NASA Announces Design for New Deep Space Exploration System
nasa.gov
nasa.gov
Hell, I dreamed of walking on Mars when I worked on the Apollo Project. I never dreamed that 2011 would come and we would never have even gone back to the moon. It makes me regret even more that I never made the trek to Florida to see a Saturn V launch.
The Lab was a really interesting place. Lots of high end 360's, which couldnt even power a phone these days. We had our own command module mockup, but I was an employee of a contractor, so no-one would let me play around on the inside, but I did get to peek.
In the grand scheme of things, my role was miniscule, but I am still very proud that I was able to contribute to one of the greatest adventures of the last century.
What if the guidance computer operated with a bad parser? I imagine that could have been disastrous.
Most individual roles tend to be minuscule, specially in such a huge endeavor. But you should be proud nevertheless - you and others like you made some of our greatest voyages of exploration possible.
It will be very tragic if Mercury, Gemini and Apollo continue to be the best examples of space exploration done right. We need to do better and we need your shoulders to stand on.
Wow!
I was a toddler when Armstrong walked on the moon. While I was too young to remember the live broadcast (my mother says I did watch it with interest), growing up with it certainly had an impact on my decision to become an engineer.
Thank you for being part of something that inspired and continues to inspire so many of us.
Richard Battin MIT lecture on the computer.
>We stopped the moon landings for the same reason the Chinese stopped landing Eunuchs in Africa.
and we don't go to Mars and beyond for the same reason Chinese didn't venture deep into and across the Pacific to America - too technically challenging, unknown and dangerous
Bingo. Gene Roddenberry's genius is replacing the classical humans' violence fueled drivers of "new lands or ... interest in converting people to their religion" with "to explore new worlds, to seek out a new life, and new civilizations" :) I hope that he will eventually be proven right.
Spend the same money in all the congressional districts that the Shuttle program spent money in.
$18B is 50 times what NASA has paid out to SpaceX so far, and SpaceX already has already developed a working rocket. Congress could fund 50 SpaceX-like firms for that same amount.
Instead, Congress is attempting to cut the money NASA has requested for commercial crew transport.
Well, since NASA has been more public works program than anything else since Apollo (and even then, helping the South was an explicit goal of Apollo), I suppose it's fitting. But can we really afford this sort of thing as opposed to building up a commercial launch sector in any one of a number of ways?
To my now somewhat hazy memory, except for the first few Mercury suborbital missions (which were done in a real hurry) the only manned space flight system to use SRBs is the Shuttle.
Programs like these are completely superfluous and most people involved know it. NASA is not even hiding what this project is for: it's a job program, says so right there in the article. And when they say "jobs", they don't refer to real companies like SpaceX or even themselves, they mean huge defense contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
So to match 1 SLS launch you are looking at 6-12 Falcon 9s (which have flown) or 2-3 Falcon Heavy launches (which have not flown).
I don't think it's a stretch to say that using Space X would be significantly cheaper to get the same weight up there because the design work is already done. You probably would want to use the Falcon Heavy because you don't want to piece together 10 different things, but that is just 3 Falcon 9s strapped together which I can't imagine is as expensive as designing a new launch vehicle from scratch.
You are absolutely right that at this point NASA needs to get out of the launching game. Use the tax money for payloads whether that is a manned mission or robots.
It is my impression that SpaceX anticipates doing exactly that sort of thing.
So NASA now has incentives to kill SpaceX, since they'll never be able to compete (except with political weight)? :-(
Edit: OTOH, I guess NASA will never make the SLS fly anyway...
Reading this actually made me quite angry, and I'm someone who is a fan of new technology, especially new space technology. What new ground is being covered here? "President Obama challenged us to be bold and dream big, and that's exactly what we are doing at NASA". I have to disagree. This looks a lot like NASA is about to reinvent the Saturn V.
