Stacking of New Space Vehicle Begins At KSC

Matt_dk writes "For the first time in more than a quarter-century, a new space vehicle will begin stacking on a mobile launch platform (MLP) at Kennedy Space Center. The Ares I-X aft skirt, which was mated to a solid fuel segment in the Rotation, Processing and Surge Facility at KSC, rolled over to the 528-foot-tall Vehicle Assembly Building today, where it will be lifted and placed on the MLP in High Bay 3. On that platform, workers will secure the aft booster and continue adding segments of the first stage rocket, the upper stage simulators, the crew module mockup and the launch abort system simulator, taking the vehicle to a height of 327 feet."

Comments

Spaceship modules

[sopssa]

Dudes, the game ends at 2020. There's around 10 years to go, and the trip to alpha centauri takes way more turns. All the modules should had been installed by now and the space vehicle should be on its way already! I mean, I did take my extra time to build the better modules and prioritized production in all cities to do it, but I would had never left it this late in game to actually launch it.

Aah, Civ2 times.. All the lost weekends, while still learning so much from it.

Re:Spaceship modules

[Shakrai]

All the modules should had been installed by now and the space vehicle should be on its way already!

Not if you plan on winning by global conquest. People actually launched the ship in that game? I always paid on bloodlust -- or if I wanted a challenge I'd allow spaceships and race to conquer my enemies before theirs reached Alpha Centauri.

Why pour resources into exploration when you can pour them into global conquest instead? ;)

Re:Spaceship modules

[sopssa]

I actually found the technological way a lot better. It made it a little boring during early/mid -game, but I always had technological advantage to enemies because I pushed for it. Because of that the optimal winning tactic was launching the spacecraft to alpha centauri. Usually after it went there and I won, I would continue playing and totally crush the opponents who still were so much behind me in tech. I always found it hard to develop your army during game and still keep up with technology and city building.

Re:Spaceship modules

[Hurricane78]

Maybe you spent too much time, moving your units "around" the north and south pole.

Or your 500 sq. mile "cities" were too big, and you could not build enough onto that small map?

Re:Spaceship modules

[Shakrai]

I could never do it because I always got sucked into a war. Even when I had an entire island/continent to myself, an NPC would invariably land a settler and found a city within the radius of one of my cities and start stealing my developed land. A few dozen turns later and that particular NPC would be lain waste.

I didn't fall real far behind in technology while fighting wars because the computer players would usually switch to fundamentalism to keep up with your war machine. If they didn't and started to pull away in the tech race there's always the possibility of espionage to keep up. You did fall behind in the city building race though.

Re:Spaceship modules

[Drone69]

If you played Sid's follow-up classic Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire then you would have been there already!

Re:Spaceship modules

[Red Flayer]

Even when I had an entire island/continent to myself, an NPC would invariably land a settler and found a city within the radius of one of my cities and start stealing my developed land.

That is preventable, at the cost of a bit of food and production time. Simply ring your continent with your own small cities; your ZoC around your cities will prevent them from founding their own cities there. Same thing for spots you aren't currently using in your large cities. Found a small city to use up the excess production, and as your large city grows, you can move the small cities' workers off to allow your large city the use of that square. As your large city gets huge, you'll end up killing off your small city. No big deal -- you've prevented interlopers from invading your continent by settlement. As a bonus, when your city is down to size one and you raze it (rush settler production), you get a settler/engineer with zero upkeep cost.

Note that the interior cities are necessary to keep allies (who ignore your ZoC) from placing cities on your continent. For large continents, the interior cities method is more efficient than the ring-of-cities method.

I used this strategy on all difficulties except Emperor, which I was only able to beat by sticking to some of the published strategies out there (no science development until late in the game, rely on espionage and the Tech-sharing wonder to stay close to your rivals).

Re:Spaceship modules

[Red Flayer]

Ah, how far the mighty have fallen.

Where once that post sailed above the masses in the +3 thermocline, now it languishes at the bottom of score:0 canyon.
It is no longer its privilege to soar and swoop among the updrafts and downdrafts over the score:2 threshold, now it must crawl, penitently, through the scrubgrass.

Oh worthy moderators, how had he offended thee?
Was it his wanton brashness in posts of yore?
Was it his disagreement with your politics?

Oh, my keyboard for the knowledge of why, why, why
his off-topic post gleans deserved moderation, while its off-topic parents receive continued adulation.

Consistency, please.

Re:Spaceship modules

[rhyder128k]

It's annoying when a joke thread begins to dominate. Particularly when the subject is a most interesting article about Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Actually a plausible scenario

[StCredZero]

They do have that "Chicken Gun." I can imagine a test where they see what happens if you fire a chicken at 600 MPH into the 1st stage exhaust plume. Not that they'd ever have a good reason to do it, just that they could -- to have KSC Friend Chicken.

Maybe this is a one for the Mythbusters? How do we incorporate C4?

Re:Actually a plausible scenario

[wooferhound]

You would want to have the KSC fried chicken for your Launch break . . .

That's a low ceiling..

[theelectron]

327 feet? I was hoping it could fly higher than that...

This is the way to spend taxpayer money!

[tjstork]

I know a lot of other people might be down on NASA. They say its too much of this, or too much of that, should be privatized, etc.. but...last time I checked:

NASA was the only organization to put a man on the moon, land a couple of rovers on Mars, fly by Jupiter, Saturn, and the outer planets, build and operate a space plane and a space station.

Everyone says NASA is expensive, but, I think the value is just tremendous.

I cannot reiterate my support for NASA, enough.

Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money!

[FleaPlus]

I know a lot of other people might be down on NASA. They say its too much of this, or too much of that, should be privatized, etc.. but...last time I checked:

NASA was the only organization to put a man on the moon, land a couple of rovers on Mars, fly by Jupiter, Saturn, and the outer planets, build and operate a space plane and a space station.

NASA's done a lot of great things, but the Ares I-X isn't one of them. It's just a suborbital rocket model being put together mostly for political reasons, and has almost nothing in common with the Ares I rocket it's supposed to be a test for. It's been designed to specifically avoid all the big problems and question-marks which are threatening to doom the Ares I, making it almost useless as a test. I feel really bad for all the skilled NASA engineers whose time has been wasted on this make-work project instead of something more fruitful.

Like another commenter, I'm quite a bit more impressed by the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which is already at Cape Canaveral, even if it isn't using the MLP. That's going to be quite a bit more important to the future of spaceflight than the Ares I-X.

Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money!

[peragrin]

while I agree. i also don't want them to completely mothball the shuttles either. There is a handful of missions that only a shuttle can accomplish that would be worth every penny in keeping one on hand.

My personal favorite goal. When the Hubbel is finally dying And beyond repair, Send up a 2-3 man crew retrieve it and return it to earth safely. That is what the shuttle were meant to do with old satellites. retrieve them for proper disposal on earth. It is one mission not yet attempted. Besides how cool would it be to have the Hubbel space telescope setting in the Smithsonian? heck the majority of the shuttle launch could be financed by donors. It would be risky, but for that honor, i bet you get lots of volunteers.

Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money!

[ShadowRangerRIT]

The construction of the ISS was pretty evenly split between the U.S. and Russia. You're probably thinking of Mir (the first space station designed for long term occupation) or Salyut 1 (the first space station, beating Skylab by two years).

Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money!

[R3d M3rcury]

Agreed. Why NASA bothered with the Saturn I or the Saturn IB when they could have just waited until the Saturn V was built and then done everything after that shows what a waste of tax dollars NASA is.

(Yes, this is sarcasm)

Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money!

[cetialphav]

Everyone says NASA is expensive, but, I think the value is just tremendous.

When you look at the scientific value of the various unmanned programs, you are right. As a percentage of the nation's GDP, it is quite small and we can make tremendous discoveries.

The manned programs are a different story. They are hugely expensive, dangerous and provide little scientific value. Apollo, the Space Shuttle, ISS are not much more than engineering exercises that answer the question of "Can we build this?" Even the goal of putting a man on Mars is an engineering exercise. How many remote probes with specialized instruments can we send there for the cost of a single manned mission? There is no question that the science value is better with unmanned missions.

This is where I think NASA is fairly criticized. They want manned missions because they are cool and sexy, but they use science to justify the outrageous costs involved. Now I'm not saying the engineering problems are unworthy of being solved. But NASA needs to be honest about why things are being done. If they want to pursue engineering challenges, then they also need to pursue the relatively unsexy challenges of taking things we already know how to do and making it cheaper and more reliable. I just don't see where they have that commitment.

Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money!

[CrimsonAvenger]

Soyuz has flown many more times than the Shuttle, IIRC, so two losses is statistically much better for the Soyuz.

