Orbital Space Plane Problems 352
FTL writes "NASA's next big step in space (after getting the remaining Shuttles flying again) is the construction of the Orbital Space Plane. It is a small vehicle designed to transport people to and from ISS. Jeffrey Bell takes a close look at OSP in this article and comes to the conclusion that it will result in yet another crippled vehicle. Sounds like what people were saying about the Shuttle's problems back when it was being designed."
phallus (Score:5, Funny)
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/shared/news2003/OSP/
Re:phallus (Score:2, Funny)
Nope, the stuff is definately coming out the wrong end.
Other familiar images on NASA.gov (Score:5, Funny)
What next?... (Score:3, Funny)
What next, the "space elevator"?.. Oh wait...
Re:What next?... (Score:4, Funny)
"Space Shuttle" to "Space Plane" and some sort of "Space Elevator"
I can't wait to see the specs for the "Space Staircase."
Re:What next?... (Score:2)
Re:What next?... (Score:2, Funny)
Solution? (Score:5, Funny)
The guy who wrote it comes off as a smart ass. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sound familiar? It should. The OSP is only the latest of many "Shuttle replacement" programs that have all failed dismally.
Most critics have focused on the suspiciously low development costs, or the embarrassing gap between 2006 and 2010 in which no ISS lifeboat is planned. In fact, the basic concept of the program is so stupid that every knowledgeable person involved in it must be perfectly aware that it will never fly.
Lost my attention at this point. If he had anything worth saying he destroyed his credability by that point.
He knows it will never fly... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The guy who wrote it comes off as a smart ass. (Score:3, Informative)
The United States has come to the point of a reusable space-plane a number of times and at the last minute gives it up.
Like the X-15. It flew, it worked, the engine worked, 1 man to almost space, it could have gone to space and back but the budget was cut.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/x15/c o ve r.html
Dyna-Soar
ttp://www.aerospaceguide.net/dynasoar
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/dynasoar.h tm
X-24
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/x2
Re:The guy who wrote it comes off as a smart ass. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The guy who wrote it comes off as a smart ass. (Score:2)
The basic problem is that the OSP, as currently defined, must carry such heavy mass penalties in the form of wings, wheels, and various escape systems that its performance will not be much better than the Dyna-Soar design of 40 years ago.
Oh, so a plane doesn't need winds and wheels. Somebody tell Boeing.
OSP will force NASA to simultaneously fly two very expensive man-rated vehicles at a time when it is financially unable to
Re:The guy who wrote it comes off as a smart ass. (Score:4, Interesting)
You might not like what Bell says, but there is no point in shooting the messenger. Judging by your infantile remarks, it's clear that you just didn't understand what he was saying. Your response is reminiscent of an infant shouting and stamping his feet.
Re:The guy who wrote it comes off as a smart ass. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a pretty one-sided analysis. He hinges his argument on two assumptions that I frankly don't think are valid:
The first point is questionable from tw
Re:The guy who wrote it comes off as a smart ass. (Score:3, Insightful)
You may not like his conclusions, but at least give yourself an opportunity to consider them before cutting off the analysis.
Re:The guy who wrote it comes off as a smart ass. (Score:3, Interesting)
"Astronauts, after all, are easily replaceable. The number of overqualified applicants vastly exceeds the demand. But the OSP vehicles will be expensive, hand-built national treasures that simply can't be thrown away."
Before I stopped reading.
You may not like it, but it's true. Even with the knowledge that they may die with a fairly high probability, it's not hard to find enough astronauts. They are practically standing in line. That certainly doesn't mean that their lives a
The fallacy that you can assume the "obvious" (Score:5, Insightful)
Years ago, my campus newspaper had a profile of a professor who had just been awarded funds to do a study on women's attitudes towards fitness and their negative images of their bodies.
It seemed like a good idea to me. But a female buddy came in, looked at the article, and was outraged. "What an obvious waste of money! Yada yada yada." I asked, and she explained to me why she thought it was a waste of money.
Another gal comes in. My buddy shows her the headline of the article that outraged her. The other gal agreed that the study was an outrageous waste of money. My buddy left. The second gal finished reading the article.
So, I asked her why she thought it was an outrage. Guess what? These two gals both thought they were in complete, loud, certain agreement that the study was an obvious waste of money, that there was no doubt as to how the money should best be spent.
But in their discussion with one another they never actually said why it was an outrage, and although they thought they were in complete agreement, their views were diametrically opposed.
One gal thought it was obvious the money should be spent teaching women to be more comfortable living with their bodies current shape and level of fitness. The other gal thought it was obvious the money should be spent teaching women to develop better fitness habits.
People who thought they agreed whose interpretations were actually diametrically opposed.
So, Miket01 and the a.c.? You think you are united in your outrage? Your views might be diametrically opposed
I was about to post an intelligent comment... (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyways, it sucks that this "space plane" still needs a big buttload of fuel tank and booster rockets to get off. This is hardly gonna save any money... What nasa oughta build is a reusable launch vehicle that can carry the OSP or the shuttle off, and then land and refuel.
Re:I was about to post an intelligent comment... (Score:2, Funny)
Based on how this rocket looks [nasa.gov], I'd say that they could have just avoided the whole fuel issue if they had designed the ISS to look more vaginal.
Troubling (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe with some more $$, NASA could do a better job of shoring up the space program, to ensure boy-band members will still have the opportunity to travel in space for the foreseeable future. Perhaps if they switched the shuttle's software to an open source alternative, like Linux, or even one of its flakier derivatives like BSD, they could save enough money to get this new space plane up and running. It may also improve safety, as some of the reports from the Endeavor disaster cited issues with Windows
Pinpoint landing accuracy (Score:2, Funny)
*N*autical *M*iles, not nanometers (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Pinpoint landing accuracy (Score:2)
For example: the stars cannot be seen because there is no atmosphere on the moon. Earth's atmosphere deflects light due to its inconsistent density. That's also a reason why stars glitter [is that the right word? I'm not a native speaker].
The other "proofs" are only evidences, since (a) the photos shown are very low resolution (b) they are digital images, so the pictures or details in it could have been faked. After thinking about these facts you will soon know that the whole "the N
Wow (Score:2, Informative)
The atmosphere is responsible for "twinkling" yes.. but htat has nothing to do with stars being seen or not. The sky from the moon looks pretty much like the sky from earth, minus twinkling.
The reason you don't see starts in the photographs is because of EXPOSURE time. Lunar surface == bright, Astronaut in white moon suit == bright, remember this is directly reflect sunlight with no atmosphere to dim it at all.. therefore, the exposure time i
there is a company with an interesting design (Score:5, Interesting)
they used a modified 747, and a special tow line. they then tow the orbiter up to very high altitutes and launch the orbiter.
the orbiter then ignights its rockets and because it it already high in the atmosphere, it can use half the fuel of bullistic launch.
Re:there is a company with an interesting design (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:there is a company with an interesting design (Score:3, Interesting)
Given the wings it has, and that they don't look to generate much lift, I wonder if this thing goes 'nose up' upon release, like a standard rocket? or does it 'fly' to high altitude? I think a 747 has a ceiling of 50,000 feet, so the ship still has a loooong way to go.
Also, if that tow line breaks early in launch, the crew is fairly well screwed... doesn't look to be much of a glider to me.
Re:there is a company with an interesting design (Score:2)
Thanks for the info!
Re:there is a company with an interesting design (Score:5, Informative)
Essentially, the 747-200 would be fitted with a de-rated version of the Space Shuttle main engine, which will allow the 747 with the spaceplane on top to do a steep 35 degree climb to around 50,000 feet. The spaceplane, which has a small external fuel tank attached, would then launch at that altitude and fire its engines (essentially 3-4 RL-10's used by the Centaur upper stage) for a 7 minute flight to orbit. Because the launch happens at 50,000 feet, there is no need for the spaceplane to lug along a big load of propellant fuel, and that means it could carry a load as large as seven crew members or its equivalent weight in cargo to the International Space Station. I can envision by 2014 crews will visit the ISS either by using this new spaceplane or much-updated versions of the Soyuz spacecraft; ISS consumables and future extensions to the space station will be brought up by lifting them to orbit on uprated versions of the Atlas V and Delta IV Heavy rockets plus updated versions of the Russian Proton rocket.
Re:there is a company with an interesting design (Score:2)
Actually this saves very little fuel.
The reasons are: (1) The 747 can only get to an altitude of 10km or so; even low earth orbit is about 150km,
(2) More important - the energy needed by an orbiter is mostly not used in getting it to the right altitude, it's giving it orbital velocity. This is in excess of Mach 20. A 747 (even when it's not towing something) can't even get
Re:there is a company with an interesting design (Score:5, Informative)
It saves quite a bit of fuel because there is significantly less drag at 10km than there is at sea level. 10km would be, what, pretty much 35 thousand feet, but the service ceiling of an unmodified 747 is 45,000 feet (google owns you [plane-spotter.com]).
Air density at 45,000 feet is
So, if the 747 dropped the payload at 45,000 feet, and the payload gained altitude at a good rate, it would require significantly less rocket fuel than taking off from the ground. In addition, the payload could have smaller fuel tanks, which means smaller pipes, less structure and less insulation to fall off and ding a wing.
Re: there is a company with an interesting design (Score:2)
Size. The X-15 was tiny. The B-52 has a max lifting capacity of well under 75,000lbs. Something not much bigger/heavier than a fueled, unarmed F-14/F-15.
They could try something like what we do with bring the Shuttle back to florida, on the back of a 747. But that's done empty, with no boosters. Put fuel in it, and it would probably strain the lifting capacity.
or heck,
Re: there is a company with an interesting design (Score:2)
(For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, go rent the Bond movie Moonraker and laugh.)
Re:there is a company with an interesting design (Score:2)
More pictures and info... (Score:5, Informative)
Orbital Space Plane [globalsecurity.org] @ globalsecurity.org
More of the same (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, NASA still looks screwed up.
Possibilities we must consider:
What should we (the United States in particular and humanity in general) be doing?
Re:More of the same (Score:5, Insightful)
You omitted the real problem. We're not committed to spending what it will really take to do what we want NASA to do.
Re:More of the same... CRAP (Score:2, Informative)
I currently work for NASA and I would like to dispell some of the ugly rumors you are spreading.
1)Space travel is not beyond us (we have already proven that).
2)Furthermore, NASA has been behind all of the most up-to-date space travel(that we know about).
3)Management is not the problem with the columbia disaster, it is only portrayed that way because the media needs someone to blame so people like you can be happy. Everyone involved in the disaster understood the risks and did everything they could to
Re:More of the same (Score:2, Informative)
Re:More of the same (Score:2)
But formatting seems to be
Re:More of the same (Score:2, Insightful)
How about, space travel is beyond government??
How do you expect space to be explored by an organization that rewards failure with more money and greets success with disinterest and reduction in funding?
When NASA is going good, the public is ho-hum because the public doesn't get a shot at space when it's controlled by a quasi military, government run organization.
If this were done in the business sector, the motto would always be "faster, cheaper, safer" and tou
Space Plane can't be as bad as current airlines (Score:5, Funny)
Simple lap belt replaced with 7-point harness.
In-flight movie would just have to be Apollo 13.
In-flight beverage would be Tang.
Mandatory cavity search at security gate.
No sharp or blunt objects allowed on board.
That includes shoes.
In case of decompression, a preferred religious object will drop from ceiling.
Re:Space Plane can't be as bad as current airlines (Score:3, Funny)
TSA officers would have to be trained to detect Jedi Mind Tricks.
TSA Officer: Could you please remove your shoes and run them through the machine.
Man in cloak, waving hand: I don't need to remove my shoes and run them through the machine.
TSA Officer: You don't need to remove your shoes and run them through the machine.
Certainly is a good thing that we got those ... (Score:3, Funny)
Compact Car (Score:4, Interesting)
But, sometimes when you're just going for a drive or taking a trip, you don't really need a bus, a moving van, a construction truck, a science lab, or a race car. Sometimes, a simple compact car would make traveling a lot more convenient and less expensive. The same principle applies to spaceflight.
I wonder if NASA has considered actually bringing some compact car makers as consultants. How would Honda, Mitsubishi, or Toyota would go about tackling these problems? Combine the efficiency of the Civic or the Insight with the existing X-plane aerospace technology of Lockheed Skunkworks and Boeing, and see what happens.
Re:Compact Car (Score:2, Funny)
They'd slap a V-TEC sticker on it, or call it the Space Shuttle XJ20. Then we the public would get an inferioity complex about it, so we'd get the rockets extended 6", put a huge spoiler on it, and give it a nitro system.
Re:Compact Car (Score:2)
But, Honda, Mitsu, Toyota, et. al. make efficent vehicles that travel along the ground
Mitsubishi is the only one with any aircraft experience; and, that was 60 years ago. A space plane is (please don't take offense) simply out of their league. Not to say they couldn't catch up -- Boeing and Lockheed simply have much more experience.
Toyota's moving into airplanes (Score:3, Informative)
That's a general aviation plane, lots of catching up to build spacecraft.
Re:Compact Car (Score:2, Informative)
I was referring more to Mitsubishi's history of aerospace development [micusa.com] than their cars.
Everyone looks to NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
Me, I think that Dennis Tito did it right- buy a flight at the lowest price he could. Ok, so it turned out to be the Ruskies, I call that an incentive to Americans to actually get off their money-wasting duffs and actually go out and make competitive rockets rather than the government subsidised massively overpriced efforts you see at the moment.
I mean, everyone acts like 'high technology' is the answer. Nope. Sorry. 'Low Cost' is the answer. And you nearly always don't get that from Government run operations. Government departments want to grow; they don't want to shrink. They don't want higher efficiency, because that just means they can do the same with less, that just means that their 'excess' budget gets cut and they end up doing the same amount for lower cost.
No. We need businesses. Businesses actually have an incentive to grow the market. Launching more often actually makes launching cheaper, and this in turn grows the market and hence the business and the total profits. Businesses win over governments.
