CEV PDQ

On Tue, 17 May 2005 16:40:57 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Michael
P. Walsh" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Or are you referring to what decisions Armadillo made after the
X-Prize as far as continuing their program?

No.

This is not backed up by anything I read on the Armadillo
web site. Do you have a source for your claim, perhaps
something I missed on the Armadillo test site?

Frankly it sounds very much like you are blowing smoke.

Regardless of what it sounds like (this is based on what John said at
Space Access last year), it's a result of the fact that White Sands
couldn't get their environmental impact statement settled to allow
them to launch from there, absent a lot of money (more than John was
willing to pay) from Armadillo.

On Tue, 17 May 2005 23:13:29 GMT, in a place far, far away, Chuck
Stewart made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

On Tue, 17 May 2005 22:59:43 +0000, Alan Anderson wrote:

So we "unreasonable" folk are increasingly frustrated at your inability to
let go of the "EVA is hard, and expensive, and rare, and undesirable

Because currently it is just that.

But not because of any laws of physics--it's because of flawed
decisions made in the past.

What you apparently want Herb to do is speculate on the future.

No, what we want Herb to do is to recognize that there were not just
technological and physical forces driving that decision, but political
ones, and to consider the possibility that an investment in that area
might have a higher payoff than an investment in avoiding EVA at all
costs.

Chuck Stewart wrote:




So we "unreasonable" folk are increasingly frustrated at your inability to
let go of the "EVA is hard, and expensive, and rare, and undesirable



Because currently it is just that.

What you apparently want Herb to do is speculate on the future... and
he won't as long as the ghosts of "Design CEV now for EVA suits that
don't exist now." haven't been laid to rest. And, unfortunately, as
long as Rand is playing poltergeist Herb is unlikely to achieve
closure... perhaps he needs to exorcise Rand or something

(The zapkitty sends over a nekomimi miko who also does work on the
side as a maid...)


The Russians who've had any long term experience with assembling things
in orbit from modular pieces by remote control; their construction of
Mir used a combination of main modules being assembled by automated
means, with the crew doing planned (and unplanned also) EVA's that
either added new things to the station's exterior that were sent up in a
ready to attach form, or simply moving things on the station's exterior
from one point to another on it.
If there is a problem with direct automated connection of multiple
modules together, it's the fact that so many electrical connections need
be made between the modules for both power supply and control of
equipment in subsidiary modules from a single point in the command
section of the ship- if you are going to hook all this together via
automated docking, it means that a lot of things are going to have to
line up exactly and plug together on docking, and once they are plugged
in to each other they might be impossible to get at without undocking
the modules. The alternative is the way the Russians did it- the modules
are docked, and then wiring is attached from one to the other by snaking
it through the tunnel between the modules. which is simple, but has the
problem that showed up during the Progress collision, in that if one
part depressurizes and you've got a lot of connections going through the
interconnection hatch, you might have only a few seconds to to
disconnect them and slam the lid down between them.
If the connection between the sections doesn't have anything running
through it, then things are greatly simplified in getting an airtight
seal between them, and can even be done totally automatically.
Connecting the wiring between the two sections externally, rather than
internally, would alleviate that problem, as well as allowing the the
easy inspection of both ends of that electrical link's connection.
This does not necessarily mean that they are done by a _manned_ EVA- it
could also be done via a robotic system using a near real-time
teleoperative presence from either the ground (or in the case of
something like a Moon or Mars flight, where light speed limitations
would enter the equation) from within the spacecraft itself.
The choice of the two systems is based on the future evolution of manned
EVA system vs. the evolution of the teleoperative ability; and to some
extent that relies on where the money goes now and in the future.

Pat

On Wed, 18 May 2005 02:06:22 -0000, in a place far, far away,
(George William Herbert) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:
Yep. The problem is there's no money being allocated for improved EVA
capabilities right now

Not true. I think that one of the Millenium Challenge prizes is the
development of a vastly improved high-pressure glove.

As a point of information, as I recall it's on the list
of things that that Brant Sponberg has stated he wants
the prizes project to do, and was on the list of
things that the advisory conference came up with,
but hasn't moved from theoretical to actualized
prize yet.

Thanks, George. That's why I wrote "I think," because I wasn't sure
of the status.

Herb Schaltegger wrote:
The subject was exactly what it was: a comment by me to Reed
Snellenberger vis a vis EVA assembly for a present-day design CEV
architecture.

And when that topic was exhausted, the rest of us moved on.

You and the rest of the ass-in-the-clouds dreamers seem incapable of
grasping that certain things cannot be done now and planning for them
to somehow happen in this context is absurd.

You seem incapable of grasping that the topic under discussion IS NOT
doing today's things with today's limitations. The topic has changed
to exploring what might be possible tomorrow after those limitations
have been removed.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Herb Schaltegger wrote:

On Mon, 16 May 2005 21:27:09 -0500, Derek Lyons wrote
(in article ):

Where the discussion is breaking down is Herb's insistence that we
must act as if those limits are laws of nature.

No, where the discussion is breaking down is my insistence that
*present day designs* must adhere to *present day limits*.

No, the discussion is breaking down because you insist on discussing
present day designs and present day limits and fail to understand that
the rest of us have moved on.

For that matter, it breaks down even further because no one can yet
give me a plausible engineering example of why the present-day CEV
architectures would require EVA assembly in the first place.

Mostly because nobody but you is discussing that.

You really have a bee in your bonnet, either about Rand or EVA,
because normally you are capable of informed and enlightening
discussion.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

On Wed, 18 May 2005 02:31:55 -0000, in a place far, far away,
(George William Herbert) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

I expect that once we are in business doing orbital operations
we are going to want to develop micro-G EVA capability.
But that's a long ways away right now.

Several previous Retro Aerospace projects have involved
EVA at some point in the cycle, but none of them is
moving forwards actively right now.

That's what I was thinking of, thanks. The point remains that not all
people think that EVA is something for the distant, unthinkable
future.

You could also install a sub-hatch (with all the connections, in the
station's shirt sleeve environment) that would give you all the connections
and the ability to isolate the modules.

On Tue, 17 May 2005 22:32:54 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

The alternative is the way the Russians did it- the modules
are docked, and then wiring is attached from one to the other by snaking
it through the tunnel between the modules. which is simple, but has the
problem that showed up during the Progress collision, in that if one
part depressurizes and you've got a lot of connections going through the
interconnection hatch, you might have only a few seconds to to
disconnect them and slam the lid down between them.

Herm
Astropics http://home.att.net/~hermperez

On Tue, 17 May 2005 18:11:14 -0500, Herb Schaltegger
wrote:

And with that, I'm outta here. I'll report back on this when the first
post-shuttle vehicle flies in it's crewed configuration.

Sorry to see you go, Herb.

Geez....

Dale

On Tue, 17 May 2005 20:52:53 -0500, George William Herbert wrote
(in article ):

EVA is really hard, granted.

Orbital assembly for deep space spacecraft is not proven,
but is not necessarily, as a complete problem, as hard as EVA is.

All the more reason NOT to use, or use it absolutely minimally, for a
present-day CEV architecture.

--
Herb Schaltegger, GPG Key ID: BBF6FC1C
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759
http://www.individual-i.com/