The Cancellation of Constellation

the year is 2001. george w bush has just been inaugurated as president of the united states after narrowly winning his election against vice president al gore at the same time nasa was gearing up to launch sts-98 the 102nd mission of the nearly two decade-long space shuttle program with an aging shuttle fleet and a new administration in office the political wings had finally turned in the direction of a new program but after flying the same rocket for 19 years and 102 missions how would nasa come about the creation of a new program and what would it even look like the bush administration's response to this was that of the constellation program [Music] the constellation program was to use an assortment of different vehicles the orion spacecraft which would launch on the ares one crew rocket and the altair which would launch on the aries 5 cargo rocket the orion spacecraft was to be the crew transport for the constellation program taking crews of up to six astronauts to and from the iss or cruise up to four astronauts to an earth departure stage waiting on orbit for a trip to the moon the spacecraft took a lot of inspiration from the apollo program rather than from the shuttle this is apparent in its conical shape and modular design which has led some to describe it as apollo on steroids orion as it currently stands weighs nearly 26.5 metric tons it is capable of housing up to four astronauts for up to 21 days at a time while undocked and can be extended to up to six months if the vehicle is docked to a space station this is in contrast to the space shuttle and apollo capsules which could only carry their crew for an average of the two weeks this is due primarily to apollo and shuttle being powered by fuel cells whereas orion uses solar power orion would initially fly missions to the international space station before performing a lunar flight in 2020 but to get to space it would need a launch vehicle and the rocket it would launch on was known as the aries 1. the aries one was a two-stage heavy lift crew-rated rocket that would be analogous to the saturn 1b of the apollo program it would have used a solid rocket booster from the space shuttle program as its first stage albeit with an additional fifth segment this would increase the thrust of the stage to 3.6 million pounds of thrust an increase of over 800 000 pounds of thrust from the original four-segment design testing of these five-segment srbs began on september 10 2009 with a full-duration 126 second static fire known as dm1 this was followed up by dm2 on august 30th of 2011 and dm3 on september 8th of the same year on top of this would be a second stage this stage would be nearly 18 feet in diameter and was fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen the stage itself was originally planned to use a lot of shuttle air technologies such as the use of an intertank to separate the two fuel tanks and an air-soluble variant of the rs-25 challenges in the development of the stage led to both of these being scrapped however the intertank was replaced by a common bulkhead and the rs-25 was replaced by a new engine the new engine powering this rocket stage was the j2x the j2x was to be a hydrolox engine to power the upper stage of both ares rockets contracted by pratt and whitney rocketdyne it was originally conceived as a modern upgrade to its apollo era predecessor however extensive research along with new thrust requirements due to an increasingly heavy upper stage eventually forced the engineers into a clean sheet design the new design for the j2x would see the engine producing up to 294 thousand pounds of thrust in a vacuum with a specific impulse of up to 448 seconds testing began in 2011 with the first hot fire of the engine this was followed up by a 500 second long test later that year and two tests each over a thousand seconds long later the next year despite being the smaller of the two aries rockets the ares one would have still been nearly 308 feet tall making it the third tallest rocket in human history it would have also been capable of placing up to 25.4 metric tons into low earth orbit and was expected to have cost nearly 6 billion dollars the first flight of the aries 1 rocket occurred on october 28 2009 this was the aries 1x the aries 1 development program would have returned to the original philosophy of the saturn one that involved testing individual stages before flying an all-up test flight the first flight that of the ares 1x was to be a test of a dynamically similar vehicle to the ares 1 as well as ensuring that nasa could control a vehicle that tall and thin the ares 1x itself was nearly 327 feet tall making it taller than the real ares 1 was planned to have been and even taller than the up and coming sls they used a four segment solid rocket booster off of the space shuttle as its first stage on top of this was a dummy fifth segment to simulate the full length and weight of a five segment solid rocket booster the upper stage and orion of the ares 1x were with the exception of a single unit to provide roll control all inert and served merely to approximate the size and shape of the actual vehicle the cost of this one launch was nearly 445 million dollars after the aries 1x was a planned flight called ares 1x prime this flight would have featured a full 5 segment solid rocket booster as its first stage and a real second stage with a dummy j2 engine the purpose of this flight was to test a real ares 1 vehicle up until stage separation where the orion would perform an inflight abort following the aries 1x prime would be several uncrewed orbital flights with a crude orbital flight to the