#1
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CEV Announcement
There's one expected this afternoon. My guess is that they'll wait
for the market to close. |
#2
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There's one expected this afternoon.
I assume this is the one: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005...ontractor.html In a nutshell, they picked two contractors to compete for a down-selection in 2006 (which is sooner than had been previously planned). Moving up the down-selection has been widely reported for some months now. Is that what was expected or is there more? |
#3
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"Jim Kingdon" wrote in message
news There's one expected this afternoon. I assume this is the one: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005...ontractor.html In a nutshell, they picked two contractors to compete for a down-selection in 2006 (which is sooner than had been previously planned). Moving up the down-selection has been widely reported for some months now. Is that what was expected or is there more? The most interesting line for me was: NASA's Vision for Space Exploration calls for the CEV to carry up to six astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit soon after the Space Shuttle is retired in 2010, and then on to the moon as early as 2015. When did the CEV become a SIX man vehicle? Helps explain the size increase from 20 to 30 tons. |
#4
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Douglas Holmes wrote:
"Jim Kingdon" wrote in message news There's one expected this afternoon. I assume this is the one: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005...ontractor.html In a nutshell, they picked two contractors to compete for a down-selection in 2006 (which is sooner than had been previously planned). Moving up the down-selection has been widely reported for some months now. Is that what was expected or is there more? The most interesting line for me was: NASA's Vision for Space Exploration calls for the CEV to carry up to six astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit soon after the Space Shuttle is retired in 2010, and then on to the moon as early as 2015. When did the CEV become a SIX man vehicle? Helps explain the size increase from 20 to 30 tons. Seems like it had gone to crew size of 4 back when it would be good if an EELV smaller than D-IVH can serve as the launcher. Now it seems it has gone to 6 so that even a D-IVH can't serve as the launcher. |
#5
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So... does anybody know what options, if any, t/Space has left
available to it? |
#6
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So... does anybody know what options, if any, t/Space has left
available to it? Well, I never took t/Space's main business to be the CEV. Maybe I'm just not creative enough in my thinking, but I have trouble seeing the whole system panning out - with a new/modified carrier aircraft (which is likely to constrain the size of the CXV, as with other air launch schemes), air launch with a crewed capsule (which I guess is actually safer than ground launch, so maybe I'm wrong to see it as strange), transferring in orbit (how?) from the CXV to the CEV (and the CEV gets to orbit how?), etc. (For the background see the CXV pages at http://www.transformspace.com/index.cfm ). The coolest thing they have done so far? Flying hardware for what was supposed to be funding only sufficient for a study contract (see 14 Jun news on their web site about the drop test). |
#7
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Seems like it had gone to crew size of 4 back when it would be good if
an EELV smaller than D-IVH can serve as the launcher. Now it seems it has gone to 6 so that even a D-IVH can't serve as the launcher. Am I the only one left with a sinking feeling? Like the requirements churn is happening faster than anything is actually getting designed or built? I mean, NASA has had some kind of crew vehicle in some stage of development for, what, ten years now? (see http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/X-38/index.html ). Is what's going on now any different, or any more likely to fly to/from orbit? |
#8
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Douglas Holmes wrote:
"Jim Kingdon" wrote in message news There's one expected this afternoon. I assume this is the one: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005...ontractor.html In a nutshell, they picked two contractors to compete for a down-selection in 2006 (which is sooner than had been previously planned). Moving up the down-selection has been widely reported for some months now. Is that what was expected or is there more? The most interesting line for me was: NASA's Vision for Space Exploration calls for the CEV to carry up to six astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit soon after the Space Shuttle is retired in 2010, and then on to the moon as early as 2015. When did the CEV become a SIX man vehicle? Helps explain the size increase from 20 to 30 tons. Looks like ATK knew what it was talking about after all. When Scott Horowitz came to talk to us about the CEV concept, he was saying that the astronaut office is saying the minimum size crew for a long-duration mission (moon or mars) should be around 6 people. Personally, I do think that makes a lot of sense. With 4 people, it's tough to come up with a sustainable work/rest schedule. I know there's a temptation to think the way people were managed in Apollo and the way it's done on Shuttle and ISS is the way to go--everything planned out to the minute, Ground controllers involved in everything, etc. But the fact is that that is an efficient, but psychologically exhausting way to run a mission. Then add in the considerations of EVAs on the moon. NASA will always use the buddy system. With two people gone from a 4 person crew, that leaves the crew at half strength whenever field operations are taking place, and means the whole rest of the crew has to go to a rescue if something goes wrong. Having three groups of two is a lot more efficient and redundant, and allows for more reasonable scheduling for use of assets. Military duty sections, especially on Naval ships, generally tend to run at three sections for this exact reason. cuddihy |
#9
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So why exactly is launching six astronauts in one vehicle better than
launching three astronauts in two vehicles at the same time ? Since when has putting all eggs in one basket, or launcher in this case, become a wise practice ? -kert |
#10
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kert wrote:
So why exactly is launching six astronauts in one vehicle better than launching three astronauts in two vehicles at the same time ? Since when has putting all eggs in one basket, or launcher in this case, become a wise practice ? -kert Congress has made it pretty clear during the past two shuttle explosions that loss of astronaut life is NOT acceptable. If one of the two four person launches failed, ALL missions would be on hold. Just think about it. If you launch two three person crews to orbit, where they have to transfer to a 6-person lunar CEV, you need to have launched 3 vehicles to LEO just to get the crew in a CEV. IF each of the four person CXVs is 15 tons, and the lunar CEV is still 30 tons, you still have to launch 60 tons to LEO to get the passengers into a 30 ton CEV. If, on the other hand, you launch one 30 ton CEV, it can be launched from earth with all the passegers on board. Doesn't that make a lot more sense? cuddihy |
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