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NASA studies new booster (UPI)
Michael Gallagher writes:
I think a real life example of this in Skylab, which, in spite of problesm on assent, was in orbit and operational after ONE launch. In contrast, we've been launching station elements for what, five years, and it's not eve close to done yet! So which is the better aproach? If you happen to have a surplus Saturn V available, the Skylab approach makes a lot of sense. If not, not. Will McLean |
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NASA studies new booster (UPI)
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#64
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NASA studies new booster (UPI)
In article ,
Christopher M. Jones wrote: Skylab was hardly the best way to do a space station, despite its size. It was quite similar in design to the earliest series of Salyuts, which, along with Skylab, were very crude in comparison to the last Salyuts, Mir, and ISS. There is no good way to do a space station. Every one of these projects has ended badly. -- /\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis) / \ \ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/ \/ * All the math that's fit to e-print * |
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NASA studies new booster (UPI)
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NASA studies new booster (UPI)
In article ,
jeff findley wrote: There is no good way to do a space station. Every one of these projects has ended badly. .... I'd argue that cheap access to space is a prerequisite for "doing a space station right". Fair enough. FIRST we should establish cheap access to space, with private money. Then we'll see. -- /\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis) / \ \ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/ \/ * All the math that's fit to e-print * |
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NASA studies new booster (UPI)
On 10 Mar 2004 03:37:34 GMT, (McLean1382) wrote:
If you happen to have a surplus Saturn V available, the Skylab approach makes a lot of sense. If not, not. A shuttle derived heavy lifter is the next best thing. ----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- |
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NASA studies new booster (UPI)
On 8 Mar 2004 10:26:48 -0800, (Edward Wright)
wrote: Michael Gallagher wrote in message . .. Something like the Atlas V could work for LEO missions and zipping up to the station, sure. You start talking serious Mars hardware, that's another matter. Nonsense. How do you think every piece of US hardware on Mars got there. We haven't sent any MANNED spacecraft to Mars yet. You think we can lauch it all on a Titant 3 or a Delta 2, fine, but I don't think that will work. For one thing, it would be very cramped .... .... We aren't talking about launches that are scheduled for today, so it doesn't matter if a commercial service is available today -- only if the service can be available when it's needed ..... You can not plan a project on whether something will be there IF it's needed if you know it will be needed. Just waiting for the private sector to cough up what we need and then deciding that's the time to go will not work because there's no guaruntee the private secotr will produce it on its own! We know the mission requirements for a manned flight to Mars. We could have done it twenty years ago! We have almost all the technology we need; most of the unknowns relate to long durations of weightlessness and the effects of living in low gravity on the crew. But we do not have to wait for the private sector to maybe, someday, come up with some new launchers or spacecraft when we can do it now. If anything, the private sector can benefit from government ependitures on Mars missions. Just as the airline industry was able to grow pretty much exponentially because World War 2 saw the development of larger plains, refnements of radar, and training a lot of pilots, so too could private ventures benefit from work done towards a Moon Mars mission. ..... Elon Musk, at least, is closer to launching than any of NASA's Constellation concepts .... I don't know how long Elon Musk has been doing what he is doing, but I bet he has been working at it longer than NASA has on Constellation, which was announced just last month. So OF COURSE Constellation is nowhere near launching. Nor was Mr. Musk one month after cenceiving his vehicle, I imagine. ... The people who say NASA should not use any commercial service that isn't available today are the same people who want NASA to use all kinds of government hardware that doesn't exist today. Interesting double standard. If you can GUARUNTEE that the private sector will produce the hardware needed for a Mars mission without the govenment intervening at all, cool. Othwerwise, nope, sorry, no point in waiting except to just wait. I was 8 years old when the last astronauts walked on the Moon; I want to see them go back while I'm still alive. Hoping the private sector will provide what we need on its own will not achieve that. Sorry. ----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- |
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NASA studies new booster (UPI)
On 9 Mar 2004 17:06:30 -0800, (Edward Wright)
wrote: Michael Gallagher wrote in message . .. The football analogy doesn't quite work, but the diving one does. Even then, the kind of diving we're talking about involves special equipment, including mixed atmosphere rigs, and special training. So? I repeat, I would have no trouble finding people to do the job. My company is more than willing to train them. Only if your company has an expert diver to do it! And even then, you'll probably learn it's nothing to sneeze at. And even then, what's the most cost-effective way to put an oil drilling rig in position, assemble it all at once in a ship yard and tow it out, or have commercial divers assemble it peice-by-piece on site from hardware brought out on small boats? That the oil industry has done the former for quite some time should be a clue. Non sequitar. Space workers don't need to sneak up on an enemy and slit his throat without being seen. The navy also has salvage divers at their disposal, not jsust special ops. IIRC, a Navy salvage ship has been involved in TWA 800 and investigating other plane crashes at sea. ..... I want to make space construction routine and economical, not an exotic, expensive activity only engaged in by elite government forces like the Navy Seals. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with the idea that we should wait until that just happens before we go to Mars. If that is not what you are saying, mea culpa for getting it wrong; if it is, I disagree. As far as exploration goes, if we can go now, or if we have most of the building blocks for beginning now, then we should begin now, not procrastinate. ----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- |
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NASA studies new booster (UPI)
On 9 Mar 2004 18:06:30 -0800, (Edward Wright)
wrote: Michael Gallagher wrote in message . .. 14 years ago, the Synthesis Group called for a heavy lifter to support SEI because fewer launches and less on-orbit assembly would make the overall mission cheaper, not more expensive. Which is one of the reasons why SEI failed and NASA has not been to the Moon in the last 14 years. Never mind Congressional Democrats holding the budget to zero until Clinton was elected and could kill it. No, very little. One World War II airbase required more mass than Skylab, and we built a lot of airbases in the South Pacific during World War II, hauling the supplies in on DC-3's -- not Saturn V's. But how quickly could we have built those air bases hauling the supplies in bi-planes? If it is better to use smaller boosters and lots of on-oribt assembly, surely it would have been better to cram supplies into the rear seats of bi-planes and haul it out that way? However, if they used the DC-3, then maybe there was a reaon for that? Then again, why did the military have to build those bases? Never mind that pressures of war -- that's a socialist venture! Shouldn't we have waited until someone just happened to build a facility that more-or-less suited our needs and then we could have moved in after paying rent? Could it be that they didn't do any of those things because that wouldn't have gotten the job done? Another lesson from World War 2 is how government funded MILITARY developments benfitted the CIVILIAN airline industry: we came out of the war with larger planes, developments in radar allowing it to be installed at every airfield, and a pool of trained pilots. This lead to the growth of the airline and travel industries since the war. World War 1 had also lead to advances in airplane design. So the lesson is that government funded technolgies can ultimateltly be used by the private sector. We have seen that in the commercial communications satellite industry. Can we see it in the area of manned flight? Perhaps. For instance, NASA could, working towards a Mars flight, develop a space suit that private operators could use later. On the other hand, waiting around for the private sector to just up and develop the vehicles needed for Moon/Mars seems to be a sure fire way to insure we never go. History shows that out of all the firms that got started in the '80s, only one, OSC, has successfully launched and orbital booster, and even then, IIRC, they don't count because of the sin of taking government money. But what have the "pure" private firms produced? Nothing so far. Maybe one firm other than OSC, and I am unsure of that. The efforts towards a space tourism business through private developed suborbital vehicles are exciting, but that is a long way from Mars. So? When did I advocate using the Shuttle? You didn't; you have advocated eschewing heavy lifters in favor of smaller boosters and lots of on-orbit assembly. I mentioned the shuttle only because it has been used for on-orbit assembly of the space station. Is that a trick question? Orbital assembly, of course .... Has it worked for the station? Well? ..... Whatever that's supposed to mean. When Lunar Gemini was cut in favor of Apollo, it made a difference .... Only because they didn't want Gemini to compete with Apollo. ..... When Dyna-Soar was cut in favor of MOL and MOL was cut in favor of unmanned satellites, it made a difference .... In what way? In any case, I was referring to arguments that space funding should be cut to fund SOCIAL programs. That has never done anything to solve social problems, IMHO. ..... You can argue about whether those differences were positive or negative, but each choice made a difference, whatever your version of history shows. I don't want to. I haven't advocated using Pegasus, and I haven't advocated using Shuttle. Please stop creating strawmen. I did not hear of Elon Musk until about a week ago, sorry. I asssumed from what I read in Space News that his booster is in the same class as Pegasus. My bad if it's not. But at least you admit it's not a good idea to assemble the station from lots and lots of small peices. The fact that something is uneconomical using Pegasus does not prove it can't be done economically with a reasonable launch vehicle. Ok ...... The question, then, is what is "reasonable" for a manned mission beyond LEO, to the Moon and Mars? As I noted above, the military did not use biplanes do deliver supplies to the bases it was constructing, nor did it simply wait for the private sector to produce something we could use. I am all for commercial space activities, believe it or not. I'd love to see private manned missions into space as much as you. But I also want to see manned flights back to Moon and on to Mars. I do not think it would be wise to simply wait for the private sector to produce something that can be used before going. That is procrastination, in my view. Especially as while government-funded technologies have helped the private sector, "pure" private space entrpenuers haven't produced anything capable of getting people to LEO yet, never mind the Moon or Mars. And I do not see why NASA can not move ahead with Constellation and its related booster while Congress passes legislation helping the private secotr along. The two do not have to be mutlally exclusive unless we want them to be. Columbus used tiny ships because they were cheap and readily available. They were small even by 16th Century standards, not much larger than today's commercial fishing boats .... The key words are "readily available." He used what already existed. He did not say, "Well, I'll wait until someone just happens to produce a boat I can use and then I'll try and raise money for a voyage." If Columbus had followed your advice, instead of lobbying the kings of Portugal and Spain to make his voyage, he would have sat around waiting for something like the Dutch East India company to be founded, and then tried to convince them they should sail west to go east. IOW, he probably never would have gone. But without Columbus sailing when he did, would there have been a Dutch East India Company, or if it had existed anyway, would it have known about, much less bothered with, the Americas? Possibly, but I doubt it. .....we don't need heavy lifters today, and by the time we do, we will have much better technology .... Will we? Developed by whom? Paid for by whom? .... There's no need to bankrupt NASA by trying to build one now .... You don't have to bankrupt anybody to build Shuttle-C, just replace the oribter with a cargo vehicle that doesn't have to come back. Or an upper stage. You praised Columbus for using "readily available" ships. Well, Shuttle-C/a shuttle-derived booster is as close to as readily available as you can get! We do not have to design or test all new engines or build an all-new launch facility; we already have those things. What we lack is what to put in place of the orbiter. Shuttle-C is appealing becuase it would require the least modifications to the lauch site, IMHO. If we put the payload on top of the ET, as with a traditional rocket, that's something else again, but probably not that big. The only "problem" with it is (a) it is a government vehicle; and (b) it is expensive to operate, and (c) it is a government vehicle. On the other hand, the hypothetical boosters you want to use, built and operated entirely with private money, don't exist yet. Maybe one other '80s startup other than OSC has actually orbited something, and I am not sure about that. Many others have gone nowhere. THIS is what we should pin our hopes for a manned Mars mission on!? Way I see it, Shuttle-C wins the readily available concept. It is government funded, but so was Columbus, so no points there. You want to wait and hope that someday the private sector coincidentally produces something we could use for Moon/Mars, hey, go right ahead. But I do not want to wait if we don't have to. And we don't have to. ....NASA won't get back to the Moon and Project Constellation will be a footnote in history books, if that. If Kerry wins in November, yes. No argument there. Heck, if Kerry wins, I wouldn't be surprised if all of NASA becomes a footnote and we think about maybe putting our astronauts on Russian Soyuzs. ----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- |
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