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  #1  
Old April 8th 09, 01:44 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Brian Gaff
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There still seems something wrong in my view to returning to the capsule
way of getting back to earth. Its undignified, inconvenient and I'd have
though rather unnecessary with what has been learned on the Shuttle. I've
seen cost reasons, well maybe, and all sorts of other ideas for why Orion is
a capsule, but I fear that the public, who have been used to seeing a
landing on wheels will equate the new vehicle with the Apollo and Soyuz eras
and think, hey, are we going backwards?

I also notice a split occuring between the public 'all American's Lunar
project propaganda and what a lot of the scientists, and other Nasa people
seem to think, that it really needs to be international. This may well be
because of the economics at the moment, but if nothing else, I feel realism
needs to reign here, and I think in the end, it will either end badly or go
international in some form.


Space law.
Who is working on this for international bases and stations? There is bound
to be a need for it eventually.

Brian

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  #2  
Old April 8th 09, 05:32 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
John Doe
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Brian Gaff wrote:
There still seems something wrong in my view to returning to the capsule
way of getting back to earth. Its undignified, inconvenient and I'd have
though rather unnecessary with what has been learned on the Shuttle.


Unfortunatly, science and technology needed to make a reliable/cheap
shuttlecraft do not exist yet. NASA has had much egg thrown at its face
with a number of failed X projects to replace the shuttle.

Being faced with a need to replace the shuttle and a desire to have a
high propability of actually have something usable (instead of another
cancelled project), they were forced to go with something old, simple
and not too complex that can use technologies developped last century.

And despite using all old technology, there are still doubts that the
rocket will work.

What I find a real shame is that in the late 1990s, that they didn't
build one or two "new" shuttles that would have incorporated all of the
improvements NASA knew it was capable of making. It would not have been
revolutionary in terms of reducing costs, it would have been
evolutionary. But it would have advanced the "state of the art".

Going back to Apollo doesn't really advance the state of the art.
  #3  
Old April 8th 09, 05:37 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Brian Gaff
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Posts: 2,312
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According to the latest news also, they are even using a material for the
heat shield that is very similar to the old version used back then.

Admittedly thety could use something else down the line, but it still seems
odd when, as you say, they are designing a very strange manned launch
vehicle when many existing ones could, presumably be made man friendly at a
lesser cost. I still think the heavy lift version would use the legacy
Shuttle stuff, but why keep on with it for manned use. Everyone knows the
only reason the Shuttle used them is basically to lift the full tank! I hope
it works for their sake, but it will be a rough few minutes I'd imagine.
Brian

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Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
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"John Doe" wrote in message
...
Brian Gaff wrote:
There still seems something wrong in my view to returning to the capsule
way of getting back to earth. Its undignified, inconvenient and I'd have
though rather unnecessary with what has been learned on the Shuttle.


Unfortunatly, science and technology needed to make a reliable/cheap
shuttlecraft do not exist yet. NASA has had much egg thrown at its face
with a number of failed X projects to replace the shuttle.

Being faced with a need to replace the shuttle and a desire to have a
high propability of actually have something usable (instead of another
cancelled project), they were forced to go with something old, simple
and not too complex that can use technologies developped last century.

And despite using all old technology, there are still doubts that the
rocket will work.

What I find a real shame is that in the late 1990s, that they didn't
build one or two "new" shuttles that would have incorporated all of the
improvements NASA knew it was capable of making. It would not have been
revolutionary in terms of reducing costs, it would have been
evolutionary. But it would have advanced the "state of the art".

Going back to Apollo doesn't really advance the state of the art.



  #4  
Old April 8th 09, 08:04 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Jeff Findley
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Posts: 5,012
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"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
m...
There still seems something wrong in my view to returning to the capsule
way of getting back to earth. Its undignified, inconvenient and I'd have
though rather unnecessary with what has been learned on the Shuttle. I've
seen cost reasons, well maybe, and all sorts of other ideas for why Orion
is a capsule, but I fear that the public, who have been used to seeing a
landing on wheels will equate the new vehicle with the Apollo and Soyuz
eras and think, hey, are we going backwards?


Form follows function. At the velocities to be encountered when returning
to the moon, the Apollo CM shape and TPS is proven. There is no way that
the shuttle could do the same. The much higher velocities mean much higher
heating and aerodynamic forces, which the shuttle could not survive.

As far as being inconvienent or undignified, with NASA envisioning a couple
of lunar Orion flights per year, the flight rate is simply far too low for
them to worry about convienence and dignity.

I also notice a split occuring between the public 'all American's Lunar
project propaganda and what a lot of the scientists, and other Nasa people
seem to think, that it really needs to be international. This may well be
because of the economics at the moment, but if nothing else, I feel
realism needs to reign here, and I think in the end, it will either end
badly or go international in some form.


Right now it looks like if it ends badly, it will be because of Griffin's
1.5 launch architecture. Ares I in particular is eating up billions of
dollars in development money with nothing yet flying. The Ares I-X flight
is going to be a stunt. A four segment shuttle SRB with a dummy fifth
segment, dummy upper stage, and dummy Orion. Very little useful data will
be gained by this flight. It's just something quick and dirty that NASA can
fly to make it appear like they're making progress, when the reality is that
progress is slower and more expensive than anticipated.

At this rate it's easy to predict that Ares V's costs will balloon as well,
leading the policy makers to decide to "reevaluate" the program. My guess
is there will be a "scaling back", as was done numerous times with
Freedom/ISS, but how big that is has yet to be determined.

Jeff
--
"Many things that were acceptable in 1958 are no longer acceptable today.
My own standards have changed too." -- Freeman Dyson


  #5  
Old April 8th 09, 08:14 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Jeff Findley
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Posts: 5,012
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"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
m...
According to the latest news also, they are even using a material for the
heat shield that is very similar to the old version used back then.

Admittedly thety could use something else down the line, but it still
seems odd when, as you say, they are designing a very strange manned
launch vehicle when many existing ones could, presumably be made man
friendly at a lesser cost. I still think the heavy lift version would use
the legacy Shuttle stuff, but why keep on with it for manned use. Everyone
knows the only reason the Shuttle used them is basically to lift the full
tank! I hope it works for their sake, but it will be a rough few minutes
I'd imagine.


Ares I is there to hide some of the development costs for Ares V, which
would be the largest launch vehicle ever built. Ares I, in and of itself,
is stupid. But that's obviously not the opinion of Mike Griffin, who single
handedly shoved the 1.5 launch architecture down NASA's throat.

Where are the ESAS appendices? As far as I know, the FOIA requests for them
have not been fulfilled.

Jeff
--
"Many things that were acceptable in 1958 are no longer acceptable today.
My own standards have changed too." -- Freeman Dyson


  #6  
Old April 8th 09, 08:53 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Jeff Findley
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Posts: 5,012
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"John Doe" wrote in message
...
Brian Gaff wrote:
There still seems something wrong in my view to returning to the capsule
way of getting back to earth. Its undignified, inconvenient and I'd have
though rather unnecessary with what has been learned on the Shuttle.


Unfortunatly, science and technology needed to make a reliable/cheap
shuttlecraft do not exist yet. NASA has had much egg thrown at its face
with a number of failed X projects to replace the shuttle.


This isn't necessarily true. NASA failed at X-33 because they picked the
"winner" by which proposal had the most new technology. X-33 was testing
too many new things at once. X-33 had a new shape (lifting body), new
structure (composite, integrated with the tanks), new tanks (composite LOX
and LH2 tanks), and new engines (linear aerospilke). Did I miss anything
here? With such a grocery list of new technologies being integrated into a
single vehicle, is it any wonder that one of them failed?

A proper X vehicle is more like DC-X, which used off the shelf components to
test vertical take off and landing along with quick turn around times for
LOX/LH2 rocket engines.

Another proper X vehicle would be a modified EELV upper stage to test
technologies for in orbit cryogenic refueling. There have been several
proposals to do just that with Centaur, but NASA has not funded them.

Being faced with a need to replace the shuttle and a desire to have a
high propability of actually have something usable (instead of another
cancelled project), they were forced to go with something old, simple
and not too complex that can use technologies developped last century.

And despite using all old technology, there are still doubts that the
rocket will work.


While it's true Ares I is using "old technology", it's also using a very
large SRB in a configuration that's never been used before on a manned
vehicle. This is essentially the cause of Ares I's vibration problems. The
other big problem with Ares I is performance. Since the switch from the
SSME to the RS-68 in the upper stage, performance has been a huge issue.
This isn't a problem with "old technology", but a problem with how that
technology is being applied.

In other words, it's a system engineering probelem, not a technological
problem.

What I find a real shame is that in the late 1990s, that they didn't
build one or two "new" shuttles that would have incorporated all of the
improvements NASA knew it was capable of making. It would not have been
revolutionary in terms of reducing costs, it would have been
evolutionary. But it would have advanced the "state of the art".


This almost certainly would have cost a lot of money for little gain. The
system engineering failures of the shuttle architecture would have remained
(e.g. vulnerable TPS being hit by debris from the ET).

Going back to Apollo doesn't really advance the state of the art.


Advancing the "state of the art" is sometimes not necessary. In fact, I
would argue that the state of the art is up to the task, specifically the
EELV's. Duplicating their lift capability with Ares I is awfully silly.

Jeff
--
"Many things that were acceptable in 1958 are no longer acceptable today.
My own standards have changed too." -- Freeman Dyson


  #7  
Old April 9th 09, 03:13 AM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Jorge R. Frank
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Posts: 2,089
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Jeff Findley wrote:
"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
m...
According to the latest news also, they are even using a material for the
heat shield that is very similar to the old version used back then.

Admittedly thety could use something else down the line, but it still
seems odd when, as you say, they are designing a very strange manned
launch vehicle when many existing ones could, presumably be made man
friendly at a lesser cost. I still think the heavy lift version would use
the legacy Shuttle stuff, but why keep on with it for manned use. Everyone
knows the only reason the Shuttle used them is basically to lift the full
tank! I hope it works for their sake, but it will be a rough few minutes
I'd imagine.


Ares I is there to hide some of the development costs for Ares V, which
would be the largest launch vehicle ever built. Ares I, in and of itself,
is stupid. But that's obviously not the opinion of Mike Griffin, who single
handedly shoved the 1.5 launch architecture down NASA's throat.

Where are the ESAS appendices? As far as I know, the FOIA requests for them
have not been fulfilled.


They will not be released because they contain proprietary cost data
that is exempt from FOIA.

(That said, it is inexcusable and illegal for a federal agency to fail
to even respond to an FOIA request.)
  #8  
Old April 9th 09, 08:01 AM posted to sci.space.shuttle
Derek Lyons
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Posts: 2,999
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John Doe wrote:

What I find a real shame is that in the late 1990s, that they didn't
build one or two "new" shuttles that would have incorporated all of the
improvements NASA knew it was capable of making. It would not have been
revolutionary in terms of reducing costs, it would have been
evolutionary. But it would have advanced the "state of the art".

Going back to Apollo doesn't really advance the state of the art.


Submarines, which have equally stringent quality and safety
requirements, have many mechanisms onboard unchanged since WWII or
shortly after. They have a few unchanged from before WWI.

In real world engineering 'works and is well known' is far more
important than 'advances the state of the art'.

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

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

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




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