iss launching in 2015. together the aries one in orion would make up the first half of the constellation program and would be the sole method of transporting astronauts to and from space the aries one however couldn't do much more than that it could only just put the orion spacecraft into order let alone send it anywhere else and with one of the stated goals of the program being a lunar landing in 2020 nasa was going to need some new spacecraft no matter how big your rocket is a lunar landing will be impossible without one key element the lunar lander itself nasa's response to this was the altair if orion is apollo on steroids then the altair is the lunar module pumped up to 11. altair was a two-stage lunar landing vehicle designed to support crude lunar landings for the constellation program it was also capable of landing uncrewed while carrying modules for a potential base that might be constructed on the surface of the moon while similar in many ways to the apollo era lunar module altair was far bigger and operated in a much different manner altair would ride atop the monster ares 5. and unlike the lunar module which was co-manifested with the apollo csm the altair would be the sole payload for this launch once the earth departure stage had inserted itself and the altair lander into a low earth orbit they would both wait for the launch of an aries one to carry a crew of up to four astronauts riding in orion up to the spacecraft once orion arrived at the spacecraft it would dock to the altair at the top of the stage after the docking was complete the earth departure stage would fire up its j2x engine and perform the translunar injection upon arriving at the moon the massive altair lander would perform the lunar orbit insertion burn placing itself and the orion spacecraft into a low lunar orbit from here the mission is fairly similar to that of the apollo program but with a few key differences the entire crew of four astronauts would board the altair and land on the surface of the moon leaving the uncrude orion spacecraft to orbit the moon by itself once on the surface of the moon the astronauts would venture out on several epas these evas could be anything from scientific exploration to construction related activities each lunar stay would last approximately seven days over twice as long as apollo 17 the longest duration stay of the apollo program once the mission was complete the astronauts would then board the ascent stage and fly from the surface of the moon back into lunar orbit upon returning to lunar orbit the altair would rendezvous and dock with the orion spacecraft which once the astronauts had been returned to it would fire its own engine to return the astronauts safely to the earth altair would have weighed nearly 45 metric tons and would have been approximately 32.5 feet in height its decent stage would have utilized cryogenic fuels and been powered by a modified rl10 engine this is in contrast to the lunar module which used hypergolic fuels on its descent stage on top of this descent stage would have been an ascent stage the ascent stage would have been nearly 10 feet in diameter and would have been capable of housing up to four astronauts for up to seven days unlike the lunar module of the apollo program altair would have featured an airlock like on the shuttle this airlock would have been located on the descent stage and would have been it left behind on the surface of the moon when the mission was complete when the mission was completed the ascent stage would fire up a modified aj10 engine and would have ascended into orbit the projected cost of the altera lunar lander would have been nearly 12 billion the altera and orion spacecraft weighed nearly 71 metric tons combined and both of them had to be sent to the moon sending 71 metric tons on a translunar injection is no easy feat however to do that would require a gigantic rocket a rocket bigger than the saturn v a rocket more powerful than the n1 a rocket known as the aries 5. ares 5 was a two-stage super heavy lift rocket that was to be the successor rocket to nasa's legendary saturn v while initially designed to lean heavily on shuttle air technologies the size and scale of the monster rockets soon eclipsed those entirely the ares 5 would have used the same boosters as the shuttle but instead of 4 segments long or even 5 segments long like in aries one these boosters would have been 5.5 segments long and each one would have produced nearly 3.6 million pounds of thrust at sea level and up to 4 million pounds of thrust in the upper atmosphere the core stage of the ares 5 was a complete and total redesign from the space shuttle external fuel tank this titanic rocket stage would have been 33 feet in diameter an increase of nearly six feet from the original space shuttle eft it would have been powered by six rs-68b main engines which would have produced a combined total of 4.2 million pounds of thrust at liftoff which in conjunction with the srvs would have produced a mind-boggling 11.4 million pounds of thrust at launch in fact this one core stage would be taller than the first two stages of the saturn v combined on top of this would have been the earth departure stage a 33 foot wide rocket stage being powered by a single j2x engine this stage would have been utilized for sending gigantic cargo via landers fuel tank space station components into orbit around earth run a translunar injection to the moon standing at 381 feet tall the aries 5 would have not only been the largest of the two aries rockets but the largest and most capable rocket ever built in human history in a single launch ares 5 would have been able to put up to 188 metric tons