Shuttle program extension?

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:39:25 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:

Actually, I'm not 100% opposed to the "storm shelter" concept. I just
think the "return to port" lifeboat is probably the safer and cheaper
bet, and also covers the medical emergency return contingency.

Safer is debatable. Cheaper is laughable.

Only if you're keeping the safe haven attached to the ISS, which I
don't think is a good idea (there could be debris issues for a rescue
ship reaching the "storm shelter", loss of control of ISS could make
approach and docking almost impossible, etc.) There is also the danger
that whatever wrecked ISS could also be a timebomb waiting to go off
on the safe haven (i.e., O2 candles.)

An ATV or HTV, outfitted with a bit of life support equipment, might make a
dandy free flying safe haven.

A safe haven needs far less complicated systems than a manned reentry
vehicle.

Which we already have with Soyuz and will soon have with Orion (if we
stop screwing around with Ares I) or could have in fairly short order
(X-38, which was 80% complete when cancelled, or Dragon, which the
SpaceX mafia insists will be the greatest thing since sliced bread and
will be available any day now.)

Speculation is that the separation bolts are failing on Soyuz due to the
time spent in LEO. This is similar to operating a LC-130 at the South Pole.
They typically land, keep their engines running, and leave. They don't
stick around unless something goes terribly wrong, in which case the crew of
the LC-130 is then using the South Pole station for a safe haven until
another LC-130 can rescue them.

In fact, a manned reentry vehicle needs every system you would
need on a safe haven.

Agreed, but we don't have a safe haven. We have several CRVs off the
shelf (Soyuz) or in design (including Orion, X-38, Dragon, and the
other COTS concepts.) We don't have any ISS modules that can survive
alone, except perhaps ATV. An ATV free-flying storm shelter is an
interesting idea, although I'm not sure how long it could support six
crew independently. If we're going to spend the bucks to make the
storm shelter concept work, wouldn't we be better off spending the
bucks to just finish X-38 or Orion and giving the crew a way to get
home without waiting a month or two for rescue?

If I were running the show, I'd look into how expensive it would be to stick
a couple of ISS racks with life support system on an ATV or HTV.

In terms of development costs, the safe haven is dirt cheap compared to a
manned reentry vehicle.

Except that little development is needed. Others are already paying
for it.

True. The easiest way around all this is to keep paying the Russians. They
currently have a unique operational vehicle in that regard.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:48:05 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:

Soyuz is more like a small crew transport aircraft, not a lifeboat with no
propulsion. A safe haven on ISS is the analog of a lifeboat on an
aircraft
carrier. Its purpose is to keep you alive until you can be rescued.

I'm not adamantly against the idea, but I do think you are
underestimating the difficulty and reliability of the safe haven
concept. Safe haven works for Shuttle/ISS because the ISS is a fully
functional refuge if the Shuttle is disabled. But how do you provide
safe haven for ISS when the next Shuttle launch might be four months
away?


The LEO equivalent of air dropping supplies using Progress, ATV, HTV, and
COTS.

A module that can be completely isolated from the rest of ISS?

Admittedly, that one is tricky, but that one isn't completely solved by
Soyuz and/or Orion either. If a fire traps everyone on one side of the
station, you're cut off from your lifeboat. Depending on where the fire is,
safe haven in the half of ISS that's not damaged may be your only hope.

What happens if ISS loses complete control (which it probably would if
you're looking to use safe haven or otherwise bail out). How do the
rescue ships dock?

Hopefully the thing ends up in an orientation that's gravity gradient
stabilized.

If you seperate the safe haven and fly
independently, then we're essentially talking about a space station
the size of Salyut 1 that can support six crew for a month or two.

True. I think an ATV, with the right equipment, could serve in this role,
and that thing is pretty huge.

That will not be a small or cheap undertaking. Why build a second
space station when we need a crew ferry anyway, and the crew ferry can
also serve as lifeboat?

Not quite an entire station, just enough to keep you alive.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein

Jeff Findley wrote:

A safe haven needs far less complicated systems than a manned reentry
vehicle. In fact, a manned reentry vehicle needs every system you would
need on a safe haven. The only difference is that the manned reentry
vehicle specs those systems to have consumables for a few days where a safe
haven would spec consumables for a several weeks to a few months.


A escape pod only needs consumables for a few hours. Enough to drop
below the station, wait one or 2 orbits and fire de-orbit engine to
target some ocean and drop into water somewhere, and from there, just
float until rescued.

This is an emergency vehicle, not a cruise ship, it need not have fancy
stuff inside.

Jeff Findley wrote:

Why should the lifeboat be required to return to earth immediately? Why not
a lifeboat that remains in LEO for up to three months so that the next
shuttle in the processing flow can be used to rescue the astronauts? Such a
lifeboat can be much simpler than a vehicle which must reenter and land.


