Europe to Join Russia in Building Next Space Shuttle

Herb Schaltegger writes:

On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 08:04:34 -0500, Jochem Huhmann wrote
(in article ):

Herb Schaltegger writes:

Here, elucidate us, Monsieur Mezei: spell out all the modifications
that would have to be made to carry Columbus on Ariane V. In detail.

While it's certainly true that there's no way to launch truss segments
with ATV I'm not so sure about Columbus. ESA *did* consider launching
Columbus on Ariane V in the past and I've read statements from someone
at ESA that this is still reflected in the design of the module and
launching on Ariane would require no major modifications.

If you've ever seen a spacecraft launcher ICD, you'd realize someone at
ESA's equivalent of a Public Affairs Office is talking out of his ass
in order to placate people who don't know better.

Found it. It wasn't someone from Public Affairs but an ex-ESA-astronaut,
obviously not that good informed...

The Orbiter has a very specific, defined set of interfaces and
environments, not the least of which is a set of trunnion pins for
load-carrying. To launch any existing ISS modules on another booster,
you'd essentially have to build an aeroshell that duplicates those,
plus has a matching thermal, acoustic and vibrational environments.
Basically you'd have to build an orbiter payload bay and stick it on
top of the booster, just for the physical interfaces. And that doesn't
replicate the vibrational, acoustical and thermal environments. All
the existing modules and segments have, since day 1, been designed,
built, tested and qualified for flight with those requirements in
mind.

Yeah, well. The point was that if the module had initially been designed
to being launched on Ariane in the first place, changing it back to this
would have been a bit simpler. If not, you'd be better off building a
new module from scratch, no doubt.

And once the module is in orbit, it still has no self-contained ability
to rendezvous and dock (berth, really) to ISS.

Yes, that was what I meant with "useless". Launching a module you can't
attach to the station makes not that much sense.

Mezei handwaves around the acronym "ATV" like it's some magic space
tug when it reality it's nothing of the sort.

Well, it is a space tug of sorts. Not a magic one, granted.

I can't find the source of that yet and of course I have no details.
Still, it might be not so impossible as it seems. If it would make
any sense is another question.

If ESA wanted to spend a few billion Euros and maybe 5 - 8 years, it
might be do-able. It certainly wouldn't be easy or inexpensive.

Looking at what has already been developed for Columbus and ATV, needing
8 years and a few billion Euros for some kind of Ariane-launched
ATV-tugged Columbus-like module seems a bit heavy to me. And anyway,
if NASA should prove to be unable to deliver Columbus, ESA is probable
in a good position to nudge NASA into paying quite a bit of that...


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 05:43:50 -0500, Jochem Huhmann wrote
(in article ):


Yeah, well. The point was that if the module had initially been designed
to being launched on Ariane in the first place, changing it back to this
would have been a bit simpler. If not, you'd be better off building a
new module from scratch, no doubt.

Worse - you have to DESIGN it first. And that part is expensive and
very, very time-consuming. Fabrication is rather anti-climactic after
all the drama of design, re-design, PDR, CDR, and qual.

--
"Fame may be fleeting but obscurity is forever." ~Anonymous
"I believe as little as possible and know as much as I can."
~Todd Stuart Phillips
www.angryherb.net

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
John Doe wrote:
And they could then ship a replacement bearings unit and the crew would
put everything back together. (assuming the CMGs had been designed to
be easily taken apart).

And theres the rub.

Indeed. I'm sure the designers of the CMGs didn't think that astronauts in
EVA suits would need to replace the high precision bearings on the CMG.
It's far easier to design the entire unit to be replaced, based on the
assumption that the shuttle would be flying routinely to ISS for the entire
life of the ISS program.

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

"Herb Schaltegger" wrote in
message .com...
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 14:50:51 -0500, John Doe wrote
(in article ):

(Snipped more and more handwaving)

I've identified the issues. Neither you nor ESA (for that matter)
cannot simply toss around some terminology and in effect ignore the
interface issues. SHOW ME the physical interface specs for Ariane V
and STS and SHOW ME the standard vibrational, acoustic and thermal
loads for Ariane V within your hypothetical 15' diameter payload shroud
and truss (necessary to support Columbus and every other ISS segment).
It's not what matters on top of the booster, it's what matters at the
interfaces. You speak of "worse" environments - it's not about
"better" or "worse" it's about "different." For example, lower
amplitude vibrations (e.g., "better") may in fact be "worse" because
they cause a resonance in the structure of the module or the endcones,
standoffs, racks, hardware within the racks, or whatever. Until a
design for your hypothetical STS replacement structure is complete,
this is all (repeat after me) HANDWAVING.

Of course, you do have to take all the issues you present into account.
However, it's entirely possible that after analyzing the problem that you
may find that the changes to the Columbus structure could be minimal to
allow launch on top of Ariane. But you would still have to re-run all of
your structural/dynamic analyses with the new restraints and loadings on the
structure. Even if zero changes were necessary, which even I doubt, the
cost of certifying the structure is o.k. to launch on Ariane would still be
somewhat time consuming and costly (a $million here, a $million there...).

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

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 09:54:01 -0500, Jeff Findley wrote
(in article ):


Of course, you do have to take all the issues you present into account.
However, it's entirely possible that after analyzing the problem that you
may find that the changes to the Columbus structure could be minimal to
allow launch on top of Ariane.

The ONLY way that could be true would be if the hypothetical Ariane V
STS replacement aeroshell has the same interfaces and launch
environment as an STS cargo bay. Designing such a beast - and
qualifying/verifying it - would be very expensive. If the
environments are different at all only adds to the complexity of the
task, especially with regard to flight qualification. In what
parameters do the environments vary? And by what degree? And do those
variances matter at all? You have to have real answers to those
things if you want to launch any pre-built ISS hardware on anything but
a shuttle orbiter vehicle.

But you would still have to re-run all of
your structural/dynamic analyses with the new restraints and loadings on the
structure. Even if zero changes were necessary, which even I doubt, the
cost of certifying the structure is o.k. to launch on Ariane would still be
somewhat time consuming and costly (a $million here, a $million there...).

Try "billion" and you get the idea. :-/

--
"Fame may be fleeting but obscurity is forever." ~Anonymous
"I believe as little as possible and know as much as I can."
~Todd Stuart Phillips
www.angryherb.net

On 2005-08-25, Herb Schaltegger wrote:
The ONLY way that could be true would be if the hypothetical Ariane V
STS replacement aeroshell has the same interfaces and launch
environment as an STS cargo bay.

It only needs interfaces/a launch environment that is compatible with
Columbus ;-)

somewhat time consuming and costly (a $million here, a $million there...).
Try "billion" and you get the idea. :-/

It seems that ESA thinks so too:

** 2: ESA EVALUATES OPTIONS FOR ISS ASSEMBLY

Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director-General of ESA announced that the agency is
evaluating different scenarios for the International Space Station (ISS)
assembly completion, including one in which the Space Shuttle could not
launch the European Columbus module. This science laboratory, a major
European contribution to the ISS program, is completed and in storage at
EADS Space Transportation's facilities in Germany. ESA has already spent 300
million euros in delay-related costs of the Columbus's launch and is
concerned that these costs arise [sic] since the launch of the module is likely to
happen in 2007.

quote from

France in Space #303
http://eu.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=17608
Thursday, August 4, 2005

Herb Schaltegger wrote:
Worse - you have to DESIGN it first. And that part is expensive and
very, very time-consuming. Fabrication is rather anti-climactic after
all the drama of design, re-design, PDR, CDR, and qual.


Repeating:

The design of the interfaces to emulate the cargo bay is done. It is
defined and documented. It is just a question of emulating it by adding
support struts and proper attach points and the mechanisms to release
it. It isn't a question os re-inventing the wheel here.

When MD Robotics built the extension boom, the design and schematics of
the interface of the arm effector to which the boom would connect was
already done, they just had to build a connector that was compatible and
build another effector at the end of the boom. They didn't have to spend
years in committes deciding how many connectors and what type of
connectros and how the connectors should be arranged in the effector,
this work had been done decades earlier.

Same for modules that were designed to be carried in the cargo bay. The
interfaces are known and documented. It isn't a question of designing
new ones from scratch, it is a question of emulating them.


And since you're concerned about noise/vibration, ESA has already put
Columbus through its noise/vibration lab. So they can put it in it again
with the data from Arianne instead of Shuttle and compare the
differences. Check out the ESA web site.

Nobody is saying that they can just pop Columbus at the top of Arianne
and launch it. What you need are modifications to the ATV service
module to support modules meant for the shuttle (power, data and
support) and obviously software changes to ATV for the approach to ISS.
(Or somehow put a russian docking collar up front and put a PGDF on the
station where the arm could reach for the module, extract it and then
let ATV undock and de-orbit with just struts linking the docking collar
with the service module and nothing left in between.

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 14:35:48 -0500, John Doe wrote
(in article ):

Herb Schaltegger wrote:
Worse - you have to DESIGN it first. And that part is expensive and
very, very time-consuming. Fabrication is rather anti-climactic after
all the drama of design, re-design, PDR, CDR, and qual.


Repeating:


(snipped more handwaving)

Repeating myself: you have no clue. The gist of your posts (plural)
is that "somehow" "they" doe a bunch of stuff [which you don't
understand] and like a miracle, Columbus gets launched on an Ariane V
and is [somehow through means you also don't understand] autonomously
berthed to its proper port on ISS.

Again, you have no clue how this is done in practice: the iterative
design, analysis, test, re-analysis, re-test, et cetera. All your
handwaving to the contrary doesn't make up for your lack of knowledge.

You might as well say, ". . . and then a miracle occurred!" for all you
grasp of the physics and the process.

In the meantime, enjoy reading your own fantasy posts and welcome to a
30 day stay in my killfile - sentence imposed for failure to grasp a
point.

--
"Fame may be fleeting but obscurity is forever." ~Anonymous
"I believe as little as possible and know as much as I can."
~Todd Stuart Phillips
www.angryherb.net

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 20:50:48 -0500, rk wrote
(in article ):

John Doe wrote:

Herb Schaltegger wrote:
Worse - you have to DESIGN it first. And that part is expensive and
very, very time-consuming. Fabrication is rather anti-climactic after
all the drama of design, re-design, PDR, CDR, and qual.


Repeating:

The design of the interfaces to emulate the cargo bay is done. It is
defined and documented. It is just a question of emulating it by adding
support struts and proper attach points and the mechanisms to release
it. It isn't a question os re-inventing the wheel here.

From what you say, there is considerable design and analysis to be done.

You sound very confused. I would suggest that you listen to HS.



I've killfiled him, rk. I wouldn't have seen his twaddle if you hadn't
replied.

That said, Monsieur Mezei is full of [non-hypothetical] **** here, just
like his claim above about [hypothetical] **** he knows nothing about.


--
"Fame may be fleeting but obscurity is forever." ~Anonymous
"I believe as little as possible and know as much as I can."
~Todd Stuart Phillips
www.angryherb.net

Herb Schaltegger wrote:
On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 20:50:48 -0500, rk wrote
(in article ):

John Doe wrote:

Herb Schaltegger wrote:
Worse - you have to DESIGN it first. And that part is expensive and
very, very time-consuming. Fabrication is rather anti-climactic after
all the drama of design, re-design, PDR, CDR, and qual.


Repeating:

The design of the interfaces to emulate the cargo bay is done. It is
defined and documented. It is just a question of emulating it by adding
support struts and proper attach points and the mechanisms to release
it. It isn't a question os re-inventing the wheel here.

From what you say, there is considerable design and analysis to be done.

You sound very confused. I would suggest that you listen to HS.

I've killfiled him, rk. I wouldn't have seen his twaddle if you hadn't
replied.

That said, Monsieur Mezei is full of [non-hypothetical] **** here, just
like his claim above about [hypothetical] **** he knows nothing about.

"You sound very confused," to borrow a phrase. Another possibility is
that you're losing your memory, since you apparently can't remember
what you replied to the last time you "kill-filed" JF. Is there anyone
outside the Human O-Ring to whom you do reply? One really must wonder
about these people whose sigs are as long or longer than their retorts.

Challenger's Ghost