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Project Orion to Bring U.S. Back to the Moon
ganjadude writes "Thirty-seven years ago yesterday, Project Apollo put the first humans on the surface of the Moon. The next time the U.S. launches its astronauts to Earth's natural satellite, they will do so as part of Project Orion." From the article: "Under Project Orion, NASA would launch crews of four astronauts aboard Orion capsules, first to Earth orbit and the International Space Station and then later to the Moon. Two teams, one led by Lockheed Martin and the other a joint effort by Northrop Grumman and The Boeing Co., are currently competing to build the CEV. NASA is expected to select the winner in September."
ah, the moon, the stepping stone to Mars. for me, this is a subject of much ambivalence. it's nice to see some actual money being spent on science, but at the same time, I struggle to really identify what benefit there is going to the moon, or to Mars. Other than public relations benefit, of course. But really, what will we find? That a few simple organisms once existed on mars, and that Mars once had water? But don't we know this now?
The Europeans focus much more heavily on aero-sciences, and we seem to be a lot more captivated by reaching the moon (etc). The Europeans are busy doing piles and piles of research (which will ultimately find many useful things), and similar research in this country is largely the burden of private organizations. All the tangible benefits we've reaped from space travel (tang, velcro, etc) could have been discovered much more cheaply (or if you prefer, in greater abundance for the same price) if we were simply focusing on inventing and not reaching some milestone out in space.
I guess what i'm saying is that I'm not sure how to feel about this; It's science, and exploration, and both are good (imo), but if we want to prioritize, wouldn't billions of dollars be better spent focusing on fixing our own messed up planet? Assuming there is some inherent benefit to going to the moon/mars/wherever, is it really necessary to send *HUMANS*? Could we not fund 10x as many unmanned missions and learn probably close to 10x as much?
I promise this post isn't a troll, I am a filmmaker, and interested in science, but obviously I have some question as to the science-value of putting men on a rock in space.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Didn't Apollo manipulate the goddess of the moon (Artemis) into killing Orion?
Not exactly the most auspicious name...
I read that as Project Onion.
Either way - something to cry over, I'm sure
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... and cutting Shuttle flights and ISS funding and space telescope funding ...
I predict we will get some nice, new expensive exhibits for Space Camp and not much else.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
I was also really annoyed at the name. They take the name for a project to get man to a planet on another solar system, and use it for this much much smaller project. :(
Alternatively, we could revise the name of the original nuclear pulse propulsion version of Project Orion. I vote for "Project KABOOM" :-P
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
I vote for a name change
No kidding. Naming in Orion is travsity. The real Orion would open up the entire solar system. This return to Apollo style capsules is an embarassment, a belated acknowledgement that we went down the wrong path and now must back up and start again. Nothing at all like the great leap forward that a nuclear pulse rocket would be.
Project Orion has been used in a lot of sci-fi stories. The basic premise is that nuclear warheads are dropped below the ship, where the detonate and the blast lifts the ship. Relatively cheap way to lift immense masses.
:)
It'd be the easiest way to establish a permanent moon base or make a trip to Mars, but of course people don't like the idea of thousands of nuclear warheads going off in their backyard.
Obviously only the name is the same with this latest version.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Apollo 18 was killed by budget cuts shortly after 19 and 20 were. :(
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On the other hand, I agree that the Shuttle was the wrong path. It is/was an expermiental vehicle, neutered by politics. Who knows what it might have been had they stayed true to the original vision. Alas, politics is the fountain of compromise, and compromise is the enemy of engineering.
Not really. In order to use a nuclear pulse rocket (or any realistically sized method of nuclear propulsion) you need a heavy lift rocket. Currently there is no heavy lift rocket that could realistically put a nuclear pulse rocket into LEO (and a nuclear pulse rocket would have to be in a very high earth orbit or in interplanetary space before any politician would allow it to be activated). Rebuilding our heavy lift capability with the CaLV or Ares V is essential.
Second, we need a cheap way to put humans into space. The CLV or Ares I will do that.
The only part that you should consider a waste would be building the lander (and perhaps the CLV if you are one of those machine-only supporters). The Ares architecture will be extremely useful for future technologies. Even large rockets like the Delta IV or the Arianne V are kids toys compared to real heavy lift rockets like the Saturn V and the Ares V. Having a 100 ton class rocket makes a lot of projects possible, not just Project Orion.
You've already gotten the usual answers: dubious claims of technological advances (always a very short list, usually stuff that was being worked on already), and utopian ideas of being able to provide a backup of human life (which would cost hundreds of trillions and doesn't really seem necessary, especially to a cynic like me who thinks that if we manage to wipe ourselves out then we're not worth backing up). Plus the usual "It could produce all kinds of stuff you don't know about" (which hardly seems like justification for spending a quarter-trillion dollars) and a vague notion of manifest destiny.
All of which are lies. They're obviously justifications because they don't want to tell you the real reason: because it's cool. And arguably, that's the best reason.
The US reached its position of power in the world largely on the back of its inventiveness. (Immensely fertile land didn't hurt, but we'd have long since tapped that out if we hadn't invented a huge array of technology to prop it up).
If a high-profile "scientific" mission (there's actually little scientific value to manned space-flight) inspires the things that bring money into America today, from Sergey Brin to Dean Kamen to Craig Venter, perhaps it's money worth spending.
Other than that, it's mostly a way to funnel vast sums of money to prop up the military contractors. Guess what Boeing, Northrup-Grumman, and Lockheed do when they're not building space-ships? And they do it in practically every Congressional district in the country.
Why would other civilizations be angry about our no bid contracts? They're costing us, not them.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
If you bother to look past the short term expenses I think you will start to realize how beneficial it would be to establish modes of efficient travel and a permanent presence on terra luna. There are physical characteristics there that make it ideal for a number of different industries, most obviously, an inconsequential atmosphere, and relatively low gravity.
For example, how big and how perfect of a pure silicon crystal could you grow there? And how much energy would it require? The low gravity means that you could make one much bigger (6 times as big? or is there an exponential factor there?). The near-nothing atmosphere means that probably all the energy you would need would be available via solar panels. Energy collection could be a business in itself (you want to stop using hydrocarbons, right?). And what about transport of these goods? What would it cost? How about almost nothing to any location on planet earth? I imagine even small towns would have a designated delivery port where lunar cargo could be dropped with the accuracy of a smart-bomb... cheaper and faster than a cargo ship from China.
Sure, it's incredibly expensive to establish a presence there, but in the long term, it's more expensive not to.
Key takeaway (at least according to some random internet source, ha ha):
Not to mention the cost of updating the design to include child seat brackets, non-CFC air conditioning, and an MP3 player input..."Can we only put ~70 mT on the Moon or can we put more?"
Um... 70 militeslas?
If you're trying to say "metric tons," you might be better off with "mton," "tonne," or the far less ambiguous "Mg."
The Saturn V is insanely inefficient by today's standards. But they are thinking like you're thinking- they are using the same concepts as the Saturn V, but applying space shuttle technology (specifically the main engines, which are arguably the best rocket engines ever designed). SSMEs are wonderful units. Lots of money were spent on them, lots of testing was done, they've been continuously improved and have never experienced a failure. They're the way to go.
How about we land in earnest and setup a permanent base, really hedging humanities bets against any astronomical catastrophe short of a supernova.
We need to head up there and build a glass factory and an iron factory, is what needs to happen. Then we need to start building all types of stuff that will be very inexpensive to launch because the moon's gravity is so much less than the earths.
I mean, is there a point to these missions? Or are they just more little go and take picture expeditions?
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Can we get back to NASA looking UP and OUT and let NOAA handle looking IN and AROUND?
Personally, I want NASA to come up with good spacecraft and ways to foster getting those spacecraft up cheaper and faster. I'd prefer to let NOAA concentrate on things like global warming and CO2 impact.
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
Once upon a time, this nation was comitted to putting the best and the brightest forward, and creating the most we could with the technology available to us at the time.
Sadly, those days are behind us.
Now it seems, every project is a bad compromise, and it seems to have started with the Shuttle Program. Originally intended as a fully reuseable system that took off like a plane and landed like a plane, it then became a boondoggle of wildly incompatible systems that culminated in a bad hack where you strap the orbiter/glider to a fuel tank and two sticks of TNT and cross your fingers.
NASA still had high hopes for a full resuable system with the VentureStar, which sadly, never got beyond computer animations and little plastic models. The DCX, which had a 1/3 scale flying prototype, was scrapped after a few tests.
And now here they are again, with a bad compromise, using existing parts from the shuttle program and haphazardly slapping them together and crossing their fingers.
It would save a ton of money to design a good system from the start, even if it's more expensive up-front, than to build a system that's awful to start with and hope you can improve upon it with time.
It's funny that sci-fi from the 60's and 70's was so hopeful about where we'd be by this time, because we were making so much progress back then. If only they could have forseen how much time we'd wasted by going backwards, and designing lousy systems that can never really fulfull their mission requirements.
It's hard to believe that even before Yuri Gagarin was launched, America was reaching the edge of space in a rocketplane called the X-15, a simple, durable design that worked stunningly well, and, had we continued along that path, we'd all probably be living in space right now.
But no, we took two steps backwards with "spam in a can", sticking a capsule on top of a missile, and we've been making the same mistakes since then. And now, here we are in 2006, talking about using essentially the same technology from the 60's, when we should have already been reaching the outer planets in long-distance exploration vessels as seen in Stanley Kubrick's "2001" film.
America no longer puts its best and its brightest on top. America no longer prizes doing the best it can do. It's embarassing, that's what it is.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I'm a capitalist. I hate Wal-Mart, true, but I'm a capitalist economically speaking. I see nothing wrong with people driven by profit, I believe in the "invisible hand", although I recognize its flaws.
