Better, Faster, Cheaper, Discuss..... Options

[lyford]

Can one paraphrase the quip about the "Holy Roman Empire" being neither holy, Roman nor an empire regarding this plan?

The idea, if I understood correctly, was this: By designing cheaper missions, NASA could launch more, and afford to lose a few more. The BIG MISSIONS were too expensive and put all the eggs in one basket. Why take a chance on any single failure points that could risk a program after bagillions of dollars were spent, such as Galileo's hi gain antenna?

Was this strategy successful?

To this outsider, it appeared that Dan Goldin drank too much of the 90's cyber-revolution kool aid and got swept up with the "irrational exuberance" of the dot.com boom. Everything will be possible and cheap in the digital age! Moore's Law notwithstanding, hi tech is only one piece of the puzzle when pulling off a successful interplanetary mission.

My opinion is that there is a baseline cost of doing business in space, even if sensors get smaller and cheaper, due to human support, testing, launch costs, etc. Even the "tech" components all have to be space rated, which is not the kind of consumer level mass production ultra cheap type tech with which most people are familiar. (I have had more than one conversation about why JPL couldn't have had bolted a cheap color digital camera on MER.....)

While adopting this plan may have allowed some missions that might not have seen the light of day before, each little failure seemed to hit NASA with more bad PR than the little successes could offset....

SO -

"Better Faster Cheaper : Golden Egg or Goldin's Goose?"

I would value all opinions, especially from those inside the org, natch.

[peter59]

The era of Titan rockets has ended. It's very sad day.
Nine years to Ceres, five years to Vesta, seven years
to Mercury, it is not faster. Cheaper ? Maybe, I am
not sure.

[mchan]

The era of Titan rockets has ended. It's very sad day.
Nine years to Ceres, five years to Vesta, seven years
to Mercury, it is not faster.  Cheaper ? Maybe, I am
not sure.

Dawn and Messenger are definitely cheaper than if their missions were designed around using a Titan 4B to get the same payload mass to their destinations faster. The difference between a Delta 2 Heavy and a Titan is at least $300 million which is much more than the cost of several years of cruise operations.

Even with a Titan, I don't know if a Vesta and Ceres rendezvous can be done on a single mission without using ion propulsion. And it is the nature of ion propulsion "spiral out" trajectories that are slow. Transit time can be reduced by adding more ion propulsion units and increasing fuel mass, but that does not require the big jump in injection energy from a Delta to a Titan.

Messenger would have gotten to Mercury two years earlier had it been able to make its earlier launch period (by a few months).

Titan was an very expensive launcher especially compared to a Proton or even an Ariane 5. I recall one comment that Titan was unique among expendable launchers in that the later vehicles to come off the assembly line were more expensive than the preceding vehichles due to changes required to support newer and different payloads. The way of Titan launches has passed, probably none too soon.

Titan has a proud history. I almost drove the 6 hours to watch the final launch from the public viewing site on base, but the weather forecast was for low clouds which would have blocked the view. It turned out to be clear skies and a beautiful launch.