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"The End of Manned Spaceflight Looms Ever Closer"



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 10th 03, 10:24 PM
jeff findley
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Default "The End of Manned Spaceflight Looms Ever Closer"

"Paul F. Dietz" writes:

The OSP is cast as the latest folly:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rocketscience-03zj1.html


While most of the information in this article looks good, some is
false (e.g. the one about Columbia "not adapted to dock with ISS").

Also, I'm not sure that flying Apollo CM's pulled from museums as
CRV's would be a very good idea. The author seems to have forgotten
the issues raised by the lower pressure CM during the ASTP mission. I
doubt you'd want to mess around with this issue during an emergency
that requires you to leave ISS in a hurry.

Jeff
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  #2  
Old July 11th 03, 11:57 PM
Vincent Cate
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Default "The End of Manned Spaceflight Looms Ever Closer"

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote in message ...
The OSP is cast as the latest folly:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rocketscience-03zj1.html


In that article it says:
"But surely all the technological advances made since
Dyna-Soar/Shuttle/Hermes will allow OSP to be much
faster/better/cheaper," some of you are saying. Whenever anyone says
this, I demand that they name those technological advances. Nobody
is ever able to, since there haven't been any since about 1964,
when NASA's narrow focus on the Moon Race caused them to stop funding
basic rocketry research.


As a space tether enthusiast, my answer to this is:

1) Spectra-2000 - very high strength cable for tethers
2) Hall Thrusters - can now get enough high ISP thrust to make
reboosting a tether practical
3) The computers and software used for simulation are better now

However, I too am amazed at how little progress there has been
in areas I would expect NASA to do research in. In particular,
I am amazed at the lack of progress in reentry technology. When
looking for papers on transpiration, most of them are from back in
the 1960s. It seems the DOD has ICBMs that use transpiration during
reentry, but details of mass of vehicle, mass of water used, etc
are secret (as far as I can tell anyway). It seems NASA has not
done a single reentry experiment using transpiration.

-- Vince

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vincent Cate Space Tether Enthusiast
http://spacetethers.com/
Anguilla, East Caribbean http://offshore.ai/vince
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You have to take life as it happens, but you should try to make it
happen the way you want to take it. - German Proverb
  #3  
Old July 12th 03, 02:03 PM
Al Jackson
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Default "The End of Manned Spaceflight Looms Ever Closer"

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote in message ...
The OSP is cast as the latest folly:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rocketscience-03zj1.html

Paul


Lot of interesting suggestions. I thought of a while the guy did not
know about the ATV. He does not seem to mention the ATV's reboost
capability. Or that it has a bigger supply capacity than Progress.
I think his idea of Nasa buying ATV's makes sense, however actually it
is the Astrium division of EADS that builds the ATV (of which
Daimler-Chrysler is only one member).
  #4  
Old July 13th 03, 04:55 PM
Paul F. Dietz
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Default "The End of Manned Spaceflight Looms Ever Closer"

Raymond Chuang wrote:

Actually, there is still a better solution: a horizontally-launched
spaceplane. Has anyone been following what Burt Rutan is doing with the
White Knight/SpaceShipOne combo? That could become the technology
demonstrator for a true spaceplane that could be launched from the top of a
modified Boeing 747-200 fitted with a de-rated Shuttle main engine (which
will allow the 747 to do a steep climb to 45,000 to 50,000 feet, the
altitude of the spaceplane launch).


Mach 4 and Mach 25 are very different goals. SS1 is an interesting
step, but don't overstate the size of that step.

Paul

  #5  
Old July 13th 03, 05:11 PM
Christopher M. Jones
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Default "The End of Manned Spaceflight Looms Ever Closer"

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:
Mach 4 and Mach 25 are very different goals. SS1 is an interesting
step, but don't overstate the size of that step.


SS1 is like a commercial X-15, except more oriented toward
sub-orbital flight than super/hypersonic flight in the
atmosphere. That is, I think, quite an achievement.
Especially considering the way a lot of people go on and on
about the X-15 in the sci.space newsgroups.

The real achievement though will not be technological but
operational. The creation of a profitable company
dedicated to providing commercial manned spaceflight
services. And the creation of a profitable aerospace
venture creating new manned rockets for that purpose.
That would be a far more impressive achievement, should it
happen, and just now there's no guarantee it will, because
it would mean all bets are off in manned space. It would
mean that there was a path (via profitability and new
vehicle design) to orbital manned spaceflight, and to new
designs for such, and finally to activities *beyond* what
governments have done so far.

  #6  
Old July 13th 03, 10:13 PM
Kaido Kert
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Default "The End of Manned Spaceflight Looms Ever Closer"

"Raymond Chuang" wrote in message
...
I remember one company is investigating something fairly similar by using

a
747 to tow a spaceplane to 40,000 feet then launching the spaceplane--it
will probably need a somewhat bigger propellant load and more powerful
rocket motors, but it still won't need the huge propellant load the Space
Shuttle now needs.

You seem to be under a false impression that space transportation system
that requires lots of propellant to get to orbit is a bad thing. The fact of
the matter is, amount of propellant, number of stages, degree of
reusability, launch method - all of them dont matter as long as the thing is
cheap enough and reliable enough.

-kert


 




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