OSP will be a capsule

"Dr. O" dr.o@xxxxx wrote in message ...

And the idiots are planning to spend "between $11billion and $13billion to
develop the OSP"

$13BILLION FOR A CAPSULE (which is basically a metal ball with seats in it)?
WHAT MADNESS IS THIS??

I'm thinking that any draft design with the comment "basically a metal ball with seats in"
will _not_ be getting approved.

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 13:29:45 -0000, in a place far, far away, "Paul
Blay" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

"Dr. O" dr.o@xxxxx wrote in message ...

And the idiots are planning to spend "between $11billion and $13billion to
develop the OSP"

$13BILLION FOR A CAPSULE (which is basically a metal ball with seats in it)?
WHAT MADNESS IS THIS??

I'm thinking that any draft design with the comment "basically a metal ball with seats in"
will _not_ be getting approved.

That would be a safe bet. I think they'd like it to have at least
*some* L/D. Not to mention a TPS. And a few other subsystems.

Not that it should cost over ten billion dollars, of course.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
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How about a flying wing like the Stealth Bomber?

(TKalbfus) writes:

How about a flying wing like the Stealth Bomber?

These things aren't exactly stable without active control systems,
especially the B-2 since it doesn't have any vertical stabilizer.

Jeff
--
Remove "no" and "spam" from email address to reply.
If it says "This is not spam!", it's surely a lie.

TKalbfus wrote:
How about a flying wing like the Stealth Bomber?

A flying wing with a reasonable wing thickness and
OSP-like dimentions isn't going to be thick enough
to have people inside, which is a problem for a
manned escape capsule (though, the idea of a hypersonic
escape sled which the astronauts ride down externally
would probably appeal to some people, and may be a
viable tourist project later...).

Plus, for launch, wide spans are bad, they tend to make
the asymmetrical lift / bending moments on the upper
stage problem far worse.


-george william herbert

They are talking about having a rescue vehicle by 2008 and a vehicle capable
of crew transfer by 2012. Think about it, we went from Mercury to walking
on the moon in nine years. By the way in "NASA speak" 13 billion is more
like 20 billion.

Terry
CSMG Design

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 13:29:45 -0000, in a place far, far away, "Paul
Blay" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

"Dr. O" dr.o@xxxxx wrote in message
...

And the idiots are planning to spend "between $11billion and $13billion
to
develop the OSP"

$13BILLION FOR A CAPSULE (which is basically a metal ball with seats in
it)?
WHAT MADNESS IS THIS??

I'm thinking that any draft design with the comment "basically a metal
ball with seats in"
will _not_ be getting approved.

That would be a safe bet. I think they'd like it to have at least
*some* L/D. Not to mention a TPS. And a few other subsystems.

Not that it should cost over ten billion dollars, of course.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

"Dr. O" dr.o@xxxxx writes:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...sp_031119.html

" ...and provide the ability to enter Earth's atmosphere without any active
control via ballistic reentry. This combination meets NASA's requirements
for safe human space flight. "

AFAIK only a capsule can do a safe ballistic reentry, no shuttle type
vehicle can do that. So IMHO NASA has defined the characteristics in such a
way that only a capsule can fullfill them.


They did say "enter the Earth's atmosphere...", not "land safely on the
Earth". Landing almost invariably involves some sort of active control,
if nothing else of the "deploy parachute now" function.

The line between reentry and landing is kind of fuzzy, and NASA may have
to pin that down a bit if they get proposals pushing into the grey areas.
But, while the Shuttle itself is actively controlled from the beginning,
there's no fundamental reason why you can't make a winged entry body that
is dynamically, passively stable until fairly late in the process.


That said, capsules are obviously much easier to do on a purely passive
basis, and if NASA is serious about that requirement it will strongly
skew the propsals away from wings and towards capsules.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
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In article ,
John Schilling wrote:
They did say "enter the Earth's atmosphere...", not "land safely on the
Earth". Landing almost invariably involves some sort of active control,
if nothing else of the "deploy parachute now" function.

If you push it, you can get a system that's purely passive all the way to
touchdown. Deploy a very large conical skirt around your craft, giving a
very low ballistic coefficient (roughly, mass per unit area). Not only
does this give you a relatively low-heat reentry (although still fairly
high-G, since it *is* a ballistic reentry with L/D=0), but after reentry
it has a fairly low terminal velocity, not much higher than a parachute.
Add a generous thickness of crushable shock absorber for touchdown, and
the parachute is superfluous.

It's not necessarily the preferred approach, but it could be made to work.

In fact, the guys looking at Mars sample return have done considerable
work on purely-passive reentry systems. Their system is unmanned and
hence can take high impact loads, and the biological-contamination ground
rules demand either an extremely reliable landing system (which runs up
the mass rather badly) or else a sample capsule whose biological seal will
remain intact if the system fails. If the capsule has to survive an
impact at terminal velocity anyway, you might as well forget the parachute
and just design for a smashdown :-) from the start.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |

"Terry Goodrich" wrote in message
...
They are talking about having a rescue vehicle by 2008 and a vehicle
capable
of crew transfer by 2012. Think about it, we went from Mercury to walking
on the moon in nine years. By the way in "NASA speak" 13 billion is more
like 20 billion.

OSP is not a national priority program like Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were.
We're not trying to beat the Soviets. The program is much smaller in
physical and financial size. And the budget is spread out in relatively
small amounts over a number of years. Comparing OSP to the early programs is
comparing apples to oranges.

-Kim-