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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.
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.
Rockets, my man, rockets. Shoot Hubble II into orbit with a rocket, and if a EVA is necessary to "assemble" it, then put the space plane on station and get it done. No hauling needed.
Granted, though, I'm not entirely certain that this 2 step process would be entirely cost effective. It's cheaper to shoot a rocket than it is to fire up the current Shuttle system, and I would imagine the proposed Space Plane system would have a significantly lower cost-per-flight, given the much reduced weight, but will both of those factors mitigate the cost of the single Shuttle flight? Only time will tell.
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.
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.
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.
What they should do is spend the money they'd spend on a new cargo launch vehicle on space elevator development. the problem is that we still need to develop the cheap carbon nanotube construction methods in order to actually do it. Since they need an apparent success sooner than that in order to stay afloat, they're going to have to develop this light space plane, get the public back on their side, then take the time to develop a new heavy launch vehicle, and if THAT is then successful, they can start thinking about space elevators again. I mean, they're working on them now, but not in earnest.
I really would love to see the government spend a big chunk of cash on space elevator development, and spend it wisely.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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?
So did the shuttle 30 years ago.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
The X prize specifically states you have to fly the same vehicle more than once within 2(?) weeks. Ain't now way anything NASA flies gonna do that.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
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.
Unfortunately George W. Bush is no John F. Kennedy. He generally hates big government unless its in the Defense, Justice, or Homeland Security departments. He is a complete zero when it comes to interest in science or space. He is 100% about making money for himself and his friends and at present none of them has pitched any business plan for space:
1. Shoot rockets into space
2. ?????
3. Profit
Its no accident George's appointment as head of NASA is an accountant, with no clue about engineering or space, whose main goal was/is to cut spending at NASA. What little space program there is primarily to transfer money to big aerospace/defense contractors. Not sure anyone cares if they actually do anything useful with the money before they pocket their cut.
For the U.S. to have a space program that matters again there would need to be a visionary leader like JFK, a mission that matters (one beyond low earth orbit), a lead engineer like Kelly Johnson and a lean, mean organization like the Skunk Works of old.
Having NASA design yet another space plane is just wasting billions of dollars, and another decade and when your done, if they even manage to finish it this time, you'll still just be going back and forth to LEO. We wont have moved a single step forward.
A new space plane program has been started every couple of year at least since I worked there in the early 90's and everyone of them has been scraped after wasting money and time.
@de_machina
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.
I'm going to get flamed for this but anyway :) ...
USA has been cloacking its imperialism all this time and you want to make it more obvious? I don't think you are going to get any job with the CIA any time soon...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
The winged design of the shuttle is far from having shown any improvement in space readiness - the higher complexity and the intention to re-use the vehicle have dramatically increased turnaround times. By the way, the idea of returning damaged satellites, repairing them on the ground and sending them back into space has never been successfully exploited.
For several reasons, the X-33 was dead from arrival, a fatally flawed design with the additional lack of capacity to carry people. At least with chemical, pure rocket propulsion, SSTO vehicles are neither feasible nor economically sound.
In contrary to frequent misconceptions, materials technology does not follow Moore's law - heat and stress resistance DO NOT double every 18 months!
It is easy to cry for more money, but as the OSP is likely to fail due to skyrocketing costs and technical problems (unless the capsule design is chosen), NASA will lack positive results, and without positive results, there is no funding. NASA would be better off to choose the technically best solution based on the available funds and be honest to the public about what is possible and what not.
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
In retrospect, yes, NASA shouldn't have bothered developing the shuttle and should have just kept with Saturn-derived boosters.
But, at that point, the only way that NASA could fund any sort of manned space flight program was to promise that it would be reusable and would dramatically decrease the cost of all launchers. Also, given that the Saturn V line needed to be shut down, it had to be capable of assembling a space station out of parts, instead of being one or two Saturn launches. And everything piled on from there, with the NASA chiefs going on with blinders on hoping that everything would work its way out in the end.
Gentoo Sucks
I suppose I am a bit radical in my thinking, but don't we already have a partner that has what we need? Why not just use the Russian vehicles.
The article mentioned that the Russian vehicles do not have the capacity for a space minivan. NASA wants the thing to carry 7 people, instead of three.
But I otherwise agree. So much money is spent on making things reuseable, that it is just plain cheaper to use disposable (and simpler) rockets. Until we can fly to orbit, stick with the simple stuff.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
If the Soviet Union (notorious for the poor quality control of its industries), could build a capsule-based space system with a reliability matching the U.S. shuttle system, then that tells met that capsules are inherently far safer than a space plane. Also note that in contrast to the shuttle, the fatal accidents happened in the 60s and early 70s, and there have been no fatalities since that time.
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.
Hmm, good example of mis-using statistics. Capsules have flown more than you show and over many more years. Also you are accounting failure of other parts of the vehicles into the mix. You could say the Shuttle never failed as it was other parts of STS that caused the accidents to happen.
However, capsules are simpler and more resilient. They are also cheaper than shuttle's, and in the case of soyuz they have existing production lines. Improvements have been made over the years to fix previous flaws and make them more robust.
There is also no where near enough examples to draw any serious conclusions on either side just by using accident statistics alone!
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.
I'm not sure where they got the figure for the Ariane 5V, that sounds a tad heavy.
I wouldn't bank on the return of the Energia. It's big and requires cooperation between the Ukraine and Russia, which doesn't happen so easily. Right now, there's some good potential for heavy lift boosters via straightforward structural modifications of the Delta and Atlas boosters (to allow them to support a heavier payload) clustered in various configurations -- they don't have to stop at three boosters. It's theoretically possible, and I'm wagering that the people who designed the Delta and Atlas probably had that in mind for future development, because satelites keep getting bigger.
See, the interesting part, and the thing that makes it impossible for NASA to get a shuttle replacement together, is that you generally don't need to get even 28,000kg to a useful orbit. If you could get 5,000 kg to a useful orbit cheaply, you'd send up your satelite in 5,000 kg chunks and put it together while up there. But in order to do that you either need spacesuits that don't require prebreathing and extended preperations, an inflatable, presurized drydock, or really good robotics. And you'd need to fly it on a regular schedule.
The problem is that we need to keep the shuttle around until we're at least done building the space station because none of the exsisting modules would fit on it and would require a LOT of modification in order to be launched on a Delta or an Atlas booster, and might require some booster modifications to boot. And NASA really didn't want to give up their existing abilities, so they kept trying to avoid this.
I think that part of the drive for the OSP by NASA is because they realize that they are eventually going to be forced to give up the shuttle. The timings might be such that the shuttle is canceled shortly after all of the completed station modules are sent up. So the OSP is insurance that they will be able to stay in the manned spaceflight business after that happens, even if it takes a while before a true shuttle replacement shows up. They are going to railroad it through congress and hope that they can get it built and operational before they have to give up the shuttle.
And the railroading of the OSP is probably a good thing. Part of the problem with the X-30 and X-33 projects was that they took far too long to produce anything even mildly useful with them, so people would try to get a nice career as a middle manager, instead of designing and building the fscking thing. Remember that the most impressive aircraft of the cold war (U-2, SR-71, F-117) were build in the Skunk Works using an astonishingly small number of people in an incredibly short time span.
Gentoo Sucks
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.
You mean, like the Shuttle C project?