The Return of Apollo? 653
hpulley writes "Bell bottoms are back, the Stones are still touring and Time has a piece on how NASA's _new_ space vehicle may actually be the return of a very old friend, a highly modified and modernized version of the Apollo Space Capsule. Manned spacecraft might actually leave low earth orbit again! Initially they'd fly with Delta and Atlas but more powerful boosters could be developed. We could go to the Moon again, and perhaps to Mars but I'm getting ahead of myself. Does that mean the last 30 years of space flight have been for naught? Expensive steps backward?"
Yay! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Yay! (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with you, and the experts, why the hell does a spaceship need wings?
Launch the damn thing with a rocket, and once its space its ideal to have a capsule, not a shuttle.(which cant get above low orbit anyways).
Lets advance the space program instead of ex
Re:Yay! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yay! (Score:3, Informative)
Many of the people here are into choice. Why not have the choice of using an economical capsule for missions that don't require the enormous payload that the shuttle can carry?
For a simple trip, the shuttle is overkill. The payload bay is bigger than a bus. (I've seen a full-scale mockup of the Hubble telescope at the Goddard Space Flight Center. It's ab
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Interesting)
Those aren't the only two options. Russian and Chinese spacecraft parachute onto land. One could land smoothly like an airplane, without the ridiculous wings, by using a parafoil (indeed, such was seriously studied -- well, a similar idea Rogallo wing -- for the Gemini program). Or one could land smoothly yet vertically like a helicopter, Harrier jet, or Bell rocket pack.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
The real issue is not capsule vs. winged, the issue is whether or not you want to be able to accomplish a controlled, low-impact landing at a precise location. If you want to be able to re-use your spacecraft you pretty much have to be able to avoid bodies of water, large boulders, cliffs etc etc. A low-impact landing is important so that you don't break things when you land. As shown by the Shuttle, extensive refurbishment before every flight is a good way to make this too expensive. Almost as importantly, you want to be able to put down close to recovery facilities so you can get back to flying again quickly.
Now, to get such a precise landing requires mass. If you use wings, they are heavy. If you insist on a capsule then you'll either have to have a big para-wing (heavy, complex to deploy, perhaps not so reliable), or landing rockets (heavy, and definitiely complex). Either way, you pay a mass penalty.
The point I want to make is that you shouldn't be arguing over wings (at this point in the deisgn process), you should be deicing whether or not you need controlled landings.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
But as with most things, people aren't looking at how to design a different craft to meet those requirements, they are instead saying that the requirements arn't what they'd have done. Well see - that's why they're called requirements. If you have a mission that requires something, you have to build a vehicle that does that. To do otherwise would be like saying 'well helicopters are too slow so they get shot a lot so instead of making a helicopter we made a jet'.
If you're going to debate things, at least debate within the parameters of the original requirements - not just your own desire to orbit the moon. While I would certainly argue that the shuttle and the saturn/titan programs should have been pursued in parallel, to suggest that only one of them makes sense defies reason.
Re:Yay! (Score:3, Informative)
The Vandenberg requirement went away. Spy satellites go up on expendables. Most science is close enough to equatorial that a simpler shuttle design would have sufficed.
But in making the ISS a joint US-Soviet project, we were pushed back into h
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with you, and the experts, why the hell does a spaceship need wings?
To land in a specific place? The Apollo capsules had a whole fleet spread across the Pacific to retrieve it and the crew.
The problem with the Shuttle that flies today is simple -- the specifications, part NASA, part DOD, specifiy a mission that requires the use of attached booster rockets. Namely...
1) The cargo bay is too large, and,
2) The cross range capability is extreme.
Why? The Air Force insisted that the Shuttle be able to, in one orbit, take off from Vandenburg AFB, put a KH-11 or similar sat into orbit (or retrive one) and land back at Vandeburg. The problem with this is that in one orbit, Vandeburg moves quite a way, since the earth is rotating.
So, the huge bay was needed to handle the KH-11s, and the very large OMS engines were needed to get the Shuttle back to Vandenburg in one orbit.
Drop these two requirements, and you can cut the OMS system by a half, the payload bay by at least a third, and, suddenly, you don't *need* the SRBs anymore. Indeed, the flyaway liquid fueled boosters become a possibility. You can drop one of the SSMEs off the craft, as well -- and lose the structure needed to hold it. And so forth -- or, even better, ride flyaways almost all the way up, and just have one SSME take you to orbit. Less OMS means less fuel tankage to deal with. And so forth.
NASA wanted about 10 Billion in 1975 to build the Shuttle. They were told that they were getting 5. They said that they weren't even going to try -- it wouldn't work. DOD said that they'd be interested in the Shuttle as a military craft, with a few modifications and a couple of extra mission requirements, and wouldn't protest the extra budget money. So, the deal was made -- DOD got the huge cargo bay and the cross range capability, and NASA got the money to build it. Alas, they ended up with an impossible spec to build to -- and were only able to make it work with the SRBs and 3 SSMEs.
NASA's biggest mistake with the Shuttle was taking that deal.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Informative)
From pp 305, Entry, Splashdown and Recovery table
Mission - Distance to landing target point - Distance to recovery ship
(distances in nautical miles)
Apollo 7 - 1.9 mi - 7.0 mi
Apollo 8 - 1.4 mi - 2.6 mi
Apollo 9 - 2.7 mi - 3.0 mi
Apollo 10 - 1.3 mi - 2.9 mi
Apollo 11 - 1.7 mi - 13 mi
Apollo 12 - 2.0 mi - 3.9 mi
Apollo 13 - 1.0 mi - 3.5 mi
Apollo 14 - 0.6 mi - 3.8 mi
Apollo 15 - 1.0 mi - 5.0 mi
Apollo 16 - 3.0 mi - 2.7 mi
Apollo 17 - 1.0 mi - 3.5 mi
Not one Apollo landed more than 3 miles from its landing target point, including Apollo 13 which had such troubles even getting home safely.
Even if you double that miss distance to 6 miles, there are plenty of bays and lakes in the US which you could safely land in (12 mile diameter or more). San Pablo Bay or San Francisco Bay, any of the Great Lakes, 6 miles offshore basically anywhere, etc.
The precision landing question is validly "Do I land on a runway or do I need a 5-10 mile wide open space?". But that's very different than "needing an ocean full of recovery ships". If it's accurate enough that I can land it in San Francisco Bay and recover it with a coast guard boat or tug, and Apollo was, then there's no big deal at all unless there's an emergency urgent deorbit away from the usual landing zone (a problem which Shuttle shares, and if it lands mid-ocean is SOL).
Reasons to have wings (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yay! (Score:3, Funny)
What a goofy turn of phrase.
I picture you sitting there with a "Go Capsules!" pennant in one hand and a giant foam hand with #1 written on it on the other. Wearing one of those dual beer-can hats, your shirt off and "Appolo" in written in greasepaint across your beergut.
I'm so fucking bored it isn't even funny.
Re:UNFAIR COMPARSION of space capsule & space (Score:3, Insightful)
A large, reusable, interplanetary craft should be built in orbit, using the space station as a building site. This craft doesn't have to endure the rigors of takeoff and reentry, so it won't be a problem using it over and over. The only
Retro is in.... (Score:5, Funny)
Disco (Score:4, Funny)
T-shirt in 22nd century: "Disco _still_ sucks." (from an old Omni magazine contest)
Re:Disco (Score:5, Funny)
Can we embelish this a tad to add even more relevance, please?
T-shirt in 22nd century: "DiSCO _still_ sucks." (origionally from an old Omni magazine contest)
Soko
Only fools don't learn from failure (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it doesn't. We've learned a LOT about spaceflight in the last 30 years, from both successes and failures. The shuttle program had both hits and misses, and a lot of important research was conducted regardless.
And I don't think anyones going to mars in one of those little tin cans. Imagine a year in that thing?
What spaceflight? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have we really done spaceflight in the last 30 years? Certainly nothing manned, outside of low-earth orbit which is barely space at all. Sure, we've sent tin buckets with cameras to a few more planets, but we were already pretty good at that.
Re:Only fools don't learn from failure (Score:3, Interesting)
Those tin cans are great for the few hours it takes to ride out of and back into the planet's gravity well. Any reasonable Mars mission profile would entail assembling an inter-planetary ship in earth orbit and then flying that ship to martian orbit.
Imagine, if you would, a few dozen Saturn V launches of equipment and supplies. The space station crew would assemble the pieces. Then a few capsules would bring the mars crew to their
Re:Only fools don't learn from failure (Score:4, Insightful)
Cramped quarters would be the least of their concerns:
Getting back into space would be impossible with anything the size of the landers we used on the Moon. Anything like the Apollo hardware would be a one-way trip.
Spending a year weightless would probably be cripling without some kind of exercise.
