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#51
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Dare I point out to sarcastic dunderheads, who would rather insult than
contribute, that people add significant value to the exploration processes, which is why on Earth exploration geology is performed in conjunction with remote sensing. Mining companies would never solely rely on remote sensing to decide to mine an area. General surveys are done remotely, specific surveys of much smaller areas - identified remotely - are done in person, and strategic decisions based on all this information are then made. If we go to the planets or the Moon then this is the model we should follow. People add cost, but they also add much value. |
#52
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"Alan Anderson" wrote in message ... wrote: dasun wrote: Moore's law is great, but can it go on forever? How long before we can build artificial intelligence as good as our own? What about the Given the average intelligence of the average Usenet poster, I bet that within 10 years we'll have Usenet bots indistingusheable of humans. Sure, why not? We already have humans indistinguishable from bots (e.g. Guth and Gerald). Doing that in the other direction should be a piece of cake. Alan, don't insult the bots like that please. Usenet bots indistinguishable from Henry Spencer, on the other hand... |
#53
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"Michael Rhino" wrote in message ... "Alan Anderson" wrote in message ... "Michael Rhino" wrote: It sounds like the lander docks with CEV, they fly to the moon together, and then separate. Isn't this docking an extra step that slows things down? Why not have them fly to the moon separately? They'd each need a "departure stage" if it were done that way. Is there a problem with two departure stages? If they join together, they are twice as heavy, so you need twice the fuel to get them there. They need to dock in order for people/rocks to move between them anyway. The mission profile called for docking twice, once in low Earth orbit and once in lunar orbit. I was concerned that docking in low Earth orbit would slow the mission down. Umm, what's the hurry? It's not like its going to add days to the mission. After they leave the moon, they dock with something, but does that something need any life support systems? They could stick with the life support system they had on the moon and use that for the entire journey both directions. And there's always the Apollo 13 lesson -- having a lifeboat is a good idea. A lifeboat with no heat shield would have a serious problem. It depends on which half dies. Not really. You just need the 1/2 with the heatshield to have enough backup power to last for re-entry. Again, like Apollo 13. |
#54
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Reed Snellenberger wrote in
.119: We get something that will initially be (at least) safer than Shuttle CEV claims to cut the risk of crew loss *during the ascent phase* by a factor of ten compared to the shuttle, but ascent risk is only about half the overall risk. And the remaining mission risks for CEV don't automatically drop just because the ascent risk dropped. So *at best* you're talking about a 50% risk reduction - and that's only after the spacecraft has flown enough times to demonstrate the level of design maturity the shuttle has *now*. and ultimately be more versatile than the orbiter. In the sense that it can go to the moon, yes. For LEO missions, it's way less versatile than the orbiter. In particular, "ISS assembly complete" is about to be redefined as "whatever state the station happens to be in whenever the shuttle stops flying, since there ain't no way CEV is going to do any meaningful assembly." That's perfectly alright as long as you don't pretend to have goals in LEO like ISS and keep the program focused on exploration beyond LEO. But those who pretend otherwise are going to be disappointed. -- JRF Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail, check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and think one step ahead of IBM. |
#55
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On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 02:07:37 GMT, in a place far, far away, Reed
Snellenberger made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that: (Rand Simberg) wrote in : More focused, certainly, but with the increasing budget, and the predilection to do more in house and less contracting, how is it smaller? Increasing budget? Didn't Griffin say this program was designed to fit into a flat+inflation budget? Where is the increase? It's in whatever you arbitrarily call "inflation." For exactly the same (or more) cost as the Shuttle program. We get something that will initially be (at least) safer than Shuttle and ultimately be more versatile than the orbiter. How can something that only carries six crew to orbit be more versatile? Because it can deliver four people to lunar orbit, given a sufficiently large and expensive upper stage? Big whoop. More importantly, it's a plan that finally puts an end-cap (of sorts) on the shuttle era. What's the point, if there's no affordability improvement? |
#56
