Grumblings of true commercial space travel at NASA

On Sun, 10 Jul 2005 21:50:19 -0400, in a place far, far away, Rick
Nelson made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

You people are all NSA or just so plain dumb that you should hit
yourselves in the head with a shovel and bury yourselves as living dead.

I can't imagine any of you being NASA - just NSA - you're all Cheney
********s of nothing who like a big dick up ..

I am so sad - humanity will be destroyed because dumb "Aristocratic
Fsmilies" want to go back to a feudal system because they realize (like
the Saudi's do) that the only thing they have in their future is
political self-referenced power and a few billions of dollars.


GO FIGURE why the evil Bushes have allied themselves with the Saudi
Kings. It's a complete miscalculation, but they stand for all the
benefits of the creators of Global Warming in the dirtiest energy
industries. And Herbert Walker had to sign a "treaty" to limit his
liability against killing folks in an African village in order to take
over a mine area on a global scale and make a couple of billion for his
"family". Global Mafia Fascists - spending the money to make the laws
for the super rich.a Queer, Bush Gay Jeb's Son..

I think you need a medication increase. Or decrease. Or a new
prescription altogether.

In article ,
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
One obvious solution is to have the tug supplied by one of the station
partners. Then only the tug is an insurance issue, still not trivial
but vastly more tractable than the station itself.

It also means that the particular station partner is in the critical path
of commercial crew and cargo service to ISS. That's not to say this is not
a viable path, but it does mean that availability of commercial services
prior to 2010 is wishful thinking at best.

True, especially if the partner in question is the US, which can't even
keep its *existing* station commitments (e.g., the one about providing
lifeboat service starting around now).

People are already thinking in that direction. When Boeing asked
SpaceX for a quote on freight delivery to an orbital fuel depot, what
came back was a quote for delivery to a point 1km from the depot.

That suggests SpaceX has not thought the problem through. "1 km" is a
meaningless metric, when not tied to a particular relative *velocity* as
well.

No, it suggests you're nitpicking. :-) Zero relative velocity, of course.
The point is that Musk doesn't want to do proximity operations near even a
fuel depot, never mind ISS.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in
:

On Sun, 10 Jul 2005 21:12:25 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Jorge
R. Frank" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

People are already thinking in that direction. When Boeing asked
SpaceX for a quote on freight delivery to an orbital fuel depot, what
came back was a quote for delivery to a point 1km from the depot.

That suggests SpaceX has not thought the problem through. "1 km" is a
meaningless metric, when not tied to a particular relative *velocity* as
well.

I didn't see the quote, but I would assume that it was at least
implied, if not stated, that the relative velocity would be zero.

Without an explicit tolerance, that's pretty meaningless as well. An error
as small as 0.06 m/s will break that 1 km range within one orbit.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

On Sun, 10 Jul 2005 21:12:25 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Jorge
R. Frank" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

People are already thinking in that direction. When Boeing asked
SpaceX for a quote on freight delivery to an orbital fuel depot, what
came back was a quote for delivery to a point 1km from the depot.

That suggests SpaceX has not thought the problem through. "1 km" is a
meaningless metric, when not tied to a particular relative *velocity* as
well.

I didn't see the quote, but I would assume that it was at least
implied, if not stated, that the relative velocity would be zero.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in
:

On Mon, 11 Jul 2005 09:16:02 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Jorge
R. Frank" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

People are already thinking in that direction. When Boeing asked
SpaceX for a quote on freight delivery to an orbital fuel depot,
what came back was a quote for delivery to a point 1km from the
depot.

That suggests SpaceX has not thought the problem through. "1 km" is
a meaningless metric, when not tied to a particular relative
*velocity* as well.

I didn't see the quote, but I would assume that it was at least
implied, if not stated, that the relative velocity would be zero.

Without an explicit tolerance, that's pretty meaningless as well. An
error as small as 0.06 m/s will break that 1 km range within one
orbit.

Well, again, I would assume that they meant close enough to zero to
allow sufficient time to go get it. They probably would also have
active control on it to ensure that. I just think that they don't
want to have to deal with the VVIDD.

I thought this was for an orbital fuel depot, not ISS? Anyway, the VVIDD
specifies a keep-out sphere of 5 km.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Jorge R. Frank wrote:
(Henry Spencer) wrote in
:

It also means that the particular station partner is in the critical path
of commercial crew and cargo service to ISS. That's not to say this is not
a viable path, but it does mean that availability of commercial services
prior to 2010 is wishful thinking at best.

People are already thinking in that direction. When Boeing asked
SpaceX for a quote on freight delivery to an orbital fuel depot, what
came back was a quote for delivery to a point 1km from the depot.

