On the lasting importance of the SpaceX accomplishment.

On Jul 13, 8:56*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article e7f5fec3-8559-4edf-a831-f22bbbd600f3
@p6g2000yqg.googlegroups.com, says...



if falcon *continues to fly safely and gets its manned upgrade theres
no need SLS and Orion. by the time its flying ISS will be deorbited,
theres no big need for SLS and orion, and no $$ for a new program

I disagree, to a point. *Orion was designed from the start for long
missions in deep space. *I seriously doubt if the current version of
Dragon (even the manned version for ISS crew rotations) would meet the
same requirements.

theres no way a multi person crew can live in capsule for a extended
deep space mission.

It's possible to do this with only the capsule, but it would not be
pleasant. *That's why the proposals that I've seen so far (in the online
space media) have included some sort of HAB module. *This isn't hard
since you can derive one from an ISS module.

just look at the exercise requirements for ISS. no way to do that in a
tiny capsule for even a month or two, plus radiation shielding. a deep
space mission should probably have a water shielded storm shelter

a deep space mission will need a dedicated transit mini station.....
with a good service module

manned transit operations can be provided by falcon or other private
operator.

but no way astronauts can live in a capsule long term

Even if a HAB module is present, Orion has to be capable of operating,
and hosting a crew, during the entire mission. *This is primarily
because it makes sense to have things like guidance and control on
Orion. *In other words, someone has to fly the damn thing. *You might as
well fly it from Orion, since it's going to have all of the displays,
controls, and etc. already in place.

Dragon could do all of that, in theory. *But in practice, it's far more
likely that the first iteration of Dragon will only be capable of ISS
operations. *That means it is only necessary to function until it gets
to ISS, then most of its systems could be powered down until it leaves
ISS. *This also makes sense from a safety point of view. *Why keep
things like Orion RCS systems active when berthed at ISS?

Obviously Orion needs everything working again when it's time to leave.
From what I understand, Soyuz operations are very similar.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
* up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
* *- tinker

well since ares orion wouldnt be operational till after 2020, and by
that time whats left of ISS will be in the pacific.....

What jobs will orion do other than a rather ill defined deep space
missions that havent been planed. or more importandly funded

My point is that orion ares is just a waste of money, other than
making pork piggies squeal...

better to end orion ares and use falcon...... why duplicate things?

perhaps attach some bigelow inflatables so the crews long mission can
be more comfy

In article 42848d20-dd90-48d3-8b3e-
, says...
well since ares orion wouldnt be operational till after 2020, and by
that time whats left of ISS will be in the pacific.....

This is not a given. Mir stayed in orbit long after its design lifetime
was up. The shuttle bringing up spare parts had a lot to do with this.
Given the multitude of resupply ships both flying to ISS and in
development, I don't see spare parts being much of an issue.

What jobs will orion do other than a rather ill defined deep space
missions that havent been planed. or more importandly funded

Whatever NASA decides to do with it, they will. Look at all of the
different types of shuttle missions they were able to fly. I'm not
saying this will necessarily be "good", but Orion will fly, eventually,
and at least occasionally.

My point is that orion ares is just a waste of money, other than
making pork piggies squeal...

I'm not saying there isn't a lot of pork there, but politics dictates
that the program will continue. I'm tired of saying I don't support it,
because no one who has the power to cancel Orion (i.e. the members of
Congress) is going to listen.

better to end orion ares and use falcon...... why duplicate things?

Falcon 9 is a launch vehicle. Dragon is a spacecraft.

perhaps attach some bigelow inflatables so the crews long mission can
be more comfy

Not out of the question, but if NASA's in charge, I'd wager it's far
more likely to contain ISS derived modules. After all, they might get
the Europeans to build the HAB module, which means NASA wouldn't have to
pay for it.

Buying modules from Bigelow means paying for them. That's not
completely out of the question, I think it's unlikely to happen without
Bigelow "proving" their inflatables are safe for human occupancy.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker

In article ,
Fred J. McCall wrote:
Jeff Findley wrote:

In article 42848d20-dd90-48d3-8b3e-
, says...
well since ares orion wouldnt be operational till after 2020, and by
that time whats left of ISS will be in the pacific.....

This is not a given. Mir stayed in orbit long after its design lifetime
was up. The shuttle bringing up spare parts had a lot to do with this.
Given the multitude of resupply ships both flying to ISS and in
development, I don't see spare parts being much of an issue.

Well, yes, it is a given because once we're done with it we will
deorbit it as we are responsible for anything it might hit if we don't
and it does an uncontrolled reentry.

Yes, but it's not remotely guaranteed that you'll be done with it as
early as 2020; it's sufficiently expensive that disposing of it other
than as late as possible would be ridiculous, and it's not going to
hit anything that would suffer remotely as much damage as the blasted
thing cost so it would be entirely financially reasonable to say 'we
will pay for anything it hits'.

I would be unsurprised if the ISS was still running happily in 2040.

Not out of the question, but if NASA's in charge, I'd wager it's far
more likely to contain ISS derived modules. After all, they might get
the Europeans to build the HAB module, which means NASA wouldn't have to
pay for it.


Oh, don't be silly! You think we don't pay for the stuff others do?
That's like saying we don't have to pay because we're going up on
Russian boosters!

I assure you that lots of the ESA contribution to the ISS program is
in kind; no US taxpayer's money went towards building the Leonardo /
Raffaelo / Donatello modules, or towards building the ATVs. In
exchange for this, the Shuttle seats used by ESA astronauts were not
explicitly charged for

The Russians charge the US for launching US astronauts on Soyuz
because they can.

Tom

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article 42848d20-dd90-48d3-8b3e-
, says...
well since ares orion wouldnt be operational till after 2020, and by
that time whats left of ISS will be in the pacific.....

This is not a given. Mir stayed in orbit long after its design lifetime
was up. The shuttle bringing up spare parts had a lot to do with this.
Given the multitude of resupply ships both flying to ISS and in
development, I don't see spare parts being much of an issue.

The second shuttle mission was supposed to be to save Skylab, but the
shuttle development program got stretched out way slower than they
intended it to.

--
I used to own a mind like a steel trap.
Perhaps if I'd specified a brass one, it
wouldn't have rusted like this.

On Fri, 13 Jul 2012 19:18:01 -0600, Greg Goss wrote:


This is not a given. Mir stayed in orbit long after its design lifetime
was up. The shuttle bringing up spare parts had a lot to do with this.
Given the multitude of resupply ships both flying to ISS and in
development, I don't see spare parts being much of an issue.

The second shuttle mission was supposed to be to save Skylab, but the
shuttle development program got stretched out way slower than they
intended it to.

That, and solar activity caused SkyLab's deorbit much earlier than
expected. It was widely believed SkyLab would be in orbit until
1982-83 (which would have kept it within reach of one of the early
Shuttle missions even with the delays). But it didn't make it past
July 1979.

Brian

lets not forget that the stations modules have a finite lifetime. you
can replace all sorts of parts on a old car but that doesnt make it
new, and breakdowns on old vehicles are to be expected.

so unless all parties involved are prepared to begin replacing entire
modules one day something critical will beak down with possibly
disasterous results.

the station is now past its design life.......

let it age gracefully and not run it till it kills.

incidently a out of control station will tumble shedding modules as it
tumbles, spreading them over its entire ground track . many parts will
survive re entry, the ground track is mostly over populated areas...

a station breaking up will cause mass panic, espiically if modules and
parts start coming down in populated areas........

In article ,
Fred J. McCall wrote:
I'm sorry, but that displays a degree of insanity that I just find
impossible to believe. Suppose it comes down on Paris or London. How
many people does it kill, what does it destroy, and what does all that
cost once all the liability suits are settled. You're talking almost
a million tons of stuff coming in at reentry velocities.

If the Space Station weighed a million tons then we've already won.

It weighs four hundred tons; a rock that size comes in at
interplanetary velocity most years, mostly burns up, and is noticed
only in internal publications of ballistic-missile defence
organisations. There's an atmosphere in the way; almost everything
burns up almost entirely, and the rest hits no harder than a component
falling off a plane at takeoff.

ISS would have been cheaper as a US-only effort. Almost every major
program costs more if you involve other governments.

It would have been very much cheaper, yes, because it wouldn't have
happened; it escaped cancellation as being a reasonably impressive way
of keeping Russian rocket scientists from departing en-masse.

