RLVs are OK after all [Update]

In his article, Alan Boyle pointed to this comment by David Thompson, Orbital's chairman and chief executive officer, in the announcement Rocketplane-Kistler/Orbital Sciences partnership:

"Having studied the substantial amount of work that has been accomplished on the K-1 program and the planning that is already in place, we are convinced that it can be operational in a relatively short period of time."

I find it quite interesting that they so quickly became convinced that the K-1 will fly as planned. In the aftermath of the X-33, the X-34 (an Orbital/NASA project) and other failed NASA RLV programs, it became a commonly stated belief by agency managers and with many mainstream aerospace cognoscenti that fully reusable vehicles, two stage or otherwise, were not within current technological capabilities. Griffin, for example, never considered RLVs even for a second for the Exploration architecture. Yet, if we believe the Orbital engineers who studied it, the K-1 is a perfectly reasonably design and the vehicle that was 75% built when Kistler ran out of money could have been flying several years ago if properly funded.

I have no idea if the K-1 is a great or even a good design for a RLV. My point has always been that it is simply a proof of the principle that fully reusable vehicles are practical now.

[Update July.29.06: To illustrate how attitudes and conventional wisdom in Washington in the early 2000's turned against RLVs in general, not just SSTO, I'll point to the following statement reported in the 11/24/2003 issue of Aviation Week, "A fully reusable two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle is currently beyond reach, says Pentagon space czar Peter B. Teets. A while back, the government gave up on fully reusable single-stage designs." AvWeek generously published the following letter from me in the 12/15/2003 issue:

It is a relief to hear that "Pentagon space czar" Peter B. Teets has declared that fully reusable two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) vehicles are currently beyond reach (AW&ST Nov. 24, p. 19).

He can now finally enlighten us as to the fatal flaws in the Kistler Aerospace K-1 vehicle. This fully reusable TSTO vehicle was 75% complete about three years ago when its funding fell short as Kistler's target market of Iridium, Globalstar and Teledesic replacement satellites vanished. It has been a mystery as to why the Air Force or NASA did not fund the completion of this vehicle, which would require less money than a single shuttle flight.

The company claims it could fly 5,700 kg. (12,540 lb.) every two weeks to low- Earth orbit for about $17 million per mission or $3,000/kg., substantially below current prices. I'm sure Kistler President George Mueller, a former top Apollo program engineer, would like to hear from Teets why the K-1 is not currently feasible.

]

Posted 07/27/06 | 23:07:42 by TopSpacer | Filed under: RLV Technology

Comments

You’ve got to be joking. The X-33 and X-34 were scrapped because single stage to orbit won’t work. Why would NASA or any one else come to the conclusion that you can’t make a RLV because you can’t do SSTO?

Posted by brian d at 07/28/06 15:06:34

It's probably unfair to compare the K-1 to the X-33
or X-34. The X-33 was a technology demnostrator for
SSTO. The K-1 is meant to be a TSTO RLV.
Having a body of rotation design, it's simpler
cheaper and more structurally efficient then a
winged vehicle.

That said, the K-1 restart by RP/Kistler is a joke.
The entire team is shredded, the hardware
is junk, the designs are all over the place.
I would no more believe someone could take
the K-1 and make it fly as someone could
take Saturn spares and make an apollo
mission.

If orbital is on board, either their engineers
are incompetent, the technical review was
utterly superficial or they see some sort
of marketing advantage to this announcement.

Of course OSC was the Lead contractor on
X-34, and they couldn't make it roll out and fly.
So, Don't count on OSC having lots of talent.

Posted by spartacus at 07/28/06 17:30:18

Brian:
First off all, neither of those projects proved much of anything except poor planning and management on NASA's part.

The X-34 was a general RLV demonstrator whose technology could have applied to both SSTO and TSTO. It was canceled after it went over budget, which was caused when NASA over-reacted to the loss of its two Mars missions and required major reviews of all its projects. The delays and modifications required to satisfy that review pushed the X-34 over its allowed budget. It was supposed to be an X style project in which one assumes that at least one vehicle will be lost. NASA found it impossible to accept that style of development.

