make Constellation work for lunar trips anyway, and would still be needed for Mars trips.

Is 2030 really so close that we can't afford to do this right and actually develop the technologies we need instead of trying to kludge by with existing technologies?

Once you have the boiloff issue reduced or solved, that ~500klb of hydrogen ceases to be a headache, and begins to be an opportunity. That's a lot of demand for propellant in orbit, and it can be supplied commercially. You're already going to need propellant transfer technologies anyway if you have to launch the hydrogen in multiple launches, so what's to stop launching it in even smaller launches?

I guess my point is that if one of the key arguments for the 1.5 launch architecture over a more commercial one, or a less expensive shuttle derived one like DIRECT is hydrogen boiloff, I think their kludge around the issue isn't the right approach, and that they'd be better off just doing it the right way. Also, part of the reason why we have a federally funded aerospace program is to help prove out the technologies necessary for enabling the commercial exploitation of space, and actually solving problems like these would be much a much more responsible use of public funds than developing a kludge around point design like Ares V that doesn't advance the state of the art for the commercial benefit of the country.

Conclusions

I guess overall while there were some good points, there was also a lot of issues with Dr. Griffin's latest defense of Constellation. As discussed, I think that an a myopic focus on the technical details while ignoring the overall goals of the VSE has led to an architecture that isn't responsive to the key policy goals laid out by the president and reiterated by Congress (particularly with respect to promoting the commercial and security interests of the United States). I think that in spite of Griffin recognizing the need for growth and flexibility in any architecture, that he chose a rather brittle and inflexible one. I also think that while he showed that he does recognize the potential of commercial space, and the importance of NASA trying to promote it, I think that the way he's running COTS and Constellation will likely end up being highly counterproductive. Lastly, I think that in many cases, when confronted with a solvable engineering problem, Constellation has instead decided to kludge around the problem instead of properly solving it.

There are plenty of other issues I could've raised, but I figured these were some of the more obvious ones that I felt needed discussion.

Premature Overoptimization

One of the common mistakes I've noticed in the engineering is to overoptimize a subcomponent of a system at the expense of the system as a whole. I saw this a lot back in my manufacturing engineering days. You'd get someone working on a specific machine or process, who doesn't have a good grasp of the overall problem, and he'll tune his process to some metric (throughput for instance) that he thinks is important, and it will end up being completely out of sync with the rest of the production system. The end result is that even though his one process may be very "efficient" by some metric, the overall production system has a large increase in required inventory, produces more waste, has more issue with reacting to demand, etc, etc. Basically, one of the truisms in engineering is that overoptimization of a part often makes the system suboptimal.

A recent thread at NASASpaceflight.com brought home an excellent example of that. In this thread, Ross Tierney (of DIRECT fame) brought up the following graphic from the Exploration Systems Architecture Study:


Basically, this chart from Chapter-8 shows the main failures that could lead to killing a crew during a lunar mission, and their relative probabilities. The first thing that jumped out at me when looking at this chart was that fatal launch accidents are predicted to be only a tiny contributor to loss of crew in a lunar mission. By comparison, the Trans Earth Injection burn is predicted to be over 5x more likely to cost the loss of a crew. Another thing that stuck out is that if Ares-I really only has a 1/2106 (or whatever the 4-significant-figures odds were predicted to be) of killing a crew, and that is only 3% of the overall odds of losing a crew on a lunar mission, that means that the odds of losing a crew on a lunar mission are about 1-in-60 chance of losing a crew (this number is backed-up by the way in I think it was Figure 8-2 from the ESAS report). Over a decade of flights, that gives a 25% chance of losing a crew.

Think about that.

But that brings me to the two points I wanted to make with this thread.

First off, if the relative proportions here are even close to right, launcher reliability is really not super important to overall crew safety on a lunar mission. It's kind of counterintuitive, but increasing the odds of a fatal launch accident by a factor of 2 only increases the odds of a fatal lunar mission from 1.6% to 1.7%, which is probably round-off error for a study like this. Most of the EELV options, DIRECT, and even a 2-launch Ares V architecture all supposedly fall within or near this category (and most of them probably do better if you actually work with the EELV manufacturers to figure out how to close the blackout zones). So, the vaunted Ares-I reliability, if it turns out to be anywhere near as good as claimed, only changes the odds of a lunar mission resulting in a dead crew from about 1-in-58 to about 1-in-63. With those numbers in mind, does spending an extra $10B+ on the launcher development, and an extra ~$1B a year from here on out really justify that modest of a safety increase? Once again, for its primary mission (launching crews for interplanetary missions), Ares-I only makes the overall system 6% safer, not 100% safer. Is that extra 6% really worth $10B? Or could that $10B be better spent elsewhere? Could it go to finding better ways of reducing the odds of a TEI failure or of a Lunar Ascent rendezvous failure?

The other major point I wanted to bring up has to do with the Zero Baseline Vehicle work that NASA and LM are doing for Orion. Basically due to Ares-I not really having any room for growth, they're having to trim back backup systems and Orion capabilities. While some of those capabilities probably don't affect the LOC numbers much at all, others of them do. Those LOC numbers shown above were based on two-fault-tolerant RCS and controls. But for the ZBV version of Orion, these are being pared back to single-fault-tolerant. Now, some of those systems may be added back over the next couple of weeks, but if any of them get left out, that's going to affect the LOC numbers for the three largest LOC events: earth reentry, the TEI burn, and lunar ascent docking. Basically, if Orion loses during any of those phases, it increases the odds of losing the whole mission. Since combined those three failure modes are considered nearly 20x more likely than a launch accident, it only takes a tiny increase in the probability of any of those failures occurring to completely swamp any supposed gains from going with Ares-I as the launch vehicle.

This may end up being a classic case of premature overoptimization leading to a less safe system overall. Going with a slightly less reliable launcher like DIRECT, EELV-Heavy, or Atlas V Phase 2, would likely save money, save time, and make the overall architecture more capable and safer. So, why are we spending so much time and money giving our astronauts (and the American people as a whole) the "Shaft"?