Emergency shuttle replacements

"John Doe" wrote in message ...
Lets say, for the sake of discussion, that Godzilla was unhappy with the
drink
he got served on a Florida beach and decided to step on the OPF, damaging
beyond repair the 3 shuttles.

And lets say (again for sake of discussion) that the US government would
mandate NASA to get back into space ASAP. (forget cost).

Which would be the QUICKEST to get man back in space on US-built hardware
?

Build new shuttles based on existing plans, reusing some of the spare
parts
and infrastructure already there (such as tile manufacturing, software
etc)
(and including all improvement that had been made since originally built).
?

There aren't many spare parts for the shuttles. After the Challenger
disaster, the structural spare parts that NASA did have were used to build
the replacement orbiter Endeavour. Funding never materialized to build
another set of structural spares.

It might be possible to refit Enterprise to flight status, but it would be
difficult. This was determined to be so difficult that structural test
article 99 was rebuilt into OV-99 (Challenger) instead of refitting
Enterprise for space flight.

Build Saturn rockets and Apollo capsules ?

That would be harder than rebuilding Enterprise. The tooling no longer
exists, suppliers no longer exist, and etc.

or Build something totally new such as the
CEV/CRV/whatever-the-name-is-this-week vehicle whose technology hasn't
really
had a chance to prove itself yet.

There is no new technology needed for CEV. Since that is the direction we
intend to go anyway, why not immediately start development?

Jeff
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Buy Soyuz.

Brian

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"John Doe" wrote in message ...
Lets say, for the sake of discussion, that Godzilla was unhappy with the
drink
he got served on a Florida beach and decided to step on the OPF, damaging
beyond repair the 3 shuttles.

And lets say (again for sake of discussion) that the US government would
mandate NASA to get back into space ASAP. (forget cost).

Which would be the QUICKEST to get man back in space on US-built hardware
?

Build new shuttles based on existing plans, reusing some of the spare
parts
and infrastructure already there (such as tile manufacturing, software
etc)
(and including all improvement that had been made since originally built).
?

Build Saturn rockets and Apollo capsules ?

or Build something totally new such as the
CEV/CRV/whatever-the-name-is-this-week vehicle whose technology hasn,t
really
had a chance to prove itself yet.


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"John Doe" wrote in message ...
Lets say, for the sake of discussion, that Godzilla was unhappy with the
drink
he got served on a Florida beach and decided to step on the OPF, damaging
beyond repair the 3 shuttles.

And lets say (again for sake of discussion) that the US government would
mandate NASA to get back into space ASAP. (forget cost).

Which would be the QUICKEST to get man back in space on US-built hardware
?


Give the money to Rutan, stand back, and stfu.

On or about Mon, 04 Oct 2004 05:07:58 -0400, John Doe made the sensational claim that:
Lets say, for the sake of discussion, that Godzilla was unhappy with the drink
he got served on a Florida beach and decided to step on the OPF, damaging
beyond repair the 3 shuttles.

And lets say (again for sake of discussion) that the US government would
mandate NASA to get back into space ASAP. (forget cost).

I prefer to deal with reality, plz k thx.
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It's properly formatted | who you mean to reply-to | is possible, doesn't
No person, none, care | and it will reach me | mean it can happen

Give the money to Rutan, stand back, and stfu.



yep he said and I quote.

NASA IS SCREWED!
..
..
End the dangerous wasteful shuttle now before it kills any more astronauts....

John Doe wrote in message ...
Lets say, for the sake of discussion, that Godzilla was unhappy with the drink
he got served on a Florida beach and decided to step on the OPF, damaging
beyond repair the 3 shuttles.

And lets say (again for sake of discussion) that the US government would
mandate NASA to get back into space ASAP. (forget cost).

Which would be the QUICKEST to get man back in space on US-built hardware ?

For what mission is Congress unleashing unlimited funds and mandating "get
back in space ASAP"?

Just to get humans outside the atmosphere for the sake of getting out
of the atmosphere? Obviously, Rutan and SS1 seem ready today.

To get into orbit? Buy Soyuz. If Congress can unleash unlimited funds
to get into orbit ASAP, I think they can repeal any laws prohibiting buying
Soyuz. If it absolutely must be US built, rebuild a Mercury-like craft.
It was built from scratch in a jiffy the first time, surely we could
build a similar vehicle from scratch in a comparable amount of time today.
Who says a spacecraft needs three astronauts? Again, what's the mission?

To finish ISS and support it? You need the shuttle's cargo bay, so you've
got to build something very similar. It's probably quickest to build something
as close as possible to an exact duplicate, resisting the temptation to
improve on it. Reason? We don't need to retrain the standing army.
Of course, that doesn't mean an exact duplicate is the best long-term
strategy.

