Shuttle program extension?

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:50:39 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:

In a situation like that, Soyuz isn't likely to save you anyway. The
discussion is about the lunacy of requiring a "lifeboat" which takes the ISS
astronauts all the way back to "port" on the ground as opposed to a
"lifeboat" which would allow the astronauts to survive until rescued by a
shuttle.

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.

Brian

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:41:41 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 Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:19:45 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

It won't. Get over it. You may as well say that Carnival Cruises can
stop putting lifeboats on their ships. Never gonna happen.

Not a good analogy. Carnival Cruises isn't a cutting-edge operation
on a dangerous frontier.

Yet scores of major ships sink every year.

Not sure what your point is. Mine is that the customer expect safety.
That's a less-than-reasonable expectation for exploring a frontier.

Or Dragon. Or put up a safe haven with an interorbital transfer
system, which is actually much simpler and cheaper.

SpaceX has yet to get a rocket to orbital velocity, after lots of big
talk and digs at the established players. I have zero confidence in
them filling "the gap".

SpaceX wasn't my only suggestion.

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:56:29 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 Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:50:39 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:

In a situation like that, Soyuz isn't likely to save you anyway. The
discussion is about the lunacy of requiring a "lifeboat" which takes the ISS
astronauts all the way back to "port" on the ground as opposed to a
"lifeboat" which would allow the astronauts to survive until rescued by a
shuttle.

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.

It may (or may not) be safer. It's certainly not cheaper (based on
experience so far, since we haven't been able to afford to come up
with one), and the ambulance requirement is ludicrous. It means that
if one person has to be returned immediately, that the entire station
must be evacuated. Also, the high-gee environment of the return would
be very hard on someone in a medical emergency.

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:41:41 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 Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:19:45 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

It won't. Get over it. You may as well say that Carnival Cruises can
stop putting lifeboats on their ships. Never gonna happen.

Not a good analogy. Carnival Cruises isn't a cutting-edge operation
on a dangerous frontier.

Yet scores of major ships sink every year.

Not that it matters, but "scores of major ships sink every year"?

I don't think so. Unless by "scores" you mean one or two. Or less.

And by "major" you mean ferries...

When was the last time a large cruise liner needed to deploy
lifeboats?

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:47:10 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

Last I knew Carnival Cruises weren't offering high-risk jobs on the cutting
edge of science. (to be a bit melodramatic).

That won't be relevant in the wake of an accident. "They died because
YOU were too stingy to provide a lifeboat!" No government agency or
commercial backer is ever going let themselves be put in the position
of defending that decision.

But you provide a lifeboat to handle as much as you practically can.
Practical being the key word.

And that's the key word; practical. Is it practical to provide lifeboats at
$20million+/pop.

No. Fortunately, that's not necessary. Like Soyuz, your crew ferry can
pull double duty as the lifeboat. However, you are proposing no crew
ferry and no lifeboat. That's a non-starter.

There are always going to be events
that happen too quickly for lifeboats to help, at sea and in space.
The Andrea Doria was listing too far over for half her lifeboats to be
launched in 1956 (the passengers were fortunately rescued by the
nearby Ile de France). We didn't say "See! Lifeboats aren't a 100%
guarantee! Get rid of them!".

Nor did we say, "double up lifeboats on both sides of the boat just in case
this happens." Or "make lifeboats accessible while under water.

That's because it isn't practical to do so. It is totally practical to
provide a lifeboat for ISS. Mankind has had one on every space station
to date.

You're right, I'll admit to overlooking inflatables. But my point stands,
they're usable in a very limited set of circumstances. Note the Thresher
incident. Again, no one is demanding a lifeboat that covers all the
possible accidnets.

Neither am I. I'm not demanding a lifeboat at every airlock in case a
fire breaks out and cuts the crew off from one lifeboat. You have a
lifeboat to give the crew a fighting chance, which any crew will tell
you is infinitely preferable to no chance at all.

Brian

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:50:39 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:

In a situation like that, Soyuz isn't likely to save you anyway. The
discussion is about the lunacy of requiring a "lifeboat" which takes the
ISS
astronauts all the way back to "port" on the ground as opposed to a
"lifeboat" which would allow the astronauts to survive until rescued by a
shuttle.

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.


Unlike Rand, I'm probably more likely to buy into this.

My thesis is that once the station goes to 6 permanent residents, we should
re-examine the lifeboat scenario.

Keep one Soyuz for emergency return of a crew member if necessary (though
there are issues with that, including high-G re-entry and given the last few
overshoots, not sure that's a great option :-)

And the rest go to a storm-shelter solution for the rest of the crew (and
make sure you can basically support them 3-4 months and make sure we keep
shuttle flights on schedule for that.)

As for the seat liner issue, keep them outside the Soyuz, crew members grab
theirs as they enter (depending on who, tec.) (Granted, I realize their may
be issue with how long that takes, but it's an idea.)


Brian



--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:47:10 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:


Last I knew Carnival Cruises weren't offering high-risk jobs on the cutting
edge of science. (to be a bit melodramatic).

Aircraft carriers do. The have pilots of high-performance jets and
specialists in nuclear powerplants.

