Pieces Coming Together For NASA's New Spacecraft

Matt_dk points out an update on the progress of development for NASA's Ares I launch rocket, excerpting: "NASA is using powerful computers and software programs to design the rocket that will carry crew and cargo to space after the space shuttle retires. But those computers will have their work checked the old-fashioned way with the first of several uncrewed demonstration launches beginning in 2009. Ares I-X, the first Ares I test rocket, will lift off from Kennedy Space Center, Fla. in the summer of 2009. It will climb about 25 miles in a two-minute powered test of Ares I first stage performance and its first stage separation and parachute recovery system." Reader coondoggie notes that NASA is also looking further afield, putting out the call for ideas on moon colonization. They'll be offering a variety of grants for projects which facilitate human activities that are "not reliant on Earth's resources."

Comments

and That is exactly how they will come apart

[zoomshorts]

In pieces.

Re:and That is exactly how they will come apart

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the "-1 Uncomfortable Truth" moderation when you need it?

Will it actually happen?

[takane]

According to this it may not actually happen, in fact it may just be the beginning of the budgetary death spiral for the whole manned space program.

Re:Will it actually happen?

[terraplane]

At last... maybe the utter failure that is the space program will be shut down for ever. It's brought nothing but death, misery, moral depravity, secularism and other preversions.

Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[ZosX]

While the 20 some year old space shuttle (that was kind of funny, I mistyped it shittle the first time) ages not so gracefully, we need a replacement to move people and objects to the ISS. Obama is already talking about scaling back the most massive projects at NASA, and in today's econopolitical climate I doubt there is going to be a great deal of support behind new huge expensive rockets. For the amount of raw materials and fuel expended (yes, I know rockets can be relaunched) it doesn't strike me as a very efficient way to get into space. Where are the sleek little ships that we hop into and are in orbit in minutes? I know its science fiction (orbit takes a great deal of velocity and acceleration from 0 to such lofty speeds might take a bit of time), but we should be pouring a lot more of our money and time into finding better sources of energy and ways to harvest them. I mean, liquid fuel rockets are like whawt, 60-70 year old technology now? Nuclear technology....60 years roughly? All these advances happened at or near the end of World War II. Computers....oh wait...that was also about 60 some years ago. Sure every technology has been advanced, but when you look at the overall progress (transistors, notwithstanding) it has all been an evolution from these earlier examples, but nothing so revolutionary as they were in the first place. The combustion engine was developed over 100 years ago. Where is the Edison of the new age? Where is the Tesla of the 21st century? Could I be totally wrong in thinking that while our rate of knowledge is increasing at an exponential rate, our actual technology is increasing on a much, much flatter curve, if it is a curve at all.......?

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Samschnooks]

The ISS is a white elephant and a distraction to NASA. It should be abandoned for real scientific and research pursuits.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Anonymous Coward]

While the 20 some year old space shuttle (that was kind of funny, I mistyped it shittle the first time) ages not so gracefully, we need a replacement to move people and objects to the ISS. Obama is already talking about scaling back the most massive projects at NASA, and in today's econopolitical climate I doubt there is going to be a great deal of support behind new huge expensive rockets. For the amount of raw materials and fuel expended (yes, I know rockets can be relaunched) it doesn't strike me as a very efficient way to get into space. Where are the sleek little ships that we hop into and are in orbit in minutes? I know its science fiction (orbit takes a great deal of velocity and acceleration from 0 to such lofty speeds might take a bit of time)

It's not science fiction, it takes a couple of minutes to reach orbit with those big rockets. The fact that you don't even know this makes me think you're talking out of your arse.
  What we need are more dense fuels, which basically means nuclear (either fission or fusion), otherwise we're stuck with the ridiculously tiny ratio of payload to launch mass.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[usul294]

The problem is that the few ideas that are out there for better engines have things like little nuclear reactors on top, and the public doesn't want that. Also, in terms of technology being 60 years old, the tubes that pushes your data around online are ~30 years old. Also, its pretty ridiculous to say that anything with a transistor is "evolutionary" or that anything that can do math is "evolutionary". If you're looking for today's Edison's and Tesla's I'd point you to the USPTO and ask them how many patent applications they get a year.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[hitmark]

people are no longer interested in blue sky research, as the military-industrial complex is not buying any longer...

hell, even the big pharma-corps are no longer interested in antibiotica and similar as the expense of r&d is to big vs the number of years they get to sell the product...

those pesky bacteria adapts to quickly, for modern economics of scale...

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[ZosX]

Gotta love nasa:

Alexandria from Orlando
How long does it take for the Orbiter to get in to orbit?
Very good question, it only takes 8 and half minutes. It's quite a wild ride when you consider that they have to go from that standing start to 17,500 mile per hour. In the initial acceleration, right off the launch pad going straight up it's faster than a Corvette, I do believe. And the amazing thing is that the whole shuttle stack weighs about 4 and half million pounds, not just 3,000 pounds like a Corvette.

Its true that it takes less than ten minutes. It still is not the speed that science fiction depicts it as being, where a space ship just zooms out of a planet instantly, though I suspect our g force limitations would keep us from going much faster. It was more just a comment, and yes, I am just talking out of my ass =). It is true that nasa has tough times ahead. It is also true that we need some massive technological leap forward to make space travel all that feasible.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Tubal-Cain]

Other than exploding a series of bombs under the rocket, how could nuclear be used as a propellant? Making steam from water?

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Meumeu]

Also, its pretty ridiculous to say that anything with a transistor is "evolutionary" or that anything that can do math is "evolutionary".

Of course it's evolutionnary, I mean a Core i7 is not that different from the Antikythera mechanism...

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Or of course we could always use something that at least reduces the amount of energy that must be held as fuel, for example using a few miles of track and a sled as the first stage.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Hawthorne01]

Or of course we could always use something that at least reduces the amount of energy that must be held as fuel, for example using a few miles of track and a sled as the first stage.

Which comes with g-forces that would squish any astronaut into the consistency of strawberry jam.

Like it or not, until we get a beanstalk up and running, we're stuck with chemical rockets for a while when it comes to manned missions.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

Hey, at least for the future, they learned how not to run a space station. I'm sure NASA and all the other space agencies have smart enough people to not fail so abysmally next time.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Ihmhi]

Damned if I get modded flamebait for saying it, but do you really want to see NASA as it currently stands have nuclear engines in their ships?

They've lost, what, two manned craft in the last 30 years (Challenger and Columbia)? That's sad, yes, but it's a small portion of their overall manned operations in that time. What if "only" two U.S. tactical nukes were accidentally dropped while they were being flown over some American land during training exercises in the last 30 years?

If one of those ships goes down and sprays radioactive waste everywhere, it's going to be bad. That means NASA is going to have to be extra careful and require a boatload more money than it currently has in its budget.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I think your observation is correct. The way I've looked at this is macro vs micro developments. Most progress has been in the world of small. Moving large things over large distances has seen little change. Another example of missing progress would be the commercial airplanes we use. 45 years ago I flew in a Boeing 707 at 500 miles an hour and today you climb into a plane that looks much the same and flies the same speed. We definitely need the breakthroughs you mention. Compare that progress to the computer world built upon semiconductors and integrated circuits.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Nit Picker]

Back in the 50's, 60's, and 70's several experimental nuclear rocket engines were built and static tested They were reactors that had liquid hydrogen forced through the core. One of the projects went by the acronym NERVA if you want to look it up. My understanding is that the engines had specific impulses well above those obtainable with chemical rockets, but no one liked the potential impacts of a launch failure.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Zibblsnrt]

What if "only" two U.S. tactical nukes were accidentally dropped while they were being flown over some American land during training exercises in the last 30 years?

