Danni at danni.com is probably the first Internet Millionaire. before Bezos, or Musk or the Ebay guys, there was Danni, taking it all off and raking it in.
Imagine the insurance claims when a 2km asteroid plows into the Pacific. That 2004 was so costly in insurance claims is all the more reason to promote space industrial development. Hurricane Katrina is equivalent to ~100m asteroid, this is a localized disaster. Imagine this kind of damage on a national or planetary scale provided by a several km impactor.
As more people live in more coastal cities, resources from space (beamed power, comm, transport, eventually food and plastics) will provide fast response and rebuilding after disasters. Imagine the new power grid consisting of wire grids spread over an area taking microwaves from orbit. Or getting space-dropped shipments of grain anywhere on Earth.
Vernor Vinge's books feature a deep future where Earth has been repopulated several times after biosphere-destroying disasters. Carl Sagan said that the dinosaurs went extinct because they didn't have a space program. We need to work toward becoming a multiplanet species and to create industry in freefall.
I'm not advocating perfect safety. There are industrial reasons, for instance, to have development on the Gulf coast. Locating a city in an ecologically disruptive, sub-sea-level bowl is a recipe for repeated disasters. Perhaps they could build a much bigger levee system, but that will just provide more spectacular failure modes. The best solution I can think of (besides relocation) would be to build up the city street level so that it is above sea level, basically build a several square mile ziggurat and put the city on top.
the US Southwest has been home to extremely productive civilizations for thousands of years. Florida is another disaster zone. The people of the Plains have had effective ways of dealing with tornadoes (pit houses). I can't speak for Texas.
It'll be cheaper to select a new site that is above sea level, add modern infrastructure from the underground up, then put a modern city in. Re-wall the French Quarter and turn it into an amusement park among the ruins. Rebuilding in such a non-ideal location, after this sort of repeatable disaster, is idiotic. Not that anyone is going to listen to me.
Sterling engines are pretty cool. They have one huge advantage over silicon solar power: much much less pollution in production. Photovoltaics are basically large chips, they use the same nasty chemicals and lots of electricity. Sterling engines are just machines, and very scalable apparently.
Funny that one solar-dynamic powerplant will double the solar power being utilized.
One of the Sterling engine makers has a deep-space powercell that combines a sterling converter and a big hunk of plutonium oxide. Man, I wish I could get one for the basement...
LOL! Beautiful. My favorite thing about the politics of the past few years is that our esteemed leader actually says "War on Terra" instead of "War on Terror". I think there is a good argument that he is an alien robot waging a conquest of the Earth.
The common defense is something actually written into our Constitution, I don't have a problem with it, per se. Invading soveriegn nations is a definite problem, though. Also, the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) is doing much more than NASA to enable cheap(er) space access. They have been doling out really targetted contracts to small businesses the past few years, rocket engines, new guidance systems, specialist microsatellites. They have a need for "responsive" spacelift that NASA has no interest in creating.
Troll. That money isn't "wasted", it goes to pay thousands of the US's high tech worker salaries. It does put bread on people's tables and pay their mortgages. Admittedly, it is government/socialism, but they don't burn dollar bills to fuel the Shuttle. That money goes to people, it doesn't disappear.
If you want to point to wasted money that could go to feeding the hungry, how about people that buy organic food for their pets, or medical care for their pets, or the billions that get spent on makeup and bubblegum? I have a friend that spent $5000 on a friggin' cat, if you want waste. To point to one of America's premier technology development and engineering efforts as waste is to see the tree but not the forest. The Department of Defense wastes more money in clerical errors and paper supplies than NASA's whole budget.
Anyway, there is no place in the US Constitution that says the govt is supposed to feed the world. Harsh, but true. You want to eliminate hunger, go teach the starving how to start a revolution and how to farm sustainably. Money/free food doesn't help permanently.
Discovery suffered less damage than other launches, so what? The whole world saw a piece of foam peel off the external tank right where they spent a billion dollars correcting the issue. This isn't space exploration, it's going around in circles 200 miles above Earth. Space exploration is the Moon and Mars, baby. The only question Shuttle-Station is answering is how fast pork burns.
He's happy that NASA can take inordinate numbers of pictures to make sure the Orbiter is safe. My main issue with this is that inline (top mounted) payloads, like on every other rocket in the world, don't ever have to worry about TPS damage. In trying to look cool and airplane-like, the Shuttle has a serious, un-fixable flaw. Stuff falls off rockets, it's a fact of life, and putting your precious human cargo next to a shaking rocket guarantees debris hits.
