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Old May 3rd 17, 11:12 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
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Default NASA Announces SLS/Orion Flight Slide

In article ,
says...
It takes a lot longer to get back if you lose pressure on the way to
the Moon. It's not like you can just turn around and come back. This
is why they flew SIX unmanned missions with the hardware before the
first time they trusted it with crew. We don't get that level of
confidence with Orion, especially if we fly the FIRST mission with a
crew, so I'd kind of want a suit that can get them home if **** goes
wrong. NASA apparently feels the same way, which is why they're going
from open loop life support on the suits to closed loop.


Agreed. When SLS/Orion is so damn expensive you can't afford a
reasonable test program. I'm going to guess that six unmanned test
flights of Orion on SLS would stretch the first manned flight out until
2023 to 2025 or so. The limiting factor here being SLS since it hasn't
flown yet and it will take time to get up to the two flights per year
flight rate that is the limit (with today's production facilities which
are limited by funding).

Even assuming you launched four of those tests on Delta IV Heavy (with a
"light" load of consumables in the service module), you'd still want at
least a couple of "full duration" tests of Orion with full consumables
in the service module, which would mean SLS flights. Then the limiting
factor becomes how many Orions are built and how quickly you can
refurbish them for another flight. That and how quickly ESA can build
service modules, since we're dependent on them too.

So yeah, Orion is pretty much effed without long duration closed loop
suits, which is something NASA doesn't (yet) seem too worried about.

:-P

Jeff
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