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NASA Scraps Shuttle And Returns to Rockets
nathanh writes "NASA is building a launch system that they've informally dubbed Apollo On Steroids. It's a hybrid design of the Apollo capsules and the Shuttle's booster rockets and engines. Crew and cargo are lifted by two different rockets: the crew use a single-booster/single-engine rocket and the cargo is lifted by an awe-inspiring two-booster/five-engine rocket. NASA reckons this craft will take humanity back to the Moon and then to Mars. Has NASA realised that the old designs were better? Or is this all a ploy to recapture the hearts of the public?"
Sure, they'll get to Mars in it. All their muscle mass will be gone, but they'll get there.
You need a spinning ring to provide artificial gravity or they will literally collapse when they set foot on Mars.
Shouldn't the title read "NASA Scraps Shuttle And Returns to Capsules"?
Both the shuttle and the capsules are lifted by rockets...
Japan intends to build an orbiting solar station by 2040. The planned satellite is to be equipped with two giant solar panels, each being 1*3 km in dimension, and will weigh about 20,000 tonnes, thats impressive
Back to the topic, i wonder how much cold-war flaunting the shuttle represented at the cost of practicality...
Umm...NASA's budget has actually increased with respect to inflation for the first time in recent memory.
Old doesn't necessarily mean unreliable in design terms - after all, the Russian's workhorse Soyuz orbiter is based on a 1960s design too, but you'd hope that by 2018 we'd be using something.. a little more high-tech.
Just to give a reminder of how much momentum has been lost in the space program: I was born in the same year the movie 2001 came out - when that film was made it was absolutely believable that the sort of technology portrayed in the film could be in use by 2001. The (admittedly flawed) Shuttle was an obvious step towards this future - but somewhere everything went wrong. This is not the future we were promised. Where are the flying cars?.
Still, it's all progress of a sort, I suppose.
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This isn't an attempt at something nouveau and ground-breaking engineering-wise
until there's some fantastic new propulsion technology, ground-breaking engineering isn't going to happen anyway. there's only so much you can do within the bounds of chemical rockets. nuclear propulsion is politically off-limits, and ion engines haven't scaled to multi-ton spacecraft yet.
The shuttle was never build for lunar travel. It is important to understand that different spaceships are used for different tasks. The shuttle is used to bring cargo up to (low) altitude, while escaping the earth gravity completely and going to the moon (or mars) is a completely different story.
You might carry a Luna space ship into orbit with the shuttle, but then you will just be carrying a spaceship within a spaceship. That would be a waste of fuel.
The shuttle is only good if you wish to bring stuff back down with you. In that regard you might have used it on returning to the earth. The returning spaceship could dock with the space station and transfer men and cargo to the shuttle for safe landing. But that's only saves the weight of a single heat shield.
So dropping the shuttle for a Luna and mars mission is the obvious choice. A lot of comments will be made in regard to "return to the old capsules". But this is not really relevant. The "old" capsules were a good design. The engineers for the first Luna expedition did a lot of thinking and testing before going there, so it's a good design. To come up with something new, just for the case of "making something new" would be stupid.
But these new capsules are not old! They use a new propellant, to prepare them for the mars expedition. And as the old Luna Lander had computer power equivalent to a modern average car, I'll expect the new ones will be far more advanced.
This is the same case in regards to the boosters. These are actually based on the Shuttle engines and lifters. So the engines are the same, even thou the exterior is not. And these boosters are far more advanced than the old ones as well.
So scraping the Shuttle and returning to the old capsules?
Not true.
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As much as I'd like to think "ploy", they probably are onto something.
If you think about automobiles, for instance, the most efficient configuration seems to be a combination of small passenger cars and large semi-trucks. The shuttle was basically an SUV: high maintenance, high cost, low gas mileage and range, and not big enough for truly heavy lifting. It was popular because it fit into the American one-size-fits-all independent mentality.