We don't know if STS-114 has changed NASA culture. We won't know until the next accident (ducks chair). I'm serious about this. Everything seemed great after RTF post-Challenger, everything seems great now, post-Columbia. What if someone forgets another wrench in the engine, or another unknown accident in waiting? These are OLD machines and entrenched interests. I'm just glad George Abbey is gone.
The lesson learned, IMHO, is that it is time to retire the Orbiters, use the "propulsion backbone" of Shuttle to make a massive heavy lift rocket and use that to finish ISS. Crash develop in 3 years a new capsule, test it between now and 2008 then go for manned flights by 2010 at the latest. NASA needs to reinstate Alternative Access now, too. The heavy lifter solves lots of problems, including achieving an acceptable Core Complete and perhaps Assembly Complete for ISS. The first version HLV should use the current configuration (Shuttle-C), they could put Kibo, Node2 and Columbus up in 2-3 years, close to original schedule. It also opens up the possibility of using the HLV's tanks for a massive enclosed space in parallel to ISS.
This gentleman and Gene Kranz are advocating throwing good money after bad, with no end to it. They want to spend (~4x5) $20 billion on Shuttle between now and mandatory 2010 retirement. They will want the Shuttle extended further when the time comes, it is a cash cow not a launch vehicle. This makes no sense when every other NASA budget keeps getting raided to feed Shuttle/Station (including station science budget!). Nasawatch says CEV and HLV will require $5G each for development, why not give those efforts all the $$$ they could ever need and develop a Hab, the Centrifuge, etc that ISS was supposed to have. All of this is possible and affordable if they throw in the towel and mothball the Orbiters. Or politics as usual takes over and we get more waste.
This isn't about backing off, but enabling the US and internationals to make the push out of Earth orbit. Keeping the Orbiters alive at this point is going to destroy the Moon/Mars initiative. Mind you, we the species will get there, but if Shuttle stands, we the American Government will not be landing. Maybe National Geographic, maybe the Chinese, but not NASA if they keep Shuttle.
Rei, I'm with you on this. also keep in mind that the "next gen" projects of the past 20 years have siphoned billions of dollars into the Aerospace Primes, and they have produced NOTHING. There are others billions spent as well: x-34, SLI, SMV. SMV will probably fly, but it's an Air Force project now.
CEV as family of unrelated vehicles: by the time NASA is ready for Mars, and maybe Luna, there should be commercial solutions (t/space) that negate any viewgraph configurations. They need to keep it simple and robust and GO!
Incorrect. The astronauts were not going to simply sit there for the duration of the mission. They had a work schedule - and lot of experiments to perform. Since some of them are now spending time on repairs instead of carrying out their programmed schedule, this work will not be done. This lost work cost money in terms of the mass of the equipment that had to be lifted into orbit for nothing (mass which could have been used for something else like more supplies for the space station). It also costs money because now ANOTHER Shuttle/Soyuz mission will be necessary to get this equipment into orbit or get these experiments done.
Sorry, bud. No experiments and no space science on this flight. This is an ISS resupply mission and test flight. The closest thing to "experiments" are the examination of the Shuttle TPS and the material tests in the cargo bay. Except for the spacewalks, which are man-power intensive, the majority of the work is unloading the MPLM and repacking it. Space Science has largely ceased in the Shuttle-Station system - it is engineering/construction at this point. The ISS crew has extremely limited time for science (10hrs/wk or less lately) and except for the final Columbia flight most Shuttle missions the past few years have been station assembly.
As far as "cost", you are right. Actual money as a measure doesn't really work, but adding spacewalks definitely hits the assembly schedule or other projects. The time hit the extra spacewalks caused wouldn't cause another mission to added, it would stretch this one out. If the MPLM repacking were delayed, they still need it ready before coming home.
Not the crew itinerary, but pretty close. No science involved:
And whoever WTFA should know that. It's been baseline for any Mars mission for the past 30 years. Basically, part or all of the inhabited part of the Mars-bound craft is surrounded by water tanks. This is really easy, because people use a lot of water. In a small-shelter scenario, astronauts climb into storm shelter and wait. In a slightly larger vessel, there are several meters of ice/slush/water between the crew and the radiation. This is more the Marshal Savage approach, read The Millenium Project for more. In-space rad environment can, with enough water, be more benign than on Earth.
Inflatable craft, life Bigelow's Nautilus, lend themselves to being inflated with water instead of gas. Read up on "TransHab" for a preview of what he has been working on.
For radiation on Mars, similar solutions can be achieved. Water or methane tanks can be stacked atop a can or inflatable Hab. Bases on the frozen sea of Elysium could be melted down into the ice and then topped over. With engineered structures, domes and barrel vaults of many sizes and thickness could reduce radiation levels to acceptable.