In reality, of course, if the shuttle orbiters are destroyed, there will
be political debate about what the future of manned space flight ought to
be, what capabilities we need, how much money should be spent on them,
etc. It may take the politicians longer to come up with a mission and
budget than it takes the engineers and mechanics to come up with the
hardware.

I'd argue that a lot of the problems with the shuttle and with ISS
stem from an ill-defined mission. Unless there's a fairly clearly
defined and well understood purpose to the whole affair, anything
as large and bureaucratic as a space program is going to fumble
around, accomplishing little and spending much.

--Rich

John Doe wrote:
Which would be the QUICKEST to get man back in space on US-built hardware ?

If your goal is to simply get back into space, then capsule on an
expendable is the way to go.

Build new shuttles based on existing plans, reusing some of the spare parts
and infrastructure already there (such as tile manufacturing, software etc)
(and including all improvement that had been made since originally built). ?

If your goal is to reconstitute some from of actual space capability
there are two way to go:

A: capsule based (as above), plus a Progress style cargo vehicle.
Downside: The ISS CBM hatches are not currently fitted for
autodocking.

B: Boeing has offered a shuttle replacement for (IIRC) something like
a billion so far as they are only held to being moldline and interface
compatible.

D.
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(Richard Cochran) wrote:
Just to get humans outside the atmosphere for the sake of getting out
of the atmosphere? Obviously, Rutan and SS1 seem ready today.

Other than the alt-space crowd, 'space' normally means 'orbit'.
Something the mammals are far short of currently.

To get into orbit? Buy Soyuz. If Congress can unleash unlimited funds
to get into orbit ASAP, I think they can repeal any laws prohibiting buying
Soyuz.

Not very likely. The law that prevents us from buying Soyuz is the
Iran Non-Proliferation Act, this particular law had broad support on
both sides of the aisle, which leads to the supposition that it won't
be easily overturned.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
John Doe wrote:
Which would be the QUICKEST to get man back in space on US-built hardware
?

If your goal is to simply get back into space, then capsule on an
expendable is the way to go.

Build new shuttles based on existing plans, reusing some of the spare
parts
and infrastructure already there (such as tile manufacturing, software
etc)
(and including all improvement that had been made since originally
built). ?

If your goal is to reconstitute some from of actual space capability
there are two way to go:

A: capsule based (as above), plus a Progress style cargo vehicle.
Downside: The ISS CBM hatches are not currently fitted for
autodocking.

You'd have to resort to berthing, which was originally considered for the
space station as an alternative to docking. This was in pre-Russia years,
so using APAS wasn't yet being considered. Essentially you station keep
your cargo module close to ISS (cold gas thrusters would be good for this)
and then use the SSRMS to grapple the cargo module. Once this is done, it's
just like attaching an MPLM to a CBM.

From what i can tell, this is how the Japanese HTV will attach to ISS.
There are some pictures of this this page:

http://spaceboy.nasda.go.jp/lib/rock.../htv_01_e.html

Here are links to four pictures of the grapple/berthing process:

http://spaceboy.nasda.go.jp/lib/rock.../g/htv_006.jpg
http://spaceboy.nasda.go.jp/lib/rock.../g/htv_009.jpg
http://spaceboy.nasda.go.jp/lib/rock.../g/htv_016.jpg
http://spaceboy.nasda.go.jp/lib/rock.../g/htv_017.jpg

B: Boeing has offered a shuttle replacement for (IIRC) something like
a billion so far as they are only held to being moldline and interface
compatible.

While this is true, I'd be a bit leery of that number. Considering how the
costs of several shuttle upgrades have escalated over the years (e.g.
electric actuators to replace the APU's and hydraulics), I'd expect $1
billion to be a low estimate.

Jeff
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Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.
Jeff

"Jeff Findley" wrote:
"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...

A: capsule based (as above), plus a Progress style cargo vehicle.
Downside: The ISS CBM hatches are not currently fitted for
autodocking.

You'd have to resort to berthing, which was originally considered for the
space station as an alternative to docking.

D'oh. I knew that. Really I did.

B: Boeing has offered a shuttle replacement for (IIRC) something like
a billion so far as they are only held to being moldline and interface
compatible.

While this is true, I'd be a bit leery of that number. Considering how the
costs of several shuttle upgrades have escalated over the years (e.g.
electric actuators to replace the APU's and hydraulics), I'd expect $1
billion to be a low estimate.

One suspects the cost will be directly proportional to the amount of
fiddling NASA does with the proposal. Boeing is after all a
commercial company with a lot of non-govermental business, and thus
(at least theoretically) knows how to do accurate cost estimation.

D.

--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL