A true ESAS revolution: the ESAS + COTS + AresX moon missions!!!

..

NASA seems BELIEVE that COTS companies will succeed (in their effort
to develop, build and launch low cost rockets and capsules) since has
already given them $500M of funds, has opened the doors of its
research centers, has included the COTS service in its flights
manifest and will soon allow the COTS companies (first SpaceX) to
launch their rockets from KSC, so... Why don't MERGE (both) ESAS and
COTS vehicles (also) for moon missions?

my new idea/proposal he http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/029aresX.html

..

"gaetanomarano" wrote in message
oups.com...
.

NASA seems BELIEVE that COTS companies will succeed (in their effort
to develop, build and launch low cost rockets and capsules) since has
already given them $500M of funds, has opened the doors of its
research centers, has included the COTS service in its flights
manifest and will soon allow the COTS companies (first SpaceX) to
launch their rockets from KSC, so... Why don't MERGE (both) ESAS and
COTS vehicles (also) for moon missions?

my new idea/proposal he
http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/029aresX.html

Sticking the CEV upside down in the stack is really silly. If the stack
goes *boom*, the crew is toast.

Stick it on top, along with its associated escape tower, just like the
Apollo CSM.

You also ignore that the crawlers and MLP's can't handle the weight of what
you propose (this is from memory).

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

Jeff Findley ha scritto:

Sticking the CEV upside down in the stack is really silly. If the stack
goes *boom*, the crew is toast.

A: the AresX is launched unmanned


Stick it on top, along with its associated escape tower, just like the
Apollo CSM.

A: I suggested that option in my articles


You also ignore that the crawlers and MLP's can't handle the weight of what
you propose (this is from memory).

A: thanks to the four SRB thrust, my AresX is smaller than AresV and
has the same width


G.

"gaetanomarano" wrote in message
oups.com...

Jeff Findley ha scritto:

You also ignore that the crawlers and MLP's can't handle the weight of
what
you propose (this is from memory).

A: thanks to the four SRB thrust, my AresX is smaller than AresV and
has the same width

From past discussions, I believe I remember that the crawlers can't handle
the weight of four SRB's. Note that the SRB segments are solid fuel and
come fueled from the factory. These things are freaking heavy!
Astronautix.com says they're 1,299,990 lb each fully fueled. By comparison,
the first stage of the Saturn V was 298,104 lb empty. The shuttle's ET is
65,980 lb empty. So adding two of these means adding about 2.6 million
pounds to the stack since you're not going to save much by "slimming down"
the center stage.

From what I understand, that's why the launch tower was taken off the MLP
when they converted them from the Saturn V to shuttle configuration. The
SRB's are *heavy* when compared to an empty liquid fueled stage of the same
performance.

I suppose you could scrap the existing MLP's entirely and build newer,
lighter ones to offset the mass of the two extra SRB's, but I think that's
still a lot to ask for since the MLP is about 9 million pounds. I'm not
sure what would have to change, if anything, in the flame trench. New flame
deflectors?

Any way you slice it, this means lots of changes on the ground to support
this supposedly "simple" change to the launch vehicle.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

Jeff Findley wrote:
"gaetanomarano" wrote in message
oups.com...
.

NASA seems BELIEVE that COTS companies will succeed (in their effort
to develop, build and launch low cost rockets and capsules) since has
already given them $500M of funds, has opened the doors of its
research centers, has included the COTS service in its flights
manifest and will soon allow the COTS companies (first SpaceX) to
launch their rockets from KSC, so... Why don't MERGE (both) ESAS and
COTS vehicles (also) for moon missions?

my new idea/proposal he
http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/029aresX.html

Dude, we're talking Son of Frankenstein here!

Sticking the CEV upside down in the stack is really silly. If the stack
goes *boom*, the crew is toast.

Stick it on top, along with its associated escape tower, just like the
Apollo CSM.

You also ignore that the crawlers and MLP's can't handle the weight of what
you propose (this is from memory).

Why not just put some lightweight capsules on both EELVs, and then give
COTS some money to beat those numbers, that should be pretty damn easy.

--
Get A Free Orbiter Space Flight Simulator :
http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html

Jeff Findley ha scritto:

From past discussions, I believe I remember that the crawlers can't handle
the weight of four SRB's. Note that the SRB segments are solid fuel and
come fueled from the factory. These things are freaking heavy!
Astronautix.com says they're 1,299,990 lb each fully fueled. By comparison,
the first stage of the Saturn V was 298,104 lb empty. The shuttle's ET is
65,980 lb empty. So adding two of these means adding about 2.6 million
pounds to the stack since you're not going to save much by "slimming down"
the center stage.

From what I understand, that's why the launch tower was taken off the MLP
when they converted them from the Saturn V to shuttle configuration. The
SRB's are *heavy* when compared to an empty liquid fueled stage of the same
performance.

