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NASA's New Shuttle
j0ugh writes "NASA releases plans for a new spacecraft (Audio stream contains the meat) that would replace the space shuttle. The vehicle is part of a system that will be capable of putting astronauts on the moon by 2018, laying the groundwork for space travel to Mars. NASA says the new system is designed to be 10 times safer than the space shuttle"
The video and other information make several things quite clear:
Overall, this looks like good technology to me. Anyone who thinks NASA is taking a step back (except for the capsule configuration, I agree with you there) needs to pull his head out of his rear. This design will be inexpensive (NASA is merely redirecting the shuttle buget plus a little extra), reuse existing components/industry, will be more powerful than any rocket ever designed, and will finally give us back the ability to put USEFUL stuff into space. Good job, NASA!
P.S. On the capsule (again), I'm surprised they didn't even consider the Big Gemini design. The BG would have been a very large capsule (more crew than the Shuttle!) with a parawing for smooth touchdowns on Earth.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
113 shuttle flights, 2 catatrophic failures. A ten-fold improvement means we should only lose the entire crew 1 time in 560.
Obviously it means 1/10th as many deaths per N usages. Of course, this thing will probably be less then 1/10th the cost of shuttle mission, so it will be used more then 10 times as often, meaning more death. Oh well. It will probably have 10x fewer people dying, and 10x fewer explosive disasters.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I expect the SSME on the second stage of the manned launcher will be replaced with a J-20S.
The reason: Restarting.
The SSME has never been restarted in flight, and there's a big cost associated with adding/certifying this capabillity. The J-2, on the other hand, was used by the Saturn V's third stage, and this restart is needed for trans lunar injection.
Because you need spacecraft to put the elevator in orbit. Plus, perhaps you can put a smaller, trial version on the moon to test the technology and bring material from the surface -- and where hurricanes and terrorists have a hard time hitting it.
Whether it's seat belts in cars, kids wearing helmets on bikes, or the severe risk-intolerance that afflicts our space program, we've become a society of cowards, insisting on safety above all.
If that trend continues, and I expect it will, soon we won't ever venture into space, underwater, or outside our own fenced in back yard.
Besides, calling something "10 times safer" sets off my B.S. detector. 1/10 as much likelihood of disaster isn't 10 times safer. If (to pick a number) 2 of every 10 shuttle launches ends in a crew loss, then you're already 80% safe. If you determine that you'll have only 2 in 100 flights end in calamity, then you've gone from 80% safe to 98% safe, on 1/10th the risk.
"10 times safer" is meaningless unless your safety record is in the single digit percentage range. "One tenth the risk" would be a lot more accurate, if that's even what they're claiming.
sigs, as if you care.
Read Richard Feynman tearing them a new one over exactly that sort of language. It's disheartening that they still apparently have marketdroids doing their press releases.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I assume you mean a space elevator stretching from the Moon to the Earth? If you lived on the Moon, you'd see the Earth spinning about once per day, so a given point on the Earth's surface does not stay in the same place from the Moon's perspective.
A Moon based space elevator would reach almost halfway to the Earth since the Moon only rotates once per month. However, it wouldn't help get stuff from the Earth to the Moon, since the boost out of the Earth's gravitational field is 90% or more of the energy required. However, the combination of an Earth elevator, ion propulsion, and a Moon elevator would make it much cheaper. Look for this in about 50 years.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Well, they're still using the SSME's on the heavy lift vehicle and on the second stage of the crew launch vehicle. Only the Earth transfer stage will use the J-2S. The CEV and ascent stage of the lander will used methane-based engines (based on the RL-10 perhaps? Maybe an americanised RD-x, given the Russians have much more recent experience with CH4-based engines), and the descent stage will use a LOX/LH2 engine.
"Just once, I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, Dr. Who
Foolishly? Last time I checked, money didn't grow on trees. The Saturn V was very expensive to build and launch. That was a major reason why it was retired, NASA couldn't afford to operate it after its budget was slashed.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
"A forward thinker with some goals to run this goddamn outfit. You know, someone who can say yeah. "It'd probably be a good idea to have a Base Station in outerspace where we could easily launch missions from instead of having to worry about earths atmosphere and large gravitational pull. Ok, lets do it"."
At which point a person not enamored with the idea of a base on the moon would reply "I'm so glad we only have to worry about the atmosphere and gravity EVERY F-ING TIME WE SEND SUPPLIES." Stuff still has to get there so we can launch it into space. (and please don't try to tell me we'll manufacture it on the moon. That will work for simple substances, but a satellite? Riiiiight)
I'd love a moon base, but let's not overlook the problems having one would create, especially in an attempt to discredit current alternatives.
I don't think there's anywhere in the universe to "easily launch missions from." You're just trading one set of problems for another.
According to this site
Saturn C-5 max payload: 127 metric tons
New Booster may payload: 100+ metric tons
May be less payload, but last time I checked we weren't building Saturn 5 components.
For crew capacity, technology has changed. We can take out a lot of mass and replace it with new technology compared to the apollo era. Remember, we were still using vacum tubes then and no solar panels. Adding solar panels (which is in the plans) means fewer batteries are needed. Replacing vacume tubes with solid state decreases power and mass and space.
The good news is that NASA are finally picking up where they left off 30 years ago. The bad news is that NASA are picking up where they left off 30 years ago. . . and we have precious little to show for the decades, lives, and many billions of dollars sacrificed to the Shuttle.
We got some info out of it, just not as much as we could have since we got sidetracked with the original moon missions. I've heard that JFK set the space program back (or held it back) 50 years. However, that does not mean we haven't gotten anything out of the shuttle. Otherwise we wouldn't be using shuttle components in these new lifters.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
- NASA's new heavy lifter: 125t
- Saturn V: 110t
- Russian Energia: 100t
- Space Shuttle: 29t
- Commercial Falcon 9 S9: 25t
- ESA Ariana 5ECA: 21t
- JAXA H-IIA: 12t
All to LEO (low earth orbit).we were still using vacum tubes
A nit, but I don't think there were any vacuum tubes in the Apollo/Saturn stack -- transistors were already commonplace, and the Apollo Guidance computer pioneered the use of ICs, albeit not microprocessors. But if you've got a reference that describes tubes, I really would like to see it (I'm not being snarky, I really would!)
"Just once, I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, Dr. Who
While "we" were still using a lot of vacuum tubes in 1969, the Apollo program did not. Their computers were solid state; in fact, the onboard flight computers were the first ever built with integrated circuits, and the Apollo program absorbed a significant fraction of all the integrated circuits manufactured in those early years.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
> I must say, it is interesting to notice that NASA has, in fact, finally opted to return to the old, well-tried capsule approach, as opposed to reusable reentry vehicles such as Shuttle.
FYI, the new capsule is supposed to be reusable as well, although with a limit of ~10 trips.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Actually, speaking myself as a liberal Democrat, opposition to the SSC was pretty non-partisan. If anything, there was more support from the Republican party. In particular, Reagan was pretty supportive of the SSC while Clinton's lack of strong support was probably its undoing. But on the whole, there is a problem that funding of a large scale big science project over the span of decades has a real hard time surviving the congressional budget process.
Actually, I've heard about studies stating that the main driver for launch cost is neither the total payload nor the technology but the launch rate. That is, for the same payload weight, a light booster that flies a hundred times a year will probably be cheaper than a heavy lifter that flies only a few times a year. It doesn't really matter if they are expendable, reusable, cryogenic or whatever.
See for example this 1994 study ("This indicates a potential paradox in the commercial space transportation market. High flight rates appear to be necessary to reduce the price per flight. However, reduced prices per flight reduces the revenue per flight, and consequently the cash flow available for investment payback.") or A Rocket a Day Keeps the High Costs Away.
Sure, a lower payload capacity means more orbital assembly required, more modular systems, which will make them heavier. But they will be more versatile, possibly cheaper, and the lower launch cost will offset the added weight.
OTOH, developing a heavy lifter starts from the opposite premise: a launch has to be expensive, so their number has to be minimized, with more payload per launch. This makes low flight rate a self-fulfilling prophecy and almost calls for a high cost.
The funny thing is that NASA arbitrarily set the CEV weight at 25 tonnes, just above the LEO capability of the heaviest rocket currently available (Delta 4 Heavy). Almost as if they wanted to need a new launcher, which then could be developed from Shuttle parts, keeping the existing workforce with a job, maybe even the very same job...
Worst part of that was that over half of the cost was already spent.
*Then* they kill it.
IIRC some of the tunnels were used for mushroom farming.
Seems the ISS is getting the same treatment. Spend most of the money, but starve it enough to accomplish nothing.
The funny thing is that NASA arbitrarily set the CEV weight at 25 tonnes, just above the LEO capability of the heaviest rocket currently available (Delta 4 Heavy).
The Delta 4 is not rated for human spaceflight, and probably cannot be without huge changes in technology and redesign.
So they needed a new rocket anyway, and one might as well set your capacity high so you can get more done in orbit and on the moon.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
The current plan is:
Retire shuttle fleet: 2010
CEV/HLV system online for trips to the ISS: 2011
Return to the moon: 2018
So the are hoping to have the system online for orbit functions only one year after the shuttle fleet retires. It's the moon shot that's a few years later.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
It's sad that this is the kind of post that passes for infomative.
First of all, for those who actually read rather than just look at pictures, there's a lot more information at the NASA site than what the OP writes here, and, unlike that post, it is correct.
Now...
>> There appears to be an Apollo age escape tower on the crew capsule. This doubles as a docking port.
No. That's part of the abort apparatus. it is jettisoned during the trip to orbit. It has nothing to do with docking.
>> The mission plan given is basically the same one used on Apollo.
Wrong. There are significant differences with Apollo, including flight profile, length of stay, size of crew, and the ability to land anywhere on the Moon (Apollo was confined to equatorial regions).
>> We use big booster to light up millions of tonnes of mass... Kind of pathetic,
It is not pathetic. That's how rockets work. Almost all the mass in a rocket is propellant.
>> I'm surprised they didn't even consider the Big Gemini design...
Probably because it is essentially the same design: a blunt conical object with a heatshield. We've seen more than 40 years worth of avionics and electronic advances since Gemini. There's no reason to resurrect the dead. Remember, too, the CEV is supposed to bulk up for the Mars trip. Gemini couldn't survive more than a few weeks. (It barely made it through the two-week endurance mission.)
>> Anyone who thinks NASA is taking a step back (except for the capsule...
The capsule is not a backward step. That's equivalent to lamenting the lack of innovation in aircraft design because they all have wings. If you design a spacecraft to be launched by rocket from and to return to a planetary surface, that's the vehicle shape you'll have: conical for aerodynamic purposes during launch, with a blunt heat shield on the other end. So long as we launch such vehicles via rockets, that's what they're going to look like. (Remember, we don't have the technology to protect leading wing entries at escape veleocity speed, which a returning lunar mission will see. A returning Mars mission will reenter at higher speed.)
>> With this HLV booster, we could put a brand new space station whereever the hell we want it...
Why?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Unfortunately mergers keep reducing their numbers - for large payloads it's down to Lockheed and Boeing now, with SpaceX planning to enter the fray soon.
Of course this is a chicken and egg problem: when your largest potential customers swear they're going to create their own product from scratch and have billions of dollars a year to spend on it, investors tend to be wary about jumping into the market.
Getting to LEO is hard, and there are now only three countries who have ever gotten a manned craft into orbit: China (the newest club member), Russia/USSR, and the US. No private venture has gotten even close. Ever.
Private ventures send large payloads into LEO and further all the time. The reason they're all unmanned isn't because life support is an insurmountable problem, it's because comsats are automatable.
A Moon based space elevator would reach almost halfway to the Earth since the Moon only rotates once per month.
Sigh.
Google: lunar space elevator - ooh, a link to:
Wikipedia: lunar space elevator
And, what do you know! There it is. You don't go to "lunostationary" orbit. That would be the Earth's orbit, so to build a "classical" lunar space elevator you'd need a cable reaching from the Earth to the Moon. Instead, you can just go to a libration point: L1 or L2 would work fine. Both of those are far, far shorter than halfway to the Earth: L1 is 56,000 km above the Moon, and L2 is 67,000 km up.
The distance from the Moon to the Earth is 380,000 km.
A lunar elevator is more useful than you think. Lunar orbit to the Lunar surface normally takes a delta V of 2 km/s. Earth's surface to Lunar orbit is about 13 km/s, so it saves about 16% of the delta-V required. You could actually save a lot more if the cable extended past the Lagrange points, possibly as much as 30-40%.
It also almost completely removes the fuel cost for launching things from the lunar surface as well.
A lunar space elevator is not silly. It's extremely smart, especially given the fact that we could build one now. No nanotubes required - Kevlar is strong enough.