Orion Spacecraft On the Path To Future Flight

gilgsn writes "Preparations for Orion's first mission in 2013 are well under way as a Lockheed Martin-led crew begins lean assembly pathfinding operations for the spacecraft. The crew is conducting simulated manufacturing and assembly operations with a full-scale Orion mockup to verify the tools, processes and spacecraft integration procedures work as expected."

Comments

I thought Orion was dead

[roc97007]

Have reports of the program's demise been exaggerated?

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Orion is still a go , Orion is the Crew Capsule it was the only Part of Constellation to remain, At present the whole Constellation program continues as NASA has been restricted by act of congress to dismantle or indeed stop a single thing until the new NASA budget is approved. Orion will most likely be the crew vehicle for any future launch system. At present looks like the SD HLV or Shuttle Derived Heavy Lift Vehicle will be the go !

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Sonny Yatsen]

Constellation was defunded (although Congress may block this), but Obama singled out Orion to be repurposed an escape module for the ISS.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[sconeu]

How does SD HLV differ from Ares V?

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[rijrunner]

In theory, it could be launched on another platform. Right now, there is a lot of development in capsules and the like from various companies. Boeing has its capsule under development. There are a few others in various levels of development.

    Ares is mostly toast now. It will rise or fall under a political fight, but honestly, whether Constellation flies, or not, the Orion capsule is no longer is the only game in town. The problem with a lot of this positioning of such-and-such program as THE next step rather ignores the simple fact that we are no longer in a single path of development. Its no accident that this article was released on PRWire a day after a flurry of articles about Boeing being ready in 2014 with an article claiming that Orion will be ready in 2013.

   

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[CohibaVancouver]

Orion will most likely be the crew vehicle for any future launch system

Project Mercury called. They want their spaceflight technology back.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Martin Blank]

Current cars and trucks bear more than a passing resemblance to cars and trucks from the 1950s and 1960s, in part because the format works well. However, one cannot honestly say that the underlying technology has not changed dramatically. We can now carry more cargo for longer distances on less fuel with greater comfort, safety, and convenience.

Just because it's an older concept does not mean it cannot work in the present (or near future).

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[sconeu]

Never mind. Found it on Wikipedia.

It's a Shuttle-C derived stack, using the stock ET and stock 4-segment SRBs.

It'll also apparently be man-rated, but because the capsule is inside the fairing, there's no danger of falling foam damaging the heat shield.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Current AMERICAN cars and trucks bear more than a passing resemblance to cars and trucks from the 1950s and 1960s

FTFY

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[physburn]

Can't believe this weird mix of shuttle hardware could work out cheaper than a new big dumb rocket stack. I suppose the factories making shuttle tanks and solid rocket booster won't need retooling, but even so, this beasty looks much more complex than Ares.

---

Space Craft Feed @ Feed Distiller

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[camperdave]

Ares required the development of new engines, new tanking, new solid boosters, new everything. Development costs are huge, especially engine development. With the "weird mix of shuttle hardware" you've got fully developed and tested engines, fully developed and tested solid boosters. All you need to do is develop the thrust structure (fairly simple) and stiffen the tank (which is currently thinned down to cut down on weight, so really it is just skipping this step).

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Teancum]

Can't believe this weird mix of shuttle hardware could work out
cheaper than a new big dumb rocket stack. I suppose the
factories making shuttle tanks and solid rocket booster won't
need retooling, but even so, this beasty looks much more
complex than Ares.

It isn't really cheaper at all. Cost is not a driver here, but rather continuing to employ people in key congressional districts so NASA can gets its appropriations bill passed.

As for the factories making the tanks getting a retooling.... it is going to happen anyway. The external tank production line at Michoud has been shut down.... with a big New Orleans style parade with the final tank going down to the port and sailing off for Florida. The employees have been laid off and most of them have gone on to other jobs. There still is a crew left at the Michoud facility as there were other things going on besides the Shuttle contracts, but that was a major part of the work force there. They were going to be gearing up for the Constellation projects and specifically the Ares V, but I suppose that isn't working out so well either.

As for the ATK rockets produced at Promontory, Utah, those employees have also been laid off and many have moved onto other things. ATK landed a cute little contract for the Air Force that is sucking up those employees that they didn't want to let go and were still receiving Constellation funding (the funding is still flowing the the system).

I suppose the raw engineering has been done and there is a modest saving there, but having to bring back and train a whole new production crew from scratch sounds like an incredibly expensive proposition... especially if the funding for this is as shaky as I've ever seen any sort of project funding.

I don't expect more than a couple of flights with this hardware, even if it makes it to flight status in the first place.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Teancum]

In the meantime, the Dragon capsule being designed by SpaceX is making it first real flight next month. Heck, it is already at the cape ready for launch, and all they are doing now is a waiting game to get a launch slot to open... and some last minute tests to take care of some engineering questions they have about the rocket. This is both a test for the Falcon 9 (its second flight) and the capsule, but in this case they are doing some in-orbit testing of the avionics, the Draco thrusters, and the heat shield for re-entry purposes. They are also testing recovery procedures in what is for now an unmanned vehicle.

I'd have to agree that the timing of this is a little suspect, and the rocket that the Orion is supposedly going to be flying on has yet to even be approved for funding in the first place. The Obama administration may be eying a variant of DIRECT right now, but that isn't really ready for prime time. Boeing, on the other hand, is going to be flying their CST-100 on a Delta IV. That is a proven rocket system with over a dozen flights to certify its reliability and to work out the bugs in terms of getting things into orbit.

The question for what the Orion is going to be flying on in order to make this test is a very real question that ought to be asked. Perhaps a heavy launch variant of the Delta IV, Atlas V, or the Falcon 9 might be able to get it up into space, but there was some explicit engineering done on the Orion vehicle to make sure it couldn't fly on the EELVs. Yes, this was by design and it was done to make sure it had to fly on the Ares I rocket. How Lock-Mart is going to refit this to fly on something else is going to be real interesting. I thought they were well past the raw specification stage and were making mock-ups and building actual hardware.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Profane MuthaFucka]

They should reserve that configuration for heavy lift missions. It won't be long before alternative boosters will be available from other sources, including private sources, for lower mass missions.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Exactly wings on a spacecraft make just about as much sense as putting a propeller on it. Capsules can be just as capable as the shuttle was in orbit, and they are far easier and safer to launch and land.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[camperdave]

The Delta IV isn't man rated. Neither is the Atlas-V. NASA is not going to be sending astronauts up on either of them for quite some time. Dragon/Falcon is man rated, but it is quite a bit smaller than an Orion capsule, or even the CST-100

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, the Space Shuttle wasn't man rated. Also, both the Delta and Atlas have a clear pathway towards getting rated, and either of them could be brought up to spec for a fraction of the cost of the Ares.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Vectormatic]

just a nitpick, but gemini would be a closer match, the mercury capsules did not have the ability to shift their orbit, they were just launched into orbit and had a small rocket pack lashed around the heatshield for a re-entry burn. Having actual orbital maneuvering capability is pretty significant in these days or satelite repairs and space station rendevous.

Gemini basically was a test-bed for a lot of things needed for apollo, such as in orbit rendevous, orbit shifting and spacewalks. Apollo then tacked on a LEM and the whole lunar transit orbit thing, along with some extra supplies and space for more crew. In terms of orbital spaceflight apollo didnt really add much.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[ravenspear]

Dragon/Falcon is not man rated.

It was designed by SpaceX to meet NASA's existing requirements for human space flight.

However, requirements for commercial crew companies under the new model haven't even been released yet.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Martin Blank]

Wings make sense when the vehicle is large enough. At some point, trips will routinely carry 100+ people, and the logistics of doing that as a capsule are daunting at best. Those craft will have wings, and there will be variants to return large masses from orbit for refurbishment.

Capsules and the shuttle were intended to perform two entirely different missions. At best, a capsule could only perform placement and perhaps repair of satellites; it cannot bring them back down. A shuttle-type system can do that, though the frequency of use was quite low.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Martin Blank]

I look around at Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Saab, Aston-Martin, and a host of other manufacturers, and I see things that look a lot like the cars and trucks from back then in their basic layout: two people in front, a driver to one side or the other, steering wheel, brake and accelerator pedals...

Even the smaller European models carry the same general form as the vehicles from 50-60 years ago. The format works, and different sizes have come about to handle different needs.

So no, you didn't fix anything. You just showed yourself to be wrong, and probably heavily biased against most things from the US.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[somersault]

The crew is conducting simulated manufacturing and assembly operations with a full-scale Orion mockup

You thought it was a mockup - but now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battlestation.. err, spacecraft!

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Teancum]

If you can define man-rated, I'll bite here. Both the Delta IV and the Atlas V have enough thrust to place a capsule like the Orion up into orbit, or at least a manned vehicle.

I should also point out that it was an Atlas launcher (admittedly a predecessor to the current Atlas V) that has already seen service in the manned spaceflight program for NASA: It put John Glenn into orbit! Seriously, the argument that these vehicles aren't man-rated is overblown and isn't even a realistic argument here.

If you are willing to trust sending into orbit billion dollar payloads that represent a million man-hours of effort or more, that is something that at least exceeds the safety margin given for Shuttle launches and is likely to be better. There may need to be some minor tweaks to finish any honest assessment to make these vehicles man-rated, but that is very trivial compared to what is needed to get a brand-new launcher up to speed and rated for carrying astronauts. The NRO wouldn't have been sending their satellites up on these launchers if they weren't reliable.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Teancum]

However, requirements for commercial crew companies under the new model haven't even been released yet.

I find it disingenuous to be having NASA come up with commercial crew regulations when they clearly are acting as a competitor to the companies who are trying to put commercial crew vehicles into service. If that doesn't strike you as something odd, I am at a loss as to what would. I don't understand why Congress is insisting that NASA set the standards here.

My largest concern is that the standards, if they ever get published, will be written in such a way that nobody could possibly meet those standards. It should also be noteworthy that any time NASA has established such standards, they've had to exempt their own vehicles from those standards as something even NASA couldn't meet.

Also, while SpaceX is using the existing human spaceflight requirements as a yardstick, they fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Aviation Administration and not NASA... other than the fact that SpaceX is trying to get NASA as a customer and it certainly is appropriate for NASA to establish independent standards for their own astronauts. If NASA sets the bar too high in that situation, they simply will be without a launcher to send astronauts into space. Oh wait.... NASA is without a launcher capable of sending astronauts into space and they are now using Soyuz capsules made with Soviet designs manufactured in Russia. Yeah, that sounds like a step forward to me.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Teancum]

Surprisingly, the Gemini spacecraft was in reality the proper successor to the Apollo spacecraft as it wasn't even authorized until most of the Apollo hardware had already been built. The design tempo on the Gemini spacecraft was rather high, and there were several innovations put into the Gemini spacecraft that never even made it into the Apollo design which had improved safety for the astronauts and represented a later design.

The one difference is that the Gemini spacecraft went into orbit first, and because it was a smaller spacecraft most people presume that it was a predecessor to Apollo designs. I will admit that the orbital rendezvous procedures were worked out with the Gemini program, along with EVA procedures and a whole bunch of other very important tasks that were incredibly important to human spaceflight. This experience was invaluable for later missions including later Shuttle missions. The ISS could never have been built if the Gemini flights had never flown.

When the "Manned Orbiting Laboratory" was designed, the original spacecraft that were going to service that space station was the Gemini spacecraft. There is even a version that was explicitly designed for docking with a space station that had a really bizarre through the rear hatch that penetrated the heat shield. In addition, there was a 5-man variant of the Gemini spacecraft called the "Big G" which at least got as far as the spacecraft mock-up stage (real metal being bent to test manufacturing procedures). BTW, the engineering and design work that went into the MOL ended up being the basis for Skylab when the last Saturn V was finally launched. The original plan was for nearly a dozen different space stations along a construction path more similar to how Russia ended up deploying their space stations in the 1970's.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[morgauxo]

Hey, the customer is always right. Even if NASA doesn't get a right to define what 'man rated' means by rule of law they still have the choice to buy or not to buy. SpaceX has to build to NASA's requirements because if they do not someone else will. I suppose the FAA could add to the requirements if they wanted to but if both agencies published requirements then SpaceX would have to meet both, not ignore their customer (NASA). They can't just build what they want to build and then expect NASA to be obligated to buy it from them. I suppose there are other customers out there but not so many they can afford to lose NASA. As for the FAA I don't think they would bother, NASA has been doing this for a while without them already. Plus, I think it's only within their jurisdiction until it reaches a certain height anyway. If the Senate bill goes through NASA will not be competing with SpaceX or any of the other commercial companies. Instead NASA will be focused on heavy lift rockets and getting beyond low Earth orbit. If they are doing that then dealing with building another orbiter would be a distraction at best. I'm sure those writing the checkes would be happy to just pay SpaceX or whomever else shows up and be done with it. Now... if the House version of the NASA appropriation bill goes through then things will get strange. NASA would be stuck building another orbiter and buying from SpaceX. Heavy lift and exploration beyond low Earth orbit would get sidelined for another generation or two. I hope that bill dies.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Andy Dodd]

If anything, European cars have changed less than domestic cars in form.

BMW has done very little to change body styling until recently.

Mercedes has done a little more.

And as far as Porsche... The 911 has barely changed in close to 50 years.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[jgtg32a]

And the VW Beetle has been the same since 1938

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Heian-794]

Have reports of the program's demise been exaggerated?

For a project named Orion, you should quote not from Sam Clemens, but rather find something from his older brother!

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Teancum]

Just who is this "somebody else" that is building to NASA's still yet to be published manned spaceflight requirements?

I firmly believe that the manned commercial spaceflight market is going to swamp and overwhelm the NASA projects in time. That isn't quite the case right now, but I think it would be bad business planning to depend solely upon NASA as the only potential customer. I'm not saying "if we build it, NASA will buy it", but rather think more along the lines of how aircraft manufacturers design new vehicles for commercial flight. The U.S. Postal Service (as an example of a government agency who got in early with new technologies like aviation) did and still does have some significant impact in terms of commercial aviation. At one time it looked like they would be the only customer for aviation besides the military, but now the USPS (previously the Post Office Department) is a comparatively minor player in the game. It is FAA requirements, not USPS requirements that drive safety features in aircraft.

As for the heavy lift rocket.... that is something I think is ultimately doomed to failure as a spacecraft in search of a mission even from NASA. There is no mission besides a trip to Mars that needs such a vehicle, and even a trip to Mars is out of the question in terms of congressional funding. The first action that NASA is going to do with a completed "heavy lift vehicle" in whatever form it takes is to cancel the program and write a page in a history book about concept. At the very least show me what needs (not would be "nice to have") and is an absolute mission requirement for such a vehicle. Yeah, it would be nice to have a Saturn V right now, but we can't relive the past and pretend that decisions made in the past don't impact the present.

FYI, the FAA does have jurisdiction on all commercial spaceflight activity by means of their office of commercial spaceflight. They are the regulatory agency and it is through the FAA that commercial astronauts are certified. NASA has a role only because some in congress can't give up the fact that NASA no longer has a monopoly on spaceflight in America. The jurisdiction of the FAA extends quite a bit further than up to 100,000 feet.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[rijrunner]

    If NASA does not buy, who cares? Dragon is aimed right at Virgin and other commercial tourist groups. NASA is not the only customer in town either. Falcon and Dragon are looking like they have a price point that might actually allow other commercial development.

    The FAA is *the* legal body to authorize launch vehicles. NASA is a research and development body and has no regulatory authority in any area, at all. Any company wishing to fly *has* to meet the FAA requirements. (The FAA regs are actually quite liberal and pro-commercial development). If you wish to sell to NASA, you have to also meet their requirements. What you describe as a huge knock against this is actually already the current practice.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Gilmoure]

Last I'd heard, they'd canned it back in '63 with the test ban treaty.

Would love to watch one of these babies take off (from a long way back).

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[camperdave]

I didn't say they weren't reliable, or that it would be difficult to do. In fact, there are initiatives underway to man-rate both rockets. This largely involves adding sensors to the engines to tell the launch abort system when they are about to go critical so that the system can pull the crew module away from what is about to be a giant fireball.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[camperdave]

Legally, NASA is not allowed to compete in the commercial crew arena. This includes ISS access. The standard is here by the way.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Nethemas the Great]

Wings do not make sense for a vertical take off ascent, but they make quite a bit of sense for the decent. The alternatives require expensive recovery operations and with respect to Russian style crashing into the dirt on parachute, hazardous to the occupants integrity.

IANAAE but I suspect novel designs that are reasonable to implement could be had which incorporate characteristics enabling glide decent to a runway but eliminate or substantially reduce the unnecessary drag on ascent. The fixed wing configuration of the shuttle was engineering's answer to a technical requirement using the state of the art for the 1970's inspired by concepts imagined in the second half of the 1950's.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Both the Delta IV and the Atlas V have enough thrust to place a capsule like the Orion up into orbit, or at least a manned vehicle.

Actually, it appears that they don't. At least, they don't according to publicly available specifications. It appears the the Atlas V can, indeed lift the Orion to LEO.:
Atlas V Payload Capacity to LEO: 9,750–29,420 kg (21,490–64,860 lb) (Reference)
Meanwhile, the Delta IV can only lift ~23,000 kg to LEO:
Delta IV Payload Capacity to LEO: 8,600 - 22,560 kg (18,900 - 49,740 lb) (Reference
(Though it should be noted that the Heavy variant is supposed to be able to lift up to 23,040 kg).

According to the most recent public specs that I can find, the Orion spacecraft weighs in at ~25,000 kg (Reference). The capsule alone weighs in at ~9000 kg. That said, unless the spacecraft is launched in a modular fashion on board two Delta IV vehicles, only the capsule could be launched on the Delta IV. The Atlas V, however, appears to be able to launch the entire package in one strong go.

It wouldn't surprise me if Orion could be refitted to launch on an Atlas quickly and easily. After all, before LM and Boeing merged their launch ops into the ULA team/company, Atlas was of LM design. That said, LM has access to all of the necessary specifications and data I would bet. Either way, I am going to wager that Orion gets refitted to launch on the Atlas V booster rather than the Delta IV.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[camperdave]

Apparently the Orion was designed so that it could *not* be launched on the Delta IV or the Atlas V, in order to justify the ARES-I. Of course, it wound up that the ARES-I couldn't launch it properly either.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[DerekLyons]

I should also point out that it was an Atlas launcher (admittedly a predecessor to the current Atlas V) that has already seen service in the manned spaceflight program for NASA: It put John Glenn into orbit!

That's the equivalent of claiming that's there is no need to perform crash testing on a 2010 Corvette because crash testing was already done on a 1953 Corvette. (To use Slashdot's favored form of analogy.) It should be obvious on it's face that this is a ludicrous claim.
 
But since it isn't, I should point the almost complete lack of commonality between the Atlas that John Glenn rode and the Atlas V. Different engines, different structures, different staging mechanisms, different electronics, different vibration environment, different acceleration and performance profiles...
 

Seriously, the argument that these vehicles aren't man-rated is overblown and isn't even a realistic argument here.

When you state that facts are "overblown" and don't "represent a realistic argument", you're pretty much waving the white flag and surrendering - because you're admitting you don't have an argument.
 

If you are willing to trust sending into orbit billion dollar payloads that represent a million man-hours of effort or more, that is something that at least exceeds the safety margin given for Shuttle launches and is likely to be better.

The Shuttle is one of the safest launch vehicles around based on it's record. Despite all the hype and handwaving about how 'unsafe' it is, the fact is that it's demonstrated safety is not significantly better or worse than any other vehicle currently flying. If you base your argument by a comparison to Shuttle safety, you're either appealing to emotion and ignorance, or you're ignorant yourself.
 

There may need to be some minor tweaks to finish any honest assessment to make these vehicles man-rated, but that is very trivial compared to what is needed to get a brand-new launcher up to speed and rated for carrying astronauts.

Man rating an existing launcher requires a complete ground up review of it's engineering and a ground up study of it's potential failure modes and the engineering required to bring the safety up to man rating requirements. Man rating a new launcher requires a complete ground up review of it's engineering and a ground up study of it's potential failure modes and the engineering required to bring the safety up to man rating requirements. Or, in other words, wrong again.
 

The NRO wouldn't have been sending their satellites up on these launchers if they weren't reliable.

These vehicles (Delta IV and Atlas V) are as reliable as the Shuttle - or of anything else flying. So this is a pretty weak argument, pretty much like the rest of your claims.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Andy Dodd]

That isn't the best example... While visually similar, the original Beetle was unique in being a rear-engined vehicle, while the New Beetle is a more common front-engined vehicle.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[khallow]

Man rating an existing launcher requires a complete ground up review of it's engineering and a ground up study of it's potential failure modes and the engineering required to bring the safety up to man rating requirements.

No vehicle current or past has ever been man-rated. The Shuttle, for example, has a lack of abort capability for certain parts of its launch which is part of NASA's current man-rating requirements. This killed seven astronauts in the Challenger accident in 1986. It also had for most of its lifespan a lack of ability to inspect heat tiles prior to reentry, which killed another seven astronauts, another thing that a man-rating would require.

It annoys me when people speak so glibly of "man-rating". In the past ten years, the sole use of a "man-rating" standard has been to rationalize the choice of a paper rocket, the Ares I (coincidentally squandering billions of government dollars on yet another white elephant) over the Atlas V Heavy and Delta IV Heavy.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Well I am curious if you have any specifics regarding the design parameters that keep it from being launched on an EELV rocket. I am guessing that unless the diameter of the spacecraft is too large, it could probably be adapted to attach to either. My wager is that LM designed the Orion to attach to a specialized adapter ring (the chunk of metal that bolts a capsule to a booster stack) built for the Ares-I and then said, "Hey look, it can't be bolted to an Atlas or Delta!" However, redesigning the bolt pattern on the mount locations to be compatible with a Delta or Atlas ring is probably pretty trivial. I wouldn't be surprised if LM already had the modification designs on the computers somewhere and just weren't telling anyone. After all, LM gets a bit of cash every time an Atlas launches so I highly doubt they'd completely absolve themselves from double-dipping by design.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Teancum]

There is a huge difference between what is stated officially and what is practice, especially as many of those in NASA and NASA's prime contractors sort of like having a monopoly over spaceflight in general. You can't tell me that somebody wanting to put SpaceX out of business won't put in some requirement that will be very difficult to meet... explicitly to kill commercial crew options.

You also can't say that NASA has never sent commercial spaceflight passengers into orbit, because in fact they have. They even sent two U.S. Senators into orbit for reasons that were rather dubious... mostly very expensive political junkets. The history of the Space Shuttle in relation to commercial operators is one of constant underbidding and subsidy by NASA of commercial operations including killing off would-be competitors from getting into the marketplace.

If you are telling me that NASA has turned over a new leaf and is trying to play nice for a change, go ahead. Unfortunately historical precedence is such that I hold such promises to be as good as a Confederate dollar. Useful to a collector but otherwise of no real backing.

Simply by existing, the Ares I/Orion rocket combination is certainly designed to be a direct competitor to the Falcon 9/Dragon and the Taurus II/Cygnus vehicles. Add on the Delta IV/CST-100 to that mix to show yet another "competitor". That is precisely the way it was presented during congressional testimony and in fact several members of congress have remarked that it is imperative that the U.S. government have its own in-house vehicles that can perform these missions. No, that doesn't make sense to me either, but it is the attitude that is prevalent in Congress at the moment.