Overreaction. Just because you can't solve a problem doesn't mean others can't.
The current shuttle-derived CEV/SDHLV design is the most pragmatic design possible, for now. The only way to get Shuttle retired is by throwing a bone to the contractors (USA, Lockmart and Boeing) and to NASA's workers - the choice is either use Shuttle-derived hardware or never have another "Big Aero" manned launch system. The political pressure to maintain all those jobs in Houston, KSC, Utah and southern Cali would mean a clean-sheet CEV is dead-on-arrival. The Single-Stick plus capsule is a good answer, we'll see what comes of the heavy lifter. Spacecraft don't need wings or soft foam tiles, they need simple and robust systems that compliment reentry physics instead of Buck Rogers sensibilities. Payloads on top of the rocket make the most sense, I'm hoping the Dr. Griffin mandates the "inline" heavy lift vehicle instead of side-mounted. The Shuttle-derived hardware are the most politically survivable designs.
Along with the new craft, I firmly believe NASA needs to offer a set price for both astronauts and cargo. This would create a guaranteed market that entreprenurial launch providers can use to garner investment. NASA should never have killed Alternative Access to Station (AAS), and a set-price would be a good start back toward AAS. Supporting t/space, Blue Origin, SpaceX, etc is much more important than supporting NASA - they will enable the common "us" into space. We need to make innovative businesses that can thrive on space assets - beamed solar power, water mining, space tourism and whatever else can make $$$.
Since we're talking about studies, I highly recommend the VSE architecture studies that came out this spring, especially the Draper Labs and SpaceHab papers. SpaceHab's design uses a series of common modules stacked and dropped as used. The architecture leaked last week by the Orlando Sentinel is just Apollo-redone, the trade studies from this spring were truly innovative and the lessons-learned should be incorporated into the flight architecture.
All of your post is relevant to aerospace craft, but not the shuttle. Shuttle gets upgrades, but no fundamental improvements, like canards on an aircraft. The design it, fly it, break it method of development works, but Shuttle moved past that into a nebulous world of operations that never quite reached operational.
Complexity does make better product, but it has to be elegant. Shuttle only looks elegant, it doesn't operate that way. it's time to move on.
Shuttle can never be cheap, the standing army that maintains it sucks up most of the $4 billion manned flight budget in salaries. Materials/components for Shuttle are also toxic, hard to manufacture and old tech(more expensive). Throttling the engines won't change that. SpaceShipOne has an architecture that could definitely bring about $10,000 suborbital flights, maybe in 10-15 years. They aren't kidding about space tourism being a billion-dollar industry. Orbital tourism is going to be expensive for a long time.
China Orion? that is a scary concept. They might be able to fly one without interference. Well, until Godzilla awakens to whup some ass.
The mass of "every little bit helps" can also cripple a rocket.
The best recent spaceplane with jets proposal are th e "Starbooster" system. It would use various standard rockets, usually Atlas series, plugged in as engines.
I agree that the Mach 10 scramjet isn't coming around anytime soon - it's a flight regime that in some ways is much harsher than straight launch-to-orbit.
> Can't argue really. I suppose I am just biased as there is no way I will ever get into space on a none-reusable design:-(
Is that a personal decision or you think the economics will never make it happen without reusability? The upcoming suborbitals will all be reusable. Shuttle is more "rebuildable" which makes it insanely expensive, Soyuz is mass-manufactured (comparatively) and therefore cheap and reliable but disposable.
>Maybe I just have to wait for some nuclear technology to change the game's rules
That's much more unlikely in the nearterm than cheap(er) rocket flights. Maybe Rutan's efforts will culminate in a working orbital spaceplane, but his/Hudson's t/space designs are reusable capsules.
I'm not sure if nuclear rockets will ever be developed on Earth - there's to much political pressure against. People actually living in space would have obvious need for something like that and will eventually build their own. There is uranium on Mars and some asteroids. Personally, I'd love to see Timberwind or NERVA reinstated.
Skylon is like fusion power - always just over the horizon. That spaceplane was first proposed in the 80s and is supposedly still being developed. I'm extremely skeptical about airbreathing launchers, except for the various "stage-assist" and first-stage concepts like White Knight/SS1 or any of the transsonic concepts like Andrew Space's designs. Spending unneeded extra time accelerating in the low atmosphere is a headache/dangerous when the goal is to get above the atmosphere fast. Scramjets have been proven experimentally but are still generations away from a production engine - combustion and materials are major issues. We have rockets that work really well, right now, and should use them.
