So, WHY are we building a capsule for the ...'moon and beyond'?

When we don't have any plans to go to the ..'moon and beyond'?

Let's quickly review. Way back we needed to decide whether to
replace the shuttle with an orbital space plane, or an Apollo-like
capsule?

X-37 or Orion?

At roughly the same time they announced the decision to proceed
with Orion, they transfer the X-37 to the military. So even though
we have no plans to go to the ...'moon and beyond' we're still
building...both of them?

Huh!

So Orion must be the civilian cover program for the X-37b.
I mean it's only logical to assume one of these programs has a use.

Does anyone really think Orion is fooling the Chinese into thinking
going to the 'moon and beyond' is about exploration and
pure research? And not military reasons?

At least the CIA didn't spend billions trying to hide the largest
building complex in the DC area, they just put up a little
three foot sign outside their entrance that read only
'Federal Highway Administration'.

Maybe we should just change the name of the X-37b to Orion
and save all the money? Like the CIA did once their little
diversion tactic became a running joke....ya know like
Orion is now.

New CIA street sign (which speaks volumes btw)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_radley/3875817933/



s

On Sep 4, 11:10*am, "Jonathan" wrote:
When we don't have any plans to go to the ..'moon and beyond'?

Let's quickly review. Way back we needed to decide whether to
replace the shuttle with an orbital space plane, or an Apollo-like
capsule?

X-37 or Orion?

At roughly the same time they announced the decision to proceed
with Orion, they transfer the X-37 to the military. So even though
we have no plans to go to the ...'moon and beyond' * we're still
building...both of them?

Huh!

So Orion must be the civilian cover program for the X-37b.
I mean it's only logical to assume one of these programs has a use.

Does anyone really think Orion is fooling the Chinese into thinking
going to the *'moon and beyond' *is about exploration and
pure research? And not military reasons?

At least the CIA didn't spend billions trying to hide the largest
building complex in the DC area, they just put up a little
three foot sign outside their entrance that read only
*'Federal Highway Administration'.

Maybe we should just change the name of the X-37b to Orion
and save all the money? Like the CIA did once their little
diversion tactic became a running joke....ya know like
Orion is now.

New CIA street sign (which speaks volumes btw)http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_radley/3875817933/

s

nasa screwed up royally.........

right after columbia loss they could of choosen a capsule manned
launcher on existing delta and atlas heavies.

but congress wanted to payoff existing contractors, and nasa wanted a
big pork piggie contract

nasa claimed using existing expendables would take too long and cost
too much to man rate.

so they tried putting humans on vibrating prone solids. that would
shake so much it would liquify humans spleens.....

.................................................. ................................

so after the solids booster wouldnt work they decided to human rate
the existing expendables. which bascally needed a fault detection
system and escape rocket. both pretty cheap and fast...

but along came the economic dump of our country, private industry
working on human launchers, and the republicans calling for the end of
all manned space flight spending.........

nasa is like congress, no longer functional or affordable..........

meanwhile 9 11 doubled military spending and much of the money was
wasted, on unnecessary wars and pork plagued spending.

economically our country has failed led by a congress who is bought
and paid for by special interests.

so the mlitary builds a space plane. it may fall to mthe budget ax
too.

america is turning into a 3rd world country and cant afford space
operations either manned unmanned or military........

On Sun, 4 Sep 2011 11:10:13 -0400, "Jonathan" wrote:


When we don't have any plans to go to the ..'moon and beyond'?

Let's quickly review. Way back we needed to decide whether to
replace the shuttle with an orbital space plane, or an Apollo-like
capsule?

X-37 or Orion?

At roughly the same time they announced the decision to proceed
with Orion, they transfer the X-37 to the military. So even though
we have no plans to go to the ...'moon and beyond' we're still
building...both of them?

X-37 was not a manned vehicle and was never intended to be a manned
vehicle.

X-38 was the Crew Return Vehicle, but was only a one-way vehicle,
riding up to the Space Station in the Shuttle's cargo bay.

Orbital Space Plane was to be manned, but it had already morphed into
a capsule design and was no longer a "plane" when Columbia went down.

OSP was acquired by Constellation and grew into Orion. Obama tried to
cancel Orion in 2010, until he saw that contract termination fees
would result in not saving much money vs. continuing with Orion
(typical 'leaping before you look' of this White House). So Orion was
reinstated, with vague suggestions of visiting an asteroid sometime in
the 2020s.

Brian

On Sun, 4 Sep 2011 18:47:44 -0700 (PDT), bob haller
wrote:

On Sep 4, 11:10*am, "Jonathan" wrote:
When we don't have any plans to go to the ..'moon and beyond'?

Let's quickly review. Way back we needed to decide whether to
replace the shuttle with an orbital space plane, or an Apollo-like
capsule?

X-37 or Orion?

At roughly the same time they announced the decision to proceed
with Orion, they transfer the X-37 to the military. So even though
we have no plans to go to the ...'moon and beyond' * we're still
building...both of them?

Huh!

So Orion must be the civilian cover program for the X-37b.
I mean it's only logical to assume one of these programs has a use.

Does anyone really think Orion is fooling the Chinese into thinking
going to the *'moon and beyond' *is about exploration and
pure research? And not military reasons?

At least the CIA didn't spend billions trying to hide the largest
building complex in the DC area, they just put up a little
three foot sign outside their entrance that read only
*'Federal Highway Administration'.

Maybe we should just change the name of the X-37b to Orion
and save all the money? Like the CIA did once their little
diversion tactic became a running joke....ya know like
Orion is now.

New CIA street sign (which speaks volumes btw)http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_radley/3875817933/

s

nasa screwed up royally.........

right after columbia loss they could of choosen a capsule manned
launcher on existing delta and atlas heavies.

but congress wanted to payoff existing contractors, and nasa wanted a
big pork piggie contract

Griffin wanted a BFR (psychotherapists could have a field day with
that) and the only way to pay for it was to hide the costs partially
by building a smaller rocket using the same components first. But that
concept fell apart when the smaller rocket proved to be too small and
in the end it would have been cheaper to just build the BFR in the
first place and launch crews on Delta or Atlas in the meantime.

nasa claimed using existing expendables would take too long and cost
too much to man rate.

No, they claimed they weren't powerful enough. Which was originally
true, but Ares I Mk.II wasn't powerful enough either, and Orion had to
be slimmed down to the point where Delta IV-Heavy could have done the
job just as well.

so they tried putting humans on vibrating prone solids. that would
shake so much it would liquify humans spleens.....

No, that turned out not to be true, despite all the criticism it would
be.

so after the solids booster wouldnt work

It did work once Orion was slimmed down. But it and the BFR rocket
were going to be much to expensive to build and operate, so someone
finally listened to the DIRECT guys and decided to build just one,
scalable rocket.

they decided to human rate the existing expendables.

Cite? NASA is planning to build SLS, not use expendables.

which bascally needed a fault detection
system and escape rocket. both pretty cheap and fast...

Neither cheap nor fast, which is why SpaceX and CST-100 aren't flying
crews a week from Tuesday.

but along came the economic dump of our country, private industry
working on human launchers, and the republicans calling for the end of
all manned space flight spending.........

Only a few Republicans. Rubio, Hutchinson, Cornyn, Shelby, Hatch, etc.
are still firmly pro-manned space. Huntsman is from Utah and you can
bet his pledge would be ignored as soon as ATK's jobs are threatened.
Paul is from Texas, but he's anti-everything and has no chance of
winning the Presidency. The other candidates (Romney, Bachman,
Gingrich, Cain, Santorum) are not from major spacestates and have
little to lose back home by saying "no manned space funding!"

nasa is like congress, no longer functional or affordable..........

Nonsense. You do realize that the big cut that everyone sees coming is
only 10% right? NASA can make that up by killing SLS and buying Falcon
Heavy from SpaceX, and still have a viable deep space program.

meanwhile 9 11 doubled military spending and much of the money was
wasted, on unnecessary wars and pork plagued spending.

Irrelevant. We were in a much more expensive war in Vietnam as the
same time as Apollo and LBJ's "Great Society" social spending.

economically our country has failed led by a congress who is bought
and paid for by special interests.

I wouldn't say our country has failed economically. It has its
problems, but nothing we can't come back from with some sane fiscal
policies, most of which will have to be in social spending, where the
lion's share of the budget goes.

so the mlitary builds a space plane. it may fall to mthe budget ax
too.

It isn't clear they plan to fly it many more times anyway. They might
have gotten all the data that they need.

america is turning into a 3rd world country and cant afford space
operations either manned unmanned or military........

So Britain, Canada, and Japan are third world countries to you?

Brian