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Orion's first crewed flight announced



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 9th 16, 03:00 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Bob Haller
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Posts: 3,197
Default Orion's first crewed flight announced



Billions spent just to repeat what was done in 1968?


If done, it will demonstrate that an ability lost over 40 years ago has
been more-or-less recovered, but this time with significant European
assistance. One wonders how many more years it will be before the
achievement of 1969 is equalled or bettered - and who by.



it wouldnt prove much of anything

just look at the orion with SLS total cost over 1 billion just for the booster, the total time involved. and its not sustinable, because the entire effort costs too much.

SLS was just burning precious money to benefit certain congress men
  #2  
Old December 10th 16, 06:50 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Posts: 10,018
Default Orion's first crewed flight announced

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-12-09 09:00, bob haller wrote:

just look at the orion with SLS total cost over 1 billion just for the booster, the total time involved. and its not sustinable,


If one were to take the costs of developping Saturn V and adjust for
inflation, how would it compare against cost of SLS ?


Saturn V was much more expensive. It was also more expensive on an
incremental launch cost basis. These numbers are NOT hard to find.
Why did you ask rather than looking it up yourself?

SATURN V SLS
Development $41.5 B $7-$35B
Launch $710 M $500 M

The reason for the variability in SLS development cost is based on
when you stop counting. Stop at first launch (5 years) and it's the
lower number. Follow it all the way out to 2024 and Phase 2
development (11 years) and it's the higher number.


The boosters may have inherited from the shuttle boosters, but did their
extension require enough work that they are mroe new than just extended
shuttle ones ?


You should consider SLS as pretty much all new. They're starting with
existing Shuttle engines, but they'll shift to redesigned ones in
pretty short order. The solids aren't the same as used by the
Shuttle.


And with regards to Orion, would its development be on par with the
Apollo capsule (again, inflation ajusted) or way more ?


Apollo capsule development was almost $37 billion (2016 dollars).
Orion will be just under $18 billion when all is said and done in
2021. Orion is significantly cheaper and is a larger and more capable
capsule. It has its own engine, 50% longer duration, and 25% larger
crew. In addition, the Orion capsule (but not the Service Module) is
reusable.

Again, these numbers are not difficult to find.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw
  #3  
Old December 10th 16, 08:43 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
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Posts: 2,307
Default Orion's first crewed flight announced

In article ,
says...

In addition, the Orion capsule (but not the Service Module) is
reusable.


Last I heard (not "officially" of course, but on several forums), NASA
had dropped reusability as a requirement, at least for the early
flights. This could mean that they're deferring some development until
later. This makes sense because they're doing the same with SLS (i.e.
the upper stage isn't fully developed yet, so they're flying initially
with a Delta IV upper stage variant).

From a discussion on Spaceflight.com with the title "EM-1 Orion
Construction and Processing Updates". Quote from woods170 on 08/29/2016
06:19 PM:

From my sources:
After having landed in the ocean, and having spent a good
number of hours floating in salt water the spacecraft will
have to be stripped back to the bare pressure hull to get
rid of the salt. None of the RCS engines, tankage and plumbing
can be re-used due to a high likelihood of salt water
immersion into the innards of the RCS system. The same applies
to just about everything else outside the pressure hull.
Re-use of the backshell panels requires replacement of the
tiles and re-certification of the carrier panels themselves
and the backshell carrier structure. The same applies to the
primary heatshield carrier structure. The folks over at SpaceX
can testify to this having almost completed their efforts to
"re-use" a flown Dragon 1. That particular "re-use" is
basically a re-use of the pressure hull and certain stuff
located inside the pressure hull. Just about everything else
has been replaced with brand-new items. Re-use of Orion, if
any, will walk pretty much the same path.

According to my sources the re-use of significant elements of
Orion is not a serious option right now given the low
projected flight-rate. The big exception is a subset of the
avionics. For the rest it's cheaper to just build a brand new
spacecraft.

Things could have been very different if the original plan had
been followed: land Orion on land. But heck, the performance
issues with Ares I threw a wrench in those plans.

For the reasons above Boeing has chosen land as the primary
landing surface for CST-100 and a set of similar reasons is
one of the driving forces behind SpaceX wanting to land
Dragon 2 propulsively on land.

Considering the realistic flight rate for SLS/Orion is once every other
year, NASA could claim the capsule is "reusable" even if they only built
three or four of them and it took four or more years to completely strip
a flown one down and refurbish it to a flight-worthy condition.

But, that is absolutely not "reusable" in my book.

As to the cost, cheaper than Apollo/Saturn V seems to be a good example
of damning with faint praise. Apollo/Saturn was killed precisely
because of its extremely high cost.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #4  
Old December 11th 16, 09:30 AM posted to sci.space.policy
William Mook[_2_]
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Posts: 3,840
Default Orion's first crewed flight announced

According to the OMB the manned Saturn V program from 1964 to 1973 cost $6,416,835,000 in nominal dollars.

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apol...opriations.htm

Using the Treasury's Consumer Price Index to adjust these figures to modern values as of 2016 we have;

Nominal Dollars Year 2016 Dollars CPI Adj.

$ 763,382,000 1964 $5,952,631,210
$ 964,924,000 1965 $7,404,765,510
$1,177,320,000 1966 $8,783,715,630
$1,135,600,000 1967 $8,218,786,000
$ 998,900,000 1968 $6,938,594,770
$ 534,453,000 1969 $3,520,239,490
$ 484,439,000 1970 $3,018,117,400
$ 189,059,000 1971 $1,128,420,820
$ 142,458,000 1972 $ 823,833,250
$ 26,300,000 1973 $ 143,186,320

The total NASA budget for the Saturn V in current 2016 dollars (December 2016) is $45,932,290,400 for the Saturn V alone. Development and operations inclusive. It did not include the F1 development and the work done prior to the formation of NASA done by the US DOD.

The interesting thing is that when lunar flights began in 1968 the portion of the NASA budget dedicated to Apollo was less than 70% - and over the entire Apollo programme it totalled only 34% of all expenditures! Peak spending on the programme was two years prior to actual flights.

Is NASA really the best way to explore space? NASA styled itself in the 1950s as a modern day successor to NACA in 1915 - saying that NACA should be re-invented in the modern age. The political melieu in which it found itself was one where the Soviets flew Sputnik and Laika (the first dog on orbit) into space, whilst the USA's Vanguard project failed upon its first launch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVeFkakURXM

NASA we were told then will help in the next 43 years to develop space travel and space commercilisation just as NACA helped organise and develop air travel and its commercialisation in NACA's first 43 years.

By this measure NASA has not lived up to its promises. From 1915 to 1958 is 43 years. Add 43 years to 1958 and you get 2001. We expected that by 2001 we would have an aerospace industry as large and as vital as the aviation industry in 1958.

Acording to the Air Transport Association of America In 1958 there were 56 airlines operating in the USA serving 721 cities with 1848 aircraft, offering 121,839 seats daily - excluding Alaska. The airlines and aircraft industries employed 166,408 people and carried 44,500,000 people a year along with 248,580,000 ton miles of air mail and 643,792,000 ton miles of air freight earning $2,882,522,000 nominal dollars worth $24,110,602,510 million 2016 - per year.

In contrast since 1958 NASA has launched 219 manned spacraft into space carrying 1,167 people into space over 8 programmes at a cost of over $1 trillion and spends $18.4 billion a year currently, with zero capacity to launch people into space.

Program Launch People

Mercury----- 6 6
Gemini------ 10 20
Apollo------- 11 33
Skylab------ 3 9
Apollo Soyuz 1 3
Shuttle Mir-- 9 63
Shuttle----- 135 945
ISS-------- 44 88

TOTAL----- 219 1167

Its not how much money is being spent, but how effectively it is being spent.

The Jet Age began in October 1958 with Pan American's introduction of the jet airliner

https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitio...e/jetage02.cfm

This is one of the reasons Arthur Clarke protrayed the Pan Am logo on the space liner portrayed in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

http://www.space.com/32258-orion-spa...to-essay..html

Working in conjunction with a space station and a nuclear powered moon rocket - to provide regular service into space and to and from the moon.

http://cinefex.com/blog/aries-1b/

A nuclear electric rocket that was very similar to HiPEP High Power Electric Propulsion (HiPEP) is a variation of ion thruster for use in nuclear electric propulsion applications. The HiPEP thruster produces ions are using microwaves in a powerful magnetic field. Ionization is achieved through Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR). The microwave frequency matches the gyrofrequency and a resonance is established. Energy efficiently creates ions and accelerates them to 60 km/sec to 90 km/sec. The system achieves 100 kg/KW of power - and since advanced power plants can achieve kW of power per kg, this system can be used to land vehicles on low gravity bodies like the moon, and take off.

