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NASA Shows Off Mock-Up of Mars-Capable Spacecraft
N!NJA writes with this snippet of a report from Reuters: "NASA gave visitors to the National Mall in Washington a peek at a full-size mock-up of the spacecraft designed to carry US astronauts back to the moon and then on to Mars one day. The design of Orion was based on the Apollo spacecraft, which first took Americans to the moon. Although similar in shape, Orion is larger, able to carry six crew members rather than three, and builds on 1960s technology to make it safer."
They're still working on the parachute.
Is this the same 'Orion' as the old atomic bomb powered Project Orion?
Would that be the large, unmarked banks of blinking square lights, the female voice that always says "Insufficient Data" followed by a dramatic orchestral chord, or the engine that the chief engineer can only repair 10 seconds before destruction?
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
"Although similar, it builds on 1960s technology"? While the old one was build on 1860 technology? I don't get it.
"Hey! I just touched it and this piece fell off!"
"Hmm... It's... a Mock-up?... Yeah! It's a Mock-up!"
Don't get me wrong I hope we get off this rock and have a *real* space program but I suspect that I am not the only person reading this that thinks they were born before their time.
Good luck NASA, I hope it all goes well, this time.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Wow, all these years of working on the new moon/Mars project, and they hit upon the ingenious idea of making an Apollo splashdown pod slightly bigger. My tax dollars at work.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
We'll be at Alpha centuri in a few years, if all goes well.
Nah, I prefer to win the game by global conquest. It's much more entertaining to pour all of your resources into armies, fleets and aircraft than spaceship components. Those fucking Celts will soon pay for sacking Athens back in 3400 BC, muhahahahahahahahaha.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
"You came in that thing?, Youâ(TM)re braver than I thought"
"...and builds on 1960s technology to make it safer."
Ah, am I the only one reading this and questioning just exactly what the hell we have been paying NASA Engineers millions of dollars for over the last 45 years?
I mean, I'm all for K.I.S.S. methodology and all, but damn, 40+ years worth of advances should not be completely looked over for "tried and true". Even that is questionable, given Apollos not-so-perfect track record.
Hell, how many "safety" features are still in use today from the 60's in automobiles?
Guess I better start buying stock in vacuum tube manufacturers...
Sets some interesting challenges never mind the amount of time to get there but simple landing and taking off again will be horrendous. Bear in mind that to achieve even Low earth Orbit you kneed some pretty impressive ordinance. Getting back from the moon will be a piece of piss in comparison at only 16.6% earth gravity but Mars's gravity is 38% earth gravity which means any escape mechanism is going to kneed orders of magnitude more impulse in order to achieve marsion orbit compared to to same feat on the moon. I'm not sure it could be achieved with a single stage rocket although I admit it's a possibility. But what about Launch a pad???? Will it be Liquid or Solid propellant???? Many many questions of which I'm sure even NASA hasn't even started to look for answers yet.
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Yeah, I'm having a little trouble believing that's going to be an adequate space-craft for going to Mars. For a several day trip to the moon, ok - but being bottled up in that thing for 2-3 years? And where are you going to store several years worth of supplies in there?
I think somebody is smoking something.
Why are you all still in the '90s?
http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/Constellation/
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
when we get to watch em die light minutes from earth in space.
Even with that risk, I'd sign up as the first to go.
Lock the wife and the dog in the boot of the car.
Return one hour later.
Who's happy to see you?
Perhaps in the large, cylindrical service module which will be launched by Ares 5 before the crew takes off? The crew capsule is just for earth takeoff and landing. They dock with the rest of the spacecraft in earth orbit before leaving for elsewhere.
I believe that the capsule will only be the command center/cockpit/bridge of the spacecraft that is planned to go to Mars. The rest of the craft will be assembled in orbit from various Ares V launches.
The vehicle in question is an ascent/re-entry craft. It might be sufficient for the trip to the moon (though certainly landing and relaunching will require a second craft as it did for Apollo), but this vehicle is not up to the task of providing suitable living conditions for a trip to Mars.
For a Mars trip this is at best a way to get up to the interplanetary vessel and return to Earth from it. Given that, I can't imagine why you would bother to cart it all the way there just to cart it back.