into low earth orbit and send 71 tons on a translunar injection but why would nasa need so much lift capacity in the first place what kinds of missions would need 188 tons to be placed into low earth orbit well that all comes down to the end goal of the constellation program crude missions to mars for a lunar mission the constellation program required two launches one ares five launch with the altair lander and one ares one launch with the orion spacecraft for a mission to mars eight eight launches would be required to send mankind to mars under the banner of the constellation program the first two launches would be of the mighty ares 5. each launch would put what is known as a nuclear thermal rocket stage into orbit around the earth each stage would be fueled entirely by liquid hydrogen and was powered by nuclear engines these low thrust hyper-efficient engines would be the engines to power all the mars missions the next two launches would also ride atop the ares 5. these two launches would be of the mars landers one lander would feature what is known as the mav or mars ascent vehicle the other would feature crew quarters and habitation for astronauts on the surface once these two spacecraft had been launched into orbit they would each rendezvous and dock with a nuclear transfer stage waiting for them in orbit from here the nuclear engines would fire up and propel these spacecraft towards the red planet upon arrival at mars the lander featuring the mav would detach itself from the transfer stage and enter the martian atmosphere from here it would decelerate down to a speed at which the payload fairing and heat shield could be jettisoned and the parachutes could be deployed after this the lander would retropropulsively land on the surface of mars as for the other lander it would stay connected to its transfer stage and fire its engines again to insert itself into martian orbit where it would await the arrival of crew the next three launches would also be on the ares 5. one would be another nuclear thermal rocket stage the next launch would be of a separate fully fueled tank that would feed fuel directly into the ntrs the final launch of the ares 5 would be the crew module it would be a gigantic inflatable habitat with enough consumables and life support to house a crew of astronauts for the entire duration of the mars mission the 8th and final launch of this mars mission would be the ares 1 and the launch of the crew of four astronauts once the astronauts had arrived at the station and waited for the correct timing the ntrs would fire its engines and send the crew to the red planet upon arrival at mars the mtb would retropropulsively enter into low martian orbit from here it would rendezvous with the habitation lander that was launched some years earlier and orion would transfer the crew of the mtv into the lander itself once the crew had boarded the lander it would begin its landing sequence the landing of the habitation lander would be fairly similar to that of the mav lander and would land close to the same spot on the surface after landing on the surface of mars the crew would spend up to 500 days on the martian surface performing numerous scientific activities and experiments when the time had finally come the crew would board the mav and return to martian orbit from here the mav would rendezvous and dock with the orbiting mtv once the astronauts had boarded the mtv they would fire its engines up once more and return the crew to earth upon arrival at earth the orion spacecraft would undock from the mtv jettison its service module and re-enter the earth's atmosphere after a series of parachute deployments the orion would splash down into the ocean and be recovered by the u.s navy the constellation program was bold in its vision and grand in its scale its fleet of rockets and spacecraft were to go down in history as some of the best vehicles ever designed it was supposed to enable the greatest feat in human history landing on another planet it was to be america's next great space exploration endeavor but we never got that there was no ares 1 there was no ares 5. there was no altair lander there was no mars transfer vehicle by the time president barack obama had taken office the constellation program was woefully behind schedule and incredibly underfunded and at an estimated 238 billion dollars for the entire program the obama administration cancelled it the legacy of the constellation program did not die here however the tests of the ares one first stage provided valuable data for the next vehicle sls the mobile launcher tower that was built in preparation for crude aries one launches also was carried through and now in 2021 two five solid rocket boosters have been stacked on the pad where only one would have sat before and of course the orion spacecraft orion was lucky enough to have been far enough along in its development that cancellation evaded it and it flew to orbit for the first time on december 5th 2014. 26 days before 2015 the year ares 1 was supposed to fly a crude mission into space years decades perhaps even centuries into the future long after humanity has conquered the solar system humans will remember back to constellation what would the future have been like if ares 1 wasn't cancelled what would the future have been like if we landed on the moon in 2020 what would the future have looked like if it weren't for the cancellation of constellation you

Channel: David Willis

Views: 33,953

Keywords: NASA, Ares, Constellation, Rockets, Ares V, Ares 1, Mars, Moon, Space, Orion, Ares 1x

Id: Rnnws7vMfBA

Length: 16min 44sec (1004 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 04 2021