LSAM and an unmanned CEV in lunar orbit?

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

For one thing, the LM's docking window was *overhead*, which was more than
slightly awkward. (This was fallout from the decision to specialize the
LM forward hatch for surface work, so it couldn't be used for docking --
the original plan used that hatch for post-ascent docking, so the LM guys
could look through the forward windows during docking.)

This decision wasn't made lightly - it was a consequence of the need
to reduce (drastically!) the weight of the LM. The square 'tinfoil'
hatch weighed far, far less than a docking assembly.

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

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

Gene Cash wrote:

Seriously though, all humor aside, this (automated rendezvous and/or
docking) is the sort of basic research (like flying plug-nozzles, or
developing decent spacesuits, or long-duration life support) that NASA
has traditionally shortchanged.

Unhappily - that's a direct consequence of the change from being a
research organization to a goals-and-missions oriented organization.
I.E. of the cold war NASA.

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

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

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

And as others have noted, if you have a "buddy system" rule of doing
moonwalks in teams of two, there's a big difference between three guys on
the surface and four. Note that the spacewalk-intensive shuttle missions,
like the Hubble repair flights, have four spacewalkers, precisely so two
teams can take turns. Each team spends one day at hard labor out in the
suits, and a second day indoors, recovering and providing support for the
other team.

Now if mission planning can leave off the tendency to pack each day
with two days worth of work....

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

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

In article , Gene Cash wrote:
Not likely, since there's nothing that hard about doing *rendezvous* by
remote control. Docking is the part that really needs local
intelligence... but there is successful experience with doing docking by
remote control from the other spacecraft. It's not that difficult a
problem to provide most any desired level of confidence in this.

The DART team is on line 1 for you, Henry...

Tell 'em my consulting rates haven't changed. :-)

DART was trying to do everything autonomously -- not remote control, but
fully automatic hardware. That's a very different problem from having
one vehicle controlled by somebody aboard the other.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005, Henry Spencer wrote:

Note that the main reason for the CSM doing the docking was some awkward
design details of the spacecraft -- problems that could be avoided in a
new design, now we know about them.

For one thing, the LM's docking window was *overhead*, which was more than
slightly awkward.
[...]
For another, the late change to a foil outer surface for the CM turned its
surface into a conical mirror, which made for a very confusing target for
eyeball tracking. Something as simple as pre-wrinkling the foil would
fix that.

Man, there's a job I want. Foil pre-wrinkler for next-generation lunar
spacecraft. Of course, I would need to be trained to meet exacting NASA
pre-wrinkling quality standards.

In my spare time, I would visit grade schools, rolls of aluminum foil tucked
under my arm, and give talks and demonstrations, hoping to inspire young
people to enter careers in pre-wrinkling.

"Someday, humans will set foot on Mars. The foil on their spacecraft may be
pre-wrinkled by someone in this classroom!"

At Thanksgiving, I would appear on TV talk shows, giving tips on how to wrap
your turkey to make it look like a CEV.

Eventually, wrinkled myself, I would write a book about my glorious
pre-wrinkling days. It would be nitpicked on sci.space.history by young
punks and old curmudgeons.

--
Bill Higgins | "Has anybody put a wrench to a rocketship,
Fermilab | who hasn't read it?"
| --Jaime Frontero on science fiction

Bill Higgins wrote:


Man, there's a job I want. Foil pre-wrinkler for next-generation
lunar spacecraft. Of course, I would need to be trained to meet
exacting NASA pre-wrinkling quality standards.


I already have the experience for the job; I've wrinkled foil for around
eight LMs in different scales, one MOL, one Soyuz, the sunshade parasol
on the Skylab, and my big Saturn exploration ship.
Do not try to glue wrinkled foil down with liquid superglue; superglue
gel is the stuff to use.


In my spare time, I would visit grade schools, rolls of aluminum foil
tucked under my arm, and give talks and demonstrations, hoping to
inspire young people to enter careers in pre-wrinkling.

"Someday, humans will set foot on Mars. The foil on their spacecraft
may be pre-wrinkled by someone in this classroom!"

At Thanksgiving, I would appear on TV talk shows, giving tips on how
to wrap your turkey to make it look like a CEV.

Eventually, wrinkled myself, I would write a book about my glorious
pre-wrinkling days. It would be nitpicked on sci.space.history by
young punks and old curmudgeons.


I wrapped one of the main domed-end cylindrical fuel tanks for the big
Saturn ship in gold foil- it ended up looking like some sort of festive
holiday sausage.

Pat

In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:
For one thing, the LM's docking window was *overhead*, which was more than
slightly awkward. (This was fallout from the decision to specialize the
LM forward hatch for surface work, so it couldn't be used for docking...

This decision wasn't made lightly...

Oh, it was definitely a reasonable thing to do, but it did complicate the
docking situation a bit.

it was a consequence of the need
to reduce (drastically!) the weight of the LM. The square 'tinfoil'
hatch weighed far, far less than a docking assembly.

Small correction: the LM side of the docking assembly actually didn't
weigh all that much. The mass came from the combination of the short
tunnel -- the docking assembly needed significant *depth* outside the
hatch -- and the structural effects of taking docking impact loads in two
places.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:
...Each team spends one day at hard labor out in the
suits, and a second day indoors, recovering and providing support for the
other team.

Now if mission planning can leave off the tendency to pack each day
with two days worth of work....

Alas, they've had to relearn that lesson the hard way two or three times
already, so I fear they'll probably have to learn it once again.

The real sign that they've finally got this figured out would be for
Mission Control to get renamed Mission Support. I'm not holding my
breath.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 23:51:29 -0500, Henry Spencer wrote
(in article ):

In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:
For one thing, the LM's docking window was *overhead*, which was more than
slightly awkward. (This was fallout from the decision to specialize the
LM forward hatch for surface work, so it couldn't be used for docking...

This decision wasn't made lightly...

Oh, it was definitely a reasonable thing to do, but it did complicate the
docking situation a bit.

it was a consequence of the need
to reduce (drastically!) the weight of the LM. The square 'tinfoil'
hatch weighed far, far less than a docking assembly.

Small correction: the LM side of the docking assembly actually didn't
weigh all that much. The mass came from the combination of the short
tunnel -- the docking assembly needed significant *depth* outside the
hatch -- and the structural effects of taking docking impact loads in two
places.


Minor nit to the small correction: I think you should have written,
"--- and the structural effects of taking docking impact loads in two
places *and in perpendicular vectors*."

--
"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

Then how about sending a guy over with a wire and pull the vehicle in ?
Much as Arthur C Clarke wrote way back when ?

The vehicle does rendez-vous to 100 meter distance, and the astronaut
maneuvres it in.