Would it be possible to re-fund NASA for the Apollo Applications Program (or derivates)

[legoclone09]

I am wondering if this would be possible, because NASA was defended from ~422 billion to ~110 billion in the 70's. Would it be possible, without affecting the economy in major ways, to refund NASA to do this? If so, would Congress listen to a petition to refund for this?

[Gaarst]

No.

(5char)

[Bill Phil]

All the hardware is gone. It's practically impossible.

But, there is no replacement for the ISS. I say we need one.

[Kryten]

Most the tooling was destroyed to make way for various shuttle-related manufacturing efforts.

[Virtualgenius]

Tooling isnt really an issue as the old way would be replaced by more efficient methods like 3d printing, Computer driven CNC machines , its the plans there not accurate. I found this article on how they managed to convert an F1 engine into a 3d cad drawing

http://www.3dprinterworld.com/article/nasa-brings-f-1-apollo-engine-out-retirement-with-3d-scanning-and-geomagic

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/2/

Edited November 7, 2015 by Virtualgenius

[More Boosters]

Yeah I'm not sure why you would manufacture a 50 year old rocket with 50 year old techniques. Why do you want this anyway? The practical bits and pieces from Saturn are already being salvaged, like that test with F-1 to improve it and perhaps use it as LFBs for Block II.

[SomeGuy12]

422 billion? Is that from 1960-1970, with 110 being from 1970-1980? Is that in today's dollars or the currency at the time?

[Kryten]

422 billion? Is that from 1960-1970, with 110 being from 1970-1980? Is that in today's dollars or the currency at the time?

422 billion is just a number pulled from somewhere unpleasant, and not far off the total NASA budget from foundation to now. Peak NASA budget was just under $6 billion in 1966, (roughly $43 billion today).

[legoclone09]

@More Boosters I said derivatives, so more efficient/newer.

@SomeGuy12 I think today's money, 422 billion back then was more than a few trillion I bet. Not sure exactly. Ninja'd by Kryten on this, and I was also wrong.

Edited November 7, 2015 by legoclone09

[Kryten]

@More Boosters I said derivatives, so more efficient/newer.

In that case that's basically what the constellation program was, complete with HLV the same diameter as Saturn. Obviously congress won't fund that, because they didn't.

[SomeGuy12]

422 billion is just a number pulled from somewhere unpleasant, and not far off the total NASA budget from foundation to now. Peak NASA budget was just under $6 billion in 1966, (roughly $43 billion today).

Well, you could calculate it precisely. Just look at NASA's budget for each year from 1960-1970, using an inflation calculator to correct it to current dollars. (if you were really clever you'd embed the calculator in the webpage your publish your findings on in a way that computes the numbers for whoever reads it)

Add those numbers together. Do it again for 1970-1980. If it really is 1/4, that really illustrates how much NASA was cut.

I was under the impression that if NASA had the funding, they would have built and launched NERVA rockets capable of reasonably efficiently putting a large spacecraft on the Mars interplanetary burn. There would have needed to be a crew of dozens of astronauts and partial closed cycle life support. Maybe a few would die from radiation poisoning eventually.

It could have been done.

[Virtualgenius]

The US Government was also pouring funding into the Vietnam war at the same time and seeing as they beat the Russians to the moon NASA funding was no longer required and was pulled

[Kryten]

I was under the impression that if NASA had the funding, they would have built and launched NERVA rockets capable of reasonably efficiently putting a large spacecraft on the Mars interplanetary burn. There would have needed to be a crew of dozens of astronauts and partial closed cycle life support. Maybe a few would die from radiation poisoning eventually.

The plans NASA had before Kennedy put it on suicide mode were a gradual lunar exploration program; Ranger and Surveyor landers as RL, more capable Surveyor-based orbiter instead of the quickly put-together Lunar Orbiter missions we actually got; a series of mission called Prospector launched by smaller Saturn variants including rovers and robotic sample return, and ending at an Apollo landing somewhere in the mod-70s.

[More Boosters]

@More Boosters I said derivatives, so more efficient/newer.

Then your best bet is the Pyrios and F-1B.

[fredinno]

So this prompted some wikipedia-searching... Am I correct in thinking that Pyrios was declined because the acceleration would be too great for a crewed mission?

No, it was because SLS infrastructure would have to be modified to accommodate RP-1.

[Kryten]

If you just put F-1s on the SLS core, it wouldn't go anywhere... you'd have to develop some very expensive upper stages and some additional extra engines. It would be much more expensive. There's no reason to redevelop Saturn V when the SLS design works just fine.

[Kryten]

We could have just built a bigger Saturn, with a much faster, less expensive tech review, instead of re-inventing the space shuttle in a vertical stack. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I am. But then I just remind myself that "it's the US government, nevermind".

You want a less expensive tech review for something that would have to have a new diameter and new engines? That means you don't even have the same tooling, you'd have to start the entire manufacturing process from scratch, so you'd have to start all the certification from scratch. You'd also separately have to produce all of this tooling of course, which is incidentally the single largest cost for a new LV.