But the shuttle was also part of a natural evolution. We started out driving a Pinto. We had newfound freedom, but little useful to do with it. To take the next step required a vehicle capable of doing some serious work. But we couldn't afford to go from a Pinto to a Mack Truck. That would've been too expensive, and risky. Instead, we got a Suburban, and used it as a daily-driver, as well as for some backyard projects. The insurance was less than having two autos. There was some maintenance, but we could do it ourselves, without an expensive mechanic.
Now, though, we can afford both the Mercedes and the F-350 flatbed. We have a legitimate use for each. Eventually, we may need the equivalent of a subway car, and a Greyhound bus, and a bullet train. But even here on Earth we have lots of different ways to get around, each optimized for a specific task. We shouldn't be surprised that space is no different.
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We're returning to rockets, you say?
Well it's about damn time. I'm sure it'll beat the pants off all those rubber bands we've been using in the mean time...
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When you are going to Mars, or the Moon, you don't need slick aerodynamic spacecraft. The wings on the shuttle do nothing other than make it fly like a glider when it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere. On a trip to Mars or the Moon, they are simply dead weight that would have to be pushed along.
Nothing has changed in external capsule design over the past 35 years either, but don't count on them being oldschool tech - They will incorporate a whole heap of new technologies, and internally they will be totally different.
Having 1 thruster active with directional nossels is safer than two either side as per the shuttle design. As if one booster/rocket fails on the shuttle you would lose directional control.
If one thuster fails on a standard rocket then you end up without it going anywere.
Now a normal rocket also offerers better stremlining and as such less fuel needs over the larger front surface profile of the shuttle.
Also the possiblities of having the top command capsule capable of having a seperate jetison detach rocket and parachute landing system incase of failure enabling the crew to for all effect eject and and be recovered does seen alot more viable over any modification to the shuttle design.
So basicly it will be cheaper/simpler/safer and for some....sexier.
Now what I would like to see is a way to send all the old space junk into a pile or crashing onto the moon ready for one day when we do eventualy go back and stay there. Scrap metal/floating space junk is afterall probably the bestest concentrated form of resource up there at the moment that is already past the hurdle for getting to the moon with regards to breaking out of earth's gravity.
Come on folks, we can't even organise ourselves on Earth to prevent avoidable damage from hurricanes and earthquakes, we can't agree on whether we are causing climate change by producing greenhouse gases, we are faced with an influenza pandemic that no-one really knows how to deal with, and we still have R&D money to spend on sending people to the moon and Mars?
The things you mention, and other unavoidable stuff like a massive meteor strike, are precisely the reason(s) we should be doing these things. Our goal shouldn't be to "simply" get to the Moon, or Mars. Our goal should be to establish a viable self-sufficient colony there that would ensure, should some catastrophy strike here on Earth that wipes out all life on the planet, the survival of the human species. Right now, all of humanity's eggs are in one basket, and as you've pointed out, that basket is looking more fragile by the day.
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On the other hand, once the Russians solve a problem they reuse the design. The engines used for the boosters that launched Sputnic were fundamentally the same as those used for every subsequent vehicle for decades. Need more thrust, add more engines. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
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I think cheap is better than gee-whiz perfection when it comes to highly experimental projects like space exploration. First what we should work on is sending unmanned packages into space on the ultra-cheap. So cheap that we can send thousands of such packages up if we want to. Ideally these packages would be able to not only get out of our atmosphere but also to self navigate and land on the moon. Then we could build experimental machines designed to study the moon and prepare it for mankind by burrowing out air-tight caves big enough to contain a moon base and maybe even organizing all that material bored out into something that'd be useful for astronauts when they get there. What we want is to send cheap machines up that can put into place everything we'll need to live there. If each machine is cheap enough to make and deliver then we can replace those which fall short of our goals or that fail. Trying to make expensive fail proof machines that are even more expensive to deliver is a sure way to put off getting there until the end of the century. Using cheaper machines and delivery we should be able to get there in the next decade.
