Losers from Obama's proposed 2011 budget

Jeff Findley wrote:
"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
Unsafe. Successful rendezvous with the heat shield would be required for
the crew to return safely. Apollo could get back to a "free return"
trajectory at just about any point in the flight plan. Your plan could
not.
You had better have a talk with the people done at work about this
problem, because the NASA Constellation plan had the Orion staying in
lunar orbit in a unmanned state while Altair went down to the surface and
came back up to meet it with the astronauts.
So no successful rendezvous in lunar orbit = no Orion with its heat shield
to go home in.

That's a tad different. In the 60's, having a man in the Apollo CM to keep
an eye on things was necessary due to the lack of automation at the time.
Specifically, lack of automated rendezvous and docking technology meant that
someone had to be in the CM to dock it to the LM ascent stage. Automation
has come a long way since then. If the Russians and ESA can do automated
rendezvous and docking, why not the US?

It's more than a tad different. Both Apollo and Orion could abort back
to Earth from Earth parking orbit, translunar coast, and in Lunar orbit.
The only danger zone was after the LM/Altair undocked, but this was
understood to be the risk you took in order to land on the moon.

Sending a spacecraft to the moon without a heatshield and rendezvousing
with the heatshield in lunar orbit completely eliminates any possibility
of a safe abort in Earth orbit and translunar coast. That is far more
unsafe.

Fred J. McCall wrote:

:Sending a spacecraft to the moon without a heatshield and rendezvousing
:with the heatshield in lunar orbit completely eliminates any possibility
f a safe abort in Earth orbit and translunar coast. That is far more
:unsafe.
:

Not only that, but even if it all works, now you've got to INSTALL the
bloody thing on your return vehicle (perfectly) while in vacuum.

Not the sort of assembly I think I'd want a mission to have to rely
on.

Duct tape.

Pat