I suppose you could scrap the existing MLP's entirely and build newer,
lighter ones to offset the mass of the two extra SRB's, but I think that's
still a lot to ask for since the MLP is about 9 million pounds. I'm not
sure what would have to change, if anything, in the flame trench. New flame
deflectors?


the AresV mass will be over 3350 mT at lift-off (65% higher than a
Shuttle that is about 2000 mT) and the main tank diameter will be 10 m
(vs. the 8.4 m of the Shuttle) so, EVERYTHING must be CHANGED and
REINFORCED to launch the AresV

my AresX will weigh about 15% more than an AresV (then, about 3800 mT)
since it must lift the same payload + an extra 15% of mass (the
Orion) ...not a big problem

the cost of the (AresV OR AresX) launch pad will be a minimal fraction
of the ESAS costs and just made ONCE

however, I think that NASA should evaluate the option of an on-pad
assembly of the AresV/X 1st stage

G.

On 22 Mag, 00:01, kT wrote:

Why not just put some lightweight capsules on both EELVs, and then give
COTS some money to beat those numbers, that should be pretty damn easy.


if you launch the full (unmanned) lunar convoy with the AresX, the
crew could reach it in the parking orbit with a wide variety of
vehicles: a COTS capsule, a small, lightweight and cheap capsule
launched with an EELV, a Soyuz, a Shenzhou, the Space Shuttle (if
still in service) the Bigelow-LockMart "tourists capsule" or whichever
new orbital vehicle available in th next decade

gaetanomarano wrote:
On 22 Mag, 00:01, kT wrote:

Why not just put some lightweight capsules on both EELVs, and then give
COTS some money to beat those numbers, that should be pretty damn easy.


if you launch the full (unmanned) lunar convoy with the AresX, the
crew could reach it in the parking orbit with a wide variety of
vehicles: a COTS capsule, a small, lightweight and cheap capsule
launched with an EELV, a Soyuz, a Shenzhou, the Space Shuttle (if
still in service) the Bigelow-LockMart "tourists capsule" or whichever
new orbital vehicle available in th next decade

Ok, you're going for the big Hermann Munster mobile.

First, we don't want to go back to the moon, we want to go to Ceres.

Second, getting to Ceres is going to be occurring in something much
larger than a CEV, so we need to be able to construct large spacecraft
out of smaller ones, because no Hermann Munster from hell is going to be
able to launch the kind of vehicles we want to be flying to Ceres, they
are just too freakin large - big flying cities are really more like it.

Look at how Mount Everest is climbed. Sorry to burst your bubble but we
can do it all with liquids. Solid rocket boosters are so 20th century.

--
Get A Free Orbiter Space Flight Simulator :
http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html

On May 22, 1:45 am, kT wrote:

we want to go to Ceres.
are just too freakin large - big flying cities are really more like it.


the AresX is not big like a "city" but just 15% bigger than AresV

"gaetanomarano" wrote in message
ups.com...

Jeff Findley ha scritto:

From past discussions, I believe I remember that the crawlers can't
handle
the weight of four SRB's. Note that the SRB segments are solid fuel and
come fueled from the factory. These things are freaking heavy!
Astronautix.com says they're 1,299,990 lb each fully fueled. By
comparison,
the first stage of the Saturn V was 298,104 lb empty. The shuttle's ET
is
65,980 lb empty. So adding two of these means adding about 2.6 million
pounds to the stack since you're not going to save much by "slimming
down"
the center stage.

From what I understand, that's why the launch tower was taken off the MLP
when they converted them from the Saturn V to shuttle configuration. The
SRB's are *heavy* when compared to an empty liquid fueled stage of the
same
performance.

I suppose you could scrap the existing MLP's entirely and build newer,
lighter ones to offset the mass of the two extra SRB's, but I think
that's
still a lot to ask for since the MLP is about 9 million pounds. I'm not
sure what would have to change, if anything, in the flame trench. New
flame
deflectors?


the AresV mass will be over 3350 mT at lift-off (65% higher than a
Shuttle that is about 2000 mT) and the main tank diameter will be 10 m
(vs. the 8.4 m of the Shuttle) so, EVERYTHING must be CHANGED and
REINFORCED to launch the AresV

I'm not so sure about that. You see, even with Saturn V, you roll out with
your liquid fuel tanks empty and fuel them on the pad. The problem isn't so
much that the MLP can't support the fully fueled weight of an Ares V (it
could support a fully fueled Saturn V *with* launch tower mounted to the
MLP). Getting the MLP plus the stack containing 4 fully fueled SRB's to the
launch pad using the crawler-transporter is the problem. From past
discussions in this group, the crawler-transporter is the weakest link.
Again, this is why the launch tower was removed from the MLP's when
converted from Saturn V to shuttle configuration.

my AresX will weigh about 15% more than an AresV (then, about 3800 mT)
since it must lift the same payload + an extra 15% of mass (the
Orion) ...not a big problem

Again, it's not the liftoff weight that's the problem, it's the weight the
crawler-transporter has to move that's the problem.

the cost of the (AresV OR AresX) launch pad will be a minimal fraction
of the ESAS costs and just made ONCE

however, I think that NASA should evaluate the option of an on-pad
assembly of the AresV/X 1st stage

You're kidding, right? We already had a huge delay due to an ET getting
pummeled by hail while sitting on the launch pad, what do you think that
would do to stacking operations? That's the point of the VAB! The problem
is the heavy, hard to handle solids. They make stacking operations
difficult and they *greatly* increase the mass needed to be moved to the pad
when compared to liquids of similar performance.

You could create one hell of a liquid fueled launch vehicle and still fit in
the VAB and stay within the crawler-transporter weight limits, but solids
are another story.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)