Define what competing in the commercial crew arena actually means, and perhaps I might agree... but it sounds like the definition is essentially whatever it is that NASA isn't doing right now. That this attitude is likely changing at NASA is true, and there have been some efforts to promote commercial spaceflight activity lately, but not everybody is pulling that in the same direction. There still are many folks within NASA and within the U.S. Congress that want NASA to be the exclusive provider of all spaceflight needs of America. I don't want those pro "NASA only" supporters to be in charge of writing the rules that govern commercial spaceflight standards as they clearly have a conflict of interest.

Re:I thought Orion was dead

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that we are going backwards in technology. Why are we still using stage rockets, and at that point why are we still using rockets.

Orion Spacecraft On the Path To Future Flight

[Anonymous Coward]

PERIOD

Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[DeWinterZero]

The word Spacecraft & Orion instant brings to mind Project Orion. For a brief moment I thought NASA had gone for something cool & insane. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[MichaelSmith]

Ah yes, old bang bang. I doubt that one will be launched from Canaveral.

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Al least, not more than once.

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[genican1]

No, it's the Orion spacecraft they are referring to, not Project Orion

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[TheRaven64]

That's why it's tagged !therealorion, and was since before you posted.

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[shess]

I totally want them to make a Footfall movie and really use a Project Orion craft. Usually they just have a technobabble solution for how the humans beat the aliens, but in that case you didn't need to use technobabble. The humans really did have a big stick, they were going to kick your ass, and there wasn't anything you were going to be doing about it.

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

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[camperdave]

"God was knocking, and he wanted in bad."

One of my favourite lines.

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[Teancum]

Unfortunately I don't think the Space Shuttles are going to be available for use with the Orion-class vessel (called "Michael" in the book). They were supposed to be acting like fighters from the mothership being more like a carrier. I don't know if that ever would have worked, but at least it was plausible and something other SciFi movies have tried to take advantage of.

I agree it would make a might fine movie and something that ought to be made. The whole plot line with the Soviet Union isn't nearly as important and certainly could be updated to reflect the current world political situation.

Then again, I have no idea how you would put a nuclear Iran into the story or if it would be wise for the producers to even consider how to do that.

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[Vectormatic]

bah, tags (or any form of concattenated words) should use some form of CammelCase, i parsed that as "there al orion" at first...

so i propose "theRealOrion"

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[Chibi Merrow]

Then again, I have no idea how you would put a nuclear Iran into the story or if it would be wise for the producers to even consider how to do that.

Drop The Foot in the Arabian Sea and drown them?

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[Agripa]

Unfortunately I don't think the Space Shuttles are going to be available for use with the Orion-class vessel (called "Michael" in the book). They were supposed to be acting like fighters from the mothership being more like a carrier. I don't know if that ever would have worked, but at least it was plausible and something other SciFi movies have tried to take advantage of.

I agree it would make a might fine movie and something that ought to be made. The whole plot line with the Soviet Union isn't nearly as important and certainly could be updated to reflect the current world political situation.

Then again, I have no idea how you would put a nuclear Iran into the story or if it would be wise for the producers to even consider how to do that.

None of the needed changes would have to negatively impact the plot or theme.

We still have the battleship turrets available and could produce 5 inch and 8 inch guns on short notice. The shuttle could be replaced with any current spacecraft which includes restartable engines like the Space-X Kestrel.

Iran could almost take the place of South Africa as an isolated industrial nation being conquered but the South African nuclear capability was not an issue in the story anyway. I am sure any number of physically isolated but industrial advanced areas would work. South Africa was just a leading example at the time.

The partnership with the Soviets works almost as well when replaced with Russians but China could serve just as well if you want to keep more of the Cold War feel to it. You just need someone who could execute a nuclear strike on the American mid-west. The EU could play a bigger role as a more unified entity perhaps but I am not sure it would add enough to the story to be worth the screen time.

The biggest problem I see off hand is explaining why the aliens do not subvert our own computer networks which are much more important now then when the story was written but it would be easy enough to make a point that such subversion was insufficient in itself without military action. The aliens would at least have considered it.

I have occasional dreams about how to adapt Footfall and Lucifer's Hammer to a viable screenplay.

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[jollyreaper]

I totally want them to make a Footfall movie and really use a Project Orion craft. Usually they just have a technobabble solution for how the humans beat the aliens, but in that case you didn't need to use technobabble. The humans really did have a big stick, they were going to kick your ass, and there wasn't anything you were going to be doing about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footfall [wikipedia.org]

Footfall had some good ideas but was a fairly dreadful book, not up to their usual standard. I did like the idea of Earth fighting back with an orion drive ship. The only problem is that it required a lot of colossal stupidity on the part of the aliens to ever let it become a human-winnable fight. There had to be the right combination of immaturity, lack of forethought, idiotic assumption that aliens will react to your gestures with the exact same psychology, etc. If you're going to war, dropping rocks is a good idea, of course. But I still don't understand where they came up with the paratroop assault idea from. And you would think with the technology for interstellar flight that they'd also have perfected combat robotics. I mean we're already seeing some real starts right now.

It just strikes me as ludicrous that their best idea for combat is to put a gun in the snout of a herdmember and send him out to fight the humans. My thinking is that with any plausible alien invasion, you'd be looking at automated combat machines all the way through. Big ones for hitting big targets, little ones for getting into nooks and crannies to hunt humans down. Any invader who wants to get a close look at the hairless apes would stay back at base and let the machines bring the specimens to him.

Granted, the goal of the book was to tell a plausible alien invasion story, a War of the Worlds updated a bit. But it just lacked imagination.

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[jollyreaper]

The biggest problem I see off hand is explaining why the aliens do not subvert our own computer networks which are much more important now then when the story was written but it would be easy enough to make a point that such subversion was insufficient in itself without military action. The aliens would at least have considered it.

The bigger problem is that the alien strategy didn't make a lick of sense. If they were truly alien, unknowable alien, then we could accept that. But their psychology was so human they may as well have been human. So then you get back to the question of what the hell they thought their strategy was going to be.

As an example of a historic screwup, Japan vs. the US. The Japanese believed in their racial superiority over the decadent, honorless West. They also believed that they had a right and duty to conquer the majority of the Pacific and institute a benevolent dictatorship over the other races. When it was pointed out that they lacked the industrial might to go toe to toe with the US, leadership scoffed and engaged in magical thinking. Americans are weak, they flee a fight. A strong Japanese fighting man could kill a hundred of them. Anyone who dissented from that view was considered a defeatist and would suffer the consequences. The self-reinforcing nature of the Japanese BS groupthink made an arrogant move like attacking Pearl Harbor inevitable. Why negotiate with the US, why avoid conflict when we know we can win? Except whoops, miscalculation.

So yes, really dumb mistakes can happen. And when one side starts a war and loses it, of course there was a miscalculation. Hardly anyone starts a fight he knows he can't win. So yes, it's plausible for the traveler herd to come across the stars and do something completely stupid like starting a war. But the dynamics just weren't drawn out properly. The mistakes made by the herd weren't properly explained in the context of the story. Why attack first instead of negotiate? Or why not establish a threat display, drop some rocks in empty areas and show that they could land on cities next? Why not come with the foot in the first place? Why arrive at Earth, attack the space station, drop some smaller rocks, fly back out to pick up the rock, fly back in to drop it, land some troops in Kansas, flitter about doing some other things... Again, a disjointed and split-brained strategy could make sense if there were political turmoil within the herd but what was outlined was insufficient to explain what we saw.

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[Thuktun]

"God was knocking, and he wanted in bad."

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[Thuktun]

Duplication: that's what I get for not refreshing my view before replying.