With regard to your main point, of course, it should have been obvious that even if SSTO isn't currently feasible, that has nothing to do with whether TSTO is. Yet general attitudes often form without logic. Just as we see on Internet forums, people love to make big sweeping generalizations, no matter the many exceptions. RLVs in general were tainted by the failures of not just NASA's X programs but also the SLI and OSP programs. Hardly surprising that Griffin decided that, whether feasible or not, NASA simply couldn't do RLVs. (The Pentagon has always had a lot of resistance to RLVs. So it isn't surprising that there, as well, these failures were used as an excuse to file RLVs away to the 2020-2030 time frame.)

Spartacus:
Well, that must have been a satisfying dump but there's no reason at all for anyone to pay much attention to it. How in the world would you know if the K-1 hardware is junk? How do you know if the design info is not available? Why should anyone think that you are competent and Orbital engineers are not? Orbital launches rockets successfully all the time. As I note above, the X-34 would most likely have worked fine if Orbital had been left alone. Comparing the completion of the K-1 to restarting Saturn is just silly and illustrates why your other points cannot be taken seriously.

- C.

Posted by TopSpacer at 07/28/06 18:06:45

Absence of proof is not proof of absence. The X-33 and X-34 were such complete failures in that they really did not provide any useful data point at all. The RLV and SSTO question is still completely open.

An SSTO RLV design is primarily about drymass, ISP being less important and SSTO ELV was pretty much demonstrated back in the sixties. From what I have seen, a SSTO RLV is technically quite possible, though for various reasons I suspect a TSTO RLV could be more viable.

Using an inflatable tank and structure approach, further drymass reductions in excess of fifty percent seem likely. This now seems technically possible, and pretty much optimises out at SSTO RLV.

Posted by Pete Lynn at 07/28/06 18:19:21

And in any case, X-33 wasn't trying to be an SSTO. Though some useful technology did come of it (more robust TPS, the multi-lobed composite LH2 tank issue was eventually solved, post-cancellation, though simpler geometry composite cryo tanks have been done before [DC-XA] and since [XCOR and others]), but Lockheed-Martin only proved that *it* couldn't do single stage to Mach 15...

http://www.nasaspaceflight....

http://www.compositesworld....

http://www.hobbyspace.com/A...

http://www.hobbyspace.com/L...

Posted by Frank Glover at 07/29/06 05:28:06

Didn't Kistler already spend over 500 million dollars? Compared to SpaceX:s 100 it sounds a lot. And they didn't fly anything or even develop new engines!

I'd like to hear a lot more what actually happened. Same with Beal. You only get "success stories".

Posted by mz at 07/29/06 06:36:03

mz:
Actually, Debra Lepore, former head of Kistler, said at a conference once that Kistler had spent about $800M and raised $600M. That mismatch was why they went into Ch.11. I don't remember if she gave a number but my impression is that Kistler needs around three or four hundred million more to get to the point of regular operations with a couple of vehicles.

Elon Musk has indicated that he didn't take over Kistler because of the large amount of money they needed.

In general, the alt.space community hasn't been keen on Kistler for a couple of reasons: (1) The company sucked in a huge portion of the limited capital available at the time for commercial rocket development and (2) even with all that money they couldn't reach flight status.

Kistler relied primarily on mainstream aerospace companies (e.g. Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman, Aerojet, etc.) as parts suppliers and subcontractors. Rocket builders like Musk and Carmack have stated that any quote they get from the mainstream companies on components is always several times what the prices are from independent sources or by building it themselves. So the high cost (relative to other alt.space rocket projects) of the K-1 is hardly surprising.

- C.

