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Time: A Return to Apollo?
Time.com ^ | Sept 2, 2003 | Broward Liston

Posted on 09/07/2003 8:23:14 AM PDT by mikegi

NASA has seen the future, and it is the space capsule. Seven months after the Columbia debacle the agency is giving serious consideration to bringing back a new version of the Apollo capsule, the expendable spacecraft that served the U.S. space program during its glory days in the 1960s through the mid-1970s. Supporters say they are not retreating into the past so much as waking up, at last, to the dangers of attempting spaceflight with winged shuttles, a notion given ample support by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's report released last week. Boosters on Capital Hill, in the aerospace industry and even inside the astronaut corps point out the capsule has is a more versatile design: it is modular and can be outfitted to the specific needs of any mission. And unlike the shuttle, it can venture beyond low Earth orbit, which means the U.S. could once again send astronauts to the moon.

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(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: capsule; columbia; nasa; shuttle; space
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To: chimera
I 100% agree that both manned and unmanned missions are needed. My only argument is with those that say man should leave space entirely to the robots.

We have to get some of our genetic eggs out of this basket. We must be able to leave the "nest" and begin to move some of the industry, resource and energy production issues to a new playing field. And population will eventually be an issue, even if the Earth First crowd is wrong about it being a dire problem now.  And one asteroid or mutated virus and it's all over.  Unless we're somewhere else in survivable numbers as well.

There is an interesting article posted a few days ago by the SF author Spider Robinson (the original author, not, I presume, the poster)about this that touches alot of the attitudes and trends involved.  The title is:

Why are Our Imaginations Retreating from Science and Space, and into Fantasy?

a robot probe is a tool.  It can't replace the imagination of a human being who's on scene and really experiencing the reality.  It can extend their senses and make them more capable.  The object, however, is for us to be able to leave this rock and go elsewhere.

101 posted on 09/08/2003 2:54:06 PM PDT by Phsstpok
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To: mikegi
...the rest of the time they're just dead weight.

And an Achille's Heel.

102 posted on 09/08/2003 2:55:35 PM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (®)
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To: Eala
..but what do they use for the cable?

"Paging Larry Niven! Paging Mr. Niven. Please proceed to the nearest white courtesy. NASA needs a roll of Shadow Square Wire. A big one."

103 posted on 09/08/2003 2:57:54 PM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (®)
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To: chimera
I am involved with the JIMO effort now (Project Prometheus) and that has some real juice to it.

I'm an old school kind of guy. When I want to use nukes in space I want to use NUKES. I prefer Orion ;^>

Actually, Prometheus is excellent, from what I've seen. It does harken back to some of the earliest proposals in Von Braun's visionary stuff from the 50's and 60s, but there's nothing wrong with that, and the techniques and technologies have come a really long way. Do you know if they're going to incorporate some of the Russian powerplant stuff we got after the wall fell? I understand that was really good technology, reliable, robust, simple.

My only real problem is with the name. You do know what happened to Prometheus after he gave man fire, don't you? How's your liver? Who came up with that name?

104 posted on 09/08/2003 3:03:58 PM PDT by Phsstpok
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To: Bloody Sam Roberts
LOL!!
105 posted on 09/08/2003 3:26:36 PM PDT by Eala (None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. - Milton)
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To: mikegi
Now all we have to do is get these guys to stop wasting valuable time on this anthropogenic global warming crapola, and we might finally be on the way to reclaiming the NASA of the glory days.
106 posted on 09/08/2003 3:28:53 PM PDT by jpl
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To: SamAdams76
Call me a luddite if you want, but I am wildly skeptical of the 40,000 mile cable into space.
107 posted on 09/08/2003 3:29:12 PM PDT by Petronski (I'm not always cranky.)
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To: mikegi
Why have we not been back to the moon?

Seems we could have found some use for the thing?

And why a space-station, why not a moon-station?

108 posted on 09/08/2003 3:37:15 PM PDT by TexasCajun
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To: SamAdams76
I'm talking about that 40,000 mile long cable that will reach into space from a ground station and "dangle" in space in geostationary orbit

Ummm...If it's 40,000 miles long and geo-stationary and has at least something anchored to the other end...it wouldn't likely "dangle". By 'dangle', I think you meant it would hang from space?

It would behave the same way as if you held a six foot cord in your hand and spun around very fast. Centrifugal force would overcome gravity at some point along the cable and that would keep it quite taut.

109 posted on 09/08/2003 3:39:41 PM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (®)
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To: mikegi

110 posted on 09/08/2003 3:53:58 PM PDT by Rebelbase
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To: Phsstpok
I have no idea on the name. I think they want to emphasize the fire-bringer aspect of it and try to forget about the punishment of the Gods.

The reactor design is being handled by Argonne and I think KAPL, and it is supposed to be a fast reactor. I am involved in radiation testing of components in the power conditioning and distribution bus. We're trying to get the folks at JPL and Glenn to think about silicon carbide, since it has that nice wide bandgap and thus is inherently rad-hard as well as being able to operate at high temperatures.

The JIMO concept is quite extraordinary. The idea of being able to go into orbit around one of the moons, hang around for awhile and make your observations, then blast out of orbit and go over to another one, is almost Star Trek kind of stuff when you think that until recently the best we've done is either flyby or one-time orbital insertion, either by aerobraking or beefed-up retrorockets.

111 posted on 09/08/2003 6:16:14 PM PDT by chimera
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To: TexasCajun
Why have we not been back to the moon?

Seems we could have found some use for the thing?

And why a space-station, why not a moon-station?

All very good questions. If NASA had any vision they'd have a plan sketched out for this very thing. Its a logical start. And sending out prospecting parties to look for water in the lunar polar regions would be a decent start. We know how to get there.

Trouble is, we know how, but I don't know if we have the will and the infrastructure. NASA is hobbled by bureaucracy and politics, so instead of proposing bold programs to go further into space, they spend a lot of time trying not to make mistakes and protecting turf. When you substitute timidity for vision, you tend to have mediocre and unproductive programs.

Infrastructure is a problem because a lot of intellectual capital has gone away. So has manufacturing capability. Even if we wanted to fly a Saturn V again I'm not sure we could build one. The fabrication facilities have been dismantled and I heard a rumor (urban legend?) that the plans for the Saturn V were either destroyed or lost. We'd be starting from scratch, probably reverse-engineering the one out on the front lawn of the JSC, which is (was) a flight-ready model (the one at the Visitor's Center at KSC is a test article).

I heard that one of the last surviving lunar modules was located at a junkyard somewhere. There was the one given to the Smithsonian so we might be able to reverse-engineer that, particularly the throttleable decent stage engine. Is Grumman still in the space flight business, or in business at all?

112 posted on 09/08/2003 6:26:31 PM PDT by chimera
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