These spacecraft were modelled to match the carrying capacity of the Boeing 707 - 4 crew, 5 flight attendants 105 passengers. 49 tons empty, 23 tons cargo passengers and crew. 72 tons overall. The 707 also carries 40 tons of jet fuel.

A two stage to orbit horizontal take off and landing vehicle that's propelled by an aerospike hydrogen and oxygen engines - with a 7% structure fraction - using zero boil off tanks -

49 tons - manned structure & supplies
23 tons - cargo passenger crew

72 tons - total payload

25.5 tons - hydrogen
140.3 tons - oxygen

17.9 tons - propulsion structure - stage two

255.7 tons - total stage two

99.0 tons - hydrogen
544.6 tons - oxygen

67.6 tons - propulsion structure - stage one

967.0 tons - total take off weight

The first stage takes off and glides back to the launch center to be reused with an eight hour turn around. The second stage goes to orbit and glides back to the lanch center to be reused with an eight hour turn around.

A 750 MW dedicated high temperature nuclear reactor is required for each launcher to convert water into LOX/LH2 at a sufficient rate to refuel the two stages every eight hours. This is a very compact reactor module - where 12 of these operate in the lunar booster described below. The development and sale of these high temperature hydrogen producing reactors and their deployment throughout the world, transform life on Earth - and make a huge income which helps fund the space flight operations. 400,000 of these supply the world with hydrogen and electrical power aplenty without using any fossil fuels. Petroleum coal and natural gas have dropped in volume, while their price is maintained, and the use of plastics increased dramatically.

The lunar booster has a 60 km/sec exhaust velocity and carries the same 72 tons - 49 tons is the manned structure budget, and 23 tons is the payload passenger and crew as before. The thrust to weight of HiPEP rockets are 20 to 1 - not including power plant. Power to weight achieved by the NERVA program was 430 kW/kg - so a HiPEP style rocket with 100 kW/kg - produces 4.3 kgf of thrust for each kg of nuclear power plant, and ion engine component weighs 0.22 kg. So, that's 4.3 kgf of thrust for every 1.22 kg of weight. A thrust to weight of 3.52 to 1 - and a specific power of 352 kW/kg of weight. To boost at 1/2 gee - triple that required to depart the moon - requires that 14.2% of the entire structure be ion engine and nuclear power plant. Adding this to our previous 7% structure fraction sizes all components - giving us a 21.2% structure fraction

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph241/hamerly1/

Now, to travel to the moon in 8 hours instead of 4 days requires a slight increase in departure speed from 10.95 km/sec to 16.3 km/sec - an addition of 8.4 km/sec to the 7.9 km/sec orbital speed. Speed required for direct descent to the moon rises from 2.3 km/sec to 12.2 km/sec. A total of 20.6 km/sec. We add 12.2 km/sec when we fly back, and use aerobraking to slow to orbital speed and return to the space station. A total delta vee of 32.8 km/sec.

With an exhaust speed of 90 km/sec and a payload 72 tons we have enough now to figure out the masses of the moonship.

49 tons - manned structure & supplies
23 tons - cargo passenger crew

72 tons - total payload

45.6 tons - propellant (produced on the moon)
21.1 tons - nuclear electric propulsion (7.5 GW (2x that of Phoebus 2A))
11.4 tons - propulsion structure and shielding

149.1 tons - total take off mass on the moon
24.9 tons - total take off weight on the moon
74.6 tons - force - maximum thrust ion rockets

So, three of these lunar vehicles - fly to the moon daily - carrying 315 people to and from the moon. They leave Earth orbit boost for 29 minutes and arrive at the moon landing 7.5 hours later - after boosting 42 minutes to come to zero speed at zero altitude on the moon. They stay on the lunar surface for four hours - refueling - and return to Earth orbit - boosting another 42 minutes at 1/2 gee - and then slowing down using aerobraking - spending another 4 hours in Earth orbit, before departing again for the moon.