Tom

On Jul 14, 5:52*am, Thomas Womack
wrote:
In article ,
Fred J. McCall wrote:

I'm sorry, but that displays a degree of insanity that I just find
impossible to believe. *Suppose it comes down on Paris or London. *How
many people does it kill, what does it destroy, and what does all that
cost once all the liability suits are settled. *You're talking almost
a million tons of stuff coming in at reentry velocities.

If the Space Station weighed a million tons then we've already won.

It weighs four hundred tons; a rock that size comes in at
interplanetary velocity most years, mostly burns up, and is noticed
only in internal publications of ballistic-missile defence
organisations. *There's an atmosphere in the way; almost everything
burns up almost entirely, and the rest hits no harder than a component
falling off a plane at takeoff.

ISS would have been cheaper as a US-only effort. *Almost every major
program costs more if you involve other governments.

It would have been very much cheaper, yes, because it wouldn't have
happened; it escaped cancellation as being a reasonably impressive way
of keeping Russian rocket scientists from departing en-masse.

Tom

the re entry speed of a asteroid is normally very fast and most of it
burns up

the re entry speed of ISS modules will be far slower, and structural
parts stronger than a asteroid

as such a out of control ISS is a much larger hazard than a asteroid,
espically since the ISS ground track is over the most populated part
of our world

On 14/07/2012 14:52, Thomas Womack wrote:
In ,
Fred J. wrote:
I'm sorry, but that displays a degree of insanity that I just find
impossible to believe. Suppose it comes down on Paris or London. How
many people does it kill, what does it destroy, and what does all that
cost once all the liability suits are settled. You're talking almost
a million tons of stuff coming in at reentry velocities.

If the Space Station weighed a million tons then we've already won.

It weighs four hundred tons; a rock that size comes in at
interplanetary velocity most years, mostly burns up, and is noticed
only in internal publications of ballistic-missile defence
organisations. There's an atmosphere in the way; almost everything
burns up almost entirely, and the rest hits no harder than a component
falling off a plane at takeoff.

ISS would have been cheaper as a US-only effort. Almost every major
program costs more if you involve other governments.

It would have been very much cheaper, yes, because it wouldn't have
happened; it escaped cancellation as being a reasonably impressive way
of keeping Russian rocket scientists from departing en-masse.

Tom



Re-entry is an interesting subject alright - comparing a nearly
circular orbit re-entry like the ISS or other (man made) satellites
with a much more direct straight-into the atmosphere entry like
Shoemaker-Levy. Velocities and angles and rates of burning up - makes
my head spin with all the possibilities.


--
T

On Fri, 13 Jul 2012 20:55:55 -0700 (PDT), bob haller
wrote:

lets not forget that the stations modules have a finite lifetime. you
can replace all sorts of parts on a old car but that doesnt make it
new, and breakdowns on old vehicles are to be expected.

So do B-52s, KC-135s, T-38s and P-3s, all of which are still in active
military service over 50 years after they were delivered.

so unless all parties involved are prepared to begin replacing entire
modules one day something critical will beak down with possibly
disasterous results.

Ah, Bob. This wouldn't be sci.space without one of your "THEY'RE ALL
GONNA DIE!" fear-mongering at least once a week.

the station is now past its design life.......

Nope. 2015. 15 years guaranteed on-orbit life, which is more of less
through 2015. But most of the hardware is directly descended from
Freedom designs, which were specced for 30 years. On the Russian side,
there's not much difference between the ISS modules and Mir modules,
and Mir went a decade past its design life, only really be hampered by
careless fires set off inside and by the Russians ramming it with a
Progress freighter in a very-poorly conceived budget-saving demo.

et it age gracefully and not run it till it kills.

Of course, it can and almost certainly will be periodically inspected
by astronauts and cosmonauts to make sure nothing is about to "kill",
and if a show-stopper appears, then it can be deorbited. But if it is
earning its keep, there's no reason to deorbit it prematurely.

incidently a out of control station will tumble shedding modules as it
tumbles, spreading them over its entire ground track . many parts will
survive re entry, the ground track is mostly over populated areas...

That's why Station has two independent control methods... The USOS's
side and the Russian side's. That doesn't include Progress or ATV,
which can also do the job. ISS is not SkyLab.

a station breaking up will cause mass panic, espiically if modules and
parts start coming down in populated areas........

90% or so chance it would come down at sea or in unpopulated areas
(deserts), though.

Brian