Slashdot Mirror
Will The Next Generation of Spacecraft Land In the Water?
Reservoir Hill writes "Work is progressing on the design of the new Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the next generation of NASA spacecraft that will take humans to the International Space Station, back to the Moon, and hopefully on to Mars. One major question about the spacecraft has yet to be answered. On returning to Earth, should the CEV land in water or on terra firma? After initial studies, the first assessment by NASA and the contractor for the CEV, Lockheed Martin, was that landing on land was preferred in terms of total life cycle costs for the vehicles. Getting the CEV light enough for the Ares rockets to be able to launch it, and therefore eliminating the 1500 lb airbags for landing has its appeal. A splashdown in water seems to be favored."
Why not pick up the landing gear on the way back? Let's investigate.
Recall: Apollo's flight plan was an initial burn to get into earth orbit, another burn to leave orbit on course for the moon (trans-lunar injection), another burn to get in orbit of the moon, and another burn to leave orbit on course for earth (trans-earth injection). That's it. They didn't return to orbit after leaving the moon. They left the moon, coasted for a couple days, hit their entry interface, then hit the Pacific.
Why? Going back into orbit requires adding two more burns: one to enter Earth orbit, and another to leave it. Adding a rendezvous with the ISS (or any other floating payload) means an additional 1-2 burns to match the orbital planes, an additional burn to raise or lower your orbit, and God knows how long until the orbits of the two vehicles sync. Look at the space shuttle: even with matching the orbital planes and scheduling launch for an ideal rendezvous profile, it takes them 36-48 hours to catch up with the space station.
Trans-earth injection is complicated enough without adding all that. Extra burns means extra propellant, which means extra weight, which is exactly what you're trying to avoid. Not to mention, each of those steps is another opportunity for failure, and how do you abort if you don't have landing gear?
This is why they are Rocket Scientists(TM).