On 14 Jul 2003 11:19:46 -0700, (TVDad Jim) wrote:

OM om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org wrote in message . ..

Of course, there's the notion of the reusable CM, which no doubt would
have been developed at least as far as a cargo pod concept...

Do you think maybe the tiles concept would be applied to the CM? Or
would the original ablation cells be designed to be refillable?

....My take on it would be that the entire heat shield would be a
"bolt-on" apparatus, where it would be totally replaced after each
mission. Eventually, they might have considered tiles, but when you
compare the reentry dynamics of the CM to that we see on the Shuttles,
a solid one-piece shield would have been preferable.

I'm not sure what the most-expensive parts of a CM were, but I would think that refurbished
couches, electronics, and parachutes would be a significant savings.

....We would have most likely seen a more modular approach to the CM
cabin to allow base capsule resuability with minimum amounts of
"handcraft tweaking" required. At the same time, with electronics
becoming more compact as mission requirements would have spurred
development of space-hardened electronics that required far less
cooling, most if not all of the water cooling systems would have been
eliminated from the design, thus making the modular approach more
feasible.

Thinking about this some more, I'd imagine that quite a few satellites
would have LM-sized configurations, and even docking probe receptacles
for maneuvering by the CSM.

....Some of this was already in the works for AAP, such as the I
mission concepts involving an "LM Observatory". Mark Wade's site has
some of these online.


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr