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A Look At NASA's Orion Project
An anonymous reader writes "People in north Iowa got a first-hand look at NASA's Orion Project. Contractors with NASA were in Forest City to talk about the new project and show off a model of the new spaceship. NASA has big plans to send humans to an asteroid by 2025. The mission, however, will not be possible without several important components that include yet-to-be-developed technologies, as well as the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft to fly astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit. In fact, Orion's first flight test later this year will provide NASA with vital data that will be used to design future missions."
I can't help but feel naming the module Orion was a throwback to the system they wish they had built:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
You know this how? Science fiction?
... this is an Orion.
Get back to us when you can take a crew of 200 to Mars and back. In a month.
I'm glad they didn't build a ship that propels itself by exploding hydrogen bombs out it's ass.
It's currently being done in a way that makes in inseparable from the SLS rocket, an out-dated and over-budget project enabled by government inertia and congressional pork. Also, the Orion MPCV itself doesn't represent much of an upgrade over existing manned space capsules; if it's to go anywhere outside of Earth orbit it's going to need a much larger and more complex space habitat attachment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... which has yet to be developed.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
It took 8 years from Kennedy's speech in 1961 to a human on the moon in 1969. Not only did NASA get a moon rocket designed, tested, and launched in that time, it also got an intermediate rocket program (Gemini) designed, tested, and launched prior to the moon program.
From scratch.
Now we're looking at (maybe) 11 years to develop a working rocket to go to an asteroid. Oh boy, journey to an, umm, space rock. Really stirs the heart, doesn't it? And this after willingly withdrawing from manned spaceflight capacity altogether for at least six years, and counting. Yep, just folding the cards and walking away from the table.
Sure, go ahead and tell me how technically challenging the space rock odyssey will be. But the call of space comes from the same place the call of the sea arose from in the past. To Terra Incognita, where "Here Be Dragons." Sorry, there be no dragons around the space rock.
The technical wizardry missions could and should be handled by robots. Humans should be reserved for missions which stir the soul, or the people who pay for such things (you and me) will stop paying.
It's hard to think of a better demonstration of how the US used to get things done, and how it does things now, than to compare the space program we had 50 years ago to the current version.
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood, and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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I'm going to assume you are from the US. So why does the US NEED such a large military? At first glance it only seems to be used for blowing people up in countries that were never a military threat.
OMB reviews, independent budget reviews and internal NASA reviews all say that at the current funding rate, the system will not be ready for such a mission for a decade beyond 2025.
There is absolutely zero possibility that astronauts are going to be travelling to Mars in Orion which is basically Apollo + 1 extra seat. NASA has been misleading the general public about this for years. Oh yeah, astronauts are going to stay strapped to their seats for 18 months...in a capsule with almost no room to move. Major components of the project - including room to live and move around, along with mild gravity provided by a centrifuge - haven't been even designed yet, let alone price spec'd. No one has any idea how they will work or how they will protect astronauts from radiation from the Sun. I'm betting it's 2100 before we ever get to Mars, at least under NASA.
NASA's vaunted "Asteroid Redirect Mission" is now widely regarded as crap. It doesn't give us any new knowledge, it's not a good intermediate step for human colonization of space, and it's been mismanaged so badly that you could tell me it had been infiltrated by Russians intent on destroying America, and I wouldn't much doubt it.
But it does have one saving grace: it's our best shot if we ever find an asteroid headed for Earth impact.
I found this out sort of by accident - I was playing Kerbal Space Program, which has a NASA-sponsored module for doing asteroid redirects. I had a ship designed for that in orbit, and was looking for a good target.
I found one. On a direct intercept course. About a week out.
To make things worse, it was at like 80 degrees inclination. To cut a very long story short, I managed to redirect it to aerobrake, then stabilized the orbit so it wouldn't eventually deorbit.
Now, I fully realize that was a game, and that rocket science is actually a lot more complex than strapping a shitload of boosters to everything (my standard design). But the basic principle remains - something that can redirect an asteroid to enter lunar orbit is also something that can redirect an asteroid off of an impact course.
I don't know if that fully justifies the program - it's an absurd expense for what we get. On the other hand, what price can we put on avoiding extinction?
Unfortunately, I fear that's a distinct possibility.
The main purpose is to let other countries know that if they mess with us they'll get blown up. Of course that strategy doesn't work so well when religious fanatics who think there is a heaven blow themselves up.
NASA, other than a place for research money to go to die.
NASA still produces excellent research. PICA heat shield and the FasTrac experimental rocket which SpaceX developed into PICA-X and Merlin 1. HL-20, which became Dreamchaser. Transhab, became Bigelow. And so on.
It's on the operations side that they suck. Shuttle. ISS. Constellation/Area. SLS. Orion.
NASA would be an amazing place if you could divert the $3b from SLS/Orion and the $3b from ISS into aerospace research and competitive programs like COTS/Commercial Crew.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
What we really need is something like a space Lego set that can be reconfigured for multiple kinds of missions. But, maybe that's not entirely realistic. As software people know, making something generic is not without trade-offs and usually extra complexity.
Table-ized A.I.
I'll preface this by saying I'm a libertarian and we tend to prefer the US government staying within its constitutional bounds. That means none of this post-WWII world police shit.
That said, most of these other countries where we have bases have "outsourced" their defense to us. When the US is mocked for the insanely high levels of spending on military vs these other countries, don't forget to adjust for the fact that countries allied with us have an artificially low defense budget. Take, for example, the UK. They couldn't even manage to mount an air campaign against Libya without US logistical support. That campaign was against an opponent who couldn't even fight back against their air strikes. There are plethora examples of this if you research it.
US government foreign policy prefers it this way, because then these other countries are beholden to us if they want to act militarily. It's hegemony.
I would prefer if we stopped subsidizing the world's defense, returned to operating within our constitutional framework (no standing army, motherfuckers!), and left the rest of the world to sort out their own problems. No one is going to fuck with us; I strongly support retaining our nuclear deterrent.
Funny. I don't recall seeing any Boeing pens last time I was there. I did see a number of pretty attractive female engineers and pilots.
Maybe Lockheed makes the pens.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
that somebody apparently taught you.
Werner Von Braun's team of Germans were working for the US Army Ballistic Missile Development organaization in the 1950s where they used their WWII experience with the V2 in conjunction to the experience of their new American colleagues to develop the Redstone and Juno rockets. While Eisenhower was still president in 1958, they began the development of a giant experimental rocket called the "Juno V". The first stage comprised of a Juno rocket body (used as a fuel tank) with 8 redstone bodies clustered around it (half of them used to hold fuel, the others used as oxidizer tanks) with a cluster of Redstone H-1 engines at the bottom. This project was well underway as was construction of launch facilities in Florida (NOT complex 39 yet, rather LC34 and LC37 further south), plans for a liquid hyrdogen-fuelled upperstage, and studies on civilian uses of this rocket (including for possible moon missions) before John F Kennedy even started running for President and before Eisenhower joined with then-Senator Johnson to create NASA.
When NASA was created from NACA in response to Sputnik, the Von Braun team and their projects, including the Juno V, were transferred to NASA and this rocket was renamed to "Saturn I". John F Kennedy won the 1960 election and was sworn-in in January of 1961. He gave his moon speech to congress in May 1961 (and his famous space speech at Rice University in 1962). The first Saturn I flew from Cape Canaveral in October of 1961 (only 5 months after telling congress he wanted to go to the moon). My point is not to take anything away from Kennedy (he had the singular vision to challenge the nation to aim for the goal, and the managerial wisdom to put the right people in place to get the job done) but rather to say that it actually took more than 8 years to get to the moon... it was actually about 11 years from the time the first work started on the Saturn rockets to the time Neil Armstrong planted his boot.
Incidentally, it has now been a decade since the Columbia broke-up on reentry and the Bush Administration set in motion plans to replace the shuttle with Orion sitting atop an expendable rocket for missions to the Moon and Mars, so it's fair to be upset by the sluggish progress on this retro-future path back to the 1960s
Manned spaceflight pork and a pointless mission to an asteroid. The money would be much better spent on unmanned robotic probes to Europa and other places of interest.
100 years ago you would be correct.
Federal regulations would not allow that to happen even without the unions today
I thank the unions for what they did, I loathe the unions for what they currently do. For example the UAW was told to beat it by a factory in the south. Now dont forget the union came in talking about how it respects the worker, and the workers choices...
well when the workers tell the union to pound sand, they keep pushing for unionization.... Now if the unions actually cared about the worker, they would stand by the workers vote to keep them out, not keep trying to get in (so they can get their cut of course) but no, thats not what the UAW does, the UAW is directly responsible for the collapse of the american auto industry.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Better still if you could divert the 3b to planetary science such as the Europa mission... The problem is that NASA is run by ex-pilots and ex-astronauts and they need to keep the manned spaceflight pork train running and to hell with real science.
I get what you're saying, but in the time when the Constitution was written, a standing army wasn't necessary because you had a good month of lead time before someone else's army could get here to do something untoward.
The technology of flight changes that. There should be a smaller standing army specifically for defense of the nation restricted to North America, and then a reserve contingent that can only be activated by Congress (emergency resolution, war declaration, etc.).
All the hundreds of bases on foreign soil should be liquidated, and the foreign countries that get those back should start footing the bill for their own defense. Then we'll see how much they want to cry about American expansionist policies and so on.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
We don't need it. However, all our allies need it, and we choose to keep footing the bill and helping them out.
Note: I do not agree with this policy, but that's what's going on.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
All the hundreds of bases on foreign soil should be liquidated, and the foreign countries that get those back should start footing the bill for their own defense. Then we'll see how much they want to cry about American expansionist policies and so on.
In fairness, it's generally not the South Koreans (to pick one obvious example) complaining about American expansionism.
To place all the blame on the union is really a false statement. Corporate America outsourced jobs to make MORE money they do not care 1 ounce for workers as they are just numbers. Or replacing jobs with robots who don't pay tax's don't buy cars don't do anything but make stockholders money we shouldn't blame CEO for raping corporations they never had I ounce of sweat in building. American cars were the best cars in the world up until the day Corporations started buying already made car parts from Communist country's Like China who doesn't give a fuck about Americans period. Are there bad union officials hell ya and there assess should be in jail but they are not the reason for the collapse of our auto industry.1 one people to blame are our elected officials for allowing cooperate America to outsource our tax paying jobs to slave labor communist country's like China.
An industry that doesn't have the protection laws our UNIONS lost real life's to get. They live in filthy because there government doesn't force company's to provide safe and clean working areas. Something our Unions and Unions workers had fought for to get . Nope lets blame the Unions, that the easy scapegoat to blame. Takes the blame where it really belongs and that is corrupt government officials and greedy corporate America who will sell out an American worker in a heart beat. That is IMO based on everything I've lived through the last 56 years
Jack of all trades,master of none
Frankly, I think NASA should be working with SpaceX to get the DragonRider off the ground as fast as possible and work on the Falcon Heavylift. This is basically a pork project to keep the people who where making the solid rocket boosters in business.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Complete isolation is a bit harsh, a healthy dash of non-interventionism would be more than enough. Our current problem is that our government likes to meddle. They generally do it with (at least on the surface) fairly reasonable intentions, but it as become abundantly apparent that we're terrible at "helping" others militarily. When you go into a country to "save" a few hundred/thousand people and end up causing (directly/indirectly) tens/hundreds of thousands of deaths and still claim "mission accomplished" you've got a major problem.
I find something lacking, a habitat module. I see lots of articles, PPT, etc. describing how Orion will go beyond but yet I haven't found much on additional space for food, supplies, tools and parts (yes, things can break down needing replacements and repairs), exercise equipment. Maybe there is but I haven't seen anything consistent (I admit I'm not involved in Orion or other HSF programs, and haven't fully searched the internet for references). I see lots of articles about Orion and SLS launch vehicle but that's it. Perhaps a little here and there for habitat modules but no major development program like someone getting a big contract to design and build modules.
I view Orion as a high speed entry vehicle when screaming back into earth's atmosphere but other than that it is limited. It carries only four people, has no airlock, no toilet, not much space for supplies, and has less room per person than the Shuttle Orbiter.
mfwright@batnet.com
We need NASA (JPL specifically) for its highly-successful unmanned probes such as the Mars rovers, the Cassini Saturn orbiter, Voyager, etc. We do NOT need a manned spaceflight program; it is an almost total waste of money
US government foreign policy prefers it this way, because then these other countries are beholden to us if they want to act militarily. It's hegemony.
Plus, military weaponry is just about the only US export still bringing in money. Civil wars or border disputes crop up, and the US companies get to sell to both sides. Of course, I'm sure State Department advisers would NEVER do anything to encourage those conflicts...
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
So what you're saying is that they do excellent work when Congress isn't screwing them up?
I've given up on expecting NASA to accomplish anything new in manned rockets. I'm so glad we've at least got Space-X, which can design and build something without worrying about how many Congressional districts they're working in.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I don't see anything in the Constitution that says we can't be world police. The Constitution provides for an Army and a Navy (treated slightly differently), and makes the President the Commander-In-Chief, with the caveat that Congress declares war.
Now, I'd like it if we cut down on that, but it all seems constitutional to me.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
How about lobbying for increased funding to NASA for the things it needs,
Two reasons. 1) NASA's funding has been relatively constant, as a percentage of the Federal budget, for 30 years. Lobbying for more funding has resulted in precisely zero effect.
2) It would be worthless giving NASA more funding if it is incapable of managing the funding it already receives, additional funding would be entirely absorbed by the flagship programs, such as SLS/Orion, or on the science side JWST. NASA could already increase the amount of mission it buys with its existing budget by spending it better. And that agency would actually deserve more funding.
And for the record, I wasn't calling for more funding for COTS/CC. (Especially since COTS is finished development and is operational.) But for more programs to be designed like COTS. Multi-vendor, fixed-funding fixed-goal, payment-on-delivery programs. Eliminating the cost-plus model. Eliminating the single massive program that everyone throws their pet dev project into.
For example: There are calls to replace the Russian-made RD-180 engine on Atlas V. This will inevitably end up being an eight year, sole-source, multi-billion dollar, FAR (cost plus) contract for ULA (subcontracting to Aerojet, subcontracting to...) to develop a local version of the RD-180. Every spec will be spelled out in excruciating detail, even though the USAF will invariably approve variations due to the resulting engine under-performing. Probably late and over-budget. All to replicate a surplus 1960's Russian engine that operates in a way US engines traditionally don't.
If, otoh, the same funding was used in a COTS-style multi-vendor program, you would end up with 3 or more brand new engine families, delivering a hell of a lot faster than 8 years, with multiple redundancy for vendor failure. This would not only solve the actual problem (being dependent on Russian engines), it would stimulate a whole new generation of low-cost rocket development, and a whole new generation of engine-development engineers. That knowledge-base could then be set a new task of building the next generation of (say, larger) rocket engines.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.