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[Thuktun]

[...] the Orion-class vessel (called "Michael" in the book).

Full name Archangel Michael, field commander of the Army of God.

Re:Not the big nuclear spacecraft

[Agripa]

Truely alien aliens do not make very good stories because of the difficulty of the audience identifying with them. Niven wrote an essay about how to write science fiction that mentions this. The Fithp psychology was not human but was that of a herdbeast. One either submits or fights (or runs away but the humans could hardly leave Earth).

As an example of a historic screwup, Japan vs. the US. The Japanese believed in their racial superiority over the decadent, honorless West. They also believed that they had a right and duty to conquer the majority of the Pacific and institute a benevolent dictatorship over the other races. When it was pointed out that they lacked the industrial might to go toe to toe with the US, leadership scoffed and engaged in magical thinking. Americans are weak, they flee a fight. A strong Japanese fighting man could kill a hundred of them. Anyone who dissented from that view was considered a defeatist and would suffer the consequences. The self-reinforcing nature of the Japanese BS groupthink made an arrogant move like attacking Pearl Harbor inevitable. Why negotiate with the US, why avoid conflict when we know we can win? Except whoops, miscalculation.

Japan felt driven to go to war with a lack of any better actions available. Belief in racial superiority is just a propaganda measure that all nations and even religions use in times of war. Yamamoto certainly knew better but followed orders and came up with a plan very similar to that of the Fithp who were even more commited which is specifically pointed out (they can't go back) so Japan makes for a very apt comparison. Show the enemy how strong you are, stomp them into submission, then enforce your will. That is what we did when we won after dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. There is no negotiation as such and certainly none which would warn of surprise attack.

The story very specifically points out how foreign the concept of negotiation is to the Fithp. One either fights or submits. It is so foreign that they only have one incident in their history which would apply and that is the incident which creates Traveling Fithp and has them leaving their system and heading to Winterhome. They become much more effective after accepting and instituting the concept of of "negotiated loss of status" after they invade South Africa.

So yes, really dumb mistakes can happen. And when one side starts a war and loses it, of course there was a miscalculation. Hardly anyone starts a fight he knows he can't win. So yes, it's plausible for the traveler herd to come across the stars and do something completely stupid like starting a war. But the dynamics just weren't drawn out properly. The mistakes made by the herd weren't properly explained in the context of the story. Why attack first instead of negotiate? Or why not establish a threat display, drop some rocks in empty areas and show that they could land on cities next? Why not come with the foot in the first place? Why arrive at Earth, attack the space station, drop some smaller rocks, fly back out to pick up the rock, fly back in to drop it, land some troops in Kansas, flitter about doing some other things... Again, a disjointed and split-brained strategy could make sense if there were political turmoil within the herd but what was outlined was insufficient to explain what we saw.

Why did we drop the atomic bombs on Japan and then order unconditional surrender instead of just demonstrating it? What would be the point? We could enforce any settlement we wanted and that is what we did.

The initial Fithp invasion is a reconnaissance in force. Fight the enemy to learn about the enemy. They had no need to commit everything in the first battle before knowing more about our capability to wage war and they certainly had no need to risk the Mothership carrying their families. Later we threaten exactly that to force their surrender.

They had political turmoil within the herd. The Herd

Bad name?

[sqlrob]

Is it related to this Orion or did they just reuse the name?

Re:Bad name?

[gerddie]

No, its related to that!!

Re:Bad name?

[BJ_Covert_Action]

They reused the name. Specifically, Lockheed-Martin, the prime contractor on this system, chose to name their system Orion, while NASA had previously named on of its own projects Orion. So really, there's the Lockheed Orion and the NASA Orion. The Orion referred to in the article is here.

Re:Bad name?

[Anonymous Coward]

My first thought as well.

Re:Bad name?

[louden obscure]

i prolly need to get my eye glass prescription changed... on first glance i read it as being named "onion."

Re:Bad name?

[hcdejong]

To make things easier, there's also a Lockheed Orion aircraft...

The link wouldn't work for me, but...

[Unkyjar]

I found another one: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/orion-spacecraft-on-the-path-to-future-flight-2010-09-21?reflink=MW_news_stmp It appears that they've brought all the manufacturing and testing facilities to Kennedy Space Center, which makes cost saving sense to me. I guess Orion is still going forward despite reports to the contrary.

Re:I'm s(t)imulating too

[jewishbaconzombies]

In my pants. And the byproduct is far more real than anything NASA can come up with these days for a Space Shuttle replacement. Cheaper too.

Not a good namesake if we're being honest

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

Orion the Hunter was killed by a scorpion
Orion Pictures went bankrupt
Orion spacecraft ???

Re:Not a good namesake if we're being honest

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Well to be fair, in the myths you are referring to, Orion is the best hunter that ever lived according to the Greeks. He died by scorpion sting in most variants of the myth due to either boasting about his hunting abilities, or threatening to kill every beast on the surface of the Earth because he was such a great hunter. As such, various gods (usually Artemis or Gaia) designed the scorpion (either giant or tiny, depending on the variant of the myth) to prevent him from doing just that. So the only reason Orion was killed by a scorpion (in the variants where he is killed by a Scorpion) was because he was too much of a bad ass for the gods to risk leaving alive. I'd say that's a pretty cool reputation to have.

Besides, Orion is one of the most prominent and all around epic constellations in the night sky. I'd say the name has plenty of good publicity going for it. Besides, even the movie company you listed produced quite a few good films (Silence of the Lambs, Terminator etc.)

Re:Not a good namesake if we're being honest

[Lanteran]

maybe it's a deathtrap, but the name sounds really cool.

Re:Not a good namesake if we're being honest

[nitehawk214]

Orion the Hunter was killed by a scorpion
Orion Pictures went bankrupt
Orion spacecraft ???

??? = Causes nuclear explosions. Therefore that one is much more awesome.

Finally, we're moving into the future

[Just_Say_Duhhh]

Hmmm, the link looks like it has been slashdotted, but since it says "archives," it might not even be the right one. Maybe they meant this one?

As inspiring as the STS program was, it's time to move on. Thinking about a craft that weighs several thousand tons being used to move crew and cargo into space on the same ride just doesn't make sense. We can send an unmanned cargo ship into orbit quite easily, without needing all of the protection that a "human cargo" would require. Having a tiny Orion spacecraft bring the people makes a lot more sense.

How did we get into the "combined crew & cargo" paradigm? Perhaps it was because of the difficulty in providing unmanned vessels that made it to the specified destination, or perhaps it was because the Gemini and Apollo astronauts really hated being compared to the "chimp in a suit" and forced NASA's to put people on every ship.

I'll just be glad when I see something smaller than a double-wide mobile home being used to ferry the humans into space.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[Anonymous Coward]

As I recall, it was an act of congress stating that the shuttle had to be able to retrieve satellites, an ability it only used a handful of times. This may not be correct, however.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[gilgsn]

Hi, it is the right one... I added maxconnections to MySQL, but still having trouble... I am using a CDN, but there is a video on the page which I think is still pulled from the server, and I think that's what causing the overload. Last time I was slashdotted, that didn't happen... Sorry about that...

Gil.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[h4rr4r]

Inspiring?
More like sickening. The shuttle was my first lesson that management will fuck up anything engineers ever do. The Shuttle was designed to bring bacon to senate districts not explore space in any meaningful way, and surely not reduce costs doing it.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[Anonymous Coward]

Please describe this "exploring space" you speak of. It's a vacuum. There's nothing there. A few dust particles, some protons. That's it. The Shuttle was never more than about LEO. Even Saturn V was nothing more than a single purpose political gesture. You can take great pictures *of* space from right here on Earth. We are nowehere near the level of technology you Space Nutters would require to *actually* explore space. Then there's the vexing problem that humans don't work very well in space, and even if they did, they certainly don't live anywhere near long enough.