Three lunar vehicles cycle continuously between Earth and Moon for each launcher described above - providing three launches per day.

To match the airline industry of 1958 - 129,839 seats daily - 412 launchers and 1,236 deep space craft would have to be operated by 56 space lines from 721 American cities. An average of 0.57 launchers and 1.7 lunar craft for each city. Smaller cities share a launcher - larger ones have one or two operating from their space port. Most larger cities have one. Named after the city by tradition established in the 1980s - and the three lunar craft named after a city notable - with the name of the city added - The Spirit of St. Louis is the launcher - the the Lindberg serving the Spirt of St. Louis, the Bush serving the Spirit of St. Louis and the Armstrong serving the Spirit of St. Louis - for example.

There are 721 sister cities on the moon, and 129,839 seats daily - with an average lunar residency extending for a year 47.4 million people inhabit the moon, larger than most European countries. The moon is rich in rare earth materials associated with asteroid strikes on Earth. Precious metals, and rare Earth metals, total 83 tons world wide and are used widely in electronics and other important high tech industries. At 50 million per ton $4.2 billion per year - this is 100 kg per year and $5.8 million per year - per city -for use in distributed manufacturing systems.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np8N9BzmdjY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeso1oX2iyI


* * *

NACA's mission statement: "...It shall be the duty of the advisory committee for aeronautics to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution..." By an Act of Congress Approved March 3, 1915

NACA According to Wikipedia;

In December 1912, President William Howard Taft had appointed a National Aerodynamical Laboratory Commission chaired by Robert S. Woodward, president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Legislation was introduced in both houses of Congress early in January 1913 to approve the commission, but when it came to a vote, the legislation was defeated.

Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1907 to 1927, took up the effort, and in January 1915, Senator Benjamin R. Tillman, and Representative Ernest W. Roberts introduced identical resolutions recommending the creation of an advisory committee as outlined by Walcott. The purpose of the committee was "to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution, and to determine the problems which should be experimentally attacked and to discuss their solution and their application to practical questions." Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote that he "heartily [endorsed] the principle" on which the legislation was based. Walcott then suggested the tactic of adding the resolution to the Naval Appropriations Bill.[4]

According to one source, "The enabling legislation for the NACA slipped through almost unnoticed as a rider attached to the Naval Appropriation Bill, on 3 March 1915."[5] The committee of 12 people, all unpaid, were allocated a budget of $5,000 per year.

President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law the same day, thus formally creating the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, as it was called in the legislation, on the last day of the 63rd Congress.

The act of Congress creating NACA, approved March 3, 1915, reads, "...It shall be the duty of the advisory committee for aeronautics to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution...

NASA According to Wikipedia

From 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1.[14] In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch an artificial satellite for the International Geophysical Year (1957–58). An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard. After the Soviet launch of the world's first artificial satellite (Sputnik 1) on October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. The US Congress, alarmed by the perceived threat to national security and technological leadership (known as the "Sputnik crisis"), urged immediate and swift action; President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his advisers counseled more deliberate measures. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency mainly based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was created in February 1958 to develop space technology for military application.[15]

On July 29, 1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, establishing NASA. When it began operations on October 1, 1958, NASA absorbed the 43-year-old NACA intact; its 8,000 employees, an annual budget of US$100 million, three major research laboratories (Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, and Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory) and two small test facilities.[16] A NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959.[17] Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA. A significant contributor to NASA's entry into the Space Race with the Soviet Union was the technology from the German rocket program led by Wernher von Braun, who was now working for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), which in turn incorporated the technology of American scientist Robert Goddard's earlier works.[18] Earlier research efforts within the US Air Force[16] and many of ARPA's early space programs were also transferred to NASA.[19] In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a contractor facility operated by the California Institute of Technology.[16]
  #5  
Old December 11th 16, 10:02 AM posted to sci.space.policy
William Mook[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,840
Default Orion's first crewed flight announced

On Sunday, December 11, 2016 at 9:30:46 PM UTC+13, William Mook wrote:
According to the OMB the manned Saturn V program from 1964 to 1973 cost $6,416,835,000 in nominal dollars.

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apol...opriations.htm

Using the Treasury's Consumer Price Index to adjust these figures to modern values as of 2016 we have;

Nominal Dollars Year 2016 Dollars CPI Adj.

$ 763,382,000 1964 $5,952,631,210
$ 964,924,000 1965 $7,404,765,510
$1,177,320,000 1966 $8,783,715,630
$1,135,600,000 1967 $8,218,786,000
$ 998,900,000 1968 $6,938,594,770
$ 534,453,000 1969 $3,520,239,490
$ 484,439,000 1970 $3,018,117,400
$ 189,059,000 1971 $1,128,420,820
$ 142,458,000 1972 $ 823,833,250
$ 26,300,000 1973 $ 143,186,320

The total NASA budget for the Saturn V in current 2016 dollars (December 2016) is $45,932,290,400 for the Saturn V alone. Development and operations inclusive. It did not include the F1 development and the work done prior to the formation of NASA done by the US DOD.

The interesting thing is that when lunar flights began in 1968 the portion of the NASA budget dedicated to Apollo was less than 70% - and over the entire Apollo programme it totalled only 34% of all expenditures! Peak spending on the programme was two years prior to actual flights.

Is NASA really the best way to explore space? NASA styled itself in the 1950s as a modern day successor to NACA in 1915 - saying that NACA should be re-invented in the modern age. The political melieu in which it found itself was one where the Soviets flew Sputnik and Laika (the first dog on orbit) into space, whilst the USA's Vanguard project failed upon its first launch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVeFkakURXM

NASA we were told then will help in the next 43 years to develop space travel and space commercilisation just as NACA helped organise and develop air travel and its commercialisation in NACA's first 43 years.

By this measure NASA has not lived up to its promises. From 1915 to 1958 is 43 years. Add 43 years to 1958 and you get 2001. We expected that by 2001 we would have an aerospace industry as large and as vital as the aviation industry in 1958.

Acording to the Air Transport Association of America In 1958 there were 56 airlines operating in the USA serving 721 cities with 1848 aircraft, offering 121,839 seats daily - excluding Alaska. The airlines and aircraft industries employed 166,408 people and carried 44,500,000 people a year along with 248,580,000 ton miles of air mail and 643,792,000 ton miles of air freight earning $2,882,522,000 nominal dollars worth $24,110,602,510 million 2016 - per year.

In contrast since 1958 NASA has launched 219 manned spacraft into space carrying 1,167 people into space over 8 programmes at a cost of over $1 trillion and spends $18.4 billion a year currently, with zero capacity to launch people into space.

Program Launch People

Mercury----- 6 6
Gemini------ 10 20
Apollo------- 11 33
Skylab------ 3 9
Apollo Soyuz 1 3
Shuttle Mir-- 9 63
Shuttle----- 135 945
ISS-------- 44 88

TOTAL----- 219 1167

Its not how much money is being spent, but how effectively it is being spent.

The Jet Age began in October 1958 with Pan American's introduction of the jet airliner

https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitio...e/jetage02.cfm

This is one of the reasons Arthur Clarke protrayed the Pan Am logo on the space liner portrayed in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

http://www.space.com/32258-orion-spa...oto-essay.html

Working in conjunction with a space station and a nuclear powered moon rocket - to provide regular service into space and to and from the moon.

http://cinefex.com/blog/aries-1b/

A nuclear electric rocket that was very similar to HiPEP High Power Electric Propulsion (HiPEP) is a variation of ion thruster for use in nuclear electric propulsion applications. The HiPEP thruster produces ions are using microwaves in a powerful magnetic field. Ionization is achieved through Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR). The microwave frequency matches the gyrofrequency and a resonance is established. Energy efficiently creates ions and accelerates them to 60 km/sec to 90 km/sec. The system achieves 100 kg/KW of power - and since advanced power plants can achieve kW of power per kg, this system can be used to land vehicles on low gravity bodies like the moon, and take off.

These spacecraft were modelled to match the carrying capacity of the Boeing 707 - 4 crew, 5 flight attendants 105 passengers. 49 tons empty, 23 tons cargo passengers and crew. 72 tons overall. The 707 also carries 40 tons of jet fuel.

A two stage to orbit horizontal take off and landing vehicle that's propelled by an aerospike hydrogen and oxygen engines - with a 7% structure fraction - using zero boil off tanks -

49 tons - manned structure & supplies
23 tons - cargo passenger crew

72 tons - total payload

25.5 tons - hydrogen
140.3 tons - oxygen

17.9 tons - propulsion structure - stage two

255.7 tons - total stage two

99.0 tons - hydrogen
544.6 tons - oxygen

67.6 tons - propulsion structure - stage one

967.0 tons - total take off weight

The first stage takes off and glides back to the launch center to be reused with an eight hour turn around. The second stage goes to orbit and glides back to the lanch center to be reused with an eight hour turn around.

A 750 MW dedicated high temperature nuclear reactor is required for each launcher to convert water into LOX/LH2 at a sufficient rate to refuel the two stages every eight hours. This is a very compact reactor module - where 12 of these operate in the lunar booster described below. The development and sale of these high temperature hydrogen producing reactors and their deployment throughout the world, transform life on Earth - and make a huge income which helps fund the space flight operations. 400,000 of these supply the world with hydrogen and electrical power aplenty without using any fossil fuels. Petroleum coal and natural gas have dropped in volume, while their price is maintained, and the use of plastics increased dramatically.

The lunar booster has a 60 km/sec exhaust velocity and carries the same 72 tons - 49 tons is the manned structure budget, and 23 tons is the payload passenger and crew as before. The thrust to weight of HiPEP rockets are 20 to 1 - not including power plant. Power to weight achieved by the NERVA program was 430 kW/kg - so a HiPEP style rocket with 100 kW/kg - produces 4..3 kgf of thrust for each kg of nuclear power plant, and ion engine component weighs 0.22 kg. So, that's 4.3 kgf of thrust for every 1.22 kg of weight. A thrust to weight of 3.52 to 1 - and a specific power of 352 kW/kg of weight. To boost at 1/2 gee - triple that required to depart the moon - requires that 14.2% of the entire structure be ion engine and nuclear power plant. Adding this to our previous 7% structure fraction sizes all components - giving us a 21.2% structure fraction

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph241/hamerly1/

Now, to travel to the moon in 8 hours instead of 4 days requires a slight increase in departure speed from 10.95 km/sec to 16.3 km/sec - an addition of 8.4 km/sec to the 7.9 km/sec orbital speed. Speed required for direct descent to the moon rises from 2.3 km/sec to 12.2 km/sec. A total of 20.6 km/sec. We add 12.2 km/sec when we fly back, and use aerobraking to slow to orbital speed and return to the space station. A total delta vee of 32.8 km/sec.

With an exhaust speed of 90 km/sec and a payload 72 tons we have enough now to figure out the masses of the moonship.

49 tons - manned structure & supplies
23 tons - cargo passenger crew

72 tons - total payload

45.6 tons - propellant (produced on the moon)
21.1 tons - nuclear electric propulsion (7.5 GW (2x that of Phoebus 2A))
11.4 tons - propulsion structure and shielding

149.1 tons - total take off mass on the moon
24.9 tons - total take off weight on the moon
74.6 tons - force - maximum thrust ion rockets

So, three of these lunar vehicles - fly to the moon daily - carrying 315 people to and from the moon. They leave Earth orbit boost for 29 minutes and arrive at the moon landing 7.5 hours later - after boosting 42 minutes to come to zero speed at zero altitude on the moon. They stay on the lunar surface for four hours - refueling - and return to Earth orbit - boosting another 42 minutes at 1/2 gee - and then slowing down using aerobraking - spending another 4 hours in Earth orbit, before departing again for the moon.

Three lunar vehicles cycle continuously between Earth and Moon for each launcher described above - providing three launches per day.