Surely it's best for NASA to completely draw a line and vow to never develop any more (conventional) launch vehicles. In orbit assembly presumably is exactly the kind of thing they should be investigating. Unless of course they plan to do all their deep space exploration via a single rocket launch?
Not to mention, there's political will for NASA to continue being in the launch business and for good reason. SpaceX could land a monopoly on heavy launches and could raise its prices, get bought by a foreign power, go bankrupt, use shoddy designs, or who knows what else.
edit: really -2 moderation? Downvoting for disgreeing now? Wow HN.
Now part of that process involves a lot of military oversight and specification to make sure things are up to their standards. I know that the military is involved in the design of systems from Day 1. But all of those things are made by private corporations and they have no commercial equivalent. NASA operates this way already to a large extent. Boeing, Lockheed, etc are primary contractors that design & build a lot of this stuff.
What NASA is going through right now is a switch from that model to using straight Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) stuff. The government buys plenty of things off the shelf with no motification or input if it meets their needs. Space X just happens to provide lift capability instead of laptops, but in the end it really is no different as long as they're not launching people.
Given that NASA's shoddy design of the Shuttle has killed two of them along with their crews, somehow I don't find that to be a strong argument.
If SpaceX is going to "land a monopoly on heavy launches" then by definition their vehicles will be at least somewhat reliable.
The SRBs saved money on development but are very bad for human flight, you want engines you can turn off.
The insane fragile tile and leading edge heat protection, all to satisfy a "requirement" the Air Force didn't care about, a Vandenburg single orbit polar mission (to return to the same spot on Earth while it's rotated under you requires serious maneuvering using your initial high energy state).
No crew escape system after the first few test flights with only pilot and co-pilot, who had SR-71 class ejection seats (the best available). The state of the art of "rocket science" simply isn't good enough to forgo this.
Since then we've learned from the two fatal missions:
The SRB joints were grossly misdesigned, forcing their O-rings to seal on expansion (any of us who've worked with a faucet or shower head know how terribly wrong this is).
Especially after it was made in a more "green" fashion, the fuel tank sheds ice and insulation chucks with sufficient momentum to destroy the above mentioned fragile heat protection systems.
That's all that immediately comes to mind, and I've already pointed out one Ares I inherited potentially fatal design flaw in the Senate Launch System. How many obvious design flaws can you or anyone else point out in SpaceX's systems? (I don't know, I haven't been closely following them.)
No, it hasn't.
Falcon 1 has launched 5 times. The first three failed -- in likely-survivable ways. None just "blew up". The next two were successful.[1]
Falcon 9 has flown twice, both successful.[2]
7 launches, 4 successes, 3 survivable failures. Your statement is objectively false.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_1_launches
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Launches_and_scheduled...
Look, its obvious that its too early to decide one way or another but thats a fucking rocky start to anyone who isn't a fanboy blinded by whatever allure SpaceX has.
Also the disagree downvotes make you look bad. HN is turning into reddit/digg. What a shame.
If you still feel like debating the matter, I suggest searching YouTube for launch failures first. There are some rather spectacular videos of rockets that actually did explode, sometimes right on the pad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches_(1957-19...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_R-7_launches_(1957-1959...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Thor_and_Delta_launches...
The military works the EXACT SAME WAY. They bring design specs and ideas to contractors, do x amount of engineering themselves, and let the contractors do the dirty work. I don't understand why the military gets to design their own stuff but suddenly our civillian space program should just be a check writing machine to Elon Musk and friends.
Nor is using the bloated, corrupt, horrifically inefficient military-industrial complex as your model for how spaceflight should be carried out.
For once, a government agency is handling this right. They're transparently paying set, commercially-appropriate amounts of money to contractors that have a good chance of success, in exchange for meeting specific, objectively-judged goals.
If something goes wrong, there are obvious fallbacks. Boeing/Lockheed and the ULA aren't going anywhere, the ESA has a good track record, and Soyuz is at least as reliable as the Shuttle ever was (and a hell of a lot cheaper).
If SpaceX fizzles out, it's not the end of the world, or even manned space travel, any more than NASA's twice-over criminal negligence with the Shuttle was.
I believe SpaceX is planning on developing a still more powerful heavy launch rocket that could shoot human crewed missions straight to Mars in a single shot. The Falcon Heavy could send a substantial payload to the Mars surface.
When you are struggeling to pay the bills, finding a job, or securing your current job, landing to the moon is a quite stupid thing the USA gov. is spending the money on.
Although it won't cost the US economy only a little (few billions) comparing to its size, people won't be easy with it. They are in trouble living in earth, and are not looking for the moon or massively expensive explorations.
Not really, at least not lately. Since the end of Apollo the manned space program has been first a jobs program and then everything else. So if we've "fallen" it happened in the early '70s.
NASA funding is just a perk you get as a Congressman when you amass enough clout.
Maybe NASA should be spun off.
As Richard Feynman once said, "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled".
Kind of reminds me of a rocket used for the Apollo missions (although it's not) with some Space Shuttle SRBs attached to the side. The first version shown in the video actually looks kind of cool -- like something SpaceX would have built. It's a good thing progress in the space industry move at a snail's pace. Our aim is to remain the go-to country for space flight yet the first mission is slated for 2017.
It looks like they're trying to save some money by using advancements from the Space Shuttle and Constellation programs. Always a good thing because NASA projects are notorious for going over their budgets (with good reason).
>>It will use a liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propulsion system
A consequence of using previous propulsion tech is that we're still using dangerous, highly explosive liquid hydrogen and oxygen rockets. I'm still hoping we're able to get higher ISP from hybrid rockets in the near future. Much safer and easier to turn off if there is a catastrophic systems failure on the way up.
As an added bonus, white is the easiest color to see against the backdrop of Space. Photos of spacewalks would be pretty boring if the Shuttle and the astronauts were all wearing black.
The Shuttle main engines used to be painted white (this is the big central tank supplying liquid hydrogen and oxygen to the engine).
But it turned out to save about 600lb to leave it unpainted, so that's what they did for all later launches. The tank already has an insulator. You can see both versions in Shuttle launch imagery.
From wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_external_tank):
"The original ET is informally known as the Standard Weight Tank (SWT) and is fabricated from 2219 - a high strength aluminium-copper alloy used for many aerospace applications. The first two, used for STS-1 and STS-2, were painted white to protect the tanks from ultraviolet light during the extended time that the shuttle spends on the launch pad prior to launch.[4] Because this did not turn out to be a problem and in order to reduce weight, Lockheed Martin ceased painting the external tanks beginning with STS-3, leaving the rust-colored spray-on insulation bare, saving approximately 272 kg (600 lb) of weight."
[1]http://www.space.com/12916-obama-nasa-space-launch-system-bu...
I would obsess less over the form factor and more over efficiency.
I'm guessing it's the least-questions-asked shape as far as aerodynamics goes, and gives good weight efficiency assuming you can build what you need into a round shape. Is there anything more fundamental than that?
Round is structurally strong (which, when it comes to aerospace engineering, is really just the opposite side of the "light weight" coin).
Symmetry of shape and mass makes the stability and control equations a hell of a lot simpler to deal with, and a round shape makes it easier to be (nearly) symmetrical in more ways than with other shapes..
I haven't done the math, but I always assumed it would be less expensive (as in fuel and weight) to start the orbital boosters from 50,000ft after climbing via traditional wings, as opposed to the brute force option of simply producing as much thrust as possible and climbing straight up.
Granted for extremely large payloads the structural requirements for building wings that can support the weight might be impractical, but wouldn't it have been easier for the space shuttle to "launch" from 50,000ft?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/science/space/03launchweb....
Long term wise how can we justify not spending money knowing that we will spend less in the long run if we spend big in the short term?