Slashdot Mirror
More on the Orbital Space Plane
AP has a decent piece looking at NASA's orbital space plane program, and describing it as a sedan compared to a tractor-trailer. National polls show that public support for the space program continues to be very strong.
I, for one, would rather see NASA go with the "overpowered sports-car" model (AKA Ferrari). Those pictures of the "sedan" models aren't nearly sleek enough.
Let's build a Star Wars style ship and paint it Empire black! Yeah! Now that would increase the support for the space program. It's all about marketing...
and remote control is good.
"The space plane will have only two missions: to carry people up and down from the space station, and to act as a standby lifeboat, parked at the space station for the evacuation of astronauts if there is an emergency."
But what about when the shuttle repaired Hubble? will this kind of mission be no longer possible?
This new spacecraft NASA is working on actually sounds like something that will work. Seems like they are trying to keep it as close as possible to the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle.
The cheaper and more reliable something is, the better off we are.
NASA did a great job getting us to the moon during the cold war, but it has since turned into a bureaucratic machine, as highlighted in the Columbia post mortem report. I doubt this will change in the future, regardless of any efforts to do so, because bureaucracy is the nature of such agencies.
It would be MUCH better if the Government provided incentives to the various companies who are attemping to build space transportation systems. Those folks will be in it for profit, and their isn't any profit in destroying your launch systems to meet a schedule.
enter this design in the X-prize competition and win themselves $10 million.
Oh... wait... damn, they're gonna do that, too.
For those too lazy to read the article, this is only designed to be a commuter to the space station and back. It only would have a crew of 4, and would carry light cargo. It isn't meant as a do-everything satellite launcher/people mover like the current space shuttle. They plan on developing another vehicle to do the other chores of the space shuttle. Frankly, with the budget constraints NASA is under, I'm really surprised to read about them seriously developing more than one type of shuttle replacement, although I do think they are going in the right direction. We have several rockets designed to carry heavy payloads, I really don't see why they need to have the payload and crew all in one vehicle. What they should do is keep the rockets to lift the heavy payloads safely into space, then have the humans do what they need to do to the payload once it is in space (such as fine tuning, final preparation, and/or activation).
today is spelling optional day.
er, no they actually said it well before 9/11, you insensitive retard
Haven't they learned anything?
I'm not certain they've done "Better, Cheaper, Faster" too well.
...particularly in the field of self-diagnostics. The Columbia disaster would have been preventable had there been more ways to detect damage on the exterior of the shuttle other than a camera pinned to the ground. Perhaps an array of sensors along the heat shield could report about the integrity of the vessel. Even external cameras are a possibility. A solution as simple as these could keep the aging shuttles flying safely for several more years while a more advanced space solution is developed. I do not think the problem involves the size of the shuttle. Certainly, the exact same thing could happen on a smaller ship, and you sacrifice the huge carrying capacity of the shuttle by going smaller.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Because the shuttle had to be made far larger than the first one planned, too much new technology had to be invented to make it fly. If the planned progression happened as planned, the shuttles would have cost $200,000,000 rather than costing $2,200,000,000 each.
I predict that the progression of craft will not happen.
I guess people are more interested in creating things that will benefit mankind than bomb another nation in the OPEC region.
This is an obvious karma whore trying to get an easy 5, insighful! Please moderate down.
--
TALM, Trolls against lame moderators.
The leading article of this week's Economist (subscriber-only unfortunately) is a great summary of why the space shuttle needs to be retired. The shuttle is too expensive, unsafe, and unnecessary to justify dumping more money into the program. The vast amount of money that NASA spends on the shuttle and space station could be much better spent elsewhere. The space station exists because of the need to give the shuttle a purpose and the shuttle program only continues because of the space station. NASA should ditch the shuttle, encourage private enterprise in the space business, and concentrate on developing new methods of space travel that might actually result in new exploration instead of simply traveling around the earth in circles.
SpaceShip One has to be significantly cheaper than the 2.4 billion they're talking about for the simple ferry system NASA is talking about here. Couldn't they use some jacked version of SS1 (capable of reaching orbit) and save a lot of money/time/effort/etc?
***
This is a lame attempt to get an easy 5, insightful. A person who knows more than Clue 101 knows this crap is bullshit please mod down.
TALM, Trolls against lame moderators.
What the space program really needs is a lofty goal and a challenge. We should aim for something like Mars, or semi permenant lab on the moon. We need someone to compete against. (I heard the private sector is starting to get interested in space so maybe in time?) We need a challenge like JFK's challenge to get to the moon. We need to find the drive to continue exploration. The tech gap to get to Mars is far less than it was to the moon. I just think motivation and $$$ are all that is really needed.
How does this compare with other countries forthcoming shuttles? (i.e. Japan). p.
NASA might have big plans, and they might get changed or altered because of whatever factors cause it. But it still remains that even this inspires hope in those of us that still believe in the American space program.
We did a great job in the 50s and 60s, and if this concept takes off (pun not intended) we might actually recover what we lost in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
...just my $0.02
Josef
Bleakness... Desolation... Plastic Forks...
Of course, NASA will select the design with wings, probably the most expensive and error-prone variant, because it will be pushed through by the aerospace industry lobby.
We will observe this agency bypass any principle of common sense and experiences from successful space programs, just to have a new shiny and politically pleasing toy. It's like re-inventing the wheel - this time not a round, but a square shaped one.
What's so bad about winged designs?
- Wings are useless during launch and in space, they just add to weight penalty.
- Winged vehicles are unstable during re-entry and need a complex and error-prone automatic flight control system.
- Wings are less fault tolerant and more vulnerable to damage.
The worst idea is however to put a winged vehicle on top of a rocket! This concept has been repeatedly rejected due to very good reasons, the most important one being the high lateral and bending loads on the rocket!The good old ballistic capsule still holds all safety records in manned spaceflight - there are only very few lethal accidents, related to the large number of successful launches and returns. The Apollo capsule could land in an area of about 2 miles diameter so accuracy is not such a big concern. It could be further improved by using a parawing instead of parachutes.
The only real problem with ballistic capsules is the high re-entry deceleration due to the low drag and therefore the late beginning of aerobraking. However, no astronaut was ever killed due to re-entry or landing impact deceleration and the problem could be dealt with by using additional inflatable structures to increase drag during the early re-entry phases.
Now you can virtually travel in a 3D space environment, i've seen this news on newsforge, tried it out, and it was very interesting stuff :)
... The software is called celestia
:)
You can go to the planet/star you want,at the time you want, travelling in a 3D/openGL system showing stars, comets, constellations,
Celestia link
Also you can get a nice map of the stars using Skymap Link
And it runs under wine
Those are both great software you have to try out if you are interested in space/stars/...
"One time in space camp..." I dont know if I feel more like a nerd than a geek...
There is an interesting article here that discusses the use of either the OSP or a Soyuz capsule for Hubble maintenance. It would seem like a reasonable proposal, but it probably ain't gonna happen for political and "NASA cultural" reasons
Anybody who knows more than physics 101 knows that this is complete bullshit. Its just another buzzword using karma whore! Mod, -1, redundant!
--
TALM, trolls against lame moderators.
Read this to find out what knowledgeable people think about the "Smaller Shuttle" idea.
I'm waiting for the pickup truck with a gun rack.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/know18.html The Russians had a spaceplane in the works years ago. If anyone at NASA had a clue they'd just dig up whatever info is available about this proven design and use it. Instead they'll waste billions developing somthing that'll do exactly the same damn thing.
But the public support for space program is many times greater than public support for studying our oceans.
"who cares, its just a bunch a water!"
Tragek
At one point, the reporter describes the craft has having stubby wings. The thing is, these craft look to have lifting body or partial lifting body designs, so they're essentially _all_ wing (at least the non-capsule ones are). The design at the top left side is especially so.
I hope that one of these designs pans out. It would make a lot of sense to have something cheap and small for human transport. By the look of the Space Shuttle, if it's going to be practical for people, the entire cargo bay would need to be converted a'la bus, which just doesn't seem like a very good idea.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The reason is that that means that they would have to launch much more often to launch the same number of people. This means that for compared with the Space Shuttle that seated 7, the cost is almost halved; just from having to launch more.
In addition the planes would be cheaper in absolute terms because they are smaller. (It turns out that smaller rockets are about the same cost as big rockets per kg of payload- everything else being equal; which it seldom is at the moment; for example Pegasus is a small vehicle, but that's a solid vehicle with numerous stages, and it turns out to be very expensive, a liquid fuelled rocket with less stages would be cheaper if launched reasonably often).
This means, in turn that they would have to make proportionately more planes. That in turn gives economies of scale- each time you double the production run, the cost per item goes down by 15%.
It turns out that economies of scale are the most powerful known way to reduce costs- more powerful than reusability or using hydrogen fuel, or anything else.
Of course seating one person has it's problems- we probably don't have a rocket that small anymore, so you have to build a smaller rocket. There are also problems with the smaller size making it harder to fit a person in. But these are mainly difficulties not insoluble problems- pretty much it's much cheaper in the long run to seat one. That means that America might be able to capture space tourism market share from the Ruskies; at the moment the Shuttle is ridiculously more expensive for launching people into space.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"- Non linked URL to make life harder for non X 11 based users (Obviously a fat gentoo zealot)
- Soviet russia reference
- Kneejerk reaction
Total, 5 insightful! Please moderate down, stop the abuse of karma! -- TALM, Trolls against lame moderation!The space plane will have only two missions: [...] and to act as a standby lifeboat, parked at the space station for the evacuation of astronauts if there is an emergency.
This strikes me as a complete waste of money, if that's one of it's uses.
Come on people! Use a bloody Soyuz for that! They're a hell of a lot cheaper than $2.4 Billion Dollars! It's a freakin' lifeboat!
Okay, I understand that we would be limited to six people instead of seven. I don't have a problem with that, personally. We might have to be build another docking area. Fine. I think a Soyuz and a second docking area would be a hell of a lot cheaper than $2.4 billion dollars!
Don't get me wrong, I think the space-plane is a wise idea. Flying the shuttle is an expensive way to get people up to the space station (unless it's delivering parts, too). I could also see having one docked there if we were going to use Space Station personnel as a "fix-it" crew (if the Hubble has problems, send up the parts and use the "sedan" to drive over and fix it).
But leaving one of these expensive things docked there just to get astronauts back to the ground in the event of a catastrophe? Why not just use a Soyuz capsule which does the same thing at possibly a quarter of the cost?
>It only would have a crew of 4, and would carry light cargo.
Also, the article mentions NASA would also have to build a different heavy lifter, thus seperating the two technologies. The cheap taxpayer part of me is asking why we don't just use cheap Soyuz tech and rockets for some/most launches.
I wonder if the new heavy launcher that will eventually replace the shuttle will just be a simple rocket like the Europeans and Russians use, not another manned shuttle. If the spaceplane flies there will be no need for a manned huge shuttle/lifter.
The downside is that the science done on the shuttle would be down on a station, for the most part. I don't know if this is a big deal or not or if the space planes cargo section will make this a non-issue.
I like the idea that a spaceplane means that there will have to be a space station of some kind because there wont be enough real estate on the spaceplane to do much. Also, the optimist in me sees this as a logical step towards a permanent moon base.
I don't understand the current obsession with Mars when a moonbase could do so much more, but I'm sure that's a sticking point for many and not something I want to argue. Both would be amazing human accomplishments.
There was a previous article posted on slashdot regarding this that made a lot of sense. Unfortunately i do not remember the authors name and cannot do a search. If anyone remembers pelase post a link.
... something that can be done relatively simply and reliably using balistic capsules.
The article made a lot of sense. It basicly said the following things:
building spaceplanes is stupid. They are expensive and dangerous. And what is even worse most of the expense and danger on spaceplanes does not have to do with space exploration at all, but with take off and landing
A simple ballistic capsule with a parachute is many times simpler, safer and cheaper than a space plane. Every other space agency has figured this out a long time ago, but apparently NASA has too many Billions to burn through in order to have this simple revalation.
Saying the thing is projected to cost only 2.3 billion (or whatever they said) is completely meaningless, because if anyone pays attantion to the history of these projects they would know that this is guaranteed to go over budget.
Making the craft smaller will not bring much savings in development. The greatest development costs of a space plane that carries people will go in engineering and testing to ensure safety. The level of safety required is the same for four or seven people.
Well these are not my points they are from the article i mentioned. But I think they are good points.
I am for space exploration, but lets face it projects like these are clearly wastes of money.
Nasa should develop a simple safe ballistic craft, (something like the soyuz) and use the big bucks for actual space exploration.
It is completely mindbogglig that we are wasting money and lives because nasa insists on exotic ways of going into and out of orbit.
Okay, if we do decide to go with an orbital space plane what is going to ferry the huge Hubble sized spy sattelites into orbit? I've got to thing that the KH series of sattelites is at least in part the reason we still have a shuttle.
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
In Soviet Russia, the space program supports the public.
I get it a fashon show, not to take a different direction but it seems directors are lost in the woods. Look out, no not that, LOOK OUT!! Space exploration is thataway and we won't get there by going in circles. Break the goddamn orbit and take point b away frim point a. Get it?
I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth
From the article:
"We're doing everything we can to get it up by 2008"
Have they tried viagra??
CowboyNeal's "white ring" discovered off the coast of Antarctica.
Story Here
While I'd like to see more use of disposable, cheaper rockets, it's near impossible to launch something like Hubble into orbit with them. Have you actually SEEN how big Hubble is? Things like Delta or Titan rockets couldn't do it. If we still had the Saturn V, MAYBE that could do it. But we've had nothing like the Saturn for decades now, and the costs to develop an equivilant to it wouldn't make it truly cost effective. There are some missions where we simply need a big 'ole space truck like the shuttle. Don't get me wrong. I'd LOVE for us to bring someting like the Saturn back, but don't bet on it.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I guess only Floridians could take a poll among Floridians and assume it reflects the will of the American people, and it's also not surprising that 60% of Floridians polled think the space program is cool seeing as most of NASA is based there! I actually agree with them but c'mon Florida, you don't exactly have your finger on the pulse of the Nation!
Our grandchildren will be dead and buried.
Its time to accept that NASA was good to start us off, but its time to break away from mommy, and start to walk on our own. One of the great myths of the last 20 years was that government created the internet.
The government created DARPA and it successor, a network whos users still numbered in the thousands as of 1990. It was when the government opened up that network and was used by university students for non-academic work (piracy) and businesses that the internet(porn) that it started to boom. Porn and Piracy and some naive librarians with some utopian scheme called hypertext got the internet up and running.
Now what will sell space...sex. More people will pay $100,000 to have zero-g sex in space for an hour or two than to take photographs in space or do other dorky things noone cares about.
What else will sell in space? Hotels. Whatever you can say about space its one hell of a view. There are tens maybe hundreds of thousands of people who will pay $100,000 for a weekend(or a honeymoon) in space.
What further service? Sameday transpacific delivery service.
How do we get there from here...the people who build the spacecraft need to be taken off the government tit and design craft that can be run inexpensively and operated efficiently. If the spacecraft industry had progressed at the same rate as the airline industry, space travel would be routine and cheap.
What is the difference? NASA pays contractors to build stuff for them, and then operates the stuff itself. There is no competition because NASA provides service below cost to the customer.
In 1930s the post office had an actual need(air mail) and then contracted with private enterprise to provide that service and didnt pay unless the service is rendered on time and on schedule. Now these airlines had room for passengers so carried passengers in addition to the government contract.
Lets build a spacecraft that takes passengers up to a space hotel/hub then goes back down to a diffeent port with their packages and their passengers.
Why develop something with capabilities so similar to Soyuz, when you can just pay the russians to provide backup support while the shuttle is brought back into service?
In the interim develop a real shuttle replacement. Something that can be heavy lifted to altitude, then launched horizontally, or take off from the ground.
Whatever they design should have some kind of dual role...making it sellable to the commercial aircraft companies at some point as a base platform for cargo or passengers.
NASA just doesn't seem to be anything like the organization that did the moon landings. Ignores warnings, does incredibly stupid things, kills people in the process.
Maybe NASA should be gutted and have the best remaining parts put under USAF and DARPA control?
Look how fast lockheed and the military built the SR-71, B2 and F-117 once they had the green light and the money to do so. All of these aircraft do things that were unthinkable before they were revealed to the public.
Yes, I think this is a better approach. Let the USAF and Lockheed develop some kind of "space capable bomber" and get the f*cking job done. Even if they never build anything past test aircraft, they can license the resulting design to Boeing and let them make a true spaceplane, usable for either passengers or cargo.
NASA no longer has what it takes to do the job, IMHO. Put a stake in it and move on.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The Shuttle, and any next generation craft, is an attempt at creating not just a reusable vehicle, but also one which offers control at landing at a specific place; in this case a runway. Unlike a reentry capsule, which decends to some semi-random location by parachute, the Shuttle can glide toward a specific spot and land. This is a definite step up from previous capsuls in terms of technology and space readiness. And NASA wanted to do even better with their nextgen shuttle, the X-33 design goals were 'single stage to orbit', and would have allowed for a launch and land system without the costly solid fuel rockets. Also a reasonable design goal. Too bad the materials science for the hydrogen tanks isn't quite ready yet, nor are funds available to continue R&D.
NASA is failing because of two primary problems:
a) They lack funding from Congress, and as such are unable to both meet their launch goals and provide the necessary R&D for nextgen launch vehicles.
b) They have foolishly cut safety funding in order to meet those same launch goals, as demanded by Congress. They should have either said straight - we can't meet your goals with the funding alloted, or dumped the Shuttle program and moved to traditional rockets (as you stated in your previous post).
But to say that their R&D toward an orbital space plane was misplaced goes against the very grain of space exploration. At some point we're going to need vehicles that can operate in both space and the atmosphere. NASA obviously committed themselves toward the goal of creating such ships. Space will go nowhere if we only launch rockets into LEO and land in capsules by parachute. You can argue that our materials technology isn't ready yet for the challenges creating real land to space ships, but you can't argue that such a technology is the end goal for any space faring society.
This is JMO, coming from someone who isn't either an aerospace engineer or involved with NASA - and as such has simply a semi-informed opinion to offer.
Best,
Maynard
In chatting with some friends (ordinary people, plain old working stiffs) around the time Columbia went missing, most of them were shocked when I mentioned that nobody's even set foot on the moon in 30 years, or that there was supposed to be a bunch of in-orbit infrastructure a lot more ambitious than the new Mir clone that was never built, or that the current equipment wouldn't get people out of orbit if we wanted it to.
This initiative has been a long time coming. As it has already been pointed out by many posters, a smaller shuttle would have been seriously considered and perhaps even realized during the inception of the current shuttle if it hadn't been for political and bureaucratic wrangling (especially on behalf of the US defense force). I would like to be excited about this announcement, I really would. But I find the most proper reaction to be a simple yawn, as in "here we go again".
The fundamental ideas behind this announcement has been around for a really, really long time, and it was not an isolated development. The Europeans were putting serious effort into a program called "Hermes" with nearly the identical objectives for years before abandoning it 10 years ago. Similarly, Japan - with a space budget of a tenth that of NASA's - continues to pursue their own mini-shuttle dubbed "HOPE-X".
With these events in plain sight, one has to wonder why on earth it is so difficult to do the right thing. The ISS, despite being somewhat of a white elephant, is still a pretty decent lightning rod for stimulating international cooperation. Isn't it reasonable to assert that pooling resourced from all 3 nations who've already dreamed of mini-shuttles (US, Euro, Japan) in addition to anyone else who might want to participate (Russia, China, India) might actually get an astronaut-ferry built with decent price/performance/safty perameters? With the resources of international partners, we can reduce not just develope costs by leveraging the R&D others have already put into it, but also distribute the manufacturing responsibilities and perhaps even operational costs. Additionally, what can be learned from the work already put into the X-prize by various participants. Think of the possibilities if space faring for the forseable future is "standardized" on one vehicle by several nations which helps to build it. Economy of scale means production up, cost down, and in the end, science and exploration wins - everyone happy!
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
RTFA. It's not a space plane, it's a capsule larger than that of soyuz that will be mounted on existing rockets.
Fucking Chimp.
Anyone who doubts NASA is in its glory age right now, needs to scribble out a Perl Script (or your language of choice), and download all these NASA Pictures of the Day. NASA in the 90's and this decade is accomplishing FAR MORE than the NASA of the Apollo Era.
. htm
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
This Space Plane is an excellent solution to a pressing problem.
The NASA program that holds the most incredible promise is Project Prometheus. This program should have an incredible impact on the future of mankind, yet is barely known. It is the coolest thing America is doing today. It is highly inaccurate to suggest NASA is idle or unsuccessful. Remember, the Space Shuttle is an important, highly visible PR project as much as a serious project. Much of the real scientific and engineering achievement occurs beneath the publics radar by computer controlled machines.
http://www.nuclearspace.com/a_project_prometheus3
HenryJamesFeltus.com
...Michael's a Jackass department.
"Fifty million Americans can't be wrong," said Rep. Billy Tauzin. Gore - 50,999,897 Bush - 50,456,002
Would it help to spend all efforts on that task? Eventially you reach a point where adding more bodies to a project doesn't make it faster. A common problem in programing, but I suspect it will apply here too. Adding more people just means more people covering the same ground.
Perhaps they should have thought of that back in the 70's when the original Space Missile (er shuttle) was designed. (Designed top-down, but that is a whinge for another day).
Q.