I've read someplace that any Mars mission craft will need some sort of shielded "safe room" to protect the crew from bursts of radiation. That room alone would have to be atleast the size of an Apollo capsule. Also, while space is nearly empty, if you do hit something the damage to the hull could be massive, necessitating some sort of internal sealed room as well.
Then, of course, there's the issue of food. A year there and back would be quite a payload on its own.
Anything like the Apollo tech would make Mars impossible. Way too small.
Could someone please explain ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Could someone please explain ... (Score:3, Funny)
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but after recently reviewing the film footage from Moonbase Alpha, I've joined the group of people who believe that the whole thing was a hoax.
I'd love it just as much as the next guy if our government really had built a moonbase, and Eagles, and everything else back in 1999. However, if you carefully look at the
Re:Could someone please explain ... (Score:3, Funny)
But we know be
What? (Score:5, Funny)
The last 30 years haven't been for nothing... (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA beaurocrats got real complacent and lazy, perhaps not with Challenger but definitely so with Columbia. In future, they'll be less reluctant to listen to the advice of their engineering teams and will take fewer risks with the lives of their astronauts.
The lives lost on Challenger and Columbia won't be the last but, hopefully, they won't have been lost in vain.
50 year old bandwidth (Score:4, Funny)
Why not? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Funny)
I say the capsule floats... why not just put an outboard motor on the thing and drive it home? You could do some fishing while you're at it...
On second thought, maybe there's a solution somewhere in the middle.
GPS (Score:4, Insightful)
With modern technology, the capsule can tell the recovery fleet where it is.
Bad Decision (Score:5, Funny)
Bad decision. They should fly with Southwest or Jet Blue.
Avoid Delta. United too, for that matter.
Why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
Shoot 'em up, let them drop like a rock. The inherent simplicity of Apollo is its virtue, IMO. The Shuttle is more like the government bureaucratic approch to space travel, while Apollo was designed by engineers back in the good-ol-days.
Build a Saturn VI to go with it? (Score:5, Interesting)
They could use the upper stage as a cargo hold -- arrive in orbit and unlock/unbolt the sides (can't use explosive bolts that close to the ISS) to remove your stuff. Anyone know the diameter of the Saturn V third stage compared to the shuttle's cargo bay?
Chip H.
Re:Build a Saturn VI to go with it? (Score:3, Informative)
One classic quotable that I'll never forget.
There was discussion about resurrecting the Saturn V program. You know, build big dumb boosters instead of the shuttle. Cheaper, etc.
The detractors said you could never resurrect Saturn V. That would take 10 years of work. (Original Satu
Infrastructure (Score:3, Informative)
1)Environmental Laws - some stuff isn't allowed to be used anymore (asbestos anyone?)
2)Infrastructure. The US has lost a LOT of it's Mfg infrastructure in the last 30 years. Just as some LOW tech examples - You could not build the Golden Gate Bridge or the old GG-1 Railroad engine anymore! The steel mills and forging mills don't exist - not only in the US, but ANYWHERE. It would take TIME to build new plant
Re:Build a Saturn VI to go with it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Correct me if I am wrong, but the design plans were lost for the Saturn V rockets that powered the Apollo mission and none of the designers are alive anymore.
I remember watching a documentary on Discovery Channel about how the design of the rockets were lost and the only thing left is a rocket or two on display at Kennedy Space Center (or some other Nasa Branch).
That being said, this is why they completely abandoned the rocket for any future use, even though it was the most powerful one ever made, they simply didn't have the schematics to replicate it and I guess reverse engineering the ones on display isn't an option since they were of course hollowed and setup for display purposes.
That's an urban legend... (Score:4, Informative)
The difficulty with reviving the Saturn V is not in the absence of the plans... those are safe and sound; but in the fact that the Saturn V was built with 1960's technology, most of the parts aren't made anymore, and many of the companies that made parts of the Saturn V don't even exist anymore. Furthermore, the production facilities that made said parts have long since been either shut down, or retooled. And NASA's own facilities, including the all-important Launch Complex 39, have long since been modified from Saturn V specs, for use with the shuttle.
With all of the modifications to the design that would be necessary to start production on a new run of Saturn V's, on modern production lines, with modern manufactureing techniques, with modern components and electronics; it'd be easier just keep the basic math, but design an entirely new rocket. Certianly, it'd be a damn sight easier than finding vendors to recreate the '60's era parts to build new examples of the original design.
But not a whit of the Saturn V design or data is "gone".
cya,
john
Re:Build a Saturn VI to go with it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Apollo? Deltas? (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, wait. For a minute there I was expecting this apollo [richardhatch.com].
Re:Apollo? Deltas? (Score:4, Funny)
Escape velocity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Escape velocity (Score:5, Interesting)
A few tonnes?
Saturn V could lift the best part of 100 tonnes into orbit. It could have lifted the whole ISS in 2-3 launches, pretty much. (Skylab was huge compared to the ISS, and was at a much higher altitude).
By way of contrast, the Shuttle has only just got up to 30 tonnes, and the Shuttle is more expensive per tonne; and can't achieve the same altitude, and certainly isn't capable of lunar missions.
So what's the point of the Shuttle anyway? Because it's partly reusable so therefore it's cheaper isn't it? Umm, actually...
Re:Escape velocity (Score:3, Insightful)
The Space Shuttle would be a good case study for why the federal government is not able to take on these sorts of projects. The politics and bureaucracy destroy any optimism of the original plans.
While it might be a bit scary at first, privatization is the only practical route to space from now on.
Now if we could only convince them to stay out of matters of public schools, health
Muito Appreciado! (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree wholeheartedly: A mars mission would be as much claptrap as our moon missions were. Pointless to any real space development.
Much better would be to start a moonbase.
Indeed, when it comes down to it, why bother sending men at all, initially? Send some radio/robotic controlled smelting factories, mining equipment, and transport equipment, and establish the base before you ever put anyone up there. Then send supplies and stock the place. Once that is all ready, then and only th
The Return Of Apollo? (Score:5, Funny)
On the ride down, Hudson says... (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds like a fun ride. Screw bungee jumping!
The Shuttle wasn't a huge leap forward (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, I honestly think this Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) idea is foolish and stupid. Most of what I have read seems to indicate that a dual stage system would lower the cost per pound from USD 100k to about $6k and one could have two pieces that are reusable. To me that makes a lot more sense and by all acounts more doable.
If we are serious about keeping the ISS up there, the next generation of space craft could save space to be a delivery and construction/repiar work on satelites and the ISS, then save expiraments for the ISS.
Re:The Shuttle wasn't a huge leap forward (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a step backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Back to the Past? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not quite.
We're finally seeing an admission from the aerospace establishment that the shuttle has failed as an experiment. Wings on space craft are essentially a burden. Mercury-Gemini-Apollo demonstrated that you could come back to earth -- even in a controlled fashion -- without wings. Shuttle had wings to meet an Air Force requirement on cross range capability. Now the Air Force doesn't even use the shuttle.
So, the immediate future of vehicles intended to reach orbit looks like something that's been proven to work for both the United States and Russia. It's good to see people actually looking for something that works well.
In other ways, though, this development is a further criticism of the NASA culture. Much has been reported about the suppression of dissent in the safety culture. This is one aspect of a larger suppression of independent thinking in aerospace culture. The lack of new ideas shows another aspect. The unwillingness to examine things outside the industry (the "not invented here" syndrome) demonstrates still another.
New ideas and technologies thrive in free atmospheres. People are more willing to try new things. Good ideas get promoted. Faulty ones, even if held by people with power, are more likely to be challenged. For the aerospace industry to succeed, such a model must be embraced, not shunned.
Winged spacecraft (Score:3, Insightful)
As mentioned briefly in the article, I would say that a *rocket-propelled* spacecraft with wings is a burden - it just doesn't make sense. However, if they could get something that takes off like a plane, then has a weaker rocket stage once it gets into the thinner upper atmosphere, that could be doable. Similarly, it could fly upon a very shallow re-entry, potentially preventing heat buildup, allowing it to land quite normally.
Ultimately, I think something
Re:Back to the Past? (Score:3, Insightful)
The shuttle was a good experiment, it was good to do it. However, it went on far too long.
We kept throwing good money after bad, trying to salvage something from it, and we lost the gamble. In hindsight, it was a bad choice, but at the time (the 80s, early 90s), there was good reason to think it would work and we could salvage the program. It turns out the detractors were right. Now, let's move on. Back to the drawing
The Russians figured this one out years ago ... (Score:5, Informative)
The last fatal Soyuz accident was in 1971. In 1983, a Soyuz rocket exploded on the pad, but the crew was whisked to safety thanks to an escape rocket, which is lacking on the shuttle. Given the choice, I would fly to space on a Soyuz any day over the shuttle.
Re:The Russians figured this one out years ago ... (Score:3, Informative)
However, as noted, the Soyuz has not had a failure in over 20 years, and the current design has had no fatalities in at all.
However, there have been some injuries during landing; sooner or later a fatality is not unreasonable.
I don't see much to choose right now, although there are theoretical reasons for thinking that Soyuz could be somewhat safer.
It's the vodka, right? (Score:3, Funny)
Bottle of vodka? $16 rubles.
That pretty Ludmilla sitting next to you in babushka-and-spacesuit? $30 a night at a Tel Aviv brothel.
Lance Bass, earthbound and angry because you stole his seat? Priceless.
More Prophetic than ever.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The capsule system was inherently "modular" thus the inspiration for this bit of classic SF [space1999.net]. The only irony I find in all this is how accurate SF may have once again proven to be.
Just don't tell anyone in Hollywood. After seeing what they did with Lost In space, I don't want even a chance of them getting hold of my fave SF series for one of their ticky-tacky plotless rehashes.
Still thinking small... (Score:5, Interesting)
As with so much in life an investment is necessary to get the returns. To really benefit from space we must spend tens of billions on basic infrastructure. The ROI will be worth it. Big projects. A catapult for bulk loads would be a good start and possible with off the shelf technology.
Even better would be a genuine attempt to build a space plane. All the half-assed three or four million dollar projects to date were nothing more than a waste of time.
Best would be to immediately begin work on an elevator. Current best estimates say that an elevator could be built in about ten years, with a budget of six billion. Considering that the US is spending more than $8 billion per month in Iraq, I'd say we obviously have $6 Billion to spend over the course of ten years...
When you think small, you get small results. I don't care if its NASA, or a private corporation, or a group of various space agencies and corporations, but we must begin thinking big or else nothing will ever happen.
Re:Still thinking small... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry but this is probably coming from the same people who made the cost estimates on the shuttle. We don't even have the technology to do this (materials and more), and you already know
from red thunder by john varley (Score:5, Interesting)
"Say Columbus took the Apollo route to the New World. He starts off with three ships. Along about the Canary Islands he sinks the first ship, just throws it away, deliberately. And it's his biggest ship. Come [163] to the Bahamas, he throws away the second ship. He reaches the New World
"If that's what it took to cross the Atlantic, this part of the world would still belong to the Seminoles."
Late result (Score:3, Funny)
Well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
The Russian space industry is doing things right in a way that NASA have never managed. The Russians have focused on making spaceflight boring: so boring, in fact, that the last accident in a Soyuz capsule was in 1971. That's a safety record that makes the shuttle look a bit sick. It also helps that the cost is a tiny fraction of the shuttle; I worked out once that you for the price of a single shuttle launch, you could get the Russians to lift about four times the amount of cargo, plus people, in five seperate vehicles and still have change.
From an engineering point of view, the lesson is painfully obvious: generalisation means compromises. The shuttle is trying to be a heavylifter and a man-rated lifter and a space station and a reentry vehicle, so no wonder it sucks. Much better to focus on small, simple vehicles that do one thing very well.
The Russians have the best man-rated lifter in the world: the Soyuz. It doesn't do much, just takes people from the ground to LEO and back again, but it does it cheaply and reliably. They have the Progress, which I believe is the world's only orbital tug; it can launch, rendezvous with a vehicle, dock, undock and ditch safely, all by remote control. No-one else has anything like it. They have a whole selection of reliable heavylifters, although they are beginning to get competition in that area.
If the Russians with their, ah, mostly broken economy can do it, why are the Americans having so much trouble?
I just wish it were politically feasible for someone with money to just buy the entire Russian space industry, lock stock and barrel, and do some decent investment...
Article /.ed, But If Memory Serves (Score:5, Insightful)
This, I thought, was a great idea. After the Apollo 1 fire of 1967, the Command Module (CM) was drastically redesigned for safety and was a winning design throughout the program. It especially showed its toughness during Apollo 13. The CM was completely powered down after the accident, and, 3 days later, was restarted on its reentry batteries (with a tiny bit of juice from the Lunar Module), and no electrical shorts occurred despite the heavy condensation in the spacecraft.
The Apollo CM design is tried and true. I prefer it as a lifepod, and NASA should reconsider the viablity of a combined vehicle that launches (with an orbiter atop) like a heavy plane to high altitude, where it serves as the launcher for the orbiter, which can use conventional and disposable boosters for the return trip. I still believe that glider vehicles make more sense and provide more abort options. Consider that Columbia and her sisters still have more ways to bail or return than a typical airliner.
No aerodynamic vehicle can survive with a damaged wing, in any case, which is why a CM-style rescue vehicle and parachutes are appealing. I just don't like the use of old ballistics like the Atlas (which have a nice record of exploding). Man-rating rockets like these is a pain in the ass.
I thought Apollo 1 was the last pure Oxygen ship? (Score:3, Informative)
Hmmm - I thought they went to a Nitrogen/Oxygen mix after the Apollo 1 fire?
Let's talk retro, let's talk what might have been (Score:5, Informative)
The place is filled with tons of mad info about programs that are, were, and never got out of blueprint stage. I am sure this will satisy those readers for whom the two paltry links in the story are far from satisfying. Lotsa cool pictures and thingies.
why aren't we using the Russian Shuttle now? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:why aren't we using the Russian Shuttle now? (Score:4, Interesting)
BTW, the Buran's been converted to a restaurant, and resides in Gorky park now.
Can we PLEASE just go back to the moon? (Score:3)
Especially given all the neg press Nasa has, and even if its a huge waste of money and we won't learn anything, could somebody explain to me why we at least just don't go back *ONCE* every *THIRTY YEARS***, just to give people like me assurance, yep, they didn't bullshit me, we CAN do it.
What about the Delta Clipper? (Score:3, Interesting)
The people here who bellyache about cost and danger and whether it should look like a plane or not, should look at this. It was a very serious contender for the X-33 program. It is a SSTO vehicle which is far more manueverable than the shuttle and far safer. And until an unfortuneate accident in 1997, the US had an actual working model. It is used to carry people into orbit. You want payload? Use a Detla V or an Arriane. You want a reusable work horse for people? Strongly consider reserecting this.
Oh and BTW
Space travel will be dangerous for the forseeable future. People will die. Maybe less people would die if we are more concerned about discovery and science and exploration than about cost. It's going to be expensive, but as one earlier poster pointed out, we are likely to get more out of a few billion spent on space exploration than we do out of the 8 Billion per MONTH spent in Iraq.
There. I feel better now.
So, basically... (Score:3, Interesting)
Important distinction (Score:3, Interesting)
The space shuttle was originallt speced out to be a REUSABLE spacecraft, just check the tires, top off the fluids, and it's good to go again.
In part, that changed during it's design when it turned out that reusable in that sense just wouldn't work out for some of the parts.
In other cases, we found out that in practice, various other componants were not really reusable.
Instead, the shuttle was actually REBUILDABLE though it was mostly designed to be reusable.
It probably would have worked a lot better had it been designed to be rebuildable from the start, and it certainly would have been cheaper than rebuilding a craft that wasn't designed to be rebuilt.
For an example, replace the very expensive and fragile (as it turns out, too fragile) heat tiles and carbon panels with a cheap ablative resin. On landing, sandblast the char away and re-apply. Instead, since it had to be reusable, they went with the much more expensive and risky tiles and panels.
Another interesting idea might be to leave parts of the thing in orbit. Each flight could dock with the service module and use it for the duration of their mission, then disconnect and leave it for the next crew. The part that returns would need to carry the expendibles, and have the self contained capability to return should something go wrong. That may or may not be useful (after all, space is a hostile environment, so unpowered equipment may not be durable enough to use again without serious work and time that is not available or worth it), but it's an interesting concept to consider.
That would also shift the burden of redundancy somewhat since it would no longer be necessary to trade off capacity vs. more redundancy. In theory, the entire service module could be replaced in orbit if it came to that. Even life support provisions could be provided. At the end of a mission, just before seperation, any reserves that were not used in the mission could be transferred to the SM for use on a later mission.
Another interesting option after further research is to actually use tethers to transfer momentum from the returning capsule to the SM in order to get what amounts to a boost for nothing.
I don't think that NASA has done absolutely NOTHING in the last few decades, it's just that by sticking with the shuttle as-is, it hasn't been able to take much advantage of the things it's learned. A more modular system is in order so that they don't get stuck again with an all or nothing technology update. Capsule, booster and SM should be seperate projects which are updated and improved more or less seperatly.
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:5, Funny)
Just wait until you hear about their Icarus project.
Regards,
--
*Art
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, no. Each Gemini and Apollo (and Mercury) mission flew with a different spacecraft. They were somewhat customized to each mission (eg during the Apollo series, weight reductions were incorporated in successive model series to allow more payload, etc.) Various parts were only meant to be used for one flight -- and a good many such parts never returned to Earth. The modules that did are all in museums now.
As it stands the cost to "re-use" a space shuttle is rediculous because of the area of the heat shield.
Actually, aside from minor problems with being hit by ET foam at 500 mph, the Shuttle heat shield is one of the few parts that pretty well works as advertized. The Apollo era heat shields were an ablative material that worked by burning off (slowly!), the Shuttle "TPS" (thermal protection system) is pretty reuasable.
It's just about everything else on the Shuttle that has to be refurbished or disassembled and inspected before the next flight. (As for the so-called reusable solid boosters, that operation has been described as "more crash-and-salvage rather than recover-and-reuse".
Gemini 2 was reused and flew twice. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gemini 2 was reused and flew twice. (Score:3, Informative)
Basically the Air Force just needed something vaguely Gemini-shaped to fit atop the dummy MOL module for the Titan III launch, Gemini 2 was available, and since it was an unmanned test article it didn't have the same "museum quality" that the manned vehicles had. If the MOL program had continued, then probably yes, Gemini (B) capsules would have been
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:5, Informative)
" a highly modified and modernized version of the Apollo Space Capsule"
I sure dont read that as being 50 year old technology. I see it as being a space capsule style shuttle opposed to the current shuttles.
Which would follow along with the seperation of cargo and passengers of previous recent news releases.
Correct - no devolution. (Score:4, Insightful)
Does that mean the last 30 years of space flight have been for naught?
Come on. Satellites. Voyager. Hubble.
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:3, Insightful)
RTFA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:5, Insightful)
The new technology does not.
Me, I'll put my money on the most successful technology, rather than the merely most recent idiocy.
KFG
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:5, Informative)
Note further that this was not at the full development of the technology, but in it's very early experimental phases.
The issue was solved by not feeding raw oxygen into the capsule (which was never done, nor even contemplated, during an actual mission and which many had advised against even in ground tests) and by the installation of a simple inside door handle.
Door handles are a functional technology of thousands of years standing that have yet to be overthrown by some doofy modern technological fashion.
They are simple, robust, inexpensive and possess an unmatched functionality.
As does a conventional rocket ( whose technology is now more advanced even than Saturn and Apollo technology).
The shuttle is, and always was, a barbaric kludge of various disparte technologies whose sole purpose was to follow a particular fadish notion that we should have a "space plane."
It is not a space plane. It's a van with stub wings attached to the outside of a cob-jobbed booster system of obvious and fatal failings that "glides" back to earth rather than use a parachute just so that we can pretend it is a space plane.
The X-15 was a space plane.
The "Space Shuttle" is an engineering abomination and what you get when you let a governement agency subvert good engineering principles for political purposes.
In short, it is the proverbial White Tiled Elephant that started out with the specs of a mouse.
KFG
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:5, Insightful)
When the day came that I could, and the offer was made, I had to turn it down because I could bear the idea of associating myself with the shuttle.
Some of my oldest friends, we're talking from childhood here, do. None of them are especially happy about because every one of them knows they could do much better.
You seem to have missed the point here. Look, when people talk about ressurecting our rail system they don't mean that we should replace all of our modern trucks with 1950's railroad technology. They mean we should return to using rail as a concept for mass transportation of goods and people with new and up to date trains because it's a concept that works.
No one is suggesting that we return to using 1960's computers, radar, engines or space suits.
What they're suggesting is that conventional payloads on top of a conventional rocket booster is a superiour solution to getting masses into space and returning a live crew.
And they're right. Apollo never had a tile fall off, a wing fail or some Rube Goldberged solid booster glued onto the rocket explode and set off the liquid fuel in the main tank.
The only failures of Apollo systems were systems that are still necessary for the support of a live crew; and those systems are already markedly better.
So is our recovery technology. We recover the booster shells from the space shuttle. What makes you think we couldn't recover them just because they launch a capsule instead of a "plane?"
Need I really go into the expense and support staffs required just to deal with the ludicrous heat tiles after every flight?
The shuttle does many things poorer than a capsule on top of a booster can. It does nothing better than that system does. It is more complicated, less sensical. . . and fails in ways that conventional boost system can't while retaining all possible ways a conventional boost system can fail.
It's silly.
You want a reusable space plane? Fine, so do I. I remember how completely cool the X-15 was. Let's build an up to date version. I'll help. For food.
You want to put a pile of hardware into low earth orbit? Fine. Put it on the nose of a rocket and send it up. It's the right thing to do.
Each technology according to its abilities, each mission according to its technological needs.
KFG
The right stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
When you have a bowl of soup, do you eat it with a fork just because the fork was invented thousands of years later than the spoon?
Sometimes an older approach is the right approach for a specific job.
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:4, Insightful)
As the article states, Russia has had any problems since they've been using capsules in 1971. The US never lost a space crew in a capsule. We've lost two in the shuttle.
Ever hear of the Voyager spacecrafts? They worked for 30+ years with less computing power than your average dishwasher.
To bring it up a few decades, the standard, commercial 80386 processor is more radiation tolerant than some radiation-hardened newer chips.
Old technology doesn't mean out of date.
Your multimillion dollar Boeing 777 aircraft still has windshield wipers.
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but at least they're high enough off the ground so that those damn squeegee guys can't reach 'em.
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:4, Informative)
Not in space, no. We lost Grissom, White and Chaffee in the Apollo 1 capsule fire on the pad. 16 PSI pure O2 atmosphere (for ground test) and a hatch designed to open inward didn't help. (And yes, they changed both of those, and much else.)
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that that comparing these stats really means anything. People die on tugboats and on cruise ships, but comparing those two numbers won't tell you which is "better". Space is dangerous. We can make it safer, but some people are going to die. It's about time we get past that.
It's about time (Score:4, Insightful)
No, we are always putting stuff into space, and plain old rockets do that job very, very well.
If the thing took off like an airplane, then that would be different. But it doesn't.
It's almost as if they went to the drawing board asking themselves how they could make a craft that suffers from all the problems of reusable rockets while offering all new problems in re-entry.
Let's ground the damn things already.
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's about time (Score:3, Interesting)
Nixon signed off on the shuttle because he was told we could use it to steal Soviet satellites. He thought it was a cool idea.
Like the Russians wouldn't rig the satellite to blow up. Guess he watched "You Only Live Twice" too many times...
Re:mars + Apollo? (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the abstract (Score:4, Informative)
"This paper investigates means for achieving human expeditions to Mars utilizing existing or near-term technology. Both mission plans described here, Mars Direct and Semi-Direct are accomplished with tandem direct launches of payloads to Mars using the upper stages of the heavy lift booster used to lift the payloads to orbit. No on-orbit assembly of large interplanetary spacecraft is required. In situ-propellant production of CH4/O2 and H2O on the Martian surface is used to reduce return propellant and surface consumable requirements, and thus total mission mass and cost. Chemical combustion powered ground vehicles are employed to afford the surface mission with the high degree of mobility required for an effective exploration program. Data is presented showing why medium-energy conjunction class trajectories are optimal for piloted missions, and mission analysis is given showing what technologies are optimal for each of the missions primary maneuvers. The optimal crew size and composition for initial piloted Mars missions is presented, along with a proposed surface systems payload manifest. The back-up plans and abort philosophy of the mission plans are described. An end to end point design for the Semi-Direct mission using either the Russian Energia B or a U.S. Saturn VII launch vehicle is presented and options for further evolution of the point design are discussed. It is concluded that both the Mars Direct and Semi-Direct plans offer viable options for robust piloted Mars missions employing near-term technology."
Read the whole thing here [nw.net]
This is from 1993!
The Case for Mars is good, but perhaps even better is Zubrin's Entering Space.
Two words (Score:5, Funny)
Lance Bass.
Agreed, humans are ill-suited for space (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet the reality is that all we know about space is that it is toxic to humans. And still we don't know of any way that we might travel anywhere meaningful in the two to three hundred years we might live as purely organic c
Re:What is wrong with unmanned flight? (Score:3, Insightful)
Niven's "Bottom of a Hole" (or a similar sounding title). Two men are talking, one very old man (about 150, I think; born pre-WWI) and one younger man, born after the colonization of the solar system. The age difference isn't addressed again until the end, and you've kind of forgotten it by that point.
At the end, the question of "Why explore, why seek esoteric knowledge?" comes up. The younger man asserts that entering space
Space elevators? No thanks (Score:5, Funny)
There's one catch.... (Score:4, Insightful)
from the horse's mouth (Score:3, Informative)
******************
What about conservation of angular momentum?
When an elevator ascends the ribbon, it must be accelerated eastward because the Earth's rotation represents a larger eastward velocity the higher you go. The required eastward force on the ascending elevator would have to be provided by a corresponding westward force on the ribbon.
If you go through the math quantitatively, the angular momentum for the climbers requires a pound or so of force over the o
Those incredible Ford engineers (Score:3, Funny)
I sure would hope that the Ford engineers would reach a point where a truck would be built like a truck.
We stood still (Score:3, Insightful)
"We" stood still. At best, we were marching in place. We got more experience in the Earth orbit matters, not space. "To boldly go where the Gemini capsule had gone before many years ago" is not any sort of advance.