Is it too much to ask for people who read a supposedly tech site actually read, and perhaps think, before pounding their keyboards with things like "how's that little thing going to get 6 astronauts to Mars?", "NASA is stoopid", and the like?
Its proposed use is to carry up to 6 astronauts to the space station, and from there, 4 to the Moon. For the Moon missions, Orion will travel along with the Altair lunar lander.
For Mars missions, "Orion could rendezvous in low Earth orbit with vehicles that will take explorers to other destinations in our solar system such as Mars." http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/306407main_orion_crew%20_expl_vehicle.pdf
These Mars-bound vehicles will be assembled in low Earth orbit. There is no reason to believe that 4 or 6 astronauts would be confined to the small Orion capsule for the duration of a Mars voyage.
On a side note, I was 5 years old when I watched the first manned landing on the Moon. It's amazing to me that a manned Mars mission may happen when I'm in my 70's. Certainly not how I imagined things when I was young.
This mock up will come in quite handy when they fake the Mars landing.
"I feel sorry for the crew who has to spend all that time in that shit box."
They won't. And you can really consider that capsule is more or less the escape pod from the real spaceship. Other way to think about it is the "shipping container for the crew and return samples".
I suppose most of the time the crew will have more spacious quarters, specially when en route to Mars. The capsule will also never get to the Martian surface - they will probably have a descent vehicle either with them since Earth or safely parked in Martian orbit as well as an ascent vehicle landed near their working site on Mars that's there since before they leave Earth.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Obviously, they are going to use the technology developed in 1967 that let them freeze Austin Powers. So, they will be in cryogenic stasis, reducing the need for food and other niceties like toilets.
Not sure that I would want to be stuck in that with 5 other people for two years.
With enough viagra, lube, and toys, a crew of 3 guys + 3 gals might just survive. Exhausted, to be sure, but in pretty good spirits.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Except they opened up the lander after docking, made sure it was OK, and then sealed it up again until they got to the moon...
How Apollo Flew To The Moon
You don't need rotation to create artificial gravity, you need constant acceleration. This is what the rotation in space odyssey does, and they might as well keep accelerating their craft at 1.0g, and then turn the craft around halfway and keep decelerate in 1.0g to get the same effect.
c++;
So, they'd tow it to Mars?
Like a freakin family on Vacation to the Catskills?
I hope they shape the trailer like one of those old Airstreams....that would be cool.
WTF? Over?
Except you can keep rotating for free, while constant acceleration using chemical (or even fission) power requires completely insane amounts of fuel.
One added benefit to the rotational method is that you can gradually alter the rotation so that by the time the astronauts reach Mars, they are acclimatized to its gravity. Same thing on the trip home.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
When Earth becomes completely overpopulated and/or runs into resource shortages, that's when we'll see space flight really take off.
How is that, exactly? Population is governed by compound interest. Our population today is 6.6 billion souls. The current growth rate is 1.167% per annum. (Data via CIA.) Do the math. Today there were 213,000 more souls and 6000 tons more human flesh pressing inward on Mother Earth than yesterday. Tomorrow there will be 213,000 more. The day after - another 213,000. In six months that will be 214,000 per day - six months later, 215,000 per day, and so forth and so on. Less than a year from now there will be another 1.8 million tons of human flesh literally shouldering other species into extinction. That's not 1.8 million tons total - that's just the additional growth of skin and hair and sinew and good red meat locked up in your mama's Soylent Green recipe.
For space to matter in the solution of this problem, we have to build a fleet of ships capable of offloading 213,000 people - a new space fleet every day, year after year - forever. A space shuttle carries a crew of seven - so we need 30,000 space shuttles a day or 35,000 Orions. (Of course, that only gets you to low Earth orbit.) Each year we would have to move 1.8 million tons of human cold cuts - that's the equivalent of 18 Nimitz class aircraft carriers of flesh - to some other distant, unwelcoming world.
And then, of course, you've just shifted the horizon of the always looming catastrophe to a collection of planets rather than a single planet. Since this is a doubling issue, colonizing another planet - say, a terraformed Venus - just buys you an additional 60 years. If you want to push the inevitable collapse of civilization off for 240 years (roughly the duration of the American Experiment to date) - well, you need 15 additional Earth clones.
Our population problem will be solved on Earth - one way or another.