To match the airline industry of 1958 - 129,839 seats daily - 412 launchers and 1,236 deep space craft would have to be operated by 56 space lines from 721 American cities. An average of 0.57 launchers and 1.7 lunar craft for each city. Smaller cities share a launcher - larger ones have one or two operating from their space port. Most larger cities have one. Named after the city by tradition established in the 1980s - and the three lunar craft named after a city notable - with the name of the city added - The Spirit of St. Louis is the launcher - the the Lindberg serving the Spirt of St. Louis, the Bush serving the Spirit of St. Louis and the Armstrong serving the Spirit of St. Louis - for example.

There are 721 sister cities on the moon, and 129,839 seats daily - with an average lunar residency extending for a year 47.4 million people inhabit the moon, larger than most European countries. The moon is rich in rare earth materials associated with asteroid strikes on Earth. Precious metals, and rare Earth metals, total 83 tons world wide and are used widely in electronics and other important high tech industries. At 50 million per ton $4..2 billion per year - this is 100 kg per year and $5.8 million per year - per city -for use in distributed manufacturing systems.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np8N9BzmdjY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeso1oX2iyI


* * *

NACA's mission statement: "...It shall be the duty of the advisory committee for aeronautics to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution..." By an Act of Congress Approved March 3, 1915

NACA According to Wikipedia;

In December 1912, President William Howard Taft had appointed a National Aerodynamical Laboratory Commission chaired by Robert S. Woodward, president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Legislation was introduced in both houses of Congress early in January 1913 to approve the commission, but when it came to a vote, the legislation was defeated.

Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1907 to 1927, took up the effort, and in January 1915, Senator Benjamin R. Tillman, and Representative Ernest W. Roberts introduced identical resolutions recommending the creation of an advisory committee as outlined by Walcott. The purpose of the committee was "to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution, and to determine the problems which should be experimentally attacked and to discuss their solution and their application to practical questions." Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote that he "heartily [endorsed] the principle" on which the legislation was based. Walcott then suggested the tactic of adding the resolution to the Naval Appropriations Bill.[4]

According to one source, "The enabling legislation for the NACA slipped through almost unnoticed as a rider attached to the Naval Appropriation Bill, on 3 March 1915."[5] The committee of 12 people, all unpaid, were allocated a budget of $5,000 per year.

President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law the same day, thus formally creating the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, as it was called in the legislation, on the last day of the 63rd Congress.

The act of Congress creating NACA, approved March 3, 1915, reads, "...It shall be the duty of the advisory committee for aeronautics to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution...

NASA According to Wikipedia

From 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1.[14] In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch an artificial satellite for the International Geophysical Year (1957–58). An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard. After the Soviet launch of the world's first artificial satellite (Sputnik 1) on October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. The US Congress, alarmed by the perceived threat to national security and technological leadership (known as the "Sputnik crisis"), urged immediate and swift action; President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his advisers counseled more deliberate measures. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency mainly based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was created in February 1958 to develop space technology for military application.[15]

On July 29, 1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, establishing NASA. When it began operations on October 1, 1958, NASA absorbed the 43-year-old NACA intact; its 8,000 employees, an annual budget of US$100 million, three major research laboratories (Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, and Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory) and two small test facilities.[16] A NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959.[17] Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA. A significant contributor to NASA's entry into the Space Race with the Soviet Union was the technology from the German rocket program led by Wernher von Braun, who was now working for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), which in turn incorporated the technology of American scientist Robert Goddard's earlier works.[18] Earlier research efforts within the US Air Force[16] and many of ARPA's early space programs were also transferred to NASA.[19] In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a contractor facility operated by the California Institute of Technology.[16]


A dozen space stations in a 2 hour polar orbit 1,688 km altitude, provide way-points for the 412 spacecraft visiting space three times a day. mean one ground stage and one lunar stage arrive and depart every 14 minutes. With a two hour stay time at the station - six locks for the Earth stages, and six locks for the lunar stages, for each station - provide adequate numbers of transfer points. With 105 people per flight and up to six flights at one station at one time - 630 people are at the station - and another 370 work there - or visit the station without traversing to the moon. So, the stations house 1000 persons each. With over 700 lunar bases, these each house 70,000 persons only half of which are permanent residents, the other half own time shares.

http://www.astronautix.com/v/vonbraunstation.html

  #6  
Old December 11th 16, 11:09 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,018
Default Orion's first crewed flight announced

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-12-10 14:43, Jeff Findley wrote:

After having landed in the ocean, and having spent a good
number of hours floating in salt water the spacecraft will
have to be stripped back to the bare pressure hull to get
rid of the salt.


