Thank you for your observations.

I can't say that any of your arguments against Ares I sound particularly convincing to me. But more importantly, the commercial sector does not appear to have anything that is significantly better. Cheaper, perhaps.

However, what you do not appear to understand is that the primary objective of Ares is put crew into LEO as safely as possible. For NASA manned space exploration, crew cost to LEO is a secondary issue.

IMHO, what we need from the commercial sector are totally new designs, not just rebadged satelite launchers, that are inherently safe and inexpensive (aka Space Ship 1) enough to make orbital space tourism possible. That will not happen overnight, but in 10-20 years commercial could "own" LEO.

At the moment, however, any call to scrap Ares I would be counterproductive and premature.

Nelson

[Disclaimer] I am not involved in, or affiliated with the SFF. I am simply a fan. I cannot speak for the orgainization, what follows is simply my opinion.

Yes, you are misreading the ideology–what there is of it.

The ideology is simple:
Humanity needs to spread into space; this is absolutely vital to the long term survival of our species–and maybe the long term survival of all terran life.
The most effective way of ensuring a long term focus on expanding humanity into space is to make the goal attractive to business; eg, make it possible to make a profit at every step in the process of creating a permanent, sustainable settlement.

That’s it, really. But NASA is not a commercial enterprise, it is a political body. It answers to masters on the Hill, who are interested in funneling money and jobs to their own constituents. Why would any congressman vote to create a settlement full of voters who will never be in their district? Amongst the inevitable political pork-barreling and horse trading, the vision of creating space settlements gets lost in the mix–even among those very few who even bother to give it a thought. NASA sold the idea of the shuttle on outrageous lies of minuscule costs and scores of flights a year–and they did it for the simple government-bureaucrat reason of trying to hold onto their funding, trying to preserve their own jobs. Politically, space settlement really is NOT a priority.

Now, the shuttle is done, and the question is what should replace it. The Aries program was conceived as a way to ‘re-purpose’ the shuttle technology. Advocates point to this as a ‘cost saving’ measure, cynics point out that the shuttle-era pork-barrel deals would be largely preserved.

What is the alternative to Aries? Simple actually–get NASA out of the business of selling launch capacity; instead to focus on space science missions. Without NASA competing with the private sector, we can save the vast sums that would go into developing a shuttle successor (how many flavors of ‘National Areospace Plane’ have there been? How many of these went overbudget & never got off of paper?) and instead redirect a fraction of that to buying launch capacity from the private sector. With the government stimulating (instead of competing with) business, there is a chance of developing the broad technological and industrial base needed to bring launch costs down and open the all important space frontier.

Quite aside from the politics, Ares I seems like a bad design. Man-rating a first stage which is entirely solid-fuel rockets is very risky. The second stage is hydrogen / oxygen powered, which means a vast & delicate cryogenic fuel tank. With that kind of large, light tank acting like a kite on the top of the vehicle, stability requires extra care. There does not appear to be any kind of engine-out, or abort capability. Couple this with the fact that Aries I would do little more than carry a small capsule — with the real heavy lifting done by the Ares V — to LEO, the rationale for building the Aries I seems pretty thin.

Lets compare costs: So far the Aries I has cost approximately $400m? How much more to finish development, build the required infrastructure, and start delivering them? How much, counting all of those costs, will an Aries I launch cost? I really cannot say — but I can tell you that the cost to develop the Aries I (through 2015… it might go longer) has risen from twenty-eight billion dollars to about forty billion dollars, and that the upper stage J-2X engine alone costs $20m. I can also tell you how much a Falcon 9 launch to LEO will cost: about $50m — a Falcon 9 Heavy promises to be about $150m or so.

The private sector looks like it will do a better job, cheaper — reason enough to form a ‘kill Aries-I’ SWAT team.

Perhaps I am mireading your ideology, but it does sound disturbingly like the proclamations of a professed master race that has no faults and can do no wrong.

Despite the sicerest of dreams, space will remain VERY expensive for the longest time. It will require the efforts and expenses of all. We can not afford to squabble and fight. An ounce of modesty can go a long way when it comes to teamwork.

But then again, to a master race, “modesty” is an alien concept.

Cheers,
Nelson