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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"
Why fly a spacecraft, when you can just take the elevator?
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.
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How do you classify something as 10x safer than something else? Do they expect 10x less people to die, 10x less frequent explosive disasters, or are the events themselves 10x less dangerous, meaning astronauts could survive?
Jerry
http://www.syslog.org/
113 shuttle flights, 2 catatrophic failures. A ten-fold improvement means we should only lose the entire crew 1 time in 560.
It looks almost exactly like the Apollo system.
(if we're going back to 1969, can we also drop the war on drugs? thanks.)
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.
So NASA's going to be using the latest in 1970's tech? Woo Hoo!
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and 30% cooler, with 200% more wiz-bang factor!
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Perhaps we've moved a bit beyond this stuff, though NASA hasn't yet gotten the message or is worried about its future funding. For a start it looks as if unmanned missions could achieve the same at far less cost. Second, missions like this are really about the future good of all mankind, unless you're some crazed tycoon who wants to own space, the planets, etc. So perhaps the other major power blocks in the world could be induced to cooperate and to spread the cost. Who knows, they might even come up with some good ideas or tasty new technology. The US is financially overstretched as it is.
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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. Especially when one takes into consideration the significant amount of resistance NASA experts have been offering to the idea for years and years, despite the poor cost-to-results ratio of Shuttles and, apparently, high(er) risks involved in Shuttle flights as compared to capsule flights.
Perhaps it is a bit of me that loves rubbing it in to american 'rocket scientists', but it might be interesting to notice that Russians never fully embraced their shuttles (Buran, http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/rsa/buran.html ) despite it posessing payload and operational capacities superior to those of US Shuttle...
'...computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons...' Popular Mechanics, 03/49'
The point is that at this rate, with exceptions such as the Hubble, it's cheaper to deorbit a broken sat and send up another one ( 200kg of stuff to send upstairs) than to send up a shuttle to service it (20 tons of stuff to send upstairs).
Most of the cost of an earth-orbiting sat is ultimately the launch vehicle.
The funding of the space program continues to be less and less each year (adjusted for inflation). Even those in NASA recognize it depends on the "will of Congress" to fund such an effort at a time when we are spending $180 Billion a year in Iraq, $200 billion on Katrina, Billions upon billions for Homeland Security and we still have other natural disasters to face (Rita is on her way now).
Further, we do not have the motivation that existed in the 60s, when Russia beat the US into space. It was not just American pride, it was a deterrent, to both sides, to show they had the technology to be a leader in the world. Unless we see China, or India on the moon, it is unlikely to be of such importance that NASA would be funded for it. Even if we do see them, the question may be "So what? We were they ~40 years ago."
Talking about precursors, or the technology we would derive from such an effort, will be lost on the "yes, but we have "X" that needs to be paid for first." I wish it were otherwise, but I just do not get the feeling we have the 60s excitement around space. People look at the technology and fail to see it was possible because it was necessary to fulfill the mission. They are thankful for the derivatives, but many believe another Steve Jobs could create the same in IPOD like fashion.
Any comments on the following analyses? Transterrestrial Musings
Space Access Update #112
This is all quite unnecessary. The private sector is already chomping at the bit to invest in manned space. Griffin says $100M over 13 years is going to be spent within the existing NASA budget for this initiative but if that $100M were simply available as incentives, be they prizes, tax credits for manned space transport and habitation, there would be an explosion of alternatives in a highly competitive environment that would yeild results in a short time.
Seastead this.
NASA have needed a heavy lifter ever since they (foolishly) retired the Saturn V. Now they'll finally have one again, and that's good. However, it doesn't seem to me like a big step up from the Saturn V -- unless I'm missing something. How does the payload capacity to LEO compare? Off the top of my head, I thought the Saturn V was rated for 220 tons to LEO, the new rocket only 125 tons. But maybe I am mis-remembering something, or reading something wrong?
:p Anyhow. . . To me it looks adequate (not great) for lunar missions. The idea of sending it to Mars is ludicrous, it would be like sticking Columbus in a rowboat with five other guys and sending him out to find America.
I'm a little disappointed that nobody seems interested in reviving the old Sea Dragon concept from the 1960s. If you were really serious about going to Mars, that would make a good foundation for it.
The CEV and associated launcher look sensible. I'm not sure about the CEV's crew capacity. NASA say it can carry four astronauts to the Moon or potentially six to Mars. Do I sense a problem with their math skills? Maybe another of those pesky metric conversion errors.
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.
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.
how many NASA engineers and others secretly cheered when Bush and Co. announced the end of the shuttle?
For too long we spent out time focused on the Shuttle instead of space itself. Everything other than a few probes was centered around the space shuttle. How much of the ISS was compromised because of the shuttle? Perhaps the original glamour of a flying space plane helped NASA but it sure turned into a Spruce Goose pretty damn quickly.
I really like this new direction. Getting the moon is the first step. While we might not reach Mars from there we never will have any chance if we just putz around in Earth orbit.
Perhaps the next habitation in space can be built on the moon. That can put the glamour back into the space age in a more practical method than a space plane.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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
Because of the difference in cost and risk, you can do vastly more exploration with robots than with people. I think sending people is the real conceit, and one that costs lives.
- 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.
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As far as I can tell, the SSME has to be the most complicated rocket engine ever designed. Using the older and simplier J-2S should significantly reduce costs and improve reliability.
I'd agree. The SSME has the design constraint of operating from sea level pressure to vacuum. Thus it runs at a very high pressure, which complicates things. Rocket motors designed to operate at altitude can be made simpler and more reliable.
If its not on the first stage it doesn't need to be a SSME, and it probably shouldn't be.
But it's great for NASA bureaucrats. They can just idle along, issuing press releases, running their "centers", and promoting their "education" programs, without actually building anything flyable. And they get to blame Congress for not providing more money.
You can see this already. NASA just converted their home page to Flash.
The next people on the moon will be Chinese. They have such a strong manufacturing economy that it won't be a stretch to build a big booster. The "China price" on a booster should be low. Maybe the US will buy some.
Do you think taht by 2018 CmdrTaco will know the difference between "to" and "too"?
"from the stuff-to-listen-too dept"
Scientists predict that Taco's spelling will be 10 times more accurate, with sufficient funding from Congress.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I believe that being an astronaut is on a volunteer basis. If you put an ad in the paper that said:
Be one of the first humans on Mars. All expenses paid trip to Mars one way, See a new planet. Do some research. There will be no return trip.
I'm absolutely sure you would have 1000+ volunteers that would consider their life a fair trade just to go, just to SEE it with their own eyes.
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
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?
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