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Ares 1-X Ready On Pad, Launch Set For 1200 GMT
DynaSoar writes "NASA's new Ares I-X rocket is undergoing final preparations for its planned launch test Tuesday, October 27. Launch time is scheduled for 8 AM EDT (1200 GMT). As of noon Monday it appeared that there was a 60% chance of showers and/or high altitude clouds interfering. However, the launch has a an eight hour window of opportunity through 2000 GMT, and would require only 10 minutes of clear skies within that time to fly. Of interest to engineering types, both those who favor the new vehicle's design and its critics, will be to see whether the predicted linear 'pogo stick' oscillation will occur, and whether the dampening design built into it prevents damaging and possibly destructive shaking. Extensive coverage is being presented by Space.com; for NASA TV streaming video, schedules and downlink information, visit nasa.gov/ntv." Update 15:37 GMT by timothy: The weather did not cooperate; today's planned launch has been scrubbed.
I'm watching the stream now of them assembling the Ares and I must say the VAB is the most impressive building I've ever seen. I got to tour the inside (way back in the early 90s) and the amount of empty space available, inside a building that can withstand hurricane force winds. It is truly mind-boggling.
I've always wondered about that building. Why is it so much better to do the assembly vertically, rather than doing it horizontally and then raising the vehicle afterwards?
My UID is prime. Hah!
Can you imagine the lateral stress on the structure if you attempted to build it horizontally and then hoist? I suspect the engineering challenge involved in building a machine that would give sufficient support along the full length of a multi-story structure as it was raised to vertical would be substantially greater than the challenge of constructing a tall, hurricane resistant building.
NasaTV Feeds at different resolutions:
100k/s, 320/240
200k/s, 320/240
500k/s, 480x360(I think)
1200k/s, 640/480
All Windows Media format
Real media format
Quicktime
Launch data
Because you can build lighter structures if you assume that certain loadings can be rejected - if you assemble it horizontally, then the joins and internal support structures must be strengthened to support the dyanmic weight in the raising of the entire structure, rather than just supporting the weight of the structures above it in a static way.
Most launch vehicles are optimised to the point where they are basically balloons. They can't support themselves unless their tanks are pressurised and then only in one direction.
I read that US engineers watched with amazement when a Russian booster was winched off a truck at an air show supported horizontally by two cables, one at either end.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Sadly I suspect that the one thing that would really get NASA and ESA some serious funding would be if say, Pakistan, India and China all started attempts at building military space stations, especially China since they have the resources coupled with a "Just get it up there right now!" attitude similar to that of the soviets.
It's not so easy to sit back and relax when some other guy decides that you can just train more astronauts if a few die if it means you get there first.
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
If they did it circular, like the Gerkin tower in London, the wind shear actually twists the building like a rope. So you would have to get into more exotic support systems. Building it square means you can use regular beams for crossbracing.
This 'new' rocket is basically a solid booster from the space shuttle, that needs to be extended with a 5th segment, but it now flies with a 5th dummy segment. On top of that is more dummy weight. This is just a test of an existing and older booster. Now why do you think there is some kind of competition in rocketry that the US can be number one in? Or are you just happy you or your parents paid taxes for this upcoming show?
Or am I a 'hater' because I a a little sceptic about this project of NASA because you cannot understand discourse? Personally, I am much more impressed with SpaceX and Armadillo, who seem to come up with nice projects for much less money. Wasn't there a new SpaceX big rocket on the launchpad soon?
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
A cylindrical structure is subject to unstable wake flows, where small asymmetries in the flows around the structure lead to alternating vortices behind it. This is commonly termed vortex shedding, and leads to substantial lateral loads which vary fairly quickly and may cause resonance problems in the structure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_shedding. That's why tall smokestacks nowadays usually have corkscrew fins - to deliberately introduce turbulence, so that the load is less variable and resonant load frequencies have negligible amplitudes.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Didn't work when the Russians had Salute's 5, 6, 7 and Mir or were you asleep during the last 50 years?
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.
The vibrations that are commonly called 'pogo' in big rockets are caused by a feedback / resonance of thrust oscillations with inlet pressure of the turbopumps, see this extensive discussion. Pogo is fixed by adding dampers to the propellant lines. Ares I, like every big solid, has combustion instabilities that cause thrust oscillations, but there's no feedback like in a liquid rocket. Only danger is hitting one of the structural resonances and ringing the rocket like a bell (and possibly causing the structure to 'diverge').
Was it "How did they do that?" amazement, or was it "Why did they do that?" amazement?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I am hard-pressed to think of any great advances in knowledge that were not already known from by the time the cruddy but long-surviving MIR burned up in the atmosphere.
I hate it when people like you pull the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately schtick. Listen, just because you can't think of anything doesn't mean there isn't useful science coming out of NASA EVERY DAY.
You should look at the NASA Spinoff page. http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/
NASA is pushing the state of the art in materials, robotics, communications, structural engineering, environment and many others. Things that have real-world impact on our lives today. It's not just Tang and Velcro.
The ISS, despite all it's flaws and short comings, gives us lessons every day in how to survive and thrive in the harshest of all environments. It will give us the technology and know-how to do longer range and longer duration missions than were ever before possible.
Though I have always adored the thought and reality of space travel--this is just a luxury we cannot afford now. There is no pressing problem that would cause this need to travel to the Moon or Mars to occur.
No, actually, space exploration is essentailly done on the bubble-gum budget of the US. Deleting NASA or doubling NASA would have no noticible effect on the US budget-- the funding level is down in the noise compared to the main budget items.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Most launch vehicles are optimised to the point where they are basically balloons. They can't support themselves unless their tanks are pressurised and then only in one direction.
I read that US engineers watched with amazement when a Russian booster was winched off a truck at an air show supported horizontally by two cables, one at either end.
Actually, that is *not* true in general. It was true for the original Atlas, and is true for the Centaur high-energy upper stage, but most other modern launchers avoid balloon tanks. Most modern designs are very fragile, but self-supporting when unpressurized. That doesn't mean you can hoist them any way you please, but it's still a vast improvement in ease of handling. One of the requirements on the Shuttle External Tank design was that it not be a balloon tank. It was later discovered (to much embarrassment and annoyance) that the ET is self-supporting when empty or full, but that there is a partially-full intermediate range where it isn't, so it has to be filled while pressurized.
Some smaller launchers are assembled horizontally; in particular, SpaceX's Falcon I and Falcon 9 are. They're still fairly fragile, but they're closer to the Russian design approach in a variety of ways. Trading more structural margin, and hence lower payload fraction, for easier operations and hence lower cost per payload mass is one of those.
This logic just pisses me off right now. NASA is asking for an extra $3 billion per year to build a new viable replacement to the space shuttle. When you contrast the other things the gov't is wastefully spending its money on its ridiculous.
You could fund NASA the extra $3 billion for
10 years instead of bailing out GM and Chrysler
or
Nearly 57 years instead of bailing out f-ing AIG
THAT is government waste. Spending for NASA has always provided benefits for science and impacted our daily lives. Its a worthy endeavor and something necessary to IMHO spur on the advancement of the human race.
Politicians make a great noise about "science and engineering" being important to this country. Lets see them back up those words. If NASA's new rockets die on the vine the politicians will have shown their true beliefs on this issue. If this nation fails to renew its capability for manned spaceflight, in my opinion, we will also distinctly show that to America, science and engineering don't matter anymore. Why not become a doctor or lawyer, oh wait, the doctors are going to get screwed by health care reform, so why not just become a lawyer if you want to be successful. This country no longer rewards those that build and design great things anymore, the money game and the ever growing soulless corporations get quite literally TRILLIONS of dollars in support from the government, and one of the biggest science and engineering problems we are trying to solve right now gets told "sorry theres not enough left for you". Its utter bullshit.
Sure our government doesn't really have enough money right now, but not because of NASAs budget issues, it because they've been handing it out like f-ing candy to assholes on Wall Street who f-cked the country over and went laughing all the way to the bank(err government). We need to get all that money back (or at least stop giving it away) and start spending it on the RIGHT things.
Solid-fuel boosters keep jobs in the state of Utah so you can count on Orrin Hatch, very powerful senator from Utah supporting NASA's budget....
Someone said on a previous thread the Ares 1 has such a goofy look because the SRB's built in Utah have to pass through a train tunnel so they can't be increased in diameter which is why it looks so top heavy.
There is certainly a benefit to SRB's in that you don't have all the complexities of cryogenic fuels, and having to fuel before launch. That's why the Air Force uses them in ICBM's, they are extremely simple to launch. They are also somewhat safer than liquid fuels in some respects. It certainly remains to be seen if they will work the way NASA is trying to use them, especially how bad the vibration will be.
It certainly would have been better if NASA could have finished the SRB facility in Mississippi, which was killed twice, so they could be shipped to Kennedy on barges and the diameter constraints would have been removed. I wager Utah's senators helped kill it to keep the jobs in Utah.
NASA's manned space program is 90% jobs program, 10% space program at this point, in case you hadn't noticed.
@de_machina
Launch scrub for today due to weather.
char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}";main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}
As a demonstration of US technical prowess, Ares I is pathetic; its got similar capabilities to Saturn I and took much longer to develop. It anything its a demonstration of US decline...
Since you are comparing launch vehicles rather than stage 1 boosters, I'll take it you mean Saturn C-1 which had the Saturn 1 first stage. It was the first of the Saturn family to fly. For comparison purposes we'll use that vs. the Ares 1-X CLV presently sitting on Pad 39B
Capabilities:
Saturn C-1: 19,800 lbs to LEO
Ares: 54,000 lbs to LEO
Development (proposal to first launch)
Saturn: 'Proposal for a National Integrated Missile and Space Vehicle Development Plan'; Werner von Braun 30 DEC 1957, to 27 OCT 1961 = ~46 months
Ares CLV: Initial design proposed September 2005 to (not yet flown but on pad 4 days ahead of schedule and awaiting a clear launch window) now = ~49 months
The 6.5% longer Ares development time is insignificant considering the August 2006 redesign from proven 4 segment SRB booster + shuttle main engine sustainer to untried 5 segment
SRB derivative + J-2S sustainer. The C1 didn't change significantly during development from the originally proposed cluster of Redstone airframes/tanks and engines.
As an aside, if the parent was posted with prior knowledge of these facts, the post itself the being purposefully false with the intent to instigate otherwise unnecessary replies, it would be a 'troll'. If the parent was posted in ignorance of the facts but simply intended to initiate arguments, it would be 'flamebait'. Intentionally or not, parent is quite the opposite of 'informative'. Sadly we do not have a '-1 misinformative' mod.
I'll not speculate on your intentions or on your possible state of ignorance/intellectual impairment, as time will produce a result more definitive than my mere opinion. I will note that like both the dummy payload carrying Saturn C1 and Ares 1-X, you appear to be capable of accomplishing little more than blowing a lot of smoke out of your ass.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B