Frankly, if you're proNASA you're pretty much a communist- (no I'm not trolling, not everything that seems controversial is a troll) NASA is run by the country 'for the good of the country'. I don't want that. I want launching into space to be done for profit, not because they want to be nice to everyone. Being nice does not scale like profit motive does. We need to scale space up to put a reasonable number of people into space, you and me.
Re:Everyone looks to NASA (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats just not going to happen. There is far too much expense in terms of R&D and Risk for a company to be involved. Otherwise, companies would already be involved. Right now, we have NASA, and a bunch of rocket hobbyists on steroids competing for the X-Prize, and thats it.
Re:Everyone looks to NASA (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Everyone looks to NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not exactly correct. By saying that, you're saying that supporting the government at all is bad, because most of what the government does is 'for the good of the country'. If you want to get spacefight done, or at least develop spacecraft, it requires A LOT of money. It requires a lot of money to develop the spacecraft, which is before you would have any profits. Private companies aren't going to be able to run for 5-6 years without a profit to develop a spacecraft and test it without running out of money. The government doesn't have to worry about profits, so theoritacilly (sp?) it can fund the research and development of new spacecraft.
Funding is the reason NASA isn't doing so hot. It doesn't get enough money to fund the Space Shuttle, unmanned spaceflight, and development of new spacecraft. Saying "we'll just cut the shuttle" won't work, because after the shuttle gets cut, NASA loses that money, and then they're no better off than they were before, except that they don't have the thing that they're best known for. The author of the article doesn't make this point: If NASA could spend as much money on research as the military does, (or even half that amount), we'd probably already have a Shuttle replacement.
1. Space 2. ??? 3. PROFIT!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Economics.
A Federal agency has to worry about costs much less than a business. And NASA certainly worries about costs. For a business to compete for a chance to go to space, cheaply, quickly, or any other "ly", there would have to be MONEY up there.
Science doesn't pay. The only reason the Russians launch cheaper is because if they didn't, nobody would use them. They'd get NO money, instead of LEAST money. The Russians are Wal-Mart in this respect.
The only money to be
Private funding for everything isn't a panacea (Score:2)
*cough* That would be, he turned to the Russian Government from whom to purchase his flight. Included in that ticket price was a hotel stay in the ISS Bed & Bre
The wheel might never work... (Score:5, Funny)
Budget overruns, construction difficulties, and safety issues are causing many tribal elders to reconsider whether or not the benefits outweigh the costs.
Many tribal members feel increasingly alienated by technology.
A case in point is fire. The recent development of fire has been seen as a mixed blessing by many in the community.
"Fire bad.", says Dr.Ugh, gesturing to his burned hands suffered during an early meat cooking experiment.
Good or bad, fire has been rapidly adopted by the younger generation as both a means of cooking and the primary source of entertainment.
If the wheel does beat the odds and becomes a viable means of transportation, what will it mean?
Is our technological advancement going to far, too fast?
Where will our science lead us, and do we really want to go there?
No more truck drivers in space please (Score:5, Insightful)
We spend tens of millions (hard to say, NASA won't disclose) training "astronauts", and then dedicate most of the lifting capacity of the vehicles to keeping them alive while they watch a board and occasionally push a button that could be pushed by the guy that trained them back at mission control. That's a hell of a lot of money per button push.
Buzz Aldrin says it best. He never thought space exploration would come to mean shuttling cargo up to low earth orbit. Let's leave that to the machines, and send men out to do what they can't. Explore and describe the wonders that are out there, so that us lesser men touch them by proxy.
Re:No more truck drivers in space please (Score:3, Insightful)
Keeping a working astronaut core group (which implies at least some of them have experience in space) right now means using them as "truck drivers"
Hmmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Look. Flying to space is hard. People are going to die doing it, just like people are going to die driving across the state or flying across the country or running around the water on a jet ski.
As long as we do it only a few times a year, the fatal mistakes are going to look horrific. If a million people a day flew through space and a few dozen died, why is that any more astounding than what happens on the roads?
Of course I'm not proposing flying lots of people into space to make the accidents look good. But realize the carnage we DO put up with to get to the movies or visit some tourist trap.
Now, if it were simpler, it'd be safer.
If it were truly reusable it'd be cheaper.
If it were less vulnerable to chaos (water landings, wind shear, parachutes) it'd be easier to swallow the alternatives.
As for climbing cables to orbit, a bunch of smart people on a shuttle had a real tough time wrangling a few hundred meters of cable - but 200 km? I want a few more proof-of-concepts and sims before I grab the business end of one of those.
Part and parcel in this whole thing is the time to market - the shuttle took too long to get to the pad - if it had flown with current at the time avionics and computers, it'd been in much better shape. Tony Englund tells the story of being in the shuttle simulator when they shut it down one day and said sorry guys - we need the cue-ball - a mechanical cue-ball - becasue the last working one one a flying shuttle had gone bad and they aren't making them any more. That sort of thing has stopped, but could be repeated with obsolete tech if they don't dev faster...
I would still sit on the shuttle flight deck tomorrow to orbit. Knowing the risks and using the process. NASA ain't perfect. But they're not malicious or stupid.
Re:Hmmmm.... (Score:2)
And what go
Re:Hmmmm.... (Score:3, Insightful)
And the reason that we got little fledgling flying companies like TWA, American, and PanAm, is that they, more or less, grew out of the early airmail companies.
The airmail companies started buying bigger planes and flying p
Bring back the Delta Clipper! (Score:3, Interesting)
"Halfway to Anywhere" by G. Harry Stine should be required reading for anyone interested in new manned spacecraft design. It's out of print, but used copies are readily available.
Re:Bring back the Delta Clipper! (Score:5, Insightful)
The Lockheed X-33 tried to get around this in two ways: use a higher efficiency rocket engine (the aerospike) and light-weight composite structure, allowing a greater portion of the remaining mass to be used as payload. It's the only possible approach if you are limited to single-stage to orbit. Don't kid yourself, the other X-33 proposals were just as risky. It says a lot about the ignorance of the author that he even used this argument; it doesn't hold up to closer inspection.
Regardless of how important you happen to think space travel is (and I think it's nothing less than the key to the future of the human race, ultimately), there are a few really big problems with the future of space travel: physics (we have to find a more efficent engine), investment (we have to convince people that space is worth the real investment required) and "religion" (it seems like every person involved has an absolutely unwavering opinion of the ONE TRUE WAY to get into space, and they simply will not engage in a rational debate).
The last point is actually important, and well illustrated by the article; the author clearly belongs to the "ballistic re-entry" sub-sect of the "expendible launch vehicle" religion. He spends many more words attacking the "winged, reuseable" approach than explaining why his particular approach is so much better. Which of course it isn't - all designs have drawbacks. Trust me, the designs that are built are chosen on more than just the basis of the oft-repeated "pilots want to fly something with wings".
To illustrate the situation, consider the choice between Russian-style expendible capsules and what the Shuttle should (would) have been given proper development funding (the cuts by the Nixon administration forced the use of solids; as any good engineer understands, this one bad choice forced a cascading series of ever more disastrous adjustments, ultimately killing the concept).
Anyway, the Russian capsules work rather well, and are moderately reliable. However, they cost on the order of $20 million per launch (at Russian wages). This cost can likely not be further reduced, since you can't amortize the construction cost of the vehicle and booster over several flights. A truly reuseable Shuttle (say, an X-33 derivative launched off the back of a 747 or something), while considerably more expensive to build, can fly 100 times. That's the only reasonable way to get launch costs below something like $1000 pound (where according to some analysts it becomes economically feasible to develop space in a big way).
To make a long story short you have a choice: a) pick the initially cheaper option of expendible capsules, and be forever stuck at relatively high launch costs, or b) pay the steep development cost of a truly re-useable vehicle, and in the long term you'll have a cheaper way of getting to space. NASA started with option b, spent most of the money, then was forced to adopt some aspects of option a, ending up with the worst of both worlds.
Of course, now I've revealed my own religion.
I'll probably be tied to a launch tower and burnt by the flames of an expendible (solid) booster for it...
depressing (Score:2)
i had no idea just how mismanaged our goals are.
or how difficult the managing of our goals is.
but i guess this is our lot until we find some new means of reaching space (elevators, scramjets, slingshots, whatever) in a cheaper, more reliable and more reusable manner.
Re:depressing (Score:2)
It's going to be decades before we actually se
Ahh the benefits of hindsight- (Score:2)
Bullshit it can't....
Re:Ahh the benefits of hindsight- (Score:5, Insightful)
I grant you that it has sufficient return cargo capacity to return a satellite to earth. And with the canada arm it can capture a satellite, as demonstrated by the Hubble repair.
However, while technically the shuttle could return a satellite for repair, there are a couple of problems to overcome.
First almost all satellites orbit higher than the shuttle can fly, so it can't get high enough to capture them.
The original idea was that there was going to be an on orbit tug to ferry satellite to and from the shuttle. Never got built.
Second the canada arm's capture device only works on satellites that have a special attachment point on them like the Hubble. As far as I know no other satellite has one, so a satellite couldn't be easily capture even if it was close to the shuttle.
Third, NASA is very worried about possible damage to their shuttles, and don't like flying it near anything they don't have too; much less a damaged satellite which could do something unexpected or have debris floating around it
And Fourth, while this isn't a technical point it isn't economical to return a satellite for repair and reorbit. Its cheaper to build a new one and scrap the old one except in maybe in special cases like the one of a kind Hubble.
So in summary, the shuttle could retrieve a damaged satellite and return it, if it could reach it (which it can't), and capture it (which it can't), and NASA would authorize it (they wouldn't) and someone would pay for it (which they won't). The original statement that the shuttle can't retrieve a damaged satellite might be overstating the case, but stating that they won't would be about right.
Obviously this doesn't count thing like spacehab which stays docked in the shuttle's cargo bay, or a science experiment released and recovered during a flight.
Thank goodness engineers are designing these (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, let's thank God the only thing we let journalists do is spew out crap like that found in these articles.
He apparently misses the point. (Score:3, Insightful)
They use the Progress M1, but it's small... (Score:2)
That said, the Progress carries something on the order of 2-3 tons tons of cargo, fuel, and water. Total Payload limit is 2230-3200 KG, which includes the fuel necessary to rendevous with the ISS; 1700 - 1950 KG, 185-250 of which are available as surplus fuel for the station. It has a maximum pressuriz
Space travel isn't feasible (Score:4, Insightful)
Only by desperate weight reduction measures, resulting in incredibly fragile vehicles, is anything made to fly into space at all. The vehicles are almost all fuel. Pieces have to be thrown away after launch. Payloads are dinky for the size of the vehicle. Costs are insanely high.
It's been that way for almost forty years. It's not getting any better. No combination of parts will fix this fundamentally broken technology.
Space travel is like lighter-than-air travel. The technology has been around for decades, and it reached its limits a long time ago. It's possible to build vehicles. But the weight limitations are too severe for them to be more than marginally useful.
Space travel won't work until we get a better energy source.
Re:Space travel isn't feasible (Score:3, Interesting)
[...]
Space travel won't work until we get a better energy source.
It works fine for communication satellites and other objects that are worth spending lots of money to put up there.
*Cheap* space travel won't be possible without ch
Stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
Something is seriously wrong...
NASA Obsolete (Score:4, Insightful)
Could those functions be served more efficiently by multiple, smaller, privately run organizations?
Why spend so much on manned flights when all of the experiments are simple enough to be automated?
One advantage of a privately run organization is that they can take risks.
When did space travel become something that has to be risk free, with every death being a tragedy?
In the year 2002 42,850 people died in automobile crashes in the US [thestate.com] . These deaths accomplished nothing.
What if a fraction of that number, say 500 people, died every year in an attempt to increase humanity's capability to get off this rock. Would that be such a tragedy?
Has a few good points (Score:4, Informative)
When you look at our "advanced boosters" - in a basic sense, all they are is old early cold-war-era ICBMs, retrofitted with Solid Rocket Boosters. Atlas, Delta, and Titan. The last REAL innovation in US booster technology was Saturn V.
I agree with several points he made - about how VTOHL is kind of retarded. Launching big heavy wings vertically, so the craft can land horizontally is ridiculous. But he overlooks some of the alternatives.
Lifting Bodies - X-33 was a spectacular failure - only because when confronted with adversity, WE GAVE UP. Part of that was the failure of the guys who set the budget unrealistically low in the first place, and let it overrun past the point of credibility. But if you want weight-savings in not sending wings up vertically, that's the way to do it. There's one real technicall challenge - an oddly-shaped fuel tank able to repeatedly deal with the pressurization cycle. And we just rolled over and quit when the first few attempts failed. I think that's sad.
Horizontal Take-off - Pegasus has been a spectacular success. If you're going to put wings on your craft, you may as well Horizontal Take-Off. Most of the launch fuel of getting a vehicle into space is used up in the first 5 miles. I don't know if there's a good way to fix this problem cheaply - we already "blew our wad" so-to-speak, but here's what we can do maybe in 10 years:
Justify the development of a new, VERY large multi-purpose transport aircraft - like the Galaxy C-5, only, in order to take advantage of economy of scale, use the same principle used in the JSF program. One plane that fulls multiple roles. Here are the roles:
Heavy Bomber (to replace the B-52).
Cargo Transport (to support loads the C-5 cannot handle)
Commercial Passenger plane (I know, we can't justify the Boeing double-decker, but at one point, it was at least worth thinking about).
Launch Vehicle Deployment.
Currently, the Pegasus can loft a tiny 1000lb payload into orbit. It's taken up to 40,000 ft by an L-1011, which is a pretty large plane. A plane on the scale of what I'm talking about could horizontally loft a next-generation spaceplane up to 40,000 ft, separate, and return to the ground, for mere peanuts compared to what it costs to prep your typical Atlas/Titan/Delta/Arianne. From 40,000 ft, scramjets can get this plane to 80,000 ft and Mach 8-12. (another technology we would need to develop, but it will save the weight of carrying oxidizer). Booster rockets can get it to Orbit. (either a SRB strap-ons, or perhaps the scramjets can be fed oxidizer).