[Kryten]

Nope, same engines. The Saturn used the mighty F-1 engines, and was originally designed to have 8 of them, rather than 5. The basic work was already done, but they were defeated by a factory roof being too low, so it got 5.

Yet instead of that, we built an entirely new rocket, based on inferior space shuttle parts, so that we don't have some contractors retooling their equipment. It's government pork-barrel politics at its finest.

This is all nonsense. For a start the 8 F-1 rocket was Saturn C-8, the design intended to be used for direct ascent lunar missions; it wasn't made because LOR made in unnecessary, not because of this nonsense about roofs. For another thing, you're acting as if the F-1 production equipment is in mothballs and we can just churn out more. It isn't, it was destroyed because it was no longer necessary and because those facilities were re-purposed for SSME production. The same is true for the J-1 engines you're pretending didn't exist, and the tooling for the 10m and 6.6m stages themselves. If we wanted to start this up again we would have to build all of those from scratch, and it would take enormous amounts of money.

[Kryten]

Second paragraph, sir. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_C-8

My point is that instead of using proven tech, like the much more powerful, cheaper, and reliable F-1 engines, and Saturn design structure, we are ONLY using SRBs and shuttle engines because of Congressional interference. http://www.competitivespace.org/issues/the-senate-launch-system/

We now have a vertical shuttle structure, instead of a more reliable, powerful, and (relatively) simple design, like the Saturn. This will probably lead to disaster at some point, and then we can all point fingers. http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/

Yes, we would have to literally, physically BUILD the engines and rocket from scratch. That is not the same as designing aka "building" from scratch.

Design isn't everything. This isn't KSP, you can't just slap parts together once you've researched them. Producing all the tooling needed to actually produce a rocket is the most expensive part of the development process by far.

Besides, you're acting like the Saturn design is superior for no good reason. It's inherently more complex due to the staging, uses many more engines, and has shown poor reliability in the small number of launches it had (severe pogo issues and messing up Skylab).

[More Boosters]

Second paragraph, sir. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_C-8

My point is that instead of using proven tech, like the much more powerful, cheaper, and reliable F-1 engines, and Saturn design structure, we are ONLY using SRBs and shuttle engines because of Congressional interference. http://www.competitivespace.org/issues/the-senate-launch-system/

We now have a vertical shuttle structure, instead of a more reliable, powerful, and (relatively) simple design, like the Saturn. This will probably lead to disaster at some point, and then we can all point fingers. http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/

Yes, we would have to literally, physically BUILD the engines and rocket from scratch. That is not the same as designing aka "building" from scratch.

You have to design F-1 mostly from scratch. However good it was at the time, it was also hand crafted. The manufacturing techniques went a long way since Saturn V, and you do have to re-design the thing. It says all that in the article you linked! That was the whole idea behind the Pyrios booster and they were doing that until it was made certain the Pyrios would not be used. (It's also the basis for my favourite engine in the game, LFB 1x2 KR-1)

Saturn-V is almost 3 times heavier. SLS uses much lighter and more efficient fuel, and thus it can do a similar job with less mass. I don't think they're actually producing new shuttle engines or SRBs either, those are the stockpiles.

[Kryten]

Again with this nonsense. Building the Saturn architecture again would mean two new engines and productions lines for stages of two diameters, it would pretty have to employ more people than SLS; if what they wanted was 'more jobs', that's what they would do. They aren't doing it because it would be heinously expensive to set all this up, just like it was in the 60s, and this time NASA doesn't have a blank cheque.

[Kryten]

Because all but one of the proposals were for kerolox, which were determined to not be economically doable because the cost of putting all the plumbing infrastructure back was underestimated. You might notice if you actually look that the shuttle SRBs are not being kept; much of the equipment to make the steel casings has been lost in the same way the F-1 and J-1 tooling has been lost, they're being replaced by a wound composite version with new propellant formulation.

Also the SLS upper stages are using RL-10s that are already in production, Saturn V requires a J-1 restart.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Kryten

[More Boosters]

Because all but one of the proposals were for rerolox, which were determined to not be economically doable because the cost of putting all the plumbing infrastructure back was underestimated. You might notice if you actually look that the shuttle SRBs are not being kept; much of the equipment to make the steel casings has been lost in the same way the F-1 and J-1 tooling has been lost, they're being replaced by a wound composite version with new propellant formulation.

Also the SLS upper stages are using RL-10s that are already in production, Saturn V requires a J-1 restart.

Would LH2/LOX liquid fuel boosters not be feasible?

[fredinno]

Would LH2/LOX liquid fuel boosters not be feasible?

Feasable, yes. Practical, no. It's why Delta IV is so expensive, not to mention the boosters would be HUGE due to hydrogen's low density.

[Kryten]

Would LH2/LOX liquid fuel boosters not be feasible?

Would be extremely difficult to get the T/W required. Even the most advanced hydrolox booster stages like the Delta 4 CCB and the in-dev H-3 first stage can't do much more than lift themselves, these boosters would have to take much of the core's weight as well.