Space Ping! If you want on or off this list please Freepmail me.
Posted on 09/28/2005 9:02:35 AM PDT by anymouse
Hope so, since I flew interplanetaries at JPL.
The development times today are far too long. The technology changes so fast that by the time it flys, it's obsolete. I saw some of the early proposals for digital networks in the space station in the early 80's, that by the time it was launched could have been replaced with stuff from Radio Shack. I don't know what actually ended up in the station, but that effort spent in the 80's was wasted.
If it takes additional money to speed up the development process, then it's money well spent. We developed the entire Apollo system with multiple spacecraft and multiple launchers in less than 10 years.
As for tare weight on air breathing launchers, who cares if it results in a vehicle that can be flown almost daily? Airlines scrimp on weight all the time, changing the number of plastic spoons they carry because some spreadsheet says it will save so much fuel. But they cruise for hours carrying the weight of very heavy landing gear, when they could certainly figure out a way to drop them off and maybe land on water or something. But they don't, because carrying wheels around gives them the practicality of one hour turn arounds. It's worth it.
Tare weight on an air breather, and finding alternatives for very large and very heavy launches, is worth it in the long run.
Oh, and for gaps in the program while developing a REAL space launch vehicle. We should man-rate existing boosters like the Delta II with exact clones of Apollo capsules for a stopgap measure.
Your two-step process makes sense to me. Save the tare weight for the reentry vehicle only. Put up the heavy stuff with single-use launchers. I know the Russkies were going in that direction with their Soyuz for manned applications and the "Progress" cargo modules. We could probably do better than Soyuz on a reusable crew vehicle. I know there were concerns in the beginning about doing things separately and having something happen to one or the other, thereby blowing the whole mission. But that happens anyway if you lose the shuttle on a mission, so its kind of a wash on that.
Heck, Saturn V was even decent for manned loads. Not an engineer, don't know how much Saturn V could be improved if we dropped the manned requirement.
And whatever happened to magnestic acceleration? We got to over 1000G without accelerating fuel, back around 1980. It wouldn't have to reach orbit - there are some very interesting hybrid designs.
For really heavy stuff that can't be broken down into smaller payloads, you just need brute power to climb up out of the gravity well. So big, dumb boosters are probably the way to go there. Figure out a way once they're up there to get them together. I know there was concern in the early days with making that latter step happen reliably and safely, but if we've gained anything over the last going on 50 years in space it is that we can probably hitch things up in an orbital environment.
Boondoggles are seldom mistakes.. they were done on purpose..
"One giant leap for mankind"
Then we ran back to the starting line.
For those who say we gained a great deal of knowledge from the Shuttle program, I say of course we did. But think of the knowledge we could have gained had we not stepped back.
Just avoiding vertical launch is a huge advantage. The ability to bring the launcher to 40kfeet and a few hundred mph saves a huge amount of fuel.
One idea is to literally tow it into the air. I understand there was a test with an F-106 towed into the air by a C-141 at Edwards AFB that represented towing a high speed vehicle up to altitude. Worked fine.
I've got to wonder what the performance would be of a scramjet/rocket vehicle launched from the top of an XB-70 class aircraft like the drone that launched from the top of the SR-71. It seems hard to believe, but the XB-70 held the absolute weight lifting record in the days before the 747 and C-5. I'm sure it could have lifted a hefty vehicle on it's back. Don't know how fast it could have accelerated it, although it was designed to cruise at Mach 3+. I'm not sure if you can light a scramjet at Mach 3, but I think there are some combo scramjet/ramjet designs out there.
Some of it was done to show how earth-centered space use could be, and to ease pressure from a growing green movement that wanted the space program's $$ to fund their research.
Some of it happened because Nasa was too focused on hurrying up to the moon.
Some of the problems were because it was a Cold War project, at least at first.
Green concerns hurt more than one thing. There was the freon in the tank foam. There is always problems if anyone thinks to use nuclear power on satellites or talk about it in connection to human flight.
And the truth is, getting out the the gravity well is expensive. And hard. And unless they find better ways than sitting on the top of a long controlled explosion, it's going to stay that way.
I have read reports that the new moon/mars focus is all really about getting NASA out of the Shuttle/ISS business so they can focus on exploration again. The contention is that there's no real program to get to Mars (the moon is a possibility) but the focus on these goals will provide a graceful exit for NASA from these two money consuming programs. If that's true I'm all for it.
A 28 degree orbit would have left it unserviceable by Soyuz and Progress launched from Baikonur. It would have burned up on re-entry many years ago like Skylab and Mir during those long periods when the Shuttle was grounded for one reason or another and couldn't resupply it or boost it to a higher orbit. I don't think that's what you want is it?
They would go really nuts if they knew who is paying their bills.
Hey I just posted this after doing a search and found nothing, the funny thing is "Whoa" was my inital comment too.
I've seen you say that on more than one occasion.
Did an amateur radio operator run over your dog or something???
Nah, never had a dog until a year ago.
I think a better option might be to send it to one of the lagrange points and use it as a refueling, maitenance and emrgancy saftey pit stop.
Shuttle and Space Station were Mistakes, Space Agency Chief Tells US Daily
Well, no shit.
I'll bet the taxpayers won't get their earnings back.........
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