Airbreathing transsonic craft might eventually make sense for point-t0-point transport on Earth, the mythic Mach-10 "orient express" plane and all that. If you want to go to space, though, a rocket stack (w/ payload on top) still makes the most sense.
excellent point, but the Buran only flew once for many of my cited reasons (stability, cost, design hassles etc). There is a reason the Russians stuck with Soyuz for manned flight, Proton for station modules and Progress for resupply.
>Is this how God built spacecraft in the Garden of Eden? WTF?
That is how rockets designed by Square Jawed Competent Men(tm) are built. Saturn, Soyuz, Gemini, etc all put the payload on top of the rocket for very good reasons. Debris, vibration, simplicity in staging, etc.
>Please cite one other example where a side-mounted payload is a safety hazard.
Sure. Any time the Shuttle flies, the sidemounted payload (the Orbiter) experiences unneccessary safety hazards because the engineers put it in the wrong place on the stack. Not just this flight and Columbia's fated launch, also the Challenger and there have been several rough/sketchy landings in Endeavour and others. All of these problems are related to the side mounted payload.
>You're limited in how much and what size by doing that. In case you all haven't noticed. The orbiter plus the solid rocket boosters form a powered triangle. A more stable formation for carrying a big load, say a telescope.
You're kidding, right, AC? The Shuttles can carry at most 28 tons of cargo. Saturn V could lob 118 into LEO. Proton can boost almost as much as Shuttle, for far less money, including a series of integrated space station components (Zarya, Zvezda, Mir baseblock). Maybe the trunnion pins were great for launching Hubble, but that is the exception. Your "triangle" thing doesn't make sense, inline thrust structure is more efficient, less mechanically complex and makes trajectory calculation simpler.
>And siting on top of a roman candle is safe?
Yes, comparatively. For manned flight, a rocket under the crew is far safer than having components next to them. Launch escape towers are safe, accurate tools for keeping crews safe from an exploding "candle". There is footage online of a Soyuz capsule popping off the rocket right above the pad, the rocket failed but the crew lived. The same can't be said for low-altitude launch problems with Shuttle.
Capsules, rockets and tugs for station components make sense. Buck Rogers spaceplanes don't.
Windbourne is correct for NASA's best position: use the SRB as a first stage to launch a fast-tracked capsule like the one Grumman proposed. This is functionally a Soyuz-clone, 3-4 people to orbit. Follow on with a "tug" that can move ISS modules to station arm berthing range, basically a clone of the Russian "FGB" tech. Figure out a way to copy the Shuttle bay so the remaining station components can be flown, whether on the SRB or a new heavy lifter.
STOP PUTTING YOUR PAYLOADS NEXT TO THE EXPLOSIVES!! Side mounted payloads are a bad idea. Inline rockets make sense - Saturn, Soyuz, Progress, Arianne never have to worry about debris strikes.
Those are some pretty cool water balls in freefall. Notice, please, how they did that research in a DC9, not the Shuttle or ISS. A lot of aerospace research, both in and out of NASA is conducted using Earthly facilities instead of the two Albatross. (apology: I'm feeling amazingly negative on NASA's behavior/trajectory today) There is much to be done both here and above the sky, and every good argument points to the status quo as hindering our unlimited future.
We need a first generation of pioneers. Armstrong, Gagarin, Young, Cernan were explorers, we need a generation willing to go out and settle. Those kids popping water balloons on the DC9 are a good start.
>That what I've been hearing from all the "experts" >the vibration from take-off always shakes stuff >loose, so aren't they overreacting just a tad.
Debris is completely avoidable - when the payload is on top of the rocket, where it is supposed to be. Side mounted payloads make no sense.
>This sounds like the death of US space travel, but >maybe this will speed along a space shuttle replacement.
This is the beginning of a new age of spaceflight, and NASA has little to do with it. SpaceX, Bigelow, VirginGalactic, Scaled Composites, SpaceDev and others are in the process of a freaking revolution. The economic and political pressures that NASA used to be able to bring to bear aren't as effective anymore. Suck it, George Abbey.
Hopefully the "single stick" SRB-launched capsule CEV is going to get built by NASA, but the real change in the next 5-10 years is that corporate spaceflight, for the rich and the masses and govt/corp clients is becoming a reality.
I'd rather have a rocket with the payload where it's supposed to be: on top. Saturn V never worried about ice shedding, it was expected and not a problem because the payload was on top. Side mounted payloads are suicide.
Slashdot Mirror
Danni at danni.com is probably the first Internet Millionaire. before Bezos, or Musk or the Ebay guys, there was Danni, taking it all off and raking it in.