I assume that engineers knew this all along, but NASA management had to
continue to pretend it would be reusable?


I'm not sure it's true. It's not like there's a bunch of sensitive
parts on the outside of the capsule. Why couldn't you just wash it
down?


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw
  #7  
Old December 11th 16, 05:20 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,307
Default Orion's first crewed flight announced

In article om,
says...

On 2016-12-10 14:43, Jeff Findley wrote:

After having landed in the ocean, and having spent a good
number of hours floating in salt water the spacecraft will
have to be stripped back to the bare pressure hull to get
rid of the salt.


I assume that engineers knew this all along, but NASA management had to
continue to pretend it would be reusable?


Of course, but NASA is risk averse these days and has ended up with a
design very much like the Apollo CSM when it comes to the Orion, its
service module, its solid escape tower, and etc. And Apollo wasn't at
all reusable after its swim in salt water. Salt water is *very bad* for
most aerospace grade materials like aluminum alloy.

What would it take to get Orion to land on land? Just stronger retro
rockets for final approach? (and appropriate software). Or is the
structure just not designed for this ?


Orion does not have "retro rockets for final approach". It lands via
parachutes, just like Apollo.

Would they need new seats? Or ate the current designs OK for land landings?


Seats are the least of your problems here. Orion is simply not designed
to land on land, except in the case of an emergency/contingency landing.
And in that case, expect the capsule's structure to be permanently
damaged while protecting the passengers (like a car crash).

I am trying to understand whether the re-usability was canned before the
capsule was architected, or whether it was designed to be re-usable, but
somewhere along the process, they gave up and went for water landing.


They're still saying it will be reusable, but when you look at the
details, it will actually be stripped down and rebuilt. That's not
"reusable" in my book, but NASA will insist that it is.

They did much the same with the "reusable" space shuttle SRBs. Those
things were stripped to their bare steel casings and rebuilt. And the
costs were about the same as it would have been just to build new steel
casings for newly built SRBs.

With regards to salt, isn't the ablative shield pretty much water tight,
so only the exposed portions would be vulnerable (radar, retro rockets
and what not).


The holes in the thing aren't. Salt water will get into the thruster
chambers and into any little crevice and crack.

It's not impossible to refly, but it will take replacing the heat
shield, thrusters, and just about everything outside the pressure vessel
after every flight.

Different slant: have the components inside the capsule (ECLSS,
electronics, power etc) been designed to be easily taken out and
installed in a new capsule ?


As the person I quoted said, yes, many components *inside* the pressure
vessel that will not come into contact with salt water can be reused.

I would hope NASA learned its lesson with the early SSMEs that were not
designed to be easily taken out for maintenance.


Yea, well, that was a result of having to put LOX/LH2 main engines in a
small space on the orbiter. Like shoving a 4 cylinder engine and
transmission inside the front of a compact car. It's a tight fit and
not at all easy to work on.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #8  
Old December 11th 16, 05:24 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,307
Default Orion's first crewed flight announced

In article ,
says...

JF Mezei wrote:

On 2016-12-10 14:43, Jeff Findley wrote:

After having landed in the ocean, and having spent a good
number of hours floating in salt water the spacecraft will
have to be stripped back to the bare pressure hull to get
rid of the salt.


I assume that engineers knew this all along, but NASA management had to
continue to pretend it would be reusable?


I'm not sure it's true. It's not like there's a bunch of sensitive
parts on the outside of the capsule. Why couldn't you just wash it
down?


That would be the sensible thing to do, but we're not talking about
doing the sensible thing. We're talking about what NASA is planning to
do. NASA knows they will have years before the capsule flies again, so
they'll tear it down "just to be sure" that salt water didn't damage
anything. That and what else do you expect the "standing army" to do
between flights?

The long pole in the tent is the manufacturing capacity for the core
stage. That will limit the flight rate to at most once a year, but
realistically it will fly only every other year. Everything else in
NASA's work-flow will be tweaked to match that flight rate, not what is
"sensible".

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
 




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