CEV to be made commercially available

Which is why they should be buying launches, not developing new launch
vehicles.

Yeah. Great. So... who has a commercially available heavy lift launch
vehicle?

1. High launch costs

Hop to it.

2. Cumbersome, low pressure EVA suits and gloves

Centennial prize.

3. Better EVA tools

Goes with 2.

4. Better designs for hardware intended for assembly or swap-out during an EVA (e.g. ISS assembly and Hubble servicing)

One-use tech.

5. Refueling techniques for cryogenic fuels and oxidizers

No plans yet for orbital refueling, and you've already pooh-poohed the
concept.

6. Automated rendezvous and docking (useful for commercial ISS resupply)

Buy it from the Russians.

7. Inexpensive reentry and recovery techniques for large pieces of hardware (e.g. SSME's)

Buy it from the Russians.

NASA ought to work on enabling technologies and techniques to open up space

They did that in the '60's. Job accomplished. Now it's time to *use*
that tech for that purpose.

"snidely" wrote in message
ps.com...

Henry Spencer wrote:
No, it's the lack of a reentry system that could return it for reuse. I
agree that the hardware itself isn't inherently limited to a single
use --
as best one can tell, given how little detail exists -- but as currently
conceived, that stage is 100% expendable.

Demonstartor 2R tells us that cheap recovery systems for the SSME (and
CMGs when shuttle stands down) are still "just around the corner".

This is the kind of demonstrator I'd like to see NASA building and flying,
but it's not yet a proven technology.

Jeff
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wrote in message
oups.com...
And beyond that, what specific things can you do, things that are
actually worth doing, with Stick/CEV?

Building a space-based civilization. If somebody else can come up with
somethign else to do it with, great.

The stick/CEV will be too expensive for that. If your goal is truly to
build a space based civilization, then you'd better start by lowering the
cost of launching anything into LEO. In other words, invest in the start-up
companies who are attempting to do just that. NASA is decidedly
uninterested in lowering launch costs, since the stick and the SDHLV don't
look like they would do much of anything to lower launch costs, and even if
they did, they would only lower launch costs for NASA.

Jeff
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wrote in message
oups.com...
However, those spent stages will still be property of the US government,
so they really will need permission to do anything with them.

There's your first chance to do something. Get title transferred once
the stage is abandoned.

NASA doesn't officially abandon anything in space, so it's still government
property. I'm sure they'd be upset if someone else started messing with
their government property without their permission. Just ask Gus Grissom's
family. They'll tell you what happens when NASA claims something is still
their property.

Resorting to name calling in a debate is always telling.

So is the whining I'm seeing so often. Don;t like being called a
whiner? Stop whining. Come up with somethign productive.

I am. If CEV must go forward, I'm all for NASA using commercial launch
vehicles to put it into LEO. In fact, I'm all for NASA using commercial
launch vehicles for all programs, except for experimental vehicles of
course. I'm also for NASA doing research into technologies and techniques
that will open up space. I think they could do a lot more in the area of
space suits than they've been doing in the past.

I'm just being realistic.

No, you're being defeatist.

History backs me up. The glory days of Apollo funding will not return to
NASA. The budget cutting started before the first moon landing even took
place. It's the current NASA administrator who seems oblivious to this
fact, just as Admiral Dick Truly appeared to be.

But if you're so convinced this is a viable strategy, why not start your
own company and work on a solution yourself?

I'm busy makign other ends of this project happen.

Glad to hear it. I'm busy working on FEA software. It's a useful thing to
use if you're designing aerospace hardware. Aerospace is one of our bigger
markets. All those structures and dynamics classes I took to get my
Aerospace Engineering degree come in handy when working on this sort of
software.

Jeff
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"JHNichols" wrote in message
...
There's a South Park episode lurking in there somewhere.
(Cut to image of Kenny impaled on a solar array.) :-D

Pat

There is an episode were the children are standing at the bus stop before
school and MIR falls on Kenny.

"Oh, my God, MIR killed Kenny! You *******s!"


Found a link to a picture.

http://images.southparkstudios.com/d...7_mirkenny.gif

JHNichols wrote:

There is an episode were the children are standing at the bus stop before
school and MIR falls on Kenny.

"Oh, my God, MIR killed Kenny! You *******s!"




http://www.cloudbait.com/observatory/kennymir.jpg

Pat

Neil Gerace wrote:

In Dead Like Me's first episode the main character gets killed by a toilet
seat falling from Mir. Then she got herself a new career.




I still picture that mirror out of Hubble coming out of the sky like a
Frisbee from Hell.

Pat

In article . com,
wrote:
Returned how? The CEV isn't big enough to return an SSME.

And whoever said use the CEV for that role? Again, *think.* Try to come
up with an approach. Think about it from the standpoint of the
entepreneur.

An entrepreneur? Where is there any place for entrepreneurs in the
glorious new Vision of Socialist Exploration? NASA refused to even buy
its launches commercially -- something it is *required by law* to do
whenever possible -- so what makes you think unqualified scum like
entrepreneurs will be allowed anywhere near this precious hardware?

There are, say, a dozen SSME's on orbit...

No, there are, say, a dozen SSME's in fragments on the Pacific floor.
NASA isn't going to leave them in orbit until there is definitely
something that can be done with them. There's no justification for the
effort of cutting them loose from the stage unless salvage is going to
happen, and just storing the stages has most of the problems of storing
External Tanks -- you have to get them up to somewhere like the station
(whereas they're normally abandoned at lower altitude), you have to make
them compatible with long-term storage, you have to worry about drag
issues -- and there's no way NASA is going to make the effort without a
reason. If they couldn't be bothered doing it for the ET, they won't do
it for this hardware either.

...How would *you* go about getting 'em?

Not possible. (Technologically, yes. Politically, no.) It has to be
a billion-dollar BoeLock project or it won't happen. No reason for me to
bother even considering it.

...But here's the
difference: the Stick Stage 2 will end up in some sort of orbit.

And will then be de-orbited, probably the same way the S-IVB stages of the
Skylab crews were de-orbited -- by propellant dump through the engine.
NASA is terrified of leaving things in orbit that might fall on somebody
and result in lawsuits, or even just increase the debris problem. They
already set the precedent with the ET: no spent hardware left in orbit
unless someone has specific, credible, NASA-endorsed plans to do something
with it, including triple-redundant precautions against unintended reentry.
(I'm not kidding about the triple redundancy.)

Also, almost certainly the second stage's orbit is going to be very low,
because you want to shed its dry mass as soon as you don't need all that
thrust. NASA will quite legitimately refuse to accept the payload penalty
of putting it in a higher orbit just to facilitate hypothetical future
salvage operations.

...talk (calmly) to your
Congresscritters and get them to order NASA to either use the stages on
orbit, or have them transfer ownership to the highest bidder...

NASA's answer will be: "we have no plans to use them in orbit, and there
is no *qualified* bidder who we recognize as competent to take them over,
so we regretfully must continue to de-orbit them; we'll be delighted to
start transferring ownership as soon as there's a qualified user for them,
hee hee".

People have been through this before, Scott, and there is no reason to
expect that the results would be better this time. "Fool me once, shame
on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

Under (early) Goldin, odd though it might sound, there actually was some
small chance that such a radical proposal might get somewhere. Under
Griffin, looks like there's no way -- reform is not on his agenda.
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Jeff Findley wrote:



It's only a lack of
even moderate imagination that makes the 2nd stage expendable.



It could be the loss in payload capacity that a recovery system would
entail versus the cost of just tossing away the stage.
Although I get a feeling that they've got something in mind for those
stages once they are in orbit.
Space station modules? Engine modules for the Mars ship?
Having reusable LOX/LH2 engines in orbit gives one advantages....


NASA clearly lacks that imagination, as their lunar mission architecture
requires only a single docking in LEO before departing for the moon. They
lack the desire to do any orbital assembly (beyond a single docking). The
second stages of the stick will do nothing more than create a light show as
they reenter earth's atmosphere and burn up. Your wishful thinking will not
change this, just as the same wishful thinking never resulted in a single ET
being taken to LEO.



KISS- Keep It Simple, Stupid! :-)
The less things involved in getting from point A to point B, the more
likely you are to make it to point B.

Pat

In article .com,
wrote:
Which is why they should be buying launches, not developing new launch
vehicles.

Yeah. Great. So... who has a commercially available heavy lift launch
vehicle?

Boeing and LockMart, to name two, have proposals for them that are every
bit as ready and available as NASA's White Elephant. (I've decided that
that name is clearly suitable only for the heavylift launcher; the Stick
is the White Cane. :-)) Why, you could even have -- gasp! -- competition.
You know, free enterprise?

NASA ought to work on enabling technologies and techniques to open up space

They did that in the '60's. Job accomplished.

Which job was that, exactly? Not long-lived, low-maintenance rocket
engines. Not effective altitude compensation. Not in-space assembly, at
least not to hear the NASA cheerleaders tell it. Not robust, fully
reusable, low-maintenance reentry TPS. Not long-lived high-Isp in-space
propulsion. Not workable recycling life support. Not spacesuits with a
reasonable working life and decent dexterity, never mind such useful
extras as minimal prebreathing and low emissions.

NASA did some useful stuff, in the early 60s in particular, but nowhere
near what's needed to open up space.
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