Umm, no. Soyuz 102 manned flights. Shuttle has done 126. So its two losses are statistically worse for Soyuz (1.96% Soyuz, 1.58% Shuttle).

I know there are people who have been indoctrinated into believing that the Shuttle is the worst vehicle to ever fly into space, and the Soyuz is the best. But, fact is, the numbers support the reverse position.

Shuttle has had 126 missions. 124 of them reached orbit and returned.

Soyuz has had 102 missions. 98 of them reached orbit and returned.

Of the 124 Shuttle missions that reached orbit and returned, 122 completed their intended missions, two had to abort due to non-lethal technical difficulties.

Of the 98 Soyuz missions that reached orbit and returned, 91 completed their intended missions, seven had to abort due to non-lethal technical difficulties. Note that one of the 91 "successful" missions included accidentally ramming Mir.

Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money!

[Martin Blank]

There was at least one mission that returned satellites to Earth. STS-51A returned two satellites that had malfunctioned; these were later repaired and successfully relaunched. I thought there were one or two others that did the same (and perhaps they were military missions), but I can't immediately find them.

Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money!

[FleaPlus]

Why NASA bothered with the Saturn I [wikipedia.org] or the Saturn IB [wikipedia.org] when they could have just waited until the Saturn V was built and then done everything after that shows what a waste of tax dollars NASA is.

Do you seriously think the Saturn I or IB are at all comparable to the Ares I-X? I mean, I'm certainly not against flight tests in general -- I think the Ares I-Y is useful, as it will test the 5-segment booster, one of the biggest question-marks about the Ares I. The Ares I-X is almost entirely PR, though. Ironically, it's looking like the Ares I-X schedule slips may result in the Ares I-Y being postponed/canceled.

Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money!

[jo_ham]

It was - the original design never had the O-rings expanding quite so much to seal the gaps, but it worked well, so they kept the design as it was. theye did know well before the disaster that the colder the rings were, the longer it took them to seal and the more damage was done to the SRB joint and ring itself, so they put a lower limit on the safe launch temperature.

On the day of the Challenger launch, it was below freezing (or close to it), way below any previous launch of the Shuttle. When the SRBs were lit, the O ring disintegrated immediately, but rocket fuel slag plugged the gap in the SRB joint. This held in place until the wind shear at Max Q dislodged it, allowing the hot gases out, which destroyed the rear support, allowing the SRB to swing out, pivoting around the upper support, causing the nose to break the main fuel tank.

Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money!

[khallow]

Not at all the same. The Saturn 1B could have been used in place of the Shuttle for cargo flights. The Ares-1X has no purpose outside of some testing.

Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money!

[demachina]

"NASA was the only organization to put a man on the moon"

That was 40 years ago, completely different organization now. They for the most part don't even remember how they did it since all nearly all the Apollo veterans have retired.

"and a couple of rovers on Mars, fly by Jupiter, Saturn, and the outer planets"

These are more JPL than NASA. JPL manages to operate in a little cocoon that has prevented it from being infected by the pointless bureaucracy in the rest of NASA

"build and operate a space plane and a space station."

Soviet Union/Russia operated Mir long before ISS came along and they actually did it on a reasonable budget and actually did stuff on it. NASA has spent way over a $100 billion, 30 years on ISS and its still not doing much useful science or anything else. They mostly spend all their time repairing and maintaining it. They NASA time line has them pretty much abandoning it as soon as they finish building it. No one will even be able to get there without the Russian's and Soyuz if the the Shuttle retires next year.

Soviet Union did build and fly a space plane but only to keep up with the U.S. I think they quickly realized it wasn't reusable because it had to be practically rebuilt between every flight, was staggeringly expensive to fly, and was very unreliable. It was common sense on their part they killed it and stuck the affordable Soyuz which is basically what NASA is coming back to with Orion. ISS and Space Shuttle weren't really NASA's finest hour. They justified the space shuttle because they needed it for the ISS. They needed the ISS so the shuttle would have a place to go. It was a circular firing squad.

The fundamental problem with the manned spaced division in NASA is that since Apollo they have never really had a mission. They just create the barest minimum mission they can think of to keep themselves employed. They know the President and Congress will never fund them to do anything amazing like put a colony on Mars, so they ask for missions that they can get funds for but they are kind of stupid and pointless. ISS and space shuttle were just so they had something safe for astronauts do in LEO and then they squander large amounts of money doing next to nothing. It was mostly a jobs program and the return to the Moon isn't really any better. Bill Nelson, Senator from Florida in particular insures NASA keeps getting funded just so he keeps the jobs in Florida.

NASA either needs to figure out manned missions that are compelling and useful or they need to stop wasting money and fall back on robotic mission until they find a reason for men to work in space. They only manned mission I can really see at the moment is a colony on Mars, everything else seems better done with robots and it would be a lot cheaper.

Buzz Aldrin, second man on the moon, wrote a piece a few weeks back about how silly it is for NASA to just repeat Apollo again forty years later. He proposed NASA partner with China, India, Russia and EU and let them lead the lunar mission because it would be new and exciting to them, while NASA focused on going to Mars and do something really exciting and with a point. He advocated my position is that Mars should be a one way trip for colonist and not another stunt like Apollo where we go, pick up rocks, and leave. I would be inclined to say the U.S. is too broke to do Mars but when you see us squander trillions of dollars on corrupt bankers, Iraq and a brain dead stimulas a colony on Mars almost seems pretty good by comparison.

Re:Maybe next year

[krswan]

Not live but recent images here: http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=4

Note the "mobile launch pad" disclaimer

[Anonymous Coward]

"For the first time in more than a quarter-century [...] on a mobile launch platform (MLP)"

Good thing they had that little disclaimer. SpaceX's Falcon 9 showed up there earlier this year. From the pictures, the Falcon's launch platform doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

http://spacex.com/updates.php

Re:Note the "mobile launch pad" disclaimer

[T Murphy]

The important part of that statement is the MLP is what goes into the high bays for assembly of the craft and moving the vehicle to the launch site. In other words it is officially the successor NASA rocket by following in the footsteps of the Saturn rockets and space shuttle.

Re:AERQWEDF

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Did you mean Florida Fried Bat?

wrong macro engineering again

[Max_W]

Again, cool shape, just for the sake to make it look cool and non-Russian. But there are certain things in physics, which are fundamental and cannot be made different.

NASA should make a rocket with the right architecture. It means it shall look like Soyuz vehicle. No other way exists.

It is like with Sylvester Stallone's Rocky. He did boxing with hands down in movies. Many boxers in real sport got traumas and spoiled their careers because they wanted to look as cool as Rocky on the ring.

And while I am on it, no vehicles should be built at all until the scientific metric system of measurement is introduced and imperial medieval system is banned. It should be forbidden, I do not know, by the Geneva convention. Due to pseudo-patriotism the complicated systems are built with archaic feet, elbows, inches, etc. All would be fine, but alive people are to fly it.

Re:wrong macro engineering again

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Aerodynamics, last I checked, is not a completely solved problem (granted, it's in better shape than the more general fluid dynamics, but still not solved), nor are a large number of other design decisions involved with producing spacecraft. I somehow doubt that aesthetics are trumping science in the look; rather, they're probably guiding the selection among a number of similarly efficient designs.

As for imperial vs. metric, I think the big hurdle isn't patriotism, it's inertia. People were born and raised on imperial, and it's hard to reprogram them later in life. And teachers start with imperial because you encounter it more often. It's Catch-22; you can't switch until people are comfortable with it, and you can't get comfortable with it until you switch. The U.S. is slowly starting to switch the teaching to metric, so I suspect we'll try the transition again in the next decade or two, once the majority of the population can deal with it. Otherwise, you get smartasses/idiots driving 100 MPH on every highway.

Re:wrong macro engineering again

[TheRocketMan]

And while I am on it, no vehicles should be built at all until the scientific metric system of measurement is introduced and imperial medieval system is banned. It should be forbidden, I do not know, by the Geneva convention. Due to pseudo-patriotism the complicated systems are built with archaic feet, elbows, inches, etc. All would be fine, but alive people are to fly it.

It's not patriotism as much as infrastructure for fabrication and test. I'm thinking of propulsion here, but this is true of other areas as well. Raw materials required/needed are only available in the USA in English units (5/8in tubing for prop lines, etc), for that to become metric would require all the suppliers to support metric as well: it's not just NASA. Also, machining and test equipment in many facilities (again, not just NASA) are non-metric: again this infrastructure could be converted but would be expensive and nobody has ponied up the bread to do the conversion and re-cert required.

All certainly do-able but there is a cost: not arguing against metric as I work only in metric, switching to all metric would make my life easier.

Re:wrong macro engineering again

[geekoid]

So your argument boils* down to "It's better because it's what I'm used to"? Nice.

*Yes I did.