Imagine the insurance claims when a 2km asteroid plows into the Pacific. That 2004 was so costly in insurance claims is all the more reason to promote space industrial development. Hurricane Katrina is equivalent to ~100m asteroid, this is a localized disaster. Imagine this kind of damage on a national or planetary scale provided by a several km impactor.
As more people live in more coastal cities, resources from space (beamed power, comm, transport, eventually food and plastics) will provide fast response and rebuilding after disasters. Imagine the new power grid consisting of wire grids spread over an area taking microwaves from orbit. Or getting space-dropped shipments of grain anywhere on Earth.
Vernor Vinge's books feature a deep future where Earth has been repopulated several times after biosphere-destroying disasters. Carl Sagan said that the dinosaurs went extinct because they didn't have a space program. We need to work toward becoming a multiplanet species and to create industry in freefall.
Josh
I'm not advocating perfect safety. There are industrial reasons, for instance, to have development on the Gulf coast. Locating a city in an ecologically disruptive, sub-sea-level bowl is a recipe for repeated disasters. Perhaps they could build a much bigger levee system, but that will just provide more spectacular failure modes. The best solution I can think of (besides relocation) would be to build up the city street level so that it is above sea level, basically build a several square mile ziggurat and put the city on top.
the US Southwest has been home to extremely productive civilizations for thousands of years. Florida is another disaster zone. The people of the Plains have had effective ways of dealing with tornadoes (pit houses). I can't speak for Texas.
title says it all.
It'll be cheaper to select a new site that is above sea level, add modern infrastructure from the underground up, then put a modern city in. Re-wall the French Quarter and turn it into an amusement park among the ruins. Rebuilding in such a non-ideal location, after this sort of repeatable disaster, is idiotic. Not that anyone is going to listen to me.
Josh
We need a first generation of pioneers.
Sterling engines are pretty cool. They have one huge advantage over silicon solar power: much much less pollution in production. Photovoltaics are basically large chips, they use the same nasty chemicals and lots of electricity. Sterling engines are just machines, and very scalable apparently.
Funny that one solar-dynamic powerplant will double the solar power being utilized.
One of the Sterling engine makers has a deep-space powercell that combines a sterling converter and a big hunk of plutonium oxide. Man, I wish I could get one for the basement...
Josh
LOL! Beautiful. My favorite thing about the politics of the past few years is that our esteemed leader actually says "War on Terra" instead of "War on Terror". I think there is a good argument that he is an alien robot waging a conquest of the Earth.
The common defense is something actually written into our Constitution, I don't have a problem with it, per se. Invading soveriegn nations is a definite problem, though. Also, the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) is doing much more than NASA to enable cheap(er) space access. They have been doling out really targetted contracts to small businesses the past few years, rocket engines, new guidance systems, specialist microsatellites. They have a need for "responsive" spacelift that NASA has no interest in creating.
Josh
Troll. That money isn't "wasted", it goes to pay thousands of the US's high tech worker salaries. It does put bread on people's tables and pay their mortgages. Admittedly, it is government/socialism, but they don't burn dollar bills to fuel the Shuttle. That money goes to people, it doesn't disappear.
If you want to point to wasted money that could go to feeding the hungry, how about people that buy organic food for their pets, or medical care for their pets, or the billions that get spent on makeup and bubblegum? I have a friend that spent $5000 on a friggin' cat, if you want waste. To point to one of America's premier technology development and engineering efforts as waste is to see the tree but not the forest. The Department of Defense wastes more money in clerical errors and paper supplies than NASA's whole budget.
Anyway, there is no place in the US Constitution that says the govt is supposed to feed the world. Harsh, but true. You want to eliminate hunger, go teach the starving how to start a revolution and how to farm sustainably. Money/free food doesn't help permanently.
Josh
i read this when it came out. It's still garbage.
Discovery suffered less damage than other launches, so what? The whole world saw a piece of foam peel off the external tank right where they spent a billion dollars correcting the issue. This isn't space exploration, it's going around in circles 200 miles above Earth. Space exploration is the Moon and Mars, baby. The only question Shuttle-Station is answering is how fast pork burns.
He's happy that NASA can take inordinate numbers of pictures to make sure the Orbiter is safe. My main issue with this is that inline (top mounted) payloads, like on every other rocket in the world, don't ever have to worry about TPS damage. In trying to look cool and airplane-like, the Shuttle has a serious, un-fixable flaw. Stuff falls off rockets, it's a fact of life, and putting your precious human cargo next to a shaking rocket guarantees debris hits.
We don't know if STS-114 has changed NASA culture. We won't know until the next accident (ducks chair). I'm serious about this. Everything seemed great after RTF post-Challenger, everything seems great now, post-Columbia. What if someone forgets another wrench in the engine, or another unknown accident in waiting? These are OLD machines and entrenched interests. I'm just glad George Abbey is gone.