As much as people might hate to hear it I'd cut corners on manned space vehicles too although not near as many corners. Exploration has always been a dangerous business. Let the bold take their chances and reap their rewards. Open being an astronaut to anyone that passes a basic phsyical and psych test and whom might be able to do something useful. Honestly we're going to need to send up some cheap manual labor. If 1 in 3 ships doesn't make it it really doesn't matter if the people going are replacable and the ship itself didn't cost much. Hell, fall back to the old system of taking recruits among prisions and the poor. It may be dangerous but it gives them a chance at a new life. Always exploration has been a chance for those with nothing to lose to risk everything for that chance. Do it again.
In the longer view I think the space elevator is going to be the delivery mechanism for the masses but for now ultra-cheap rockets is a good idea. The cheaper the better so long as they can still get the job done at a rate faster than what we're doing now. (Wasn't there a story recently on rockets that need 1/10th the fuel for the same lift? which means carrying less fuel weight which means needing less than 1/10th the amount of fuel to achieve the same work.)
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On the solid rocket booster: A more reasonable figure for [reliability of] the mature rockets might be 1 in 50. With special care in the selection of parts and in inspection, a figure of below 1 in 100 might be achieved but 1 in 1,000 is probably not attainable with today's technology.
On the main engine: Engineers at Rocketdyne, the manufacturer, estimate the total probability [of shuttle main engine failure] as 1/10,000. Engineers at marshal estimate it as 1/300, while NASA management, to whom these engineers report, claims it is 1/100,000. An independent engineer consulting for NASA thought 1 or 2 per 100 a reasonable estimate
So, how exactly does this make a safe, reliable launch system?
When you take a long road trip, how do you get back? You don't carry hundreds of gallons of fuel in your car, you fill up when you need to. Same idea with the Mars mission; you send a bunch automated chemical equipment to Mars, and it makes fuel out of CO2 and Hydrogen. When the astronauts get to Mars, they have their own filling station in order to get them back home.
We can barely afford to keep a low-earth-orbit space station from burning up in the atmosphere, never mind actually doing anything useful. (The crew spends all its time on maintenance.) Now we're supposed to keep a lunar station going using super-sized Apollo designs that were abandoned decades ago because they were too wasteful. What are the crew supposed to do on the moon, anyway? Dig? What are they supposed to do on Mars? It's hard to imagine more useless lumps of dead rock.
Asteroid missions (manned or not) would be interesting. Space elevators would be very interesting. Even another Cassini (for Jupiter) would be interesting. Instead, they're gutting JPL. Anybody who says this is something other than a disaster for NASA and for space exploration is drinking Kool-aid.
The biggest breakthough we can hope for is for the brainboxes at NASA/ESA to make a launch vehicle that doesn't carry it's own fule. The advantages of such a system are huge, lower mass (several thousand ton of fule less) means less fule all oth which makes for a cheaper and safer launch with heavier payloads.
Sudgestions my are:
magnetic pulse/rail gun to repel/shoot the craft (probably work better on the moon)
fire the fule at the craft at a plate unter the craft (exploding on contact)
Space elevator go solar! That Jap station with the 3^2km pannels might come in useful.
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Seriously, every one of the comments above did not mention it. The Space Shuttle is the ONLY way to lift the new sections and the only way for America to send/get back astronauts (Though we can hitch a ride with the russians like we already have)
There is a gap between where the Space Shuttle will be retired (if it isnt taken out of service or has another catastrophic failure before that) and when the new CEV and Heavy Lifting vehicles hopefully come online.
There are 15-20 trips required of the Space Shuttle just to finish the ISS, can it make all these trips before 2010 when it has to be recertified and will probably be decommisioned altogether?
What will be done in the 4 year gap to 2014 when the new vehicles are due?
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I'm sure you know all this already, but just to put things in a historical perspective for those who don't:
The original shuttle design was, basically, a car. It cheap, reusable, and could carry buggerall cargo. And only in some orbits.
Then NASA wanted the Army's space budget. The Army was launching some bloody huge spy satellites (the solar panels alone are pretty darn big) in a polar orbit. And they already had the rockets to launch those. If they were gonna give NASA their budget, NASA had to be guarantee they'd put those huge spy satellites up there. What the Army wanted, basically, was a truck.