Where's the "we choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard" when it comes to life extension? You wackjobs are condeming us to our insect-like short life span while the Universe you so want to explore will last billions of years. To be rational and consistent, step #1 is understand our own biology. PLENTY to explore there! No rockets though, so the adult 8 year olds that represent the most rabid faction of the Space Nutter Brigade won't be satisfied.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[Anonymous Coward]

So in other words, you think the entire human race can only do one thing at a time... Only biology, not both biology and space exploration? And guess what? It's not a perfect vacuum, especially not LEO; and there's plenty of solar system that can't be explored by orbiter or even properly explored by rover.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[R3d M3rcury]

How did we get into the "combined crew & cargo" paradigm?

Well, Apollo used it quite well. Y'know, send the crew up with the LEM, etc. The reason for this was that NASA felt it couldn't successfully validate the two different launch systems (one for the LEM, etc. and one for the crew) in time to meet the "end of the decade" schedule.

In the case of the space shuttle, one reason was that NASA was going to use satellite launches to subsidize the manned space program. We're going to send a rocket into space. If we can get people to pay us to take some satellites with us, we make launches "cheaper" by having them generate revenue which can be used to offset the costs. Way back when, the government was the sole gateway to outer space. But by the time the shuttle came along, this was opening up.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[khallow]

Please describe this "exploring space" you speak of. It's a vacuum. There's nothing there.

We're not speaking of your skull, but outer space, which is known to have something other than vacuum in it.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[camperdave]

How did we get into the "combined crew & cargo" paradigm?

Why not? The only time you need to separate the crew and the cargo is during an abort. The cargo is expendable. The crew, not so much. Where the shuttle failed is that it did not have a crew abort mode.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but it's not distributed very evenly, is it? It's beyond our technology to do anything about it. Get used to it. You were raised on sci-fi and utterly unrealistic portrayals of technology. We have no such technology. and space is immense. It's HUGE. It took all we can do as a race to get to the Moon. And guess what? It's pretty damn empty too.

So except for ad hominem attacks, you have nothing. No logical arguments. Space Nuttery is just about emotion.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[Teancum]

It might have been in theory a way to subsidize the flights, but the practical matter of how it turned out is that it was the shuttle flights that subsidized the satellite launches... to the point that it took out private spaceflight efforts like the Conestoga rocket. I have no idea if these guys could have been commercially successful, but competing against the insanely low cargo rates quoted by NASA was one of the reasons why this company never was able to make a profit and ultimately why it shut down.

It should also be pointed out that while NASA quoted some low prices for sending commercial cargo into space on the Shuttle, they never really delivered except in a couple of very rare cases. By the time of the Challenger accident, NASA quit even accepting commercial payloads except for things that would support existing missions directly, and after the Columbia accident NASA quit even accepting non-NASA payloads from other government agencies like the NRO.

The history of commercial spaceflight is interesting, particularly because they have been fighting NASA much more than having NASA as a partner that was trying to incubate commercial spaceflight. Some of that mentality still exists, although the arguments against commercial spaceflight are rather weak now.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[khallow]

Yes, but it's not distributed very evenly, is it?

What a stupid thing to say.

It's beyond our technology to do anything about it.

Let's move the Sun because? Let's move the Moon because? Sure it's beyond our technology to move things around, but why would we want to?

You were raised on sci-fi and utterly unrealistic portrayals of technology.

One of those "unrealistic portrayals of technology" involved landing a dozen people on the Moon, a piece of non-vacuum that's pretty close to Earth as it turns out.

We have no such technology. and space is immense. It's HUGE. It took all we can do as a race to get to the Moon. And guess what? It's pretty damn empty too.

Oh good, you noticed that we went to the Moon. There are two things to note about your statements above. First, it took a few hundred thousand people to go to the Moon. The rest of the 3.5 billion or so didn't participate. So it is wrong to claim that going to the Moon took the resources of the human race. Second, the Moon isn't empty. Sure, it doesn't have any trees or Starbucks. But it has a lot of stuff for making stuff. Maybe it'll never be a good place for a lot of people to live (due to the relative absence of things like hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen), but it'll be great for industry.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, the Shuttle was "man rated" which is what a lot of Ares engineering and management staff keep whinging about with Ares alternatives.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[Anonymous Coward]

Public Relations. Spaceflight is a lot more sexy to the common man when there are people marching into a rocket, and when they return home. Satellites and probes get a relative yawn, and are hardly covered in the press. The Space Shuttle, when it was launched, at least got a 10 second clip on the news.

And its that PR that drives support for more funding.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[camperdave]

And yet, the Shuttle was "man rated" which is what a lot of Ares engineering and management staff keep whinging about with Ares alternatives.

Because of the shuttle accidents the standards for man-rating now include abort modes that the shuttle is incapable of performing.

Re:Finally, we're moving into the future

[DerekLyons]

How did we get into the "combined crew & cargo" paradigm?

Because Congress refused to fund the expensive heavy lift launchers required to support the "separate crew and cargo" paradigm. Without expensive heavy lift launchers to place destinations for a cheap Shuttle into orbit, you end up with an expensive medium lift launcher to carry the destinations into orbit inside the (expensive) Shuttle.
 
Or, IOW, the "separate crew and cargo" paradigm we're adopting is only possible because the Shuttle has already done the heavy lifting part of the process.
 

Perhaps it was because of the difficulty in providing unmanned vessels that made it to the specified destination

No, it's because of the hideous expense of supporting a heavy launcher that only launches (at the optimistic best) every year or so, or (more likely) every five years or so.
 

We can send an unmanned cargo ship into orbit quite easily, without needing all of the protection that a "human cargo" would require. Having a tiny Orion spacecraft bring the people makes a lot more sense.

If it's not safe enough to send humans into orbit, then it doesn't make much sense to trust it with multi billion dollar one of a kind payloads either, does it? Not to mention that the contents of the cargo bay in the Shuttle are far less protected than the contents of the crew compartment. The cargo bay is in vacuum, and only shielded against aerodynamic and vibration effects - which in fact is exactly the same minimum protection provided a payload on a more conventional booster.

They need to rename it

[Cajun Hell]

Anyone passingly familiar with the space program but not up-to-date is going to think the same thing.

It's not quite as bad as calling it "Apollo" or "The Space Shuttle" but still, they should have known it would confuse people.

Hey, I've got a great idea for an email virus scanner. I'll call it "Carnivore!" Ooh, and I have a way to detect if anyone has tampered with your computer, I'll call it "Palladium."

Re:They need to rename it

[lennier]

It's not quite as bad as calling it "Apollo" or "The Space Shuttle" but still, they should have known it would confuse people.

Hey, I've got a great idea for an email virus scanner. I'll call it "Carnivore!" Ooh, and I have a way to detect if anyone has tampered with your computer, I'll call it "Palladium."

And I've got a digital video playing technology I think I'll call "DivX". :)

Sometimes names get repurposed and the new purpose sticks. If there hadn't been the historical connotations, "Orion" is actually a much better name for "manned spaceflight" than "Apollo" (which is only slightly better than "Icarus" if you're not planning a mission into the Sun).

On the other hand, Apollo was a good solid brand, and it's a pity they can't do an "Apollo Phase II" or "Apollo Next Generation".

Re:They need to rename it

[Anonymous Coward]

They deliberately named it Orion after Project Orion, as an homage.

Re:They need to rename it

[khallow]

Anyone passingly familiar with the space program but not up-to-date is going to think the same thing.

Fifty years out of date yet they're "passingly familiar" with NASA? No way.

Re:They need to rename it

[Idiomatick]

Timeline of Spacetravel:

1957 - Sputnik marked the start of the space race.
1961 - First man in space. Russians still winning.
1965 - Probe hits Venus.
1966 - First in space docking.
1969 - First man on the moon, US wins space race.
1973 - Saturn V program ended.
...
...
1986 - Space Shuttle Explodes
...
...
...
2003 - Space Shuttle explodes.