That suggests SpaceX has not thought the problem through. "1 km" is a
meaningless metric, when not tied to a particular relative *velocity* as
well.

They're using standard rendevous terms. 1 km means zero relative
velocity, in the same orbit, 1 km ahead of the spacetug. The space tug
would then perform a manuever to lower its orbit from that of the
target slightly, to catch up to the target, then phase back to the same
orbit within about 200-300 m of the target, after which it's close
enough to be 'driven in' without really worrying too much about orbital
period. (That's how shuttle rdvs happen).

Of course, then it has to get back to the station, which means
optimally this would all happen behind the station. The tug would then
lower its orbit to catch back up to the station with the payload 'in
hand.' Of course, all the maneuvers have to be done in a short enough
time frame that perterbations don't screw up the parameters, but it's
doable.

cuddihy

Rick Nelson wrote:
You people are all NSA or just so plain dumb that you should hit
yourselves in the head with a shovel and bury yourselves as living dead.

I can't imagine any of you being NASA - just NSA - you're all Cheney
********s of nothing who like a big dick up ..

I am so sad - humanity will be destroyed because dumb "Aristocratic
Fsmilies" want to go back to a feudal system because they realize (like
the Saudi's do) that the only thing they have in their future is
political self-referenced power and a few billions of dollars.


GO FIGURE why the evil Bushes have allied themselves with the Saudi
Kings. It's a complete miscalculation, but they stand for all the
benefits of the creators of Global Warming in the dirtiest energy
industries. And Herbert Walker had to sign a "treaty" to limit his
liability against killing folks in an African village in order to take
over a mine area on a global scale and make a couple of billion for his
"family". Global Mafia Fascists - spending the money to make the laws
for the super rich.a Queer, Bush Gay Jeb's Son..




Jorge R. Frank wrote:
"Explorer" wrote in
oups.com:


Its very common for NASA to talk about commercializing, but not so
common for NASA to actually act on it. The chances are that what NASA
is thinking about here is a Prime Contractor, like United Space
Alliance, not a truly commercial service.


The question will hinge on insurance. In government-contractor
relationships, the government is responsible for the project and
indemnifies the contractor against liability. In commercial supplier
relationships, the vendor is liable for its actions and must carry
liability insurance.

It will be interesting to see how the insurance industry reacts when an
alt.space company walks in the door and asks for a liability policy for
approaching and docking with a $100 billion space station, something the
alt.space company will have had no track record with. The actuaries will go
nuts trying to assign probabilities, and therefore premiums, so the policy
will probably be priced conservatively, resulting in sticker shock.

There are several potential ways out. One is to have the commercial
suppliers launch the cargo in passive cannisters and use a space tug based
at the station to retrieve it. However, this just moves the liability
problem from the cargo supplier to the space tug supplier, since one does
not currently exist.

The other solution would be government indemnification for commercial
suppliers, but the government would likely insist on a level of oversight
comparable to a government-contractor relationship, which would negate many
of the benefits of a commercial approach.


Don't sully the great Ricky Nelson's name with your tacky bull****.

cuddihy

On Mon, 11 Jul 2005 11:37:17 -0500, Tom Cuddihy wrote
(in article . com):

(That's how shuttle rdvs happen).

Jorge is the absolute *last* person frequenting this group that you'd
want to lecture about STS flight operations.

--
"Fame may be fleeting but obscurity is forever."
~Anonymous
www.angryherb.net

Craig Fink wrote:


"We've got to get commercial enterprise into the space business," Griffin
said. ". . . There's no future for us continuing to build manned
spacecraft that cost $200,000 a pound."



I don't know how exactly they are supposed to use it, but there is also
this:
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0507/08slf/

Pat

On Mon, 11 Jul 2005 09:16:02 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Jorge
R. Frank" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

People are already thinking in that direction. When Boeing asked
SpaceX for a quote on freight delivery to an orbital fuel depot, what
came back was a quote for delivery to a point 1km from the depot.

That suggests SpaceX has not thought the problem through. "1 km" is a
meaningless metric, when not tied to a particular relative *velocity* as
well.

I didn't see the quote, but I would assume that it was at least
implied, if not stated, that the relative velocity would be zero.

Without an explicit tolerance, that's pretty meaningless as well. An error
as small as 0.06 m/s will break that 1 km range within one orbit.

Well, again, I would assume that they meant close enough to zero to
allow sufficient time to go get it. They probably would also have
active control on it to ensure that. I just think that they don't
want to have to deal with the VVIDD.