And they have lifeboats for everyone.

Brian

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:47:10 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

Last I knew Carnival Cruises weren't offering high-risk jobs on the
cutting
edge of science. (to be a bit melodramatic).

That won't be relevant in the wake of an accident. "They died because
YOU were too stingy to provide a lifeboat!" No government agency or
commercial backer is ever going let themselves be put in the position
of defending that decision.

And again, in the wake of accidents like Thresher, etc the response was to
find the cause and solve that, not to create lifeboats that can work from
death. I hate to say it, but we need to stop putting astronauts on
pedestals.


But you provide a lifeboat to handle as much as you practically can.
Practical being the key word.

And that's the key word; practical. Is it practical to provide lifeboats
at
$20million+/pop.

No. Fortunately, that's not necessary. Like Soyuz, your crew ferry can
pull double duty as the lifeboat. However, you are proposing no crew
ferry and no lifeboat. That's a non-starter.

I'm not. I'm simply suggesting the requirement to have 2 Soyuz at the
station at all times may not be politically or economically the best
solution.

My solution is to keep one Soyuz there at all times (like now) and create
safe havens for the remaining crew and rely on rescue by shuttle after a
month or two of prep.

There are always going to be events
that happen too quickly for lifeboats to help, at sea and in space.
The Andrea Doria was listing too far over for half her lifeboats to be
launched in 1956 (the passengers were fortunately rescued by the
nearby Ile de France). We didn't say "See! Lifeboats aren't a 100%
guarantee! Get rid of them!".

Nor did we say, "double up lifeboats on both sides of the boat just in
case
this happens." Or "make lifeboats accessible while under water.

That's because it isn't practical to do so. It is totally practical to
provide a lifeboat for ISS. Mankind has had one on every space station
to date.

We've always done it that way, therefor we should always do it that way.
Not much of an argument.


You're right, I'll admit to overlooking inflatables. But my point stands,
they're usable in a very limited set of circumstances. Note the Thresher
incident. Again, no one is demanding a lifeboat that covers all the
possible accidnets.

Neither am I. I'm not demanding a lifeboat at every airlock in case a
fire breaks out and cuts the crew off from one lifeboat. You have a
lifeboat to give the crew a fighting chance, which any crew will tell
you is infinitely preferable to no chance at all.

Keep in mind your current lifeboat currently doesn't have a great
track-record for re-entry over the last few flights. Now consider the
issues with two of them re-entering in a short period of time. Imagine the
issues if your lifeboats were TMA-10 and TMA-11 when you abandon station.

And if we want 2-3 US crew, we're paying $20-$30 million a seat (which
honestly, not sure what the current figures for a seat is, it seems to go up
and down depending on who you talk to) spread out over 4-12 (depending on
how often you rotate, etc) seats a year.

Now what happens if you spend 1/2 that money (cutting the number of
"lifeboats" in 1/2) on a "storm shelter" at either end of the station and
supplies. You can eliminate some issues with trapping a portion of the crew
on the wrong side of a fire, depress, etc. And potentially not abandon the
entire station unmanned.

My ultimate point is I think there's multiple arguments for continuing the
shuttle another 4-5 years and if you do so, you open up further options on
how you handle station emergencies.

(BTW, ultimately, I think I'd prefer something more akin to the CRV idea,
something you bring up and leave there. One shot, one purpose. Soyuz is
your captains yacht, these are your lifeboats, simpler, single purpose. But
in the meantime I like to flesh out ideas.)




Brian

So far, scenarios for the escape pods have included soyuz and
orion/apollo capsules. There has also been X38.

Have any other "shapes" been considered ?

For instance, if you could have a cylinder shaped vehicle with perhaps
tiny movable airfoils around the front and around the back to provide
some crude attitude control, couldn't you then fit a lot more people in
it and not be limited by crew sizes of 3 or 6 ?

With shuttle type tiles, couldn't a cylinder do a survivable re-entry
(even if not re-usable).

If occupants were "standing up", strapped against the wall in such an
upright cyclinder, could they survive re-entry g-forces ? Or must they
be sitting down ?

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

And the rest go to a storm-shelter solution for the rest of the crew (and
make sure you can basically support them 3-4 months and make sure we keep
shuttle flights on schedule for that.)

With the USA abandonning the shuttle, There is no opportunity left to
convert the ISS into a "safe haven" mode.

Creating a "safe haven" on the USA segment capable of supporting life
for 3-4 months would be a major undertaking. Consider the case where
Destiny is lost. You lose command/control, you lose control of solar
arrays, power systems, and ECLSS. Someone in node2 wouldn't have ready
access to the O2 and N2 stored in Quest.

Zvezda is as close to a safe haven as can be because it is fairly self
contained with docking port, O2 generator, and a minimal power supply
capability (are its solar arrays still deployed). Oh, and it has a toilet.


Perhaps the solution lies more in having sufficient resources on board
to fix problems, patch holes in the pressure vessel, reroute power cable
etc. Enough to allow people to circulate quickly through a module once
or twice a day. You would also want spare C&C computers that could be
installed in any USA module.