Posted by TopSpacer at 07/29/06 10:30:51

Spartacus:
Well, that must have been a satisfying dump but there's no reason at all for anyone to pay much attention to it. How in the world would you know if the K-1 hardware is junk? How do you know if the design info is not available? Why should anyone think that you are competent and Orbital engineers are not? Orbital launches rockets successfully all the time. As I note above, the X-34 would most likely have worked fine if Orbital had been left alone. Comparing the completion of the K-1 to restarting Saturn is just silly and illustrates why your other points cannot be taken seriously.

------

Clark,
I've seen the K-1 hardware. It's been sitting
getting moldy, dusty, rusty for years. Courtesy of
Katrina, all of it has a nice coat of saline on it.
A very good analyst I know did an analysis on
trying to pick up the K-1, several years ago,
and at that time, he viewed it as $800 Million spent
with at least $600 Million more to go.
My impression of the K-1 hardware I saw was
a 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with 1000 missing
pieces. Sure you could put together
impressive pieces, but, to complete it, would
be some really serious work.

How do I know the Design information is missing?
It's a simple fact. When Kistler shut down,
they laid off all the engineers at Kistler and
dispersed the subcontractor team. Each engineer
carries a ton of undocumented information in
their head. Have you ever worked on a problem,
really had it nailed, but when you come back
to it months later, you can barely remember
where to start. In this case, files are in boxes,
computers have been unused for years,
Storage CD's are without understanding of the
indice's.

Orbital has lots of smart engineers, Orbital
also understands the value of a clever Press
Release. Heck, Rocketplane Hypes like crazy
all sorts of crap. Given my knowledge of
the state of the Kistler program, the OSC
engineers have to have not analyzed the
situation, or, been the victim of a marketing
press release.

I honestly believe it would be easier to stack
old saturn hardware then to complete the K-1.
The Saturn hardware was a closed design
with flight proof. The hardware that still exists
is integral, if in poor shape. Refurbishing a
Saturn I-B while labor intensive would be lower
risk then finishing the K-1.

The X-34 was a joke. Look at the program
history. OSC won the first award, they did
such a poor job, the program was cancelled,
re-bid and OSC won again. The X-34
never had a stable engine. The FASTRAC
engine was not flight weight, and had not
undergone developmental firings.
If the X-34 was really ready for Prime Time
OSC would have gotten money to test fly.

Finally, while Musk and Carmack have built
nice bits and pieces, both have been bit
hard by simple failures. Carmack has had
numerous crashes caused by connector
failures. Musk had a aluminum nut
crack from corrosion and lose a multi-million
dollar vehicle. There may be good
and sound reasons to use Expensive
aerospace grade hardware if your design
needs them.

Posted by spartacus at 07/29/06 22:10:17

Whatever. I'm not going to debate with someone who makes wholesale criticisms of others anonymously. You have zero credibility and no standing as an authority on any of these topics.
- C.

Posted by TopSpacer at 07/30/06 08:13:00

Clark

If i were to have a PhD in Aeronautics I would
be as likely to be arguing by authority as
anything else.

Look around, when projects stop at the half way
point, it is as often cheaper to tear down and
restart as to try and finish out. Look at housing.
When a housing development stops half way
the next developer usually just burns them
down and restarts.

It's not because they are wasteful, it's because
certifications are lost, inspections are missing,
documentation is missing and too many things
warp, rust, rot, mold while waiting.

I've seen the Kistler hardware and tooling.
It is a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone.

Posted by spartacus at 07/30/06 08:32:44

"Look at housing. When a housing development stops half way the next developer usually just burns them down and restarts."

Absolute donkey balls. I'n an architect, and I've NEVER seen a developer burn down a half-finished development and restart from scratch. I've never even HEARD of such a thing happening. I HAVE taken over numerous abandoned projects, however, and we always reuse as much of the predecessor as we possibly can. To do otherwise would be absurd.

I hope you know more about rockets than you do about housing...

Posted by Nathan Koren at 07/30/06 18:25:20

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