Insert Signature Here
It isn't that the public particularly enjoys a government-sponsored bureaucracy or that we get TANG and Velcro out of the deal (though space spin-offs are nice), but because our history and culture is based on exploration and we are descended from those with an active imagination and restless feet. With Apollo, we could see our future with every footstep on the moon, and while robotic explorers are nice -- and certainly more cost effective -- there is something about seeing a human demonstrate both bravery and intelligence in a place no person has ever been before that really stirs the emotions.
Does NASA waste money? Well, I doubt it spends it as efficiently as it could, and there definitely needs to be a change in its management. Still, I'm prouder of it's accomplishments than just about any other government agency.
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
Seems like OSP is a winner all the way around. Have a cheap way to get people in space, use existing booster technology, means, more manned space flight.
The shuttle costs, according to FY2000, 759 million dollars to launch. By comparison Atlas V and Delta IV are in the range of 100M to launch.
The expendable vehicles have a better turnaround time, are cheaper to operate. Fundamentally, exendable vehicles don't have to solve a lot of the complexity a reusable vehicle does. They don't have to deal with re-entry. They don't have to have reusable engines. They don't have to reusable fuel tanks.
This is my sig.
In contrary to frequent misconceptions, materials technology does not follow Moore's law - heat and stress resistance DO NOT double every 18 months!
Agreed that materials science does not follow Moore's "Law". That doesn't negate the very real value behind research which leads toward reusable terrestrial to space and controlled landing vehicles.
Your argument boils down to: traditional rocketry is more efficient in energy expended / per kilo launched than our current crop of reusable vehicles, so we shouldn't bother with researching new means for easily entering and exiting space beyond our current needs of launching individuals and satellite. Which is undoubtedly true, but very shortsighted. Reusable vehicles offer certain advantages, with costs in terms of energy expended to orbit that may be greater than traditional rocketry, but advantages that rocketry also lacks. This costs money in both development and use per launch - it's an overhead cost.
The Shuttle, and newer nextgen technologies, offer new features such as controlled decent and landing. This is a real value which previous systems lacked! If NASA and Congress want to set that as a critical design goal in the hopes of creating a new generation space fleet, then I'm all for it. JMO. But please, spend the necessary money to do it right!
I think you're mixing todays engineering realities with tomorrows design goals. The two don't necessarily meet. The question to answer is, is the research toward a totally reusable system, one which leads to aerospace to space and back systems, worth pursuing? Is it worth the money?
That's a question for Congress and us constituents to answer, not the engineers.
JMO,
Maynard
I'm not saying that space research isn't good, or isn't useful. I'm saying that the ISS has turned into a colossal waste of resources better spent on other things (Mars). Jesus we could have made a moon base for what we wasted paying the russians to hold up their end of the ISS construction.
Thanks for fabulous short-minded thinking, the ISS can't exist in orbit for very long without the occasional push from a space-tug to keep it from becoming a nice fireball. It would be good to attach some rockets to it to tug it out to a very distant orbit, and abandon it. Then NASA et al have time to come up with a good reason to go back to using it.
The russians had working remote control on their shuttle effort. I actually have the priviledge of working with one of the guys that did it.
This is my sig.
...companies which are conducting R&D toward launch systems outside of US shores? I seem to see only governments doing such research. Governments like Russia, China, France, and Brazil (poorly). Upfront capitalization costs for space exploration make private R&D vastly too expensive for most private corporations. That some are attempting to win the X-prize of $10 Million is no reason to assume that commercial space flight is just around the corner. We'll need government subsidization of the industry for many years yet before it turns profitable, and many years beyond that before it becomes a common means of travel throughout our solar system (never mind the stars). We're not even at the state when Christopher Columbus begged for the necessary funds to search for an alternative route to India (and thus "discovered" America). Who funded that operation? --M
doesn't mean they're cheap. Let's get realistic here, USD 100M to launch a rocket? Imagine where we'd be if it cost 100M dollars to fly a 747 across the Pacific. We're not going anywhere with those kind of costs. NASA needs to start contracting out for space access the way the Post Office did and let smart people take some risks to get us all a payoff.
Single-stage to orbit, vertical takeoff and landing. It flew once, just a test-flight, then a landing strut failed and it fell over. Bah, a solvable problem.
Lets not forget the Ariane 5V system in service since 2001 which can launch a 5.4m wide 80,000kg payload to GTO
Then there's always talk of foreign investment breathing life back into the dormant Russian Energia lauch system which was designed to inject up to 200,000Kg of payload into LEO which has already been tested in a 110,000Kg payload configuration for launching the cancelled Buran Orbiter
It makes the shuttle's maximum payload to LEO of 28,803Kg look rather small.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Of course, the extreme US nationalism would never allow such a move. They'll rather spend billions on another dangerous and unreliable design, than use tried and tested Russian technology...
But one strong argument, I think, for winged vehicles, is the skyramp. A maglev track several miles long, that arcs up into a 45 degree angle. A winged vehicle mounted on a rocket sled on this ramp (perhaps with air-breathing engines), could reach the speeds necessary for SSTO. Here's a link for one idea, but I know it's been floated around elsewhere:
http://www.g2mil.com/SRT.htm
Don't get me wrong, I like capsules, too, for the cheap and easy route. But a winged vehicle would be able to later take the skyramp when it is ready. A capsule would have no such option.
What I liked, is that you didn't need a ferry for Buran. You strapped on some gas turbines and it could transport itself from A to B. That really impressed a lot of people.
Better recheck your numbers, this is WAY off! It is more like 10,000kg at present
Not since Star Wars has one mlitary contractor siphoned os much taxpayer money and not return anything of relevance in return.
Unfortunately your post does sum up the extent of activity on the ISS.
It's just barely possible to overcome this limitation. But the costs are enormous. Desperate efforts to reduce weight are needed to make it work at all. The result is spacecraft that are both incredibly expensive and fragile.
That's where it's been for thirty years. And it's not getting any better. In fact, it's getting worse. The Saturn V had the best cost per unit weight to orbit ever. The Shuttle costs far more, and the latest disaster runs up the cost per unit weight even more. All of NASA's attempts to design replacements for the Shuttle have been flops. There have been three major attempts. This latest one is doomed for the same reasons - adding wings pushes up the weight and cuts the payload to the point of uselessness.
Heavy-payload spaceflight is an ego trip for superpowers, not a useful technology. Commercial small boosters have been built and launched successfully, but that's the limit of commercial interest. Single stage to orbit remains a fantasy. (Roton looked promising, but a bit of weight growth made the thing; it was that marginal.) The spaceplane idea goes back to the USAF's Dyna-Soar in the 1960s, but still hasn't worked.
We either have to go to nuclear propulsion or give it up. Those are the options.
2.3mb PDF file on Apollo
Especially check out pages 15 and 16.
Science Question
What would the moon's sky look like to an Apollo astronaut during daylight? Would it be:
a) Black and full of bright stars.
b) So full of sunlight reflected from the moon's surface and from the earth that no stars can be seen.
c) Black, but the stars would be too dim for the astronauts to see thru their tinted helmets.
d) None of the above.
NASA claims the correct answer is b, which is why the astronauts never talked about the stars. Is NASA correct? Or is the PDF file correct? Can you figure it out?
If you have trouble getting the PDF file, you can also get it here:
Conspiracy Party
What were Apollo 2 thru 6? Or did they just skip fromn 1 to 7, and if so, was that the origin of so many computer software versions jumping to 7.x just to artificially make them appear more mature?
Each program should have an independent budget and managment system. This would ensure that Congress could cut or increase funding more spesifically and insulate each probram from desasters in the other.
I know this is not politically realistic but one can dream.
JFMILLER
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
Just as the article suggests winged spacecraft is a terribly costly and inefficent design with none to little benefit to the mission. Consider the following points.
1. Winged spacecraft add too much weight.
2. Increased Vehicle Complexity
3. Huge Support Costs
4. Safetly Risk
Think about it why does the craft have to have wings. What is the matter with a capsule that can land in the ocean and be lifted aboard a aircraft carrier or be pulled back to port with a tug boat. Transport it to a factility and replace the tile bottom and stick it on another rocket for launch. Think about all of the flight control junk you do not need to carry. Hell just the stupid landing gear on the shuttle has got to be a huge weight penalty and for what?
Space travel and lifting things into space is a expensive proposition. A good hard look needs to be taken at the economics and the benefit of even placing a man into orbit when robotics can do a better job.
Got Code?
"He said they are resisting unnecessary bells and whistles and not holding out for "some
material like 'unattainium' that isn't in existence."
Oh yes it does! It was invented by Dr. Ed Brazzelton
http://jesus.everdense.com/
" ... its your turn to ring down for a Pizza!"
Seriously, even in Star Trek they only used heavy rockets in the beginning... later they used 'light shuttles' to carry people and light supplies into orbit where they would dock with a much larger space only ship.
Physics and human biology make logical arguments for using small ships for people and large rockets for cargo. When you do them both at the same time you're purposes contradict each other... getting people up safely and getting cargo up efficiently. We all know that safety and efficiency are typically exclusive of each other, why fight it?
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
You've already got a system capable of delivering probably 60-65 tons or so to LEO right under your nose!
Take the exisiting SRB+Fuel tank combination that launches the shuttle and design a payload-sled based around the shuttles existing motors without the fancy cargo-bay, wings, avionics, cabin, life-support etc. Hey-presto you have a heavy unmanned launcher based around existing technology.
You may even get better than 65tons payload because you won't need the fancy 'throttled' ascents (no need to avoid aerodynamic loading on wings).
Now why didn't I think about that before?
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
The main reason I love NASA is for the technologies they develop. This project is deliberately designed not to create new technologies. Don't get me wrong, I think they'll come up with great combinations of existing technologies, but this really re-characterizes NASA as an engineering entity rather than a scientific one.
I guess, they've developed enough for the military at this point, and they now have to wait for the funding/need to fuel the scientific advancement aspect of there organization.
Dada ended art.
Somewhere out there is a real Enefit. That Enefit has overthrown an overnment that sets goals to meet the sponsorship of the Govt.
./ readers, that no government handouts will be needed any more.
In doing so, he has proven to us,
Nasa is so freaking stupid. They had a "spaceplane" in the 60's and abandoned the program, even though it was the most successful "X" program ever. For next to nothing, North American avaiation could build a slightly bigger and better X-15 style craft. It could hold 2 people, and using the more modern engines made for the shuttle, go much further on the existing fuel supply.
Being small, they could build it from titanium, which would negate the need for tiles. And best of all, you would use a B-52 as a launch platform, *NOT* sticking it vertically on a rocket, which is a stupid, stupid idea.
The X-15 reached space -- that has been confirmed over and over. A slightly better, more modern X-15 could reach LEO.
Just ask Pete Knight, and he'll tell you. The X-15 was the shuttle we should have built the first time around. (incedentally, the shuttle is based on the X-20 DynaSoar program, also from the 60's)...
