Slashdot Mirror
Low-Cost Space Shuttle Replacement Proposed
FleaPlus writes "The Washington Times and Space.com has an article on a plan for a low-cost shuttle replacement by t/Space, an organization whose team includes AirLaunch LLC and Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites. Instead of a one-size-fits-all craft, t/Space's plan is to build an air-launched four-person capsule termed the Crew Transfer Vehicle (CXV), specialized for carrying people to and from low-Earth orbit. Once in orbit the CXV would dock with a separately-launched Crew Exploration Vehicle (likely built by Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman), which could be optimized for traveling between Earth orbit and the Moon. The CXV would also be able to dock with a space station or serve as a crew lifeboat. The group, which has already received some NASA funding, calculates that it can have the system ready by 2008 for $400 million, with a per-launch cost of $20 million (compared to ~$500 million per shuttle launch). Development would be done under a competitive fixed-price (instead of cost-plus) contract."
I propose that Mr. Carmack Open Sources the plans to his giant bottle rocket and lets the end user create a deep space mod for it.
STS (the Space [Shuttle] Transportation System) is a flawed system design, with little compromise or tolerance for failures, systemic or political. On that issue alone, STS must be replaced.
A much smaller Shuttle-like orbiter, which can be mated atop a Delta, Titan III or other medium-lift vehicle, is needed. It may look like the Crew Return Vehicle concept that's being rehashed into a shuttle replacement. I think it would have more merit to the old military DynaSoar [astronautix.com] project. Such a vehicle, unlike the Shuttle Orbiters we have, is not a truck...it would be a human taxi, with a small bay for some replacement consumables. For larger payloads and refurbs, use the old Orbiters--unmanned, remote controlled. If we can run robots from millions of miles away, we can surely do the same from low Earth orbit. In fact, the Russians showed it can be done with their own mortibund Shuttle--it's first and only flight was completely unmanned, from launch to landing. [astronautix.com] The old Orbiters would also double as rescue vehicles, along with having additional new Shuttle Taxis ready to go on other pads when a flight is in progress. We can't use single-use rockets for ISS refurbs since the pressurized cargo modules (like the special ones used by Orbiters during an ISS crew and experiment transition) has equipment that must come back. Only our Orbiters have the ability to return large equipment modules safely to Earth.
We should be able to adapt single-use rockets to send new ISS components for assembly. The ISS will need more arms, and a new Orbiter replacement might need something like the current Canadian remote arm.
The main thing I would recommend is (1) just make a reusable human taxi that (1) has an abort mode like the old Apollo spacecraft, where the new Orbiter can rocket away from the booster, as well as (2) a durable crew compartment that, in the case of normal reentry failure, could be separated from the larger body and land by parachute.
Baby steps, please. A Shuttle replacement need not be all things as our current ones tried to be. For LEO, a simple crew vehicle will work. Later, the ISS or a moonbase should be used to create new, true spacecraft that ferry and from the Moon, and can use lunar material to build a Mars vehicle.
When someone says that the cost to go to space is too expensive, I have to emphasize where the money goes to build the spacecraft. It's not like we take millions of dollar bills, smelt them into vehicles or stuff bills in the fuel tanks and set them afire. That money goes to WORKERS who build the space vehicles and COMPANIES that make jobs. That's economically a Good Thing.
To confirm you're not a script, please piss in my ear.
"The group calculates that it can have the system ready by 2008 for $400 million".
Alright guys, this means we will have it around 2015 for about $750 million.
Haven't all the low-cost shuttle replacements so far, once they started trying to build them, turned into high-cost engineering boondoggles that were never finished?
Come to think of it, wasn't the Space Shuttle itself a low-cost replacement for what came before that, once they started to build them, turned into high-cost engineering boondoggles that were never totally finished?
I mean... just checking.
Why not just give them US$400M? Northrup and the others will spend that kind of money just thinking about it all - then at least they'll have two options at the end of it!
400 million? It costs 2 billion (taxpayer) dollars to build ONE stealth bomber. One.
This is cheap.
If we can get back into space for 400 million, call it a bargain and GO!
Space exploration suffers from the lack of investment coming from major industries worldwide.
The times when a whole country like the US started a program to put a man on the moon are long since past, now, it's up to the corporations to take over, but they have nothing to gain from this except for the publicity and the somewhat useless benefits of zero-gravity research (don't get me wrong, i think z-g research is important, but the benefits are seldom).
What would happen if there was a legislation that allowed a company to claim a part of another planet, provided that (1) they can get there first and (2), they actively use it for a purpose (like mining, among many others). Such legislation would surely have to have many different conditions and establish a common ground for all corporations in the world, and i cannot see the entire universe of implications, but i can't stop thinking that this would push space exploration projects and would put us on other planets.
Now, whether we should be destroying other planets aside from "ours", that's an entirely different matter...
The future will take care of itself.. It has in the past
What about when the backers are brought before Dubya and he asks them how much of the 400 million initial and 20 million per launch goes to helping the good old boys and the backers look at each other and groan? I've never been accused of having much faith in the US administration but I just figure the men in charge of our dear sweet US of A will just say thank you for the fine offer but we've already got a team on the problem. I've never seem the government interest peaked by cost savings unless that savings goes to their friends/screws the general public or both of the above.
Frylock: "We should have cloned twenties, Jackson wouldn't have given a fuck."
Trinity: what do you need?
Neo: estes rockets. lots of estes rockets. and big rubber bands.
Trinity: nobody has ever tried anything like this before.
Neo: that's why it's going to work.
...was mastered long ago by the Chinese official, Wan Hu. He clearly has prior art.
The shuttle itself, being reusable, weights so much that putting it in orbit costs a fortune. Normally, in case of rockets like Soyuz, maybe 1% of the original mass is put in the orbit, a tiny, light reentry device, maybe some payload. In case of the shuttle we need to lift a huge, ultra-heavy vehicle into orbit, it requires vastly more fuel. The hydrogen fuel tank is not reusable. Reworking the first-degree rockets is expensive. Because of added mass, extra material properties must be taken into consideration. It's cheaper to send 5 missions, 5-ton each, than one 25-ton one, but you can't take the shuttle apart and launch it in pieces. What originally was thought to be cheaper, seems to be a failed idea.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
The russian Clipper (Kliper) lifting body space capsule is already being built. There is no need for the yankee to reinvent the wheel.
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/kliper.html
By the way, air launch is one of the most dangerous methods. In-flight collision is invariably fatal. Remember the drone that killed the SR-71 motherplane? The idea is silly.