Only dropping two of them by accident would be a fourfold improvement over the eight (that I know of) from 1966 and 1968.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Richard_at_work]

By using either alpha particles or neutrons as a replacement for ions in a basic mass reaction engines, just nuclear powered!

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem was that the nuclear heavy water would eat through the piping (remember, it's a rocket so things have to be lightweight. The shielding seen on nuclear power plants and even), spewing a radioactive cloud behind it.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[maxume]

While you are in the atmosphere, you can make hot air out of cold air.

There isn't all that much atmosphere to work with, but I suppose you could make a launch platform a la S.H.I.E.L.D., and you could always try to accumulate velocity while going sideways.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[maxume]

Coal power spews radium and uranium into the atmosphere. It isn't visible or concentrated, so it doesn't receive all that much attention.

A few kilograms from a reactor incident would make a huge mess, but it wouldn't be devastating to much of anything.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is that our current model is to send crew and supplies together. For a long duration mission. Since supply weight far exceeds crew weight, why not use a huge rocket for just the crew (low mass -> high velocities) and send equipment for, say, T+1 week by a sled-launcher?

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[NotmyNick]

no one liked the potential impacts of a launch failure.

The fact is, no one like(d/s) the impacts of a launch success. Do your own search for the reality.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[aurispector]

Good point. IIRC coal fired power plants have spewed more radioactive material into the atmosphere than nuclear plants ever did, including the accidents. The greenies really shot themselves (and everyone else) in the foot by confusing nuclear power with nuclear weapons in all the "no nukes" bullshit they used to peddle. God save us from ignoramus do-gooders. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[aurispector]

we are just starting to live with that particular can of worms.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[FleaPlus]

Where is the Edison of the new age? Where is the Tesla of the 21st century?

Here's some people who combine Edison and Tesla in varying degrees, either through novel technologies or (more importantly) utilizing already-existing technologies more cost-effectively to try to reduce the cost of spaceflight by orders of magnitude:

• SpaceX founder Elon Musk
• Game-programming demigod turned rocket builder John Carmack
• Burt Rutan
• Robert Bigelow, head of Bigelow Aerospace, a company constructing private space station modules
• Jeff Greason and his XCOR Aerospace

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[FleaPlus]

While the 20 some year old space shuttle (that was kind of funny, I mistyped it shittle the first time) ages not so gracefully, we need a replacement to move people and objects to the ISS.

Sure, but there's plenty of already-existing or under-development rockets capable of lofting people to orbit with relatively little additional work, like Lockheed Martin's Atlas V, Boeing's Delta IV Heavy, and SpaceX's Falcon 9 Heavy. Both Lockheed and SpaceX are already pursuing plans for placing manned capsules on their rockets.

It's simply absurd for NASA to spend several billion dollars on the Ares I to try to compete against what these companies already have (or will finish before the Ares I is ready). I realize retaining jobs in Space Shuttle congressional districts is all-important, but surely there must be a more productive thing for them to work on than the Ares boondoggle. NASA should, you know, actually try to push the frontiers of research and technology instead of trying to compete against commercial solutions.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Tubal-Cain]

Sounds like it may be plausible for LEO missions (IANARS*), but it won't be taking us to the moon (and definitely wouldn't bring us back).

* - I Am Not A Rocket Scientist

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[maxume]

I'm not a rocket scientist either, but if it were viable, it might chop off enough of the bottom of the fuel pyramid to make other missions easier or cheaper.

For hand-wavy reference purposes, a 3 million kg Saturn V launches about 47,000 kg into lunar vicinity, and about 118,000 kg into leo:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Repossessed]

You'd think that, but the ISS was station number 3.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Ihmhi]

Coal power spews radium and uranium into the atmosphere. It isn't visible or concentrated, so it doesn't receive all that much attention.

That's my point.

We're exposed to tons of harmful radiation. The Sun, emissions from power plants, that creepy guy with the lazy eye at Starbucks, etc. But when it happens in one big chunk like this, there's a public outcry.

This is also why there isn't as much complaining about the general emissions from power plants but a huge complaint when some organization dumps a few tons of toxic waste into the river.

If a shuttle blows to bits, well, it's a national tragedy but there's no real lasting damage to the environment. Maybe a chunk of heat shielding will take out a 200 year old oak tree at worst. But if a nuclear reactor - even a small one - impacts on the earth, than the environmentalist nutjobs are going to be up in arms about how NASA can't keep using a "dangerous alternative" to power like that. What the Hell would they expect us to use to get into orbit? Wind power?

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[evilviper]

but we should be pouring a lot more of our money and time into finding better sources of energy and ways to harvest them. I mean, liquid fuel rockets are like whawt, 60-70 year old technology now? Nuclear technology....60 years roughly? All these advances happened at or near the end of World War II. Computers....oh wait...that was also about 60 some years ago. Sure every technology has been advanced, but when you look at the overall progress (transistors, notwithstanding) it has all been an evolution from these earlier examples, but nothing so revolutionary as they were in the first place.

Almost NOTHING is ever revolutionary, pulled out of a void into existence. It is all the meticulous and seemingly-small refinements that make existing inventions (with little or no practical purpose) into revolutionary products.

While Thomas Edison was busy "inventing" the light BULB

, the streets outside his offices were lit with electric lights (specifically, carbon ARC lamps). And truth be told, it wasn't the light bulb that brought electric light to the world, it was the slightly later development of the florescent lights that led to the artificial illumination of the vast majority of the world.

The steam engine was around for centuries before Watt was born, and thereafter made numerous improvements to become the most practical power source for most uses for the next couple centuries.

Nuclear power was indeed a revolution... but that revolution was humanity becoming able to harness a fundamental force of nature. No amount of R&D is going to come up with a new force of nature... So, unless you've got a "gravity power" plant in the works, or an easy source of antimatter up your sleeve, don't hold your breath for fundamental breakthroughs.

As far as internal combustion engines are concerned, the next step is obvious, and available right now... The same fossil fuels we burn right now can be directly converted to electricity at extremely high efficiency in a fuel cell, finally getting us past the fundamental Carnot heat exchange limit that has been the rule for the past 3 centuries.

As far as nuclear, everybody knows about fusion, and its potential to fundamentally change the modern world. What remains is for someone like Watt to come along and figure out how to make it practical. And before you ask, yes, plenty of funding has been going towards the development of fusion, but breakthroughs are not forthcoming, and it's not just a question of throwing more money at the problem.

Still, none of this has ANYTHING to do with rocket propulsion... They're already nearly at maximum theoretical efficiency, and technology isn't going to change the equation of getting 1g of material into orbit in a self-contained craft.

What CAN make waves, however, is the less glamorous changes in kind, rather than technology. The space shuttle, for instance, is already designed to piggy-back on a Jumbo Jet... Substantial fuel savings could be offered by launching a spacecraft from high in the atmosphere, already moving at supersonic speeds, by atmosphere-bound means.

Similarly, NASA most certainly is continally funding the development of fundamental improvements to space flight, such as the infamous "space elevator" and supersonic ramjets. Still, neither is a revolution, but an incremental improvement over what we already had for decades.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[evilviper]

Damned if I get modded flamebait for saying it, but do you really want to see NASA as it currently stands have nuclear engines in their ships?

It's not flamebait, it's plain old fashioned ignorance.

Hint: They already do... On a routine basis. RTGs are the only real alternative when solar power is not practical, and every mission (American or Russian) going out past Mars uses them extensively. The Apollo missions carried them onboard, and Apollo 13's RTG is currently chugging away in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There have been dozens of other incidents as well (mostly Russian, but a few via NASA), and yet we all remain, shockingly, NOT-DEAD.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[camperdave]

Other than exploding a series of bombs under the rocket, how could nuclear be used as a propellant? Making steam from water?