But I also support various programs that produce no profit (directly) and cost a great deal of time and money, including space exploration.
Why?
Because I'm a human being. I like that we're exploring. I like that we're pushing beyond these bounds placed upon us. I am fascinated by the idea that man could do something so complex as leave this earth and visit the Moon, or Mars, or beyond. It's not just the money - it's the fulfillment of a human desire. Something we were "made" for - to reach out and extend ourselves beyond this sphere and to travel to new lands. I must admit - my thoughts are based purely on ideology, not "reason". But I think I'm not alone in this.
There's something about space exploration that should set off that spark in all of us - something beyond money, beyond mere profit. It's the advancement of the capabilities of an entire species - it's not merely that Americans have been on the moon, but man has been there.
If (when) it costs hundreds of billions to go to Mars and back, with no economic returns, it will still have been worth it. We will then be able to say that man has gone to the moon, that mankind has made yet another massive acheivement.
Are there things on earth that need to be fixed? Yup. But if we wait for things to be perfect here before we leave, we'll never go. In any case, simply giving away money has rarely had a positive effect on most social problems - it's often made them worse.
Why climb Mount Everest, when it gains you nothing and could cost you your life? Because it's there. That's a good enough reason for me to see us go to the moon, Mars, or anywhere else.
In any case, I think we all love the moon...
And of course that doesn't even *begin* to count the *serious* risks, like what happens if you develop nice convenient little Mr. Fusion Hand Grenades and an assembly line to produce them by the tens of thousands, or the risks that doing enough nuclear explosives research to get the right size Project Orion fuel charge means the Weapons Of Mass Destruction people get to reuse any test design work for whatever other applications they can think of.
Nonetheless, it was *way* *fscking8 *cool*.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Project Orion was a proposal from the 1950's headed by Freeman Dyson to drive a spacecraft by throwing nuclear baombs out the back end. I guess you could call that pulse propulsion. Even suggesting something like that today would have every anti-nuclear type going ballistic (pun intended.) Chemical rockets are clearly a dead end, but the eco-freaks will never allow nuclear, laser launch, beanstalks, electro-magnetic catapults, or any other alternative system. :(
I heard a story that the space ship, Discovery, in the movie 2001 was originally concepted to have an Orion-type nuclear propulsion system. Trouble was that Stanley Kubrick had just made a big splash with Dr. Strangelove. He decided that it was just too many nukes.
A quick google netted this web site that supports the story.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The SSMEs have been cut. The current plan has the Ares V using RS-68 engines from the Delta IV for the 1st stage. The upper stages of both Ares I and V will use J2-X. Yep, as in those J2s. From the Saturn program.
If you read the Wikipedia article, you'll see that a launch would be about the same as one 10MT weapon. They did plenty of tests in Nevada last century.
If you could get past the public hysteria over nukes, it would be quite feasible. A sufficiently big reason like a certain asteroid hit or China with weapons in space would probably do it.
Still, as a regular launch method that seems a bit much...
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
I dunno, maybe it wouldnt have as bad a long term effect as I'm thinking, even with super small detonations, but I wonder...
hummm.... maybe this time they really go there!!!
Have a gander. [xvid 250MB]
(tip. If you're using Firefox on linux, drag the link to a xine window and stream it. If you're using windows, then you might have to copy the link and paste it into your player- vlc is good)Yours is a common argument. In an earlier era in the 1970s people were saying, why don't we spend that money here on earth where it's needed? Yet, every cent of that money is spent here on earth; it's not as though we launch tons of dollar bills into orbit and eject them into space. Thousands of engineers, scientists, physicians, space suit makers, rocket ship builders, computer programmers, astrophysicists, and others are employed by the space program.
:-)
By the same argument, wars are good for the economy. It is, however, a flawed argument, an example of the "broken window fallacy": "Throwing a baseball into the neighbour's window is good for the economy, because the glazier gets the money (by the insurance company), who then spends it at the baker's, or whereever."
It is a fallacy because the money that the insurance company pays has to come from somewhere. Overall, it is better for the economy if that money is invested productively.
The grandparent (poster)'s argument may well be that the same money could be spent more productively. Besides, part of the money really is burnt in space
It is a matter of discussion what percentage of the money spent at NASA could be called productive (in a similar way to "fundamental research").
Now, there may be all sorts of political reasons (and I don't mean this in a negative way, I mean it in the way "people want it") to go to the Moon and Mars (beside the fact that eventually we'll have to leave Earth, and we'll have to start some time before it's too late), but your economic reasoning is flawed.
Please let it be known that I love the idea of going back to the Moon etc., I'm just trying to be fair and not claim that there is more to it than there really is: A good idea, yes. Economically, probably not.
Is it Election Year already?
Compromise is actually very important to engineering.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
I'd love it if they would just focus on finishing the International Space Station, with all of it's modules so that we can actually have it staffed with a full (read useful) crew, instead of a skeleton 3 person crew.