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On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 02:04:25 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Ray"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that: OK, is anyone other than NASA fanboys here actually excited about this plan? I am extremely excited about this plan! You've already demonstrated yourself, prior to this post, to be a naif. I was asking about people other than NASA fanboys. I have a question for you. What else should NASA do? NASA should be working on making space access affordable. But that's not something in its bureaucratic interest. |
#57
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Rand Simberg wrote:
On 19 Sep 2005 15:08:09 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that: OK, is anyone other than NASA fanboys here actually excited about this plan? I think it provides a good roadmap for NASA to follow for the next how-ever-many years. It is a great improvement to the space shuttle era NASA framework. This is a plan that could very well, over time, lead to a smaller, more focused NASA. More focused, certainly, but with the increasing budget, and the predilection to do more in house and less contracting, how is it smaller? It is a plan that produces something useful in the near-term - the CEV and CLV tools that will replace shuttle and could by themselves, in concert with commercial launch services and international space station partners, serve as the framework for a long- term human space program. For exactly the same (or more) cost as the Shuttle program. http://www.transterrestrial.com/arch...29.html#005729 I haven't seen the CEV costs you cite in this article. I've seen the recent charts put up by nasawatch, but I don't see how it is possible to sort out development costs from operating costs in these projections. It still seems likely to me that a Stick-based program would cost less annually than a Shuttle-based program over the long term. The bottom line is that NASA's budget is not projected to increase much on an annual basis (adjusted for inflation) even while it develops two new launch vehicles and two new human crewed spaceflight vehicles that will be bound for the moon. This sounds better to me than the status quo that has NASA spending close to $4 billion per year trying to keep shuttle flying in low earth orbit only. - Ed Kyle |
#58
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dasun wrote:
Dare I point out to sarcastic dunderheads, who would rather insult than contribute, that people add significant value to the exploration processes, which is why on Earth exploration geology is performed in conjunction with remote sensing. Mining companies would never solely rely on remote sensing to decide to mine an area. They would if sending humans cost $50 billion. General surveys are done remotely, specific surveys of much smaller areas - identified remotely - are done in person, and strategic decisions based on all this information are then made. If we go to the planets or the Moon then this is the model we should follow. People add cost, but they also add much value. Yes, but not $50 billion worth of value. When we have the technology to send people to other worlds for a halfway sane sum of money, then and only then will it make sense to do so. -- "Always look on the bright side of life." To reply by email, replace no.spam with my last name. |
#59
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Ray wrote:
Ridiculious comment above. We are going back to the moon to learn to live their! Not just to pick up a couple of rocks! You are naive if you think that. Nothing in the announced plan will develop technology to land "space station" elements on the moon. Nothing in the announced plan will have technology to sohoot mining equipment to get some water. All that is announced is a glorified 4 person LEM capable of staying 1 week instead of 2 days with 2 crewmembers. Hopefully that glorified LEM will have room for a dune buggy line the later Apollo missions. And once they've made the flight to the moon to pickup rock samples, how much do you bet that the program will be cancelled ? The shuttle has been to the station far more times than Apollo went to the moon. And the CEV , if it is ever completed, will have gone more times to the station than to the moon. |
#60
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Ed Kyle wrote:
The bottom line is that NASA's budget is not projected to increase much on an annual basis (adjusted for inflation) Yeah sure.... Didn't they say that for Shuttle, and promise the shuttle would be fully reusable with little/no maintenance required between flights and fly at very low costs many times per month ? Griffin mentioned reusability. In the end, it will be similar to Soyuz reusability: they'll try to salvage some electronics from the cabin. But the rest will be crushed and sent to smelters to be turned into beer cans. One must not believe promises made at this point. And it is dangerous for NASA to make promises because it may force it to end up making compromises that will make the vehicle costlier and not as good, just like it had to compromise with Shuttle. |
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