Admittedly VERY complicated technology, but this is the evolution we were looking at 15 years ago with VentureStar, and other variants. And they were abandoned, due to lack of vision at the federal level. This lack of vision stems from a lack of a pissing-contest with the Russians, like we had when we were going to the moon.
My Required Space Elevator Post (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it may be a _very_ good option for the nation's space needs.
More information can be found here:
Space Elevators: Low Cost Ticket to GEO? [slashdot.org]
More on Space Elevators [slashdot.org]
Going Up? [slashdot.org]
Calling the Space Elevator [slashdot.org]
Space Elevator May Become Reality [slashdot.org] - The Linked Study(PDF) [usra.edu] Was fascinating.
Space Elevator Could Cost Less Than You Thought [slashdot.org]
Stepping Closer To The Space Elevator [slashdot.org]
That's a feature, not a bug (Score:5, Insightful)
First, he claims that the OSP is bad because it only ships people, not cargo. That is a good thing, not a bad thing. Manned spaceflight is more expensive than unmmanned flight. It is a waste of money to send anything on a manned flight that could be sent on a cheaper unmanned one. The Russians have already demonstrated that cargo can be taken to the ISS with an umannned system. Satellites can be launched without using a manned vehicle. The only thing that can't be launched on a cheaper unmanned vehicle is people. Therefore the most economical system would be one where the manned rockets were just for ferrying people. That's what the OSP is; yet he seems to have a problem with that. If we start trying to make the OSP do everything, then it will be an expensive boondoggle like the Shuttle. Unfortunately we probably will have to fly the shuttle a few more times to get the rest of the station modules up, but it doesn't make sense to add billions of bloat to the OSP to give it the capability to add the last few modules to the station. Bring up cargo with unmanned vehicles. Bring up the last few modules with a few Shuttle flights (with minimum crew) if necessary. Keep the OSP small and only use it to do crew rotations. That's my $0.02.
He complains about not understanding the plan for the escape system. That is his inadequacy, not the OSP's. The original plan I saw (which was called the Orbital Space Plane because it was Orbital Science Corp's proposal) had a rocket on the spaceplane that was used as an escape system for the manned section in case of a booster failure, and was fired as an additional stage after the booster dropped away if there was no booster failure. He says this introduces an "extra" failure mode. Well, yes and no. If you are concerned about mission success (getting the OSP in the right trajectory) then I guess it does add additional failure modes. If you are concerned about keeping the crew alive (which the crew would probably appreciate being top priority), then it adds a "new" failure mode but not "more" failure modes. Sure, there is the chance that the escape system/final stage rocket could blow up and destroy the vehicle. But if any of the other stages blows up, then having that escape system turns those from fatal disasters to non-fatal mission failures. Since the escape system/final stage should be a reliable, evolutionary rocket design that gets a lot of attention, the odds of it failing catastrophically should be much smaller than the odds of one of the booster stages failing. Adding this system will, therefore, slightly increase the odds of a mission failure, while greatly reducing the odds of a crew fatality. Whether that is an "extra" failure mode depends on if you are looking at mission failure or crew loss. In my (and certainly the crew's) point of view, having an escape system is essential to the design's commitment to the safety of the astronauts.
He claims that the OSP is not much more technically sophisticated than the Dyna-Soar. That's fine with me. The point of the OSP is to reduce cost and reduce technical risk. At the time, the Dyna-Soar was ambitious, costly, and risky. With today's technology it is a cheap solution with low technical risk. Why would we want to introduce new technical risk if we don't have to?
He also complains about the possibility of the OSP being built with a reduced size that would require more than one launch to perform one crew rotation for the ISS. I agree with him that that would be bad, but I don't yet know how likely that is to be a problem. Something to watch out for, but I don't think it is as likely as he seems to.
He would prefer a capsule to a lifting body for reentry. A capsule is not necessarily bad, and I wouldn't dismiss it just because it is "old tech". The choice, however, is a complex technical trade off and not the sort of thing that can just be decided with a knee jerk reaction, nostalgia for the "good ol' days of Apollo",
Re:That's a feature, not a bug (Score:3, Informative)
The Orbital proposal from the linked website giv an OSP mass of 48,700 lbs; it doesn't say how much is structure and how much is propellant. R&D costs for an aerospace vehicle typically range from $20,000 to $100,000 a pound. Assuming (as is likely given that it is a gov't managed non-evolutionary vehicle) that this program would be $100,000/lb, that would give a total development cost of probably less than $5 billion.
Does anyone kno
wow.. (Score:3, Interesting)
..spaceflight has advanced over the last 50 years..
..;).. maybe the army/navy should start using those apollo boosters for weapons delivery. :p
Refurb the Apollo capsules (Score:3, Interesting)
If I was scheduled to go to the ISS, I'd want the dirt-simplest flight equipment available. I'd definitely want the reentry profile to be *fundamentally* stable - just like the Apollo-era return vehicles. I don't give a crap where it comes down - that's what we have aircraft and helicopters and boats and trucks for.
Re:Refurb the Apollo capsules (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember, the Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) was designed for WATER landing, not landing on dry land. There will quite a lot of expense involved in sending a recovery team out into the middle of the ocean to get the returning spacecraft, complete with a large enough ship to house the recovery crew (and provide a safe area to safely remove any remaining propellants from the spacecraft), a
Man.. (Score:5, Funny)
Where is the problem exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that shuttles have crashed is not really shocking, given how long they've been in service. There have been crashes with Soyuz capsules as well.
What seems to me to be the problem is that there is simply a lack of money. The fact that there is a lack of money is partly because of spiralling costs, but also due to an incredible inconsistency of policy and bad planning.
Consider that ESA started working on Hermes almost 20 years ago. While the author states that this vehicle is also lacking in saftey, the fact is that the vehicle is not here, now as ESA abandoned it due to spiraling costs. Consider that the Russians had a working shuttle , Buran, capable of automated flight also around 15 years ago, and built with typical Russian solidity. That is now for sale on ebay, because no one wanted to fund it. So we have two possibly better or at least alternative shuttles that were killed off due to lack of funding.
Prior to, during and since that time, many nations have being studying alternative methods of human spacefilght. The Dyna-Soar, the lifting body studies during the 60's, the Delta Clipper, the British Hotol, the X-what have you. They were all dropped due to lack of funding. Has anyone, ever, considered how much money has actually been wasted/spent on these studies?
For me personally the concept of a two stage, conventional rocket powered glider where a larger unmanned booster took off conventionally from a runway and the second smaller manned glider seperated at high altutude with both landing conventionally on runways was probably the most practical. I further imagine that with all the enormous amounts of funds that were simply thrown away in developing alternative after alternative without having a coherent goal this type of orbiter/lander could now be in service today
Re:What about the X prize (Score:5, Informative)
The X-prize is suborbital. Still, supporting a similar orbital prize may very well be a good idea.
Re:What about the X prize (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about the X prize (Score:2)
The major cause for concern is the objects that are in retrograde orbits. As far as I've heard, there's not much of this, but a collision with even a small object in retrograde orbit could ruin your whole day.
Re:What about the X prize (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure it's classified. So what? It's still tracked by a multitude of civilian organizations. Just because it's classified doesn't mean that it doesn't return a radar ping or show up on a tracking sweep for a telescope. The US is far from the only nation putting stuff into orbit anyway. Each nation with an orbital presence has the same issues with making sure you don't whack into something up there (and there's quite a bit of up there too - it's not like a Disney parking lot after all).
Of course, you'll find an amazing number of "communications" satellites orbiting the earth with no comm band registered with the FCC. Funny that.
Re:Inches or Centimeters? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm assuming you don't realize how many technologies you use on a regular basis that were developed by NASA.
I'm also assuming that you don't realize that due to NASA's charter, all the new technologies they develop are given away to companies for commercial development.
Calling NASA a 'money pit' is true in a sense - they can't actually make money - they're not allowed. If congress had written NASA's charter to allow for commercial development of technologies they invent, they'd have made a fortune on medical equipment alone... And on UV-filtering sunglasses, communication devices, fireproofing materials, life support equipment, remote-sensing weather prediction systems, composite materials development... etc... etc...
Re:Inches or Centimeters? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Inches or Centimeters? (Score:2)
You may all scoff now
Re:Inches or Centimeters? (Score:2)
Re:Inches or Centimeters? (Score:2)
NASA Patent Question (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not trying to start a IP bru-ha-ha(sp?), but I'm curious if anyone actually knows this. Or do these end up in those companies with the "We don't make X, we just make it better" ads?
Re:Inches or Centimeters? (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone who has worked in a government lab, it seems that every invention or achievement that is even remotely associated with the lab they take credit for. I wonder how many of those technologies were really developed by NASA or really just developed by associated companies and institutions. NASA doesn't devise new technology, individuals that may or may not work for them do.
Regardless, devel
Re:Inches or Centimeters? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not an attack on you, btw - I can understand that the end goal of space flight can motivate greater innovation than a simple request for in
Re:Inches or Centimeters? (Score:2)
Same thing goes with countless other technologies. NASA had to invent them to solve the problems of keeping people alive in space.
Re:Inches or Centimeters? (Score:2)
Re:Even human life has a dollar value (Score:2)
Let em. a space station is going to be required as a base from which to build a Mars mission or as a staging point for any permanent Moon settlement (requires some assembly in orbit...) They can go dance on the surface of the moon for a few days and return, like we did in the 30 years ago. We'll be working on LONG TERM solutions.
Re:NASA Needs a Plan (Score:2)