I can see why people might be uncertain what NASA is doing lately. Compared to the 60s? Fuck all. (Yes I'm aware that we have rovers on mars and cool telescopes, but if you look only at stories that made front page news in the MSM? This is what space history looks like.)

Re:They need to rename it

[Teancum]

There are a lot of people (mostly Baby Boomers who haven't kept track) that think NASA is still receiving about 5%-10% of the federal budget. NASA used to be listed on IRS publications like the 1040 instruction booklet for where tax dollars are being spent. It became such a minor budget item that it was dropped altogether and lumped under "miscellaneous appropriations".

It should also be noteworthy that NASA isn't even the largest space agency in the U.S. Federal government at the moment, as that honor goes to the National Reconnaissance Office. Other agencies such as NOAA and even the Department of Agriculture (mainly with the Forest Service) are even involved with spaceflight.

Re:They need to rename it

[Vectormatic]

Yup, my first thought was project orion as well, and within half a second i realized that wont ever happen, so it had to be some small part of current projects

Project Orion would have been awesome though, just think of rocketing of the face of the earth in your milion-ton spacecraft powered by nuclear bombs, with heavy metal blasting through the speakers!

Re:They need to rename it

[TheRaven64]

Omitting the mars landers and the Jupiter / Saturn flybys, as well as the out-of-system probes shows a selective memory. So does omitting Skylab, the ISS, and so on.

Re:They need to rename it

[mrsquid0]

Anyone with just a passing familiarity with the US space programme is unlikely to know about the nuclear Project Orion of yesteryear. Anyone who is familiar with the US space programme is not going to confuse the two.

Re:They need to rename it

[morgauxo]

Yes, Apollo was a good solid brand but I wouldn't want to see it re-used any time soon. Then all the little kiddies who think going back to a capsule after 30 years of winged craft that could do no better than low Earth orbit would REALLY get annoying with their 70s technology cracks.

Re:They need to rename it

[morgauxo]

Jupiter/Saturn flybys... ok. Those probably deserve some mention

Skylab? ISS? If Skylab gets any mention it needs to include 'Skylab dropped into the sea practically unused'. Honestly I wouldn't include either in that timeline. Public awareness comes from doing something which is either a big step forward or blowing people up. We did low Earth orbit with project Mercury. The ISS is stuck in low Earth orbit. The rovers are great but we had probes on Mars some time ago too.

Re:They need to rename it

[morgauxo]

I could see Korea or Iran doing this 20-30 years from now just to piss the US off. China might even be a contender for that... they would certainly have the capability quicker though they might be a little too diplomatic to go there. Not that diplomatic though given the weather satellite they blew up. (Yes the US did that too but at least they picked one in a orbit where the debris would fall to Earth rather than create long term shrapnel)

Re:They need to rename it

[Idiomatick]

ISS did certainly make mainstream news but not much of it. Skylab and flybys? Not at all. Out of system probes? Which ones? And no, certainly not front page news.

Re:They need to rename it

[TheRaven64]

Really? I remember seeing Skylab footage on the BBC news when I was growing up. There was even a segment about it on Newsround (a news show aimed at children). There was a lot of interest in Pioneer and Voyager (before my time, but recordings from the news was used in some of my science classes at school) and the footage from Cassini-Huygens in 2004 was plastered all over the press. I also remember the pictures of Jupiter from the Ulysses probes in 1992 making the six o'clock news. When the first photos came back from the Mars Rovers, they were absolutely everywhere, from news to comedy shows. At least in the UK - maybe the general US apathy towards science means that they couldn't compete with reality TV over there...

I'm not sure about recent ones, as I haven't paid much attention to science coverage in the mainstream media for 5 or so years.

Re:I'm s(t)imulating too

[Anonymous Coward]

In my pants. And the byproduct is far more real than anything NASA can come up with these days for a Space Shuttle replacement. Count on it.

Your FIRST lesson?

[rickb928]

Like, you haven't owned a toaster, car, or cell phone?

You lead a sheltered life, my friend. Lots of crap doesn't work nearly as well as it might, just because Management said to make it cheaper. The Shuttle works pretty damned well, in spite of Management making insanely stupid decisions.

Orion will, of course, be perfect. Right. Like your cell phone.

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[h4rr4r]

At the time no, I was a little kid when the shuttles were first launched.

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[khallow]

The Shuttle would have worked even better, if they had instead, dropped the program and stayed with the Saturn 1B. That kind of "doesn't work nearly as well as it might".

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[rickb928]

No Shuttle no Hubble.
Much harder to do the ISS.

The Shuttle is a good deal if it only teaches us what not to do.

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[camperdave]

The ISS could have been done with four or five Saturn launches instead of the 40+ shuttle launches it has taken so far, and the thing isn't even finished.

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[Vectormatic]

i've seen calculations about how many hubbles the americans could have sent up for the cost of the repair missions (and that is just the mission costs, not counting the cost for the shuttles actual ability to do this), hint, it is more then one...

As for the shuttle teaching you what not do, fair point, but does it really take 30 years or keeping an expensive space el-camino in service to figure out it isnt the best idea?

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[Teancum]

Considering that Skylab has just over half of the volume of the ISS, I think you are being quite generous here suggesting it would take that many flights with a Saturn V. 2-3 flights for the habitation modules and a couple more perhaps for the power farm, and it would have been a kick-ass station that would put to shame what is currently called the ISS. I think it certainly could have been built for far less than the $100 billion that the ISS has burned through too.

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[khallow]

No Shuttle several Hubbles.

Much cheaper to do the ISS.

Fixed it for you.

The Shuttle is a good deal if it only teaches us what not to do.

It is possible that even in the late 80s, people might not have legitimately realized what a waste the Shuttle was. So charitably, the lesson should have been learned by 1990 that the Shuttle would hinder US space development. No further commercial payloads and military/spy payloads were running out. So what was the Shuttle doing flying another two decades? What lessons of failure did we still need to learn, that we hadn't already learned by 1990? I can't think of anything. But continuing the Shuttle gravy train helped the supply chain make money.

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[Teancum]

I still assert that had NASA kept the Apollo/Saturn program going... including perhaps a scaled back but continued production of the Saturn V and certainly the Saturn 1B vehicles... that NASA would have put more astronauts into space, had fewer casualties, and been to many more places besides running around in circles at low Earth orbit. We know that the Apollo spacecraft were capable of interplanetary spaceflight... because it went places other than merely orbiting the Earth.

Of the bold plans for using Apollo hardware, the most outrageous to me is the Manned Venus Flyby mission that was to use existing Apollo hardware and something that later took form as Skylab for supplies and living space enroute. Even the most ambitious plans for Orion have yet to achieve something approaching this mission design, much less going on to a place like Mars or even Phobos.

There was some interesting technology developed for the Space Shuttle, but it should have been built as a demonstrator project first... something more akin to the original X-programs like the X-15 rather than something which became the Frankenstein monster that the Shuttle became. That the Shuttle program worked out as well as it did is more a testament to the dedication and hard work of those who were able to shoehorn the program as it was the only game in town.

The only capability which the Saturn family of rockets lacked which the Shuttle introduced was the ability to carry down from orbit payloads that weighed on the order of dozens of tons of payload. I think if the need for that kind of capability was needed, some other specialized method would be created for that purpose. The number of times that capability was actually used is small enough I could use a single hand to count them.

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[rickb928]

"It is possible that even in the late 80s, people might not have legitimately realized what a waste the Shuttle was."

I have this sinking feeling that the Apollo program would be, by similar standards, also a waste. I'm interested in what NASA program you think is not a waste, and why.

"So charitably, the lesson should have been learned by 1990 that the Shuttle would hinder US space development."

Um, I disagree, but we may well have wasted a decade being limited to just the Shuttle program. Was this really a matter of funding?

"No further commercial payloads and military/spy payloads were running out."