Yes, exactly. That's how most nuclear reactors work. When you get a stable chain reaction going, it generates a lot of heat. In a basic nuclear power plant, that heat is used (indirectly) to turn water into steam, which is used to turn turbines and generate electricity. Currently, the reactor is fueled with solid uranium pellets. The problem is, with solids, if you don't cool the reaction properly, the fuel gets so hot that it melts through the floor of the reactor. There is a gas, uranium hexafluoride, which is also radioactive. If you get the density of the gas right, it undergoes a chain reaction and generates heat. The bonus with using a gas is that by depressurizing it, you cause the reaction to stop. The hotter the gas gets, the more it wants to expand and the more it expands the slower the chain reactions. It becomes self regulating. It will never melt down because it is already a gas.

Okay, so you take this Uranium hexafluoride, and put it into a silica glass chamber and you spin the gas like a mini tornado. This gives you the proper pressure. The silica glass is thick, but transparent to infrared, so the heat gets out but the gas stays in. You let water flow around the glass chamber and it becomes steam. The steam is ejected out the back of the rocket. The steam is never in contact with the uranium, so there is no radiation. The energy density is three to ten times what a chemical rocket can do.

Google up nuclear light bulb rockets, and NERVA.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[DMUTPeregrine]

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Actually, that's a common misconception. It's paved with frozen door-to-door salesmen.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me quote Ben Rich who headed up Lockheed Skunk Works. Before his death he said:

"We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity" he also went on to say "anything you can imagine we already know how to do."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Rich

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[pnewhook]

These actually used the exhaust to blow past the core and cool it to keep it from going critical. Worked but the exhaust was then radioactive. Also you had to keep a minimum amount of thrust or the cooling effect wasn't sufficient and it would explode.

A good science experiment but completely useless for human space travel.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[kvezach]

"Exploding a series of bombs under the rocket" actually works. It's called Project Orion, and you feasibly could send city-sized ships to Saturn with it. Later proposals used conventional explosives for the first blast, so there would be little fallout. Unfortunately, the thing's illegal (by the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963). The fallout would also kill ten people (globally) per launch, on average.

So that leaves internal engines. Yes, it's possible to make a nuclear rocket. It can either be solid core, liquid core, or gas core.

Solid core is your basic nuclear reactor mounted to a rocket. Heat the reactor up, pass hydrogen (or some other gas) through it, it heats up and goes faster out the other end. The problem is abrasion, and there's also a temperature limitation - if you run it too hot, the reactor melts and that's no good. The temperature limitation means that the rocket's limited to about 1000 seconds of specific impulse.

A liquid core reactor takes that lemon and makes lemonade. The reactor can't melt because it's already molten. With some sophistication, it's possible to make the reactor stable (spinning the mass in some way; I know too little about the details). Put hydrogen in one end, get superheated hydrogen out the other. But now that hydrogen drags with it some uranium too, and you get fallout galore.

The gas core rocket exists in two forms. The open gas core reactor is like the liquid core reactor, except now the uranium is gaseous. Even more uranium mixes with the hydrogen. This leads us to the closed gas core reactor, where the nuclear inferno is trapped inside a "light bulb" of quartz, which is almost transparent to the blackbody radiation in the temperature range in question. Still, that reintroduces temperature limits, but they're far more generous than solid core limits. Hydrogen (or the propellant, whatever it is) is introduced so that it flows on the outside of the quartz, gathering heat and speeding up.

According to this nuclear engine page, closed gas core reactors have specific impulse ranges of 1500 to 3000 seconds, and open gas core reactors have specific impulse ranges of 1800 to 7000s. In contrast, the Space Shuttle has a specific impulse of 450 seconds, and a jet about 2000 seconds. Note that I've only mentioned high-thrust engines; it's possible to make ion engines with extremely high specific impulse, but they'll be no good getting you to orbit, and it takes forever to accelerate in space using such engines.

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Atiniir]

If the ships are city-sized, does that mean that we can build cities into them, like the cover of Boston's Don't Look Back?

Re:Still more tough times for NASA ahead.....

[Shotgun]

I've said it before, but it bears repeating.

A computer only concerns itself with moving signals back and forth. Cars, airplanes, and space vehicles concern themselves with moving actual matter around. The former is bound by Shannon's Law, but the actual signals can be made smaller with more sensitive electronics. Accelerating a body of mass a given amount will require a specific force, and there is no way to reduce that force.

To improve a rocket, you have to extract more energy from the fuel it carries. This is limited by the energy contained in the fuel's chemical makeup and your ability to handle said chemicals and the energy it contains.

To make a signal transmitter and reciever smaller/more energy efficient/faster, you have to improve manufacturing preciseness.

We hit the theoretical physical limits of known materials early in the space race. Barring some unknown element or catalyst being discovered, there isn't much new to be discovered, so there won't be any radical improvements.

We knew the limits of making integrated circuits smaller in the early 70's, but we couldn't image transistors that small. We've been slowly engineering manufacturing technologies to make the process more precise, and thus transistors smaller. Notice that processors haven't been doubling in speed every two years lately. We've about reached the limits of that road two, which means you'll stop seeing 'drastic' improvements in processor technology. Improvements will start to be small, incremental, and spaced much further apart.

Re:ATTENTION MODS!! DO NOT MOD DOWN!! +5 INFORMATI

[Anonymous Coward]

What? You mean it's not Xenu who'll destroy the world? I call you an SP.

"New" rocket.

[Lost Penguin]

1970 called, they want their technology back.
When are we getting rail gun launch systems?
Single Stage to Orbit?
Aurora?

Re:"New" rocket.

[ColdWetDog]

1970 called, they want their technology back.
When are we getting rail gun launch systems?
Single Stage to Orbit?
Aurora?

1950 called, Heinlein wants his plots back. Or maybe it's that 1865 telegraphed and Jules Verne wants HIS plot back.

Come ON you guys, this is SCIENCE FICTION. Fiction. You guys watch too many instructional videos for your own good.

Rocket Science is HARD. No easy way off this planet. No pony.

Re:"New" rocket.

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

We'll get a rail gun launch system when the laws of physics no longer apply. Do you want to build a 30 mile high charged tower to accelerate human occupants safely and power it?

Re:"New" rocket.

[lenehey]

we should be focusing on a space elevator. This is technology that is feasible, and would really open up the solar system for human habitation.

Re:"New" rocket.

[Richard_at_work]

When you, the taxpayer, decide that you do want to pay the taxes to actually build those things, and you will be astute enough to vote the right people in to ensure that your tax dollars go to education and research, and not to wars that noone can win!

Re:"New" rocket.

[budgenator]

Somehow the idea of dragging a near super-conducting space elevator cable through a tropical thunder storm or hurricane seems like on with a low probability of success.

Re:"New" rocket.

[maxume]

Most voters are only taxpayers in a nominal sort of way. If you pretend that entitlement program taxes aren't really taxes, the skew is even worse.

Re:"New" rocket.

[Martin Blank]

That's why it goes at the equator -- no tropical storms to worry about there, as those that form even near the equator will move away from the equator.

Re:"New" rocket.

[budgenator]

I'd imagine that the air convections caused by any storm within a 100 miles would easily cause static potentials in the 10-50Kv range on the cable. Also there was an experiment with the space shuttle designed to determine how much electricity would be generated by dragging a tethered satellite which ended when the tether cable burned out. while a space-elevator cable wouldn't be vulnerable to the same currents, all it would take is one good CME and its bye bye cable.

NASA is trying a new approach...

[Anonymous Coward]

...which is almost exactly opposite the approach that has caused problems with the vehicles of the past.

Verifying Analysis Tools

[amori]

"the flight of Ares I-X will be an important step toward verifying analysis tools and techniques needed to further develop Ares I, NASA's next launch vehicle." A prototype I see. Makes sense. It's not an easy task to model and compute everything given the state of supercomputers. Helps to know some old school validation still works.

Helium-3 Harvesting?

[1336]

"The space agency is offering about $1 million grants under the Ralph Steckler/Space Grant Space Colonization Research and Technology Development program that has been established to help support a broad range of human activity in space that, for the most part, is not reliant on Earth's resources NASA said."

I wonder if that will include harvesting lunar Helium-3 for fusion research...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3

Re:You clowns voted for him...

[hitmark]

i dont thing it would change much no matter who it was that took office, except maybe that the other one would want to channel the money into warmongering rather then attempt to kill the deficit...

but this is all from a ignorant european...

but lets face it, space exploration is a blue sky research thing, and thats a area thats been in decline since the 1980's...

if it cant make a buck, scrap it...

Saturn V

[p51d007]

I bet those rocket designers from the 50's to the early 70's are laughing their butts off. They tell them in the mid 70's, we are going to abandon a PERFECT launch vehicle, and replace it with a glider. If the shuttle had been build AS DESIGNED, it would have been much safer than strapping a couple solid rocket motors and millions of gallons of hydrogen/oxygen. Now some 30 years after the last Saturn V launch, they are building a crew module/escape rocket that looks like a grown up version of the Apollo Command/Service module. a "triangle shaped" reentry vehicle is a cheap, perfect design to get people into & out of space. If they REALLY want to get into space faster, just have James T. Kirk do another time warp and bring the Enterprise back with him. Now that "transparent aluminum" is coming to reality, it's time that the warp engine come into being.

Re:Saturn V

[ZosX]

There's a good bit about this in wikipedia. Pretty interesting. The cost and heat shield parts are almost ironic.

Even before the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, NASA began early studies of space shuttle designs. The early studies beginning in October, 1968 were denoted "Phase A." Further studies resulted in "Phase B" in June 1970. These plans were much more detailed and more specific.

In 1969 President Richard Nixon formed the Space Task Group, chaired by vice president Spiro T. Agnew. This group evaluated the shuttle studies to date, and recommended a national space strategy including building a space shuttle.[1]

In October 1969, at a space shuttle symposium held in Washington, George Mueller (NASA's deputy administrator) presented opening remarks:[1]

        The goal we have set for ourselves is the reduction of the present costs of operating in space from the current figure of $1,000 a pound for a payload delivered in orbit by the Saturn V, down to a level of somewhere between $20 and $50 a pound. By so doing we can open up a whole new era of space exploration. Therefore, the challenge before this symposium and before all of us in the Air Force and NASA in the weeks and months ahead is to be sure that we can implement a system that is capable of doing just that. Let me outline three areas which, in my view, are critical to the achievement of these objectives. One is the development of an engine that will provide sufficient specific impulse, with adequate margin to propel its own weight and the desired payload. A second technical problem is the development of the reentry heat shield, so that we can reuse that heat shield time after time with minimal refurbishment and testing. The third general critical development area is a checkout and control system which provides autonomous operation by the crew without major support from the ground and which will allow low cost of maintenance and repair. Of the three, the latter may be a greater challenge than the first two.

The 1972 NASA/GAO REPORT TO THE CONGRESS, Cost-Benefit Analysis Used In Support Of The Space Shuttle Program states:[2]

        NASA has proposed that a space shuttle be developed for U.S. Space Transportation needs for NASA, the Department of Defense (DOD), and other users in the 1980s. The primary objective of the Space Shuttle Program is to provide a new space transportation capability that will:

                * reduce substantially the cost of space operations and
                * provide a future capability designed to support a wide range of scientific, defense, and commercial uses.

