Hi All


"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...

BAe's Multi-Role Capsule design, done in the mid-80s, with a capacity
of four people for normal flight and six in a lifeboat configuration,
almost entirely reusable (including propulsion), had an estimated launch
mass of 8t including escape tower.

I seem to recall you've mentioned this (the BAe M-R capsule) before, Henry.

Do you have more info on this design?

The only reference I could get through Google is you:

http://www.spacebanter.com/q-t_5821-...aceflight.html

However, using some manual labor I found this:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/mulpsule.htm ? Is this the beastie, you are
referring to, Henry?


Looking elsewhere on http://www.astronautix.com:

Apollo CM: (info copied from http://www.astronautix.com/craft/apollocm.htm.
Thanks Mark Wade!)

Crew Size: 3.
Maximum Diameter: 3.90 m.
Habitable Volume: 6.17 m3.
Mass: 5,806 kg (Structure Mass: 1,567 kg, Heat Shield Mass: 848 kg, Reaction
Control System: 400 kg, Recovery Equipment: 245 kg, Navigation Equipment:
505 kg, Telemetry Equipment: 200 kg, Electrical Equipment: 700 kg,
Communications Systems: 100 kg, Crew Seats and Provisions: 550 kg, Crew
mass: 216 kg, Miscellaneous Contingency: 200 kg, Environmental Control
System: 200 kg.)
RCS Coarse No x Thrust: 12 x42kgf.
RCS Propellants: N2O4/UDMH.
RCS Isp: 290 sec.
RCS Impulse: 26,178.00 kgf-sec.
Main Engine Propellants: n/a.
Main Engine Propellants: 75 kg.
L/D Hypersonic: .3.
Electrical System: Batteries.
Electric System: 20.0 kWh.
Battery: 1,000.0 Ah.

Now given that this is 1960s technology (and some of its was 1950s tech),
and given that the CM could apparently have accomodated 5 couches instead of
three if used purely for LEO ops, why is NASA even thinking about granting
contracts for a CEV?

I know this is not a new idea but why not just dust off the boilerplates and
blue prints for the CM? Scan the blue prints into an industrial CAD package.
Dismantle every piece of existing hardware that remains. X-ray it,
photograph it, measure it, wiegh it, do what ever you can to find out how to
reproduce it. Combine this data with the modernized CAD drawings. Use a
modern CNC machine to cut the majority of the parts, or to at least make the
templates.

Replace all the 1960s electronics, life support and reaction control with
1990s stuff. You can probably build in triple or quadruple redundancy, and
still end up using less mass and power than the original parts.

You can probably drop 25% of heat shield mass because the Apollo Mk2 doesn't
have return to the atmosphere directly from lunar orbit.

Use modern space-rated materials for the hull and structure. How light can
you make this thing?

Of cause the CM is almost useless without the SM, which according to
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/apollosm.htm has a mass of 24,523 kgs, but
18,413 of that is fuel for lunar orbit insertion. That is over six tons of
dry mass.

But the Gemini Adaptor- and Equipment- Modules only have a combined mass of
1868 kgs according to http://www.astronautix.com/craft/gemini.htm. Even if
this needs to be doubled for the Apollo Mk2, the vehicle would still come in
at less than 10,000 kgs for a five seater LEO crew delivery vehicle.

Has anyone got any figures on the Skylab Service Modules? I couldn't seem to
find them on http://www.astronautix.com/.

Rip out the seats and the life support and you got Apollo Mk2 'Progress
model' (you can drop the heat shielding too if you want to make it
disposable like the Russians did with Progress). Going with Apollo CM type
figures that would give you a vehicle with 6 cubic meters of cargo space,
and 2261 kgs of cargo space (if you're going for disposability 1093 kgs less
if you want to recover the capsule).

A new Apollo capsule should sit nicely on top of the Atlas V (with its five
meter maximum diameter fairing) and the Atlas van deliver 12,500 kgs to a
185 km orbit at 28.5 degrees (someone can tell me whether this is
ISS-compatiable).

The design is already proven, just update the parts you can't get anymore or
know you can safely replace with something better.

Fly it (unmanned, without the seats or heat shield , filled with cheap
disposable cargo) to ISS, as a proving exercise.

If it works, then fly a second one and try to recover it this time.

If that works risk a couple of volunteer astronauts on it.

I know reviving a 40 year old design is not as sexy (and probably not as
lucrative) as designing and building a new vehicle, but, at least, of late
the people who get paid to deliver the new vehicles have a poor record on
deliver (X-33). Maybe NASA should get its money back if its contractors fail
to perform ;-). Isn't that the way it works in the REAL WORLD.

Get ISS (and NASA) and alternative, safe and expandable crew and cargo
delivery system and then start thinking about how to extend it's usefulness
to lunar missions.

If you still need to do lunar missions once you've got this vehicle up and
running launch a lunar insertion stage seperately and do an on-orbit
rendezvous. If you need an LM, launch seperately and dock with that too.



--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |


Thanks and regards
Frank Scrooby