I disagree. Commercial payloads were flying a lot, but not Shuttle-worthy. Launching synchronous comm sats is not Shuttle business. LEO payloads also were mostly comm sats. The Shuttle was intended, as I recall, "to provide a much less-expensive means of access to space that would be used by NASA, the Department of Defense, and other commercial and scientific users." It seems to have satisfied 3 of 4 customers at least. The military has, logically, developed its own capability in the interim. I still see STS as a success, and an example of that is the significant effort to develop a follow-on with the Lockheed CEV, Orion, the X-37B, and several commercial projects building on the experience with STS.

"So what was the Shuttle doing flying another two decades? What lessons of failure did we still need to learn, that we hadn't already learned by 1990? I can't think of anything. But continuing the Shuttle gravy train helped the supply chain make money."

Probably, and that's unfortunate. Now we are also learning about the cost of manned space flight, as the current Administration doesn't seem to have the stomach for the cost of Orion, and seems to be hoping some of the commercial (private in current lingo) projects can solve the LEO delivery problems. We used the Russian Progress flights to supply ISS, save for big things.

NASA does not have a heavy-lift replacement for STS, and should have been developing one for at least a decade. Using S1B sounds good, but do we actually want 70s technology? My real question is; do we have anything in heavy-lift that is better than 70s techology? Should we re-invent this, or is it really easier to move along with Ares? From the record of other launnch vehicles, this is NOT so easy to develop, and we need to be prepared for cost overruns and delays. But we've lost a decade at least, so what's the hurry?

I still don't see the Shuttle as a failure, but it's moderate success left us ignoring the problems and ignoring further development.

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[Teancum]

Considering the cost of building the Hubble Telescope was between $2-$3 billion dollars, it would take several shuttle launches to equal that cost. Admittedly, a series of telescopes that were each costing about $1 billion and launching them for another half billion on EELVs might have been more cost effective, but not substantially so. Overall, the total cost of the program has been calculated at the high end as being about $6 billion. That would have covered the cost of only 3-4 telescopes. Presuming the first telescope was a dud and that instead of the service flights there would have been another telescope launched, I think you can safely say that on the whole it is a break-even proposition or perhaps that using the Shuttles actually saved a modest amount of money in the process. I am using the rough cost of about a half billion dollars per Shuttle mission as a rough compromise for the mission costs.

I don't think it is quite so certain that the Hubble service missions were a waste of money and it also shows that manned spaceflight can have value in terms of in-orbit repairs. Until the Hubble missions, there wasn't any real certainty that complex repair missions in orbit were even possible regardless of the cost.

The trick here, of course, is getting the cost of going into space low enough that sending somebody up to perform repairs on expensive equipment like the Hubble Telescope is cost effective. I just wish NASA actually had that as an objective, but sadly cost is not something they really worry about.

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[camperdave]

The ISS is 400+ metric tons in mass. The Saturn V could only lift 119. Volume-wise, you could do it with fewer launches, but mass-wise...

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[jackbird]

That sounds exactly like the 4-5 launches the GP described.

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[khallow]

I have this sinking feeling that the Apollo program would be, by similar standards, also a waste. I'm interested in what NASA program you think is not a waste, and why.

Any activity which contributes to an enduring US presence in the Solar System is not a waste.

Using S1B sounds good, but do we actually want 70s technology?

We have the EELVs, Delta IV and Atlas V. They can be extended beyond their current payload limits and/or new rockets developed within the lineage. SpaceX also has a proposal for extending the Falcon series all the way to Saturn V class. My thinking on this matter though is that we should learn how to do more with existing launch infrastructure rather than expend effort to build large rockets again. All of the above ideas involve NASA or someone else funding development and buying most of the early launches.

The Shuttle was intended, as I recall, "to provide a much less-expensive means of access to space that would be used by NASA, the Department of Defense, and other commercial and scientific users." It seems to have satisfied 3 of 4 customers at least.

DoD developed the Titan IV in the late 80s precisely so it could get away from the Shuttle. Scientific users have long been notorious for criticizing the use of funds on manned space flight. NASA itself only uses the Shuttle since the Columbia accident for ISS construction and a single Hubble repair mission. And they do so, only because there's "lock-in" with the ISS modules being too big to fly on anything but the Shuttle, and because space telescope resources are extraordinarily scarce. To be blunt, I don't think there's been a single happy customer for the Shuttle for years and frankly, three of the four were unhappy with the Shuttle after the Challenger accident. As I see it, in the years shortly after Challenger, you could see the failure of NASA to deliver the main Shuttle promise, namely, that it would lower the cost of access to space. That's why I say that by 1990, we knew the Shuttle was a failure. At that point, it would have been a good idea to replace the Shuttle.

Re:Your FIRST lesson?

[Vectormatic]

fair enough, repairing the hubble was a good groundbreaking in terms of in-orbit operations, i was just arguing that without the shuttle, a telescope equivalent to the hubble still would have been easily possible, for the same cost.

and yes, cheap orbital capability is what nasa should focus on, hell, it is what all of humanity should focus on in terms of spaceflight

Re:I'm s(t)imulating too

[SlashdotModsSuckAss]

In my pants. And the byproduct is far more real than anything NASA can come up with these days for a Space Shuttle replacement. Prove me wrong.

Re:I'm s(t)imulating too

[Anonymous Coward]

"Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft... and the only one that can be mass-produced with unskilled labor." - Werner von Braun

Lockheed Press Release Link

[Waste55]

Since the summary link is dead.

Includes video: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/news/press_releases/2010/0921_ss_orion.html

You're asking "Which Orion"?

[Kittenman]

To which I reply .. 'Any Orion, Any Orion, Any any any Orion... you'd look sweet, talk about a treat ..." etc.

With apologies to the crew of the radio show I heard it on, some thirty years ago (Hello Cheeky?)

In an alternate timeline...

[Anonymous Coward]

In an alternate timeline... the Moore's Law expectation dynamic was never established, and we're all using 8008's. In an alternate timeline... the telco's won in the 90's instead of the 10's, and we're still using Comcast-AOL and Usenet. In an alternate timeline... Disney decided to use trademark law, and not changes to copyright law, to retain Pooh revenue.

In an alternate timeline... we're in space.

(I'd a similar brief moment of "wow... if only...".)

Re:In an alternate timeline...

[Teancum]

Interestingly enough, 8008 variants are still being used widely and make up the backbone of most computers on the internet. The 8086 and its successor chips are all a 100% superset of the 8008, and is also completely compatible with software written for the 8008 on an opcode level, discounting I/O routines.

As for Comcast, I just had a salesman who came to my door this past week asking me if I wanted to sign up for their service. I told him where to shove his company and that I thought their service stank.

It has been ages since I've connected to Usenet. It still has value for dedicated newsgroups on highly specialized topics, but the spambots otherwise destroyed it ages ago. I loved it when it was before Slashdot and other forms of social media, but I've moved on. It still is available if you need it, however, and the archives have some real gems if you want to dig them out.

Slashdot effect.

[gilgsn]

Hello, I seem to have fixed the problem, playing with httpd.conf and my.cnf... Now I need better hardware! Sorry about the downtime.

Re:Wheres it going?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

No, but it will sit on a giant object much longer than it is wide here on Earth.

pork

[strack]

ares and orion look like bits of pork projects from the shuttle sewn together into some hulking pig atrocity. shuttle solid rocket boosters, shuttle hydrogen tanks, shuttle engines. the idea of designing from a clean slate is endemic to the pork barrel nature of government aerospace cost plus subcontracting. thank fucking christ for elon musk is all i can say. he has the capital, and the vision, and, most importantly, no politicians meddling in what really is a engineering domain.

Change the name of the project!

[wringles]

Every time I read something about Orion, I think "cool, city-sized atomic-bomb-powered spacecraft!"

Then, the big letdown: "aw, it's just another rocket-powered capsule."