NYT Editorial: NASA's Predicament

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
Maybe they will install some sort of a steerable parachute or parafoil
system like the X-38 ISS lifting body rescue craft was going to use.
This would also aid in dealing with crosswinds at landing...

Unfortunately, exploiting steerable chutes requires a reasonable view out
of the capsule, which is a bit difficult to provide from an Apollo shape,
and tends to put the landing pilot in a position that's less than ideal
for handling the deceleration loads of a sloppy landing. It's not a
ridiculous idea, but it does cause some complications, and NASA seems to
have decided not to try it this time.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:


Maybe they will install some sort of a steerable parachute or parafoil
system like the X-38 ISS lifting body rescue craft was going to use.
This would also aid in dealing with crosswinds at landing...



Unfortunately, exploiting steerable chutes requires a reasonable view out
of the capsule,


No, the chute (this would work better with a parafoil) could be set to
automatically home on GPS coordinates for the landing site; by noting
its drift it could determine surface wind speed and compensate for it by
landing into the wind.
The military is already developing this technology for automated cargo
drops to troops in the field, and this technology was employed on the
X-38: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/x38.htm

Pat

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
Unfortunately, exploiting steerable chutes requires a reasonable view out
of the capsule,

No, the chute (this would work better with a parafoil) could be set to
automatically home on GPS coordinates for the landing site...

Even setting aside the issues of whether you rely on automation to the
point of having no manual backup, and of whether you've entered the GPS
coordinates correctly, what do you do about emergency landings elsewhere
in the world? Or even just slightly too far from the landing site to make
it there before touchdown?

Just coming down at point X+delta rather than X may not be of any great
importance, if X is essentially random anyhow. But one significant use of
steerable chutes is ground hazard avoidance, and for that there may be a
large difference. And if you're relying on a flare maneuver to reduce the
descent rate to safe levels, *that* absolutely has to be done at just the
right altitude, and preferably into the wind.

by noting its drift it could determine surface wind speed and
compensate for it by landing into the wind.

Only if the wind speed and direction at the surface are roughly the same
as those at a modest altitude, because there's a limit to how quickly such
a system can react. It's better to get current surface winds from a
source on the ground, or failing that, from observation of the ground.

The military is already developing this technology for automated cargo
drops to troops in the field...

Note, *cargo* drops. That's unmanned.

...and this technology was employed on the
X-38: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/x38.htm

And not everybody was happy about that, and some thought it acceptable
only in the context of a lifeboat -- use of emergency equipment often
involves more risk than would be accepted for normal operations.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

Henry Spencer wrote:


Even setting aside the issues of whether you rely on automation to the
point of having no manual backup, and of whether you've entered the GPS
coordinates correctly,


Well, of course they'd enter those correctly- this is NASA after all!
I mean....I mean... I mean... I see what you mean.

Pat

rk, Just an OldEngineer,
The near future of Ariane-5 going translunar is absolutely chuck full
of new and improved possibilities. That is, as long as you're not such
a in-the-box sort of mindset person.

Here's a few good reasons why going back to the Moon isn't quite so
LOONY by Brag Guth ...

Ariane-5.5 = 100t GSO (50t~75t LL-1) represents that a highly composite
scaled-down solution for getting a swarm of microsatellites into a
sufficiently close to the deck alternative, as into evenly distributed
formations worth of such nearby microsatellites accomplishing lunar
orbits ( 1000 each) has actually been more than affordably doable.

Reusable SRBs understandably suck at their being a wee bit extra
massive, whereas the composite encased disposable SRBs are truly
impressive. Although, even the reusable SRBs still outperform the
disposable LOX/RP-1 alternative, whereas if to be using disposable SRBs
would far more than outperform even H2O2/C3H4O as the ultimate
do-everything of a combined kick-ass solution for getting whatever
tonnage into lunar orbit (of course that's certainly inclusive of
having easily established LL-1, which by the way should have been
accomplished decades ago if we were so absolutely dumb and dumber as
being so totally dumbfounded by what all of our perpetrated cold-war
fiascos created).

If the Ariane-5 reusable SRBs with their inert 37t each were replaced
with the likes of disposable composite SRBs offering less than a inert
mass of 7t each, obviously the existing 9.6t to GSO should advance to
60t. With less inert mass of what their current 275t worth of SRB
amounts to, clearly represents extra volumes and/or extended run
capacity for the solid fuel to be making up a portion of their
potentially 30t individual net worth savings.

In addition to packing disposable SRBs along for the initial ride, if
the Ariane-5 liquid fueled first stage of LXO/LH2 were replaced with
H2O2/C3H4O, as this would likely place their GSO payload at nearly 100t
with energy to spare. Clearly this is suggesting as to what could
become translunar worthy of deploying somewhat better than 50t into
lunar LL-1 (more tonnage yet if it's not having to get there overnight
or even via 2nd day delivery).

Unfortunately, within this freaking God forsaken need-to-know
GOOGLE/Usenet (aka MI6/NSA~CIA) that seriously sucks and blows on a
regular basis, and that's even whenever they're not into their usual
sharing such nasty loads of PC malware/****ware that's specifically
intended to robo-bash and if at all possible banish if not terminate
those of us sharing a bit too much of the truth, whereas instead of
others that have been claiming as supposedly knowing all there is to
know sharing in such honest research, discoveries and upon notions of
whatever our having connected the dots has managed to compile, as
having been based upon deductive reasoning and/or of merely sharing in
a WYSIWYG worth of whatever's actually available to being seen and
thereby taken into account, whereas in other dyslexic words of my
limited wisdom; it seems these Usenet gangs of MIB certified souls are
so absolutely chuck full of their own intellectual if not biological
incest, so much so that they're way beyond the point of no return as to
their perverted realms of common bigotry, arrogance and just plain old
blatant brown-nosed greed up their incest cloned kazoos.

As I've stated at least a good thousand times before (6 years worth and
counting); I've discovered extremely viable though humanly subjective
observational (aka Magellan radar imaging) evidence along with
sufficient other hard-science (much of which having the NASA stamp of
approval) that's entirely regular physics based (aka physics duh-101),
as for there being significant physical signs of there having been
other intelligent life, as surviving upon the mostly geothermally hot
and supposedly insurmountably nasty surface of Venus. It seems that
I've also discovered what else our once upon a time icy proto-moon and
of what our mutual gravity-well is actually good for, whereas lo and
behold there's even a perfectly worthy SWAG as to our ice-age cycles as
having been closely associated with the Sirius star/solar system that
needs your honest topic input, of your contributing and thus sharing
upon information instead of such topics being avoided/excluded or
otherwise continually topic/author stalked and summarily bashed simply
because you're too Jewish, too Catholic or too damn far into some other
perverted (aka up you's) terrestrial religion that's so insecure (aka
phony baloney bogus) that they can't possibly afford to take any such
hits.

I believe that's too gosh darn freaking bad because, thus far within my
mindset of limited knowledge, I see no reasons as to perceive or
otherwise argue that whomever's surviving upon Venus haven't been far
more Christ like religious than whatever's terrestrial (good grief
almighty, via applied technology and having at least half a brain for
having utilized such, they could even look like us).

Think about it, folks; If you had been biologically evolved and/or
otherwise somewhat physically deposited and subsequently sequestered
upon the likes of Venus, wouldn't you have to think that your somewhat
unfortunate (aka toasty) existence would have greatly depended upon
having been on the good side of your God/creator? I mean, exactly how
much bad news can a Venusian soul take?

Usenet naysayers are not the least bit SWAG worthy, whereas instead
they'll offer us carefully scripted infomercials of their
disinformation, plus whatever's wag-thy-dog worthy of whatever else
sustains their mainstream status quo of ulterior motives and hidden
agendas. The proof has always been within their Skull and Bones cult
like need-to-know and/or evidence exclusionary actions, rather than
merely limited to their bigotry mindset of mere words.

Is it pointless to ask; Are there any honest takers, or are you folks
simply too incest brown-nosed and thus way past the point of no return?
-
Brad Guth