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Alternative Orion Missions Proposed
skywatcher2501 writes "Lockheed Martin, the company producing NASA's new Orion spacecraft,
published three videos (news article in German) showing alternative Orion missions. Great efforts are made to show Orion's flexibility as a space transportation system beyond the goals of the Constellation program." The three videos, respectively, illustrate ISS missions with cargo in low-Earth orbit; autonomous use of the service module; and maintenance missions from low-earth orbit to geosynchronous orbit.
I always thought it was kind of stupid that our premier post-Apollo launch system couldn't get beyond LEO. Maintenance of GEO sats would probably be more useful than putting more footprints on Luna in terms of short-term returns.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Every time I see an Orion story I think project Orion. Actually don't pick a new name, just scrap Constellation and bring back the real Orion.
Funny you should mention this. Per this source, American manned space flight is in serious doubt. If true, I'd say even unmanned American space flight is in jeopardy as well. Why buy space toys when you can buy votes?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
A relevant piece of a recently submitted and rejected article on lessons from post-Apollo to Orion/Constellation. There were many suggestions on Apollo derivatives and follow ups, but only Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz made the cut. Many more could have flown. That fact in itself is a valuable lesson -- build for adaptability.
"With the Apollo 11 lunar landing nostalgia wave over, and the ongoing discussions about keeping, changing or abandoning designs and plans for Constellation, the new Ares rocket and the very Apollo-looking Orion crew vehicle, it is interesting to examine the development, evolution (including evolutionary dead ends) and the many never-were projected possibilities for the Apollo and Saturn components. Encyclopedia Astronautica offers a feast of details about Apollo developments, both successes and failure, in The Apollo Development Diaries http://www.astronautix.com/articles/apoaries.htm . Plans for the vehicles were later not so much lost as is claimed now, but were abandoned as unfeasible, unnecessary, and in the cases of some such as the high jumping Lunar Leaper and slithering Lunar Worm vehicles, just too weird http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/apollo.htm .
As for the actual Lockheed Martin piece referenced in TFA, it's pure PR. But since they feel the need to waive their flag, perhaps there are rumbles from within NASA that they might consider alternatives.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Uh huh. The news reporting on the HSF review committee has been horrid. The committee has the duty of reporting the options to Congress and the President. Some of those options are affordable, some of them are not, and doing all of some of them isn't affordable either. The mouth breather journalists don't understand the discussion so they latch onto the word "budget" and write a the-sky-is-falling article.
The cheapest option, that no-one is considering btw, is to just give SpaceX the $300m for crew transfer to LEO that they were promised and wait 2.5 years, then pay $20m/seat.. if you want to spend a little more, buy seats from the Russians at $53m/seat. If you want to spend a little more, keep flying the shuttle beyond the current manifest (and hope it doesn't explode). If you want to placate your international partners, keep flying the ISS until 2020, by then it'll be completely unusable, but hey. And after doing *all* that you'll have some money left over to launch an unnecessarily large capsule towards the Moon. But just forget about Mars for now because we don't have the skill or the technology (just don't tell Zubrin that).
How we know is more important than what we know.
The idea of a SDV (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle-Derived_Launch_Vehicle) seems a lot better idea to me than this massive new launcher. Builds on known technology, a lot less up-front cost, fewer unknowns, etc.
To me, these "other uses" are simply PR that's trying to salvage a program concept that's in deep trouble.
The Orion spacecraft is not the problem with the current NASA Constellation program. The Ares I launch vehicle is. It does not have the lifting capability, among other problems, to meet the goals of the program so they keep cutting back on the capability of the one thing that its supposed to lift to orbit, the Orion crew capsule.
Sig this!
We had 5 long years in which W and 3 years of neo-cons, as well as 2 years of both parties elected to underfund NASA. Now that we are in SERIOUS economic jepordy, we need to decide WHO we want to meet on the moon; The Chinese OR one of our companies. With Chinese military putting multiple space stations up there (and 1 civilian spacecraft), I think I would rather meet western companies. I have been saying for a long time that we must provide more funding for these companies ESP. Bigelow as well as Armadillo and blue origin. Bigelow is able to provide not just a local space station, but also a living quarters to move between here and the moon. All that it needs it a tug. Likewise, it can provide living quarters on the moon. Importantly, Bigelow WANTS to do this and is funding it. Armadillo and Blue origin have the PERFECT crafts for working on the moon. If we really want to get there SOONER, rather than latter, we will have to have the gov work with private enterprise to build these. That means that we need 1-2 billion to flow to these companies NOW. Fortunately, Augustine sees this and will be pushing it.
So, what do we need?
Basically, with 1-2 Billion NOW, we can be back on the moon BEFORE 2015.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I don't think you can count on corporations to do pure scientific exploration, as there is little profit in it initially. I think you'll always need the government there to perform the "Lewis and Clark" role.
NASA's problem is that it isn't trying to just do the exploration, they're trying to do every single part of it. Space launch is well-enough developed at this point that they should be using commercial offerings at fixed contract prices to get to orbit, and then doing the high-risk exploration thing from there. Anything else is like asking Lewis and Clark to design their own canoe before heading off down the river.
The inefficient cost-plus contracts made sense in Apollo: it was a high-risk, low-reward game at the time. But now that we now its possible to get to orbit, and that there are many profitable reasons to do so, it makes no sense for NASA to develop its own LV... especially after its proven that its so inept at it without much larger budgets.
Pournelle has written extensively on this, e.g.:
Stating opinions as facts does not make them facts. Let's assemble some actual facts:
1 There are a lot of commercial satellites
2 There is a market for commercial launches
3 There have been a few sucessful commercial launches
4 Commercial companies have not taken over the scene
5 The space shuttle is the only vehicle which has ever been capable of servicing Hubble.
I do not know where this bizarre delusion that all commercial companies must be necessarily better than all governments comes from. I can only assume it's by people who have never worked for a large company. Or at a small/medium sized one for that matter...
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I am seriously beginning to doubt the agency's ability to get back into the business of taking big trips.
Spirit? Oppertunity? There have been NASA build robots trundling around on Mars for several years! Their ability of the people and teams at NASA is not the problem. The problem is inteference from higher managment and the legislature wanting their pound of flesh. This problem is shared among many of the national labs (especially Los Alamos). The people doing the good work are generally there for the love of science and engineering. The people running in it for themselves.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
3 There have been a few sucessful commercial launches
No, there's a plenty of commercial satelittes launches every single year. ULA, EADS Astrium, Orbital to name a few.
I don't know where to get statistics for this but a commercial launch is something very common place.
English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.