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It's a non-issue. The science done on the space shuttle is done in micro-gravity, just like on the space station. If the space plane can't lift it, it could be lifted via an unmanned cargo flight.
Most of the interesting experiments are limited by the shuttles short duration. The shuttle needs to land to get more food, fuel and air.
One thing to point out - the European Space Agency is not the EU. The 15 Member States of ESA are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Norway and Switzerland are not members of the EU. Greece and Luxembourg, which are EU members. are not in ESA.
The replacement for Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled to be launched by Ariane 5. It is arguable that the existance of Shuttle made the designers of Hubble lazy: they started from the payload of the Shuttle and worked backwards. But technology has moved on a lot.
Again, one of the things that ISS is supposed to give us is space assembly capability, both in terms of knowhow and having people in orbit to do/supervize assembly. Lob it up to ISS orbit, assemble it there, then use high-efficiency ion drives to transfer it to wherever it needs to live. If you have enough thrust, bring it back to LEO for repairs and refuelling (you take your car to be fixed rather than have a mechanic come round, don't you?).
The successor to the James Webb, still very much on the drawing board, is currently planned to do the same interferometry thing optically as the radio astronomers do for their very long baseline interferometry. Several small satellites will fly in formation very accurately, giving a mirror with an effective aperture of hundreds of meters. But each satellite can be launched separately.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Some people think this is about NASA. That this organization is the goal. So they think about what NASA needs, and what would be good and bad for its image, etc.
Other people think that getting in space and making money is the goal, and that NASA is a means. Not even THE means, A means.
>> "Cheaper, Better, Faster doesn't work."
You'd be surprised.
MANY industries will gain a lot of money from elevators. Pharmaceutics, Comms, what not. Instead of trying to milk a few more dimes for NASA from the taxpayer's money to sustain nasa a decade or two longer by showing US taxpayers pretty space planes (that, on elevator scale, do next to zlip other than get americans kids proud), people who really want to get to space should be running powerpoint presentations before Fortune0.5K executives who have fat VC checkbooks, vision, and either the desire to make big money or the understanding that not hopping on this train in time will cost them much more of it, even if it's a long-term investment. Cell-Phone companies (which will presumably replaced by sat-phones) come to mind.
Personally, I'd like to think that more people are investing in nanotube R&D behind closed doors than we (or at least most of us) are aware of. And quite likely some of them are not americans.
-
You better hope for pretty rigid wings and sturdy G-suit since zero to mach one in two miles requires more than 20Gs of acceleration.
Space plane? Tsk, we in the UK have this vastly superior modern technology for lifts in VLEO..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
There was one that might have been useable, but the hanger it was stored in collapsed on it.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Like I said, use the shuttles engine system for the cargo sled: its an 'available' design.
You can still have 'control surfaces' for launch stability but you don't need expensive aircraft type load-bearing wings for a landing.
As for bits of foam falling off, who cares? as long as the thing is tough enough to make orbit; even if it doesn't, there's nobody on board to worry about. (Just make sure the downrange area is clear). You don't have to recover any of the vehicle if it is made largely of the composites that the russians developed for the 'Fregat' shrouds which vaporise on re-entry.
As for the motor system, you could provide that with a ceramic heatshield and recovery parachutes so that bit could be re-used. (Although you don't have to) Not forgetting the added bonus of a lower propellant mass than the shuttle uses as after the sled's shrouds and payload have gone, there is much less mass to de-orbit.
I'm taking an educated guess that the costs of developing a 'sled' which behaves like the shuttle on the back of the SRB/LOX combination would be considerably cheaper than re-tooling the Saturn launch system.
As for getting astronauts on/off orbit, 3 options:
1) Develop NASAs 'minibus' spaceplane
2) Pay the Russians to fly them with the proven Soyuz system.
3) Get NASA to develop a capsule launch system simmilar to Soyuz
Its likely that option 2 would be the most cost effective (Soyuz is incredibly cheap per launch) but is also the most unlikely as America doesn't want to loose face.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
While the russians improved on our design (stolen from our "secure" government during the mid 80s), it is still the same design. The shuttle was based on late 60's technology, which means that Energia/Buran is as well. It has many of the same flaws that the current shuttle has.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
okay my network is up and running ...
first post:
ariane looks like a rivet (german: "niete").
it's cool there is support in the general public for
a space program!!!
maybe NASA should think about getting a series of
small, medium and XXL rockets that are 99.9% reliable,
before thinking about a new shuttle-typ spaceship?
also 60-what-years into rocket-science and still need
those SUPER-dangerous solid rocket boostes (SRB)?
how about a re-usable main rocket engine? we could add fins/wings
on the first stage with the re-usable engine that flip
out on re-entry getting the first stage to spin on vertical
axis slowing it before droping into the ocean?
i think the seed of the mable-tree do this when they fall
from the maple three?
-more-
just a few meters before entry in to ocean we fold
the fins back and use the rotational moment generated from
descent to power a "water-splitting" device in the first stage
to like refill 20 % of the hydrogen tank when it's in the ocean? something like that.
The speed of sound in air at sea level is about 340 m/s. Two miles is about 3219 meters. One gee is about 9.8 m/s^2.
_ __21.16
dist = x = integral( v(t) dt ) = integral( a t dt ) = 0.5 a t^2
v = a t --> t = v / a
x = 0.5 a ( v / a )^2 = 0.5 v^2 / a
a = 0.5 v^2 / x = 0.5 v^2 / 3219 = v^2 / 6438
gees = ( s * 340 )^2 / 6438 / 9.8
= s^2 * 1.83
speed__gees
(mach)_(std grav)
1______1.83
2______7.32
3_____16.47
3.4
So, your statement is a bit off. Zero to MACH 3.4 in 2 miles requires more than 20 gee's. But Zero to MACH 1 in 2 miles only requires 1.8 gee's.
Or just give guys like these 1/100th of the money..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Yes, but does it have built-in anchors for a child safety seat in the back?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Have they tried Viagra?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
But still, all that complex trouble to get to just mach 1 seems wasteful. For pure rocket-based design such initial speed wont make much difference. If the ramp exit speed is increased a lot, the ramp must be must much longer and exit point should at some high mountain peak to reduce aerodynamic stress. NASA would have to rent ... Kilimanjaro?
One good thing about ramp assisted launch (versus horisontal take-off) is that the landing gear needs to support empty returning plane only, allowing quite a lot mass reductions. If air-breathing engines are present (preferably some form of rocket-based combined cycle) the ramp can be used to give the initial speed needed for ramjet/scramjet. But practical scramjet won't be here for several years and RBCC is gonna take even longer so until then the atmosphere is just a nuisance during early stages of lift-off. For that, vertical take-off with brute force is not that bad.
Since it's not coming back, no need for a heat sheild or those pesky tiles.
Since it's unmanned, no need for life support.
All of that weight saved is a commesurate increase in cargo capacity, who knows, maybe it could even go beyond LEO. Bolted to an external tank and SRBs, it is a Saturn V/Energia-class heavy-lift vehicle. It would compliment an OSP for crew transfers rather nicely. Keep the remaining orbiters in the shed unless we need them for something specific like servicing HST or ISS construction, just a thought.
Bush Lies On the Record.
Why hasn't NASA talked to the Russian Space agency in regards to Buran, the Russian version of the space shuttle? I know NASA is on a tight budget and may this would be a more cost effective way of them being able to get something to tie them over until they can get a even more cost effective space-mobile.
"The difference between pornography and erotica is the lighting" - Woody Allen
Good news
Premliminary estimations indicate that it's
unlikely that the crafts nuclear engine will
ever detonate and pollute the atmosphere.
I think that the US government should sponsor an ELV initiative that would create an entire class of small, medium, and large ELVs that share components and thus have lowered maintenance/manufacturing costs. Large and ones would carry space lab types of components, and the small ones would be extremely mission-critical because they would carry the crew.
Technology certainly exists to dock things by remote control. Thus, we can first shoot up all the parts the astronauts are supposed to work on first. After we have confirmed mating, we could have the crew dock with the parts module(s) and work. And then everything everyone would crawl into the return crew vehicle and they would splash down in the water somewhere.
To recover space parts, we could have a parachute/reentry module hook up and mate with it, preferably using the same standard dock the crew hatch would lock onto. Then the reentry module could initiate reentry and then use parachutes to slow everything down to a safe rate of descent.
This would have lowered launch costs, because we could scale the rockets depending on cargo. The crew vehicles could be over-engineered because they would be re-usable. And everything would be cheaper because a ELV costs around $100 million a shot while the Shuttle costs ~$700 million per. Finally, we could have many launches taking place all over the world. Basically, we could open-source the launchers and let everyone into space.
Also, this entire concept would take place really fast. We don't need another reusable space plane. We could just land on water. It's something we've conquered forty years ago and there seems to be no overwhelming need to step aside. If something like this takes effect, the need for the ISS would decline, but space exploration would start to move into deep space. LEO has to be conquered first, and I think this would be a nice first step.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Park one or more shuttles in orbit for those types of missions. When needed, fly a crew over on a spaceplane. If a shuttle needs extensive overhaul or modification, fly it down, or drive it to spacedock and shoot up the necessary parts and crew.
"This is not a sig." -- R.
How is that off-topic, you fucken moron?
For an excellent read on the history of NASA and US space policy check out MIT's 16.891j's OpenCourseware lecture notes.
Simple people talk of people, better people talk of events, great people talk of ideas.
Energia and Buran *were not operational vehicles*, period.
just my thoughts about shuttle re-entry.
what is the impact of design of a re-entry vechicle, if the re-entry time of the first 30 minutes was extended to lets say 120 minutes?
my thinking is the shuttle external temperture becomes about 6,000 degrees. not to many things can handle that kind of energy.
couldn't using some kind of braking, or reverse thrust be used until there is enough air so that some kind of gliding could occur?
i believe that the argument of 'that would increase weight' would at this time be a little thoughtless of those who died from the application of this type of logic.
It's worth pointing out that NASA is once again getting everything bass-ackwards and will once again try to use the highest (and therefore most expensive and unproven) technology possible to build it's future reusable spacecraft.
NASA has proven time and time again that it is unworthy of being entrusted with the US space effort and the enormous piles of taxpayer dollars it wastes through poor management and paralytic decision-making. (And yes, I've actually worked at JSC in Houston, so I speak with some insight.)
If space is really commercially viable (and that's a big if), there is a far better alternative that needs to be used, namely, the "Rocket a Day" approach. This was outlined by AutoCAD author John Walker in his paper titled "A Rocket a Day - Keeps the High Costs Away ten years ago now.
If you are even a little interested in an alternative way of looking at space travel, READ THIS PAPER, and pay special attention to the accomplishments of the Germans sixty years ago, which prove the argument.
A great read, and a direction that we should seriously investigate to replace the hopelessly outdated NASA juggernaut of waste, corruption, and buck-passing.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last