Re:Saturn V

[mrsquid0]

The Saturn V was not the "perfect launch vehicle". There were only a dozen or so launches, and we were lucky that none of them failed. It is very likely that if we had used it 100-150 time it is very likely that there would have been fatalities. The Saturn V has achieved a bit of a mythical status, but it was always an experimental vehicle and never really left the test flight stage of development. Yes, we do have the blueprints to start building them again, but I do not see how that would help us because they are still largely untested vehicles.

Re:Saturn V

[Detritus]

It was hardly perfect. It was expensive and took a small army of engineers and technicians to prepare and launch. If it was magically resurrected from its blueprints, we probably couldn't afford to operate it without a massive increase in NASA's budget.

pieces coming togethr

[Anonymous Coward]

Pieces Coming Together For NASA's New Spacecraft

lets hope they stay together this time

Sid Meier

[NevarMore]

Sid would be pleased. Once NASA assembles all of the pieces of the spacecraft we'll win a space race victory.

Just gotta get our scientific advances in Lasers sorted out to build the party deck.

Too bad Obama is cancelling it

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad, Obama is cancelling the Ares and new crew vehicle project "in these troubled times." Hope the russians keep building those Soyuz things.

When I read the blurb I thought...

[rnturn]

``... those computers will have their work checked the old-fashioned way ...''

Oh, does that mean the NASA engineers still have their old slide rules in a drawer somewhere? Or that they'll hire a bunch of people to sit at rows of desks doing calculations by hand?

(Fortunately, the article was a little more informative.)

Re:When I read the blurb I thought...

[budgenator]

Oh they wouldn't use those old crusty slide-rules, they'd need modern slide-rules made out of carbon-fiber reinforced composite materials, with laser etched makings and a sapphire crystal slider; oh yeah don't forget one version in metric and one in English measure and an instruction Manual in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese and Russian!

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one wondering why they don't use what they already have? They have spent untold billions on the shuttle program and they know it works. Why not take the existing shuttle plans and work on a on a new version using new technology? You already know where the major issues are from launch to landing so see if new tech can help eliminate them. You'd have to be able to reduce the weight of the thing at the very least - just by using new computer systems and using composite materials. I'm all for taking a fresh approach to things because I think that's where you get novel ideas, I also think you can take the same approach in a more limited fashion with ideas that have been proven to work. Why cram astronauts into a small pod when they could cruise aboard the shuttle? Imagine how much stuff they could take with them on just one mission. While I think a heavy lift rocket system is useful and needed for support purposes I think abandoning shuttle technology for manned missions is a step in the wrong direction.

Edison & Tesla of the 21st century

[Narnie]

Where is the Edison of the new age? Where is the Tesla of the 21st century?

Edison and Tesla of the 21st century are tied up in the patent office trying to prove their concepts and in court rooms trying to win litigation battles with patent trolls.

Meet Sigmund Freud.

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

fucking angry frustrated partisan shill

Mr Coward, kindly allow me to introduce you to Mr Freud.

Re:Barack Obama will gut NASA.

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to blame Russia on this one.

slide rules Re:When I read the blurb I thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

Better hope they've got slide rules in the desk drawer (I do).. you can't buy new ones any more, nobody makes them. When the power fails, and you need to calculate by candle light, the slide rule keeps on going, and it's a lot lighter weight than the CRC math table book, and easier than Napier's bones.

Space Race Victory

[Anonymous Coward]

Has just been handed to the Russians last week:
http://rescommunis.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/nasa-extends-contract-with-russia-for-iss-transportation/

What the fuck is a "software program"?

[EWAdams]

Is it somehow different from a software tricycle or a software bikini wax?

"Software program" is redundant and the sign of a journalist with his head up his ass.

Private Sector.

[terryjamesduffy]

They should just sub-contact to thoes people already building the newest spaceplane system.