It also would need food, water, air and electricity for the whole ISS
crew for that period of time... once you tally all of that up, it will
be a lot heavier than a RV that can land within a orbit or two.
Also, the fact that they have to evacuate the ISS means there has been a
emergency of some sort, so some of the crew may be injured and need
medical treatment ASAP.
When we were working on our X-38 lifting body lifeboat design one of the
requirements was that the crew could get aboard, hit the activation
button, and it could separate and land all on its own without any
further crew input necessary, in case they were incapacitated:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/x38.htm

Pat
It seems the only requirement for immediate evacuation would be medical
emergency. As seen at the South Pole base, immediate evacuation simply
isn't possible in all cases. From Wikipedia:

The original South Pole station, now referred to as "Old Pole", was
constructed by an 18-man United States Navy crew during 1956-1957.
The crew landed on site in October 1956 and was the first group to
winter-over at the South Pole, during 1957.

That 18-man crew certainly didn't have the capability to evacuate due to
medical emergency and that is still the case today. Again, from Wikipedia:

In 1999, the winter-over physician, Dr. Jerri Nielsen, discovered
she had breast cancer. She had to rely on self-administered
chemotherapy using supplies from a daring July cargo drop, then
was picked up in an equally dangerous mid-October landing.

There is no immediate medial evac available, yet the station continues to
operate during the harsh Antarctic winter.

Your comparison to cruise ships is silly. The ISS isn't a cruise ship.
It's far more like the South Pole station. The South Pole station even
hosts occasional visitors, which is very similar to commercial customers who
fly to ISS.

Jeff

Jeff Findley wrote:
Aircraft carriers do not have lifeboats that can take the crew back to port
in case of a medical evacuation. That scenario is handled by small
transport aircraft!

No, they also carry inflatable life rafts and crew lifejackets , as you
can't be sure you can use the flight deck in a emergency - like the
explosions and fires on the Forrestal showed.
The big difference is that a carrier is surrounded by its carrier task
group of other ships, which can easily move to pick up the survivors in
the life rafts or in their lifejackets.

Pat

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:16:52 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

If you seperate the safe haven and fly
independently, then we're essentially talking about a space station
the size of Salyut 1 that can support six crew for a month or two.
That will not be a small or cheap undertaking.

Tell it to Bob Bigelow...

Still not small or cheap. Cheaper than Destiny and Columbus, but
that's damning with faint praise. It will be big job to make an
orbital survival shelter.

Brian

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:13:08 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:

But how do you provide
safe haven for ISS when the next Shuttle launch might be four months
away?

The LEO equivalent of air dropping supplies using Progress, ATV, HTV, and
COTS.

That's dependent on another launch from Earth. That would be a really
bad time to have another Ariane or Delta failure. Granted, the odds of
that are low, but why risk it when for about the same money, we can
just put a lifeboat onboard that can get the crew home without another
high-risk, high-stakes launch?

A module that can be completely isolated from the rest of ISS?

Admittedly, that one is tricky, but that one isn't completely solved by
Soyuz and/or Orion either. If a fire traps everyone on one side of the
station, you're cut off from your lifeboat. Depending on where the fire is,
safe haven in the half of ISS that's not damaged may be your only hope.

But if the fire destroys the intervening sections, you're dead because
you can't get out. Of course, you could use the free-flyer shelter
mode, but you're getting very close to the same cost and complexity as
a lifeboat (a Zvezda versus a Soyuz), so why bother? Give me the
lifeboat any time. Equal chance of reaching it, but you can detach and
come home. No counting the hours waiting for gravity gradient
stabilization and hoping that Ariane V doesn't crap out again.

If you seperate the safe haven and fly
independently, then we're essentially talking about a space station
the size of Salyut 1 that can support six crew for a month or two.

True. I think an ATV, with the right equipment, could serve in this role,
and that thing is pretty huge.

Water, I think, is going to be the problem. Six crew need a lot, and
ATV won't have a lot of room leftover for it all. ATV is big, but put
six people in it and it starts to look pretty small. Especially for
30-60 days. We'd probably need a "Double ATV".

That will not be a small or cheap undertaking. Why build a second
space station when we need a crew ferry anyway, and the crew ferry can
also serve as lifeboat?

Not quite an entire station, just enough to keep you alive.

Basically, a Zarya or Zvezda. That's still a lot of spacecraft, and a
lot of extra mass the ISS has to push around day in and day out.

Brian

On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 02:14:48 GMT, in a place far, far away, Brian
Thorn made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:16:52 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

If you seperate the safe haven and fly
independently, then we're essentially talking about a space station
the size of Salyut 1 that can support six crew for a month or two.
That will not be a small or cheap undertaking.

Tell it to Bob Bigelow...

Still not small or cheap. Cheaper than Destiny and Columbus, but
that's damning with faint praise. It will be big job to make an
orbital survival shelter.

Why? Sundancer will be a lot cheaper than Orion/Ares...

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...


