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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.
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?
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.
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.
Haven't they learned anything?
I'm not certain they've done "Better, Cheaper, Faster" too well.
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.
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?
***
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.
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.
Read this to find out what knowledgeable people think about the "Smaller Shuttle" idea.
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!"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.
From the article:
"We're doing everything we can to get it up by 2008"
Have they tried viagra??
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
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.
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
You haven't been keeping up. The Delta IV Large, which is the current largest available production booster, has a 5 m diamater fairing and can lift 25,800 kg to LEO. The Hubble Space Telescope is a mere 10,863 kg. At that rate, even the Delta IV Medium could lift it.
Gentoo Sucks
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
Combining humans and cargo in one vehicle is not such a good idea. Humans require extra safety margins, less G loads and abort options that cargo does not. All of those requirements add weight to the vehicle which in turn increases fuel loads and that then in turn increases strucutral requirements ... Also a lot of cargo is dangerous to humans, so when loaded on a manned craft more protections must be taken.
To build the best human->LEO transport system you want to keep it small/simple/safe and single purposed. I have reservations about even building a "plane" like vehicle. What does it do for you? When going up to orbit, it's dead weight, worse it's increased drag. On return it only gives you marginal cross range capabilities, and with the high landing speeds the number of landing sites are limited. Plus there is the problem of the landing gear compromising the integrity if the heat sheilding. Capsule design is simpler and most likely safer. Are there not *more* landing opportunities with a capsule anyway?
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. We could spend the money on something else, like getting going on building an international moon base. Using advanced robotics and tele-presence to get things going would seem to me to be a good approach. We sure could use the technology developed from that to help us here on Earth. What technological benefit will we get from building another space plane or capsule. We already know how to. Is it not time to pass that along to the private sector?
Also insn't there a world wide surplus of launch capacity now? Should we be thinking about using some of that to ferry supplies to the space station and beyond? If it were me I would be offloading things from STS as quickly as possible. Again the Russians have progress, should we not leverage that vehicle? If we truly want to be good partners we should learn to use one another's capabilities to the best advantage of all involved.
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.
I knew I should have looked that up. Here goes:
As for Apollos 2 and 3, they didn't exist. Before the missions that tested the operations of the actual Apollo spacecraft, there were a series of missions for testing the Saturn V launch stack and the reentry heat shield, designated AS-201, AS-202, AS-203, and AS-204. AS-204 was intended to be the first manned Apollo mission, and was the one Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee were preparing for when the disastrous fire happened.
After the fire, AS-204 was renamed Apollo 1 as a retroactive memorial. Then it gets a little weird. The NASA Project Designation Committee decided that the first full Apollo test mission would be named Apollo 4, and that the remaining 3 AS-20x missions would not be renamed. Why they did this seems to be a bit of a mystery.
Thus, the lack of an Apollo 2 or Apollo 3 can be blamed on a committee. It seems somehow appropriate.
And just to add some symmetry on the other end, there were 3 missions that were to be Apollos 18-20. These were cancelled to free up Saturn V launchers for Skylab, and funds for...wait for it...the space shuttle.
Only one of the Saturn V's set aside for Skylab was actually used. The other two are on display, one each at Johnson Space Center, and Kennedy Space Center (the specifics of which pieces of what rockets are where is a bit complicated, and not terribly interesting). A full-scale test version is on display at the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, but it was not built to actually fly.
But then again, I could be wrong.
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.