The lesson learned, IMHO, is that it is time to retire the Orbiters, use the "propulsion backbone" of Shuttle to make a massive heavy lift rocket and use that to finish ISS. Crash develop in 3 years a new capsule, test it between now and 2008 then go for manned flights by 2010 at the latest. NASA needs to reinstate Alternative Access now, too. The heavy lifter solves lots of problems, including achieving an acceptable Core Complete and perhaps Assembly Complete for ISS. The first version HLV should use the current configuration (Shuttle-C), they could put Kibo, Node2 and Columbus up in 2-3 years, close to original schedule. It also opens up the possibility of using the HLV's tanks for a massive enclosed space in parallel to ISS.
This gentleman and Gene Kranz are advocating throwing good money after bad, with no end to it. They want to spend (~4x5) $20 billion on Shuttle between now and mandatory 2010 retirement. They will want the Shuttle extended further when the time comes, it is a cash cow not a launch vehicle. This makes no sense when every other NASA budget keeps getting raided to feed Shuttle/Station (including station science budget!). Nasawatch says CEV and HLV will require $5G each for development, why not give those efforts all the $$$ they could ever need and develop a Hab, the Centrifuge, etc that ISS was supposed to have. All of this is possible and affordable if they throw in the towel and mothball the Orbiters. Or politics as usual takes over and we get more waste.
This isn't about backing off, but enabling the US and internationals to make the push out of Earth orbit. Keeping the Orbiters alive at this point is going to destroy the Moon/Mars initiative. Mind you, we the species will get there, but if Shuttle stands, we the American Government will not be landing. Maybe National Geographic, maybe the Chinese, but not NASA if they keep Shuttle.
We need a first generation of pioneers
Josh
Rei, I'm with you on this. also keep in mind that the "next gen" projects of the past 20 years have siphoned billions of dollars into the Aerospace Primes, and they have produced NOTHING. There are others billions spent as well: x-34, SLI, SMV. SMV will probably fly, but it's an Air Force project now.
CEV as family of unrelated vehicles: by the time NASA is ready for Mars, and maybe Luna, there should be commercial solutions (t/space) that negate any viewgraph configurations. They need to keep it simple and robust and GO!
Josh
Incorrect. The astronauts were not going to simply sit there for the duration of the mission. They had a work schedule - and lot of experiments to perform. Since some of them are now spending time on repairs instead of carrying out their programmed schedule, this work will not be done. This lost work cost money in terms of the mass of the equipment that had to be lifted into orbit for nothing (mass which could have been used for something else like more supplies for the space station). It also costs money because now ANOTHER Shuttle/Soyuz mission will be necessary to get this equipment into orbit or get these experiments done.
Sorry, bud. No experiments and no space science on this flight. This is an ISS resupply mission and test flight. The closest thing to "experiments" are the examination of the Shuttle TPS and the material tests in the cargo bay. Except for the spacewalks, which are man-power intensive, the majority of the work is unloading the MPLM and repacking it. Space Science has largely ceased in the Shuttle-Station system - it is engineering/construction at this point. The ISS crew has extremely limited time for science (10hrs/wk or less lately) and except for the final Columbia flight most Shuttle missions the past few years have been station assembly.
As far as "cost", you are right. Actual money as a measure doesn't really work, but adding spacewalks definitely hits the assembly schedule or other projects. The time hit the extra spacewalks caused wouldn't cause another mission to added, it would stretch this one out. If the MPLM repacking were delayed, they still need it ready before coming home.
Not the crew itinerary, but pretty close. No science involved:
http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/crew/event_tim
Josh
And whoever WTFA should know that. It's been baseline for any Mars mission for the past 30 years. Basically, part or all of the inhabited part of the Mars-bound craft is surrounded by water tanks. This is really easy, because people use a lot of water. In a small-shelter scenario, astronauts climb into storm shelter and wait. In a slightly larger vessel, there are several meters of ice/slush/water between the crew and the radiation. This is more the Marshal Savage approach, read The Millenium Project for more. In-space rad environment can, with enough water, be more benign than on Earth.
Inflatable craft, life Bigelow's Nautilus, lend themselves to being inflated with water instead of gas. Read up on "TransHab" for a preview of what he has been working on.
For radiation on Mars, similar solutions can be achieved. Water or methane tanks can be stacked atop a can or inflatable Hab. Bases on the frozen sea of Elysium could be melted down into the ice and then topped over. With engineered structures, domes and barrel vaults of many sizes and thickness could reduce radiation levels to acceptable.
