View Single Post
  #12  
Old May 2nd 17, 02:13 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,018
Default NASA Announces SLS/Orion Flight Slide

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2017-04-30 04:00, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Also the whole "we have no space suits" thing.


Go back to watch "From the Earth to the Moon". Where there is a will,
there is a budget to get it doen quickly enough.


So $200 million and eight years isn't enough money and time?


What is wrong with ACER and Shuttle/station suits that couldn't be used
for first manned flight?


I assume you mean "ACES". Insufficient mobility. Insufficient
duration. You need to keep in mind what ACES was designed for. That
being said, modifying ACES to be suitable (closed loop life support,
improved mobility) is precisely the track that will produce suits in
2021.

ISS suits suffer from the same mobility problem and are too bulky to
be worn in Orion as 'capsule suits'. In addition, WE DON'T HAVE ANY
SPARE ONES. There are a total of 11 of those things left in service.
Four of them are on ISS. The other seven are used here on Earth for
testing of issues that occur with the four that are in use. We
probably don't have enough of these suits to be sure of just getting
through the ISS program.


If NASA is just spending Pork money on R&D for totally new suits,
perhaps it needs to stop and just use existing suits, unless something
terribly wrong/incompatible has been identified.


THERE ARE NO EXISTING SUITS! Do you not read simple English?



Also the "we don't
have the required Deep Space communications or support networks in
place.


Since the flights are just a spin around the block which doesn't even
include a weekend camping stop on the moon, do we even need a deep space
communication network?


Yeah, we can do without life support, too. I mean, it's a short trip,
right? No reason why we might want to talk to them or they might want
to breath or stuff like that.


I know that the origianl deep space dishes in westernm Australia
(Carnarvon) have been decommissioned, one destroyed, the other a
museum), but surely there are others that can be used ?


I don't have time to educate you on this stuff given the magnitude of
your ignorance.



Also the whole "the ground facilities aren't set up to launch
people right now" thing.


And why aren't they ready?


Because the first manned flight of Orion isn't planned until out in
2021-2022 and you don't spend a bunch of money doing things you don't
need for half a decade. That's also why we don't have spacesuits in
hand, by the way.


Nasa began to "convert" the shuttle pad right
after the last flight. How come it woudn't be ready by now. It isn't as
if NASA never built such structures, they built them for the Apollo
programme. And they might even be able to re-use the rotating arm/white
room frm Shuttle era if re-installed at the right elevation.


Things that are different are not the same. SLS/Orion isn't the
Shuttle.


More and more, it looks to me like PORL boondogle where even NASA has
known this was just a "make work" project to keep politicians and ATK
happy without any expectations of it ever doing anything useful, so no
urgency in getting things done.

Now that they are afrraid the project might get cut because it is so
ludicrous, they are waking up to years of working without a purpose and
wondering hwo to get something deliverable.


Ask yourself how many times politicians have redirected just what
Orion is supposed to be and do. Congress is the PROBLEM. Well, them
and the President.




For the first flight, the capsule will be the only habitable volume,
right? no attached pressurized module for extra space?


What difference does that make?


Wondering what sort of deliverables are needed to make a manned flight.


First manned flight of this thing was scheduled for 4-5 years from
now. You don't just move the schedules for EVERYTHING a couple years
to the left. Have you ever run anything more complicated than a mop
and a deep fryer?

politically motivated idiocy elided


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson