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Next NASA Vehicles To Resemble Shuttles
ausoleil writes "Spaceref.com has an internal NASA memo outlining potential plans for the next generation of launch vehicles. They will closely resemble the current Shuttle and use some of the same hardware. Of course, they plan to leave the exploding parts out of their next versions. From the article: 'NASA has decided to build two new launch systems - both of which will draw upon existing Space Shuttle hardware. One vehicle will be a cargo-only heavy lifter, the other will be used to launch the Crew Exploration Vehicle.'"
So, as always, (good science/actual military need/sensible budget-keeping (pick appropriate phrase based on article) ) takes a backseat to Senator Whosit saying, "You won't cost my state jobs!"
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
The escape hatch also has exploding bolts.
The only exploding part that should be left off is the leaky o-rings that helped the chalenger to exploded in '86.
now if we'd stop spending our money exploding things in the middle east, where could have these new luanch vehicles sooner rather than later.
sorry 'bout the mess...
from TFA:
The second vehicle to be pursued is based on a 5 segment Solid Rocket Booster (SRB)
Aren't we better than this? I can understand using barbaric rocket technology to lift big payloads, but it is time that NASA got serious about X-project and spaceshipone type design. A re-usable vehicle that could take off from space, go into orbit, dock w/ space stations, etc., and then land back on earth is well within our reach technologically. Why not?
Thank you Dave Raggett
Both the single-stick CEV launcher and inline Shuttle-derived HLV are good, useful rocket designs. They have hardware heritage, long experience and the SRBs are one of the safest (if roughest) rockets around.
The only problem is that this continues the massive NASA workforce, which is going to limit the actual implementation of said designs. The standing army needs to be repurposed instead of played to - shutting down the OPF isn't enough. These are massively labor intensive rockets they are creating - they may create as many problems as they solve.
The Shuttle has got to go, I'm glad Dr. Griffin is taking this step.
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
It's nice to know that NASA is putting together two new launch vehicles for cargo and crew. However, what's on the drawing board to follow those vehicles in the next 10, 20, or 50 years from now? Or, is NASA is doomed to repeat the shuttle experience again by using the new vehicles for the next 30 years without having anything new in the pipeline?
What we need is NASA to get out of the vehicle design business and let the free-market industry come up with innovative designs to build, test and deliver. It should be like building cars when the designs keep getting better and more reliable every year.
Seriously. Why are we still building giant fireworks? Couldn't a mass-driver work with new heat-resistant materials? Or those JP Aerospace guys with the blimps-to-orbit plan?
Even the Space Elevator doesn't have this problem. Surely there are better things to do with the money to lower cost-to-orbit than building giant bottle-rockets. As long as we remain under the paradigm of taking our fuel with us, it seems to me the cost and complexity goes through the roof. My two cents only.
NASA Budget Shows Shuttle Phase-Out
You're missing certain points. That shuttle weight includes the engines, have fun launching things without those. So that wil ltake up some mass as well. In addition the Shuttle engines were designed along the lines of: efficiency and reusability above all else including cost. Yup, they're expensive, efficient and designed to be reused. So those of course can't be used for a non-reusable launch vechicle which means the engines used won't be quite as good. It can stil lsend a lot into LOE but not nearly as much as you're talking about.
First cynical point: They'll be using the existing shell design, because they're going to use existing everything. We pay billions, they claim to have redesigned everything, they redesign nothing. They make a few minor cosmetic changes and we all live under the assertion that we live in a brave new NASA world of progress once again while some beaurocrat reappropriates the money for his own black-ops.
Second cynical point: If our one big goal is to go BACK to the MOON within the next decade (or was it twenty years?), why do we need such new complex spacecraft? We did it in April of 1969 with the computing power of today's calculator, but we need a complete overhaul to manage to do something we already did almsot four decades ago?
I'm seeing us spending a lot of money here. Doing a lot of grunt work here. Yet, all we're achieving is the same thing we've already achieved. How disapointing.
On the one hand, I'm glad. The Shuttle has proved to be a horrible waste of money, a boondoggle of 1970s technology dictated by political pork and military paranoia rather than being designed for an actual specific purpose, and I'm glad it's going to be replaced.
It's just a shame that the only way we can get people out into space seems to be with 1960s technology rather than 2000s. At least, under the current government-funded model.
You must think in Russian.
relax, comedy is some peoples way of dealing with terrible events, ever heard the phrase i didn't know wether to laugh or cry, now you know
i could't agree more. i'd like to punch that little smartass "zonk" for that remark. what an asshole.
"Should concentrate on smaller devices. I can imagine a robot same size as a Radio Shaft "Zip Sap" moving quickly to space"
Space is still way the heck up there, and you still need lots and lots of fuel and oxydizer to get up to LEO. You don't see stuff the size of sounding rockets getting up there.
Besides, the bigger the pieces we can send up there, the less on-site (i. e. on-orbit) assembly is needed when it gets there. Even for us on the ground there is a lot to be said about pre-fabrication.
It's not merely disappointing --- it's disgusting. The shuttle was a bad idea from the start, and that the same mistakes will be recapitulated is awful.
Is the real reason we backed away from manned exploration in the 70's because the "right" people weren't making a profit off of it? It could well be that, until there is a consistent and projectable profit to be had from the manned exporation of space, we will be stuck back here on Earth. I memorized every announced space launch, manned or otherwise, when I was a kid. I looked forward to life in space, or at least something better from the space program than satellite TV and phone service. A terribly sad situation all around.
brwski
"Because without beer, things do not seem to go as well''
If the US has a problem with a GPS satellite, they launch a replacement. I'd imagine there are some in stock for such occurances.
A secret shuttle? Unlikely. Remember, US ground-based telescopes can be used to look at the space shuttle (remember the blurry photo of the damage to Columbia?) so keeping it secret from other nations would be near-impossible. Add in the capability to track such missions by radar and it becomes an impossibility.
Please, have a little respect. The "exploding parts" comment in the headline was uncalled for and childish.
It may have been there intention to make the SSMEs reusable but from what I read in the original Feynman report they were designed so close or past the engineering of the time that they had to be completely rebuilt after every flight anyway. His description of how they redefined what a "failure" was when estimating how long the each engine could safely run still gives me the creeps.
If that were the case, the US would have had an easy time hiding spy satellites from the Soviets. No such luck - they knew where our sats would be at any time.