Overreaction. Just because you can't solve a problem doesn't mean others can't.
josh
totally lame replying to myself, but here is the link to the VSE trade studies:
o ncepts.html
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/vision_c
some of it is technical, but not beyond the average slashdotter.
The current shuttle-derived CEV/SDHLV design is the most pragmatic design possible, for now. The only way to get Shuttle retired is by throwing a bone to the contractors (USA, Lockmart and Boeing) and to NASA's workers - the choice is either use Shuttle-derived hardware or never have another "Big Aero" manned launch system. The political pressure to maintain all those jobs in Houston, KSC, Utah and southern Cali would mean a clean-sheet CEV is dead-on-arrival. The Single-Stick plus capsule is a good answer, we'll see what comes of the heavy lifter. Spacecraft don't need wings or soft foam tiles, they need simple and robust systems that compliment reentry physics instead of Buck Rogers sensibilities. Payloads on top of the rocket make the most sense, I'm hoping the Dr. Griffin mandates the "inline" heavy lift vehicle instead of side-mounted. The Shuttle-derived hardware are the most politically survivable designs.
Along with the new craft, I firmly believe NASA needs to offer a set price for both astronauts and cargo. This would create a guaranteed market that entreprenurial launch providers can use to garner investment. NASA should never have killed Alternative Access to Station (AAS), and a set-price would be a good start back toward AAS. Supporting t/space, Blue Origin, SpaceX, etc is much more important than supporting NASA - they will enable the common "us" into space. We need to make innovative businesses that can thrive on space assets - beamed solar power, water mining, space tourism and whatever else can make $$$.
Since we're talking about studies, I highly recommend the VSE architecture studies that came out this spring, especially the Draper Labs and SpaceHab papers. SpaceHab's design uses a series of common modules stacked and dropped as used. The architecture leaked last week by the Orlando Sentinel is just Apollo-redone, the trade studies from this spring were truly innovative and the lessons-learned should be incorporated into the flight architecture.
Josh
All of your post is relevant to aerospace craft, but not the shuttle. Shuttle gets upgrades, but no fundamental improvements, like canards on an aircraft. The design it, fly it, break it method of development works, but Shuttle moved past that into a nebulous world of operations that never quite reached operational.
Complexity does make better product, but it has to be elegant. Shuttle only looks elegant, it doesn't operate that way. it's time to move on.
Shuttle can never be cheap, the standing army that maintains it sucks up most of the $4 billion manned flight budget in salaries. Materials/components for Shuttle are also toxic, hard to manufacture and old tech(more expensive). Throttling the engines won't change that. SpaceShipOne has an architecture that could definitely bring about $10,000 suborbital flights, maybe in 10-15 years. They aren't kidding about space tourism being a billion-dollar industry. Orbital tourism is going to be expensive for a long time.
China Orion? that is a scary concept. They might be able to fly one without interference. Well, until Godzilla awakens to whup some ass.
The mass of "every little bit helps" can also cripple a rocket.
The best recent spaceplane with jets proposal are th e "Starbooster" system. It would use various standard rockets, usually Atlas series, plugged in as engines.
I agree that the Mach 10 scramjet isn't coming around anytime soon - it's a flight regime that in some ways is much harsher than straight launch-to-orbit.
> Can't argue really. I suppose I am just biased as there is no way I will ever get into space on a none-reusable design :-(
Is that a personal decision or you think the economics will never make it happen without reusability? The upcoming suborbitals will all be reusable. Shuttle is more "rebuildable" which makes it insanely expensive, Soyuz is mass-manufactured (comparatively) and therefore cheap and reliable but disposable.
>Maybe I just have to wait for some nuclear technology to change the game's rules
That's much more unlikely in the nearterm than cheap(er) rocket flights. Maybe Rutan's efforts will culminate in a working orbital spaceplane, but his/Hudson's t/space designs are reusable capsules.
I'm not sure if nuclear rockets will ever be developed on Earth - there's to much political pressure against. People actually living in space would have obvious need for something like that and will eventually build their own. There is uranium on Mars and some asteroids. Personally, I'd love to see Timberwind or NERVA reinstated.
Skylon is like fusion power - always just over the horizon. That spaceplane was first proposed in the 80s and is supposedly still being developed. I'm extremely skeptical about airbreathing launchers, except for the various "stage-assist" and first-stage concepts like White Knight/SS1 or any of the transsonic concepts like Andrew Space's designs. Spending unneeded extra time accelerating in the low atmosphere is a headache/dangerous when the goal is to get above the atmosphere fast. Scramjets have been proven experimentally but are still generations away from a production engine - combustion and materials are major issues. We have rockets that work really well, right now, and should use them.
Airbreathing transsonic craft might eventually make sense for point-t0-point transport on Earth, the mythic Mach-10 "orient express" plane and all that. If you want to go to space, though, a rocket stack (w/ payload on top) still makes the most sense.
excellent point, but the Buran only flew once for many of my cited reasons (stability, cost, design hassles etc). There is a reason the Russians stuck with Soyuz for manned flight, Proton for station modules and Progress for resupply.
>Is this how God built spacecraft in the Garden of Eden? WTF?
That is how rockets designed by Square Jawed Competent Men(tm) are built. Saturn, Soyuz, Gemini, etc all put the payload on top of the rocket for very good reasons. Debris, vibration, simplicity in staging, etc.
>Please cite one other example where a side-mounted payload is a safety hazard.
Sure. Any time the Shuttle flies, the sidemounted payload (the Orbiter) experiences unneccessary safety hazards because the engineers put it in the wrong place on the stack. Not just this flight and Columbia's fated launch, also the Challenger and there have been several rough/sketchy landings in Endeavour and others. All of these problems are related to the side mounted payload.
>You're limited in how much and what size by doing that. In case you all haven't noticed. The orbiter plus the solid rocket boosters form a powered triangle. A more stable formation for carrying a big load, say a telescope.
You're kidding, right, AC? The Shuttles can carry at most 28 tons of cargo. Saturn V could lob 118 into LEO. Proton can boost almost as much as Shuttle, for far less money, including a series of integrated space station components (Zarya, Zvezda, Mir baseblock). Maybe the trunnion pins were great for launching Hubble, but that is the exception. Your "triangle" thing doesn't make sense, inline thrust structure is more efficient, less mechanically complex and makes trajectory calculation simpler.
>And siting on top of a roman candle is safe?
Yes, comparatively. For manned flight, a rocket under the crew is far safer than having components next to them. Launch escape towers are safe, accurate tools for keeping crews safe from an exploding "candle". There is footage online of a Soyuz capsule popping off the rocket right above the pad, the rocket failed but the crew lived. The same can't be said for low-altitude launch problems with Shuttle.
Capsules, rockets and tugs for station components make sense. Buck Rogers spaceplanes don't.
solutions:
Windbourne is correct for NASA's best position: use the SRB as a first stage to launch a fast-tracked capsule like the one Grumman proposed. This is functionally a Soyuz-clone, 3-4 people to orbit. Follow on with a "tug" that can move ISS modules to station arm berthing range, basically a clone of the Russian "FGB" tech. Figure out a way to copy the Shuttle bay so the remaining station components can be flown, whether on the SRB or a new heavy lifter.
STOP PUTTING YOUR PAYLOADS NEXT TO THE EXPLOSIVES!! Side mounted payloads are a bad idea. Inline rockets make sense - Saturn, Soyuz, Progress, Arianne never have to worry about debris strikes.
We need a first generation of pioneers.
Josh
Those are some pretty cool water balls in freefall. Notice, please, how they did that research in a DC9, not the Shuttle or ISS. A lot of aerospace research, both in and out of NASA is conducted using Earthly facilities instead of the two Albatross. (apology: I'm feeling amazingly negative on NASA's behavior/trajectory today) There is much to be done both here and above the sky, and every good argument points to the status quo as hindering our unlimited future.
We need a first generation of pioneers. Armstrong, Gagarin, Young, Cernan were explorers, we need a generation willing to go out and settle. Those kids popping water balloons on the DC9 are a good start.
josh
>That what I've been hearing from all the "experts"
>the vibration from take-off always shakes stuff
>loose, so aren't they overreacting just a tad.
Debris is completely avoidable - when the payload is on top of the rocket, where it is supposed to be. Side mounted payloads make no sense.
>This sounds like the death of US space travel, but
>maybe this will speed along a space shuttle replacement.
This is the beginning of a new age of spaceflight, and NASA has little to do with it. SpaceX, Bigelow, VirginGalactic, Scaled Composites, SpaceDev and others are in the process of a freaking revolution. The economic and political pressures that NASA used to be able to bring to bear aren't as effective anymore. Suck it, George Abbey.
Hopefully the "single stick" SRB-launched capsule CEV is going to get built by NASA, but the real change in the next 5-10 years is that corporate spaceflight, for the rich and the masses and govt/corp clients is becoming a reality.
We need a first generation of pioneers.
Josh
I'd rather have a rocket with the payload where it's supposed to be: on top. Saturn V never worried about ice shedding, it was expected and not a problem because the payload was on top. Side mounted payloads are suicide.
I'm not religous, but godspeed Discovery.