So the shuttle got inflated to being big enough a truck to haul up anything that the Army could possibly want hauled up.
So here we are with a one-size-fits-all solution that makes as much sense as saying that a 10-wheeler truck is the one-size-fits-all automobile. You can drive it for anything from cargo transports to groceries to driving your kids to school, right? It has to be the perfect family vehicle, right?
In practice, that one size still didn't fit all.
For starters, now for anything smaller (e.g., a 1-2 ton satellite), packing it in a bloody huge and heavy shuttle makes as much sense as packing a half a pound Walkman in a 100 pound steel safe when shipping it by UPS. Yeah, so the safe is reusable, but you still pay entirely too much for shipping.
As a more insidious thing, it just created the problem of crew safety in a lot of situations where a crew just wasn't needed to start with. (Which, as we know, just jacked prices up even more, and made it even less attractive to use the shuttle for a lot of things. Other than as a national Our-Penis-Is-Bigger-Than-Yours status symbol.)
E.g., the army was already lifting and positioning those satellites in orbit without a crew. A computer is perfectly capable of positioning a satellite in orbit on its own. You don't need a crew of cosmonauts for that.
Using cosmonauts for that just means you have the extra worry of bringing them down in one piece, and bad PR when you don't. An unmanned rocket with a satellite exploding is something we all don't get too emotional about. E.g., you can joke about the Arianne incident and how it shows the risks of reusability, and noone will take it as insensitivity. Or about the Mars lander metric/imperial screw-up. But toast 5 cosmonauts and people get this weird thing called empathy.
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- Apparently not a smidgen of Apollo hardware will be used.
- We're talking separate boosters for crew and cargo, again not an Apollo paridigm.
- Using liquid methane ain't the Apollo way either.
It's more a marketing thing, piggybacking on the name of a successfull project. Just like calling everything "Ethernet", even though it's now completely different in every way from the original.In the 1980s, a Soyuz booster did explode (just like the Challenger), but since they didn't commit the fundamental design flaw of omitting an escape system, the cosmonauts walked away from the incident.
Their launch cost = 1/20th of shuttle launch cost.
Which country's taxpayers are getting a better deal for their money?
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I've worked at NASA JSC since 1979. There was a history archive building (or actually, several). I worked in one of them on a very slow second shift, watching data reduction programs design the leading edge of the shuttle wing, among other things. I browsed the library for reading material while I waited for tapes to spin and printers to print. (And card readers to read, too!)
All the plans were there. When they shut down the office, they dumped boxes and boxes of duplicate records, books, etc, that had been collected as the various parts of Apollo, Apollo-Soyuz, Skylab, etc shutdown. I got a chronology of Skylab. Another coworker got books on Apollo and Gemini, along with drafts of the first space shuttle - the one called Dynasoar, and its descendents, from back in the 1950's.
"Systematic destruction" is complete baloney.
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nuclear propulsion is politically off-limits
Hopefully not for too much longer. According to recent polls Americans are less likely to agree with or pay attention to environmental groups than at any other time since the '60's, and many who previously would've opposed the construction of nuclear power plants are now in favor of using them to replace current oil and coal-fired plants. The trend is especially marked with the under-40 age group, who describes itself as "disenchanted" and "increasingly skeptical" of environmentalist claims.
With the primary political base of environmentalism shrinking due to the aging of its main supporters, it's quite possible that nuclear power - once the Great Boogeyman of our hippy past - will make a strong resurgance. And with that comes the possibility of using it for other applications (international treaties to the contrary be damned).
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Their art department is still over budget from that whole moon landing hoax. But I'll agree, even the moon landing was rather unoriginal.
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They decided they wanted to continue to try to drive capital away from commercial launch services so they could continue to keep a strangle hold on access to space.
Time was when I would have supported NASA's science missions, supported by a commercial launch infrastructure. However, now its clear they just use their science missions as an excuse to block anyone from competing for their monopoly position.
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