Slashdot Mirror
Nautilus-X: the Space Station With Rockets
astroengine writes "So we have a space station, now what? We've heard some rather outlandish ideas, but this is one concept a research group in NASA is taking seriously. By retrofitting the ISS with rockets, Nautilus-X will act as an interplanetary space station of sorts, including room for 6 astronauts, an artificial gravity ring, inflatable habitats and docking for exploration spaceships. When can we take a luxury cruise to Mars? 2020 by the project's estimate. It all sounds very 2001, but the projected costs of retrofitting the space station seem a little on the low side."
It's a damned cool idea. Probably won't happen, but still, an awesome second life for the ISS, and one that has an actual point to it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around, I'd rather lie around. No contest." -- Eric Clapton
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
With government shutdowns impending and with budget shrinking, not growing, over the next several years - I doubt we can afford this, and I doubt if anyone will consider it seriously.
Actually, the Nautilus -X plan doesn't propose fitting "the" space station rockets and sending it to other planets (which would require making a goddamn huge rocket!), it proposes building "a" space station with rockets and sending it to other planets. The idea is to use a modular system that's actually built in space like the ISS to go to other worlds. Pay attention.
for long distance human travel is if we already had massive space stations at destination orbits.
You would only need to move human transport shuttles between stations, instead of transporting entire launch-shuttle-landing systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget#Delta-vs_between_Earth.2C_Moon_and_Mars
It's about 1/3rd.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
The summary leaves out the most important part of the story: Nautilus-X is an acronym for "Non-Atmospheric Universal Transport Intended for Lengthy United States eXploration".
they aren't going to actually reuse the ISS, btw. They just put that in the article for people with no imagination, for which every modular spacecraft looks like the ISS.
A truss, with a VASIMR and a bunch of Bigalow inflatable modules attached is what they are proposing, as a lunar transfer ferry.
That might (probably will) happen SOME day, but i doubt by 2020.
Depends. Did you just put Wirt's leg with a book of town portal inside a cube?
Bad summary of what Nautilus-X is about, but the article itself fails in the opening paragraphs as well.
A better summary of the idea from physorg of the Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle.
The idea is NOT about taking the existing ISS and strapping rockets to it. Nautilus-X IS about building something that would ride permanently in space out of technologies similar to what was used in ISS, along with inflatable modules such as Bigelow Aerospace's expandable space habitats. Separate crew modules would provide the ability to land and lift off from planets.
About the only part ISS itself would play is hosting a demonstration version of the ring centrifuge.
Pretty much the "real" interplanetary spacecraft as it has been discussed for decades, but Nautilus-X would be built with mostly known technologies.
I keep waiting for us to do something halfway exciting in space. Instead we blow our money on being world police. Screw all that. Cut the military budget in half and we could have a colony on mars.
He says:
The Nautilus has a huge deep-space antenna where laser transmission may make more sense. It also has a shuttle-derived remote manipulator arm which also seems like excess weight.
As for the manipulator arm, yes, it is excess weight. Excess weight isn't necessarily a bad thing if you are already going to be lifting a lot of mass to orbit. If, say, one launch for constructing this vehicle required a Dragon, HTV, Progress, or some other supply vehicle to be lifted (for the purposes of a lifeboat, or some such thing), one could piggy back the manipulator arm on as an extra payload and outfit it to the new spacecraft. If the arm would require an extra launch then, yes, it is an expensive addition. However, in the event that this spacecraft would be landing a crew and then picking them back up again, the manipulator arm would not be unnecessary mass, but, in that case, a critical system for redocking surface-to-orbit ferries.
The oddest thing about that assessment by the author is when he says this previously in the article:
To significantly lower mass and therefore reduce transit time, why not simply send unmanned landers ahead and put them into a parking orbit to wait until the crew arrives.
If the spacecraft is supposed to be linking up with landers in a parking orbit at the destination, you can bet your sweet ass that a manipulator arm will be necessary to capture the landers. Of course, alternatively, the crew could also take a ferry to the on-orbit lander modules instead, but then you'd be carrying around the crew ferries rather than the landers and/or the arm, which means, again, a trade study should be conducted and the folks at NASA have probably already done so.
One other thing to consider is that while a higher mass requires a higher delta-v to hop from orbit to orbit, if the excess mass is a small enough fraction, it may not make a practical difference. Rocket engines that are in production produce a certain amount of thrust. If that thrust can boost "up to X many kg of mass to this delta-v" then reducing your mass below X is somewhat unnecessary, unless you need or want a higher delta-v margin.
It's important to remember that the first European colonists to North America didn't land on the East Coast and then drag race to the Pacific. Rather, they established a colonial foothold in the East first (like we should in LEO) and then, after developing their on-continent infrastructure some, they set off to explore further. Baby-steps lead towards progress. One off, epic publicity stunts lead to debt.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Agreed, but until we get a build system at the destination, we don't have a place to transit to. Much like the early European sailing explorers, we need to take our whole big ship full of stuff with us at first, then begin to build infrastructure at the destination. One aspect of Nautilus-X that makes sense compared to say Orion is that the long-distance craft is a ferry for a smaller landing craft. Instead of beaching a whole ship on the shore and then dragging it off when it's time to do, anchor out in the bay and send a rowboat or two to the land.