Jeff Findley wrote:

Why should the lifeboat be required to return to earth immediately? Why
not a lifeboat that remains in LEO for up to three months so that the
next shuttle in the processing flow can be used to rescue the astronauts?
Such a lifeboat can be much simpler than a vehicle which must reenter and
land.


It also would need food, water, air and electricity for the whole ISS crew
for that period of time... once you tally all of that up, it will be a lot
heavier than a RV that can land within a orbit or two.

So what? A pound of water is a hell of a lot cheaper than a pound of
extruded aluminum, a pound of machined titanium, or a pound of TPS material.
You're falling into the aerospace engineering trap that lighter is always
cheaper. The fact is, it's often not, especially when you include
development costs. A tank to hold N2, O2, or water is extremely cheap to
develop. A TPS, parachute, airbags, and etc, not so much.

Also, the fact that they have to evacuate the ISS means there has been a
emergency of some sort, so some of the crew may be injured and need
medical treatment ASAP.
When we were working on our X-38 lifting body lifeboat design one of the
requirements was that the crew could get aboard, hit the activation
button, and it could separate and land all on its own without any further
crew input necessary, in case they were incapacitated:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/x38.htm

True, but crew return vehicles like this have historically had a nasty habit
of getting cancelled. Historically, there are a few people who have not
placed a higher priority on developing this capability than simply handing
the Russians more money.

Now we find ourselves without such a vehicle. Certainly there is some risk
for some scenarios like this, but there are places on earth where that very
same risk is accepted, even though it would be theoretically possible to
develop an escape vehicle for that scenario.

You currently can't evacuate someone from the South Pole station in the
middle of winter, let alone evacuate the entire crew that's staying the
winter. It would be theoretically possible to develop a vehicle to do so,
but it would be an expensive (billions of dollars) one off. Why in the hell
is space so special? Why won't we take that same risk in LEO? It makes no
logical sense. NASA needs to grow a pair and stop whining about these
extremely unlikely scenarios. Sometimes bad things happen and people die.
End of story.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:13:08 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:

But how do you provide
safe haven for ISS when the next Shuttle launch might be four months
away?

The LEO equivalent of air dropping supplies using Progress, ATV, HTV, and
COTS.

That's dependent on another launch from Earth. That would be a really
bad time to have another Ariane or Delta failure. Granted, the odds of
that are low, but why risk it when for about the same money, we can
just put a lifeboat onboard that can get the crew home without another
high-risk, high-stakes launch?

That's why you have multiple supply lines with different supply ships on
different launch vehicles. We've already got two (Progress and ATV) and
will hopefully have two more relatively soon (HTV and COTS).

A module that can be completely isolated from the rest of ISS?

Admittedly, that one is tricky, but that one isn't completely solved by
Soyuz and/or Orion either. If a fire traps everyone on one side of the
station, you're cut off from your lifeboat. Depending on where the fire
is,
safe haven in the half of ISS that's not damaged may be your only hope.

But if the fire destroys the intervening sections, you're dead because
you can't get out. Of course, you could use the free-flyer shelter
mode, but you're getting very close to the same cost and complexity as
a lifeboat (a Zvezda versus a Soyuz), so why bother? Give me the
lifeboat any time. Equal chance of reaching it, but you can detach and
come home. No counting the hours waiting for gravity gradient
stabilization and hoping that Ariane V doesn't crap out again.

You can worry too much about such doomsday scenarios to the point that no
one actually flies anymore. It's a fact that the shuttle's demonstrated
safety isn't so great, yet we're still flying it and are even looking into
extending flights past 2010.

If you seperate the safe haven and fly
independently, then we're essentially talking about a space station
the size of Salyut 1 that can support six crew for a month or two.

True. I think an ATV, with the right equipment, could serve in this role,
and that thing is pretty huge.

Water, I think, is going to be the problem. Six crew need a lot, and
ATV won't have a lot of room leftover for it all. ATV is big, but put
six people in it and it starts to look pretty small. Especially for
30-60 days. We'd probably need a "Double ATV".

ATV is already designed to resupply ISS and has tanks for consumables, so
this may not be a problem. If it is a problem, there is a nice, empty,
cylindrical shaped space in the center of the unpressurized section which
could be filled with even more tanks.

That will not be a small or cheap undertaking. Why build a second
space station when we need a crew ferry anyway, and the crew ferry can
also serve as lifeboat?

Not quite an entire station, just enough to keep you alive.

Basically, a Zarya or Zvezda. That's still a lot of spacecraft, and a
lot of extra mass the ISS has to push around day in and day out.

Have you compared the size of ATV (volume and weight) with Zarya or Zvezda?
It's not really that far off.

In fact, ESA has looked into using ATV as a safe-haven/free-flying lab:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ATV/SEMNFZOR4CF_0.html

Nice super high resolution picture he

http://www.esa.int/images/03_ATV_MSS_cutaway.jpg

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein